When life drones on,
Spread your wings and fly.
Thank-you for following, reading, sharing and commenting – The Trefoil Muse
Posts Tagged ‘inspiration’
Integrity
Posted in Lessons of the Drum, tagged blog, conscience, courage, deception, inspiration, integrity, lifestyle, popularity, principles, Self-awareness, self-control, temptation, values on March 7, 2023| 27 Comments »
“Sometimes, it’s hard to do the right thing.”
I’ve heard this comment several times in the recent past but it always surprises me!
Is our society falling short on integrity?
Integrity helps us to do the right thing.
Integrity
Choosing courage over comfort;
Choosing what is right over what is fun, or easy;
And choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.
Brene Brown
Integrity requires self-awareness, self-control and commitment to upholding one’s values and principles when in the face of temptation or pressure – even when no one is watching.
It is choosing your thoughts and actions based on your principled values rather than personal gain. People of integrity do not hide their reactions or opinions. They do not manipulate others through deception, peer pressure, guilt or shame, and they do not pretend.
Integrity is not about being popular. It may mean extreme unpopularity because, you did the ‘right thing,’ regardless of popular opinion – integrity does take courage. Doing the right thing regardless of popular opinion can cost you family, friends, your livelihood or worse case scenario, your life.
Having integrity does not mean that you will never make mistakes. It does however mean that you have learned valuable life lessons from your mistakes and taken honest measures to correct them. In other words, you have gained some wisdom from your mistakes and evolved into a better person.
Integrity happens when inner-wisdom matches the decisions we make and act upon.
“Sometimes, it’s hard to do the right thing.”
Is it? Or, have we just become too afraid to do the right thing? If so, what does this say about the society we live in? Corruption lacks integrity.
Using integrity is about being able to live with your own conscience.
When you are true to yourself, it’s easy to do the right thing.
Have courage.
Remember: Using integrity is a reward!
Thank-you for following, reading, sharing and commenting – The Trefoil Muse
Chasing Winter Blues
Posted in Lessons of the Drum, tagged blue, blues, freedom, health, horses, inspiration, lifestyle, nature, prairie, resilience, short story on January 17, 2023| 10 Comments »
I am chasing the winter blues.
It’s hard to create a work of art when you are feeling under the weather. Fever and delirium make sentences nonsensical. Your spirit seems to float away from your body – out of this world. You feel completely disconnected. The most talented of artists use the dark times in their lives to create beauty. It takes fortitude and resilience to recover from illness let alone create art.
I haven’t been feeling well – not at all.
I am not a good patient. I do not like being under the weather, I’d rather be in it, outside in nature.
The blues are pulling at me like a magnet. I can see them from my window. They taunt me as they dance and skip along the snow drifts daring me to catch them.
The day is early. The sun is only beginning to rise. I slog into my winter gear surprised that I am not collapsing under its weight and head out the door.
The air hangs softly in the distance a paler color of white than the snow lying on the ground. ‘Angel’s breath,’ I smile at the thought of it as some blue disappears with the sun’s first rays.
‘Most people chase rainbows in order to discover magic and I’m out chasing the blues. But, why limit one’s self,’ I think bemused. (more…)
Spicy
Posted in Short Stories, tagged antioxidant, chocolate, cinnamon, cold, health, heart, humor, inspiration, spice, warmtn on January 10, 2023| 27 Comments »
Feeling cold and sluggish?
Perhaps you need a little more warmth in your life.
Indulge yourself.
Drink a cup of hot chocolate.
Chocolate not only warms your heart but your soul.
Dark chocolate keeps you healthy by adding antioxidants.
Antioxidants lower blood pressure and increase circulation to your heart.
Not enough sweetness in your life?
Add some marshmallows.
Feeling dull or sluggish?
Spice up your life.
Be adventurous,
Add a cinnamon stick to your cup of hot chocolate for extra flavor.
If you are daring enough, you can get even more spicy.
Nothing warms your heart on a cold day like a cup of hot chocolate
with a few drops of hot sauce.
Sit back and relax.
You will feel the heat running through your body in no time.
Enjoy the burn.
No one really needs an excuse to indulge in chocolate!
Chocolate’s heart healthy.
Just warm your heart up a little if you’re cold.
Get spicy!
Thank-you for following, reading, sharing and commenting – The Trefoil Muse
Color
Posted in Compositions, tagged 2023, art, color, inspiration, international, lifestyle, paint, picture on January 3, 2023| 7 Comments »
Nothing is as black and white as it seems,
If the world seems drab,
Color it,
A picture can paint a thousand words.
2023, Welcome to another colorful year!
Thank-you for following, reading, sharing and commenting – The Trefoil Muse
Snow
Posted in Compositions, tagged art, blog, creativity, glitter, inspiration, international, nature, snow on December 6, 2022| 9 Comments »
Parables
Posted in Compositions, tagged art, blog, codes, fear, inspiration, lifestyle, parables, politics, secrets, social media on November 15, 2022| 14 Comments »
It has taken me some time to silence the thoughts of others and cipher through their parables and codes.
Social media is inundated with an extraordinary amount of negativity. Many comments are meant to debilitate the vitality of opponents who dare think outside of the box. It is easy to attack someone whom you cannot see.
It is also easier to control those whose faces are covered. It removes the aspects of humanism. Covering ones nose and mouth deprives the brain of oxygen and weakens soundness of mind.
I suspect the past few years has done irreparable damage to human kind.
(I can still feel the agony of those who withheld their screams of terror and disbelief until their eyes deadened and their hearts hardened.)
It’s easier to follow the masses than it is to stand alone.
Fear can be a strict task master. It drives groups together but it can also break them apart.
Many people gave up.
Others allowed themselves to become disabled through the pressure tactics forced upon them. Hypnotized, they consumed propaganda spoon fed to them by daily dose of dishonesty and negativity. They became the fanatical converts who threatened non-believers. Non-believers were ostracized and pushed into seclusion.
There are many fanatics today that seek continued control over the populous. They have a surplus of information ordained to frighten the weak into a continued life of subservience.
They want the masses to move through life like robots – zombies with dead eyes, stiff movements and no heart because when you stunt growth or imagination, there is no individuality – no freedom. This is called censorship.
What they do not know is that you cannot cripple the heart or mind of an artist!
The individual pain each person endures throughout life is precisely the gold that shines through an entrapped mindset to create an artist. Seclusion is all that is needed to break free of the trap. When one enters the silence, true beauty is created. This beauty is art.
Art means something different to everyone. It is a distinct experience distinguished by you alone. Art heals crippled minds, broken hearts and beckons to the individual in each of us, bringing hope.
You cannot censor hope!
Hope is a light engrained so deeply within the Universe that death cannot even snuff it out.
Artists know this secret.
They are able to read between the lines.
They are the truth seekers.
They are the free-thinkers fanatics want to silence.
You cannot cripple an artist, excluding them or forcing them into silence is a gift.
Silence is where an artist goes to create beauty.
We can always use more of them – so please, censor away – for in the end, it will be the artist’s who heal the world with their beautiful stories.
Remember:
“Those who speak in parables and code harbour great secrets.”
Thank-you for following, reading, sharing and commenting – The Trefoil Muse
Falling Leaves
Posted in Lessons of the Drum, tagged autumn, celebrate, color, death, grief, honor, inspiration, leaves, life, lifestyle, tree on October 18, 2022| 8 Comments »
There is a warm autumn breeze; I sit beneath the trees and watch as colored leaves fall earthward.
The trunk of the tree I am sitting under is strong; its roots are spread wide and deep. Yet, the tree is flexible and is able to bend when times get turbulent. That is why this tree has survived its many years on earth.
The tree’s large branches reach heavenward. Some of the branches are barren having lost their leaves. Still, other branches are alive with color. The leaves on those branches are preparing to make their descent but for the moment, they are full of life and enhance the world with their beauty.
I notice the leaves of this tree do not fight their ending – they have lived their life to the fullest – so, they simply let go and float gently earthward as if they are two stepping in time to a slow waltz. They dance, twirl and float earthward where they join other leaves, those that fell before them. The fallen leaves cushion the new arrivals. Their landing is soft, gentle. Each leaf is reunited happily with those that fell before them – these are their fallen family and friends.
Those leaves that remain high in the branches shiver with excitement and celebrate the life of the leaves that fell before them. They whisper to the fallen in the soft breeze, “We are in death, even as we live.”
Realization dawns on me, I am sitting beneath the family tree. The tree has been softening my sadness – my grief. It has not only been comforting me with beauty and dance but sharing ancestral wisdom as it welcomes another extremely important leaf home.
Celebrate life with every breath you take,
We both live and die in every moment,
Life is colorful,
Enjoy it,
Take comfort in the dance of the falling leaves,
Remember those who went before you,
They are never truly gone,
The circle of life is never-ending.
Gone but not forgotten…
“Falling Leaves,” is in memory of my Dad:
Franklin J. Andrus – May 28, 1938 – October 10, 2022
Thank-you for following, reading, sharing and commenting – The Trefoil Muse
Turkey
Posted in Compositions, tagged gobble, inspiration, lifestyle, Thanksgiving, turkey on October 7, 2022| 7 Comments »
Feeling a little bit like a turkey lately?
It’s alright to be a turkey.
Feel free to gobble up the day!
Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!
October 10th, 2022
Thank-you for following, reading, sharing and commenting – The Trefoil Muse
The Puzzle
Posted in Lessons of the Drum, tagged block, drama, inspiration, integrity, leader, life, lifestyle, moral, psyche, puzzle, short story, world on September 13, 2022| 14 Comments »
Let’s be real.
Life is a puzzle.
The world can be confusing, chaotic and merciless.
Reality in the real world means that life doesn’t always supply us with positive experiences.
There are times in life when the world seems to have a destructive strangle hold on your psyche. The foulness around you contains a sour stench and negative energy saps at every fibre of your being until you are completely devoid of inspiration. Puzzled, you become subconsciously stuck in a mire of difficulties, bogged down at every turn. If you allow yourself to stay stuck in this destructive mire, eventually, that is all that you experience – negativity, and the difficulties which come with a depressed mindset. Essentially, this means you have become blocked. (more…)
The Trefoil Muse 
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