Picture Perfect : Tough As… It is to Change
This is a self portrait. She is one tough cookie. I am using her to represent the human race because that is the toughest problem we face—our own nature. How to change so as to become good? Even more so, how to realize it’s necessary? Yet that is the only solution for a better world, given by our Creator:
“The Truth is, the world has to change”
“Then My Day will break. I will gesture to the planet to stop revolving under your feet ;
there will be no longer day or night, but My Light will cover everything continuously”
The Revelation of Arès 28/7, 31/8
So until we decide to change, things will only get tougher, unless we destroy ourselves.
For more entries on the theme of “tough as…”, go to Picture Perfect.
I used the remote capture function with the computer, tripod and our Canon Powershot A510 and cropped a bit off the right.
Return
It has been a very good week. I rarely feel I can give an instantaneous evaluation.
If you want more food for thought, go to:
http://goodsoul25.multiply.com/journal/item/9/9
Here is a watercolour I did sort of as a souvenir.
Picture Perfect : Nursery Rhyme
Mistress Mary,
Quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells
And cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row.
Rather than contrary, I feel blessed, working and being rewarded.
How does your inner garden grow?
“The head is a pot in which the poppy boils.
When sitting the brother sees the flower wilt and the rust, he feels his bone bend;
then into his head the hoe comes to till the garden that never fades.
The brother that is clear-sighted goes out of his own head, goes up into My Hand.
His head becomes gold on fire like the sun, his saliva pours the rain, the forest spreads over his leg.”
The Revelation of Arès XVI/16b-18
For more entries on the theme of Nursery Rhymes, go to Picture Perfect.
I took this photo this morning, waiting for that ray of sun. It has been cropped and downsized. The camera is a Canon Powershot A510.
No Sticker Today
Here is what I painted today for Couleurs de Breatagne. I did not do as well as yesterday. There is something lacking in the roof area in my opinion. I did a sketch first thing to make note of the morning shadows since they quickly moved. That helped. Yesterday was a much more festive atmosphere, maybe because of the sun. There were 76 participants yesterday and approximately 60 today.
I Got a Sticker!
Today my friends and I participated in Couleurs de Bretagne, a painting contest. We had good weather in spite of threatening showers. I am really tickled because I got a little sticker on my slip that says 2nd runner-up. 
My good friend took first place in our category. If she keeps that up, she’ll have to move to a higher category. Tomorrow we will do it again in a different town–artists’ double header.
First and Last Yahoo Blog Entries
This was my first blog entry:
djd’s blog
So now I have a blog ? But I don’t like to write ! How did I get myself into this ?
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- Entry for January 26, 2006
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So here we go for another learning experience.
I gotta’ get some friends !
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Last yahoo blog:
djd’s blog
So now I have a blog ? But I don’t like to write ! How did I get myself into this ?
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- Entry for May 01, 2008
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It has become too time-consuming and frustrating to function here, despite my large capacity for patience and perseverance (waiting for the improvements since October). I will now be blogging at this address:http://djdx.multiply.com/journalTags: multiplyblog | Edit Tags Thursday May 1, 2008 – 10:02am (CEST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
Picture Perfect : Season’s Colour
The season’s color is full green, growing fruit. This is a branch of the nut tree in the courtyard. It sprouted on a vacant lot in the Parisian metropolis and was saved from galloping development, ending up on our property in Brittany.
God’s Word, transmitted by Mikal, shall also bear fruit–
“Out of his jaw the tree with the evergreen top grows.”
It is up to us to plant It in our hearts, even at the risk of being taken for a nut.
For more entries on the theme of Season’s Colour, go to Picture Perfect.
How a Junior Spoon Made Me Cry
Now this may be an example of unnecessary accumulation of material goods, but we have two sets of dishes, including silverware, one set for every day, another for special occasions. I call it silverware but it is stainless steel. Our everyday things are French and the special ones are American. Our set of silver—Oneida stainless—was a gift from my mother when my husband and I were engaged. Friends of the family, her best friends before my parents got married, gave us the chest it’s kept in. When we had children, she sent baby sets which are a small fork and spoon. A little while later, she sent a junior set which is a medium-sized knife, fork and spoon.
Yesterday at tea-time, my husband fixed us each a cup and got out a “good “ spoon since all the ordinary ones were in the dishwasher. That’s a junior spoon, I said. No response. That’s a junior spoon, I repeat. I realize he is not hearing what I am saying which is—my mother got that when the boys were small and I was counting on our grandchildren using them, but the one we have lives so far away, he hasn’t been here yet and he’s already too big to use the baby set and when we die, the house will probably be cleared by a recycler and no one will ever even know what this stuff is, …. Boo-hoo-hoo…………. Do you know about my great-grandmother’s necklace? I ask. No, he replies, but I get the feeling I soon will.
These sorts of things are transmitted in the off-hand comments of everyday life which is not being shared due to distance. Maybe I should put labels on everything? Or stop putting so much emotional weight into physical objects.
Pondering all this at breakfast, I notice a sparrow carrying rose petals. Madame Alfred Carrière (a white rose tinged with pink, nicely perfumed) is contributing nesting materials? Sometimes even little birds have luxury.
Here you can see small, medium, and large settings,
with the added bonus of other spoons—serving, holey, soup and demi-tasse.
(click to enlarge)
Colour on My Plate
Yes, on my plate, not my palette. Here you can see some ingredients for tonight’s salad:
Nasturtiums, calendula (pot marigold), borage and chives.
First I prepared the lettuce, mixing well with vinaigrette, chopped onion marinated in vinegar, salt and pepper, then I sprinkled the borage whole, the nasturtiums pulled in half and the calendula and chives as individual petals. It was so pretty and tasty too.
Working in the garden, I am surprised to see how much it does not stay done. Plants move, disappear, weeds spread and invade. All that is alive changes, moves, but part of me has trouble accepting that. It is the same for myself—I can work on becoming good for years and yet at any moment, pop out with something hurtful. Gotta’ stay on that ‘til the end.
Here are two excerpts from articles I read recently. Even science is seeing that we are capable of changing ourselves if we put our mind to it.
“With some practice, you can not only feel happy in the moment but you can also develop that joy as a habitual response. In one discourse, the Buddha simply and profoundly explains how habits are created: “Whatever the practitioner frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of his mind.” You are making either skillful grooves or unpleasant ruts with repetitive habits of thought. Modern neuroscience has corroborated this: Through repetition you strengthen positive neural pathways in the brain. By frequently inclining the mind toward thoughts associated with greater well-being, you begin to shift your habitual thinking. And the shift becomes deeper still when you act on those thoughts and impulses. As you practice being present for moments of joy as they occur and nourish your spirit in healthful ways, you create the conditions for well-being to arise naturally.”
Feel the Joy by James Baraz
“The most convincing scientific progress in psychiatry in the past decade has had little to do with genomics. It is the rigorous, scientific verification that certain forms of psychotherapy are effective. This is perhaps not surprising. One of the major insights in the modern biology of learning and memory is that education, experience, and social interactions affect the brain. When you learn something and then remember it for a long time, it’s because genes are being turned on and off in certain brain cells, leading to the growth of new synaptic contacts between the nerve cells of the brain. Insofar as psychotherapy works and produces stable, learned changes in behavior, it can cause stable anatomical changes in the brain. We are now beginning to measure such changes with brain imaging. If a person with obsessive-compulsive neurosis or depression undergoes psychotherapy—and if the treatment is successful in changing behavior—the treatment will cause a reversal in the biological markers of these disorders.”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/204320/page/2
A Biology of Mental Disorder by Eric Kandel
Picture Perfect : Kaput
This is where we put our stuff that is kaput—a déchetterie, recycling and waste management center. It is a taking of responsibility, picking up after ourselves, making use of resources.
The Creator warns that an essential part of human nature is at risk of going kaput, our spiritual life, that which makes us specifically human, more than a thinking animal. It is up to us to sort and toss within, recuperate the treasures of our creativity, freedom, love, truthfulness, peacemaking, forgiveness, spiritual intelligence, to act so as to build a better world.
“(because from) the manure the garden comes”
The Revelation of Arès XXII/9
For more entries on the theme of kaput, go to Picture Perfect.
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