Cultivation

Good morning all my European/East Asian/Asian/East Indian fans!! You represent the largest number of my readers, and for me, it is affirmation of the deep feelings I have that draw me to your cultures and someday, hopefully, your soil!! These places and belief systems seem somehow to be ingrained in me in large part, and I want you to know that I am humbled by your interest in my creative outlet...thank you for your dedication.

My word of the day is...cultivation.

For those who are interested, my book is coming along very well. I have been blocked here and there, side-tracked, so to speak in my diligence to spend as much time on it as I would like...but ya know, life happens, doesn't it? I view these down-times as times of gathering. Since my book is being written of things I know, and I am always learning something new everyday, I continue to gather all the time. I don't write out of "thought" but more out of "reflex." I seem to have a built-in switch labeled "cultivate," where I tend, and nurture my thoughts and feelings associated with them to a level of maturity, and then, I gather and separate them. What then comes out, is raw creativity. It is not enforced, led, or tempered at all by thought alone. It rather, just spills once I've gathered all that I have cumulatively cultivated to overflow.

Today was the first day in a couple of weeks that I tended to my book, and have been quite lax in tending to this blog as well...as the opportunity for massive cultivation had presented itself and that is where my presence has been. Perspective is the point of balance in it all for me, and that is where the rubber hits the road and where the good grain is separated from the unusable. There is useless information and useful information. There are things that matter and things that don't...but they all have a life, and it is our duty to discern between the two within the final separation process of our cultivation and gathering.

We need to realize that even though we have spent 100% of ourselves on whatever it is we choose to nurture and care for, that we will never yield 100% of what we put into it. We will take a hit and there will be a loss...the best we can hope for is that our gain surpasses our loss. This is why it is wise to take a step back in a pursuit and just GLEAN, because there will be left behind, something good that you may have missed in the initial gather that may in fact, be the very thing that will boost your gain over your loss. It is a time-consuming process and not for those looking for an immediate answer or those unable to resist temptation of instant gratification. It is a process of patience in pursuit of knowledge and wisdom.

In this specific period of gleaning, in what was left behind, I found that I am a VERY long-suffering person. I always thought that patience was not a virtue to be listed on my resume of life, but have found contrarily, that it is probably the virtue I practice the most and is the very thing that has put my gain up OVER my loss in every situation. I always desire the best outcome possible, with all things considered...and THIS takes an immense amount of patience, attention, and focus. As a matter of fact, there would be NO cultivation without patience, there would be no gathering without it, and definitely no separation.

So if I am absent from you here, just know that I am in one of the steps of this process & also know that I will not ever come here and blurt something from the top of my head...it will be the product of a finely cultivated, gathered, separated and gleaned message from my heart to yours.

“Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.”~John Ruskin.

"Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown." Soren Kierkegaard.

“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.”~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“To what extent can one have a sense for something if he doesn't have its embryo inside him? Whatever I come to understand must itself develop organically in myself, and what I seem to learn is only nourishment and cultivation of that inner organism.”~ Novalis.

Recognize the natural, harmonic rhythm of the cultivation to the harvest...don't disrupt it by the need of a quick fix. We should not ever expect to cash in on something that we never first patiently cared for.

Love you all...see ya next time, same place...probably around the same time...Happy Harvest!!