The Penguins in the Green Wisdom Cards is about sustaining yourself (getting along) by going along. Follow the wisdom of the masses. Nobody is as smart as all of us.

True, but like everthing in life, too much or too little of something, is not wise. For example, I went to Starbucks the other morning. The line was out the door. It was crowded. The music was awful noise. Instead of getting in line and imitating the other penguins, I did my Eagle act, to fly solo and look elesewhere. Next door I flew to Subway, got my coffee in 30 seconds and not at Starbuck prices. The coffee… Seattle Best. Guess who owns that company? Starbucks. Same coffee.

Imitation… it’s for the birds, at least for those who can’t fly.

I’m flying to Atlanta the day after Earth Day and pick up an abused Wall Street Journal newspaper from the floor at the Dallas airport to pass my time on the flight.

Immediately, I spot an article, “Environmentalism as Religion” by Paul Rubin, an economics professor at Emory University. He writes that “we may be the first to build shrines to garbage.” How true. So, is that a bad thing, as he suggests. Any capitalist and entrepreneur knows that “garbage is gold.” My richest friends owned garbage companies. Beyond that, garbage is fertilizer. When we recycle and compost our heaps of trash, new grounding for new growth happens. To me that is sacred! I would love religions that says, “God is Dirt,” one of my favorite bumper stickers.

More of this can be found on my Intuition blog: http://www.intuition-blog.com/

The beginning of your actual personal New Year is your own Birthday. Celebrate it with your rites, rituals, and resolutions.

Today, April 22 Earth Day, is also my Birthday and the beginning of my “Magician” Year. (You can figure out which tarot archetype is yours for the year by going to the little guidebook that comes with the Voyager Tarot Intuition Cards for the 21st Century).

You can read more here: Intuition Blog

The originating, prime mover of life, which may be called spirit or god/dess, is embodied in every detail of Mother Earth who has all the answers you need to know and follow. Mother nature and her green way is the living proof of sustainable wisdom Look to earth for guidance.

To be fully alive, sustainable and successful, follow the green trail that marks the way of nature. Green is the color of life on this planet. Sprouts are green. New leaves are green.

When you have a decision to make about which way to go in life, do what makes you feel green – motivated, energized, creative and full of spring!

Follow the green way. Ask yourself, does a choice give you energy? Is it a direction that is renewing for you and keeps you renewed again and again?

When you live green, you are renewable. You won’t deplete and pollute yourself. You will live healthy and whole.

On the green path, you have the life force on your side. You have the primal and primordial energy to succeed at anything. Don’t think and analyze so much. Simply follow the green feeling in you. Feel it and with that impulse, do it!

The most important product in your store and in your work is you! When you are passionate, engaged and knowledgeable, you are “it.” You are the business. It’s not about money, inventory, economy, customers, it’s about you – your motivation to serve and succeed.

The real bottom line in business is energy. With energy, anything is possible. Energized, you can stay the course and go the distance. With energy, you are naturally resourceful, creative and resilient.

In these challenging times, the single most important thing you can do is re-energize, to restore, renew and restart yourself. The Holy Grail of today is self-sustainability – the “sustain ability” to keep moving, creating, adapting, growing.

To sustain demands that you “re” yourself and your business. This means the ability to repeat, which results when you release, reduce, retreat, recover, recycle, refocus, repurpose, reignite, rekindle, reinvent, rebuild, rebirth, redo. If you can’t re, you can’t go on. At no time in human history have we had to relearn so much on the job about how to work and rework.

Part of your business agenda must be dedicated to recharging yourself – to finding the way and doing the things that keep you turned on. I don’t care how smart you are, or your great reputation, or vast experience, it’s how energized you are now that counts the most.

How do you do this? It’s not rocket science, it’s not caffeine, it’s not pills, it’s the universal alchemy of synergy. That means to conserve and energize your mind, heart, body and spirit – all at once.

First things first – do not expend energy by thinking so much.
Analyzing is slow, paralytic, and depleting. In fact, most of our body’s metabolism is spent in the brain by thinking, which is is proven in neuroscience studies. Thinking is way overrated and counterproductive. Impulse is your answer and way. Trust the intuitive impulse, that little feeling which moves you. That’s your natural genius and source of magical living, though we’ve been taught to not trust it.

When you go with the continuous flow of impulses, you are in the flow of energetic living, moving effortlessly, joyously and correctly. Now, that is efficiency. Butterflies and bees don’t move in a straight, linear line of logic, but from here to there, unpredictably, spontaneously and effectively, again and again.

Of course, mistakes will be made (not every flower has pollen for the bee), but the quicker you get to failure, the swifter you reach success. Powered by impulse, you will have the energy to move on and on until you find the honey. And by the way, thinking and thinking something through does not even begin to guarantee success in today’s rapidly changing world. The mantra for now is “fire, ready, aim.” Cast your seeds and see which ones grow. Who knows?

Trust the way of nature and your own nature. As a natural being, you are instinctive creature that pulses with the beat of one intuition after another. Lose your education about acting rational. Nature is the model of success and sustainability. All we have to do is focus on what our heart wants – pay attention to the emotion, which puts and keeps us in motion. Following “feel-good” energy is how nature operates.

So, if you love your work enough, you will succeed. With a work ethic of passion, you can sacrifice, work hard, keep going, survive and sustain. The mentally smart ethos of strategic thinking is artifice – tiring and even toxic by the kind of doubt and negativity it produces.

To stay energized, keep surfing the waves of impulse and do this magic ritual of success – an inner process to motivate and re-motivate yourself. Close your eyes, imagine yourself being successful in your work, feel in your heart and body how good that picture of success feels, affirm to yourself that you can and are creating success, invoke the great spirit for help, and take actions. Redo this simple meditation often. This mental/emotional/physical/spiritual practice is synergistic, an alchemical transaction that begins within. Success is an inside job.

What about your body, the physical container of emotion, intuition, knowledge and spirit? Just as a wire that is defective and thus cannot carry and transmit energy, a worn out body limits your effectiveness. To be metaphysical, you must be physical. What to do? Eat less, eat better, go outdoors into natural light, breathe real air, and move. Go natural – no gym, no stationary bike, no trainer, no powder mixes. It’s cheap, it’s easy, it’s simple, just do it.

What has changed my life this past year and a half has been the extraordinary affect of going for a swift walk in nature several times a week while breathing strongly. No breath technique, no going by the watch, no mileage counting. What happens is that with the intake of oxygen, you grow new brain cells, your brain gets younger, your body is rejuvenated, and unhealthy aging is prevented. This is empirically and scientifically true and I personally attest to its veracity.

I add from my own experience that if you don’t enjoy this aerobic walk, you are not getting it. When you break out in a smile, you have discovered the fitness secret. Moreover, you tap the wellspring of creative inspiration. In your exhilarating walk of respiration, you get inspiration! Your best ideas come from spirit and its swiftest introduction into you is through prana, the Hindu word for breath and spirit as one. Don’t know what to do for you business? Walk and breathe in fresh ideas. Don’t think and judge, act on the idea.

At your business or at your desk, don’t just sit there, do something, anything. As nature, we are active beings that thrive on doing, not mentalizing. In the doing, we know what to do (how can we forecast anything in today’s world until we try and see), and in the doing, change happens. Change is the only constant we know in the universe. Making any kind of change is in the flow of the natural cosmos.