“We can only be said to be alive in those moments
when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” ~ Thornton Wilder

On the cusp of winter and spring, gratitude shares its voice. With a palpable presence, it is easy to confuse gratitude with thanks and its simple way. Thanks sits on the ledge of our throat, too ready to hurl itself into sound without much care as to where it will land. Gratitude lives in the deeper regions of our bodies, asking us to find it and hold it like a new born infant. Speaking the word and tasting each of its syllables on our lips resonates with a conscious intention to offer it with as much care as the breath that brought it into being.

The voice of gratitude is often hard to hear in winter with its vibrato storms and keening wails of cold that drown out even silence. If winter has a mate her name is Resilience. As her partner flings clouds about like galleons of grey angry ships scathing the heavens she reminds us mortals to hold on. Months of icy, vapid rain soak the marrow of earth and bone and she tucks us into warm homes at night, tethering fortitude to our front doors. She laughs with us as we birth yet another recipe for kale and embraces our bodies bent over by the weight of bitter longing pressed into the cavities of our souls.

Unlike winter’s big persona, spring steps into the landscape with some hesitation. Her entrance trips and wobbles like a first time actress on Broadway, allowing winter to complete his lines before the new diva steps onto the stage. Winter’s tired refrains of hushed hues finally succumb like Dorothy’s black-and-white house crashing into Technicolor Oz. Spring’s debut is a soft breeze of standing ovations that topples winter in its final bow.

Gratitude is an easy visitor this time of year. It knocks on our door just as the sun returns from its snowbird holiday. It tucks itself into lipstick red tulips and the soft rain of cherry blossom petals. It rides the backs of powder puff clouds like herds of white buffalo grazing across the continent of azure blue sky. It rises up inside of us like the unfurling emerald spine of a fiddlehead fern.

Gratitude finds a home in so many forms. Louie Schwartzberg’s breath-smacking films exude awe and wonder in each frame. Check out his TED Talk and a taste of his short film called, yep, Gratitude.

TED Talk – Louie Schwartzberg – Gratitude

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo Credit

Spring Stones by Vvillamon – Flickr Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.

Awakening Gratitude is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

If you can build a fire in your backyard fire pit, or have your favorite nature-loving camper pal to do it for you, you’ve got the beginnings of a magical meal to be shared outdoors with a bunch of your best friends.

Fire, Earth, Water and Air are infused in this communal, beautifully-balanced traditional Spanish dish with an animal-friendly twist your guests won’t soon forget. If you’re a vegan, it’s probably been awhile since you’ve tasted something “smoky” in flavor. Make sure you use untreated wood, something aromatic like pine, and you’ll get the most amazingly rich, Smokin’ Vegan Fire Pit Paella. Read through the recipe, then check the vid!

Smokin’ Vegan Fire Pit Paella

You’ll need a proper paella pan for this feast. Make sure it fits over your fire pit properly. The one I used here, borrowed from a friend, was about 2 feet in circumference – big enough for about 20 small portions. Use a slightly smaller one for fewer people – but not too few people – paellas are always best shared with a posse!

Once you’ve got the fire burning for about an hour and the coals red hot, you’re well on your way. Prepare the ingredients indoors as the fire builds, then bring them out on a tray ready to add to the pan. Assembly just takes seconds.

Here’s how for 10

• drizzle of olive oil to coat paella pan
• 1 bulb garlic, minced
• 1 large onion, diced
• 3 cups organic brown basmati and wild rice blend, washed, rinsed and drained
• 6 cups veggie broth
• 10 sundried tomatoes, chopped
• 1 cup spicy olives, pitted
• 2 cups lima beans, soaked, washed, rinsed and cooked (or chick peas)
• 1 package vegan chick’n strips (optional)
• 1 can artichoke hearts, quartered, or in season, fresh baby artichokes
• 1 28-oz. can organic diced tomatoes (fire roasted are mmm)
• 15 broccoli florets
• handful pine nuts, toasted
• sea salt to taste
• 2 large pinches saffron
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary
• 1 lemon, sliced in wedges for garnish

Heat olive oil in the pan. You’ll know the fire is hot enough if the oil quickly disperses around the pan.

Add garlic and onion and stir quickly.

Add rice and stir until it’s coated in garlic and oil.

Add vegan chick’n strips, sundried tomatoes, olives, artichokes and beans and stir.

Add broth and diced tomatoes, saffron, paprika, salt and rosemary sprig and stir gently.

Cover carefully with tin foil and allow to cook for about an hour, checking in on it periodically to make sure the fire is hot enough.

When your about 10 minutes away from serving, throw in the broccoli florets and cover again.

Take it off the fire when the rice is tender but firm and serve hot off the fire. If you’re dining al fresco, you can just plunk the pan in the middle of the picnic table, garnish with some lemon wedges and have everyone dive in with their forks.

Serve it with a great rustic Spanish Rioja or a full-bodied California Cabernet.

A few backyard chef pointers

~ A few minutes after covering the pan with foil, check in on it. The broth should be bubbling away. If not, throw another log on the fire.

~ Depending on the size of your pan, the broth may bubble over the edges. Make sure your fire pit is in a place where you won’t be concerned about stains.

~ If you’re doing this for an important gathering or event and you want it to be perfect, do a trial run before the date. The measurements here are loose, and paella pans, fire pits and gatherings vary greatly in size;)

 Vegan Firepit Paella
by thefeelgoodguru

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo Credits

Photo By Moira Nordholt – All Rights Reserved

First Published At Feel Good Guru

Fire Pit Paella is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Recently I heard a TedX talk (see below) delivered by Nipun Mehta about “Giftivism”, a made-up word which he defines as “The practice of radically generous acts that change the world”. As a social entrepreneur, he’s come up with several novel ways to make money as he practices generosity.

One business venture that he’s launched successfully is called “Karma Kitchen”, which is a volunteer-run restaurant in Berkeley. People come in for a meal and pay nothing for it. Rather, they give a donation depending on how much they think the next person’s meal is going to cost. It’s similar to paying for the guy behind you as you’re passing through a toll gate. I think it’s a pretty neat “pay-it-forward” type of idea.

My wife and I volunteer to teach religious education classes at a local church in Vancouver for many years now. We do it to help young members of our community strengthen their faith. Another way that I try to be useful is by volunteering for new arrivals in the city as a mentor at a non-profit organization. What do I get out of both apart from inner satisfaction, you might be wondering? Well, I’ve actually gotten business clients in both cases, even though this was never my objective. That’s just how the world works: what goes around comes around.

What does this have to do with furthering your career?

Well, asking for a job and offering to render service are simply two sides of the same coin. One is simply more me-centered while the other is more other-centered. Want to know the secret to never having to go thru a formal job interview or submit a resume to an employer ever again? Offer to help people out, whenever you go out the door and interact with others. Find out how you can help make their lives easier. And in both instances, don’t expect any sort of compensation or recognition. Simply do it as a way to be useful to the world.

Soon enough, other people will be interested in you and what you do professionally and even be interested in what they can do for you. That’s why volunteering around your community generates tremendous dividends not just internally but business or career-wise.

 TEDxBerkeley – Nipun Mehta – Designing For Generosity

Click here to view the embedded video.

To find out how you can be more successful in your job search, read The Job Farmer for more insights or check out Hunting vs. Farming.

Photo Credit

Toll Gate by Steven Damron Some Rights Reserved

Guest Author Bio

George Verdolaga
George Verdolaga is an author, educator and speaker. He helps people get out of their own way so that they can reach their career and lifestyle goals faster and more efficiently via The Job Farmer and The Contractor Lifestyle books and his Sitting Pretty Course.

Read his blog here and be sure to subscribe to his e-Newsletter.

Blog / Website: Verdolaga Learning Systems

Get A Job Faster By Rendering Selfless Service is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

The more I get to know and love something, the more I respect and connect with it. This is the thought that pushed me to move onto a sailboat and get out there to meet the world … powered by the wind.
My voyage with Tassio is a search for happiness. For myself, and for those around me. Inspiration is everywhere along the way. People and nature fuel our beings with positive thoughts. Sharing these stories is one of our ways to help transform this world into a happier and better place and our journey is dedicated to this idea.

Hopefully, it will leave you inspired and motivated to keep walking with your dreams.

It starts here with a short video introduction!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Guest Author Bio

Claudia Couture Couture
I was born and raised in Canada. I am 27 years old and a little more than one year ago, I was working in the show industry. I met a man in a hotel while traveling and he told me about his project of sailing around the world. I never left this guy… and now I have a sailboat with him and we set a goal to sail around the world. We wish to find inspiration from the people who search for happiness for themselves, and for the world, in their own ways. We will share our journey through videos, photos and text.

The journey has started! You can join these travels on our blog and through our facebook page:

Blog / Website: http://www.terradagua.com/

Sailing Around The World For A Bigger Picture is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

OK so here’s the thing. This Kony 2012 viral video which has received 43,354,020 views in the last 3 days is defining viral and showing how we can use social media to change the world. My daughter passed this on to me two days ago, but it took me that long before I watched. Don’t delay as long as I did.

Think about it for a minute. This is the first time in history that so many of the world’s population can actually communicate to each other. One 7th of the world’s population are on social media. Almost one billion of us are on Facebook. That is a huge change in the way humanity can interact and with that comes the opportunity for us to change things. We don’t have to wait, we don’t have to stand by, we don’t have to trust in government, we can take action through awareness. Maybe its a small action or a simple posting of a link; but it’s not so much the action as the awareness that has developed and is growing in power, that is becoming significant.

The Egyptian revolutionaries cited Facebook as significantly helping their revolution. They called it the Facebook revolution. That’s no small thing. We are at a tremendously captivating time in our evolution where the whole planet can get the same message…how truly amazing that is. Way to go Mark Zukerburg.

Check out the Invisible Children organization. I encourage you to watch this video both as humanitarian response and also from the perspective of the power of social media. Now that I am digging into this I find that there is some blow back happening about this with people posting complaints about IC or worrying about foreign intervention, or wanting IC to spend more money on building schools instead of making movies, or they distrust the charity, but its all opinions. Here’s Kony 2012′s response to these criticisms so I don’t have to repeat them.

I have reviewed IC’s financial statements, and reviewed Charity Navigator’s assessment of IC and as a seasoned non-profit executive I see nothing amiss in their accounts and am impressed that their administration is about 16%. They also get a favorable rating from Charity Navigator as well.

And while some people are being critical, they are not getting the point. This is about the people of the world (mostly young ones it looks like) trying to get justice and solve a terrible wrong. If this works just imagine what we can start to do…

Kony 2012′s goal is simple – to raise awareness about Joseph Kony, keep him in the news and arrest him. They use the film and the props and the movement to raise the awareness so that governments will act and do the right thing as opposed to just acting as they usually do from a geopolitical or financial interest sake. The people are demanding it. That’s what this is about, the people taking an initiative to get the world’s worst criminal captured. It isn’t about solving all of Africa’s problems or America’s problems or stopping the world’s traffic in children or slaves or stopping the slaughter of dolphins. It is about the power of social media and the small actions we can take as a united global citizenry to affect positive change.

Another thing to note is the film has a very high production value and that’s not an inexpensive process, but I would bet this video wouldn’t be going as viral as it is if it was shot with an iPhone and a web cam.

Please watch the video and comment. I would love to hear your thoughts about an interesting moment in history.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo Credits

Thumbnail & Feature Image Are Screen Captures From The Video

Kony 2012 is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Watching Being in the World, a small film about some pretty big ideas, opened my eyes to the state of philosophy in the 21st century. It had everything from Plato to Creole cooking, Heidegger to juggling. Modern day philosophers weighed in on the age old question of the meaning of life as well as what makes us human. Artisans and masters in their fields of work shared what they do best and how it brings them alive.

There were more than a few sessions of brain aerobics as I attempted to follow the rational roads of philosophic ponderings laid out by such mental masters as Hubert Dreyfus, Charles Taylor, and Mark Wrathall. After relating the story of MIT’s 1960’s foray into artificial intelligence and Dr. Dreyfus’s admonition that a computer could never be intelligent, John Haugeland, a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, said something that resonated with sublime simplicity. What makes us unique, what sets us apart from any computer is that we give a damn. It’s ultimately our give-a-damnness that makes us human.

In the film Leah Chase, a New Orleans chef, shared her recipes, but also that the ingredients and directions on paper wouldn’t guarantee the same cooking results as hers. Manuel Molina only plays flamenco on a handmade guitar because that is where he touches another’s humanity. The colours of wood Hirosui Sakaguchi uses in his buildings speak to him as a lover speaks to their beloved. It is in our caring for what we do and for who we encounter that meaning can emerge in life.

The lesson is in allowing the master within ourselves to emerge whether we are washing a dish or conducting an orchestra. A meaningful life doesn’t depend on what happened in your childhood or even a minute ago. Meaning comes with the next breath, the next step, the next moment of wonder that arises within us. It’s in following inspiration, in allowing the best of us to witness the best in each other. To show up with every cell in our being for this show we call life.

And I think that’s worth a damn.

Being in The World Movie Trailer

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo Credits

Feature Image – Microsoft Office Clip Art Collection

Thumbnail and Image in Post are Screen Caps From The Video – Being In The World

Being Human is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

The people of Kangiqsujuaq in Canada go to great lengths to add variety to their diet of seal meat, venturing under the sea ice during the extreme low tides of the spring equinox to gather mussels.

It’s a race against time. They have less than half an hour to search these temporary caverns before the tide rushes back in. A look-out keeps watch for the returning tide, but warning shouts can’t be too loud in case the echoes bring down the ice. ~ From BBC ONE

This, is truly amazing …

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thank you to Jan Wall from bringing this to my attention.

Photo Credits

Thumbnail and Feature Image – Screen Caps From Video By BBC ONE

Race Against The Tide is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

The principal thing in the world is to keep the soul aloft. ~ Gustave Flaubert

A year ago I moved back to the city after living for nearly three years on a tiny remote island in British Columbia. I remember the palpable exhaustion I felt in every cell of my body after the 24+ hours of packing three households into one U-Haul van, a winter storm of insane proportions, no sleep, ferry rides and cats yowling for the entire eight hours of the drive. Arriving at my friend’s home that evening, I slid down from the driver’s seat and gazed up at the big, golden orb hanging low in the sky. I smiled at its pure brilliance, and marveled aloud to my friends about how bright the moon was that night. Both of them doubled-over laughing. You see it wasn’t the moon. It was a streetlight.

There is a video making the viral rounds on the internet. Check it out:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The first time I saw this film my mouth dropped and I was gobsmacked. The sensation I felt as I watched the diving, swirling dance playing out before me was incomparable. Wonder was my companion as I watched this phenomenon, not knowing at the time what was in the sky, if it was some sort of special effects wizardry or the pure presence of the unknowable. As I watched I tried not to name what I was seeing, to be in a state of sati, as my Buddhist teachings guide me, the space of knowing but not naming what I was experiencing. To witness it as a child might see something for the first time, with a boundless landscape of innocence and joy.

The title of the film is a big, bad spoiler alert. The magic in the sky is a flocking together, or murmuration, of starlings. Interesting that the other definition of murmuration is “a low continuous indistinct sound often accompanied by movement of the lips without the production of articulate speech.” A murmur, a whisper, an expression, perhaps, of awe and an ample amount of gobsmackness.

There are so many phenomenal moments in life, moments that call to our souls to lift them higher without explanation or the mind’s reason. Every time I hear Prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G, it touches a cord deep inside of me that speaks to goodness and realms beyond my earthly state. I don’t need to know how the strings are touched or the placement of the bow, the musician’s name or the maker of the instrument. Those are all wanderings of the mind that can take me away for the pure essence of embracing this piece of music and inviting it into my cells. My wonder at seeing the orange globe in the sky dissolved when I discovered it was a street light, not just because it was a far less romantic image to admire, but by labeling it the experience itself was diminished. Think of Dorothy’s impression of the Wizard before seeing the man behind the curtain and you can feel the wind of astonishment being knocked out of you.

In meditation we are asked to bring our awareness to each breath, to experience the wonder of air moving in and out of our bodies. If we pay attention to each moment of the day, a murmuration of wonderings can gather before us. The wet rain touching your eyelashes, the man reaching out a hand as you pass him on the street, the smiling unheard whisper of a dying woman.

If you’ve seen the film, “American Beauty”, you may remember the scene of a dancing plastic bag. Watch it sometime and let go of the idea of a plastic bag. Bring your child’s mind to the seat and watch the film clip from a place of innocent observation. What do you see? What do you feel? How many moments each day does wonder like that tap you on the shoulder?

Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world. It’s in the waltz of birds and a forgotten piece of plastic and a golden orb floating in the sky.

Credits

Feature Image – Light through Trees – Tess Wixted – All Rights Reserved
Murmuration Video and Screen Capture For Thumbnail by Sophie Windsor Clive 
Murmuration Reference Sesquiotica: Words, Words, Words
Film clips from “The Wizard of Oz” and “American Beauty”

Murmurs Of Wonder is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

Halloween… the aftermath.

I decided to do it to our kids.  The curiosity was killing me.  I needed to see how they would react.  They were sitting at the kitchen table when I told them.  Corbin immediately crossed his arms over his chest, gave me the evil eye, got off his chair and said. “Come on Hamish, we’re leaving.”  Hamish, of course, followed him down the hallway with his own arms crossed over his chest and eyebrows furrowed in a mock-cross expression.  Then, he turned and cheerfully said, “good bye, Mama, good bye Dad.”  And off they went.  It was pretty funny.  Then, I called them back, told them I was kidding and showed them the video.  Corbin asked me to turn it off because crying irritates his sensitive ears. I don’t blame him.  I was pretty horrified myself and seriously considered removing sugar from my kids’ diets permanently.  The video is worth enduring for the last two kids, however.  

Now, how can I earn the title “sneaky mom?”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thumbnail Credit

Screen Cap From Video

Hey Jimmy Kimmel! I Told My Kids I Ate their Halloween Candy. is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN

We’ve posted thing by Rick Mercer before. Things that make us laugh. This, on the other hand, is no laughing matter. 

Rick starts by saying that “every year in this country, 300 kids take their own lives” and he ends with “300 kids is 300 too many“.

What he says in between is what we need to act on. “We have to make it better … now!”

Watch this video, and then watch it again. The message is crucial! What actions can we take?

What actions WILL we take?

How do we make it better … now?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Big thanks to Heather Hess for pointing this out to me.

Rick Mercer’s Rant On Teen Suicide is a post from: LIFE AS A HUMAN