summer.

summer here is unbelievably spectacularly beautiful.
its also very frenzied because it is so short and yet so amazing.
i do enjoy it so.
this seems ironic to me that i would enjoy sunshine (albeit in very small doses)
because i am such a creature of the night. i do though.
but on the other hand i sometimes feel obligated to
be doing something amazing every moment in summer
because it is so short and gorgeous.
the pressure gets to me sometimes!
i want to relax and not feel the pressure all
the time to make the most of it, y’know?

as for news—i have been absurdly busy.
i got my drivers liscense finally (i turn 38 on thursday—shhh!).
this is something of a small accomplishment for me because gentle
reader, i never wanted a driver liscense or for that matter, a car.
so why go to the trouble to learn to drive then you might ask?
ah yes. well—i wanted to be legal and legit for riding the motorcycle.
here in washington, i must have a drivers liscense first.
blah.

it has taken me a year to do this, driving other peoples cars.
i could write a mini novella about my experiences with cars
and the dmv but i will spare us both.
really not that interesting.
suffice to say, at long last it is completed and i shall never have to do this again.
phew!

in other aspects of my life i am reasonably happy if not a little ornery lately.
it seems i have some mysterious force with in me that simply has to be contrary
and do things that people arent expecting or necessarily wanting me to do.
i hate being fenced in maybe.
im not sure what it is exactly.
i will just leave it at that.

then there is also the fact that as of late i have been booked solid for a week for social obligations.
i dislike being intensely busy so this doesnt please me.
i like to have time to contemplate and be quiet.
during this time, i also think up new ideas for paintings
and paint them. not being able to makes me cranky.

its not even that its because im an introvert, although that is certainly part of it.
i think honestly its just because i am not that interested in what others are doing in a way.
that makes it sound more unfriendly than it is but im not sure how else to phrase it.
the reality is that many many more people are attracted to me than i could possibly
ever have time for. and while i do sometimes enjoy outings and such, the rub lies
in the fact that the very thing that attracts so many well meaning people to me
(my artwork, being an international woman of intrigue and such)
is the often times the very things that they would seek to distract me from doing.

does anyone else here have this problem sometimes?
i feel like its something of a cry baby type scenario.
like—oh please, your life is so hard.
but i am curious nevertheless.

soon, street legal riding.
at last!

i admit it openly and fully, i have one serious motorcycle fetish.

there.

i said it.

i feel much better now?

Courage, also known as bravery, will and fortitude, is the ability to confront fear, pain, risk/danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. ‘Physical courage’ is courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, or threat of death, while ‘moral courage’ is the courage to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, or discouragement.

Religion & Philosophy

As a virtue, courage is discussed extensively in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, where its vice of deficiency is cowardice and its vice of excess is recklessness.[1]

The Tao Te Ching states that courage is derived from love (“? loving ? causes ? ability ? brave”) and explains: “One of courage, with audacity, will kill. One of courage, but gentle, spares life. From these two kinds of courage arise harm and benefit.”[2][3]

It is understood that physical and moral courage is important in combat.

There are ample illustrations of courage in religion, such as in persecution or even martyrdom. In Roman Catholicism, courage is one of the four cardinal virtues, along with prudence, justice, and temperance. (“Cardinal” in this sense means “pivotal”; it is one of the four cardinal virtues because to possess any virtue, a person must be able to sustain it in the face of difficulty). In both Catholicism and Anglicanism, courage is also one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The precise view of what constitutes courage not only varies among cultures, but among individuals. For instance, some define courage as lacking fear in a situation that would normally generate it. Others, in contrast, hold that courage requires one to have fear and then overcome it.

There are also more subtle distinctions in the definition of courage. For example, some distinguish between courage and foolhardiness in that a courageous person overcomes a justifiable fear for an even more noble purpose. If the fear is not justifiable or if the purpose is not noble, then the courage is either false or foolhardy.

Moral courage, more than physical courage, is widely debated. It is frequently regarded as courage in following one’s own ethics which may result in the individual feeling isolated from colleagues, or even family. Also moral courage is facing shame, scandal, prejudice or even discouragement and defeating it.

Søren Kierkegaard opposed courage to angst, while Paul Tillich opposed an existential courage to be to non-being, fundamentally equating it with religion:

“Courage is the self-affirmation of being in spite of the fact of non-being. It is the act of the individual self in taking the anxiety of non-being upon itself by affirm­ing itself … in the anxiety of guilt and condemnation. ... every courage to be has openly or covertly a religious root. For religion is the state of being grasped by the power of being itself.”[4]

Merriam Webster Unabridged Dictionary 1934 – 1980 editions: “1.The heart, as the seat of intelligence or feeling”. Significant is the absence of any mention of bravery. Instead, this longstanding definition indicates that courageous actions and decisions are motivated by something deeper and more comprehensive than cerebral intelligence. The simplest illustration is when a parent runs into a burning house to save a child, not out of the bravery associated with soldiers in battle, but rather out of the courage which results from profoundly felt love.

J. R. R. Tolkien identified in his 1936 lecture “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” a “Northern ‘theory of courage’”_the heroic or “virtuous pagan” insistence to do the right thing even in the face of certain defeat without promise of reward or salvation:

It is the strength of the northern mythological imagination that it faced this problem, put the monsters in the centre, gave them victory but no honour, and found a potent and terrible solution in naked will and courage. ‘As a working theory absolutely impregnable.’ So potent is it, that while the older southern imagination has faded forever into literary ornament, the northern has power, as it were, to revive its spirit even in our own times. It can work, as it did even with the goðlauss Viking, without gods: martial heroism as its own end. (p. 25f.)

Virtuous pagan heroism or courage in this sense is “trusting in your own strength,” as observed by Jacob Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology,

men who, turning away in utter disgust and doubt from the heathen faith, placed their reliance on their own strength and virtue. Thus in the Sôlar lioð 17 we read of Vêbogi and Râdey â sik þau trûðu, “in themselves they trusted”,

This “virtuous godlessness” is the nontheism of Pema Chödrön, the “relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves [...] finally realizing there is no babysitter you can count on.”[5]

wikipedia

this war, now 5 years in,
breaks my heart so much
it is almost unspeakable.

i have no answers.

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery – when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.