I'm just super =)
Oct 12, 2014
Oct 11, 2014
With Out Further Adieu...
~I present to you, the continued collaboration of Sven and Lavender.
What makes our story beautiful is just that. It's a story that is ever changing with no sides to the spectrum of realism. Our rocky roller coaster of a relation was tied to my negligence caused from my own insecurities on a level of powerlessness and non acceptance.
Today, we can accomplish what we accomplish without the suicidal tendencies that used to fall into place; for me that place occured daily.
It's beautiful to see how far I have come in just one year.
Credits: Sven Ellirand |
What makes our story beautiful is just that. It's a story that is ever changing with no sides to the spectrum of realism. Our rocky roller coaster of a relation was tied to my negligence caused from my own insecurities on a level of powerlessness and non acceptance.
Today, we can accomplish what we accomplish without the suicidal tendencies that used to fall into place; for me that place occured daily.
Credits: Sven Ellirand |
It's beautiful to see how far I have come in just one year.
Credits: Sven Ellirand |
Sep 29, 2014
I've noticed a change in myself this past week; discontent and anxious with evasive thought patterns. Then I realized I haven't been writing. There is a sense of release amongst my thoughts drawn out when my pen meets my paper. My days have been overly hectic with work and school assignments and meetings on top of meetings that i haven't been able to attend ( thats a whole other issue with my 'priorities' or neglect there of). So this morning I took a few hours just for me.
I picked up If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him by Sheldon Kopp. There is so much to go over from the past few weeks but with the little free time I have today, I have to put this out here. I laughed out loud...
"An old Hebrew tradition holds that this first creation included a female called Lillith. She was the very first defender of the cause of women's liberation. When Adam told Lillith that she was to obey his wishes, she replied: "We are equal; we are made of the same earth." So saying she flew up into the air and transformed herself into a demon who ate children. Even that early, women who would not subjugate themselves to the will of men were seen as witches."
I picked up If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him by Sheldon Kopp. There is so much to go over from the past few weeks but with the little free time I have today, I have to put this out here. I laughed out loud...
"An old Hebrew tradition holds that this first creation included a female called Lillith. She was the very first defender of the cause of women's liberation. When Adam told Lillith that she was to obey his wishes, she replied: "We are equal; we are made of the same earth." So saying she flew up into the air and transformed herself into a demon who ate children. Even that early, women who would not subjugate themselves to the will of men were seen as witches."
Credits: JamesDavid |
Sep 5, 2014
"For the love that expresses itself in creative action is something which you can "feel" and "know," remember and define. Love is the organizing and unifying principle which make the world a universe and the disintegrated mass a community. It is the very essence and character of mind, and becomes manifest in action when the mind is whole."
There is no problem of how to love. We love. We are love, and the only problem is the direction of love, whether it is to go straight out like sunlight, or to try to turn back on itself like a "candle under a bushel."
Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself. This conviction will not come through condemnations, through hating oneself, through calling self-love all the bad names in the universe. It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love." ~Watts
There is no problem of how to love. We love. We are love, and the only problem is the direction of love, whether it is to go straight out like sunlight, or to try to turn back on itself like a "candle under a bushel."
Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself. This conviction will not come through condemnations, through hating oneself, through calling self-love all the bad names in the universe. It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love." ~Watts
Aug 30, 2014
Credits: JamesDavid |
I doubled booked yesterday. I can feel it today. I shot with
JamesDavid yesterday morning at Dry Beaver Creek where the Mosquitos never sleep. I have a few bites, but not nearly as many as my last shoot with rick Sprain, a couple of weeks ago, near Perkinsville. After climbing rocks and trees and mounds of asphalt, and lying in fields of flowers (mostly poisonous by consumption), smothering myself in mud and slithering around 'like a snake' and then rolling in gravelish sand to make what we now call 'the cookie', and twirling endlessly in about a foot of murky water... we got these:
Credits: JamesDavid |
Credits: JamesDavid |
And then it was of to my socially acceptable day job. The Black Canyon housed only about 200 people last night; three servers and two cooks, I think we did a pretty decent job. I believe there is always room for improvement and of course our clientele love to give suggestions as if the are part ownership. *cough. Anyways, my mom always told me to mark an x over my mosquito bites with my finger nail to stop the itch... well, last night it was so bad I just sliced right through one that was on my elbow. No!... Not on purpose. I was taking out the trash; threw it over the dumpster and someone had thrown a broken Stella Artois glass into the mix, slicing my elbow ironically straight across the biggest mosquito bite I've ever experienced. At least now it doesnt itch! ;)
Aug 27, 2014
"...the physical reality is that my body exists only in relation to this universe, and in fact I am as attached to it and dependent on it as a leaf on a tree. I feel cut off only because I am split within myself, because I try to be divided from my own feelings and sensations. What I feel and sense therefore seems foreign to me. And on being aware of the unreality of this division, the universe does not seem foreign any more." ~Watts
Credits: JamesDavid |
Aug 24, 2014
It is about having the ability to separate yourself from social norms. I make the unjustifiable- justified. You must be aware of your surroundings in this field, yes. But you can't anticipate what might happen next. I lose touch with the pose; the form and the lens when my mind wanders to past experiences when shooting nudes in public places.
We did have a minor threat by an authority figure; the park ranger. This broken home is located just minutes off of the park's camp sites. We passed through the barbed wire. After about twenty minutes of shooting: she drove past, stopped, got out of her truck and we "hid" inside... not many places to hide in a decaying building.
Aug 18, 2014
A wrong turn ended up being so right. If I had never been to Jerome before I would have most likely scared myself to death... Oh, have I mentioned I hate driving!? At the same time a panic from loss of direction took place, the storm settled over me. The rain was pounding as rapidly onto my windshield as my heart in my chest. I survived. Another day.
Credits: JamesDavid |
The shoot was fantastic. I've never felt more alive on a shoot; everything went so smoothly from the drive out
there to the the cusp; the broken down home. There is a difference in the picture when you get to know who you are collaborating with on a human level. I'm not here to take off my clothes, get paid and drive away... wow, that sounds bad. I'm here to explore, learn and grow as a creative. I'm not an actor. I've never taken classes. What I do is separate thee from me. This particular shoot was filled with experience, strength and hope... What person is not striving for that believable hope?
Credits: JamesDavid |
Credit: JamesDavid |
The condemned stories became extremely real last weekend. I picked her up from work and noticed a change. Her level of anticipation was extremely annoying. She couldn't hold a conversation; the past five minutes kept repeating themselves. I tried to rationalize my thoughts, I went straight to denial. She has so much to stay sober for. Maybe she’s excited about getting her license back, visiting her children in Connecticut in a few weeks, getting off of probation… the list goes on. Sunday night was worse. It seemed as though her lower jaw wished to escape from the structure of her mouth. Her hips swayed as if music were playing. She always had a tendency to move her wrists when she spoke… but she wasn't talking.
I went to bed. The next morning I found myself in a horror movie. I found her body tense; tongue and lips swollen. She moaned in agony- and I left her there. I talked to one of our friends-she came over and another followed. Her bedroom was dark and still until we woke the beast. She glared at the three of us hovering around her bed. Her eyes were solid black; full of rage. Then tears poured when she hung up the phone with work.
Credits: JamesDavid |
Aug 16, 2014
“…we have allowed brain thinking to develop and dominate our lives out of all proportion to “instinctual wisdom,” which we are allowing to slump into atrophy. As a consequence, we are war within ourselves- the brain desiring things which the body does not want, and the body desiring things which the brain does not allow; the brain giving directions which the body will not follow, and the body giving impulses which the brain cannot understand. ~ In one way or another civilized man agrees with St. Frances in thinking of the body as Brother Ass. But even theologians have recognized that the source of evil and stupidity lies not in the physical organism as a whole, but in the cut-off, dissociated brain which they term the “will”.”
~Watts.
Aug 13, 2014
Credits: JamesDavid |
“Our very psychology has been shaken to it’s foundation… to grasp the meaning of the world today we use language created to express the world of yesterday. The life of the past seems to us nearer our true nature, but only for the reason that it is nearer our language.” ~Antoine de Saint Exupery
Aug 10, 2014
Credits: Rick Sprain |
Credits: Rick Sprain |
Aug 2, 2014
I've finally downsized! In All most every aspect of my life… shoes, clothes, the abundance in room mates and the amount of food I have had to
keep in my refrigerator. The food thing was due to living in a house full of addicts who carried their thievery aspect of “survival” with them into treatment. There was always something missing of mine: bananas, ice cream, salad dressing, tampons and peanut butter. OMG! The peanut butter! I wasn't the only victim of peanut butter theft. Tubs upon tubs were stolen weekly. We could never figure out who or how these large amounts of peanut butter were disappearing. Now I’m living in peace and tranquility. I actually enjoy coming home from work everyday! And the best part is shooting. Scheduling photo shoots whenever and where ever I please and not having to tip toe around my modeling subject is just amiable. I finally have a sense of civilized freedom. I share an apartment with my friend Beany, who has shown great interest in modeling for me yet getting her out there is problematic. One day, some day.
Moving day was exciting. One of our more drastic days of monsoon season; streets flooded, power outages which all led to incompetent drivers. This experience has made me question whether or not to up my insurance policy! Three trips to Starbucks and Target we made our apartment semi livable. Bottom line- our idea of “standard of living” is too high! Our list of house hold items still to buy is so large we decided to group it into categories because our income only excels to necessities. Another ‘one day, some day’ I’ll be living modestly yet comfortable!
Jul 16, 2014
~No more empty promises. No more solution to every problem. It is what it is... A fucking problem. I'm conditioned to accept and move forward... to what? The battle between the ideal of the heart and the reality of the heart. There is no heart- heart of hearts.
A feeling is only a feeling. My feelings are not fact, they don't make me who I am.
Jun 20, 2014
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!
It is year number two... the 2nd year of his birthday celebrations with my absence. This time last year he was telling my mom I don't deserve him. He doesn't deserve to be treated like shit, and that he wanted my shit out of his place. We have done a complete 180 on the love addict Vs love avoidant spectrum this past year. It is rare to find absolute balance in any relationship but this relationship has been such a fucked up roller coaster- one which you would have to ask before boarding, "Is this ride really still operating!?"
I have this vision in my mind from last December. Him packing up, driving out here, and settling with me in a little house... And the time is near yet those same feelings are pushed down by fear.
In 2009 I made a decision. This decision did not play out the way it did in my mind. Instead of coping with my unhappiness rationally I turned to temporary comfort. One that led me further and further away from reality all together. I fucked my life and in return your's was squandered in the process.
I'm not angry. I'm still discontent with myself.
Jun 12, 2014
Credits: Solid Pro |
Exhausted. Drained. Darkness...
My days are blending into one long endless story of repetition. The same road driven. The same song on the radio. The same meeting hall. The same faces... I'm ready for change. Change is what is going to keep me going, keep me motivated for further growth; expanding awareness. I'm feeling like stagnant water- in custody of yet another small mountain town. In some lighting it's beautiful alive and full of energy, but with that one hue of unlit color it becomes a pit of murky depression. Sad water that forever sits... and forever stops flowing.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 3, 2014
And I almost forgot... the beautiful Chinese poetry.
Credits: Neil Cowley |
Bottom line, Cowley is a creative, clever, 'down to earth' and patient photographer. I can't wait to do another project with this one.
http://mindaswater.com
Before I left...
I met with Neil two weeks ago.
Credits: Neil Cowley |
Of course I couldn't turn this down.
May 25, 2014
May 19, 2014
http://facebook.com/mindaswater
Wednesday- photoshoot~ This should be something new and excitingly different.
https://vimeo.com/62498588
Wednesday- photoshoot~ This should be something new and excitingly different.
https://vimeo.com/62498588
I have seven months of sobriety… This month could be a year celebration. But it’s not. I chose to take that drink last summer and I am exactly where I'm supposed to be. I don't like to put blame on others for this disease. That would be like moving to LA and chain smoking and blaming God for the gift of cancer. You can chose to play the victim role or you can chose to accept and acknowledge and… fix it ~That’s the path I have chosen. I’m the problem, not alcohol. I need to fix me. Simple.
Credits: Sven Ellirand |
May 15, 2014
May 13, 2014
A woman committed suicide at our hotel Thursday night. She was found in the bathtub;overdosed on pain pills.The rumors between co-workers are endless. But she made it known she was fighting with her husband. ~We make courtesy calls to every guest shortly after their check-in to insure quality. She left us with this.
May 12, 2014
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