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Going to self publish my first book called "Bridges To Inner Worlds, Simple Ways To Childlike Wonder At Any Age”. The picture above is the chapter on interacting with what I call disembodied figures. For me when I’m interacting with what most call action figures, it feels like I’m interacting with disembodied figures. It’s always an adventure to have different worlds come together, in this case Giant Robot and Frankenstein. It always surprises me what worlds it opens up. I’ve always played with disembodied firgures when I was little and to this day its one of the greatest sources of joy. My hope with this book is to share the things I do and hopefully it will spark imagintation fun for other people. I’m excited to do this project I hope it's fun for everyone.

This is another chapter been working on

Here’s something that has been pretty inspiring for me. I have a match box I put a few things in. When I’m journaling I like to refer to this box. In the box is a key, a mirror, and 2 magnets. What each of these represent for me is a way to get out of my own way and let each thing kind of put me on a path to what I’m writing about. The mirror, one use is it would symbolize reflecting on memories. The magnets represent things I would like to attract into my life. It seems to be a good way to get that type of flow going. The key to me unlocks doors or places that can sometimes be difficult to find. I’m always surprised where this leads me. For me it’s nice to interact with these items.

This next chapter I called it “Notebook” for now. Quickly moving through a notebook, I think it’s best to have one pen and move as quickly as possible. This is a good momentum exercise for me. Barry really showed me a lot about momentum, it’s been invaluable. Again, this is just another way of getting out of the way of myself. This excercise has been very effective.

The book that really inspired me and the person that really inspired this was Hilma af Flint.

This book centers on her notebooks. It’s one of my favorites. I’m really inspired by her she has so much energy and output. I love to see when people are going for it creating quickly, there’s energy in it, it’s exciting to be around an enviornment like that. I hope this chapter is helpful for people, it's very simple to do.

Shoebox Worlds

I really like this world in this box. It has a magnifying glass that has become one my favorite things I’ve ever owned. It has a light on it and when you look into it, it really feels like a portal. The images feel very three dimensional and it’s almost as if the pictures come alive. It’s fun to journal about the images and explore the world inside this magnifying glass. One thing I like about having this is that it draws my focus into what is in here and lets me explore this world. Hoping that this chapter can encourage people to do that with things that inspire them. Something as simple as this can really take you away and get your imagination going.

Interacting With Magic

This chapter is about spending time and interacting with things that ask you questions. For instance, here’s the wishing well and a door. Purchased these at a nursery. Nurseries are fun to visit for many reasons. They are a bridge to wonder. There’s a lot of magic in a nursery as many know. This is another exercise in interacting with things. The difference with this and why I chose these 2 items is that they are asking me the questions. For instance, "what do you wish for". And a door that asks “where do you want to go”. Sometimes just sitting with items like this it’s a great experience to let something ask you a question. These two things to me are very magical. You can journal about this as well. Definitely having magical things to interact with is very much for me a bridge to wonder and imagination. I’m sure probably that’s how many people feel. Hoping this will be a fun exercise.

This next chapter is called “Ripping Up Books”. Something that has been really fun for me is to open up a book randomly and read the first paragraph I see. If it is something I like, I will cut out this single paragraph and put it in a notebook. This to me is a quick way to interact with magic. It’s almost as if it finds you, rather than you finding it. Just doing these three here is a great example of that. These are from some of my favorite books so there’s a good chance of finding something inspiring. It always surprises me many times how in sync the random paragraph is with what I’m interested in or doing. The first one is so inspiring to me, just this paragraph alone I can journal many pages about. The not-knowing and having no expectation I think is a very important part of this. For me it’s a nice feeling having a short attention span, I can be intimated with trying to read a whole book. There’s a lot more to say about this but this gives an introduction to it.

Another thing with ripping up the book that you can try that I like to do is cutting up the book, cutting up paragraphs and pictures and putting them on blank cards. But what really affects me the most is the actual act of interacting with the book in this way. By cutting up a number of pages and paragraphs and pictures it's fun. It’s almost as if you’re interacting with the information. It’s very different than when you read a book from front to back. I think my favorite part of this is the process and the experience, as to the final thing of having the card.

This is probably of all the chapters my favorite thing to do. There’s books on it and there's a lot of information about it but this is how for me I’m kind of applying it. I have some minature castles, this my favorite. The basic approach that I do is imagine, and I’m always using a journal most of the time, I imagine having a castle and inside the castle are many rooms. And inside the rooms I try to remember memories or I’ll imagine a theme for a room. For instance a music room that is dedicated to classical guitar or classical music. Or a theme room that is dedicated to minature trains and building up enviornments around them. I have endless rooms. This will be a longer chapter, there’s a lot more to this but I wanted to introduce the basic idea of it. In doing this I notice a lot of ideas get going and I ususally do a lot of writing. It really opens up a lot for me and my imagination.

With the castle I use a sketchbook and a journal. When I’m thinking about the rooms I like to have a large sketchbook, it gives me more room for my imagination. For me if I want to remember something what helps is I would make a room theme would be my bicycle during the summer. And that would lead to countless memories, which lead to more rooms. The journal is where I kind of write about the memories. When I’m trying to find memories the journal helps. One thing leads to another and it helps me remember more. Again this is just the way I personally do some of these things, maybe there’s other ways that you can find for yourself.

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