Of Masks and Money

Let’s talk about masks,
baby.
Let’s talk about Hall-A-ween!
(to the tune of let's talk about sex, only there's no sex)
Which was yesterday,
but people wear masks Every Single Day.      
Oh man.
My hubby is a very good mask wearer.
I know what most of them look like
and I know what most of his real face looks like.
That's as much as we need to create happiness in our relationship.

Mask wearing and Me,
not so much,
unless I'm doing a spooky photo-shoot ;)

If I don’t like you
or I’m annoyed with you,
you probably know,
especially if you read my blog. ;)

But that’s why he works ‘Out There’
and I work ‘In Here.’
I don’t like playing emotional and/or mental games.
What a waste of time I could be using to make art
or just staring out the window watching the world God grew around me.
Doing what appears to be nothing is much better for me than wasting it playing those kinds of games.      

But mask wearing is a HUGE part of Life,
I’ve found,
especially in the areas of :
‘WORK’ (especially work places)
and MAKING MONEY.

The underlying annoyance in my life that is triggering these thoughts/beliefs to resurface:

People disguise themselves as teachers who really want you to do well.
That’s great.
Until they need to do more than just say in a recorded video, "I want ‘you’ (insert nameless student/the video camera or computer they’re actually looking at) to do well!"
And they’re unable to do so.
For whatever reason.

I believe that part of being a teacher,
a good teacher,
is providing positive feedback.
Givin' the teacher-ly love to a student who has and is working hard.
So when you receive crickets,
crickets come off as.......(fill in the blank with what you think it means)
For me, it's something other than positive I can tell you.

I woke up with this thought yesterday and today:

I AM SO GLAD I DON’T HAVE TO GO TO HIGH SCHOOL TODAY!
Oh man - magickal love and blessings to those who do.
What a scary place.
It's been highlighted from my recent love of the movie Crazy/Beautiful.
Art Journalling kissed Movies rock!!

And now tickled with :

I wish I had art journalled my way through my life when I was younger instead of....... But bygones.

Anyways,
You can’t behave that way and not have it affect your success!!
People find out.
More and more these days,
stuff gets out.
It’s not as easy to keep secrets.
People realize that you aren’t behaving the way you say you believe.
And then it gets around.
People talk.
Nasty stuff spreads faster than positive stuff
which is weird because it’s like sludge so how the hell does it move so fast, eh?

Talking.....
at gatherings, especially,
and Especially women.
There’s truth there.
Some men do this,
but most don’t
because they’re........ugh, I can’t get into what they are besides cool enough to bear when they’re my hubby. 
You gotta "bear down" though.
"I don’t know that’s what they always say, ‘Bear down.’" (Look who’s talking’)

Anyways, it’s kinda sad, though,
because I DO want her to succeed!!
even though it’s obvious she does not want the same for me.
:( that part makes me sad again,
but more for her than for me because her lack of response to me is affecting her negatively (or is it effecting her - whatever, you know what I mean),
Period.
By chain reactions of choices and behaviors,
we are e/affected in 'this world' and spiritually.
Cause and Effect is REAL.

If she does want me to succeed though,
she is TERRIBLE at showing it.
So Terrible that I simply don’t believe it.
Nor do others.

But honestly, part of why I keep going back:
I feel sorry for her because she just can’t see her own behavior.
And I’m trying my best to support her in the way that I CAN,
that I’m Willing to
and where those things meet with what She’ll receive in positivity,
because some stuff I could give her WON’T HELP HER.
Believe me,
There are many things I would have liked to have said to her in a moment and then wanted to un-ring that fucking bell.
So many things I’d like to say to her - I clench my teeth!!!!
But seriously, there are enough people out there who want her to FAIL!
(with a real quiet whisper, and die. even if they don’t know it)
But me, I don’t want to see her in the streets.
My best part of me wants her Happy!
I DO, I DO, I DO.
I do believe in spooks.
Even if she doesn’t want me to succeed.
I want her to.
She doesn’t need to or have to want me to succeed.
I ALREADY HAVE! :)

Don’t matter that I can’t seem to receive her approval.
I don’t need her approval.
I know I’m kick ass.
Big, cheesy grin.
I don’t approve of HER BEHAVIOR,
but I DO APPROVE OF HER.
I approve of Her.
As hard as it is sometimes,
as hard as she makes it,
I Approve of Her Sweet Child-like Soul.

But as far as a teacher goes,
a teacher teaches
and that part is true.
I was taught,
by her
and I’ve learned,
and taken what I learned and broke all kinds of rules she told me along the way
because she’d probably be in line saying - Just make art. Don’t worry about the rules.
And I’ve made art.
My Art from My Heart.
From my life......
Who do you think haunts Fern Hill Cottage?

But as far as the part where she wants you or me to do well......
No.
NO.
THAT’s the mask part, people.
In order to make money you gotta sell something people want.
And when you’re selling that you're a teacher,
you have to pretend that you have good intentions when you don’t.
Because if you’re not wearing the mask to cover up your damage,
who is going to hire you if you’re looking to damage people like you are damaged?

When your mother ignores you,
you ignore your children.
Students are children.

Thank you God not all teachers are like this!!

But these are PEOPLE we’re talking about,
IMPERFECT,
and some are mentally and emotionally damaged.
They don’t know it.
They don’t correct it.
And as a result,
they behave from and act out of and choose from their wounds.

Some of them are SUPER dangerous.
And some are like a black cat on a day after Halloween day with un-trimmed claws!
Easily tended to with a band-aid and the nail trimmer.
;)

Honestly, she isn’t doing well herself.
I can see that easily.
It seems she only can momentarily wear the mask
of okay’ness before it pops off and her true face shows.
It’s not a crime.
It’s probably pretty normal.
Life is hard.
I can admit,
in a way,
that’s true about me as well.
But I’m not putting myself out there as a teacher who wants you to do well and having you pay me for it, am I.......
No, I’m sharing from my heart,
as best I can,
while almost constantly battling self-doubt
amongst other demons like dirty dishes.
Grrrrrr.

Is the money the only difference???
I don’t know.
I’d have to spend WAY more time thinking about this
and I’m half way down the freaking rabbit hole as it is.

Let’s just say,
we’re all probably bouncing back and forth between wellness and unwellness,
somewhere,
somehow.

But mask wearing is different than that I know.

I have noticed,
There is a WHOLE LOT of mask wearing while attempting to make other people’s money your money.
That’s what the hubby calls it (SEE, I give him credit for things he says to me, I don’t just post them on my page like I said it)
He’s trying to make his company’s money, our money.
They’re trying to make their customers’ money, their money.
The customers are trying to make their cash sources’ cash, their cash and that might be YOU.

I’ve seen them before they started making 6 figures
and I’ve seen them while they’re making it.
Turning their blogs into these money making machines that seem more like they belong to a car salesman than an artist.
If you pay this amount, you’ll get this and that and this and that.
It’s like an info-mercial within what is deemed a blog.
Is it really a blog anymore????
Or is that just your blog’s Halloween costume?
OH, you’re an INFO-MERCIAL!!! .....good one.

Thing is, all that stuff is very, sometimes VERY subtle PRESSURE applied to your psyche.
You can believe that or not,
but there are subtle ‘things’ used in sales that they have done studies on and most people unconsciously respond to it.
THERE IS A SCIENCE TO SALES.
And these people are using it against other people.
It seems sneaky and unfair to me,
for me to use something that I know could trick you into doing something that you don’t necessarily want to do......
Or maybe don’t have the money to do.
Makes me feel uncomfortable.
I’m thinking - what’s your finances like? Are you in money troubles? ‘Cause you really probably don’t need what I’m selling, etc......
That’s what I’m thinking.
But I’m not a Sales-Person or a Business Person.
I’m a fucking artist man with no sales or business person alive in here.
There’s an echo and a whole lot of cobwebs on that person’s office,
as they were laid off years ago due to lack of things for sale around here.

Again,
making money the way I’m talking about isn’t necessarily a crime.
We could get into an ethics discussion,
but that’s a TOTAL Rabbit Hole with no bottom because everyone has their opinion and will probably never come to one agreement overall.

Thing that bothers me is I see how easily we can get sucked into these ploys.
Next thing we know,
we have no money because someone made our money theirs!

Everyone has to survive I suppose though,
so a big,
Hey, whatever floats your boat.
Sell sell sell,
that’s the way of the world, eh?
Whatever.
I don’t judge it as Wrong.
I judge it as WRONG for me.

I just know money complicates it too much for me.
My art and Life is complicated enough.
Numbers make my eyes do funny things like Homer Simpson.

But there is this....

It’s Friday and I just got paid:

"you brought me to tears. I thank you from within my heart as I just feel that you share a piece from within yours every time you journal for us to see.

~Smilz" from Ronda Garner

WOW-ZA.
What a compliment!!
I am heard.
I am approved of.
I am blessed.
It’s like chocolate. 
Mmmm, sweeter than any trick or treater.

~magick~
Meliss

Ps: Final thoughts: The point isn’t just to leave it at what we experience other people’s behavior and choices as, the point is to find out HOW WE ARE LIKE THEM and to heal what is injured so we can take off our mask and live a life that is authentic to OUR-SELF and NOT Authentic to the unconscious being we become when we act out of our pain.......A ZOMBIE. Remind me to tell you about Zombies sometime!!

Where the transmission of THIS particular subject ends because I need to go to the library and/or make art:

My job is to use these examples in the world and to USE them, to Learn from them, to compare to my own choices and behavior. In all of this, I just know I know ONE FUCKING THING:

****If I don’t like someone else’s behavior, the first thing I should do is to make sure I’m not doing it to someone else!!!! I’ve got some rooting around in my life to do.****

Featured Film Short: Her Un-Armed Beauty

May I present to you,
Her Un-Armed Beauty,
a Tribute to a girl I once knew.



Dena was this really bitchin’,
free spirited, totally cool, hippie chick, girlfriend I had senior year of high school.

Although our friendship did not last past our early 20's,
the memories we made together have lasted.

She died in September of 2004
and today is her birthday.
(at least it was when I wrote this before many time and technical difficulties)
She was born exactly one month before me in 1972.

I took these pictures of her.
One from one side
and one from the other.
She literally turned and we set up,
I moved, she fluffed her hair, and I took the pic!
What a difference.

I see a little girl, sweet, but unsure in one
and I clearly see a woman in the other.
I Always loved these pictures of her.
Now, I’m at a point in my life when I have the ability to create something really unique and special that reflects something of Her and of the times we shared.

She deserves to have art made about Her.

She always seemed to be trying to get her life together.
One time, she moved to CA from The East Coast.
It ended with her returning home,
on the plane,
crying.
She said she cried on the plane next to some guy.
She felt bad for him.
I felt bad for her.
I wished I’d been able to be there for her.

But once I was.
And I’ll always hold a special place in my heart for the time she cried in my lap.
Does that sound sick or mean?
I don’t mean it to be.
I feel more like Sally Fields in Steel Magnolias saying, “It was a most precious moment of my life.” (Or does she say the most precious?)

But now I’m the one crying
and saying,
THERE IS VALUE HERE IN THIS LOVELY EXPERIENCE PEPPERED WITH PAIN.
If you can find the value in the pain.
You Are Totally GOLDEN.

Your job is to find that in your own sadnesses,
in your own losses.

Don’t stop at SAD.

Dig deeper and go for the sob

So, Dena, thank you for helping me to experience part of The Great Tragedy in Life.
If I didn’t know The Great Tragedy in Life, I could not know Life.
And knowing Life,
fully and completely,
IS the purpose of Life,
I think.

What I speak of is only a single gift of her Great Life.
Just one single gift
of
an
endless
supply
of
gifts
of
Her.

She helped me be more free.
Because she had a freedom about her.
We rode on that rope swing together.
We jumped in leaves together.
We took pictures together.
We rolled down that hill together.

She was an adventure for me.
No other girlfriend I’ve had since did those sorts of things
nor encouraged me to.

Dena, you were a trip.
You made me french toast.
You shared your school lunches with me that you probably paid for out of your own money from working at Acme.
I thank you for all that and for everything else I am leaving out.

Free Spirited people are great!
Until they leave.

I missed her when she was still alive
because she just kept going away.

a pile of pictures hides inside.
I still don't have a picture of us together.

I don’t know why or how she died.
By something I heard combined with something inside me,
I believe there was tragedy there.
?
I just don’t know.
But I know I saw her body
and the body was cold
and had no Dena spark left in it.

She was dead in the sense that people mean
if they mean gone from here.
Because dead does not equal end.
She was much too precious to end,
the shimmer of her remains.
Why else would I be talking about her right now?
Part of Her Shimmer lives on in me, through me,
because I remember her.
And I remember taking these pictures with her.
And I remember her sobbing into my lap
and me rubbing her back
and just trying to be there for her while her heart shattered
into a hundred
million
pieces because a guy she thought loved her, didn't,
he loved her ex-best friend.
Having someone sob with utter sadness from the soles of their feet into your lap leaves a wound on you.
That's why I tear up whenever I think about it.

I remember partying with her
and dancing with her
and cleaning her room with her
and brushing our teeth together
and picking leaves out of our hair together for hours after jumping in those leaves
and talking about how we STILL hadn’t started on our typing class project yet
and how much we hated our typing teacher, Mrs. Saroka (that woman was so mean to Dena - teachers shouldn’t be allowed to be mean to their students!)
and joining in on her plans to get our lives together
and working out with her
and laying out getting a tan with her (when I used to bother trying to get my freckley skin to tan)
and how she told me on the phone that the night before she came home from work and ate cottage cheese for several minutes without looking in the container first and when she finally did,
she saw that it was very green......ew
and talking about guys (lots of this)
and laughing,
and I remember laughing with her.

If we were not friends until the moment she died,
can I still morn her loss?
Am I allowed?
Or will there be judgement with this?
Whatever.

The last time I saw her,
I didn’t speak to her.
I was very sick
and wasn’t interested in rekindling our friendship.
She didn’t make any moves to.
My mother and her spoke,
I acknowledged her,
but I just didn’t want to be friends with someone again whom I knew had already bailed on our friendship twice before.

For me, she’d already died.
I’d already lost her in my life,
TWICE.
I’d already felt the heartbreak of it.

But all that is gone,
in the past,
and now she is the light that flickers through the trees through my window and onto my leg.

And whenever I hear “Love Song” by Tesla
or “When October Goes” by Barry Manilow,
the she that lives inside my heart,
lights up and shines anew.
   

I dedicate this all to you, Dena,
wherever you are....
Wait, I know where you are!!!
You’re Late!  What a surprise there.
Please don’t shake your chocolate milk again,
you already opened it and last time you sprayed us all.
:)~

~Love and Magick~
Meliss

ps:  here's the magick spell

How far down the rabbit hole did you say you want to go? 3

“The Force is what gives the Jedi his power.  It’s an energy field created by all living things.  It surrounds us and penetrates us.  It binds the galaxy together.”  Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars: A New Hope

“When we began to analyze galaxies, like our own, we realized that they were spinning too fast.  By rights they should fly apart.  In other words, something was binding the galaxy together that was invisible.  And it’s the greatest mystery in all of physics: Dark Matter.  Dark Energy.  In other words, The Force.

“As astrophysics crunch the numbers, an illusive material began appearing in the equations.”

“We now know that only 4% of the universe is made out of atoms.  96% of the universe is made out of, well, The Force, Dark Energy and Dark Matter.”

“Dark Matter is difficult to detect because it does not emit or reflect light.  We can only infer the presence of Dark Matter by observing its effects on the visible universe.  Such as gravitational lensing, the distortion of space time around massive objects like black holes.”

“It’s in the room right now.  And we physicists are clueless as to what it really is.  There is a shelf full of Nobel Prizes waiting for the young person who could explain what is it that surrounds the galaxy, holds it together, permeates our bodies, and makes up 96% of the universe.”

In Star Wars, they channel The Force.  Is this similar to the power some say we contain to create and affect our world?  What part does Dark Matter play in it?

And why the heck did they name is something so evil sounding??

~magick~
Meliss

ps:  it's here right now......and it's looking at me.....i'm a little scared.

ps:  quotes above from:    Prophets of Science Fiction: Episode 8:  George Lucas

I am artistically haunted

and lovin' it.
~magick~
Meliss