The Fallen Branch Bridge All trees have stories. They stand as perfect symbols of life’s continuous cycle—from seed to sapling to towering presence, breathing life into our planet and then returning to earth to nurture new beginnings. But this particular maple’s story taught me something profound about transformation and the power of small steps. The [...]
Perception Rules: Choose the ones you want to live with. One morning, on my walk, I saw a woman walking a dog. Clueless about dog breeds, I just knew it was big and brown. The next time I passed her, coming the other way, she was still walking a dog. This time, it was big [...]
I’m nearing the end of the first draft of my next book, and the surprise I expected just happened. It always does. Although I plan out the story by knowing the beginning, expected ending (which may or may not happen that way), and the plot points along the way, I let the story unfold. This [...]
There’s a last time for everything. Sometimes, but not always, we get to choose when that will be.
I was ready to record a batch of videos. I always write a bunch of scripts and record all the videos at one time. That way, I only have to do the setup once. After forty-five minutes of setup time, I was ready to begin. But my test video was beyond terrible. The lighting was [...]
Have you spoken to a tree lately? If not, perhaps take a moment and have a chat with one. It doesn’t matter the size or shape. Just find a tree and have a talk. If you hear nothing. Imagine that you do. It opens the door to your inner ear and it will have spoken [...]
One day, the magnificent multi-trunked tree in our backyard gave us a warning. We came home from our early morning shopping, and one of its massive trunks had fallen. It chose to fall quietly when no one was home so the sound it made would not frighten anyone. It hurt nothing. Not a single branch [...]
When I was in elementary school, I saw the woman who would one day become my dance teacher perform the Red Slippers. At that moment, I fell in love and knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a dancer. But one of my friends told me she taught ballet – she didn’t [...]
I was trying to print out something, but I didn’t hear it printing in the next room. Since it was a new program, and I had already judged it to be “behind the times,” I figured it was the program and didn’t check the printer. It took two days and multiple tries before I checked [...]
You can dissolve any problem. Yes, this is a preposterous statement. Any problem? Yes, any problem. Eventually. But there is a price to pay. Not in money. But in paying this price, you don’t give up anything. You will get something. Because what you want is not something you hold in your hand. It’s something [...]
Not If It Was Never Lost In May, I lost two things. In September, I found them both. Yes, I looked for them, but when I couldn’t find them, I considered them both gone and replaced them. After all, they were only a garden trowel and a paring knife. I found the knife after our [...]
Habits are wonderful. Except when they aren’t. The habits I like are the ones that keep me in line, moving down the road towards where I want to go. Habits I don’t like are like ruts in that road. Ruts can be challenging to get out of, especially when we do the exact opposite of [...]
Fixing broken things is not an activity that most of us enjoy. The plastic knob on my mixer broke off, and I didn’t celebrate that I would need glue, a clamp, and time to fix it. What I said to myself was, “I can live with it. Who needs a knob anyway?” But the shower [...]
While the Soleis traveled as slowly as possible, the Eos was moving as quickly as it could. So fast sometimes, Meg wished that it would slow down. Like Stryker, she didn’t like ships either, and for many of the same reasons. Mostly, she hated the rocking and rolling. No matter what she did, she constantly [...]
Shifting Stories: Sampling Books, One (or 2) Chapters at a time. Your imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions. —Albert Einstein Now that you have the basic tools, are you ready to get started? Each week has a different focus, but the imagination exercises each day will remain mostly the same. [...]
The answer is yes; you’re probably doing everything backwards. Which makes life much harder than it needs to be. It’s time to stop working against ourselves. The way to do that is to be flexible before strong. I mean this both literally and figuratively. I’m serious. Being a business and life coach for almost thirty [...]
An evil tyrant. A rebellious uprising. Will her destiny prevent total destruction… or send everyone to their doom? Her gift of shapeshifting may have disappeared, but Meg Porta won’t let her new home perish. Clinging to a slender thread of hope, she’s forced to fulfill her mysterious part in an ancient prophecy. But when the [...]
Shifting Stories: Sampling Books, One (or 2) Chapters at a time. I choose, therefore I am. —Amit Goswami, The Self-Aware Universe I wanted to change the world. But I found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself. —Aldous Huxley We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go [...]
Shifting Stories: Sampling Books, One (or 2) Chapters at a time. Imagination should be used, not to escape reality, but to create it. —Colin Wilson Shall we begin? Let’s create a new reality together. But first, let’s talk about a few of the essential tools that you will be using in this course. There are [...]
A Metaphysical, visionary, fantasy, adventure: Ruta moved through the woods faster than I thought possible. Beru was even quicker. She kept circling back behind me and then running ahead of Ruta, and then coming back to me. I was running faster than I had ever run before, so how she was doing that was a [...]
Shifting Stories: Sampling Books, One (or 2) Chapters at a time. The man who has no imagination has no wings. —Muhammad Ali Here is the question you might, and probably should be, asking yourself. Why bother with learning how to be an Imagination Master? What practical use could being a master of imagination be in [...]
A Metaphysical, visionary, fantasy, adventure: It was as terrifying as standing at the open door of an airplane getting ready to jump. Or at least I imagined it would feel the same way even though I had never experienced that myself. Leaning forward and seeing the ground thousands of feet away, not knowing where the [...]
Shifting Stories: Sampling Books, One (or 2) Chapters at a time. I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.—Rabindranath Tagore She was always-on-call. I wanted to be like her, but I had no idea how I could handle what she [...]
Once upon a time, there lived a husband and wife who were very good friends. Their names were Agatha and Winston. Agatha was a small, very round, gray bear who loved to amble through flower gardens smelling the flowers and petting the bees. Winston was a tall rather saggy and unstuffed brown bear. This unstuffedness [...]
Shifting Stories: Sampling Books, One (or 2) Chapters at a time. Spiritual Perception Spiritual Perception reveals that there is nothing going on but God, Good. Instead of thinking that there will be a time that the tares will be separated from the wheat, we know that as we gain spiritual awareness, what appears to be [...]