To tell or not to tell?

Source: http://vi.sualize.us/view/kallini2002/266be058e56ba32ebf7cb45c1f2c8242/

Source: http://vi.sualize.us/view/c14e68c72d7002f1f9485d1c3302ae6e/

Dedicated to Lincoln Phayze who always goes with the flow except for the times when he doesn’t.  Both of us are lost…

Source: http://vi.sualize.us/view/b37bd4f91ab74c2b5be4a419893cfda7/

That was an advice from somebody like me.  The gentleman in question works in the arts (I almost said “arts industry” and I was appalled by the ugliness of the expression).  Correction:  he used to work in the arts, but now he is in as much mess as I am.  He told me that once he was taking the program “The Artist’s Way” and one of the requirements was keeping a diary.  Yes, a diary.  Keeping a diary in order to awaken one’s creativity, reconnect with one’s creativity, and welcome one’s creativity back.  So the rules were simple enough – you wake up and write three pages without letting the pen stop.  The rule to remember is “Don’t get it right, get it written…”

It is a very catchy and encouraging phrase.  But no matter how encouraging a phrase may be, it still took me a while to actually start writing in my diary.  But I did.  I have some “volumes” completed, mostly filled with crap worth only getting rid of (by shredding, this detail is very important! LOL), but it does not matter.  It was not right, it was written.  My web-site contains very little of my private diary entries, it is more polished and edited. Of course.  Which course?  Moving on…

Of course. Which course? Do we know where we go?

Source: http://vi.sualize.us/view/kallini2002/d09d182bdef53d9a4b384576a47df417/

Am I creative?  We all are supposed to be creative, by the way…

Well, anyway, when I started this web-site, it was nearly impossible to find things to write about, and I stopped almost as soon I started.  Then I came back to it and I was more or less consistent.  There were some large gaps due to my mood swings.  When I am depressed, I feel like drowning, when I am high, I feel as if I am resurfacing…and what does it have to do with water I have no idea…  Maybe because I am a Water Sign?  Sometimes I dream that I fly so high and so skillfully…

In my dreams I fly so much higher

Source: http://vi.sualize.us/view/9f878a2f026418e54ca53b7917b261e9/

Coming back to the gaps.  There some of them, all due to polarity of my moods, doubts, losing faith, not really knowing what to do.  The last one started early in May when I finally found a part-time job, started dancing more and generally was busy with I don’t even remember what.  But I tried to come back.  There must be something about writing that I either like or need or maybe both.  Self-expression?  Letting out the pain?  Sharing my experience?  Pleasure of typing? LOL – yeah, that must be it, “pleasure of typing” – exercising my fine motor skills.

Exercising fine motor skills

Source: http://vi.sualize.us/view/kallini2002/5dc33cf6576d5f43e0de16fa8bf43253/

But the idea of “not getting it right, but getting it written” is very appealing.  I was reading some of my own posts from January and it turned out to be pleasant enough.  I have already forgotten the pain and the joy and details.  And it was nice to come back and see – my insanity (at one point), my pain, my suffering, and the progress I made.  So the verdict is “YES”, the point may very well be ZERO, but I should keep at it.  My diary, my web-site, “My life, my universe and everything”.  Life goes on and diary is only a reflection.  We all love mirrors, don’t we?

Or yes, we do.  Reflections, reflections, reflections…

Source: http://www.bloomington.k12.mn.us/indschool/WB/calendar1.jpg

Calendar Wisdom.

For all these (3!) months I have not done well at all.  All of these months I have not succeeded, even in March when I decided to stick to “Success” and “supposedly” made resolutions.  No, to be more specific, I made resolutions; the only problem was I did not carry them through.  But remembering the Art of Reframing, it was not a disaster, but a learning experience.  So, I need a plan, I need motivation, I need to check my progress daily.  I will see what will happen from now on.  But I have to admit that two ideas are firmly planted in my head – Love (February’s theme) and Success (March’s theme), they are unrelated (or so it seems so far!).  I have read a book by Anthony Robbins “Awaken the Giant Within” and I will be quoting him regularly.  I guess I can give myself credit for at least trying to find a way – Anthony Robbins is considered to be a psychologist of change and success, even though his expertise is not indisputable.  Regardless of his credentials, I believe that if I do the exercises that he suggests and take his advice with a pinch of salt, I will do better than without any plan or direction in mind.  I have to stay on track!  I can change almost everything, but it takes time.  So, opening a new chapter…

April Fools.

Perhaps it’s light-hearted nature of Spring that brought about April’s Fool Day, the way it looks like summer one day only to be freezing the next.  Take a moment to inject humour into your day.  See if any of the word tiles below strike your funny bone.  If not, try randomly grabbing words and putting them next to each other.  Take it further: put together those words that seem least likely to be side by side.  Create an absurdist collection of funny language.

Quote of the month:

“Humour is the great thing, the saving thing.  The minute is crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.”

 - Mark Twain

I tend to think that I have a great sense of humour, but some people just don’t get my jokes and in the worst-case scenario it all turns very ugly.  They may get angry, offended or aggressive.  I think they take themselves way too serious.  Do I have to adjust all the time?  I guess it is a choice…  I always laugh at myself, so it must be a good Sign!

Victor Pelevin “The Sacred Book of Werewolf”

Have you seen the hit of the last Venice Biennale – the haystack in which the first Belarusian postmodernist, Mikolai Klimaksovich, hid from his local police inspector for four years?  Alexander called this work plagiaristic and told Brian about the similar haystack famously used before the revolution by Vladimir Lenin.  Brian observed that repetition is not necessarily plagiarism, it is the very essence of the postmodern, or – to put it in broader terms – the foundation of the modern cultural gestalt, which is manifested in everything, from the cloning of sheep to remakes of old movies, for what else can you do after the end of history?  Brian said it was precisely Klimaksovich’s use of quotation that made him a postmodernist, not a plagiarizer.  But Alexander objected that no quotations would ever have saved this Klimaksovich from the Russian police, and history might have come to an end in Belarus, but there was not sign of it breaking down yet in Russia.

Then Brian showed Alexander a work by Asuro Keshami, one which he regards with especial affection, not least owing to the serious investment required for its production and installation.  Keshami’s work, inspired by the oeuvre of Camille Paglia, of whom you must have heard, consists of an immense tube of red plastic with projections on the inside in the form of white fangs.  It is proposed to install in the open air in one of London’s sports stadiums.

And now I am getting to the point.  One of the most serious problems in the world of modern art is the invention of original and fresh verbal interpretations of a work.  Literally just a few phrases are required, which can be reprinted in the catalogues and reviews.  This apparently trivial detail can often decide the fate of a piece of art.  It is very important here to be able to perceive things from an unexpected, shocking angle, and your friend, with his barbarically fresh view of the world, does this remarkably well.  Therefore, Brian would like permission to use the ideas expressed by Alexander yesterday for the conceptual support of the installation.  The accompanying text which I include below is by way of being a fusion of Brian’s and Alexander’s ideas:

Asuro Keshami’s work ‘VD-42 CC’ combines the languages of different areas – engineering, technology and science.  At the base level the subject-matter is the overcoming  of space: physical space, the space of taboo and the space of our subconscious fears.  The languages of engineering and technology deal with the material from which the object is constructed, but the artist addresses the viewer in the language of emotions.  When the viewer learns that certain people have given this little queer fifteen million pounds to stretch out a huge imitation-leather cunt above an abandoned soccer pitch, he remembers what he does in his own life and how much he is paid for it, then he looks at the photo of this little queer in his horn-rimmed spectacles and funny jacket, and experiences confusion and bewilderment bordering on the feeling that the German philosopher Martin Heidegger called ‘abandonment’ (Geworfenheit).  The viewer is invited to concentrate on these feelings, which constitute the precise aesthetic effect that the installation attempts to achieve.

I don’t really know, how other Scorpios deal with Water Bearers, but my experience just happens to confirm what I read in Linda Goodman’s book.  Or maybe I just fit what I read into my experience.  Does it really matter?

Well, anyway, this post is dedicated to Water Bearers I keep meeting.  The sign begins on January 21 and ends on February 19.  I know two of them; one is born at the beginning and the other right at the end of the sign.  And there are plenty in-between.  And, yes, if you read to the end, THEY DO BELONG IN THE MONKEY HOUSE!

But still, I guess “Happy Birthday” to them all and “Beware!”, “Be Patient!” and “Let them be!” to me.

But why do I feel that the Monkey in our relationship is me? The other one is on the receiving end...

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The SCORPIO – AQUARIUS Relationship

From Linda Goodman’s “Love Signs”, page 743

…they are very wild and difficult of approach.

Yes, there are.  Both of them.  And so, at the outset, I’ll say that I am not going to take sides with either of these squared Sun Signs of the 4-10 vibrational pattern.  Throughout this chapter, I intend to remain in the middle, neutral, like Canada and Switzerland.  On second thought, the literal middle may not be a safe place to be.  One is then wide open and exposed to becoming the recipient of whatever these two may fling at each other, like words, baseball bats, boomerangs, yo-yos, hula hoops, Frisbees, insults, compliments, rage, respect – any number of unexpected things.

However, moving right along, and still bravely trying t remain in the middle, it must be admitted that Aquarians are very wild, undeniably – and that Scorpios are difficult of approach, indisputably.  Ergo, therefore, i.e.: as a combination, the Water Bearer and the Eagle are indeed very wild and difficult of approach.  Separately or together, but especially together.

One wonders how these two ever manage to get together in the first place.  One also wonders if it is wise for these two to get together, in the second place.  The square between their Sun Signs admittedly creates a certain amount of tension (like, each thinks the other is playing with half a deck, has bats in the belfry and is completely loco – you get the general idea), but in astrology, tension is synonymous with energy (also in physics; therefore, ever more so in meta-physics).  So let’s say that there is a lot of …uh, energy (we are being tactful) between 4-10 Sun Sign Pattern like Scorpio-Aquarius.  The problem is – no, let’s try to be positive – the question is: What are the Eagle and the Water Bearer going to do with this tremendous flow of tension (I mean energy) passing back and forth between them?  Are they going to channel it into senseless conflict – or into the kind of powerful energy that makes windmills spin, ships sail, trains run, birds fly …. And spacecraft break the time barrier?

Just because someone looks upon life through one end of a telescope, and you gaze through the other, is no reason to quarrel and fuss.  If it were the same telescope, you’d see that you were both gazing at each other.  (Well, hello there! Fancy meeting you, of all people, in the middle of a telescope!)  Of course, one pair of eyes would look smaller, the other larger, because that’s how telescopes are made, but you are not a telescope.  You are an Aquarian, who should not take such a distorted view of all Scorps as sneaky, conservative, ruthless, stingy nasties.  And you are an Eagle, who must stop taking such a distorted view of all Water Bearers as people who belong in the monkey house at the zoo, except that the monkeys might object.  That kind of energy wouldn’t power a windmill so much as half a turn, chug a train out of the station or lift a bird from the branch of a tree, wings or no wings.

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Throwing things at Aquarians – absolutely!  What infuriating creatures!

However…

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“Yet, when the Air and Water elements get together as two Sun Signs, and really work at harmony the result can be as inspiring, uplifting and intoxicating as the scent of fresh rain, mixed with the air of spring, falling on new-mown hay or grass.  Is there any fragrance on this Earth more gorgeous and bursting with miracles than this?  You don’t have to live on a farm or in the country to answer in the affirmative.  Wet city sidewalks, freshly rained upon, coupled with the warm air of spring, will have the same dizzying effect upon the sensitive soul.

[…] I hope (seriously) that this paragraph has impressed you with the possibilities of beauty in an association between Aquarius and Scorpio when they both work at it.  It takes some self-sacrifice, but it’s so worthwhile.

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Harmony?  What a temptation!

Another reads “I only look sweet and innocent.”

What is your sign?

So, I kept asking for an astrological sign, until I met a guy who amazed me and made me laugh.

Q: “What is your sign?”

A: “Stop!”

That was funny.  Later he said he was Libra, so it made sense, after all he needed to Stop to make a decision.  He told me that making decisions was hard for him and he usually “flips a coin” to make one.  I believed him.  That’s what I often do until I see that is not the case.  I had no intention to test his words.  But life tends to put everything to test and I saw this Libra make a decision and stick to it with such devotion and strength that I was amazed. Again.

For myself, I picked quite a few “signs”: “Go”, “NO EXIT”, “U-Turn”.

There is another bunch of signs: “I only look sweet and innocent”, “The views expressed by the husband are not necessarily those of the management”.