Dreadful Honicutt had stepped onto the stage, not quite having decided what to sing from his repertoire yet, really not having decided anything at all. His feet had moved the rest of him though, were moving him, and there he was. He'd liked the look of a girl up front, one of the front tables, but he'd been warned away from her quite wordlessly, so. There was that. Honicutt's mom had in fact named him after the character on MASH though she'd spelled it differently. He loved his odd name. He began using Dreadful by way of a joke, due to his penchant for both Edgar Allen Poe and some of the more elegant Goth Wear. It had stuck for some reason, the regulars of the place populated densely with friends who knew him well. No one thought anything of it anymore as he was introduced. If he was introduced. Normally (as was the result of his current position), some sort of spirit slid his body stealthily to the microphone, incited by no human, least of all Honicutt. The musicians synced with their chosen instruments directed by nucleic presence, unthinking, majestic. Sound techs and waitresses buzzed about like mitochondria. Those seated at tables quieted and looked up, organelles awaiting input. As the cell took shape, Honicutt lowered his chin, raised his eyes, and began to sing.
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What on Earth to do is always the question. People such as myself are like to forget it, to stay in the mind where all is good & well. Still.The world of physicality is where we wake every morning, blessed to be able to continue the exercise of love as a verb, though we fail & fall, look to the sky & right into the muddy earth, teeming with insects & microbes. At times it is as quicksand, the greater the struggle to free oneself the deeper one goes & faster too. At times visits are shorter, more like gardening, you can see what is planted as you go and so the cleansing process is a more peaceful one. At least you are able to see that you're merely gardening, not just dying. This may help the reader at some point- what my mother taught me about swimming is that if you close your eyes and breathe deeply, you float. It's true. But back to Earth now. The world of malchut, the scent of Earth; frightening & welcoming to equal degree. Now isn't that odd? How to make our own messy processes sweet smelling as they happen. How to look at news feeds full of humans behaving very, very badly without reducing them (I say it mindfully) to monsters when it seems they have reduced themselves thusly. The heartbreak of it. Knowingness next that you, the human viewing apparent proof of atrocities would not be able to see them if the strength to see then do was not in you. That were it not relevant to your soul & purpose on earth, it would not exist for you. Holy hell indeed. What on Earth to do then, what on Earth to do? Lists. All right, a point to start. Animal abuse, child abuse, all manner of power abuses, institutional abuses, racially motivated abuse, subliminal prejudices contributing to abuse, religion gone awry, patriarchal system abuse, financial system abuse. People not agreeing what constitutes abuse. In the physical world, it's a crisis of compassion. I think I've written on this somewhere before, yes. Now I'm Kabbalistically trained to know better than to look at physicality and believe that's the end of it. In fact, I had the great fortune to steep in it for 3 or 4 years. I think I have helped friends & strangers (even some who may consider me an enemy) because of it, I hope so. G*d knows though I still have days I'm at my wits end, which I suppose is partly to remind me that it's not all about my wits. Yeeeeah, I knew that though. All right. Start again. What you see is who you're here for. No question. Also, that which terrifies the individual does so for a reason. It furthers growth, and prepares one for such a time when loving action CAN be taken, if it cannot be taken immediately. Yes, pain & searching questions until the opportunity is placed before your soul to take a direction. That's one face of growth & it's necessary. Now this is quite a note to self this morning, because I'm off kilter, I'm upset. I'm growing. Am I healing? I don't really know what it means, but I know it itches, and if this isn't a cosmic itch I don't know what is. Writing like this, too, always itches like hell. As Dorothy Parker said, "I hate writing, I love having written". I find my own astonishing amount of imperfections appalling, it's true. As far as judging others, I've only recently, in the past 4 or 5 years, been able to turn loving those who truly irritate me from theory to practice. Not that I'm done. Oh, but do I Love, yes I do. That much is True, True as blue. It's moving too, head to heart to arms & through, right through to you. Palm City, FL Sunday 2-12-2015 Thank you Spiritual Coffeehouse at Unity of Stuart Thank you to an old friend who likely knows who she is for our (too brief) conversation this morning. I also made some sweet little guest size valentine soaps. One went to the employee bathroom at work, the other will be a surprise for my mom. She doesn't do social media, so this shouldn't be a spoiler! Brambleberry micas again. Although I must currently mind my pennies ever more tightly, I still had enough oils & lye for another loaf, and enough colorants on hand to try the "hanger swirl". I had been wanting to try one for some time, and an idea beamed into my head about trying to make a heart shape, which seemed like simple shape & good learning project. I love to try new things, but don't so much love to work on perfecting them. Ahem. The hanger swirl is so named, I take it, because people bent wire hangers to the shape they needed. I could only find plastic hangers, not of the size that would fit. I stumbled on some floral wire, & made my "hanger" out of that. Next, I mixed the oils, lye & fragrance, putting some in a seperate pot so I could add the mica, Brambleberry's Merlot Sparkle. I poured the colored soap in the bottom of the loaf pan in an even layer, then spooned the uncolored soap in on top. I'm not mentioning the fragrance oil specifically, because it ended up discoloring quite badly, but it is wine scented. I then attempted to draw a heart in the middle of the soap loaf with the hanger, straight down through the middle then up in a diagonal, curving up & down the middle again several times on each side. To make a long process short, when I cut them in the morning, this is what I had. As you can see, it almost worked. Much like Johnny & Winona. Since it's partly not there, I give you the soap's title.. Wino Forever. So, here they are. Living in the realm of remembering: http://youtu.be/JdmEbgsMDV8 Chanukah: http://youtu.be/rvwKe8ZEoUg Good night! I can't seem to sleep on Shabbat anymore, so I try to pay special attention to what I see, I mean even more than usual. This May or may not be the thing to do, I don't know- but if I can't nap & dream "the dream" than it seems, yes, I should do the other. Yesterday, I stepped outside on my front porch to have some water & peaceful thought. In my front yard there is a slender pine tree. For people who know pines, I can write here that I think it is a Norfolk Pine. My "knowledge" of Pine Kind however is based on a little tree our 5th grade (6th?) class had in a pot because one of the students brought it in. I believe it lived, no credit due to any of us. I believe it went home with its original harbinger, and I hope it was planted somewhere with hope and live. Maybe it grows strong & tall today. Maybe it's in my eye now, in my front yard. Well, let's say I just don't know. As I watched yesterday, a mid sized group of birds, some sort of subgroup to the rest of the crowd, swooped in. There was a circle higher up, then a half circle at my eye level in what I believe was an accidental grand entrance. But back to the tree. They began to land in it. First one, then three as it slowly filled. November in Florida is windy, so at first I noted nothing as it swayed. Then, as the tree filled up, the top began to dip down as more birds landed. Thus, a cycle began. As the tree bent with weight it couldn't support, the blackbirds would fly off. Then, as the trunk straightened again, more birds would fly back on. The tree would bend again, the visitors would have to fly off or be dumped. The birds, being birds, had no idea they were causing any stress. They weren't looking at the tree, they were looking out. The tree bending was just another variable in their flighty existence. They had landed on something, those that they knew were there, and they were looking outward. What insects might be flying nearby? What other birds, friend or foe? Where might they go next, maybe somewhere better with more insects or slower ones. Soon the birds had moved on, and Nora the Norfolk pine remained & grew, swaying in the wind as any tree might. G*d is always trying to tell you something. And, for your perusal this Sunday, a clip from The Color Purple that raises the hair on my arms every time. http://youtu.be/lD5uPZzBr5c This is quite exciting & makes me very happy. I have a little bit of seperation anxiety about my "thought babies" going out into the world, even though it was in my very design for them. Hm. Performance work is quite different, you make something to do, it goes out as you do it and that's that. There are objects made in the documentation of it, photos, recordings, but those objects are made to be reproduced. Aside from my nearly useless vague anxiety though, I just feel I need to make more. Yes, and I will. I have so much here in my apartment unframed! It's the mixed media work that's calling to me at the moment though. I've started (just started, don't get too excited) a portfolio page of sorts - something cleaner, less complicated & messy than what I do here. Just the images! It's here: Oh, & guess what? I made more soap. Meet Devorah (left) and Leah (right). Not cut yet, don't know where I'll put them when they are. Also some sad news; my beautiful little rat Shoshi, though she'd had two & 1/2 tumors removed, died from the third one - the 1/2 removed tumor returned in a rage. The stitches from the other two had barely healed. Here she is, from a few days before & also a video link of her& her former cage mate, Chaya. http://youtu.be/EMQTZkJem94 Good bye, sweetie. Hope to see you again when the time comes for no more death or bad stuff. See you then. ❤️🐹 Short piles, to be sure- yet piles they are. I have given a lot of lovely soap to friends, family & others- but I am still running out of storage space! I don't want to go so far as to list them on Etsy, because I don't have them packaged nicely yet. I would live to see them go to new homes though, spreading joy & suds. The thought occurred to me today to list availability here, so why not. I'm going with about $4.00 per bar, or about a dollar per ounce weight wise. now four ounces may not seem like a lot to you, but it's a good size. Those of you who have scales for cooking, go weigh that bar of Ivory, or whatever. For shipping I'm going with the small priority mail box, I think it's $4.95. I don't know y et how many I can fit in there though! I'll post the short list below- comment if you have any interest & we'll put something together. Most bars are around 4 ounces, some are less or more. Spring Love 4 bars Cedar Angel* 7 bars 10 as One 7 bars Lilac Tov* 7 bars Lavender Essential Oil 2 bars October; root & ruach* 13 bars Available 10-28-14 Nectarine Queen* 10 bars Available December 1 2014 *These are Light Expressions custom scent blends. All soaps are made with vegetable oils and butters, no animal or animal derived ingredients (such as milk). Fragrance oils used are vegan also according to suppliers & are not currently tested on animals as far as I have been able to ascertain though they most likely were at one time (like most things). Most fragrance oils used are without parabens, though I'm researching a few now in an effort to create paraben free products. Happy bathing! Discoloration has progressed nicely, but I need to redo it. I attempted to do three layers then swirl, with the layer that I knew would discolor in the middle. When I put the top layer on though, it pushed the middle layer just everywhere. Chalk that up to inexperience. Next project I'm going to put the discoloration layer on the bottom, reserve a little for swirl designs on top, and the regular will be the 2nd layer- then swirl. That will be the real test of how much the discoloration will or won't bleed into the other part of the soap. It DOES smell great- at least I know that my fragrance blend is a winner! Quite tired tonight.. I have been more worried about my little rat Shoshana than I thought. Here she is, face tucked into blankie, bandaged & healing up. I have sort of been on hiatus from making soap because I have had some other pressing deadlines in the vein of photography. I did get a piece in a show "Florida State Parks on View" at the Kimbell Center at Jonathan Dickenson State Park here in Florida. Here we both are: And here is a slice of last night's soap loaf, the first one I have made in a while. My first attempt at a swirl, ever. I didn't use colorants when I divided the soap batter- I just used one fragrance oil that I know discolors. I kind of wanted to test how much the discoloration will bleed into the other portion, if at all. Anyway, here it is on day 1 (no real discoloration showing yet): Soap making is taking a back seat right now while I work on other things, but I just have so much fun doing it. It's a lot like making baked goods, except you can mail it. Well, I'm off to pack up for the Land of Nod- say some prayers for my sweet little beastie, please? :-D |
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