Sharinghula

Artful interiors reflect your saga: your personal history, family tradition, and ethnic culture. The decorating choices you make usually are determined by what is happening in your life and what you want to happen. “A person’s home should be like a three-dimensional scrapbook,” says art gallery director Greg Guelda. When you allow your interiors to evolve, when you make even subtle changes in your living space as you do in your life, that re-creates what you will experience as well. questions are pertinent: Where did you travel this year? How were you influenced by the terrain and the customs? Will this be reflected in your home next year? What changes occurred in your family? How did you celebrate differently? What new traditions did you start? What books did you read and classes did you take? What new thoughts and ideas were generated by these? What kinds of objects, colors, and design will reflect this in your rooms? How will all these changes influence how you will live and what you will do differently in your life and family next year?

ere is nothing more whole than a broken heart,’ an anonymous Jewish rabbi is often quoted. We miss that truth too often.We
fail to see meaning in the flawed things.We are not conscious of the power in an image of brokenness. Putting wildflowers in a favorite vase that is cracked or stained values what has been meaningful in the past. Mending a torn seam carries the value of that piece of clothing into the future.
Our lives are full of flawed objects, so why not appreciate the place they have in our lives and the lessons they have to teach?
A German cream pitcher a gift from my grandmother was broken when the wind blew it off its window perch. A string of amber stones broke when it was caught on a screw as I lifted it from my jewelry box. My heart has been broken by someone who didn’t value my love. My red jacket, the one I wear daily to fetch the wood that heats my home. has a broken zipper My favorite CD broke when it fell out of my car and was stepped on. I broke a big jar of freshly made strawberry jam as I was putting it into the refrigerator
Some of these things required that I cut the losses and throw them away. Others I salvaged and still use because I appreciate their ongoing value or the sentiment attached to them.
Does your home harbor broken things? Confront the facts. Know when to toss the keepsakes and still preserve the memories. Know when to realize there is nothing more beautiful than a particular object that has been scarred by time and use and love. Give yourself permission to make a decision about the broken things in your home and in your life.
• Save love letters from relationships that, though broken, still brought you gifts ofiSoul. (Discard those from the jerks in your life.)
Repair objects that were inherited or given by a special person or on a special occasion. They are symbols of life’s beautiful
imperfect things: our bodies, our ambitions, our dreams.
Replace anything that would cost more in time or money than it is worth to you.
Validate the significance of objects to which your soul responds:
A bird with a broken wing may be buried with ceremony.
The dress you wore to that special dance may be made into glamorous pillows for your bed.Your grandfather’s worn- out clock may be placed on a shelf as a token of what his presence meant in your life.
Declutter spaces by untangling what you want to keep from what has no place ofi poignancy in your environment. Throw away the non keepers with grace and gusto.
Box up (labeled) anything that has some practical or sentimental value. In one year if you have not dug it out to use it or have not thought about it at all, let it go.

Scientists say people who are deprived of REM sleep—when dreams are more visual in content—are prone to irritability, fatigue, memory loss, and poor concentration. Clearly, the Creator has beautifully designed our unconscious. It is meant not to torment us with bizarre visions or leave us vulnerable but to give us a way to work toward a healthier waking life. Dream time helps us recognize important truths about ourselves and our surroundings. They cooperate with our “day” dreams as raw material with which to improve our lives. We are dreaming all the time, Carl Jung believed. Only the distractions of waking life leave us unaware of that fact, he noted.6
Like a house, my life has several levels (or stories) and many rooms divided into public and private spaces. As I bring significance from night dreams or private spaces into my waking life or public places, I remodel my dream home on an ongoing basis. After that first haunted house dream, I began to invest my dreams with regard, recording them first thing in the morning. I let them simmer on the back burner of my mind, hoping eventually to read between the lines of their strange pictures. One thing that facilitated this was sharing dreams on a regular basis with two friends. We not oniy laughed a lot but also found that when you share dreams, you can’t hide anything from one another. We began to see important truths in each other’s dreams that escaped the dreamer’s own perception. The most eccentric dream could turn out to be the most insightful.
When I have an utterly ridiculous dream, an erotic dream, or a dangerous dream, I’m tempted not to document it. Through the years, however, I’ve discovered that the dreams that intimidate me most are the most useful—that is, if I’m willing to explore their territory and understand the questions they ask of me.