My Barn Burned Down

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Finally making time to get some painting done. Working in small formats to be able to complete them and feel like I’m making progress!

If you click on the image you will be taken to my Etsy Shop where this little 6×6 inch goodie is for sale.

Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas. Proceeds benefit animal rescue work as always.

Thanks for stopping by……

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I think it’s been three months since I really spent any time at my easel. Instead I’ve been creative in another endeavor: learning how to do e-commerce. Thought it would be easy. It’s not. Like painting, it requires daily work and lots of TLC for every creation (website) and while I am enjoying learning it, will probably love it more when I actually begin to earn some money from all my work! That’s kind of like painting, too, come to think of it!  I’m in a coaching program because over the last year the one thing I definitely learned is that you have to find an ethical coach and community to learn from. So many ‘get rich quick’ schemes all over the internet and they teach you barely the basics and aren’t there for continued education. Through much investigation and asking around I found a great team who are the real deal and have themselves built a hugely successful business the old-fashioned way: hard and consistent work.

But that has taken all my time (aside from working) and so my easel’ s been gathering dust and the only painting I’ve done is when I’ve babysat the grandkids and we’ve had one of our painting parties. GREAT fun! I’ll have to remember to post some of their pix here soon.

In the last few weeks have been feeling the NEED to paint, the hunger to spread color on a board, to mix hues….so am playing around today getting my creative juices going again. I built my Etsy Shop to put my feet to the fire and plan to be more proactive about building my pet portrait business.  The customers I have had had been pleased so I think I’m over the fear of really putting myself out there.

So that’s about it for an update. You probably thought I’d fallen in a hole it’s been so long!

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Buddha Statue from Afghanistan

With the tragedies in Haiti, Mongolia, Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq…..well, the list is endless really, one begins to wonder if it really can ever end. The Buddha teaches that it can, but must begin with our own ending of hatred within our own hearts. This was sent to me today and so beautiful I thought to share it with you.
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This poem by Thich Nhat Hanh embodies the essence of what he calls “interbeing,” the innerconnectedness of all things.

Call Me by My True Names
by Thich Nhat Hanh

From: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh

In Plum Village, where I live in France, we receive many letters from the refugee camps in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, hundreds each week. It is very painful to read them, but we have to do it, we have to be in contact. We try our best to help, but the suffering is enormous, and sometimes we are discouraged. It is said that half the boat people die in the ocean. Only half arrive at the shores in Southeast Asia, and even then they may not be safe.

There are many young girls, boat people, who are raped by sea pirates. Even though the United Nations and many countries try to help the government of Thailand prevent that kind of piracy, sea pirates continue to inflict much suffering on the refugees. One day we received a letter telling us about a young girl on a small boat who was raped by a Thai pirate. She was only twelve, and she jumped into the ocean and drowned herself.

When you first learn of something like that, you get angry at the pirate. You naturally take the side of the girl. As you look more deeply you will see it differently. If you take the side of the little girl, then it is easy. You only have to take a gun and shoot the pirate. But we cannot do that. In my meditation I saw that if I had been born in the village of the pirate and raised in the same conditions as he was, there is a great likelihood that I would become a pirate. I saw that many babies are born along the Gulf of Siam, hundreds every day, and if we educators, social workers, politicians, and others do not do something about the situation, in twenty-five years a number of them will become sea pirates. That is certain. If you or I were born today in those fishing villages, we may become sea pirates in twenty-five years. If you take a gun and shoot the pirate, all of us are to some extent responsible for this state of affairs.

After a long meditation, I wrote this poem. In it, there are three people: the twelve-year-old girl, the pirate, and me. Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each other? The tide of the poem is “Please Call Me by My True Names,” because I have so many names. When I hear one of the of these names, I have to say, “Yes.”

Call Me by My True Names

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh

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I actually have relatives that are out there in the stores today, Black Friday. I guess it might be worth the hassle to save a few bucks but when places like amazon.com have so many great deals, I just can’t imagine heading out in the fray. Of course I’m prejudiced in that my granddaughter and I have spent the last few weeks building our Christmas shopping sites for this internet marketing course we’re plowing through. Our main hub is at Christmas Shopping Made Easy and then it has about 7 baby sites linked to it with product specific pages. Lots of learning and work but we find it interesting and fun, and are hoping it makes a profit! Another aspect of the internet marketing course is using Squidoo, founded by marketing genius Seth Godin so we’ve begun building sites there as well. I built a Star Wars Toys “lens” (page) yesterday and have ideas for many more. As you can tell, I find the world of e-commerce fascinating. Will post all my Christmas gift paintings soon – 5 done and 2 still to go. Then the dogs!

After Christmas I plan to really promote my pet portrait business as well as build some pet related websites with a big chunk of proceeds donated to Tara’s Babies and Garuda Aviary. I know they are struggling in this economy to care for the dogs and parrots. I also have prints and cards available of my German Shepherd painting, and 100% of all of those proceeds go to the Mid-Atlantic German Shepherd Rescue.

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