Inspired by Wonderland & Other Starving Artists

Today,  while looking for courage in my hot, black liquid brew and listening to an older Carolyn Wonderland interview, I googgled the words, “Unemployed, Starving, and Stuck,” where I found a somewhat different take on life in “Kokes Notes.”  Here’s one of the more inspiring thoughts from this blog:

So here’s to the life of a starving artist! Only it’s not a physiological starve. I’ve found there is no such thing as an anorexic artist. Not only do you lack the energy to pick up a pen, paintbrush, or instrument, but the arts are reflections of life and refusing to eat is an invitation to death so it just doesn’t work. The starve of an artist is one of ambitious yearning in the midst of mystery.

What happens when you don’t have a steady income is that you can’t afford the distractions – the ones that keep you from concentrating on your dreams or the ones that screen your imagination, or most importantly the ones that fuel your reckless vices. You start to see signs. You start to appreciate what you already have. You start to trust your gut feelings.~~Kokes Notes

After being awestruck by Little Red Elfinghood Wonderland for years, as she visibly dances with her muses, and thanks to the eloquence of  “Kokes Notes,” I now realize the guts it takes each and every day, to keep concentrating on your dreams in order to be the artist you are becoming.  What an artist Carolyn is.  No distractions.  Only her music.

Because of you, Carolyn Wonderland, I’m willing to just be with my muses, just be the starving artist for as long as it takes, because nothing else matters.  Think of me and others like me, who are looking hard to find the guts it takes.  You’ve got it all.

Home in Austin, Texas

Home, where the music’s playin’; Home, where everybody knows my name; Home, where I’m not on probation; Home, where eveyone knows me and loves me anyway; Home sweet Home, with those who made me who I am today.  I love you Austin…it’s been Heaven…thank you for calling me here, if even for just a little while. 

Know this, Sweet Austin, wherever I roam, you’ll always be Home.

Economics USA: The Crumbling of an Empire~~Our Time Has Come

We’ve known wealth.  We’ve known power.  We’ve known comfort.  We’ve known ease.  We’ve lived the illusion.  Living the illusion cost us more than we ever took the time to evaluate.  It cost us more than -dollars and cents.  Living in a super-inflated economy took its toll in relationships, in ethics, in priorities, in values and in character.

Many have warned us that our economy was on a collision course.  Two of my dear friends, Dr. Robert Jensen and Dr. Jim Rigby have long been describing this unavoidable occurence, when no legislation Congress can forge will circumvent the inevitable.  In Jensen’s book, Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity, he writes encouragingly of  Maintaining political, intellectual, and ethical hope in the heart of the world’s most powerful nation.  Now that this Empire, this illusion can no longer be sustained, we the people have the enormous gift of being able to come together on solid ground~~claiming our humanity.  We have the opportunities to once again create time for our families and our neighbors…to take turns lending a helping hand.  We can use our two hands, our minds, our hearts, our backs to shoulder the labors ahead of us together.  We can learn anew to live closer to the earth, use less, replace more…our time has come.  To paraphrase the recent words of Dr. Jim Rigby,

…let us open every pore to the present gift. [encouraging us to "taste the soup."]

Now, more than perhaps ever in our lifetimes, we can appreciate all of the genuine abundance that we truly live with.  We can savor the breath that gives us life.  We can cherish the life that surrounds and sustains us.  Without a doubt, we will have less in that we no longer can delude ourselves or the world; yet, undeniably, we will have more.  Each and every day will bring new riches that money and inflation cannot buy at any price.

I look forward to working with each and everyone of my neighbors, regardless of race, creed, or sexual orientation in life sustaining,  community building endeavors. 

I will consider it my highest priority to meet each day with joy in the privilege of being alive in this exciting time when the Empire crumbled and the people arose.

Our time has come; the perfect time for relocating~~for moving from the penthouses of our heads into the rich wilderness of our hearts.  This is the perfect time to live abundant lives of compassion, recognizing the worth of every creature, of every individual, of every nation.  Now is the time to “beat our swords in plowshares,” to mine our vast resources of courage, strength and determination in order to live not the illusion, but a life worth tasting.

For more from this author, visit http://itsawonderfulife.wordpress.com and http://ashtoraspeaks.wordpress.com.

For more perspectives like this, write Dr. Jim Rigby at jrigby0000@aol.com, visit Carol Creel at www.lifeworks-marketing.com.  You can also email Ashtora, izee4mee@hotmail.com.

Emotional Bankruptcy~~Eclipse of the Heart~~How to Recover

Have you ever declared emotional bankruptcy?

Have you ever known someone whose cynicism caused them to claim total eclipse of the heart?

Without a doubt, we can crash our heart on life’s curves, and repairs can take some time, but to become permanently emotionally unavailable, to proclaim, “I’m broke,” or “I’m broken,” deprives us of opportunities to experience love in new, delightful, fulfilling ways and forms, from the most unexpected sources~~that may be just the “deposit of love” that our broken hearts needed to get back in the black.

With your patience, I’d like to offer this autobiographical situation as an illustration:

A few months ago, while driving my car through an intersection, another driver ignored the traffic signals and drover right into me, causing my neck to whip right and then left, bashing the left side of my head on my car’s door frame.  A concussion resulted, effecting my hard earned mathmatical skills and my lifetime of musicianship.  Soon after the accident, I discovered that I could no longer perform simple math, much less advanced algebra.  An even more devastating moment occured when I sat down at the piano to read a new piece of music and found that music was now a foreign language to me.  When I tried to execute compositions I had been playing for longer than memory served–that my fingers had known on their own, I learned that even the memory of my fingers had been damaged.  Music had been ninety percent of my life since I was a toddler, and my livelihood since age twelve.

While I couldn’t expect to make my living as a musician for a while, I turned to other skills for income and began lovingly retraining my brain.  At first, crosswords were like Greek to me but I conistently applied myself to working them in order to cause my mental synapses to fire; everyday, I turned my attention to redeveloping my musical abilities, whether it was singing, playing the piano, or playing the marimba; everyday, I apply new patience to working out mathmatical problems, and find creative ways of enticing both hemispheres of my brain to remember, to use unused cells, and develop new neuro-pathways. [for more on how the brain works, read Jill Bolte Taylor's book, Stroke of Insight. www.mystrokeofinsight.com]

My result thusfar, of not declaring musical bankruptcy or wallowing in despair over losing a lifetime of personal and financial investment?  In the process of renewing my musical abilities, hiking and climbing have provided strength and coordination; in learning to ride and care for horses–I’ve developed relationships with these creatures who always daunted me before; writing and blogging provide hours of entertainment, pleasure and income; nature has revitalized my senses and my joy; AND I’ve developed the ability to accompany my singing on the marimba!  A small trio wanting to be a quartet heard my voice and invited me to join their ranks.  Needing some way to learn the music, I picked up my mallets and began picking out the tune and in a few days, I was singing and playing a simple melody.  While no one would pay to hear me, this progress is priceless to me and I’ve found a group of musicians that I actually add to!

How much I’ll ever regain?  Unknown.  How much I’ve gained?  Immeasurable.  How much is yet to come?  Infinite possibilities. 

If I had declared myself musically broke or broken, I would have deprived myself of untold opportunities to experience love, music, life, people, nature, animals and even myself in new, delightful, fulfilling ways and forms, in the most unexpected ways~~that were just the “deposit” that my broken heart and life needed to get back in the black.  Instead of getting smaller, my life is greatly enlarged.

No deposits, no withdrawals can be made on an account that’s been closed.~~A.

A spoon never tastes the soup…and we can miss out on tasting life if we don’t become porous…[Dr. Jim Rigby in http://itsawonderfulife.wordpress.com As Great As We Are...God Loves Other People Too!]

When we’re broken, to declare “bankruptcy” closes our account.  While no withdrawals can be made, neither can deposits be applied or interest earned.  Being broken calls us to enormous courage that begins simply, with the willingness to have courage…to take the very next breath, the very next thought and the very next step. {for more on willingness, read Carol Creel’s stories at www.lifeworks-marketing.com] 

If you’re a soul feeling broken beyond repair, I hope that in this, you find the encouragement to be willing to keep some little part of your empty, broken heart open to being repaired and refilled.  Especially when you feel that you have nothing to give, find something that you can give, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant, knowing that in your willingness, in your giving, you’ll find the courage and you’ll find the gift.~~Ashtora, 2008

[for more on hope and healing read Anna Miller's book, Mania.  Madness. Miracles. www.thedepressionproject.com]

[for more on love and wisdom, listen to Dr. Jim Rigby's podcasts from www.staopen.com]