Self-Healing Through Facilitation

When I first explored alternative healing methods I did it for two reasons: One reason was that about 30 years ago after reading a book about REIKI from my monthly ONE SPIRIT book club offering, it struck a harmonic chord in me—spurred an intuitive interest to learn how to do it for myself.

The second reason was that I wanted to help my friend who was going through a difficult health challenge, and I hoped learning how to do REIKI on her would improve her condition.

These are our basic motivations for much of what we do in life—either for self-interest and/or to help those we care about beyond ourselves. Some would say that in a sense both examples are self-interest because it’s someone you love, but my desire to help others extended beyond those I personally knew.

Besides working full time in my regular job, after a few years of training and acquiring another higher-frequency, three-level version of the practice called KARUNA REIKI, I then partnered with a cancer nurse supervisor in a medical clinic and we began offering REIKI classes to patients and staff of the hospital where she worked. A small group of us also offered FREE sessions a few times a month to those who wanted to try it. That was beneficial to all who experienced it, both clients and practitioners. I learned a lot about what REIKI could actually do to improve other lives through freely helping others.

After that I formed my own alternative healing business for pay. By then I had learned more treatment techniques, had more diverse training added to my resume, and I became “Have Table Will Travel” to many who requested that I bring the treatment to them at their homes.

I was dedicated and gutsy back then. Today I wouldn’t be so naïve or so trusting about blindly walking up to a stranger’s home who had called me for help, then hauling my table into whatever situation I was presented. Some folks were just simple, normal folks who were sick or in need of my help, but a few situations were a bit more sketchy because different people have different standards of normalcy in life. That’s just how it is. When you willingly walk into the unknown you have to trust you can handle whatever you find there.

Once I was established enough to have an actual full-time office where clients could visit me, I was fairly knowledgeable about how best to work with whatever illness or injury a client presented. By then I’d had shamanic training, de-possession training, and was a certified hypnotist besides being a REIKI Master.  All of those disciplines gave me a broader perspective on what might actually be happening with the client on my table beyond what you might assume to be the problem, or what the client had been told was her problem.

I know it’s a long way to make a point here, but since this post is called “Self-Healing” how does that apply to this lengthy tale?

By the ‘opening an office’ time I had been doing my REIKI-thing for around twenty-plus years—had worked on nearly a hundred clients—and had built up my own experiential database of treating various ailments and handling different client personalities. I had also begun to note some common themes in people who were requesting my help.

Common Client Themes:

  • There were those who were desperate for help and healing because they feared dying.
  • There were those who were looking for hope to continue fighting whatever was destroying their health and their relationships.
  • There were those who thought it was my job to make them better because they were paying me to FIX them.
  • There were those who were open to changing their standard modes of behavior, and learning how to take better care of themselves in all ways.
  • And there were those who weren’t willing to change their behavior that had attributed to their current problem (like quit smoking to a lung cancer diagnosis).
  • There were those who were seeing me because a loved one pushed them into the experience to try to help them even if they hadn’t wanted to come.
  • And there were even those who were basically lonely and just wanted someone to care about them if only for an hour.  

I soon realized that what I could do for ALL of them had its limits because so much depended on what was happening in that client’s head when they walked through my door. Being ill is a physical/mental/emotional ailment, but it can also be a mind-state.

By thinking of myself as a ‘healer’ to these people I was inadvertently encouraging their dependence on me rather than allowing them to believe more in themselves to help solve their own problems. That almost ‘savior’ mentality I had maintained back then wasn’t advantageous to either the client or myself because it presumed too much responsibility on me alone to FIX them of their maladies or health crisis, which was inaccurate to what I actually offered them. I slowly began to see my revised role in the client interaction as more of a facilitator for the most desirable healing environment, and as a coach to their focusing on taking a more active role in healing themselves because the most critical component to our session together was that the client had to WANT to heal the issue presenting in them in some way and believing that it was possible to do so.

I changed tactics in my treatment methods and began pushing more for a client’s self-empowerment—encouraging more self-healing efforts besides what we were doing in my office. I wanted them to start taking more responsibility in how the client mentally and emotionally reacted to their overall health crisis—especially in how they thought about the situation by pointedly asking them this question: “In this health challenge situation do you feel powerless or powerful?”  Then asked them to tell me WHY they felt that way.

Then I explained to them that I could only provide the space and energy-frequency for them to ‘self-actualize’ the life that they truly wanted to live because I could not really FIX them of their problem. That was not in my ability to do so. In truth they had to FIX themselves because this life—this experience on Earth—is all about self-healing. You must determine what you want from your life and how badly that you want it? How deeply are you willing to dig into your own self to heal those ancient soul wounds from many lifetimes?

I told them there were things that I could do to help them in this healing endeavor, which I would do to the best of my ability like providing the most conducive healing environment around them as we worked together through the process of clearing out the old debilitating energies from their field: While lying under the high-frequency energy flowing from my hands, they relaxed on my table and went deep into a healing state of mind; and from there they learned to feel at peace with themselves and feel deeply loved beyond this level of living. I asked them what outcome they wanted from our session together and told them to picture it—to hold it lovingly, not desperately, within themselves. I relayed to them whatever images or visions I saw and felt while working on them; and asked if they wanted to release those old energies that they had previously refused to let go of before now, to start fresh—start new—to BE new from this moment onward. I could guide them through a soul-healing process, but the client had to be focused on taking a more active participation in the outcome.

***

For my own learning journey here in this plane of existence, it was never about me HEALING anyone. It was always about THEM HEALING THEMSELVES while I provided the proper atmosphere and energies for it to happen. Sure there were things I did that helped clear them or cleanse their energy field or relaxed them so deeply that healing came more naturally, but it was never about me being a HEALER at all. It was always their self-healing that mattered most. It took me a long time to finally realize that simple fact, but I believe it totally and completely now.

Honesty

I wish people could be rewarded for their honesty—especially during political season warfare. I doubt it would ‘break the bank’ with so few candidates applying for the honors.

This choreographed trend to be so politically correct in public discourse or at least inoffensive to whomever you are trying to sway with your rhetoric, is blatantly disgusting.

Whoever you are, why not just say what you mean and mean what you say. Is that so hard to do? Tell us where you really stand on important issues involving the health and welfare of others who are NOT you? Are you so afraid of our seeing your true self that you have to hide it under a pile of sanitized BS that still spews forth from your lips amidst your normal clouds of sulfurous fumes?

If you are really a bigot and a racist, then sound like who you actually are; not some carefully cultivated cleaned-version that you think will win you votes from folks who don’t really know you, and who YOU could truly care less about as soon as the election is over. Stop pretending you care about their lives other than their votes. Be your true authentic self—however flawed that might be. Let us see you in all of your unobstructed self-importance and tarnished public image. At least be honest about who you actually are.

Hopefully this is more than just a personal gripe of mine, but I hadn’t noticed how easily I normally ‘tuned out’ politicians and their standard self-focused blathering until listening this morning to a Bronx congressman talk about the state of politics and congressional races from his racially diverse point of view, which made way too much sense and sounded almost HONEST—not the usual hyped up, PR appropriate, politi-speak that politicians mindlessly emit.  He was sounding so common-sense and so practical that I perked up to hear him more clearly.  He almost sounded like an ‘honest politician’—is that even possible or is this just another election year ruse?  

When he called himself a “pragmatist” I thought, “Oh no. I’m being won over by a straight-talking, intelligent-sounding guy who values genuine problem solving and clarifying important common issues. And what’s even worse?  He sounds like he means it—sounds like he has lived it. That’s a dangerous stance in the political arena—someone being his actual self.

I don’t watch many political Sunday shows anymore because they all sound the same—just regurgitated politi-speak to emphasize what the majority of their listeners want to hear. But this guy was down to earth, and focused on the actual causation of social issues. He was a guy after my own heart—someone who keeps searching for that one correct question to ask to find an actual solution to all of our worst problems.

Now that’s scary—a politician that actually hooked my interest. Truth and honesty appeal that much to me because that’s the only way we can turn this off-kilter world around.

So is this guy for real or is his demeanor and manner of presentation just a new political ploy?  I guess only time will tell. Watch for Ritchie Torres.

Architects of Consciousness

I heard Lee Harris as he channeled a session with his guides say this phrase, “We are the architects of consciousness,” but the “WE” he was referring to in this case were not the guides themselves, but those who were listening to the session—meaning you and me.

Those of us who input all the sensory data from our personal realities and then assimilate and disperse it outward back into the world at large, are the architects of consciousness because we shape the information content and manner of distribution to those who are in contact with us.  The wider our dispersion zones, the more we help shape the collective consciousness within our sphere of influence.

That’s a lot of responsibility.

An architect is a ‘designer of structural integrity’ so when we consider that WE are architects of consciousness, that means we are the ones who define and create the structural integrity of our collective consciousness. Without structural integrity, a building collapses; the same goes for collective consciousness itself. It is only as solid and stable as we design/build it to be.

At times I wish I could point at the key problem in our shared world view and collective mentality, and say, “That’s it! That’s why we are so dysfunctional as a society and even hateful toward others NOT like us.”  But I can’t pinpoint it.

Maybe if I kept narrowing down the causes of hatred and fear, I could eventually limit the causation down to a few factors, but what is the ONE key reason for us to build such a shaky, unstable social structure around ourselves?

Perhaps it is insecurity. Could the answer be that simple?

Are we so insecure with ourselves and our situations in life that we build impenetrable barriers around ourselves, and then man the ramparts with 50mm cannons ready to annihilate or disintegrate any who dare approach us?  I really don’t know, but it bothers me that I can’t figure it out because it should be so apparent.

A quote attributed to Einstein comes to mind now about ‘asking the right question’ to corral the correct answer:

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask… for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”

Clearly I haven’t asked the right question yet.

Alternative Healing Options

In this blog on “Finding Your Truth,” I like to share info options and healing treatment methods that might be appreciated by anyone needing them. I’ve listened to Brandy Gillmore numerous times as she offers free posts on Facebook and elsewhere as she talks with clients using interactive healing dialogues.

Besides REIKI I’m also trained in hypnosis and NLP, so as I listened to her sessions I noticed something seemed familiar yet different in what she was saying to the client and in how she was engaging the person, then realized she was using a form of NLP—neuro-linguistic programming with a dash of hypnotic language to capture and redirect the client’s attention to the desired outcome. She often did it well and effectively. She even used a positive Pavlovian reward word “BINGO” each time the client made a verbal response to her prompts in the direction she was leading them. It’s annoying, but effective. For the subconscious mind it works, and that’s why she says it so frequently.

What I like most about Brandy and her treatment methods is that she came by them through personal struggle and indomitable will—she was determined to heal herself when others said it just couldn’t be done. But then they weren’t her. She’s a good example of self-determination and unwavering intention toward a desired goal.  She’s also well worth a listen. Give her a shot.

***

“Brandy Gillmore 

I remember the day doctors told me I would not heal. I was in pain, and devastated. But then I became determined to recover and find a solution.

For almost seven years I struggled with pain despite being on multiple medications. On a good day, I would get around using a wheelchair, cane, or walker… on a bad day, I couldn’t make it out of bed…

I began looking outside of the conventional system…while researching I came across the placebo which led to a deeper look into the mind, psychoneuroimmunology, energy, spontaneous remission, metaphysics, and quantum physics.

Determined to make a full recovery I tried all the common mind healing methods. I tried meditation and visualization, and even things like reiki and energy healing…Yet nothing worked.

I spent years of trial and error and was able to make incredible discoveries with the mind that ultimately enabled me to heal.

Today I use these same discoveries to help others who are also in the situation I was in.

I’ve put together a powerful free training where I am teaching the same strategies that I used to reach a full recovery!

If you are looking to have a deeper understanding of the mind/body and energy connection then register to the training below

=> https://brandygillmore.com/limited-time-training”

The SHIFT Is a Choice

Nicky Hamid is a higher soul who offers inspiration and thoughtful posts. I noticed this one on the SHIFT (to higher frequencies) as choice, is theme-similar to my previous post “On THE RACK” but from a gentler perspective. It’s worth considering and comparing the two view points.

“Nicky Hamid

The Shift is a choice.

It is a choice in any moment to step back into centre in the midst of conditions.

To step into your heart, your centre of Being, your stillness, your serenity. That is All.

As a human being you are being challenged every day. Challenged to choose how you wish to be conscious.

In the infinite vortex of unified YOU or the multitudinous options of chaos of a “conditional reality”, a separated point of viewing.

Every choice of stillness, of stop and feel, of allow, of smile, and of love, brings you closer, more fully into yourself. More connected.

And so it is in the moments of distraction, of reaction, of doubt and uncertainty that the choice of Shift and the mandate of your Being becomes possible.

Sweet brothers and sisters I so believe in you, in us.

Thank you for choosing your infinite expression in the stillness of your own Presence.

In the Presence of the Divine Oneness.

I So Love You

*****************************

PS: And dear friends, the great waves of The Tsunami of the Mother’s Love is HERE all around and flowing into and through us. All we need to do with any smallest of doubt is to believe in the power of Self/Source, make our choice, step back and Allow, and all healing and transformation will quite naturally follow.

We are here to heal and through our experience. All around us is presented with a vortex of Wellness. Thank you so much for being and sharing and for your part in Our great Transformation. Keep Shining.”

On THE RACK

I’m not talking ‘clothing’ here.  This RACK is torture related.

The RACK was a wooden device for stretching people in ways that literally pulled them apart at the joints. (Bound wrists are pulled in one direction while bound ankles are pulled in the opposite directions.)  It was a popular form of torture from early Greece (or elsewhere unknown) onward and particularly fashionable during the Spanish Inquisition for extracting confessions from prisoners for heresy or faithlessness to the church.

Why I’m mentioning it now is that to me energy-wise it feels like we are ‘on the rack’ at present and being stretched outward in all directions to see how elastic our bodies and minds can become before we split apart or fragment outwards into disjointed pieces—personally and collectively.

Change energy is coming in hard and fast right now; and it can be nearly overwhelming if you can’t pull back from it for a few moments to allow your body and mind to recoup and then refocus on stabilizing your own energy fields before you allow for more of that ‘change-energy’ onslaught to continue its assault on your being.

There is so much happening now and most of it unseen, but NOT unfelt. You might wonder if you are losing it entirely if you can’t ground yourself down and stop the insanity that’s occurring all around you.

Personally I stop many times a day just to take a deep breath and pull my scattered self back into my body to refocus my mind as to where I want it to be—NOT where the media or others around me want me to be focused. Then I may even repeat an affirmation like: “I hold only the purest and highest frequency of True Divine Love and Light, now and always.” And say it slowly three times, then sit back and relax into that higher energy that I’ve called to me. It really works to help settle anxiety.  Try it.

Learn how to reconsolidate your attention. Learn how to disconnect from what others think and project onto you. Learn WHO you are as a loving and compassionate individual, and discover WHAT you really want from this LIFE, NOT what others think you want or want you TO WANT.

This is a time to uncover and actualize your true potential for self-determination—to be and to do what you want to be and do with your own precious life. These current change energies are uncomfortable for a reason—they are stretching us out of our habitual comfort zones so we can grow into that ‘better person’ who is experiencing that desired ‘better life.’

Sure these change energies are unsettling and might feel like torture for awhile, but in the end they will force you to expand your understanding of yourself and everything around you. Just take some time away from this extensive stretching to occasionally stop, reconsolidate, and allow yourself to better adapt to the constant expansion pull.

You can handle this. Give yourself the time to stop completely once in awhile, breathe slowly and intentionally for a couple minutes, and then refocus yourself back to where YOU want to be focused—not where everyone else wants you to focus.

Remember: This current change-energy RACK has nothing on us if we don’t allow it to adversely affect us.   ” Stop—Breathe—Refocus.”

‘Unified Theory’ Theories

Different cultures, different minds have labeled the concept of ONENESS or ALLNESS with a name they could wrap their heads around. The Vedic culture of ancient India simply called it Akasha, and didn’t worry about scientific correctness with the term because there wasn’t such a thing as “SCIENCE” back then. But there was always AKASHA.

It is now commonly referred to by many as the ‘Unified Theory of Physics.’

“Many physicists, like the brilliant Bernard Carr, have suggested that a final unified theory of physics will include a description of consciousness. Right now, physics and by extension biology are not able to account for the phenomenon of awareness within material systems, however a theory that sees all things as connected via a unified field may be able to describe how awareness is a part of the cyclical flow of information across the universal network of spacetime and how via universal awareness events cohere into a temporal experience by conscious beings tracing worldlines through spacetime, themselves comprised of those spacetime worldlines, which we can then refer to as space memory, and hence the fabric of consciousness. This field-like nature of consciousness, at the very foundation of the physical world in the quantum vacuum structure—the spacetime quantum information network—where the brain is a receiver and filter of universal awareness as much as it is a generator of experience, can enable a scientific understanding of many types of experiences that would conventionally be referred to as spiritual or metaphysical.”  Nassim Haramein

***

“A unified theory would include the brain and body’s quantum connections with the wider universe. Imagine if everything we’re made of, iron, carbon, calcium, light, has retained – through entanglement or other mechanism – its connection to its original source at a quantum level, making us and everything around us, a projection of universal creativity. Perhaps we’ll develop technology to ‘date’ our body’s quantum properties, just like archaeologists carbon date their discoveries. This would imply all things have consciousness, the consciousness of a universe determined to create, to grow and support its creations.”    Sarah Fenwick 

***

For me in my limited intellectual capacity, I only know what I’ve seen, heard, felt for myself during my experiential living.  I say we can only hint at what this ALLNESS might actually be because we simply can’t fathom what we are incapable of even conceiving. (Or in another sense, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know.’)

We think there is a ‘realness’ to our living experience; and what we are living every day is itself called REALITY. But I also think that REALITY is a subjective interpretation to many; and we may not all share the same description of it.  

I’d mentioned in a previous post on our multidimensionality that “reality itself is a permeable mesh gauze that we populate with our thoughts and emotions” (They DO Exist!); and “To fully grasp the multidimensionality of ourselves is to realize that in one sense we are living in an elaborate dream that we have colonized with challenges to help us grow our consciousness; and in another sense ‘we are in charge’ of what we are dreaming/experiencing during the dream so we can make changes along the way, if we so desire.”  

But theories are just theories, and somewhere over the years I quit worrying about being ‘right’ about it all, and just focused on sharing my perspectives of this strange LIFE that we sometimes share in hopes of helping others to expand their own thoughts.  In the process of sharing with each other, we open our minds and broaden our perspectives to consider more of the ‘non-ordinary’ aspects in front of our faces.  

‘Context’ is an ever-prowling, elusive beast during our living experience.  We search constantly for meaning to our lives and tend to find it where ever we can. For some, religions fill that need. For others it’s more personal and self-exploratory.  But whatever theory you use for justifying your reason for being alive in the now, I hope it gives you peace of mind, because that is the ultimate goal—the acknowledgement of our overall interconnectedness within our shared experience.

The Evolution Process: On Shamanism

After seeing this Four Winds Society (Alberto Villoldo)  https://thefourwinds.com/  image posted this morning shortly after I’d just read an email of shamanic classes posted by a friend who conducts her version of them herself, it stirred some memories of my own explorations in that field of study a couple decades ago during my two-year Shaman Apprenticeship.

The image above saying “Can You Read the Signs of Nature?” hit me strangely—probably triggered me in a sense. I think we ALL read the signs of nature in our own ways. Perhaps I might have interpreted those signs one way prior to my shamanic training and a different way afterwards, but still, I think how we interpret the world around us is a very subjective assessment and one not easily defined as right or wrong by any standard interpretation—whether shamanic or non.

I laughingly say to friends that I tend to “reinvent myself” every decade, but around 20 years ago I was coming out of my ‘ALL THINGS REIKI’ (Usui/Tibetan/Karuna) phase and was starting my ‘ALL THINGS SHAMANISM’ (Peruvian, Central & SW American, Tibetan, De-possession training) phase that lasted easily a decade; and I can say without hesitation that the shamanism experiences were powerfully life affecting in many ways—some experiences were absolutely amazing and some were downright traumatic.

When you dabble in life areas that you don’t fully understand (And who really DOES understand any of them?), you open up yourself to that Field of ALL Possibilities I was mentioning in the last post. No amount of background reading could have prepared me for some of the experiential learning I gained through that Shamanic Decade of exploration. It was a mystically exhilarating and yet very humbling decade for me; proving to my inflated ego that I wasn’t nearly as smart nor as powerful as I had believed myself to be at the time.

We tend to think of ourselves as apex predators—top of the food chain sort of mindset, and then you are shown how little you actually know about this strange world that we live in and often struggle through. (It’s a part of that multi-dimensionality aspect we don’t normally consider.)

While I found that I wasn’t powerful enough to stop the horrendous ordeals I had to experience back then, I was at least strong enough to endure them until they dissipated; so I now have greater appreciation for my more ‘stubborn’ attributes. I simply refused to give up or give in until I had my life back to some semblance of normality during that decade; but it took years to get there. When you open a door into the unknown, you better be prepared for the ‘unimaginable’ behind it, because if you crave “learning experiences”, you will ultimately get them.

The decade between ‘All Things Shamanism’ and the present day was my ‘ALL THINGS HYPNOSIS’ decade (certified hypnotist, NLP Practitioner, Past Life/Spirit World Explorations) and that training helped me gain greater perspective on putting this entire life experience into a workable context that made a little more sense.

I also learned that whether you are dealing with the subconscious mind (shamanism’s lower world) or the super-conscious mind (shamanism’s upper world), the techniques to explore each might be different depending on the healing modality, but the same result could be achieved using hypnosis with less theatrical display and often more self-empowerment for the client.

But still…there is that inner part of me that loves a good fire ceremony or embodied nature walk or an acute awareness of the winds and the animals and the earth at my feet and sky above me that brings me back to deep appreciation for the shamanic training in whatever form I had experienced it.

The good, the bad; the black, the white—the boundaries of this LIFE as we know it—we are the artist intentionally drawing our life across this blank paper in whatever way that we choose—using whatever medium that most appeals to us. It is our self-portrait of who we are, created by our own hand—complete with highlights and shadows nuancing the extremes of our experience.

This is OUR process. This is how WE EVOLVE.

Considering Alternate Realities

(Art by 7th Dimension Energy )

I like the image above as representing the concept of alternate realities: where from the central core of our soul we spiral out spokes of infinite branches that develop their own version of potential lives.

This consideration that alternate realities exist is hard to get your head around; and even for me at this living experience level, I can just barely scrape the surface of understanding the concept that we, as eternal, immortal souls are exploring every spoke of possibility that we can imagine—and even those we cannot imagine.

I mean, it’s hard enough to live ONE life and deal with all the complexities of that, let alone deal with infinite lives simultaneously occurring in all aspects of existence throughout time and non-time.

This reminds me a bit of Tom Kenyon’s “Sphere of All Possibilities” courses. ALL exists all the time, everywhere—like a giant buffet of life choices awaiting your selection to explore; and within each selection are infinite additional experiential choices—ALL the time—everywhere.  How can you possibly wrap your brain around that concept? It’s overwhelming.

But the one thing this mind stretch does do is increase your awareness of how expansive you can view your own life possibilities if you don’t restrain your own creative potential. Even in this single soul-spoke—this one dimension of existence that you are currently aware—you have infinite possibilities to shift, change, explore, taste, feel, see, hear, and touch ALL possibilities—ALL the time. That could quickly become sensory overload without self-imposed sensing restrictions, which is likely why we limit ourselves to a single focal point.

So let’s take it a small piece at a time. Just for today open your eyes to new sights, open your ears to new sounds, etc., feel the world around you in new ways, touch everything within reach—taste the flavors of life you have yet to live. Just do that first part today.

And tomorrow you can consider that ALL is possibility—ALL is potential for your exploration.

Simply change your normal mode of operation in this world, and your world will change before you.

Pendulum Swings

In the back of my mind I was still mulling over the metaphoric aspects of the previous post on “Highlights and Shadows” when I listened this morning to Frank Bruni on Margaret Hoover’s “Firing Line” show where he solidified my thoughts on how we view our political and ideological extremism.

While the skilled artist works the opposing poles of blackness and whiteness into subtleties and nuances that produced the most beautiful portrait imaginable on a flat surface; the extremes of the two opposite colors still existed on the paper as boundary areas.

Because of my living this long, I have seen how society tends to pendulum back and forth between the opposing poles of ideological thought and political activism: liberals/progressives versus conservatives/right wingers, social reform versus economic competitiveness, egalitarianism versus elitism, and on and on.

Ruling parties last for awhile until the opposition gains enough strength to send them packing; and then puts in their own party’s sympathizers until broad dissatisfaction with that new rule grows into a counter-attack movement against it. Back and forth they go, but in the process they push social progress forward tiny steps at a time, like gears slowly turning behind the clock’s face-piece.

The key point here is that an active society is in a constant push/pull state—never stagnant, always penduluming back and forth between the two most vocal extremes of view; just like that old-time grandfather clock that relies on swinging the pendulum back and forth to shift the gears above it to advance time: second by second, minute by minute, until the hour hand slowly grinds forward into the next day and the day after that.

What Bruni was saying about this particular political/ideological/social climate, is that we are in The Age of Grievance, which is his actual book title. ‘Victimhood’ has achieved historic popularity now; and being ‘pissed off’ at something or someone (or everything and everyone) is the desired norm for many in our world at present.

Endless whining and righteous anger are the standard modes of operation in today’s social media environment. Some have made it their life’s work producing ‘RAGE blogs’ and propagandistic media to combat what is actually happening in TRUTH around us. Why believe TRUTH when you can believe ‘what you want to believe’ instead?

As Bruni suggests, maybe it’s time to pull back on the reins and bring this galloping horse to a stop before proceeding further down the most divergent path available to us.  Here’s a quote from a reviewer of the book, The Age of Grievance:

“Bruni deftly dissects how grievance came to pervade American life, with each political tribe attempting to ‘out-victim’ the other in increasingly ostentatious ways, leaving us in a kind of hellscape. If you are tired of hearing from entitled blowhards who have achieved success far beyond their merit yet still believe they are oppressed and you hope instead for a society that values humility, this is the book for you. Alternately funny, depressing, and pointed, The Age of Grievance is much-needed reading for the self-righteous Ivy Leaguer and the red-hatted insurrectionist alike.” —Tim Miller

Highlights and Shadows

As a longtime artist, I know my way around tools of the trade: from drawings with pencils/pens/charcoal to painting with watercolor, acrylics and oil.  In college I was primarily a woodworker with woodcuts and sculpture, but I leaned toward functionality over pure aesthetics, which meant more of a useful framed construction and practical creations, like furniture design.  

When I got out into the REAL world and needed a job beyond what my life was providing at the time, with my basic art background I became a Graphic Artist for an organization that had an internal print shop and needed the setup person to help put other people’s ideas into printed form. There I began working with the newest computers on the market back then which were Steve Jobs hottest new creations: Macs.  

It became a whole new universe when advanced Macintosh functionality hit the scene. Typesetting changed. Graphics changed. Skill-sets evolved and you needed to evolve with them. To do that you had to learn new layout programs and drawing/painting programs to get the job done quickly and professionally. You always had to keep up with the latest and greatest software available to do your job well, just to compete in the workplace.

But once in awhile I would still get a request for some basic pencil or pen work, so I didn’t lose my edge with that.

This morning I sat fascinated watching a charcoal artist online work up a masterful drawing that started practically dark-as-night with broad sweeps of thick black charcoal covering 3/4ths of the white textured surface; and I thought ‘What on earth can you do once you put that much pure black on that paper?’ Then I watched him transform that remaining inverted white teardrop shape into a lovely woman’s face that he gently shadowed first with his finger and a shader, outlined details in fine black charcoal pencil, and then highlighted with white pencil to give it the proper 3-D effect of light on raised surfaces like a nose, forehead, cheeks, lips and chin.

The entirety of the massive black background then became her hair and a beautifully detailed black-lace veil covering her head. It was amazing what he did with that massive black area. It was nearly unbelievable. (Too bad I can’t show you the actual image.)[Found it: Artist is Veri Apriyatno @ https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1002607734622758 ]

And he did all of this artistry skillfully using only ‘highlights and shadows.’ He took two extremes: blackness and whiteness, and finessed the rest of the image from those extremes until the woman’s head in its entirety breathed life on the page—the work of a true artist.

But as I watched him create this beautiful picture going from whiteness to blackness to subtleties and nuances, and then add the details necessary to make it leap from the paper, it dawned on me that it all came down to ‘highlights and shadows’ to reveal the truth of the image on the page.

Of course I could segue this into a metaphoric life lesson on better finessing our efforts in the world around us rather than perceiving and then reacting to the opposing extremes of a situation, but I hate to diffuse the residual beauty of the aforementioned finished portrait that arose from only charcoal and paper created by a skilled hand. That is the purity of TRUTH.

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