Happy Christmas and Mystical magical New Year!

I haven't been keeping up with this blog. I don't have anything snappy to say. Just to get out of the house and get some sunshine.

I've been busy on Facebook, other people's blogs, Salon.com, other websites, you name it. It somehow keeps me from reflecting on my own life and writing about it. It's near the end of the year and I'm feeling tired. Time to rest, hibernate even, alternating with getting outside in the sunshine (as I mentioned already).

Don't know if I should continue this blog...there seems to be so many others out there with so much more information. Information overload. I can never know it all, be it all, have it all. All I can have is this one piece of ground here (I mean that metaphorically). Scattering myself to the four winds...is not good.

What I want in this winter season is a chance to settle in, to celebrate myself, and "be" in one place, trusting that things will come to me if they are meant to be. Without thinking I have to go out and get them (all the time). Though going out is fun ... it ultimately is distracting from what's really important in my life, what's really going on in the inside. Because I get used to living for that high, rather than living at all levels -- the "in here" experience of being who I am as well as the "out there" experience of seeing who you are and who they are and what that's about.....

This blog did start out as a vehicle for me to practice writing and putting it out there, so I could gain experience in it, so maybe one day I could write a book or something..... I am not the entertainer, though I often wish I were... I am more the thoughtful questioner, the introspective examiner of life's patterns.... I hope you, as the listener, reader, and viewer have gotten something of use from reading my blog.

We all have it in us, I believe, to reconsider the way we live our life, what our priorities are, etc. and are we making room for what's really important to us. I know I have trouble with that. I tend to do what's always been expected of me, or what my usual routine is, and sometimes it takes a Mack truck or a big change in perspective to see how chained I have been to "the way it's always been." We need others in our lives to show us that sometimes. We need time for reflection to see things that we ordinarily miss when we're caught up in the action. We need to think back about why that happened and even if we don't know why, it's good to ask ourselves about it. To start thinking about how it all relates. So we can be the one who puts our life together, and not leave it up to our parents, society, or whatever authorities that you particularly defer to.....

And then....before the sun goes down, it's time to go outside in the sunshine! See you in the new year, if I don't see you before!

Oh what a wonderful poem

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

- Mary Oliver

the land of colors and shadows

...just sprucing things up in my environment, getting ready for the Autumn to step into the space and wisk me away to some swirling, brisker, nippier, and all-that-stuff land of orange-yellow-red fall foliage and the shadows of our deep selves coming up to be acknowledged and released.

There's wonderful magic afoot!

What I think is that when there are no more words (I haven't written in ages), it's time for art.

Enjoy! I drew this around 1988 and enjoyed it immensely.

What a load of junk!

In 1991 the Great Wall of China lost its title as the largest man-made structure in the world to the New York City landfill in Fishkill, New York!

Austin’s own landfill on Highway 290 could swallow up the Texas State Capital today. And they want to expand it.

(I don't know who "they" is, but that's what the blurb said.) (Sorry that I don't have citation for this info. Photo by Chris Jordan.)

Best Environmental Ads -

This pictures says it all. So stark and compelling. What we do with our "outcasts," "throw-aways," etc. The anawim. According to Matthew Fox, Jesus was on the side of the anawim (those without a voice).

Best Environmental Ads - Powerful Environmental Ads - thedailygreen.com Source: thedailygreen.com

This cartoon is by Dave Walker.

Summer is here like a blanket ... and a nice glass of tea

All I can say is that the summertime is wonderful and the summertime is horrible... for getting anything done. The heat, the crickets, the palpable waves of heat... did I mention the heat? Even inside this fortified air-conditioned building on the fourth floor where I work I feel the ennui of it permeating this brick-and-glass skeleton.... no, maybe that's my imagination. It's just there's nobody here except us staff and like strings attached to balloons, I can "feel" the instructors all playing at the beach, running around town doing errands in their Hondas, sipping champagne from fluted glasses, and eating nachos and dip with a beer chaser.... and I am staring at four walls wondering when it's going to end... ha, ha. Got to have a sense of humor about it..... At least I have peace and quiet. That's something you don't see everyday during the school semester with hordes of newly arrived students and waves of brisk-walking instructors with tablets, pens, carts loaded down with markers, glue, scissors, etc. And me with my office keys, to remind me of where I fit in this giant labyrinth.... Oh, the mind of imagination. If only they knew my inner world and how it embellishes the day with strokes of fantasy, interests, and passion......
Sweet Iced Tea by House of Sims on Flickr

it's okay to lighten up now....

Beautiful flowers I saw at the Art City Austin event on April 25-26, 2009 in Austin, Texas.  Saw many, many more tents with lots of beautiful and dynamic work -- a huge variety of work, including crafts and metalwork.  

Austin is growing as an arts center as well as music center, and I'm really glad about that (because I make art and love art).

From National Geographic's Gallery: One World, One Tribe

I just thought this piece was an amazing story, a bit of real history that lept out at me.  And such a contrast to our rich democratic American society.

"To escape the firing squad, Gulag prisoners would get the portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin tattooed on their chest. Who would have dared shoot at one of Socialism's heroes? Gennadi Vassilievich had done his military service in the '50s. He had traveled all the way to the Chinese border under Stalin's order. After the collapse of Socialist ideology, Gennadi added a cross.

On the Russian bank of the Amur River, I observed him, staggering along, lost and dressed in rags. Through his half-opened shirt, I saw his tattoo. I came near him and greeted him. I detected fear in his eyes. I introduced myself and asked his name. With difficulty, as though he were scouring his memory, he announced, 'Gennadi Vassilievich,' and started to weep. Then he apologized. "You know, nobody has asked me my name in ten years. Nobody. Ever since the day I was thrown out of the plant where I worked, out of the house I lived in. I have roamed the streets for ten years.'"

Photograph and caption by Reza

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photos/reza-one-world/gulag-prisoner.html

cell phone angst and Star Trek

Okay, it's over. My digital detox "fast" which was really a modified diet of select emails to a few family members and a few friends, plus some indeterminate web surfing in lulls in the work day (horrors!) -- is over.

I've cancelled my internet account at home (my router quit and I seized the opportunity) and tried to turn my new cell phone into the ultimate social device for solace and new "connections." Ha, ha. That's a laugh. Ten million micro-hair-pulling-seconds later, after something approximating an eternity of trying to learn the menus on that cell phone, I have given up and given the Devil his due. Maybe he's the one who designed it (!!)

With that said, the cell phone looks beautiful, anyway. Like one of those Star Trek communicators. It got your attention, right? ... when Captain Kirk flipped it open and spoke into it with bold authority. That's how I imagined I looked when I flipped it open in public and... that's where it stopped. It took me so long to figure out which buttons to press to make a call. And forget it if you're trying to look up your messages or anything like real data on the phone. I don't know how many times I've pushed buttons and followed menus and toggled and back-tracked trying to find my way out... and felt like I was caught in a trap of evil design. Did I say the Devil? I mean the Evil Overlord. You know, @T&T (which is really a front for the largest religious cult in the world... and I could go on and on about this, but really, who would listen?) ..... no, I've already gone back (at least in my head) to the "good old days" of picking up my telephone handset and unthinkingly? blindly? punching in the number and hearing it ring and waiting for someone to pick up. Is there anyone out there? Anyone at all?

Digital Detox Week

Digital Detox Week | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters

Source: www.adbusters.org

Adbusters challenges you to do the unthinkable: unplug. For one week (April 21-26) say good-bye to Twitter and Facebook. Turn off your TV, iPhone andXbox.

I'm doing it, except for posting this and checking business and family email (and even then will call family when time allows and let them know). Already moved the TV into a corner (where it usually has me, ha, ha) and read a novel for a change. Plus it helps that I just got a cell phone for the first time and wanting to spend my "free" time learning how to use it. More later.....but I'm liking it.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to you regardless of religious or spiritual persuasion.

More to Life does it again

I love More to Life!

They've done it again with their new website: http://moretolife.org/. It looks beautiful, especially go to Check it out --> Getting creative.

...clarity, truth, and gratitude....

Facebook rocks!

This is a little tie-in with Facebook.  You both rock - blogger and facebook.  Make it easy for me to be on the web.

But there's more here too.  ... give me a chance to find it (ha, ha).......

opening to the muse

IF you have got a living force and you're not using it, nature kicks up back. The blood boils just like you put it in a pot.
- Artist Louise Nevelson

stretched......and how I change that

This is just to break the inertia of not writing. (At least, that's what is getting me going in writing....)
I read so many other sources online but sometimes hesitate or just plain blank out on what I might want to write about myself. In my blog. I had really high hopes for this blog, but I see that I haven't had a vision or commitment to regular blogging. Which is okay, unless I'm thinking I can "do it all" without a plan. You know, enjoy a good job, maintain good family relations, have fun through hobbies and spending time with friends, etc.  Sometimes I try to accomplish a lot doing things I take pride in, such as creating a warm, nurturing home environment, like repairing things around the house, taking care of pets or sick animals, or whatever I'm proud of doing in my life that gives it more meaning.  But sometimes the "doing" is just too much and I stop enjoying it and don't even notice it.  I'm just going through the motions.  And I may not notice it until I realize that I'm depressed, tired, low in energy, dreading what's to come next, etc.  Then I need a break.  For myself.  And it's not always on a schedule. 

Lately, I've been feeling like I'm too stretched a lot of the time.  I am beginning to learn more about what I  need emotionally and what helps me to feel my best.  So, I've decided to give myself at least one day a week off, with the phone unanswered and the errands put on hold, when I can just be with myself and my two cats -- whether it's laying around with my pajamas on or checking my email and responding only to what interests me. And I know there are even more options (!). For example, I've begun drawing again. That is something I used to love to do and then I stopped. Pressure from daily life to compete, to shop, to clean, to "improve," to "get" something, plus no one in my corner really encouraging me (which I thought I needed). I am learning that I have to take the initiative, that no one else will probably care as much as I do about whether I take the time to do artistic things or not.

It's a hard lesson because it is hard for me to make art when no one is interested and I'm by myself at the house. It's easy to fall back into old, worn-out routines from childhood where the first (and only) priority was to take care of the house or the wash, or do "practical" housekeeping things ..... anything but taking "personal" time for me and my artistic expression. More on this to come....

[Thanks to Matt Groening for his cartoon.  Also thanks to http://positivesharing.com/2006/11/top-5-myths-about-workplace-stress/ for the cartoon from their site.  Looks like a good website -- check it out.]

Way to go, Obama! and the American people

In the excitement of the Presidential Inauguration, I went ahead and signed up at Facebook so I could post on the CNN live streaming page.   I  also posted on the New York Times wall via Facebook.   Pretty incredible technology.

This is what I posted yesterday on the New York Times wall:

I think this is great -- being able to share this way.  What a trip!  And you can see how old I am by that comment.  ; )   I am so excited to be sharing my excitement here.  This is the first Inauguration that I've felt a part of  and my first remembrance of a president was Eisenhower (!)   It's always been a bunch of pomp and fluff and dreariness, but this is different.

Way to go, Obama!   ... and Biden,  *and all the people*, including me, that worked for change and prayed for it and believed in it.  If we build it, they will come.  Now.  I'm excited about the presidency and the gov't.  What a change from the Ohio State massacre and Nixon.  I would say "black and white" but that metaphor really doesn't apply anymore.   How about 180 degrees!  Now we can begin to create the world we really want to live in.  Bless us all!

More as soon as I can dig my way out of my workload.....