ORIGINAL BLISS

Numinous Sunday Experience

 

 

Driving through the hills, on my way to manage chaos, allowing the smooth soul of James Morrison to seranade me.

"I got one life... one life... one life... and I'm gonna live it right."

His lyrics lick both spirit and senses.

Along the ridge rain clouds begin to bubble under the sunshine, signs of the percipitation that's to come. I feel the same, welling up right along with them; bouyant with happiness and deep peace, yet at the same time pierced deeply with a sadness that saturates me with unshed tears. I am both completely contant and overwhelmed by lonliness.

"I got one life... one life... one life... and I'm gonna live it right."

I think about writing. I think about Aislen. What she would do with clouds such as this in one of her many alternate realities.

Would she sweep them away so she could bask in the sun?

Would she tickle them with her fingertips and paint their raindrops across the sky?

Or would she gather them in an embrace and hold them, allowing them the downpour they crave?

"I got one life... one life... one life... and I'm gonna live it right."

A big rig slowly begins to pass me, blocking my view of the clouds.

First, I see the "R", capital and blue, shouting from the side panel. Then an "E" pulls along beside of me.

The truck gains speed as it overtakes my car.

Or maybe I slowed, knowing.

As the truck pulled ahead its message came fully into view.

"WALKER" on its side panel. "WALKER" on its doors. "WALKER" on each one of its 18 massive mud flaps.

"I got one life... one life... one life... and I'm gonna live it right."

The rain came.

And I am not alone.

Shannan

We live in the fiction.

Reposted from shannansinclair.com

In A Perfect Storm... Perfect Peace.

"Ethereal" Mixed Media Collage, National Geaogaphic Art Journal Series, Shannan Sinclair

I consider myself a pretty strong person. I mean, don't we all see ourselves in that light? After all the pain, heartache and suffering that we go through, when we come through at the other end of it, don't we think, "Damn! I can't believe I made it through that!"

Well, I have a confession. Sometimes.... I don't feel that strong. Oh, I may look like a B.A.M.F. who's got the tiger by the tail. But when I am alone, and trying to hide under my covers... mmmm not so much.

Sometimes, the pain is agony.

Sometimes I feel utterly alone and completely broken.

But I have also experienced something A-M-A-Z-I-N-G in that.

There have been several times in the past couple of months, where I have been in those moments. I have nothing left in me. No fight. No spark. Empty.

And in the very moment of the deepest dispair a strange and perfect peace embraces me, fills me and refreshes my soul.

Just when I think - I can not go on any further... I am restored.

Namaste,

C H E Z

Dear Diary....

I am craving good times, with good friends...

 

here are some notes on a new meditation technique I am practicing...

 

I liked this list of "25 Things Every Woman Should Know" that I found in Elle and decided to save it forever and add some of my own.

My favorites: #9, #12, #24

and my own: "Trust in your faith and remember who you are."

 

I have been craving living water as much as I do air to breath...

 

I have been reading Keats...

 

and Oscar Wilde...

 

I have so much to say, but don't have the language to say it.

So I lay it all down in you,

in paint and in glue.

 

In symbols only my soul understands...

 

and ideas that I don't want to forget.

 

Namaste,

C H E Z

Let's Pretend

Oh sure....we get our nails done.

Fancy fingers and dazzling toes.

Our hair did.

Highlights and hues.

$500 purses covered in "C".

7 inch "come fuck me" shoes.

But really?

Who are we fooling?

We are all still working girls under the sheen and gleam.

Finding Fall

 

I LOVE going to places I have never been. Being born and raised in Cali, and nurturing my road trip fetish throughout, I am always afraid I will run out of places to run to.

But I found a new getaway!

How I have never been here, I do not know.

"Apple Hill" is an agricultural area comprising of 50 apple and Christmas tree farms situated in the foothills of Placerville, Camino and Pollock Pines.

It was a glorious drive! We started by indulging in a freshly, fried apple donut at Abel's Apple Acres. Holy crap it was freakin' delicious!

Then we hit Denver Dan's where they let us taste EVERYTHING; fresh apples they were peeling for the pies, every variety of dipping sauce and homemade cidar vinagar, their special recipe of garlic dill pickle, and a serving of apple crisp a la mode and a la special apple caramel sauce! Heaven with a side of belly ache!!!!

We followed that up with some wine tasting.... then some beer tasting.

 

Then we headed into Placerville for some antiquing.

I am always looking for vintage ephemera to add to my toy chest. But the find of the day was a 1957 Maganavox Stereo in perfect working condition. We had to bring her home in the back seat of my Bug with the top down.... but it was worth the wind blown locks.

If you are ever in the Sacramento area in the Fall, hop in the hooptie and take Highway 50 towards Lake Tahoe for about an hour.

And look me up... I may move there and start making pie!

Namaste,

C H E Z

Photos are enhanced using Color and Monochrome Photoshop actions created by Kim Miller. For more details about what I did to each photo, visit my Flickr Photostream.

 

Are You Awake Now?

This little experience here on Earth, that we call life, is especially designed to teach you and to challenge you.

Each lesson, well, let's call them what they really are - TESTS... provides the perfect environment to stimulate the exact growth you need at this time.

When faced with a particularly difficult test, rather than ask "Why me?", question the lesson's objective.

Is it teaching you to love more or how to forgive?

How to be in the midst of chaos but have incredible peace?

Is it trying to WAKE YOU UP?

It appears that our trials and tribulations are increasing in size and magnitude. Every system - political, economic, religious, etc... trembles. Our planet and its people agitated and challenged to new limits.

I find that with each challenge, my learning curve to finding peace, love, and forgiveness shortens. A challenge 5 years ago took me two years make peace with. A bigger challenge 2 years ago, took 6 months. A latest, greatest challenge, two weeks.

Finding that space does not make the problem magically disappear. Unfortunately, time has to work out the problem. It does however shift our experience. So that even though the issue is still raging, your soul is not.

The goal, I suppose, is that the moment we are faced with trouble we move right into that zen space of acceptance and peace and letting go, rather than wrestle with it for weeks and months or years.

Or maybe the goal is zen in all times and spaces so that the challenge never causes us to flinch in the first place?

Namaste,

C H E Z

 

The Getaway

The pines dance, a slow sway, to the white noise of the South Fork.

I Am The Walrus on the Hawk.

Every clock stopped at a different time.

The urge to do settles.

The soul stills.

Namaste,

C H E Z

Wired for Love

 What we wouldn't do

to keep our love full

and fresh

and alive!

Completely surrender!

In the few moments I have before going to work, have been strolling through memories stilled in photographs. Photographs of me and the beloved on road trips around Cali... of happy dinners with the whole family around the table... of children in various stages of growing up. 

Nostalgia is a lonely emotion. 

You can only sit with it for so long.

When I went to upload my camera that contained my current journal page, I discovered Mattea's self-portrait experiments. 

What a healing moment, reconnecting with the now and the possibility found in my daughter's face.

Namaste,

C H E Z

A Simple Spark of Joy

A much needed spark of joy and inspiration awaited me on my kitchen counter when I arrived home from work at 4 a.m.

The new Somerset Studio's Art Journaling magazine has hit the stands! While my feature and article will not be published until January 2011, three of my pages and several of my hints and answers to questions are published in this issue.

Yay!

I was so happy to see one of my favorite journal artists from Flickr, Erin Kenepp, published in this issue! I also discovered an artist I had not run across before, Christine Mason Miller. Her spread "Where is God?" was my favorite in the whole magazine!

Namaste,

C H E Z

Dreaming on the Page - Reduced Price!

When the deepest part of yourself has something to tell you, how do you hear it?

Soul journals are a sacred space to throw your inner workings, your dreams, fears, laughter, tears, plans, reflections, obsessions, should ofs, could ofs, have-tos and to-dos.

It is a place to give yourself complete permission to make a mess and get it wrong.

This is a self-published zine/workshop booklet that includes 10 journal prompts with step by step instructions to create your own journal pages. It is 32 pages of full-color inspiration! Dreaming on the Page Journal Adventures include: Mixed Media Collage, Collage-a-Doodle, using ephemera, Journaling, the 10 minute collage slam, ghost facing, Caran d'Ache painting, Ink Jet Transfer and Pen & Oil Pastel Illustration. Also included is a "FUNdamentals of Play" chapter that explains tools and processes used in the booklet.

Are you ready for the adventure?

Available in PRINT or ELECTRONIC version at LuLu!

Namaste,

C H E Z