Wanna play a game?

I’ve been using the word soul a lot here recently. It’s the metric that helps me make decisions: Does this action build soul, or deaden soul? (I get the irony in making soul into a metric, since measuring things is often a good way to de-soul them!)

Today I’d like to challenge you to a Summer Soul Search. It’s different from other kinds of soul-searching, because we’re looking out in the world for evidence, not internally.

Summer Soul Search

Here’s how it works:

1. Be on the lookout for random acts of
   BEAUTY
   KINDNESS
   MEANING-MAKING
   HUMOR
   LOVE
   CARE
   — specifically tangible and visible ones.

2. If you can 🙏🏽, take a photo 📸 and send it to me by Friday, August 12th, to have it included in my August 13th PICTURES blog post.

Even if you don’t complete action #2, participating in action #1 will automatically increase the positive energy in the world, so thanks for that. ✨

Game Rules, Refined

To qualify for this Soul Search, the objects or actions must:

• be anonymous

• not be made/done for profit or personal notoriety

• be intentionally created for someone’s pleasure — either that of the maker or the passers-by

• not be computer-generated; i.e. nothing from the interwebs; i.e. you must see it IRL with your own eyes 🧐

Examples

Our neighborhood, which is designated an Arts District, has loads of examples, such as the well-groomed toy horses, pictured above, which are carefully hitched to an old-timey horse-ring on the curb. (See that metal ring in the ground above the small horse?) I don’t know whether this was done by a child lost in imaginative play, or by adults who thought it would be funny. Either way, they crack me up when I see them — and these two are not the only ring-hitched horses around here!

Other examples might be:

✨Knitted “sweaters” on trees or telephone poles (but not a lovely sweater in a boutique)
✨People spontaneously dancing in the park (but not in a paid performance)
✨Friendly chalk messages on the sidewalk (but not one luring you into a cafe)
✨Unsigned artwork in unusual public places (but not artwork in a gallery or shop)

Get it?

Notes

👉🏽 I am definitely not saying that paid activities cannot be soulful! I am grateful for the professional dancers, writers, care-givers, and other humans whose work builds soul on a daily basis and makes my life so much more beautiful. 🫶🏽

👉🏽 That said, in a world that feels increasingly stripped of soulfulness, I want to practice looking for soulfulness where I don’t expect it. You know that phenomenon where, whatever you believe to be true, you find evidence to support it? If we believe the world is going to sh*t, that’s what we focus on, and we’ll see it all around. If we believe the world is full of magic and humor and wonder (even as lots of things are going haywire at the same time), we will always be able to find the magic and humor and wonder.

So, are you in?

Who’s gonna join me?

I can’t wait to see what turns up in your world 💫. Please share it so we can all benefit. 📷 Sending it with your reply to this email is perfect, and don’t forget the Aug. 12th deadline.

Ready to be delighted at any moment,
Pam

_ _ _ _

And…
Find me at these upcoming Portland-area events:

8/5/22 (this Friday, 6-8 pm) - Fiesta Flamenca at the Washington Park Rose Garden. Come see why I’m hooked on flamenco! 💃🏻🎶 Info about the free dance and musical performance is here.

8/11/22 and 8/18/22 (Thursdays, 5:30 - 8:30 pm) - Creative Reuse: Making Tile Mosaics at the ReBuilding Center. Check here for calendar and registration.

8/23/22 (a Tuesday, 6-8:30 pm) - Where Mosaic Meets Collage, an every-level art workshop at Belle Flower Farm in Vancouver, WA. Learn more and sign up here.