Creativity

The psychoanalyst Gilbert Rose, who writes about creativity, notes that loss is often at the root of the creative process, perhaps less because the nature of the loss than because of the similarity of the artist to the sensitive child. He wonders why, since loss is "inevitable" in life, so many artists are preoccupied by it.

He answers the question by reflecting on the kind of disposition an artist might start out with: "A creatively endowed child could well experience early loss more intensely than an average child. . . . The more intense sensuous engagement with the world might make for both deeper and wider rootedness of attachments."

In a sense, the ups and downs of early development might be different, since "For a creatively gifted child, the very process of individuation might be experienced as a loss -- a narcissistic loss to the child's idealized sense . . . of omnipotence," for by definition the creative artist may start out "loss sensitive and separation prone."

An idea that I have is based on the notion proposed by Anthony Storr that the act of creation itself is comparable to childbirth. The artist "births" his creative productions as the expectant mother births a child. Perhaps the very act of creation -- the process by which an artist transforms psychic ideas into an independent reality in the form of the artistic production -- is experienced by the artist as a loss. In a sense, the artist may experience a kind of "post-partum" depression when his creation is completed.

In a Million Years

“The choices pro nuclear energy, which were made by a small number of people and will have consequences for millions of years, are irresponsible and arrogant. This is the reason why we not only document the Anti-nuclear protests, but also understand our pictures as a part of this protest”
What today is produced as nuclear waste in German nuclear power plants will be radioactive even in a million years – a secure storage for this long period of time cannot be possible. Therefore, the united population of Wendland is struggling for over 30 years against the storage of radioactive waste in front of their homes. Given the life-span extension for nuclear power plants, the project “www.inamillionyears.com” shall call attention to the problem of storage. Four well-known German photographers: Andreas Herzau, Christian Jungeblodt, Michael Meyborg and Daniel Rosenthal document the culture of protest and are on site, when the next CASTOR with radioactive waste in November 2010 rolls into the final storage Gorleben.

Directed by the movie maker Lukas Thiele, starting November 4th short multimedia movies with pictures of the three photographers will be daily presented on the homepage “www.inamillionyears.com”.

Among others, with the pictures from the archive of Michael Meyborg, who documented for more than 20 year the resistance in Wendland, a small chronicle of the resistance, lasting for more than 30 years, will be produced as multi-vision.
For this project we have prepared a trailer - free to use:
> www.inamillionyears.com/downloads

It can also be embedded over the YouTube page:
> www.youtube.com/inamillionyearsfilm

Expensive Hobby

By TR

Trey Ratcliff:

So, while here on the shaky south island of New Zealand, I had to swing by a camera store in Christchurch to pick up the new 28-300 Nikon lens. It’s expensive here… probably an extra $700 over the 28-300 cost in the US… That kinda sucks eh? Does anyone know why its so expensive? Are there tariffs and taxes? Why do governments do this? (I come from the Milton Friedman schools, as some of you know…)

Friendship

Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

~George Washington

These wise words  apply to any form of relationship.  

PHOTO: This plant called Pilea involucrata  which means Friendship Plant.

‘There are no rich,’ Senator-elect Rand Paul claims

There is no Rand Paul. There is no Rand Paul. There is no Rand Paul. There is no Rand Paul. There is no Rand Paul. There is no Rand Paul. There is no Rand Paul. There is no Rand Paul. There is no Rand Paul. There is no Rand Paul. There is no Rand Paul. There is no Rand Paul.

 

Shorter Rand Paul: Be nice to rich people because you all work for them.

Maryam's Pavilion in Marrakesh

The Peacock Pavilions of are more functional art than resort…



Maryam's blog

Unrequited love

"I am fine, thank you. How about yourself? I am just busy getting ready to move to -----. I'm still working out the issues with my girlfriend. She is a good woman and I do love her very much..."

image source

Another Birth

self-portrait, Forough

"In short, they are only poets while they are writing their poetry. When they have finished writing, they turn back into greedy, indulgent, oppressive, short-sighted, miserable, and envious people. So I do not believe their poems. I prize honesty in life, and when I find these people making fists and various claims - in their poems and essays - I get disgusted, and I doubt their veracity. I think to myself,perhaps it is only for a plate of rice that they are screaming." - forough farrokhzad

Another BirthPersian : Tavalodi Digar
Audio Files: Tavalodi Digar

My whole being is a dark chant
which will carry you
perpetuating you
to the dawn of eternal growths and blossoming
in this chant I sighed you sighed
in this chant
I grafted you to the tree to the water to the fire.

Life is perhaps
a long street through which a woman holding
a basket passes every day

Life is perhaps
a rope with which a man hangs himself from a branch
life is perhaps a child returning home from school.

Life is perhaps lighting up a cigarette
in the narcotic repose between two love-makings
or the absent gaze of a passerby
who takes off his hat to another passerby
with a meaningless smile and a good morning .

Life is perhaps that enclosed moment
when my gaze destroys itself in the pupil of your eyes
and it is in the feeling
which I will put into the Moon's impression
and the Night's perception.

In a room as big as loneliness
my heart
which is as big as love
looks at the simple pretexts of its happiness
at the beautiful decay of flowers in the vase
at the sapling you planted in our garden
and the song of canaries
which sing to the size of a window.

Ah
this is my lot
this is my lot
my lot is
a sky which is taken away at the drop of a curtain
my lot is going down a flight of disused stairs
a regain something amid putrefaction and nostalgia
my lot is a sad promenade in the garden of memories
and dying in the grief of a voice which tells me
I love
your hands.

I will plant my hands in the garden
I will grow I know I know I know
and swallows will lay eggs
in the hollow of my ink-stained hands.

I shall wear
a pair of twin cherries as ear-rings
and I shall put dahlia petals on my finger-nails
there is an alley
where the boys who were in love with me
still loiter with the same unkempt hair
thin necks and bony legs
and think of the innocent smiles of a little girl
who was blown away by the wind one night.

There is an alley
which my heart has stolen
from the streets of my childhood.

The journey of a form along the line of time
inseminating the line of time with the form
a form conscious of an image
coming back from a feast in a mirror

And it is in this way
that someone dies
and someone lives on.

No fisherman shall ever find a pearl in a small brook
which empties into a pool.

I know a sad little fairy
who lives in an ocean
and ever so softly
plays her heart into a magic flute
a sad little fairy
who dies with one kiss each night
and is reborn with one kiss each dawn.

Karim Emami Az Past O Bolande Targomeh Page 19-21


Movie

Collected work

Half of my heart: John Mayer

Dying to be born

I think: something must die in order to be born. Today, I believe that.

And if this is true, then we've got to ask this of our lives: What needs to die?

Fear, Excuses for Harted where compassion is called for. Limited thinking. Antagonism. More fear. Callousness. Lethargy. Cynicism. Aggression, vindictiveness, sadistic behavior, Greed, stubbornness. narcissism, and being judgmental.

 But each of us has some stinky, life-sucking behavior, or paradigm, or dis-ease, that is having it's way with the best of us - the part of us that always wants to be born. And whatever it is, (and it's probably ugly) it needs to die so that you can be You. Fully.

Euthanize whatever is holding you back. (Might I suggest that you do it gently, swiftly if you can, ideally with gratitude and free of aggression.) That's the only way to know what's dying to be born.

...that was When I Ruled the World

After last night's grotesque but predictable

GOP victory over Democrats , I think our empire is finally done.

This time, there will not be some kind of pendulum at work.


There was no pendulum for the British Empire, the French Monarchy or the old USSR. Some rot is irreversible.


In fact, the USSR still remains my favorite analogy: we're in the Gorbachev era and lurching towards the Yeltsin era: look, the clowns have arrived!

I think the trend is simply irreversible, just as it was in the USSR, no matter who is in power. I feel sorry for Obama.

My best guess is that by 2014, a lot of the US will sort of look like Mumbai, minus the tasty food.



Lyrics to Viva La Vida by Cold Play :

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets that I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing:
"Now the old king is dead!
Long live the king!"

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can't explain
Once you go there was never, never an honest word
That was when I ruled the world
(Ohhh)

It was the wicked and wild wind
Blew down the doors to let me in
Shattered windows and the sound of drums
People couldn't believe what I'd become

Revolutionaries wait
For my head on a silver plate
Just a puppet on a lonely string
Oh who would ever want to be king?

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter will call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world
(Ohhhhh Ohhh Ohhh)

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field
For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter will call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world

To Greedy wingnuts: "Glory days of yore" are never coming back". Deal with it. "US Exceptionalism", you say?

Random Thoughts

I was thinking of you today.
Of how I have entrapped you in my head
Now  Pandor's box wide open

how I would like to hear your voice,
or sit quietly, motionless, by your side,

Leaving again hurts so much
It feels like stepping out in the wilderness
The fates have closed in on me again

Shouldn't the soul of a man
be like an innocent child
trusting and loving
fearless and wild


but I know it's into a dark
and evil world we're born
where we're broken and beaten
ravaged and torn


so we build our defenses
and we wear the masks well
but when we're not looking
our haven becomes a hell


echoes of darkness
stir our fears
hopes and dreams
become shattered tears


and though we may long
with all our might
to leave the torment
of our long dark night


we are unfamiliar
with the bright hope of day
so, often, it's in darkness
that we choose to stay


how tragic no one
really understands
that when we allow fear
to close our hands


we'll never hold
what could have been
if we had dared
just once again


to open our hearts
and choose to trust


in the promise that's been placed
in front of us


what I'm saying is
you no longer have to hide
I'm right here
by your side


I have something
that will melt the chill
of the dark fears inside you
and help you heal
it's a scary thing
allowing our hearts to feel
reaching for something
not knowing if it's real


what if we try
and we're smashed to bits
sinking lower
to more hellish pits
but what if we try
and we do catch the dream...


is that hope in my eye,or is it just me?


Thoughts keep swirling in my head
Aching to land on some fertile land

I am so tired of not feeling
Of not allowing myself to express;
Of always hiding behind my "moral compass"

of enduring great pain for the sake of others

Am I responsible for others' happiness
or just mine

What if my compassion and empathy for others

in the larger scheme of things,

will cause all of us involved much worse pain and suffering


I am tired of not feeling real.
do you feel real?


Can we live lives of quite desperation in a cocoon,
indefinitely?

I want my wings...

Life

Lives are lived in circles, not linearly, with past and present looping each other~~Unknown

Unforgettable bond

A

few deep feelings are demanding my attention. I have to give these emotions their due -- after 30 years , I think it's time I finally sorted this out?

Think of you

My almost lover

Gabriel Garcia Marquez



h and b



To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.

Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez



This excerpt from Love in the Time of Cholera reminds me of being very young and wistful, wondering if one day I would ever become the object of such perfect adoration.

Source of Suffering

Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable,
or from neglecting what is within our power.
-

Epicetus c 90 AD

Intentions

Today, notice your intent: Are you focused on protecting against pain and trying to have control over getting love?

 or are you focused on learning about loving yourself and sharing your love with others?

When you feel empty, anxious or depressed, your intent is to protect/control.

When you feel full, happy and peaceful, your intent is to learn about loving yourself and others.

Your feelings are determined by your intent and indicate your intent.--Inner bonding

Hope

OMID Advocates for Human Rights

ANNOUNCING THE RELEASE OF: REPORT ON THE SITUATION OF IRANIAN REFUGEES IN TURKEY POST JUNE 12th: ONE YEAR LATER

GET INVOLVED TODAY!  CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD AN ADVOCACY TOOLKIT

Omid Advocates Interview with VOA - Hamideh Aramideh

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Reflections on Readings

Frida Khalo: Viva La Vida (1907-1954)

"I want your own books to find you"

"...when you read a book, you are at least half of the totality of that experience; the reader makes something fresh of whatever it is he (she) reads. a book is renewed every time it finds a perceptive reader, and no book is the same to every reader...reading is not a substitute for life, because it is indivisible from life. Indeed, it is a reflection of the spirit of the reader, and I am truly convinced that we who are committed readers may appear to choose our books, but in an equally true sense our books choose us. By an agency that is not coincidence, but something much more powerful that Jungians call synchronicity, we find, and are found by, the books we need to enlarge and complete us. Reading is not escape, something done at random; it is directed unerringly toward the inner target. It is truly a turning inward. it is exploration, extension, and reflection of one's innermost self". (Roberston William Davies: The Merry Heart)

source