How to be Delightfully Delusional: A Creative Manifesto of Sorts

By Lisa J. Rough - Guest Blogger 

Being creative means FLYING BY THE SEAT OF YOUR PANTS. It means not knowing where you’re headed or how on earth you’ll get to where you hope to wind up; making up the rules and drawing the map as you go; honoring your gut instincts and being insanely impulsive; getting lost from time to time; following not what makes perfect makes sense but what makes your blood flow faster or what makes butterflies dance into in your belly.

Being creative means ALWAYS WRITING IN THE PRESENT TENSE. It means becoming a novice in this very moment, and forgetting everything you know; asking your inner critic to take a hike; letting go of all those times you’ve messed up, struggled, been a victim, or embarrassed yourself; giving yourself permission to not look ahead and wonder if you’ll succeed or fail; stepping into the journey and enjoying the ride, like a front seat dog, squinting its eyes with its face in the wind.

Being creative means IGNORING WHAT EVERYBODY ELSE IS DOING. It means not waiting to be discovered, noticed, or appreciated; recognizing that there’s no such thing as right or wrong; ending the cycle of defining yourself by the opinions or lack of acceptance of others; exercising sassiness; no longer comparing yourself to your neighbor; noticing how well-meant advice feels in your body and letting go of whatever doesn’t demand the fullest expression of who you are.

Being creative means OWNING YOUR EXPERIENCE. It means turning your attention inward; asking for help and support; making your boundaries and limits clear; carving out time and space for yourself; knowing when it’s time to stretch and when it’s time to mellow out; celebrating your strengths and passions; cleaning out the clutter; determining what works, what’s healthy, what’s valuable for YOU; no longer blaming your parents, your boss, your teacher, or the media for telling you what to do or how to be.

Being creative means DREAMING OUT LOUD. It means tuning into what you really want and believing that you can have it, even if it seems farfetched or silly; awakening to your visions, whether they’re BIG, small, or somewhere in between; discovering magic in the ordinary and being grateful for the little things; knowing that life can be taken away in the blink of an eye; scattering meaningful endeavors into your daily to-do list; telling someone you adore them and slowing down long enough to feel it in your bones; always being ready for an adventure; sharing your gifts with the world and allowing the love for what you do to be contagious!

Being creative means GETTING MESSY. It means shaking things up or rocking the boat, and no longer being held captive by your comfort zone; remembering that the only constant is change; trusting that you’ll still be loved within your own sovereignty; finding the beauty in your warts and daring to be imperfect, quirky, "overly" sensitive, and vulnerable; getting a kick out of your mistakes; knowing without a doubt that you will fall flat on your face and that you always have the moxie to get right back up and start again.


LISA ROUGH - I am someone who has dabbled with many different mediums throughout my life, I've come to realize that we are all works in progress… from my early days of being a performing singer-songwriter to getting my master’s degree in counseling and psychology; from being a full-time mom to two incredible kiddos (and several critters) to finding my way as a self-taught artist; from studying eco-psychology to teaching yoga; from leading creativity workshops to developing a creative life coaching program…my story has created a rich landscape from which to live with enormous regard for life, immeasurable joy, and the anticipation of more possibilities around the next bend.

http://www.sacredcirclecreativelife.com/
                          



                                                                                                                                    

Crystal Magic – The Power of Amethyst

By Elizabeth Harper, Guest Blogger

One of my favorite crystals is Amethyst. I use it to cleanse my jewelry. Place one or two pieces on a cluster, leave it to do its magic for 24 hours and hey presto, clean as a whistle! I don’t know how it works, but energetically anything I leave on my cluster always feels as if it has just been through a wash cycle.

Once revered as a precious stone, Amethyst known as the “Stone of Spirit,” mirrors the color of the crown chakra - our doorway to the Divine! Amethyst is used in Mala beads as a meditation tool in Tibet and is said to calm, protect, and cleanse the spirit. Its color strengthens the muscles of the eyes and gazing into an amethyst sphere will exercise your eye muscles. I tried this and it was so successful that I ceased to wear glasses!

Its name is derived from the Greek word Amethystos, meaning to be sober or not to be drunk. There are two stories associated with Amethyst, I’ll just share the least disturbing version. The tale reveals the unreciprocated love of Bacchus the God of Wine for one of Aphrodite’s nymphs named Amethyst. Tiring of his advances, she begged Aphrodite to help curb his enthusiasm thereby freeing her from his endless pursuit. The Goddess of Love granted Amethyst’s wish and transformed her into a beautiful clear quartz crystal. Stunned and mortified by his loss, Bacchus poured his cup of wine over the top of the crystal changing its color to that of wine and vowed never to drink again. In Greece, goblets were fashioned from Amethyst with the notion that they could stave off drunkenness.  Fortunately, these days it’s a different kind of spirit that Amethyst works best with!

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ELIZABETH HARPER is a popular and inspiring teacher, color intuitive and psychic artist who empowers others to realize their light. She has been featured in popular national magazines including Woman’s World, Redbook, Prevention and Health, is a magazine columnist and regular contributor to radio and television in the US and Australia, and is the award-winning author of Wishing: How to Fulfill Your Heart’s Desires. Her pioneering work with color inspired her uniquely revealing ColorScope featured globally in print and online magazines. She shares her gift of healing with color through her visionary jewelry and personal creations. She is the founder of Sealed With Love LLC and co-founder of Spiritual Living, an online education center.

http://www.sealedwithlove.com/

Welcome to Your ColorScope, a uniquely revealing oracle created by Elizabeth Harper.

For this week’s ColorScope intuitively select one of the following colors - WHITE, PALE BLUE or PINK- then watch the video for colorisciously intuitive insights into your week ahead and ways to use color to enhance your life.

Welcome to the April 2011 Launch of the auspicious, first-ever HEART OF A WOMAN BLOG!

Posted by Lorraine Harrell.

The launch of our new blog embraces the ideas, social causes, insight and energy of several startling topics and authors whose works exhibits the inspired, ignited and innovative approach to the Heart of a Woman mission for covering provocative, interactive and inspiring weekly, hour-long radio programs.  With so many wars dominating the hemisphere of our world’s view, it becomes a juggling act to balance and streamline the enormous stimuli vying for our collective and imaginative attention.

Nearly sixty-six years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the recent wake of Japan’s horrific double whammy natural disaster, author Rhana Reiko Rizzuto in her recent book Hiroshima in the Morning reminds us to never forget the quiet dignity of the compelling surviving voices willing to bear witness, to uncover the truth of the long-term, devastating, deteriorating effects to the human body as a result of the atomic bombing, and the enormous range of deformities and cancers caused by radiation.

Like the phoenix, the miraculous 165 survivors of the atomic bombing, broke their silence and talked openly about the ordinary beginning of that August 6, 1945 morning at 8:06 a.m. that shattered forever their definition of normal. The bomb’s explosion colliding to earth creating a tremendous meteoric white flash which in nine seconds managed to wipe out and alter the landscape of the lives of over 500,000 innocent people.  Learn more about the survivors' stories.  Tune in to the "Heart of a Woman," March 27, 2011 interview with the author of Hiroshima in the Morning. Click on the Media Player.

Rizzutto’s narrative stories, in the survivors own words, teaches us how to measure survival one moment at a time.

"After the bombing…my brother and I had no clothes on. Our feet were bare, and the ground was so hot that the soles of our feet burned and our skin stuck to the soil. I carried my infant sister on my back, and my father carried my mother, so our pace was very slow. Still we made a desperate effort to get out of the burned area, which stretched as far as my eyes could see. The water pipes were broken everywhere, and near them, the dead bodies of people who had come for one last drink of water were piled on top of each other, crawling with maggots. There were half-burned bodies under the crushed houses. I made such a great effort not to step on those bodies, but there were too many. This is one memory I shall have to carry all through my life. I was eight years old then, but still now, after more than fifty years, the soles of my feet ache when summer comes."
                   
~ Sixty-four-year-old female survivor

"Rizzuto’s new book is intimate and global, lyrical and clear-eyed, a compelling personal narrative, and an important social document. Here past and present, Hiroshima and 911, interweave to tell a story of unendurable loss and tragedy but also of tenacity, survival, and rebirth."

~ Lauren Kessler, author of Stubborn Twig:
   Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family