An enormous spout of splashy water came fountaining up – and up – and up –
Every once in a while, the amount I miss the beach almost clobbers me down onto my knees. I miss the sounds, the waves, walking in the sand, the sun, the smell of the ocean, the fishies, the fresh seafood . . .
And I miss seeing the whales jump and dive and splash around like little kids in the backyard pool . . .
I’m almost done with Medium. I’m disgusted.
Bears and Buddies
The other day, I posted that it was my birthday. That post got 18 claps. Really? You supposedly read my post, clapped, but didn’t even have the courtesy to wish me a happy birthday? You couldn’t even do the 50 claps Medium suggests?
Another post that surprised me with zero comments was my post on possibilities. Being a very curious person, I almost always want to know new possibilities – aren’t you interested? Why are you not asking questions? Commenting?
Today it’s my birthday – I can hardly believe I have lived this long.
I frankly never thought I’d make it past 26. (We won’t talk about Ms Wild Child in the past, now, will we!?!)
I posted on my FB feed it was my birthday, and so many people commented that I’m blown away – since FB has had me in ‘jail’ for almost a year, there were people I haven’t seen or read posts from in all this time. So nice to see them all!
I’m so grateful for all of you followers and friends! Thank you for making my day much better than it started out!
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SILLY TIGER
© Angela Treat Lyon 2020
I have been targeted lately by some chin*se assholes who keep asking me if I have registered some of my websites in ch*na, and that they want to do so, themselves. Even going as far as wanting to register angelatreatlyon.com.
I’m thinking, wtf are they going to do with a website with MY name on it? Steal my content, too?
I guess I’m just the typical 79-year-old teenager who never got over loving and fantasizing about having horses.
Conversation in the Garden
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My parents had a boat we got to sail all summer – they said that was enough! No horses!
I said, ‘But, but, we have a barn! And I’ll keep the tack in good shape, and clean out the stall every day! And …”
There is so much threatening our freedom right now! So – what to DO???
Leaves, love, and light make everything Possible
Happy Thanksgiving Day to all who celebrate, and to all who do not!
I choose this image named Possibilities for today because times are scary right now, and instead of decrying all day what’s wrong, what’s wrong, and whining and crying and tearing our hair out . . . I believe that it’s up to us to focus the best we can ONLY on what we can do to create peace, love, joy, prosperity and generosity on this planet we call home.
I got all the way to my mid-teens before it suddenly came home to me one day that other people didn’t just suddenly get complete downloads of ideas the way I did.
Inspiration
People asked me, “Where do you get your ideas?” They thought I was lying when I told them. It was then that I was shocked to discover that some people didn’t get any.
Back then, I’d get complete start-to-finish packages. If it was a sculpture, I’d see the stone, uncarved – what kind of stone, what color, what tools to use, the texture – and I’d see all the stages of creation, one at a time, until it got to its final completion.
These visions came fast – lightning visions, I called them. Seared into my inner eyes.
People are reeling at the chaos created by recent events! We have to manage our minds better!
“Hey,” she exclaimed, “A wave!” He replied, “Yah! Let’s surf it!” - © Lyon 2024
Being with people recently, whether live or on social media, feels like being in an emotional washing machine, tossed around like a piece of old worn out lint.
I refuse to be smashed!
I shall remain calm.
I shall remain focused on creating beautiful art.
I rise above the fear.
I shall remain grounded.
I open my arms to love, joy and sanity.
Listening to Shanna spout crap like that made my belly churn. What the heck was she thinking??? But suddenly, she went into this kind of glassy-eyed trance . . .
Raccoons playing with their fishie friends in the waterfall – © Angela Treat Lyon 2023
Shanna came back over today to tell me she was so grateful to me for stopping her panic attack yesterday. And, all excited, told me about the ideas she was going to follow up on.
But suddenly, she went into this kind of glassy-eyed trance, and started reminiscing about how she had loved living in Hawaii ‘back then’ (in truth, she had hated it and could never stop talking about ‘getting outta here’) and how her life was better then (it definitely was not!) . . .
After a minute or two of this, I waved my hands around like a crazy person, interrupting her monotone. Listening to her spout crap like that made my belly churn. What the heck was she thinking???
My neighbor Shanna came over, crying, utterly bereft about the election.
I told her to put her big-girl panties back on and quit indulging in weeping and wailing and moaning and being angry and sad, moping around like a victim, wasting her energy
Use your golden energy to effect change! Art © Angela Treat Lyon 2024
She yelled at me.
I don’t do well with being yelled at.
So I got in her face, and shoved a piece of paper at her.
Told her, “On the left side, write down 10 things you’re afraid will change, go away, or be worse, now that the present group is in the WH.”
I made her sit down and do it right then!
If only I had the means to comfort everyone!
Let me hold you
Wouldn’t it be nice if you had someone whose arms you could just fall into, snuggle up against them and revel in the comfort of their Being?
No need for crying, no complaining, no woes - just a nice, warm hey-I-love-you-let’s-hug kinda thing.
I used to go out into my yard in Hawaii, sit in my favorite chair, and hold hands with my ferns. They loved it (they told me so!) and I loved it. I miss that.
Ferns in my garden. Original art © Angela Treat Lyon 2024
Where I live now, I go outside and there’s no place to even put a chair, or sit with the sun, never mind any plants. Wah!
But that’s OK - I get to draw my garden! In my head (and thousands of file folders) I have scads of plants and flowers and bees and buttyflies and ladyishbugs and wind and rain and happy-nesses.
And I make designs for silk scarves that I can wear to help me remember how it felt.
And that other people can wear to help them feel connected to the earth, under the blue sky and milky moon.
I’m used to being one of those annoying full-of-juice, c’mon-let’s-go people who get everyone else motivated and moving and having way too much fun as we make waves in the world with our artful creations.
Orchids of a different feather
So now it surprises the shit out of me when sometimes I feel like I’ve been rolled over by a semi truck, and can’t even get up out of bed, much less open my eyes or lift a finger.
Some of us, who are perfect in every other possible way (ahem!), have a terrible, dark secret.
I loves my chips!
That secret, if known, would probably make everyone on the planet shun, condemn, and make fun of us! We might even be deleted from existence if it was known!
Having a basically shy nature, it’s beyond me how people are so obsessed with making selfies.
Selfie Bear looks for just the right angle
I just don’t get it. Why would anyone want to plaster themselves all over a world-wide platform? Can you tell me?
I’m thinking in particular about one video posted by a gal who filmed herself all gussied up, slamming out of her car, violently twerking her way into her ex-BF’s workplace, hoping (I think) to get him back into her arms – only to find said guy gone.
Back in the 90s, I lived in two of the bays of an old abandoned fire house, where the town fire trucks had been kept.
Playing with My Buddies
There was a big parking lot out front. At the beginnings of our daily walks out into the desert, my dog IO (pron. Ee-oh) would come out into the lot and run big circles around me, round and round, with a huge shit-eating grin on her face.
Before that, we lived in the Winch House south of town.
I’ve studied healing plants for years, and have always wanted to honor them somehow – the ones I have used always did such wonders for me and my family.
False Hellebore, False Solomon’s Seal, Ginseng
So I’m working on creating a series of designs featuring plants used for healing. Each one of them has specific properties that help with various different types of pain or illness.
There are some days when things in life seem so shitty that I can’t get my mind bent around a single thing – except drawing. Drawing is my life-saver.
Salmon playing in the waves
Today was one of those days. I’ve been completely occupied with the travesty happening in North Carolina - I got totally sucked in.
I try to not do that if possible, so I avoid as best I can all the news and shows that drain your energy like vampires.
I’m so used to creating bold designs using bright colors that I forget the there are people who prefer more quiet beauty.
Violets repeat design, in coral-ly pink
I was doing the primary design of this piece, all full of really bright colors and bold strokes. The app I use to draw on only has a few basic colors, so I’m kinda stuck using them. After I have completed the original drawing, I import it into photoshop to modify it.
Every year, hundreds of birds would swoop down and eat all the cherries on our trees, whether they were ripe or not.
Birdies, Snails, and Wormies all loved the cherries
We finally trimmed the branches of the trees so it would be shorter, and much easier to put birdie-proof nets over them the next year.
Success! We got full crops from then on, and the birdies had to make do with the ones that dropped to the ground. Oh darn so sorry, not sorry!
There are days I’m so full of ideas and images they feel like popcorn popping and bursting and trying to get out of my noggin.
Let’s stop running and have a party and invite all our friends and eat all the cherries!
Today was one of those days.
Usually, before I open my eyes to fully wake up, I spend a bit of time appreciating what I’m most grateful for, and then going over my basic plans for the day.
Today that wasn’t possible. I had so many images rushing through my mind that I thought it would crack my skull. So many critters and scenes and colors and ideas!
It was so intense it was ecstatic.
My ma had the most awesome organic garden. She had every veggie known to man and some we had no clue what they were.
Despite it being the source of so much deliciousness, we kids hated that garden, because we had to go out and weed it every weekend.
It was only when I finally had a garden of my own, when we lived way out in the hills of northern California, that I really appreciated having gown up with such bounty. Or how much more work it was than Ma’s garden! Hers was small – ours was a full acre!
Maybe you’ve never noticed how sometimes your kitty can be just downright silly. (Silly? Kitties? Never!)
Whoddathunkit, playing with the mice he’s supposed to catch! Only this time, it’s Leo the Leopard – he just can’t resist all those meeces!
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Leo’s Playtime
© Angela Treat Lyon 2024
The Park Fire here in northern California tried to snake its fiery fingers right into my world, coming within three miles of my house. It freaked the living daylights out of me, relentlessly debilitating me for a whole month.
The fire is still raging, many miles to the north, over 450,000 scares burnt, lives cut short, homes and businesses destroyed beyond repair. It’s too devastating to think about how close it came.
My neighborhood was on a on-your-toes evacuation alert for a seemingly endless two weeks. We didn’t know up from down – whether to go, stay, eat, sleep, go to work, escape to out-of-town relatives . . .
I was dumbfounded how completely the aura of fear and chaos saturated every aspect of my life. I even kept my phone by me 24/7 – which I never, ever do – staying on top of the alerts.
As I drove down an obscure, insanely rough, red-dirt road in Baja, I came around a corner, there on my right suddenly reared up an enormous storm-grey rock, as big as a two-story house.
What is that doing there?!? I slammed on the brakes. I had to check this out. As I looked closer, I could see that it was indeed a house! Windows peppered the sides of the stone, their glass glinting in the sun.
The palm trees swayed and shissssed, and gulls swirled around the top of the rock, way high up in the air.
And there, sitting in the shade of its overhang on a ledge above me, surrounded by three huge dogs whose coats shine like silver and gold in the sun, you sat untangling and folding a pile of a little kid’s onesies.
Today we had 101 degree heat. I melt at such high temps.
My mind disappears into the deepest crack in the sea, and try as I might to sit up and work, my body refuses to function.
Just about all I can do is turn on the AC and get horizontal until the house has cooled enough for me to be human again.
When I was a kid, I loved running out in the spring rain, jumping in puddles and splashing until I was soaking wet drenched, head to foot.
Now, of course, I’m staid and demure, like a proper old lady should be. Hahahahahahahaha! Go on – believe that if ya want!!!!
I just posted this purple version in my Redbubble shop – I’m including the links below if you want to get some fun socks, tote bags, shower curtains, pillows, blankies – all with this design!
I also put the same design with a red background, and a gold background there, too! Continue reading
Penguins are the silliest looking critters, aren’t they?
But I love how sweet their mannerisms are, and how amazing they are underwater.
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© Angela Treat Lyon 2024
Do you like hot, spicy foods?
I do, but my body? Not so much! Instant reactions!
So here we are, eating our favorite east Indian dinner – and then – Ooooooh!!! Hotttt!!!! Yeowie! Yikes! Whew! Hand me the napkins!
Wouldn’t a silk scarf of this be funny? You could wear it out to dinner with your friends when you go to India Cuisine and get Garam Masala, or when you go to the Thai Noodles restaurant!
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Hot! Hot! Hot!
© Angela Treat Lyon 2024
I have this Thing for Hummingbirds.
I think they are some of the most miraculous beings on the planet. Imagine having to suck multiple times your body weight in liquid food through a long skinny pipe every day!
And being able to look in the mirror to see all those flashy bright colors on your head and chest!
My mother’s mother was the first to photograph them flying backwards – or, that’s the Family Story, anyway. She had hundreds of photos of them. All in black and white, of course.
