It’s energy.

We only have so much energy to spend in a day. We can choose how we spend our day(s) and are rewarded by our expenditure of energy with another form of energy.

Money is just a “frozen” form of energy.

It becomes unfrozen as soon as we spend it. I do my job, help others – and others do their job and help me. There is no way I’d be able to have the time to learn and do everything in my short lifespan – so it’s amazingly great that everyone has different interests, skills and talents to share with each other.

I’d love to see a world where we exchange energy based on what we find brings value to our lives – and that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re using money. I’m talking pure energy for pure energy.

Pure energy

When I broke it down to pure energy, I imagined the world where it becomes traded in it’s raw form. I need wood for a seat, but do not have the time or inclination to learn carpentry. The carpenter, however loves his job and gets eggs from the farmer. This happened long ago, yes. We’re moving back this way with many people working for themselves.

Where it got a little fuzzy for me was – where does pure art fit in that equation?

Art is not sustenance - like a sandwich. It’s not created for utility – like a shoe is, or clothing or a table are. (Although it could be!) True art is gratuitous and superflous – not necessary to survive, so how can I justify my place in the world where my primary skills and interests are not necessary?

A fellow artist pointed out that art makes people happy – or sad – or whatever. Art brings interest into this life & I can’t imagine a life without art around me. (Thank you for your perspective, Leanne!)

What do you think?

Is there anything that you would like to add or do you disagree? I’d love to know what you think so I can continue to listen, form deeper understandings and continue to grow. Thanks!

To my friends not already on G+ here’s some background: G+ is like a mix between Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter is like having a 1 channel, text-based radio station. If you want to share something, you put it out to the world. People can ‘subscribe’ to your Twitter feed without asking your permission. (though there are settings to block this, this is the default.) You don’t necessarily need to know or follow the people who follow you.

Facebook is more friend-exclusive than Twitter: If someone asks to connect, then you “friend” them – and – make an agreement that person can see your 1 channel feed (station) in return. Otherwise, your “station” is silent except for your profile photo and the profile info you choose to share with the general public.

On G+, from the listening side, it’s like Twitter in that you can subscribe to and be a fan of anyone’s feed. From the speaking side it is like FB, where it allows you to select who you broadcast to.

BUT… both FB and Twitter are similar to “1 bit color“. (either on or off) You subscribe to ALL stations of a person (in Twitter), or you offer all stations or NONE of yourself to the world (FB).

G+ is more like “24 bit color” – true life color – in that you have a lot more control of who sees each message you share. (Oh wow – 24 bit color = 16,777,216 colors. I had to look that one up.)

Allowing a person full access to all of your life’s stations is not necessarily a good thing, nor do I think it’s natural. Sure, it allows you to really get to know the person you’re connecting with, but do we do this in real life?

No.

I have a little sadness with what might initially feel like closing people out, but on the other hand, there really is a huge coldness in the bulk amount of broadcasting people do online. People enjoy broadcasting the minutia of their lives. This does not bring people closer together. (I know I’m broadcasting right now in writing this!! Irony!)

Still ~ real, back-and-forth interactions where both people are involved really rocks, and by controlling what is actually broadcast, it minimizes the “Only I’m important” feeling that social media broadcasting can give.

You don’t necessarily want to share personal information with people you’ve met in work but you may still want a connection to the very same people. (LinkedIn feels to be a “work-centrific social media site, but why maintain a FB and LinkedIn account, when G+ can give you both?) Work connections can be helpful in learning and growing – and especially in this “who you know” world, it’s good to keep connected with people you’ve worked with. You never know how you could help each other in future.

What Google+ is to me

Within G+, each post you broadcast, you can choose which circle(s) you share with. Only you know how your circles are organized. By grouping friends, family, colleagues and whatever other type of circles you can imagine, it allow you to share relevant information with specific groups of people.

The connections and messages I share on G+ are more focused to each “type” of person, which also make reciprocating a connection less stressful. Gone are the days that you need to be concerned whether or not to reciprocate a connection with a colleague – for fear they learn something super-personal about you that you would only want to share with friends or family, but “OOPS! You forgot you were connected to them.” (Not that it applies to everyone, it’s just to give an example.)

It also inadvertently (or perhaps overtly) shows how much you mean to someone else, when you see this as their feed:

How you organize your connections

Google+ allows you to sort people you connect with into “circles”, which is more how real life is arranged.

We all “broadcast” differently to different people in real life. (And, some people ONLY broadcast! Aagh!) To me, the G+ circles I’ve created are my different “stations”. Currently, this is a broad description of how I am arranging my circles at this moment, both personally and professionally:

Personal:

If you’ve met and are talking with someone new at a party and mention you have an interest in energy conservation or that you collect purses (for example), if you have a mutual interest, you both may choose to go deeper in that subject & choose to reconnect with them in a meaningful way in future. In real life, people are first “Acquaintances” (or Neutral) until they find something in common they both share. I use G+ circles in exactly the same way.

• Acquaintences/Neutral – New possible friends. I offer up tidbits of this and that, and see if there is a similarity before adding them to a closer group – just as I would in real life.
• Friends – True friends. These are people who are “OK” with all of my stations. I may omit sharing with them the minutia of a specialty interest I may have, as I do in real life. When eyelids start to droop, the subject changes! hah!
• Family – Close family. Family matters – and even talk of visits may be shared (if my family actually joins me in G+!!) Part of the reason I would never broadcast on Twitter that I’m going on vacation or a trip is that I don’t want to let the world know that I’m away from home and hey – it’s an OK time to rob my house! Fear-based, I know, but still – why invite something like that? It will be fun to share and get excited about upcoming connections and trips & I do hope my family joins me on G+. I’m not sure how photos work yet – but I’d probably be more apt to share more photos of myself and my family if I knew it was only with the family.
• Each BIG Specialty/Interest I have gets it’s own circle – If I have a BIG interest in something, like… pizza making, or WordPress. As with real life – I don’t want to annoy the people around me by blabbering on about something too much if they really don’t have an interest in it, so I create groups to share with people who I know are more interested in a specific subject that I’m also interested in. This allows a deeper connection with the people who also care about the subject I’m broadcasting, and we all can learn more with the back and forth conversation we all have without turning off friends who may not have as much of an interest in that subject.

To get off track for a bit ~ on the subject of specialty interests ~ I don’t know if it could be done (it doesn’t seem to be available at this moment), but I would love to see the ability (in G+) to subscribe to a person’s “topic” – so if say ~ someone expresses they’ve enjoyed working with polymer clay and they also post a whole lot about how they love sports or hate the government, I’d like to be able to “subscribe” to the polymer clay stuff, while turning off the sports or politically charged statements.

That would employ the use of tags or similar PER POST, and may never be available, but I’ve been in a position where I’ve shut off a friend’s feed on FB because most of their feed was gritching, moaning and complaining about something or other. If they were actually talking about something of common interest, I would have loved to be able to see it without having to remember to go to their profile and then sort through all the rest of the junk they’ve posted. Just like in real life – I control what I allow people to say to me. If someone complains too much or brings fear-based views to me, I shut down. If even a glimmer of common interest is showing, I want to be able to interact.

~ Ok, back to the main subject ~

Work-related:

You wouldn’t talk about the “People of Walmart” website to a client (unless they have a twisted sense of humor) nor would you want to bore your friends with “Shop talk”, so you may wish to create work-related circles. Here’s what I have created:

• Clients – Only work-type information, and very neutral non-work related comments are shared.
• Colleagues – Same as above, but maybe more “insider” and detailed information that they would care about, where it would probably be too overwhelming for clients. Since I’m a freelancer, I use social media sites in ways that many people who work at companies may not use them, and it’s important to me to stay connected with the people around me who can help me, and I can also help.
• Work-type Tip-of-the-Month (or Week, or Day?!) – For friends, colleagues and clients who are working in the same media & would like free tips to help inspire them in their journey. I can see offering free monthly tips and charging minimally for a yearly subscription to weekly tips. Not sure of the interest, but it’s a thought. (Aside: I’ve been thinking of this a LOT – as well as thinking about creating a minimally priced subscription-based forum (not G+), so clients and colleagues can all benefit from quick questions answered without having to break out an invoice. Increased knowledge can be shared, across-the-board.)

Other:

• Controlled – People who, for whatever reason want to be connected to me, but if I don’t feel our personalities are a match and I want to deeply control what is being shared without hurting their feelings. There are a couple people I have as friends on Facebook who, I feel connected with me only to “spy” on what I’m up to, which feels a little creepy. I very-much appreciate that G+ allows me to filter what I share with whom.

In closing

(Holy cow, I’ve written a book! I applaud you if you’ve made it this far.)

I love the potential the G+ circles promise me, but as with when I jumped from MySpace to Twitter to FB, there will be people I leave behind because I don’t intend to attend to more than one social media site with much gusto. I don’t have as much energy as some of my friends to upkeep more than one of these social media sites with much energy, so I will choose what serves me best. Right now, that’s looking like Google+.

Join me on G+!

Feel free to Email me if it’s still in field trial and you can’t get in and would like me to invite you.

But why have we procrastinated?

Writing things down puts my mind at ease and allows me to truly rest.

When we think of this task – say – cleaning the bathroom. We think of the energy it takes to do it. If our current energy matches the task, we do it. Otherwise, we divert ourselves to lower energy tasks – like checking out what friends are doing on Facebook, looking into our favorite newsgroup board, playing online games or watching television/movies. (etc.)

I’m going to try an experiment to not do the lower energy tasks at that moment, but instead to write myself a note or a list of things I’d like to accomplish. (so I can have a true rest and not just lay there thinking of stuff I shouldn’t forget!) I will be sure to give myself a reasonable time to finish the task(s).

Then, I will get some rest & tackle the list when I have more energy.

What do you think about that? It’s a change of habit, so it may not feel comfortable at first. I’ll post my outcome, and also check back in the long run to see how it works out long-term. Wish me (us) luck!

Pardon that I’ve procrastinating on doing some billable work to write this.

1. Across The Universe – The Beatles
2. Continuous KoL – (Radio)
3. Décollage – Les Balayeurs Du Désert
4. Within You Without You – The Beatles
5. Knight of the Woeful Countenance – Man of La Mancha (Pladido Domingo) Soundtrack
6. Universal Traveler – Air
7. Coconut Woman – Harry Belafonte
8. Alpha Beta Gaga – Air
9. Dreams – Cranberries
10. Swami-Plus Strings – The Monkees
11. It’s All The Same – Man of La Mancha (Pladido Domingo) Soundtrack
12. Baby Love Child – Pizzicato Five
13. Outside Violin Solo – Aphex Twin
14. Rainbow Connection – Kermit
15. Love You Madly – Cake
16. My Eyes – Laurie Anderson
17. True Affection – The Blow
18. Land Down Under Remix – Men At Work
19. Big Belly Butterflies – Bel Canto
20. Black Steel – Tricky
21. Be Still thy Soul – Anael
22. Dissapointed – Morrissey
23. Mama Look A Boo Boo – Harry Belafonte
24. Shadow Stabbing – Cake
25. Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight /The End – Paul McCartney

This is so hard for me to say, but our cat, Snowy died this morning just after 3 am.

We  found her in the back yard close to the shed, lying on the ground. Her pupils were dilated, and her hind quarters were cold. Her front paws were getting cold. She was still breathing, but barely. As we spoke, she responded by moving her front paws a bit.

Feeling that death was immanent, I expressed my love for her and called her my term of endearment “My little pussycat” – she blinked slowly, as if to respond that she understood, felt comfort and appreciated the statement. Other than that and one other blink when Jim was caring for her, she was completely unresponsive in her senses.

My hubby and I sat with her for a while outside on our lawn chairs but it was becoming quite chilly. I called my aunt, my mom and the vets (left a message with one) and got a 24hr hotline with the other and they suggested that we wrap her in a blanket and and the hot water bottle and just try to keep her comfortable as she dies. We decided to go into the breeze way to help make her comfortable for her passing and allow us to stay with her.

On and off, I spoke to her and told her that I love her and that it’s ok for her to die, and pass on. I told her she has been such a wonderful kitty and that we appreciated that we could share in her life. I said that her body served her well up to this point but that she didn’t need this crummy body any more and that her spirit was free to go. Hubby was also was able to express his love for her. I meditated and directed her to the light and hoped that she knew it would be alright for her to go. Any time I drew energy from above and handed it to her as courage and strength to go to the light, her body contorted and I hoped that it was a good sign. I’m not experienced with this and just wanted to help her along and hope that what energy I passed to her didn’t prolong the process for her, but helped her with her transition.

She took her last breath right after I told her that I would leave her body alone for a long while after she passed to allow her spirit to separate from her body and that it would be ok, we wouldn’t do anything with her body until we were certain that she was away from it.

After she died, Jim and I slept in the breeze way with her body and allowed time for her spirit to make the transition.

This morning at 6, we buried her in the back corner of the yard, near the shed that she enjoyed hanging out around. We marked the site with a large rock and a smaller white rock we found close to the site.

It’s crazy how attached we become to these wonderful little loving creatures.

Take care and thanks for reading.

In a previous meditation, Norm had asked us to go to the center of source and experience it. What I experienced was a very white ball of light energy, but not so bright that I couldn’t make out the structure of it. It had many long “fingers” going out to lesser light energies, of many different colors. I understood those lights to be us humans.

While in source, I could see the giving of energy down these fingers into the less bright lights and each growing and giving back energy to the source, and in turn, growing lighter and larger. It was like breathing.

The meditation this evening, I viewed the same scene but from my human perspective. I recalled from the last experience that we are not static, but ever-moving. I had the sensation of a lifetime elapsing in just a few seconds – but with all of our moving, I noticed that each connection to source was not like a marionette’s strings getting all tangled up, but each one gracefully passed through each others. A small part of my light connection rubbed off on many others, and many others have rubbed off on mine.

It felt like a beautiful dance.

I’m not one for dancing, but absolutely appreciated experiencing this meditative dance.

Click here to view the embedded video.

» The Art Room

This was taken after I had all my mercury fillings replaced with Cerec brand ceramic inlays. Good stuff. Not much “exciting” stuff to write about a dental x-ray, but neat to look at just the same.

And yes, my ears are lopsided! They’re off by a lot! Click on the picture if you want to see it larger.

UPDATE: I realized why I’m lopsided. I never liked my hair parting in the middle, so I tend to style it with a part on the right side. Subliminally, I was tilting my head to keep my part! Gheesh! How vain of me! I’ll just have to deal with a part in the middle of my head if it gets rid of this “TMJ”, or clicking jaw I have. I’ll post back, although I’m sure it’s not of concern to anybody but myself!

As usual, it looks like Austin is ahead of the country with offering this:
www.austincarshare.org

Great concept! I wonder how it’s working? My sis had mentioned a private car share between neighbors (of a planned community). I thought it was a great idea, because car expenses shared make it easier on everyone involved! Taxes, insurance, and gas… I wonder how that works out now, return it as you got it? That would be a lot of trips to the gas station if everyone had to continually top it off. Also, I wonder how insurance would be handled with so many drivers?

It would be neat to start a non-profit like this here in CT.
(None on this list are from CT: www.carsharing.net )

Gah! I’ve stayed up all night working (I finished my project!), and now I’m looking at the fun car conversion stuff online. I’m so tired. I guess I ought to get some sleep now.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment