Happy Genius

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The Happy Genius Hieroglyph that is Danse Russe

American poet William Carlos Williams penned the 1917 poem Danse Russe:

“If I when my wife is sleeping

and the baby and Kathleen

are sleeping

and the sun is a flame-

white disc in silken mists

above shining trees,

“If I in my north room

dance naked, grotesquely

before my mirror

waving my shirt round my head

and singing softly to myself:

I am lonely, lonely.

I was born to be lonely,

I am best so!”

If I admire my arms, my face,

my shoulders, flanks, buttocks

against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not

the happy genius of my household. “

Was the poet a good dancer? Who cares?! He simply danced. Or probably girated and stomped to an unstoppable rhythm.

A man crossing the desert of mid life needs companionship. He must also offer it to himself.

His challenge is not to abandon his creative side even though his focus is the financial demands of now. This refers to the fact there are a few different levels within a man. At daily and devotion levels.

Emotional Agility is the capacity to synthesize daily and devotion emotion. In other words building your life so that your professional life and your family life and your internal life all feed each other.

You make money to provide for your family. In that way your professional success facilitates family satisfaction.

Now to point a little deeper. When you get the time you can create a space for you to generate into your soul life. This can be, instead of listening to your music/podcast/radio in the car you appreciate the moment. It might sound strange to appreciate sitting in traffic on your way to a job with minimal satisfaction. But that is the challenge. To generate the appreciation from a devotional view of embracing middle age even though it seems to not have much in it for your soul.

You determine what gets your focus. Your mind determines what that moment upholds.

Carpe Diem Danse

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Danse Russe as Carpe Diem.

This writing is part of a series that highlights the spirit of the poem Danse Russe by American dentist/poet William Carlos Williams: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46483/danse-russe

Danse Russe is you answering even though you don’t know what the question is.

The question could be what are you becoming; what is this powerful undercurrent I feel??

Your answer is weird. Because you are weird. You don’t look weird but you feel, not weird, but not you.

Seize the day, as they say. Or if that is too hackneyed, let yourself be embraced by the moment. The ‘moment’ could be petitioning an expression of your yearning to blend with its beauty.

So your danse is your way of shaking off the longing in your marriage. Your Danse Russe is your spontaneity in the life stage of now. It is the versatile/vulnerable/volatile you. It’s you growing up, keeping up, wising up.

Your danse is a conversation between the harmony of the moment and your symphony in response. They, harmony and symphony, joke and argue; they appreciate and elevate your danse into something, that while still true to your Middle Aged flow, won’t let you hurt yourself.

MAAS – Man As A Service

MAAS – man as a service.

We know the term – SaaS referring to Software As A Service. This means as long as there is connection to the cloud, and subscription fee paid, we have access to tools and new information. The idea is that SaaS fosters flow.

Here we apply that principle to a man.

MAAS is a man in service to his qualities and what they represent – the collective man. As opposed to being in service to anyone in particular or their needs, your service is a reflection of what you want to become and how you are capable of achieving that. Your service is your legacy

BELIEFS

Your service is powered by your Big B Belief about men and small b beliefs about yourself as a man. It requires finesse to seek out the ways to connect your beliefs with your actions in daily life.

CASCADE

The task is to make a cascade of qualities from the collective man – to you the unique man – into others – as a service. This flow gives expression to your qualities like willingness, focus, creativity and reliability. When you can use your skills to communicate your qualities you generate satisfaction in yourself.

As you radiate belief, agility and resourceful other men will admire you whether they say it or not. That is the challenge – to have admiration of the unique man each of us is flowing between men.

RADIANCE

Part of that challenge for each of us is to CLEAN – BALANCE AND CHARGE our energy to liberate our radiance.

CLEAN - This process lightens the emotional load of our recent and accumulated history. Cleaning, whether it be your mind, your inbox or your home helps us be emotionally agile in our response to life. This entails forgiveness and communication of vision.

BALANCE is to take responsibility for one’s thoughts and actions and connect them to your intentions. This is the flip-side of forgiveness when we resist blame and guilt.

CHARGE is to power your day with the truth of the light of the moment. That power can be found in being of service to something greater than yourself.

I ADMIRE YOU

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TASK FOR THE YEAR 2024 –

Say to a man in your life ‘I admire you.’

Tell him why.

And be quiet.

Let it be so.

See what happens.

Before too long say it to another man.

Bark Code – Cedar

Bark Code

Tree bark is a quiet, noble facade that is the skin of a whole world underneath.

Like bark, our skin, hair, eyes indicate something about our genes and culture but little about our desire, insight, talents and connection.

What tree do you identify with and why? What tree traits do you feel you could integrate into your perceptions?

Can you use the Bark Code as a form of appreciation for the complexity and harmony each life carries. Also as a way to understand the life long dance of ‘unique and universal’.

Cedar

A cup of cedar tea is as soft as it is true. It is a comforting vehicle of vitamin C that the tree shares in and among its other benefits. Known to be anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, and helpful to ease pneumonia or bronchitis.

Cedar is a kaleidoscope of expressions of strength and endurance and wellbeing. It exudes a clean, welcoming fragrance of assurance and vision. When used for smudging it adds a light sweetness to the air while eliminating negative energies. It was believed that the cedar gave off a certain power that allowed people to live eternally and manifest signs of wisdom and intelligence. The trees with a reddish hue often live from 100-300 years.

The bark is strips of thin hairy coating that allow the porous inner wood to breathe and absorb. Yet this bark is very versatile for weaving baskets or used in napkins, mats and even clothing.

The cedar can grow in loose moist earth and is not itself a heavy wood. Its fibrous, shallow root system – growing as deep as it does laterally – is approximately 25 feet for both.

Not damaged by severe changes in weather conditions it actually can remain intact even when under water for extended periods.

Bark Code – The Weeping Willow

The Bark Code is a way to use our connection with nature not only as a way to recharge for a new day but also to understand our nature as well.

Tree bark is a quiet, noble facade that is the skin of a whole world underneath.

Bark is the tree’s Art of War. The Art of War is a strategy to facilitate peace, whether personal, tribal, flora or fauna. The bark lead us to learn much about the tree inside when we slow down and take a peek into its world.

Like bark of a tree, our skin, hair, eyes indicate something about our genes and culture but little about our desire, insight, talents and connection. The Bark Code is a way to strengthen our appreciation for the many wonders of nature while opening up the avenues of perception about ourselves.

What tree do you identify with? What tree traits do you feel you could integrate into your perceptions?

Can you use The Bark Code as a form of appreciation for the complexity and harmony each life carries?

THE WEEPING WILLOW –

The weeping willow is a sweeping, weeping dramatic fountain of yellow branches and slender leaves. Like the Grand Canyon is to the Mojave and Sonoran deserts so are the ridges on the trunk of an old, graceful willow. This bark has been used for millennia to ease headache, back pain and inflammation.

A willow is willing. It is one of the first trees to sprout leaves in the spring that help it grow 4 feet a year as a young tree.

While the branches are weak and the tree susceptible to insect plagues the roots are tough, tenacious and resourceful to secure minerals for life.

In full summer they provide a cool canopy that seems to rain shade where you can sit, dream and bathe within their umbrage.

As a material Willow is a light weight hardwood with a trait of shock resistance but at the same time not too strong. In symbology willows represent the capacity to handle deep and difficult emotions. Their roots aggressively search out water which makes sense because they thrive close to rivers. Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld and said to be the power behind the flow and floods of the Nile, was found/born in a clump of willows on the river bank.

Detour 2024

Detour 2024

We apologize for the inconvenience however next year the route to the usual is not currently available. For the meantime please follow the signs.

On this new route you will see the guy holding the sign that says go slow. Then there will be another person holding a sign that says stop. Then a sign will direct you down a bumpy road.

None of this was part of your plan. So which is stronger- Your frustration or your flexibility?

The route is different than you expected but still valid because it gets you from A to B. However on this route you also travel through C, D, ….X,Y, Z. Maybe in F you found Forgiveness. In I did you feel connected to your Instinct. Possibly in P exists new Perceptions.

On the journey outside of your comfort zone you still had roadside assistance available at every moment whether it was the person sitting in the passenger seat or sleeping in the back seat or waiting for you to arrive safely. Good to know.

Along the way when you stop to stretch your legs in the beautiful roadside park you catch a glimpse of your new best friend in the mirror.

Offer Peace: Part of the OPEN Heart Approach

Offer Peace

Offer Peace is the twin of Organize Power.

Is the yawing aspect for your OPEN Heart.

OPEN here is an acronym:

Offer Peace – Elevate Next

Offer Peace – Engage Now

Offer Peace- Enter New

What can this OPEN cause in your y life?

The light of the truth and the truth of the light. Here is how.

Curate your lonely with your oration. Oration is not so much a speaking skill as a finesse with force. The force of nature in the moment. Being able to feel it and respond to it while being true to it and you. Different? Difficult? Possible? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Oration is self written connection prayer of the moment. With this kind of tool you can go into the unknown of you and beyond. Which looks like it makes you an oracle. Perhaps for a moment. Or longer.

Nature offers peace – Monday to Friday and on weekends and holidays.

Offering Peace is one of your personal arts of ‘less is more’. Less across the board in terms of words, thoughts, actions, things, movements, needs, wants, selfies, requirements, rules and exceptions. Less obstruction to flow can provoke peace.

Peace is a co-conspirator with flow. The flow of energy through you and onto its next stage. Peace is you participating in the flow as the growing force you are.

The flow benefits from your presence and likewise you benefit from its flowing presence according to how you have aligned your mind.

When you can;

Recognize flow in nature to make yourself more akin to it. There is flow everywhere – all the time:

In the park on the corner

In the bark of a tree.

In the bloom of a flower.

In the water of a creek.

In the rays of the sun.

In the breeze of the wind.

In the blood of your heart.

In the thoughts of your mind.

In the emotion of your soul.

In the moment.

In the moment lives forgiveness for the past, perception about what to do now and a seeking of the light forward.

Be-Longing One of the Many Arts of The Soul.

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Synesthesia is a condition where people who have it say they can hear colour. In other words you say ‘blue’ and they see it in their mind. It affects approximately 3% of the population but jumps to around 20% in the artistic community.

Your soul hears longing. 100% of the population has a soul.

In what direction is your longing pointed? In reverse towards the past? How about longing for a fictitious future; Or perhaps of being urged to purpose.

Can you long for the present?

Can you long for something for someone else. Can you long for people to reach an enlightened understanding of the planet?

Missing a loved one hurts. While it is actually a good indication of your emotional agility it is not the same dynamic as longing.

Longing means you resist running into the arms of your ego when you encounter a moment of local truth. It means you own the feeling of secondary loneliness. Longing is a petition for transformation into a ‘new you’. Longing isn’t saying something is wrong. It says you can sense there is more to the human experience. And you are right.

Definitely longing can make you feel lonely. Yes it requires you to step into the unknown. As a result you can feel like you are lost.

Again that can be a good sign because pioneering the New You is a unique event. This is the experience of engaging your soul in its longing for your growth. Yes your soul longs for your well being and continuance. It might seem silly, and deliver only confusion. Or it might be a plasma of elevation that enables you to make some sense of what you feel.

When we are not frightened by the unknown of ourselves and organize our mind for perception we can experience longing. In daily life this involves applying your scared and flawed ‘you’ to the opportunity of welcoming a better connected ‘you’ that exudes belonging in individual meaning, local community and human purpose.

Belong

Belonging

Longing

So be-longing! Here, there, everywhere. It looks good on you.

3 – Rebranding Your Climate Crisis: The Graceful Scream

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What do you call the art of adhering to the threads of truth as we step into the unknown?

It’s a multiple choice question. There are 9 billion choices. Each person has their art of adherence to the truth they can reach in the moment.

There are also roles or professions that focus their mind on their version of the truth. Or you may pay those people to get you back on track. Be they psychologists, therapists, comedians, managers or your spouse. And how exactly do you pay your spouse?

The planet also is a beautiful resource for rising out of the static,stress and fog of today – to see a few threads of truth dangling above your head – and to reach up.

So what do you call that when you reach for the threads and listen to what they are connected to?

In English we might call it instinct. Like when you go into the unknown of marriage (why is marriage such an unknown?) with space in your heart for where your bruised ego can rest up and try again. It’s that art of creating space so that the light of the people, place and moment can shine on each other.

The supposed climate crisis is a misnomer. We are living in a 300 year pandemic of lack of agility. Emotional Agility. The kind of agility that hosts the light of place, people and moment. It is not a new story. It is not about the planet. It is drama about you and me with threadbare connections to our relationships with the planet, each other and whatever that makes possible.

Patting ourselves on the back that we are saving the planet is an insult to the fact that the planet is alive and adhering to its own trajectory of growth. That trajectory, while inclusive of the human experience, is not dependent upon it. Meaning that even though we have literally shit -the-bed when it comes to the planet/human relationship the planet will still uphold its purpose.

We can too. With Emotional Agility that fosters connecting what we do in daily life with something beyond retirement. Something that petitions us to be of service to the ‘big three’ all at once: people, place and moment. The planet does it gracefully, constantly and reliably.

2-Rebranding Your Climate Crisis: It is actually a Convenience Crisis

If we take a step back from the headlines no matter where your research, beliefs and opinions land in the climate debate, there may be some insights or perceptions to share.

We are responsible for our actions and we are equally accountable for what we don’t do in the moment.

We as a people have not oriented our religions, education and businesses towards appreciating the capacity of the human. University was formed around the idea of just that: learning the ways of the universe and how we can participate in it. Religion is based on the natural urge to connect higher and the belief that we can do it in community.

Businesses like Big Tech have the finesse and wherewithal to get some momentum going towards human development but it won’t likely happen because our sense of service is dwarfed by our need for status.

So it is up to you and me.

Here we go.

The pollution we generate dirties the air, water and soil of the planet. The residue of these eyes-wide-open ignorances will fester for centuries and probably be filtered out by the planet.

War, however destroys the integrity of man made and naturally developed places it decimates. War with its military industry, is run by many of the same cohort who run big pharma: the rich. Nothing wrong with rich. But, wealth that costs the future is overpriced. That is the cost of war, in a human and planetary sense. So why does it continue? Power. Because we can’t agree on who should have the power. Power regarding people, resources, decision making or how much power that person with the power should have.

Thus we limit perception because if we open up to others and their ideas and initiatives they might be more charismatic and people will follow their leadership and buy their products.

Perception is not a program or campaign. It is what happens when we allow ourselves to see the light of day illuminating the trajectories of flora, fauna, the earth and humans.

Perception is what Rachel Carson had that materialized in her 1962 book Silent Spring. Carson could see the future. She said pesticides are very harmful. She said show some respect. Be responsible for your actions. The point was not to save the planet.

The point is for us to find the way , the reasons, the level of personal development to connect our individual purpose to the greater purpose of human. Whatever that is. And possibly parallel individual/human purpose with planetary purpose. Whatever that is.

Yet only a weak light gets shone on purpose because society demands convenience. That is a problem. Sorry – it’s a crisis. Just look at Chat GPT. Despite the fact that it can potentially lead to many lost jobs and experts fear it’s misuse, we love it. It gets stuff done for you super quick. Can you spell convenience.

Convenience is not a purpose. It is a benefit or a luxury. We are addicted to the convenience of our cell phones. Along the way have made the whole planet a safe injection site yet somehow rendered this beautiful site unsafe. And we just toss away the needle after posting a selfie.

It is vital to know there is no room for despair. The known associates of purpose that can resist our addiction to conveniences are: belief, humility, service and curiosity. If you want, find a way to inject the moment with your version of these human qualities.

Planet earth loves curiosity.

Rebranding Your Climate Crisis

Rebranding Your Climate Crisis 3 of 3.

It’s yours because the planet is not in crisis. The planet is changing based on its development trajectory. But that has little or nothing to do with the fact that we are very sloppy houseguests. Yes the planet has to adapt to our collective mess, but why is that a crisis?

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This is the third article in the miniseries addressing our mislabeling of the state of the relationship between pesky humans and resilient planet. The second article coming next (it’s like Star Wars with the sequel before the prequel) provides some ideas/inspiration about how we can be a drop in the waterfall of renewal. The third article refers more directly with the power pack of purpose that runs throughout all three.

—-

If you couldn’t call it a climate crisis, what would you call it? You can’t call it a climate emergency either because it’s not.

The degree of degradation of the planet has nothing to do with the climate and everything to do with our historical laziness. So let’s call it what it is: It is receiving the wisdom of the natural world and cherry picking lessons for profit. The pharmaceutical industry is brilliant at this. Big Pharma and the other usual suspects like universities and petroleum companies are in cahoots with known associates: you and me.

For example you take a flight that burns jet fuel to go on vacation so you can relax or simply ignore your reality for 7 nights and 8 days. This reason for your vacation does not have the leverage to reach up to the level of a purpose. Wisdom supports development at the level of purpose. Business could actually participate in this dynamic if we wanted it to.

Where can we find purpose and how will we recognize it when we do? And can I take a flight to search for it?

Sure take a flight. And pay attention to the planet as you fly, when you land and when you leave. And while you are there live with demonstrable appreciation for the planet. Not so much the kind of recycling your plastic caffe latte cup. That’s cheap justification.

Rather demonstrate to the planet via your belief in the known associates of your soul. How? When the crowd says yes, try saying no. When the crowd says one more ask about one less. When the crowd needs to be right try resisting argument back and forth and look to elevate the topics you want to think about. The crowd, by the way can be your partner or the internet, your workplace or your industry or your religion.

So there you are on the flight to your vacation and if you and the guy beside you did the homework to elevate your awareness about human purpose what would happen? Could it grow a momentum of decision makers whose value for the human instinct is more powerful than greed?

The Choreography of Your Danse Russe

American poet William Carlos Williams penned the 1917 poem Danse Russe:

“If I when my wife is sleeping

and the baby and Kathleen

are sleeping

and the sun is a flame-

white disc in silken mists

above shining trees,

“If I in my north room

dance naked, grotesquely

before my mirror

waving my shirt round my head

and singing softly to myself:

I am lonely, lonely.

I was born to be lonely,

I am best so!”

If I admire my arms, my face,

my shoulders, flanks, buttocks

against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not

the happy genius of my household?”

Like Williams’ Danse Russe your version of Danse Russe is the choreography of belief. Which changes in the moment based on the confluence of the energies of people and intentions, place and activity.

Belief can be your BIG BELIEF or small belief regarding a man. BIG Belief is what you think about the archetypical man, old school Aristotle and Greek wrestling man. Big belief is about the concept itself as it applies equally everywhere. Big belief man is what you aspire to and wish for your companions.

Small belief is how you believe in you as a man. How you feel when you look in the mirror at your body, posture, expression, skin and the look in your eyes. It is how you measure up to big belief. Your DR is a celebration of both what you want to become as a man and where you are now. Regardless of the gap between those two the dance is authentic and courageous, raw and beautiful.

Your DR is a sacred dance. It is a marionette show of you responding to a mid life morass of threads of responsibility. It breathes into the intense depth of how you feel about some of those roles. It is the illustration of how those feelings are beyond the reach of your vocabulary.

That is why your dance is so important. Because it offers you a compass where there is no map. The compass is always magnetized towards big belief and you orient the dial to determine the direction to point your small belief.

That dance is naked – like the poet. Or it is on the ice rink for Thursday night hockey. It is at the bbq for that family get together. It is thinking about starting your own business, and then closing that business after it not taking off.

It is of being the bridge for the energy between big belief and small belief. It is putting your best man forward, as powerful or pathetic as he may feel. The world loves a man who believes in himself.

Your Ego Strategy

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You want to attract interesting people and good times. You also want to avoid the people who specialize in diminishing the opportunity for growth in daily life.

That is why it is advisable to develop your own Ego Strategy. An Ego Strategy has two main components: Ego and My Best Ego or MBE.

Your ego is what you use to process daily life. MBE is what you use to grow as a person.

When you are dealing in ego everything is either good or bad, for you or against you according to how you feel. The ego will easily find a reason to be a victim or invea justification to shift the responsibility for how you feel to someone else. It can be dizzying.

We all have practice in these mini manipulations.

Some of us are experts in pettiness whereas those who are pulled to the light of a situation have less patience for being used by someone’s lack of personal development.

Even when your intention: is to engage your soul, is to seek how to grow as a human, is to offer others companionship and peace, you still have to deal with the ego; yours and those around you.

At the same time realize that the ego is what we must use to demand respect at home, work and in any relationship. Like most things, when the ego is applied wisely it is very useful.

Parallel that with the MBE that you assemble with the qualities you want. This ensures you give and receive respect. Investing in MBE elevates above the personal into the tribal because we all have access to human qualities.

These qualities are renewable and sustainable and friendly energies to you, others and the planet. Qualities like: compassion, belief, encouragement and flexibility.

This implies you want to pursue something bigger than yourself.

Here is an effective, if arbitrary, way to differentiate between ego and MBE: ego can be said to be based in your personal feelings about how you feel while MBE is based in your emotion for what you want and what you want connects to.

So, do you know what qualities you want to offer others and seek in your relationships?

A Spectrum of Freedom

Within a layer of life wisdom there is available understanding about the spectrum of freedom.

For some of us it is a tool to find ways to refine how we elevate our learning about personal development. To others it means to justify how they feel about how their point of view is received by others.

And there are many expressions of freedom in between refinement and justification. For example there is the relieving freedom of forgiveness that releases us from the yoke of guilt and blame.

Let’s consider that freedom is known as: the sharing with others, or not, of your desire to grow with both of these two intentions (to share or not) supporting mutual benefit.

That being said:

If you have no option to share, or not, you find yourself in a vacuum of freedom. Since nature abhors a vacuum it can easily get filled with loneliness at best and more likely bitterness.

If there is no benefit to others of your ideas, words and actions or how you share them then freedom has been vapourized. Aka bullying.

If you have no desire to update your beliefs based on your participation in growing, you probably have replaced your freedom with your cell phone.

If you feel you have to limit your urge to share your instinct about growth and support you are hanging out with the wrong crowd.

Freedom is powered by understanding. Understanding is powered by having something better to do that limit the freedom of yourself or the person next to you.

Freedom is you resisting distraction to insist on adhering to your trajectory that enables the power of perception to persist in its connection with you.