Category Archives: Art

Art, insight, life, Writing

Decipher the Cipher of Life aka Stranger than Fiction

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Yet again I am trying to downsize and further compartmentalize my life. Shed some of that heavy weight that no longer serves me. It’s hard to do because it requires me to dig into my past and this time it went to an even weirder zone.

Did you ever see that movie “Stranger Than Fiction” with Will Ferrell?  If not, you should and then maybe you will get the same sensation about your own life, especially if you are the artistic or wordy type.

Basically, today I got the sincere feeling I have been writing my life out, before I actually live it… or something to that degree.  I can look at a piece of writing and know when and why I was writing it at the time, but the way I write things is subconsciously coded language.  I don’t know how or why this happens specifically, but I have some assumptions.

The thing about all of this is, I haven’t had a bad life, over all.  I’ve had a rudimentary amount of pain in comparison to other people.  My family is full of good people who tried their best to offer what they could within their means, and probably unbeknownst to me, went above and beyond when needed.

So all I can do is ask myself  “What the actual fuck?”

I am going to admit that most of my journals are a massive spiritual battle. It has been that way as far back as I have recorded my life.  The journaling started around age 12, but I can go back to certain creations done in Elementary School and see a depth that is or was seen as somewhat abnormal for a kid that age.

“She is five- going on thirty five.” My grandma would say when I was little.  I wanted to sit at the adult table.  I wanted to converse.  I had questions and quips beyond my years.  Spirit has been speaking to me forever.

Now perhaps this is just the byproduct of losing a parent at a young age and the feeling that I had to grow up quickly to compensate. Maybe I was just born this way.   Who knows?   I do know that I drove my mother crazy when I was just a small child.  Enough so, for her to strip me down to basically nothing and leave me on the front stoop with the old adage “If you don’t want to be here, you are going to leave the way you came in.”  Naked and shivering.

It’s okay.  My aunt lived a couple of blocks away, and my mom would call her and tell her to come pick me up.  She would come over, packed with some over-sized clothing that belonged to my cousin.  She would wrap me up and take me back to her place until the whole thing calmed down.

Once my dad said, “If your mom was still alive, you would probably be at each others throat.”  Sometimes I feel like I am getting that experience with my grandma.  It isn’t a “hate” or loathing issue… it’s just this weird temperament that arises out of our idiosyncrasies and difference in ideologies.  It’s the byproduct of being stubborn and bull headed while still having the best intentions in love.

A stranger once told me “It’s easier to paint yourself into a corner than it is to write yourself out of a box.”  That has stuck with me for over a decade.  I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but today, I think I got it.

It goes back to Abracadabra. A spell or incantation using the ABC’s.  This is why writing and words are magical.  This is how words hold a vibration that can influence the reality we live in… it’s the way you can send prayers or well wishes or destroy a life in a single breath.

My family can be traced back to the Druids on my Mother’s Father’s side.  There is some witchery in the blood, and that blood still courses through my veins.  I don’t purposely perform rituals or magik; I have a feeling there are a lot of us who don’t.  We settle on titles like “artist” or “writer” or “musician.”   We feel and feed on an indescribable power that fuels our creative spirit.   Words will almost magically manifest on the page without too much work.  We feel born knowing the Muses.  At least, this is how it has always been for me.

I haven’t had to try too hard in creative ways.  “It just comes to me.”

I don’t profess this as any sort of braggart, in fact, in this moment I am questioning all of it.  My family is a mixed up match of “tight lipped” and deceased, I don’t know where I can go to discuss this openly, so I leave it here for you, my few but beautiful readers.   I am realizing that I need to figure out a way to console myself.  Feel free to send suggestions.

“The calm before the storm” is over. I know it and I feel it with a force that is hard to describe. As I read through these papers and place them in a new container, I am god smacked..  I’ve predicted future patterns in my life with no intention of doing so; in alignment with that, the writing has predicted patterns of humanity and what would be worth our attention.  This leads me back a post I made about a week ago in regard to purpose and being a dreamer.  In this moment, I want nothing more than someone I could share the depth of this with, but I don’t have that someone, which is a reoccurring theme in my  personal writing that I rarely share.

I see in this moment that this specific loneliness is a representation of that spiritual battle.  We are all looking for connection in various ways.  I believe in Creation, I believe that Creation will not be out done.  I know I can’t out-create Creation.  That knowing can be overwhelming, like “why even try?” not to mention the clutter!  I make and make and make a mess and an abundance of stuff that may end up at a thrift store or a landfill.   I’ve carried paper around, weighing many many pounds over thousands of miles for what?

This moment.

This is the moment it all shifts.  I might not see the evidence of it immediately so I will leave room for it to shift as quickly as it wants to.

While going through things I stumbled on a good-bye note from a woman named Cecily Monk.  I didn’t know her well, or for very long but I really liked her personality.  She felt like a person that I would have had a long friendship with if we would have had more time together.

Anyway, when she left Keystone, Colorado I was at work and she left a note.

 

The last line is quite potent; “…and remember the journey of self discovery comes not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”  So obviously she was a fan of Proust, or one of her teachers had the actual quote “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” on a motivational poster or something.

I like that she added the word “self” and “journey” because the timing is perfect for today.  Journey vs Voyage is appropriate because I perceive a Journey to be far more relaxed than a Voyage.  Voyage makes me think of a specific conquest, for which I have had none up until this point.  The actual Proust quote takes on a deeper meaning when I rehash my words and see that in fact, I have been on a Voyage but I didn’t know it.  And I have had conquest but I didn’t acknowledge it.

It all comes down to love and forgiveness. And this is going to be so hard because there is a lot of bad shit happening in the world right now.  But just like I am finding illumination in my own writing, we are going to find illumination in just how fucked up humanity has been by bringing it to light.

Today I wanted to get rid of EVERYTHING.  I was feeling oppressed at how much garbage we consume and throw away.  I was overwhelmed by the massive pressure of pain that is the human condition.  I wished I wasn’t part of it because there is no easy solution and by the looks of it, it’s only going to get worse.  I thought about all the mundane stuff we do on any given day just to maintain a “standard” of living.  I thought about all the people who loath the work they do just for a paycheck.

I kept thinking, and thinking about all the stuff I can not stand.  How disappointing all of our entertainment is because it’s coded and getting increasingly ominous in content. I thought about how my creative spirit has been lost because I can’t imagine things getting better and I am sick of rehashing this old script that we are being fed on the daily.  Believe it or not, I believe this rumination to be a good sign.  My art and dreams and writing tell me so.  We really are dancing on the tip of a needle right now.

As I dug through this box the skies turned dark outside.  A while letter the rain came pounding down in sheets.  I laughed out loud and asked if this was a baptism and as I went to shut the screen door the water was falling so fierce that it was splashing out of the rain gutters.  In the few seconds it took me to move the block in front of the door (which is actually a heavy concrete lawn statue of a sleeping man wearing a sombrero) I was soaked and a bit elated.

This isn’t over, though.   I had just begun this excavation and there were more treasures to dig up, so this is only a taste of what that was.  To a certain degree I’ve been pulled into my own mystery.  I am sure it is appropriate timing as next month I will turn thirty-eight.  My life has been amazing, it’s hard not to think it’s a shame that I have felt so heavy through all of it.  Even in times of levity, the gravity of reality has kept me solid and grounded.  Luckily people like that about me, but if they didn’t it wouldn’t really matter because it feels unchangeable.

Last night I re-watched Eternal Sunshine of the the Spotless Mind for the second time, since the first time years ago when it came out on video.  I saw it with new eyes, but I knew the story and when I watched it the story came flooding back.  Looking through my life in writing produces the same feeling.  (Another topic I could probably go to length writing about, but not right now.)

I sense that things are starting to sync up for me again and I am not sure what that means.  I will probably be able to glean some knowledge from further exploration but I don’t know if I will wake up with the energy to keep on tomorrow… or if I will sit in stasis again for a while.  I’ve been practicing forgiveness for myself, and part of that is finding patience when my desires are so vast.  Giving myself time to figure things out without a strict timeline.   It isn’t easy.  It’s hard not to compare myself to other people and their obvious accomplishments.  I think “I’m just sitting on a stack of paper.”  But that “stack of paper” is the analog archive of my life experience in a very raw form.

I like to journal like I like to go bowling.  I can have a couple of drinks and do something to the best of my ability in full enjoyment even if I suck at it.  I feel fulfilled by slapdashedly swinging my dominate hand around without expectation of high results.  It’s something to do that is totally dependent on my personal attitude at the time. I don’t fear judgement because most times I keep it to myself.  If you want to bowl alone, go at 1:30 pm on a Tuesday.  The only people in there are over 60 and there aren’t many of them.  Most are there just for the bar.  Every once and a while a bold elderly man may stop by and offer tips on your game.

It’s like this blog page.  I have like eighty people who follow me.  I get very little engagement and I am fine with that.  Sometimes I just have to express myself out in the world.  When I was younger I was under the impression that I didn’t actually have a voice in the world, or that no one cared what I had to say; now I think that just the right people stumble in at just the right time, not only for me, but for themselves.  My delusions of grandeur have been over for quite some time now.

This digging and sorting is going to continue.  It has to.  Something about “getting your house in order” feels appropriate right now.  May you find patience and forgiveness in yourself, and the strength to get your own house in order.

PS.  The heading image was something my mom wrote on a piece of paper.  I don’t have much of her writing, on the other side is a poem that many people find haunting.  I am not sure if the cipher works for the poem, but if I feel like it, I might see if it does.  If it does, that would be so cool.  On my mom’s typed page it is titled “Love Poem” and instead of “he” it is “she.”  Who knows?  Everyone loves a mystery and the author is unknown.

lovep

 

Art, insight, life, Writing

Hagia Sophia!

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I just posted some illuminating thoughts on FB about the Pineal Gland.  I realize I haven’t really talked about the pineal gland since my youtube was shut down seven years ago and since it is a topical item included in my current painting in process, I thought maybe I should revisit the topic.

If you don’t know about the pineal gland… GOOGLE THAT SHIT, PRONTO!

TLDR:  The Pineal Gland is “the inner eye.”  It has cones and rods just like your outer eyes.  It is sensitive to things that cross the blood-brain barrier. (B cubed.)  It is sensitive to electromagnetic pulse that is directly connected to the heart.  Symbolically it is represented by a pine cone (which may seem innocuous but profound.) Sophia. Wisdom. Sacred Heart. Empathy. Intuition. Reason. Motivation.

Let’s get down to brass tacks; There are reasons you may have never heard of or thought of the Pineal before. Perhaps your are Catholic and visited the Vatican and thought ” Why is there a giant pine cone in the middle of their courtyard?” It’s called the Pigna, Rione of Rome.  Seriously check out the images linked and the wiki link, you will glean some insights.  Here is a Catholic sight with Catholic perspective.  I am not Catholic, or any religion.  This piece of writing is unbiased and only my perception of the topic, links are to be discerned by your own connection to spirit.   Feel free to share your insights in a message or comment.

Recently I have been researching Sophia.  In Roman Catholic doctrine she represents Wisdom; The Holy Spirit, which may challenge your ideas on the Trinity as the Trinity is generally seen void of the feminine.   Sophia has an interesting story when it comes to Creation and the archetype that she has been made to represent in culture.

I don’t usually  explain my paintings, left to the observer to decipher or interpret; however this piece is pretty intentional in focus because of it’s lack of randomness.  I usually just paint as I feel fit, this painting started random and has taken on new life because the idea and spirit of Sophia keeps rising to the top of the topic list and I need to explore her and her energy.  Undoubtedly there is a reason that Hansen Robotics named their most notable and recognizable AI, Sophia.  (Let’s face it, all creators follow some sort of script and Sophia has been obscured for quite a while.)  In my opinion Sophia has been hidden for a reason and once you look into her, you may come to some of the same ideas.

Hagia Sophia! Wisdom!

As I attempt to write this piece I have to undo deletes that I didn’t authorize.

Here are the visual images and post I made to FB.

The pine cone aka the Pineal Gland is the Sacred Heart.

Most depictions of the Pine Cone are upside down. Tiny at top, and broad on the bottom, essentially a detached and dead pine cone.

The Sacred heart is represented as vibrant and thorny yet detached as well but right side up… Coniferous Pine trees are thought to be the most ancient plant genera on the planet, having existed nearly three times longer than all flowering plant species. In this idea the Pine Tree would be the Tree of Life. It bares an inedible fruit that keeps giving while the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil bares a fruit which would be succulent and consumable (perhaps to the point of sickness.)

This leads me to the life sucking reality of the Pine Beetles being a greater allegory for our current reality. Why one type of beetle? Why one type of tree? What is the tree here to teach? What is the purpose of the beetle? What is the cure? How do you perceive the process of extinction? Does it matter? How does it relate to the pineal gland?

Mind, Body, Spirit. Heart, Mind and Soul.

Protect it, it is your direct connection to Source. The pineal can vibrate with the heart syncing it’s electromagnetic pulse. “For those with eyes to see, and ears to hear.” The pineal has cones and rods just like an eye. “If it offends the eye, pluck it out.” If you disconnect or pluck out the inner eye, you lose a connection to your heart that fuels intuition, empathy and moral consciousness.

 

Are you starting to see it? Sophia is the fulcrum between mind, matter and creation with positive and protective intent.   Sophia is every mother figure killed in every Disney movie, leaving the protagonist to grapple between worlds disconnected from Source; meanwhile we are literally beat over the head to whole heartily trust in and follow men.

“Behind every good man is a woman, that is unless you erase that idea.”

Sophia’s story puts her at the helm of the beginnings of Creation.  Her input matters.  She becomes so involved in the creation that she joins it.  Immerses herself in it and in that way changes the outcome beyond unbiased observation/experimentation.  She becomes one with the experiment, she influences observation.

Whoa!  Right?

She is “The Holy Mother of All”.   When you strip away the religion, and look at Creation as experimental pioneers the whole story takes a new shape.

Recently I have been asking out for Divine inspiration,  the climate of the world has had me down and I have needed/wanted a new insight for inspiration.  I have been calling out for intervention and motivation… This is when Sophia came to call.   I was surprised at her subtlety… perhaps that is how she was buried for so long.

Obviously she is a master of patience.  I encourage you to seek her out and ask her more about herself.  Obviously we are not void of her inspiration, we just never caught her name.

 

Art, insight, life, Writing

Rumination on Creation

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I have so many paints and paint brushes.  I am really good at up-cycling and experimenting. I look at, at least one of my WIP’s a day. (Works in progress.)  I think to myself “I could make that idea happen with some flicks of a brush, if I could just focus.”

Eventually I build myself up to do it, fail and improvise.  Such is life, right?

Sometimes I stumble into perfection.  That is usually when I go with the flow and suspend judgement.   Other times I strive for a vision I am incapable of creating to par.  Art may be the one thing besides bowling and frisbee golf that I give myself leniency on. It isn’t the score or adoration… it’s the enjoyment and pay off of participation. Little fucks given and beer or wine can be invited.  Simple, adaptable and easily transparent.

Currently I am working on a piece that is well over two years old that has seen at least six treatments.  Tonight I decided to hone in on that mess.  It’s better but no where near where I want it to be.  It’s okay,  I have no desire to insert manic OCD into my works… but it does mean I will work for a while and then take another hiatus to process my next steps.

Some people train hard for art… some people just let it stew and purge when needed.  I am the latter type of artist.  The only thing gained is my pleasure and occasionally some coins in my purse.

Recently a woman contacted me because she bought one of my pieces at a car wash over a decade ago.  I simply thought that it was cool that she reached out and went on with life.

My one consistent with art is I enjoy making it.  I step into another place when I do, and as much as it is about me keeping myself calm; it is about those who love a piece and find it speaks to them.

I write the same way.   I am not trying to tie an underlying thread, it just happens that way.

Perhaps that is Sophia? Perhaps that is the Holy Spirit?

 

Art, insight, Writing

Dream Job

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I’ve sat here for years now, slowly attempting to kill myself for no discernible reason.  The deeper I dig the less I know.  Over these past years my passions have been purged, and I am left wondering what the point of all of this is, for me, specifically.  Once upon a time I was a person who felt a strong purpose for living.  I was certain I was something special, though there was nothing outward about me that would elucidate such a theory.

I came to think of myself as one of the dreamers.  My hands were never meant to stir the pots, but my dreams were ingredients to a larger stew.  I knew I wasn’t the only Dreamer, but at times it felt like I might be.  Something like the simulation theory, there was one player, playing many parts in the same game, but the avatars seemed clueless to this fact. I was one of the few who wondered why the others couldn’t see how obvious it all was.

Some people are born into the world a sleepy eyed blank slate.  They believe everything they are taught, and they are not taught to question and so they don’t until they are forced to. Once they start to question life starts to fall apart level by level.  Red pilled.  Life will never be the same.   Some refuse the red pill, they can’t face their fear of what is on the other side of the veil.

There are those like me born with one foot on the other side of the veil, and one foot grounded in the simulation.  A delicate dance of walking a wire between worlds.  It’s hard to explain the spiritual nature of existence to those who deny the spirit even exists.  Everyone is born knowing the spirit world exists however the purity in that knowing is often sullied within the first few years of life for a variety of reasons.

It can be a long, hard road getting back to that place of knowing and experiencing the spirit, once one shuts it down or turns it off.

I could never avoid the spiritual realm.  It would come to my dreams and in my waking life.  At times I felt as if there was a bubble of protection around me, which helped substantiate my theory of some purpose.  I figured that purpose would reveal itself as something tangible at some point, however I still feel like I am in a waiting room.

I start to wonder if part of the Dream Job, is to lose all desire for this world.  “To be in the World, but not OF the World.”  These days that is exactly where I exist.  In but not of this World.  I anticipate it’s collapse as I write this.  The signs are here that something big is on the horizon.  The Dreamers have sewn the Dream, and now the Integrator’s are weaving the Dream into the Fabric of Reality.  Restitching the pattern as we’ve known it.  All we need is enough people to man the Loom.  The rest will take care of itself because Spirit is on the side of change.  The expiration date grows ever closer.

We must become sick and disgusted before anything will change and that is why it is prophesied that there will be great upheaval.  Some will riot against Creation and Spirit.  Others will riot against Death and Destruction.   The spirit that drives these entities will have no recourse but to clash in a battle to the end.  It’s already told as to what side will prevail but that knowing doesn’t stop the course of events as they were written in the Time Template so long ago. There is nothing we can do about the outcome other than pick our sides wisely, there is a point coming where there will no longer be any grey area.  No middle ground, fence riding.  Simply, Hot or Cold.  Life or Death.skullface

Art

Self Imposed Solitude vs. Abandonment

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Abandon: (n)

 “a letting loose, freedom from self-restraint, surrender to natural impulses,” by 1822 as a French word in English (it remained in italics or quotation marks through much of the 19c.; the naturalized abandonment in this sense was attempted from 1834), from a sense in French abandon “abandonment; permission” (12c.), from abandonner “to surrender, release”  

The noun was borrowed earlier (c. 1400) from Old French in a sense “(someone’s) control;” and compare Middle English adverbial phrase at abandon, i.e. “recklessly,” attested from late 14c. In Old French, the past-participle adjective abandoné came to mean “zealous, eager, unreserved.”

Abandon: (v) 

late 14c., “to give up (something) absolutely, relinquish control, give over utterly;” also reflexively, “surrender (oneself), yield (oneself) utterly” (to religion, fornication, etc.), from Old French abandoner “surrender, release; give freely, permit,” also reflexive, “devote (oneself)” (12c.).

The Old French word was formed from the adverbial phrase à bandon “at will, at discretion,” from à “at, to” (from Latin ad; see ad-) + bandon “power, jurisdiction,” from Latin bannum, “proclamation,” which is from a Frankish or other Germanic word, from Proto-Germanic *bannan- “proclaim, summon, outlaw” (things all done by proclamation); see ban (v.).

Mettre sa forest à bandon was a feudal law phrase in the 13th cent. = mettre sa forêt à permission, i.e. to open it freely to any one for pasture or to cut wood in; hence the later sense of giving up one’s rights for a time, letting go, leaving, abandoning. [Auguste Brachet, “An Etymological Dictionary of the French Language,” transl. G.W. Kitchin, Oxford, 1878]

Meaning “to leave, desert, forsake (someone or something) in need” is from late 15c. (Etymologically, the word carries a sense of “put (something) under someone else’s control.”) Earliest appearance of the word in English is as an adverb (mid-13c.) with the sense “under (one’s) control,” hence also “unrestricted.” Related: Abandoned; abandoning.

–https://www.etymonline.com/word/abandon

Solitude: (n)

mid-14c., from Old French solitude “loneliness” (14c.) and directly from Latin solitudinem (nominative solitudo) “loneliness, a being alone; lonely place, desert, wilderness,” from solus “alone” (see sole (adj.)). “Not in common use in English until the 17th c.” [OED]

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; … if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free. [Schopenhauer, “The World as Will and Idea,” 1818]

Solitudinarian “recluse, unsocial person” is recorded from 1690s.

–https://www.etymonline.com/word/solitude

Apanthropy: (n)

“aversion to human company, love of solitude,” 1753, nativized form of Greek apanthropia, abstract noun from apanthropos “unsocial,” from assimilated form of apo “off, away from” (see apo-) + anthropos “man, human” (see anthropo-). Related: Apanthropic.

 

I don’t cry very often.  If I do, it usually has something to do with the death of dogs.  This could be because I’ve had my dog for eleven years and I can’t imagine life without her, and I assume that everyone feels that way about their dog if they have one.

This companion has been with me through some very trying times.  She has weathered my emotional storms that come rarely but brutally. I know she won’t just run away, our trust and connection is very deep.  We rely on one another.

People, are a different story.  My relationships with people have been a different story and upon retrospect perhaps I have been too dismissive of humans who mean well and matter very much to me.  Perhaps I have taken for granted the love others are able to have for me as a person with meaning in their life.  Perhaps my willingness to be dismissive has created a reality where I am more easily dismissed.  Or, maybe, I am being the center of my own galaxy and taking things too personal. I don’t know, but I cried today over a human.

I cried because this human finally said that they were leaving this (at times God Forsaken town) in anywhere between four and six months.  There is nothing left here for this person, except me. However I am not a reason to stay here and I haven’t made much of an effort to validate that I could be worth staying for.  I’ve been somewhat dismissive.

Today I was faced with the thought experiment of what it will be like to be sort of back to square one when it comes to human connection outside of my living situation.  What it will be like to not see the one person I’ve see almost daily for at least a few minutes for the last six years, who isn’t related to me.

My heart is broken and I didn’t expect this.  I always figured if they were going to go, it would be a sort of relief, and yet I don’t feel relieved.  I feel scared as fuck. Despite the times we haven’t agreed and I’ve had to use my words to point out the things that are incongruous or vital to our growth, I am so scared to be alone again.  Friendless.

See, I don’t want to cry over this.  I want to be callus because I fear this loneliness so much.  I felt abandonment to some degree every day of my life because my mom died when I was so young.  That feeling never left.  That abandonment eventually turned itself into self imposed solitude.  “You are the only one you can trust.  Everyone always leaves.”

I’ve used my loss as justification to build a very strong wall around myself.  It is constantly fortified and therefore basically unmovable, un-scale-able, and unbreakable. I’ve told myself that “It’s better this way.”  But is it?

Another thing I tell myself is “Everything works out in the end.  Go with the flow.”  Meanwhile, I am just as scared as the next guy who is scared of being alone forever.  I note that I am currently thirty-seven and that number isn’t decreasing.  My fortress needs to crack.  It needs to break, but all I know is how to build it stronger, not how to tear it down.

I am at a loss when it comes to how to deal with it, other than crying for a while, because I know that tomorrow I will tell myself to shove it back down and keep living without appearing to be broken.  And that life will continue and circumstances will change and I will be at the mercy of those changes.  That’s it, in a “go with the flow” mentality.  You realize you have no real control over anything but your own personal expression in the world. I suppose the impression I try to leave is resilience, strength and emotional independence.  Self reliance in times of uncertainty or trouble.  Am I successful at that?  I don’t really know.

I want to put out some blame here beyond myself, toward the pervasive programming in this world that has helped me fortify my fortress.  The blame goes to the insanity of feminism.  I never once called myself a feminist, but I have inherited many of the destructive belief patterns that are inherent in that movement.  Namely the degradation of the family.  More specifically, the demoralization of men and the positive role they can play in our lives.

I have no idea why I have taken on these views and manifested them into my reality the way I see them in this moment. I thought I knew better.  My dad is a really great person, a really dedicated individual.  My male family members (over all) have been wonderful, non violent people.   Where did all of this come from?

“Hey girl, you don’t need a man, you can do it on your own. Guys suck anyway.”

It just isn’t universally true.  And attitudes like that make you focus on every negative aspect of a person.  It programs you to look for the worst and to somehow capitalize on whatever you find in the most demoralizing way.  I’ve been with kind, supportive partners and with everyone of them, I tried to “break” them.  Why?  Why was I breaking them instead of building them up?  Why was I justifying that breaking them would build them up?   When has that ever worked out for the good of things and people?  It hasn’t.  It’s called mind control.

Mind Control is easily asserted on those whose minds have been broken by trauma.  I allowed an earlier trauma in my life to dictate my future reality with a certain sense of failure.  In turn I would blame myself as being “unlovable.”  If I received a compliment that was true, I would shrug it off as “niceties” or smoke being blown up my ass.   Never feeling worthwhile of praise unless it had something to do with external talent.

My heart is just so full of love, but it’s gotten harder over time to show it.  Express it.  Be it.  I didn’t like being broken like that today.  I didn’t like seeing that truth in myself.  But mostly, I didn’t like crying about it.  I didn’t like the submission of seeing a truth I had been avoiding. I didn’t like facing it alone and realizing that I set myself up for this.  Even though I fell into a program, I am the one who let it go on this long.  I am ashamed of myself, but I will commit to forgiveness.

I’m not sure how this moves forward, “but I am sure it will all work itself out in the end.”

 

 

Art, insight, life, Writing

Letter to my 30 Year Old Self.

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Dear 30 Year Old Mandie/ Madge- whatever you want to call yourself;

You kind of know me, because I am you and so this shouldn’t be creepy or offensive in any way…. but DAMN GIRL!  You are so adorable and just the right amount of weird and sexy.    Farming really looked good on you.  Nature is a place that brings out your best assets. I really miss the entire wardrobe you collected and discarded over the years.

I notice that you looked forward to 30, and you KNEW that once you arrived that you were on top of the world.  No longer a child, and old enough to say you know better… The prospect of thirty was exciting… and it felt like an accomplished age. You weren’t wrong.  You really played strong, hard and responsible with the right amount of reckless.   You learned and observed a lot. Despite normal selfishness, you wanted nothing more than to give and receive the gift of seeing others happy.   Your strength still helps me today.

I know you are still struggling with body dysmorphia at this point. You have a hard time facing it, as you always have.  Your diet is really great, you really try to “work your body” outside of the demands of a physically demanding job, and you still feel inadequate. I just want to say, damn girl.  If you could see me, the potential future you in my today; you would know what I am saying.

If you could really SEE the whole you,  beyond picking the right take from a video meant for youtube,  You would be amazed at how often you’ve demonized yourself.  When things were good, they were great and yet still as avoidable and demonized as when things felt bad.

The You, who made up “Madge Midgely Laycock” and so many other avoidance characters, was both brilliant and sad.  You  honestly always said what it is you are experiencing, and sometimes bad grammar is your partner in crime, but it is adorable.

30 Year Old Mandie, I miss you.  I mean, its only been 8 years, but, WOW, I LOVE YOU!  I feel so much of our internal, eternal  realness was represented in your excitement, boldness and presence.   You didn’t even know you were thinking about Me, now, then.  But, I get it.  I feel ya girlfriend, self I am.

Thank you for being so unabashed, always.  I think that is one of the things I love most about you. You are really strong, creative and resilient.  It’s awesome to know that you are me.

I ‘m sorry if I have disappointed you.  I didn’t expect this, either.  You know how we roll?  With the punches.

I know I feel inclined to defend or explain myself to you, but you will understand when you get here.  And, if I know you, like I know me; there will be forgiveness, compassion and understanding.

Mandie2010-2012, You are a force to be reckoned with.  Thank you for the time we were able to spend together.   You taught me how to really be a friend to me, you, us, and the future.

In Trusting Love,

The 37 year old You.

M.E.S.

Art

Facebook- Refine Your Desires, Define Your Face

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This process of refining my Facebook feed has been interesting… and I am not done with it yet.

Slowly I am putting people into groups of demographic.  (Sorry kids, I don’t like labels either but now you each get your own space in a category.)

By clicking on my Friends Lists under the Heading “Explore”, I can see a grouping of posts from people that I have separated.  Which means if I don’t want to see stuff about my home town, music, or babies… I can effectively do that.  When I want to see what’s happening in the music community, I can click on that group and scroll, until the feed ends.

This experiment has been both awesome and gross.  One on hand I am taking control of my input and output and on the other hand I am silently judging and allocating realms for people, they don’t even realize they are now existing within.

Doing this has significantly cut down on my time scrolling my FB feed.  Now, if I am curious about something or someone, in particular, I go to the list I put them in.  I get the added benefit of seeing posts from people who are also existing in that category.  In relation to that and on a side note, the algorithms are putting similar posts in alignment.  This is when I see two strangers talk about the same thing, even though they are unaware of one another.  I like it for research purposes and find it creepy as fuck on another level.

I have to face the fact that I will be invisible to people I care about, who I thought cared about me due to the “unfollow.”

The “unfollow” means that two people are responsible for their interactions.  If they stop interacting online, eventually the dialog will dry up.  Who knows if you still call each other, send letters and talk, if you don’t do those things, expect that relationship to take a hit in the cyber realm.

I’m not sure yet if the menial contribution I have after this point, will be useful.  I’ve basically told you how to take baby steps in completely disconnecting from the most major social media site on the planet.

I haven’t missed the mindless scrolling, but I miss the late night banter on a controversial posts.  I suppose that says a lot about me, and the types of things I like to engage with.

Regardless, I want to feel confident and happy with my online social experience as well as being real with myself about how I do not want social media to dominate my social existence.

I will continue to post updates as I notice, notable things.  Such as the featured image on this post which begs the question of how badly I want to be involved in one of the largest data collection experiments in human history.   That isn’t as easy to answer as I do appreciate the platform for reference in the world.

See, even if I am isolated, I know what is going on around me because of this platform and it allows me to do something that I enjoy doing, which is to assist others with requests or needs.  I imagine that pretty soon everything will be powered by auto-bots virtual assistance (this is a growing trend and being marketed to individuals who don’t have the time to man a busy page all day, and have no trust for a human Admin.)  The program will scan for questions and deliver answers more quickly than waiting on a human to share their input.

There is a need to sincerely look at this from a higher perspective and not just the selfish nature of desire.

Until then, may you interact with social media with balance and responsibility.

Art, Cheyenne, insight, life

My Unabashed Wyoming Bias

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I have to admit it;  I am completely enamored and biased by people from Wyoming.  Specifically Cheyenne, Wyoming.

I was born there; raised there, excited to leave there, and reluctant to come back.

I’ve said it once and I will say it again; I think I came from a really special “breeding ground.”  It gave us everything other than what we wanted, and we made do  with what we had.

I stepped outside my FB echo chamber today, to check out my Cheyenne Friends List.  I set this up almost ten years ago, as a new offering on the FB platform.

See it automatically set up a “Cheyenne, Wy” friend group, but it was purely based on the people who listed Cheyenne as their current home town.  At that point I created my own list including people I have known over the 18 years of growing up, and then adding people I met living there, from real life and online interactions.

Some of my favorite people from my past, exist on that list.  I root for them the hardest.  I believe in them the most.  They rarely disappoint.

By this point in my life, I thought I would be the type of person that  would be “followed” or “friended” for this specific type of list but somewhere down the line I really stopped giving a fuck and I am sure people have noticed and unfollowed or unfriended me along the way.

I am no longer the over achieving-personality pleasing person I thought I was.  I am not jumping large social hurdles, or even putting up much appearance at all.  I am okay with that because it leaves me time and energy to root on other people.  It gives me something outside of myself to “believe in.”

Personally, I feel pretty solid in the fact that I have to keep myself in balance  enough to the point that I can’t really rely on others for supplemental encouragement or energy; nor do I want to be an energetic vampire.  So we sit in stasis.

I will admit I know some amazing people who  continue to exist with amounts of personal drive that I have a hard time fathoming, but probably could have trumped in my earlier years.

These people are from my home town.  These are people I want to follow. People I knew, “once upon a time.”

I want to see how they thrive and fall.  I want to be there to encourage them no matter what.

But I feel this way about other people who have fallen in and out of my periphery since then.  I never want to see them hurt.  I do not want to contribute to their pain.  I believe in them and their purpose.

Perhaps it is just those old stories, of when we were young and lacking confidence and suddenly found ourselves falling into a new group of friends, or perhaps it is just that rubbernecking attitude like watching a car wreck on the highway; I will never leave on a purposefully mean note.  I may not agree with everything they say, but I feel that they represent me on some level, whether due to geography of once upon a time or some other relating factor, I believe deeply in who those people are and what they have to offer.

I love my Wyoming Kin.  I love having a list to check up on, when I am curious.

I say : Go dominate the world with the amazingness that  you are my fellow Wyomites.  Always ask Wy-Om-In(g) here?  Wy-Om-I- (will)ngly to stay or go?  You know the Wind will always blow you in the right direction, if you are listening.

Wyoming- sometimes you aggravate the shit out of me, but for some reason, I always have your back; the people you produce and spit into the vast space of time and separation are worth keeping and holding close.  I will remember this when you forget.

Wyoming you are more akin to the dandelion than you are the Indian Paintbrush… unless of course they are plant cousins, and then I can see the relation and purpose in distinction.

Here is a bowl-full of love for the vast, beautiful creativity that was able to dissipate outside the square we were living in.  I hope to see your beautiful faces, sooner than later.

In the meantime, we will still be here waiting for you to return with your wild seeds, ready and willing to plant a new and colorful generation.

Art, insight, life

The FB Unfollow Experiment: Is Anyone Out There?

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My  FB feed is almost completely empty.

I am in my own echo chamber.

Things are awkward.

I am thinking even more about my previous posts than before  (Thanks FB Memories On This Day) … I re-read them and listen.

(I really did think about them a lot before I posted, but some were quite slapdash. )

Things that I would think before posting:

“Who isn’t going to like this and do I care?”

“Who is going to troll me or beat me down because of what I posted and why?  Are they on my friend list?”

“I’m tired, I know my grammar sucks and my message is messy; we all do it,  who is going to beat me down about that?”

“Do I really believe what I am posting right now, or am I just looking for reactions and interactions?”  ( These are posts without any preface in commentary.  Posts that I know will be catalytic, they are usually highly commented on, or left as silent posts no one seems to see. In this case I always wonder, “What are my ‘friends’ capable of?”)

“Am I just lonely right now, looking for conversation?” ( I like thought provoking, mind expanding and controversial conversations… can I create a breeding ground of bias or honest offerings?)

“Who is willing to be raw in public?”

“Is this a feisty post meant to ruffle feathers because I feel like stirring the proverbial pot right now? ” ( I have nothing to physically hit in my frustration.  Is this a universal feeling in the moment or is it me, being the ultimate weirdo?)

“Am I proud of what I wrote?”

“What happens when someone gets fierce and I don’t expect it?”

“Can I keep my integrity in my responses?”

“Will I allow myself to look at responses and respond?”

“Is someone going to have me committed to an asylum for just being myself online?”

Yeah… I’m not really a “write unabashedly with no thoughts and post” kind of person.

I have at least 30 things sitting in a draft bank because it hasn’t felt like the “right time, place or articulation” to post and the ideas are just that…  ideas.  It doesn’t always pour forth as clear and  thought out thoughts, commentary or observation.

The ideas are not always fleshed out in an edited way.  Sometimes it’s bare bones;  basically notes, with some cohesive sentences lacking  the obvious mechanics of language  people need to be able to read English.  They are sloppier than my normal lackadaisical writing style.

( I still write for myself… if you like it, or if it helps you; BONUS!)

I, much like every other human, are worried about being brutally disseminated by people who either honestly disagree, or are inspired by playing devils advocate.  I get the same reaction most people do when they are confronted about their offerings… upper lip sweat, under arm sweat and heart palpitations.   It’s not  a great look but it hasn’t killed me yet.

Sometimes I will write something, and I go to bed, my body coursing with the stress hormone cortisol (which assists in weight gain) silently worrying about what responses I am going to wake up to.

You wanna know nuts?  That shit is NUTS.  My entire sleep cycle, and body hormone production is being influenced by my fear of “who might hate me tomorrow, because I was somehow controversial  in their opinion, and how they will let me know about it.”

The people I have met in real life, and have had the wonder of calling “friend”, is priceless to me… and I always fear losing it, because I was often the “third wheel” growing up.  Treated as a prop for jealousy or bullying.

When I did make friends in adult hood, it really filled an empty space in my heart and I wanted to hold on as hard as I could… but sometimes it feels like those friendships are slowly draining out because that is the harsh reality of maintaining friendships in adulthood, through changes.  It’s a hard two way street.

So often I feel like I have nothing to offer but my mind; imagination, creativity, kindness and experience; and even that feels somehow worthless.  (This is by no means a pity party… just the personal and internal interpretation of experience by the author.)

At the end of  the day, I just really want to talk to people that I enjoy and love, while also  inquiring about how they see the world and interact with it.  The cyber interaction reality is a bit different than real life connection.  I set myself up for a huge potential disaster with this tactic, online.

I wake up. I feel fine, sometimes even great… and then I think… “Oh yeah, I wrote or posted a provocative thing… I guess I am going to have to deal with that later.”

Eventually, I would hesitantly approach my feed and notifications and expect to see bombs, but instead, mostly, I found an echo chamber.

I justified this as ” I have really respectable friends.”  I assumed those that didn’t agree, just didn’t respond.  I didn’t take into account “unfollowing.”

This whole experiment was provoked in me, because one of my longest running female friends, (who I put in the category of my first REAL female friend in adulthood, and therefore was admitted to Best Friend Territory)  admitted that she unfollowed me ” a long time ago” after a recent and controversial post that I had made somehow popped up on her regulated feed.

Of course I didn’t know that she had unfollowed me.  Facebook doesn’t tell you that.

I mean, she still honored our relationship because she still calls me on the phone, and she didn’t FB unfriend me; however my posts were so disturbing to her, that  it was enough to make her question my mental state.  She chose to unfollow, as to not engage in topics that I posted that cause her to feel cognitive dissonance .

Before the recent post came up on her feed, she didn’t tell me that she was worried about my mental health or well being and I she rarely commented on anything that wasn’t commented on by a mutual friend.

This begs the question of how much we actually care about each other, and how much we use each other as entertainment and distraction, or as a fulcrum for  disagreement; as well as how far we will go to create our own self perpetuated echo chambers.

To me, this seems like a great reason to experiment.  I feel like I am super honest about my mental health in my posts, and my blog writing.  How much of that you choose to read, as a reader or friend, is up to you.

If  anyone needs  me to spell it out,  “I am lonely as fuck and I crave insightful, creative and thought provoking conversations.  I love thought experiments and imagination.  I crave human contact.  Most of all, I want sincere and deep connections.” Few people in my real life offer this, so I find it where I can and in my spare time, I provoke it online.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am hoping that over a week or so, I start getting posts on my feed again, especially from people that I really care about.  Honest posts, raw posts, thought provoking posts.  Simply, “Engaging Posts.”

When I engage online, I do it with an open heart, an open mind and a strong desire to CONNECT.  (Hey, I want hits of Oxytocin, too and I am in a huge hug drought!)

I am not holding my breathe.

Right now, my feed exists of  me; the pages I admin (if they have activity), ads,suggestions of new  friends and FB direct posts on how to properly use FB.

My feed is the biggest  self echo chamber in the cyber world right now… to be honest, it feels pretty fucking lonely, awkward and weird; but somehow appropriate because that sums up my real life.

I am still receiving notifications on my own posts or comments on posts… so you know, I can attend to those but if I want to know “wuzz up” with someone, I have to navigate to their page, and scroll their feed.

Do you know what happens when you scroll a feed?  It isn’t always ordered by the date of the post.. so you might scroll through 45 pictures that were taken 5 months ago (highly commented on) and somewhere in the middle of that find something that was posted recently.

When my friend told me that the post that upset her popped up on her feed… I had to wonder:

Is FB trying to break the real life friendships we have made and have been able to maintain over decades, or is it just trying to create some subtle but extra chaos in the world because now we base so much of our worth on our likes and responses? (Now every time you respond, there is an automatic audience able to respond.)

I don’t know, but it feels wack.

I don’t want the friends that I have had for years, whom I’ve  met in real life and helped or helped me and been present in some really personal  and trying times to placate me as obtuse because of my online posts.  That is really scary territory.

Yeah, I admit, I am kind of a strange and at times considered a controversial person.

Often I don’t fit into the mainstream.

What I do understand, is that the world is full of critics and trolls ready to beat someone down.  I don’t want to fall victim to that, and I don’t want my real life friends to be on the  worst end of my insecurities.

I am my own worst critic; sometimes it is really hard to be “nice” or “kind” to myself, and it is the exact reason I don’t decimate people for fun, online.  It would be easy to do but I fully understand that most people are hypercritical of themselves and need no help  in the self destructing process.

My job is to see the best in all of us, and to encourage that.   My posts,  especially those  that are  considered fringe, are just that… fringe: thought experiments for the willing. If you are unwilling, and reactive in a mad way, check yourself.  Why does this shit make you mad. I really have no invested interest other than “getting to know you better” ,  this is a way to gauge what we can and cannot talk about and it is completely based on you.

(Who ever “you” are, You could probably talk about anything with me. Unless you hurt people for fun.. Those topics make me upset.)

I feel less likely to post those random things now  because I am begininning to have some new thoughts,

“How many of my ‘friends’ have ‘unfollowed’ me because they think I should be committed for a post they didn’t like?”

“Am I going to be forced to conform for the sake of others and if I do, will I find out I have no actual friends?”

These are scary thoughts, scarier than my thought experiments about things we can’t prove because there will be an eventual out come that exists out of our control.

It reminds me of why I’ve always wanted to just run away and disappear.

These are not fun thoughts to have,and I plan on pooping them out soon because so far as I can tell, they belong in the waste bin.

Even my “crazy” posts are more positive than being okay with fading away or disappearing.  But sometimes, I want it, because I can’t seem to get the connection I want or need.

If you want a thought experiment, think about fading away or disappearing with no reason or clue, and then contemplate about who would care and why.  I’m not ready to give up on Life because of the opinions of others, and I still desire connection.

Facebook is a mind fuck.

 

 

 

 

Art

What Would You Pay For Survival?

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Some people think I have lived a hard life.  In fact sometimes, it feels that way.  But it doesn’t feel hard like other peoples’ lives are hard.

Emotional pain has been my biggest teacher and adversary; it has showed up in many ways, for as long as I can remember.  I suppose happens when you realize you must make friends with the inevitable.  Ideally we would never suffer, however, we do and this is a periodic truth for everyone to some degree.  A period of suffering emotionally.

Now some people, they have hard lives because of physical things. Being dealt a raw deck.  Maybe their care taker(s) were mean, abusive or addicted.

Maybe they were left to the system.

Perhaps they fit the archetype of being from the wrong side of the tracks and not having money.

Maybe they grew up in a war zone.

Maybe they had everything and still felt empty, regardless.

I could think of a million situations a person could be borne into that are stylistically worse than any trauma I have ever had in my life.

Suffering is personal.  A personal misery is a strange and unique filter.

On both ends, there arel people dealt worse hands, even within my own town and county.  How and why, would I have such an amazing, yet at times absolutely mundane life, whilst feeling suffering or lack, or loss?

I can’t help but wonder…

There are certain things we realize must happen in basic survival.  Food and shelter.  That is the basic frame work of life.  If you are a pregnant mom, you basically embody that; but, to sustain that you must feed and shelter yourself.  So, that, is what we do; all through life, we survive on food and shelter.  We look for it; we work for it, we pay for it, we up grade it, we miss it when we don’t have it, crave it when it is unattainable, and customize the shit out of it.

Meanwhile, Society is programmed to accept this diatribe of;

” If you want to survive, you have to put a price on it, and you have to work like a pimp for it,and we are always going to make you crave more, bigger, better and extravagant… unless you are the type who wants, small; in which case we are going to make you feel very small, and it will reinforce your own insecurity of your own insignificance.  Yet at the end of the day, you will justify all of it by boasting about your tiny carbon footprint.  Meanwhile, you will continue to sell yourselves out; all for the ultimate feeling of security when it comes to the two things in life that shouldn’t cost you your actual life and livelihoods to maintain.”

Ouch.  Right?

Our consumption relies not only on demand, but also on curiosity.  We are in an age of curiosity, but mostly that curiosity is boiled down to “new, different, and extreme ways of making money.”

Remember when youtube was really kind of a crap shoot when it came to great, and well produced content?  Anybody can do that now.  Combine that with the ad revenue, you have several echo chambers, some real scabs, and the worlds first “In Real Time Soap Opera.”  There are youtubers who literally make their income by talking shit about other youtubers.  There are cliques and alliances, fall outs and bad moves.

Thank YOU, YouTube, for deleting me!  If I would have known then, what I know now… no way I would want to be on that platform today.  Lucky for me, I was in and out before monetization was really kicking into high gear.  Meaning, only really, really big channels had the option of ads.  Now anyone can start a channel and sell out, basically, almost immediately.

There are studies that talk about how all the “likes”, and “updates” trigger  dopamine receptors in the brain, and we are basically living like cyber drug addicts; only the drug is confirmation.  It is the confirmation that we exist.  A validation that what we have to say, is worth attention.  We live in a society that is telling us that We All have a story that we need to share… that there is some sort of urgent imperative to getting it all out there.

I notice all these stories are leaning toward “Entertainment.”  Note even on TV, many of the stories are rehashes of the lives of people in their 30-40’s.  The 70’s ,80’s and 90’s.   Not everyone gets the opportunity to write a sitcom, but anyone can be an actor, reporter, sketch artist, or musician on Youtube.

So here we are.

Couples pulling pranks on each other to make some views, laughs, and cash.  They need to feed the need to be seen.

We have kids with severe dis-morphia, dying before our eyes, as they slowly kill themselves for comments.

We have ranters, ravers, over consumers looking for likes as they un-box merchandise they will never use, and sometimes destroy.

You have the “internet recycle teams” that take this trash, and make more trash with it, putting it into the greater place where internet trash goes…. viral or just congestive.

Our cyber world is a bigger trash heap, than it is a resource tool for usefulness.  But this is to be expected.   When you have years worth of content uploaded and downloaded every second of every day… it’s going to get nasty when trying to sift through it all.

The” Bigger Plan” must be aimed to Absolutely Bog People Down- take them so deep that they have no way of digging themselves out, EVER.

My life has been magical, because I know what it feels like to be “bogged down.”  The image for me, is like being drenched in muddy water, fully clothed, in layers so soaked that it is hard to walk.  I know what it is to want to wish myself away, but it isn’t that easy.  Sometimes the options are to walk away slowly or completely strip down and run.

I’ve felt pretty stripped down recently and I don’t have anywhere to run to.  It’s like standing naked in the wind, and letting the Wind, run it’s course.  It is freeing in some different kind of way, but I am left with a crusty layer I have to deal with.

The act of survival; eating and having a place to rest and care for yourself, should be a non-issue at this point in history.  Where have we gotten so off course to make even more extreme jumps in the gap of the “have’s” and “have not’s”, except for now how easy it is to brand oneself and reap that paycheck. To fulfill the need of being wanted or worth something.

The weird thing is, we are each priceless, and yet we will be the first to put a price upon ourselves. This saddens me, because this is the New Way.  People are sick of working for others, so they work for themselves, selling their egos.  Sometimes products come with it.  And this is the New Commerce, this is how people figure out their worth, they redirect their work energy toward themselves,  hoping to reconcile on the outside, that which they inherently know to be true but are afraid to look at directly in the eye.

In this process they monetize it, and wait for reward.  But what are these real rewards we seek?   To, “not have a normal job”?   What happens when this too, becomes saturated, (as it seems to be) suffering it’s own crash because of demonetization and disinterest?  Will Self worth plummet?  Or will the real message prevail?  It’s hard to say.

I do think that the collective path we tread, presently, is using this desire to fulfill needs and wants in a most peculiar and inappropriate way.  At this point, it looks as if people will use the tool of technology to destroy themselves, before technology will get the opportunity to turn against the people.

We can be our own worst enemy.

It takes a certain death and destruction of oneself (some times a series of many), in order to get out of ones own way.