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Here are some thoughts that I wrote tonight as I was sitting in the car on the way home from the city. They aren't anything that hasn't been said before, but right now is an important turning point for me. These are all thoughts that have come to me again and again, in pieces, but, this is a fortunate full moon for me, and I think the seeds of these thoughts are starting to sprout now. I have grown quite tired of jumping through hoops-which is what I feel my entire life consists of-I feel like there is no point to any of it, or, I have lost what the "point"/meaning was to any of it-I don't know what the meaning is anymore. As I mentioned earlier, I need to simplify my life and start living out of my center. It's exciting. I feel like I'm a child again, looking at everything with fresh, vital eyes.

Anyway, I thought I'd include them:

I've been blessed lately-all this action has spurred me on to look around me-to look up in wonder and imagination rather than down or straight ahead, locked in my ego-world of "to do" lists and petty actions-each mounting up to nothing, nothing at all...I've reinforced into thinking, from Mom and society, that I need to do all the time. That I must produce, but I am mostly spinning my wheels. I create nothing but the continuation of pain and torture that most of these souls live with....What I really want to be spending time on is the wonder of the universe, the spiritual laws, the primal base.

I need to get back to my garden. Travelling can be a part of my garden. A garden does not mean an artificial cloister-a garden is not an ivory tower-the Tower of Babel. A garden is the space you put your whole being into. A garden is the beloved. The one you think of constantly, the one you sing to with every atom.

The Garden of Eden was not a literal, historical act, unless you realize that everything that is inner, is outer. The Garden of Eden, symbolic, is with each one of us. Everybody is looking for their Garden. But they forget that it is not outside. The control of the outside is so frustrating, so tenuous.

....I will be happy if I just get my degree....
....I will be happy if I buy those pants....
....I'll be satisfied if I can afford that car....

and so on.

This is point-to-point living, ego-centered living. The ego is so limited and limits us. God having his angels brandish swords at the Gate of the Garden of Eden is really our own egos-our own egos, our messengers to our God, play the part. Our egos separate us from the Garden that is rightfully our place.

The trouble is, Adam and Eve are amnesiac. They forget. We forget. We forget, usually, that we want the Garden. Instead, we stop and start in the Hall of Mirrors-everything is an illusion when we look outside of ourselves for our happiness. The new pants won't make us happy, nor the degree, the job, the car.

(Eve is blamed for the Fall because she is the Mother. She is the Garden. The child blames the mother for its separation from the mother. The child feels rejected by the mother, just as Adam and Eve felt rejected by God. The mother is God.)

I won't be any happier being a successful illustrator. Only more justified-justified to my parents, the world, society. Not happier, not even more secure. My security will always be precarious because I will live in fear of losing what I have gained. Ego. Illusions. I really will have nothing more than I do now and will be no less miserable.

My fear is very apparent in my illustrations-with many, there is no sense of joy. The lines are terse and constricted. I am too planned and always have plans-all my pictures need to go somewhere, to be part of a bigger picture, part of some grand design. I mistake the end result as the happiness, when really my greatest happiness lies when I dance with the paint.

It is only when I see the world and all of its grimness and barren ugliness casts itself before me and I want to dance in joy with paint, when I want to paint the ugly world over again and make it happy. It is then when I live the artists' impulse. It is then I am a child again-which is the way back to the Garden-or to Heaven-when the outpouring of love that is in me-it is then that I need to paint. And that is why I need to paint-not for anything exterior, not to lay, brick-by-brick, some foundation around my insecurities.

The story of the Garden of Eden was told so that we would know that there is a Garden here on Earth for us, that the seeds are already planted in our souls-all we need to do is nurture the seeds and help them grow.

I need to return to the primal, the dance in life.

Various passages of old spiritual texts bring me back to that, and I want to paint out of those inspirations-I want to play with watercolors-loose forms-wet-on-wet-with no pencil drawings-no designs-I want to dance with the paper.

Often, I want to decorate my entire room. I get vivid hallucinations. Not in the traditional sort of decoration, but I always want to paint on a roll of paper that stretches across my room. I want to play with textures and shapes-mostly natural materials, with maybe a few things added in, like glass and stones and marbles and small Christmas lights.

If I focus on anything but the true, whole way, I disintegrate-I'm distracted, my power is enervated. I am split and schismed by this society, jumping through these million hoops. I live from point to point to point, never getting anywhere, finding I always return to the same place. We are always going, but never going anywhere.

Another wonderful realization, one that I have intuited for quite a long time, but didn't realize concretely until now: greens are the blood I've yearned for. I don't think I need real, mammal blood-somehow the kale I ate tonight (I ate it with salmon and peanut sauce) did the trick-I've been walking around really fatigued and my eyes have been over-tired, but the kale I had brought a lot of vitality back to me and my eyes.

I think, for the most part, although I won't follow it strictly, because I still want to eat fruit and some dairy, and sometimes have spices and variety and stir-fries-I am quite attracted to eating macrobiotically. Merely because it is so simple. you know, a perfect macrobiotic dish is, for example, rice, fish, kale. or barley, black beans, tahini sauce, collard greens. It is so simple, so easy and quick to prepare. And I finish and am satisfied, and can feel the good effects immediately. A lot of why I haven't been eating well is I've felt I haven't had the time for it. I am always going here and there, trying to get this and that done. But it is silly and pointless, because in the end, I am slower, need more rest, etc, because all the food I eat is dead and devitalized. All of that flour, processed foods, etc. But, if I can remind myself that I can keep it simple-like kale, rice, beans/fish-I feel a lot less pressure. It takes some time to make a lot of vegetarian meals. But what I made tonight took 10 minutes at the most.

It's strange, but I am starting to see the illusion of sweets and processed foods. People who I see around NYC, people whose faces look old and haggard, though they might be young in age, scare me into realizing this is what I too have been doing to my body recently, feeding it this food that causes a certain death. The sweets and processed foods are there to just keep us going, to keep us busy, to keep us pushing the wheels of Maya along. Caffeine, chocolate, coffee, cocaine. We don't have to be that busy. I am not sure why we are.