Posts (page 2)

Historically the muses are typically regarded as nine young goddesses of inspiration who personify and embody the arts, poetry and sciences. They were entities of song and grace that inspired people to exert their best efforts and live to their fullest potential. Additionally, they engendered harmony, prosperity and friendships.

What would it mean to become a muse in today's time? Do you have a desire to become a muse of any sort? If so, what kind of muse would you be? How do you normally find yourself inspiring others? How do you purposefully like to inspire others? My belief is that both men and women can be muses, muses can be of any age and muses can possess a number of visual impressions. The stereotype is that muses look like flawless beauties. I think instead muses possess a unique beauty of spirit; a brand of individuality that is magnetic. This might make an impression upon his/her looks or it might at first not be so aesthetically obvious but would be something that people FEEL when they come into contact with him/her.

When I mention a modern day muse, I very much mean in a real sense. Not paranormally. I also think there are muse qualities in all of us, but my focus is more in being a muse in awareness...in a way that is organically asserted and confidently activated.

I've thought about this for some time, but I'd like to consider myself a muse of sorts and I'd like to be more confidently and actively. I think in asserting yourself this way, you as the muse realize, that by natural rule, living as a muse incites more passionate living.

Unbridled passionate living.

I also think a modern day muse feeds off of inspiration in many ways too. They don't just inspire others. Inspiration becomes a fuel of sorts, in both directions. So when a muse ceases to find inspiration and to create or embody it in some manner, the muse identity "dies".

I've exercised my muse powers through Meetup.com recently. I started a group for exercise and fitness which targets women who are curvy, plus-sized and/or plump. I speak to an audience of women who are happy about and find beauty in being thicker and rubenesque in stature but would like to tone up and participate in regular exercise activity so that our fitness levels are heightened as curvy women. Our goal is not to be thin but to be healthy. This inspires a great many of women to redefine beauty for themselves and to see their own loveliness through and through.

Mingling with others, sending messages and speaking up is important in cultivating muse power and spirit. Again the aim of a muse is to live passionately, embrace living and embody inspiration.

How do you wish to do this? It can be done in so many ways:

    
• Join or start a new group based on unique interests, desires and goals
• Cultivate your own sense of style or bring it out again in full vigor
• Explore new ideas and thoughts; challenge old ones
• Define why you are beautiful in your own way apart from what society dictates and begin living in this newfound sense of pride
• Champion a new or long-abandoned cause
• Find a way to help someone realize their potential, their dreams or their value
• Do something new and different each day
• Read, listen to and see curious books, music and film respectively
• Try a brand new cuisine
• Research different lifestyles and viewpoints
• Do something you've always done the same in a completely new way
• Strike up a conversation with a random stranger and ask them thoughtful questions
• Find ways you can make society better, more rewarding and interesting
• Invent something or improve upon an old convention

Be more hands on:

We are a society that is very much out of touch with our instincts. We don't have to use and sharpen then. We live in an automated, highly technical and ever-increasing digital world. I don't put down modern and technical conventions as they have their own appealing qualities, I just think we are greatly handicapped by them through our own ignorance and lack of exploration and awareness.

So how can we really be muses of anything?

How can we really appreciate anything?

How can we really understand and FEEL?

I think it's important to keep old traditions alive because make US feel alive. Our senses remain sharp, aware and functioning. Never at a loss. Never dull.

Rather than go out to eat or buy microwave food, cook sometimes from SCRATCH or learn how to for a particular recipe. The meal will be that much more appreciated. I would even say growing one's own vegetables and fruits gives a different sense of appreciation too. I wonder how many people would consume as much meat as they did if they had to hunt and prepare it themselves.

Rather than typing a letter why not write one. A LONG one...and do it often. Why not a short story or *gasp* a novel?

Instead of drawing something on the computer, why not get the paints, charcoals, pastels, markers, pens or conte out to draw? G further and maybe create and stretch your own canvas, make your own brushes, make and mix your own paints just to see what it feels like? Use natural objects as brushes such as twigs, leaves, flower petals, and hands.

Why not learn how to play an instrument or take some voice lessons for fun to get a different appreciation for music and singing? Even just reading about the history of music can change one's perspective.

Rather than renting a movie for a particular title, why not go read the book?
Rather than seeing a movie, why not go see a theatre production with live actors and music?

Rather than reading about a particular culture, country or city, why not plan a trip someday to visit that region to get a real sense of the area? Learn the language?

Why not look up some craft projects and get busy with them and get your hands dirty? Try to make an article of clothing for yourself, a piece of jewelry, your own sculpture or piece of dish ware or a bath and beauty accessory (creams, lotions, soap, shampoo, perfume)? Include stuff like making your own butter, cheese, wine, spread, jam, jelly or oil?

You get the picture. I love stuff like this. It is important to hone desires for these things and to find ways to incorporate these types of activities and a quality of curiosity into your daily living. Make them a part of your life; necessary, natural and therapeutic rituals to fully activate your muse power and spirit.

Upon further thought, embracing yourself as a muse also inspires more love and appreciation for self. You really start to admire your own brand of beauty in and out and acknowledge how valuable it is in its own right...what it can do, what it means and how it can inspire and compel many.

So my recommendation is to begin embracing yourself as a muse, in the ways it best unleashes and suits the true you regardless of age, gender, sexuality, appearance and so on.

No need to wait.

Begin now. See and explore your beauty in all its glory and OWN and USE it.

Introspective thoughts that come to mind from ponderings of a pool of articles, conversations and forums...

I sometimes wonder how many people can truly commit to a monogamous relationship...not because they will cheat or because they don't put in effort, but because along with those issues, you simply have the reality of every individual evolving over the course of a lifetime. As two people evolve, compatibility must endure with these transformations. A couple who has been happily married for 20 or more years must have been able to grow in similar directions and with similar energies. What a feat.

However, you often find that most people just do not make it to that many years of marriage...in quality that is. This can be so for many different reasons, but one of those reasons is because at first...hell maybe even during the first 6-8 years of that relationship, the couple shares a similar walking path which is essentially a package of things including mutual interests and desires, but after those years have passed, one or both people might evolve in such a way that it shifts the balance out of that relationship. The things that were valued or shared at first either no longer apply or don't apply as much so that causes a change in that connection and that might lead to a divorce of "irreconcilable differences" as it is often formally put.

Just what does that mean when people list that as a reason for divorcing? I would assume it means as I previously described, but perhaps I am being too formulaic about the supposition. Who knows?

I've been reading a few discussions forums lately and I've been talking to a few people who have been sharing their relationship or dating woes, conflicts and rantings. One thing that was told to me was that in this day and age, so many people just do not know how to date or what to expect from others for courtship...that it's a confusing time where so many feel lost and feel they are destined to be happily "unpartnered" for the rest of their lives.

Is this so because now many in this society have too many choices of what they can do with their lives whereas before we followed stricter rules about what was expected during courtship and within a committed relationship? Are we spoiled and overexposed to too many things?

If so is that a bad or good thing? If it's bad, the devil's advocate question would be, "How do people really discover the core of themselves without having a wealth of experience and options? Who are they really and how can they develop this sense of self and awareness over time?" Why define yourself through a list of indefinables or rather limitations/unfulfilled desires (but then when do we ever stop desiring which begs the question of monogamy)?

If this is a good thing, I guess you already drank the cocktail provided by those questions and fall more in line with the implied reasoning...which is go with experience and constantly seek, evolve and realize...never committing, never settling and never staying contained in any manner or form.

I guess this is a scary and odd existence for so many...to be so far out there in this world full of options and the ability to establish freedom of being (supposedly). Those who are single long for what attached people have and those who are attached are wishing for some aspects of single life or single life period. Everyone is doing the splits. Each side wants something the other has and no one can find a damned way to exist harmoniously. Some have...more so as single people than attached I would guess. But then again it is MY guess because I am thinking there are far more single people out there than long-term committed and especially married.

Life...the ultimate game...you can make your own rules or follow someone else's set but do you ever really know how to play?

Late night mental ramblings of course put into the form of word...indeed this is.

I am getting some disturbing images and thoughts about faces.

My mind is imagining a young woman who has encountered an irreversible, startling and/or disgusting reality in the faces of others. This is what she sees:

• Faces that possess the texture of the bottoms of very dirty and filthy shoes.


• Faces that are teeming with a million worms living inside of pores


• Faces that are filled with pulsating juicy blueberries embedded underneath the skin


• Faces that cast off double expressions where twisted smiles are half-way engulfed by shriveling sad mouths and where widened happy eyes are infused with pairs that are covered heavily in white film and signs of massive infection


• Faces that, upon closer inspection, are really illusions created by the clustering and bonding of extremely tiny multi-colored squeaking creatures


• Faces that are frozen in an expression but emanate the most lively and animated voices and sound effects.


• Faces that are hideous to look at for a few seconds but soon become interpreted as profoundly beautiful visions


• Faces that contain extrusions of many bone-like growths


• Faces that appear to have depth but really are very flat surfaces that exist only in theory


• Faces that look normal from a distance but reveal themselves as twisted and gaping portals into unknown realms once they are closer in view.


• Faces that are entirely parasitic entities and traps that wait for engaging conversations with others but devour and take on the look and entity of their victims once they are fully consumed. 


• Faces that explode into a violent storm of sand and smoke once certain key words are spoken to them


• Faces that enlarge into the massive size of planets at certain times of the day which immediately alters the existence and and reality of any current spectators

I am not sure why these images are flooding into my mind. Some of them are very unpleasant. I think they might be coming to mind as somewhat synesthetic interpretations of impressions I've gotten from various people lately. Yeah I think that's it.

Samantha woke up and realized that her gray silk pillow was submerged in sweat. The smell was musty and sour. When she slightly moved her head, the pillow felt cold and jolting.  The room was dark and she could hear an electric buzz coming from her muted television. She turned over and felt overwhelmed by paralysis. Her clock read 3:01 am. How did she manage to sleep so long and miss nearly an entire day?

She pushed her lower body off of the bed and lazily shifted herself into an upright sitting position. All she could think about was the night before. It didn’t seem real. Was it real? Some man with a dark green suit approached Samantha and told her that she would no longer be the same. He walked away afterwards and she instantly began to feel disoriented as if the world she just woke up in was an artificial setup of the world she was once familiar with. Everything looked the same, but  felt quite different.

This is my time...manifested in such obscurely-lit heights
Jaded by raven-claw reason
and stained by crimson blood sights

Knocked into some melody-ridden mirrored cave...turned inside out
belly up with an eye embedded in my exposed tongue
in view of one way out

Scores of dead bodies...come alive
explode within mid-rise
left are five

sacrifice, change, truth, birth and death
wrapped in the wings of startled suicide epiphany
delivered with bittersweet moist breath

This is my time...manifested in such obscurely lit heights
stabbed with a civilization of prophetic swords
in shifting essence of flickering lantern lights

|...|

Under the bright warm green light, he fell fast asleep below a jet black sky teeming with pulsating stars as big as planets. His sleep state carried him into a very strange world.

As he slipped down into what seemed like a never-ending well made of smooth round-cornered stone blocks, rich forest-colored devils with emerald jewels for eyes and mouths that stretched open to reveal dancing screaming teeth, reached out to him with long two-fingered hands revealing semi-translucent, shiny, taut skin.

As he looked up while falling further below into...something...somewhere...he could see the coal black sky shrink to a tiny point which eventually disappeared.

He looked down and could finally see the end of the well. It was an open mouth with a large gleaming rapidly blinking eye in the middle. He felt he would die, feel excruciating pain or encounter a sensation which would obliterate him, but once his body fell through the open mouth and into the fluttering eye, he realized he was submerged in a very warm, embracing body of liquid. Liquid that composed the image of the large flickering eye.

Immediately, his mind and consciousness shifted and he experienced the perception of everyone that he had known and seen throughout his entire life. It was an indescribable and profound happening. He let out a mixed series of yowls, laughter, screams and indefinable vocalizations.

----

Glenda leaned over the bed and looked at her husband. He was in a deep sleep. She decided to wear her exotic black sweater tonight with shimmering crystal sequins. It made her feel elegant and special.

Tomorrow she would be leaving to explore new opportunities. It was time. He looked so peaceful in bed. So very vulnerable and innocent.

He never saw her for who she was. She knew that once he awoke, he would still be asleep, but alive somewhere else. With her he was dead and tired. No longer did her beautiful green eyes create a stir in his soul. Those days were gone.

She decided that the disappearance of special days held great wisdom. They were mothers embedded within a world of watchful esper mothers, swirling around amongst one another with their glorious strands of pixie hair, shaking off gorgeous particles of intoxicating sighs and snowy loving whispers.

She was infinite birth and an apotheosis of all seasons.

----

As all of the omniscient sensations emptied out of his body with each wild utterance, he felt the grasp of a hand becoming stronger around his left leg. The water felt so warm and fluid that he wondered if he was floating within a liquid illusion. He pushed his body around and saw that the hand was attached to no one. It bore a crisp-looking diamond ring with a gold band on the ring finger. The hand looked like it belonged to a woman. A woman with a slight pleasant build. Someone familiar but someone he couldn't recall no matter how hard he tried. The skin was delicate; as if it would tear away from the hand upon the gentlest of touches.

He reached down to grab the hand around his left leg and saw that it disappeared and reappeared on his right leg. However, upon reappearance, the hand was now decayed-looking, mottled gray in hue and the skin was jaggedly broken in several areas with an old worn leathery texture. The diamond ring was now replaced by a bulbous black spider with its thick hairy legs clenched around the hand's ring finger.

Something violently pulled him down into the liquid. He held his breath as he frantically felt his body moving further down into the liquid abyss. He could not make out any direction. He could not see and the temperature of the water became colder. So cold that he felt like he was going to become frozen. His body started to go into shock and he could no longer hold his breath due to time and panic. Just as he was about to give up, he felt his body land onto a soft springy surface. The coldness went away and he was no longer in liquid.

The area was dark but it began to brighten and reveal the interior of his bedroom. It was morning outside the open window next to his bed. The closets were open and his wife's clothes and belongings were gone. He could not move or speak although everything was visible.

His wife came back in the room to stand in the doorway and look over at him again. He tried to call out to her but she could not hear him. He tried again and failed.

He could only hear echoes of his voice as he looked into her eyes. Staring into them conjured up a fervent fever of aching and longing within. Like the early days.

The room disappeared abruptly and Glenda appeared everywhere. Even as he blinked, visions of Glenda appeared as split-second snapshots, reaching out to him in a faraway distance. He looked down at his body and saw thousands of copies of her hands reaching out to feel, grab and seize him.

The floor, filled with faces and garments of Glenda, broke away and revealed the opening of the stone-made well. He began to fall forever...always seeing the beckoning and smiling face of Glenda at the bottom.

She tried joking with him. Lifting her voice and seeing if he'd loosen up and eventually crack his usual crooked, warm smile. But something was wrong.

Very off.

Brian stared down at her with a very unsettling, piercing glare. The expression in his face was alarmingly serious and his eyes were hollow, empty and strange-looking, appearing much darker than usual.

Sharp instinct sent a jolt through her being and made her realize that her husband of 15 years was no longer there.  The presence standing before her, posing as Brian, felt gravely threatening and deadly; teeming with dark sadistic desires.

Caryn felt like if she said one more word to him or even reached out to touch him gently, he'd abruptly seize her by the neck with all of his capacity with wild eyes and strangle her lifeless.  She had never felt this energy from Brian and she was never scared of him nor did she ever have a reason to be. They had gotten into a typical mild argument earlier and now her attempt to break the ice had invoked the presence of a malevolent stranger.

Someone that had been lurking, undisturbed and asleep, within Brian since childhood.

What does it mean to be very human? How would we all look if we lived by our rawest behavioral codes? I notice that people are threatened by and very judgmental towards other who are "more human" than they are. I guess everything we do is human so to speak because we are humans doing whatever we do, but I am referring to "being human" as a way to describe a state of living in free expression of your natural instincts...no matter how odd they seem.

For example, I'll get an urge to utter this nonsensical sound while sitting at my computer typing. It's random and it doesn't seem to many any sense...but the urge is there once in awhile. If I were in the room with someone else or with a group of people and totally expressed this, I'd probably startle others or make them think I was on something because it's not kosher and "normal" behavior.

I sometimes get the urge to get up and let out a scream, get into a certain body position, moved my arms in a certain way, let out a guttural laugh or say a gibberish word or term that comes about from looking at an associated person or object. Some of these things relate to having synesthesia but I think on a basic level...they are still things that others might feel the need to do too. I censor all of these things when I am around people...because of course I've adapted to common social etiquette and I wouldn't want anyone to perceive me as crazy, unpleasant or uncouth.

But what if we all just let go...lived in a state of complete natural expression and thinking? What would happen? Who would you be? What would you discover about yourself? How would society restructure itself overall? Would we develop a natural life rhythm as a social community?

I think we might be the only species that lives with censorship of our authentic natures.

I know I am not going to go out tomorrow and start behaving this way. My filters will remain on and I will continue to respect social etiquette more or less because I just don't live in that kind of society but I still think about this from time to time. I also wonder if this makes any sense to others. I like to think many can relate to this and that everyone in their own way has their "weird urges" and impulses that they hold back all the time...without thinking...because we've been socialized.

There's an image that keeps popping up in my mind right now; a woman with a see-through belly showcasing multi-colored layered sand art below two prominent tits featured as large bulbous fishbowls each filled with exotic, frenzied-swimming, darting, glimmer-eyed fish. I don't see her head in most images, but when I do; her head is vaguely displayed as a spinning globe cocked to the side with a gold ring around it and a matching neck platform.

Maybe I should sketch this down in my sketch book. There has to be some message in this image somewhere as it keeps springing up.

I don't see her lower body, but I am thinking that I'd draw them as two skyscraper-like buildings. From the feet (first floors) all the way up to the top part of the inner thighs are many stories or floors with stairways that lead one floor to the next. There would be little people running up and down busily throughout these floors constantly performing tasks.

The pelvis up to the lower abdomen, which is right below the sand art belly, would be a birthing factory of some sort. The sand that falls from the belly into the pelvis-abdomen factory would have divine powers that produce life. The sand periodically leaking from the belly area into the factory, like sand seeping into the lower channel of an hour glass, would produce hyper and purpose-fixated homunculi...

Each contributing colored layer of sand from the belly would represent a different vital ingredient for form whole bodies.  The factory would incubate the sand mixture and in a certain time period eventually release a newly born but recycled humanoid. That's where all those little people running back and forth in the skyscraper building legs would come from. Each person would have a maximum number of tasks to perform upon birth. As the last task is completed, their life span would end and they'd shrink and dry up into a sandy powder of diverse hues and textures. Another homunculus would come and perform a cleaning task with a ceramic container, broom and dustpan to gather up the sand decay and empty it into one of the many small escalator-deposit openings located within the walls on each floor.

My favorite thing to do is to tell a story and to illustrate it in some fashion.

The art piece "Ginger's Song" has gone through a lot of revisions. The character even looked different in the beginning. Not drastically so, but Ginger was less refined. I like that her features remain odd and characteristic so that you know that although she resembles a human, she belongs in the fantasy realm.

Ginger's Song is a short story concept that I have yet to write. The story is about a young girl with a talent for playing the piano. While practicing in her room on her scaled-down piano that her mother purchased for her years ago, she thinks of a new tune that she's quite fond of and wishes to try out on the piano. At first, the tune doesn't sound right. Some notes are off and it's incomplete.

When she manages to finish composing the tune, something very fantastical happens. One of the walls in her bedroom starts glowing around the edges and eventually breaks away completely to reveal a hidden world. She sees a valley of lush green rolling hills, marbled white fluffy clouds in the sky with a brilliant and crisp sun amid a pale lavender sky tinged with lemon tints and an inviting quaint little schoolhouse with children playfully running around on the grounds not too far in the distance.

Ginger realizes that this special song that she's created is the key to this enchanting world. Anytime she wants to visit, she knows she can play her song, Ginger's Song.

Although, I've decided to showcase my artwork here as well, more of my illustrations can be viewed at: