IN A CREATIVE WAY

Each year I do a collage journal.  I've read, "Do more of what you liked as a child."  Well, I liked cutting and pasting.  And glitter and warm words and inspirational quotes and writing and coloring and lace and creating.  It all comes together in my collage journal.  So easy.  So calming.  Definitely a flow-state.  We all have these, flow states, where we are satisfyingly present and engaged.  Here are some of the special words I've included in the past months, from all kinds of sources including my own heart.  I hope they resonate.  

Learning to do and think less is an important skill.

What dark did you conquer in your story?

"I had the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps." Edith Wharton

Enjoy being alone.

Getting lost in a good book is one of life's great pleasures. 

Love stretches your heart and makes you big inside. 

"It's no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then."  Alice, Lewis Carroll 

Go outside.  It always helps.

The sun and moon rise and set every day.  Don't miss so many of them.

When nobody's home but you, that's your time. 

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day." Vincent Van Gogh

You'll find many beautiful wintry sights at dawn, dusk and dark.

Always protect yourself from despair or indifference.  Help others do the same. 

"Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all."   Emily Dickinson

A wounded heart can still sing.  Mine does.

Spend time close to home with the simple pleasures that make up your life.

One thing we can hope for is that the Lord will enter our minds and hearts and help us bear the sinful world in which we live. 

"Do anything but let it produce joy." Walt Whitman

Just keep on going; look ahead to see the blessing around the bend. 

"No need to hurry.  No need to sparkle.  No need to be anybody but oneself."   Virginia Woolf

There are decisions I may not have made if I hadn't taken sadness as a warning.  

The act of documenting my life in a creative way has improved my life. 

INSPIRING MINDS

Collage-Journaling by Nina Naomi

I don't Google "inspirational quotes."  I want to find them myself.  Or create them.  But most often something inspirational finds me, not the other way around.  We're all inspired by something different, aren't we? When something does reach us, we're likely to share.  Maybe one of these will reach you for you to share. I hope so.  

Quote by R. Arnold

I'm not familiar with Arnold, but I love the surprise of being fluent in silence.  We associate fluency with words, not their absence.  But here it is the silence that is eloquent.  The idea of sharing our fatigue naturally with each other without the need to speak is so appealing these days.  It feels like comfort and intimacy.  What could be more welcome?

Tablescape by Nina Naomi

"This is my life.  It is my one time to be me.  I want to experience every good thing." Maya Angelou.  Of course what is meaningful is that this is Maya Angelou speaking.  She has all our admiration.  I was privileged to see her perform once; she sang, talked, read and enchanted.  What is different about what she says is that she doesn't want to experience everything, but only every good thing.  A goal that takes work.  It may have been a wish she was granted, but not without her share of travail.  This may be true for us too.  

"Hope is the thing with feathers /  That perches in the soul - / And sings the tune without the words - / And never stops - at all - "  Emily Dickinson.  There's more to this poem, two more stanzas.  What is amazing is the absolute truth of her every word.  But then that is Dickinson's hallmark, isn't it?  Living in isolation with her extraordinary mind, she carries every subject, every emotion, on her lanyard. We could spend our life reading Emily Dickinson and feel that we had known the world.    

"Nothing is missing.  You are already whole."  Unattributed.  If we are complete, something at one time needed to be filled-in or added.  Completion is a finishing.  A correction of a lack.  But wholeness is different.  We are born whole.  We have no lack, we need not be made better.  I might say, "God made me whole."  

Then there are the smaller things we tell our own hearts to inspire:  "Try something new, my dear," I might say. "Make a friend, or a friend's day," I remind myself. "Reread your favorite book.  Why not?"  "Dig a hole, plant some seeds, water and wait." "Go outside and be amazed."  And always remember, 

Would you care to add?