Feeling the stillness in Stillwater

There is something special about touching another living creature.

Usually I feel too rushed doing the next chore, or working on a work project, to take a moment to feed the birds by hand as I encouraged my children to do.

Recently, feeling a little bit of depressed one day - I took a moment to do this.  I felt a thrill as eight of the wild dove touched down on my hand, and felt his dry little scratchy feet.  It was like touching another part of yourself, another part of God in another creature.  Another part of the Greater Spirit.  I felt uplifted.

Taking that moment to feel our world, is probably a source of unhappiness for we often unhappy people of the world.

I am awesome doesn't work

One thing I notice, besides the "don't excite your emotions" too much thing is that it's only when you humble yourself that you really are able to do good work. The moment you say to yourself, "I am so awesome", it all goes out the window.

If you are blind with ego and imagine yourself to be powerful, then you are not able to align your true weak human abilities to the powers of nature. Once you connect with the task as yourself, a faltering human, I think, then you are able to listen for some of those ways nature uses, and in using them as well, find strength.

detail of landscape in larger artist impression I am working on

Tips on drawing swirlies in Illustrator

There is a great tutorial on how draw basic "swirls" or spiral shapes (the golden ratio pattern) by Bittbox called How to make custom swooshes, swirls and curls, where I first learned, which basically takes a tapering brush stroke to a spiral made with the Spiral Tool. You then Expand Appearance (no longer a line in the centre, but outlining the edges). Then you can cut out and add to your pattern using the Pathfinder tool. I am going to gather together here a few basic techniques in Illustrator that I use in illustration, if you don't know about them already. You can use the Spiral tool, as in the tutorial above, or, I often enjoy create spirals to my liking by drawing them manually with the pen tool, roughly at first then adjusting the nodes with the white selection arrow.

ADDING OR CUTTING USING A CIRCLE: After having created a few tapering swirlies, you can cut using simple circle shape and the Pathfinder tool. Or you can add the ball, which does the same but to your negative space. Know what I mean?




I can also just create a regular stroked line (not stroked with a tapered brush shape), expand that [Object then Expand or Expand Appearance], and just manually adjust the width of the shape's edges. Here I used the spiral tool.


Below, I created a shape to fill the space between the two swirls. Then I selected the shape, chose the eraser tool, set the size of the eraser brush to a small size and stroked the shape evenly with the eraser. (How cool is it that you can erase vector shapes? Another cool way to draw.)


My biggest advice for vector drawing anything in Illustrator or other such programs is to keep the shape loose in the beginning. Don't draw it perfectly as you go, you will just waste energy! As you get used to the pen tool, you can roughly make points for how many you need to make the curves you need, and how many you will need. Although your shape starts out wonky, you will control them in a moment using the Direct Selection (white arrow) tool.

Lately I've been "committing" to a shape. Instead of having many separate shapes, but which look like one (in case you want to change or go back) I've been truly merging shapes so it's one as-simple-as-possible vector, which is a beautiful thing. (Also great for printing T-shirts.)

Craft Advice

1. Relaxing music is best. Not as you would think, intense music. I listen to classical music, folk music most of the time. ANYTHING CALM. Let your spirit be calm, not excited.

2. Believe in yourself. Not too much, and not too little. The craftsman's edge is the humbleness, and critical eye, but also you have to believe in magic. Always be aware of how you are feeling-- know your nature-- curb yourself if necessary, urge yourself if necessary! Make a leap.

3. Good enough. Don't be perfectionist, you won't be able to move on. Just do "good enough". You'll get in the flow then, and when you are in a higher flow, will go back and fix easily what you now can, naturally.

4. Listen, listen, all the time. Otherwise, what is the point? I often find myself knowing I should do one thing, and ignoring it for a minute-- but a minute later I change it, as I know I should listen.

5. All the time, you can work on your discipline and patience. If you are about to work, but have to do the dishes first, but feel impatient-- do the dishes! After all, that is how you will work.

It's worth it. After all, what could be better than being the universe's pencil?

Buffy Sainte-Marie sings Listen to the Wind Blow on Sesame Street

I just ran into Buffy Sainte-Marie's Native Canadian (or First Nations) Cree singing on a Sesame Street Youtube clip. I just love it. I could listen to it a million times.




Yaya-way-hey-heya-hey-hey-heya
Way-heyaway-heyway-heyawayo
Heya-wey-hey-heya-hey-hey-heya
Hey-heyaway-heyaway-ayaway-oh

Listen to the wind blow
Where does the wind go, hm?
What does the wind know
Listen to the wind blow

Listen to the wind in the wandering weather
Let's all run and play in the grass together
With the summer breeze<
How it loves to tickle and tease and fool us
But when we get hot there's his breath to cool us
Sighin' high above in the top of a rustlin' tree

Listen to the wind blow
Where does the wind go
What does the wind know
Listen to the wind blow

Listen to the wind now he's getting bolder
Now his voice is rough and his breath is colder
Cause it's wintertime
He whistles down the chimneys and lips our noses<
Crumples off our hats turns our cheeks to roses
Snappin' up our clothes as they flap on the laundry line

Listen to the wind blow
Where does the wind go
What does the wind know
Listen to the wind blow
Listen to the wind blow
Where does the wind go, hm?
What does the wind know?
Listen to the wind blow
Listen to the wind blow
Listen to the wind blow, listen...

3 Steps

STEP 1. Baby Steps

You may not be able to find the time to change your the new habits right away (e.g. becoming environmentally sustainable. Just make little progresses, grasping onto each on for dear life, until you get stronger to keep moving forward. When you are strong, and we underestimate ourselves, it will be easy! We are learning new skills.

A first great step in becoming more responsible to the earth, or your environment, is to start taking cloth bags. You'll be amazed by how often they are used, when you stop taking them. And even this is really hard at first!

Right now I am holding on for dear life for motivation to make a small change - to get my lazy self to make yogourt instead of buying it. I know how to do it—- my Dad even made me a version of his homemade using a lightbulb in a metal container setup to keep heat going, but for now I buy yogourt in bulk size, and in a cardboard millk-type carton, and flavour it myself and pour it into reusable lunch containers. That's something! And then it will be easier to go to the yogourt-making habit.



STEP 2. Know History

History makes you stronger: knowing that people once lived differently, and how strong we can be.

I grew up with a mother that loved history. She also researched my ancestors' stories, and told us stories as she discovered them. It was very special and positive - I knew what I was capable of as a person because I knew my own people had been strong.

It also helps to be aware of our place in history. It puts our selfish modern world into perspective.


STEP 3. You will be blessed.
I discovered after having a terribly difficult time-- and I would recommend it to anyone, you really learn alot-- that it is really important to Listen to the world around you. But not just with your ears, with your spirit.

Listen to what you really know in your heart is true, even if it's hard to accept at the time. (Because, sometimes we know the true direction is uphill, at first.) But something neat is-- that we can ask ourselves if we are doing in our life what we believe in, if we are going the right way, and we will hear the answer. Am I really happy doing this? Or, is this relationship working?

In the end all these little steps turn into blessings. The steps weren't made for this reason, but of course, you will have more strength and discipline from it that will be for your benefit. Also, you will gain a creative and resourcefulness edge, as you connect to the materials, and the world, around you. For real.

Waking from a long sleep

People are waking up from a long sleep. After a few centuries of lying to ourselves, we are allowing ourselves to use the other half of our brain again; in public. The "left" side.

The return of craftiness. People are starting to get interested in crafts again. Although unecessary due to factory products, we are realizing that such work made us happy. To tune in to materials and become a craftsperson is an amazing gift.

Gardening. Garden centres are seeing record numbers of young people interested in food gardening. And learning the old arts of how to preserve the produce of their gardens into jam, into bottles, or cook with it.

The environment-- people have finally listened, and are thinking about their lifestyles, about what climate change means, and they are starting to change.

Television programming. I see an interest in "psychics", and spirit mediums, but for the first time this question is taken seriously. I have seen various programs gingerly begin a process of incorporating this level back into our society. How will this work? Maybe we do need to understand that which we cannot measure physically.

The world has begun communicating, so all of its countries, parts, are talking and becoming closer to being one. Humpty Dumpty is getting put back together. Catalyzed by the internet, organizationally there is alot of bridging and cross-cultural exchanges. I can see people who have written books from other countries being interviewed on popular talk shows, bridging financial schemes such as micro-investment, allowing money to travel from richer to poorer countries, or such as Childfund or Unicef, Intrepid volunteering transfers people over to help... We are grappling with the problem of creating a world culture, and we don't want some of the world's people to live in suffering or chaos.

That horrible and degrading show, the Flavour of Love "reality" show could exist, but a show called "Charm School" came up to battle the spiritual retardation.

Some people still strive to become ever-more-specialized and harder-bigger-better-longer-taller than ever before, but those who are starting to use that underused left side of the brain, the intuitive side which "puts it all together" are finding that our world's modern culture is like an "idiot-savante". We are very clever at certain tasks, but break down at doing basic functions. (We don't clear our wastes away, we gather pollution, etc. Hey that's more like a broken kidney. But the brain is still forming, and needs to include the function of a clean whole, because there is no dialysis available for the Earth...)

The awakening intuitive side of humanity asks, actually shouts, before now unheard: What is the point of building a tower higher and higher if doing so drains our source of strength of its nutrients, like a fetus that drains all the energy of the mother?

Why should I train in a super-specialized area, such as athletics, if most people grow increasingly unfit?

Why should I become the sole creative genius out of millions, if most people are too intimidated to ever write a poem or paint anything at all?

Or why should I become a super-specialized researcher that finds the secret of making people live even longer, when the world is already overpopulated?

I think we are wanting to have gardens.

To experience some wind and mud and pain.

I am.