The Art of the Present Moment

Living in the present moment has been on my mind a lot lately. According to many popular experts on the Law of Attraction and metaphysics, the present moment is the realm of infinite possibilities, the realm of miracles. Living in the present moment has many benefits, such as increased effectiveness, increased relaxation, increased awareness, greater ease in shedding outmoded belief systems that no longer serve one’s best interests. 

To live in the present is to go with the flow and to trust in the process, whatever that process may be. That hasn’t always been an easy thing for me. Even though I can intellectually grasp the principle, actually living it has been elusive. And it remained elusive, even after my daughter, whom I would have never suspected of something like this, embraced living in the present. According to her, she realized that everything she tried before wasn’t working, so she decided to try something completely different. And when she experienced the peace that came with living in the present, she was sold on the idea.

If my kid could do it, why couldn’t I? But the big question was “how?” How do I go from stopping worrying about what the future could bring, especially with my finances being in such a state that even a moderate unexpected expense could totally wipe me out, to going with the flow? I didn’t like living on the edge. But I had no idea on how to go with the flow and live in the present, in the realm of infinite possibilities.

It was Thursday morning — my “Monday” — and I woke up at 5:00 AM, one and a half hours before my alarm was set to go off. The first thing to cross my mind was that I still have that temporary power supply cable running from the transformer box in my yard to the neighbors’ house. A permanent cable was supposed to have already been laid down at the end of last month. My mind began to churn, wondering when this was going to happen. Would this happen while I was at work? I had already told my neighbors that I need at least 24 hours notice because I would need to make sure that the dogs were secured inside before leaving for work. And what sort of pet accidents and mischief would I come home to with the dogs having had no access to the outside for twelve and a half hours? Would my fence even be standing?

If I wasn’t worrying about dogs messing in the house and not being able to go to the bathroom outside because of work being done in my yard, I was worrying about the scary state of my finances. Believe me, they are really scary right now, and barring the advent of a major miracle, it will be at least nine more months before I could let go of my breath.

Frankly, having this sort of constant intrusion was getting to be a rather tiresome game, literally speaking, as I was not getting the proper rest I needed for work. Of course, that led to more worrying as to whether I was going to be rested enough to perform my job safely, or if I would have to make a choice between going to work and risking having something terrible happen or risk getting suspended for calling in sick for the third time in less than two months.

Something had to give. I could not go on living that way, because that would be a sure guarantee that things weren’t going to change for the better and I was going to remain stuck in this constant butt-busting mode. And how long would I be able to sustain my energy before my body decided that it had enough?

It was later that morning, while operating my train on its first trip that epiphany came like a lightning bolt. 

Getting possessed by the creative process is living in the present moment!

So yeah, living in the present was not as alien a concept as I thought it was. And this piece of artwork — my embroidered illustration that I’ve named “Saint Sally Exorcising the Furnace Demons” — was proof that I do indeed know how to live in the present.

When I first came up with the concept for this embroidered illustration, I had no idea how I was going to proceed. So I just took one small section at a time, first starting with Saint Sally’s (my mother’s) hair. It took me three nights to work that tiny patch of fabric as I was using only single strand embroidery floss in multiple colors, laying down each tiny stitch like a brushstroke. After I finished the hair, I had to decide on what else to work on. And I saw how easy it could be to become paralyzed with indecision and not knowing what direction to take. But something told me to just start working anywhere -- anywhere -- and that as I worked, the piece would start letting me know what needed to be done next. And that was exactly what happened.

I completely threw my trust into the creative process. And the creative process did not fail me. Every step along the way, my work in progress whispered to me. It guided me. It taught me. It gave me answers to questions I had, and even questions I did not know I had. Not only did it show me how to execute the piece I was working on, it taught me things about myself and about the world around me.

That’s not to say that the process was easy. In fact there were parts that were downright agonizing and frustrating, just like real life. There were times when I had to constantly rip out stitches, time and time again, because certain areas did not look right and that not correcting them would have thrown off the whole foundation of the piece.

And just like real life, there was a moment when I was thrown into a major panic when a rip in a weakened section of fabric threatened to undermine all of the several month's worth of effort I had already put in. When I say that I was in a panic, I was not kidding. I actually experienced an extremely strong sickening dread -- pretty much a similar dread when my finances are in a very precarious state.

But you know what?

My piece whispered to me. It told me what to do and how to repair the damaged area so that the fabric was properly reinforced. Not only that, the repaired area was not even visible!

It took me five years to complete this project, and that was mainly because it was a traveling project that was only worked on during family holidays, sitting in doctors' waiting rooms, and during the long interludes at jury duty. All that time this piece was a constant and faithful friend who was always there for me. There were times when it felt that I was not the one creating this piece -- that I was merely serving as a conduit through which a creative energy outside of me flowed through my body. It was as though I was channeling something from a Source much greater than myself.

So now the trick will be to take what I have experienced while possessed by the creative process and translate it into my everyday life. The creative process is not just intended for the creation of art. Rather it is intended for every facet and aspect of life, for living life in itself is an art. 

Meanderings

No two people think alike. We each have our own unique processes of thought.

My thought processes can be compared to a meandering river that picks up the sediment (ideas) from an outer curve, carries it, and deposits it further downstream. As the ideas get carried along, more ideas join the flow. Sometimes these ideas collect and become isolated from the mainstream, becoming their own entities, such as oxbow lakes, and developing their own ecosystems.

Often, all it takes is one word to spark a meander, which sometimes will gush like a torrent or trickle like a lazy stream.

And often, the meander will sprout tributaries.

Anyhow, one of my meanders was triggered by a word used by my friend Bob — loverly (or how he spells it, “loVerly”).

Immediately my thought stream transported me to  My Fair Lady (which I’ve never seen, by the way), where Eliza Doolittle sang:

“All I want is a room somewhere

Far away from the cold night air
With one enormous chair
Oh, wouldn't it be loverly?”

While Eliza, a Cockney flower girl, was not homeless, the opening verse “...a room somewhere far away from the cold night air...” made me think about the homeless.

Until I moved to Houston four and a half years ago, the homeless were just a concept that I was just dimly aware of. It was only when I started my train operator training, where every early morning I had to walk six blocks from the park and ride bus stop to the Red Line train platform at Preston, did I have my first in-your-face encounter with the homeless.

It was the first time I saw someone sleeping on the sidewalk — in the middle of the freaking sidewalk. 

There was a human-like form underneath a bedsheet. Never having seen a homeless person in such a vulnerable state I didn’t know what to do. I paused briefly to check for any signs of life, not daring to get too close. And when I saw a twitch, presumably from a foot, I moved along.

Needless to say, this encounter shook me to the core and left me rattled for the rest of the day. Little did I know back then that I would be seeing such sights almost every day while at work, and that I would develop a certain sense of awareness about the homeless that would occasionally give way to thought and something for my Muse to ponder.

Not all homeless people are alike. Each has a different story.

When I was having my on-the-job training in operating a train, my line instructor told me a story about a homeless man that he (or someone he knew) encountered in California. (For the sake of flow, let’s say it was my line instructor who had the encounter.)

Anyhow, when OJ was in Cali, he was approached by a homeless man seeking to bum a cigarette. In the exchange, OJ noticed that the homeless fellow was rather articulate. Further conversation revealed that the articulate homeless gent was once a physician who lost his entire family in an auto accident. 

Apparently the pain of such a devastating loss, and probably the additional burden of survivor’s guilt, was enough to plunge the doctor over the edge such that he abandoned everything — his medical practice, his home, his [most likely] luxury car, and most of all, his identity. 

Without his wife and kids, his life no longer had any meaning. Nor was it worth living.

Was this self-annihilation was some sort of penance he believed he should be serving? Or did he lack the intestinal fortitude to hasten his reunion with his family in the afterlife? The bottom line was that he joined the ranks of the homeless.

I would like to think the doctor eventually found redemption either through cobbling together the shards of his previous life or rising from the ashes in flames like a phoenix.

Maybe he cared for the other homeless and gained a reputation on the streets as a healer. Or maybe he returned to practicing medicine and devoted his career to treating the homeless and disenfranchised.

However, if I were to write the story of his redemption, this is what I would include:

During a particularly crappy day at panhandling and getting roughed up he happened to look up and spy a familiar face. It was his face — his face on a mural on a building.

Maybe it was the vibrant, nontraditional colors of the mural that caught his attention. Maybe it was the golden hour sunlight shining on the mural that mesmerized him.

Whatever it was, it caused something to stir within him and course through his body like electricity.

During that split second, something catalyzed, causing him to know immediately that the trajectory of his life had changed.

A new journey was about to begin.

But where this journey took him is not something that I would know as I don’t feel confident that I have what it takes to spin a good story, especially one about someone I’ve never met.

However, the story that I am most familiar with is my own. And even that is constantly changing like a meandering river.

Just before I first moved to this area, I got hooked on a new artistic trajectory — drawing portraits. Even though I’ve been drawing my entire life, I had always shied away from portraiture because, basically, I thought I sucked at it.

But I had this really cool leather-bound book with handmade pages that I picked up during my visit to Houston in June 2014. And I was determined to actually do something with this notebook, instead of letting it fall to the same fate as that many other notebooks and sketchbooks that I bought — to have them languish in my studio (or wherever else I decided to stash them).

Because the very rough tooth of the paper would not work well with colored pencils, I decided to use Sharpies markers. The first few pages were covered with random scrawls. I was getting a feel for the paper.

My first “serious” piece was the Houston skyline. In my going through divorce proceedings, I made plans to move out of Lubbock. The intent was to move to Houston, where my daughter lived. 

But do you know how hard it is to find a place to live and a job 500 miles away? 

My house may have already been packed up — which, by the way, I literally did singlehandedly as I had my right arm in a sling from rotator cuff surgery in May. I was all set to move. And I had a real estate agent looking for rental homes in Houston.

It was a frustrating process. 

And somewhere along the line, I decided on doing a bit of sympathetic magick, of the artsy persuasion, in order to manifest my making it to Houston.

The thing with Sharpies is that they have a very limited palette. As such, I had to make some creative decisions about how I was going to color the skyline.

As I was creating my piece, I could feel the energy building with each stroke of color I laid down and with each “Oh my Lord! Oh my fucking Lord!” that I uttered throughout the process.

No casting circles or lighting candles for me. I did my magick through art. My drawing was my spell. And my intent was manifested some four or five months later.

In the meantime, I took a liking towards working with the Sharpies markers. I started experimenting with portraits — first with a stylized self portrait, and then followed by portraits of those near to me and close to my heart — namely my neighbor Jory and my daughter Ariana.

Remember that I mentioned that Sharpies markers have a limited palette that required creative decision making on my part?

Well, creative decisions were made for skin tones and hair color, which is why my people had orange or purple skin tone and hair color that was blue, pink, green, or purple. And oh yeah, I didn’t include white or black in my drawings. White was replaced by yellow, while black was replaced with the darkest blue that I could muster (which would involve layering a navy blue with a dark violet).

Anyhow, I found my new creative groove, and it felt awesome riding that wave. With each portrait I drew, I amazed myself with the results. “Wow! I did this?!”

My style was evolving. It was getting tighter and more refined. 

And the greatest compliment that I received was when my friend Marja told me, “You’re not just drawing people, you’re drawing their energies!”

Yes! It was all about the energy.

And the subjects that interested me the most were not the perfect or the beautiful. It was the characters and their emotional expressions.

When I started working for METRO as a train operator, I would see so many different characters that I wanted to draw. And it would frustrate the crap out of me that I could not take pictures of the characters I saw while I was operating the train through downtown and the ‘hood.

In the meantime, my brain was pinging with ideas and creative goals. One of those goals was to humanize the homeless through my Sharpies portraits — and not just Sharpies portraits, but also oil paintings, ceramic mosaics, and perhaps even big-ass murals on the sides of buildings.

What if people saw not the homeless, many of whom challenge our compassion, but their energy?

And what if the homeless saw that energy within themselves?

Art can be a tool for healing and maybe even redemption.

I may not know how many people I am able to heal through art. But I do know that one of those people is me.

Cooking Palooza -- Texas Chili

If you love all things spicy and have never checked out Chili Pepper Madness, get on it right away! Mike Hultquist is one chilihead supreme, and his recipes have always been a HUGE -- Texas-size hit -- in my house!

And speaking of Texas, today's Cooking Palooza will feature Chili Pepper Madness's Texas Chili Recipe. 

Mind you, because my daughter and I are still participating in the Lenten season Whole30 regime -- 11 days left!!! Woohoo!!! -- I'll be having to eliminate the non-compliant ingredients, such as the masa harina and brown sugar. I'll be using beef stock instead of dark beer . 

And instead of Worcestershire sauce I'll be using a miscegenation from a recipe (that shall remain nameless) for Whole30-compliant Worcestershire sauce. (Who knows? Maybe I used too many anchovy filets, as it was hard to get those suckers out of the jar in one piece.)

Anyhow, I was first going to attack Mount Dishmore before attempting this project. But when I read the recipe again, and saw that there is soaking time involved, I got a bit sidetracked from tackling the dishes from yesterday's cooking fest.

The recipe calls for three types of dried peppers -- ancho, pasilla, and New Mexico. I got these nifty buggers from Food Town, which is just two minutes from my house.

The pasilla peppers are a lot longer once I get them out of the bag. And each type of pepper has its own interesting characteristic.

The recipe called for lightly toasting -- and the key word is "lightly" -- in a dry skillet for about a minute or two per side.

Well, I did not read the instructions as carefully as I should have, as I missed the "a minute or..." part. So after two minutes they looked something like this.

Oops! I don't think they were supposed to be this black! (Crossing my fingers this still works out.)

Next came the part where I let them cool before removing the seeds and stems and sticking them in a bowl. (Dang! Those ancho peppers are sure sticky inside!)

Now that the peppers are soaking, 

it's time to attack and conquer Mount Dishmore.

OK. The dishes are done. Now let's move on to dirtying up some more dishes.

Anyhow, I wound up remaking the chili paste as I did not care for the scorched taste of the initial batch. As with a lot of things, sometimes you have to start over.

Compared to the old scorched pepper paste, this new batch looked, and tasted, much better.

The protein star of the show is this nice Black Angus chuck roast, which gets cut up into small, bite-size pieces. 

Of course whenever I engage in any cooking palooza, there's always at least one dog nearby.

Once the meat is cut up, it gets coated with powdered cumin, salt, and black pepper.

Next comes cutting up more veggies. Looking at these Nitrile gloves, can you guess which veggies will be included in the cutting up?

Here are the cut-up veggies: sweet onion, jalapenos, serranos, and garlic.

By the way, this is the "suggested" four cloves of garlic.

And this culinary miscegenation is the Whole30 approved "What's-This-Here-Sauce?' -- Worcestershire Sauce.

First step is to brown the meat in some olive oil in a big pot. 

Once the meat is nicely browned, scoop it out and set it aside.

Then saute the onion and peppers for about five minutes. 

Next add the garlic and saute for another minute longer.

Once all that is nicely cooked, add that chili pepper paste that's been sitting patiently.

Mix it up.

Then stir in the beef broth and all the rest of the goodies. And since the recipe did not specify when to add the beef that's been scooped out, I guess this would be a good point to include the beef.

Bring the sucker to a boil, and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Let it simmer for a couple of hours (or as long as it would take to make the meat tender).

While the Texas Chili was simmering away, I decided to roast some butternut squash with olive oil, garlic, salt, and black pepper.

Dang! That squash tasted good! I couldn't stop from nibbling at it!

Anyhow, that squash got paired with the Texas Chili, and what a delightful taste combination that was!

As an afterthought, my daughter made a comment about my cooking up cold weather foods as our temps have been warming up. Yeah, I am a bit weird that way, at times.

Gods and Magicians

Last night I finished reading The Magician King, the second novel in The Magician Trilogy by Lev Grossman. (My daughter turned me on to the show The Magicians, and because I could never find the time to watch it, I decided to read the books instead.)

One of the big things that stood out for me was the subplot concerning the part magic plans in Julia’s history and development.

Unlike me, Julia was a freaking genius. However what she and I did share in common was her lack of certainty in any kind of god or gods. Julia needed evidence. She needed experiencial data.

I am like that too, in a way.

While I do believe in a Universal Creative Energy that some may call “God,” I have trouble believing deities — be They Zeus, Odin, Perkūnas, or even that nameless deity which many refer to as just plain “God” —  that have been fashioned by human beings. Theirs is an anthropomorphic construct — something that’s been fashioned to include human attributes, thereby applying certain limitations to something that cannot be contained in a tidy package. After all, we love our words.

But I guess that’s a human thing. Humans are not comfortable with ambiguity. And many are not comfortable with not being able to define things. Thus, something as vast and undefinable as the Universal Creative Energy — The Source of All Things — had to be squeezed into an easily graspable concept.

The thing is, concepts have limits. And somewhere along the way people either forgot that, or they never bothered to take it into consideration in the first place. Eventually, they also forgot that they, too, were part of this Universal Creative Energy.

And that’s how gods became entities separate from ourselves.

Anyhow, because my concept of “God” is a bit different from that of the popular mainstream, I have a hard time cultivating a the type of relationship with God that most people have. (Cultivating a relationship with Jesus is even tougher for reasons I don’t want to go into now.)

Maybe if God spoke to me like He did in the Old Testament, or even like He did to Donald Neale Walsch in his Conversations With God series, it would be a different story. I have trouble relying on faith alone. That is how Julia and I am alike. If no one answers when I ask questions, or gives me a concrete sign when I ask for one, it’s hard for me to accept that there is an all-powerful higher being who takes a special interest in me.

That is not to say that I am an atheist, or even an agnostic. It’s just that my understanding of “God” does not include an imaginary friend that talks back to me, or some irate bearded dude hurling lightning bolts from Mount Olympus.

The Source of All Things is beyond words and beyond comprehension, though we can tap into it.

As for deities, I think that Lev Grossman brought up an interesting premise in that deities are not so much higher supreme beings, but that they are magicians with an incredible and mind-boggling range of power.

And as for Julia, she did finally become a believer after she had an encounter with a goddess. In fact, not only did she become a devotee of this goddess — Our Lady Underground — she also became a demigod herself, which involved having to sacrifice the part of herself that made her human. 

(That in itself is another metaphor that can be explored at another time.)

Sharpies Art — Part 5

Sharpies Art — Part 4

The portrait subjects that interest me the most are those that depict a person’s energy and dynamic character. If I don’t feel the energy, I am not inspired.

Sharpies Art — Part 3

Not all Sharpies portraits are people.

Sharpies Art — Part 2

Seeing that posting from my phone (which is the only way I can post when I am away from my laptop) is a royal pain in the arse, my post about Sharpies is going to have to be broken up into smaller, manageable posts. Safari is supposed to be a supported platform. However my iPhone did not get that memo.

When I was first starting out drawing Sharpies portraits, one of my favorite subjects was my next door neighbor Jory, as not only was he my best friend when I lived in Lubbock, he was (and still is) quite the character.

I also included Jory’s bromance buddy Gabriel, as well as my other neighbors, like Tommy the Mexican Hulk and Mr Garcia, who loved his guns.

While he was impressed with his Sharpies portrait,

Jory was not all that overly thrilled that my design decision had him with green hair. However, after he accompanied me on my move to Houston, that issue was rectified, and Jory was pleased with the results.

My hair, however, still remains green.