Earthquake!

It was 5.25am and I was lying in bed, awake, pondering life. I'm an early bird, so being awake at that time is not unusual but having my bed move back and forth, on its own, is!

Why is it doing that? Is my condo haunted? Is the creature under my bed getting uppity? And why are the picture frames on my walls banging about? And something just fell off the dining room table...

KA-CHING! Ah! Victorialand is having a wee earthquake!

It ended very quickly. It was just a strong tremor really. Nerd link:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/uw01301325.html

I have to admit I was a bit nervous but more so because at first I thought there was an intruder in my flat, it was dark and I couldn't see and without my hearing aids I'm never completely confident of what I hear. So the realization that it was just an earthquake was met with relief and joy! ;-)

I also love the sheer force of earth energy I feel during a quake. It's a reminder that I'm a teenie-weenie bit of the universe and my life, and especially the minor irritations in it, are really not important enough to get worked up about and that I'm also a teenie-weenie bit of something wonderful.

And it's a reminder to restock my cache of bottled water...

A stupid thing that still bothers me...

I bought a ladder about three years ago. On it, is this sticker. I see it everyday as the ladder is here in my home office. Everytime I walk by it, a big question mark forms in my head.

Does anyone know what the bottom image means? The others are obvious: skis are an available accessory, don't wear floods with boots, impressions of the Statue of Liberty are lame... but the bottom one... three years on and I still have no idea what the image is trying to convey.

Anyone?

Picassos'mores

All the base colours applied and that's that until next week's class. It's growing on me, like a fungal infection and if anything it's certainly an interesting exercise in composition, which is my strength, and colour, which does soooo not.



I'm going to go get some more canvases or maybe just boards and do some more of these using different colour combinations as it's apparent that I've inherited my Dad's eye for colour... I thought his red suspenders with his bright orange shirt looked ok, too.

Picas'so-so'

I'm taking a painting course! I love it, it's great fun; a friendly group of people and an enthusiastic and encouraging instructor. We're jumping right into Cubism, as you do, to explore colour and composition.

I think all that I'm doing is re-exploring the ugly mosaic mural found in a circa 1970s gymnasium in southern Ontario... memories of jungle gyms, dodgeball and floor hockey...

But! It's fun! And Ms Painting Instructor Woman (Hazel Medlyn) says that these sorts of Cubist paintings always start off looking 'quite ghastly'. Haha... confirmed!

This is how the pseudo-Cubism goes --> Find a bottle, glass, pepper mill, whatever... sketch it. Find another... sketch it but think about the compostion but don't put one object infront or behind, draw right through each object. Repeat until happy. Fill in the shapes with colour... again thinking about compostions and experimenting with colour relationships. Then 'add life' to each colour shape. Not there yet... but here's where I'm at:

Aquarians kick ass...

Happy Birthday to Me and Kung Hei Fat Choi, hello to the year of the Ox.

And back to regular programming, well, that's the plan... ;-)

Funniest ecard so far; this is brilliant! Ta, D.

No hope for anyone in 2009!

{thumbs in ears, fingers waving, sticks out tongue}

I have flying books; books of short stories, snippets and such like; manageable passages as my attention span evapourates at a high altitude (is it just me?). I was reading one the other night, a book called, 'Peace is Every Step' by Thich Nhat Hanh. It's full of interesting ideas that I like to let loose to wander around in my head. Read a bit, stare off into space, feel all yummy. Repeat as necessary. Seeing as it's been that xmassy time of year and the hassles that implies (well, for me), it been a good and needed choice.

But! I read something in it the other night that's rattled me, a good rattle! And has shifted my perspective on life ever so slightly, or maybe more, and I like that very much.

Here's a condensed version of it:

Hope as an Obstacle

Hope is important, because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. But that is the most that hope can do for us - to make some hardship lighter. When I think deeply about the nature of hope, I see something tragic. Since we cling to our hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment. We use hope to believe something better will happen in the future, that we will arrive at peace, or the Kingdom of God. Hope becomes a kind of obstacle. If you can refrain from hoping, you can bring yourself entirely into the present moment and discover the joy that is already here.

Enlightenment, peace, and joy will not be granted by someone else. The well is within us, and if we dig deeply in the present moment, the water will spring forth. We must go back to the present moment in order to be really alive. When we practice conscious breathing, we practice going back to the present moment where everything is happening.

Western civilization places so much emphasis on the idea of hope that we sacrifice the present moment. Hope is for the future. It cannot help us discover joy, peace, or enlightenment in the present moment. Many religions are based on the notion of hope, and this teaching about refraining from hope may create a strong reaction. But the shock can bring about something important. I do not mean that you should not have hope, but that hope is not enough. Hope can create an obstacle for you, and if you dwell in the energy of hope, you will not bring yourself back entirely into the present moment. If you re-channel those energies into being aware of what is going on in the present moment, you will be able to make a breakthrough and discover joy and peace right in the present moment, inside of yourself and all around you.

Though I'm not one who really dwells on hope, as in I don't pray and wish that things would get better; I try to 'do stuff' to make things better. Yet, I appreciate the idea of hope as an obstacle very much. It's a change in perspective that is subtle and huge and I love having my perspective twisted like that (as stubborn as I can be sometimes).

So, I don't hope 2009 will bring the best for myself and any of you; just have a great time right at this very moment! Now, that said, I still hope that one day xmas will just go away! haha... ;-)