Category Archives: Art/Music/Theatre

Y4 – Day 335 – March

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FROM MY UPCOMING BOOK – GODDESS MUSINGS

March

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

In March, we prepare the soil; digging deep with vigor, adding nourished amendments and envisioning a bounty for our spring garden. We will set up a foundation of mercy, explore the many routes to contemplation and reap rewards from proper balance.

March sets the stage for giving. For -give -ness is a state of generosity, for we GIVE compassion, tolerance, acceptance and love, replacing fear, judgment, intolerance and control. Forgiveness is a process of healing layer upon layer of hurt. We learn to settle disputes, let go of grievances and release resentments one day at a time, every day of our lives.

Along the way, we pick up tools for our personal development. We find new ways of meditating, cleansing and clearing to lift the strata of unhelpful patterns. Forgiveness practices are training wheels encouraging you to cycle with your own two feet, balancing spiritual and worldly interactions in a steady rhythm to move you forward on the course.

Cleaning our slate, emptying our old trash of complaints, we refill ourselves with renewed, better choices and perceptions. By taking out the garbage, we become empty canvasses for pure, original art, design and hues. We free our imaginative souls.

There is no heaven without absolution. This month, we realize we can’t want misery for other folk without being in limbo ourselves. Forgiveness ends every illusion we are separate from the present moment and our oneness with the universe. It begins and finishes with me, with you, with us.

Making amends to ourselves, forgiving our own harshness towards ourselves, we become guided by our true north, reconnecting with our actual power and the exact reason for our existence.

Let’s dissolve fear, call for spiritual guidance and spread the Love! Let’s carry out every moment with vivid, deep, extraordinary and exciting vision together! I implore and dare you to select this month as an opportunity to shed your Karma and past through forgiveness.

My spirit is eternal. It loves Harmony, Peace and Wonder. I trust that my highest good and greatest joy are unfolding now.

 

 

Y4 – Day 289 – Women Lead Us Out of the Cave

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I wanted to be a rebel rouser all my life and at last I can be if I grab the last of my hidden, submerged power not repress it. It is revitalizing the juices !!

A new women’s revolution is taking place. I want to be a part of it. Men are included.

Have you seen the new National Geographic? It is about gender.

There is a human transformation taking place and women (of course) are leading the way. We have been great organizers, delegators, team players and life supporters since the beginning of time.

Not only do we ache to be heard, we must move forward not backward in our expanding awareness both internally and externally.

The political atmosphere is a call to action and it has created a tidal wave of women surging forth. I am not hysterical – I am enthusiastic. I don’t snoop – I investigate. I am not a bitch – I am assertive. These are just 3 examples of how SYNTAX or labels have kept us down. Or so they thought.

“The times they are a-changing” as Bob Dylan once wrote. But we need even more.

Y4 – Day 277 – Death

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I read somewhere that the artist who doesn’t ponder death much is probably not much of one. I understand. Once you go there, your creations get richer, deeper. If you avoid it, it will still come.

The ego does not want to be forgotten. If you read, you know a writer can entice you into their world, their time and space. If you appreciate music, you know a composer can tear your heart open, send you back in memory and land you back safely with the last note. If you love art, most of what you stare at is speaking to you from a gone dimension.

I believe we are all creative. I believe we all want to be remembered. I know I want to express myself so I will leave some sort of legacy, as well as share my soul. One human form reaching out from the crypt to another, alive and in the future.

 

Y4 – Day 275 – update on book reviews

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I just wanted to share some excepts from yesterday’s book review that might not show up when you sample the book on the internet.

From Writing Still – “For a while, I thought I might want to be a pianist…I see now that the piano was my training ground…I was preparing for a lifetime of working with words. The phrasing, the pauses, the crescendos and diminuendos, keeping time, the creating of shape…All these are with me as I approach the page.”

“…what goes on internally…is gripping to the point of leaving the reader breathless. We are guided deep into the inner world…tracing thought after thought until we are him, we become him, and this is literature doing its job, which is to penetrate the surface, to dismantle the ordinary, to find the dropped stitch, to show us that we are-all of us-built of these…moments, that they mark the turning points of our lives.”

Isn’t that delectable and rewarding to read and sink into?

And from When Women Were Birds – “My mother left me her journals, and all her journals were blank. My mother’s journals are a shadow play with mine. I am a woman wedded to words. Words cast a shadow. Without a shadow there is no depth… no substance. If we have no shadow, it means we are invisible. As long as I have a shadow, I am alive.” – this is after seeing Strauss’s opera “The woman without a shadow”, a myth. She explains the entire story and deduces the above. And then she goes on to say, “We are all held captive by something. My mother’s prison was her prescribed role.”

She has great one liners I think can be taken out of context too. ” True eloquence has an edge, sharp and clean.”

She interprets Claudine Herrmann. ” We either flee and disappear or steal, adopt, and adapt to the dominant language of men, often at our own expense.”  – ” I thought if the feminine voice (for lack of a better term) continues to be eclipsed, every aspect of virile thinking will be emblazoned across the face of the Earth at all our peril.”

She makes you ponder your greatness, your need to express yourself and save the small and large parts of nature and of yourself.

Y4 – Day 274 – First Book Reviews of 2017

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I urge every woman to read more women writers.

Before I proceed I need to warn you this is my generation’s perspective and is changing subtly yet slowly.

Reading about women’s writing lives has a familiarity to it. Unlike men, their roles are rigidly defined. To escape and have a room of one’s own like Virginia Woolf describes has hardly evolved much, as far as I can tell. Every male author has had a wife, sister or caregiver who takes care of him but most females are still expected to be housekeepers, moms and devoted wives. Yes, I know there are exceptions, but this is generally the scenario.

Case in point: Still Writing, The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life by Dani Shapiro. With deft and defiance, she navigates her writerly life. Having a family and settling down in the countryside, she carefully explains the ups and downs of writing around her family’s needs and timetables. Her husband commutes to his writing job. What I surmised after reading her memoir about her chosen career is that when you write from home, the boundaries must be drawn in bold type, not in sand. Is this what Hemingway meant by a writer must bleed?

When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams is another meditative, lyrical and intentional read. It is not strange that I read these together. Both are personal, insightful and a bit radical. William’s theme is the invisibility of her mother and the metaphorical silent suffering of our mother earth. TTW is a conservationist, a liberated Mormon and a lifelong amateur ornithologist. There is much to digest in her fifty four chapters (to correlate with her mother’s 54 years of life). She inserts facts like whispers on the page, leaving you with an emotional charge. I had to read this in drips and drabs. The content is beyond symbolic.

Both of these women writers left me wanting to hear more of their music. I would recommend these two books highly if mature, non-fiction is your favorite genre.

Y4 – Day 267 – Writing Lessons from 2016

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Writing from different perspectives of the same event expands your view.

Then, close in and bring in detail to be in on the scene like an observant voyeur.

Lather, rinse and continue. Let the shape of repetition form.

Build a story spiral or an inquisitive platform.

Edit, remove and put away.

Let some time pass.

Re – edit, condition and then let it go.

Remember to share.

Y4 – Day 227 – Balance, Equanimity and Peace

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A Japanese tea set lovingly placed on a comfy, cushy white silky looking bed cover is my inspiration and emblem tonight of balance, equanimity, beauty, simplicity and Peace. Thank you to V for photo shot in Osaka, Japan two months ago.14446466_10210105799712194_117048582_o

This represents balance in its purest, mathematical, visual art form. The cup on the left is turned upside down with its white, tall circle a counter to the right cup facing up with its deep, dark round shape.

In the center, the tea kettle, spout due north, its lid evening out the east and west circles, the handle a straight line, halving the tray. The entire rectangular snug design is outlined in gold yellow, popping and framing the arrangement in strict lines.

Meanwhile, the white background looks pillowy soft and feathered with shading that suggests the heft of the tea set amid clouds.

Ah, the yin and yang of it.

The equanimity, the beauty, the simplicity represented in this photo creates a masterpiece.

I don’t feel thirsty when I see this, I see a symbol of peace, a labyrinth garden, haiku, yoga and contemplation.

Look inside yourself and study it, what emotions show up for you?