Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts

Saturday, November 11, 2017

REFLECTIONS OF MYSELF

My own reflections come from the sacred eyes of my sacred lodge belongs to Kish-Shamm Manitou (Our Creator), within this sacred lodge dwells the spirit of Monnzheeze (fawn), my wife.

We both feel in our own way someplace dwells perfection, it was once here long before the invasion of this white man...along with greed and lust.

We know the natural and original creation has all but been abandoned by the cultures of today.

We know there are many people around that still live that natural and original way created by Kish-Shamm Manitou.

And in my eyes, also come reflections that belong to you, Monnzheeze, my wife.
  
We are a oneness this way....
                                   
Long ago during a Peyote ceremony, legend has it how a man and a woman from the Potawatomi nation entered into this sacred ceremony and their spirit's met. They talked that way for a long while and decided not to return back down here.

They walked away laughing in that manner.

Many have gone that way and it was found that their own materialistic sacred lodges were empty of this life.
Their spirits had abandoned this sacred life. They walked in to a belief.

We hear those walked away from life that way.

When it rains, their laughter can be heard, or their soft pitter-patter of running feet while those many raindrops fall down on us.
Their laughter can be heard from swift rivlets, creeks, brooks, mighty falling rivers.

Theirs can be said of a happy life the way they walked away together.
                                   
So, it is not always that one that walks into spirituality alone, there are many want this way, just as I do.

Just as my Monnzheeze wants it.

We are filled with a fear of many things...even this life.

That is why many of us look at each other in apprehension towards all that swiftly and silently approaching all of life from a direction that all of life must inevitably enter.

I have always said, I will walk alone if need be. There is no fear, only what we carry deep to the bottom of our sacred lodges.

So, these are reflections of myself.


The Way Called Beautiful by Helen Bird

Thursday, October 26, 2017

solar flair


'Solar Flair' Ink 2017
BOOKS NOW AVAILABLE ON amazon.com FOLLOW THESE LINKS & THANK YOU!          

Inksanity by Helen Bird Art
The Way called Beautiful by Helen Bird

PS...these make AWESOME GIFTS :)

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.”
― Émile Zola

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Rise of Atlantis


ink drawings by Helen Bird 2016

“First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.”
Douglas Adams
BOOKS NOW AVAILABLE ON amazon.com FOLLOW THESE LINKS & THANK YOU!          

Inksanity by Helen Bird Art
The Way called Beautiful by Helen Bird

PS...these make AWESOME GIFTS :)

Monday, October 23, 2017

Postcards from The Edge

"All this world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars." H.G. Wells


BOOKS NOW AVAILABLE ON amazon.com           

Inksanity by Helen Bird Art
The Way called Beautiful by Helen Bird

Monday, October 16, 2017

Invisibility

Amy told me,
"My Dad' bought me a bright lime green tee shirt one Christmas and when he gave it to me he said, 'Here...now go on, get yerself noticed!'" Her voice trailed off. Having spent six months, as a teenager, comatose, ventilated and tube fed through her stomach after a car accident and subsequent head injury, the rest of Amy's life was anything but un-noticable.
She became a heavy user of methamphetamine and her addiction, combined with the chronic depression and learning difficulties since the wreck contributed to the loss of her son in to foster care.
She had suffered terribly at the hands of an abusive ex-husband or boyfriend and what was left of her family, they really didn't care anymore. So, she drifted from city to city, travelling and existing by the seat of her only pair of pants. By no means slow or stupid, I found Amy to be very quick witted, curious and definitely street smart. Hitchhiking and hustling from place to place, she'd learned to trust no one.
Her voice was permanently hoarse from being trached and she readily showed me the scars on her belly. "See..." She continued, "When you're homeless you try real hard to not get noticed. People look right through ya anyway. they just don't wanna see you..."
My experience on the street was much different to Amy's but we shared the same feelings of isolation and vulnerability. Street life. It's beyond an edgy, space-time continuum thats all screwed up. A glorious absence of monotony. And immeasurable pain.
It's a two way street because you want people to see you, so that they can help you and understand how life can just beat you down so hard, that it can so easily happen to anyone.
But, mostly you don't want to be noticed at all. As if there could be a parallel dimension to slip un-noticed in to and avoid having to have contact with the rest of society ever again. Ashamed that your clothes are soiled. They smell and have been slept in. Embarassed that you haven't shaved or seen a dentist in a while. Quite a while.
You've bathed randomly at gas stations and truck stops, making do with what you can in the rest rooms. A backpack is a dead give-away and there's no way around it. You just need to carry your stuff, somehow, someway without looking like a turtle hauling his house full of junk and scrap metal.
We turn in to shells of our former selves. You keep your unwashed hair tied back and under a hat, making it easy to look down. Eye's to the ground.
I read somewhere that 'a home is a place where you are supposed to be able to leave the outside world behind.'
Imagine that. Now all of a sudden the outside is your home and all that you do is visible to the public.
Now, all of a sudden certain groups of people DO notice and recognize you, for example ‎the police and the criminal justice system. A cop told me one day, "To get outta here! I don't wanna ever see your face again!" I was on the way to the library. It readily felt like the local sheriff was running me out of town as soon as I got there.
So, what do you do? Hide in plain site and try to blend in. You learn fast, from other homeless, travellers, drifters and local eccentrics. Random samples of the roughly handled. They tell you where to not go, where the cops love to harass. "Don't cha ever cut across a parking lot downtown, they'll arrest ya for trespassing."
Invisibility becomes a way of life...physically, psychologically and socially.
An old friend will call you up and ask, "What's up? How ya doin'? Wanna do lunch this week?". I glance down at my nails, all dirty and uneven from painting and camping in the woods. "Uh-hum...Oh, I'm great! But...err, I'm pretty busy all week. But soon. OK?"
Helen Bird April 26th 2014
Published in The Contributor May 2014


Hollywood Is Dead

The chandeliers were the first to tremble...
 The audience, weighted down by Harry Winston diamonds & Botox treatments, looked up nervously...
 Initially, blinded by their own vanity, puffed up with self adulation & dosed with perfection for the occasion, they ignored the signs...
 Then the auditorium really started to shake. The very floor beneath their pedicured feet gave way to movie star screams & shear panic...
 No acting required...
 This was the real deal...La la land no more...
  Atmospheric rivers, unheard of ever before, had supremely doused the parched & unstable land...
 Fancy cars & limos swallowed whole by hungry & angry sink holes...
Mother Earth was pissed!!! And the last were to become first & the first, well...we know what became of them...
 Buried ball gowns, designer purses, tuxedos & statues...
 Ahhhh...Oscar schmOscar...
 Your world exists no more...
 A just punishment for such lavish lifestyles, many may say...
 The glaring imbalance of wealth, conspicuous consumption and wasted resources corrected by the great law of the Universe...
 The scales of justice reset by greedy mans' hands...
 A few blocks away, the untouchables cowered in makeshift camps on Skid Row...Praying to a God many thought had long gone...
 But with a faith this strong...so strong in the face of their adversity, the surrounding buildings swayed & fell away...
 The ground held fast under dirty shoeless feet...
 Salvation shone on Skid Row that day...
 And though dust swirled & people huddled closer together, their camps held fast...
 They emerged when the shaking stopped...
 Unharmed yet fragile...
 Shaken but not scared...
 Yes...it was The Big One, alright...
 And it finally came...
written by Helen L Bird March 2017 @Birdhelen #helenbirdart & photography...
In light of the recent Weinstein scandal, I felt this piece somehow as more appropriate today as it was back then, earlier on this year. As the growing disparity between the rich & poor, the have's & have not's grows wider, it seems as though 'their' house of cards is & will come down. Truth & justice WILL prevail...the first will become last & the last will become first. 
Photo: Helen Bird Golden Gate Bridge 2007

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

THE TURTLE


AVAILABLE NOW ON amazon.com & ebook on kindle

THE TURTLE

"Those elders came from over there where the winds are always warm and cool.

How they got here long, long ago is a mystery to this Chaa-Moaakonnish.
It was a time when all life was Gitchi-Manitou.
And all life lived upon the back of this huge turtle.

At that time, the turtle had lots of room, so Gitchi-Manitou told all his red children
to hurry up and make love on turtle's back and be as many as the beautiful stars in the skies up above.

Turtle asked Gitchi-Manitou if he would but have some rest for a spell.

Turtle fell asleep and every once in a while he moves closest to where the waters lap at his side.

Where the warm winds blow cool breezes upon him and when turtle moves in his sleep, the whole of California quakes.
Someday in a time when this Chaa-Moaakmonish treats turtle too harshly, the
turtle will move to a different place.

We, the red man, call this our turtle island for that reason.

We are as fleas on a dog's tail and like fleas, we can fall off for good.
So I move through this life like turtle, slow and careful and when the time comes for Gitchi-Manitou to talk with me, I will only say,

"My beloved Creator, You own everything all over."

And I will ask,
"How did the turtle finally move?"

The answer is easy.

Always treat turtle with respect, like you treat yourself...
Do not be greedy, lustful, hunger for too much.
Just be in a patient way with yourself.
Soon enough there will be that time when you will have many questions to answer.
A time to be strong and do not always look at the other person, for he will not be there to blame you or you to blame him.

So be good to him in this life.

Some of us understand this way, and

“We know why."

                                                 
                                                      'Full Of Life'
                                            ink drawing by Helen Bird 2017