Listnin' for the New Told Lies

I got a note from an old friend yesterday asking me if I am okay. Seems that my volume input on Facebook has gone up enough to make her wonder. Oh yeah, watching for news like a hawk, reposting anything I feel is important and true. I didn’t realize there was so much of it.

The danger, as she and I know, is of obsession. We have not seen political theater to match this in forty years, and in fact it may now be even more anarchistic, a dividing line in time between BTD (before The Donald) and ATD. People are filling up their pantries with provisions and buying water filters – no one knows what is to come.

She is right about stepping back, away from the edge. I am no longer young enough to watch without fear. Back then, I was just as outraged at midnight political firings and secret bombings as I am with today's incredible coup, but we were fearless then with youthful expectations. The danger in my current outrage is that it is surrounded with fear – fear learned from a lifetime of watching things get worse. Fear that my family will suffer. Fear that there will be blood in the streets. It cramps my face and clamps my soul, rigid and SO missing the point. 

To the fearless, resistance is the secret of joy. To the fearful, resistance is terrifying.

I appreciated her reminder, but I had in fact already remembered that I know how to back off;  that creative activity carries me away from the rant and so, relieves my anxieties.  I designed a new mandala last weekend (see the above), and, much to my delight, I have learned again what I already knew, that coloring is just plain good for me.

The new mandala is meant to stimulate thoughts of harmony; each of the petals can be seen as individuals making up a whole, such as skin colors or ethnic groups (perhaps a rainbow palette?), all the plants and animals of the earth working together (greens, blues, and browns?), or even all the pieces of your own soul coming together to be you (only you know the color of your own pieces). You can just fill in color, overlay patterns, or draw inside the petals. Whatever you do, it will take your mind to a positive place where you can consider harmony while producing something beautiful. It will calm you down. 

If you would like to color the Harmony Mandala, click here to go to a downloadable PDF that you can print to color or open in a graphics program should you be into electronic art.  Use a heavier paper to print for wet media, a rougher paper to print for colored pencils. In fact, if you send me a scan of your finished piece with a little explication, I will publish it here.  Certainly I will publish my own after I choose my own tools of personal construction. Time to get out my colors and play:)

And I took my friend’s advice . Instead of reading news (and fake news), I listened to music on my ride to work. Masters of War today, Let the Sun Shine In tomorrow:)

Politial junkie that I am, I still must find out what is happening, just not so often, and not so desperately. Looks like we will have time enough to choose wisely where we can get involved. They have locked up the White House and thrown away the key. It will be up to us to find a duplicate.