krishanna.com :: as the crow flies

More Pagan 12 Steps

For those you who have been around awhile, know that I am a recovered drunk and dope fiend (07.05.1987). Yes. RECOVERED. It means I am no longer hounded by the compulsion to pickle my liver and jam white powder up my nose or in my arm.

Anyway, I was doing some research on a totally unrelated subject and found another variation on the 12 Steps. Damn, if these had been around when I was sobering up, I may gone a few months without my panties twisted in a knot over stupid shit. Then again... probably not. Heh.

A Pagan 12 Step Program by Anodea Judith

1. Admitted we had a problem and that we were squandering our power.

2. Came to see how the power within and without had been misaligned and made  a decision to reconnect them, seeing them as One.         

3. Through sharing and feedback from others, took an intelligent look at our behavior, examining our relationship to family patterns and dysfunctional culture.         

4. Made myself ready and willing to let go of old patterns.
         
5. Learned to ask for help.
         
6. Made a list of harm done, and carried out rectification and balancing  wherever possible.
         
7. Made the commitment to continue the process of recovery, knowing  that change takes time.
         
8. Pursued the strengthening of our connection with the web of life through appropriate activity and spiritual practice.

9. Having experienced a stabilized change from our awakening, we sought to help others along the path.
         
10. Examine my life story and my addiction (and codependency) in the  context of my role in a patriarchal, capitalistic system.

11. Use the events life brings as lessons for growth and accept my mistakes as part of my humanness.
         
12. Grow in our awareness that we are sacred beings, interrelated with all living things and, when ready, take an active part in helping the planet become a better place for all including ourselves.

Source

Cool, huh?

Identity Crisis

This blog, like its owner, has been undergoing an identity crisis. Well, sort of.

Not long ago, I whined about my boring life. About the same time, give or take a week, I wrote about "being gloomy and  in a weird place" in an online women's spirituality discussion group I belong to. The feedback I received included some terrific suggestions. One insightful woman reminded me to quit worrying about the seeming lack of inspiration; that even the Goddess must rest and kickback. Another wise woman suggested that I needed some fire to get things moving. Neither one of them were wrong and I was impressed with their suggestions but this didn't feel like I needed to do anything   about it but sit with it and get comfortable with being uncomfortable for awhile.

After all I wasn't exactly unhappy, but I wasn't happy either. I wasn't exactly depressed but I wasn't not depressed either. I didn't find much encouraging around me but I wasn't completely discouraged with everything. I was not quiet and watchful because something was wrong because clearly nothing beyond the daily mild annoyances and frustrations with life was happening. I was the same and yet I was different. It was a great puzzle to me.

My thoughts kept drifting back to a a strange thing that happened just as Winter was drawing to a close and Spring was just on the horizon. I was talking online with fellow list member about the Morrigan when I was startled by something thudding against my front door... HARD. It was so loud, it made Manthing emerge from his computer room and check things out.  There was nothing outside. There was no wind. There were no feral neighborhood cats about to swat at the moths who were congregating at the porch light. There was not even the hint of anything unordinary outside our front door.

The next morning as I opened the door to get on the sCare van to go to the gallery, 3 of the biggest crows I have ever seen were hanging out in my front yard. For the record, crows just don't hang out in my neighborhood, though I'd like them to. Crows were a regular  as I was growing up and I talked to them often. Here, we've got plenty of hawks, buzzards, a few owls, blue jays, robins, mourning doves, a pair of cardinals, sparrows, chickadees and the occasional hummingbird but never crows. The crows sort of looked at me, cawed and then flew away as I approached the walkway leading to the driveway as if to say, "Hey, dolt- didja get it yet?"

On one of the first warm spring days we had, I was puttering around the house when I became aware of a lot of bird noise outside and my small pride of cats were all at the window, pulling the slats of the blinds  down so they could see what was going on. When I opened the door, the magnolia tree that stands like a sentinel in front of house, the lawn and the chain link fence that dives our property from our neighbor's was littered with a flock small to medium sized black birds, making a racket. I've not been able to figure out what kind of birds they were because they flew off when I opened the door to get a closer look.

When I mentioned these events to Manthing, he cocked an eyebrow and told me he didn't think it was anything more than the arrival of Spring. Because I had no better answers or explanations, I noted the events, filed them away, and kept putting one foot in front of the other.

So, as I was looking through my photos for a new image for this blog, I ran across the one above. It was taken at my mother's apartment in California. I was visited awakened by this crow cawing at me incessantly every morning. It cawed at me and I answered it. I was able to snap the photo on my last morning there. The photo inspired me and as I was working on the new design, I realized the pieces have begun to fit better and I have not been happier or more comfortable with a design for krishanna [dot] com in a very long time.

What do you think?

:: to be continued ::

Writing About Art

One of the reasons I don't often write much about other people's art is that sometimes I can look at a work and have NO CLUE why the particular piece was composed but I like it. Often it doesn't occur to me to wonder about the story behind the artwork unless it is obviously a statement of some sort. It may be the color, it might be the way a certain technique was employed that draws toward a work of art. It might be how it makes me, the viewer, feel. It could be any number of things that captures my attention and draws me to a particular piece of art. But why the artist did what she or he did is not something that is always immediately apparent.

Indeed one of the things I am asked quite frequently about my own art is, 'Why' and to them I always say what the art says to you is far more important than any meaning I could attach to it for you.

This is why I was so glad to run across this article in the Wall Street Journal on the Lost Art of Writing About Art. Do check it out.

Is There A "Miniweeiner" In The House?

This arrived in our snail mailbox recently.*

I think I shall return it marked "Return to sender. No Miniweeiners at this address".

See what happens when you whine about your boring life? You get junk mail for Thom Miniweeiner.

And we don't even have a deck here...

 

*As usual, click on the image to see a larger version.

My Boring Life

Much has happened since I last checked in with you. Or it at least seems that way.

    I am preparing for another show opening next month. Sort of.

    I've had another birthday.

    I took a 7-day jaunt to California to see my mother and my sister for the aforementioned event. See yesterday's post.

    I've had my locks cut and coiffed and colored, California style. I've got an Electra thing going on. See yesterday's post.

    Our last ferret died, an hour before my flight touched down the day I arrived home. She was over 7 years old and had cancer. Still tough.Still sucks.

I often don't blog about the mundane day to day crap in my life because I am certain if it bores me, it will surely bore the shit out of you. However, as a friend points out, many people enjoy reading the mundane, everyday events of some else's life because it can remind them they are not alone and what I consider to be mundane and boring may indeed entertain, inspire and invigorate someone else.

Take today, for instance. I got up, got ready to go to the gallery. Waited for the sCARE van to collect me and carry me to the gallery. On the van, I was duly grunted at by the driver as I handed over my ticket and eyed carefully as I dug around in my bag for my MP3 player so I could listen to my daily dose of KATG.

Once at the gallery, I fired up my laptop, turned on lights, got my daily fix of Diet Coke and checked e-mail, fixed a few blurps on the gallery blog and website, researched blog stores and eCommerce through blogging (John Unger's got a terrific eCommerce Guide over on his Typepad Hacks site. It's chockfull of eCommerce information that is useful for anyone who blogs.) I did some online marketing and promotion for the gallery site and blog . I am now writing the post you are now reading and once done with that I will peruse Popscribe and the KATG Forums or maybe read my feeds for the remaining 30 or so minutes until closing and then wait for sCARE to again collect me and carry me back home.

Once home, we might go out and grab a bite or I might toss some leftovers in  microwave and call it dinner before I settle in for an evening of TV and stitching or maybe a little artmaking on the off chance I feel inspired.

My life is so exciting and glamorous. Can you stand it?

Actually there is probably some truth to the whole what's boring to me might not be boring to someone else. I keep up with many of my favorite blogs daily because I care about what is happening to their owners, boring or not. We all have our off periods. It's the loyal friends and readers who get through with you that are so endearing.

So much of what NATUI, BLC, Eden, Asshole,and Attila write these days is not only interesting, entertaining and thoughtful if not thought-provoking, their words resonate with me because our experiences and outlooks on life are often very similar. In reading their words, I find a certain comfortable camaraderie and rapport with them while vaguely saddened that so many of these cool, interesting and intelligent women live so far flung in distance from me.  Of course, if we were to ever meet, I am not sure what I would do. I think my head would explode or I would embarrass myself in a fit of geekiness.

I am afterall, despite outward appearances, rather anti-social and reclusive with a healthy pinch of misanthrope thrown in for a pinch of spice.