Flower Power Meditations: Every Question is Answered

Every question is answered.

Simplicity is easy if you let it. No matter how complicated life seems right now, there is a certain calm that you can connect to that will guide you. Access that point in yourself and every question will be answered.

Flower Power Meditations: Mother Flower

Mother Earth flowers the world with her love.

There is a blossoming in your heart combining all of the elements of Mother Earth. Play in her oceans, land and sky. Blossom in her love knowing that you are beautiful, you are love, and perfect in every way.

Flower Power Meditations: Every Soul Counts

 

Every Soul Counts

Many times we can feel lost and disconnected. But no matter how far out you feel, you are connected. We are all connected. Look on a map and see all of the towns, even the smallest towns have a road connected to another one. We are never trapped, we are always connected, there is always a way out or a way in at all times. Every soul counts, every soul is connected.

 

 

Flower Power Meditations: Growth

Growth.

Feel the world around you and it’s intention to give you everything you want. Growth, expansion and love are all around you. Touch it, feel it, see it, hear it.  There is nothing but love for you.

Flower Power Meditations: External Greatness Begins With Internal Gratitude

Flower Power Meditations: Love is Everywhere

Love is everywhere.

Most people want to feel happy. But there is a “wait factor” to this. I’ll be happy as soon as I get the break I want. This break could be about relationships, money, health, the world. What we should practice is something a little different.

“I am happy and that happiness will give me the break I need.”

Break-the-need to wait and see what happens. Love is everywhere. Be happy now.

Radio Show #6: Suzanna Shubeck Travels to Bhutan in the Himalayas and decides to start “Brushes for Bhutan” a youth art program.

Suzanna Shubeck took a leap and volunteered for an organization in Bhutan. That experience inspired her to start an art program called Brushes for Bhutan. I am lucky to have a transcript of our conversation. Check out our interview on Energy Talk Radio to hear the field recordings she made on her trip.

Introduction:

Today we’ll be speaking with Suzanna Shubeck, artist, designer and volunteer who recently traveled to Bhutan. This trip inspired her to found an organization, called Brushes for Bhutan, whose mission is to develop a program that brings arts education to high school students in this remote Himalayan kingdom.

FD: Bhutan is a country that few people have even heard of. How did you end up visiting Bhutan in the first place?

SS: I traveled to Bhutan as a volunteer with the Youth Development Fund, a non-governmental organization that provides financial support for development activities like vocational training, advocacy, research and education for young people. Over the course of a year, I worked with YDF to develop their marketing and outreach materials, to put a more professional polish on their existing collateral. We’re currently still working together to add more features to their web site and implement an online donation function, which isn’t as easy at it sounds given Bhutan’s very provincial banking system. Most of the work I was able to do remotely from my home in San Francisco. But ultimately, they asked me to come for a couple of weeks and train their staff in desktop publishing and design. The timing of my visit was actually very fortuitous, as it coincided with the Coronation of the 5^th King. It was a historic, once-in-a-lifetime event.

FD: What kind of tourist visits Bhutan? What’s the draw?

SS: Mostly people – people of some means — who have an affinity for Buddhism. Bhutan is a very expensive destination because there are few flights into the country (there’s only one airport), and the government sets a tourism tariff for all visitors. This practically eliminates a tier of travelers who mostly backpack or look for budget accommodations.

Click here to see more of Suzanna Shubeck’s Travel Photos

But I think the draw is this pristine location with breathtaking scenery in the eastern Himalayas. There are hundreds of monasteries dotting the country, and most cultural tourism centers around their religious festivals, or tsechus, to witness the masked dances. These aren’t cultural shows put on for tourists; they are very ancient rituals that go back centuries. Because of its location in the eastern Himalayas, Bhutan also appeals to people who enjoy trekking. Despite it being a mountainous country, there’s almost no mountaineering that I know of. The Bhutanese regard their mountains as sacred, the abode of gods and goddesses. Some peaks have never been surveyed and some are yet unnamed.

FD: How did your path toward philanthropy begin?

SS: About 8 years ago, I got involved in a competition to build a web site for a non-profit organization. I was tasked to assemble a team that would build a site – in one day – for an organization in need. The event, Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR), is sponsored by TechSoup, an organization that helps non-profits with their technology needs.  To be honest, my motive wasn’t 100% altruistic. I had just started a small design company and I was looking for ways to get my company name out there. Our team was paired with AXIS Dance Company, an integrated dance company based in Oakland, California, whose dancers are in wheelchairs, or use prosthetic limbs.  It was a very rewarding experience for me to know our team helped this organization establish a better online presence and reach more donors and audience members. It meant so much to them, and yet it was such a simple thing to do  — for us, because we do this for a living — that I realized I didn’t have to donate big bucks to make a difference. I had other ways to contribute to my community.

But the real motivator happened when my husband and I took a trip to Cambodia not too long ago. I had this lifelong dream of wanting to see Angkor Wat, which is one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences like going to Macchu Picchu or The Great Wall. One one hand, I was finally getting to see the world’s largest religious monument, and on the other for the life-affirming experience of knowing the Cambodian people. Despite the horrors of the Khmer Rouge in the 70s, when thousands & thousands of people were massacred, the Cambodian people were so warm and open to foreign travelers and showed a tremendous resilience in the face of such unrelenting poverty.

Click here to see more of travel pictures of Bhutan.

We found a guide for a few days, and one day he took us to the Killing Fields in Siem Reap. On the grounds is a school, Wat Thmei, which takes in HIV positive children, either orphaned or abandoned by their parents, and provides them with food, housing, and an education. I was so moved by their energy that I really wanted to go back and get involved. When I returned to the States, I was looking for a Cambodian NGO to volunteer with, but most of the organizations I encountered offered tourism mixed with a little charitable work, or else they needed someone with more desirable skills, like nurses or doctors. I’m a graphic designer. What could I possibly have to offer? So I gave up. I remember looking up the heavens and saying to no one in particular, “Well, I’m here. If you need me for anything, let me know.”  Then, exactly one week to the day, I found a post on an online networking group I belong to looking for a graphic designer to travel to Bhutan and help this youth organization develop their marketing materials.

FD: What was your first impression of Bhutan?

SS: Bhutan is a very small county about the size or Indiana, or Switzerland, and wedged between Tibet and India. It has a population under 700,000, just slightly less than San Francisco. Bhutan is almost completely mountainous, and as a result, only has one valley large enough to land an airplane. It still remains unspoiled. You won’t find MacDonald’s there. Or Starbucks. There aren’t even any traffic lights in the capital of Thimphu. They still use a white-gloved police officer to direct cars on the main street. I believe they did install one traffic signal in the recent past, but people complained it was too impersonal so they reinstated the traffic cop. Bhutan, as a travel destination, receives very few visitors. The Royal Government of Bhutan keeps tourism very controlled. You cannot travel freely but only as part of a package tour with an approved tour operator.  Bhutan had only recently (and by “recently” I mean the 20^th century) introduced the trappings of the modern world. The first roads were built in the 1960s. Formerly all travel was on foot or on horseback. And television was introduced in 1999.

FD: It seems very isolated from the rest of the world.

SS: Actually, it appears that way to an outsider looking in, but modern Bhutanese are quite connected to the world. Many have traveled or studied abroad, and they are quite topical and up-to-date. They know as much about western pop culture as we do. And they’re crazy about Oprah. However, that only represents a small percentage of the Bhutanese population. Much of the kingdom is very rural, practices subsistence farming, and has a per capita income of $2000/year. I believe it’s one of the higher per capita incomes of Southeast Asia, thanks in part to their philosophy of Gross National Happiness.

FD: Tell us about Gross National Happiness.

SS: Gross National Happiness, or GNH, is Bhutan’s attempt to define prosperity by measuring the actual well-being and quality of life of its people rather than their consumption. The term was coined in 1972 by Bhutan’s former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who was responsible for opening up Bhutan to modernization. The concept of GNH is based on the premise that true development of human society takes place when material and spiritual growth occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other. The four pillars of GNH are the promotion of sustainable development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance. This is an idea that is being noted in some policymaking circles. We’ve been misguided in assuming people are better off simply because they’re buying more cars and flat-panel TVs.

FD: Bhutan is a Buddhist country, correct?

SS: It is, and deeply so. Buddhism is a state-supported religion and it permeates every aspect of daily life. Religious monuments, prayer wheels, prayer flags, and sacred mantras carved in stone hillsides are prevalent. When I was there, I stayed with a Canadian social worker in her village, a place called Langjo Pakha about 2 km north of Thimphu.  Her neighbor’s wife had recently passed away, and every day, monks and lamas would come to the house in the morning and chant from the Tibetan Book of the Dead as part of the funeral puja, or ritual. A funeral puja lasts 49 days. So every day, I would wake up to the sounds of monks chanting from behind the shared wall between the flats. It was magical.

FD: I understand you recorded some of this?

SS: I did! We visited her neighbor to pay our respects, and I politely asked the attending lama if I could take a field recording. They were very happy to let me do so, and I felt tremendously honored to have the privilege.

FD: Let’s play a piece of this recording, a funeral chant from the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

(Soundbite of music : puja.mp3)

FD: My guest is artist, designer and volunteer Suzanna Shubeck. Her project, Brushes for Bhutan, will establish a pilot program in Arts Education in this tiny Himalayan kingdom. We’ll talk more after our break.

(Soundbite of music)

FD: If you’re just joining up, my guest is artist, designer and volunteer Suzanna Shubeck. Her project, Brushes for Bhutan, will establish a pilot program in Arts Education in this tiny Himalayan kingdom. Suzanna, tell us about the program, Brushes for Bhutan. How did this project come about?

SS: After I left Bhutan, I stayed in contact with my social worker friend, who is now teaching for a year at a secondary school. I wanted to send her a care package, stuff you can’t easily find in Bhutan, like antibiotic ointment and peanut butter, and asked her if she needed anything for her classroom. When I asked what she needed, she wrote back: “Anything and everything.” Her classroom had two dried up markers. That was it! How sad is that? I remember being in school and thinking how going to the art room was a reward for good behavior and good grades and how important art was to my development. These kids have none of that. I have a lot of artist friends, and I thought we could pool together our unused art supplies and send them to her students. I couldn’t stop thinking about her students, and how could I affect some change and then it hit me: why not send them an art teacher.  So I wrote a proposal to the school principal at her school, the Yoezerling Higher Secondary School, and offered my services. He was thrilled, but regrettably, the Ministry of Education would not be able to fund my program in its entirety, so I started a website called BrushesforBhutan.org, that describes the program in greater depth and accepts Paypal donations. The goal is to make $15,000 by the beginning of the 2010 school term in March, which would cover a travel expenses to Bhutan, teacher salary for a year, and student supplies. We’ve met 10% of our goal thus far, so we still have quite a bit to go.

FD: Why is art education so important?

SS: Art helps students see better, learn from their mistakes, envision what’s possible, and make critical judgments. Students who participate in arts programs do better in other courses, and an art education provides a well-rounded, engaging learning environment that encourages creative thinking, visual and verbal communication skills, and problem solving.  These are all transferable skills that they will use in the future, as employable adults.

FD: Do schools in Bhutan offer arts education?

SS: Bhutan has a very rich tradition in the arts, but it’s not art as we perceive it in the western sense of the word, meaning observation of the world, or self-expression. Almost all art representation, be it in art, music or dance, is a dramatization of the Buddha’s teachings, of interpreting values. In Bhutan, art is religious, and it is anonymous. There are strict iconographic conventions that are scrupulously observed, but there’s still some room for individual style, be it in the way an artists shades his subject or illustrates a background.

Most young people who purse the arts seem to do so outside of school, as an apprentice to a master. There are 13 traditional arts & crafts, in Bhutan. They are carpentry, masonry, carving, painting, sculpture, casting, blacksmithing, gold & silversmithing, basketry, weaving, woodturning, and papermaking.

Not to disparage Eastern arts as whole, but it’s a tradition of accurately copying what came before, not of creative thinking. The goal of BrushesforBhutan, therefore, is not to impinge on their traditional arts or to produce artists in the Western sense, but to encourage and promote creative, critical thinkers through teaching creative arts.  In addition to classes and workshops art basics, students will explore more modern methods using computer technology in real-world examples. This creates a new sector of employable youth with hands-on computer skills.

I had a conversation with a visiting British sanitation engineer, and he told me of the challenges involved getting clean water to people and reducing disease, and what was lacking was not infrastructure, but communication. “We need more PSAs and posters,” he said.

Bhutan is a tabula rasa whose future is in the hands of their young people.  I’d like to see them get a chance to embrace technology in a positive, holistic way that preserves their unique country & culture.

FD: How can we find out more about Brushes for Bhutan?

SS: You can visit our web site, BrushesforBhutan, where you’ll find more information about the program, what our goals are, and of course, we hope your listeners appreciate the worth of this endeavor and want to make a donation.

Flower Power Meditations: Joy is an infinite resource

Joy Joy Joy Joy Joy Joy Joy!

But what if you don’t feel joyful? Or you can’t feel joyful? Then what?  Fake it to you make it. If you want to feel joy but can’t, just tell yourself this;

I choose to want to feel joyful even though I may not feel it today or tomorrow, I know there is a possibility I could feel it.

Just practice that for a while and see what happens. Sometimes there is no solution to our problems and that is ok. You can work past obstacles by choosing to want to react to it differently.

Flower Power Meditations: Joy!

Joy!

Flower Power Meditations: Peace, Love, Light and Protection to Barack Obama

Peace, Love, Light and Protection to Barack Obama. Peace to China. Peace to Korea. Peace to the Middle East

Meditation is just telling yourself what you want. I think we all want a peaceful world. Ask for a peaceful world right now.