There’s a difference between ‘lubricating the wheels’ – helping someone progress on their own path versus taking over and preventing the person from developing in any way for themselves. My Dad had knack of helping where he would tell me, show me the first few steps, and then watch me do the rest of the task, stepping in to advise if necessary, but otherwise letting me get on with it. Even making a mistake or two. I didn’t recognise it at the time – I was too busy making sawdust or pruning the grapes or whatever – but how liberating. For the both of us.

By showing me how to cut a straight line with a handsaw Dad didn’t retain any power or control, he willingly passed that knowledge and power to me. In exchange I believe his mana was increased because his son can now put a (mostly) straight cut through wood. Dad could’ve made the cut himself – it would definitely have been faster, straighter, ‘better’ – but in doing so he (and I) would have been subtly diminished.

How loving. How trusting.

Manifesto
15. Every day make a difference to yourself and others.
18. Every day express love. Some people need to hear it. Most people need to see it. Don’t take it for granted.
38. Every day be brave and give things a go. Use fear to trigger you into action.

I don’t believe there’s more or really any different colours than in any other season, it’s perhaps just because I take a bit more time to notice them. To reflect on the changes and what might be changing in, and for, me. To be grateful for the changes.

Manifesto
05. Every day is now. The present moment.
18. Every day express love. Some people need to hear it. Most people need to see it. Don’t take it for granted.
30. Every day use all your senses. Touch. Smell. Taste. Hear. See.

I’m unsure that anything really changes. To me it seems most people change one kind of slavery for another; without much of a pay-off. It really seems at best people jump off one line to find themselves on the next line (or two) across, and that maybe the only significant change is the momentary breath of fresh air in the new setting. It’s not rejuvenation. Before long, the new ways end up looking a lot like the old ways.

It’s hard to give up old comfortable patterns.

Mostly because it’s easy to grow a ponytail, to get a harley. It’s a lot harder to make inner, deeply personal changes to your heart and mind; to see things in a truly fresh way. True change.

Manifesto
02. Every day is an opportunity for a new beginning.
06. Every day you make choices.
08. Every day choose to bring about change.

I can’t tell whether it is because I’m getting older, and therefore my bones are nearer the surface, but I’m pretending I’m not bored. Or at least not wishing I was somewhere else. The boredom raises in me and presses my flesh into the unyielding concrete tiles. I try to ignore the relentless yammering of some woman off to my side. The noise presses into my ears, my bones crush into the tiles, and boredom wells up like a belch you cannot stifle.

This is the time of school classrooms. My mind eases off in its easy lope, down well trodden paths. I’m not away soaring. I’m not Tom Sawyer on the raft. I’m not building castles in my mind. I’m in the gold – a seamless, edgeless, featureless, glowing-gold sphere. Sound turns down to a buzz.

I breathe in.

I breathe out.

I’m not being polite, I’m simply not there.

The kids know better. They get up. They walk away.

Manifesto
39. Every day trust that there is a bigger picture. You are a part of it even if you may not know what it is.
48. Every day there are things you can’t change. You can change the way you think about them and deal with them.
50. Every day has an ending.

In a moment of drunken bravado, Boris confessed to being the baby in the pram in Sergei Eisenstein’s movie, Battleship Potemkin. After a stunned silence the entire bar burst into laughter – first at the outrageous claim, and second at Boris’s embarrassing political naivety. His colleagues teased and taunted him mercilessly for weeks. His protests about just being a baby, and how his mother had allowed him to be filmed because she had known Eisenstein fell on deaf ears.

Stung by the hurtful comments, Boris’s heart could find no rest in the previous havens of beautiful and elegant structures. To him they had become a kind of blasphemy. As his heart darkened, he found creative inspiration in African termite towers. Thick stucco over brick walls, tiny windows, tiled finishes inside and out. Functional. Standardised. Godless. Man as an insect, a living machine. An inspirational example of collective behaviour. He found favour with the new leadership, and he forgot all that he had ever been.

Manifesto
06. Every day you make choices.
25. Every day your light shines for others to see.
43. Every day accept you will make mistakes. Learn from them. They are opportunities in disguise.

When I was a kid I used to come to Wellington and look up at the big buildings and wonder what it was like from ‘up there’. I still find the view looking up from ‘down here’ fascinating. There are many architectural styles to be found in the CBD. The overall design is anything but a coherent vision of town planning. I love it nevertheless.

I’m inspired to find the little snippets of design – some architect or designer has decided ‘stuff it, let’s have this – or that’. And we find some elegant little piece of applied art almost as an after thought – a tiny window perhaps, or an attractive piece of detailing work. Most of the buildings concerned would have been built when architectural drawings were made by hand – and so the detail work had been deliberate. Sometimes it seems like a private joke and I can image the delight in the designer’s voice as he describes the next subtle piece of work.

Keep looking up – there’s a beauty and an elegance in the functional patterns that surround us.

Manifesto
14. Every day the ordinary can be the extraordinary.
36. Every day be still. Connect to your inner being. Listen and be guided by it.
47. Every day you are responsible.

You know the kind – when your dentist looks in your mouth, hesitates, frowns slightly, looks again, and then sucks air in over her teeth…
When your doctor suddenly gets interested, consults the internet, and then sucks air in over his teeth…
When your mechanic scratches the stubble on his chin and then sucks air in over his teeth…

When the guy who’s buying your car does the whole ‘I have to talk to my manager’ blarney…

You suck air in over your teeth…

And you notice, out of the corner of your mind, that he has a toy shark as a monitor toy…

You can feel that vein pumping in your forehead. The way it used to, in the moments while the school-yard bully was making his slow mind up about whether you were prey or not.

Manifesto
16. Every day looking at the order of things gives you power.
21. Every day seek the support of others. You are not alone.
28. Every day you will be tested.

I’ve been converting our garage into a art studio. It’s already an embassy of creativity, and that’s just in sorting through the clutter, and removing the “handy work” left by the former owners. I’ve learned a number of valuable lessons demolishing the various workbenches and shelving units. The former owner had a two prong approach – use the cheapest, least durable materials available, and then use as many fixing methods as possible, sacrificing strength, practicality, and above all else, beauty, wherever possible.

I have become very focussed on the delights of the well-driven nail, the stainless steel screw, careful measurements, accurate cutting; and above all else, thinking about the project at hand before launching into it. I’ve come to realise that some of the struggles of life have come about from taking short cuts that don’t work out, or using substandard resources. This is not the way to solve a problem or to take advantage of an opportunity. Even if quick and dirty works in the short term, it’s not constructive for your spirit long term.

Instead of putting up with the shabby, wonky shelves or the insect riddled workbenches that draw energy out of our lives I believe it is really worth the effort to throw them out, sweep the floor, and then start from fresh with good materials and apply the best thinking and hand skills possible to the opportunity. Do it once, and do it right.

Manifesto
02. Every day is an opportunity for a new beginning.
06. Every day you make choices.
15. Every day make a difference to yourself and others.

My body was under attack.

For starters there was the constant pain on my left side that started in my back and moved to my stomach. There was the weird feeling that something was crawling under my skin. The itchiness. The super sensitivity of my skin – if anything touched it I felt like I was being zapped by electricity. The tiredness only I couldn’t sleep – I couldn’t get comfortable. About three days later the first spots appeared. I had my suspicions. I hoped I wasn’t right only it turned out I was.

“You have shingles,” said the doctor.

I wanted to scream but I sat there silent. Until a few months ago I knew almost nothing about shingles and in many respects I wish it had stayed that way. My husband was also diagnosed with shingles back in December only his was on his face.

“Did I catch it from my husband?” I asked immediately. I had a need to blame someone.

“No, this is pure co-incidence. You can’t catch shingles from someone else that has it,” responded the doctor.

“Yeah right,” was my thought.

What did I do to allow this sleeping virus to wake-up and flourish in my body?

Fact one: anyone who has had chickenpox has the shingles virus lying dormant in their nerve roots waiting to be activated.

Fact two: the virus remains dormant forever in some people – they are the lucky ones!

Fact three: this virus wakes-up when disease, stress or ageing weakens the immune system. Bingo, two out of three for us. The last 12 months have been incredibly stressful. In many respects I’d be quite happy to file 2011 into a memory file that I don’t return to too often if at all. As for ageing – well, we’re both over 50 so sadly we’re on that downhill slope.

My husband keeps saying to me “shingles is your friend”.  This irritates me. He believes we both ended up with shingles because our bodies were sending us a message – a wake up call of sorts. Our bodies were trying to tell us that they’ve had enough and we need to look after them better – “You need me in good working order and I can’t do this alone. Take better care of me.”

Over the last 10 days my wonderful husband has looked after me above and beyond the call of duty in an attempt to help me on to the path of being well. This is his gift to me and I love him for it. I was down, and even though he still isn’t fully recovered himself, he was there alongside me.

This morning as Lynsey dropped me off as close as possible to the venue where I would be working today I noticed this poster on the outside of the Archives New Zealand building. I looked at it and thought, “That is what Lynsey has been doing- he has been carrying me.” I felt so incredibly blessed.

My husband carries me in so many ways. He loves me unconditionally. He believes in me and my abilities. He encourages me. He is there through the good times and the bad.

Thank you Lynsey for being the extraordinary man that you are. I love you so much.

xoM

 Manifesto
12. Every day love yourself.
21. Every day seek the support of others. You are not alone.
35. Every day focus on what matters to you.

For a while now I have been following Connie Hozvicka (Dirty Footprints Studio) as she has transformed herself from a school art teacher to an Artist – yes, an Artist with a capital A!

Connie is passionate about the ability of art to change lives and she has certainly used it to create the life she wants to be living. Connie oozes “creative juiciness” and her passion is very infectious. I have participated in a number of her online art journalling workshops and have loved each experience and my interactions with her.

Yesterday Connie promoted an upcoming wishBIG ecamp and offered a gift to her readers:

“Just in case you’re feeling lucky…
I’m giving away one free registration to a lucky commenter!

Yep, all you need to do is leave a comment below telling me what your wishBIG is for 2012….and you might be the lucky snowball that wins!”

I am not sure why this invitation attracted my attention. First of all, I don’t believe in wishes (fanciful time wasting says the sceptic in me). Secondly, I have come to believe that there are two types of people in this world – those that are born lucky and those that aren’t. I definitely fall in the latter category. As you can see there is lots of healthy left brain thinking going on here: wishing is a waste of time and is for dreamers, setting goals and taking action is what its all about, dreams can’t possibly come true so why waste time thinking about them … I could go on but I’m sure you get the picture.

Fortunately, I also have a right brain – my wonderful creative and spirited friend that said to me, “Really, is that what you honestly believe? Why don’t you wish? Where’s the harm in giving it go?”

I have a book, The WishingYear by Noelle Oxenhandler, sitting in the rather large book pile by my bed waiting to be read. This book has been there a while. It is in pristine condition – it has not been opened. A part of me thinks, “I bet her wishes come true and do I really want to know about it”. Another part of me thinks, “There might be something in this and maybe I need to explore this more – maybe I need to start wishing.”

Thanks to Connie, I started wishing yesterday. I began by wondering what my big wish for 2012 is. What I desire to happen for me above all else in the coming twelve months.

Here’s what I wrote …

Hi Connie

Thanks for this opportunity. You have an amazingly generous spirit.

Wishing is not something I do very often for myself but I do it very easily in relation to others.

I have convinced myself that wishes come true only for lucky people and I am not one of them. For me luck has never figured into anything, only hard work. It is exactly this thinking and it’s related actions that has led me to the point where I am writing this from bed as I am trying to recuperate from shingles. My body has said I’ve had enough – you will slow down – so in the last 7 days I have had plenty of time to think about what I want to change in my life as I have tried to deal with the endless pain caused by this virus inside my body.

My wishBig for 2012 is that I start honouring and believing in myself and accept that I am enough as I am. I always think I’m not good enough and that I have to prove myself to be worthy of anything and everything. As a result I push myself incredibly hard and take everything I do very, very seriously. I am always putting energy into needing to be more – to improve and develop myself to be the best I can be – and being there for everyone else. However I always forget that I need some of me as well.

I have allowed my day job to control my life. I want to change this situation. At the moment it is a means to an end. It is not my life’s work. It is not how I will be defined on my death bed. I do have dreams for a different future. I get panicked that time is running out and that I need to do it all now. I don’t. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will I be. This is a lifetime’s work and that is why I want to make very day count but not at any cost.

What I want is to love me as I do so unconditionally everyone else. I want to love all of me and make time to honor my physical, spiritual, creative, and intellectual needs. I want to bring balance, laughter and joy back into my life so I can start turning my dreams into reality.

I want to be that girl that allows herself to make a wish with a dandelion in her hand and imagine anything is possible. I want to believe and trust that wishes can come true for me too.

Love Marica

There are numerous other wishes lurking around inside me. They are begging for a voice if they are to have any power to become real.

What do you wish for yourself in 2012?

Manifesto
12. Every day love yourself.
17. Every day look through a new lens.
34. Every day focus on your dreams.