Tracy O

New Digs

2011-02-07T23:23:00.000-08:00

2010-10-17T13:43:00.000-07:00

Morning

Desired Things

2010-08-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

Words may be inadequate to express the highest truths, but sometimes they can be joined in such a sublime and elegant way to express the simple truth with grace and purity.

My Grandmother used to keep this tacked to the wall of the boot closet, next to the saying - don’t judge another until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. Now I keep it on my fridge. I just read it again for the first time in years.

I want to remind myself to read it daily for a month.

Desiderata (desired things)

by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

The Abundant Mindset in Book Marketing

2010-04-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

Happy to discover book publicist, Arielle Ford's blog

Excerpt:
I do not approach this concept of championing others from a place of quid pro quo; I do it because I believe in the concept of abundance. I live in a world in which there is more than enough for everybody. When you come from a mindset of giving, you activate an internal state of abundance that attracts many wonderful things into your life. If you see other authors as your competition, you generate an internal state of scarcity and lack that repels good things from you. So instead of seeing competition, embrace cooperation, collaboration and championing others. Arielle Ford

The Wisdom of Bruce Lee

2010-02-14T10:03:00.000-08:00

I found this quote on David Wahl's blog on creativity and overcoming creative blocks:

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.

~ Bruce Lee

2010-02-11T12:28:00.000-08:00

Bay of Dreams, by Varya
I've yet to see a photograph that captures the luminous energy of this artist's work. I saw a similar painting in a San Francisco gallery yesterday and just looking at it made my heart feel bigger in my chest.

John Piper

2009-10-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

Landscape by John Piper 1968

Eat, Pray, Love...Show Up for Work

2009-05-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Gilbert on Creativity

The Colonel by Carolyn Forche

2009-04-24T03:44:00.000-07:00

(Thanks Michael for introducing me to this amazing poem by Carolyn Forche)

What you have heard is true. I was in his house.
His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His
daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the
night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol
on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on
its black cord over the house. On the television
was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles
were embedded in the walls around the house to
scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his
hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings
like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of
lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for
calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes,
salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed
the country. There was a brief commercial in
Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was
some talk of how difficult it had become to govern.
The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel
told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the
table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say
nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to
bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on
the table. They were like dried peach halves. There
is no other way to say this. He took one of them in
his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a
water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of
fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone,
tell your people they can go f--- themselves. He
swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held
the last of his wine in the air. Something for your
poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor
caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on
the floor were pressed to the ground.

May 1978

2008-07-14T22:40:00.000-07:00

Elisabeth by Patricia Nix

Living Round

2008-07-13T22:07:00.000-07:00

We live in square framed houses, built on square shaped foundations and look through square shaped windows. Many of us go to work in square shaped offices and stare at square shaped computer screens, then come home to watch square shaped TVs.

There’s something satisfying about the square, its straight lines and even corners - so stackable…,predictable. manageable.

Yet a square exists nowhere naturally in nature.

Instead of living in ways that are adaptive to nature, we’ve been living so nature will adapt to us.

And that’s exactly what’s happening.

2008-07-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

Fred Tomaselli (untitled) media: pills and leaves in resin

2007-04-14T01:12:00.000-07:00

Buddah
Odilon Redon

Do You Recognize This Man?

2007-04-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

A while back someone left some church literature on my door step. The brochure cover showed a picture of Jesus. Not the feminine, virginal looking Jesus of the Italian masters, or the contemplative Jesus of the late twentieth century. This Jesus was on the move, blonde and buffed with angled Native American features, white skin and blue eyes. Terminator Jesus.

A team of forensic anthropologists worked with Israeli archeologists to come up with this depiction. It was published five years ago in a Popular Mechanics article called, The Real Face of Jesus.

2007-02-15T13:00:00.000-08:00

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot

Business Case for Social Responsibility

2007-01-26T11:46:00.000-08:00

The WSJ recently announced the findings of this study associating profit increases of up to 300 percent for every dollar put toward CSR programs. (as long as the companies did their PR leg work)

download pdf here

The Mass Marketing of Fear

2007-01-25T16:09:00.000-08:00

Scene I: 1 minute 90 seconds: Morning rush hour in downtown Miami. Three people are chosen at random by a hidden sniper and shot in the head.

Cut to the first commercial: Extra Strength Tide with Bleach turns our gray dingy whites, bright. Commercial II is an ad for antibacterial kitchen wipes. Commercial III shows somebody’s mother baking cookies in what can only be construed as a state of pharmaceutically induced glee.

The message is clear. If we purge our homes of bacteria and get our whites really white then we can manage chaos. We can manage death. A mitotic growth of products offers a glimmer of control in the face of prime time’s line-up of denitrifying corpses. Lock the door and sanitize your counters.

Contrary to commercial media’s fixation with the bleeding lead, the FBI’s compilation of crime stats shows that last years murder rate hit a 40 year low. Despite cuts in police budgets and the fraying safety net, all incidents of violent crime including murder, rape and armed robbery are lower now than they were in the 1970’s. This trend is expected to continue as the U.S. population ages.

MLK

2007-01-17T15:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.remembersegregation.org/

This was the 10th Annual Webby Award Winner for Best Home Page and Nominee for Best Visual Design Aesthetic.

Agency: DOB Seattle.

Well Deserved.

Ideas I Want to Remember

2007-01-16T09:43:00.000-08:00

Say yes more.

Accept all invitations for one month and see how life changes. I first heard this challenge about six months ago from Patricia Ryan Madson in her book, Improv Wisdom. And again from, Danny Wallace who made a pact with himself to “say yes to life for a year.” http://www.dannywallace.com/ I’m still trying to get through one month. It’s surprisingly hard.

Nature--including human nature--flows along the path of least resistance. In much the same way the flow of the river is determined by the structural support of the river bed, our collective hope is in the structure of the systems we create.

I want to remember this quote by Robert Frost:

“All great things are done for their own sake.”

Whether they’re scientific discoveries, works of art, novels, songs, inventions, or corporate startups. Great things aren’t accomplished for money, fame, to get the girl, or to prove a point to anyone. To paraphrase another Robert-Robert Fritz:

“Great things are motivated because someone desired for them to exist.”

2007-01-12T04:10:00.000-08:00

Gustav Klimt

2007-01-05T11:48:00.000-08:00

Insomnia

2006-10-10T05:09:00.000-07:00

Nano

Why We Write

2006-10-10T02:59:00.000-07:00

A writer friend recently introduced me to this perfect poem.

Watering the Horse

What a fool
I was
to think of
giving up
all ambition
when suddenly I see,
with such clear eyes,
the white flake of snow
that has
landed
on the horse's mane.

Robert Bly

2006-10-03T21:54:00.000-07:00

Odilon Redon
Sea

2006-10-03T09:06:00.000-07:00

Panther, Leroy Neiman