ALEX NOBLE - WRITING JOURNAL-2015

Serious About Songwriting?

 

The Fab Four

 

Long before the printed word captured our brains and locked us down into the alphabet (see The Alphabet and the Goddess)  we had songs. For much of our history as a species, we have sung our prayers, psalms, sagas, stories and epic poems.  Songs are in our genes, and today songs are exploding worldwide, from garage bands in small African villages to basement bands in Seattle.  Songs can provide a heart to heart connection between people that mere text can never do, engaging the emotional power of music coupled with poetry.

Just think...the right songs can change the world in wondrous ways.  Remember "We Are The World"? How about John Lennon's "Imagine"?  What about "We Shall Overcome"? 

If you have ever wanted to write songs, your journal is a perfect place to start.  If you are not a musician, find a friend who is, and collaborate.  

Can One Person Change the World? Are YOU Ready to Step Up?

Does one person really matter? Can one person change the world?

 

 

 

 

Are YOU ready to step up  and make a difference?  Watch this wonderful short film, and take notes in your journal today about how, when, and where you might "step up."  It is time, and we are the ones.  If not us, who?  Get ready to be inspired! And then start something.

GO!

This is an amazing little film.

It might change your life.

 

 Taken from the new book, Stepping Up, by John Izzo:

http://www.bkconnection.com/stepping-up/

 

The Hero's Journey in Modern Life (Mindshare 2010 - TED Talk)

 

Digital Storytelling with Memory Miner

 

Memory of Oceania - Henri Matisse

  MemoryMiner is the award-winning Digital Storytelling application used to discover the threads connecting peoples' lives across time and place. It lets you zero in on the stories depicted in your photos by linking them to each other based on people, places and time.

Visit the site and find out more. (Video)   http://www.memoryminer.com

MemoryMiner represents the first step towards a long term goal: the creation of the world's most extensive network of first-person accounts of modern society and culture. Despite the explosion of digital media in the last 15 years, there remain millions of untold stories "trapped" in boxes of old photos, letters and the like. With this thought in mind, we hope that MemoryMiner will be widely used to bring these materials, and more importantly, the stories that can be told from them, into the networked, digital world.

MINDSURFING: Visionary Activism - The Coyote News Network

 

"If we're not having fun, we're just not serious enough!"

If you are ready to take a daring leap into the wonderful world of Caroline Casey, check out her website:

http://www.visionaryactivism.com

 

and listen to a few of her recent radio programs, which may stir your thinking into some new spaces and places.  She is brilliant, theatrical, funny and great fun, but hidden in her words are treasures of cosmic wisdom and tips for sanity and survival in these unpredictable and generally puzzling times.

Caroline W. Casey

is willing to cahoot with all contributing to the emergent culture of reverent ingenuity and reciprocal blessing!

Co-Operators are Standing By!

proffering personal and collective guidance whereby to effectively engage with forces currently active in the memosphere, that we may be ever more effective players on the team of creation at this time of Dire Beauty.

Our primary dedication: moving our emotional default setting to "Woof-Woof Wanna Play?!" (Because as ally B'er Grimes quips: "If we're not having fun, we're just not serious enough!")

BOOKS: The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart

 

Alex Noble: If part of your life is breaking down, you can be sure that other parts of your life are breaking through. Nothing dies, but that something is being born.  There is no crisis without an equivalent opportunity.  The genius that resides in each of us has the wisdom, strength and capacity to turn sorrow into joy, and find a way out of even the most devastating disasters. At times when we are overwhelmed with the magnitude of our problems, it is helpful to have a loving Guardian Angel Guide to shine light on our path, and even take our hand to lead us forward into peace and salvation.  I can think of no better guide for this journey from despair to hope and a new life than Daphne Rose Kingma.  Daphne's latest book, The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart, is full of loving counsel and practical tools: Things you can DO to work through the chaos you are facing. Using this book in conjunction with your journal practice can produce astonishing results.

Certainly, there is nothing like a life-crisis to send us into our journals, and if it feels as though your own life is falling apart, use Daphne's book as a resource for unlocking your feelings and emotions and charting your journey into stability, sanity and light.

Be sure to watch the videos linked at the end of the information, below, about this book.

QUOTES TO INSPIRE

 

Photo: Andi Holder

 

Out of ideas?  See if any of these quotes jiggle your imagination.  They are from a delightful blog that a friend of mine, Andi Holder, writes: Dumb Blonde Adventures.  This particular entry chronicles the family's arrival in the Bahamas, "Bahamamania." If you are freezing in Minnesota or even Tucson,  it will provide you with a sense of empathy.  Andi's blog is a model of great blog writing, and illustrates what a cheer up a good travel blog can be.  And she is funny!  Enjoy!

http://www.dumbblondeadventures.blogspot.com.

 

"I wish you a very good journey to an unknown you've never seen."

Pieter V Admiraal

"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." Henri Cartier-Bresson

"Jealousy is all the fun you think they had." Erica Jong.

"For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps." Christopher Columbus.

 

 

Storytelling & New Media

 

Excerpt:

Join Larry Brody  as he takes you through the steps of good storytelling, showing how to:

• Create satisfying and full stories in segments as short as 3 minutes
• Breathe life into characters no matter how limited the timeframe
• Create & write your own full-length online series
• Hit the emotional beats your viewers need to feel satisfied without overloading them
• Present viewer-selected story choices
• Prep, shoot, edit, and upload these suckers so you can share your unique vision with the world

Source: http://www.tvwriter.com

 

Whether you call it New Media, 4th Generation Media, Peer Production, Webcasting, Slivercasting, or any one of dozens of terms that have come barrelling into use in recent months, markets and formats based on New Technology are here to stay. And growing bigger everyday.

The purpose of TV Writer.Com's New Media Workshop is to teach those who already are on the cutting edge of the technology how to be on the cutting edge of creativity as well

Writers on Writing: From Annie Lamott's Bird by Bird (Essential Reading!)

 

 

“Writing can give you what having a baby can give you: it can get you to start paying attention, can help you soften, can wake you up. But publishing won’t do any of those things; you’ll never get in that way.”

“E.L. Doctorow once said that “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice about writing, life, I have ever heard.

TIPS: One Word At a Time

 

 

 

Alex Noble:  Even to sit quietly in front of an open journal, with pen or pencil in hand, and experience that sacred space of stillness and listening, can open new worlds in consciousness if you are fully present. . This is one of the reasons I love Haiku poetry, where we capture a moment of current reality and document it in focused awareness.  A journal entry might be just one word, or two. The point is to connect with your Muse, your Inner Thinker and Writer.  Just one word, if it is the right word, can shift your perception and your life.  So know that this time of consecrated stillness is not empty. It holds your whole life, all your dreams, all your experience, all your innate magic.  Start small. One word a day. And then see where that word leads you. Surprise yourself! 

If you are writing a story, start with just a few sentences that summarize your plot and answer the classic question: "Who wants to do what and why can't they?" Then, write a full paragraph. Then, half a page. Then, a one page summary.  Annie Lamott tells this story:

I also remember a story that I know I’ve told elsewhere but that over and over helps me to get a grip: thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on bird written that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

 

 

 

I Create My Day - Joe Dispenza

In the movie "What the BLEEP Do We Know?" the most often referenced interview in the film is Dr. Joe Dispenza's comments on creating his day. In response to the numerous requests, the following is the transcript of that part of the interview. (From http://www.whatthebleep.com )

Dare to Change and Feel Alive Again!

 

Alex Noble: Are you ready to make bold, radical changes in your life? Or maybe even modest ones, which nevertheless challenge entrenched patterns which have become boring and which stifle your inner genius and Divine Being? 

Can you see clearly where your old patterns tend to undermine and sabotage innovation and exploration?  Open up your journal, and with pen or pencil in hand, set a timer, and write fast for 15 minutes about changes you can make immediately to liberate yourself from an outgrown past and from toxic and dysfunctional ways of being. 

Digital Storytelling for Non-Profits: 8 Tips (Tech Soup)

 

 

 

 

 

Advice on planning, building, and promoting digital stories

By: Brian Satterfield

(Note that these principles apply to all storytelling, not exclusively to non-profits. However, as many of us are involved with non-profit groups, this is priceless information for making the organization come to life through good storytelling. You can use these tips to draft a story for your favorite non-profit in your journal.)

As a nonprofit, one of the ways you raise funds and attract attention to your cause is through the art of storytelling. Whether you recount the history of your organization to a donor, the life of someone you've helped in a grant proposal, or the challenges you face in a letter to supporters, storytelling is an everyday aspect of nonprofit life.

A well-told story can bring an invaluable sense of immediacy to your cause, especially important when you have just minutes (or even seconds) to capture the attention of your audience. Yet whereas nonprofits' storytelling arsenal was once largely limited to the traditional mechanisms of writing or speaking, new, affordable multimedia tools are making it possible to tell your story digitally, combining the power of images, narration, music, and text to engage and inspire others to action.

Closing Cycles - Paolo Coelho

A useful reflection at the beginning of a new year is to become aware of what cycles in your life are closing, what is now outgrown, what has served its purpose and is no longer needed. It is healing to be conscious of endings, as well as new beginnings, and honor the endings with gratitude so that one may move on, liberated and lighter in spirit, leaving the past behind where it belongs.

What cycles are closing in your life?  What work might you need to do to finalize these closures? Your journal is a good place to take notes on this subject.  Endings are excellent material for poems. Be honest!  GO!

You may find it helpful to read Paolo Coelho's excellent essay below on this subject, or at least an essay, attributed to him, which he has adopted and edited.

I am also including one of my own poems, The Clean Break, which was originally written as a journal entry.

2012 & Why the World Doesn't End - Michael Meade

 

 

Michael Meade is a Storyteller and Mythologist, and Founder

of the Mosaic Multi - Cultural Foundation

http://www.mosaicvoices.org/

 

In your journal: What is your story?  What golden thread of purpose has given meaning to your life? What new story do you need to write for yourself?  GO!

 

Michael Meade: The Growing Chaos and the New Year

January takes its name from Janus, the old Roman god of gates, doorways, and thresholds. Depictions of Janus show two faces looking in opposite directions; past and future, old and new, outer darkness and inner light. As ruler of all endings and beginnings, Janus was invoked at the onset of any change in the course of life. Janus was especially present at the end of the calendar, in the long, dark nights that give birth to each New Year.

The Origin & Significance of Our New Story

 

 

The Origin and Significance of the New Story - About Thomas Berry

Berry's ideas on the New Story began in the early 1970s as he pondered the magnitude of the social, political, and economic problems we were facing in the human community. His articulation of the need for a new orientation and direction was motivated by his deep concern for the almost suicidal path of humans in their destruction of the earth and in their violence and indifference to one another. The need for a New Story or a functional cosmology, then, arose not as an abstract idea, but as a response to the sufferings of humans in a universe where they saw themselves as deeply alienated(20). This alienation was, no doubt, a particular experience of the west in the post war years as expressed in existentialist philosophy, the death of God theology, and the theater of the absurd. Nonetheless, the spirit of disaffection, ennui, and alienation has spread to other parts of the world due to western cultural influences. Berry's New Story provides an important antidote to this disillusionment and despair. It creates, above all, a new context for connection, for purpose, for action. It is an idea with direct implications for providing the human energy needed for positive social, political, and economic change.

We Are Between Stories - Judith Thompson

 

The Torus

 

We are between stories.  We need a new, compelling vision of who we are, why we are here, and what our heroic journey as individuals and as a species must now be.  We need Storytellers, Guides, Mythmakers, Visioneers, Paradigm Shifters, Social Healers.  If this whole matter of a new story for humanity is of interest to you, give yourself 15 minutes (set a timer!) and write some notes for a new myth that would open the way to a positive future here on Earth.  What set of values would be acceptable to all cultures and spiritual traditions? What symbols, metaphors and memes will serve to create a new culture?  What kind of new heroes and heroines will win the hearts of people worldwide?  Just write!  GO!

 

We Are Between Stories
by Judith Thompson

We live in an exciting time. As cultural historian, Thomas Berry put it: “We are between stories.” The old story — bracketed on the one side by reductionist scientific materialism, and on the other by institutional religious dogmas — is no longer able to guide us toward human or planetary flourishing. Instead, the chasms created by both science and religion, and the various social philosophies they spawned, are implicated in pushing us toward the precipitous edge upon which we now stand. At this edge we see both breakdowns and breakthroughs.

Digital Storytelling: Examples & Links

 

From a teacher who teaches Digital Storytelling:

http://techteachers.com/digstory/examples.htm

 

Digital Storytelling Examples

This is a collection of digital storytelling examples I use with students and teachers during digital storytelling workshops. I have a comprehensive digital filing cabinet filled with more resources for students and teachers. http://www.techteachers.com/digitalstorytelling.htm Check back often, as I add new examples as I discover them. If you have an example to share let me know! [email protected]  thanks!

 

2012 - Mayan Prophecy and A Message of Hope

 

 

In the video posted below, Visionary Scientist and Best Selling Author Gregg Braden presents a message of profound hope for us and our home planet, and asks a compelling question which you may want to reflect on in your journal thoughout the coming year.

 

Choices

 

 

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

 

Dreams As Answers to Questions We Have Not Asked

 “Dreams are the answers to questions that we haven't yet figured out how to ask.”

- "Fox Mulder", "The X-Files"

WRITE NOW! Reflect on Being Fully Alive!

 

 

 

Questions:  Are you feeling fully alive right now? Do you have a sense of joyful celebration about the New Year?  What are you looking forward to? What do you plan to do to bring more joy into your life and the lives of others?  What are your thoughts about being alive, on this planet, at this time in history? Are you excited about your goals and plans for 2012? Are you expecting Angels and Miracles to appear in your life to support your journey and success?  Are wonderful things happening for you? Are you grateful for the opportunities that are presenting themselves to you?

Imagine That a Stranger Asks You Three Questions

 

"Questions Before Dark"

"Day ends, and before sleep
when the sky dies down, consider
your altered state: has this day
changed you? Are the corners
sharper or rounded off? Did you
live with death? Make decisions
that quieted? Find one clear word
that fit? At the sun's midpoint
did you notice a pitch of absence,
bewilderment that invites
the possible? What did you learn
from things you dropped and picked up
and dropped again? Did you set a straw
parallel to the river, let the flow
carry you downstream?"

- Jeanne Lohmann
from "The Light of Invisible Bodies"

*******

 

What do you want? (From Robert White)

 

 

 

Hat Tip to Robert White for this Inspiring contribution and Question for Journallers and all of us!

 

 

“It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.”

                                                                         Rollo May

 And talk faster when we have lost coherent thought?

I founded and led seminar companies (Lifespring and ARC International) where the final experiential exercise for 25 years was an intense questioning of each participant:

“What do you want?”

At a surface level, the answers came easily and are mirrored in the popularity of New Year’s Resolutions like “I want to lose 20 pounds, reduce my debt and spend more time with family.”

At a deeper level, the seminar “what do you want” question often revealed heartfelt yearnings for love of self and others, inner-peace, satisfaction and joy.  These are the experiences that occur when we have found our way; when we have become clear about what we really want and are progressing steadily and surely toward actualizing our purpose, vision, values and goals.

Here’s to an extraordinary New Year for you and yours! And please check in on Facebook with me at https://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/pages/Robert-White/265328876845319

With love and respect,

Robert

 

Inviting Synchronicities

A  Scarab Beetle - See story about Jung, below

 

Inviting Synchronicities

“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering its a feather bed."

- Terence McKenna

 

Many who are studying predictions for the coming year, 2012, have stated that we should not be surprised to notice an increase of synchronicities, or “meaningful coincidences” in our lives. One definition says that a synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance and that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner. The concept of synchronicity was first described  by Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychologist, in the 1920s. (Wikipedia) 

What would I attempt to do if I knew that I could not fail?

 

What Would I Attempt to Do If I Knew I Could Not Fail?

Fear of failure is built into our culture.  We are brought up with an ingrained fear of being “wrong.”  Drawing on the Aristotelian and Medieval Monk traditions, upon which our Western Civilization is built, we are not taught to be fearless, experimental, innovative, adventurous or wild.  Instead, timid conservatism is applauded and rewarded in terms of being “right.” Everything is right or wrong, black or white, with no room for “maybe” or “interesting.”