The power of thought.  It works.  Had a feeling, ie thought, that I'd have trouble getting my application for the Homegrown Exhibition to the facilitators as it has to be done online.  Yup, thoughts are things.  Not only could I not get the application attached to my email, now I can't even download the #$#%@# pix from the camera!  Have done it before, no dramas, now the 'puter doesn't seem to recognise that a camera is actually plugged in ready to offload the photos.  Don't know what to do now as I've tried everything in my limited repertoire including recharging the battery.  The deadline is in three days.  Won't make it.  Perhaps it's a sign to carry on with the attitude I've held toward art; art is in the doing, not the showing. 

I love computers. I love what they can do but they can sure drive me crazy when I hit a roadblock.  Also, when I have trouble doing tasks that every one else finds easy - usually having to do with attaching or sending or organizing things, particularly.  Was talking to R the other day about missing my old Olympus OM10.  I carry it in the car and have pictures on the film waiting to be developed.  Some of the earlier ones would be two years old.    I like taking the film in and waiting those few days to get that fat paper envelope back, hopefully full of happy surprises.  Now,  you look at your photos on the computer.  Or you take your little card in somewhere and the salesperson comes over and walks you through how to use the machine.  I've only done it once.  Hated it.  I don't want to be involved.  I want that magic photo elf to do his work behind the scenes and present me with the photo apport at the end.  Not sure I can even get film developed in this country town anymore.  The photo shop has been closed for a few years now. 

Three yearlings just walked past the window.  The neighbour's horses are out again.  The dogs were so well behaved.  Radar had that gleam in his eye, 'oh, please let me chase 'em, pleeez!' but he didn't.  Walked the horses, two bays and a buckskin, out to the road and closed the gates.   Just rang the neighbour at the same time as someone was banging on their door, probably to tell them their horses are out. 

Had a very strange yet beautiful dream about horses.  Two horses, one jet black  and the other snow white, wearing white trench coats sans belt.  They were underwater.  The water was emerald green and clear as air.  They floated down this green watery canyon feet first untroubled by being many metres underwater.  I have no idea what this dream means.  I mean, trench coats?

Another dream was, I believe, the tail end of an OBE.  I dreamed I was floating in air, my feet drawn up under me.  Felt myself slowly slipping sideways and woke up to find myself in bed in the same position I'd held while out of the body.  Haven't had anything like that occur for literally years.  Used to have a more exciting nocturnal life.  Suspect yoga and the breathing along the kundalini and the albeit, poor attempts at meditation have stirred things up again.  How very nice.

Going with the flow.  That's the theme for today.  Being fearless.  While talking to C last night I let slip that I blogged.  We'd been talking about keeping a journal after her trip to Africa.  C wanted the blog address and suddenly I was pacing the kitchen, feeling sweat on my palms.  Honoured but fearful too.  That fear (oh bloody naval watching!) of not being good enough, entertaining enough.  Well, Jeez!  It doesn't matter.  No one holds a gun to anyone's head to force them to read a blog or look at an artwork.  It's the doing of it that counts.  I've been consciously trying to go with the flow, trying to be mindful, to stay in the moment ... to be Open to Life rather than closing down.  Yoga's to blame for that too.  It makes me aware of when I'm holding my breath or breathing shallowly, of when I'm tightening my stomach - as though expecting a gut punch.  No way to live.   It's  terribly sad that I, who have no reason to fear, lives in fear. 

I'd forgotten to record a dream subsequent to the loss of control dream.  Had it the very next night in fact.  It was of a shiny stainless steel structure, huge and irregularly shaped, being built from the ground up.  It was only waist high but it was there, it was mine.  So, grabbing courage from the ether, I'll send C  blog directions and send photos to LVRC art gallery of two works I'd like to enter in the November show. 

When chatting with C last night I spoke of the access to creative people made possible by the internet.  I spoke with envy as well as admiration.  These people are doing things, making things, creating something out of nothing that was not there before.  In a way we are all little gods and goddesses (well, I believe we are all God but that's another post) in that we create every second of every day.  Whether it's a word spoken, a meal made or a hug given.  In the purest sense we are creating our existence moment to moment by the thoughts we think, the things we say and the things we do.  In the essence of that creation, although we may be buffeted by outward circumstance, by the appearance of things that are beyond our control, we remain inviolate, that pure small point of Conscious being.  In other words:  The Conscious Being being. 

Lazy Sunday

May not have much time as R is on his way with malaysian takeaway.  Was thinking today about just enjoying the moment without the usual accompanying guilt.  Today is Sunday.  It has been quite cold and unpleasant outside although the sun has shown in a cloudless blue sky.  Even so R and I stayed indoors most of the time (save for chores and the 6km dog walk) and watched old movies on telly.  Watched for the second time, Now, Voyager with Bette Davis and Claude Rains.  Why don't they make movies like that anymore?  Class and beauty and feeling all the way.  Anyway, so it was a low key non-doing sort of day but nevertheless very pleasant.  I enjoyed the movies.  I enjoyed the dog walking in the afternoon.  I enjoyed fixing the nose on that last painting (R, although not artistic in the classical sense, can pick up things I don't see through 'stable blindness').  And now, I am enjoying the early evening with a glass of red, waiting for an indulgent dinner that someone else has cooked.  The simple things.    That's enough, at least in my present mood of not being so hard on myself.  Appreciating the gifts so freely given.  The companionship of my darling best friend husband, the sunny blue sky, the old classic movies, the yoga (done again in part with R), the opportunity to write of these things in this blog (thank God for technology - out of hand in many ways and a real boon in others). 

Overheard R talking to his eldest son, Anthony about my prowess in the kitchen.  That's the real miracle in his eyes.  It's true.  I've been cooking and thinking about cooking which breaks the habit of 40 years.  I don't like to cook but yet I'm enjoying it in a strange sort of way.  Perhaps the bread-making (with the help of a breadmaker) has broken the mold of a lifetime.  I've put together vegetarian dishes found on the internet.  Never seem to have the ingredients required but scumble others togegether in a way that has worked, despite history to the contrary.  And I like it.

Ah, he's back.  Must go.  What a lovely day.  What a lovely life - and oh, I'm starting to fool around with an old box of oil pastels.  Am I daring to be brave and attack colour again? 

You Can Trulty Trust the Doors to Open While You Rest and Wait and Hope

Flitting between working on a drawing and this computer and watching The Comedians by Graham Greene on telly.  Have rather settled here though because I started reading Leo Babuata's Zen Habits, a pastime I feast at rather than snacking now and then.  Anyway, one of his blogs led to another blog and to an artist called Jen Lemen.  She does these illustrations with vivid primary colours of comforting sayings and simple representations of people and things.  The art work isn't my cup of tea but one of her images really resonated because of what it said.  The illustration is titled You Can Rest Now.  "You Can Rest Now, She Told Me.  You Can Truly Trust The Doors to Open While You Rest and Wait and Hope." 

I've noticed a couple of times while resting in meditation that tears well up unbidden.  When they do it is because I've reached a place of rest where me, the conscious ego side becomes aware in a dim sort of way of the timeless eternal me.  This timeless part of me comforts me.  I know in its presence that I can relax, that I am safe, that it's all right, that I don't have to try so hard, that I don't have to feel guilty about being me nor do I need to be afraid that my life is not a success because I'm not perfect.  I know I do not use my time well.  I know that I waste time on trivialities.  I also know that I carry an enormous tonnage of guilt because I have everything, absolutely everything here at my disposal for a successful well-lived life and I waste it.  If I had to struggle for food, shelter, safety, peace, I would not worry about how I'm living life, I would just want to live.  Yet, in this bosom of well-fed Western existence, I doodle nonsense designs with time. 

So this deep (for me) place reached while meditating, this true-feeling place, does this mean it is the truth, that being me, with all the accompanying faults and habits clinging, limpet like, is enough?  Maybe it is me that must do the forgiving.  How to be Your Own Best Friend and all that. 

I do feel that I am edging, snail like, to a state that is less guilt-ridden.  On the exterior I am thisclose to being vegan.  I've given up cheese except for a can of commercial parmesan which is still in the fridge along with eggs bought from a neighbour's daughter who has a few chickens.  I won't replace them when they're gone.  Thought it would be hard but it hasn't been.  An unlooked for side effect is that I've lost weight.  I've lost 3.5 kg since November, the last kilo in less than a month (since foregoing cheese).  Also, I feel better in myself, physically lighter and less 'clogged' but also emotionally because I no longer am a part of some poor cow's suffering (or goat's, for the rennet).  There's a feeling of relief. 

Jen, the yoga instructor, is away until July 19.  She has given me enough to work on until her return.  Not me personally but things I take away from her class.  Asanas I find particularly challenging are always included in my session.  I've gone from doing yoga in 30 minutes when I started 2 years ago to taking an hour and a quarter.  Oddly enough the time goes quickly.  Some days are better than others.  But every day I do yoga is a good day.  Except today.  I've not done it today as we've been expecting a couple from down the road to come look at some horse gear.  It's getting on to 3 and they still haven't come.

One happy and unexpected surprise is that R has been doing 10 to 20 minutes yoga with me for the past week.  I am very proud of him.  He's finding it very difficult as he's very stiff (he is after all 65) but am confident with consistent practice he will reap the  benefits.   

Dream On

Had a couple of telling dreams last night, added on to a growing list of dreams which  bubble to conscious memory after waking.  The first of these dreams took place underwater; a cool green world of silence.  The ocean floor was carpeted with treasure in measured rows, silver cups in soldier lines, low hills of clunky silver goblets.  Everything was covered in fine sediment, like what's found on eel grass but thicker.  The water too was murky.  Someone picked up a cup and pretended to drink from it. 

Dream 2:  I was driving my darling little Yaris only it was bright red instead of grey.  I'd been zipping around and doing things, all of which I forget in the light of day.  What I do remember is that suddenly the steering wheel turned into a piece of black cord which unwound itself from the spokes and I was going backwards out of control down a hill.

Blind Freddy would be able to assignn some meaning to these dreams.  The first one is that treasure abounds in my 'deeps' but it languishes, tarnished and dirty because I  haven't brought it to the surface and that again, I feel my life is out of control.  I'm not 'driving' my own life.

Had an urge to look for someone from my past on the 'net.  Found him too.  He is doing exactly what he wanted to do when I knew him only more so.  I am very proud to have known him and am pleased that he is living his dream.  He is like he was then only to the power of four.  He hasn't changed much either.  I'd recognise him on the street.  The life he has made for himself has kept him young.  How many people live the life they want.  So few.  Thought of writing him and saying hello but thought better of it.  What is there to say anyway.  I can see what he's doing, it's on his website.  It's enough to know he is well and happy.

Reworking a drawing that I had hanging in the kitchen.  It was never quite right.  The cat was never quite right and it was wishy washy too.  The blackness of the blacks wasn't intense enough.  Now it's getting there.  Natalia, bless her little paws, broke the glass in the frame so will have to get that replaced, but it's about ready for rehanging.  Still undecideded whether to enter  the local art show.  Really must get my arse in gear and teach myself to take photos and transfer them into emails and onto here.   I just get overwhelmed.  I know it's only a one click sort of operation but it never seems to go smoothly and I wind up frustrated and angry.  Not enough practice.  Just do it.

Have gone vegan.  Still have my beloved leather purse and am eating eggs from free range chickens of a neighbour but no cheese, no dairy products, buying cruelty free (and how few of the big international conglomerates are cruelty free!).  It's a natural outgrowth of doing yoga.  Yoga has had unintended and unlooked for side effects.  And it's good.

 

Haven't written anything for weeks, nor drawn anything for that matter.  Kind of ground to a halt with the last pencil work and have tucked it behind another easel board so that when I do look at it again, which will be soon, I'll see it afresh.  I'm not sure much more can be done with it.  Art works never turn out as I envision them to be.  The crunch with this one is it might be entered into a local gallery exhibition - if it's accepted of course.  Do I want to go that route.  During meditation last night I was thinking of words from the Divine Matrix of seeing yourself as doing or accomplishing what you want rather than working towards a goal.  The problem is, if it is a problem, is that I seem to be lacking in ambition.  I don't want for anything nor do I desire much.  I used to want to be a good dressage rider.  That never happened and I'm content with that.  I admire other people's art and think it would be nice to have some of my work admired by other people but it doesn't really matter to me one way or another whether they are or not.  The point of doing them is to do them.  So I haven't felt like doing much work of late so I haven't.  Big deal.  Is part of the pay off of aging  knowing that what you have right now is enough?