I’ve been watching Weeds, a show I discovered in 2012 when I had the Showtime channel for a promotional month. Starring Mary-Louise Parker, I saw a half dozen episodes in 2012 and then forgot about it until I got Netflix and saw it on the lineup. Score! It took me a few months to get to it, but I began watching with Season 1, Episode 1 and watching a few in a row in the midnight hours. It’s the first time I’ve done that, spent hours at a time immersed in a show and I used it as a format for observation, as I would had I stepped into their life with them. I got to know each character and, thanks to excellent production and editing, got to feel I was right there with them during everything they went through. Each day I’d take the events into my meditation, as I would my own real life previous day’s events. Continue reading
Author Archives: Andrea
Shiva brings $170 when asked for it
I just checked in with a friend who stood in front of Shiva at the altar this morning and did an invocation for the amount of $170. The bargain was if at the end of the business day there was $170, they’d do 10 minutes of Shiva chants. I just checked and $170 was the exact amount. They are chanting Om Namah Shivaya right now.
I got blessed by 3 angels at the post office today
I went to the post office this morning and there was a long line so I went to the machine to buy stamps. It was my first experience with the machine. The only first class stamps in the machine had a flag on them, so I opted not to buy any. My experience is flags are like bibles, people use them mostly to beat each other up with, so I never want to tap into that energy. On the upside, a mom with a kid on one hip and one tugging at her jeans was at the machine next, with a handful of change. She didn’t have a credit card to buy her stamps so I ran my card for her stamps and didn’t take her change. Moms who care for their kids need every break they can get. The mom and both kids all said thank you in unison as I left. I felt like I’d just been blessed by three angels.
Never appear at my door unannounced. If I didn’t text back, I haven’t seen it yet and am likely unavailable
IF U HAVE MY CELL #: If you text me and I do not text you back, that means I did not see it yet. That means don’t drive an hour and show up at my door unless I’ve acknowledged I know you’re coming and I’m available. Just because my body is in the office doesn’t mean I’m available. I acknowledge every text I see as soon as I see it because everyone deserves acknowledgment. But not everyone who appears at my door unannounced deserves my time. The same with cancelling meetings. If I did not respond to your text cancelling a 9am appointment, I’ll be there on time and may not look at my phone until 9am when I wonder where you are. Sending a second text is a courtesy that gives me an extra chance to hear the text ringtone come in, and would be mucho appreciated.
Drop all pretense, risk being seen in all your glory
You can join the game, fight the wars, play with form all you want, but to find real peace, you have to let the armor fall. Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world. Don’t let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form. Risk being seen in all of your glory. Jim Carrey
Introducing Pele
I’ve never been particularly drawn to Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire and the volcano. I’ve never studied the mythology and I’ve only recently looked her up, after it came to me to paint a version of her. I’ve been working on a series of paintings depicting archetypal women as a form of shamanic soul retrieval. It came to me during meditation that I wanted someone who would sit in the coals of the fire and burn up the dross. As gold is heated to burn away impurities so its essential character can be revealed, just so the intent of my soul retrieval project was to do the same with me. I saw someone sitting in the coals of a fire, with fire all around her, laughing. The image of molten lava came to me and a volcano appeared behind her. The name Pele came to me, so I began adding her to the series and researching to learn about her. I’ve learned that Pele’s fires and lava are what builds and rebuilds the island she sits on. Through volcanic activity, it is always being renewed. Just so, this creat-ive force comes into our lives to cleanse, transform and rebuild. Continue reading
Should Police Wear Body Cameras? Should We All?
In the news, Reuters reports Police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, have begun wearing body cameras after the shooting death of an unarmed black teen by a white officer and differing accounts of the incident. If you were a police officer, how would you feel about that? Would you feel constricted in not being able to do your job without fear of recrimination or judgment? Or would you be pleased that an accurate record would be made for the record? It would vary according to the individual. An officer who feels confined by their job description would feel differently than an officer who does not. Anyone who feels the need to operate outside the law is a criminal, whether they are wearing a uniform, or sweats and a hoodie. Wear a camera for working with the public? Would you? What if we all acted as though we’ve got a camera on 24/7? What if we all acted as though everything we do is seen by everyone? When there are no secrets, there are no lies. Do we really have to rely on technology in order to act with honesty and integrity, and within the law?
Why I Don’t Watch Horror Movies
Why I Paint in the Silence
Watching painting tutorials this week, I notice they often have music in the background. It’s interesting to note the different types of music. some classical, some rock, some heavy metal. One said, “Painting without music is like trying to work in total darkness. Music is the light that switches me on in my work.” I can see how that that can be so, but I much prefer to work in the soft, subtle nuanced world which is silence.
Silence for me is not empty, it is full of Presence. By Presence I don’t mean a rambling chain-of-consciousness babblespeak of hurried thoughts about daily doings. I mean simply thoughts of observing what is in front of me, and letting myself be carried away by the beauty of that. I spend so much time each day thinking thoughts that I have to think for work, that I look forward to having thought time to think my own thoughts, to contemplate my own life. After I’ve done enough of that, I like simply steeping in the silence and observing what Inner Guidance reveals to me.
As I paint in the silence, thoughts and images come to me to help me create each piece. One reason I paint is to allow the different facets of me to reveal themselves to me. They do this by impressing upon my mind the imagery of elements and totem animals. In the researching, Googling and contemplation of the meaning of the words and images that come to mind, I discover the metaphor relative to me and learn a lot about myself.
For instance, I’m doing a painting of Pele, the Hawaiian Fire and Volcano Goddess and she’s sitting in a lava flow. Never having felt compelled to paint lava before, I didn’t know much about it. Researching lava taught me a lot about facets of my own personality. Where lava flows, there is complete destruction, yet it forms the foundation for new life, indeed it forms the very ground the islands exist on. The message is that renewal is constant.
Listen to music while painting? My choice is time alone in my own beautiful world with my own thoughts, with my own beloved Self.
Andrea’s Art Gallery here
Painting is a daily meditation for me
Painting as a method of altering consciousness
Doing a series of paintings as a form of shamanic soul retrieval
Don’t weigh yourself down with unnecessaries
It makes me laugh to see someone with a big honking keychain locked to a belt loop when they only have one real key. The extra keys they carry around for the look. The older I get, the less excess weight I want to carry around to maintain some image of who I think I should portray other than who I really Am right now. The more pretense I let fall away, the more I float to the surface in sweet relief.