How creative are you?

Do you consider yourself as a creative person? To be creative person means to become one who creates artwork. To be honest I am not. I am aware I am not good at creating any artwork. I think I don’t  have that talent. I can spend hours putting my thoughts in writing, but it is not an artwork. It is not a poem nor an essay. It is just a journal. There is no beauty in it, probably a clarity.

I have a friend who is very talented in drawing. Her drawing is just amazing. It looks like a 3D object. It looks so real. Below is one of her drawings.

This made me speechless.

Another friend is very good at patchwork. She made dolls, pillows, masks, cloth bags etc. She is just amazing at it. Another friend is very passionate in making cookies and cakes. Another friend is very good at playing classical piano. She even teaches piano to kids. I have tried all of that but none was good. I think I don’t have the talent.

I remember we were preparing a public program and a friend who was very good at decoration she was making flowers arrangement. I always enjoy flowers. I thought I wanted to help her. I had no sense at all in this. I helped cutting the stems for her. I didn’t dare to put them into the vase. I just gave her an assistance.

A few weeks ago we were having a long holiday. I thought I would learn something during the holiday. I just chose to learn flower arrangement. Below is my first flower arrangement after knowing the technique of clustering and layering the flowers. It doesn’t look so bad. At least now I know a bit of how to arrange flowers in a vase.

My first flowers arragement

This is what is called life

A long time friend has just visited me. She is married with two children. They have grown up, so when I offered her to come to my house and spend the night during weekend just for something different, she quickly agreed. She said that the children didn’t mind at all.

Are you a morning person or an evening person?

We spent every morning going in the botanical garden near my place for enjoying the nature. I think everyone agrees that nature is a quick mood booster at least both of us found it true.

She is an evening person, it means that she really likes enjoying evening. She wanted to spend the evening sitting in my veranda and said “Evening is very short. It will turn into dark very soon.” I was smiling in fact listening to her reasoning. I think I am a more morning person. I enjoy morning time more than any other time during the day. Morning time is my most productive time, ideas seem to flow in my mind, sometimes best decision I made in the morning. I don’t want to miss my morning time. It is my precious time, my valuable treasure more than anything else. We can not buy time.

As a morning person and almost everyday spend the evening working at office, I could not understand the beauty of evening time. I rarely enjoyed my evening relaxing, being in nature. I also don’t understand some people enjoy sun gazing in the evening. It is the moment of sunset. I think the sunrise in the morning is more beautiful.

When I joined my friend sitting next to her enjoying the evening, she said “This is what is called life.” I looked at her and feel amazed.

A lesson from nature

I have been having grass jelly plant in my garden since long time ago. I remember I bought this plant more than 15 years ago in a flora exhibition. This is a climbing plant. It climbs up trees nearby and also the fence. It gives a lot of leafs from which we can make grass jelly drink. I think it is a natural and healthy drink with a lot of chlorophyll in it. I think it is an eternal plant. The gardener who cleaned up my garden had cut it many times and I thought it might had died but it has grown again and again. Probably its root was not completely pulled out from the ground. It is now growing so well with a lot of leafs. I just realized that it has been crawling the gate now. I am sure it will cover the whole gate very soon.

This grass jelly plant is eternal.

I learn one thing from this plant that nature never becomes corrupted. Plant is part of the nature. How wildly it grows, it is not corrupted. It takes nutrition and water from the grown and also light from the sun to grow, not more than it needs. Even when it grows ‘wildly’, it is not called a corruption. A plant grows not for itself.  They give leaf, flower or even fruit, but those are not for themselves. Plant, like animal they don’t develop any greed. They are not selfish either. It is human being who develop selfishness and greed. It is human being who exploit nature out of greed. No wonder that nature has a very good energy or vibration. It heals. No wonder that many people like being in nature. It gives really nice and fresh feeling. It is healing our souls.

When the war doesn’t stop

No one likes war. Many people are suffering due to a war. Thousands people have left their homes for safety. Thousands people become refugees.

Only a few days after the invasion someone shared to me an invitation for a global meditation for Ukraine. The program was organized from Kyiv. It was a non-stop program for a few days where everybody from all corners of the globe could share their good feelings to souls who were suffering. Being in that ZOOM meeting I felt that we are one big family. We are brothers. The globe is one big house for all of us. We could feel the suffering. We were empowering them with our good wishes and pure feelings. A world map with Ukraine in a spotlight was being shared on the screen during the session. Many of us might never been in this country, we might have no idea where Ukraine is, but in soul level I could feel the connection. I could feel the vibration. We still can share our pure feelings and vibration to the souls there. Your contribution will never miss. No physical power can stop this giving and taking. Not guns nor missile. So keep sending. Keep giving.

Can you feel that you are sharing the same feeling with them?

The other day when I just opened my mobile phone the first message in that day I received was from my good friend. It said “I truly hope that we can hear war stop news today.” He might have been reading news about the war a lot. Many of us can not stop the war. Only a few people can do it, if they have the intention.

The war is still going on till today, more and more people are suffering. Don’t lose hope, there is still something we can do – keep sending good wishes for everybody. Although we are miles away from one another but we can still share the same thought.

International Women’s Day

Today is 8th March. It is International Women’s Day. Starbucks has a special offer for its member of 50% off for 2 beverages purchase, only for women. I thought it would be a very good deal.

I said to my colleague that I needed a mood booster to start the day. And my mood booster is hot chocolate. I went to the nearest Starbuck store with a colleague.

When I was making a payment at the cashier, I said to the cashier to put a special note on the cups. And the note is “You are a great woman“.

You are a great woman

I think this note leaves a smile on the face of whoever reads it or heard my conversation with the cashier. It might be a reminder for my colleagues too that they are great women.

A life cycle

When I shared my blog post on the process of self-identity on teenagers to someone, he said that this process is a part of a life cycle. I completely agreed with him on this. Everybody goes through this phase in their lives. Some are quite aware of the process, but many are not really aware of it. Some take the process very seriously (if not very heavily), and some take it very lightly. Since it is a cycle so it has to be completed, if not completed then it won’t be called a cycle. Not necessarily in one life.

A life cycle of human

It took me years to process this. I should say that it was not an easy one, so much frustration along the way. I didn’t see any guarantee for a success. Looking back, it was like an adventure. I realized that the harder I made it for myself, the less successful it became and the farther away I became from my true self. So I decided not to be hard on myself in this process. I made myself more open and honest to myself. I really made time for this. The feeling was more acceptance, more forgiving and least resistance internally. Now I have a very clear idea of who I am, what I am and what the future would be in my awareness. I am completing the process and I keep learning.

Even though it is a life cycle, it doesn’t mean that there is a guarantee for everybody to complete the process of understanding who they are before they die. Some even do not really know what they want to pursue in life, what they want to do in life. A father just lost his daughter quite suddenly. A few days before she left her body, she talked to him about her plan a bit. She just graduated from college. I think he made a very honest statement about her daughter that she knew what she didn’t like to do very well, what she was not passionate about, but she didn’t know what she liked to do.

Death doesn’t mean the end of everything. It doesn’t automatically end this process. The life cycle is definitely completed for the body, but not for the soul. Because it is the soul that has been seeking, it is the spirit in the body that is going through the process, not the body.

The spontaneity is lost

A friend was telling me about her 12 years old daughter. She has been showing some rebellious acts recently. And it has made her so worried. I met this teenaged girl a few years ago when she was only seven. She was just so adorable to me. She had a very kind and gentle heart, a super loving girl. I think my friend is a wonderful mom for her kids. She teaches good values to them since very young age. She gives them so much love as well as teaches them discipline. It was very obvious to me in her kids. I find in many children this pure and innocent personality. There is so much spontaneity.

This personality is expressed genuinely till they become teenagers. Then everything changes. The consciousness starts processing self-identity. Children don’t need to process this, this is why children are more spontaneous. The ego starts to develop. Teenagers become more aware of themselves, of who they are, of what people may think about them. And they start comparing themselves to people a lot. This comparation often leads to the feelings of insecurities or arrogance in them. Insecurities and arrogance are the products of ego. Teenagers starts processing the identity of themselves, they start seeking in the adults around them. They are also seeking in their peers. Then they are processing it internally. They need the adults around them to understand and accept them. They need some approval and encouragement to make the internal process easier. So they feel supported and loved. This is what they need.

My friend wanted me to talk to her daughter. I tried to understand her phase and situation. I didn’t want to preach her of course. I knew it was not what she needed. I reminded her how I saw her when she was much younger as a super loving and kind girl. I reminded her of how much I loved her.

This world nowadays might be very hard on young people especially for those who are still going through this internal process of seeking.

Haruka has turned 20

20 years old is considered as the beginning of adulthood in Japan. A friend told me this. So it is very special. A ceremony is collectively held for marking this. It is called Seijinshiki. For this ceremony the girls wear Japanese traditional dress called Furisode.

My friend’s first daughter, Haruka turned 20 in January this year. the ceremony for her was held in middle of the month in a city hall.  It is quite a special day for her and also for my friend and his wife as parents. To be an adult means to be responsible for each and every decision and action made. One has to be so thoughtful before performing any action because the consequence will become her or his responsibility, no more his or her parents’.

I don’t recognize which one is Haruka when they are wearing masks.

She is no more a teenaged girl. Time flied so fast. I feel like I met her as a young girl only yesterday. I remember she loved hip hop music. Now she has turned into a young pretty woman. She is now a university student. She has one younger sister, who is more sporty look with short hair. In fact this family loves volley ball, the three girls are volley ball players, including my friend’s wife. So they are all sporty and very active actually. Sometimes they even participate a tournament, during this pandemic.

Listening to God

I was discussing with a friend for an online workshop we were going to have. We worked on the topic on fear. I was the one who would deliver the topic and he would become the MC for the program. We discussed on how to deal with fear. We had a few tips for this and one of the tips was to listen to God. My friend said ‘We need to be silent to listen to God.’ This words struck me so deeply.

What do we do when we are praying? We are speaking to God. We are telling God. We tell God to do one thing or another for us, to fulfill our desire, to agree with us, to support us, to manifest our dreams etc etc. We want Him to listen to our prayer. And what do we do then? Our prayers have become full of our wants and needs. When our mind is full of desires, it is definitely not silent. It is very busy. So we can not listen. We even do not give a chance to God to response to our prayer. I think God knows what we need and desire. He also knows what is best for us, but we are too busy with our own stuff thinking as if we knew everything. God knows everything, even before we put it in our prayer, so it might be the time now we listen to Him more. Let Him tell us. Let Him give a response. For this let the mind silent.

We tell God our needs and wants in our prayer.

I don’t think it is a coincidence, that the words of LISTEN and SILENT have same letters.

Namaste

This word of namaste has been so familiar among colleagues in my office. It has been frequently used. Everytime I tell them of taking leaves, especially for a vacation, they will quickly say that I am going for a namaste. For them namaste is to meditate in a quiet place or in nature. It is so funny.

Namaste is used to show a respect

They also have been using this word to remind anyone of us who starts  losing control our emotion during working hours. If anyone in the room starts speaking on the phone in an angry tone, usually speaking to another colleague from different division, she might be speaking loudly or even shouting, then another colleague in the room will remind her saying ‘namaste’. Namaste here means ‘be peaceful’.

Of course they do not know the exact meaning of namaste. They only relate this word of namaste to the practice of meditation or yoga. They can relate a meditation is a practice to become peaceful. This is what they understand. I am not really sure what is in their mind or what they imagine when someone is doing namaste. I remember when I joined a yoga class in a fitness center long time ago, the yoga instructor also ended the yoga session with cooling down through being mindful of our breath with a little bit of reflection. And at the very end of this session she would say namaste.

I also knew namaste from my meditation class. It is the word used by God to show His respect to us. God is so humble that He puts us higher than Himself. He has the greatest personality of all. It is also the way He shows His love to us.