Welcome to
the Willow Ranch Art Center
95 60th St. Grand Junction, MI.
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95 60th St. Grand Junction, MI. |
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Keys to Happiness
Establish your own high sense of order
Be creative and constructive
Accept self
Accept others
Separate what you want from what you need
Never take anything too serious
Live, Laugh, Love, and have social intercourse
Your naturally twisted friend, Bim Willow |
About us Little Bit of Willow Ranch Event History The Michigan Peace Fest originally started as a networking event for local musicians and a birthday celebration for its founder, Bim Willow. After 16 years, the event has moved from its bent willow stage serviced by an extension cord to Willow’s house. Now music is unleashed from a professional stage with movie screens on each side in a meadow, surrounded by woods and manned by a skilled sound crew. Successful band members who started playing here when they were teenagers, now return annually to ‘play’ homage to The Willow Ranch and everyone who encouraged them along the way. The music is ALWAYS exceptional -- the camping, wooded and rustic -- the 1,000+ crowd, an extended family. At the end of it all, every last paper and cigarette butt is cleansed from the land, leaving only the beaten grass and blackened fire pits to bare witness of a magical experience.
The Willow Ranch is based on these principles
· Self acceptance · Accepting others · Learning to love · Flexibility · A sense of humor · Dealing with your fears · Living a creative life · Dying peacefully
Self acceptance
Don’t compare yourself with anyone else. The only thing that you will be the best at is being yourself. Don’t compare your self to yourself of what you once were or what you will become. The only place you can truly live is in the Now. Accept that you are wise and foolish, knowledgeable and ignorant, kind and cruel, loving and vengeful….. You are uniquely you. Ask your self questions to get the answers you both desire and despise. All in all accept yourself, not as how others would have you to be or how you would want yourself to be, but how you are right now. This is the beginning of love. To know self is not always pleasant but it is what it takes to love one’s self.
Accepting others
The attributes we see in others are the attributes we see within ourselves. We can only love others as much as we love ourselves. We can only despise others in the same manner. Accepting self as the true self empowers us to accept others as they are not as we want them to be. We then can deal with them as we would ourselves. Just because you accept a person does not mean that you accept their behavior. When you become aware that you are wrong you have the authority to make those changes within yourself. You however do not have that authority to override anyone else’s will. You can by example or suggestion, lead others to make changes within themselves. Conflict is inevitable with self as it is with others. Conflict can be constructive and lead to positive change.
Learn to love
Love starts by loving self, not self centered love but rather centered in self love. One is a taking love the other a giving. When you love your self you want what is good for you. Caring for others is caring for you. We are all a part of each other as well as a part of everything that exists. Learning to love is a process that takes a lifetime. Harboring resentment is detrimental to loving self. In many cases you are angry for being vulnerable. This is not pleasant to examine or deal with and is much easier to transfer it to the aggressor. To forgive is an act of kindness to you first to the person you resented second. There is great power in love and forgiveness. The frustration comes when we see things we do not like, and is not within our control to change them. This takes me to the next thought.
Flexibility
We make our plans, set our goals, but things don’t always work out the way we want them to. Even if our plans are so well thought out that you would think it couldn’t possibly go wrong it often does. Chaos and change are as consistent as order, a paradox. A tree that will not flex with the winds of change will be broken. We all break we all fall down. What we do with the pieces teaches us flexibility. A person who learns by his mistakes learns wisdom and their mistakes become opportunities. A person who learns by the mistakes of others has obtained wisdom. We can not always dictate what happens but we can have a say so in how we react. For every action there is a reaction. Find your order in your chaos. The living willow limbs will break in the storm, but come back to life given the right circumstances.
A sense of humor
“It’s a joke son a joke” Foghorn Leghorn When we find we are not always in control of what happens we have to let go and laugh knowing that life is too mysterious to take it too serious. Taking life too serious sets us up for disappointment and sadness. Life can be joyous if we turn a blind eye and deaf ear to sorrow. It is written “ Laughter is good medicine but a broken spirit dries up the bones” (Palms) Dry bones are like the dead willow branch that when the storms come it falls to the ground but never comes back to life. To laugh love and be happy is a choice. If you say to me that you have nothing to laugh about I find that rather amusing.
Dealing with your fears
Fear can be healthy when it is synonymous with respect. Like standing on a cliff and the fear of heights hits you. Without that fear or respect you might fall. There are many fears that as humans we are plagued with that are not healthy. Fear on rejection, fear of commitment, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of loss of life and property, fear of the unknown……. Fear is something we must face if we are to be free to live a good life. This too is a lifelong journey. When self examining these fears are not only hard to look at but also hard to find because they have a tendency to hid in the dark spaces of our minds and become painful when brought to the light. Once you bring them to the light and apply a sense of humor, wounds heal and fears become as nothing. When you see yourself as part of everything you see that you are also nothing.
Living a creative life
Great pleasure comes with accomplishment. Creative energy is the energy of the universe. When you live what you believe you become what you believe. When you see yourself one with all things you become what you see. When you see yourself as being separate you become what you see. There is always something happening in the Now. There is always something creative happening. Chaos and order are all a part of the creative process. We are all creators as well as destroyers. We can not create without destroying something else. Use your creative powers wisely.
Dying peacefully
We cannot live without dying. If you accept yourself, accept others, learned how to love, how to be flexible, kept a sense of humor, dealt with your fears, and lived a creative life, death is a sweet ending to a good life.
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