Assessing My Creative Work

I've had a change in my sleeping and eating patterns for the last two weeks.  I've been sleeping several hours during the day, maybe because it has been quite hot and I use only fans.  So I've been staying up till around three in the morning.  And then, I stopped cooking and have been relying on Amy's frozen meals which are vegan and vegetarian, but I've lost some appetite.  As a result I have been losing weight more quickly, which is good, but I'm concerned about myself.  My strong tendency is still to stay home and see very few people outside of my home.  I do go in and out of depression, but that seems like something I just have to accept like many other people.  And yet, I have been quite creative, writing blogs, poems, a few songs and drawing.

My emphasis in quite a few of my blogs these last two years has been away from the study of Buddhism and towards the study of addiction and addiction recovery, especially the Twelve Steps.  The big shift seems to be me coming forward as a serious believer in some kind of Higher Power.  I wonder if this is off putting to whomever reads this blog.  Truth is, it puts me off somewhat too when I re-read some of my blogs.  I really do want to be all inclusive.  I grew up around atheists and agnostics and a chunk of the people I know in my town are just that.  Their points of view are just as valid as mine and they have a great deal to offer.  I believe, but I do not know.  We each have to find our way through life following whatever feels true to us.  So my advice to you is to think for yourself, take what works for you and forget the rest.  My advice to myself is to be a bit less impulsive and more open minded.

I also feel uncomfortable with the poems I write.  They come to me very quickly and I do not rewrite, which is true of my blog too.  I think that I write boldly about difficult subjects and, though my intentions are good, I wonder if it's okay to share them.  Probably I am being too hard on myself.  I am just a small voice amongst many voices.  It does feel good to write the poems and to record myself speaking them aloud.  The main thing is that I get something out of it - a clearer understanding.  I think it was Joan Didion who wrote that she writes to find out what she's thinking.  It is like that for me in the act of reaching out to express how I feel about any given subject.

Songs have been coming out of me at a slower pace this year.  I've recorded only a few and haven't uploaded any to the SoundCloud site.  I gave CDs of my music to around four people, but there's been no great response to them.  I continue to pursue it because it provides me with an emotional outlet that I really need.  It's a valued artifact of the changes and stages of my life as well as a way to feel my feelings.  It's too bad that I have no experience with performing and know only a few chords on the guitar which I tend to play haphazardly.  I have thought of taking guitar lessons.  It's funny how scared I am to even try.  So many simple things that a lot of people take for granted I have trouble approaching and doing.

And then there's drawing and painting which you can see I've been doing a lot lately.  I know I have talent that goes in different directions.  I have a versatility of approach and can work with different mediums.  I've gotten some good responses to my portraits on Facebook and again I'm thinking of making more of a commitment to doing them.  One online friend said that he thought I could earn some income doing portraits.  That would be ideal.  I tentatively tried doing that seven years ago, but failed to promote myself.  Once again, I had good ideas, but didn't follow through with them.  But I do need to make some money and I would love to do it through my talent and hard work.  And so I've been thinking the last couple of nights that I need an artist website of my own where I can offer to do portraits either for payment or for a donation.  I think I am also going to put a donation's button on this blog and again offer to do portraits.  All I need are a few good photographs.

Right now I don't have the confidence.  I'm going to have to do the work to get it.  And I'm going to have to cross that line into self promotion.  I'm not sure why I feel it is wrong to promote myself and my art work.  Lots of good and talented people do just that.  Why can't I be one of them?  I am blessed that I have the time, the money and few responsibilities.  How many people have families and  full time work who want to earn money through their various talents?  Portrait drawing and painting could be the focus that I need to actually become a practicing artist.  I tend to go in all different directions, skimming the surface of many projects.  That's not going to work well if I want to earn income.  I wonder if I'm afraid to succeed.

Portrait Of A Friend

Ronda's Girl

Ink Drawing Of One Of My Cats

Watercolor Pencil Drawing #2

Watercolor Pencil Drawing

Drawing: Man, Girl & Ice Cream Cone

Drawing: Girl With Dog

Poem - "To People Of Color"

To People Of Color

White is not white,
It is many shades of cream.
Black is not black,
It is many shades of brown.
But here we have created
Our fallen world of black and white.

Oh, many colored beautiful people
Do not think and feel
Through this racist dichotomy,
We are so much more collectively
Than this cartoon mentality.

The delicate shades and tones
All over your body
Have marked you for life.
Those who judge that beauty
Which is you
Do not represent humanity
As a whole.

Never reject where you’ve come from.
Never reject who you are.
Don’t give in to those who bait you
To hate in return.  
Honor your ancestors
Who lived in poverty,
Who endured the unjust,
Who gave birth 
To your mothers and fathers,
Who gave birth to you.

We shall overcome,
Not some day,
But this day,
Right here and now
When you live out
For yourself
For your children
That dignity
That is the birthright
For everyone.


Listen To The Audio

Poem - "Domestic Violence"

Domestic Violence

It was just me and him.
There were no children
Caught in the crossfire
As there are with so many others.
That was one blessing.

Another was that there was genuine love
Mixed into our mutual mental illnesses.
I was sick before I met him
And he was sick before he met me
And that was our bond.
We walked down the path
Towards some hellish realms,
But even there the sun streamed in
And there was peace and beauty.

I had not been raped
As a child and adolescent,
But he had.
I was not alcoholic,
I had not murdered,
But he had.
He gave me his secrets
And I was bent over
With the weight of them.

He initiated me into his world
Where cyclical abuse was the norm.
At the bottom of the cycle
He embraced the persona
Of the blonde haired Aryan Nazi
Remorseless in judgment
High on the power
Walking the tightrope
Emulating his childhood abuser.

In this technicolor drama
I was the pawn for a crazy king
Easily sacrificed for the war
That raged in his mind.

He opened a door for me
And I walked through it
To see the countless faces
Of boys struggling to be men
In a world where masculinity
Is marred by warped standards
Of emotional repression
And glorified aggression.

How can we as a culture
Be surprised that so many
Cross the line into violence?
Violence numbs the heart
For those who live it
And those who receive it.
The heart is our only compass.
Remove that compass
And we are lost
In the acres and acres
Of a man made wilderness.


Listen To The Audio

Poem - "Abusers"

Abusers

Abusers have known love
And have given love
And have turned away from love
At early ages.
They have felt humiliation
From people they trusted
Who taught them to internalize shame.

Shame is the illusion,
An intangible soul tattoo
That makes us see ourselves
As diseased mutations
Of what was formerly healthy.
More than that shame instructs us
To have faith in no faith.
As the shamed soul enters the ranks
Of the soldiers of crime
And begins to act out
Their self fulfilling prophecies
They live with the delusion
That they can never change.

I’m shouting from the sidelines
Where the crowd roars its obscenities
At the fallen men and women
Who walk in the chain gang
Towards internal and external prisons.
I shout out Love amidst the Hate.
And I am not alone.
There are others preaching Love
Making signs large enough to see
For friends and lovers,
Acquaintances and strangers
Who find themselves facing
Their own wrong thoughts,
Wrong speech,
Wrong actions.

Too many cast the first stone
Labeling others “sinners”
Ignoring the call for compassion
From our world’s greatest leaders.
There is much complaining
That to turn the other cheek
Is just too hard
Choosing to maintain
Positions of hate,
Positions that have set our species
On a course of self destruction.

To the Christians of this country,
You say Jesus died for our sins.
And if he did who did he also die for,
But for those most impoverished in their souls:
Molesters, Rapists, Murderers.
And yet you set yourselves above the man
You call your Lord.
Your standards are way too low
When you only love and praise
Those who are easy to love and praise.
Jesus raised the bar
To utter the holy aspiration
That we live as one.

Judas kissed Jesus
And then betrayed him
For a petty price.
To those who condemn Judas
Take a look in the mirror
For you have betrayed Jesus
When you condemn anyone.


Listen To The Audio