Hello Friend,
Thanks for being here!
I am on vacation right now in Las Vegas, NV for my husband birthday (26th) and my sister-in-law’s graduation.
I have been reflecting a lot on what it means to have a work-life balance.
Am I working right now?
Not really…I am mostly reflecting on the day so far.
Could this be my everyday life? Vacationing around the world and only “working” at night? Perhaps.
The beauty of it all is that by exploring this city (even though I have been here dozens of times) is that I am constantly learning something new.
I’m going to answer the prompts for this trip so far (today and yesterday).
Without further ado, here are the updates (reallly what I laerned today) across all the branches of The Ornelian: Grounded Spirits, ILA Institute, PubLish, and Belasprii.
✨THE ORNELIAN
- The most luxurious thing happened to me today was taking a bath after not being able to for 2+ years!
This one even had built in jets!
It was so peaceful.
But it also made me aware of how much I’ve grown since I last took a bath in my old house in Redlands.
It was a beautiful reflection time.
I just kept thinking how lucky I was to be in this bathtub.
How lucky I was to even have this moment of relaxation.
And how lucky I was to have this break between baths to acknowledge (and even celebrate) how much I’ve grown.
- A hack I did today to save money was
This one wasn’t me but after the graduation we went to the South Point Buffet and it was incredible!
The hack is that if you get a player’s card, you get a few bucks of the buffet. It was worth it.
I had a chicken piccata (I love the capers in this dish!) with a mushroom orzo, the creamiest mashed potatoes, and vegetables (peas, carrots, broccoli, peppers).
It also came with drink coupons! Two mimosas or plain champagne – I would get one of each and mix it!
- What’s something that I want to try soon that’s kind of expensive?
I really want to take the helicopter tour over the grand canyon. They take off right by the Pinball Museum (where we went yesterday here in Vegas).
- Something I’m super grateful for today was my sister-in-law.
We don’t always see eye to eye but I felt so honored to be included in her special day. I gained so much valuable information from the speakers at the graduation too!
See more under ILA Institute’s update.
🌄 GROUNDED SPIRITS
- What does sustainability mean to me?
Maybe one day, I’ll write a whole post answering this question but for now here’s the quick version:
Sustainability is a human version of the organic process that Mother Nature takes. Does Mother Nature get tired of changing the seasons? The phases of the moon? The waves of the ocean? Not at all. We trust that the sun will come up tomorrow.
Mother Nature doesn’t burn out. She doesn’t need a vacation.
We need to make our life the vacation.
Sustainability means to be in flow, to fully surrender, and to allow all parts of you to spill everywhere and trust that it will all go exactly where it belongs.
It means waking up full of energy every day (regardless if you didn’t sleep well the night before, if you drank hella the night before, or if you’ve had a stressful week).
It means being so aligned with nature (God, Source, the infinite intelligence, the universe, etc..) that you just naturally take and give back the perfect amount. You are being fully taken care of so you can focus on realizing your dreams.
There are so many more examples but I think we shall end there for now. Like I said, it shall be a full post soon. Let me know if you like this direction I’m taking with it or if I’m completely wrong lol.
- What grounded me today? vs. What made me feel more spirited today?
G: When my husband brought me breakfast in bed this morning and then when we went swimming later
S: Going to the graduation, hearing the speeches, and reading more into the founder, John Sperling
- Things I thought about today while high
Auras, the past that is ready to be let go, the concept of an open heart, the Ornelian Framework, family
- Bits I wanted to share about my dreams lately
I keep meeting with a council and I trust them. They give me advice on the Ornelian Framework.
Lately, I only remember the feelings of my dreams rather than the images of them like normal.
I’ve been having abstract dreams too. It’s like I’m inside a Dali painting. But it’s also inside the Ornelian Framework.
- Animals I interacted with lately
Lizards! When I was little, I would always catch them. Now I’ve held two of them within the last week! I’ll tell you the full story on my Grounded Spirits YouTube soon.
- Goal-setting I did today
I cemented ILA Institute even further.
I updated PubLish’s TikTok bio.
- What steps I took today towards my dreams
Working on this. So basically I was the girl growing up on MySpace where I loved taking those quizes and reposting them with all my *cool* answers. I feel like this space I’ve created here on The Ornelian is the grown-up version of that. This is fun for me. But it also allows me to reflect on my day and helps me prepare for tomorrow.
The cool thing about this set-up is that tomorrow the future me will go through my answers and either make an instagram post, a tiktok, or an expanded blog post.
- A dream that came true today was going to an event with my husband.
He works really hard all the time and so we rarely get to go out. He spends the weekends catching up on sleep. Today, the graduation was inside a sports arena so it was nice being in that kind of environment with a ton of people with him.
These questions/topics are obviously very centered around/for me but feel free to use them in your private journaling. However, if you decide to post it please tag me @groundedspirits 🙂
I hope to post a new video in the near future, but in the meantime, check out this week’s episode here!
- You can find all the links for the episode, all the links mentioned in the episode, and many bonuses here!
🌀 ILA INSTITUTE
Finally the moment I have been waiting for!
To share all I learned about John Sperling and the University of Phoenix…
So John Sperling went to Reed College, UC Berkeley, and then King’s College for his PhD. He ended up at San Jose State University where he was a professor for many years and saw that non-traditional students (working full-time, parents, 25+ years old) were treated like second class citizens and felt invisible on campus.
He created University of Phoenix specifically for non-traditional students.
And yes, it is accredited.
Some of his ideas that helped out his students were:
- multiple start times so students don’t have to wait for months for another semester to start
- multiple graduations throughout the year for the same reason when you’re done you’re done
- allowing them to write papers based on the knowledge acquired through work experiences
- creating community networks (now with over 1M members in all 50 states and several countries)
- worldwide open enrollment (no application process you just sign up)
So why does U of P have this reputation?
Because they are for-profit, whereas most universities worldwide are non-profit (meaning that any money just goes back into the organization instead of the pockets of the CEO).
For-profit universities are also harder to get accredited. Sperling talks about the uphill battle with the accreditation process in his memoir Rebel with a Cause. I’m planning on reading it and reporting back.
They have also been involved with lawsuits that also taint the university’s reputation.
Regardless, being at that graduation, it was clear that Sperling created a place that makes people’s dream come true.
So how does this all relate to ILA Institute?
ILA Institute can be seen as a bridge between the for-profit (non-traditional) and non-profit (traditional) schools.
ILA is for non-traditional students but with the prestige of traditional schools.
However, traditional students are welcomed to join as well.
When I first started working on ILA Institute it was to be a preschool, and it still will be one day, but I have since shifted to adult education. More on this soon.
So I’m just going to share some preliminary thoughts on how the college would be structured:
- open enrollment
- anyone can sign up but you do have to apply to be part of the honors program
- you only pay if you want college credit
- it’s free for everyone else
- the only courses offered are how to tune into the 16 ways of knowing and everything included in that see the Ornelian Framework for more
- each course is only 1 unit so it’s low stakes
- you don’t pick a major. you pick at least 8 scenes you want to be a part of — two scenes per vertex of being (soul, mind, body, spirit).
- 16 ways of knowing x 8 scenes = 128 units
- 128 units is the standard for bachelor’s degrees
- maybe eventually we’ll work up to offering master’s and PhD’s but we’ll just focus on bachelor’s for now
- 128 units is the standard for bachelor’s degrees
- 16 ways of knowing x 8 scenes = 128 units
If you don’t understand how it would work don’t worry, I’ll be elaborating as time goes on. Remember these are just thoughts off the top of my head so nothing is set in stone yet. But please do ask questions or offer ideas that you’d like for me to incorporate in the comments.
The post that came out recently was the Do’s and Don’ts of Museum Design where I share my insights and reflections on what made a good museum (and/or exhibit) after visiting over 30 museums in LA.
As promised here’s my rubric to see how I plan on rating each museum to see which is the best museum in LA!
I also plan on creating the two equivalant posts for parks too.
While you wait for those, check out ILA Institute‘s second episode!
- You can watch it on YouTube or
- listen wherever you get your podcasts.
- This course explores the future of education through an intuition-led lens, and in it, I share everything I learned while wandering through the libraries of Los Angeles.
- 🎧📺 Tune in now — and let me know what resonates most with you.
- You can find all the links for the episode, all the links mentioned in the episode, and many bonuses here!
You can also check out the latest ILA Radio episode!
- You can find all the links for the episode, all the links mentioned in the episode, and many bonuses here!
🌊 PUBLISH
I wrote everything above in Vegas at the hotel. Below is from today. I’m going to start timestamping these.
5:18PM
MY ROOM
- What creative work did I engage with today, and what first caught my attention?
with the piece ive been working on recently titled Sea. how ugly i made it. im working on the sky and i needed a blue undertone but it made the whole piece too dark. today i worked on brightening it and now i can see how its all coming together. so i am no longer freaking out about it.
- What emotion or thought did this work spark in me, and why?
weirdly, it reminds me of me, my sister’s and our significant others. truths have been coming out of this piece.
- What detail, idea, or moment stood out the most?
i love staring at the ocean in the piece. especially when im high, i almost like i can feel it moving, spilling all over me.
- What did I appreciate, and what confused or challenged me?
i allow something to take over when i paint. i don’t know if it’s intuition or maybe its my body or more specifically my hand, but it does in fact take over when i paint beacuse if it were me, i would be to systematic everything would be too ordered and that’s not what painting is about.
All to say that it really confused me when I started bringing the sky down into the mountains and into the sea but now looking at it I am so glad I did. I’m really liking its look.
- How would I explain or describe this work to someone else?
it is as deep or as basic as the viewer
- Did I share my thoughts with someone today? How did it feel to be heard or connect?
Yes! Today I was on Spiritual Infinity with Zenzi and she was incredible. I opened up about really scary stuff from my past. Like if I told little Laura that I would be sharing this deep dark secret live on a podcast one day she would freak! But I felt so safe and so self-assured. It felt great to connect with people and not feel weird for once.
It was also perfect timing because yesterday I was so frustrated that I am never understood, then today, Zenzi invited me to be part of a group “to be understood.”
- What feedback, conversation, or interaction inspired me or shifted my perspective?
Today Geoffrey, the turtle, decided to hang out in my hand while I kicked the ball with my dogs (playing catch). Before Geoffrey was a grump. He even bit me once. Seeing him come so far to the point where he got the sparkle back in his eye was priceless! It made me realize that everyone is constantly growing, changing, evolving, and if Geoffrey can do it, then you can do it too!
Remember to tag me if you use anything @publishla 🙂
Be the first to know when the application is open!
🎨 BELASPRII
5:33 PM
MY ROOM
- Tips on sourcing stories from everyday life or your own work
Idk if this actually answers the question but I’ve been watching a lot of YouTubes on how to film your life more cinematically and how to organize your files so that you can make a bunch of random clips of your life make a cohesive story.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
You need to first film three things: landscapes (so anytime you’re walking up to somewhere film it), medium shots (people/things), close ups (whatever brings an emotion out).
Once you have your raw shots, you can start to find the story between the clips. Somehow by the end of editing, I know the title of the episode based on the common link of the clips.
I also watch a lot of Jersey Shore Family Vacation and the editors tend to go back in time to whatever is being referenced sometimes to poke fun at a cast member or to remind audience members. Either way it ties the story together and makes the audience feel closer to the cast members thus keeping our attention.
Now here I am realizing that I messed up… I talked about creating art in the PubLish section so now I have nothing to talk about in the Belasprii section.
Telling myself:
*Remember Belasprii is about the production of art and PubLish is about the consumption of art*
Remember to tag me if you use anything @belasprii 🙂
- For The Circle, the first SPARK episode is out now!
- In it, you’ll be guided through:
- an energy ritual to summon your creative flame
- a prompt that dares to undo your fear
- a vision that might change how you see your work
…but you’ll have to enter to know.
- In it, you’ll be guided through:
- You can find all the links for the episode, all the links mentioned in the episode, and many bonuses here!
- Next week, we will do a deep dive on how to bring your work into the light with GLOW!
- Sign up now to receive it in your inbox when it comes out!
- For The Studio,
- The first casting call is up now!
- For The Stories:
- I am a hula dancer and I want to start blogging about each performance experience. Here is the blog post as promised!
that’s all for now
That’s what I’ve been up to this week. I’ll keep posting updates like this as things unfold.
If you’re curious, want to collaborate, or just want to follow along, I’m glad you’re here.
If you want to keep up with all things at The Ornelian, consider subscribing 🙂
See you next time,
Laura Alyn
For more from me
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