From The Heart

A Generosity Hero at work...

"For Toni Dukes, love isn't delivered with a sugary sweet Hallmark card or an overpriced bouquet of red roses. It's given in a Ziploc bag stuffed with a hat, gloves and a packet of Kleenex, and the words "From the Heart" written in black marker on the outside.

The 39-year-old single mom commutes to San Francisco from her home in Stockton to work the swing shift as a 911 dispatcher. Her days are spent driving 187 miles round trip to work in an understaffed department where she handles calls ranging from mentally ill people screaming at her to women going into labor alone to somebody who's just found their mother dead.

But Dukes hasn't been able to call it a day after her high-stress shifts. Her route to work takes her through the Tenderloin, and last year, she couldn't help but notice the homeless people and others down on their luck who were huddling outside in the cold.

So, using her own pocket money, she began venturing into the rough neighborhood on foot a few times a month to hand out the packets and to chat with people on the street - many of whom seemed more grateful for the conversation than the hats and gloves.

"My job is over the phone. I like to meet and greet. I like to talk to people face to face," she said. "It's amazing just for people to smile, to acknowledge them and show you know that they're there. They're not animals. They're just people without the same opportunities a lot of us have.""

Love Notes & Guerilla Art

I've been bloghopping this evening and found a scattering of lovely posts about sending Love Notes out into one's city...

It started with Jen Lemen, one of my favorite creativity and kindness bloggers. These are her Love Notes.

She reminded me of Keri Smith and I can't believe I've never linked to her How to be a Guerilla Artist manifesto.

Jen was inspired by her friend Krystyn, who spread some love around New York in response to watching the circus that responded to Heath Ledger's death outside her office building.

From her comments I found the Acts of Kindness blog. Yay, another sister in kindness!

I also found Titration's Guerilla Art Adventure.

Honestly, I haven't been so successful with my intentions towards daily kindness. I think I'll be doing my own version of love notes in the next few days. I was going to say "to make up for it" at the end of that sentence. But I need to be kind to myself and recognize that I tend to do things in bursts anyway...lots of activity and then big rests in between. And it's ok.

Seeds of Compassion

I just learned about Seeds of Compassion from one of my favorite bloggers.

"Seeds of Compassion is an initiative to nurture kindness and compassion in the world starting with children and all those who touch their lives. By connecting parents, educators, and caregivers, Seeds of Compassion will inspire and empower adults and youth in the development of kinder and more compassionate local and global communities."

A Kindness Resolution

I haven't received any requests for over a month now, so I've participated in a few swaps instead. I also gave a spontaneous blessing package with a Transformation Doll to one of my fellow Board members because she just initiated a divorce. Amazingly, I only had one doll and it was purple. It turns out she has a very strong connection to purple. It trips me out how that happens, as if I made the doll for her intuitively before knowing it was hers.

I've also begun gestating a new creative project, which is demanding a lot of emotional energy and time for research. So I haven't been pursuing more exposure for The Conspiracy to generate requests (although I guess participating in the Every Day Kindness and Creativity campaigns may generate some participation). I'll gladly fill any requests that come in. But I'm trusting the flow of the Universe so that all of my actions remain authentic, instead of being driven by a sense of obligation. I don't want to get in over my head and lose my integrity (a kindness to myself and others!).

So I've decided to expand this blog a little into my personal life by connecting it with the Every Day Kindness project (I've added the blog roll to my sidebar), as well as sharing more of my own journey towards kindness. 2008 is my Year of Kindness.

A post from my other blog:

I just started reading Christine Kane's blog and love her advice to overthrow the whole resolution idea and instead choose a word to "be" for a year. Resolutions are all about doing, usually one specific thing, and we usually fail. Resolutions are not holistic. But choosing a word, or quality, to be for the year, to focus our conscious energy on, would be extremely difficult to fail at (we succeed even if we live it one moment) and could potentially have an effect on every aspect of our lives.

The serendipitous thing about this is that I started seeing my years as words two years ago when 2006 became the year of forgiveness. I was given the opportunity to forgive the all the biggest of of my old wounds. I was challenged to grow out of the survivor mentality, to see that I was more than what I had overcome, and I am no longer succeeding in-spite-of. I was challenged to forgive in the moment, continuing to serve others as my best self while they failed me and the community. I was inspired to forgive myself and learned how important self forgiveness is, especially as a mother.

2007 is the year of opening. I opened to my queer nature and returned home to the queer community. I opened to accepting the mantle of leadership...finally. I opened to new friendships. I opened to finding a diagnosis for my health issues after 10 years and understanding how much they have impacted my emotional life in that time. I opened myself to healing. I opened myself more to creative generosity. I opened myself to new forms of art making. I opened myself to the future, to the possible manifestations of my bliss, to the reality that I have choices and can pursue the life of my dreams (as opposed to feeling choiceless and tied down). Even this week, as 2007 ends, I opened to the idea of moving -- leaving this house I am so unhappy with (cheap landlords+old house=lots of problems) and moving away from feeling responsible for my ex. In 2007 I have released the boundaries and limitations I had artificially placed on myself and opened myself to the life of my dreams.

"Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight (including yourself). Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again." -Og Mandino

2008 will be the year of kindness. I have been focused on creative generosity, which allows me to keep a distance from the lives I am touching. I make it about the art and the giving, not about how I relate to each individual. I feel the urge to grow by responding to life, myself and others with kindness. Kindness is active and requires interaction of some sort. Kindness can replace my anxious social thoughts and allow me to be fully present to others. Kindness can open me to more connection. Kindness can inspire me to love myself enough to pursue good health. Kindness can carry me through each interaction with my ex until the day we no longer live together. Kindness can give me the space to accept all of myself and all of everyone else. Kindness can make me a better leader.

"Everyone is living with a pain body." Eckhart Tolle

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." Philo of Alexandria

I have been carrying these two quotes in the journal in my purse for a long time. But I have not been living them and I want to.

PS Part of my inspiration for choosing kindness in 2008 is my new blog friend, Kindness Girl.

A Soul Sister in Creative Generosity

From a comment on an uplifting blog I read every day I was lead to Kim, whose website is full of all kinds of creative generosity and kindness. But what is especially lovely is that she makes inspiring and hopeful "magic wands" for children suffering from terminal illneses and links to several other online projects that connect anyone who is inspired to share a little kindness with ill children who could use the extra lovins.

What a great way to start the day! Blissings to you all this holiday season!

A Literary Lover of Pronoia

“I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.”~ J. D. Salinger

I saw this quote on another blog today and felt it needed to be posted here. I do believe in the Universe conspiring to make me (us) happy, but never thought about individual people doing so.