Thinking about Thinking

I have been thinking about thinking

That's a form of Metacognition

I'm thinking now that I think all day

I don't need to go to the beach to think - but it's a serious thinking place

I think that I could do some serious thinking here

Lucky I have plenty of thought storage space

Storage for important thoughts that I might need later.

Are all thoughts important?

They obviously matter

Cats think but do they think about thinking?

Let's not forget about thoughtful dogs

I don't need words to think because I know what I'm thinking already

Knowing about Knowing

That's also Metacognition

Just some of my thoughts on thinking

All images from WeHeartIt

Except the picture of the cat - which belongs to my dad

Hat tip Jenny Juckel

Ripples and Swells the Words of Writing

    I went through a door today. Well, I almost went through a door. My brain saw a door and literally, without thinking, I went through. Almost. That’s what you do with doors. You see a door and you go through the door, unless it is stuck. It was one of those embarrassing moments that usually happen when you’re running into a store and push on a door with a huge lettered sign that says pull. Like a bird mistaking the reflection of the trees in the window for trees I went crashing into the door. And yes, there was an audience, there’s always an audience. Like the tiny bird I just stood there looking at the door. It was a door. Doors open. You go through doors. You go in doors. You go out of doors. Maybe it was the concussion that made me daft but this really bugged me.
    The long strong arm from a production worker who, with one motionless swoop, opened the door cleared my daftness. As I exited the room I warned those I met to be on the alert for the infamous door. They thanked me. Unfortunately I caught a glance of them looking back as the door opened with grace and beauty. Harumfph. I was so not pleased now.
    “What do you see when you write?” was the innocent but teasing question asked of me not long ago. I knew the answer. I had visualized it day after day for more decades than I care to count. “Bread crumbs” was my reply. Writing is my way of leaving bread crumbs for those who come down the path after me. Writing was my prayer, my bread crumbs that would hopefully leave a trail for others. Bread crumbs to warn of danger. Bread crumbs to encourage others to not give up there was water just around the bend. Bread crumbs to let them know they were not alone that others had walked this path and were not far away. My words were bread crumbs.
    Tonight I see a different image. My words are no longer bread crumbs. My words are ripples, little swells in the ocean of life. A water skier can use them to gain speed. A child floating may giggle as the swell tickles its way underneath the raft. Another boat may follow the current left by the swell. A renegade beach ball may be pulled from the shore by the swells. The course they take, the path and current they travel are their own. Our ripples and swells may crash against each other and merge into yet an even bigger ripple and swell. There will also be times when my words, the ripples and swells will lie still or imperceptible beneath the surface. That is ok for that is what swells and ripples do.
    Perhaps it is a concussion but I am left with one final image-why would I leave bread crumbs to a door that I think is stuck? No, I think my words shall be ripples and swells. I pray they will tease, delight, carry and hasten the journey of others or give them reason to pause and just float. Everyone’s path or current will be different than mine, for the path is just that it is every one’s, not mine. And with that, I shall go check out concussions on Web MD and bask in the swells of others. That’s what ripples and swells do. I’ll save the bread crumbs for our lunch on the beach.

note - also posted on my blog

FAITH

'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.' Declares the LORD.

Isaiah 55:8


My eldest son has found reading the Bible a comfort and a life line. He is only 18 years old and is wise beyond his years. He sends me texts every now and then with messages from the Bible, like the one above.

When I first read it I could not understand what it meant. I was having a bad week and I wasn't really in the mood for cryptic puzzles.

That evening, It dawned on me what the verse meant, at least what it meant to me.

We expect a certain outcome or we have certain expectations in life, especially to do with being good or bad.

For example, we expect that if we are a good person, kind, loving, hard working that bad things shouldn't happen to us.

Who ever told us this??

We expect that we should have no problems in life and that if we do then it is God's punishment for something we did, or it is bad luck or a curse or karma.

Who says it is any of the above or anything else anyone has ever said?

'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.'

This verse helped me snap out of the little tight box that I had put myself in regarding what was happening to me in my 'bad' week. It dawned on me that whatever we measure happiness or sadness by is not how God measures it.

We are not meant to understand how God works, only trust and have faith. If you would rather replace God with Source or the Divine, then to me it is all the same (Not that my son would agree.)

In summary, by releasing the need to know the 'Why, is this happening to me?' and trusting that there is a higher meaning to this and seeing your 'problem' with God's mind your life will not necessarily be problem less, but you will never feel alone again.

(POST TAKEN FROM MY BLOG)

Hello, I love you, let me tell you my name

Hello. My name is Kristin and I am a new contributor on Writers Rising (over on the sidebar I'm listed as kbxmas). I'm grateful to have a new venue to share my work and look forward to meeting some of the other writers here and reading what you've posted.

I've lived a hundred places, but Kansas has been my home for the last ten years. I'm a nonprofit professional who works too many hours, a mother of two exceptional kids (what other kind are there?), a sometimes world traveler, a wife, a neglectful housekeeper and a dreamer extraordinaire, and I write around the corners of all of this. My goal is to mother, travel, housekeep, etc, around the corners of my writing. I think that's a reasonable goal.

In my early twenties I developed an all-consuming passion for Australia and spent six months there, traveling and falling in love with the land, one stretch of empty red desert at a time. In my early thirties I moved to an island off the coast of Seattle and lived right next to the Sound. I walked along the water every day and saw seals and orcas and bald eagles and this filled me up. In my early forties I started writing again after a 15-year hiatus and realized I had been a fool to stop. Why do we ever stop doing the things that make us feel alive?

I get a lot of migraines so I spend a quarter of my life hopped up on Vicodin, or so it seems. While this causes me to run into walls and is a serious drain on my PTO, it doesn't seem to hinder my writing. Or maybe it does and I'm just too stoned to know. I've ordered a new head from Amazon but it hasn't arrived yet.

I'm a serious optimist. I really believe anything is possible if you think you deserve it (you do) and are willing to work for it. And by anything, I mean anything within reason, not being an astronaut at age 70 or sprouting wings or willing your boobs to grow six cup sizes. I mean don't sell your dreams short just because 95% of the world does. Believe in yourself and fucking drive one home or you.

If I were an animal I'd be a cat. Not the domestic variety. Something big and wild and a little lazy. If I were a pair of shoes I'd be something comfortable that you could wear hiking or to the market. If I were a body part I'd be a breast (size C). If I were a flower, I wouldn't be, I'd be a tree. If I were a sport I'd be luge. If I could fly, god I would.

I started a blog a few months ago and it has been a joy. I've made so many connections and met so many other writers from around the world and I think I love them all. Blogging makes the world small and accessible. My blog is called Wanderlust and if you want to know what I'm about, here are some of my more popular posts. Go on. Read it. It's better than sex.*  In the meantime I'm going to go check you out.

Lost in Kansas, planet earth

Shameless flag hussy

God hates donuts

My big Australian crush

* Maybe, depending upon how good you are in bed.

365 Lessons-Lesson 46: Dreams Really Do Come True and Those Who are Living Their Dreams are Clearing a Path for YOU!

You've heard it in Pinocchio, "When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are, when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true." Fantasy, fairy land nonsense, right? WRONG! This morning Laura Munson, the woman who wrote the article Those Aren't Fighting Words Dear, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/fashion/02love.html , which sent the comments section of the column Modern Love in the New York Times into a "frenzy," reached out and contacted me via a friend of a friend of a friend. She sent me a long e-mail which eventually led to a long conversation on the phone this morning. After writing 14 unpublished novels and a number of unpublished articles over the course of 20 years, she finally got her break from this article. Her book, which is a available for pre-order, is This is Not the Story You Think it Is: An Unlikely Season of Happiness

I couldn't help but feel my heart sink a little. While it's great to hear the wonderful things happening in the world to so many people, it's human nature to think, "Why hasn't that happened to me?" I also submitted to Modern Love at the advice of my editor, but got a form-letter response telling me that they could not use my article at this time.

All my life I've heard people say words like get real, get a real job, get a real life, get with the program, stop living in your dreams...society feels more comfortable with these words for some reason. Who made it this way? Why do we succumb to the status quo? Every single person we admire in this world, we admire because they lived their dreams...their dreams came true. So what the h*** are we doing? Why do give in..and give up? Why do we let it all go? Why don't we persevere? Why is it that only a few people out there really "make it" or really do have their dreams come true?


I came to realize that we all, individually, call the shots in our life. We decide, no one else does. What you believe is what you choose to believe. PERIOD.

After talking to Laura on the phone this morning, my sinking feeling left me. Laura now seemed like a beacon of light or someone clearing the path for others to live their own dreams. I realized that after years of hard labor, Laura's one-pointed focus and belief in what she was doing paid off. When we see the success of others, we often think that all they had to do to get there was tap their heals together like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and say, "There's no place like home" and Voila, that's it! Not exactly.

My mind shifted even more after realizing that, on the phone this morning, Laura felt like someone I knew all along...someone who was a bit further down the path, but was there to assure me to keep walking; that it was worth the effort.

Lately I feel so fortunate to be connected to SOOO many people who feel this way. Just today a new author on Writers Rising, Angelguided, wrote a piece called Miracles . I couldn't help but feel how timely this was after talking to Laura this morning. I feel like a huge wave or shift is happening. The more we decide to go with our intuition, this force, the more it clears the path for others to go with it too. It's incredible! It's not the work of one person, I honestly and truly believe it is collective. How can you not help but want to get on the boat?

"I'm ALL in," as my husband says, how about you???

MIRACLES

I have learnt an important lesson over the past few days. When you want something to happen and you are pushing and going against the grain, nothing comes your way.

When you release expectation and get into the flow, miracles can happen. You may not even realize it as a miracle, depending on what your perceptions are of miracles.

Miracles can be those amazing situations where through all adversity a positive outcome so amazing happens, which leads you to believe it can only be created by God.

Miracles happen all the time and we pass them by as just a coincidence, or imagination because they are not big or amazing enough to be classed as a miracle.

Notice the miracles around you, start with the dawning of a new day and the sunset at the end of the day. The snow drops, the dew, the wind and the rain. Why do we not see these as miracles?

When my mood dips and I feel alone I do not notice what is around me. The snow is a nuisance, the rain is just wet and the wind messes my hair. I don't care much for the sunrise, other than it is another day dawning full of the same problems. I gladly wait for the sunset as it signals the end of another 'terrible' day.

Amongst all this low feelings something happens. You may not notice it at first, because you are so wrapped up in feeling terrible. Then out of the blue, you receive the e-mail you were waiting for or a friend or even someone on T.V. says something that pulls at your heart strings which stirs something wonderful inside.

You may not correlate the feeling with what was said at first, your friend may not have been consciously aware of it either, but what has just happened is a miracle. A moment in time when you feel connected and not alone.

Of course, this may not be enough to get you out of your low mood, but it may help you to notice all the other miracles around you. You may notice the hues of the sunrise, the beauty of each snowflake, the freshness of the wind.

Miracles are normal occurrences, just because we don't notice them doesn't mean they are not happening!

(This post is found on my blog angelguided)

Introducing...S. Dawn Sievers & Healing Morning

Hello to all my fellow Writers Rising!  My name is Dawn and I am the author of Healing Morning blog, which is my everyday approach to spirituality.  I write about topics that capture my imagination, touch my heart, make me ponder deeply and most importantly inspire me to write.  (Btw, my apologies for the fuzzy quality of the attached photo - I'm working on getting some new photos done and will tweak that in the near future.)

I am, to my very core, a writer.  It is the most enduring trait that I have.  Being very aware of the fact that I suffer from what I call "Low Boredom Threshold", I can state with confidence that it is an impressive feat for one specific trait to remain solid beginning from my earliest childhood years through to current adult years.  Writing is that one constant and I fully expect to continue writing for the rest of my life.  It has been my solace through difficult times, my joy in happy times, my source of income for the past nine years and has brought me full circle in the past 18+ months, right back to joyous expression.

I discovered the genre of blogging in September 2009 during a time period of inner searching, born of the conscious desire to stay useful with writing as I wrestled my way through a stage of transition.  I had no idea that that one small step would culminate in such a rich odyssey of discovery.  I created my personal blog, Healing Morning, and went on to connect with fellow bloggers.  I then discovered that blogging "lives" quite visibly in the world of Facebook and Twitter, so I joined various blogging groups in those formats.

That lead to a partnership with a fellow blogger and the creation of a new Facebook blogging group called Authentic Blogger, and a subsequent creation of a sister blog, The Authentic Blogger, all occurring in December 2009.  The exposure of Healing Morning blog posts there and in other blogging groups connected me with Katherine Jenkins and we began to learn of one anothers' respective blogs.  This past weekend of Valentine's Day 2010, Katherine invited me to become a contributing writer here with Writers Rising. 

I was delighted to accept and very proud of this nod of recognition for my writing and the ideas I present at Healing Morning.  I found the correlation of this invitation happening on Valentine's Day weekend to be rather lovely - I see it as a unique gift that celebrates the love, for me, of writing.  A very apropo virtual Valentine card to me, from Spirit/God/Universe and Miss Katherine, and appreciated more than any gift of flowers or corporeal card.  It is a nod to the thing, the act, the creation of what makes me happiest and defines my Spirit. 

It is perhaps of note to comment that I am a southern writer, raised in East Tennessee, so you might often hear phrasing and southernisms sprinkling throughout my writing.  I find beauty in the unique, lyrical cadence of my southeastern roots, and I celebrate it, quite consciously, in my writing. 

I look forward to becoming an active member of this wonderful community and see that I am in very lofty company.  I already follow many of the blogs featured here and am friends with many of these gifted authors.  I hope that readers here at Writers Rising will find my blog posts to be a source of inspiration, humor, quiet strength, unexpected joyful moments and those indefinable experiences that touch the heart.  That is why I write and what I always strive to achieve with my work.