In association with hhdlstudycirclemontreal.org
Archive for June, 2011
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A work of art is a gift, not a commodity. Where there is no gift, there is no art.
– Lewis Hyde –
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The Artist Who Gives It All Away
One day, San Francisco artist Jane Baker realized something. Now she operates from a new place — new, but also very old: “I don’t know art history that well, but it is only in the last few hundred years that art has been a commodity. Before that, most artists were doing it out of their love for, frankly, for God or their church. Most of the art that’s been made has not been made for money. So I’m standing with a group that has been around for a lot longer! It’s not a weak, touchy-feely place. What I’ve started feeling is that, yes, they really knew what was right! And it lasted a long time before this particular period we are all in.” Works & Conversations interviews Baker, who has a practice of donating one hundred percent of the income from sales of her artwork to charities. { read more }
Be The Change
Consider how your own art making can rest on a foundation of service. |
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Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness.
– Marshall McLuhan –
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Why Invisible Gorillas Matter
Daniel Simons has become one of the most influential young cognitive scientists in the last decade, co-authoring smash-hit studies in two different fields. He’s best-known for his “Gorillas in our Midst” study, co-authored with Christopher Chabris, where viewers are shown a 45-second video of six students tossing around basketballs. Viewers are instructed to carefully count only the passes between players dressed in white. What they aren’t told is that halfway through the video, a woman dressed in a gorilla suit will walk into the middle of the screen, beat her chest, and walk off. Amazingly, when viewers don’t know about the gorilla in advance, about half of them miss it completely. Seed Magazine interviews Simons. { read more }
Be The Change
Question intuitions and assumptions about how your mind works. Check out the Gorilla demo, a top 10 illusion of the year, and more. { more } |
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Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
– Rumi –
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I Heart Strangers
“Every single day, I went out into the world to seek out someone I had never before met. I introduced myself and asked them if I could photograph them. I took something valuable away from every encounter and did my best to pass that along.” Artist Joshua Langlais started the “I Heart Strangers” project as an attempt to love his neighbors. Starting it in 2008 with the intention of doing it for a year, he kept it up for 625 days. “I get all my inspiration from meeting people and developing relationships. I see community and conversation and loving people as the only things that matter,” Langlais explained. As he went on with the project, he realized that it was actually transforming him. “I learn about myself through the daily processes and continue to grow and better relate to others and genuinely feel more compassion for what is happening to the world around me.” { read more }
Be The Change
Connect with someone you’ve never met — and pour your full presence into that interaction. |
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| Jun 27, 2011 |
| Harvest of kindness — of kindredness — is winnowed down to a precious few grains. For at the center of all spiritual traditions is the beacon of a truly radical proposal: Open your heart to everybody. Everybody.–Marc Barasach |
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 Collection of ideas from Smile Groups this week … “This lady was walking through my neighborhood on such an extremely hot day, realizing there are no bus stops within 5 miles, I made a u-turn and gave her a ride to her destination.” “A man held the door for me at a local coffee shop, he was so perky,I bought him a cup of tea.” “Forwarded a letter that had gone astray and paid the extra postage!” “Emptied the house — books, DVDs, etc. Advertised to come and take what you want and leave a donation in the bucket for a local charity.” “I heard of a competition that I knew I would definitely get a prize so I entered and put down a friends name and address so that they will get the prize. And it’s chocolate!” “Encouraged a guy to come out of his love failure. :)” “I picked lemons from my moms lemon tree and gave them away .. someone going to have delicious fresh lemonade for fathers day!” “Took a senior citizen grocery shopping; she was not feeling well enough to drive herself.” “Last night I helped some foreigners exchange some money into my country’s currency and then my sister and I led them to a hotel. They were lost and didn’t speak the language.” “Lending out a very expensive canopy to someone in need.” “I replaced a drummer in a band that needed one! :)” “Put a dollar inside a book I returned to the library … for either the library people or the next reader to find.”
[ share your story >> ] |
You can also contribute comments on each story! |
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| I am a mother of five sons, all grown now. But I remember a day when there were 4 little ones, the youngest being only a couple month. That day, we loaded up the boys in the car and went to the park. My husband took the 3 older boys to go runninig around the park, as sat by the car with the baby. As I looked around, I saw a homeless man sittig on the park bench, when few older boys came up with their bikes and rode in a circle around the man. I couldn’tt hear what was said but one boy rode away with a empty water bottle, filled it up with water and came back to give it to the man. All the boys of different ethnicities sat at the same table; the grill nearby was still warm from an early picnic. Just then, the homeless man went to his cart, came back with a fast food bag with some small hamburgers, and gave each boy a burger that they all warmed them up on the grill and shared a meal together. As I sat there watching, I was so moved and thought, “What a beautiful world.” That was 25 years ago. Our world today is not the same and needs our help now! Let’s reach out to one another. –Mama5 |
| What is a “smile card”? It’s a game of kindness — do something nice for someone and leave a card behind asking them to pay it forward. To date, 943,096 cards have been shipped without any charge.
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If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.
– Pearl Buck –
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Mother of All Languages
The world’s 6,000 or so modern languages may have all descended from a single ancestral tongue spoken by early African humans around 50,000 years ago, a new study suggests. The finding could help explain how the first spoken language emerged, spread and contributed to the evolutionary success of the human species. Quentin Atkinson, an evolutionary psychologist and author of the study, found that the first migrating populations leaving Africa laid the groundwork for all the world’s cultures by taking their single language with them — the mother of all mother tongues. “It was the catalyst that spurred the human expansion that we all are a product of,” Dr. Atkinson said. { read more }
Be The Change
“Each day, our tribe of language holds what we call the ‘world’ together.” John O’Donohue explores the depth of language. { more } |
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The human heart feels things the eyes cannot see, and knows what the mind cannot understand.
– Robert Valett –
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A Change of Heart Changes Everything
Did you know that briefly re-experiencing a cherished memory creates synchronization in your heart rhythm in mere seconds? It increases the release of healthy, energizing hormones, while decreasing levels of damaging stress hormones, and strengthening the immune system. HeartMath, an emotional physiology research institute, has also discovered that if someone has a coherent heart rhythm, it has a demonstrably positive effect on other people in close proximity. Their cutting edge research establishes the physical heart as central to human health, success and fulfillment. But how do you ‘change your heart?’ According to their research, “If you consciously shift your attention to a positive emotion, like appreciation or care, or if you allow your thoughts to return to the feeling of a cherished memory, your heart rhythm changes immediately.” { read more }
Submitted by: V. Mehta
Be The Change
Make an effort today to be aware of how your state of mind is affecting your body. |
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All models are false but some are useful.
– George E. P. Box –
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Learning to Love Uncertainty and Failure
Edge Magazine called for eminent scientists, philosophers, and artists to submit responses to the question, “What scientific concept would improve everybody’s toolkit?” The results have recently been published online. A common basis among the responses was that many people currently misunderstand the scientific process, undervalue the need for scientific doubt, and fail to recognize the role of failure. As remedies, the world’s biggest brains suggest better understanding the limits of what science can tell us, being comfortable with uncertainty, and knowing the worth of failure as valuable tools that would improve our lives. { read more }
Be The Change
What are some open questions that excite you? For inspiration, a short passage by celebrated poet Rainer Maria Rilke on “Living our Questions:” { more } |
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Video of the Week
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Jun 24, 2011 |
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Time Banking
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| What is a time bank? It is a network of people helping each other by sharing their time and talents. The network matches needs and talents. Every hour of service you receive, you pay forward. |
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A universal characteristic of genius is humility.
– David Hawkins –
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Why Is Humility So Underrated?
Generally we don’t equate genius with being humble. If anything, we expect the opposite, and are pleasantly surprised when we find a counterexample. But this presumption is actually relatively modern. Ancient Romans believed that a genius was actually an invisible, divine entity who would assist a person in a creative work. In effect, this view positions a person as an instrument of their work, as opposed to the supreme creator of it; built-in to this perspective was a way of fostering humility within the gift of extraordinary capability. Viral Mehta, long-time visionary of DailyGood, shares an insightful article on humility. { read more }
Be The Change
Practice humility by listening deeply to a point of view you disagree with. |
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Great acts are made up of small deeds.
– Lao Tzu –
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Sometimes It Just Takes a Penny
In this real-life kindness story, a man inspires generosity in a homeless woman after being approached by her for money. Having just heard good news in a friend’s life, he offers to buy food for her and shares his inspiration with the homeless lady: “Something nice happened to my friend recently, after a lot of struggles. When you came in, I thought that I should keep that chain of goodness going and do something for someone else. My act is small compared to my friend’s joy, but still, the love continues. You know what I mean? We have to keep the chain of love going.” After he buys her some food, the homeless lady consciously picks out a coin from her change, and drops a penny in the tip-jar! “You kept the chain of love going,” he states. “Yes, I did,” she affirms. { read more }
Be The Change
Look for an everyday moment to turn into an opportunity to serve in a small way. |
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Sangha of Auspicious Companions 