Holistic Design Think Tank

I recently invented a term for the process I employ to get clients to really engage connect their own marketing goals with their marketing tools. I call it "Holistic Design". It's an information collection and clarification procedure by which goals, hopes, dreams and missions are defined and considered when creating marketing tools like web sites, brochures and logos. It works sort of like this:
It's a lot of fun and usually brings to the surface aspects of a business of organization that the principles had long forgotten about! The reasons for being that make all the effort - the day to day stuff - worthwhile and meaningful.

Swear-a-Thon

Some of you may recall at the beginning of this year I started putting a dollar into a kitty for every swear I said in an effort to discourage myself from such language. Well I have $93 so far.(Don't know if this is good or bad LOL) I mentioned this to a dear friend who is currently struggling mightily with a debilitating illness. You can read her postings here. Anyway she needs one of those vans that lifts a wheelchair so she can become mobile again. Yesterday she started to create an online fundraiser to help her do just that. (She's a digital goddess, by the way - so handy with it all - it'll knock your socks off). She doesn't like to capitalize on people's empathy - and for the moment this is being set up semi-anonymously. As this necessarily may need to change to prove legitimacy - we'll keep you updated.
This project is in its infancy but is going to be sort of an ongoing swear-a-thon fundraiser. It would benefit right now from the input of someone (you?) who knows how to set up a 501(c)C fund so donations can be tax deductible (or know of a program in place that helps people on assistance acquire such things). Until then if you would like to help - throw a buck into a jar on behalf of this friend and stay tuned - as when an online donation site is created I'll post a link here. This is 100% legit - and let me tell you, you will not meet a braver soul - no mater how hard you try. This pal is as strong as they come and is not letting her current set of circumstances derail her from her own altruistic projects and creative flow. More later!

Sharing Mother Muse with a Friend

Yesterday I was invited to be the kitty-sister to a wonderful artist friend - and I gleefully accepted with this illustration of us with our kitty-muse mom.

My Learning Process

For a while I have been tackling the learning of a piece of software I put off literally for years thinking it was going to be too difficult. The wonderful thing is, because I came up to my need to use this particular piece of computer language sort of sideways, learning other programs as I had to, when I finally got to Flash, wow, though multi-armed and somewhat unyielding to my particular brain flow - in the end - it's working! I'm learning it!

This drawing began as my response to an image Wendy posted yesterday in our sketch-fun exchange -- she depicted a thing with multiple arms sort of, it got me thinking. I ended up drawing this, and then learning what it represented only after I was done, when Mikey asked me what it meant. You know how people do. The answer simply popped into my head. That's how art is for me sometimes, often a sideways , non-deliberate thing.

Wendy does the Chicken Dance!

Yesterday I talked a little about the thoughts I have about vegetarianism - and what sparked the thought flow for that moment was my wonderful, compassionate, talented friend Wendy is going veggie. I know her some and I know she's doing so out of complete altruism towards animals. Good job Wen! Here she is dancing the chicken with a chicken whereas were I to draw myself doing this the chicken would at least have to look worried. (sigh) Such is that hypocricy I told I live with.

Veg-Heads

I think about the hypocricy of my own actions whenever I eat meat. You see, if it were up to me to catch and slaughter animals for their flesh - I wouldn't do it. But I will buy packaged meat from a grocery store. What's up with that? Well I've decided that a maybe reasonable choice is to consume only humanely raised meat (dairy and eggs, too). And what's that? To me, usually local farm raised - that wasn't fattened up in some gigantic feedlot with only unhealthy corn silage (and other questionable additives) to eat. It's expensive and somewhat inconvenient to get. That's fine with me. Keeps us from eating too much of it. I have a ways to go with my commitment but that's the goal.

As for the slaughtering process itself - believe it or not great strides have been made (through the applied research of Temple Grandin, a scientist and animal behaviorist who has made it her career to tackle this usually taboo topic) in designing the abbatoire to be much less stressful on the animals as they are killed. But again, there is much work to be done - and perhaps if I ever hauled my butt over to such a place to witness this process that would do it. I would abstain from meat for life. I don't know - I told you, I'm a hypocrite on this issue.

I do thank the creature whose flesh I eat for this sacred transferral of energy. With reverence. And this includes the plants I eat as well. In the book "The Secret Life of Plants", the authors document research conducted around the globe that illustrates the sentience of plants as measured by usually their aspiration through their leaves. In fact there is one particular example that sticks with me where potted plants registered reaction when vegetables were being cut up for a salad in a kitchen.

So we consume sentient, living creatures no matter what we eat. For me the challenge is to always do so mindfully, gratefully and as kindly as possible.

By the way, ever since seeing the movie "Babe", I have crossed pork completely off the list. I told you, I'm confused. But that story made a powerful impact on my thinking.

(N)..ice Ideas

Last week an a fine misting of rain fell across the entire state of Kentucky while the temperatures dropped to and hovered near freezing - which created The Perfect circumstances for the rain to freeze and build up to over 3/4" thick on every surface: tree limbs, roofs, roads, blades of dried grass, and electric wires. Soon the weight began to take a toll and tree branches began crashing down. Then wires, then the modern infrastructure that is dependent on those wires.

Which left a lot of time to sit some and consider inter-connectedness a little more deeply. I worried about the trees, the birds, and all creatures who had to make their living outside during those days and, worse, nights. I gave some thought to the trees in particular who endured their fate with the calm they always exude. It occurred to me that though I could see parts of them breaking down, even whole trunks snapping sealing a dire fate - I wasn't considering the whole being. We almost never do with trees. So I drew what I think a tree sees when considering one of its own kind. Knowing half of the being was safe below ground made me feel better for them.

As I was cut off from this sort of digital communication I had to let go of the sketch-exchange I had started with my friend in California and thought about the new events in her life that are uplifting an already buoyant soul causing her to be too busy to keep up with that project anyway. At first I was bummed, I really do enjoy collaborating on things with friends like that - but then I rejoiced at her fortune.

Which brought me to a place of considered thought where letting go and trusting the process of belief, hope and optimism always keeps one from falling. I learned a bunch about this recently as my own career has been changing, growing and leading me in some very wonderful, healthy directions.

So here I am today - the ice is gone, new projects are unfolding and I am able to reconnect through my magic screen to the world at large. Always - or least often - intellectually stimulating, increasingly these past several months. The Internet is becoming the wonder I had hoped it would when it first unveiled itself in rudimentary form years ago. I am so delighted with the developments in technology I could just jump for joy. Ha!