hand-made clay torso wall hanging, Wylde West, by Tammy Vitale of Tam’s Originals

[as this is an old post, links no longer work.  Sorry!]

Don’t you wish you had time to gather together all the great information out there on the web?  There are days where I could surf for hours and end the day feeling as if I have taken a workshop at the local community college.  I leave with encouragement, enthusiasm and notes of actions to try for various aspects of my life.  On the web you can truely “weave it all together” because there are no limits on your side “digressions.”  You can follow any path to your hearts content (and within the limits of time – but always remember, time is only a human construct).

I’ll save you the time of surfing and share something I found fun/interesting.  Mostly I try to offer things by, about and for women here in this space.  Today I’ll break a bit from tradition in the “by” category.

Dick Richards offers an “Exercise to Recognize Your Genius” called:  Refute Your Disrepute.  It is a one-page down-load based on the following concept:  “The primary method for recognizing your genius is discovering a name for it. The negative labels that people have used to describe you—your “disrepute”—often provide clues to the right name. Common examples of negative labels are bossy, loud, shy, waffling, flighty, intense, compulsive, stubborn, and so on. The most important negative labels to explore are those that hurt you and have stayed with you. ”

I love this.  All my younger life I defined myself as “other:”  “hood” to “surfers” and “preppies” of the 60s.  You wouldn’t have caught me dead in navy blue and burgundy then – it was black, black, black and boots with chains.  Burgundy is now one of my favorite clothing colors and navy is the color I wear that makes my husband ask:  what dragons are you slaying today?! (of course, I would never slay a dragon since those wonderful creatures are a woman’s best power symbol back into the dawn of time, but I understand what he’s saying).  I was never in the “in” crowd, always on the edges.

Later I was the one who could put 1 and 1 together and come up with 4 or even 10 with no steps in between.  My intuition let me feel what people were thinking and where they really were instead of what they were saying – to which I reacted and others thought me a bit “out there.”  Turns out I’m really good at community trouble-making, i.e., working with oppressed folks to make a space for them to empower themselves.  That trouble-making turned into a career of community-based organizing (and no that doesn’t mean helping people clean out their closets.  It’s about working on issues that communities identify as of concern to them.  Instances include The Lexington Manor Survival Team formation in St Mary’s County, MD to make sure folks weren’t  kicked out of their homes by the Navy/County Goverment/private owner using federal dollars.).  At any rate, I think this format is on to something:  a path home to ourselves, our greatest strengths and passions.  Try it.  You’ll like it!

Thought for the Day:  “To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with out lives:  it is the only way we can leave the future open.”  Lillian Smith