- Community of holistic healers, artists, inventors, singers, entertainers, potters, web designers, jewelers, writers, clothing designers, machanics, teachers/guides, biodynamic gardeners & living foods vegan chefs, and all around handy people that hope to inspire consciousness by learning & sharing how to live synchronistically & in balance with nature, and pool their resources to make miracles!
~
- Who promote diversity, equality, sustainability & communal sharing
~
- Workshop spaces for Massage, Yoga, Meditation, Energy Healing, Tai Chi, arts, metal/glass/wood working, etc.
~
- All inclusive member & guest counsel decision making
~
- 2 facilitators which act as each-others checks & balances
~
-Central Dome Complex for sharing meals, meetings, gathering, ceremonies, group chants etc.
~
- Guests would include people seeking sanctuary and healing from the 'rat race', people wishing to detox, people who wish to learn how to nourish their bodies in tasty ways, people on disability who are 'terminally' ill of the Medical drugging based approach, Candida sufferers, Cancer, Aids, diabetic sufferers etc., People who just wish to live for a period in a holistically healthy community & who are in need of a holiday sanctuary, retiree's who arn't looking to be put in a retirement 'home'
~
- Once Guests arrive, we give them natural clothes & replacements for any synthetic clothing & hygienic products that they may come with, and put them in safe keeping until they depart
~
- Guests get started on a detox cleansing; colonic, fasting, juicing, etc.
~
- For the duration of their stay guests have open/free access to all workshops and events that go on
~
-Organic Biodynamic Gardens
~
- Papercrete domes for habitation & guest domes with spacious Feng Shui layouts following sacred geometry, in ring around center complex dome
~
-Worm Composting, Recycling Metals etc, Solar Distillers, Raised Gardens & Hydroponics, Sprout Gardens, and other self stainable living methods
~
- Short term; rent a lodge or B & B
~
- Green house terrariums for trees & organic gardening
~
- Peaceful Natural Setting
~
- Simple & Gourmet Living Foods
~
- Detox Clinic
~
- We will also have a Novelties shop of art, jewelry, and other community made gifts, with an online shop as part of our over all web presence that reflex the magic of our community
~
- Using all alternative power methods (solar, biodiesel, wind, etc.), Community bikes & Bike Powered mechanisms like blenders, food processors, juicers, and other tools & any non acoustic Music at celebrations
~
-Pixey lighting in surrounding forest with ambient music
~
- Near source of good flowing water & safe distance from natural disaster zones
~
- Jungle? Fruit Trees / Old Orchard
~
-Start with a Intentions guideline statement, precepts of the community & mission statement
~
-The Dagara Tribe of Africa deals with their 'criminals' in a ceremony that involves all the tribe in a circle around the accused, who then one by one tell that person everything that they find most beautiful about her/him, and what they find most inspiring about them, and thereby fill that tribes member's heart so full of light that they no longer feel lack, and therefor do not feel like doing such 'criminal' behavior again as they feel more connected with their tribe
~
-Rotating workshops depending on currently present facilitators & guides
~
-Raw Kitchen will have a Chocolatier!

-Know thy self!

-Follow your inspiration, those little rushes of ah ha, that tingle up your spine when your eyes light up when you've heard truth - this is how to know your purpose, and learning to follow these inspirations will help you develop your intuition

-Divinity is at the core of your being, of your self and all beings

-In all the worlds cultures and animal species in our vast family tree, there are things common to ALL. Look closely at these universal truths.

-Stoke the fires of the temple of your soul with Inspiration, Knowledge & Highly mineralized live organic nutrients

-Living foods = Living bodies / Dead food = Dead bodies

-Alkalize & Survive! All Cancers, funguses (Candida) and most other Dis-eases can not exist in an alkaline body; Eat alkalizing mineral rich foods that have their life force intact.

-True health is found by assisting your ancient and very wise internal doctor to bring balance back into your internal environment.

-You can't expect to add drugs (poisons) to an ill individual and expect to get health. Adding toxins, medications, radiation and other poisons adds to the imballance of your internal conditions (homeostasis) & this never creates health, even if the drugs manage to mask the symptoms. You are Biotic - Antibiotics are poison! & Why would anyone think they could make someone healthy by exposing them to radiation? If you saw an ill puppy, would it seem healing to you to stick it in a microwave?

"The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical
union; the heart of the mystical union is an experience of
creativity." Julia Cameron

"Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent."
-- Sophia Loren

"The farther behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character."
-- Isabelle Eberhardt

"Art is a partnership not only between those who are
living but between those who are dead and those who are yet to
be born." (Edmund Burke)

"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater."
Gail Godwin

"A true teacher does not explain--he invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself."
Raymond Inmon

"Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly."
Stephen R. Covey

"Correction does much, but encouragement does more."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"The function of art is to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The artist shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see it anew." (Anais Nin)

"The things we fear most in organizations--fluctuations,
disturbances, imbalances--are the primary sources of creativity."
Margaret J. Wheatley

+++"I would rather choose the painting of a monkey over anything generated electronically, because I am more fascinated by the direct evidence of a mind at work than I am by the output of machines."
Gary Glenn

+++"With the most primitive means the artist creates something which the most ingenious and efficient technology will never be able to make."
Kasimir Malevich

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is
because we do not dare that they are difficult."
Seneca

"When you are feeling fear of some project or idea or dream, ask
yourself, What am I still curious enough about to override my fear?
Follow your curiosity like a delicious scent leading you to a kitchen.
Let your curiosity peel back the dry, bitter skin of drudgery to find
the sweet fruit of fun at the core. Focus on what you love rather than
fixating on the feelings of discomfort that sometimes accompany desire."
Carol Lloyd, "Creating a Life Worth Living"

"Procrastination and worry are the twin thieves that will try to rob you
of your brilliance -- but even the smallest action will drive them from
your camp."
Gil Atkinson

"Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all
art." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

"I do believe that it is the arts which speak to the whole person, that is, to the spirit and the emotions, and to the mind and body alike...which are the most important components in the formation of culture."
-the late Doris Shadbolt

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep directly open to and aware of the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
MARTHA GRAHAM

"An artist spends himself like the crayon in his hand, till he is all gone."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I see painting as an evocative magic, and there must
always be a random factor in magic, one which must be constantly
changed and renewed." (William Burroughs)

"Encourage me, and I will not forget you."
William Arthur Ward

"Stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or ashes
of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places--you may find
marvelous ideas." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"The motive for artistic creation is the need to feel that we are essential in relationship to the world."
Jean-Paul Sartre

"The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself.
It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation."
Igor Stravinsky

"Colours are light's suffering and joy."
Wolfgang von Goethe

"Our life is made by the death of others." Leonardo Da Vinci

"Artists dream of a silence which they must enter, as some creatures return to the sea to spawn."
Iris Murdoch

"Art is contemplation."
Auguste Rodin

"Where there is natural growth, a full and free play of faculties, genius will manifest itself."
Robert Henri

"Help children to get through their childhood and out of it without shutting down their creativity or their inner spiritual connections. Help adults to reconnect to their creativity if it is in your realm to do so. Help yourself by
doing whatever you need to do to get clear of all cultural suggestions that you cannot succeed at your Art. Never give up. By fully connecting to our Fire Nature and Passion for Life, all things are possible."
J Bruce Wilcox

"We need to pay exquisite attention to our responses to things--noticing what makes our flame glow brighter. If we pay attention to those things, we'll be able to catch the flame and feed it."
Nina Simons

"To paint--to travel--to combine the two--is to celebrate life."
Jack R. Brouwer

"Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines,
practiced every day, while failure is simply a few errors in
judgment, repeated every day."
Jim Rohn

"We find our freedom along the guiding lines of discipline."
Yehudi Menuhin

Esoterica: Substitute "paint" or "compose" for "write" in the
list above. One list fits all. "Writing has laws of
perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music.
If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then
rearrange the rules to suit yourself." (Truman Capote)

“Whenever you find that you are on the side of majority, it's time to pause and reflect” - Mark Twain

"Give youth your highest respect."
Confucius

"It takes a very long time to become young."
Picasso

"The child is the father of the man."
William Wordsworth

"What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew."
Robert Browning

"For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception
to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable:
intoxication."
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"Any ground subtracts its own hue from the colors which it
carries and therefore influences."
Josef Albers

Quotes:

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have truly come alive." Anon

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." - Samuel Adams

All truth passes through three stages:

First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed; and
Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

“In Medicine one must pay attention not to plausible theorizing but to experience and reason together … I agree that theorizing is to be approved, provided that it is based on facts, and systematically makes its deductions from what is observed … But conclusions drawn from unaided reason can hardly be serviceable; only those drawn from observed fact” — Hippocrates

"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

"great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds" - Albert Einstein

"Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time, for y'all have knocked her up. I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe. I was not offended, for I knew I had to rise above it all, or drown in my own shit". ~George Clinton

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
- Benjamin Franklin, 1759

"When you're one step ahead
of the crowd you're a genius.
When you're two steps ahead,
you're a crackpot."

-- Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, (Feb. 1998

"This could be the first trumpet, might as well be the last. Many more will have to suffer. Many more will have to die. Don't ask me why... One and all has got to face reality, now." ~ Bob Marley

"The Fourth Amendment of our Constitution reads as follows: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, homes, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The so-called USA PATRIOT ACT seeks to undermine our 4th Amendment.

"There is a saying that a prophet’s work is truly complete when the events that are prophesized never occur. If they do not occur, then those who had the “eyes to see” and the “ears to hear” made the choice to heal and transform their lives. Catastrophe and destruction may be averted or avoided altogether. So inevitably, a genuine prophet always has egg on her face."
Lori Toye, iamamerica.com

"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
-- Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
Albert Einstein

"Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes."
Carl Gustav Jung

"The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao."
Tao Te Ching, One

"I confess that there is nothing to teach; no religion, no science, no body of information which will lead your mind back to the Tao. Today I speak in this fashion, tomorrow in another, but always the Integral Way is beyond words and beyond mind. Simply be aware of the oneness of all things." ~ Lao Tzu; Hua Hu Ching, eight

"If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny." Thomas Jefferson

"Spirit sleeps in the mineral, breathes in the vegetable, dreams in the animal and wakes in man."

Nearly all men die of their remedies, and not of their illnesses.  ~Jean Baptiste Molière, Le Malade Imaginaire

The obstacle is the path.  ~Zen Proverb


"You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car." - Harvey Diamond

When a man has pity on all living creatures then only is he noble.
(Buddha)

People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times.
(Isaac Bashevis Singer)

I just could not stand the idea of eating meat - I really do think that it has made me calmer.... People's general awareness is getting much better, even down to buying a pint of milk: the fact that the calves are actually killed so that the milk doesn't go to them but to us cannot really be right, and if you have seen a cow in a state of extreme distress because it cannot understand why its calf isn't by, it can make you think a lot.
(Kate Bush)

Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first, it is ridiculed. In the second, it is opposed. In the third, it is regarded as self-evident.
(Schopenhauer)

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease" Thomas Edison

"leave your drugs in the chemist's pot if you can heal the patient with food" Hippocrates

"If you do not make the mistake of many and set up your will in opposition to Divine law, you will fulfill that high destiny for which you were chosen."
George Washington

"We are members of the most destructive culture ever to exist. Our assault on the natural world, on indigenous and other cultures, on women, on children, on all of us through the possibility of nuclear suicide and other means--all these are unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity." (From Derrick Jensen's first book, Listening to the Land)

"Men dig their graves with their own teeth and die more by those fated instruments than by the weapons of their ennemies. Thomas Moffet"

"The ethics of reverence for life makes no distinction between higher and lower, more precious and less precious lives. It has good reasons for this omission. For what are we doing, when we establish hard and fast gradations in value between living organisms, but judging them in relation to ourselves, by whether they seem to stand closer to us or farther from us. This is a wholly subjective standard. How can we know what importance other living organisms have in themselves and in terms of the universe?"
Albert Schweitzer, "Reverence for Life: The Words of Albert Schweitzer”

“I'd rather have people hate me for what I am than love me for what I'm not.”
anon

"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater."
Gail Godwin

"A true teacher does not explain--he invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself."
Raymond Inmon

"When we harness the forces of harmony, joy and love, we
create success and good fortune with effortless ease."
Deepak Chopra

“To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only obligation”
From The Alchemist

“Following your dream is like learning a foreign language; you will make mistakes but you will get there in the end.”
Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

"The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."

"Head of Florida holocaust Museum links Bush family to Nazis "The Bush family fortune came from the Third Reich." -John Loftus, former US Justice Dept. Nazi War Crimes investigator and President of the Florida Holocaust Museum quoted in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune 11/11/2000"

"No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they
mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous." (Henry
Brooks Adams)

“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”
Noam Chomsky

"Never heard of media monopoly? guess why. Media
monopoly"
Adbusters maganize

"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary
act."
George Orwell

"Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it"
-Robert F. Kennedy

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is
because we do not dare that they are difficult."
Seneca

"Faith" means not wanting to know what is true.
Friedrich Nietzsche

"Anything that you have the ability to visualize -- you have the ability to
have a physical manifestation of!" Abraham

"The unexamined life is not worth living."
Socrates

"The crime isn't what's illegal: the crime is what's legal."
Michael Kinsley

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
Aristotle

If the official govnernment figure is that %10 of the general comunity is gay then if there are over 6,000,000,000 (6 billion) people currently on earth, then there has to be at least 600,000,000 (6 hundered million) gay and lesbian people world wide, counter acting the 5,400,000,000 (5 billion 400 million) people breeding us into over population and extinction.
Shahee

"Those who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will be."
Thomas Jefferson

“For medical science, when they say, find a "cure," it means to invent some patentable substance or procedure whereby they can make lots of money, while ignoring the lifestyle choices that have caused the "disease" in the first place,
and criticizing those who are pointing people in the right direction. If everyone got the sense to tell their M.D., "You're fired," and take charge of their own health, we could have a healthier nation.”
Ron Koenig

"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat".

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American Public."
Theodore Roosevelt a republican

+++"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke

"As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
Pythagoras

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn."
John Cotton Dana

“It is shameful that we call ourselves made in the image of God, and yet we have to destroy everything to build our little houses."
Nader Khalili. M.Arch. Technical Univ. Istanbul. Chief Architect/Planner, Future City/Villages, International, Inc.; Director, Geltaftan Foundation.

"You didn't come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here."
Alan Watts

“Anger is the emotion of the weak. Compassion takes true strength.”
Mesoph

"Life is not problem to be solved but a Mistery to be lived"

“Homosexuality is the Universe's way of ensuring that the truly gifted aren`t burdened with children.”
Anon

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
C. S. Lewis, "The Screwtape Letters”

"The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think."
Gregory Bateson

"And don't let anybody make you think that God chose America as his
divine messianic force to be; A sort of policeman of the whole world. God
has a way of standing before the nations with Judgement and it seems that I
can hear God saying to America: You're too arogant ! If you don't change
your ways, I will rise up, and break the backbone of your power! And I'll
place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name! Be
still and know - that I'M God."
Martin Luther King Jr.

“Imagine an ecoark where we may gather for regeneration and healing and to learn the knowledge of the elves: how to plant and care for the planet itself. For, if we do not make a place for Faerie on Earth, the landlords of grim greed may corrupt it all. Then where would we be?”
Anon

"Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast...a part time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still here."
Edward Abbey

"The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare
statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of
credit... Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the 'hidden' confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. "
--Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Chairman

"Anybody who still thinks the sky is the limit has no imagination."
Franklin P. James

"No one expects the days to be gods."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true." -- Lao Zi

‘The western world needs to learn what our eastern brethren have understood for milennia, The real waste is in NOT using our humanure. How broken is a system where we use chemicals to grow most of our food then use our fresh water to flush away humanure nutrients that could be used to grow food and then add more chemicals to try to 'treat' the good stuff so it isn't good anymore? In a better system we would eat the food, digest it, compost it and use it to grow more food thereby completeing the circle and eliminating the chemicals used to grow and treat. Therein lies the solution to one of man's greatest environmental dilemmas.”
Jake

"Only a rat can win the rat race"
Anon

"As you grow older, it dawns on you that you are yourself--that your job is not to force yourself into a style--but to do what you want."
Beth van Hoesen

"People who've given up on their dreams will often discourage yours."
annon

"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues." -Abraham Lincoln

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

“Anyone starting out from scratch to plan a civilization would hardly have designed such a monster as our collective sewage system. Its existence gives additional point to the sometimes asked question, Is there any evidence of intelligent life on the planet Earth?”
G. R. Stewart

“There is an exceptional degree of agreement within the scientific community that natural systems can no longer absorb the burden of current human practices.”
World Scientists Warning to Humanity

“Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course . . . No more than one or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects for humanity immeasurably diminished.”
1600 Senior Scientists from 71 countries, including half of all Nobel Prize winners, November 18, 1992
World Scientists Warning to Humanity

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 1953

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism, because it is
a merger of corporate and state power."
Benito Mussolini

"In our age the common religious perception should be the consciousness of our brotherhood and sisterhood. Our well-being lies in this union. Art should transform this perception into feeling."
Leo N. Tolstoy

"Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must first set yourself on fire."
Fred Schero

"On the other side of resistance is The Flow".

"In nature, all animals eat raw/living foods. Only humans cook their food and only humans suffer widespread sickness. All diseases of civilization—cancer, heart disease, diabetes—are all directly attributable to the consumption of cooked food."
—T.C. Fry

Chinese proverb “If I hear it, I forget it. If I see it, I remember it. If I do it, I know it.”,

"This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists. The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority."
Martin Luther King

We are not concerned with diseases but with
mistakes . . . of living. Get rid of the mistakes
and the diseases will disappear of their own accord.
   Dr Are Waerland

"The biggest difference between the Russians and Americans was that Russians recognized that ‘the Party Line’ was propaganda from the ruling elite, and Americans who receive ‘the Mainstream Press’ fail to recognize it as ‘propaganda from the ruling elite’ and mistake it for ‘reality’."
- Bill Moyers, on NOW Magazine

“The Art of Living consists of dying young, but as late as possible.”
Anon

"Unless the doctors of today become the dieticians of tomorrow, then the dieticians of today will become the doctors of tomorrow."
Dr Alexis Carrel:

   "The older physicians grow, the more skeptical they become of the virtues of medicine, and the more they are disposed to trust to the powers of Nature."
Professor Alexander H. Stevens, New York College of Physicians and Surgeons:

The leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 45 is going to the doctor" -US Dept of Health - December, 1999

   "The efforts of medicine on the human system are in the highest degree uncertain, except indeed, that they have destroyed more lives than war, pestilence and famine combined."
John Mason Good, MD FRS:

“Futile but otherwise harmless medical care is the least important of the damages a proliferating medical enterprise inflicts on contemporary society. However, the pain, dysfunction, disability, and anguish resulting from techical medical intervention now rival the morbidity due to traffic and industrial accidents and even war-related activities, and make the impact of medicine one of the most rapidly spreading epidemics of our time.”
Ivan Illich, Medical Nemesis (1976)

“I believe my generation of doctors will be remembered for two things: the miracles that turned to mayhem, such as penicillin and cortisone, and for the millions of mutilations which are ceremoniously (and totally unnecessarily) carried out every year in operating rooms.”
Robert A. Mendelsohn, MD,
Confessions of a Medical Heretic (1979)

Iatrogenic means caused by medical treatment. According to a report from the World Health Organization, one in every four hospital deaths is the result of medical drugs.
from The Healing Mind by Dr Irving Oyle, 1975.

“My refusing to eat meat occasioned an inconveniency, and I have been frequently chided for my singularity. But my light repast allows for greater progress, for greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension.”
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

"Fruits and vegetables are health food. The rest are condiments.”
Dr. Graham

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor." - Henry Thoreau

“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.”
Chinese Proverb

"A time comes when silence is betrayal."

 -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
     Courtesy of NewThoughtWeekly
     jerry@turquoise.net

"Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
 Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
 Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
 But conscience asks the question - is it right?
 And there comes a time when one must take
 a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;
 but one must take it BECAUSE it is right.

 -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
    Courtesy of Alec Christos Gabbitas

"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."
 -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
     Courtesy of Joel Wollner & David Wollner

"The ultimate weakness of violence
 is that it is a descending spiral,
 begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
 Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
 Through violence you murder the hater;
 but you do not murder hate.
 In fact, violence merely increases hate....
 Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
 adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

 Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
 only light can do that.
 Hate cannot drive out hate;
 only love can do that.
 Hate multiplies hate,
 violence multiplies violence,
 and toughness multiplies toughness
 in a descending spiral of destruction....
 The chain reaction of evil --
 hate begetting hate,
 wars producing more wars --
 must be broken,
 or we shall be plunged
 into the dark abyss of annihilation."

 -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
    Strength To Love, 1963
    Courtesy of Education Planet
   
www.educationplanet.com/redirect
    and to David and Jane

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
 -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
     Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967
     Courtesy of Education Planet
    
www.educationplanet.com/redirect

"One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it.
 -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
    civil-rights leader (1929-1968)

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love."
 -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
    Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech,
    Stockholm, Sweden, December 11, 1964
    courtesy of Education Planet
   
www.educationplanet.com/redirect

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
Albert Einstein

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
 -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963
    Courtesy of Liz Randol

"I have decided to stick with love.  Hate is too great a burden to bear."
 -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. American civil rights leader and clergyman

--
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism"
Thomas Jefferson

Be the change you want to see in the world." ~ Gandhi ~

"Hold a starving child in one arm and a Rolex watch in the other hand, would the value of the Rolex watch distract you?"
~ Patch Adams

A true Visionary is not a Leader, but rather a Follower~~
One who humbly follows the Truth,
One who refuses to walk ahead of the Seekers,
But rather cherishes walking beside them, among them.

Boldness has genius, power and magic. Engage, and the mind grows heated. Begin, and the work will be completed.
--Goethe

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.
--Katharine Hepburn

Don't play what's there, play what's not there.
Miles Davis

The universe is real but you can't see it. You have to imagine it. Once you imagine it, you can be realistic about reproducing it.
--Alexander Calder

When you work you are a flute through whose heart, the whispering of the hours turns to music. To love life through labor is to be intimate with life's innermost secret. All work is empty save when there is love, for work is love made visible.
--Kahlil Gibran

In life and art you must learn to love
--Robert Glen

Our body is a machine for living
--Leo Tolstoi

A Life In Your Hands
If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn;
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight;
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy;
If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty;
If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient;
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns confidence;
If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate;
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice;
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith;
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself;
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship,
he learns to find love in the world.
--Dorothy Law Holte



Show is always better than tell.
Your kids already know your opinions.
Kiss them regularly if they'll let you.
Be alert when they approach you with ideas.
Encourage them to colour outside the lines.
Keep in touch.  Let them know where you are.
Let you and your spouse be sails, not anchors.
Field trips are more valuable than classrooms.
One of the best things you can say is "try it".
Non-judgmental curiosity beats seasoned guidance.
When kids hang out in the studio, you pick up tips.
Let the kids visit with weird friends and relatives.
The development of imagination requires their privacy.
Always have materials available.  Try not to be stingy.
Encourage enterprise.  Let them make and sell lemonade.
They understand if you travel during the drum-set stage.
A kid's opening sentences are not always topic sentences.
If they don't know what you think, they are likely to ask.
From time to time be dull and stupid.  The kids will rally.
Before making suggestions, give it some thought. They have.
--Robert Glen


Your children are not your children.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls.
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, even in your dreams.
You are the bows from which your children, as living arrows,
are sent forth.
--Kahlil Gibran



He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from
oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent which
will reach to himself.
--Thomas Paine (1737-1809)


“In Germany the Nazis first came for the communists,
and  I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist,
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
but I didn’t speak up because I was a protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time
there wasn’t anyone left to speak up for  me. "

--Reverend Martin Niemoeller, a German Lutheran
pastor who was detained and sent to Dachau in 1938 and was subsequently
released in 1945.

People who give up freedom for security achieve neither.
--Benjamin Franklin

An eye for and eye makes the whole world blind.
--Mahatma Gandhi

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
--Rudyard Kipling

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
--Albert Einstein

They Wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in the modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.  --Ernest Hemingway, Notes on the Next War

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?
--Eleanor Roosevelt

You must not only refuse to shoot a man, but you must refuse to hate him.
--Martin Luther King

Compromise does not mean cowardice.
--John F. Kennedy

Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.
--Henri Nouwen

Humanity must eventually come to a point where all borders are dropped and we come to recognize ourselves as one people, in all our diversity. Patiotism causes wars.
--CyberGypsy

If there is one thing I have learned from traveling abroad, is - we are one world people segregated by politics and patriotism.
--CyberGypsy

If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
--Moshe Dayan

When the rich make war, it is the poor that die.
--Jean-Paul Sartre

A society that systematically shuts its eyes to an urgent peril to its physical survival and fails to take any steps to save itself cannot be called psychologically well.
--Jonathan Schell

The first essential characteristics of nonvioleent action is that it is creative.
--Hildegarde Gross-May

It is the Job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.
--Albert Camus

There never was a good war or a bad peace.
--Benjamin Franklin

You can no more win a war than win an earthquake.
--Jeanette Rankin

Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
--Mathew 5:9

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

Observe good faith and justive towards all nations. Cultivale peace and harmony with all.
--George Washington

Better than thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.
--Buddha

Imagination rules the world.
--Napoleon

You can count how many seeds are in the apple, but not how
many apples are in the seed.
--Ken Kesey

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
--G. K. Chesterton

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
--Kahlil Gibran

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the
knowledge we have lost in information?
--T. S. Eliot

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in
fortune or misfortune at their own pace, like a clock during a
thunderstorm.
--Robert Louis Stevenson

I think of my studio as a vegetable garden where things
follow their natural course. They grow, they ripen. You have to
graft. You have to water."
--Joan Miro

As artists we must learn to be self nourishing.  We must become alert enough
to constantly replenish our creative resources as we draw on them.  To
restock the trout pond, so to speak.
--Julia Cameron

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the
things you didn't do than by the things you did.  So throw off
the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbor.  Explore. Dream.
--Mark Twain

The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.
--Sam Gamgee, The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

There is no mystery about art. Do the things that you can
see; they will show you those that you cannot see. By doing what
you can you will gradually get to know what it is that you want
to do and cannot do, and so be able to do it.
--Samuel Butler

"I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out
in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in
magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time."
--Jack London

Imagination is everything.  Imagination is the voice of
daring.
--Henry Miller

When freedom is outlawed only outlaws will be free.
--Bernard Mickey Wrangle

An artist is only an artist on condition that he neglects
no aspect of his dual nature.  This dualism is the power of
being oneself and someone else at one and the same time."
--Charles Baudelaire

For us artists there waits the joyous compromise
through art, with all that has wounded or defeated us in daily
life--not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do,
but to fulfil it in its true potential--the imagination.
--Lawrence Durrell

Human beings, by change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.
--Goethe

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.
--George Eliot

Every generation must start again afresh.
--Maurice de Vlaminck

How difficult it is to be simple.
--Vincent van Gogh

Out of clutter, find simplicity.
--Albert Einstein

Knowledge is gained by learning; trust by doubt; skill by practice; love by love.
--Thomas Szasz

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

It is, after all, the dab of grit that seeps into an oyster's shell that makes the pearl, not pearl-making seminars with other oysters.
--Stephen King

The cost of not showing interest in public affairs is to be governed by persons worse than oneself
--Plato

"welcome back to america, home of the brave, we got handcuffs,
handguns, and minimum wage. we stole it from the indians and built
it with slaves, and nowadays these muthafuckers wonder why we
misbehave"
--Anon

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
--Lord Acton, The History of Freedom and Other Essays.

The harder you chase something, the faster you go and the
less you're able to let life meet life. If you're having
difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down.
--Natalie Goldberg

Painters are amongst the priests--worker priests of the cult of man- searching to understand but never to know.
--Brice Marden

Right Livelihood -Believing in what one does helps make living worthwhile. When one's productivity is directed towards destroying nature in some way, one's belief system will inexorably rearrange itself as a result of the process of rationalizing this activity.
--Art Ludwig

A vision without a task is but a dream, a task without vision is drudgery, a vision with a task is the hope of the world.
--Inscription on a church in Sussex, England, 1730

I will not forget that poverty and riches are of the spirit. Though the world knows me not, may my thoughts and actions be such as will keep me friendly with myself.
--Max Ehrmann

An unflinching determination to take the whole evidence into account is the only method of preservation against the fluctuating extremes of fashionable opinion.
--Alfred North Whitehead

Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. --Albert Einstein

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
  --Socrates


To look at a thing is very different from seeing it.
--Oscar Wilde

A person experiences life as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. Our task must be to free ourselves from this self-imposed prison, and through compassion, to find the reality of Oneness --Albert Einstein

A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.
--Benjamin Franklin

Art and business may be strange bedfellows, but an artist
must make room in her bed for both.
--Eric Maisel

Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people
ask better questions, and as a result, they get better
answers.
--Anthony Robbins

In the arts there are many right answers.
--Jerry Uelsmann

The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses
the right questions.
--Claude Levi-Straus

Let the painting tell you what it needs.
--Charles Reid

Painting is stronger than I am. It can make me do whatever it
wants.
--Pablo Picasso

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.
Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your
ideal is the prophecy of what you shall unveil.
--James Allen

Style is something that comes in spite of itself. Because you've worked, you've looked.
--Mark Adams

Genius is nothing but a great aptitude for patience.
--George-Louis De Buffon

Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
--Thomas Edison

Genius is not a possession of the limited few, but exists in some degree in everyone.  Where there is natural growth, a full and free play of faculties, genius will manifest itself.
--Robert Henri

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.
--Aldous Huxley

Genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains.
--Jane Hopkins

Genius, the power which dazzles human eyes, is oft but perseverance in disguise.
--H.W. Austin

The modes of expression of men of genius differ as much as their souls, and it is difficult to say that in some among them, drawing and color are better or worse than in others.
--Auguste Rodin

"Whenever I hear the word "Gypsy", I feel the wanderlust spirit call to me. I see visions of mysterious campfires and exotic dancing. I hear echoes of lively music and gentle laughter. I feel the pull of more romantic and adventurous times gone by. While these visions do not accurately describe the life of the Gypsies, there is nothing that captures the essence of romance and adventure as fully as a magnificently carved and brightly painted Gypsy Wagon."
--(Delvin Jasper Tetz, 1914-1975) @ gypsyvans.com ; Wally Roth - Gypsy Caravan Builder

The arts and economics

"Why is the making of government cultural policy of such key importance? Because in our knowledge-based economy, the well-being of society depends on minds - on a multiplicity of questing, restless individual minds working with a large degree of freedom and some degree of support. It rests ultimately on a quality that corporations call innovation, and individuals call creativity.
- Dr. Shirley L. Thomson, director, Canada Council for the Arts

"Those communities that are richest in their artistic tradition are also those that are the most progressive in their economic performance and most resilient and secure in their economic structure."
- John Kenneth Galbraith, economist

"When a community invests in the arts, they are not opting for cultural benefits at the expense of economic benefits. Extensive research shows that in addition to being a means of social enrichment, the arts are also an economically sound investment for communities of all sizes."
- Robert Lynch, president and CEO, National Association of Arts Councils, United States

"Strong, creative communities are known to attract business and industry, bringing employment opportunities and additional wealth to the community. Industries of the emerging information-age economy value quality-of-life issues for their employees, and are attracted to communities, regardless of geography, that actively support arts and culture."
- from Creative Connections: Arts and Culture in British Columbia Communities, Union of British Columbia Municipalities, 1997

The arts and education

"I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for in the patterns of music and all the arts are the keys to learning."
- Plato

"During the past quarter century, literally thousands of school-based programs have demonstrated beyond question that the arts can not only bring coherence to our fragmented academic world, but through the arts, students' performance in other academic disciplines can be enhanced as well."
- Ernest L. Boyer, president, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

"The process of studying and creating art in all of its distinct forms defines those qualities that are at the heart of education reform in the 1990's - creativity, perseverance, a sense of standards, and above all, a striving for excellence."
- Richard W. Riley, US Secretary of Education

The arts and community

"Community development is seen as a process by which people come together to address common concerns or problems in a systematic fashion, strengthening their sense of community and becoming empowered through the process. If the arts are seen as 'a part of' the community as opposed to 'apart from' the community, the chances for this kind of community building are greatly enhanced."
- Bernie Jones, community development and planning consultant

"Cliches suggest that opera is screaming and yelling, and has nothing to do with ordinary people. Then there are those who think poor people don't deserve to be around art. They need to be around making money. They see poor people as culturally, intellectually, and emotionally deprived. Both of these stereotypes are totally incorrect. Opera seems to move downtown eastsiders more than anything else I've ever seen. I've seen people come out of their shell in a way I never thought possible. It's transforming them."
- Jim Green, president, Four Corners Bank, Main & Hastings Streets, Vancouver, site of Opera at the Bank program (Globe & Mail, 17 October 2000)

"Natives and non-natives have little connection with each other, they have very separate communities. It was a real challenge even to begin finding a way to reach out to them, and then to find ways to work together that would allow us to come together as equals and create an opportunity for their voices to be expressed in their own ways. And, of course, bringing over 800 people together to create this kind of performance was a huge challenge in general.

The scale of the project was monumental, and the problems associated with bridging various ages, cultural, economic gaps in the community brought its own series of conflicts and tension. But to see people come together during this process was incredible. People who would not have had much to do with each other before were suddenly working and playing together - and these relationships have lasted well beyond the end of the project. It's hard to describe the impacts it's had.

It's this kind of intangible effect that made it a magical process. People coming together to create art, especially for people who don't see themselves as artists, is an incredible tool. And now these folks have started thinking and feeling about art in new ways. Some of the youth involved have gone on to start their own theatre company and begun training in the arts. You can't begin to imagine the positive effect this process had on this community."
- Cathy Stubbington, coordinator, Enderby Community Play

"Very few things turn on the kids like [world music] does. What we are really doing is promoting an understanding of the diversity that we have. There are lots of prejudices that are established out of ignorance. This is one way to deal with that ignorance. If we can eliminate prejudicial thought at that level, then we've made a major accomplishment."
- Sal Ferraras, musician and head of the world music program at Vancouver Community College

The arts and life

"Art is very often about crossing boundaries, because creativity is about seeing things in new ways. Art opens people's imaginations to a wider world. And creative thinking, risk-taking, and openness to the new are qualities that are valued in many fields besides the arts."
- Dr. Shirley L. Thomson, director, Canada Council for the Arts

"You won't have peace and agreement in the world unless we're connected by culture and art. Art transcends borders."
- Jozef Szajna, Polish director and Holocaust survivor

"Any form of artistic expression is part of who we are as human beings. It would be a very empty existence without art in our lives, either the art that we ourselves produce, or that which we enjoy through the labour of others."
- Judith Forst, mezzo-soprano

"The arts are the aromatic herbs on the pizza that is this metropolis. They give it piquancy; they lend an unexpected flavour to what could be a very mundane existence. The arts are all around us: in the street, inside the theatres, in the parks, in the bookstores - banners, books, buildings. At the simplest level, they bring a purely aesthetic pleasure and a gaiety to life that often isn't there without them. We must never forget that essence of absolute joy, unjustified by any other reason than its existence, that the arts bring.

They have other, less evident functions. By reflecting aspects of life and society they help to explain who we are, to make our identity visible. They give us context. They show us different points of view and different experiences, and allow us to find our own individual contexts in the larger world. They let us try things on. They often, especially in literature and the theatre, ask us difficult questions that we might not voluntarily engage with on a day-to-day basis, uncomfortable questions we may not be able to handle in any other way."
- Max Wyman, writer and journalist

"The importance of the arts lies in their ability to intellectually and emotionally engage us … I don't know how it works, but the whole sense of coming out of a live theatre presentation slightly changed and enhanced, a bigger person than when I walked in because of what I now know about people, what I may have gained in understanding, is something that I really value.
- Evelyn Lau, writer and poet

"Art is an essential aspect of life, of being human. There is an institution where they were considering closing the art department as a result of government cutbacks, and the First Nations people there said, 'No, art and culture is too important and too integral to what we do.'"
- George Littlechild, visual artist

"Truly, without the arts, human culture would be a shadow of what it has the potential to be."
- Philip Boname, president, Urbanics

"We're all in the same boat. We really are. And that's why it's so important that we go to the theatre. Because it's the theatre that keeps us in tune with the simple message: we're all the same. We're just human beings who are trying to find our way through."
- Corinne Koslo, actor

"Narrative is the bundle in which we wrap truth, hope, and dread. It is how we explain, how we teach, how we entertain ourselves. It is essential to civilization."
- Robert Fulford, cultural commentator, 1999 Massey Lectures

"It would be hard for me to imagine having a spiritual experience that didn't involve a movement of my soul by images, by movement, by music, by poetry. Art is integral to life."
- Jack Rootman, research scientist/professor (head of Opthamology at UBC), painter

"Science will … produce the data … but never the full meaning. For perceiving real significance, we shall need … most of all the brains of poets, [and] also those of artists, musicians, philosophers, historians, writers in general."
- Lewis Thomas, scientist

The arts and healing

"Art also serves as a healing tool, as I deal with issues - with world issues that affect all of us, as well as personal ones. People from different backgrounds and experiences can be touched and brought together by art. This is really important to me, as a First Nations person, because of the long tradition of storytelling."
- George Littlechild, visual artist

"… I cried in almost every scene. By the way I don't usually cry at shows but I think the reason I cry is because this show depicts my life almost exactly! On Friday October 3 I tried to kill myself by overdose, obviously it didn't work! The day after, I saw your first public show, and I don't know what happened but your show completely changed my life. It brought me out of my depression, and for that I am very thankful!"
- Name withheld, letter received by DanceArts Vancouver Re: ICE: Beyond Cool, 1997 production about teen suicide

The arts and corrections

"When children express themselves through dance they may no longer need a broken window, or the power of their voices, a can of spray paint, or a gun to make their point."
- Harry Thomas, director, Seattle Housing Authority

"Numerous studies show the positive effect of arts work with offenders. About 30 percent of male prisoners and 40 percent of female prisoners attend arts classes. Violent incidents in jails which have arts programs are 60 to 90 percent lower than in those without such programs."
- National Campaign for the Arts, United Kingdom

“Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with high standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move ahead.”
Jennifer White

“I use not only all the brains I have but all that I can borrow.”
Woodrow Wilson

“The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
Albert Einstein

“Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.”
Woodrow Wilson

“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said, I don't know.”
Mark Twain

“Don't agonize. It slows you down.”
"Non-perfectionist"Isaac Asimov

"Evil triumphs when good men do nothing."
Edmund Burke [1729-1797]

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. Martin Luther King Jr.

A lousy upbringing doesn't curse you for life.
Having a distasteful job can be used to fire ambition.
Find a place where you can comfortably work.
Have a work-room door and the willingness to close it.
Have a window with no view.
Make your attainable daily quota come rain or shine.
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Value your core personal relationship.
Play loud music while working.
A challenge works better than mollycoddling.
Good lessons are learned from busy professionals.
The most valuable lessons are the ones you teach yourself.
Quality work doesn't come from "out there."
Marathon so motifs and inspiration don't become stale.
Pay little or no attention to chronic naysayers.
Value fellowship; brotherhood and sisterhood.
That which you can conceive, you can do.
You can move objects just by thinking about them.
Finish the job at hand, then get on with the next.
Do not come lightly to the blank page.
Keep the tools of your trade close and ready.
Be particular, even obsessed, with your craft.
Be aware of poor quality work: yours, and others.
Let your work come out of what you know and feel.
Look around at the end.  See if you can add another layer.
Figure it out for yourself.
Live in your head.
Do it your way.



With some effort and commitment, we can change our habitual thoughts and behaviors and create new pathways that reopen the doors to new possibility.

* Look at your beliefs. Do you hold a belief that nothing ever works out for you? That an old dog can't learn new tricks? Can you see how these beliefs are limiting new possibility? Create affirmations that reverse these beliefs, and post them in places where you'll see them often.

* Challenge your usual expectations, and be willing for them to be
proven wrong. Allow different results to emerge. A favorite spiritual
teacher of mine defines "humility" as knowing that whatever happened before, good or bad, it can always be different.

* Notice 3 new things every day. For example, on the way to work,
instead of going on autopilot, actively look around and become aware of things you don't normally notice.

* Do things in different ways, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.
Change your daily routine, take a different route to the supermarket or do things with your non-dominant hand.

* Try something new. Take that class you've thought about for years. Meet new people. Challenge yourself to do that thing that's intrigued and scared you.

* Ask others how they see you. We often hold over outdated beliefs about ourselves from earlier in our lives. Despite our achievements, that voice that says we're not good enough may continue to run through our thoughts, so that we still feel a lack of confidence or self-esteem. People outside ourselves, who aren't privy to our critical inner voice, can sometimes see our growth and new strengths better than we can.

* Do something where the outcome is unpredictable. Try a new job or career. Ask someone out on a date. Try an art form or a sport you've never tried before. Give yourself permission to not be great at it.