Acrylic on Canvas. 30" x 30"
$200
(Plus $50 for shipping & handling outside of GA)
Please contact me if you're interested in purchasing.
770 896 7497
melissa [at] artoceanspirit.com
2/12/09
Original Painting: "Squigglies"
Acrylic on Canvas. 30" x 30"
$200
(Plus $50 for shipping & handling outside of GA)
Please contact me if you're interested in purchasing.
770 896 7497
melissa [at] artoceanspirit.com
Original Painting: "Sunburst"
Acrylic on Canvas. 20" circle.
$200
(Plus $25 for shipping & handling outside of GA)
I have sold this original painting, but I am glad to make a custom order, featuring any base color.
Please contact me if you're interested in purchasing.
770 896 7497
melissa [at] artoceanspirit.com
Original Painting: "Purple Solar"
Acrylic on Canvas Panel. 24" x 24"
$200
(Plus $25 for shipping and handling outside of GA)
Please contact me if you're interested in purchasing.
770 896 7497
melissa [at] artoceanspirit.com
Original Painting: "Paintable Quotes"
Acrylic on Canvas. 30" X 30"
$225
(Plus $50 for shipping and handling outside of GA)
I can create a custom painting for you, using any text that inspires you. It can be a quote like the one above, passage from a book, music lyrics, etc.
Price is based on size of canvas and the number of characters in the text ($2 per character).
Please contact me if you're interested in purchasing.
770 896 7497
melissa [at] artoceanspirit.com
2/6/09
Original Painting: "Law of Attraction"
Acrylic on canvas. 16" x 20" Oval.
$125
(Plus $25 for shipping & handling outside of GA)
* Also available in smaller sizes: 6 x 8" for $35 and 8 x 10" for $50 *
Let my art inspire you to attract your heart’s desire and add beauty to your home or office.
The purple background symbolizes spirituality and a high level of consciousness.
The figure represents a person meditating, maybe doing yoga, but basically being still and focusing on what they want. It also represents prayer and eternity.
The lines around the figure represent energy flowing to, from and through the person.
Please contact me if you have any questions or if you're interested in purchasing:
770 896 7497
melissa [at] artoceanspirit.com
Sweet Spot
This beautiful residence is the summer home of Ray Lane, one of the founding partners of Oracle. It's right on the boardwalk at Manhattan Beach, CA. Stopped me in my tracks.
A Course In Miracles Lesson 37 :: My Holiness Blesses The World
Click Here to listen to today's lesson, courtesy of notabody.com
My Holiness Blesses The World
This idea contains the first glimmerings of your true function in the world, or why you are here Your purpose is to see the world through your own holiness. Thus are you and the world blessed together. No one loses; nothing is taken away from anyone; everyone gains through your holy vision. It signifies the end of sacrifice because it offers everyone his full due. And he is entitled to everything because it is his birthright as a Son of God.
There is no other way in which the idea of sacrifice can be removed from the world's thinking Any other way of seeing will inevitably demand payment of someone or something. As a result, the perceiver will lose. Nor will he have any idea why he is losing. Yet is his wholeness restored to his awareness through your vision. Your holiness blesses him by asking nothing of him. Those who see themselves as whole make no demands.
Your holiness is the salvation of the world It lets you teach the world that it is one with you, not by preaching to it, not by telling it anything, but merely by your quiet recognition that in your holiness are all things blessed along with you.
Today's four longer exercise periods, each to involve three to five minutes of practice, begin with the repetition of the idea for today, followed by a minute or so of looking about you as you apply the idea to whatever you see:
My holiness blesses this chair
My holiness blesses that window
My holiness blesses this body
Then close your eyes and apply the idea to any person who occurs to you, using his name and saying:
My holiness blesses you, [name]
You may continue the practice period with your eyes closed; you may open your eyes again and apply the idea for today to your outer world if you so desire; you may alternate between applying the idea to what you see around you and to those who are in your thoughts; or you may use any combination of these two phases of application that you prefer The practice period should conclude with a repetition of the idea with your eyes closed, and another, following immediately, with your eyes open.
The shorter exercises consist of repeating the idea as often as you can It is particularly helpful to apply it silently to anyone you meet, using his name as you do so. It is essential to use the idea if anyone seems to cause an adverse reaction in you. Offer him the blessing of your holiness immediately, that you may learn to keep it in your own awareness.
My Holiness Blesses The World
This idea contains the first glimmerings of your true function in the world, or why you are here Your purpose is to see the world through your own holiness. Thus are you and the world blessed together. No one loses; nothing is taken away from anyone; everyone gains through your holy vision. It signifies the end of sacrifice because it offers everyone his full due. And he is entitled to everything because it is his birthright as a Son of God.
There is no other way in which the idea of sacrifice can be removed from the world's thinking Any other way of seeing will inevitably demand payment of someone or something. As a result, the perceiver will lose. Nor will he have any idea why he is losing. Yet is his wholeness restored to his awareness through your vision. Your holiness blesses him by asking nothing of him. Those who see themselves as whole make no demands.
Your holiness is the salvation of the world It lets you teach the world that it is one with you, not by preaching to it, not by telling it anything, but merely by your quiet recognition that in your holiness are all things blessed along with you.
Today's four longer exercise periods, each to involve three to five minutes of practice, begin with the repetition of the idea for today, followed by a minute or so of looking about you as you apply the idea to whatever you see:
My holiness blesses this chair
My holiness blesses that window
My holiness blesses this body
Then close your eyes and apply the idea to any person who occurs to you, using his name and saying:
My holiness blesses you, [name]
You may continue the practice period with your eyes closed; you may open your eyes again and apply the idea for today to your outer world if you so desire; you may alternate between applying the idea to what you see around you and to those who are in your thoughts; or you may use any combination of these two phases of application that you prefer The practice period should conclude with a repetition of the idea with your eyes closed, and another, following immediately, with your eyes open.
The shorter exercises consist of repeating the idea as often as you can It is particularly helpful to apply it silently to anyone you meet, using his name as you do so. It is essential to use the idea if anyone seems to cause an adverse reaction in you. Offer him the blessing of your holiness immediately, that you may learn to keep it in your own awareness.
2/4/09
Gandhi: An Example of Simplicity
Bottom photo: Gandhi's possessions at the time of his death
Click Here to visit the complete site on Mahatma Gandhi.
2/3/09
Anonymous Good Deeds Make the World Go Round
Do some good deeds without the recipient knowing anything about you. Here are some ideas. Write in and let us know how it went. If you have any ideas of your own, please leave them in the comment box.
* While in a restaurant, pay for the meals or even just dessert at another table. Instruct the waitress to give you that table’s check, quietly without notice. Pay, then leave the restaurant.
* Cut some one’s grass.
* Wash some one’s car.
* Plant flowers in some one’s garden.
* Pay for the food order for the car behind you in the drive-through, fast-food restaurant.
* Pay for the toll of the car behind you on a toll road or toll bridge.
* Pay for the movie of the third person behind you in line at the theater. It needs to be the third person so you can get away in time.
* Make arrangements to pay some one’s gas, water, telephone, or electric bill. Call the utility company and offer this for a total stranger.
* Go to the dry cleaners. Pay for some one’s dry cleaning, someone you don’t know.
* Give another driver the parking space you were waiting for.
* Return a grocery cart to the store.
* Leave the last piece of cake for someone else.
* Put coins in parking meters that are expired and there's a car parked in the spot.
* Bury nickels in the sand of public sandboxes and under slides and swing sets so that children may find them.
* Put flowers under the windshield wipers of a stranger's car.
* Leave your change in a vending machine.
* Leave some of your cash withdrawal at the ATM.
* Send someone a thank you card just because.
* Hail a cab for someone.
* Hold doors open for everyone walking behind you.
* While in a restaurant, pay for the meals or even just dessert at another table. Instruct the waitress to give you that table’s check, quietly without notice. Pay, then leave the restaurant.
* Cut some one’s grass.
* Wash some one’s car.
* Plant flowers in some one’s garden.
* Pay for the food order for the car behind you in the drive-through, fast-food restaurant.
* Pay for the toll of the car behind you on a toll road or toll bridge.
* Pay for the movie of the third person behind you in line at the theater. It needs to be the third person so you can get away in time.
* Make arrangements to pay some one’s gas, water, telephone, or electric bill. Call the utility company and offer this for a total stranger.
* Go to the dry cleaners. Pay for some one’s dry cleaning, someone you don’t know.
* Give another driver the parking space you were waiting for.
* Return a grocery cart to the store.
* Leave the last piece of cake for someone else.
* Put coins in parking meters that are expired and there's a car parked in the spot.
* Bury nickels in the sand of public sandboxes and under slides and swing sets so that children may find them.
* Put flowers under the windshield wipers of a stranger's car.
* Leave your change in a vending machine.
* Leave some of your cash withdrawal at the ATM.
* Send someone a thank you card just because.
* Hail a cab for someone.
* Hold doors open for everyone walking behind you.
How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes by Steve Pavlina
How do you discover your real purpose in life? I’m not talking about your job, your daily responsibilities, or even your long-term goals. I mean the real reason why you’re here at all — the very reason you exist.
Perhaps you’re a rather nihilistic person who doesn’t believe you have a purpose and that life has no meaning. Doesn’t matter. Not believing that you have a purpose won’t prevent you from discovering it, just as a lack of belief in gravity won’t prevent you from tripping. All that a lack of belief will do is make it take longer, so if you’re one of those people, just change the number 20 in the title of this blog entry to 40 (or 60 if you’re really stubborn). Most likely though if you don’t believe you have a purpose, then you probably won’t believe what I’m saying anyway, but even so, what’s the risk of investing an hour just in case?
Here’s a story about Bruce Lee which sets the stage for this little exercise. A master martial artist asked Bruce to teach him everything Bruce knew about martial arts. Bruce held up two cups, both filled with liquid. “The first cup,” said Bruce, “represents all of your knowledge about martial arts. The second cup represents all of my knowledge about martial arts. If you want to fill your cup with my knowledge, you must first empty your cup of your knowledge.”
If you want to discover your true purpose in life, you must first empty your mind of all the false purposes you’ve been taught (including the idea that you may have no purpose at all).
So how to discover your purpose in life? While there are many ways to do this, some of them fairly involved, here is one of the simplest that anyone can do. The more open you are to this process, and the more you expect it to work, the faster it will work for you. But not being open to it or having doubts about it or thinking it’s an entirely idiotic and meaningless waste of time won’t prevent it from working as long as you stick with it — again, it will just take longer to converge.
Here’s what to do:
1. Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type (I prefer the latter because it’s faster).
2. Write at the top, “What is my true purpose in life?”
3. Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.
4. Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes you cry. This is your purpose.
That’s it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a counselor or an engineer or a bodybuilder. To some people this exercise will make perfect sense. To others it will seem utterly stupid. Usually it takes 15-20 minutes to clear your head of all the clutter and the social conditioning about what you think your purpose in life is. The false answers will come from your mind and your memories. But when the true answer finally arrives, it will feel like it’s coming to you from a different source entirely.
For those who are very entrenched in low-awareness living, it will take a lot longer to get all the false answers out, possibly more than an hour. But if you persist, after 100 or 200 or maybe even 500 answers, you’ll be struck by the answer that causes you to surge with emotion, the answer that breaks you. If you’ve never done this, it may very well sound silly to you. So let it seem silly, and do it anyway.
As you go through this process, some of your answers will be very similar. You may even re-list previous answers. Then you might head off on a new tangent and generate 10-20 more answers along some other theme. And that’s fine. You can list whatever answer pops into your head as long as you just keep writing.
At some point during the process (typically after about 50-100 answers), you may want to quit and just can’t see it converging. You may feel the urge to get up and make an excuse to do something else. That’s normal. Push past this resistance, and just keep writing. The feeling of resistance will eventually pass.
You may also discover a few answers that seem to give you a mini-surge of emotion, but they don’t quite make you cry — they’re just a bit off. Highlight those answers as you go along, so you can come back to them to generate new permutations. Each reflects a piece of your purpose, but individually they aren’t complete. When you start getting these kinds of answers, it just means you’re getting warm. Keep going.
It’s important to do this alone and with no interruptions. If you’re a nihilist, then feel free to start with the answer, “I don’t have a purpose,” or “Life is meaningless,” and take it from there. If you keep at it, you’ll still eventually converge.
When I did this exercise, it took me about 25 minutes, and I reached my final answer at step 106. Partial pieces of the answer (mini-surges) appeared at steps 17, 39, and 53, and then the bulk of it fell into place and was refined through steps 100-106. I felt the feeling of resistance (wanting to get up and do something else, expecting the process to fail, feeling very impatient and even irritated) around steps 55-60. At step 80 I took a 2-minute break to close my eyes, relax, clear my mind, and to focus on the intention for the answer to come to me — this was helpful as the answers I received after this break began to have greater clarity.
Here was my final answer: to live consciously and courageously, to resonate with love and compassion, to awaken the great spirits within others, and to leave this world in peace.
When you find your own unique answer to the question of why you’re here, you will feel it resonate with you deeply. The words will seem to have a special energy to you, and you will feel that energy whenever you read them.
Discovering your purpose is the easy part. The hard part is keeping it with you on a daily basis and working on yourself to the point where you become that purpose.
If you’re inclined to ask why this little process works, just put that question aside until after you’ve successfully completed it. Once you’ve done that, you’ll probably have your own answer to why it works. Most likely if you ask 10 different people why this works (people who’ve successfully completed it), you’ll get 10 different answers, all filtered through their individual belief systems, and each will contain its own reflection of truth.
Obviously, this process won’t work if you quit before convergence. I’d guesstimate that 80-90% of people should achieve convergence in less than an hour. If you’re really entrenched in your beliefs and resistant to the process, maybe it will take you 5 sessions and 3 hours, but I suspect that such people will simply quit early (like within the first 15 minutes) or won’t even attempt it at all. But if you’re drawn to read this blog (and haven’t been inclined to ban it from your life yet), then it’s doubtful you fall into this group.
Give it a shot! At the very least, you’ll learn one of two things: your true purpose in life -or- that you should unsubscribe from this blog. ;)
January 16th, 2005
View the original article:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/01/how-to-discover-your-life-purpose-in-about-20-minutes/
Perhaps you’re a rather nihilistic person who doesn’t believe you have a purpose and that life has no meaning. Doesn’t matter. Not believing that you have a purpose won’t prevent you from discovering it, just as a lack of belief in gravity won’t prevent you from tripping. All that a lack of belief will do is make it take longer, so if you’re one of those people, just change the number 20 in the title of this blog entry to 40 (or 60 if you’re really stubborn). Most likely though if you don’t believe you have a purpose, then you probably won’t believe what I’m saying anyway, but even so, what’s the risk of investing an hour just in case?
Here’s a story about Bruce Lee which sets the stage for this little exercise. A master martial artist asked Bruce to teach him everything Bruce knew about martial arts. Bruce held up two cups, both filled with liquid. “The first cup,” said Bruce, “represents all of your knowledge about martial arts. The second cup represents all of my knowledge about martial arts. If you want to fill your cup with my knowledge, you must first empty your cup of your knowledge.”
If you want to discover your true purpose in life, you must first empty your mind of all the false purposes you’ve been taught (including the idea that you may have no purpose at all).
So how to discover your purpose in life? While there are many ways to do this, some of them fairly involved, here is one of the simplest that anyone can do. The more open you are to this process, and the more you expect it to work, the faster it will work for you. But not being open to it or having doubts about it or thinking it’s an entirely idiotic and meaningless waste of time won’t prevent it from working as long as you stick with it — again, it will just take longer to converge.
Here’s what to do:
1. Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type (I prefer the latter because it’s faster).
2. Write at the top, “What is my true purpose in life?”
3. Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.
4. Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes you cry. This is your purpose.
That’s it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a counselor or an engineer or a bodybuilder. To some people this exercise will make perfect sense. To others it will seem utterly stupid. Usually it takes 15-20 minutes to clear your head of all the clutter and the social conditioning about what you think your purpose in life is. The false answers will come from your mind and your memories. But when the true answer finally arrives, it will feel like it’s coming to you from a different source entirely.
For those who are very entrenched in low-awareness living, it will take a lot longer to get all the false answers out, possibly more than an hour. But if you persist, after 100 or 200 or maybe even 500 answers, you’ll be struck by the answer that causes you to surge with emotion, the answer that breaks you. If you’ve never done this, it may very well sound silly to you. So let it seem silly, and do it anyway.
As you go through this process, some of your answers will be very similar. You may even re-list previous answers. Then you might head off on a new tangent and generate 10-20 more answers along some other theme. And that’s fine. You can list whatever answer pops into your head as long as you just keep writing.
At some point during the process (typically after about 50-100 answers), you may want to quit and just can’t see it converging. You may feel the urge to get up and make an excuse to do something else. That’s normal. Push past this resistance, and just keep writing. The feeling of resistance will eventually pass.
You may also discover a few answers that seem to give you a mini-surge of emotion, but they don’t quite make you cry — they’re just a bit off. Highlight those answers as you go along, so you can come back to them to generate new permutations. Each reflects a piece of your purpose, but individually they aren’t complete. When you start getting these kinds of answers, it just means you’re getting warm. Keep going.
It’s important to do this alone and with no interruptions. If you’re a nihilist, then feel free to start with the answer, “I don’t have a purpose,” or “Life is meaningless,” and take it from there. If you keep at it, you’ll still eventually converge.
When I did this exercise, it took me about 25 minutes, and I reached my final answer at step 106. Partial pieces of the answer (mini-surges) appeared at steps 17, 39, and 53, and then the bulk of it fell into place and was refined through steps 100-106. I felt the feeling of resistance (wanting to get up and do something else, expecting the process to fail, feeling very impatient and even irritated) around steps 55-60. At step 80 I took a 2-minute break to close my eyes, relax, clear my mind, and to focus on the intention for the answer to come to me — this was helpful as the answers I received after this break began to have greater clarity.
Here was my final answer: to live consciously and courageously, to resonate with love and compassion, to awaken the great spirits within others, and to leave this world in peace.
When you find your own unique answer to the question of why you’re here, you will feel it resonate with you deeply. The words will seem to have a special energy to you, and you will feel that energy whenever you read them.
Discovering your purpose is the easy part. The hard part is keeping it with you on a daily basis and working on yourself to the point where you become that purpose.
If you’re inclined to ask why this little process works, just put that question aside until after you’ve successfully completed it. Once you’ve done that, you’ll probably have your own answer to why it works. Most likely if you ask 10 different people why this works (people who’ve successfully completed it), you’ll get 10 different answers, all filtered through their individual belief systems, and each will contain its own reflection of truth.
Obviously, this process won’t work if you quit before convergence. I’d guesstimate that 80-90% of people should achieve convergence in less than an hour. If you’re really entrenched in your beliefs and resistant to the process, maybe it will take you 5 sessions and 3 hours, but I suspect that such people will simply quit early (like within the first 15 minutes) or won’t even attempt it at all. But if you’re drawn to read this blog (and haven’t been inclined to ban it from your life yet), then it’s doubtful you fall into this group.
Give it a shot! At the very least, you’ll learn one of two things: your true purpose in life -or- that you should unsubscribe from this blog. ;)
January 16th, 2005
View the original article:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/01/how-to-discover-your-life-purpose-in-about-20-minutes/
Day One
Well, you might be asking yourself, "What's the Core?"
"The Core" is my own personal philosophy about human nature and how we become conscious of the world and our part in it.
Imagine the earth as a series of concentric circles.
At the outer circles, people are only aware of their own kind.
At the next inner circle, people are aware of "others" but regard them with fear and do not interact with them at all.
At the next level, it's very tribal. People are aware of "others", are fearful and have an attack mentality -- us versus them, warring nations, gangs, etc. It's a deeply fear-based energy.
At the next level, it's somewhat tribal and there's some fear, but there is at least tolerance. No one attacks anyone else but interaction is limited and based solely on necessity.
At the next level, it's less tribal and tolerance has become acceptance. Interaction is becoming more about curiosity as well as necessity. At this point there are key people from different groups serving as ambassadors.
At the next level, necessity has become welcomed interdependence with each group striving to benefit the other but still maintaining their own identities. Ambassadors are now creating partnerships.
At the next level, there are fewer ambassadors as more members of each group lessens their identities and starts to see themselves in the other groups.
At the next level, group identities start to disappear, even down to physical distinctions.
Finally, we're at the core, where we have returned to formless energy.
I say that people like Jesus, Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Buddha were "core" people. They were about consciousness and loving the human spirit.
I aspire to be like them and have created this blog as a place were anyone can post messages of positivity and love, messages at the highest energy frequencies. (and make a little extra cash, too!)
Welcome to the Core...
"The Core" is my own personal philosophy about human nature and how we become conscious of the world and our part in it.
Imagine the earth as a series of concentric circles.
At the outer circles, people are only aware of their own kind.
At the next inner circle, people are aware of "others" but regard them with fear and do not interact with them at all.
At the next level, it's very tribal. People are aware of "others", are fearful and have an attack mentality -- us versus them, warring nations, gangs, etc. It's a deeply fear-based energy.
At the next level, it's somewhat tribal and there's some fear, but there is at least tolerance. No one attacks anyone else but interaction is limited and based solely on necessity.
At the next level, it's less tribal and tolerance has become acceptance. Interaction is becoming more about curiosity as well as necessity. At this point there are key people from different groups serving as ambassadors.
At the next level, necessity has become welcomed interdependence with each group striving to benefit the other but still maintaining their own identities. Ambassadors are now creating partnerships.
At the next level, there are fewer ambassadors as more members of each group lessens their identities and starts to see themselves in the other groups.
At the next level, group identities start to disappear, even down to physical distinctions.
Finally, we're at the core, where we have returned to formless energy.
I say that people like Jesus, Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Buddha were "core" people. They were about consciousness and loving the human spirit.
I aspire to be like them and have created this blog as a place were anyone can post messages of positivity and love, messages at the highest energy frequencies. (and make a little extra cash, too!)
Welcome to the Core...
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