{"id":175,"date":"2021-03-10T10:46:24","date_gmt":"2021-03-10T15:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eheart.com\/blog\/?p=175"},"modified":"2021-03-10T10:51:54","modified_gmt":"2021-03-10T15:51:54","slug":"doing-and-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eheart.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/10\/doing-and-being\/","title":{"rendered":"“Doing” and “Being”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This morning I realize that one of the ways I have limited myself was to buy into the belief that I needed to \u201cearn money.\u201d I realize that the most successful things financially in my life have been things I did \u201cfor fun\u201d and ended up by serendipity being financially successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can even start with my doing a PhD in physics \u2014 that started with my liking to tinker with things, like taking apart a flashlight over and over as a child, fascinated with how it worked. Then choosing to major in physics in college because I had so much fun doing the lab experiments and being invited to help teach the lab sessions while I was still an undergraduate. And we physics majors had to take a shop class \u2014 learning to use hand and power tools \u2014 how many girls got to do that back in the early 1960\u2019s!!! \u2014 more fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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sign on the door of the machine shop at Mount Holyoke college<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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lamp whose base (wood and brass) I turned on a lathe in the physics shop in 1963<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then I went to grad school and worked on bubble chamber experiments at big particle accelerators because of how much fun I had back in college when a professor took some of us physics majors to visit an accelerator and help with an experiment he was working on. The money for grad school came from stipends I got as a teaching assistant and then a research assistant. I enjoyed teaching the lab sessions for the undergraduate physics course, as I had done while my undergraduate years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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particle tracks in a bubble chamber – charged particles travel in a curve because of the strong magnetic field around the chamber<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then there is photography \u2014 I was given a simple brownie box camera when I was about 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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the first photo I made in 1955 with my brownie box camera — no controls other than shutter buttton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then I was given a good 35mm film camera when I was in college. A boyfriend in grad school got me started making black-and-white prints in a darkroom. I enjoyed wandering around making photos of whatever caught my eye \u2014 no particular \u201creason\u201d for making those images. Photographing kept me out in nature during grad school, and student art sales gave me an outlet for my creations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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old cars in a Colorado mining town, while on a ski trip with my photographer boyfriend – 1966<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then my time with Gia-fu Feng led me to illustrate with my photos our edition of the Chinese classic, Tao Te Ching<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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cover of the original 1972 edition of Tao Te Ching — the 2011 edition is still in print <\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And how is it that I found my Native American friends? By being drawn to their spiritual ceremonies that happened out in nature rather than in churches \u2014 sweat lodges, sunrise ceremonies and long silent walks. These took me to a more expanded state of being than what I had found while photographing nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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cover of my “work-in-progress” book<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is more history I will write \u2014 but at this moment I want to look at \u201cnow\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a hard time with \u201cwork,\u201d with \u201clabor\u201d \u2014 is that due in part from my \u201cnative\u201d culture? with how I was born with no labor? I hesitate to speak of this, not wanting to be seen as lazy, not wanting to feel guilty for not being purposeful. But this difference comes to mind over and over. I am tired of trying to fit into a culture that is not my own, that of assuming work is virtuous. I much prefer the smile that comes to me when I let myself just \u201cbe,\u201d when I sit back and take in this world I find myself in \u2014 for instance, how did there get to be chickadees in my world \u2014 ones I see close-up on the shelf feeder outside the window behind my living room couch? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And then there\u2019s that deep blue in the sky \u2014 so luscious!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And I have noticed that often when I am in this state of just \u201cbeing,\u201d paradoxically, I find myself moved to \u201cdo\u201d something \u2014 action that just emerges naturally, that is not forced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enough words for now \u2014 enjoy feeling whatever it is that these musings of mine \u201ctickle\u201d within your own being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning I realize that one of the ways I have limited myself was to buy into the belief that I needed to \u201cearn money.\u201d I realize that the most successful things financially in my life have been things I did \u201cfor fun\u201d and ended up by serendipity being financially successful. I can even start … Continue reading ““Doing” and “Being””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-photography","category-tao"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eheart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eheart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eheart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eheart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eheart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eheart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187,"href":"https:\/\/eheart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions\/187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eheart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eheart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eheart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}