What is true, what is pretense, what is…

inward

 

it feels like everything that came before has been a pretense, a false start. as I grasps for my reality this morning my serenity is devolving into a massive heap on the floor, like scattered dirty laundry, colorful but smelling of being worn to long. The endless weeks of being weakened by a cold, has left my plans and projects sitting collecting dust. Has caused loneliness and emptiness to seep into the fabric of my being. i have missed events I wished to attend to photograph and be part of. Willing to spend my last few dollars to do so.

Is this illness, this cold, the flu, the true culprit or the endless dreams and visions which seem to energize my being for short periods of time, that keep drifting off like a mirage, wafts of smoke from a conjurors magic spell? Am I truly lost, have a just been spinning narratives in my mind. Have I truly failed at my life’s purpose?

How do I keep going, when my dreams and visions don’t seem to fit into a world that no longer cares for magic for healing, for beautiful?

shadowed wall/closed window.

I surrender now, I let go. Right now I am fighting the demons of illness. My center has been blasted out of me! It is debris, it is trash. Is there still worthy pieces, can they be upcycled, reinvented? Do I just burn them all and scatter the ashes in the ground hoping natures has use for them?

Waking up, feeling like you have not slept, body sore, chest heavy, the head in urgent need of coffee. Coffee cold but drunk, like an achlie’s long needed fix to face the day.

Stark blank screen endlessly fills with words, streaming out some thoughtful, many just flowing from one place to the next.

Coffees fresh and hot now. or was when I started. Nothing changed since I sat down to write, or has it?

There is no blame, there is no what if’s, should haves, there is knowing that it is within me, to show up. I showed up, this is the present. Is the future I wish to have? Not at all!

Illness, attracts ego playing mind games, playing tricks, making fun. Well it is not fun. Ego, get out-of-the-way, we have better things to do that lay about feeling sorry for ourselves. Is one step at a time, one activity at a time.

Breaking through

Let the little glimmers of light break through. The world is created within the steps, moving forward while sometimes going around or over.

 

Dear Volcano (writing 101)

Dear Volcano

 

It seems I have a volcano within my being or maybe just in my crazy mixed up head? Is a volcano a mountain I need to climb and explore? Is it the inner workings, the heat, the fire, the massive pushing and pulling that creates the mountain that needs attention?

I’m talking about this writing course. I took this on because I thought it would be a good way to enhance what I was already blogging/writing about. Maybe it will but right now, it is painful. No not really painful, frustrating and confusing.

Writing has always been more of a stream of consciousness process. Usually prompted by something I read, a meditative reading from a book or poem not these crazy seemingly off the wall assignments. If I wanted fucking assignments I would go back to school. Okay, okay, I am not being graded. Yes I know I took this on myself. So there is no one to point fingers at except yourself, your desire to learn, to improve.

So Volcano if you are pushing the plates together, heating up the lava, spewing smoke and ash up to the surface please feel free to do so. I am so behind in these assignments that I almost quit. Quitting means the frustration would only boil over sometime later in another fashion or other.

The idea of prompts with a twist was fun at first. I found creative ways to still write non-fiction blogs based on what is or has happened in my life. Than the subjects became more difficult in the fact that I had to use voices that were not mine. I was asked to make up a story. Use my imagination, what are  you kidding. Oy!

So Volcano you roared some more but did not produce. Oh maybe a little? There are a couple of drafts in your files to re-read, edit, and finish up, that may work. There are rumblings in my head, stories I keep going over, yet ego says, “you’re not ready for that type of writing. This is not what your blog is about.”   So you calm down for a while. Later in the day the emails come with new ideas, new assignments, new tips on how to go about this or that.  I love those links that offer more advice from established writers. They offer ideas and reassurance that all is good in the world. The rumbling and smoke is all part of the building of the process.

Yours Truly,

The writer within

 

Well there that wasn’t so bad was it? Ha ha. I want to thank Kaye for her blog this morning writing on the positive side, the gratefulness of the process, even when she can’t find the time, etc. Here is the link to her story.

Assignment:

Pick up the nearest book and flip to page 29. What’s the first word that jumps off the page? Use this word as your springboard for inspiration. Today’s twist: write the post in the form of a letter.

Listen to the heart!

“The Heart loves service, humility, hard work, dedication, self-approval and self-trust, listening to Divine Guidance from The Uni-verse which Whispers to us, taking action even though we don’t feel like it, getting up and trying again, not blaming but taking responsibility for the outcome of our lives, empathy, and having the willingness to dig in and get our hands dirty instead of leaving our dreams up to someone else.” Mastin Kipp: The Daily Love Blog

For three days I was hoping to write something less dark, more joyful than what has preceded on these pages. Yet my dance with shadow, my ego is the dance partner who seems to lead. Selfishness is the word or action that poked me this morning. My reaction to Mom’s disease, Alzheimer’s is distressing, and abusive to both of us. I realized the resentment I have about the situation taking up my time, my peace of mind, for I don’t know how or I certainly forget when I am forced to try to explain something a half a dozen times.

My heart may love service but not services that is forced, not service that has no seemingly end. There are moments when I feel boxed in trapped in our prison of “service”.  When I am angry and resentment takes voice I blame others, family, social services, mostly family for not showing up, not really being involved in this life/death situation with their own Mother! It is not about them, or is it? It is about my ego, my selfishness… plus being totally unprepared for any of this.

I don’t feel like doing any of it, I want out, I want to run away. What we need is help, social contact for both of us, people willing to spend time at activities with Mom. Social interaction with support group as well as friends.

As I continue to write I keep hearing a voice say, you can’t publish this, not this crap again, not all this “pain” this darkness. I am writing what is. I am writing my emotional reactive experience.  Mastin Kipp in the blog this morning also writes this, ” Basically, our dreams need us to get over ourselves. Our dreams need us to take responsibility for them. Our dreams need us to SHOW UP even when we don’t feel like it. They are fragile and need tender Loving care. Dreams take time and are often tests of Faith. Let’s meet the test!”

Dreams may not be the correct word here yet the path to my dreams is to journey through this process, finding the joy, finding the magic.  That magic is in my photography, that magic is that walking with my camera I am much more conscious of my surroundings, much more aware of the magnificent beauty in a drying frozen leaf/plant, the way the soil pushes up at times, the bright blue sky against the bare tree tops, that birds still sing and flit from place to place. The scurrying squirrels leaping and chasing each other in search of a meal. The universe is alive, the universe offers each creature the gifts to live each day.

That there is a balance to life even when the balance seems to be way off.  “Dreams take time and are often tests of Faith. Let’s meet the test!”  One of the principle of the artist’s way Morning pages is to “Show up at the page, (show up for life) Use the page to rest, to dream, to try.”  That certainly is a powerful way to be present for life, being awake, aware of all actions, good, bad or indifferent. Show up! Showing up is sometimes the hardest part.

I didn’t write yesterday because I didn’t want to feel, I distracted myself, i was too emotional, feeling shame or guilt for my angry, my madness. These are all part who I am. I could not even respond to the comments made my friends on the last blog until this morning because I was too moved by the compassion and support that was radiating there. I am most grateful for each and everyone for  your words. I bow in humbleness. I feel unworthy.

Namaste!

Photos: 

{ This blog was written early this morning, I still doubted whether I should publish it. I listened to my heart}

Questions for the questions…

“When you welcome your emotions as teachers, every emotion brings good news, even the ones that are painful.” – Gary Zukav

Is lack of sanity an emotion? Have I gone insane? Have I created a Groundhog day event of the life? If so why? What has become so frightening about my life that I refuse to live it. Live it fully once again… These and many other questions may or may not be answered in the what follows today or any-day soon.

I have heard the voice to write like a woodpecker hitting a tree trunk, knock, knock, knock, knock, hammering away the stubborn layers of bark, and hard word to get to the meat of thing.  I mentioned to a few friends that I have been hearing that voice to write, to begin to blog, do morning pages again. Morning pages were responsible for the beginning of this blog. After writing the morning pages for the length of time required/suggested in the book The Artist Way, 12 weeks, Julia Cameron suggest to continue writing morning pages to keep the flow going.

So are these blogs going to be morning pages? It is a place to start, a beginning.  And we can only begin where we are.  So here I am ready to stand before myself and everyone naked through my words. Even trying  write this, flinging off the darkness, the cover of silence, feels vulnerable. So be it.

It is the Holiday Season, and… in the past few weeks I have been journeying down memory lane. First it was joining the Magnolia NJ Facebook page which I thought may be a good way to connect with local goings on. I didn’t and still don’t have a lot of connection with the community I live in.  Even as a child, I seem to have lived or created a different reality to the one outside. Did I have imaginary friends, no not really. I had religion, I was on the search even than.  Well being in this local group opened up closets that have long been closed. Do I even want to go there now?

The first snow of the season opened the doors. Someone was recalling sledding down hills, streets, etc. The one hill I recall was behind my girlfriend’s house, we were teenagers, which went down into the major road. The girlfriend would become my wife in a few years and then my x-wife a few years after that. Well x-wife messages me that her Mother has passed, and she and Mike her husband, and my best friend from our Air Force days, along with daughter are here to attend the viewing, did I wish to join them for lunch? I did. I attended the viewing as well.

Earlier in the week a member of the Magnolia group posted our grade school graduation photo, we were the first graduating class from St Gregory’s, 1967!  Oy! Even had to locate myself, people I have had no contact with in years. Some I even went to high school, some my first crushes…  Just to meet a two of them a few days later at the Senior Christmas Lunch.

Class of 1967

These are all unfolding stories, unraveling memories, there was a mention of a young man who had died in a car accident who lived across the street from us, how I remember that young man, the pain of that loss…

What is the purpose of all of these dusty memories? And none of these “stories” have anything to do with my sanity or insanity, or do they?

Each of those memories have expanded stories of course, those stories may get to see the light of day for the may shine on some of the shadows of my earlier life.

For now Mom’s Alzheimer’s is holding steady, I see some patterns which make dealing situations a little more responsive rather than reactive. I don’t think I am very good company for her, and in some way, I think it is becoming abusive. Abusive emotionally and spiritually for both of us.  The day to day routine of going about our day is rather unproductive, meals, chores, a few walks for her if the weather is cooperating. She cleans those house, more or less. Fusses with the dogs. Makes strange combinations of food items, if I am not there to pay attention. Always asking if there is something she can do, when I am doing my own chores, or making meals or baking. I would be nice to have help but help is more like supervising, so it is easier most times to do it myself.  We found some old coloring books, she has begun doing some those pages. Her attention span is not long, even shorter if I am doing something within seeing or hearing distance, she wants to “help”.

As for art/photography: I realized I have not been taking as many photos in the past few weeks, could be the weather, could be not motivated which scares me. I view photographs everyday, belonging to several photography groups keeps them passing across my screen. Events have been difficult to attend, I do have one small photo in The Plastic Club’s Exhibition of “Weather”.  Gearing up to curate a Photographic Society Exhibition in Feb. which could be the project that gets me through the winter.

 

Welcoming the teachings of emotions has got me to these pages. Is there good new here? Yes the writing, and the exposing. The painful emotions of confusion, anger, loss that come from memories of the past, or even desire for the future while I seek to live in the moment are the lessons of evolving, even though it feels like going backward. It is in the “welcoming” hello emotions set down and chat or come along while I take some photographs or make meals or do everyday chores. What do you have to say to me?

It seems life if full of questions, even questions for the questions.  They seem to be strange traveling companions these “questions”. These too will reveal themselves…

We Live our lives…

“We live our lives of human passions,

cruelties, dreams, concepts,

crimes and the exercise of virtue

in and beside a world devoid

of our preoccupations, free

from apprehension—though affected,

certainly, by our actions. A world

parallel to our own though overlapping.

We call it “Nature”; only reluctantly

admitting ourselves to be “Nature” too.

Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,

our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,

an hour even, of pure (almost pure)

response to that insouciant life:

cloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing

pilgrimage of water, vast stillness

of spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane,

animal voices, mineral hum, wind

conversing with rain, ocean with rock, stuttering

of fire to coal—then something tethered

in us, hobbled like a donkey on its patch

of gnawed grass and thistles, breaks free.

No one discovers

just where we’ve been, when we’re caught up again

into our own sphere (where we must

return, indeed, to evolve our destinies)

—but we have changed, a little.”

— Denise Levertov, “Sojourns in the Parallel World” (via litverve)

(via christinasanantonio)

After the photography exhibition reception on Sunday September 29, 2013 , there was and still is a sense of unfinishedness. I am not sure why? When I think about the experience even while present there seems to have been a disconnect, the energy did not blend, if that makes sense?

 A few days before I was feeling apprehensive or had a sense of expectation of this exhibition. How or why does make sense to me at this moment, yet the how or why I believe is causing the feeling for closure. How that comes about I am not sure either? That is why I am here now, to shine light on the “feeling” .

It all maybe the need for contact with other people, like-minded people. The ego may just be playing with me dancing in and out of the shadows so as not to have to really explain itself. I was an artist among artist, my photography is not the best in the exhibit nor the worst. They are not new prints but prints that have been exhibited in several different places in the past year or so. Yet I feel they are some of my best, simple, elegant, creative. I think when you have a room full of artist all seeking some type of praise for their work it maybe difficult to see your own light.  There, there it is! Ego dancing, taunting. “Over here, over here! See me, see my beautiful photos, see me!”  Sharing an exhibition with 21 other photographers, each having at least 4 pieces exhibited scattered about two floors of gallery is an awesome experience. No one shines above another, there are no solo performances here.  Some where exhibiting for the first time, some had exhibited for years.

I am grateful each and every time I have the opportunity to exhibit, to share these photos with the world me. That is the purpose of photography for me, it was and is the call I answers. So I have to move out of my own way. Allow the pictures to speak for themselves, allow the gift of photography to share natures beauty that I have been honored to witness on a regular basis.

It is those moments as the prose above speaks;Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,

an hour even, of pure (almost pure)

response to that insouciant life:

cloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing

pilgrimage of water, vast stillness

of spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane,

It is in that time of presence that natures speaks, the beauty is shared and expressed. It is the humanness that ask why, or how, that feels the disconnect. Let nature speak, let beauty be.

All photography can be found here: http://www.redbubble.com/people/jeffstroud

it’s all ours, it’s the art of self-creation,

Perhaps the hardest thing about the path is that it’s

entirely up to us how far we go, how deep we go,

how authentic we become. No one else can do it

for us—it’s all ours, it’s the art of self-creation, it’s

adult responsibility.  It’s such a private decision we

come back to time and again—Am I willing to do

the work to find and to live my path? Do I have the

faith, courage and persistence I need to keep getting

back up off the ground when things go awry? How

badly do I want an authentic life?  What price am I

willing to pay to create one?   Jeff Brown

 

Am I a willing to do what it takes? Paying the price sometimes feels to high, for the price seems to be my sanity, my voice, my creativity!  For the past year I have been my Mother’s caregiver, not a position I apply for but one that seems to have been dropped in my path. It is my challenge to find the way through what seems darkness of financial, government and state administrations that are riddle of, do this, go here, now go there, fill this out, did you see this person or that, have you appeared for the Doctor, Lawyer, etc?

In the mean time I pull myself into distractions, food via sugar, Facebook via photography sites, which are rewarding and educational creating a time-lapse of heightened senses . A Tumblr account that started out as a porn page but has “evolved” into a more sophisticated high-end on-line pictorial magazine with Art, fashion,  food, coffee, decor, etc. Scattered around is still porn!

Yes I still get out each day to photograph while walking the dogs, each moment a bit of letting go, allowing nature to sooth my wounded darkened soul. I still continue to seek forms of expression with the photography. Joining the Black and White Street Photography.com page has been an eye opening experience. One is which I am challenged each day to “see” differently.

 

it’s all ours, it’s the art of self-creation, it’s

adult responsibility.  It’s such a private decision we

come back to time and again…

Is it? Is the art of self-creation over and over and over again an “adult responsibility”? Right now the art of self creation looks like chaos, feels like a big heaping mess, one that is being trudged through to get to the other side. I have never really been responsible for someone else life. Not for one who can’t make their own choices,  for one who, remembers somethings and forgets most other daily activities. Nothing about feels “authentic” it feels forced.

Am I willing to do

the work to find and to live my path? 

 

For some reason yes I am willing to do the work to live and keep on the path while in the process of caregiving. That is why blogging is so important. It is my voice being shared, it is an expression of who I am at the moment.  Even though the path seems so dark and lonely at times, there are great moments of light, great moments of happiness, I was thinking joy but I believe joy is something else. The work I do to stay on the path is my creativity, making photographs, promoting those photographs, with whatever energy I have. Sometimes I feel like the drunk at the bar who is always talking big and grand about the places and things he is going to do, yet never gets off the bar stool.  Talking dreams, clouds in the sky, imaging this or that, yet the end is the same, talking. Let me tell you that is not the case. The Exhibitions, the artist dates, the promotion may not be as steady as it once was. It still trickles, it still flows.

Each day of endless questions and repeated answers, it’s still filled with beauty all around.

 Do I have the

faith, courage and persistence I need to keep getting

back up off the ground when things go awry?

It seems that I do have the faith, courage and persistence to get back off the ground. Or you wouldn’t being seeing this blog, I wouldn’t be part of a group exhibition that is now hanging at the Galleria in Deptford NJ. I have a photograph at Cafe 12 as part of that group show for the Photographic Society of Philadelphia.  One of my photographs taken a few years ago was just featured in a group on Redbubble.com.

Caregiving, maintenance  of finance and a house with yard didn’t seem to be part of my path yet they are that which informs me of who I am right now. Much of that I struggle with that struggle helps peel the layers of unknowing away.

it’s

entirely up to us how far we go, how deep we go,

how authentic we become.

wanting to live it…

“It’s having a dream and wanting to live it so greatly that one would rather move with it and “fail” than succeed in another realm.”  The Universe

Amber glow

Drinking day old coffee, cold. Wearing cloths that are worn, frayed and out of date, piled high on surfaces that use to be desks, for the draws are full or inaccessible. Sleeping on a futon crammed in a room that was supposed to be temporary, sheets and pillows toss about hardly ever straightened. Books, books, more books, spiritual, educational, fiction/nonfiction, art books/photography picture books and essays, all piled on every other surface that can handle them, some in cases, on top of file cabinet reaching almost to 9 foot ceiling, on little floor space around the bed. Collections of found objects, feathers, rocks, miniature cars, toy monsters, solider’s of the empire, bones of creatures, groundhogs?  A tiny space that was created as an altar, a small photo of the Sacred Heart of Mary, red rosary’s draped over the edge, wood angels, collections of semi precious stones, in a hand-made pottery bowl, many spill out on the surface, waiting to be held or carried. Scattered around them essential oil bottles, sticky with use, giving a sent to the room something a bit unpredictable at times. Every thing dust-covered, feathers from the bedding gather in corners that are mostly unreachable. On the walls that have  semi peeling wall paper with 55-year-old paint, pale blue on them  have a few of my own photographs, one of Terrill Welsch’s canvas print photographs, and a stained glass image of an angel.

scattered elements

Is this a space to create from, is this a room of a mad man, a hoarder, a dreamer? I once saw photos of Lucian Freud’s apartment that is painted from floor to ceiling, in the biography of Alice Neel it is said that her apartments rooms were filled with her paintings and little else, they lived and worked in those spaces. Creating images that seem to just wish to flow from them.

building towers

So if I “fail” as a house keeper or in relationships/friendships or other wise it is because pursuing a dream, following my bliss is about creation, creating photographs, viewing photographs and art… Self education of the talent that I have been graced with has enriched my life in so many ways other pursuits seem wasteful, almost unproductive.

No no my whole home is not a hoarders nightmare, it maybe a yard sale waiting to happen?  Photographs are  hung, as well as leaning against the walls in places I would like them to hang. There are boxes of old framed photographs on the porch among frames that need attention.

A small view into my world:

The quote from the Universe this morning also stated this; “At which point, of course, failure becomes impossible, joy becomes the measure of success,”

Growth Question: Are your following your dream, your bliss?

Rarely have we seen a person fail…

who has throughly  followed our path.” Big statement yet placed with honesty, and continual practice of service to a Higher Power through the steady conscious awareness of self in daily readiness to help another human being.

Glimmers of light

At 12:00 am today I was led out of a tunnel of darkness, into a room full of light, well really crowded with men and women sitting around a table and lining the walls of a strip mall store, drinking coffee, smoking and chatting among themselves. Actually they were reading from a book,  a little blue book, The 12 & 12, which was either shared with me by the person next to me or I was given one while being shown which page and paragraph they were on. Yes I was late to my first AA Meeting at the Malvern Club House.

24 Years ago today those people in that crowded smoked filled room help me begin to change me life, one day at a time.  Being desperate enough to finely seek help for my drinking which had recently gotten me arrested for public lewdness or disturbance. My lover of the past few years had offered me a ultimatum,  it was him or the booze and crazy behavior alcohol and pot created within me. Imagine I went to my first meeting to save my relationship with another person? Yet I discovered after a few short weeks it was the relationship to myself and a Higher Power that would keep me there, allow me to get sober and be sober…

A moment

24 years is a life time, 24 years is only a beginning of the opening doors, the unraveling of years of unconscious behavior, ideals, and thinking that kept me in the state of want, the state of emptiness. In that state I felt the need to fill the hole in my soul, the ego needed to be constantly stroked. Every action was caused by those needs to be wanted  to be like, to be the best at something.

24 years of awakening, walking along many paths with many people, in meetings, books, in prayer circles, which for a time included religious organizations, than in spiritual community, who did I meet in all those places? I met myself, I meet myself in the reflection of each person and situation that challenges who I am, who I believe I am and who I am becoming.

24 years of re-discovery, have I throughly followed the path? Sometimes, sometimes not. The quote that begins this blog and is major part of the 12 Step Program written by recovering drunks for recovering drunks, and read at many many meeting everyday sets down the path, offers the tools to use, to a practice of a way of life beyond many peoples understanding. The reading offers bit of comfort with these words, ” We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.”

the imperfect path

Thank goodness for that, I don’t have to be perfect anymore, and I am not by any means. I fall short every day, yet the main thing is I don’t drink, I don’t use a substance, to dumb me. I walk in the woods, I take my camera, and my two lovely animal companions who show me what unconditional love is on a moment to moment basis. I am granted today, this moment, to be present, each a gift to unwrap and savor, sharing with the world around me…

I am grateful.

 

Art is born…

Opening the Artist Way this morning for the first time in a while, the opening lines of the introduction to the 10th Anniversary Edition spoke volumes to me;

“ART IS A SPIRITUAL transaction.

Artist are visionaries. We routinely practice a from of faith, seeing clearly and moving toward a creative goal that shimmers in the distance——often visible to us, but invisible to those around us. Difficult as it is to remember, it is our work that creates the market, not the market that creates our work. Art is an act of faith, and we practice practicing it. Sometimes we are called on pilgrimages on its behalf  and, like many pilgrims, we doubt the call even as we answer it. But answer we do.”

Answering the call is returning to write this blog through the dark tunnels of caregiving as well as the shimmering light that attracts my eye to create along with natures grace the sharing of beauty. It is the beauty that allows sanity to be maintained.

” Art is born in attention. It is midwife to detail. Art may seem to spring from pain, but perhaps that is because pain serves to focus our attention onto details…”  When the gift of photography was shared with me from the perspective of a gathering of Shamans, in the message that stated, “the property wishes to be recognized” the property being the 175 acre retreat I live at. The land was calling out, I soon discovered so was my soul, so was my voice, asking to be seen and heard. Photography/art allowed me to be seen and heard, and to participate in events, situations, what seems like the side lines, yet in truth, placing a camera in front of my face gave me the gift of “seeing” for the first time, really seeing what I was looking at. Offered me detail, lights and shadows.

Now a few years later,  pursuing photography has opened doors and a few windows that have led to a world so unknown to be before. Art! Art can soothe which it usually does for me, taking the dogs and camera for a walk, moves me into another world, a world of amazing sites even when I have seen them a thousand times, when I don’t see them, it means I am not present, and I a looking for something instead of just being still, allow presence to stream over or into me…

The practice is not only to make photographs but to self educate about art. The art of photography is huge and getting bigger, and I am only a small drop of colored light that gleams to paint the world with light. I am challenged by my concepts of photography, ever evolving, as well as what art is… and what it is not.

I was extremely challenged a few days ago by photography work I was viewing in this ever evolving world when I came across what is call “art” photography, in the sense of creating something and photographing that to make a statement. (it has been suggested that I attempt to record the process of caregiving and depression, which I have considered) yet these photographers have taken something that was ordinary and maybe kinky, one knits shrouds, which where to represent her feelings of invisibility about her relations and her art. Playful and colorful as they were I began to see them to create more invisibility. Than there is a guy who has made beautiful sculpture like images of bound people in stark architectural sittings… These images awakened something dark, and frightening in me… the darkness and captivity of illness and caregiving. To move beyond that I knew I had to continue with the blog, I had to repurpose my photography into a source of Love and light. It had to become my voice, it had to be the visible me, even through I am not “present” my presence is in the work, in the detail, in the faith, beauty wins.

Question: Do you know where you attention to is?

The progress of mistakes

“If we are to make progress, if we are to grow, if we are to live our dreams, then we must begin to expect that mistakes and problems will arise – and not meet them with the arrogant belief that they shouldn’t be there, but instead bring awareness and patience to the situation and know that problems are there to teach us and they are an inevitable step towards mastery.”  Mastin Kipp: Daily Love Blog:http://thedailylove.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each morning for weeks, no months, I have desired to write, to blog, always getting distracted by one thing or another. Which is always just me getting in my own way. There is always something to distract us from our journey, always another shinning object, another mistake, another detour, yet all paths on the same journey to our destination. The road less traveled is not as easy to walk, ride, but I believe a much more rewarding one. A journey made from our own choices, our own visions of who we are, where we wish to go.

Since last fall I have become my mother’s caregiver, finding out her dementa/Alzheimer’s is worst than we thought but not as bad as it may become. Yet a new chapter in both our lives, lives interrupted by illness, aging, unclear paths untraveled by either of us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes depression became my companion, I felt betrayed in some ways by my sister and brother in law who bought a house and moved out of the family home after 55 years! It was just Mom, the dogs and I! I knew some of the steps to take to get the help, Doctor appointments, contacting the county/senior service, I knew but I didn’t do much about it. I stood stunned in my path, going numbly from day to day. Was there, is there an arrogant belief I should not be there? Not arrogant, just a shocked misunderstanding of where I was in my life. Did I ask myself is this what I called forth? If I called being a caregiver to my Mother it was not a conscious calling. Is this part of growing up, being responsible?  If it is part of growing up and being responsible is sucks!

An older male friend commented this way about my being in this state of presence about my Mom just yesterday: “Please know that in the process of your frenzy and fury over dealing with your mother that you are doing the work that honors both of you. (This is a better way to think about it then prompting her to talk about fourteen hours of labor!!!”  Yes, I am trying to move into the higher vibration of all of this.  and slowing this is coming to be, yet part of me is just numb or angry, feeling love in this process is a difficult to reach. As the quote says above; “but instead bring awareness and patience to the situation and know that problems are there to teach us and they are an inevitable step towards mastery.” I am far from mastery in this matter, I seek advise and guidance, sanity through photography… 

Yes, depression will still continue to shadow me, yes mistakes will jump up in my path, yet the journey continues, everyday the challenge to create, every moment that challenge to Be Present, to who I am and who I saw up as is unfolding.

Question of the day: Are Mistakes markers for your awareness?