Mind's Journey

This is the tale of one woman's dare to walk into the Unknown, embrace it, and learn to understand it.

So often these days when I tell stories of interesting occurrences having to do with my path as a shamanic priestess or the special skills that come with the role that has been given to me, the members of my audience are inclined to exclaim comments of how cool these things sound to them. Over and over again, I receive comments on how other people wish they had the gifts I do or could share the experiences I tell occasional tales of. Each time, I simply nod my head without going into all of the reasons why these folks would never wish such a thing upon themselves if they knew the full truth.

Now, as I find myself sailing through the calm center of yet another trial, I am forced to remember the ugly along with the beautiful. Now, more than ever, I must force myself to return to writing about this journey of mine. Perhaps, some day, my tales of my own shamanic journey will help others figure out the puzzles of their own paths. To start on on telling of this journey, I am drawn to tell the curious about the full package that comes with living such a life filled with metaphysical and paranormal experiences as mine is. Continue reading »

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The following Free Write piece is copywrite © 2009 to Akatala. All rights reserved.

Songs used for inspiration: “Ring of Fire” and “Good People”

Good people deserve a good leader to guide them. His grandmother had often told him this. It was something that had been burned into him in his youth. Yet now as he stood watching the ring of fire consume the pyre of his father, the prince thought about himself and wondered if he was truly that good leader that his father’s good people now needed as their previous king moved onward from this realm to the Other. Over a thousand people had gathered to witness his funeral pyre. Earlier, his uncle had spoken of his father’s legacy, and of a need to carry on that legacy yet alter it to meet the times. His uncle knew far more about politics than he did. So as the young man drew over himself a dark travelers cloak and waded away through the sea of people, he thought that surely his uncle could do a far better job at leading the people than this young whelp of a prince ever could. Sure, he had endured much schooling, yet he still felt as though he knew nothing about everything he needed to and everything about nothing he needed to.

The flames of the funeral pyre brightened the sky, yet the crowd was too busy watching the ceremony to notice as one of them gave a mornful final bow toward the pyre. Then, in silence did the prince fade into the night. Surely, somewhere out there on the roads he had never traveled at his leisure was the answer to what he was truly meant to do with his life. Whatever it was, he knew he no longer belonged here. He felt a great pain for the sorrow he would leave in the hearts of those who cared for him. Yet, the pain he felt from visions of failure was even worse. He could not lead his people when all his heart knew was fear of failing them. So, he left without even so much as a whisper.

A boy must grow into manhood before he could think of doing such great things for others. Though, he was by far no longer a virgin, the lack of purity never meant that a boy had become a man. Such was another odd saying of his grandmother’s. She had been a strange one, bowing to authority and rules when the light was cast upon her, yet always whispering her true heart in the dark as she did what she pleased. What she pleased had always been to help others and teach her grandchildren the ways of the world from a different point of view than their tutors. Though many a male would disagree or perhaps even have her hung for such blasphemy, for whatever reason, the prince believed her words to be truth. How could they not be when it was always she who had breathed light into darkness and life into void?

Aye, the young man agreed. He must learn what it was to be a man before he could truly learn try to learn what it was to be a king worthy of leading those good people he left behind. He wasn’t sure what he would meet out here on this dark road. As he rode a sturdy bay stallion he had hidden in the woods in preparation for this flight, the wayward prince knew that he was riding into uncharted territory. He knew that he would face challenges and perils throughout this journey that he had begun. Yet, he welcomed them all. He knew that only through losing would he learn how to win. Only through trial and ordeal would he learn his true strengths and desires. Likewise, he knew that someday, perhaps as suddenly as he had known it was time to leave, he would know it was time to come home.

The prince had no idea what kind of place he would find when he finally returned home. He could only hope that his people would not suffer over much for the loss of him at the same time as they lost their king. He hoped that his uncle could lead the people in a good direction as he had promised. The truth would have to wait to be learned. If it turned out to be otherwise, then the prince hoped that by then, he would have gained the confidence in himself to be the good leader his good people needed to lead them back into the light of salvation.

End total word count: 772

Time taken to write: 1 hour

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Over my twenty-some years of existence, I have explored many different forms of art. One that quickly became a favorite is the art of photography. First, it was playing with a toy 35mm as a kid. Then I got older and earned the right to use Mom’s expensive Canon 35mm with all it’s nifty lenses and tricks. Then, with the turn of the millennium, came digital photography. I have to say I wasn’t that impressed with digital with that first hybrid camera/camcorder. The images it produced where still far too grainy in comparison to traditional film. However 2005 bore a change when Santa brought us I new Canon PowerShot A620 digital with a whopping 7.1 megapixels. Thus I started off 2006 discovering a new love for digital as I learned how to get the new Canon to do spiffy things.

As you can tell from my tone in the previous paragraph, normally I strive for perfection in the photography that I do. Just as I strive for my best in all of my works of art. Never before had I seen a dinky cellphone camera as a worthy device of making art. I had not even given it the slightest bit of thought! That was until I went for a hike the other day up at Cabelands in Eno River State Park, happened to see some cool stuff, and had only my newer “smart phone” cell cam to record it. As I played with my new phone, learning to work the new settings the camera had, I discovered some amazing qualities that had me pondering a new idea. Of course, when surrounded with such natural beauty, I ran with it. Cellphone Art!

I took photos until my phone was nearly full. Though most were simply for reference purposes in learning kinds of trees, and in one case, recording images of a strange mutation plaguing one species of tree in the park. Then, I got home, and uploaded them. I set one as my wallpaper on my phone. Then I forgot about that little run, until tonight when I hunted down the images I had uploaded to get a look at them on the computer screen. This is what I was shocked to find. Yes, this photo below came from my phone. The only thing I did with Photoshop was remove some of the excess light from a peak afternoon sun and sharpen the image just by 30%.  Oh yes, and I re-sized the image so that it would fit in the blog. Click the photo to see it in larger form.

I am still quite shocked at how clear and colorful the above photo of my favorite sitting spot turned out. Also the clarity of the image despite having come from a cell phone camera! Totally unbelievable!

The model of phone used was an LG Banter. The camera in it comes with settings for color variation,two different kinds of scene settings, shutter delay, brightness filter, zoom (which doesn’t work at high resolution settings unfortunately), three options of quality, and four options of resolution between 120×160 and an astounding 960×1280 which is what I used for the above photo.

My time for this evening has run out, but in the next few days, I shall upload the rest of the descent photos and take you on a little nature walk around Cabelands WITH my cellphone. Hurray for such beautiful beginnings to what I hope to be a continuous whimsical affair with artistic subjects and my not so dinky cell-cam!

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Yes, I know what you’re going to say. Yes, I’ve changed the core engine seemingly a million times over the years. Back and forth between WordPress and e107. Word Press’s themes were easier to customize, yet e107 had an easier backend. WordPress was so plagued by spam that I swore I would never use it again, and e107 had such poor ways of storing it’s pages and info that it drove me batty. Well, recently when working on a custom commercial website for a friend, I was brought back to dealing with WordPress. Except the WordPress version I found was some brand spanking new format that I had heard was in the works a year ago but had yet to see. So shocked, impressed, and completely lost in the new system was I that I just had to flip my own site here at MJN back over to WordPress. Not only do I have a chance to work on my own website, but I get to do it in order to learn the new WordPress system and all the awesome widgets out there that can be plugged in to make the website do a little more. After I get the hang of the insides of this new WP backend, I’ll know exactly what to do to the other site to get it looking how my friend wants. Then, there’s this awesome theme. How could I ever pass up a theme like this? Honestly now! Perhaps now that things seem to run smoother, and I have things guarded with CAPTCHA for added spam protection, maybe I’ll actually finally start using this site as originally intended!

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