ALEX NOBLE - WRITING JOURNAL-2015

The New Diary - Tristine Rainer

 

 

The New Diary is about a completely modern concept of journal writing. It has little to do with the rigid daily calendar diary you may have kept as a child or the factual travelogue you wrote to recall the Grand Canyon. Instead, it is a tool for tapping the full power of your inner resources.

The New Diary is as much for those who already keep a journal as it is for those who have never kept one. It does not tell you the "right" way to keep a diary; rather, it offers numerous possibilities for using the diary to achieve your own purposes. It is a place for you to clarify goals, visualize the future, and focus your engergies; a means of freeing your intuition and imagination; a workbook for exploring your dreams, your past, and your present life.

It is for everyone seeking concrete methods for dealing with personal problems. It is for women and men interested in achieving self-reliance and inner liberation, for artists and writers seeking new techniques for overcoming blocks to creativity.

 

Visionaries, Inc - Award Winning Public TV Series Since 1995

 

 

 

Full Information and Listing of Each Year's Programs Since 1995:

 

www.visionaries.org

 

Since 1995, Visionaries, Inc. has been producing Visionaries documentary series for public television. Hosted by Sam Waterston of Law & Order, the documentary series highlights the rarely told stories of nonprofit organizations all around the world that are working to make a positive difference in their community and beyond.

Visionaries' production crews have traveled across six continents and to more than 50 American cities to profile the extraordinary work of true philanthropists- people dedicating their lives and careers to the service of others. From Refugees International to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and art museums to humane societies, Visionaries tells the stories of individuals dedicated to changing the status quo in an effort to promote positive coexistence. The documentaries seek to inspire vast audiences, serve as catalysts for positive social change and promote philanthropy on a global level.

 

Alex Noble - Writing Secrets: What to Do When Your Muse Leaves Town

 

 

Alex Noble

 

 You want to write. You intend to write. You almost wrote something yesterday, but… You know you have worlds to say. But all you can do is stare at the blank page. 

Stare, stare, stare. You feel stuck, empty, useless, unworthy, ridiculous, a pretender in the world of ideas. You feel shame, guilt, despair.

Nothing comes.  If feels as though your Muse has left town for Mozambique, with no forwarding address and her cell phone number is no longer in service. What to do?  There is a name for it, and your condition is called “Writer’s Block.”

The good news is that there is a cure.

Our Vision: Rediscovering Humanity's Niche

It is time to create new stories, and rediscover our place in the global web of life!

Come visit A New Story Foundation:  www.anewstory.org

 

Envision the earth's life-sustaining processes as a beautiful and diverse web of interrelationships--a kaleidoscope of patterns, rhythms, and connections whose very complexity and multitude of possibilities remind us that cooperation, sharing, honesty, humility, and love should be the guidelines for our behavior toward one another and the earth. -- Ecosustainability student   Our Vision - Rediscovering Humanity's Niche: Following the lead of author Daniel Quinn, we believe that modern society has lost its way.  Humans have abandoned the tried and true survival mechanisms established over thousands of millennia, forgetting that they were once a fully-integrated member of the global ecosystem.  We believe that the tired old story modern society tells itself has seen its last days, and that the global self-deception is about to be exposed for what it is.  We believe it is time for new stories, stories that tell of the rediscovery of humanity's place in the global web of life.  We envision a time when these new stories depicting humans within nature, and not separate from it, will be the human story.

Want to Change the World?

 

 

Change the Story!

Duane Elgin

The next five to ten years represent an unprecedented break in the human journey. We are between stories, or the guiding narratives, that serve as beacons for our collective future. For example, the “American Dream” that pulled the U.S. forward for at least three generations is fast becoming the world’s nightmare as the excesses of consumerism produce climate disruption, the depletion of cheap oil, growing income disparities, and more. Instead of a different “dream,” people want wide-awake visions of real possibilities told in ways that are believable and compelling.

We face big challenges and it will take an equally big vision to transform conflict into cooperation and draw us into a promising future. The most difficult challenge facing humanity is not devising solutions to the energy crisis or climate crisis or population crisis; rather, it is bringing images and stories of the human journey into our collective awareness that empower us to look beyond a future of great adversity and to see a future of great opportunity. Stories of great transition offer alternative big-picture perspectives that place our time of transition in a larger context and illuminate a promising future. These narratives are of universal concern, simple and relatively easy to understand, emotionally powerful, and able to call forth our higher potentials; and all involve a time of profound initiation and deep transformation.

 

How to Write a Memoir - William Zinsser

 

 

Be yourself, speak freely, and think small

By William Zinsser

 

One of the saddest sentences I know is “I wish I had asked my mother about that.” Or my father. Or my grandmother. Or my grandfather. As every parent knows, our children are not as fascinated by our fascinating lives as we are. Only when they have children of their own—and feel the first twinges of their own advancing age—do they suddenly want to know more about their family heritage and all its accretions of anecdote and lore. “What exactly were those stories my dad used to tell about coming to America?” “Where exactly was that farm in the Midwest where my mother grew up?”

Writers are the custodians of memory, and that’s what you must become if you want to leave some kind of record of your life and of the family you were born into. That record can take many shapes. It can be a formal memoir—a careful act of literary construction. Or it can be an informal family history, written to tell your children and your grandchildren about the family they were born into. It can be the oral history that you extract by tape recorder from a parent or a grandparent too old or too sick to do any writing. Or it can be anything else you want it to be: some hybrid mixture of history and reminiscence. Whatever it is, it’s an important kind of writing. Too often memories die with their owner, and too often time surprises us by running out.

 

Indigenous People's Message to the World: Myth & Story Audios from Better Listen

 

Excellent audio files from some of our leading scholars on great myths and stories. Hear James Hillman, Ram Dass, Thomas Moore, Coleman Barks and many others...

http://shop.betterlisten.com/collections/myth-story

 

 

About the Featured Audio, The Indigenous People's Message to the World:

 

About this program: BetterListen! was called in to document on audio, the lectures and cultural music presentations at The First World Conference of Indigenous Peoples in 1992. The result is this award winning program produced by David Ison, endorsed by The United Nations, Starred Review in Publisher's Weekly and now available for the first time in digital format. 

"This is our chance to listen to a message from people closely connected to the Earth. The industrial world has put their very existence at stake. Stop and listen to their world!" - Mickey Hart (Author of Drumming at the Edge of Magic and Planet Drum, drummer with the Grateful Dead.) 

"This authentic product is a "Who's who of ritual tribal music and ceremony" - Publishers Weekly. 

 

2012: Mayan Prophecies and Quetzalcoatl

Quetzalcoatl is Much More Than an Entertaining Mayan Story or Myth

By Sandra Musser

The Mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatl and his twin brother came into being through virgin birth to the goddess Coatlice. He represents the Morning Star. But, the real story is found hidden...between the lines.

This Mesoamerican deity has been worshiped at least since the time of the Olmecs. Kukulcan or Ququmatz were the Mayan names. Quetzalcoatl (ket-tsul'kwot-ul) was Aztec, for the deity Feathered Serpent. For simplicities sake, I'll use this name throughout, because the Aztecs left us more information.

Source:  http://www.2012-spiritual-growth-prophecies.com/

Empowering Ways to Find Peace in a World of Chaos

 

Epiphanies

 

Here are two definitions of "epiphany":

1.

a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

2.

a literary work or section of a work presenting, usually symbolically, such a moment of revelation and insight.

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Assignment:  Read the excerpts below from Richard Wright's novel, "Black Boy," from an article by Chet Raymo.  Let these moments liberate your memory and imagination to create some of your own epiphanies in your journal.  These can stand on their own, or be woven into a poem or short, short story. Write Now! GO!

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"There Was..."
by Chet Raymo

"Richard Wright's classic 1945 memoir "Black Boy" recounts his childhood in the racially charged South of the 1920s. It is a heartbreaking tale of poverty, hunger, prejudice- and triumph against all odds. Several times in the book, Wright breaks the traditional narrative to list, litany-like, remembered epiphanies:

    'There was the delight I caught in seeing long straight rows of red and green vegetables stretching away in the sun to the bright horizon.'

    'There was the faint, cool kiss of sensuality when dew came on to my cheeks and shins as I ran down the wet green garden paths in the early morning.'

    'There was the tantalizing melancholy in the tingling scent of burning hickory wood.'

Make Your Own Beautiful Book - Print on Demand!

 

A Book Published by Blurb: See Blurb Bookstore

 

Full Information at: www.blurb.com

With Blurb, you’ll find all the tools you need to make your own photo book, whether you’re making a personalized wedding album, cookbook, baby book, travel photo book, or fundraising book.

Count on bookstore-quality printing and binding, and a range of choices from Hardcover photobooks to Softcover paperbacks in an array of trim sizes. Use any of our free online bookmaking tools to create your own book.

Learn how to publish a book and much more with our free how-to tips and tutorials or watch our two-minute BookSmart video and see how easy it is to make a coffee table photo book. Be sure to register and subscribe to Blurb emails to get the news first on Blurb events and promo code coupon offers.

 

 

Why the Arthurian Legend of the Fisher King is Important Now...

 

 

 

From Yahoo Answers:

Before I answer the question directly, I have to comment that some of the same basic spiritual issues that we face today have been faced by seekers many thousands of years ago. So, in a way, our sense that we are at the crest of modernism and breaking new ground for the continuing enlightenment is only partially true. In many ways we may also be so advanced in some areas (such as our scientific and technical understanding of the world around us), that we have become morons on the spiritual plane. A good example of this is that western thinking barely acknowledges the reality of reincarnation. And all of those spiritual influences from the past (and perhaps the future) are at the core of who we are. This mindset (not shared by billons of non-Christian people around the world) thus shuts a major portal to self-knowledge.

So there were cultures and subcultures and people throughout history who really understood some fundamentals much better than we do even in our post-modern existence (and granted they may also have been clueless in other areas). And I have my own personal spin on the Percival legend that I haven't heard from other sources.

Tell Your Story!

 

Aboriginal Story Telling

 

 

Assignment:  If you had 15 minutes to write down the 7 most important events of your life, what would they be?  Then, choose one and write a short short story about what happened, and how this affected you.  When did this happen? Who was involved?  How old were you? Where did this take place?  How long did this experience last?  What blessings came from it?  If it was a difficult experience, have you forgiven those involved?  Write Now! GO!

 

Welcome!  We believe that hardly anything is as exciting as living history - especially if it's your family story as told by your own parents or grandparents.

So many of our questions we would like to ask our parents go forever unanswered: Where and how did you meet mum?... What were the challenges you have had in your life?... What was your childhood really like?...

www.tellyourstory.com

The Handless Maiden: A Story for Difficult Times

 

In Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, a Jungian analyst and storyteller, retells a story about a handless maiden. It's a story that seems to me a kind of ideal story for a month in which I'm writing about ways in which a person can sometimes get stuck--hit obstacles--get bewildered. The story is one that I've found beneficial at crucial junctures in my own life, and it’s a story I have at times told in turn to patients or students when it seems that the labor that began so well—the first giddy success of creativity and vitality—has come to a grinding halt.

The story begins when a maiden loses her hands. She really does lose them—her entire hands. They’re cut off. It’s a moment of initiation. A loss of innocence. Her first serious loss. She has these stumps where she used to have hands, and she wanders, grieving, for many years.

Want to Write Children's Books?

 

 

Before beginning a Hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it.

 Winnie The Pooh

 

The Institute for Children's Literature

For more than 40 years, the Institute of Children’s Literature has offered the premiere writing course to adults interested in learning how to write and be published for children and teens.  The hallmark of our course is one-on-one personalized instruction from an impressive faculty of active professional writers and experienced editors.  College Credits are available for our course.  Instruction is conveniently available everywhere via the traditional home study method – with lessons exchanged through the mail or via the Internet.

 

This site offers information on our course, Writing for Children and Teenagers, on our teaching methods, and on our faculty of professional writers and editors. The objective of our course and instructors is to train you to create manuscripts for today’s publishing market.  Please go to the Short Story or to the Full Story for details on our course and how you can benefit from it.

For fun, you may want to go immediately to "Our Instructors". We're very proud of our instructors because they are all established writers or editors. They've been there; they know how it's done; and one of them would be your teacher and mentor all the way through the course. Check them out.

 

"Where is God Not?" - A Mullah Nasruddin Story

 

Mullah Nasrudin

 

Assignment: Where is God for you? Write a reflection on the Presence of God in your life. Write Now!  GO!

 

From Mullah Nasrudin Stories:

My beloveds, I travelled again to the village of my friend Tekka, after years away. He had become very devout in his ways, sometimes a little pompous, but still the kind soul I had loved for years.

I visited him, and we picked up our friendship as if we had never been apart.

"Nasruddin, you are a light to the eyes," said Tekka, "Please stay with me. I insist."

I accepted his kind invitation. He showed me my sleeping room, with a window to the east, and the bed made up. "I have arranged it so your head faces toward Mecca," he said proudly. "You must always sleep with your head toward Mecca, out of respect for the Prophet, on whom be peace."

 

Coyote - The Native American Trickster

 

Assignment:  Does your life need some Coyote Medicine, some beneficial chaos?  Where might you take on the role of Trickster, and create some useful mischief which promises to bring transformation and perhaps a new world view?  Are you tired of being in a rut?  Call on your Coyote nature and stir things up!  Write Now!  GO!

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In Native American thought, it is often the trickster, Coyote, or some other animal who brings a chaotic element into the otherwise orderly world. Ruled entirely by his passions, both cunning and credulous, and forever getting into trouble, Coyote often acts entirely counter to social and sacred order.

In that role, he makes it possible to experience in speech actions that are not permitted to humans. The trickster, however, though he looses disorder upon the world, is not evil or a devil. He is truly a necessary figure for understanding the sacred.

As the Chumash, and indeed the Hopi, stories about Coyote and Sun illustrate, not only does the trickster by his contrary actions illuminate the proper way by indirection, he also reflects an awareness of the nature of the chaotic element.

Hopi Creation Stories: The Four Creations

 

 

Hopi Spider Woman Kachina

 

      The world at first was endless space in which existed only the Creator, Taiowa. This world had no time, no shape, and no life, except in the mind of the Creator. Eventually the infinite creator created the finite in Sotuknang, whom he called his nephew and whom he created as his agent to establish nine universes.

Sotuknang gathered together matter from the endless space to make the nine solid worlds. Then the Creator instructed him to gather together the waters from the endless space and place them on these worlds to make land and sea. When Sotuknang had done that, the Creator instructed him to gather together air to make winds and breezes on these worlds.

      The fourth act of creation with which the Creator charged Sotuknang was the creation of life. Sotuknang went to the world that was to first host life and there he created Spider Woman, and he gave her the power to create life. First Spider Woman took some earth and mixed it with saliva to make two beings. Over them she sang the Creation Song, and they came to life.