Happiness Resources

In stark contrast to yesterday's post, I want to talk about happiness today. Do you know anyone who radiates happiness? My friend L. is one of those people. The very happy photo above was taken in her garden. The food and flowers she grows and sells at the farmer's market always have a tinge of her special yummy radiance. When she sees you, she greets you with a huge (again, radiant) smile and warm hug, and says something like "hellOOO gorgeous!!!" as if you were her long lost best friend. She seems truly happy to see you. When L. has a bad hair day, she'll put on a big smile and a headband with sequined cat ears, because it's likely to cheer other people up and distract them from her hair (yes, that actually happened.) She's generous with food and compliments. She is almost always smiling.

As life goes on, the value of this attitude grows on me. Cool sophistication is less likely to draw my admiration these days: bring on the hugs and sparkly cat ears! In the interest of bringing more of a sparkly cat ears feeling into my life, I've been doing some reading about happiness, and wanted to share some of my finds with you:


I picked up The How of Happiness at the airport last spring on my way up north to teach a weekend workshop. I love airport bookstores - for some reason when I'm traveling I give myself permission to buy books I normally wouldn't. This one is a really interesting analysis of the science of happiness, along with practical suggestions for getting more happiness in your own life. Even though the prose is a bit awkward, this one has become a dog-eared bedside stand-by.










I'm reading The Happiness Project right now. It's light and fun, and sprinkled with little pearls of wisdom. It's a memoir of a year the author spent methodically researching and applying happiness strategies to her daily life, with varying degrees of success. Definitely a fun and inspiring read. Even better is the Happiness Project blog, where you can start your own happiness project.











Here, for me, is where the pursuit of happiness gains some depth and soul resonance. As in all his works, the Dalai Lama brings the message that kindness, equanimity, mindfulness, and compassion are essential to our fulfillment and sense of joy and belonging in the world. If you have not delved into Buddhist readings or the works of HH, this beautiful book is a really good place to start.












Artful Reminders:


Soulful, artful island RETREATS for women - make art, journal, dance, do yoga, practice deep self care, learn to celebrate the sacred in daily life - all with a group of like minded women in our forest retreat at the heart of our Gulf Island... YUM!!!!!! Read more here, and join the mailing list here.





Seven Keys to an Artful Life - I'm so excited about launching this on-line circle for artful living - begins February 15th! Read more here.





I'm participating in the Help Haiti Blog Challenge, brainchild of blogger Kelly Diels. Participants offer a product or service and donate the proceeds to helping in Haiti. My pledge: I make these lovely little buddha dishes, which I sell in my Etsy shop. I will donate 100% of the profits from any of my buddha dishes sold in the next 28 days to Medicins sans Frontieres for their efforts in Haiti.

Haiti - This Shipwreck of Fragments

Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than the love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole... This gathering of broken pieces is the care and pain of the Antilles, and if the pieces are disparate, ill-fitting, they contain more pain than their original sculpture, those icons and sacred vessels taken for granted in their ancestral places. Antillean art is this restoration of our shattered histories, our shards of vocabulary, our archipelago becoming a synonym for pieces broken off from the original continent... This is the basis for the Antillean experience, this shipwreck of fragments, these echoes, these shards of a huge tribal vocabulary, these partially remembered customs, and they are not decayed but strong. They survived the Middle Passage. - Derek Walcott

I have long been fascinated with the culture of Haiti, a culture of survivors born in the brutality of the Caribbean slave trade, rooted in the noble spiritual and cultural traditions of West Africa, a culture rocked, from it's beginnings by political and meteorological violence, exhausted by poverty, exploited in every way imaginable, and deeply misunderstood. Arising from this violent history is a culture of incredible artistic and spiritual vitality, sophistication, and originality, and a people of incredible strength. Like so many of us, I have watched in horror and helplessness the stream of devastating images moving across my screens; the dust, rubble, and flesh, hands reaching out from beneath the piles, children bloodied and alone. It's unbearable.

I sent some money in to Medicins sans Frontieres, that was easy enough; I admire their work, they are already on the ground in Haiti, and the Canadian Government is offering matching funds so my contribution was automatically doubled. Still not much, but something. Late last night I read about the Help Haiti Blog Challenge, brainchild of blogger Kelly Diels. It's a good idea, and another way to make a small contribution, so I'm on board. The idea is for participants to offer a product or service and donate the proceeds to an organization of their choice that's helping in Haiti. So here's my pledge: I make these lovely little buddha dishes, which I sell in my Etsy shop. I will donate 100% of the profits from any buddha dishes sold in the next 28 days to Medicins sans Frontieres for their efforts in Haiti. These donations will also be eligible for the Canadian Gov't matching funds, which is great. If you're a blogger, you can help too; please go over and read about the challenge. Oh, and please buy a buddha dish! Get something nice by doing something good.