ReadyMade is a book – but not just that. It’s a DIY bible that grew up reading popular science as a kid, and now has a collegial 50’s garage tinkerer sensibility.  It launches with fiery trails. It soars. When it falls, it brushes itself off and starts over. It is the Captain of Creativity. Resistance is futile. This book is 100% hope.

Shoshana Berger came up with the idea for ReadyMade Magazine in 2000.  At a time when no one was launching a magazine with less than $5 million to invest, she decided to take a more DIY approach.  After all, that’s what they would be writing about, creating things yourself instead of buying them.  For two years, she and her partner, Grace Hawthorne, worked on a small budget, starting from scratch and learning the intricacies of the magazine business as they went. They did everything themselves – from conceiving and proofing every document that went out the door, to taking out the trash. Three years and many interns later, they were able to start paying themselves, and were the official editors of a widely regarded magazine.

In the Abounding River Logbook, one of the six currents is creation. We say that active creativity is essential to achieving abundance. We must both actively create things in the world, and actively see and create a vision of abundance.  I access creativity through taking personal responsibility. I take responsibility for how I’m acting, what I’m producing, but also what I am actively creating and envisioning. I take responsibility for my vision of the world, and recognize that I can not only create a new vision, but recognize that I have been actively creating my vision of the world all along.

I created a design that was six years in the making that I made become my vision of the world. Out of my education and work in social justice, I envisioned an invasive tree that took too much from the soil. The tree represented the power structures and oppressive systems I wasn’t committed to. In my design (see second image) I created a tearing up of the tree through various metaphorical imagery (vines tugging down the branches, something rotting away the roots… branches being cut off). All of these metaphors I lived by- on how to deconstruct the tree that I saw as being damaging to the overall environment.

And deconstruction is how my life looked for 6 years. I used criticism against everything without much idea for how to instill hope or rebirth after the death of the system. I used various methods of social change to address problems that I saw, and constantly came across seeing that I was never bringing answers or solutions to them. My experience of the world was through that vision that I was actively creating and recreating.      Two weeks ago I really noticed that my tree metaphor wasn’t working for me to create hope. So I set off to find a new image, a rebirth of the tree, or something that I was committed to. I created the image above, the conclusion of the oppressive tree, and a new habitat for a rebirth. In my vision, the roots have been torn away to where all is left is love. Rooted in love, a new sprout is born and there is pure possibility.

As a means to re-train myself in my new vision, I’m taking on the 365 day challenge. Every day for the next year I am creating a piece of art with this new image. Every day through this creativity I am actively creating hope in the world by transforming my vision and by physically expressing my vision to others. I am day by day re-inscribing a new belief through my repeated creations.

The Idea for the practice of 365 projects came from Noah Scalin, who took on creating one image every day with a different medium himself, and then created a journal to encourage others. Check out the book here; check out some of the variations of my design here.              This week I invite you to look at what belief you have that’s causing you suffering. Taking responsibility for it as your creation and not truth is empowering. What can you actively create in its place? What belief can you adopt that serves you and serves the planet? We say that a belief is a thought practiced over and over again. What new thought can you begin with today?

Familia gratitude:  DIY

Your actions have spoken: we know that my Fibonacci blog post is accepted through the community, it has gotten 4 digits clicks/traffic! Bang! Puyaka!

Congratulations if you have created toothpaste & other DIY things, we welcome feedback (comments below all blog posts or email info@cafegratitude).

Here is another thing in life you should want to do yourself.  After you read this blog and make it your brain is going to excrete so much serotonin/dopamine/norepinephrine/melatonin/insulin/prostaglandins that you will shine 2,000 light years of beauty & health; the laws of physics will bend for you.  Of course you will brag about making this household item, show off to your friends and be cocky, start a new business, enroll others, and be community. Becoming self sufficient is a step by step thing. You will be able to make your own laundry detergent.

This is another recipe/formula for an everyday item that big companies don’t want you to know.  How come I didn’t think of this before? How come you haven’t made this when it first clicked in your brain? If the left side of the brain thinks creativity I had ignored it every time, I would go to purchase the powder stuff thing & complain. "How come this is so expensive?" or "I don’t want to smell like petro-chemical-rose scent every time I dress" or "I don’t want my chones to cross-contaminate where I am more vulnerable!"

Of course I’m always about bulk buying; I know that greater quantities = less $. Buy that fancy soap, go for it.  Consider buying a whole gallon of body soap and then refilling it every time. For toothbrushes, buy the ones with changeable heads.  I have been using the same old toothbrush handle for as long as I have been working at Café Gratitude.  Now the time came for laundry soap so here it is for you and your community to try.

Do it yourself: What a combo of words!  In Spanish: "hazlo tu mismo".  Remember self is the only thing we are, now.