The long road of life…

The road may be long, but it is also filled with many sites.

“To summon angels is one thing. To be an angel is another. The latter will get you and the world far more mileage. The earth is not a place where angels thrive. It is a training ground to become one.”

http://omtimes.com/2013/05/the-truth-about-fairy-tales-from-the-heart-with-alan-cohen/

 

Gosh how I love to live and breath creativity…

“Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make. Good. Art.” ~Neil Gaiman

Read more at: http://skinnyartist.com/150-amazing-quotes-to-feed-your-creative-soul/

Getting Lost in the Experience

My helper as I work on a wedding topper. He lets me know if I’m doing a good job, and when it is lunch time.

I spend my work day with my 3 year old, so the majority of my adult conversations are held with me, and when one talks to herself for long enough she quickly gets into “that” category.  You know the category of thoughts that question everything around you.  Questions about society and the way things are set up socially.  The “rules” one must follow to be considered normal on the saneness scale.

For instance, the thoughts that the majority of a human’s expenditure of energy is put forth on cleaning the insides of their homes and dressing up the exteriors; that is if they don’t work so much that they just pay someone else to put forth this expense so they can spend ever more time working to make the money to pay for the help, or they are just lazy.  Now, I’m not thinking about Better Homes and Gardens dressing up, just plain old cut-the-grass, weed-the-beds, pick-up-whatever-the-wind-blew-in kind of stuff.  Then if you are one of those who cherish the lushly green turf without a spot of “weeds” aka ‘natural fauna’ then you have more expenditure.

I think about all those poor weeds that never had a chance with all their pretty miniature flowers…they get killed and washed away with some harsh chemicals so that the uniform grass can take over with all of its spring death and dullness.  Does anyone entertain the thought about where these chemicals go once the rain washes them away?  I think about it every time I see one of those guys ambling through a yard spraying the green stuff on a neighor’s lawn.  A lawn that a kid might crash his bike into and land on which in turn covers his clothes and shoes where touched.

The river being referred to by this sewer drain is the Mighty Mississippi or as we like to call him Old Man River

That poor aquatic fauna never saw it coming.  I wonder how many vegans only care about directly effecting animals and ignore the indirect suffering they may cause?  Does not the extraction of oil for gasoline and all those nice plastic things decimate animal populations?  Do vegans not drive cars or talk on cell phones because the production of these things would cause distress to animals?

I wonder how much time is spent cleaning in different tribes around the world or how much my ancestors cleaned theirs and others homes.  I try to keep my home clean, but I would also love to spend time with my children outside exploring ideas and experiences.  Society was set up the way that it is when I was born, so I must spend the extra-time either paying for someone to keep a standard or keep the standard myself so that I am not ostracized by a group of which I am supposed to be a part.  Why do I want to be part of their group?  Why do I want them to accept me?

I hold expectations of others in my group as well.  I expect that people would only present themselves in public places fully clothed.  I do not wish to see pajama pants at the grocery store.  Then I wonder, do they get in their bed with those clothes that they have walked around in all day?  How often do they clean their sheets? Do they have breathing problems or trouble sleeping? Do they know that if they didn’t unnecessarily use all those harsh chemicals then they wouldn’t be bringing them into their enclosed homes and rubbing them all over their carpets and sheets and breathing them in for 7 hours every night?

They could be so much more comfortable and healthy if it was socially acceptable to actually tell people these things to their faces and if they were actually open enough to accept advice from someone in their community.  Community…that’s a word that has been redefined in our society.

Community should be the knowing that one is amongst others who will help and guide them.  It is innate in the human to seek validation for their existence; for humans to want to be accepted as part of a group.  Humans want to seek out the emotions that make them feel good.  It could be the feeling that they are needed which makes them happy.  The feeling that they made someone laugh which brings laughter into their hearts.  The thought that they helped make someone’s life that much more grand with their show of love.

There are also those that seek validation of their own greatness.  The one that seeks to be on top at the expense of making their colleague look like a fool.  The one that would rather get the pat on the back then save the jobs of thousands.

To each his own…the darkness is that which defines the light and without light there would not be darkness.

This is about how I explain it, because I feel as though I can’t do anything to change it.  It is much easier this way, and sometimes going with the flow is your only choice…or is it?

Looks like the struggle never ends…

Artists John Pitre’s depiction of man’s struggle here on earth with his self imposed restrictions.

Twelve Art World Habits to Ditch in 2012

The above article reminded me of when I learned about the history on Monet and the French Impressionistic movement which happened over 100 years ago.  It is also reminiscent of the movements in the art world in the 1960′s.

I wondered: Do they teach about the movements against the mainstream art world in academia?

I never attended an art class so I haven’t a clue.  I do know that I have come across many with art degrees and some with Masters who have never sold a thing and are very unsure of what exactly to do when it comes to selling or marketing their art.

I now wondered:  What do they teach in art school?

I have only always had a longing to put down on paper what I saw all around me and that is where my talent blossomed.  I am rarely without pencil and paper and I want to learn all that I can about materializing my thoughts and dreams.  I gleaned what I could as a child from the encyclopedia, drawing everything that I could find, and spending hours concentrated on nothing other than my drawings.

Still, I never believed myself an artist and I spend much of what I make a month paying off student loans for a Science degree that has yet to land me a job.

I think we may be due for another revolution in many aspects of our lives here on earth as a species.  Much of what we do in everyday life doesn’t make much sense for our well being and is getting pretty absurd.

I now will end in wonder…Do we really need more than one pair of shoes, or hand held electronic devices that occupy our every waking moment, or over processed food that is killing us and making us miserable…

Wish I was as Good as This Guy…

This guy does such a better job at explaining what I was ranting about weeks ago.

All that college education that I am currently paying for while employing myself usually gets jumbled up with my emotions from the present as well as with memories from my childhood and the knowledge that my children will have to suffer more extraneous if I don’t help do something to help change our current situation as humans on this Lone Pale Blue Dot.

Asperger’s and the Media Narrative on Autism and the Mentally Ill

It is a shame that so many people just let whatever may come out of their televisions, computers, radios, cell phones, or other all life encompassing electronic devices to just make their decisions for them. I really don’t tire from trying to help people understand that there is a lot more entertainment out there than there is actual facts. The movie Idiocracy comes to mind.

We may all be a bit neurodiverse

 

Adam Lanza, Asperger’s, and the Media Narrative on Autism and the Mentally Ill – National – The Atlantic Wire.

Steampunk Airship in da Vinci style

I’ve been out of pocket for awhile…taking a much needed respite. Thought I would just share a project I completed recently. Absolutely loved doing some steam-punk. This is where my warm up sketches in December were directing me toward. Please enjoy.

I dream therefore I fix my problems…

It speaks for itself

(was looking for a post and saw that this was still a draft…not sure why I never posted it so I will now  It is from October of 2012.)

The other day I had a few moments between errands and I stopped off at the local Goodwill Bookstore for a peruse. I know that this is not an easy task with a two year old, especially if I actually want to leave with decent read, but I had the urge to find something new to read. After 10 minutes of hearing my son on the other aisle pulling down books from the shelf and asking random customers “what this is?”, I just selected 3 books laid them on the check-out counter and chased my son through the back stockroom of the store. Some days I seriously doubt my sanity will last till this one makes it into adulthood.

That leads me into one of the lucky frantically chosen books. I love the Goodwill on all levels. It satisfies my need to do good for the environment and up-cycle goods plus I get 3 new books for only 8 bucks…you can’t beat that. Well, you can’t beat it until I get one of those on my street that I have seen popping up in Memphis. I may just have to add another project to my I’m-not-procrastinating list.

One of my books I bought was Dreams: Your Magic Mirror by Elsie Sechrist. I have been mulling over for the past few weeks what I want to be when I grow up, still. I will turn 30 in a matter of a few days and my Saturn return has been a doozy. At the beginning of my 28th year I was struck with an illness that forced me to choose between my job and my health. I reluctantly chose my health. See, I took the safe route and received a degree in Business and Communication (Public Relations) instead of pursuing my dreams to become an artist and researcher.

I of course over thought the whole situation as I normally do. I wanted to prove myself to my family and I suspected a business degree over an art degree would duly impress. It has not. I have now only run into the fact that I have the talent and urge to be an artist with no degree in a society that clings to higher education over talent as a value meter.

Or so I think anyways. I think that I think too much. Actually, I know that I think too much, but I color my comments so as to trick myself into believing that I just think that I think too much and don’t really know for certain that I think too much. See, told you I even go as far as to come to conclusions for other people all the time. Boy can other people come up with the rudest of comments in my conversations. They are the evil doers and I am the old wise one with the great one-liners. This is why I never attend social events. Why would I, I have all that at home without the fear of looking like a foolish ass in front of everyone. Of course I know that this is illogical, but I can be very convincing otherwise, and I only came to the above conclusion after reading about toilets in my new book.

See, I am still learning from those odd moments. Apparently when toilets or commodes come up in your dreams they represent cleansing of bad habits is needed. I have been writing my dreams down for three days now after beginning this book. These are long elaborate dreams that I have that I hope to gain insight from about my life, and all the time I ignored the toilet scenes and left them out. Even in my recall I was avoiding my problems. That is until I hit that part in my book about the toilet dream. It was like my mind instantly recalled every toilet dream I had had for the last six months, which turned out to be quite a lot. I have been dreaming about needing to pee and something being totally wrong about every toilet that I encountered…dirty toilets, blocked toilets, broken toilets, exposed toilets…you name it I have dreamt it. The toilets got their very own page dedicated to them in my dream journal. My higher self has been trying to tell me for quite some time that my problem was in my face all along and I was avoiding it at every turn. My thought patterns have got to change.

So, this morning after my epiphany I pulled out The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Anxiety by Dr. William Knaus that I stashed away long ago to forget that I had convinced myself that I was not the problem and that it was just everyone else making my days unbearable. I was recommended the book and knew I needed to deal with the way that I look at the world, but I guess it takes the motivation of needing to pee real bad and not getting the satisfaction of a nice warm toilet seat.

I am off to work toward the day when I can say I finally peed in my dreams.

I will leave you with this quote of the day I saw while checking my proper use of doozy:

“A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt. If it cannot discover the claims to existence of the objects of its questioning—and it would be miraculous if it so soon succeeded in solving so many mysteries—it will deny them all reality, the mere formulation of the problem already implying an inclination to negative solutions. But in so doing it will become void of all positive content and, finding nothing which offers it resistance, will launch itself perforce into the emptiness of inner revery.”
-Emile Durkheim

Individualistic-living off the backs of Giants is a bit Ironic.

The Cult of Individualism: I’m Special and You’re Not.

I enjoyed this post and like most other times would like to add my open and honest commentary.

I think not only teachers but everyone needs to begin to speak differently and not just to these kids but to everyone.

Politicians need to speak differently to those whom they are supposed to represent instead of following their own agendas.

Doctors need to speak differently to their patients instead of covering everything with the security of medication and insurance.

Parents need to speak of restraint for the sake of her children’s futures.

Individuals need to speak differently to their inner selves and rid the world of complacency.

The human in particular is not the success; success is what comes from effort put forth to bring about a change.

To dehumanize people and take advantage of their life’s position to make more money is not success.

Manipulating people to gain acceptance is not success.  Popularity through manipulative marketing should never be taken as a reflection of value.

Putting money into stocks and bonds, which grow off the efforts of another, as security for a future one is never guaranteed is not success.

It is all forms of fear.  Fear of letting go.  Fear of the unknown.  Fear of not being in control.  We as humans fear these things just as our ancestors did.  Just as ancient Babylonians or Romans who personified these fears through stories of gods, giving our dilemmas divine providence over our lives.

We fear our own society our own creation so much so that we try to build up the psyches of our children so they can may be prepared to overtake whatever lurks in the shadows of uncertainty, but in hindsight it has only made the darkness that much more scarier.

I think I am a bit grumpy as well.  Mother earth certainly is.  I hope we can all create our own inner lights so that the darkness will no longer seem so dark.

 

Are we actually experiencing a collective nightmare?

THE SANDY HOOK HORROR: WILL IT WAKE US UP FROM OUR COLLECTIVE NIGHTMARE?.

I just wanted to share this article.  It reminds me of the thought that our ego is really the free-will we were given and is what causes us as humans so much turmoil and pain.  We are all diamonds in the rough.