In flow'r of youth and beauty's pride.

flower decal
Originally uploaded by robinannmcintosh

I'm a little late joining in the etsy-craze, but I just started exploring this incredible website... and wow! what a wealth of finds!

I bought this wall decal for the area above my bed. What do you think? I ordered it in brown...

check out the etsy shop here.

Work Ethic.

Curacao July 2008
Originally uploaded by robinannmcintosh

Still reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.

I continually read books when I need to read them - I always hear the things I need to hear - I always see the things I need to see - so why can't I believe I feel what I need to feel?

Some Rand-y quotes:

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.

Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.

Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.

The most depraved type of human being is the man without a purpose.

new apt inspiration

new apt inspiration
Originally uploaded by robinannmcintosh

apartment inspiration.... what do you think?

da da daaa....

first day on the new job. got here 30 minutes early (yes, I am my father's daughter), so now I have some extra time.

don't have internet in the new place yet, but I have some posts I will postdate....

off to check what all of you have been up to!!

<3

from the horse's mouth.

round two... soon. very soon.

I haven't written for ... awhile. Reasons being:

One, a potential employer, I am hesitant to write truthfully about my life. I sit down to write and a biting self consciousness seeps into my words... I write whatever I want to say, but when it comes time to cross that finish line - well, I can't bear to press "PUBLISH POST" for fear it will crop up in a future interview.... !!!! HELP!

... and two, I've had some stalker issues. Restraining order might be on the horizon...

... however, I refuse to be ruled by some fear or some concern or some worry.

in short, I apologize for my absence.

I am soliciting your advice-

how do you manage to tread that line between privacy and publication? How do you know if you are being "real" and "honest," or merely arrogant and exhibitionist?

other news:

- I GOT A JOB!

- Omar is here, in town, raising hell.

- Move into the new apartment tomorrow.

- Sir Sampson is hanging out with his dad this weekend, enjoying a few nights with the boys.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

But I don't think of you.

www.notcot.org

 Do you think Howard Roark would like this one? hm...

interviews all of tomorrow, wish me luck!! 

another word from Osho.

Osho writes,

The Jains call the person arihanta who has attained to himself and is so drowned, so drunk in the beatitude of his realization that he has forgotten the whole world. The word arihanta literally means “one who has killed the enemy”—and the enemy is the ego.

When you first enter into the world of no-mind it looks like madness—the “dark night of the soul,” the mad night of the soul. All the religions have noted the fact; hence all religions insist on finding a master before you start entering into the world of no-mind-because he will be there to help you, to support you.

What if your master, the person you learn things from, the person you admire - what if he or she is an arihanta?

california dreaming.

I am back in California, and I am doing just fine! more later <3 

by ee cummings. 

[somewhere i have never travelled]

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth - Evan's suggestion.

Jackie and I.

Evan originally got me this book... I take what I like and leave the rest.

When you recognize the unconsciousness in you, that which makes the recognition possible is the arising consciousness, is awakening. You cannot fight against the ego and win, just as you cannot fight against darkness. The light of consciousness is all that is necessary. You are that light (8).

They realize that how “spiritual” you are has nothing to do with what you believe but everything to do with your state of consciousness. This, in turn, determines how you act in the world and interact with others (18, 19).

Tomorrow Jackie, Dad and I begin our road trip back to Orange County... I plan to milk every moment! This is the last event of my last summer. I'll report more from the road : )

more from The Passion.

Is it because she will return that I take pleasure in being alone?

Hopeless heart that thrives on paradox; that longs for the beloved and is secretly relieved when the beloved is not there. That gnaws away at the night-time hours desperate for a sign and appears at breakfast so self-composed. That longs for certainty, fidelity, compassion, and plays roulette with anything precious.

Gambling is not a vice, it is an expression of our humanness (73).

Also, what do you all think of my new design?

funny about money

Week six of the Artist’s Way: Recovering a Sense of Abundance.

For many of us, raised to believe that money is the real source of security, a dependence on God feels foolhardy, suicidal, even laughable (105).

I have been forced into focus and frugality. Due to my current financial situation – no money – I have had no choice but to trust in a better future. The only alternative is misery, sheer desperation, and lots and lots of KrispyKreme.

Being with Omar for two weeks straight, and listening to him talk about employment, finances, jobs, etc., I realized how my go-to mindset is the happy optimist. Omar’s is the grumpy optimist bordering on pessimist.

I was raised to believe the money will always come… to desire it belies greed while to earn it demonstrates work ethic. To be materialistic is to be shallow, while to be a modest earner and saver is wholesome and good.

So that is my starting place, my childhood “core” beliefs.

Now how about art and money?

Cameron writes,

what we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us (108).

Is the economy too bad, too scary, too weak to feel this way? I want to write, but how can I write and earn? Do any of you have suggestions about pursuing your passion??

help!

Ayn Rand.

I am currently reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand... I want to save my comments for when I finish, but for now here are some quotes related to abundance.

A house can have integrity, just like a person, and just as seldom.

I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.

To say "I love you" one must first be able to say the "I."

Worry is a waste of emotional reserve.

I have come here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. . . . It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.

task: unwarranted Fears.

When I am writing I am often struck still. I am unable to move, I am rigid with panic and doubt. “Everything has been said!” the committee screams. There aren’t enough words, you are drowning! No air!

This is a fear I rarely give voice to… why? I am terrified that if I say it, just speaking of it will render it true. And real.

So I neatly sweep it under the rug – hide it beneath some pressing thought about boyfriends, girlfriends, dinner, whatever.

To silence this scream I am paying it mind.

What are your unwarranted fears?

last day in Curacao...

Before I left for Curacao, a physic informed me that “on an island surrounded by water,” my “third eye” would open. At the time I imagined a dramatic flourishing, a lightening bolt from the sky and striking me religious.

But of course, what happened was unexpected, and what was expected never happened. As is the way of the world. The awakening was more subtle, more graceful – like the slow and delicate opening of a flower.

Every morning I wake up and the slate has been cleared by someone nameless, someone who slips through my window and kisses me calm. I can’t hold the emotions from the previous day. I awake before my eyes open, when my body is tense with the idea of awakening. I know I must rise, but I let myself drift in darkness a little longer – I am on vacation, I have the time.

I brush my teeth, I brush my hair, I pull on a tee shirt and shorts. I walk onto the white washed porch and watch rays of sun slash green water. My friend tinkers with something indoors, but I ignore him. I am obsessed with the clean slate: who and what is the cause?

Sometimes I make breakfast, most of the time I do not. I wait until my body informs me of hunger, then I eat. I write for thirty minutes to shake the night’s dreams from my head to the page. I sip coffee and wait for the sun to stand at it’s full height, yellow and burning in a blue arch of sky. I undress and lay on a porch chair, absorbing the heat with my burning body.

The day moves on, with and with out our knowing. We move to an internal rhythm. When we feel like drinking, we drink. When we feel like singing, we sing. Dancing, cooking, swimming, laughing.

Often we jump in our start-and-stop car for a drive through the country. We wave at passers-by and stick out our tongues at children in buses. We lose track of where we are and lose track of ourselves in the island city of mazes and nameless streets.

We always find our way back.

Every night ends with a feast we prepare in celebration of the day. Seltzer chills in the ice box while my friend strings shiskabobs and I chop vegetables. We eat outside on the porch. We light candles only to watch the island winds blow them out. My friend plays with his music until he settles on a playlist that always includes Van Morrison.

This island is a place for extremes. The rugged earth and charging ocean intensify once mundane affairs. Each moment the past and the future fade to gray, and I am left with the primary colors- the here, the now, and the breath.

****