I lost the photo credit. Let's hope it was a "Share" Creative Commons.
Are you doing it? Are you writing 1,000 words a day? How about three morning pages every day? Did you read that link from Julia Cameron. I tell you it's all true and more. I can only sort out my life by writing my pages in my journal. Here's your exercise for today:
List every miracle you can think of that ever happened in your life in 15 minutes. Count the small miracles of synchronicity too. That person didn't just happen to be there when you most needed him or her. That check didn't have to come in the mail that particular day. Go ahead. When the 15 minutes are up, review them and be grateful. Now write for 15 minutes on the miracles you want to happen in your life now.
"You know that song with the line "I need a miracle everyday?" That's how I feel most days just staying clean and sober, out of depression, not in a bipolar manic mode or having my heart ripped out of my chest by one of my loved ones; namely, my kids.
I borrowed that exercise from the free book whose link I gave you a couple of days ago, "How Much Joy Can You Stand?" Give a copy to a friend who dreams or needs to dream.
I have decided to stay on at Examiner.com even though it pays squat. Maybe I'm just supposed to reach out and help someone with an alcohol or addiction problem. In that case, I'll work for $1.21/month. It's so ridiculous. They keep harping on how they'll give you $50 for every referral of a writer that they hire. Who would do that to a person they knew and probably liked, and maybe was a friend? I wouldn't send the woman, Kathy, who comes over at 6 a.m. and late at night, it doesn't matter, pounding on my back door like there's a fire to beg cigarettes from me. I really wouldn't, but she could stand to have a job; I do believe.
What did I learn today that I can share? I wrote a rough draft for Align.com on the health benefits of mangoes. They are high in beta carotene and other nutrients like vitamins C, E, potassium, magnesium, copper, iron, antioxidants galore, fiber, selenium, and I forget what else. They help prevent cancer. They help heat exhaustion and heat stroke. They are good for diabetics. They help with acid indigestion and digestion. They have iron and are good for women in menopause or those who are pregnant. They are sweet, succulent and sexy little orange-fleshed ovals from India, Mexico, Pakistan, Florida and Hawaii and other tropical places.
Try this, although it might defeat the health consciousness motive, it's wonderful. Take a fully ripe mango and cut it in half after removing the stone. Fill that empty space with the best, richest vanilla ice cream you can buy or make, none of that cheap off-brand stuff. Sit on your front porch or out on the deck with it on a spring or summer night and look at the stars. You will be transported. No thanks necessary. Enjoy!
Want to start fundraising for something? I want to fundraise for myself. I need a vacation, desperately. Go to www.kickstarters and they will help you solicit funds for individual projects that are not necessarily nonprofit. You can choose a campaign time period, and if you don't get pledges equaling the amount you said you were campaigning for within those 30-60 days, then they don't cash in the pledges and you missed your big chance. They charge 5 percent of each pledge for administrative costs. It sounds better than a bake sale to me. Or maybe just better than what I'm about to do, and I swore I'd never do it, but my time on Earth is limited.
If you want to donate to me so I can go on the trip I am going to win from a Rhoads Travel (formerly Elderhostel) scholarship, and be able to travel to the destination of the funded trip and eat and buy a couple of postcards, just push that "Donate" button I installed today without shame and enter my e-mail account at missmarymac0040@sbcglobal.net. I haven't been anywhere or gone anywhere except one state up for a wedding in years and years. I thank you from the top of my head to the spreading out of my limitless soul with love and gratitude. It's only money.
I'd like to go to Canada, I think. I've never been there. I need to recharge my corroding batteries, revitalize my cells and blow out my stale thinking. I'm in a rut. I can't write and there's no inspiration flowing the way it should if I were pumping adrenaline, intuition and God's will for me as a beloved child. Abundance is everyone's.
Don't forget to support your local freecycle.. Give some free stuff you don't want or need away, and get some free stuff that you will enjoy for a while before you pass it on too. Anti-materialism collecting has no associated guilt or debt. You never know what that e-mail from your local freecycle will say is sitting under the stairs at a certain address. It could be a box of puppies or it could be pirates' treasure. I love imagining what will be next.
I also spent some time this morning reading one of my books on how to write grant proposals. This one is titled "Grant Proposals Demystified." I copied many of her extensive resources which I know i will use. Here's one for a free newsletter for anyone who writes. From what I saw of her writing tips, she makes a lot of sense in a succinct fashion.
Oh, and i read more of Jung's "Man and His Symbols," I think it's called. I'm reading about what dreams are and what their symbols mean and where they come from. He says forget about those meaning of your dreams books. Every dreamer invents their own language for their dreams and must learn to decode it on their own, or, I guess with the help of a analyst or knows them well. Here's something reassuring he wrote that i was glad to read after a night of dreaming about poor people with barely standing rickety shacks for homes nailing plywood on the exterior surfaces to hold it together. I guess they thought they were remodeling. I woke up feeling like I was one of the shacks and my "remodeling" efforts to change my life according to my dreams were useless and ludicrous.
Leave it to me to find the lowest self-esteem interpretation of my dreams. Not so fast, Jung writes that dreams must speak in a different language with new symbols to get our attention because we no longer respond to ideas from our everyday life. We "have stripped them of their elemental energy," he says. So something more is needed to effectively drive home a message to make us change our attitude and behavior. That is what dream language does. Its symbolism has so much psychic energy that we are forced to pay attention to it.
Except that he gives two tragic examples of patients of his whom he tried to warn based on their dream content. They would not change their behavior and attitude and one ended up dying suddenly, just walking off in space while climbing rocks, and the other was beaten and raped in the woods she wouldn't give up walking through.
"How Much Joy Can You Stand" said, "The world awaits your vision. So when will you find it in yourself to share?" Free copy right here (pdf file).
Regardless of what your inner critic thinks, people do want to hear what you have to say, and to see what you have to show. In the end it all comes down to love and sharing doesn't it? Isn't that the real purpose of all of our lives? Let's get in touch with those passions and let bliss guide us to what it is that we are supposed to share with the world.
My current dream is to do well at grant proposal writing and have a small home business doing it. Then I want to apply for non-profit (501(c) 3 status and get a grant and start a nonprofit to help people with a problem I want to solve or at least put some intensive work into.
I read the most inspirational article in Inc.com. Now I read it regularly and started collecting the back issues that were in my e-mail. This article was giving examples of innovative social entrepreneurs who were out to change the world. This one guy, Scott Harrison, a night club promoter in New York, was 28, and all he did was get high, drink, chase women and have sex. His life was void of positive contributions he realized while in Uruguay on vacation with friends. "I thought there would never be enough girls, enough status or money or fame—there would never be enough alcohol or partying to make me happy," he said. He realized he was a "selfish scumbag," and knew it was time to do something.
At 30 he founded charity: water, which brings clean drinking water to developing nations. He set about doing things his way, which was to utilize Google Earth to track projects for donors. All public money raised went directly to water projects. Operating costs for the charity were raised separately.
As of today, charity: water has funded 3,962 water projects, providing access to clean, safe drinking water for 1,794,983 people in 19 countries. It works in ways that are easy for people to see the difference they are making. About $20 provides one person access to safe drinking water. A typical well costs about $5,000 and can provide safe water for 250 people. Here, I'm just copying the figures and facts now. You might as well read it yourself and be inspired. There are similar stories that are also very inspirational. It can be done if you have a dream and you're willing to work for it.
I promised you new reading material, and you shall have it. I found a list of top digital publications in Matador, one of my very favorite things to read for fun, to satisfy curiosity, to feed my beauty hunger, to feel motivated, to be inspired, to quell wanderlust and more. This article lists the top 32 publications to writers at Matador. I wasn't too impressed, but keep reading until you get to the list at the end with just hyperlinked titles. Here are the good ones. Check out Granta. costs $45.99/yr in the U.S. to subscribe and that's for only four issues which are published as books.
It features great writing, photos, memoirs, audio, video, and more. It seems very literary. They have a free newsletter, and here's me catching truffle crumbs from the wealthy again, they do publish some freebie articles and stories. I am familiar with about half of the other magazines on the list. It has always been my greedy literary dream to write a short story for the "Sun." They pay extremely well. The magazine doesn't carry ads, and is quite something culturally wonderful. Check these out for your reading pleasures and submissions.
Time to go write my articles for the non-literary and peanuts. Let me see how many words I have. I hope you had fun and learned something. I learn something new every day. It's what keeps me going. I saw the perfect job for me on Elance search of reports today. Somebody wants 10 hours/week for one or two weeks of a researcher/writer to find out why 70 percent of smokers say they wish they could quit but don't try. Why are these people still smoking. The kick is that he's not so much interested in this knowledge, per se, as he is something that parallels it that might be harder to research. Why does every computer user know they could lose everything on their computers at any given moment and yet still not bother to back up their data occasionally or even frequently? This is what his inquiring mind wants to know, and what I'd love to research and come up with some answers. Human behavior fascinates me. It just kills me. We are one crazy species. Wish we intuitive messages as I go to bid on this project.
Words for today:
Words for today: 2,031. (Did tomorrow's too, except that's cheating. I'll be here tomorrow.)
