Drawing Connections

Not sure what connections you are drawing...or even drawing, RJ, but I think about connections all the time...I don't believe in random anything...there are invisible lines that run through our lives and our families....it helps me make sense of it all. It is a magical place but not more than I can stand..I love when I have one of those moments.....

No I can't say my thoughts have done that as there isn't enough room with all that voices that live in my head.

Yes Marlene exactly, but do you ever get exhausted with it?

no. I have to work at not obsessing...but I do make lists and sometimes charts...so I get it out of me, rather than keeping it bottled up..understand?

When I started reading primers on Quantum Physics, so many things mentioned reminded me of something from my childhood, that until that point, seemed disconnected...so I started the first list. I was amazed how many connections there were.....first one from kindergarten when i drew a 3D box
for show and tell.

No, I've come to expect it. Things normally do tie in & come together in pleasantly unexpected ways.

oh yes, about 25 years ago I was up late one night and started drawing charts and geometric connections and my note book was no long big enough so I expanded it to the kitchen walls with a black magic marker till 5 am .... and that was before the movie A beautiful Mind ...

Most recently, there was a family problem over the correct Hebrew name for my mother's gravestone. I went to bed every night, asking my mom for a sign and some guidance. She came to me in a dream and I asked her, but she disappeared. I assumed I had to make the decision on my own and fight for it.
Ultimately, the decision was made ( in favor of my choice) and the very next day I was going through some papers, and at the very top of the pile was a list she had written of all the immediate family Hebrew names...mine wasn't on the list, so I safely assumed she left this message for me, knowing I wouldn't need to know my own name. It was the validation I needed.
NOW, here's the connection...I do our famliy's genealogy and a man in a group I belong to on FB, posted a project he just completed of documenting damaged gravestones in Poland. They were able to locate my great grandfather's headstone...but my great grandmother's was completely destroyed...my mom was named after her...the gravestone we are about to unveil will represent BOTH women..it was just too much of a connection not to see it and know it as purposeful and not random.

The dead are really good at it

Our family lines are the visible ones!

I think really great poetry has that quality ...

yes, absolutely.

I also think people create connections, subconciously...

"create connections" ...there is one right there... The creative and it's power to connect

I often fear the connections I make......I often connect mostly to the darkness from my past. Memories I don't want to have or moments I do not want connected to me anymore, but then I realize they have made me who I am. My little black box (as I like to call it) tucked away deep within...filled to the brim. And yes sometimes it's overwhelming other times it's reassuring.... I understand them usually but I do not always see the connection right away....and yes they sometimes bother me.

I’ll try to keep this brief but it’s really convoluted so I will ramble. I’ll not be offended if you choose to pass.

Years ago I became friends with a woman who was affiliated with a museum in southern California. She always looked forward to her family reunions. They gathered on ancestral land by the Gila. She’d invited me to come but every year there was a reason why I couldn’t. There were a couple cousins that she raved about and who she especially wanted me to meet.

Years later I was hiking along the Gila and came to a cone-shaped butte that was covered with boulders. I could see glyphs on some of the rocks on top but wasn’t about to climb up there because it was way too snaky. Then I saw a big glyph of a coiled rattler on a boulder at the base of the butte. The design was heavy patinated, which meant it had been carved way back when. The ground was clear around the boulder so it was safe to approach. I pulled out my camera and set the backpack down, walked over to get a shot of the glyph and noticed there was a huge circular depression in the sand right in front of the boulder. The hair stood up on the back of my neck but I ignored it and started to take pictures. About then the biggest, laziest, sloppiest rattles started up right behind me. I turned around and there he was, coiled and angry and reared up between me and my backpack (the one with the truck keys, my money, etc.). He was at least 5 feet long and thicker than both my arms. And he was irked. I was standing in his scrape in front of the boulder. It was early spring and my first thought was “Where is your mate?” I’d come across a mating pair the day before and still had the willies. I was afraid if I stepped around the backside of the boulder she’d be there in its shade but I had no choice. He was clearly about to settle things so I got behind the boulder then made a huge circle to try to get around behind him so I could get to my pack and get the heck out. It took a long time to pick my way. He held his ground but kept swiveling in my direction as I circled. I finally made it way behind him and waited. He settled down and went to his scrape. When he did, I grabbed my stuff and ran.

Fast forward a few more years and I was doing the Tucson show with a guy from Mescalero. There was an epic flood in Tucson that winter. The streets were flooded. The big tent came crashing down during the night, smashing everything to splinters. We were staying in a funky (really funky) RV behind our booth in one of the empty lots near the trashed tent, wading through mud up to our gunwales for endless days. I’m all for random adventure but was way over Tucson by then and glad the show would soon be over so we could move on. Then Mr. Right Now announced that we wouldn’t be leaving just yet because he’d met a guy, another artist, who’d invited us out to their place for a sweat so we’d be heading there when the show was over. I was not pleased. I was thinking more along the lines of going somewhere that was not Tucson, not desert and not to a stranger’s house. Pretty much anywhere else would have been fine. And I was pretty much done with him but not quite.

So Mr. Right Now packed up his art and we headed west. I don’t know what I was imagining I’d find when we got to his new friend’s place but I wasn’t expecting to be embraced by a couple of sweet elders who welcomed us like family. We stayed on and had an amazing time. I kept thinking how random my wandering is and yet I’ve been brought to these dear people. I had experiences there that defy conventional understanding and I came to realize that the two of them have certain gifts.
So one evening they happened to mention their cousin who works at that museum in southern California. Yep, their cousin, my old friend, the one who’d been trying for years to get me down to Arizona so I could meet them. That’s when I realized that Mr. Right Now, though way wrong for me, was meant to be in my life at that time because the path to them was not a straight one.

But wait, there’s more, LOL…
That big old rattler that coiled on me? That’s where they camp, at the base of that butte. I’d stumbled onto their site. She told me that one year when that snake was sunning in front of its boulder, several of them took pictures of it. The next year one of them mentioned that their snake shots didn’t come out. No one got a shot of that snake. One of the elders thought that was pretty funny. She said they should have remembered that Auntie never liked having her picture taken.

RJ,
that certainly explains why some artists insist " art found me."

Kathleen...fantastic story and yes I read the whole thing. I think RJ will agree with me that in this part of the country the invisible connections are stronger. ;)

Goose bumps! yes it's very thin out here Marlene but I think whenever we are "on the road" things happen....
Sheena, I know what you mean...

Nothing in the universe is random.

You know RJ... now that I think about it I probably make more connections than I realize.....it just so happens for me personally the tragic experiences tend to stand out more in my psyche and leave their mark in a much more deeper prominent way than the happy stuff......at least in my personal experience that is true I can't speak for everyone. But regardless I do make connections.

"Sheena, I know what you mean... "
You often seem to "get me" Robert. Thank you for that.

Yes,I seem to get there often, I can't stand it when i can't say what it is, what it means to me, why it happened, why I noticed it, but I am learning to let it go when I can't stand it, and just enjoy the experience of knowing there's things around us, phenomenem that we just don't see, but when we do see/experience it, its magic...magic that is there all of the time!

Great Story Kathleen!
I remember reading Macbeth in a class last year for the umpteenth time and I really had focus on what I was reading and not just rush through it because I had to be able to explain it to a student with learning difficulties, as I was reading the first scene with the witches, the whole thing seemed to breathe life, it was very uncanny, it was as though I was travelling through time, or they were, or Shakespeare was, the writing seemed as fresh as when Shakespeare was penning his story, I remember the teacher walking past myself and the student and asking how things were going and alls I could say was its magic!...A word I wouldn't normally use...but it was the first time I actually understood themeaning of the word.

the reason I brought this topic up was because I've been in that in between place of not knowing...I briefly caught a glimpse of it a few days ago and it was euphoric and exhausting, like a seizure ... I'm in that place where I know nothing other than "somethings about to give"..............................

And yet, i feel that I ahve had glimpses of it in your poetry. So, I wonder if other people can see it/experience it from other's art, whether that be painting, photography writing, etc? or even in the presence of people. according to Miksang photographers, that magic is there all of the time and quite ordinary its just that we don't see it, we are too preoccupied with thoughts.

Maria, it almost seems essential to a great artistic experience, it,s the stuff that makes the hair stand up

I hesitate to bring this up because it sounds so New-Agey and I'm not even sure if it's related to the topic but there are some places that feel heavy with portent. I've been overwhelmed on several occasions when I enter these "zones". It's hard to describe because it feels like both a watchful stillness and a restless crackling of barely restrained energy. The stage is set and the players are long overdue but we hold our breath because whatever is about to happen is gathering force just outside our vision. The first time I entered one of these zones I was a young child. I recently returned to that place and the sensation is still as strong as it was all those years ago. There is magic that we cannot begin to fathom.

One could take this view on this topic...

Definition: Fatalism......."the doctrine that all things are subject to fate or inevitable predestination and that man is ultimately unable to prevent inevitabilities"

Slightly off topic somewhat Mr. H.

But you speak of a place where you caught a glimpse and it gave you a feeling of Euphoria

Twice in my lifetime I have experienced a true feeling and it took me to a different dimension------extremely difficult to achieve---especially in these trying times

That was inner peace

2x in over 50 plus years---it's not easy---even to recognize it when it happens

Most of my "connections" have always been a feeling of having been there or having met a particular person before (and with this short term memory loss I live with - that's possible). Most of my 'bad connections' - over the past few years - have been of impending doom, uncertainty, like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I'd have to disagree....I don't believe in fatalism..
I don't see anything about this as being negative and 'why bother when it's all pre-determined.'
I see the opposite..that it is all connected and our job is to recognize the connections AND their significance.
Mindful living is all.....and that opens up room for Euphoria.

I had one experience once, that put me in that place you describe, RJ...it was a turning point in my life...Once I recognized it,there was no turning back and it shaped my future.
Huge flood of all emotions....overwhelming

The turning point.....yes, one of the hardest points in my life, yet the most liberating. It has been a two edged sword for me. I did not know when I took it, it would end in a catastrophe, which today I still grieve, but in the twists and turns I discovered what I was searching for.

I am not a believer in pre-determination, unless pre-destination is of my own manifestation.

although it can sometimes feel like pre destination...I also think its more about how we and everything around us is so connected...but we couldn't live in euphoria constantly so, somewhere along the line, thought was the release, but has somehow taken over.

@first post

No, no and no

Kathleen Bishop, I am in that place these days that you describe
Mo, I think there are many possible destinations and we construct them either consciously or unconsciously it's largely up to us
Roy, what you described is how I feel when I'm at that point between anxiety and depression and I'm just trying to keep my head above water.
Marlene, the flood gates of emotion have not opened yet, I'm more or less detached and aloof but can still associate
Sydne, grieving is not all bad
Maria, when I'm in that place of connection I try not to take it to literally and just look at it as crumbs along the path
Abbie, that's a lot to no

I often hold myself prisoner....all the darkness outweighing the good....I have a lot of good and I have a lot of the not so good but for some reason the most significant connections are filled with bottled up fear, emotion, anger and devastating memories; they are overwhelming and the connection so vivid...reliving the terror, the anger, the sadness. When I make connections they are often my undoing. I am exposed and forced to feel no longer able to deny the scars left behind.

On a more happier note I do remember one particular happy connection I experienced when I was pregnant with my first daughter. I was in my second trimester and started having extremely vivid dreams. Long story short my daughter often visited me in my dreams as she remained in my womb......we did not know the sex of our child and yet this pretty little redhead girl playing in the snow in three different dreams visited me as I slept.. Always the same dream with her all in blue playing in the snow.......she was born a month early in January on a snowy winter night .....our beautiful red haired blue eyed beauty Brooklynn Jade.

Robert, Best wishes from the Pikes, hope you and your lady have a wonderful Easter weekend.

Great dream Sheena. Maybe the ones you see as most significant because of their emotional impact are not the most significant .. they just don't like to be denied because they are in the past fighting to be in the present... I watched the wind pick up this evening, it was putting on a moody show and I got another peek ..

To expand on my post above regarding places with a different feeling.- When I returned to the place where I first became aware of this anomaly, it was at the invitation of the current owners, who didn't know me. I had never talked about this place or its significance with anyone yet they specifically asked me to come there with them. They'd set a bench in the center of the space. After we sat there quietly for a while, the woman looked at me said, "So you know about them".

Ok here's an old one.... I'm 21 driving at night with fried Eric as passenger, no drinking or drugs involved, I'm doing 55 when in minds eye I see a women as clear as can be laying in the road, I yank the wheel hard and Eric yells WTF are you doing? I said didn't you see the women in the road? he said no...so we drive on much slower as I'm freaked , we no sooner go around the corner and there is a women laying in the road..a cop had pulled a car over on the left and she had jump out of the car she was in and being beat on by her husband..I was going slow enough this time that I just drove right over to the left and got the cop who had no idea this was happening..mean time the husband dragged her back and took off..the good news is the cop got him and arrested ...had I not slowed down his lights would have blinded me and I would have run her over...my first thought was to block traffic and get her off the road..

I remember having a dream about a huge pink building with a garden wherein was all of my family, including those that we had lost. In the garden t he ocean rolled up to our feet and we even paddled in it, astonished at the idea of it. Weeks later me, Dave and the boys went to Portugal on holiday, as I chased my two boys down a street and round an uphill corner I was confronted by the big pink building...exactly as it was...it was a church. I was stunned and convinced Dave to find the entrance, which was quite a way off, I had luckily already told Dave about the dream. When we found the entrance, above the church doors was the name Santa Maria. From the walled garden alls that could be seen was the ocean.