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4 Ways to Cultivate Creativity This Holiday Season

4 ways to cultivate creativity this holiday season

In the craziness of the holiday season, it can be challenging to cultivate personal creativity—but when we think of creativity in terms of a gift, our hearts open to great and beautiful possibilities. Here are four ways you can cultivate creativity this holiday season. 

Write a series of haiku you can print on paper, ceramics, cloth or food

Spend some time reading and reminding yourself of the art of haiku. Practice writing a few of your own on paper first. Make it a ritual; bring presence and mindfulness and reflect on the immediacy of your experience here and now—and maybe touch of some sentiments around the holidays.

Transfer your haiku to a holiday ornament you can hang from a tree or. . .

Have fun with this practice! Invite your friends and family members to engage in this practice and have fun exploring different ways you can share your haiku on an ornament.

Write a haiku you can eat

Haiku holiday cookies anyone? Use icing as your ink. Explore different ways you might “write” your haiku using food.

Haiku writing with objects and documented in photographs

You can create your haiku with sticks, string, stones, sand, any material you want, and then document your poem by photographing it. Your last step is to create it so that you can give it away as a gift!

Happy holidays! 

Albert Flynn DeSilver is an internationally published poet, memoirist, novelist, speaker, and workshop leader. He served as Marin County’s first Poet Laureate from 2008–2010, and his work has appeared in more than 100 literary journals worldwide, including ZYZZYVA, New American Writing, and Exquisite Corpse. Albert is the author of Writing as a Path to AwakeningBeamish Boy: A Memoir, Letters to Early Street, and Walking Tooth & Cloud. He has taught workshops at The Esalen Institute, The Omega Institute, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and literary conferences nationally. visit albertflynndesilver.com.

Happy Holidays from Sounds True

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”

—Meister Eckhart 

I believe that if people from all of the different wisdom traditions gathered together and were asked to agree on one focus for a special day of reflection, “giving thanks” would be somewhere at the top of the list. 

Gratitude changes us. Instead of looking at what’s wrong, we turn our hearts for a moment to what’s right. And there are so many things that are right. 

For example, the appreciation of one complete breath (as corny as it sounds, whenever I turn my mind to gratitude, this is the first place I start)—feeling the fluttery exhilaration of the inhale, the excitement at the top of the inhale, the relaxation of a full and deep exhale, and then the interesting open space that awaits when our exhale is complete (you can tell I feel grateful for breathing). 

And then there is the feeling of air on our skin, and the faces of the people we love, and the beauty of trees and the natural world … and we can each go on and on and on and on. 

And let’s do that! Let’s go on and on and on and on about all of the ways that we appreciate what is right and beautiful in this moment (and if you’re at all like me, with a tendency to focus on problem-solving, this might not be your usual perspective). 

And if you do go on and on and on and appreciate the beauty that is right here, you probably won’t need science to tell you that you have shifted the neural pathways in your brain (although scientific studies will certainly confirm that)—you can feel the immediate shift.

As I write this, I feel appreciative of so many beautiful “presences” in my life, including the presence of YOU. I am grateful that you read these posts, that you feel in some way connected to Sounds True, that you are interested in personal transformation, in being wholehearted and of benefit to others. I am grateful that, even though it is through this weird form of a mass communication from me to you, we are connected. 

At Sounds True, we are grateful to the entire ecosystem of which we are a part: to our authors, to the ideas themselves, to our vendors and manufacturers, to the buildings that house us, to the natural world, and to future generations. 

And most of all, we are grateful to you, the individual person who enjoys and derives benefit from the learning programs we create. And we want to make sure we are meeting you “where you are at” and that our programs are accessible and you feel encouraged to explore and learn from different teachers. Like most companies, our deepest discounts of the year are available between now and the end of December, and I want you to know about this, if you are interested. To learn more about these special offers, just click here

Gratitude creates a circle of appreciation. When we express our gratitude, the recipient feels it, lights up, and appreciates our existence in return. I love being in a virtuous circle of appreciation with you. 

 

With love and a grateful heart, 

Tami Simon

Founder and publisher,

Sounds True

 

 

P.S. Once again, our deepest discounts of the year are now available. Please click here to learn more.

November New Releases and Giveaway

NOVEMBER NEW RELEASES

 

 

The Integrity Advantage by Kelly Kosow

Are you ready to open up to new levels of self-trust and self-love, to get where you want to go?

You vowed to speak up at work, and then sat silent in the meeting yet again.

You told yourself “this time the diet is going to stick,” only to watch the scale inching up.

You felt that something just wasn’t right about someone that—until you learned the hard way that your instincts were right.

“Every time you bite your tongue,” teaches Kelley Kosow, “you swallow your integrity.”

Before Kelley Kosow was a renowned life coach and CEO, she constantly second-guessed herself, let her “to-do” lists and others steer her dreams and passions, and played it “small and safe.”

Inspired by the groundbreaking principles of her renowned mentor Debbie Ford, who hand-picked Kelley to be her successor, The Integrity Advantage is Kelley’s step-by-step guide for facing the fear, shame, and false beliefs that cause us to lose our way.

Through life-changing insights, true stories, and proven strategies, this book will show you how to live on your own terms—according to you—from the inside out.

 

Daring to Rest by Karen Brody

As modern women, we’re taught that we can do it all, have it all, and be it all. While this freedom is beautiful, it’s also exhausting. Being a “worn-out woman” is now so common that we think feeling tired all the time is normal. According to Karen Brody, feeling this exhausted is not normal—and it’s holding us back. In Daring to Rest, Brody comes to the rescue with a 40-day program to help you reclaim rest and access your most powerful, authentic self through yoga nidra, a meditative practice that guides you into one of the deepest states of relaxation imaginable.

It’s time to lie down and begin the journey to waking up

 

 

 

 

Breathe and Be by Anna Emilia Laitinen and Kate Coombs

Teaching mindfulness helps kids learn to stay calm, regulate their emotions, and appreciate the world around them. With Breathe and Be, author Kate Coombs and illustrator Anna Emilia Laitinen team up to present a book of poetry and art for young readers to make mindfulness easy, natural, and beautiful. Here is a book sure to delight parents and kids alike, blending lovingly illustrated nature imagery with elegant verse about living with awareness and inner peace.

 

 

 

 

Leopard Warrior by John Lockley

A Teaching Memoir That Crosses the Barriers Between Worlds

A shaman is one who has learned to move between two worlds: our physical reality and the realm of spirits. For John Lockley, shamanic training also meant learning to cross the immense divide of race and culture in South Africa.

As a medic drafted into the South African military in 1990, John Lockley had a powerful dream. “Even though I am a white man of Irish and English descent, I knew in my bones that I had received my calling to become a sangoma, a traditional South African shaman,” John writes. “I felt blessed by the ancient spirit of Africa, and I knew that I had started on a journey filled with magic and danger.” His path took him from the hills of South Korea, where he trained as a student under Zen Master Su Bong, to the rural African landscape of the Eastern Cape and the world of the sangoma mystic healers, where he found his teacher in the medicine woman called MaMngwev

 

 

Things That Join the Sea and the Sky by Mark Nepo

A Reader for Navigating the Depths of Our Lives

The Universe holds us and tosses us about, only to hold us again. With Things That Join the Sea and the Sky, Mark Nepo brings us a compelling treasury of short prose reflections to turn to when struggling to keep our heads above water, and to breathe into all of our sorrows and joys.

Inspired by his own journal writing across 15 years, this book shares with us some of Mark’s most personal work. Many passages arise from accounts of his own life events—moments of “sinking and being lifted”—and the insights they yielded. Through these passages, we’re encouraged to navigate our own currents of sea and sky, and to discover something fundamental yet elusive: How, simply, to be here.

To be enjoyed in many ways—individually, by topic, or as an unfolding sequence—Things That Join the Sea and the Sky presents 145 contemplations gathered into 17 themes, each intended to illuminate specific situations.

 

 

                NOVEMBER GIVEAWAY

 

WIN OUR NEW RELEASE BUNDLE:The Integrity Advantage, Daring to Rest, Breathe and Be, Leopard Warrior, and Things That Join the Sea and the Sky

TO ENTER: Simply reply in the comments with why you’d like to win!

Waking Up and Turning On

Hello dear one,

 

I suspect you might agree with me that the world has gone stark, raving, totally loony tunes; round the bend; nutty as a fruitcake; not in its right mind; dangerously and absolutely mad—especially in the ways it views women, girls, and the “feminine.”

This insanity compels most of us to hide away and push down parts of ourselves in order to feel lovable, valuable, or be taken seriously.

Which doesn’t work, of course and only ensures we remain unfulfilled, miserable, and at war with ourselves.

But as I’ve discovered—working in depth with women over the past 14 years as a coach, teacher, and mentor (and burning in the fire of my own medicine, of course)—we’ve got it absolutely inside out and backwards.

It turns out that your confidence and joy are actually buried in the very parts you have disowned—that you have literally been sitting on your true power this whole time.

And that even when you feel you have lost your way, there is a path to the woman you are aching to become.

This is the path of Feminine Genius.

  • Learn to trust (and eventually love) the parts of you that you previously warred against
  • Embrace your intuition, sexuality, emotions, desires, and cycles for enormous effectiveness and fulfillment
  • Meet your Oracle, the divine, infallible wisdom of your body—and discover why I affectionately call
    it the Oracle Between Your Thighs
  • Navigate your “dark” and work with painful, difficult experiences in healthy ways
  • Brighten your everyday with hands-on practices
  • Tap into your inner knowing so you can stop second-guessing yourself and get clear about your next steps
  • Explore the history, physics, theology, and biology of a universe built for harmony between “masculine” and “feminine”
  • Look in the mirror and see the face of the Goddess gazing back at you

In a world that might tell you ten thousand times a day how you are deficient and wrong, Feminine Genius will remind you that you are just right.

I am honored (and tail-wagging-ly happy) to invite you to dive into my new book, Feminine Genius: The Provocative Path to Waking Up and Turning On the Wisdom of Being a Woman.

 

I’ll see you inside,

LiYana

P.S. Come visit liyanasilver.com/newbook, where you can get bonus training with me when you order the book: a masterclass on finding your Oracle to source your clarity, deepen your confidence, and inspire your next moves. You’ll also receive your very own Book Club Kit to support you to journey through the book in a group and practice getting lit off of other women’s brilliance.  I’ll see you there!

Defiant

By Janine Shepherd

I have spent most of my life trying to hide the extent of my disability. By sharing my story in Defiant, at long last, it feels like I have ‘come out’ as a spinal patient and it is liberating. I now embrace the word ‘disability’ with pride as I consider how far I have come and what I have achieved since my accident.

I spent almost six months in the spinal ward after a near fatal accident in 1986 left me with life-threatening injuries, including multiple fractures to my neck and back. I still remember the day my father drove me out of the hospital gates, my wheelchair in the back of the car, my emaciated body wrapped in a full plaster body cast to protect my newly repaired back. Life as I knew it would never be the same. In many ways I was fortunate, and in other ways, not so.

Although I was initially told that it was unlikely I would walk again, or have children, or do the things I had done before in my days as an elite athlete, I was determined to defy the grim prognosis. I would eventually go on to learn to walk again, albeit with a limping gait that would lead to many other complications.

My remarkable recovery from wheelchair bound to walking paraplegic was a combined effort on the part of many caregivers. And the great lesson I’m privileged to share with you, in my new memoir, is that I’ve learned that I’m not my body and you, dear reader, aren’t yours.

Empathy, resonance, and the mysterious dance of lover ...

On my flight from Denver to Oahu yesterday, I sat next to a lovely couple who must have been in their early to mid 70s. I was struck by how attuned they were to one another – the slightest cue from one was met by the other and responded to. I could literally feel in my body that they each felt fully contacted by the other, while from time to time they would go silent, return to their own individual activities, infusing the environment between them with a warm, tender space. They remained connected, but separate simultaneously – and would meet each other’s glance from time to time as if to assure the other that all was well in the world. No words needed. It was as if I could feel their mirror neurons coming online together, empathically in resonance with one another, tuned into just what was needed in a given moment.

For some reason their dance, their play, their love… it really touched me, so much so that I actually found myself crying. I didn’t want to make a scene or make them uncomfortable so kept to myself as much as I could (I know, those that know me, it’s not like me to ‘not make a scene’ or refrain from ‘making others uncomfortable,’ especially when it comes to tears, love, vulnerability, and falling apart. I really was trying to behave; it was only 45 minutes into a long flight after all).

It was then that they pulled out their video player and were going to watch a movie together. I was curious how they would be able to remain connected and do this as there was only one headphone jack on their iPad. Would they alternate? Knowing them (as I had for about 20 minutes now), I was sure one would just sacrifice the sound for the other, and they’d switch periodically. Before I realized exactly what was going on, the gentleman pulled out a Y-shaped thingy which allowed them to both plug their headphones in at once. I lost it. It was so perfect – and so them. Just more attunement and connection, this time taking shape as some weird looking modern electronic device. The tears flowed even more in reveling at their sweet connection.

They finally glanced over at me, my intention to not create a scene lost to the crushing power of love that flows between two people. They both just smiled at me and the man patted me on the shoulder, his eyes near bursting into tears himself. We all just shared a moment together, outside all time and space, with me so grateful that they allowed me into their sacred world for just a moment, and into the mystery of lover and beloved as it unfolds here, into eternity.

Postscript: I just shared this post with them (couldn’t help myself). Now the three of us are just sort of silently weeping together, holding hands… as we descend into Waikiki… three new friends, held by the beloved and her mysterious ways, and the sweetness of a Hawaiian sunset. I feel quite confident I could die now. To know even one sliver of this love… I’ve been given so much more than enough.

elderlycouple

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