Have you seen the rainbow graffiti video? What moves me about this “act of art” is the meticulous way it was designed and implemented. It requires creativity, skill, and daring. The conclusion is not simply a reactive gesture, but a purposeful and therefore meaningful expression of determined beauty.

It’s undeniably beautiful and undeniably illegal. Our shadow side coming into the light. This works on me.

See if it works on you.

“We love Jesus but you done learned a lot from Satan”

This line from a recent music video release, “Devil in a New Dress“,  by Kanye West made me smile and made me think.

Just where and how do our spiritual lives and our earth-bound lives intersect? If our human nature is goddess/nature-given, as I believe, is life all about what we learn from our struggle to overcome this ego/survival-driven force?

We are born concerned with our survival needs – nourishment, shelter and protection, innate energies held in the first chakra center at the base of the spine. As we grow up, we learn about our emotional needs – our desires and other emotional reactions, we become the center of our own universe. At some point, around puberty perhaps, we tap into our power center at the navel, and learn what makes us feel in control or in charge or in other ways significant. All these energies are connected to and triggered by our innate human nature and when kept in a healthy balance, they move us along and keep us alive and well as we navigate our earthly adventures.

Then comes the real work as we become adults  – we move into a place of “higher consciousness”, the place that holds the compassion of the heart center, and the actions we put into place through our expression (throat chakra). During this time, the battle begins between our human nature and what we could call our more divine nature – also innate, I believe, but more complex  – a place tangled up in blue, as it goes.

Fortunately, there are two more steps to take up the ladder of conscious living, places where we can look inward for answers (third eye) and a place where we can find a sense of truth or “knowing” energy at the crown chakra. In this way, we navigate the waters of emotion, desires, needs, and actions and continue on the rocky path of life and living.

And maybe this is how it is all meant to be – a devil in a new dress.

Ever been asked about your “greatest failures”? I was the other night. This is what I realized:

Failing is simply another way to spell, “Falling”. The only falling/failing that isn’t great is one where you don’t get back up.

The Agtivists are changing the world. Or maybe it’s that change is creating agtivists?

And in one of those “wish I had thought of that” stories, Nikhil Arora and Alex Velez, both students at UC Berkeley found themselves doing a little of both. While nearing graduation, as well as big money job offers in banking investment, they each had an ah-ha moment during business ethics class and came together to pursue a entrepreneurial, good for the world opportunity as mushroom farmers.

It turns out, you can grow mushrooms abundantly in coffee grounds and what a better place to do that than in a caffeine-addicted society? Where they could “turn waste into something of value and have a huge impact” while encouraging people to grow their own food, even if it’s on their kitchen counters.

They did their homework and contacted the well-known mycologist, Paul Stamets for advice.
A lot of hard but passionate work later, their business, Back to the Roots, was up and running online and in Whole Foods Markets. They turn coffee grounds into food, first as mushrooms they sell wholesale and then as grow-your-own gourmet mushroom kits for any household.

“We want to show people in households across the country that it’s not hard to live sustainably, to think about waste and grow your own food at home,” says Arora. “You get great food out of it, yes, but it’s more about understanding tangibly what this whole sustainability buzzword means.”

This story isn’t completely new. Recall the Princeton students that started TerraCycle worm poop and more? And well, you don’t need the college degrees to get the work done. I think it’s passion and pluck that makes an entrepreneur tick.

See the whole cool story on Back to the Roots on Grist, here.

I was sad when my local video store closed last month. They included had a great Indie and foreign selection, the employees knew movies, they allowed dogs inside and asked mine to sit for their complimentary biscuits. We don’t watch movies as often as some, but I mostly loved being spontaneous on a Summer night and walking over after dinner to check things out. I’m sad that the employees will have to look for other jobs.

It turns out, my housemate has a NetFlix account, so we are splitting it. And, yes, I know it’s more convenient, cheaper and more sustainable. I can still mourn my store. But, in fact, with 4 people in a household, we often split a lot of stuff, save some money and time. Best of both worlds. More stuff and experience for each person, yet less stuff in the waste stream overall.

And these entrepreneur-types were bound to catch on to this yet un-tapped opportunity. They did, and birthed an online community called SplitStuff. Go past the obvious split items and the possibilities are almost endless…

Trying to drive less? Split a car and share expenses.

Trying to eat better? Split a CSA membership.

Eating better by growing your own food? Split a garden plot, including work time and tools.

Love animals but work too much? Split pet care. I even saw a share a horse Split.

I still love to receive magazines – anyone want to split subscriptions?

Split bulk orders of pet food or diapers.

Ski or surf a couple times a year? Split equipment.

On and On. Change happens. Be sad for a moment if you need to, then get back on that [shared] horse.

My astrological reading for this week reminded me of something important:

“We have to believe in Free Will. We have no choice.”

If you turn this statement around, it still says the same thing.

We all choose a path, manifest things we want and need, as well as things we don’t want and don’t need. That doesn’t necessarily mean we have a choice in any of it. So, how do we reconcile all of this? We don’t.

But we can get a whole lotta shit done trying.

So, no matter how many things go right, go wrong, or go away. Keep looking for the next piece to the big jigsaw puzzle of life. It will all fit together in the end.

NEW year. New stuff. Get Shit done. oh, and don’t forget to be happy about it.

Holy Fuck. oops. Can I legally say that on a blog? And is “holy fuck” an oxymoron or a simple truth? I save that kind of thing for specifically warranted moments, that’s all I could do when watching this viral online video, “People are Awesome“.

If you ever doubt our human potential, watch this video. If you want to be inspired to take on what seems impossible, watch this video. If you want to remember just why we’re on this planet anyway, watch this video. If you want to have your mind and heart blown open, watch this video. If you simply want a chance to say, “holy fuck” then watch this video.

After yoga class last night, I started thinking about flow. And I was still thinking about this idea from yesterday  – about the necessary bringing forth of genius and I decided that the two things are similar in that you need to find your flow to express your genius. Or do you need to find your genius to flow? I’m not sure but I do know that without both of these things, life can hit a really dull place, though sometimes that place feels busy, so you have to be careful because being busy is not the same as flow – and filling your head with thoughts and writing facebook posts is not the same as genius, although most flowing geniuses do have a Facebook page.

Anyway, I was reading and watching these short films from one of this flowing genius people and he was asked how he began this process and he said he just jumped right in and that it was all he ever wanted to do and he didn’t go to film school and of course, it’s obvious that genius does not really need film school and this kind of realization is inspiring in some cases.

Jumping in is also a bit like jumping off – there’s a ton of resistance to the whole idea and it makes you wonder just what you’re doing on this cliff anyway. Jump. Whatever you lose along the way, you probably no longer needed.