can you sing without a song?

Do you always need a song to sing?
What about improvisation?
What I am doing right now, the writing process, is improvisation?

this cow never signs the same song …

When the improvisation is finished, inspired by the moment, some polishing is needed to get a finished post. However, that post will remain unchanged for a long time, until I want to re-use it for something else, or rewrite it.

creativity

So creativity starts with inspiration, and then improvisation uses past and experience to make something around that inspiration. A second part is making a finished object. That object, a blog post in this case, has to be read. The post is the song. Once the post is read, the post is dead. Once the song is no more sung, the song is dead. So it looks more like the song is preventing me to sing something new, but even without a song I can still sing.

children singing …

Whining children are in fact singing a sad song. The song I have in my head, is not the one belonging to the whining children. My memory tells me that in the month of May it must be 25 degrees, but today, it isn’t. My memory tells me that children are not supposed to whine for a long time, but today they did.

If however, I can abandon my song, the one in memory, and improvise a new whining song with them, I will love their presence, and they might change their notes while we improvise something together. And then we might notice that the sad whining tunes changes into something else. (but not always )

the wake up song

When I wake up, I’m singing a song. It might come from my last dream, or from an unfinished story belonging to yesterday and past. This January, I wrote about this song in a different way, and called it my Ramsay-meter.

But this song can be improvised upon, it has to follow the wave of being in the present. If I’d keep singing the song of a bad mood when waking up, I would never change my mood.

If I don’t feel love when I wake up, it is not my lack of improvisation or inspiration keeping me away from love. Somehow there is a mechanism in my brain, holding on to the bad mood, the whining song, the song about ‘stupid life and crazy people’.

But I don’t have to stay in that place the whole day. Every moment is a new opportunity to improvise the song of that moment, the song of now. In that song, adjectives change fast, and can be retuned to the source of inspiration, whenever the moment is now.

water droplets suspended

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The second batch of pictures on a very misty day.
Perhaps you get inspired, and carry the awe with you.
Few are the days without beauty around me, if they exist at all.
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I only have to notice, and reach for that small camera in my pocket.
Then, if the object is stable enough, I can share my awe and inspiration …
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the leaf of the common red currant – (click to view original)

the same red currant leaf led to a spider’s web – the spider can have fun and use the droplets to play basket ball

we move slightly to the left to discover more water …

… and here our spider attached its last ‘wires’ to some grass nearby – suspended water drops

nobody loves you

Perhaps the worst feeling?
Usually this sentence is uttered in the first person singular.
Regularly by myself: “Nobody loves me on this Earth”

triggers

It can be triggered by the least remark, mishap, …
It is in the air, before it breaks open, like an ulcer.
It has been in the unconscious, building up.
Perhaps many sadnesses, neither of them expressed, coagulate.
A bit like the mechanism behind anger?

Those triggering, have no idea why the reaction is so out of proportion.

When it is just something happening around me that is the trigger, I have no idea why this small thing has such an impact.

making things worse

And then there is another person around who asks: “Is there something wrong?”
And you know they will never understand. (Although they might – and you don’t).
“I’m on my island, leave me alone in my sad little world.”

the easy way out

Sometimes a good night of sleep removes the mood.
Often being in the work, one forgets the mood.
A silent hug, sometimes a miracle,
Sometimes unwelcome.
But don’t give up on me.
I’m now a sad and angry closed oyster.
Please try again,
Perhaps in half an hour,
Perhaps tomorrow.

moods or depression

In my case, moods, just moods. A bad mood is something that lasts half a day, highest a week. You forget the mood and it is gone. One morning you wake up and you have forgotten it was there. After work you remember you had been in a mood earlier that day, but now this is past.

Depression goes deeper. Takes much longer. In depression I don’t want to feel anything anymore. I want to be numb and sleep. I don’t want to interact or go to work. And so a circle starts.

Because being in the flow, awe or inspiration could get me out. But if I’m numb, I don’t see those things. I’m too closed to see them. I don’t want to see them. They are all fake in my distorted perspective.

If you are in a depression, it is time to look for help. This article is only about moods.

mind

nobody loves me is a concept.
It is a core concept, but there are others.
Like my life is useless.

These sentences are repeated again and again in the mind. Mental efforts.

The emotion is sadness, but the emotion just is. The emotion without the mind would flip out of existence after half an hour.

The mind changes sadness into loss of happiness and starts grieving about it.

‘Look what you’ve done to me’ is another trick of the mind: the blame game. Anger is now just around the corner when blaming others for your own mood. And this can even grow into emotional blackmail, if you don’t watch out.

The moment you see your mind at work in your moods, that moment you are out of it. The moment might be very short lived for the deeper moods, but being out can be repeated again. If you repeat being out enough, things change and remain different.

inspired by dew drops …

Beauty is everywhere
In day to day objects
Easily overlooked
Here, now, in my backyard
Be inspired, …

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There are days when the raindrops are so tiny, that they really look like fog. I made the following pictures 2 days ago, last Monday the 20th of May. This is the first series.

The side of the next object renders the most amazing light through its small dispersed droplets. It looks like a globular star cluster. But it is just a very common weed.

just a side view of the common dandelion …

D a n d e l i o n

top view – some seeds have already escaped to different ground …

Now we are zooming in …

zooming in times two

In fact the previous was not a zoom, but a downscale factor two …
The following is the real macro as captured by the amazingly small canon ixus.

cropped the original 4000×3000 pixels to center …

And just one question for those who went this far to read this last line: “Should I start to watermark pictures, or is this a waste of time?”

a face of fear: anxiety

Anxiety is the subconscious side of fear

It wells up from deep down.
Then, after some time in the subconscious world,
it breaks into your conscious realms.
In the conscious realms,
thinking starts to form a story,
many stories,
around that undetermined feeling of  ‘what-do-you-feel-exactly‘.
Often stories, just stories, not based on truth,
only based on discomfort and what could be the reason thereof.

that feeling under your fingernails – feeling nervous, ‘without’ a reason … perhaps subconscious anxiety

Anxiety is a poison

slowly eating your self esteem
slowly eating your energy
your initiative
your passion for life.

Childhood

I see that a lot of subconscious anxiety is related to my childhood.
A feeling of not living up to expectation, some kind of shame.
A feeling of not having done enough, some kind of regret.
And then I feel the stress of the unknown fear.
The fear is often unknown, the source unknown,
we don’t even realize there is fear,
we don’t realize there is anxiety.

Anxiety causes stress,
but stress does not necessarily cause anxiety!

>>>

Interesting links:

Wikipedia: “Wikipedia – Anxiety is an unpleasant state of inner turmoil, often accompanied by nervous behavior, such as pacing back and forth, somatic complaints and rumination.”

BBC – Advice – Anxiety & stress
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/advice/factfile_az/anxiety_stress

Huffington Post – Anxiety vs. Stress: What’s The Difference? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/15/anxiety-stress-difference_n_1152590.html

Anxiety in Childhood: Prelude to Anxiety in Adulthood? | AboutOurKids.org http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4RuG3H91iMIJ:www.aboutourkids.org/articles/anxiety_in_childhood_prelude_anxiety_in_adulthood+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk

why can’t I concentrate during meditation?

Axel G.

Link to “Why Can’t I Concentrate During Meditation?” via “press this” on the website from Axel G (axelg.com)

This is a really important question. In this post we’ll examine distractions as well as conditions that are conducive to meditation practice.Always remember that the mind fluctuates just like moods. One moment it’s sharply focused, the next moment it’s dull; one moment it’s motivated, the next moment it’s bored; one moment it’s sleepy, the next moment it’s energized. This is the nature of the mind.Let’s take a close look at the most common distractions ….

click to read more: [Distractions In Meditation |  Conditions Conducive To Meditation | …

meditation – eyes

While meditating we cannot close our ears.

Even when it is quiet there are sounds.
Sound is the worst interrupt:
think of a whining child,
a yelling call,
a telephone ringing, ….

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So why close your eyes when meditating?

eyes … wide … open

Let some light and some images come into your mind.
Don’t do much with it,
but it will keep the untrained mind
a little more silent
having to use its graphical processing,
and feeling less bored.