Enhance Your Environment

Keep The Path Clear!

What are the benefits of your environment?  For some reason I like to think of my personal environment as a microcosm - a garden - of the macrocosm - the larger environment.  To experience any garden you need a pathway.  You need a way to experience it. If your garden, your world, your ideal life as defined by you is cluttered, then you need to clear that path.  Life is more challenging and more stressful when you have to deal with unnecessary "stuff."  Life didn't used to be this way for most of  us.  Yet, progress and prosperity have changed that.

I've become more aware of the stuff in my life since moving into temporary housing - an apartment.  We'll be here for a couple of months until our new home is ready.  You know what, it's kind of nice!  Because most of our belongings - our stuff - are in storage.  The result is we have just a few possessions and the company of each other.  Conversations are easier.  Everything is simple.  We are more connected.  Interesting isn't' it?  When you clear the path of life - your environment is much more manageable.  Why?  You are managing the stimuli in your world.  Your response to life is likely to be much more favorable when you trim everything down to what matters to you.  If you don't do this, then you are subject to the uncontrollable influences that surround you.

So what does your 'garden' look like?  What does it feel like?  Most importantly, what is all of this telling you?  Don't ask what is happening in your world -- but why!  Why are you surrounded by the environment you find yourself in?  Only you can get what you want out of life by surrounding yourself with what energizes you!  Anything is possible within the space you create.  This is the key to enhancing your environment.  Make the right choices - keep that path clear - and let in the good stuff that really matters!

Color Your World with Aliveness!

A client recently noted to me that he wants to see color "all of the time" at his home.  Any landscape architect or designer can tell you that request ranks right up there with the dreaded "no maintenance " request.  Unfortunately, there is this phenomenon in the universe called entropy - everything is always changing and seeking a new state of order (or disorder, depending upon your perspective and need for control) -which certainly precludes the possibility of a no-maintenance landscape.  Color on the other hand, is actually a function of the cycles and changes in our natural environment - and therefore, it stands to reason you can manage these cycles and have color - all of the time!

Before we resolve this situation, I'm curious why we are obsessed with color?  I love color as much as the next person.  Though I can honestly say I've never contemplated why.  I believe the reason is very likely the fact that color makes you aware of your 'aliveness.'   It engages your senses.  It reminds us to take some notice of life, the environment, and even who we are.

The more you notice and appreciate color, the more you respect it's nuances.  Artists will tell you that you don't have to be bombarded with color to enjoy its aliveness.  You can sometimes appreciate a palette that blends color in unique ways, using white to separate the softer pastels so they can be even further appreciated for what they are on their own.  In the same way, you can appreciate the subtleties of what's happening in your world - both in your your work and play.  You just have to take notice.

There is a quality of nature that makes you feel alive and aware of so many things in your life, including your purpose, your responsibilities to others, and a need to appreciate what you have right now.  Right now is where it's all happening - and color makes you aware of that.  Color stops you in your tracks and asks you to think about what's right.  Hopefully, we all eventually come to the realization that what's right with us is interconnected with everyone and everything in our lives.  So, take a color break and appreciate how your life has been colored and how you might want to see that picture evolve into something even more, well,  COLORFUL!:)