Let the center of the umbrella represent the North Star.

  Rain cannot be explained in words. If you try to describe the magical transformation of a landscape by grey clouds dropping water, it will not be adequate. If you could make the drops pause like in the Matrix movies, even then, when you see a clear illustration of how life is moving and it's energy vibrates all around and inside of us. It cannot be told. It is too multi-sensual. Freud never interpreted rain as a dream image but others have said it represents grace reigning over us. He did assign some meaning to umbrellas though.
"All elongated objects, sticks, tree-trunks, umbrellas (on account of the opening, which might be likened to an erection), all sharp and elongated weapons, knives, daggers, and pikes, represent the male member"...Sigmund Freud, The Interpetation of Dreams

Umbrella #2, Watercolor, glass beads, the stuff on the bottom of the jewelry box, JMH

 Afuri, short for afuri Jinja is how you say rain in Japan. There are Rain dragons and Rain Wizards in Japan. Rain Shrines prayed to in times of drought just like spruce branches pull in rain for the Hopi.  Some rain gods like the weeping Hyades sisters in Greece deify rain as sad. In Japan, some stones are thought of as umbrellas, and have spring water poured on to them to make rain.

Everyone in this house is in love with Japan. I was just looking at the seven or so books on Japan I got Child#1 at the library book sale. The lonely planet guide, kanji character dictionary, an astronomy book, learn to speak, and Japanese culture.. I learned about Shinimiri.
Shinimiri is a complicated word but one of it's meanings is the feeling one gets watching rain pelt a field, garden, or landscape.

 Around Christmas times, we learned about Yokai Umbrellas.
Yokai came to my attention lately because child#2 got a loud toy wristwatch that 'spots' different Yokai when you slide plastic disks into it. I have heard a lot of shouted Japanese and English phrases repetitively especially in the car while driving.

 Made up of two kanji that mean" bewitching, attractive, calamity", and "apparition, mystery, suspicious", Yokai are a group of supernatural beings from Japan. My favorites are the umbrellas. Hone Karakasa  骨傘ほねからか, is a tattered umbrella that flies through the air on blustery days. Traditional Japanese umbrellas have 30 to 70 bamboo ribs, "Hone" means bone, because the ribs look like fish bones. "Karakasa" is an abbreviation of a phrase that means magical umbrella. Hone Karakasa, are "obake", which means thing that changes. Hone Karakasa fly into the air on stormy days coming to life like wild animated kites. Naturally, Hone Karakasa are thought to be an omen of bad weather.

Umbrella #3, Watercolor, JMH

The other umbrella Yokai is called Karakasa-Obake (唐傘お化け)
 In Japan when objects exist for one hundred or more years, it is believed they take on freewill, and a life of their own. They are called Obake, thing that changes, umbrellas, even futons and clocks, can become animated, no longer doing what they were made for, running around, kicking people, creeping them out, and sometimes being oddly helpful, " in Mizokuchi, Tottori Prefecture (now Hōki, Saihaku District), there is a story about a yōkai called yūreigasa (幽霊傘, "ghost umbrella") that has one eye and one foot like the kasa-obake, but it is said that on days of strong wind, they would blow people up into the skies.^{[5]"  Wikipedia} 

Kanō Enshin ([狩野宴信, Japanese, †1761)

 I've started painting with watercolors now instead of oil. I will probably be learning watercolors for a long time. Watercolors are more difficult than oils, less forgiving, more unpredictable. Water just cannot be controlled as easily. Here in California we love the sound of rain. People here talk about rain as a mystical experience. It means we are winning. The sound of rain is unmistakable, percussive, and carries the subtle scent of every plant it falls on. The worst thing about the drought is watching the trees suffer so without the rain, many trees look like they are dying. Everyday I pray for rain, storm after storm, with time to dry out in between.

Umbrella #4 JMH

Purple Madder Alizarin, Winsor Blue(Red Shade), Carmine. Husband keeps coming into the studio and telling me the painting is really good. He says he wants to buy it. He says, time exploding, the plane wreck from lost, old car at the swimming hole. This scares me so I stop working on it. It becomes "my precious" and I start navel-gazing. Hoping to get a little more work in tonight while waiting for it to rain in one hour. Rain, please, please, please.


I might have to just work on a little canvas again.
Seeing old pictures of yourself on the internet is strange.
Especially when they're, um, in black and white.
Oh the duality.

This is what I made last time I got scared of the time painting. A drawing of a Scarab, swimming in planatary seas with stained glass. Sometimes I get one color stuck in my head and think about it endlessly. Plus I love the blues and I've been hearing some amazing music this week on radio. Saw the light of the sunrise on the underside of the wings of crows this morning. 

The new painting is about Time

I was trying to just paint a straight up pretty landscape type painting for once and JUST...couldn't do it. The painting is about a moment in time and the associated emotion felt at that moment, but it wasn't really working, and so it is now semi destroyed. Sometimes I like to figuratively burn my paintings to the ground and build them back up again. The noise it produces now is not burning flames but a clank like gears and time passing. It is large and is sort of taking forever.

Meanwhile on Facebook, its trying to sell me a t-shirt that says 50 is the new 30. I am almost there and can report that it is not. Well only if you are a moron. A lot has happened in the last 20 years. I feel like I have lots to say about it too. As I watch #1 daughter grow I gain in understanding. As I watch myself changing and becoming, I can see the gears moving, that had remained invisible for so long.

Husband is spooked by some show on Fox, Sunday night, leading to a discussion on whether the devil exists. Esoteric reading suggests that this is in fact the case. That the devil, symbolized by the black cube and the planet Saturn is in charge of Time. Which is why evil doers seem to go on and on and never pay for their crimes. Karma is the law of the universe, but since Saturn spins the wheels and gears, it exerts its own control over things. Saturn is also known by the name Chronos, the guy with the long white beard from Greek mythology who devoured his own children. Lots of artists have done some ugly sad bloody paintings of this guy over the years, but not me. Saturn in my paintings only appears as a clock face, or a planet, which is quite beautiful in it's deadly non-life supporting way. What with its poison gas atmosphere and 1000+ mile per hour winds. See if you can spot him in my last painting...

#1 daughter drew this new picture for me in pencil and I inked it. Its Sobek and Horus.

 The fight between the Sun and Saturn keeps asserting itself into my consciousness for some reason-- Kaypacha the astrologer was transmitting from the Kom Ombo temple, the temple of Sobek (Saturn) and Horus. He said there are many stone carvings representing  the rivalry between Sobek the crocodile- headed god of the Nile, and Horus the hawk-headed sky god. In his cosmology Horus represents Jupiter, The ruler of Sagittarius, meaning festive, jovial, abundance,expansion. I always picture him as the ghost of Christmas present from Dicken's A Christmas Carol. I have also heard Horus represents the Sun so it gets a little confusing.  I've mostly heard him referred to as a Christ-like Sun God. When looking at these ancient mythologies you have to consciously set aside your 21st century eyes, and try to grok concepts such as the ancient Egyptian's keeping crocodiles in jeweled pools to worship. The Egyptian Gods are confusing and shift around a lot to my eyes. In this quote, blogger David Mathisen compares Osiris as Saturn to Horus as Christ

"And so, in the symbolic language of ancient myth, our incarnate existence is a struggle between the undeniable fact of our imprisonment in the underworld kingdom of Saturn, the tyrannical lord of time who devours his children and turns them to dust by his inexorable turnings,  and the equally undeniable fact of our internal Christ-like nature, this "Horus principle" or "Christ consciousness" within, which urges us to transcend this underworld existence, and tells us that this earthly prison is not ultimately our true home. However, in order to rise up like Horus, we must first descend into the realm of Osiris: in order to become a Christ, we must descend into the kingdom of Saturn. " David Mathisen

So can we say when we look into the battle of Sobek and Horus we are seeing the battle of good vs evil, Satan vs Christ. Again 21st century eyes. We have been encouraged our whole lives to look at the world as a battle between Heroes and Villains, and you must take that programing into consideration. I feel that if current trends continue we will soon be witnessing an age of  happy medicated autistic adults and humanoid robots locked in battle with reptilian satanist alligators.  Wait I'm not sure who's side the robots are on.
  So Husband asks me "Do you believe there is a Devil?"And to my surprise I can't even answer. An other-worldy other-dimensional source of evil? There seems to be some in our hearts, but I've never really seen, you know, solid evidence. Except that one time, when I was riding my bike late and there was that being that looked like a man made out of  the blackness of space. Who knows what that was, but it had the bad  feeling of being from somewhere else. There seem to be centers of evil on this earth, Hollywood is one, London is another. Not all evil those towns, but in parts you know there's soul killing stuff that goes on. Probably there's nothing more evil on earth than the people who hurt children. And I wonder how that stands. I guess if the devil were in charge of time.

Back to the painting, oh I'm so obsessed! It is exciting to me to try and paint Time. Its like trying to paint the Wind.
Will it ever be finished!?
Time will tell.

Alanis Morissette - Thank U (Official Music Video)

The day before Halloween, our neighbor put some large plastic decorations out for pick-up, attractively piled at the curb, a kid magnet. #1 Daughter was home sick from school and we watched from the kitchen as #1 son and his rowdy gang of scooter hooligans had an epic play on the driveway with them. I have been providing the kids with toy weapons, plastic swords, a cloth indiana jones whip, play tools that can be used as laser guns, a light sabre. They have these epic battles, but on the day before Halloween it transcended into performance art. Whether setting up Mrs.Claus, to be shot execution style by the large silver tomato shooting bazooka from #1 Sons Foodfight costume or the littlest boy with the limp carrying the plastic North Pole sign on his back ready to bonk someone with, it was pure street theater. #1 Son is paddling the large half pumpkin around like a boat. We were laughing so hard. It was a little crazy but so lively, I just couldn't bring myself to reign them in.

On Halloween, for once I stayed home and let the man take the kids out trick or treating. It was so odd to be at home. Daughter #1 had made a miraculous recovery.I only got about eight kids coming to the door. I was watching some ghost hunters show, when suddenly the phone rang. it sounded like a tragedy. I could hear children wailing...
 "Come get us!"
"What why, whats going on?"
It's raining!
What it's raining?
I am so unused to the sound of rain these days.
"Where are you?"
"Right around the corner!"
"I'll be right there."
I run outside in bare feet. It was pouring. Like it hadn't rained in months and we are in the middle of this horrible drought. It was coming down so hard. When I pulled up in the wagon, #1 son and his young friends were wailing like it was the end of the world.

Roxy Music - Angel Eyes

I just finished reading Kerouac's Desolation Angels. I read On the Road so long ago, when I was young. This book finds him feeling his age. Doing a two month fire-lookout stint on a remote mountain in Washington State, he idealizes his friends and the pleasures of the city. He has the  cosmic revelations of a hermit. He comes down from the mountain and travels through the world, Seattle, San Francisco, Mexico City, London, Tangiers, Berkeley, Florida. In the beginning so wide eyed, and in the end so world weary. I'm fascinated right now, with reading books about people in the middle of their lives.

He saw the big sad invisible wings on every shoulder.

I grew up in the angels.
Or El Pueblo de Nuesra Senora la Riena de los Angeles de Porciuncula.
Sometimes I thought it was lost angels.

It was about the roads, the lights and the sea. I remember best the Coast Highway at night on the edge of all that blackness. The crashing Pacific with lights shining off it from underneath houses and restaurants all perched on the edge of the serpentine.

I don't care for artistic depictions of angels much when they are women with fluffy white swan wings. You may love them and that's fine, but to me there's something airy and annoying about them. The Temperance card in tarot is usually depicted as a women with wings, although she is a virtue and not an angel.

 I like the angel called Michael. He is a fighter and defender of the people Here's the statue of Archangel Michael, the patron saint of Kiev, Ukraine. May peace reign This book is about him too:

                         Michael Valentine Smith, the man from Mars,"was in no hurry- he grokked that Eternity
                                         and the ever-beautifully-changing Now, were identical. "

But what I really want to tell you about angels is what I want to tell you about man. I'm thinking about this quote from the Zealator by Mark Hedsel. I know I'm at risk of seeming like a Mark Hedsel groupie, because I keep mentioning the Zealator. Maybe it was all the artifacts or all those footnotes but that was one thought provoking book. He also has a lot of info on eclipses and alchemy. Here is his take on the differences between man and angel;

"Man is not an angel, yet he has knowledge based on the experience of the earth which is beyond the understanding of angels. Man understands about the lower depths, about the Earth plane to which he plunged so long ago and which has remained permanently inaccessible to the angels who do not have the material bodies to explore it's depths. Just as man cannot see the peloromic light (the great spiritual light of the numinal world) which is perpetually before the gaze off the angels, the angels themselves cannot see the dense materiality that is before the gaze of man. If the sacred lore is correct we must ask, what is it that man and angels have in common?"....."Developed almost to perfection in the angels is love. Love is scarcely developed at all in man and is confused with many entities that spring from the realm of desire. Unlike the angels, man has not been bequeathed with the gift of pure love: to develop further, human beings must so perfect themselves as to learn to love unconditionally and to love without desire." "Mankind has been offered an extraordinary destiny of becoming greater than the angels. The great sacrifice behind the descent of the Efflux is the way-of-the birth which is man's own initiatory way of birth into the Future."

 These are the words I didn't know in this text:

noun: efflux

1. the flowing out of a particular substance or particle.

   • material flowing out.
   • another term for effluxion (sense 1).
     

      Pleroma (Greek πλήρωμα) generally refers to the totality of divine powers. The word means fullness from π
     
     And NUMINAL ,From the Latin numen (“divine will, god”), from -nuere (“to nod”).
     

     numinal (comparative more numinal, superlative most numinal)

     1. divine

I still like learning new words, and I like thinking about this new job opportunity for man. I'm thinking that in this paradigm, the angels were never thrown out of the garden as man is said to have been. They never see the clutter and the stuff of the material world, only the alive things and numinal light.

I had ten kids playing in addition to A & E after school today. Some of them really want to to play computer games but the key is to distract them. The favorite game right now is ninja pirates and plastic swords and lightsaber/nerf gun. The also like legos, plastic animals, playing kick ball, throwing frisbees on the roof, and digging in the dirt. Children play and play, and I'm happy. They are having a childhood very similar to what I had growing up although Lompoc is very different than Malibu.

There aren't many good songs about angels except for Angel Eyes by Roxy Music. The video is like an awkward prom date in the eighties, when your date is very stoned. So cheesy that it transcends the form and is numinal. So angelic it is cheese.




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