Greetings everyone! I’ve found a new hobby… making music!
It’s a lot of fun and a nice distraction from writing!
Check out my first stab at making noise!
Hone Alone
I hope you find the following excerpt from my book Awaken fun and inspiring.
“It’s nearly impossible to ascend mountaintops or journey inward to your heart if you’re continually distracted by others and pop culture. To arrive at new and enlightening destinations, you’ll need to take quiet time for yourself.
Sharing and being with others is one of life’s greatest joys. However, it also keeps us from getting to know ourselves better and from growing. This doesn’t mean you need to become a hermit, but it does mean that you will need to dedicate more time to yourself. To achieve this, make it a point to find quiet spaces and time just for yourself. Stop at a park on the way home and take a walk. Sit in a coffee shop and take notes or read a great novel.
The same goes for your interactions with pop culture. If you are continually engaged in the negativity of news and the competition culture, your mind will never find the time to stretch and relax.
To attain higher states of awareness, it’s recommended that you largely limit your ties to the machine. Turn off and walk away from the TV and the ridiculous hype and expectations it creates. Keep the competition culture at bay by drastically reducing your viewing of sports and competition TV such as the endless stream of reality based shows. Fill all your newfound time with more meaningful pursuits such as art, books, and walks in nature.
Overtime you will begin to feel the positive changes. You will begin growing again. You will start to re-experience the rich aroma of life. Take it in, and bathe in its glory. Take another step closer to becoming aware.”
How Does the World Work?
It’s time to test your knowledge of how the world works and is organized!
Please send me an e-mail (jinnua@jinnuablog.com) indicating your answers. All participants will receive a free copy of my Centerpath Paper entitled “The Centerpath Theory on Language”.
Those that get a 100% score will receive a free Centerpath e-book of their choice!
Subject of the Test: The Structure of Language
Hint: The center is where all things align and point towards.
Q1: What’s the center of a sentence.
A1:
Q2: Identify the center of a paragraph.
A2:
Q3: Identify the center of a chapter.
A3:
Q4: Identify the center of a book.
A4:
Q5 (Extra Credit Question): What’s the center of a word?
A5:
Good luck!
http://www.jinnuablog.com/
New Beginnings
To start the new year, a quick reminder of just how important new beginnings are. Please enjoy the following excerpt from my book Heart of Gold. I hope it helps you to raise your experience in 2017 to new levels.
“It’s astonishing finding just how much of our existence is created from what are nothing more than small, tiny instances of change. Fluctuations, thoughts, and interactions forming the seeds of something much larger to follow. It’s this unique dynamic causing seedlings to grow into mighty oaks, single molecules to evolve into intricate snowflakes, and how the flapping of a single butterfly’s wings can change weather patterns half way around the world. It’s the way of the universe and the way of our lives.
Cognizant of this condition, we’d do ourselves great favors ensuring the various inception points of our lives are comprised of the greatest things possible.
What are these key moments of inception? They are our thoughts, reactions, interactions, choices, words and actions. Little moments of glory planting the seeds for ever more glorious things to follow. Thus as you go about the business of life, you can best ensure all things you ultimately create—the strength and quality of your relationships, the impressions and lasting memories you leave in others, your reputation, and the characters of your children; will be great if you begin all things with great intentions, virtuously, and with a golden heart.
Each time you think, act, plan, choose, speak, and dream do so with sincerity, passion, purity, and compassion. From such beginnings all that results will ultimately grow and flower into something beautiful, meaningful, and enduring. Practiced routinely, setting the stage for a life of enchantment.”
Winter Rainbows
For those feeling trapped in winter, revolt! Winter is one of the most beautiful and peaceful times of the year! Get outside!
Below is another golden nugget from a recent interview with Jin on how to enjoy nature in winter.
Question: Living in colder climates can make it especially hard to want to spend time outdoors. What are your suggestions for connecting with nature when it’s 20 degrees outside.
Jin: To connect with nature you need to get outside. Find parks and trails in the city to walk along. Just be sure to dress properly for the cold conditions!
Snowy conditions are actually ideal to build connections with nature.
First off, less people go outside in the winter so you’ll have more quiet time to yourself or with a good friend to view nature’s many marvels of creation.
Also study the new character of the landscape—cold and bleak but yet the bottoming of the next cycle of life—new beginnings spring from the winter. Spend time contemplating how from the stillness and emptiness, comes new things and how that might apply to your life.
Snowy conditions are also the perfect example of seeing heaven on earth. What do most associate with heaven? White, billowy clouds. Perfection and beauty. Stillness and peace. Snow covered hills and trees provide just this feeling. White, puffy snow. The perfection and beauty of sprawling, geometrically balanced tree branches. The quiet and stillness on winter days.
Heaven on earth through wintery days as a window to the heavenly creations all about us.
Celebrate in the City
The following excerpt is from a recent interview with Jin on methods city dwellers can use to get closer to nature.
Question: For those living in the city with high rises and very little open space, they can feel very disconnected from nature. What are some of the ways city dwellers can reconnect with nature?
Jin’s Reply: To reconnect with nature, you need to get closer to nature. Thus you’ll need to find pockets of nature in the city in which you live.
The best place to start is looking for trails and parks within the city. Check maps and do internet searches to find parks and trails—you might be surprised how many you find. If none exist in the city, look for some just outside the city or start a project within your city to clean up an area or start a park.
Even if you can’t find any parks near your house, seek out trees that line city streets. Spend time examining their forms and interrelationships since they possess most of nature’s wisdoms. All trees possess the qualities of fractals, symmetry, and returning to the source so let their wisdom educate and enthrall.
Because so many great artists derived their inspiration from nature, go to art museums as well. Seeing great artists express their awe of nature is also uplifting and another means to build an appreciation of nature.
Man’s creations of stores, buildings, roads and institutions reflect nature’s patterns. Studying how things are city structures are organized provides an interesting insight into man’s world, but also a nice reminder how closely we are connected with nature. To jumpstart your appreciation of this, check out my book Encyclopedia Centerpath.
The Power of Journal Writing
If you want to write a book, movie, or poetry; you need to start keeping a journal. Without a journal; you cannot make significant or meaningful progress toward your goal. It will only remain an idea and never crystallize into a real work.
The following passage from my book Awaken succinctly explains the necessity, and power of keeping a journal;
There’s no better way to build a new dialogue with the world—and yourself—than keeping a journal.
Think of your journal as a forest floor. As you write things down, you plant seeds of thought that grow into larger ideas. A journal becomes the living tissue from which ideas can interconnect, overlap, and resonate. Like roots spreading in all directions, your ideas become more robust and more widely considered. They can also bifurcate in new and unexpected directions, or at other times, joining with the roots of other trees to merge and cross pollinate into something entirely new.
So, start a journal today and let it help you better discover your world, develop a wider dialogue, interconnect things, and become more aware.
Thus, get notepad and pen today. Write down what you’re thinking –observations of life, yourself, and others. Nuances, insights, and what’s at the edge of your thoughts.
After months (and later years) you will be surprised with what you will have produced…and how much closer you will be toward your dream.
I-citizen declares war!
I-citizen declares war on ignorance, greed, and destructiveness.
What is i-citizen’s secret weapon? Our hearts and minds!
Our soldiers? Today’s youth, whom having inherited a plundered planet, will fight valiantly against the entrenched selfishness and short sightedness of a lost generation.
Our lieutenants? Parents and teachers! Tasked with imparting sensibility, holistic thinking, and responsibility in our children.
With our sustained assault, we can eradicate the terrible effects of an era gone awry. Enlist today and begin contributing to a better world!
We Must Do Better
If you don’t believe today’s stressed society (two parents working, ‘never enough’ expectations, loss of extended family support, etc.) is not having a real and long term impacts to our children’s mental health and future; check out this highly meaningful VDO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgiqMQTfw1Y
Mixing medical findings, philosophy, and common sense; Gabor Mate explains the real reasons why society is ailing and how it’s effecting the neural development of our children….
Besides praising Mate’s genius, I also praise the brave ‘stay at home moms and dads’ for the truly noble and worthwhile contribution to not only their children, but also humanity’s future at large. Bravo!
The VDO is 40 minutes and takes concentration but it is infinitely worth it.
The Birth of i Citizen
I’ve got exciting news… my new i Citizen website launched today on summer solstice 2016!
i-Citizen forms the final piece of my overall Centerpath formulization—the action-oriented side of Centerpath—showing ‘citizens’ practical means of putting nature’s wisdoms to work in their day-to-day lives but also how to optimally structure an entire society.
I encourage you to check it out! Some neat sites you might enjoy include;
Also—sign up early to receive an entry level citizenship number.
Thanks,
Jin