It's Time to Give Up Continuous Mantra

Two nights ago I stopped. Let it be.

I think it was 1995 when I began mantra recitation, walking, during the hours awake in the middle of the night, while cooking or cleaning, during repetitive tasks at work. Like Hail Mary's, only not Christian, not even necessarily the Sanskrit of my yoga, often ones I made up to suit whatever my needs were.

Mantra filled my mind, plus the meditation I did every day of 15 minutes or more.

It stilled my mind; my mind needed stilling. I left my husband in 1997. There was an ongoing war in my mind. Mantra soothed it. Mantra lifted my weary spirit over and over for the ensuing decade and more. I've come to rely on it to bring me to a state of inner peace.

Two nights ago I decided to let my mind run rampant again. Be as unpruned as it is naturally. I woke at 2am and lay awake until 6am and didn't calm my tumultuous interior with mantra. An hour of extra sleep before rising suffices.

From now on I will only silently recite mantra during my actual meditations, and what a balm they are, those moments of forgetfulness, of not-being, of being gone. The relief of not thinking, of not carrying the pressure of everything, of letting it all go in the ease and peace that mantra brings.

Outside of actual meditation sessions, I will let my mind become what it is. It's safe now. The last thirteen years of honing and focus through continuous mantra have surely had an effect.

Dawn, the momentary effect

when love's flame
rises

encroaching the dark
birds singing dawn, chirping
grace

or finally knowing what to do,
after such a long time
of unknowing

spreading a caul of light over
the horizon

until the sky is clear, safe, free,

and you may continue on

Prep drawing for painting

India ink on paper with acrylic matte medium brushed over the drawing, 73cm x 52cm, 28.75" x 20.5"

Prep drawing for a new painting. Combining figures from lifedrawing sessions and a very famous Venus, to become part my current work-in-progress: the Botticelli Venus Suite of Poems (I've included some tiny bits of text from my poems which may be lost in the paint, who knows).

Click on image for larger size, & the tiny quotes from which poems.

A Lion Tale...

Irresistible! As an animal lover, this touches me and if you are, wonderful...

Also I spent ages 2-6 1/2 in Kafue National Park in Zambia living in mud huts with all the wild animals about and the lion who I called "blond," and who I told to "Stop roaring all night, you're keeping Mummy awake!"

A hug like that...

Animals who love people.

Burning Video

Watching Kurosawa's Ran, very King Lear, but marvelously Japanese, that landscape, warrior fury, splendour of pageant, emotion moving under

Having been laid off recently, these recessionary times, I went to the Korean Video Store where videos apparently sell for $2. In budget! Korean films and a shelf of Chinese & Japanese. Two Kurosawa's later and one described as "very sexy" that won't load...

When I put the "very sexy" video in my laptop earphones in it smells vaguely of burning

...I wish I had more information, there is a Korean note, with "ONLY" in English

ONLY what? And what did the man in the store mean, "there are some scenes..." and selling me a burning disc with mystical Korean calligraphy

on a label on the disc for $2.? Tomorrow I shall go back and say to the old Korean lady who owns the store and who only takes cash, "It doesn't play..."

Is this part of the mystique of the very sexy burning movie ... I did ask for 'art films' in the Korean Video Store afterall.

Cinnamon Scones

Tax returns done, passing a tray of freshly baked cinnamon scone bits, yumhhmn, buying half a dozen, cloudburst, package of warm scones high under umbrella home

she says they are the best scones she's ever tasted watching the bliss with every bite how are little pockets of pure cinnamon

everywhere in the pastry like raisins only not raisins? Delicious treat, but we'll get used to them, like we did the Chinese sugar donuts

soft sweet twists of pastry fresh from the boiling kettle of oil
rolled in sugar

Sunglasses

Hidden mirrors behind the eyes. Like being looked at through shutters that are bright slats of sun.

You can't see anything but you know you're being watched.

Or tracked. Might be the eye of a camera, who knows. I passed a group in the patio of Mel's and all four heads turned and their eyes followed me and then I noticed the camcorder.

On my way to the supermarket to buy a large bottle of spring water with the old bundle buggy broken from dropping the 18 litre bottles into it and which is kept only for that purpose. I filmed them too. They are burned on my optic nerves and in my memory banks. They were as old or older than I, but had the look of the effect of drugs and alcohol, too much of both for too long. If I'd seen the camera earlier when I was closest to them I'd have asked them to turn it off.

I was thinking of someone who is a compulsive liar. The pose, the facade, an insistence that what is presented is the truth. Seamless illusions. Blatant proof otherwise is rendered insignificant with a shrug. And the way of being watched through the slats that reflect the twisting that is presented as truth. Why do I posit myself in a role of moral conscience? Who cares if the neuronal synapses have been forced to present a false version of a person's life and to maintain those appearances and whether in the final dementia there won't be a terror of not knowing what the truth and the fiction is anymore.

The slats are collages of life. Displaced images. Intertexual figments.

Truth is a fiction; fiction is always truth. The conclusion doesn't follow from the premises presented.

Or the eyeglasses that are mirrored slats for us to look though.