Huntington Gardens
November 23, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

As you move forward in your life it is very natural to reflect upon the things you have acquired, the goals you have achieved, the people you have met. It is also very natural to feel dire detriment when any of these things are lost or your goals have not been achieved or these people have abandoned you. However, as you reflect upon your life, you remember very well that you were quite happy say, a year ago, without these things or people. It’s all really a matter of perspective.

Reflecting upon this past year, many things, goals, and people have come my way. I worked hard to make that all happen. I held onto things, I lost things. I accomplished goals, I changed my goals. I met people, I lost people.

I am very hard on myself. I am my own worst critic. I like to keep up with myself and excel above myself. But that makes taking photos and making art difficult for myself. So, in the past few months, I’ve been reflecting and looking at my own reflexion. I decided to turn it all off. The noise. The radio. The social media. The Facebook. The Twitter. Not a 100% but 90% isn’t bad. My own personal filter. I stopped caring about what other social personalities were doing. I stopped caring that I am supposed to get the winning photo. I stopped caring that I wanted to keep up with everyone else. Because I didn’t. I was only trying to keep up with myself.

I love the inspiration of art and music. The music. I fell into the music. The reverie and resonance when silence and sound meet upon chance. The art. I was always in love with the art. When creation is left behind it becomes a legacy after we are gone.

And some of those people understood that very essence about me and let me be who I am. These are my friends, they are my people.

Each one of them has inspired me…. Healing other people with her jewelry. Writing teen novels with her imagination and experience. Touring in the Middle East playing for our troops.

Inspiring.

Being inspired, I am able to run down mountains, I am able to listen to silence, I am able to touch guitar strings, I am able to go through another rigorous kung fu program, and most of all, I am able to take another photo. And being inspired, I am able to take my time, I am able to just show up. And when I look at the people around me, the things I’ve surrounded myself with, the goals I decided to achieve, I see a reflexion of me. A desire, not for a want of anything new outside but for a need of something old inside, so I can evolve into something/someone beyond all of Heaven and Earth.

Be happy with what you already have. You may build upon yourself with experiences with people, things, and goals. But a bee and all of nature has all it will ever need, and have been quite content with that for centuries.

Patches

Oreo

Patches likes white wine

Gabby’s Party

‘

The Praying Mantis teaches how to still the outer mind and go within ourselves.
Through this, we can draw upon greater power –
physical, emotional, mental or spiritual.
That stillness can be simple contemplation or meditation or even dreaming.

Healers often have Praying Mantis totems — for they use
their inner stillness to focus their healing power.

The greatest lesson this totem teaches is patience.
Learning to wait for the right moment before striking.

Roxbury Park, Beverly Hills

Full Album Here

]]> http://www.withmyowntwohands.com/2010/11/07/sunday-at-the-park/feed/ 0 http://www.withmyowntwohands.com/2010/09/30/sing-to-me-of-angels/ http://www.withmyowntwohands.com/2010/09/30/sing-to-me-of-angels/#comments Fri, 01 Oct 2010 03:51:08 +0000 Dee http://www.withmyowntwohands.com/?p=893 The sky’s symphony started like this…

And rumbled into percussion and bells.

Floating into winds and strings…

With a single timpani

Rippling out of the atmosphere

Stillness as day begins it’s descent

The Universe begins with one note.

This is from inside the lobby at A&I, where I work.
I always love looking up at those windows to see the sky outside.
Always a delight.

I don’t have photos of the light that was flooding under the back door as I was leaving.
Nor do I have photos as I opened the back door and my breath was taken away.
The feeling and visual was like in the Wizard of Oz,
when Dorothy opens the front door
and everything is in color and not black and white.
But I have this photo. And I think it still does the magical moment justice.

My first view of the rainbow.

Walking backwards, the rainbow kept climbing higher.

This part of the sky fascinated me with its ethereal aurora-esque presence.

And the sky started melting into coolness
as we felt the first raindrops on our upturned smiling faces.

It was truly a magical day.

So blessed.

Love!