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Yesterday’s journal drawn in darkness with pencil…..

“I have not loved the world, nor the world me.
I have not flattered its rank breath,
Nor bowed to its idolatries a patient knee.
I stood among them, but not of them,
In a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts…

What is the worst of woes-that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from (my) life’s page,
And be alone on Earth as I am now…

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes
By the deep sea, and music in its roar.
I love not man the less, but Nature more.”

Excerpted from writings of Lord Byron (with apologies for my appropriative use and with gratitude)

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If I can dream it, I can experience it!! Imagining, even after almost 4 years, is still sweet!! Terrifying, dangerous, thrilling to contemplate, to remember each time that I’ve thought, “Onward! Courage! The abyss be damned! If the world won’t come tomto the bubble, bring the bubble to the world!” The dream is no less beautiful…..

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*A Moment of Your Time?

*A Moment of Your Time*

Perfectly on time, in and out, each has its own time,
As we arrive at a moment, it departs; a moment waits for no one.
It carried a gift for you; did you drink it in, or blink? It’s gone!!

I confess I was busy thinking in the wee hours this day, with my service dog Ben..moments only but the moments are all we really have, not yesterday or tomorrow, and that quiet sacred still time when I can just be there with it, the connection and energy is palpable!! And was intoxicating!! Not much blinking, just treasuring something better than drugs, booze, money, or even working legs and eyes!!!! If I still had my legs and eyes, would I have been feeding my soul with moments, like they were nectar of the gods? Would I appreciate moments as I do now?? Doubtful. I was always running. But instead, today, we enjoyed our time with the deer, possums, a raccoon, birds, a snake, and other creatures of the night!

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Apocalyptic Conformism

Clones, stones, monotone drones.
Busted saxophones.
Infestations of militant catatonic uniformistic Lilliputians.

Drag their own salvation
behind themselves
Locked away in tiny secure cages.
Mindlessly staggering toward annihilation,
Blinders uniformly in place,

The caged ones,
forced to silence
forced to bear,
forced to witness
the entire apocalyptic procession
to its conclusion.

The asylums, now standing empty,
their former residents,
their pretty houses,
their perfect masks
just nameless, ever faceless masks,
never real to have been known, ,
never known to now be forgotten
just shells dissolving under harsh gaze of a reality of which they knew nothing.

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Always knew WHO I was; knowing the WHAT was key to making sense of it, and my connections in life. That took longer; blind hookah-smoking doctors kept trying to feed me poisoned mushrooms and I, naively followed their lead, till one day I realized they were blind, and hadn’t a clue what an elephant was, much less a Mer-elephant!! Ha ha!!

After so many blind dates with a parade of Lilliputian medicine men that invariably ended badly, I paused in 2008/9, to consider how long ago I first suspected, and later confirmed, that I was, and have always been, an–if not THE–elephant in the room.

It took me much longer to realize just how many blind Lilliputians, all strangely named “Dr.” (vs THE DOCTOR), there are in the world. THE DOCTOR would have been a much more attractive adventure, to be sure, but mine was replete with spills, granted, but great thrills, as well!! How can I be disappointed about that??

The blind Dr. years were not such great moments in my history by some accounts, but not so for me. They were painful, yes, and some parts don’t work anymore because they couldn’t see what they were doing, but I gained and learned much from them, too, that became part of my strength and tenacity, and resilience, and passion for many great things.

I figured out, among other things, that it is not so bad to be an elephant of any variety, and I have no desire to try to be anything or anyone else ever again, however awkward that may be for the blind, or for “elephantophobes”! Trying to fit into others’ mirrors has never appealed to me, nor worked anyway, and the blind men taught me the folly of that while trying to convince me that elephants were broken by definition!! Try telling that to a free, grown, natural elephant and they’ll laugh loudly whilst they flatten your notions!!

I’ve survived it all, haven’t I? No lessis wonder, as all those naysayers, touting their blind opinions as taunts or whispers from the darkness as their “good times band wagon” pulled away from my house and out into their dark dusty paths, and all th while they just kept riding around in endless circles, so obsessed about an elephant that they forgot where they were trying to go!!.

I’m told that my survival was a miracle many times. Life is a miracle, so I’ll buy that, but there’s more to it, and no doubt more to come! I have gone on so many adventures, and am now an older but a wee bit wiser elephant now!

And not all of those called Dr. proved to be blind Lilliputians, or even men!! So life as an elephant, albeit more often the elephant in the room, is not such a bad thing, even though sometimes others may not quite know how to relate to me, and vice versa, but that’s okay. When necessary enough, and motivation is there, we have found ways to connect and build some kind of common dialogue. If not, it probably was not important enough for both of us to put in the effort, or else it was just not meant to be. Not all species are, after all, compatible.

And there have been great benefits to being an elephant, especially a Mer-elephant, though at times I imagine Mars to be a more hospitable and compatible place to call home vs here, but there’s such good stuff and peeps here and now here and there, and niches where I was welcome and accepted, and there will always be places, in a sense, for most any kind of elephant to be accepted! And there will be benefits and adventures in my future again, for myself and for the world. I am patiently waiting for my next adventure! Ok not always patient, but eager and ready to see what tomorrow has to show me!

After all, since I am, not just an elephant in some room, but a Mer – elephant, I am a very special kind of elephant! I have flowed in many ways in my life, touched many places, many things, and many people, sometimes for the benefit of many, or for a few, or for one, or for myself, or the effort, at least was there, however it played out. Sit gave me great pleasure to give and get benefit from flowing!!

Since being in this cage over the last few years, I’ve learned that I can flow from wherever I am, under the right circumstances! How very delightful!! I hate confinement, but then again, there is no cage yet whose walls could hold back this flow for long–only I, surrendering to what I could not control, chose that as necessity for a while to gather my strength, grow, and prepare to let loose a mighty storm!! I have always been considered a force to be reckoned with, whatever the reckoning might involve. I see no reason to suppress the force, just adjust the flow at times.

So I say, why stop now? Life is ahead! Elephants, and Mer– elephants: go ever forward! All of us! No matter what the blind men may say, we belong in the world, too , and the world needs the elephants!! Remember that!! :-).

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    A Poem for My Children

(A True Story)
by Donna Earley

When I was young, I yearned to be
More like my forest family.
Anchored, bowing toward the creek,
My roots, so strong, would reach so deep.
I asked my trees to show to me
What I could do to be a tree.

“Precious child, we love you so,
You do belong, but you must know
Because your nature is to flow,
You must be free to come and go.
And though so small you still may be,
Someday a river you can be.

Then, when you’ve grown to your full flow,
Into the ocean you may go!
Imagine all that you might see
And how connected you’d then be!
Sometimes, you can return again
When heavens bring you back with rain.

Though anchored here we must remain
The times that you come back again,
Then tell us all that you did see
While you were flowing wild and free!
We’ll feel as if we went along,
And here you’ll always have a home,

Looking back each time, I knew….that what they said was right and true.

But flowing free did have a price,
And many things were sacrificed.
For every time I came back home,
A few more precious trees were gone.
Then one day, I grieved to see,
Apartments where my trees should be!

Now, not a single sapling left,
Tears flooded every place I wept.
Bricks, concrete, and asphalt too
Had taken what I loved and knew.
With grief so great, for years I flowed
Not caring more of where I’d go.

But time did slow me for a while,
And twice gave me a precious child.
While each one carried parts from me,
Each also had some traits of trees.
While little, they did gladly go
Wherever Mother chose to flow.

But each, in turn, declared to me,
“I feel.. I need to be a tree.
Your flowing life, inland or sea
May be what you are meant to be,
But Mother, we are not the same;
At times your flowing gives me pain.

I am part tree, and so I need
A place where roots can grow and breathe.
A forest is where I belong,
Where future saplings can grow strong.
Oh, don’t be sad, and please don’t cry.
My love for you will never die.

Go-be the river that you are,
But just don’t drift away too far.
You’re part of us, as we are you,
There’s still important work for you.
No matter what we choose to be,
Our Mother you will always be.

Just one request we have of you,
If you would try your best to do:
Your flow feeds us in many ways,
But floods can wash the soil away!
A gentle flow would be so kind,
And give us all much peace of mind!”

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Adaptation This very autobiographical piece done in my art journal in mixed media..pen & ink, colored pencil, watercolor, and acrylic.  It was expressed as a wordless journal entry, and I will leave only the image as explanation here.  You are free to interpret this image for yourself;  even those who know me well, have discovered facets of me in it that I didn’t even notice myself at first.  Since I can’t plan to draw anything at all, I didn’t decide anything consciously in creating this image, and am also discovering the messages as they are revealed to me.

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death of a hybridJust a storyline and yes, it’s another self-portrait (I’m the hybrid).  This is more or less a scene in a story, a medical examiner sent to pick up human remains, but finds instead a hybrid, part human, part… something else, they believe.  Ears like a sheep or goat, perceptual abilities that are unimaginable by ordinary human standards, extraordinary intelligence, yet quite vulnerable as extreme sensitive creatures, as well.  What they don’t yet recognize is that these are not hybrids at all, but another human species, highly evolved, but their extremely evolved mental capacities come at the cost of being unable to separate themselves from being severely bombarded by every aspect of their environment beyond human comprehension.  Of course, I’ve given visual form to the sensory sensitivities of hearing by incorporating the large ears, though this was just a 5 minute sketch with 2 cheap colored pencils from a dollar store pack (purple & blue). 

As is so typical of many humans when encountering a new life form or culture or race, the early hybrids faced persecution, even torture, were viewed with fear and treated as monsters because they couldn’t help but be themselves.  Out of fear, the early ones were hunted, eradicated, or locked up in institutions where they were warehoused with the rest of the society’s perceived “freaks.”  And predictably, this store turns on our eventual dependency upon these very creatures for human survival, because they have special gifts, abilities of perception that they can draw upon to find and expose the truth, the reality of situations, to be able to detect every nuance of what adds up to how a system is operating, whether the system is a multinational corporation doing business with other corporations, or the system is a single individual, and their behavior—speech, actions, believes, attitudes, condition, must be correctly understood individually, or when combined with other humans (systems).  To wrap your head around what life is like for these creatures, imagine what it would be actually like to be born able to actually talk to the dead.  Or to all kinds of animals via mental telepathy.  Or to see the future.  And you can’t turn it off, though you might take toxic, noxious substances to try to numb yourself to it sometimes, but that only makes you sick, and it’s worse for you after you get clean again. 

Hybrids, especially “seers” are exquisitely sensitive, and are super perceptive far above the range of human perception in multiple ways.  And while it is possible to find non-hybrid humans who have one sensory perceptiveness close to a hybrid level, you don’t ever find non-hybrids with multiple sensory awareness, much less a global sensitive.  Humans often will reject what they do not understand, and prefer to rely on what they already know and use that to label or categorize hybrids.  When people first became aware of hybrids, not as an isolated freak accident, but when trends in their numbers began to be evident, when the powers of that time got wind of this, what happened next looked like they took a chapter out of Frankenstein, rounding them up like animals and slaughtering them, as they were deemed non-human and needed to be culled before it spread like some infectious plague.

There were survivors, and they pulled away to themselves to avoid capture.  Eventually, though, their gifts were noticed and someone realized that they could be exploited as “seers” or “truthsayers”, and they could investigate any kind of system in the world, build a 3D working model in their heads, tell you what is wrong with the system and how to fix it.  They could “read” systems, provided they had access to information.  Seers were indispensible to world leaders, and they had a constant presence on the court.  But they were not free to come and go as they wished, because of the risk that someone would steal them or harm them thereby disadvantaging the government who relied on them.  So they lived in the most lavish palaces in the world, confined to cage—a gilded cage most of the time, but a cage nonetheless.

And now they have started dying off, and no one seems to know why that is happening.  Even the ancient ones like this one, with no apparent connection to the others, has died.  And that is where this story begins, with a mystery—the death of a seer, specifically MY death.  Not that I am suicidal or anything, but it seemed apt.

The background is done in acrylic, with the scene’s dialogue written in white gel pen in my cheap, $.25 lab notebook from Walmart.  You can do more in these things that I imagined!  Having the pages sewn in, versus perforated is a sturdier option if you abuse these notebooks as much as I do.  This one, started just over 2 months ago, has almost all of the 100 pages filled with journaling now.  My next journal will be an actual sketchbook, and I’ll do the writing as I’ve been doing, but it will be interesting to see how it holds up compared to this option.  My hope is that at least I won’t have the bleeding that sometimes happens when I work with markers in these thin pages, though I’ve managed to work with them and incorporated them into that pages entries.

It might seem morbid to write about one’s death, but death is a part of life, after all, and writing stories that reflect my views and insights about the world and myself, as self-portraits, isn’t at all troubling to me.  It doesn’t make me think of hastening my death, or worrying about death or any such; it is simply part of my story, but told via a fictional character. 

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This began as an elaborate graphite sketch in my small sketchbook, and I transferred the sketch to a notebook cover, then drew it out some more, and painted it in acrylic.    The image was not something that I thought about drawing; it sort of arose on the paper.  I later realized that it was very much a self-portrait, not perhaps in the literal sense, but maybe spiritually?  Everything about it says beautiful, natural, authentic, what I feel coming from it.  I think that I am perhaps more connected to this painting than many others, yet where is it?  Hanging on some wall of pride?  Nope.  It’s painted directly onto the soft cover of one of my notebooks.  You can see the curves on the edges, and lots of scratches.  I’ve recoated it a couple of times as it picked up stain and scratches.  I’ll have to put something a bit more durable, I suppose.

Does it make you think about beauty?  What sort of creature this is?  If it’s a self-portrait, what sort of creature am I?  Indeed, that is the question, is it not?  If you understand this creature, you will also understand how it is a mirror of me inside….

I’ll say this much, if you haven’t picked up from other posts:  I find creatures much more comfortable than people to be around.  They have an inner consistency and logic that I can understand and relate to.  Trying to play human rules is just plain stressful to me.  The rules they claim are broken more than followed.  Their social *intuition* usually gets them quicker conclusions about things, but wrong much more often than they will ever realize, and probably mostly won’t have to discover.  Their social intuition are more like blinders than wisdom, shorthand that they treat as if it’s longhand, and forget that when they fill in the blanks later, their shorthand may show that they missed it.  You probably have no idea what I’m talking about, but I am not socially intuitive with people, because people are filled with contradictions.  I “read” them, “read” the environment, “read” all the details, and do the math and figure out what things mean.  The rest of the creatures of the universe?  Social intuition is a fine thing, because they operate within their own logic, their own rules, and those can be understood.  They make sense in the context of the creatures.  But humans?  Not so much.  But when the intuitive process yields disaster, they call in creatures like me, to tell them what went wrong, and build a better working model, if possible.

When creatures like myself get themselves born, but they have a limited set of things in common with humans around them beyond what they actually look like, it can be tough sometimes to find a truly “familiar” face, a “kindred” soul.  But I do look for them sometimes, or at least keep my radar on, in case one shows up someday.  I’ll settle for a few humans who can accommodate a gentle creature like myself, who can leave me to be me and that’s just great for us all! 

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