What do you do when people ask you what to do when visiting your town? Do you provide an itinerary of favorite views? A list of the best places to eat? Suggestions based on smell? ("Here's where the chocolate factory is, but stay away from the fish market!") Does it ever occur to you to send them to the places that sound the best? I admit, I'd never thought of this until I saw Nicola Hume's great concept Listen Here. Check it out:
(via Laughing Squid)
Read More:
Time-Capsule Vacation in Your Own Hometown
The Allure of Traveling Solo
Listen Here from Nicola Hume on Vimeo.
Isn't it a lovely idea? And while it might not actually be in production (yet?), it got me thinking about my city in way I never have before. When people come to stay I'm always wracking my brain for the perfect place for them to have dinner or see a show, but realistically this is information they could get anywhere. It takes a local to point someone towards the strangely peaceful park in the middle of the city, or the cemetery full of cackling wild parrots. And sometimes it takes a concept like Nicola Hume's to get people to think this way about their hometowns at all.(via Laughing Squid)
Read More:
Time-Capsule Vacation in Your Own Hometown
The Allure of Traveling Solo
A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively,wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.— Joan Didion
| Photo: George Burns |
I "GOT IT" ... those answers +more. Those of you who watch the show know they hold nothing back. This interview I'd say was another level of forthrightness and honesty. Who surprised me the most? Scott. Lamar and Khloe. Kim.
Everyone who's asked was the marriage a publicity stunt? Why did she leave after 72 days? Her answer leveled me.
Please note that this show will air Sunday at 8/7 central not it's usual time. Followed by Part 2 of my conversation with 50 Cent at 9/8c where he talks about things you wouldn't imagine coming from him. Meditation. Outgrowing his audience. What really matters now. I had a great eye opening experience with him and released a lot of my preconceived notions and judgement. I'm loving this NEXT CHAPTER I get to do for myself what I intended for you the audience: Open the heart space, expand the way we see things, especially each other.
A great day on OWN beginning with Super SOUL Sunday at 11am/10c with Devon Franklin (thanks for your many "likes" on that one) hope you'll tune in. An insightful visit with the Kardashians, every single one of them except 2 year old Mason. Then FIF.
—Oprah
| Photo: Thinkstock |
Despite wacky spring weather interfering with the cherry crop in some areas of the country, the ripe, juicy fruit--from intensely sweet, mahogany-red Bings to yellowish-red, delicately flavored Rainiers--is still hitting markets around the country this month. The healthy little orbs are fantastic for snacking, whether you serve them over ice on a sweltering summer day or take them out of the fridge and let them warm up first for maximum flavor. But since you should eat cherries within four days of buying them (turns out moldy cherries are nothing to fool around with), you may want to consider putting some of them in an ultra-simple cake or cinnamon-y ice cream. The only catch: how do you remove those darn pits (that is, if you don't have a cherry pitter)?
There are many ways to pit a cherry if you don't have a dedicated tool. You can use a toothpick, a pointy chopstick or a skewer. But the maneuver I like best employs a classic beauty tool: the bobby pin. First, halve the cherry with a sharp knife; the pit will remain in one half. Next, bend a (very clean) bobby pin so it's open a little wider than usual, then angle it slightly to scoop out the pit. I've found this technique is safer than others (no splintered toothpicks, for one), but even better, it minimizes both the amount of fruit remaining on the pit...and the quantity of blood-red juice on your fingers.
There are many ways to pit a cherry if you don't have a dedicated tool. You can use a toothpick, a pointy chopstick or a skewer. But the maneuver I like best employs a classic beauty tool: the bobby pin. First, halve the cherry with a sharp knife; the pit will remain in one half. Next, bend a (very clean) bobby pin so it's open a little wider than usual, then angle it slightly to scoop out the pit. I've found this technique is safer than others (no splintered toothpicks, for one), but even better, it minimizes both the amount of fruit remaining on the pit...and the quantity of blood-red juice on your fingers.
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| Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness— Thich Nhat Hanh | |
My husband once told me that he pictured my mind as a frazzled guy with a butterfly net, constantly running around and trying to swoop things up into it. It's true. Sadly these are not butterflies of Profound Big Thoughts. It's more like -- fwoosh -- there goes a Thing I've Got To Do butterfly. Flit flit -- that's a Thing I Forgot To Do butterfly. Oh, and look -- the rare Thing I Read Somewhere Once or Heard on NPR and Partially Remember butterfly. And look who's back! Email I Meant to Send butterfly!
But Mr. Rogers, eternal font of tender wisdom, has ambitions for the crowded butterfly pavilion between my ears. See also: this sweet "Garden of Your Mind" video, remixing everyone's favorite neighbor. "You can grow anything in the garden of your mind," Mr. Rogers says. I mean, auto-tune-sings. A garden is good. A garden is ordered, cared-for, a safe and productive place for growth. Here you can still have the butterflies, but they serve an actual purpose. After all, we're always telling our children to be creative, to think big thoughts, to be kind to themselves and others -- but how many of us grown-ups remember to follow that same advice? As always, Mr. Rogers recalls all that is innocent and good. And now, you can dance to him.
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Jim Henson's Surreal Meditation on Time
But Mr. Rogers, eternal font of tender wisdom, has ambitions for the crowded butterfly pavilion between my ears. See also: this sweet "Garden of Your Mind" video, remixing everyone's favorite neighbor. "You can grow anything in the garden of your mind," Mr. Rogers says. I mean, auto-tune-sings. A garden is good. A garden is ordered, cared-for, a safe and productive place for growth. Here you can still have the butterflies, but they serve an actual purpose. After all, we're always telling our children to be creative, to think big thoughts, to be kind to themselves and others -- but how many of us grown-ups remember to follow that same advice? As always, Mr. Rogers recalls all that is innocent and good. And now, you can dance to him.
More:
Jim Henson's Surreal Meditation on Time
| Photo: Thinkstock |
It's called Indian head massage, and while some therapists use essential oils, it can be done on dry heads, too (crucial for when you can't go back to work with greasy hair). I was a little worried about scheduling my first-ever appointment during the middle of the day, but Denise Galon, a certified massage therapist based in New York, told me that she'd tailor my treatment to include moves that made me nod off as well as some that helped me snap to attention. Galon practices a type of head massage called "champissage," which is a cross-cultural hybrid that involves both the frictional moves that are part of traditional head massages Indian people get from their families and at the barber shop, as well as the usual shoulder and neck squeezes.
When Galon had finished, I felt relaxed yet also surprisingly focused. Because I had a feeling that my circuits would be overloaded again in no time, I asked Galon for a takeaway exercise I could do on my own back at the office. This is what she calls the "occipital rub." Try it the next time you need to be calm and focused enough to settle into working at your desk, but not so relaxed that you want to put your head down on it.
- Place your first three fingers behind your head at the spots just behind the ears where the neck connects to the head.
- With your elbows bent, push your fingers toward and away from one another, creating a rubbing movement on the base of the skull (Galon calls this "flapping your wings").
- Do this for 30 seconds, or for as long as you need to ease the tension.
| Photo: Thinkstock |
Bill Simmons, possibly the most thoughtful sports fan there is, wrote an essay on crying about sports for the site Grantland called "The Consequences of Caring." He writes about the first time his daughter, a Kings fan, cried over sports: "I remained sympathetic while being secretly delighted, like she had passed some sort of 'Fledgling Sports Fan' hurdle or something." This is an essay about caring really an extra lot about sports. (Simmons writes, "Of the 75 greatest moments of my life, sports were involved in at least 20 of them") But it's also an essay about a father and a daughter, and about really caring about something, and about caring about what the people you care for care about. (Got that?)
Simmons wants to share his love of sports with his daughter because it's such a big part of his life. He doesn't even care if she latches onto a rival team, because after all, "Sports is a metaphor for life. Everything is black and white on the surface. You win, you lose, you laugh, you cry, you cheer, you boo, and most of all, you care." He just wants her to care, like he does. And when he realizes that she cares deeply enough to cry, he knows that on this level they understand each other.
Whether you and your father root for the same team or for mortal rivals, how nice, how lucky, if you can share an interest, whether it's sports or politics or rococo frescos. Everyone should have something they care about enough to cry over. And having someone who understands that beloved something can be one of the greatest gifts there is.
Read More:
The Best Father's Day Gift Idea
Women Remembering Their Dads
"My needs are never-ending...I have to begin to let go of some of my needs at different times because the constant needing is making me unhappier." One of six things learned after 100 (!) hours of meditation. (via @BrainPicker)
The 7 Biggest Creativity Killers...the Narrow-Minded Mob and a half-dozen others.
The two things required for a truly awe-inspiring experience...you'll find them here.
The relationship rope trick--three key steps to avoid a big fat disappointment (over on MariaShriver.com)
| Photo: Thinkstock |
And I extra-love any efforts to prove this unprovable thing, such as the Victorian precursor to shows like "Ghost Hunters," AKA, spirit photography. These deeply strange, obviously (to our modern, Photoshop-weary eyes) faked photographs of wispy spectres were the spiritualism-obsessed Victorians' proof that ghosts loitered around the living, trying to chat with us. What an appealing, if spooky, idea! How, like the Fox Mulder of yore, I want to believe!
Whether you believe in spirits or not, the Vintage Spirit Photography pool on Flickr is an engaging way to fill your eyeballs for a time. One thing is certain: these images -- a shadowy child posing pertly on a woman's shoulder; a translucent ex-girlfriend frowning over a proposal -- are 100% verifiable proof that we have always wanted to connect to another realm, to believe that there is, in fact, some there out there.
Read More:
A Must-Read Novel About Spiritualism
How to be Attuned to Spiritual Information
The Difference Between a Psychic and a Medium
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