Joy to the World

Rediscover Who You Are
Read full article at:

http://www.oprah.com/article/spirit/knowyourself/ss_lybl_letgo_201

I so love this exerpt. So now I have to see my own Joy List...

Create a "What I Enjoy" List

As simple as this may sound, it is very important for you to make one. This list should include everything that brings you pleasure and passion in life.

If you aren't sure what brings you joy right now, think back to what used to bring you joy?

This may require some exploration, but what did you do when you were a little kid that brought a smile on your face? Did you used to go horseback riding? Walk outside in a garden?

Whatever it may be, write it down.

This list doesn't mean that you have to do them every day. It's just to make you aware that there are things in the world that do make you feel alive. If you are able to do something you enjoy at least once a week, do it and help yourself feel alive in that moment.

You have to behave the way you want to feel before you feel the way you are behaving! It's about opening yourself up to a new experience, or something that you stopped doing.

Try to rediscover what it feels like to look or feel differently from the "not enoughness" you have been putting into your head for a long time now.

When you start doing this you will launch yourself back into aliveness!

Now some of myJoys to the World List:

1.Travel
2. My Moon Garden
3. The Color Purple; Seven Pounds; The Curious Life & Times of Benjamin Button /Divine Secrets of The Ya Ya Sisterhood movies
4.j.California Cooper/Tina McElroy Ansa/ Alice Walker books
5. Good perfumes and perfumed candles
6. Laughter
7. Home decorating
8.Creating art;writing;dance
9.Beautiful jewelry
10. Reading
11. Spending time with people I care about.
12 Shopping at antique stores, thrifts & yard sales.
13. Collecting recipes.
14. Clear nights seeing the stars & the Moon
15 Early mornings
16. Good conversations
17 Smoked oysters on crackers with cream cheese and wine.
18. Cream white Calla lillies, French tulips ;hydragneas', spider zinnias, fushias, irises & impatients
19. Slupees & crunchy Cheetoes
20. Mexican food.
21. Change.

Thank You, Sam!

Just Today09©

It was virtually nothing except bare walls when I moved in.

And now I have trees to sit under...
With sweet smelling jasmine,impatients, morning glories, irises and honey birds…
Any time now my golden shower is going to break out...
As an absolutely magnificent mural raining…
I am back in my peaceful centre and all is well with the world.
And even be able to conjure up the energy to dance at the edge of dawn in my garden…
If it was only just today
All rights reservedJHM 3-31-09©

In Moon's Garden & the Cul de Sac

In Moon's Garden

I'm Not...

Please read entire essay at: http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/05/i-am-not-feminist.html



"I am not a feminist. I can declare this boldly without fear and with a certainty of will. I believe unequivocally in women's rights and the equality of all beings but have found after various years of interaction, that feminism has no room for women that look like me or have similar experiences to me.

I cannot knowingly participate in a movement that claims to be open and yet daily either appropriates or minimizes my struggle for the gains of others.
I am a heterosexual, black, disabled mother. I am many things to many people and my life though simple in its nature, is worth something to me and the people that I love. Daily I live with the legacy that was bequeathed to me from my mothers womb and I cannot in good conscience spit upon my inheritance by owning a label that seeks to privilege others.

The name of this blog is Womanist Musings for a reason. Womanism not only speaks to who I am as a person but to who I aspire to be each and everyday. It is not housed in academia or based in privileging whiteness or class advantage. It lives and breathes because women of color continue to struggle for even the most basic form of recognition that is the birth right of a privileged few on our little blue planet.

I have seen the discussions between radical women of color/womanist and feminists referred to as a war. At first the term war seemed inappropriate until I thought about the length and breathe of this conversation. Indeed it is a war, a war of attrition to be accurate. Though we are told that we have come so far because a black woman is now first lady, even that honour is appropriated as whiteness seeks to claim Michelle Obama by comparing her to women like Jackie O and alternately defiling her at will by calling her angry when she displays any form of agency"...

Chris Gardner;"Start Where You Are" Book

Start Where You Are: Life Lessons On Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be,”

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/moving_america_news/9358/1

“Number one life lessons that I have learned, lessons that I got from other people that inspired me, such as find your button. What is the one thing that turns you on to the point that the sun can't up soon enough because you want to go and do your thing?

Number two: Plan B sucks. There is no plan B. When you're doing something you're truly passionate about, there is no plan B.

Number three - well, some folks will talk about - you've got to have something to fall back on. We all have something to fall back on already. It's called a butt, okay? When you have fallen back on your butt, one of the things you have to ask yourself sometimes is 'How did I get here?' This is the part of the book that a lot of folks might not feel comfortable with. The truth of the matter is, sometimes we have to say, "I drove here," meaning I have some responsibility in the circumstances and conditions that are now my life.” - "The Glenn Beck Show” (2009)~Chris Gardner


“Look, you know what I do know? All this could be real crazy. But I do believe, with all my heart, that some of the things that I had to go through were God's way of getting me ready for what He wants me to do." - Fortune (2006)~Chris Gardener

“Passion is everything. In fact, you've got to be borderline fanatical about what you do. Be bold enough to find the one thing that you are passionate about. It might not be what you were trained to do. But be bold enough to do the one thing. Nobody needs to dig it but you.” ~Chris Gardener