Three Graces hold an Autumn Ball

Three Graces hold an Autumn Ball
Oil on Canvas

Wear your finest gold
Winter is tomorrow's game
Today, we shall dance!

Three Graces Under a Zebra Sky

Three Graces Under a Zebra Sky
Watercolor

Yes friends, there is more to life than Headless Buddhas. A person can't stare at stillness forever! I have been a very busy bee lately. In addition to taking classes in InDesign and Wordpress and Dreamweaver, etc. I've also embarked on a process to learn the business of becoming a professional artist. I can't tell you how happy I am to sit down to paint with the knowledge that I am doing my job! So, I thank you again for your patience, my blogging friends are getting short shrifted as my schedule fills up, but I want you to know that you all have been SUCH an inspiration. Your support over this last year has been what has gotten me through a very difficult and introspective journey allowing me to come to this point. You people are just awesome and it is a blessing to know you.

The above painting is my view across the street. Those who have been following my blog for a while may remember The Three Graces, my beloved trees.

Gaze of Fire Woman

Gaze of Fire Woman
From Headless Buddha Series
Digitally Altered Watercolor

She stares at the stillness as her dreams fall away into the clouds of desert sand and pools of darkness somehow connect the colors of its countries rendering death and forever into a complex tapestry that she lives purging all perceived self definitions into the fire of wholly sacrificing every scrap from past destinations and stepping off the cliffs of nothing into love invisible and omnipresent reality.

Note: Nod to ee cummings; 'the colors of its countries rendering death and forever' borrowed from Somewhere I have Never Traveled

Fall Away

Headless Buddha with Birthday Orchid
Digitally altered watercolor

If only I were a statue
I would sit all day and watch the clouds
Until my head fell away.
Then, still, I would sit
With my hand in my lap
Knowing it is not me
That makes the orchid grow.
The water flows so perfectly
While I am still.

A Moonlight Sonnet

Moonlight on River
Oil on Canvas

If we could have a moment spent alone

Where I could whisper soft into your ear

Of forces that it seems we both have known

And yet can never speak of these, for fear

That speaking thus will cause the river’s edge

To overflow with secrets best submerged

The voicing of such thoughts would cause a wedge

A confluence of unity diverged

The loves we’ve wed would shatter with my voice

As if my whisper were to be a shout

And they would be the victims of our choice

The pain of this we can not bring about.

Oh waters, wash me clean of this despair

Let me not, of you, presume to care.

A note: This is not autobiographical, but is dedicated to a friend. Also, I apologize again for not being out there blogging so much. I'm really trying to focus on painting, and I can't paint and be on the computer at the same time. I have to admit that painting has kind of taken over my life, and I'm really grateful for the consumption!

Beauty from the Dust

We crumble, we can not help this
Our dreams, thoughts and loves will all fade in time,
As beauty grows from the dust.

Blue Moon with Buddha and Orchid
From Headless Buddha series
Digitally altered watercolor collage

Reality

Reality
From Headless Buddha series
Watercolor on paper

Dear friends, I will turn 49 on Saturday. That's 7 squared, somehow that seems important for some esoteric reason of which I am clueless. For my birthday, please gift me with a short poem in the comment section that describes how this image relates to reality in your mind.

I am so very grateful for the many connections I've made over the last year via blogging and Facebook. It's a strange place, this internet, but it has truly been amazing. I look forward to another year!

(Added 9/26)Thank you for these poems my dear friends. They are wonderful, and you are all precious.

Emergent

Emergent be your heart and soul
The splendor of each moment's toll
The knowing grace of love now known
In joyous beauty ever shown
Your gift of life, a birth sublime
Celebrated now in your year 49.
--Rose Marie Raccioppi

Above It All

The effervescence of our life unfolds in loving attitudes
We witness blessings far and near
amid a world of war torn strife
Our love for nature carries us to places high above the sky
Peace carries us amid the clouds we're lifted up, away we fly.
--Kathryn A. Curry

broken in the hole I dug for you
yellow on black
yellow for roots
but I will not sprinkle the dirt
or stomp down mud
reeking between my toes
take the little piece of sun
a fish for maize
I know my place
in the shade
--Jason Evans

Timeless echos near and far..
reaching out to stir the quiet unrest, becoming light and leaning
before our eager minds.

Only a concept that is time
Count the lifetime.. 49
--Mark

IMAGES OF REALITY

Lightening breaks the define
between the blue black seas
and the sun opening sky.
Witnessing with
attached detachment
of all that sails
within the sight
unseen with mere eyes.

I am yet bound by sight
to know the color
that forms the shapes
the shapes the images
the images the idea
and the idea the reason.
--The Walking Man


Sweet age dissolves the mind,
awareness
flows forth from the cerebral cave of inexperience and youth,
connecting through the ethereal,
assembled with the whole, experiencing
the self beyond physical form.
Peace in that there can never be death as we are confident in our legacy,
admit our imperfections
and grow with our thoughts in others.
For this is life, where chronology, at first a foe,
becomes friend. May the journey
be longer, much longer,
and when time beckons us to rest, so it shall be.
--Minister of the Masochistic Truth


Diverted into dreams
of naked illusions
floating in fragile bubbles
of golden stardust
bathing in sugar-coated
cotton candy sweetness
until reality strikes back
with it's icy hand
demanding it's rightful presence
in our headless minds
--Margaret

I'm not sure how
the bones fit together
so seamlessly along my spine
that year, rising and falling
like the swells in the Pacific.

But age did not determine
the...experience my ligaments
entertained holding me together
--Jill Zimmerman

Head in the clouds
Mind blown
Call it what you will
I call it reality
--Claudia Larson

Anger does not stick
to purple ashes rained on
and silent, sepia bones
drained of all lightning

Reality is a static song
filled with seconds
that cannot sustain themselves
and structures that fall
like hearts once did

Despair it
Or not

It does not care
--Sarah Hina

The egg split, transient
as a golden bubble blown
by a downy--headed child
with a wand and tube
of birthday soap.

The egg split, and out
came the sky, birthed
new and gleaming,
dreaming
of a chaos of feathered
wings and the patter
of triumphant storm.

--Rachel Westfall

Reality

Sun lights window on the heart
Etches a gold leaf on the breast

Bruised butterfly wings splay open
A thumb pokes upward behind a painted foot

A lazy alligator smiles, gazing contentedly
As the shadow of a unicorn softly shifts shape

Among blue crystals that
Fracture and float free

Act of violence carves rivulets of pain, prompting
The soul’s flight across a sky of islands aloft with grace

--A very dear friend who wishes to remain anonymous

Reality comes, goes.
Is coloured, is colourless.

There is dark
there is light

there is you
there is me

there is Buddha
in all his glory...

it's all a gift
the pain and the beauty

and you are Beauty!

-- Calli

a piece of her here
a piece of her there
love oh love she does
both one and the other
blinded by grace
to hurt no one
how long will her heart
be torn thus
one way
and the other
when will she find joy
in greaving one
and loving the other

-- Jorc

I wish I had wished you,
If not before, then just in time.
I wish I had written for you
The sweetest of rhymes.

But reality can suck,
And I cant turn back time
Though if I could, I'd write a few lines
To thank you, praise you and bring you a smile

You have been a great inspiration
And such a sweet friend
Even close to the naughty fifty
You set the latest trends.

You've gifted us with many
Haiku, sonnets and proses
Also, your with the brush,
Beats anyday, a bunch of roses.

So forgive me, my friend
for I am late to thank
I cross my heart and swear
I've been totally frank

You most certainly are
You are a treasured one
Looking forward to your next 50
And hell loads of fun!

--Aniket

somehow this year
i forgot to think
about all the quiet
violets that crush
under my stinging tears
and forgot to see all
the shapeless birds
building nests of words
in trees of hope in
branches of faith
in a darkness that
bleeds to purple

-- K. Lawson Gilbert

Bounded by flesh
Yet not limited
Not even by the stars
Your soul soars

-- Vesper

This abstract of reality
Speaks volume from a space empty
in shades of yellow and blue
depict life's black and white hue
the lightening, awaken the truth
bringing wisdom with age to earth
know that you are blessed with age
as you see life's truth like a sage!

Swapnap

There are some more sweet sentiments in the comments, but they felt more personally directed so I left them in the comments. I thank you all for your lovely sentiments, and I am floored by all the wonderful interpretations on the painting. They mean more to me than you can know! Thank you so much for participating!

Duality

She wore two faces
Her hair, spun in liquid gold
Tangled in dream threads



Duality

Digitally altered watercolor

Buddha in the Blue

Buddha and New Moon
Watercolor and Digital Collage

This image is a collage of two watercolor paintings that I altered and combined. The Buddha was inspired by the countless headless Buddhas that I saw while traveling in Thailand. Asian relics such as heads have been pillaged illegally throughout the last few hundred years in order to serve the desires of collectors and so on. I'm starting a painting series of headless Buddhas.

I greatly apologize not coming to your blog recently. I've been a little headless myself as of late. I'm feeling kind of overwhelmed by this health care fight, and am putting so much emotion into it that it is starting to make me crazy. What a vortex of insanity. Painting has been a wonderful way to escape news, computers, reality, whatever. Anyway, I will be around to your blogs very soon and I thank you for your continued visits to mine.

Oh, I can't seem to think of a poem to go with the image, so please feel free to create one yourself in the comments!

An Angel for Annie

On her wedding day
Annie sat with the angels,
Her toe dipped in tears.

In memory of Annie Le, a Yale Student who was to be married on Sunday September 13th. Instead of a wedding on that day, Annie's senseless murder was confirmed. With deepest condolences to her family, fiance and friends, your pool of tears is felt by the world.

An Angel for Annie
Digitally Altered Watercolor

Faeries, Facebook and Health Care

When the night descends
And faeries light their fires
Magic springs aglow

Glowing Stream
Digitally altered photo

Horse and Llama
Digitally altered photo

"What do you think that meant?"

"I don't know, probably something political."

"Oh yeah, most likely."

"Have you seen the woman lately?"

"No, not sure where she is these days."

"Probably on Facebook."

"Either that or painting."

"I heard she's pissing her blogger friends off because she hasn't been blogging much lately."

"Whatever. She came over here the other day when you were off at the barn and started talking to me about health care."

"Really? But you're a llama!"

"And you're a horse, what's your problem? Anyway, we llamas are often sought out by the humans. You know, for our legendary wisdom."

"That's kind of ridiculous."

"Thanks, thanks a lot. Anyway, she was telling me about this status update that went viral on Facebook the other day. She was kind of excited about it because everyone was posting it. She said it even spread to Twitter."

"What did it say?"

"No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and nobody should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day."

"And it actually went viral?"

"Totally. First time that ever happened according to her. I'm surprised there isn't more news about it. But you know the media. If there's no yelling and screaming it likely won't get much press."

"Maybe humans really do care!"

"Well, being a llama, I told her to keep calling and writing her representatives in Washington to demand a public option. I mean, let's be real here!"