Moving Paper @ 21:21

[inlikeflint]

I have a large pad (18" x 24") of tracing paper that I dug out of storage.
There are loose drawings that I am working on (loose sheets.)
The ceiling fan is usually going but it does not seem to rattle any of my drawing papers.
A few nights ago at about 3:33 in the morning the paper rattled without the ceiling fan being on.
I thought is was strange because the paper doesn't move unless I move it.
Today (or a few minutes ago) I have been contemplating drawing something and at 21:21 on my computer the edge of my tracing paper curled up on the corner and rattled. The ceiling fan is on, but the paper has not moved prior to or since then. (I actually waited to see if something would happen at 22:22, but nothing happened... I was watching a bad movie on Hulu... I missed the number, and the paper didn't rattle.)

I just thought I would share this.
It wasn't scary or strange to me, I think it just confirms my thoughts that I need to pick up the paper and start working.
The whole day I have felt like I have been in a funk... It's been like this for a while.
I am just here.

The good news is; I finally have tomatoes growing on my Russian Heirloom tomato plant. It's about time too. The plant is over 8 feet tall (When I hold up the limbs while standing on my tip-toes) and has not had any tomatoes because of the high temperatures. So this is a nice thing for me.

[Sandy]

Hey Flint,

I just had a 333 less then an hour ago... Hadn't had one of them in awhile... Some people feel that the ascended masters are around when they see that number...of course in our house it usually means Midwayer Mathew is around. He has always been interested in everything we do..and not just related to spirituality either although he can easily take something of the physical and turn it into a pretty neat lesson... Still it is a comfort for me to know we have our friends around us... In fact there are some beings/teachers who assist us creatively, the Celestial Artisans. well assisting mortals isn't all they do... But George knows has worked with one of these in the past,...hmmm in fact, now that I think about it we have not heard from her for awhile...Her name is Athena and was a fabulous artist on her own world at one time. Still is..

Well it is good news to hear you are getting tomatoes. How long is your growing season? Is there still plenty of time to get a good harvest?

The whole day I have felt like I have been in a funk... It's been like this for a while.
I am just here.

I was like that yesterday... Do you have an inkling the underlying cause? Hope it passes and soon... maybe getting busy with that tracing paper, as you mentioned earlier, will help... you know, letting your feelings flow out and onto the paper. Once they're out... maybe you'll feel better.

Well, I have seen your work...and know what an accomplished artist and human being you are...and so I am sending you a little peck on the cheek from this ole gal in Australia. I have all the confidence in the world that this will pass... and if not immediately..then that you will remember you have friends On High and in "sandie, outback laden" places in the world who care for you and always hoping the best for you.
Hugs,
Sandy

[sammy]

I just hate those funk -y days! {{{{{{{{{{{Flint}}}}}}}}}}} Here's a hug to hopefully help pull you out funk and into fun!

LOVE!!!!
Sammy

[inlikeflint]

Thanks for the uppers gals!
It makes me feel better.
~It's one of those feelings of uncertainty...(The Funk)... It's one of the visual artist's ways of approaching their art work and learning to let the art do its thing...For me It's like being on the edge of this unknowing feeling and then it all starts to come together. You know it when it happens and you try to stay in this focal point of creation. It feels really good and it is what makes the difference between contrived art and spontaneous...(Even though you may have a contrived idea of what you want it to look like... In the end it looks something like it, but it is usually greater... and then you do it again, and again, and again... until the bill collectors start calling you.) You can spend minutes, hours, days in it an not even realize how much time has past. (It's like a form of meditation or extreme concentration and focus without thinking... but knowing.)

A lot of professional visual artists talk about this unknowing thing but they don't refer to it as a spiritual thing because it becomes a target for direct and indirect attack when speaking about their own art work. (And everybody is an art critic when it comes to your creation.)

Most people quit before they even hit the hard levels of uncertainty. It's not an easy feeling. It's like doubting yourself or your skills or talents that you know you have, but every time you approach your art work, it is there and it looms over you like a dark cloud. The moment of truth in the art work is knowing, and this is funny because if you are asked, "How do you know?" You cannot explain it other than you just know. There's no other way I can think of to explain it. I know when I hear other artists talk about it though. I recognize it in other people's art work.

I think this is why some visual artists get the 11:11 IMO.

You can't fake or B.S. that part of art.

*****************************************************************************************************************************************************
The frost dates on my garden are late October, early November, so I am hoping I get some decent tomatoes. The heat has been unreal, and the tomatoes that I have had have all been thick skinned and small... My slicers, have been about the size of golf balls and the cherry tomatoes have been the size of small pearls. Cucumbers came out okay, had Zucchini for a while, but most of my squash bit the dust... the leaves even changed colors from a dark green to a pastel like sea green. High temperatures do not make for good gardening.

However, I did learn that placing sunflowers in your garden is good because it attracts honey bees, bumble bees, parasitic wasps, and other kinds of bee groups, and none of them fight over the flower. They just hit the flower and go to work. The parasitic wasps fly up to the sunflower and pull worms out of the sunflower that only they see and then they look all over your garden for other pests. (So this has been a bonus.) I also have passion fruit which is almost like an invasive vine that produces a purple flower that bees go nuts over. The vine sometimes produces fruit which is edible and it tastes like a fibrous cucumber. Yesterday it sounded like I was close to a nest or hive of bees, and it was six honey bees + one bumble bee all trying to get at the same flower. (It was exciting to me because I had not seen bees do that before.) I've also let my basil bolt and the bees cover that enough that it makes me keep my distance until the sun is setting and the bees have gone back to their hives to clock out.


Okay, how is that for a long winded post?

[Sandy]

Good Day mates!

Okay, how is that for a long winded post?

Keep it up and you will knock the Queen (me ) from my long-winded throne!

Ahhh I love it...and I must say you spoke so eloquently about what it feels like this, artistic focal point of inspiration kind of thing..I followed and in a simple way I understand not that I could physically follow the process of pure creation although at one time I would have loved to have been an artist. It is what you described, the process, that I allowed to defeat me and maybe that is truly what separates the "wheat from the chaff". I wonder sometimes if we can do that with meditation as well... allow the process and the knife edge type awaiting to defeat us as we allow the inspiration to come to us... Hmm not sure what this “nutter" here is saying this morning... but a part of me feels a correlation with what you wrote in this fashion.

Your home sounds like a bee's paradise! Wouldn't it have been fabulous if you could have caught the "bee confrontation" on film? David Attenborough would have been envious I'm sure. I was very fortunate where I gardened in the States as there was a pond and creek nearby...plenty of water and bugs that attracted predators like toads to my garden which sat just next door. I used to put a shallow bowl or two of water for the bees and plenty of straw to afford protection for the spiders and insure the plant roots were protected and well watered..But there is nothing much you can do in the kind of heat you have endured this summer... Even the more deeply rooted young trees suffer in this type of unusual climate. Luckily there are always the dreams of next summers garden to keep us going! As I remember it would hit about mid February and I would be found paging through this years seed catalogues and gardening magazines while the snow lay thick on the ground! Dreams of bounty, I suppose.

To next year's garden!
Love,
Sandy

[theunim]

Hallo Flint,

I'm glad to hear your tomatoes are starting to grow. And, it was fun to read about the rest of your garden's state. Please keep writing about the plants. I like imagining how they look, especially with all of those pollinators helping you out as they help themselves.

The tomato plants I've been growing have been growing the fruits in slowly, and two of them are finally ripening on the vine, but they're smaller than the tomatoes I got them from, about the size of a 1/3 of my palm. I didn't expect much, since they're grown from seeds of a hybrid that was in a greenhouse for mass production of organic tomatoes...and I'm just growing them inside my house by the patio doors in a pot. Not looking too good with their leaves, either, not sure if it's the soil or the plant itself, or those spider mites I found around my plants!!! Like I need any more little fliers and crawlies around the pots. I'm gonna try to create compost in the next year with the soil that I'm using and see if the conditions change that way.

Hope your funk has begun to stop or has stopped by now!

Love,
Theunim

[inlikeflint]

I wonder sometimes if we can do that with meditation as well... allow the process and the knife edge type awaiting to defeat us as we allow the inspiration to come to us... Hmm not sure what this “nutter" here is saying this morning... but a part of me feels a correlation with what you wrote in this fashion.
Sandy

I think it is like meditation, you're just focusing on what you are doing rather than trying not to focus. There are boundaries or edges that you overcome by trusting what you are doing by having some faith in yourself. Since you are your own worst critic this presents a challenge... I just thought I would share it.

Thanks for all the comments!
I have to go to sleep.

[Sandy]

Thanks for those thoughts, Flint. I have some self imposed boundaries that can be difficult to overcome... Faith
Love,
Sandy