~life coach and marketing session today.

~8 InterPlay Inspiration Decks sold in two days!

~Looking for young, inspired person to tweet for me….trade anyone?

~mourning the packing away of the Christmas decorations (don’t laugh at me!)

the true message for the day

~questions about curly or straight hair continue to plague the mornings.

~found my first wedding ring the other day (more on that next post!)

For me, this message to remember to hold things loosely and lightly is so important. I am SO NOT a technology person and the whole world operating on Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc. is not really comfortable for me. Comfortable is this easy chair that I am sitting in right now. My morning coffee by my side, my dog curled up in my lap, the heavy rain and wind providing an awesome background for this Monday morning. Discomfort for me is the way I cannot figure out how to write this post directly into the blog, cannot figure out how to “tweet” people on a regular enough basis so that I would get hundreds of followers like my friend, Gretchen, and my complete inability to post things with pictures on Facebook or any other techy tool like that.
AHHHH, taking a breath as that was quite a long sentence.

That is what lack of comfort feels like in my body: one huge run on sentence!

So, for this moment, I borrow the Hold it Loosely and Lightly card, I grab my tight focuser and release it from my tight knit brow, take one long slow deep breath, and I exhale twice as long.

The wind and rain have stopped. Another Monday miracle reveals itself to me!

Angel Messenger: Hold It Loosely & Lightly

Once again I’m sitting in my office wondering what the hell I’m doing here. Are you starting to see a pattern here? Don’t get me wrong: it’s not that I hate the work I do. I like making technology work.

“Too much confusion. I can’t get no relief.”

Trouble is that I see “making it work” from an incredibly idealistic vantage point. And I attach urgency to getting it working. In my original neurosis around this urgency, I left no room for genuine creativity and play.

“No reason to get excited…”

It’s taken me almost 30 years to transform this stressed out approach to my job into one that’s merely over-serious. To those of you who are easy-going, this will seem like no great feat.

Easy Focus round card from the InterPlay Inspiration Deck

“There are many here among us
That feel that life is but a joke”

To me, it was nearly insurmountable. Even after many years working and playing through this, I frequently have to remind myself about what’s really important. And none of it turns out to be “stuff.” In the end, I value my own well-being and my relationships the most. Easy to forget. Easy to remember.

“But you and I we’ve been through that
And this is not our fate”

Yeah. I get it. The call to easy focus really is … well, easy. Of course, today was my day to draw the Easy Focus card from Anita Bondi’s InterPlay Inspiration Deck.  Go figure.  The Deck knows me almost as well as I know myself!

“So let us not talk falsely now
The hour is getting late”

Is it ever too late to wake up to valuing what’s really valuable? No. But, the sooner and more often I wake up to it, the more time I have to enjoy it.

“Outside in the cold distance…”

I’m headed for some enjoyment now!

(Thanks to Bob Dylan for the still-relevant All Along the Watch Tower.)

a whitecapped wave of perfectionism
knocks my mojo off its board
temporarily, I’m sure
drawn in to distraction
I check stocks (the market – down)
and ruffle through piles of paper
the weekend so blessed
this workday response can be little
more than
avoidance
of
success

copyright 2009/2010 by Stan Stewart and Music for the Moment, Inc

Inner Authority card in The InterPlay Inspiration Deck

I’m not sure that the cold is gone yet. Maybe my self-care is lagging. How well is my transition into self-fathering going, then? Not as well as I’d like.

My dad was a Protestant (Christian Church – Disciples of Christ) minister and I guess he still is in his retirement. To me, it seemed like he was always there for other people. He’s been a great example to me of an open-hearted man. I still strive to open and soften my heart the way I’ve seen him do. And I would say that he’s done some great self-care in retirement: traveling to many places around the globe while continuing to work part time. I would say that both of these pursuits are dear to him and he does well to go after them with gusto — which is exactly what he is doing.

Shuffling The InterPlay Inspiration Deck

But, back to me… I’m looking for some inspiration to make today’s transition or maybe just to determine what this transition looks like. Yes. I’ll be pulling a card from the InterPlay Inspiration Deck to help me gain some direction. I notice that Monday’s selection “Inner Authority” with its yellow sun is still on top, so I shuffle the deck even more than I usually do.

Surprise! It’s “On Behalf Of” with the cool dragonfly symbol. The colors are enticing. The stylized body seated in lotus position frames the green dragonfly.

Okay. I don’t get it. Why would I get this card today? Don’t I just need to take care of myself at the moment? Guess I’d better read the story on the back. Here’s the phrase that most catches my attention:

On Behalf Of round card from the InterPlay Inspiration Deck

“She sees everyone who has shared their pain with her bathed in warmth and love.”  Nice.  That’s the kind of acceptance I observed in my dad and in the literally hundreds of InterPlayers who have done Dances On Behalf Of for me.  Now that’s music to my internal ears.

What if I were to approach myself the way On Behalf Of (from the InterPlay Inspiration Deck) does?  This small, round card has so much to teach me.  Not that the universe hasn’t tried to bring me this noticing before.  My dad modeled it for me.  All those Dancers On Behalf Of showed me the possibility of bringing this “warmth and love” to myself.  I created my mission in the men’s work in 2002 that incorporates this open-heartedness:  “I open my heart to create a world where I and others are enlivened to appreciate and co-create beauty.”  For whatever reason, I waited for this round card to be my real teacher.  I am grateful.  I am inspired.

I don’t even know what my current transition looks like.  And already it seems less intimidating just knowing that I can bring the open heart I long to bring to others to myself.  How cool is that?

May I bless myself with this kind of ease around my current transitions and adaptations to the changes around and within me.  I bless myself.

Creative blessings to you all.

I consider improvisation to be a highest form of art.  Having heard the mantra “just improv” from other artists too many times, I’ve been continually more and more committed to improvised music and dance and storytelling over the past decade.

Back in 1999, I became “certified” (if not certifiable) in InterPlay, an active, creative way to unlock the wisdom of the body.  Under the mentorship of Phil Porter and Cynthia Winton-Henry, I moved from a clunky techno-geek to being a slightly less clunky techno-geek — which was a huge change. Above all, I learned that I really do have a body and that it really does inform me about almost everything about me. This was — and still is — a miracle.  No matter how “spiritual” I may be (or believe myself to be), I will always be a body in this life.  The other thing that I learned is that improvised art (dance, storytelling, singing, instrumental music) is an incredibly cathartic and artful experience.  Both of these learning have stayed with me 100% over the years.

What I imagined I’d be telling you about in this post is my passion for improv.  Now that I’m here typing this, I find that words are insufficient for what I want to get across.  So let me try this scattershot approach:

The Exformation round card from the InterPlay Inspiration Deck

• improv art informs my whole self (InterPlay is also about integration of body/mind/spirit)
• when I practice my improv artforms I am more grounded and vulnerable
• improvisation is an exformation (this is what InterPlay calls moving information out of the body) — I (and I would say all humans) need exformation to stay healthy and conscious
• improvising connects with now — how Zen can ya get?

So sing a little song, tell a little story, dance a little dance in the name of now.  It’ll be good for your body, mind and soul.

Bless you.  Bless me.

At all three of those shows you can see and buy our inspirational jewelry, mandalas, photos, music CDs and other handmade artwork. Each artist has new material since our last show and some of these are not up on the web site. Given the custom nature of handstamped jewelry and personal mandalas, this may be your only chance to see these pieces of art.

Meanwhile, Anita has released The InterPlay Inspiration Deck. These 21 round cards are a testament to her incredible creative talent. Each one has a word or phrase (an InterPlay principle) to inspire your moment. Of course, that’s not all. The word on the card is illustrated with an ingenious colorful picture on one side and imaginative story on the other. You will be inspired by this deck. I’m not just saying that. I keep a deck at work and it’s been an inspirational life-saver. Stories coming here soon.

For today, I drew the card for Practice with the great story about the goddess who “knows what is best for you … She knows that to change your life, you just need to change your practice.”  I don’t know about you, but I need to be reminded about the stuff I already know.  Thanks for the reminder, Anita.  It’s great to get these reminders with a picture, a color, a story and the tangible, tactile sensations of the card in my hand.

So, check out Anita’s new InterPlay Inspiration Deck and come see our art at an upcoming show.

Bless you. Bless me.

InterPlay Inspiration Deck on my desk with the Practice card drawn