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Gifted and Creative Individuals
I would love to hear your thoughts on this perspective of gifted and creative individuals.
The article is The Application of Dabrowski’s Theory to the Gifted by Kevin J. O’Connor and was published in the book Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children: What Do We Know?.
Here are a few quotes from the article to give you a taste of its content:
Dabrowski observed that gifted and creative individuals are often in conflict with the demands and expectations of their environment…
Many in the gifted community believe Dabrowski’s overexcitabilites, as they contribute to developmental potential, are a measure and indicator of giftedness.
Overexcitabilities are enhanced modes of being in the world. The word ‘over’ used in connection with ‘excitability’ connotes responses to stimuli that are beyond normal and often different in quality. Dabrowski identified “psychic overexcitability” in five forms: psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational and emotional.
While the concept of developmental potential emphasizes the positive aspects of experiencing life with greater intensity and sensitivity, these same characteristics may also be experienced in negative ways. Individuals with elevated overexcitabilities are more susceptible to being misunderstood and alienated by those who don’t share or understand their unique personality traits.
Parents of gifted children and gifted individuals themselves may find that Dabrowski’s ideas provide a useful “framework for understanding and explaining the developmental patterns and challenges that occur for those of high ability.”
Weaving into the Tapestry
What do we hear when we listen to the center? What do we speak when we start from a place of stillness, listen to the stirrings of source, and speak to the center?
Last week I was blessed to be a part of a unique gathering hosted by the Heart of the Healer Foundation, Speaking to the Center: The Great Remembering.
As a facilitator/moderator, during the morning session I listened to the words of these loving souls who wanted to share pieces of their hearts and minds. Little nuggets of language, wisdom and invitation moved through my ears, mind, heart and into the pen perched upon my pad. After they each spoke and a brief stretch break, I offered a Woven Poem, a collective storytelling in the prose of words as a weaving of the wisdom they shared. And now I share this poem with you.
The following is a Collective Poem from the words of Grandmother Red Leaf, Peter Kingsley, Don Oscar Miro-Quesada, Michael Johnson, Howard Hanger, Jeff Schmitt & Mz Imani. Woven by Ashley Cooper.
Weaving into the tapestry
Simple humans
We are whole
We are grateful
Things that remember themselves
are not forgotten
When channeled or directed…
She works miracles
Everything has to have water to live
Help us to touch the spirit of the Earth again
The Earth is a spider web
Connections are a very important part
of how we live every single day
Things are as they should be –
even when it’s a hard realization
We have manufactured a spiritual light
It’s ungrounded – it’s unrooted
The darkness outside
The coldness
The empty space
We are living in a dream, a dream, a dream
It’s not enough any more
There is a sacred root of western civilization
Alethia – truth – unforgetting
We are living in a dream, a dream, a dream.
How many of us came here to remember
We have so many fantasies, my friends
We have our own original instructions -
We need to look for them
Go back to our roots
What is the result of our forgetfulness?
The current degradation of our environment
The dislocation of our society
A sleep walking culture
We are living in a dream, a dream, a dream
Catch a glimmering awakening,
in the spark of an eye, in the presence
It’s a void, it’s empty, it’s scary
I bow to the living waters
Find peace within
I am not different from the other
Self and other are one and the same
I choose to be in the world
To share my rituals, my ceremonies, my love
Recognizing the beauty and grace
of the courageous who decided to remember
Re-member – as a global human family
Unification. Wholeness. Non-dual consciousness
Allow Spirit and the great originating mystery
to unfold with its entire expression
Deep gratitude
Deep gratitude from the bottom of my heart
Without the kindness of all these living beings and ancestors
we would not have the kindness of life and the gift of all these problems
We need to continue awakening
We need to act
We need to act now
to solve or out grow these problems
Each of us here can play a role
and we have to
We are all a part of this experience
of life
And it might be possible that we can have a good time, too
Take a few longer, deeper breathes
Bring awareness into your body
Feel your heart
It’s all about perspective
Look at the world from your dogs eyes
I have a slightly different view
… And then there’s integration
Oh my gosh – even though I used to think I had total knowledge, I don’t
I only have one pebble
Awaken to your own happiness
You can lift other people up to be happy too
Hey good looking, you’re looking good
It would behoove us to not take ourselves so seriously
Return to the child
The pre-socialized little being
Please, pant with me
Wag your tail
Show that gratitude
This world needs our medicine
This world needs our science now
Visual Impressions were created live by Kara Brown at the event.
This is a great explanation for the project I am working on right now… Looking at the reality that systems are living organisms and operate like living organisms. What can we thus learn from what we already know makes an organism healthy and vibrant? How can we apply that knowledge towards social organizing, action and innovation?
Extraordinary Human Capacities
Stephen Wiltshire: The Human Camera
In this short excerpt from the film Beautiful Minds: A Voyage into the Brain, Wiltshire takes a helicopter journey over Rome and then draws a panoramic view of what he saw, entirely from memory.
Our Oceans Are Filled With Plastic: They Are Experiencing How Bad It Really Is
Five media artists, led by photographer Chris Jordan, are traveling to Midway to witness the catastrophic effect of our disposable culture on some of the world’s most beautiful and symbolic creatures. But even more, they are embarking on an introspective journey to confront a vitally relevant question: In this time of unprecedented global crisis, how can we move through grief, denial, despair and immobility into new territories of acceptance, possibility, and wise action?
~ The Midway Journey
Chris Jordan‘s wish “is to get out of [his] own way for long enough that the symbolic tragedy that is happening on Midway can speak for itself, on its own terms.”
“This morning I took off early by bike with camera gear on my back, and explored an abandoned World War II runway littered with the decaying carcasses of albatrosses—virtually all of their bellies filled with plastic junk. Talking and reading about it from home was one thing, but seeing it here in person carries a much different feeling. I made my first photograph, and felt myself sink one increment into the profound story that this island has to tell.” ~Chris Jordan
“According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife rangers, albatross bring almost five tons of plastic to Pihemanu/Midway every year. The ocean is permeated with plastic and, like dust floating in the air, it’s mostly invisible to us. Albatross concentrate this plastic junk in their bodies and deposit it on land when they die. A Hawaiian elder counseled us not to view the albatross or the islands as victims of plastic pollution. They have called this problem to them, she said, to deliver us a message. We are hit with this message every day. When can we say we’re receiving it?” ~Victoria Sloan Jordan
The Midway Journey Blog
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Celebrating Mr. Clean, Celebrating Life’s Force
In case you’ve been following the story of my dad’s health, here’s the exciting update. He was photographed on Tuesday (cat scan). Technology peered into his body to articulate the progress of his recovery. The image that came back invites deep celebration as he is clean with no signs of cancer in the picture!! Yippee!!! Sweeth breaths of relief!!! For more details, hop on The P Train. For my own learnings and reflections, keep reading!
Leading up to yesterday, I felt the intense anticipation, fear and anxiety so many people were holding about yesterday’s doctor’s appointment… How much significance it had… The messenger delivering the verdict of my dad’s state of health… A defining moment when a specialist would read the results and share his prediction of the state of a man’s life. Each time I would feel into this scenario, I was struck with confusion. That just doesn’t make sense to me. Regardless of some person’s expertise, how can another human being have so much power and control to define how alive a person experiences themselves to be? How did we as humans get to a place where we allow other people to discern for us the quality of our life, the amount of hope that we should or shouldn’t have based on the data?
I have no idea what it’s like to be in such an incredibly vulnerable place where there is some unknown aggressor attacking my body and I am forced to join a fight that I wasn’t even aware was going on inside my very own skin. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to be a person who is told that I have cancer or some other life-threatening idea*. Should a day like that ever visit my life, I don’t know how I’ll respond.
Yesterday, however, being in this process with my dad, my family, people I love deeply and my own reactions, I learned some important lessons. I felt my dad’s life force. I felt the strength and power of the human life force. The current of creation, vibrancy, beauty, yes!, generative movement forward, LIFE. As I try to articulate that now, I feel the pulsing vibrancy in my own being. Wow, that’s magical… that we each have that, we each have access to something so sacred, so powerful, so uniquely our own and so universal to each of us.
I called my dad yesterday and extended an invitation to him that was something like this:
I invite you to take a moment before you get to the doctor’s office to connect with your life force. There is a force inside of you that is so alive. I can hear it in your voice. I can feel it in your writing. I imagine I’d see it in your eyes if I were there with you. You have a life force that is vibrant inside of you and will be there when you walk into the doctor’s office and will be there when you leave. I invite you to connect with that and stay connected with that, including whatever it is that the doctor shares with you. And no matter what anyone tells you, you are the only one that really knows what that life force feels like, how strong it is, how alive it is, how vibrantly it is moving through your body. No one can tell you about that… only you can connect with and know its presence and strength.
I thank the universe for the arrival of that message through me. For me, it is powerful and inspires me greatly. An invitation that I hope to really integrate into my own being and believing, further allowing me to share that vibrant radiance with myself, others and the world. What a gift that we each have!!
And then, after the doctor’s appointment, when my dad shared the news with me…. sweet tears of relief, bubbling with excitement. His life force gets to shine on with the medical world’s blessing of a clean cat scan. THANK YOU!!!
*As I was proofreading, I was shocked to read the word idea there as I didn’t consciously use it. I meant to use some thing like a life-threatening disease or condition. But I’m struck. Are these life-threatening diagnosis ideas? There is concrete fact and data that there is something going on inside the body… but the notion that it is life-threatening… is that an idea? Our life is always threatened just by the nature of being alive… hmmmm….
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