Category whimsy

Entries 6 Total

Today’s silver lining is gold

Mar 29, ’14 4:39 PM

As anyone in north America knows, this has been a long and difficult winter. Even now, 10 days into spring, the thermometer is hovering around 35, rain falls steadily from a leaden sky, and 3 more inches of white stuff are due tonight.

BUT … the nyjer feeders, bustling with traffic, offer up one unmistakable sign of spring: the male goldfinches are molting their dull winter plumage and donning the brilliant lemon “gold” of mating season. A great lining for a leaden day.

 

Many thanks to John Rakestraw for the photo above. Check out his latest, Birding Oregon.

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Monkey bar beliefs

Sep 11, ’12 10:42 AM

I went to the gym today for my usual workout.  The gym was closed last week while the owner and personal trainers completely reconfigured it. When I arrived today, it was substantially different. One of the changes was the addition of a set of monkey bars, suspended from the ceiling about 8 feet off the ground.

I kept looking at them during the first half of my workout. As a kid, I’d tried countless times to

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Trusting the universe

Mar 23, ’12 3:34 PM

I had a situation arise recently that reminded me, once again, of the power of trusting what we cannot see. Last fall, I talked with a woman about collaborating with her and several other coaches on an executive development project. I was interested and let her know. I heard nothing for 5 months. Then last week she emailed to say the project was ready to start, and was I still interested?

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Witnessing

Nov 15, ’11 5:42 PM

I’ve not written lately. I’ve been enchanted with this November autumn.

 

Brilliant colors …

 

 

 

bold and delicate shapes …

 

 

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What is a tesselation?

Jul 26, ’11 6:27 PM

It shows up in nature

 

 

 

and in art

 

 

 

… in everyday walks of life

 

 

and in exotic places.

 

 

 

It’s just a pattern with no gaps or overlaps … from the Latin tessela, which means “small square.” Think chickenwire or patchwork quilts. Tesselations.

Language. It’s almost as fascinating as the world it represents.

 

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And the list goes on …

Jul 26, ’11 4:09 PM

I’ve been researching a new public seminar on overcoming disabling thoughts. A lot of problems arise from our cognitive distortions and biases, so I typed “cognitive bias” into the search box on Wikipedia. Wow! I hit the jackpot: Wiki lists over 100+ forms of cognitive bias!! And that doesn’t include those perceptual brain teasers like the classic one here [which horizontal line is longer?].

Think about this: over one hundred ways that we skew and distort events in the world behind our eyes. Some involve our behavior and decision-making, like

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