Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Freak Out

for a friend who posted this:


















The Song and Dance for the Hot Summer:

 

Awwwww Freak Out!




Sunday, July 24, 2016

Pay Your Tuition = Intuition




 72 of 83 Nobel laureates surveyed recently strongly credited intuition in their success.

If you press (only consciously) … nothing comes of it.

You must give a sort of mysterious pressure and then rest, and suddenly BING! …. the solution comes.

- Konrad Lorenz in Medicine, 1973



Golden Neurons Lura Astor assemblage detail

The One You Feed


Bill Moyers:

Why a media anyway?

 I’m going to let an old Cherokee chief answer that.

I heard this story a long time ago, growing up in Choctaw County in Oklahoma before we moved to Texas, of the tribal elder who was telling his grandson about the battle the old man was waging within himself.



He said, "It is between two wolves, my son. One is an evil wolf: anger, envy, sorrow, greed, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is the good wolf: joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The boy took this in for a few minutes and then said to his father—to his grandfather, “Which wolf won?”

The old Cherokee replied simply, “The one I feed.”

 Democracy is this way. The wolf that wins is the one we feed.



(... and media provides the bait.)


Detail: Woven Music Lura Astor assemblage


Friday, July 22, 2016

Crying and Tears
















No More Seedlessness


Tears Re-set the Biochemistry of the Human Body

On a social media post, one man wrote, "And sometimes no matter how strong you think you are, the stupid tears flow."

Not thinking tears are stupid, I wrote, "Tears re-set the bio-chemistry of the human body."

There was a lot of agreement - validating observations made during my years of teaching, writing, and studying the body-mind-emotion-imagination connection.

 
 

The Queen of Tears Cries You Home
When You Cannot ...

 

You call that a Tear?

 

I'm Just a Queen of Tears

 

I Cried a Song for You

 

Moon Tears


Queen of Tears: She Cries for You -  series by Lura Astor


Thursday, July 21, 2016

Life's Washing Machine

 












Sometimes life's washing machine catches you in the wringer. You are wrapped centrifugally, caught further into the machine, something is broken so the wash comes out with holes and tears, the soft fabric shredded.

Suturing the outer skin with thread and needle, as a buttonhole stitch, my thoughts meander to a new path far from the newly formed lake of space. Little thread footsteps show me new ways to visit old ideas and old ways of visiting new ideas.

I don't make the shirt whole, but I make it interesting, with its own maps of where it has been. Like laugh lines on a face or bites scratched to form a scar.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Mud Puddle Healing



We each need a good mud puddle ...
to play
in  work life,
in social life, 
and in creative life.


 

Friday, July 15, 2016

Teaching




If you are going to take a class, commit.
Commit to the learning that you want.
Commit to the teacher.
Show up.
Do the work, or drop out.
Do your homework. And then more. Research. Try the stuff out in your life. Digest the information. Try it again until you can make it yours, or, discard it.

Teachers know more than they are teaching.

If you ask sharp questions the teacher will love it.
The teacher will know you're doing your homework. 
They can then toss more info your way. You both get to wake up.

Class is not for snoozing.






Thursday, July 14, 2016

Kind of Kind?




Three things in human life are important:
the first is to be kind;
the second is to be kind;
and the third is to be kind.

-    C.S. Lewis 1898-1963

Spontaneous: Lura Astor assemblage