I Was Damned if I Was Going to Allow Hardship to Get Me

Posted on by July 9, 2023

Nights when magical swaths of stars would span the entire ceiling above, making it seem as light as noon. Bright evening lightning shows burst through the dark evenings on the far horizon…

Let’s Go for a Walk, Mom!

Living in New Mexico in the early 1990s was one of the darkest times of my entire life. I was perpetually depressed, never once feeling like I had a single chance to make it as a sculptor, but trying my utmost to do so anyway, despite maybe having one or two sales a year.

When I first got to the ex-coal-mining town of Madrid (pron. MADrid), I stayed in an old miner’s house with my old friend, Melissa, helping her renovate it so it could be sold.

At the end of that adventure, I was told about an old empty fire-truck garage with five bays. I was able to rent the two bays on the far end from the main road for cheap. It was dank, musty, and not fit for human habitation. It stunk of mice and old dust. But I had nowhere else to go, so I made the best I could of it.

Each bay was 15’ x 40′. Huge warped doors that never closed all the way. Everything got in through them — bugs and spiders and small birds looking for a nesting home, a million mice, and rushing currents of ice-cold air. Continue reading →

Our Disconnect from the Cycles of Life

Posted on by July 5, 2023

We allow little mundane BS things to distract and steal our attention away from what’s important: being with and cherishing the ones we love most, caring for those who need and want our love, attention, and affection.

Cycles of Life

Lately I see so many posts on facebook by folks who have lost friends and family from covid and other illnesses, from accidents and mishaps, and sadly, self-endings.

And, some of us are getting old enough that we are beginning to fray and fade and peel away to the Rainbow Lands.

It’s devastating, shocking, when a friend or close person is suddenly just *not there* anymore. It’s as if we got slapped across our soul, an inner assault of not-there-ness. A big energetic hole where a very lively Being used to live within our heart and awareness.

In our society, we think and act as if we will live forever.

We have no real relationship to the reality of death, nor any regard for the idea of, or the force of, the plain fact that we die. Continue reading →

Freezing to Death for 3000 Miles On the Back of a BMW Motorcycle

Posted on by July 2, 2023

Semi trucks started edging us sideways, pushing into our lane, trying to run us off the road. Gas stations and roadside restaurants saw us coming, switched their ‘open’ signs to ‘closed’ in their windows and front doors.

Windy Winter Trees Along the Road

1966. I was 21, living in an upstairs apartment on Mason Street in North Beach, San Francisco. I was a very junior artist at a top advertising agency, being trained in The Game — designing ads, learning how to deal with reps from Skippy Peanut Butter, Foremost Dairies and other large companies.

For each order, I was given the basics of the ideas the job boss wanted, no more. I drew hundreds of sketches, did color combos, created mockups. I sat silently with my boss – not allowed, as junior, to say a word — even as they tore my work apart and demanded ‘something better.’ Continue reading →

“Something Amazing Is About to Happen,” He Said…

Posted on by June 30, 2023

It can be painfully hard to let go of the what-ifs and the blame/shames, he-did-it-to-me’s and the she’s-such-a … — or the what-am-I-going-to-do . . .

Imagining my reality into being

I’ve been a devoted student of metaphysics for decades. One of the most basic things I learned when I began to study the beyond-ordinary is that what you give your attention to turns up in a very real way in your life — whether it’s something you consider ‘good’ or ‘bad.’

It’s hard to remember sometimes. It’s so easy to keep worrying or complaining about something you feel helpless about, or something you don’t like.

We keep chewing on those problems. We keep ourselves confused; we tell our friends about This Awful Thing. Continue reading →

Your Work Doesn’t Speak for Itself

Posted on by June 26, 2023
It was only after that decision that people started seeing things through my eyes. They started comprehending the value of art – the effects of color, the harmonizing of life through good design, the pleasure a painting or sculpture could bring . . .

Loving ‘painting’ with’ my pastels

I’m a stone carver, painter, author and book designer— among other things — and I used to say, “I hate marketing!”

I thought the very idea of marketing was disgusting. I thought you had to be a sleaze-bag in order to do it. It was too hypey, something beneath me, and that it was a waste of valuable carving, painting, or writing time.

I felt ashamed and embarrassed if I talked about myself
or my artwork or books in front of people.

The old ingrained conditioning I had as a girl — little girls should be seen and not heard, and preferably not even seen — would kick in, and I’d become a stiff, mute plank. Paralyzed with terror of being punished for even being visible. And worse —

Continue reading →

The Tale of Frank and Lilly of Desolation Desert Valley

Posted on by June 24, 2023

In a frozen stand-off, all three halted, just a few feet from each other. Like wooden soldiers, they stood silent in the middle of the street. Slowly, Frank reached up and tipped his hat, took Lilly’s hand and walked on.

Frank and Lilly

“No, Frank, don’t! He didn’t mean it!” Lilly exclaimed.

“Don’t hold me back this time, Lilly, he ain’t got no right to talk to me like that!” Frank growled, as he grabbed his drink and angrily gulped it down, wildly splashing the rich amber liquor all over his new jacket. He grunted loudly in disgust.

“Git outta my way, Lilly, it’s time I took care o’ that rude basturd!”

Frank started to slide sideways off his chair to follow the man who had had the nerve to insult him. Him! The Mayor of the community of Desolate Desert Valley! The owner of the Desolate Desert Valley Silver Mines! The owner of the Desolate Desert Valley Bank!

Lilly reached for her purse, grasping the one-shot Derringer and pressing it to his side under his silken jacket. Continue reading →

How Could You Possibly Forget that Trauma?

Posted on by June 22, 2023

In sessions with my clients, I’ve heard them say, “I didn’t even remember that until today! It’s been years since it happened!”

Dreaming my new life

I’ve experienced that same forgetting, myself: I was raped several times between the ages of 13 and 19 when I lived in New York City. But if you had asked me before this last year if anything at all like that had ever happened to me, I’d have emphatically said no.

How could that be — 60+ years of forgetting???

It’s so strange, isn’t it? Because once you remember the incident, it can have you on the floor in tears and shock and major upset. Continue reading →

HELPING LITTLE TINA STOP HER TANTRUMS

Posted on by June 20, 2023

My friend Rachel had two grand-daughters, aged 2 and 4. The two-year-old, Tina, was prone to throwing some mean tantrums.

Rachel was concentrating on finishing up a 3-year back-to-college program, and found it difficult to deal with the kids’ high energy — especially the tantrums — when the girls came to visit her.

She was also going through a long, drawn-out, very challenging, extremely uncomfortable situation at her job. She adored the kids, but always felt ragged and worn out after their visits.

In my weekly Tapping sessions that I held at the local health store, Rachel learned how to use EFT/tapping, and began using it on herself at home. Little Tina watched, saying nothing.

One night, when Tina was working up to an I-don’t-want-to-go-to-bed tantrum, Rachel sat down with her and tapped on Tina’s little body, saying the phrases for her as Tina listened raptly.

(The tapping points: EFTBooks.com/the-points)

Continue reading →

SIGNALS that THERE’S SOMETHING GOING ON UNDER the SURFACE

Posted on by June 20, 2023

Recently when I was speaking with my advisor about a business and marketing plan we were creating for my coaching, I started to get really sleepy.

Say yes to your Dreams!

I felt like if I didn’t lie down right now I would simply collapse on the floor in a big ole slippery puddle.

I had been blazing wide awake the moment before, and now I felt as if I was going to flat pass out on the spot.

Did I really need a nap? Continue reading →

WHAT’S YOUR REAL JOB?

Posted on by June 18, 2023
A friend tells me life equals pain. I say life equals love. It’s all in the focus of attention.

Uh-Oh!!!!

I got a call from an artist friend, all upset and depressed and crying because of recent world events.

She said, “When I look at how the world has gotten, I think why bother with making art anymore? What’s the use? I feel like giving up. What the heck good does it do? I’m just throwing paint on canvas and who cares, even?”
Continue reading →

PATTY CAKE

Posted on by June 16, 2023

Ahhh, yes! A bunch of innocent delightful critters playing in a lovely world where things are the way they’re supposed to be: open, loving, caring, fun, creative and compassionate….

Patty Cake, our fun innocent game…

PATTY CAKE, PATTY CAKE, BAKER’S MAN –

Run away! Run Away! Fast as you can!

How I wish I could. With the BS happening now across the world, I truly do wish there was a safe haven to run to.

But guess what? There ain’t one. There ain’t a second planet. There ain’t a Star Gate (that I know of) we can use to escape. Continue reading →

TOMATOES, THE PERFECT FOOD

Posted on by June 13, 2023

A lament for the delicious mainstay of almost every lunch and dinner since childhood. What have they done to my beautiful fruits???

My tomatoes love their marigold companions that keep the aphids at bay

I adore tomatoes. In a perfect world, I’d have a godzilla-sized garden with way too many varieties that would produce way too many tomatoes to be able to eat them all, and they would all be big, juicy beautiful organic juicy deep red, orange, or yellow or weird-colored globlets of rich juicy flavor.

Did I say juicy? Mmmmm — savory succulent juices drooling down your chin and dripping off your arm as you set your chompers into one and allow the earthy scent and luscious flavor to fill your mouth and swamp your tongue and rise up and smack your brain with ecstasy…

I never buy them anymore. Continue reading →

HOW I DEAL WITH DESTRUCTIVE MONEY BELIEFS

Posted on by June 13, 2023

Annie and I allowed ourselves to face the debilitating beliefs we had about ourselves, money, and business. Here’s what happened.

How green your garden grows, without all those weeds!

Not too long ago, my buddy Annie and I got together on zoom, and did some inside work on our relationships with money.

Hahaha — no, we weren’t going to get a divorce from money! Quite the opposite, in fact, since we had both already been at some distance to the green stuff for most of our lives. We wanted to attract and be stewards of more of it.

Neither of us is a spring chicken, so we decided it was about time we added a little prosperity gravy on an otherwise very thin serving in life.

I suggested that we pretend that we both had hundreds of thousands of followers on medium. Because I’m fascinated with those who have 10K, 100K, even 300K followers. What’s that like? Continue reading →

BE KIND. NO MATTER WHAT.

Posted on by June 9, 2023
We learn to hide the pain. We feel unacceptable. We learn to present happy faces, calm demeanors, soft voices — where what we really feel like doing is screaming until our throats rip apart.

Depression is a daily nightmare

Be kind.

That’s what comes to mind when I see people getting down on folks who write about being depressed and scared. Just be kind.

See, you have no idea how frightening it is to feel so shitty and not know how to get out of it. People say to them, “get over it!” Well, you can say that until you’re blue in the face, but it doesn’t help. Believe me, if they knew how to get over it, they would! No one likes to suffer!

“Cheer up!” you say. “Get up and get going! That’s enough! Just turn it around,” you say. Oh how that hurts to hear! Don’t you think they’d turn it around if they knew how???

Continue reading →

JAM the LOW FREQUENCIES with the HIGHEST LOVE

Posted on by June 8, 2023

How we can drum in a new era of joy, peace, beauty, and love.

Purple Bear Drummers

I guess I’m still an old hippie at heart. I look at what’s going down in the world right now, and remember the 60s, and how the world looked upside down and crazy, then, too.

Out of that ‘bad’ time, men’s groups grew, shamanistic trainings flourished, women threw away bras and other restrictions that had been ingrained in us for centuries. Hallucinogens transported us to new awarenesses and extra-3D dimensions.

It was both a dire and a very, very rich time. I believe we are now at a similar juncture, albeit more dire by magnitudes than it was back then.

No matter the intensity, we have a choice.

We can buy into the directed narrative, and ignore the increasing urgings of regimented realities that our respective, unrespecting govs are trying to foist upon us; or we can stick our trusty middle finger up and say, ‘nope, not going there.’ Continue reading →

TAKE BACK YOUR POWER!

Posted on by June 3, 2023

Life Is Complicated!

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick to death of people telling me what I ‘should’ buy or ‘should’ do. Use the Law of Attraction! Do this technique! You should eat green! You should stop eating sugar! Use this technique to get more clients! You should…you should…you should!

NO! I shouldn’t!
And I won’t, either!

In my experience, the Law of Attraction is mis-marketed. It was a huge trend a while ago. I noticed that people who didn’t quite understand the workings of it were giving out incorrect information hand over fist, and it made me mad. Because if used right, it does work.

First, it’s not a law, it’s a principle.

And second, you have to add appropriate Doing to the Dreaming — taking real, concrete action — or it doesn’t work. Something most LOAers forget to tell you, if they even know it. Continue reading →

YOU’RE AN AUTHOR. OR NOT.

Posted on by June 3, 2023

You wouldn’t have gotten the idea to do what you do, and then the idea to share it with others, and you wouldn’t have been asked to write a book if no one cared, if the Universe hadn’t conspired to get all those people to say to you ‘you should write a book on that!’

Kailua Winners, Setting Out from the Boat Ramp

ARE YOU AN AUTHOR?

Today a friend I have been coaching, helping her to write her book, emailed and wanted to postpone our session for tomorrow morning.

At first, I was OK with it. I started to check my schedule to see how I could shuffle some things around to make way for her session.

Then I got mad. In truth, it would have been just bloody inconvenient, both for me, and the people I’d have to shuffle around.

And then I got sad. This woman has a wonderful process she uses that helps people get more food out of their gardens. It’s so simple, and right now is the perfect timing for what are unsettling days ahead of all of us.

Each time she postpones, or slacks off, or falls into self-doubt, what happens to her book? What happens to the folks who want/need that information? Continue reading →

WHY WOMEN ARTISTS FAIL(ed)

Posted on by June 3, 2023

I had deeply internalized all those negative, destructive messages and made them into my own beliefs that >I< was a failure, that >I< was the one to blame, and that >I< would ‘never make it’ –

Sedna, Queen of the Seas, who never once failed her Soul…

I attended an intense marketing workshop for women artists a while back. It made me cry. It put me right smack dab up against the years and years of deep conditioning about being a woman that I have railed in futility against my entire life.

I absolutely loved everything about that workshop. Because the instructor pointed out that it wasn’t our fault that we didn’t do well marketing our art work.

Because the instructor pointed out that the system was set up against us, just because we were female. Continue reading →

DIZZY ON MY FEET

Posted on by June 3, 2023

On a larger scale, there were a couple times I’d simply not be driving anymore. The first time that happened, I about lost it. How did I get home, sitting at my kitchen table…

Loving the riding and loving the falling!

There are times in my life when my entire mental/emotional/physical system goes on dizzy-mode. It started in the early 90s when I was living in New Mexico.

When the dizziness hits, I have to stop whatever I‘m doing, or pull off the road, or halt a conversation I‘m in, in order to simply not collapse and fall down wet-noodle-kneed right on the spot.

The world in front of me sways and swirls. Sounds get muffled or distorted. My skin tingles. At first, the worst part of it was an inner twisting sensation. Not awful, but frightening.

The first few times scared me out of my wits. I thought there must be something really wrong with me. Was my eyesight failing? Did I have some kind of brain injury? Was my mind (finally) unraveling? Continue reading →

HOW I REDESIGNED MY FUTURE

Posted on by June 3, 2023

I threw out all of the first and second stage work — it was horrendous. I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to have to suffer seeing those designs on even his underwear.

Healing Hands on Broken Birdie

In January of 2021, I took a plunge and enrolled in an intense 3-month long course in surface/pattern design.

In case you don’t know, surface design means creating designs for fabric, tiles, stationery, wallpaper, wrapping paper, table coverings, sheets, duvets, place mats — anything flat. And clothing, of course.

By that time, covid had destroyed my coaching business — evaporated right into thin air. No one was wanting graphic design work, or my guidance in writing their books. So I decided that, if I liked what the course was about, I would dedicate not just the three months, but the entire year to doing surface design and only surface design. This was a really big deal for me, since I am heavily multi-disciplinary. Continue reading →

DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!

Posted on by June 3, 2023

It’s so easy to offer glib platitudinous directions! What makes it OK for one person to tell another what to do, be or have? I think we ought to just shut the heck up and stop telling people what to do.

Mayfly Dreams

Have you noticed how business coaches, spiritual teachers, gurus and guides, coaches and trainers all constantly tell us to ‘be yourself,’ ‘come from your heart,’ ‘speak your truth,’ ‘follow your dream….’

And we swallow that. We even welcome messages like that.

We are so used to being instructed what to do with our lives that we allow others to tell us what we ought to do!

Sure those ideas can be wonderful positive ones, but we don’t see how sneaky those orders are!

Sneaky? Why are they sneaky? Continue reading →

WASABI

Posted on by June 3, 2023
You know those moments where an absolutely exquisite moment of silence descends upon a space before everything erupts into chaos all around you?

Rescued from the Fire

It was 1966. I was 21. I was new to California culture, having lived back East up until then. I had come to stay with my aunt and uncle in San Francisco after I divorced my first husband.

Eventually, I landed in Santa Cruz. Those were the hippy days — lots of pot and acid almost every day, UFO sightings (yes, we saw lots — and no, we weren’t high when we did see them), and the beginning of the rampant development of the crafts. That’s when I became a potter.

My BF at the time decided to introduce me to his favorite Japanese restaurant. I was excited — eating Japanese food back East wasn’t common, so I had no clue what I was getting into. Continue reading →

HOW SAYING “I FORGIVE YOU” SAVED HER LIFE

Posted on by May 20, 2023

Sitting like a little kid, with her legs straight out in front of her, she was shock-white, with glazed- eyes seeing nothing. The webbing between her left hand first finger and thumb …

You Are My Only One

My mother and I got into a huge argument during my senior-year spring break. We disagreed so vehemently that after three days, we were still at a ragingly fierce stand-off. The tension between us was so tangible you could pick it up and chew on it.

She and I were usually pretty tight, so to have her at such an emotional distance was devastating.

On the morning of the fourth day, on a whim, I asked if I could go with her to that day’s job site — she was a well-respected horticultural landscape designer. Continue reading →

SHY ARTIST DEAD TOO SOON

Posted on by May 19, 2023

One day about a month before she left the planet, she turned to me with such a galvanizing look that I felt my feet suddenly get cemented to the floor. If I’d wanted to pay attention to anything else, I could not have.

Journey of the Soul

I’ve always said I’d be a psychologist if I hadn’t trained to be an artist. My family is full of them — my mother, her two sisters, and their daughters were/are all artists, although only one cousin and I do anything commercial with what we create.

If I had not fallen into the here’s-some-paint-go-have-fun-dear trap, and wanted to do something else, they’d all have keeled over in absolute shock. Continue reading →

‘I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR THIS!’

Posted on by May 18, 2023

The secrets every last one of the characters carries are all starting to dribble out, with horrifying consequences. Everyone’s true nature is being revealed.

Freedom in Broad Daylight

I’ve been watching a fairly new show on Amazon called POWER.

You have to know that I don’t watch TV. Not EVER. So it’s pretty near miraculous that I even heard of this show, much less deigned to view it — much less all nine episodes so far!

It’s an excellent show.

The premise, as I have shared before both here on medium and on my blog (angelatreatlyon.com/the-real-power), is that girls are getting a bizarre awakening of power: they can shoot electricity through their hands.

Soft little arcs of pretty zingy light jumping from one finger to the next, or electric power increased to the point of electrocuting someone.

You can imagine how the patriarchy is reacting. Continue reading →

GET UPSET? OR TAKE the OPPORTUNITY to UPLIFT?

Posted on by May 10, 2023

Images flooded my panicked mind of internet police coming to Get Me and Punish Me, hoards of angry women descending upon my house and doing Bad Things to me, being banned from being online forever….

Friends Help Friends…

The first time a customer complained to me and told me she was really upset about trying to buy my first book, I got really upset, myself.

This was 2002. I was barely beginning to learn how to market my art, classes, and books online. Using computers was no biggie — I’d been into them since 1985.

But marketing? Whole new world. Scared me to death.

Remember, I’m the gal who was so shy I virtually never spoke out loud in public until I was almost 20. So to think about talking to people about my work — or heaven forbid, selling — put my entire nervous system into a massive dizzying tailspin. Continue reading →

The PAINFUL WAY I LEARNED ABOUT MONEY, Part II

Posted on by May 8, 2023

I guarantee you that if you do not, they will hang around and expect you to do and pay for everything for them — just like you have their whole lives!

The only monsters are the things we don’t communicate

Because my parents were so tight-lipped about money, I had no idea the sacrifices they made for all of us. No. Idea. My three brothers and I all went to private schools. All four of us went to college — art school, in my case. (Yes, private school. I was so glad to get away from home!)

Did I have one single iota of a clue what that cost them? What they had to do to cover those expenses, year after year as we grew up?

Not until way, way later, when it was far too late to say thank you, thank you, thank you — for caring about our futures, for doing what it took, for going without so we could have. Writing this is so hard. Shame and tears. But that’s done and gone. Got to move on, right?

So what did I learn from all this?

This is what:
Talk to your damn kids about money.

Continue reading →

The PAINFUL WAY I LEARNED ABOUT MONEY, Part I

Posted on by May 8, 2023

One of the problems that exacerbated my naïveté was my dad’s panicky behavior around discussing money. As soon as the very word slipped past any of our lips, it was hammered into oblivion: “We don’t talk about money! It’s nobody’s business!” So, we just zipped our lips. And our minds.

Helloooo! Can you see how naive I am?

After I had walked the stage and received my high school diploma, I went home and crashed. More than tired — I felt as if some demon had sucked all the life out of me. I awoke next morning frozen to my bed. I could move, but the effort it took was as if I was single-handedly lifting the Empire State Building. Not gonna happen.

Somehow my mother convinced our family doctor to come over and do a house call. After examining me, he looked at my ma and announced, “Mononucleosis, Mrs. B., bed rest for the summer.”

Continue reading →

THINK, FEEL, TAKE ACTION, ASSESS, REPEAT

Posted on by May 5, 2023

Despite feeling so insulted and so enraged, and so helpless to do anything about what had happened, I also knew I had to, could, and absolutely would, change How Things Were.

It Takes Two to Tango

After I got home from my sailing-across-the-Pacific journey, I spent a good amount of time cogitating about what I wanted next in my life. The kids were back home, school was starting, and I was back at work as a (not-very-good) sales rep at the art gallery in Kapa’a.

I had to acknowledge that, while things were OK, they were just that — OK. I wasn’t feeling happy, excited, enthusiastic, expanded.

I asked myself what I’d have to be, do and have, in order to say, “yes, I’m happy.” I realized that thoughts and feelings had to come first.

It isn’t ‘I have this, so I can do that, so I can be/feel a certain way.’

It has to be ‘out of who I am, I do what I do, and receive what I receive.’

It had to start with thinking.

And I was brimming with destructive thoughts. Continue reading →

TALK TALK TALK TALK TALK

Posted on by May 5, 2023

Friendly race

I’m not one to fill the space with a lot of talk or jabber — I’m really happy just sitting with someone in a companionable silence — there is something sublime and sweet about just BEing with someone you love.

I have a dear friend here who is the most amazing talker. Continue reading →