#REVERB12 (Day 16): Who inspired you in 2012? Why?

INSPIRED. Meet my Chiboogamoo, who infinitely inspires me. BIG LOVE and GREAT APPRECIATION.(this photo was taken by me, Hallelujah Truth, along our beloved Georgia coast.)

#REVERB12 (Day 16) PROMPT: Who inspired you in 2012? And why? What gifts did they give you? And how will you carry these forward in to 2013?

Hallelujah for INSPIRIATIONAL others who live their lives with AUTHENTICITY and COURAGE! Fortunately for me, I can list many who have inspired me in 2012 with the choices they made and the actions they took that were GENUINE and BRAVE. Here they are:

ELIZABETH SCHOWALTER
(photo by Hallelujah Truth)

I am inspired by ELIZABETH SCHOWALTER, my sister-in-law, who traveled this past fall to the United Arab Emirates to teach fifth grade boys math and science. She ventured to Abu Dhabi, not knowing anyone but was prepared to manage a new culture, different school system, and being away from her longtime home in Hawaii. Her CURIOSITY supported by her BRAVE disposition knocks my socks off!

LESLY FREDMAN
(photo by Hallelujah Truth)

Then there is LESLY FREDMAN, creativity coach extraordinaire, who continues to be JOYOUS, PATIENT, and CURIOUS in all her CREATIVE endeavors. During our coaching sessions, Lesly’s high emotional IQ sifts through my soul and assists me in mining the treasures of my own being. At the same time, I witness her celebrating her own life with LAUGHTER and JOYOUS action planning workshops, teaching improv, and managing Theatre on the Prowl! This past year we successfully collaborated on the development of an English as a Second Language Improvisation course at the Georgia Tech Language Institute. As a collaborator Lesly’s intensity, clarity, and respect were inspirational beyond words!

MY HUSBAND
(photo by Hallelujah Truth)

Daily life with my CHIBOOGAMOO (aka Tony Martin), husband, author, professor, paleontologist, and big cat daddy is magnificently inspirational. He wakes up HAPPY, is always ready for an adventure whether it be trying a new cuisine, traveling, or meeting any of my fellow artists or international students. Chiboogamoo loves to LEARN and enthusiastically reads, listens, and shares all the riches that he gathers each day. This past year his ADVENTURESOME nature supported by DILIGENCE and CREATIVITY brought him a literary agent and a contract for a new book due to be completed by September 2013. His book, Life Traces of the Georgia Coast, is due to be published by Indiana University Press in these waning days of 2013. My dear Chiboogamoo arises every day between the hours of 5:00 and 6:00 AM to write for several hours before his day job of teaching! WOW! He inspires me by his dedication and profound love of writing creatively about science.

Oh dear readers, I could go on acknowledging many others in my life who inspire me…

KAREN TUCKER
(photo by Hallelujah Truth)

Karen Tucker, director of the GT Language Institute, who listens to her instructors (including me) and continues to help us cultivate and deepen as teachers. Her LISTENING inspires me to be a better listener.

ANDY RINDSBERG
(photo by Hallelujah Truth)

Andy Rindsberg, colleague of my Chiboogamoo, but friend of both of us, who continues to do his paleontological investigations and writing while expanding his instructional skills as a professor at the University of West Alabama in Livingston. Seeing him CREATE and ESTABLISH the life-style he desires, inspires me to keep strive for the one I crave.

SEE SEE
(photo by Hallelujah Truth)

I am inspired by fellow SPIRITUAL ART PILGRIM Cecelia Kane, who succeeded in “digging her hole” this past summer in Vermon (see her blog The Interwoven Heart to read about this project). The dedication she exhibited in fulfilling her vision has become forever emblazoned in my heart, mind, and creative soul. Thank you SEE SEE!

MATT'S ACID ANGEL
(photo by Hallelujah Truth)

Matt Huffman has inspired me in 2012 in many ways. I got to know him better by helping him establish his blog, Cold News: Putting the Real in Really. Formally a pencil to paper writer, he entered the ethersphere and became a “netizen” this year—a giant leap! Then through an explosion of his collage art, which I scanned and embellished on photoshop, I was pulled into the power of Matt’s creative vision and to visualizing the world in a new way. Thanks Matmal!

Liam Herringshaw, who I met in St. Johns, Newfoundland, and became acquainted with on a fieldtrip into the Ediacaran. He knows how to write about complex paleontological things so non-paleontological people can understand. See his blog, Old Lost Sea. I continue to aspire to writing for the public about the experiences I have with my paleontologist husband, Chiboogamoo.

In the past year, I had the great good fortune to meet Marlene Creates and go on a “boreal walk” with her (see my blog). I am inspired by her VAST CREATIVITY and love of the ENIVRONMENT. See her website; it is dazzling. I wish we could all manifest our love for MOTHER EARTH as expressively as Marlene.

Thanks to Elise Helfer for her SINCERITY while searching for the ANSWERS; to Judith Barber for the JOY she exhibits in all that she does; to Jesse Merle Harris for knowing what she needs and being the GREAT CONNECTOR. And many others! Hallelujah for inspiration! Your actions and the way you live your lives will carry me into 2013 with the COURAGE and AUTHENTICITY I am dedicated to living my life with!

That’s Coffee with Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me and tell me who has inspired you in 2012. Why? Big love to you all!

TRANSFORMATION.  I am closing this blog entry on people who have inspired me with a toast to a former student. Hurray for Varadraj Vernekar and the transformational changes he is making in his life as he adapts to life beyond graduate school. Thanks for becoming a friend and sharing your heart, soul, and mind with me. I am INSPIRED! (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: As always, thanks to Kat at "I Saw You Dancing," for managing #REVERB12. 

#REVERB12 (Day 15): What tingled your tastebuds in 2012? What made it so magical?

VALENTINE'S DAY DINNER WITH MY HONEY!   This Korean dinner my Chiboogamoo and I ate on February 14th, 2012, was just so so yummy! (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

#REVERB12 (Day 15) PROMPT: What was the most extraordinary dish you sampled in 2012? What made it so magical? 

Dear Pilgrims, I am not much of a foodie, which means while I want to eat healthfully, I don't want to invest much time in thinking about food! All my heart and soul go into the visual arts and not the culinary ones. However, in 2012, my husband (who I fondly call Chiboogamoo) and I drove to Buford Highway in Metro Atlanta for an authentic Korean dinner to celebrate Valentine's Day. And I experienced ECSTASY! Not to mention having SO MUCH FUN!

#REVERB12 (DAY 14): What was the most important thing you learned in 2012?: BEING a MENTOR is a JOURNEY

MENTORING WAS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED! I needed to get rid of some old ideas first. I needed to be challenged, experience breakdowns, and go for a breakthrough! (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

#REVERB12 (Day 14) PROMPT: What was the most important thing you learned in 2012? How does this learning shape the path going forward?

I learned about MENTORING. Each year now, when I order my annual calendar, I personalize it. On the front cover is printed "Hallelujah Truth" and underneath it a specially selected word to direct me in the upcoming year.

For 2012, I reached out and grabbed the word, MENTOR! For 2012, I would be one! And I have learned all kinds of lessons in relationship to that word in the past year!

First of all, I had sort of a hippy dippy idealistic mentality about my MENTORING goals! I would engage people in their own creativity, just as I am deeply involved in mine. And because I have been focusing with great intensity on the creative process, its obstructions and saboteurs, I would know how to lead others away from their obstacles and demons. Once friends, students and even my spouse were all actively engaged in pursuing their dreams, all of us would experience an abundance of joy resulting in contagious good will. Soon all of the world would be holding hands, singing songs, as we fulfilled ourselves through our labors of imaginative love!

HA HA HO HO HO, I had lessons to learn...

#REVERB12 (Day 13): Please post your favourite picture of yourself from 2012, self-portrait or otherwise!

PORTRAIT OF A BLOGGING INSTRUCTOR(Fall 2 2012) . We are all saying, "YES. Yes. Yes." (photo by Geng Li)

#REVERB12 (Day 13) PROMPT:  Please post your favourite picture of yourself from 2012, self-portrait or otherwise!

2012 has been a BIG BIG year for me BREAKING OUT from old ways of teaching English as a Second Language and JUMPING IN to new methodologies and subject matter!  Therefore, my favourite picture of me for 2012 is any group photo with my students displaying a relationship that was built through this exploration into HAVING FUN while instructing what I love--Improvisation and Blogging!

For today's #Reverb12 prompt, I want to celebrate the students in my Blogging for a World Audience class, their theme based blogs, and the awards they received from their classmates who developed the award categories and voted! Here are their portraits. Many wrote using personas! Enjoy!

#REVERB12 (Day 12): What were you most intense emotions?

INTENSITY? What emotion does this photo taken in San Salvador, Bahamas, evoke in you? Do we project our feelings on environments or do they impact us and change our dispositions? I am frightened by water! (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

#REVERB12 (Day 12) PROMPT: What were your most intense emotions in 2012? What made you dance? What made you weep?

Hallelujah for INTENSITY of EMOTIONS! The whole gamut from celebration to weepiness or whatever that other extreme is!

In 2012, I danced...

When I became a new cat Mama for our two babies, Tao and Sapelo! 

Tao and Sapelo

When the ESL improv class I created with Lesly Fredman was a success (see this blog)!

When my Chiboogamoo and I travelled to the UK to visit our friends Denise and Ian in London and then took a train through Scotland!

When using newly crafted ESL improv lessons at Emory University's Goizueta Business School to teach the preMBA internationals to compete and volunteer (see this blog)!

The Misadventures of Maria the Hutia
by Ron Shaklee, art by Hallelujah Truth

When the children's book I illustrated was published (see this blog)!

When Chiboogamoo's professional development as an ichnologist took us to Newfoundland to see many amazing geological wonders (see this blog) and we also got to meet a fascinating poet and environmental artist (see this blog)

In 2012, when I wasn't dancing, I was confronting my mental blocks--not exactly weeping--but strong emotions nonetheless! One such intense block can be illustrated by the 2011-2012 trip I took to San Salvador, Bahamas, with my Chiboogamoo and his Emory University class!

#REVERB12 (Day 11): What was music to your ears, literally or metaphorically?

SWIMMING IN THE WORDS OF A CANTADORA.  (art by Hallelujah Truth)

#REVERB 12 (Day 11) PROMPT: What was music to your ears in 2012, literally or metaphorically?

Let me introduce you to the MUSIC to my ears for 2012, heart, soul, and entire creative being--the stories of CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES! You might know her name because of her 1989 bestseller, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories about the Wild Woman Archetype, which acknowledges the deep knowing that we women have within ourselves. But it wasn't until 2012, that I listened to an extensive body of Dr. Estes work on audio, especially Creative Fire!

#REVERB12 (Day 10): What was the greatest risk you took in 2012?

DECATUR BOOK FESTIVAL 2012. 

#REVERB12 (Day 10) PROMPT: What was the greatest risk you took in 2012? What was the outcome?

MARIA THE HUTIA (art by Halleujah Truth)

The greatest risk I took in 2012 involves publicly speaking out two times for a Bahamian hutia named Maria and other endangered animals! For several years, I had been creating illustrations for a children's book about this small brown furry rodent's (Maria) "misadventures," written by Ron Shaklee. But since I am not a scientist nor the author of Maria's tale, I found it surprising and, yes, risky I was speaking publicly about this entertaining and educational conservation story. In fact, I am scared of public speaking!