The Barefoot Heart

This month, because I live for non-conformity (and to keep from having to think of something to write about) I am participating in a challenge designed to celebrate Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 208th birthday. (Honestly, he doesn’t look a day over 112 to me.)

Today’s prompt:
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?

I don’t believe that differences in religious persuasions or political philosophies diminish one or magnify another.
I do believe it’s arrogant to try to impose belief systems on one another.

I don’t believe prayer is a stage or a confessional.
I do believe being a prayer is better than any spoken prayer I’ve ever had to sit through.

I don’t believe patriarchy has served anybody well.
I do believe it’s time for the feminine to rise up,
and be recognized,
and honored,
and celebrated.
to be embraced
and embodied.

I don’t believe women must become sacrificial lambs before their children to be a good mother.
I do believe it’s time to rip that page from the rulebook.

I don’t believe power is synonymous with power over.
I do believe I’m snatching my power out from under you right about now.

I don’t believe that traditional education has nearly enough respect and encouragement for independent, original thoughts.
I do believe that at its worst, traditional education creates drones (and I also believe we have a gracious plenty of those already.)

I don’t believe we possess a finite amount of creativity.
I do believe trying to use your creativity all up is the best way to grow more.

Because I don’t believe that every member of my family nods their head in agreement everything I put forth (here and otherwise),
I do believe that they sometimes entertain fantasies of having me rendered mute in a witness protection program.

This month, because I live for non-conformity (and to keep from having to think of something to write about) I am participating in a challenge designed to celebrate Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 208th birthday. (Honestly, he doesn’t look a day over 112 to me.)

Today’s prompt:
Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. The force of character is cumulative. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tracks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.

~~~~~~~

Today I laughed
and stitched
and wrote like there was a
clearance sale on words
in a store that welcomes checks.

This month, because I live for non-conformity (and to keep from having to think of something to write about) I am participating in a challenge designed to celebrate Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 208th birthday. (Honestly, he doesn’t look a day over 112 to me.)

Today’s prompt:
(Okay, it was yesterday’s prompt, but I never got around to it yesterday, so in the spirit of nonconformity, I’m doubling up today.)
We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.
1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.

~~~

it isn’t about clocks.
(but isn’t this the cutest little clock?
sure do hope to inherit it one day.)
or words.
it’s about living.
pure, unadulterated
living.
so what say
we rev up and
live a chapter
in that 15 minutes?