A Spider that Wanted to Fly

I am back to Ann Arbor now. I have hung up my clothes and opened my windows. Now is the time when I need to get my project proposals in order… hmmm. What can I say? This whole Online Journal is really getting ready for one big project proposal. It is kind of like testing the waters. Is it too cold? Would I like to spend countless hours doing this? The answer is yes of course. Of all my project ideas this one holds the most promise of unrelenting passion. This project proposal is like being asked to run cross country after only having run 100 meter dashes. I have to be careful…very careful.

I’m so happy to be back. Lets see… yes I need to do that, and that, and that as well. I need to check out what books I need. If my old job will take me back. I need to print out an example of my old views of ‘What is a Blog?’ You know to show what I used to think. Oh, and maybe I could make a new one. Yes that is what I will do! You know what I really would like to do for my project? Well other then the Online Journal idea. I believe that the success of a website depends on it being dynamic and have variety. To me the success of an Online Journal is how it provides for its audience. Yes. I am another person with a web page. Yes this page contains the same alphabet that so many other web pages use. Yes, I am another artist, who will sooner or later start putting some art online again. Just you wait and see. If this is the project that I chose…I will makes something powerful.

I am sure if a did a couple cha chas and jumped in circles the sky would open up and grab all my candy. That is right, I have a bag of beautiful little round candies that are ever so nice. If you dance like a Furby maybe I will give you some. Either that are a hippopotamus will come and swallow me whole.

I do not like Green Pears and Mares. I do not like them Pumpkin Seal I am. The End.

Lets try to say this again

My third idea is twofold:

1) The First it is about developing my inner essence thought meditation and along with it to maintain my body, the wonderful vessel that it is, though Yoga and Tai Chi.

2) The Second part is also twofold. This is the part where I draw out art from my inner self.

a) I will be creating something that is beating with the same rhythm as my veins. It would be the roots of trees taking on the essence of the medication in my blood, not physically, but spiritually. I would be creating a natural form to hold the essence of a physical blessing that enables me to continue in college. This is where I am a little afraid that my lack of a green thumb will show through. Do not worry the project doesn’t stop there. I will create three dimensionally and two dimensionally artwork of what I think the trees will be like when they are grown, and what they will see. I am thinking of working with clay and at least creating the pots, if not whole clay trees. I do not have a yard so I am limited to Bonsai trees. Which after some research might be a wonderful or horrible choice. It certainly fits in with the Tai Chi.

Each Bonsai tree will have the name of a medication, for example Zyprexa Zydis (an antipsychotic). Each medication will grow as scientists learn from old medications to make better ones, but while Zyprexa Zydis will be left in the dust the Bonsai tree will only grow stronger carrying on the name. Frozen in time, a memory of today’s wonders and limitations. We know so little about the brain right now that our medications might be rather stone aged, and have side effects we do not see. People used to believe that animals were clockwork machines after all.

b) The second part of the second part is also about extending my inner self, but into an object that is controversial, and frowned upon by the Catholic Church (I’m catholic). I will be getting a feel for my deck of Tarot cards. I will lie out spreads and based on the spreads I would come up with stories. Based on the stories I would create illustrations. The Moon card for example could be about deception, so I would add a trickster to the story. The Ten of Swords shows someone is stabbed in the back, and so on forth. There are a lot of ways to read each card so I would always have flexibility in my story.

Notice I am not using the cards to look to the future like I do the trees, I think trees are better holes into the future then cards, because of their long life. I also want people to look at the cards in a different way. The cards don’t need to give advice, for me they just need to tell stories.

Does this make any sense?

Senior Project Three
This is a project about creating a spiritual space within me, as me, and around me. I will use meditation (yoga, and tai chi) to form my inter space, and use tools like Tarot cards and growing and shaping Bonsai trees to direct this space into the world around me.

I will read the spreads of the Tarot cards and come up with stories based on the cards, and at the same time I will be creating my own personal motif for each card. An unopened flower just waiting to bloom, for example, could symbolize the fool card. In the end I would have such an understanding of the cards I would be able to take these motifs and do artwork based on spreads without the clutch of a story to get things rolling.

As I am growing an understanding of the deck of tarot cards I will be slowly shaping from seeds many Bonsai trees. In this I am taking a risk, I have never dealt with trees before, and I am hoping that they grow well and strong and do not die on me. I will be keeping the trees on the Balcony of my apartment (or in my room with a florescent light) As for the artwork based on the trees, when they are seeds (or even small plants) I would draw/paint pictures of what I expected them to look like, and what I expected them to see once they grow big. In a way this is just as much about predicting the future as the Tarot cards are, only I am not using the cards to predict the future, as many would expect me to.

I will also be making the pots to hold the Bonsai, or at least to move them to in the future, and I will name each Bonsai. I would have a Bonsai for every kind of medication I have been on because of the intimate relationships that I have had with my medications (they having once been inside me unlike anything a human can be). My medication has nurtured me, enabling me to face the world the way a person a mental disorder could not in the past and now it is time for me to nurture my medications.

Each medication will grow as scientists learn from old medications to make new better ones. Zyprexa Zydis (an antipsychotic) will be lift in the dust, but the Bonsai tree will only grow stronger. Frozen in time, a memory of today’s wonders and limitations. We know so little about the brain right now that our medications might be rather stone aged, and have side effects we do not see. People used to believe that animals were clockwork machines after all.

What will Zyprexa Zydis see in the future? How will brain medications evolve? How will emotions be looked at in the future? Will any elevation up or down, even a slight little bit be considered a problem? Will all today’s pain and suffering be replaced with smiles? Perhaps someone will invent a way to keep the entire population in a controlled, safe, manic like state.

It is important for me to come to grips with my medication when thinking of my spiritual self because it courses through my veins, and is ever so close to me.