You've heard the expression "penny for your thoughts"?
Daily life can be spent fretting and gossiping over the daily minutae of problems and troubles. It's novel to be invited to give voice to your miracles and your oracles in a milieu that welcomes them.
No miracles to report yet? Make one and call it in later. Make believe that one just over the horizon is right here--describe that. Use your inspiration.
Simply call or text this number 504-484-9255 and share your "walking on water" charm. According to the original roots of the word, charm, they are powerful and poetic words, song, or verse. See what a Brothers Grimm said about the power of your charms.
The promise is at least one person will listen with believing ears to your charm.
While we delight in hearing your voice, you can also submit Soundcloud audio, YouTube or Vimeo or Facebook video, photograph, or written text of your charm here. Add brand-new charms as they roll in--as many as you wish.
This charm-gathering and -listening project is predicated on the winds of change for this autumn 2012. (We may or may not do this again next fall.)
We truly ARE exchanging a penny for your charm if you catch us live. (Sorry, it's too complicated to send you a penny online.)
FINE PRINT: While this is meant to be as ephemeral as a storm or season, your submission may be used in a "remix" compilation in the future. By participating, you grant permission to use your written, spoken, or sung words in a compilation or other derivative work. Please indicate your name and other contact information in your submission if you'd like attribution and credit. As well, you may always whisper your sweet charms anonymously.
More Inspiration
25/11/2012
"Once when I was younger I went out and sat under the sky and looked up and asked it to take me back. What I should have done was gone to the swamp and bog and ask them to bring me back because, if anything is, mud and marsh are the origins of life. Now I think of the storm that made chaos, that the storm opened a door. It tried to make over a world the way it wanted it to be. At school I learned that storms create life, that lightning, with its nitrogen, is a beginning; bacteria and enzymes grow new life from decay out of darkness and water. It’s into this that I want to fall, into swamp and mud and sludge and it seems like falling is the natural way of things; gravity needs no fuel, no wings. It needs only stillness and waiting and time."
Linda Hogan // 4 ♥ // 5 months ago // Reblog // open this post on a new window >>
Met Keith and Chanda this Thanksgiving; they brought over fresh alligator gumbo to share to Amelie’s house. They’d frozen their negatives immediately after Katrina. These haunting effects are the miraculous result. I’d categorize this as walking on water.
open on a new windowKeith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick, Right to Return, River Road, NOLA Now!
Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick have spent most of their life living in and making documentary work about New Orleans. Both were born and raised in the Lower Ninth Ward, and much of their 30+ years of collaboration comes out of this shared community experience. Their archives, and the body of this work were tragically all too connected to the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans – though they had stored the work sealed tight and on high ground upon their evacuation, they returned to discover that flooding had destroyed nearly everything.
As the city recovered, so too did their work. Taking negatives from this damaged collection, Calhoun and McCormick have made a new body of work that literally captures the moment when the levees broke. In spite of the horrors of this event, the colorful and wordless abstraction of this process suggests a way forward, and a hope for the return of lost beauty.
Right to Return, River Road, NOLA Now! is curated by Shannon Brunette in partnership with L9 Center for the Arts in New Orleans.
A reception and toast with the artists will take place this Thursday, June 21, from 6 – 8 PM. Photo ID is required for entry.
Lambent Foundation
55 Exchange Place, Suite 406 New York, NY 10005The exhibition will be on view through December 21, but please note that it is by appointment (contact info@lambentfoundation.org) and photo ID is required for entry.
14/11/2012
"Say the thing that everyone knows no one should say. Say it anyway."
Jen Lemen, HOW TO BE DANGEROUS // 0 ♥ // 6 months ago // Reblog // open this post on a new window >>
When one speaks of the winds of change and ‘walking on water’ it’s too easy to refer to larger-than-life saints and sages for examples.
What about a six-year-old girl? What about YOU?
“In Spring 1960, Ruby Bridges was one of several black children in New Orleans to take a test to determine which children would be the first to attend integrated schools… The court-ordered first day of integrated schools in New Orleans, November 14, 1960, was commemorated by Norman Rockwell in the painting The Problem We All Live With. As Bridges describes it, “Driving up I could see the crowd, but living in New Orleans, I actually thought it was Mardi Gras. There was a large crowd of people outside of the school. They were throwing things and shouting, and that sort of goes on in New Orleans at Mardi Gras.” Former United States Deputy Marshal Charles Burks later recalled, “She showed a lot of courage. She never cried. She didn’t whimper. She just marched along like a little soldier, and we’re all very proud of her.”
As soon as Bridges got into the school, white parents went in and brought their own children out; all teachers refused to teach while a black child was enrolled. They hired Barbara Henry, from Boston, Massachusetts, to teach Bridges, and for over a year Mrs. Henry taught her alone, “as if she were teaching a whole class.” That first day, Bridges and her adult companions spent the entire day in the principal’s office; the chaos of the school prevented their moving to the classroom until the second day. Every morning, as Bridges walked to school, one woman would threaten to poison her; because of this, the U.S. Marshals dispatched by President Eisenhower, who were overseeing her safety, only allowed Ruby to eat food that she brought from home. Another woman at the school put a black baby doll in a wooden coffin and protested with it outside the school, a sight that Bridges Hall has said “scared me more than the nasty things people screamed at us.” At her mother’s suggestion, Bridges began to pray on the way to school, which she found provided protection from the comments yelled at her on the daily walks.” - excerpted from Wikipedia
Also from Marian Wright Edelman’s story on Ruby (via Huffington Post): Ruby astonished her teacher one day when she asked Ruby why she had paused and talked to the crowd of white adults that morning, and Ruby responded, “I wasn’t talking. I was praying. I was praying for them.”
AND: “You cannot look at a person and tell whether they’re good or bad. Evil comes in all shades and colors. That is the lesson that I learned from the teacher that looked exactly like the people outside that threw things, spit, and yelled — she looked exactly like them, but she was different, and I knew that at six years old, because she showed me her heart.”
// 2 ♥ // 6 months ago // <a href='http://www.tumblr.com/reblog/35638775162/Gy68q4Dj' target='_blank' class='reblog'>Reblog</a> // <a class='open-post' href='http://pennyforyourcharms.com/post/35638775162/ruby-bridges' target='_blank'>open this post on a new window>></a>
// 382 ♥ // 6 months ago // <a href='http://www.tumblr.com/reblog/35638379990/FUDNBm54' target='_blank' class='reblog'>Reblog</a> // <a class='open-post' href='http://pennyforyourcharms.com/post/35638379990/oya-agrees-neil-gaiman-keep-moving' target='_blank'>open this post on a new window>></a>“Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.” Neil Gaiman’s 8 rules of writing.
Who’s and Why’s — the backstory of this pop-up art project.
ART CREDITS: “Lightning: Up close and personal,” by David Kingham via Flickr.
// 1 ♥ // 6 months ago // <a href='http://www.tumblr.com/reblog/35586801849/9pJl5AJx' target='_blank' class='reblog'>Reblog</a> // <a class='open-post' href='http://pennyforyourcharms.com/post/35586801849/lightning-up-close-and-personal' target='_blank'>open this post on a new window>></a>
Nice serendipity. First thing up on Tumblr dashboard as I finish writing about John Cage and the winds of change. (via writersbloqinc, kari-shma)
// 134 ♥ // 6 months ago // <a href='http://www.tumblr.com/reblog/35585520074/qTxpLm07' target='_blank' class='reblog'>Reblog</a> // <a class='open-post' href='http://pennyforyourcharms.com/post/35585520074/be-open-to-whatever-comes-next-john-cage' target='_blank'>open this post on a new window>></a>10/11/2012
"
Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts. Out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment. Of them, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
… Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.
"James Allen, As a Man Thinketh (from the expression, “As a man thinketh, so is he”) // 1 ♥ // 6 months ago // Reblog // open this post on a new window >>
