A Stormy Moment

The wind’s in the willows

My heart is in two.

The wind’s in the willows…my heart is in two| Music: 50 Shades of Purple | Songs For the Brokenhearted by Maria Paloma

I sit being billowed

Thinking of you.

Thinking of You… | Music: Molly (feat. Brendon Urie of Panic at the Disco) | Lil Dicky

The wind’s in the willows

It’s starting to rain.

It’s starting to rain… | Music: Thunderstorm & Rain (Sleep & Mindfulness) | Sleepy John

I sit getting drenched

Both with droplets and pain.

I’m getting drenched… | Music: Pain PinkPantheress | [1] Pain    1:39

Poet unknown, but I found a copy of this very same poem in Chapter 55 of a Timeless Place.

For a dear friend who shared this poem recently. I love its imagery and was inspired to animate parts of it with Archetypal Animations.

Have a beautiful and soulful day.


Following are sources for the images and music used to create each Archetypal Animation. All images for this blog come from Pixabay and all music is from Spotify. To hear the music, just click the little sound box in the upper right-hand corner of each animation.

You can follow my Pixabay account to see collections of spectacular photos I have encountered in my searches for images for Archetypal Animations. And follow my Spotify account for meditative and powerful playlists of musicians I have discovered in my search for musical soundtracks for Archetypal Animations.


Feature Archetypal Animation:

UnderWater Fashion Woman Art Water Tank Fine Art | Engin_Akyurt | Engin Akyurt  •  Age 41  •  Türkçe  •  Member since Nov. 1, 2016  •  #25
Willow Tree Winter Light Color Sky | elvina1332 | Эльвина Якубова  •  Age 29  •  Каспийск/Россия  •  Member since Jan. 22, 2018  •  #869
Match Smoke Match Head Sticks Matches Burn | roegger | Deutsch  •  Member since Nov. 25, 2014
Girl Nighttime Lantern Oil Lamp | Greyerbaby | lisa runnels  •  Age 59  •  magee/united states  •  Member since Jan. 13, 2012
Love Heart Valentine’s Day Red Affection Hearts | marcosaasilva | Marcos Silva  •  Age 58  •  Macaé/Brasil  •  Member since Nov. 19, 2016

Music: Day 28: Mantra for Moving Forward (So Dar Keha) | Meditative Mind


First Archetypal Animation:

Weeping Willow Willow Tree | MabelAmber 👀 who will one day  •  make you hide…/your face in your hands 👀  •  Member since Sept. 6, 2015
Heart Broken Nature Love Leaf | Modman | Kevin McIver  •  Age 59  •  English  •  Member since April 22, 2015
Hourglass Shattered Broken | Heather_Ann | Heather Plew  •  Age 32  •  Grapeview/USA  •  Member since Jan. 25, 2018
Heart Crack Broken Pain | chadkrue17 | Chad Krusenstjerna  •  Age 25  •  Lynnwood/United States  •  Member since Aug. 24, 2015

Music: 50 Shades of Purple | Songs For the Brokenhearted by Maria Paloma


Second Archetypal Animation:

Abstract Background Grey Billow | yadiyadi | English  •  Member since Jan. 28, 2013
Background Abstract Etherial Billows | yadiyadi | English  •  Member since Jan. 28, 2013
Paraglider Leisure Sports Free Flight | JACLOU-DL | JackieLou DL  •  La Baie du Mont saint Michel/France  •  Member since June 10, 2017  •  #72
Woman Face Light Painting | Inactive account – ID 19833603

Music: Molly (feat. Brendon Urie of Panic at the Disco) | Lil Dicky


Third Archetypal Animation:

Weeping Willow Willow Tree | MabelAmber 👀 who will one day  •  make you hide…/your face in your hands 👀  •  Member since Sept. 6, 2015
Window Glass Water | Pexels | English  •  Member since March 26, 2016
Rain Umbrella Pavement Red Black | nikondian | Souvick Ghosh  •  Age 32  •  Kolkata/India  •  Member since July 22, 2017
Cloud Heart Love Wind | Kranich17 | Michaela  •  Germany  •  Member since Jan. 6, 2019  •  #332

Music: [1] Thunder & Rain Sounds, Pt. 01    1:05 | Thunderstorm & Rain (Sleep & Mindfulness) | Sleepy John


Fourth Archetypal Animation:

Hand Hyperhidrosis Sweating | BarbaraBonanno | Barbara Bonanno  •  Massa (MS)/Italia  •  Member since Feb. 20, 2015
Scream That Weather Breath | Engin_Akyurt | Age 41  •  Türkçe  •  Member since Nov. 1, 2016  •  #25
Under Water Fashion Woman | Engin_Akyurt | Age 41  •  Türkçe  •  Member since Nov. 1, 2016  •  #25
Under Water Fashion Woman Art | er Water Fashion Woman | Engin_Akyurt | Age 41  •  Türkçe  •  Member since Nov. 1, 2016  •  #25
Under Water Fashion Woman Art | er Water Fashion Woman | Engin_Akyurt | Age 41  •  Türkçe  •  Member since Nov. 1, 2016  •  #25

Music: Pain PinkPantheress | [1] Pain    1:39

My small insight in animating parts of this poem is:

Keep moving forward no matter the weather inside or outside.

Every emotion, feeling, and mood is rocket fuel powering us ever forward through new beginnings and endings on our endless and indestructible journey through the feeling of being.

It is only through the dark that we know the light.

It is only by descending to our deepest depths that we can reach our highest heights.


One more insight, actually it is a synchronicity between working on this poem and a movie that my husband and I watched last night. We saw a BBC version of Great Expectations. Neither of us had ever read Charles Dickens book nor seen any of the movies made about it.

Both of us were spelled bound by the convoluted beautiful tale Dickens weaves through all his stories. We were particularly captivated and appalled by Miss Havisham.

"Humiliated and heartbroken, Miss Havisham suffered a mental breakdown and remained alone in her decaying mansion Satis House – never removing her wedding dress,..." -- Wiki

Here is a sense of the depth of despair she has descended to and refuses (or cannot) let go of in this complicated story.

great expectations | miss Havisham
57,082 views, Jan 2, 2012

Her endless pain bends and distorts her until she appears more dead than alive, more witch than beautiful maiden, which she was. Still she clings to her unendurable pain, the consequences of which ripple through and define the rest of her life and beyond.

I listen to a lot of Alan Watts, and he talks a lot about letting go because there is no way to hold on to it. It can be pleasure, pain, money, status, whatever it is a person is tempted to hold on to. He also talks about peaks and troughs. You can’t have one without the other.

I immediately sought to find an example of what would happen to a human being who only held onto pleasure. A person who refuses to see, feel, or know their own pain. I could not think of a literary example, but my mother-in-law sprang to mind.

I realized a person who holds on to pleasure also is beaten and battered into more of a monster than a human being by this force–for pleasure is an energy just as pain is energy. We feel these energies as emotions inside of us.

A person who clings to pleasure becomes dim, shallow, and cruel. They become a person who takes pleasure in other people pain, misfortune, and sorrow. They have forgotten their soul needs food to grow and that consuming someone else’s pain is a pretty poor substitute for their own.

To grow, a soul needs to sink into the depths of being a mortal being. Denying their own pain and suffering, cuts them off from other people and slices themselves in half. A person who clings to pleasure becomes the same type of pitiful monster that Miss Havisham becomes due to clinging to her pain.

You can follow my journey in exploring what happens to a person who clings to pleasure through my Big Sky Series.

Traveling to Big Sky Country — September 22, 2021 — Moab — Junction
26 views
Premiered Oct 15, 2021

Have a beautiful day!

Poems & Koans | Reflections on Time

Time flies like butterflies

Time Flies

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Sipping the nectar

Sipping the Nectar

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of Distant Stars

Distant Stars

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Haikus

After a month of listening to Alan Watts, I understand that it is I who create the problems I perceive. And only I can grow out of them.

There is nothing more to say.

All my blogs have been for not. I think perhaps the only thing left for me to do here is attempt to master the art of writing a descent haiku. This is an ancient art form using words like paint brushes to capture things that cannot be said, only felt, in three brief sentences.

“Haikus can be written for just about anything. There are haikus for humor, to raise social awareness, to evoke emotions, or to reminisce on the past. The idea of compression, though, remains the same. Haikus are a microcosm of a larger idea or feeling.”

Poetry with a Purpose: Why the Haiku?
Haiku began in thirteenth-century Japan as the opening phrase of renga, an oral poem, generally a hundred stanzas long, which was also composed syllabically. The much shorter haiku broke away from renga in the sixteenth century and was mastered a century later by Matsuo Basho, who wrote this classic haiku: An old pond! -- Haiku | Academy of American Poets
Bashō is usually credited as the most influential haiku poet and the writer who popularized the form in the 17th century. Outside Japan, Imagist writers such as Ezra Pound and T.E. Hulme wrote haiku in English. -- Haiku | Definition, Format, Poems Example, & Facts | Britannica

Thinking Is A Hard Habit To Break

The habit of thinking and writing about such thoughts; however, is hard to break. Thus, I will indulge in recalling that yesterday was September 11.

It has been 20 years since the 9/11 attacks. For 20 years, 9/11 is a day of remembrance, grieving, and reflection about all that has transpired since that day. This includes the war on terror, which has become known as the Forever Wars.

Reveal just aired a hard-hitting episode on the costs and aftermath of these wars. In short, over 3,000 people died on 9/11 and in the past 20 years as the US searched for those responsible for this horrific attack, more than 900,000 soldiers, contractors, and civilians have died in the Forever Wars.

Photo from Reveal | September 11, 2021 | Episode: Forever Wars

It is so easy to tear asunder and destroy the delicate balances sustaining all life on earth. Human beings have proved to be especially adept at doing this due to beliefs, attitudes, values, and misguided directives that are held doggedly to inside our minds and that only serve to gouge out deep trenches inside of ourselves (inside our souls) that make it possible for a good and decent person to do the most horrible things. These trenches inside of us is what separates us from each other and most of us will never escape their great depth and gravity.

It does not matter what steadfast beliefs a person clings to or what side they are fighting for because the result is the same. Once a person begins to cling to symbolic thought (replacing insufficient symbols for reality), the digging of the Pit of Peril begins and grows deeper and deeper as more and more adamant beliefs replace reality with rote responses and reactions. The harder a person clings to their resolute beliefs, the deeper and wider the trench of separation grow inside. This is the story of separation. It is the fall of man.

It is so much easier to love one another and to try to listen to one another to understand each other and live in peace rather than cultivate the inner forces of hate and separation.

September 11

Following the theme of remembering 9/11, these are two photojournalistic reflections of this day of remembering and reflection.

Today Was 9\11
A Day Between 9 11 Flags | Sept. 6, 2021

The Last Enemy

I will also mention one more thing regarding a synchronicity that occurred around this time. It is always important to pay attention to synchronicities when they occur in one’s life. Each person’s synchronicities are utterly unique and appear to help you grow as a conscious being. I share mine synchronicity story only as an example.

It began when I received my latest Netflix DVD. The title was The Last Enemy. I had no idea what it was and why I had put this in my cue. I almost sent it back without watching it thinking it was probably nonsense and I had made a mistake. However, I ended up watching it the day before September 11, 2021. It was absolutely relevant to this moment in time. It was made in 2012 and is about a fictional future where a devastating terrorist attack (like what happened on 9/11) turns Britain into a super surveillance state to keep everyone safe from those who might want to do us harm… but is everyone really safe? There is also a mysterious pandemic going on too.

I understand why Qers, plandemic believers, and even anti-vaxxers grow and harvest such ideas inside their minds. These are exciting concepts rich with conflict and mistrust. And such concepts provides the mind with a powerful fuel that speeds people through their daily activities, and quite often very dull routines. It is a type of mind fuels that provides individuals with a deep sense of meaning and purpose that they are fighting something evil.

That’s what this series explores.

The Last Enemy
Set in a recognisable, near-future London beset by terrorism and illegal immigrationThe Last Enemy features the introduction of "TIA" (Total Information Awareness), a centralised database that can be used to track and monitor anybody, effectively by putting all available government and corporate – i.e. credit card and bank activity, phone use, internet use, purchases, rentals, etc. – information in one place.
The story deals with a political cover-up centred on a sanctioned but secret medical experiment run amok with key members of the government trying desperately to hide all evidence of their experimental batch of vaccine that seems to be causing a deadly virus. The complex story unspools to reveal the moral, social and privacy concerns of this hypothetical TIA system in a post-7/7 world, including such control mechanisms familiar to both real life and science fiction as retinal scans, fingerprint identification and ubiquitous camera and cellphone surveillance footage.
The story is told through the eyes of a mathematical genius, Stephen Ezard, who is portrayed as a recluse showing some signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder. But the shy genius overcomes his own inhibitions to burrow into a highly compromised British government using his brilliance and their TIA system only to find himself ultimately trapped by the people he most trusts, and to learn he is a pawn in manipulative Security State machinations which take the people he most loves from him and compromise him forever. -- From Wiki

Alan Watts

Lastly, this is one of the Watts lectures I listened to in the past month.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9DNxMw8oMU&list=PLNALjWaYTIfWaPDLOlfA5lQo9hhTCbsxC&index=45&t=13s
Alan Watts – What Real Ideas Do You Operate On

“Reality escapes all concepts. If you say there is a god that’s a concept. If you say there is no god that’s a concept. Nagarjuna is saying that always your concepts will prove to be attempts to catch water in a sieve.”

— Alan Watts