Security and Adventure

"... it is not a problem that you solve,
it is a paradox that you manage."

- Esther Perell on reconciling two opposing forces - security and adventure - a tension so necessary in modern desire.

The point is now

Follow the breath
in every moment
every point . . . .
infinite points.
It is a magnifying glass
to this. this. th—
The moment your mind
has rooooom for a word
it has been thrown
away into the future.

Make you smile

To make you smile;
All I ever wanted.
Simple enough.
Must it be so complicated?
Complicated!
An understatement.
To make you smile;
All I ever wanted.
All I should ever want.
Simple enough.
Must I keep asking for more?
To make you smile;
Complicated!
All I should ever want.
Simple enough.
Complicated.
Smile!
Simple.

Creating Through Time

Exploring inner dialogue through outer expression.
What feels good to me, what feels natural.
What I put down and feel resonates for now,
for a long time,
or never really did.

Building a library of my own public works through time. Eventually, there will be enough of them that they all have a similar substance, that one might relate them all to each other. And if this is not echoed outwardly - no matter what - they will have retained my signature. They will have been drawn by the same hand, sourced by the same human being! That is enough to be proud of and call a lifetime of achievement.

Is it not?

torment of love

It is hard to rid ourselves of their love. They torment us from within, from without. Any little thing will set us off, in a moment when we least expect it, when we really didn't invite it but it crept up anyhow. Unsure how. Or why. Why it happened that way, why it showed up out of nowhere, a memory ignited by fragrance or arrangement, by the lack of something or the presence of something. The only thing that'll pack the ghost away is time, and it is not on our side. We must wait so very patiently, so very tortured minute to minute, waiting for the next apparition to inevitably arrive and for our heartaches to subside.

Someone is playing a cruel joke on us. We are kept in the infinity symbol of time, which begins and ends with love. We are brought into the world to experience the truest of joys, the truest of sorrows. Round and round we will go, repeating mistakes, seeing ghosts of lovers past, digging up old bodies from the closet, setting our hearts on fire, walking on egg shells, shattering on impact, melting into nothingness, escaping from the crowds. The darkest of our days will be illuminated once again if we trust the joker's cycle. If we hop along for the ride and laugh at our misfortunes. Do we not long for the torment of love? Are we not masochists, waiting to be destroyed by our insatiable hunger? Do we not want to taste the sweet, sweet fruit of desire, knowing full well the Dark Queen is seducing us?

In Service

Contentment is an empty container. It's the empty cup that is available for filling.

When I'm not constantly worried about how I'm feeling inside, when I'm not constantly tuned inward, it gives me the room to see. The room to see others, to see and interact with my environment, to appreciate and get inspired by simple things. It feels good not to feel heavy, not to have burden.

In these moments I am ready for something bigger. My work will take me to places I don't know yet, and I am ready for that. I am ready to embark on a larger mission, in service of something greater than myself, in which I can feel a surrender and give up my illusion of control.

I feel called to learn about my environment, about the way of things. With this kind of knowledge I can better focus my efforts, understanding what keeps this world in balance, what keeps the natural world thriving. So, I will start consciously keeping an ear out for this information. Connect with humans who know more than me, who can show me the way. Perhaps in time, I can use my art to teach others what I've learned.

Joy and Sorrow

Song of the Wave
Khalil Gibran

The strong shore is my beloved
And I am his sweetheart.
We are at last united by love, and
Then the moon draws me from him.
I go to him in haste and depart
Reluctantly, with many
Little farewells.


I steal swiftly from behind the
Blue horizon to cast the silver of
My foam upon the gold of his sand, and
We blend in melted brilliance.


I quench his thirst and submerge his
Heart; he softens my voice and subdues
My temper.
At dawn I recite the rules of love upon
His ears, and he embraces me longingly.


At eventide I sing to him the song of
Hope, and then print smooth hisses upon
His face; I am swift and fearful, but he
Is quiet, patient, and thoughtful. His
Broad bosom soothes my restlessness.


As the tide comes we caress each other,
When it withdraws, I drop to his feet in
Prayer.


Many times have I danced around mermaids
As they rose from the depths and rested
Upon my crest to watch the stars;
Many times have I heard lovers complain
Of their smallness, and I helped them to sigh.


Many times have I teased the great rocks
And fondled them with a smile, but never
Have I received laughter from them;
Many times have I lifted drowning souls
And carried them tenderly to my beloved
Shore. He gives them strength as he
Takes mine.


Many times have I stolen gems from the
Depths and presented them to my beloved
Shore. He takes them in silence, but still
I give fro he welcomes me ever.


In the heaviness of night, when all
Creatures seek the ghost of Slumber, I
Sit up, singing at one time and sighing
At another. I am awake always.


Alas! Sleeplessness has weakened me!
But I am a lover, and the truth of love
Is strong.
I may be weary, but I shall never die.

----

On Joy and Sorrow
Khalil Gibran

Then a woman said, 
Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises
was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be? 
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine
the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit,
the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart
and you shall find it is only that which 
has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth you are weeping
for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow",
and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater".
But I say unto you,
they are inseparable. 
Together they come, 
and when one sits alone with you at your board, 
remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Daylight Savings

One Hour.

All it takes for us 

to feel a shift,

a very big difference

in a very small amount of time.

Our bodies feel it,

our eyes, they see it.

The light changes,

it keeps us longer.

We must rebuild routine,

Once more. Again.

We thought we had it;

A way. A day.

But what a difference

One Hour

makes.

The leaf

Consistency.

That is a word that does not reflect my reality at the moment. Every day is different. I've not experienced this before, it's a whole new level of dissatisfaction. I am not usually one to hold on to things so hard, although people are impossible to let go of, and this style of placement has never happened to me before. I've never been pushed aside by someone; I was always the one who did the pushing. Welcome to the other side, Lydia.

Which choice will bring me the most clarity and well-being? What must I do to move forward and come back to my happy-go-lucky, everything-will-work-out personality? I live in two worlds now. One, which is dull, flatlined, in which I have no drive for personal goals and aspirations. The other, a fast-paced, enlivening world, one that takes me over and puts me into drive, lets me be the lover, a compassionate and bright being who connects with others.

I must say that the first is here most often. I also seem to switch between the two if I am alone and if I am around others, although the first can still remain around others depending on my mood, depending on external events. If they're big enough to bring my mind away from this current situation, it helps.

I feel like an empty shell. When I awake. When I go to sleep. In between. I feel like I put on a Lydia suit, and try to remind myself of who I was, of who I've always wanted to be which is the shiny bright human. I don't like basking in this vat of uncertainty. It kills my spirit. I understand now how "he" must have felt, constant unknown, was I to stay or was I to go? I'm so sorry.

Part of me laughs at this, at me, for finding this to be such a big issue. How have I allowed another to depict what I become? Am I not in control of myself? Is it ridiculous of me to think I could have that control at all? This must be another facet of life, this must be living inside a body, with all of the emotions and the ruckus constantly happening. With opening up to emotion comes being affected more often, and I seem to have burst the lid.

"You've got to walk that lonesome valley, you've got to walk there by yourself, there's no one here to go there with you, you've got to walk there by yourself."

Miracles

Miracles exist for a moment. They are little windows of time that counter reality. They are true only for a short period of time, until one enters back into the banality of life. A miracle seems to me an extreme opposite to the current circumstance. Only a fool could believe miracles to last a lifetime. Perhaps life is a linear depiction of tiny miracles - which encompass joy and love and certainty - juxtaposed to disaster; to ruin, to fear and uncertainty.

How long do we bask in goodness before we give into the sense of change, the sense of departing from the love that existed mere moments ago? How do we deal with the in-between states, from miracle to disaster?

We will naturally always be beckoned toward the light of miracles (or should we call it love?) like moth to flame. We will forget all of the strife we've endured, we will forget that it comes again after the initial warmth of the glowing yellow light. We will get burnt, and start all over again, repeating in this endless cycle until we are enveloped in the ultimate merging of miracle and disaster: death.

Rambles About Work

Time and Money
At what cost will I sell my services? Yes, there is a price to the hours of my day. That price fluctuates, changes, inflates, increases with time and experience. Yes. But that is just money. What about the other currency; time? How much time will I give to the work? How much of my energy will be consumed in time, stress and anxiety keeping me working through the evening and night, moving through my dreams and startling me awake?

Doing the Work (and failing)
I am torn. I want the work. I want to be wealthy, and have money to spend on occasions, festivities, on my loved ones, and importantly health and emergencies. My whole life I have lived with the minimum. I never believed I needed much. Things are changing with age, as I ponder what I want in life, who I want in life, what I want to surround myself with, and what the trade off is worth. I want to live well, happy, healthy, and sure, with money to spend. I want to make my clients happy too, give them what they really want. Whatever they envision, I'd like to give them that. The hardest part of my work is probably having to show a process that isn't perfect. The process IS the work, and I've learned that. But I wish everything in the process was perfect - then I wouldn't be stressed, then I wouldn't worry about how much work I'm putting in. It would all just come out beautiful every time I put pen to page or stroke to design.

Choice
No matter what, if I do something I love, I will experience the heartache and the stress. How do I know that I should be continuing, moving forward with what I've got? How do I know that this is the best version of me, the best version of my work? What if I am keeping myself from diving into something much more ... Me? What a first world question this is, I realize. The simple power of being able to choose what I want to do with my time, and especially what I want to do with my time for money, is absolutely a privilege. At what point am I not using this privilege properly?

Who?

I am a composition of all the things I have said yes and no to. All of the people I have allowed in.

No wonder we're all so confused as teenagers and young adults! We haven't chosen enough yet; the world hasn't happened to us enough yet, to make a solid report about who we are. We are constantly wondering who we are. But we do not have a who unless we add up all of our past actions.

Yes, I am all of the good and bad of the history I built for myself.

Yet, I remain a mystery to the next day. To the next moment. My decisions will certainly be based on yesterday's, but only as much as I am willing to sacrifice the new me for the old.

If I am brave enough

If I am brave enough,
I will wait an eternity for you.
Not only wait -
I will give it to you,
hand you time,
for there is nothing else to give.
The only currency
for our love
is time.
Holding on to this abundance
will only make you slip away
through my fingertips.
Note by note,
key by key,
the black and the white ones,
depicting the saddest melody,
the longest chorus,
the bridge that never ends,
where your love waits on the other side
of every note of the song of our lives.

If I am brave enough,
if I open my eyes to the darkness
that falls before the day,
if only I can see the silence
between
which creates the space,
where the sound takes shape;
then I can give it all.
With the eternal exchange
of the currency of time,
we can be wrapped in harmony
forever.

Brrr

"The feelings and thoughts pop up sometimes, but the cold and the stars move me through."