Tolerance is not enough.

Tolerance speaks of enduring something that you rather not. It can be seen as condescending: you have need to tolerate someone and their cultural, personal, and religious beliefs. Tolerance does not equal equality. When we tolerate something, we acknowledge it as something unequal and disdainful to us.

At times, our beliefs and morals limit our sight. If we are constantly edgy and ill at ease with each other, how should we coexist as neighbors? You cannot expect a religion or practice you believe wrong or unjust to one day change. If there is to be hope of coexisting, you must accept and respect the fact that someone believes differently than you, without seeing it as something less than what you believe.

I’m not preaching that you should blindly accept other beliefs as just, I’m asking you to keep an open mind and be willing to see past your differences, and treat them as the people beneath the shroud of bias and superiority. When you get down to the basis of it, we are all people, from fanatics to fundamentalists, to witches and monks.

“I’m a little bit suspicious of the word tolerance. It’s a rather condescending notion, isn’t it, that you tolerate somebody else. Acceptance is the notion that you just accept that people are different and have different views and we’ve all got to live together.” — Justice Michael Kirby

Photos (somewhat recent)

Art updates

I promise-promise-PROMISE to update more often so you don’t get big uploads like this! Wondering why nothings really quality? Well… I’m lazy.

How to Ground and Center Yourself

My girlfriend asked me to clarify something she learned, and so I thought I’d share with the rest of you after thinking about it some more. I’ll be using yoga references as well.

When I ground myself, I usually begin in tadasana, or mountain pose. In tadasana, you should be standing straight, your ears parallel with your shoulders, and those lined up with your knees and feet. Don’t hyperextend(lock) your knees, but let your muscles support the weight. Lift your toes up, spread them, then press them into the ground and evenly distribute your weight on your knees. Begin breathing from your belly in long, slow breaths through your nose. Breathe in for a count of five, hold it for five, let it out for five, keep your lungs empty (if you can!) for a count of five before beginning the cycle again. If this feels unnatural, just breathe normally.

Slowly relax your body, starting with your toes, to your knees, thighs, abdomen, chest, and neck. Relax your mouth, your eyelids, and your forehead. Imagine, through your feet you have tree roots growing down into the nourishing earth. Find the energy, the nourishment there and make it travel up your roots, and into your body. Bring it up your legs and spine, or your trunk.

Then, on an in-breath, raise your arms slowly above your head, so they’re lined up with the rest of your body, palms facing each other. This is urdhva hastasana, also known as upward hands or upward salute. It helps relieve anxiety and center the mind, while also using your arms and hands to serve as your tree branches.

Let the energy from the earth fill you, and go up your branches. On your out breath, imagine all negative energy and stress leave your body (I imagine it leaving through my mouth, expelled with the air in my lungs) and return to the earth. All your worries, insecurities, just let it leave your mind. On the in breath, take your fill of positive energy again.

In yoga, during urdhva hastasana, we would streeeetch upwards during an inbreath (keep your feet flat!). Do so, and imagine you’re soaking up glorious sunlight, before relaxing on an outbreath.

When you feel ready, bring your arms back down to your sides for mountain pose, wiggle your fingers, quicken your breath, and if they were closed, open your eyes.

This is the way I ground and center myself , but there are also numerous other ways, such as using your chakras, or using other elements to ground/clear yourself. For instance, burning away negative energy by imagining a purifying fire, or gently washing it away with soothing water. Just find the one that works for you.

XC Season Over – Samhain coming!

So cross-country is over.. I’m going to miss the team practice everyday. However, I have freetime for about two weeks. I’ve signed up to be a manager for the girl’s basketball team, so I can condition with them, and get a Varsity letter on my record.

I honestly wanted to paint something for everyone for Samhain/Halloween, but my schedule was too crowded… I will definitely be doing something for Yule!

School has started!

School started last Thursday! I joined cross country. It’s great.

I don’t have any art to show you that isn’t on my deviantart already, but hopefully I will soon.

I’ve been really stressed out lately. I broke my nose, had a run-in with my mother, Amber (dog) needs a tumor removed, some trouble communicating with GF, and finding time to work on commissions.

But you know what they say: “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” Or colder, more withdrawn, emotional. Feel free to switch the words around.

Summer’s almost over!

Work is boring. I can’t wait for school, when I don’t have to work from 7:30-5. When is the last time I was happy about school?
I dont have any art updates, unfortunately. I’ve been too busy with work to make any progress, although I promise that I will finish up commissions and ongoing work ASAP when school starts and then open my commissions again.

I have next week off! We’re camping at this lake where we have always camped since I was born, and before that even.

The big thing about that is, is that my mother won’t let me take Kira. I haven’t been able to spend a smidgen of time with her for months, and was hoping to squeeze some hiking, swimming, and kayaking with her in before summer ends. Nope. Mother has labeled anything related to going out of town with a big NO DOGS sign. Yikes. What that basically means for me is that I’ll be bored and worried all vacation about her.

Art WIP’s

Starting a piece to see how good I actually am.. I’ll be updating the images so that the ones you see here are the current ones, but if you want to see the saved images as I work along, see here.

^click for fullsize^

And another WIP of a commission piece:

^click for fullsize^
I also recently did a waterfall and Welsh Terrier:

Wooooork.

Work work work work. I have to get up at 6 am, leave by 7, and be at work at 7:30. I then proceed to chase around toddlers until 5:15. I get paid minimum wage, and I work 40+ hours a week. Happy summer!

Not accepting any more art commissions at the moment, I simply don’t have enough time.

In order to make the site less boring I’ll probably be adding some stuff to spruce it up.  Stuff such as twitter, polls, flickr, etc. Please leave a comment and tell me what you think!

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