Painting Intuitively

 Took a free online art class with Art2Life. It's not anything that I'd frame and hang on the wall, but it was fun.

Coping Tools Reeling in the Pain

For Illustration Day: Tools

Coping Tools Reeling in the Pain

 I used to participate in Illustration Friday years ago, but apparently that's no more. I found this site instead, during my search. I like having a prompt every once in a while to motivate me.

Wouldn't it be Great...

 if I could process something besides health problems in my doodle journal? Wouldn't it be even greater if everything I drew in my journal would resolve itself?

Autism

Biology of a Broken Heart

Formation of a Flashback

Hypersensitive

Migraines and Seizures

Stuck

 

Stuck

Lost in the years waited

Lost in tears that were hated

Lost when I should feel free

Free from scorn and guilt

Free from the maze hope built

   Where I’ve long wandered aimlessly

Patience has taken a toll

Searching around an empty hole

Only to find prickly regret

So I finally ended it

Thought I finally let go of it

But stuck instead in a cyclic mindset 

Memory Garden

Where the dead are planted.

 I was driving the other day and passed by a cemetery called Garden of Memories. The name disturbed me, but I didn't know why. I thought, "the literal side of me is trying to take over," and immediately said out loud, "where the dead are planted."

As I drove further, I realized it probably had more to do with therapy and trauma. I'm stuck living in a cemetery inside my head. Well, at least it's a garden. Weird how we try to make death look pretty.

Trauma

 Trauma

Stuck and stagnant Awkward and shaking

But not really rooted Searching for joy

Nothing’s holding me here I strictly follow rules

Trying to shake free from nothing So that no-one sees my sickness

It ended years ago It started years ago

But every flashback adds I diligently changed my life

Another strand to the complex web Wiggled free from every event

Of rewind and replay But never really escaped

Blood and energy congeal Diet, exercise, and therapy

I curl up in a cobweb cocoon I accomplished more than most

Slip into insomnia sleep Reshaped my mind

And wait for nothing To recover nothing

Living a Dream

Alone in a Crowd

Dear Mike,

38 years ago we were living a dream

now you’ve been gone for 23

tears still form when I play your songs

now I’m old and still alone

sometimes I feel life has passed me by

but I’ve lived long enough to know

I’m not missing anything…

except you

remember the time you wanted to leave everything behind?

I made you promise to take me with you

many nights I wish you could have

but that was not your call

I haven’t done much since you left me behind

18 years in the health and fitness industry

and I’m so sick, I’m bad for business

remember how no one knew what was wrong?

well, I have a long list of diagnoses now

seizures, autism, Lupus, PTSD with flashbacks, 

migraines, vertigo, and severe anxiety disorder

only half are true, but I don’t know which half

on a brighter side, my faith finally feels real

yes, I knew it was real when you were alive

yet I never felt like I belonged

things got awfully dark before I could see

you’ll feel it too when you come back

although I might seem a little different

I’ve lived 14 years longer than you so far

but we’ll be living a better dream then

I live in an RV now, which you’d enjoy

although, you’d make the bed bigger

ok, and the bathtub too

remember that night we froze in our tent?

we could be warm cozy glampers instead

traveling wherever, planting gardens along the way

we’ll stay a few years in each place

making friends everywhere we go

that’s what I’ve been doing since you’ve been gone

no real place to call home

even our house felt estranged

a place for roommates to land

the RV makes moving so much easier

I can take my home with me

6 years with a PO Box address

is as close to home as it gets

the latest PO Box is shared with some wonderful friends

I can’t wait for them to meet you!

this dream feels so real now

I just want to share it with you

Love always,

your Happy Camper wife

 

Spiders and Decay

 It’s weird. Spiders climbed all night, but their trajectories kept missing the desired lamp lit window, landing instead in a tangle of crystal clear wind chimes lost in the shadows. Iridescent tones gave away their location. No outline of the glass tubes was visible, only the distortion of moonlit silver threads as it magnified the web and then disappeared.

In contrast to their gentle music, the breeze that helped weave this curious scene, was anything but light and peaceful. Heavy with the stench of decay, it carried the story of dead swine laying in the ravine below. Turning to climb the steps back into her RV, she wondered if the spiders were trying to escape it as well. The air inside seemed more sane once she closed the door.

What drove those wild hogs to their death? She knew the locals wouldn’t miss them. Their population had exploded in recent years, causing damage to property and crops. Hunters were having little success culling the herds. The sharp contrasts of the night echoed the imbalances of the world today.

Solitude, peace, clear sky, shadowy music,… decay, sickness, pandemic, mental illness… The howl of a feral cat outside the door sends ripples through randomly drifting thoughts. Wild life is trying to clean up a mess that is too big for all of us. 

After the Rain

Cedar needles

Juniper berries

Spider web

Palafox

Yaupon berries

Yaupon berries

Dirt road in a rain drop

Wild Berry Jelly

Beauty berries 

Beauty berries 

Black gum berries 

Greenbrier berries 

Greenbrier berries 

I made jellies out of these last fall with stevia, local honey, and arrowroot.

 

Foraging

I've been trying to learn about and identify all the local edible flora. 

This is a salad that I made today with some of the plants I found on my walk this morning. I'm really enjoying the new flavors I'm finding. Salads were starting to get really boring. That motivated me to look into foraging. The woods where I'm collecting has never been sprayed with pesticides or fertilizer, and the soil has never been farmed. My hope was to get a more diverse variety of phytonutrients than what I can get at the grocery store. The interesting flavors are turning out to be an added bonus.

This is spiderwort. The flowers have a really light flavor that seems like a blend of fruit and anise. The leaves have a stronger flavor like kale or broccoli. I've read that spiderwort is supposed to help with allergies.

 This is greenbriar. The leaves taste like a cross between green beans and asparagus. It's supposed to have anti-inflammatory properties.

In addition to spiderwort and greenbriar, I put cucumber, onion, spearmint leaves, and sunflower seeds in this salad. For dessert, I put strawberries, blueberries, and juniper berries (also foraged), and local honey in a blender, and then poured it over pecans. Juniper berries are a great anti-inflammatory. I could tell right away after the first time I tried them.

These are juniper berries with yaupon in the background. Yaupon is the only naturally caffeinated plant in North America. The leaves can be used to make tea, but don't eat the berries. Yaupon tea used to be a very popular tea generations ago.

A Peaceful End...

 ... to a crazy year.

It hailed three times, two tornadoes, and one month straight of 100+ degrees weather during a drought that brought an onslaught of aphids and their sticky excrement. No rain to wash that syrupy poop off my camper, car, and door steps where it got tracked indoors in spite of hosing things down. Then came the stink bugs to feast on the aphids. They invaded all the campers here in this campground like something from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. They were followed by the Asian Beetle that shouldn't even be on this side of the planet. After a two month long Bugaggedon, my camper was splattered with little yellow stains (from the Asian Beetles) and smelled like a sweaty metal working shop (the stink bugs). I'm not sure who won. I'm still finding their carcasses everywhere. 

For the first time in my 3 years of being a full-time RV-er, I was not a happy camper. But, I'm over it now, and these pic show why. They were all taken walking distance from my camper door.

Tangled Zen

 

Tangled behind a trained conscience

That’s holding firm

Good Bye forms cryptic blotches

On a journal page

An intuitive process for what can never

Be read or heard

As I make a conscious effort to deny

My treacherous heart

Zen - a state of calm attentiveness in which one’s actions are guided by intuition rather than by conscious effort

Overlapping chapters

 

Organize. Sort. No time. Just wing it. Gotta keep going... Where's life going? Organize. Sort. No time. Just wing it. Gotta keep going... Where's life going? It never fits neatly into chapters. 

Outsider

 Today, being the outsider is a good thing.

Today

Today

The Radio reminded me of how lonely I am

So, I opted for road noise instead

I Prayed

To fight fervent feelings for only a man

Who paved a highway inside my head

Caught in

A daydream as my car carelessly swerves

Peaceful pastures speed by unseen

Forgotten

Destination on winding, hilly curves

Frivolous burning of gasoline

Today

I'm thankful for a serene swim in the clouds

Cool, clean reflections of past mistakes

I've Prayed

Repeatedly through anxiety shrouds

Emotions exposed in glass lakes

Forgotten

Conversations meant to manipulate

Road noise that's easily dismissed

Caught in

A wave of guilt that only dissipates

When his perception starts to drift

Today

I can see him more clearly than before

But the Radio plays the same

I Pray

For a peaceful new road forevermore

A clean swim to erase the shame

 

Wishes

 

Bird song

Wishes flying high

In between notes

Separate you and I

Flawed thinking

Five years are gone

Wishes that echo

An impossible song

Empty wishes, empty heart

They're voiceless, vain, and trite

Remember when you said

Things would all work out?

Wish you could've been right

Sunset song

Wishes collide

A beautiful friendship

Washed away with the tide

Flawed thinking

Devoid of sound

Lamenting wishes

 Fall to the ground

Empty wishes, empty heart

They're voiceless, vain, and trite

Remember when you said

Things would all work out?

Wish you could've been right

Some More from the Doodle Journal

Twisted Perception

Twisted Perception

This rock turns in on itself
Parched and no pity
For those God condemns

In a dream
The old man is beaten and stoned
But not dead

I think they were wrong
But it’s my job
To clean up the mess

12-15-19

Happy Camper

My life is changing dramatically now. I've left everything behind, bought an RV, and moved to a campground in the middle of the East Texas woods. There are some kinks in my plan that still need ironing out, like internet connection problems and no phone service, but I'm so happy to be away from Houston that these things don't bother me.

I have no address now, though. Does that make me a homeless person?

I Crack Myself Up

Waiting for Lab Results

Here I am, nesting in my big comfy box of confusion, with antennae up, waiting for Lab Results. Even the snails are moving faster than I am...

I don't do mornings...

Some more from my doodle therapy.

Dialogue Abstruse

Dialogue Abstruse

Every morning formulates
Dialogue abstruse,
While Logic slumbers.

The to-do list erupts,
Foams chaotically, and
Shouts orders without priority.

The needs-fixing list
Seethes abruptly at
All the defunct remedies.

Then past failures seep in,
Bubbling up random sermons
With no outline or theme.

Reluctant Logic awakens
To the sound of Job’s wife screaming,
“Curse God and die!”

Ulcerated and burnt out,
Logic gathers the toxic spillage
And cries, “Everyone back to bed!”

Doodle Therapy

These are some of my doodles using the Automatic Drawing Technique that I mentioned in the previous post, where I try to draw without thinking about what to draw, and let my subconscious take over. I usually spend about 20 or 30 minutes on them, and then try to decipher any subconscious meaning they might have. The deciphering happens this way - When I open my writing journal and then look back at the drawing, I write down the first 2 words or phrases that come to mind. Then, I just start writing about my day. Generally the meaning starts to come to me, but then I'll either look up the 2 words in the thesaurus or some of the images in a dream dictionary, or both.

Processing Death - colored pencil

Regeneration - colored pencil

Alienation - ball point pen

This last one, I spent several hours on, because I had found that place again, that I knew as a child, where the hours would just slip away in peacefulness. It's been years since I've felt that way while drawing, and it felt good. When it was done, I remember thinking, "wow, I had forgotten how much fun this was."

I was talking with a friend about it the next day, and we came to the conclusion that as self employed business owners, we had gotten in the habit of planning everything, including our art. It's been about 5 years since I first started trying intuitive art methods with finger painting, and I'm just now starting to break that habit of planning everything in advance. It amazes me that what I took for granted as a child, has been such a struggle to get back.