Snapshot!

Yikes! I've been busy, full up, to the rim, nearly overflowing, juggling many plates and multi-experiencing many different activities and time management challenges since starting my new job.

It's all fairly good, but I do miss the daily checking in with my muse and this public journal - better known as blogging. Loosening my grip on this too, is another lesson in surrender. (More to come on that topic when I have some extra minutes to ponder before composition!)

And in the meantime, I thought y'all might like to see the end result of one of my many recent projects, the website: Village Birth and Herbals. 

Stella is quite extraordinary, and I believe you ought to check out her skills and talents. If you're from the Palmer, Alaska area - you're in luck because she is about to be located there for a very long time. If you're elsewhere, you're still in luck because her herbal wares are available by phone order (and soon via a webstore).
I hope you find her site interesting, educational, resourceful and appealing. Drop her a note and let her know you've been there.


Enjoy! ~ mlp

Supporting Folks We Believe In

Last month, I featured a post with this same title about a friend and client who's work I believe is important to our community - and to the well being of community in it's larger sense. Collaborating with one another and positively supporting one another's endeavors in quiet as well as public can make a huge difference for everyone's success.

This is a snapshot is of Stella Lyn, an incredible village herbalist and doula. Sadly, she is soon to leave Southern Oregon, so our particular community won't have simple access to her attentive, practiced and excellent skills as a birthing doula. Thanks to the internet; however, she will be accessible for herbal care and consult. I'll be sure to put up a brief post when her website (www.stellalyn.com) is complete, so that you all can explore her work.

For now, take a look at the front panels of a recently created trifold brochure for Stella's doula practice. If you're from Palmer, Alaska, you're in luck - she's coming home! If you're from the State of Jefferson and having a doula is something you're interested in for the birth of a child in your life, call Stella and ask for local recommendations.

 



The Thrilling Anxiety Of It All

Okay, I admit it. I’m thrilled and anxious at at once.

First, I’m thrilled by the realization and discovery that - given just an hour or two of solitude a day (along with the willing suspension of perfectionism) - I have a well of creativity to pull small buckets from on a regular basis and make this blog a reality. On the other hand, I’m anxious over the fact that this discovery is now asking me to rearrange the already precious-few hours in the day. (As in: I write, no matter what. I write, even if it means tacking more time onto the day’s end.) Yikes! My muse is a demanding character. Thank goodness!

Second, I’m thrilled that my blogsite welcomed 487 unique visits in the shortest month of the year, and that the studio has fans that I’ve known for years as well as some whom I know not at all. What an amazing combination of compliments! Meanwhile, I’m anxious because everything I read about successful blogging suggests that I’m really going about this in as bassackwards kind of a way possible. (And I’m humored by the fact that this is not at all uncommon for me.)

Third, I’m thrilled that, without a nudge from me but perhaps a giant one from the universe - the studio is picking up business. (Insert photo of me smiling here.) Out of the blue, I’ve been given the opportunity to take some portrait photos and design some promotional materials for folks who I have not only been happy to say “yes” to, but I am honored to support. Nevertheless, I’m anxious that I still have a secret longing for a big sugar daddy or some generous and devoted “sponsor” to swoop in and fund my wild untamed artistic life, as well as send me to Greece for an all-expenses paid writer’s retreat where (I promise), I will continue to post daily poems, beautiful photos and essays that are deeply thought-provoking and inspiring.

Fourth, I’m thrilled that February’s most popular posts yielded: The Boot Collage, Boot Size: Men’s 12, The Soul of My Boots (I guess y’all really liked Boot Week), The Sanctuary of God, and Visual Inspiration. And, the truth is, I’m actually not too anxious that posts: To Do or Not To Do, Tales That Defy Words and Putting It To the Page were the least popular. It’s true, they  touched on more “serious” topics and have fewer illustrations, but I felt great about them so, it’s not that big of a deal.

Fifth and last, I’m thrilled that spring has sprung here in Southern Oregon. I like the light, I like the daphne that is threatening to explode in a aromatic plume at the end of the front porch, I like seeing my youngest’s bare feet with dirt on them, and I like that my high schooler knows exactly how many days until spring vacation. But it's also a fact, I’m feeling anxious as our household heads into a month of new information about my son’s health and the next series of steps in his journey.

So dear friends - whom I know in real time, and who know me in cyber time - here's wishing you all a thrilled, low anxiety, fantastic, madly wildly blossoming, sweet smelling, hopeful, creative, abundant, time-on-pause, kiss the ones you love March. Thanks for visiting this Untamed Life On Purpose. Please make comments. Please share a link or two with your friends. Please breathe deeply. ~ m.l.p.

A Facebook Break

Social networking sites have become the quick, easy and relatively painless way to communicate personal information with many, a communication shotgun, if you will. One post and BANG! you've hit 100 people. The "keeping in touch with friends" aspect of Facebook has a huge appeal to me. I enjoy and appreciate the glimpses of their lives - adventures, senses of humor, social awareness raising efforts - dropping onto the screen in front of me, like so many ripe and ready to eat cherries. It's quick, simple and relatively painless.

Of course anyone who imbibes in FB or MySpace or Twitter also knows the flip side to the yummy cherries: the drivel, the seemingly random yet frighteningly targeted ads, the time-draining quizzes, and the "fluff, " that we neither want nor need. I think of these cherry counterparts as the trash that our kids bring home from the county fair - the crappy stuffed toys and plastic inflatables that always end up in the trash.

I've noticed of late that the shiny thrall of the Facebook sound byte has worn off. There are so many other things to do: work, family, creative projects, books, music, life in Real Time. All of these alternatives require more focus and energy yet also yield far greater and longer lasting positive results than a profile post that is like to be gone within 24 hours. As it turns out, sound bytes are fun for awhile and on occasion, but I'd like my relationships to delve deeper too.

My current profile post reads, "Martha Phelps will be taking a break from Facebook for awhile - maybe a week or two, maybe a year. Email me if you miss me too much: mlp@marthaphelps.com - or better yet, give me a call and let's take a walk." My break could be indefinite, or it could be periodic, since I still have a fourteen year old daughter to be "friends" with. Point is - I'm going to redirect myself for a spell.

What works - or doesn't about social networking in your life? Does it support you or get in your way? Drop me a sound byte - or much more.



PS Hat tip to the blog Evolution for the perfect profile post as well as the nudge I needed.