no mud, no lotus (summer zen #9 - the beginning)

it was on July 15 that i started this summer zen blog series, with the idea "to revisit places i've been, and to go on a summer stroll through the web. all this, with a touch of zen. and with open rhythm. a chain of moments, some to visit once, some to return to."

now i wanted to add the next entry, and realized this summer series probably began a month earlier, with a blog entry in June that included a challenge quote and a video link with note:

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another perspective on challenge:

"The Obstable is the Path
When you encounter a blockage -- a wall in your plans -- embrace it, adore it and realize that you put it there. Remember -- if it happens to you, it happens through you." 

and a beautiful, challenging video: "No Mud, No Lotus" by Tara Brach (the video, i didn't look for. it just popped up in the sidebar as i watched something else, and was perfect for today)

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more summer zen:

• #8: to grow, to see, to question...
• #7: 23.000 breaths - a yoga walk
• #6: pebble in your pocket - mini meditation
• #5: back to the start - once upon each day
• #4: the artisan's prayer: "Teach me, Life.."
• #3 road quotes: "A bend in the road.."
• #2: less and more
• #1: calm - calm.com

the ABCD of it, or: changing from daily to weekly

Today would be day #9 in the A-Z Blogging Challenge. which would make it: I-Day.
I like Identity, Internet, Irritation, Inkling, Ink, I, Isis, Irregular, Instances....

And a part of me is eager and tempted to continue, but going to the archives to revisit all those works proves to be too intense a task for a daily challenge. I don't want to rush those stories and images from the past. So I guess I will change the challenge rhythm for me, and turn to weekly. The A to G turned into an intriguing approach for this task. Really happy about the steps so far.
And interesting how "H" now turned into a note on the project in general: a homage to the archives, with I to Z waiting to be headed to.

• A is for Alpha + August
• B is for Berlin + Butterflies
• C is for Crow Woman + Con Text
• D is for Deduction
• E is for (R)Evolution
• F is for Fountain Lights and Fragments of Flavour
• G is for Geometry + Generation Effect
• H is for Homage + Headed
• I to come... next week
• my A-Z plan + theme: AtoZ Blogging Challenge upcoming 
• and some statistics: from the 13 publications i revisted so far, 7 are still online, 6 magazines went offline.
• List of all participating A-Z blogs

Thanks for all who have visited this blog. 

Have a great A-Z Challenge April! 

A to Z Blogging Challenge upcoming

A-Z is for Archives
after coming across the A-Z Blogging Challenge earlier this week, i thought about it's alphabetic task: "for the month of April, blog daily, corresponding with the letters of the alphabet." 

i never joined a challenge like this. daily photograph, daily moment, daily writing: those i know. but daily alphabetic post, in free format? where to start? --- it took a bit, but then i had the idea: since a while, i think of revisiting my published works (which is also one of my new-year resolutions: revisit).

but whenever i wonder about the same question: where to start? yes, i could start with the very first story and go from there, but that feels both bueraucratic and overwhelming. so maybe a month of 26 posts might be a good way to enter the archives.

here's my April plan: 
each day, i will look for some works from the archive (preferably a combination of visual / photograph + story / poem) that start with the letter of the day. and in the background, use that browsing to start to assemble a list. so when all works out, April will be a colorful and suprising walk through archives. looking forward.

here's more about the challenge in the blueprint lit blog: A-Z Blogging Challenge
and here's the sign-up website - i'm A-Z Blogger #1486.

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S is for Skies
and as it is friday... two skies from this week, for Skywatch Friday. i meant to put them online in larger size, one underneath the other, but when uploading files they first appeared like that. which is more interesting, i think: they are actually taken from the same window, one with a morning view to the left, one with an evening view to the right.

A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior

"Monday 26 March 2012
 this weekend was like a short holiday: so much sun, and warmth. it was days like in May or in June. sitting outside on the terrace. wearing lighter clothes. seeing bees, birds, butterflies. and being out there." 

that's what i wrote in my diary, same time, one year ago. there are the words: day like in May or in June. back then, everyone knew it was unusually warm. but what mainly remained was the memory: March = warm. and not only the hope, but rather the expectation that this March would be the same like last year. because that's what our brains do: they learn from new experiences. only that we aren't exactly made like databases. we refer to our recent impressions.

that's what i thought about yesterday, after listening to the first lectures of a new Coursera class that is about irrational behaviour tendencies of the human mind. the class has the great title: “A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior”, by Dan Ariely

here's the brief course info: "In this course we will learn about some of the many ways in which people behave in less than rational ways, and how we might overcome these problems."

for more, visit the Course info page, or watch this clip from TedTalks:



Surviving Disruptive Technologies
PS: if you are interested in this topic, there is a second course that just started, it is about business, but goes into the same direction: it discusses the difficulties that companies face in a market in change, and looks at the possible (partly irrational) reasons for failure in such markets. the course is based on studies of companies that were once market leaders: Kodak, Blockbuster, Borders - and all stumbled over a combination of their own size / success / structure / and fixed ideas. here's more: Surviving Disruptive Technologies

same but different, or: once upon each day

1 step forward, 2 steps back
yesterday was one of the days with things not wanting to reach conclusion - if it had a theme, it would have been: "1 step forward, 2 steps back" - i looked for something in the web, as part of a research for another project - and didn’t really find what i was looking for, but came across a new template from wordpress that is for photos. so i tried a preview in my photoblog, really liked it, and went ahead and activated it ... and then thought i had an idea for the header, but the first idea didn’t work out at all. “Brilliant”, i said to myself. “so instead of one thing to figure out, you now have two...”

after some other detours, i thought: okay, so at least i now put up a simple blog post in my blog, to do something that is easy and complete. that was the black-white-world post yesterday, and while scrolling through the recent posts afterwards, the idea of a header surfaced - and then things started to fall into place, or rather: leaped into place. including a new title for my photo blog: from "p art ici pation" now turned into “once upon each day”.

reminder for the future: things take their time. or like they say in German: "Gut Ding will Weile haben"

and here's the blog link: same but different: once upon each day 

day #1: 8 a.m. moment & a rough plan for 2013

day #1 of the new year.
i open the window, 
and push the tiny button.. 

*

today: day #1 of the new year. 2013. still strange to write this.

today: sunrise at 8.16 and sunset at 16.37

today: day #7 of eating lighter & trying new food

today: day #1 of the mindful writing month, which i join in videos. that's how dawning happened

today: day #42 of revising my travel novel masala moments

today: day #1 of the global reading challenge

today: happy

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a rough plan for 2013
more on the mindful moments & the masala revision and the reading, here in this rough plan for 2013 that i sketched on winter solstic - and ain't it nice that i wrote it all down already. good to revisit: solstice: mindful moments, revisits/revisions & world reads...

smile. maybe it would be more fitting to just copy the whole post into this place, right? seeing it's actually 2013 now..

**


solstice: mindful moments, revisits/revisions & world reads, or: a rough plan for 2013

today: winter solstice. this turning point in time: from here on, the days will grow longer again.

the sky isn't very festive here, though: there's a snow/rain front moving through. but yesterday brought a surprising and colorful sunrise, like a painting almost. i took several photos.

mindful moments
taking the sunrise picture made me think of January 2013, and the return of the mindful writing challenge that has the title: "Pay more attention and fall in love with the world", this task and inspiration to note the small, beautiful moments the everyday holds, and make/take time to note one of them each day. (here's more).

looking forward to it, and yesterday i revisited some of the moments from January 2011.... .



....which also brought the thought to put up some kind of frame in the shelf here, a place to display those daily moments. and beyond that daily moments, leads to another theme of these days:

revisiting & revising
over time, both with my own writing and with blueprintreview, so many different works - photos, texts, stories, blog entries, notes - have gathered. like this winter solstice note from last year, which is now re-posted in the blueprint lit blog: Solstice Reflections

in 2013, i want to spend more time with those works, revisit, and also: revise. the impulse for that came through my first travel novel, and the island stay. here's a blog note from November, and a photo:



Masala Moments 
my first travel novel, so far only available in print (more here). As i am reading more and more e-books myself, it now seems like a logical step to create an ebook version. And while at it, i might add a current introduction, i thought. And started to read into it - and then realized that it would be a good book to take along, to read and re-format and re-new. Still working on that. So good to be back to those pages, and it feels like right timing. I hope to have the revision complete by the end of the year. 

world reads
there are so places out there, and so many books. it's impossible to visit all, and to read all. but after joining a global reading challenge in 2012, and the places it took me to, the authors and stories i discovered with it, i am now already looking forward to continue the world reads - and to combine it with a focus on different aspects of the world: the current megacities of the world, the highest countries, the richest countries, the ones with most immigrants.. here's the challenge link: 7 Continents, 7 Billion People, 7 Books

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2013
so summing it up, here is my rough base plan for 2013:

  

- noticing the small moments
- revisiting and revising
- reading around the world

looking forward, and especially looking forward to the sharing and connecting, the collective January of noticing small moments, and the joined reading around the world, the exchange of experiences and impressions, of days and moments.

may 2013 bring joy and light~~


**
PS: and sharing - today i came across a page of shared sky views. i just added my solstice photo, here: sky watch.

geometry of time

beyond 100 days
in October (exactly: on the 12. October), the shared daily project "a 100 days of summer" ended - i had blogged a photo daily for 100 days in my photo blog "p art ici patio n"

yesterday i revisted the blog, and saw that the template got automatically updated and now only showed the photos - the text and comments were now separate, and needed extra clicks to get to. so i switched to another template now, "AutoFocus", which creates an automatic mosaic as starting page, with the first images larger, and the older images smaller.

the daily shift of focus
i really like it: it's like a reflection of our focus in time, which usually is dominated by the current events - those events that seem most important, while the things that were equally mportant some days ago then shrink in focus - like here, same collage just one entry earlier:



the now and the tomorrow
browsing through the posts of this week, the theme of time is one of the main themes -- with the mindful writing day and its focus on the now, and the video on "thinking about thinking", which points out the gap between the things we want right now, as opposed to the things we reach for in a longer-term. or, to keep in the image of the collage: between the now-here and the future-here, between the current shape and focus and the possibility of tomorrow.

also, an idea for later this month popped up while browsing the entries. more about that, later. :)

thinking about thinking (or: a celebration of self delusion)

PS:
there's more thinking about thinking on the webpage:
 you are not so smart - a celebration of self delusion

going slowly despite / for all

today: monday.
today: a dozen things waiting after the island time.
today:
today: .. starting the day with a note to myself, the quote i came across in the slow walking blog:

Smile, breathe and go slowly.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

*
it was while looking for the quote that i arrived back at the island, and at the note i wrote on monday last week, on jogging and taking the time

o i took the time, today, to go for a jog. i got into a fresh jogging mood on the island, and also found a new gadget: a route-tracker for the mobile phone. i tried this today, and was curious to see how long exactly today’s jog is. the best of it, though, was the side effect: along the way, i came past shining yellow fields. “Now for a camera” i thought – and realized i had it with me. ´

PS.. and here's last week's blog note: going slowly (or: to see the sea)

4 for April: scare, new, let go, photo

in the mail last week: indefinite space: a journal of new poetry. i helped with the layout of the cover, and am excited to see how it turned out. the counterpart-image, it also connects to the calendar page, with the painting from Oskar Schlemmer. looking at it, i thought: senses, the different parts of us, finding space.

it's a thought i returned to on sunday's drive. and following it, 3 lines of advice came to mind, each of them aimed to create a step of more space in the everyday:

"Each day, do 1 thing that scares you."


"Each day, try something new."


"Each day, let go of something."

*



later a fourth direction followed: last week, i revived my photo blog, and it's such a simple + special joy to add new photos there. so far, the photos lead from trees to water to clouds.

more simple joys to follow:
"Each day, post a photo from a place you've been."

*
& a link: previous posts with the theme of resolutions/change

re/solutions

today i made time for sorting and thinking forward, and also for revisiting previous end-of year notes. that's how i came across these lines and links from 2007 again:

new year: i came across the first resolutions, in NoTellMotel editor Reb Livingston's blog. this is what she wrote:

“Getting a jump start on new year resolutions -- hence I haven't been blogging.

1. Focus and work harder on outstanding projects (working on Shafer's book these past few days and I responded to all outstanding e-mail in my general mail folder, probably the first time all year).

2. Take better care of my health. Well, I half-started that. Back on the treadmill. Haven't improved the diet yet, there are still holiday chocolates to finish.

I try not to make unrealistic resolutions, mine are more in the vein of improvements. There was an AOL VP of Member Services (i.e. customer service) who was all about 1% improvements. The idea is we can always make a 1% improvement from what we're doing now and if we keep doing that, over time, wa-la, the noticeable difference.”

i liked that: not planning to take huge steps, but take 1% turns.

and another interesting page, about habits – i found this one when following a link in lonely planet to an essay of Shelley Stile, who works with people who face changes in their life.

here's a passage that sums the essay up in 2 paragraphs:

“Seek to develop new habits. If your life was run by bad habits then conversely it can be run by good habits you consciously choose. To develop a habit you simply must stick with for about three months and you are home safe. Just create the picture of what you want your behavior to look like and list ten habits that will get you to that picture of yourself.

It works the same with your life. Where would you like to be in ten years in terms of who and what you are and what you are doing? Think of ten habits that will get you to that Future Self and start today in adopting those guideposts. Work backwards from the future.”

crowds / switch / thingbooks + a paradox

pick 3 books
in October, when i looked for a book with stories from the Ruhr region to take along on the short trip there, i stumbled across an offer i couldn't resist: Amazon Germany invited to "get 3 english books for 15$”. there was a list of about 150 books to choose from. i browsed it, and after some forth and back, finally arrived at 3 non-fiction books:
- The Wisdom of Crowds
- Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard
- Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Crowds
the Crowd book, that was inspired by the whole theme of identity and crowd, which also reflected in the blueprintreview theme issue: #26 Identity. there is a long note (or rather: dialogue) on the process included, which both picks up on both themes: Identity and the Crowd, here a quote:

....what surprised me is the positive view of crowds: “The second obvious feature of crowd phenomena is that they are not only shaped by society but that they in turn bring about social change.”
and here the next surprise: the introducion even moves to the theme of identity: “In other words, the psychological processes which relate society to crowd action are those of identity."

the main point of the Crowd book is that we live in a society that still believes single experts are the ones that are most qualified when it comes to making decisions and developing future scenarios (and this goes both for science and economy: doctors and CEOs), while case studies generally show that the best results are achieved by diverse groups under the condition that all group members give their input. will look for a quote that sums it up, but what i thought interesting is that this relates back to the crowd quote above: the positive view of crowds, and their quality to induce social change.

Switch
which now leads to the other book from theme "Switch - How to Change Things When Change is Hard". it's a book that offers some new, surprising approaches to deal with difficult situations. a key of it is: when the problem is big and complex, we tend to look for a big and complex solution - or give up by the task. while the key might be a small solution. here's an excerpt, a story that moved me when i read it, as it includes a simple – but very unusual question – to adress and improve difficult situations: a Switch story.

deja-vue & non-fiction
and some additional notes: when i logged into Goodreads to add the "Switch" book to my list of "currently reading", the latest review popped up again: turned out, it's from Jessi Carty, and seeing it, i remembered reading it. so it seems, i hadn't consciously remembered the book, but my memory picked up on. (here's the link: Switch on Goodreads)

also, looking at the books, i realized all 3 i picked are non-fiction books. which is a curious category, seen like that: defined by negation. in Germany, the word for non-fiction books is: "Sachbuch": thing-book. novels are "Romane".

non-fiction clips
and more non-fiction, in another format: yesterday, while doing some non-thinking-required repetitive photo work, i let youtube clips play, from the TEDtalks - the "ideas worth spreading" conference (here's more: TED conference). there are so many, and some are so good. like this one, about all the choices our western world offers product-wise and life-wise not necessarily makes for a happy life, and some scientific reflections on that: Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice

another paradox: little-known bestselling facts
looking at the title theme of those talks: "Ideas worth spreading", and at the books - one thing that surprised me: both books were New York Times bestsellers a while ago. still, the studies in them and the summed-up knowledge - despite all the books sold - seems to be remain passive, on the page. i haven't seen it picked up in magazine articles / analysis. seems the hardest thing in this fast spinning world is still to question the status quo and to overcome long-grown beliefs and systems.

meeting buddha

today: meeting buddha in unexpected places
today: finding the images inside the image in 100days
today: this world
today: one week to Paris
today: a 100 things waiting to be done

*

and also this: a blessing.

first to myself:
May I be safe
May I be healthy
May I be happy
May I live with ease of heart.

then to others:
May you be safe.
May you be healthy.
May you be happy.
May you live with ease of heart.

*

now, how to reach this point of ease.
"easy," Buddha says. "it's always just a breath and a stone away."

a time log

upcoming: a week of many things that wait to be done. this made me revisit a post from January:

a 100 things (18th January 2010)
it feels like a week of 100 things to do to come. i just tried to cut the task list down to days. and had to smile: seen mathematically, it really isn't that much: 100 things a week turn into 14 things a day. not even 1 per hour ;)
the real task probably will be to keep the focus on the one thing, per hour.

*

100 and 5 (22nd January 2010)
more parallel project fun mathematics: whenever you reach the next milestone of your 100_things_of_this_week_list, the world throws in 5 add-on tasks.

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how to categorize life? (8th February 2010)
a thought i had today, on a walk: that i would like to keep a logbook of time for a week, to see where the hours of a week are going. will see how this works out. the first question of such an hour logbook, of course, is a huge one: how to categorize life?

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so that's what i will be doing again this week: keeping a logbook of time. and based on it, move to a bit more of a balance of time and priorities. and also, make time for the things that aren't immediately urgent, but that are important. and those that are joyful. like: taking sky pictures. and: adding another day to the 100 days project blog.

(and interesting, this match of "100". i just googled the term. up came 664.000.000 entries: 100 days)

the journey of life

today: starting the day with a morning jog.
today: language/place #6 online. such a fabulous journey.
today: browsing photo files.
today: sketching a rough plan for the coming week.
today: going on a sunday drive
today: adding the next day to my 100 day project.

and this: rembemering that quote about the journey of life and challenge and cruiseships. that was the key word that made me find it, and with it, another journey/life advice.

Life is a journey, but Earth is not a cruise ship. The most fulfilling events in life don't come with a planned itinerary. Keep your agenda flexible enough to accommodate unexpected opportunities. The trip seems long but will be over before you know it, so make the best of every situation.
- Kimberly Dawn Wells, in: The Journey of Life (full version)

The Race is long and in the end, it's only with yourself.
- Mary Schmich in: Advice, like youth, probaly just wasted on the young (full version)

happy new year! (or: learning to swim)

today: a new day.
today: thinking forward + backwards. sketching a timeline.
today: trying to find my way, as always.
today: getting ready for a river of stones, and browsing this exercise for the start.
today: going to the spa. and while swimming, and thinking of stones, noticing what is happening not far from me:

in the local swimming hall 
a grown-up woman learns to swim
finally
before another year ends.

so good to see her, making this step. especially making it out there, in public, where everyone can see her struggle, and watch her try, and deal with her fear, with the difficulty to coordinate arms and legs in water, while kids swim by.
hats down, i thought. and remembered this line again:

every day, do something that scares you.

and this:

every day, try something new.

happy new year!
may 2011 be filled with happiness for you,
with love + luck
and inspiration + newness

Einen guten Rutsch!
(that's the german new years greeting: "A good slide into the new year!")

PS: the plan for today was to blog about the books i am reading these days, but then this moment happened. and after noting it down, i realized: this is such a good note to end + start a year. books to follow, next year.

days of may

saturday morning. waking up in my own bed. walking to the bakery. visiting my garden. taking dew pictures. still feeling the island mood. and thinking of the days of may to come.

on thursday, i sketched a road map for this month.
the main keys to it are:
- simplify.
- turn off the web for a couple of hours every day.
- focus on the manuscript.
- and this: try softer.

to stay in the island tide / rain revision flow, i now bookmarked a page that i revisited on the island already: Rejuvenation Lounge.

the pages i want to return to this week:
- start a daily stillness practice
- how to focus on one thing at a time
.

bookshelves, daily s-press, and me

2 weeks ago, i decided to move the bookshelf blog notes to book collages. it seemed the right step to take, with Daily s-Press up and moving, and with less library books around, and more bought and sent books. (the note about it, here: virtual bookshelf).

yesterday, i took the next collage photo. then i thought, i now just add the titles, and a line for each book. and started it, and with each book, the line grew longer. there is more to say, there are connections between those books, some surfacing only now clearly as i started to put the lines together.

and it's same with Daily s-Press - i thought i prepare all features for the time i am away, and then schedule it all. but there are connections, patterns, books that somehow belong. it doesn't feel right to rush this. the books, they deserve their time and space. so i guess i will put daily s-press on hold while i am away. and return to this collage later, and for now, only note down the titles:

- How to Escape from a Leper Colony by Tiphanie Yanique
- Man Son 1969
- Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman + McKean
- Celadon by Desirina Boskovich

---
afterthought, a day later:

maybe there is a middle way for Daily s-Press, between daily book features, and going on hold. will see. .

virtual bookshelf

throughout 2009, i kept a virtual bookshelf as part of this blog, with pictures of the books i read, and some notes and quotes (here the link: bookshelf). one of the reasons for the virtual shelf: i love libraries, and so a lot of the books i read are just here for a little while - and the bookshelf was a way to 'keep' them, even after returning them to the library.

now, with Daily s-Press up and moving, i realized it would be a bit too much to keep the bookshelf, too. and there are books that were here, but never made it into the shelf: books that i only dipped into, or started, then postponed, thinking i will borrow them later again. plus, there are comics and magazines..

i thought of this yesterday, and then tried a different solution to both keep and let go of the books i had here: collages. above is the first, it includes:

- 4poets, an exceptional poetry collection (will write an extra post for this)
- Zeit literature, a literature special, in celebration of the Leipzig book fair
- Brückenschläge, before-after-reunion-portraits of authors who live(d) in the east of germany
- Witchblade, a good-and-evil graphic novel

and now.. on to Daily s-Press to put the next feature online.
.

daily routine, just

at the start of this month, Karyn Eisler interviewed me about my daily work routine that includes multiple projects. the interview started with a 6-word-question: "How do you do it all?" and then moved - not to the various projects, but to my daily rhythm: "What does a typical day of yours look like? Would you be willing to crack open your daytimer and walk me through the structure?"

fast forward to this weekend. browsing blogs, i came across a blog post from Beth Adams, editor of qarttsiluni magazine. the post is a reflection of her blog, and of her daily routine, it includes this passage that made me go back and read it again:

"Our upstairs neighbor, noticing our new routine and late hours, admonished me recently: "Don't work too hard!" I laughed and he said, "Yes, I know you love it." "A lot of it doesn't feel like work," I said. "This is just what I do."

reading this line made me think of another quote about daily routine, one that opens the window to the larger frame of life:
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” - Annie Dillard

and here, the connected links:
- the daily reflection of Beth: The Cassandra Pages - Seven
- my interview with Karyn: Living ?s for Dorothee Lang
- some passages from Annie Dillard's work: Earth Light Library. .... and so interesting. in this page, a quote from Annie Dillard, about what she does: "When asked for biographical information that would reflect her ideas about nature and spirituality, she said she has not made such a statement, commenting "I just write books."

there it is again: just.
ju.