Living for a Living

Let your success be measured by your joy and contentment in life, rather than solely by your money and possessions.

[livingforaliving]

Moonlit musings, love for strangers and hairy tom yum soup.

I found a short, straight, black hair entangled in a prawn I was peeling out of the tom-yum-esque soup I made for lunch today. (It was not my hair, and fortunately hair doesn’t gross me out in the least). It is a peculiar thing to realize that whoever that person is, part of them was actually boiled into the broth that I consumed for lunch. Have I consumed a homeopathic essence of someone else? What a very intimate thing! 

Who are they? What are their hopes? Their dreams? Do they feel loved and happy with their family and friends? The origin of these prawns is India and the facility from which they came has certification for environmental and social responsibility. I wonder if that means much for the person that handled the prawn I just ate. I hope that on the whole, they’re happy and content in their life. 

Now that I feel like I share some connection to this person, can they feel the random warmth of cross-continental goodwill that is being beamed from some random Canadian who lives in yesterday?

I feel like there is probably an obscure German word for the feeling of being overcome by awe and love for the existence of a complete stranger. It's kind of like an existential steering wheel wave to an oncoming vehicle on a remote road where no one else really travels. Like a sort of energetic ‘I see 

you. Look at us both sharing an experience!  I acknowledge and salute your existence and experiences on the planet’, while continuing to drive to our own destinations. I often feel this love for humans that I will never meet or know. Like you! You are some random human living your own life with your own hopes and dreams and plans for lunch/dinner and you’re reading the random musings of some gal in BC watching the October sunset from her tiny home vista. I hope that this full moon has found you mostly, if not completely happy! I delight and marvel in the interconnectivity of our world. The air we all share. The sun and moon that shine, just as they always have, upon us all without exception. They shone upon the hopes and dreams, prayers and laughter of those long before us, and will continue to do so long after we’re gone. When I bask in the glow of a full moon, I wonder who else is also looking up in wonder. When available, I send out love to those who look up in desperation and despair. When I am in a spot of hopelessness myself, I look up and remember that my story is a small story of a whole, and both will continue to march on as the moon waxes and wanes and the seasons change. 

I hope the full moon that is now setting over India is shining upon the joy of the human whose hair I had in my soup. Tonight I will beam up a message of beautiful thoughts and wishes to them via this  moon we share, and maybe, just maybe they’ll look up to the sky to retrieve their message.

[livingforaliving]

Spring Cleaning Treasures

Oh boy, cleaning is fun! Dug this up from my searching/questioning days years ago. So much has changed and so much is the same but different... :)

...I can’t give you all of the answers because I too am searching.

I am of the belief that if you follow your heart (and first you’ll have to find it buried beneath layers of your mind) - if you truly follow your heart, you cannot go wrong. We all have different paths, but with the right eyes, problems are opportunities, difficulties are lessons, and everything is a tool to help you move forward, to learn and grow into what you are really here to be and do. 

[livingforaliving]

The Hardest Part Of Traveling No One Talks About

Ah, this little article makes a great deal of sense to me as I come to terms with the fact that my travel bug is not dead at all. I thought that it would be dead if I put down roots. If I had a garden. If I build a tiny home... (which is totally not done by the way. Not even designed yet, actually...)

Alas, I see that this so called 'travel bug' is some sort of stubborn parasite that silently, slowly, yet unrelentingly sucks the marrow out of my desire to settle down into comfortable 'stability'.

I LOVE the unfamiliar sights, smells and sounds of new and far away places. I love the constant treasure hunt that is every day on the road, from new buildings, to food, to new trees and flowers, to the totally dependable, yet often surprising kindness and awesomeness of strangers. Traveling is not an escape so much as an enjoyable refresher course in appreciating the present moment and seeing beauty wherever you are. Of course there is beauty in the 'now' at any given moment, but when you're in new places, it's more obvious and new, you don't have to try so hard to see it...

Hmm. That actually does sound suspiciously like an escape after all...

Well, for now it is just a beautiful dream anyway. I have at least a couple more years here before my feet get so itchy I have to go.

But don't you think a bike ride from Germany to a few islands in Greece would be nice?

[livingforaliving]

Food for Gypsy-fied Imagination

Ooh ooh oooh - look at what crossed my path the other day!

http://lloydkahn-ongoing.blogspot.ca/2014/05/see-32-pages-of-tiny-homes-on-move-free_3647.html

Oh man, the gypsy wagons with the rounded roofs are oh so dreamy.

[livingforaliving]

A not so tiny home begins! I went to an auction last month and got a 30 foot 3 axle trailer (in good shape) for less than $2000. Never having been to an auction before, I kind of felt all nervous and vulnerable like a wounded wildabeast on the African plain, but I pulled up my big girl panties and walked out with the physical start of a dream long dreamt.

Now it is time to get some reclaimed windows and build my plans around those. Do I know how I will get the money for it?

Nope.

Do I know how to build it?

Nope.

Do I know where I am going to park it?

Nope.

Will any of that stop me?

Nope.

An unconventional life doesn't follow the conventional rules of logic and careful planning. I have a lot of support an interest in this wee project of mine, and most importantly I know with every fibre of my being that if I start it, help will come as I need it.

[livingforaliving]

New Friends

Oh, how I love the simple, joyful after-glow of meeting new friends!  I adore the feeling of endless possibility that lingers between you and the other, the new friend who you instinctively know will somehow shape the future of your life in ways you cannot yet imagine.

The meeting can be brief, and turn into a long lasting friendship, or it can be an intimate one time connection where a seed is planted within a shared moment of truth, and both shall carry the fruit ahead in their own journeys.

It is not about the quantity of time shared, but the quality.

After these meetings the stars seem a little brighter, the music a little sweeter. It kind of makes you feel like you are in love with life itself.

What a lovely place to be.

[livingforaliving]

Happy Equinox!

The darkness transitions into light on March 20th. Welcome spring!

What lessons have you incubated in the delicious darkness of this winter past? What seeds of reality will sprout forth for you this sunshiny spring?

Tomorrow is a time of balance, a time to see the value in both the darkness and the light within yourself, your thoughts, your circumstances, your surroundings and the world at large.

Darkness is neither better nor worse than light. In the whole cycle of life and death, creation and destruction, winter and summer, every ending has a new beginning, and each part of the cycle are necessary.

Tomorrow we can give thanks to the darkness and step forward into the light of a new beginning.

Yippee! It's spring!

[livingforaliving]

"So called ‘late-bloomers’ get a bad rap. Sometimes the people with the greatest potential often take the longest to find their path because their sensitivity is a double edged sword- it lives at the heart of their brilliance, but it also makes them more susceptible to life’s pains. Good thing we aren’t being penalized for handing in our purpose late. The soul doesn’t know a thing about deadlines."

- JEFF BROWN

I saw these quotes posted on facebook. Lovely lovely good powerful words. Soul balm I say. Slather that stuff on nice n' thick.

[livingforaliving]

"I find this whole judgment around where individuals should be at by a certain stage of their life ridiculous. Only the soul knows the path it is here to walk, what it has overcome, which achievements to measure its progress by. Nobody knows why you are here, except you. You’re the only one that can find that. People judge as though they have it all figured out, but their judgments often just smokescreen their own confusion. Are we late bloomers, or on-time growers? This is a personal decision. The important thing is that we keep on walking towards a place that feels like home."

- JEFF BROWN

[livingforaliving]

Duh! Why didn't I think of that?  :)

Happy planting all!

[livingforaliving]

LEAVE A TRAIL OF BEAUTY IN YOUR WAKE.

That's your mission for this life, if you choose to accept it.  

[livingforaliving]

Kicking the scarcity habit

Well hello tumblr - long time no see!

I have been busy trading 40 hours of my life/week for money. I was showering regularly, wearing office clothes, thinking before I spoke (well, trying to, anyway) and generally trying to file off my weird alternative edges so I could conform into being 'professional'.

Despite the fact that I kind of felt like a free range, pasture fed human that had been taken out of the sunshine and put into a tiny concrete cage, it was really a beautiful time in its own way, and I am whole heartedly grateful for all of the experiences and lessons lived.

I didn't accomplish/buy/accumulate nearly what I had intended when I arrived in the big city, but I made great gains towards getting myself out of a particularly deep 'scarcity mind-set' rut that I found myself in last summer.

I have been quite comfortable living below the so-called poverty line for years now, but never before 2013 had I felt so financially constrained, despite the fact that I was 'living the dream'. Being 'poor' and FEELING poor are two totally different things, and I can now really empathize with how millions of people feel as though they are struggling every day just to make ends meet.

It's a mind-f*ck - really. I think that deep-rooted unconscious feelings of scarcity and lack are probably behind all sorts of degenerative disease - they really are a nasty and subtle parasitic form of fear that gnaws away at one's hopes and dreams until the person is numbed into a sort of slavery for 'MORE'.

It's unhelpful, quietly harmful and ultimately just plain gross.

Thankfully in the last while I have made progress towards shaking that dark fog of lacking from my my perception of reality, and I really look forward to continuing to work my way out of it so I can achieve lasting BALANCE. 

It's okay to be comfortable and not want to live in mouse infested huts. It's okay to  buy that cute pair of boots that the thrift store. It's okay to make money and purchase goods that you need. In fact, if you are really going to do anything worthwhile in the world, I really do believe that you have to make sure that you yourself are well fed and fulfilled first (be it in the physical realm or otherwise). 

When your cup overflowith and you feel like your cup overflowith, you can share happily with your neighbours. This is a good thing.

So although I will leave without having accomplished even half of the things I wanted to, as usual, I got exactly what I needed.

I made pleasing progress towards eradicating a perpetually poisonous perception of persistent poverty that prevented me from pursuing my purpose. THAT, my friends, is worth much much more than accumulated money and materials.

I feel free and pleased to be going back to Living for a Living!  Woo!

[livingforaliving]

I LOVE passionate people. Imagine what super powers you could have after doing something for 50 years!

[livingforaliving]

Where's the vaccination against HATE?

Has anyone else noticed lately how the vaccination debate has become a 'thing', and how that 'thing' is very quickly intensifying?

On facebook, the minute anyone mentions 'vaccines are unproven,' or 'vaccines are bad', something within the depths of at least one non-agreeing viewer breaks, permitting an otherwise decent person to start saying some really nasty shit. When one looks at the comments posted below articles written about vaccines (or about anything at all for that matter), it is no wonder why there is an epidemic of bullying in schools. How can anyone expect kids to be nice to people they know when the parents themselves are trying to linguistically destroy complete strangers on the playgrounds of the world wide web?

In this day and age of feeling compelled to voice strong opinions about everything (as I am doing right now... er... what?) I invite everyone to remember that we are ALL doing the best we can with the information we have to live a life that works for us.  Someone posting something that your eyes happen to read is neither a personal attack, nor an invitation to unleash your inner beast.  They are not pissing you off, you are choosing (knowingly or not) to react to what you are reading. Just as you can choose to write horrible things, you can also choose to say nothing and simply examine why you feel so strongly about the subject.

No matter how much you disagree with someone, it is never okay to personally attack them, just as it is NEVER okay to say 'your child deserves to die if you don't vaccinate them'. That is hate. That is the same attitude that allows wars to start. That is the same attitude that justifies one side sending their sons and daughters off to kill the other side's sons and daughters in the name of 'what is right'.

We are better than that. We can do better than that. We can learn from history and choose to be more loving and aware. We can learn from the present and choose to be compassionate and empathetic.  And we can use our awareness and practice living love and compassion with complete un-met strangers in the privacy of our own homes reading about topics such as vaccinations. 

Put it into perspective - I would be a lot more afraid of an epidemic of unaware, self righteous, blind hate than any seasonal flu... wouldn't you?

[livingforaliving]

Free 14 Week Sustainable Development Course

Cool beans! 

https://www.coursera.org/course/susdev?fb_action_ids=10153714590035228&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

I found this earlier today and thought it would be good to share. :)

About the Course

This course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of sustainable development, drawing on the most recent developments in the social, policy, and physical sciences. Sustainable development is the most urgent challenge facing humanity. The fundamental question is how the world economy can continue to develop in a way that is socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable. The course describes the complex interactions between the world economy and the Earth's physical environment. Ecological processes and constraints (climate, disease ecology, physical resources such as soils and energy sources, topography and transport conditions) significantly shape the patterns of economic development, demography, and wealth and poverty. At the same time, human activities (farming, land use, urbanization, demographic change, and energy use) change the physical environments, increasingly in dangerous ways. The course offers a broad overview of the key challenges and potential solutions to achieve sustainable development in the 21st century. 

[livingforaliving]

Sweet! A great idea for itty-bitty spaces (like a poorly insulated bathroom!) It's simple, can be put anywhere and it requires no building. I wonder if one could somehow use a container of water to further hold the heat...

[livingforaliving]

Nu- Man O To --> http://youtu.be/2M1xKXd4GVI

This delicious song is made even more delicious by the words, which are based on the poem below. (The song might even BE the poem, I don't know. There are a few different translations - all of them are beautiful)

A Moment Of Happiness

A moment of happiness, you and I sitting on the verandah, apparently two, but one in soul, you and I. We feel the flowing water of life here, you and I, with the garden's beauty and the birds singing. The stars will be watching us, and we will show them what it is to be a thin crescent moon. You and I unselfed, will be together, indifferent to idle speculation, you and I. The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar as we laugh together, you and I. In one form upon this earth, and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

© Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi.