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Robin Hood: Robin Catches a Fish 2

When Robin woke in the morning, he wondered if he had dreamt the incident, but there in the soft dew covered ground, was the unmistakable deer track. From that moment on, whenever doubt or fear entered Robin’s head, any uncertainty about the future; he remembered that night and that provisioned him with such courage as to forge ahead, no matter the odds.

As Robin cooked a spitted fish over a fire for breakfast he though about finding a place to stow his belongings so he could move more freely about. He could sustain himself indefinitely, by creating new arrows and even a new bow when he needed. There was plenty of game, and wild nuts and berries. The forest would provide everything he needed to survive. However, Robin wanted more than to survive. He wanted his land back. He wanted to get rid of that fat sheriff and live among people. He wanted coffee, beer, and fellowship. He had been runoff unfairly. The more Robin thought about it, the more it had seemed deliberate, as if the taxes were set too high, so he would have to forfeit his house. He wasn’t the criminal, the sheriff was. Robin wanted justice.
Just then, Robin heard a twig snap. Whoever was watching him was no woodsman. He had been making noise ever since Robin had arrived. Robin got up and pretended to clean up his breakfast. His brown hair was due for a cut and it was uncombed and blowing in the morning breeze as he crossed the camp with the bones of the fish. Suddenly, in a fluid movement, Robin dropped the fish, picked up a long branch that lay across the camp and lunged at a bush at the edge of the clearing.
“Oof!” said the bush.
“Who’s there!” demanded Robin.
“John.” said the bush.
“Well, John, you must be a little fellow to be hiding behind that bush. Come out if you don’t want to get hurt.” From behind the bush stood a man. He had been crouching and as he stood, he just kept standing up. Up and up. He was quite large and in fact towered menacingly over Robin. “Well, that’s quite a lot of John to be hiding behind such a tiny bush!” said Robin. Robin held the branch up defensively to keep the giant at bay.
John grabbed the branch and deftly poked Robin in the stomach with it. “See how you like it!” John said.
“Why were you spying on me?” Robin demanded, aware that without the branch and dwarfed by John he was in no position to demand anything. ‘That is precisely when to make demands’ Robin always would say.
“I wasn’t!” John Lied.
“What were you doing, then?”
“That fish smelled good. I was hoping for a bite.” John said truthfully. “If you had killed that deer, we could feast for days.”
“So you saw that, eh? That wasn’t exactly a hunting situation, was it? I think that deer was welcoming me to its forest. Which is more than you have done.”
“Well it didn’t give me a welcome when I got here.” John complained.
“Maybe he thought you would eat him, eh?” said Robin.
“Maybe.” agreed John.
“So if it was the fish that attracted you,” Robin said, “How did you know about the deer?”
“You ask too many questions!” John said, poking Robin with the branch. Robin grabbed the other end of the branch and they began a tug-of-war, which culminated in John lifting Robin off the ground as he clung to his end of the branch while John tried to shake him off.
“I give! I give up! You win! Damn, Little John, you are too strong for this outlaw!” At that, they both fell to laughing.
“Let’s get you a fish to eat.” Robin said. They went to the stream and in two shakes, Robin had put an arrow through a couple of fish for both of them.
As they ate, John asked; “How did you come to be an outlaw?”
“They taxed me out my home.” Robin said.
“The sheriff is a thief.” said John.
“Aye. That he is.”
“I’m a thief too” said John.
“Really?” said Robin. “You’re so noisy; I don’t see how you could be any good at it.”
“Not by trade, really. I was sick, too sick to work, so they docked my pay and I couldn’t afford to eat. So I stole a loaf of bread.” said John.
“Aye, you’re a thief alright.” said Robin.
“Well, all the game in the forest belongs to the King, so I guess you’re a thief too.” said John.
“That’s a fact.” said Robin. “In that case, everyone I know and me; we’ve all been thieves all our lives.” Robin thought about this. “It doesn’t leave a man a way to make due for himself, does it? You have to buy bread, we’re not supposed to kill the King’s deer or aught else I reckon. If you can’t work, you can’t eat.” Robin thought some more. “I’d like to steal my land back.” he said. “And all the taxes sheriff William has put in his pocket!” Color came into Robin’s face. John nodded agreement.
“That’s what we should do. Steal it back. It was ours to begin with.”
“Aye.” said Robin. “That’s just what we should do. What can they do; outlaw us again?”

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The Faerie Ring

Violette had been practicing for months. The Summer Solstice Festival was coming on Thorsday and she was going to be singing. Everyone was going to be there: Pansy, and Lily, Poppy, Lavender, & Rose. And there would be boys there too! Ursus the bear, Salamander, Puck, and Jasper. They had all been rehearsing together and the day was finally coming. All the faeries in the valley would be there.
At first Violette had been nervous. She had been given a difficult part and it was important to get it right. The Summer Solstice was sacred to the faerie folk and the Music of the Spheres was the most important part. It didn’t just signify the delicate and intricate symphony that permeated and sustained the Universe; it WAS that symphony. Everyone had to play their part and the Fey valley’s was during the Summer Solstice. Violette was so afraid of making a mistake that she couldn’t sing.
Then Aisling had given her the ring. Aisling was Violette’s favorite aunt and a Pillar of the Circle as well. When the Faeries of the Valley met, they gathered in concentric circles. The priestess was at the center surrounded by her council, and there were Pillars to keep order in all the rest of the circles. They were like the standing stones of the Fey circles of the land: dependable, honorable, wise and without bias. They were the leaders of the Valley and it was a great honor to be chosen by the council to be a Pillar.
The ring was a magical musical instrument. It was wrought of pure gold, and when struck however slightly or hard it rang with a sustaining tone; The root Sound of the Universe. The ring was ancient and bore inscriptions of long dead tongues upon it. If the ring were turned so the wind could pass through it, the Root sang like a ghost. With the ring to guide her, Violette couldn’t go wrong.
She quickly became adept at playing it and everyone who heard her admired her skill. She never tired of it and spent long hours coaxing the ring’s secrets from it. As the days grew longer and the cool nights bore witness to the stars circling the sky, the Fey looked forward to the festival.

They practiced in late afternoon sunshine. It raked across the landscape, touching the trees and the rocks, filtering its way through the leaves and casting long, blue shadows in a patchwork across the wild grass. Jasper had had enough for one day and decided to see if he could get a reaction from Violette. He had been slowly, nonchalantly making his way around behind her. His wings fluttered nearly silently in the still air and he floated up behind Violette. He ran a finger gently up the edge of her shimmering, gossamer wing, which he knew from experience tickled. She jumped and turned and as he propelled himself backwards up into the trees, she laid down the ring and chased after him. Lily saw and pointed and followed to see. Jasper, flitted around the elms and the birch, his ruddy, earthy brown clothes blending in to the woods, making him hard to track even for the other faeries.
Violette would not give up easily and chased him up and around, banking ever on his left to drive him rightward until he almost flew into a briar patch. He stopped to face her and they nearly collided.
“I give up!” he said, hands raised defensively. She closed in on him and pummeled him with her tiny fists, laughing. They were both breathing heavily from the chase. The other faeries gathered around laughing and the cool breeze carried the sound of their laughter through the leaves of the trees to the brook, which giggled along.
They heard the bell for dinner and they flew off to sunset hill where the faeries had their communal dinner each evening as the light of the day slowly faded. Lisa heard the dinner bell, and tore off running for home. She didn’t want to be late again, or she would catch a whuppin for sure! She glided over rocks and wove between trees like the wind itself. She came to the brook and grabbed her skirt by the bottom and gathered it up and leaped the stream in one graceful bound. She could only be this way in the woods. when she was around the other children, she was awkward and shy. She had few friends and longed to tell someone all her ideas and questions. Even if the other person thought they were silly, she wouldn’t care as long as they listened. She came to a small clearing and was momentarily confused. She hesitated for a moment, and in that moment, she lost her balance, tripped and fell.
There, laying on the grass in front of her, slightly hidden was a golden ring.

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Handmade Books Coming Soon!

I’m working on handmade books written and illustrated by yours truly soon to be available on Etsy! (and here!)I’ve written and illustrated books before, but never had any success getting them published (my dream of dreams) for me, it has been a long drawn out process: I was taught to have the entire manuscript done (which I did in two cases, but have several others under construction, which can be seen here.) Then send it in to ONE publisher, which was chosen through careful research to determine the most likely to buy your unsolisited manuscript, then in 6 weeks to 6 months, when it returns rejected; as it will (longer than 6 months is a rejection also) you then repeat the process having eliminated the last publisher. The only way to get a manuscript solicited is to have an agent who can only be gotten by being already published: Yay!

Anyway, I recently discovered that Etsy has a book section (most of which is journals, sketchbooks, repurposed books, and used or vintage books. But there are a few actual original books that are professionally handmade, and I will be adding myself to that category.

I’ve made books before, so I know what I’m getting into. They won’t be cheap, but they will definitely be worth it!

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Believe

Belief is a powerful thing. It is often misunderstood and as a word it is often misused. Belief shapes the way we see the world and the way we see ourselves and others. Jesus says repeatedly; “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” We are always being told to “believe in ourselves”. We hear it so often, it loses its meaning.
When I was in college, I took a small business management class. We were all art students at a prestigious art school and a common question was; “when will my work be worth a lot of money?” and the answer was always, “When you believe you are worth it.” The students wanted a pragmatic answer; “Oh you have to pay your dues learning the ropes for five years, then you can start your own business and in a couple of years, you will be in the top 5%” or something like that. Everyone’s journey is different and there is no pat answer to such a question. That’s what I thought this non answer was about. But the answer was pragmatic. Belief rules every decision we make.
In spiritual matters, belief seems to have a slightly different meaning that is tied to faith and implies doubt. Whereas knowledge is the elimination of doubt. I would differentiate the two like this: “I believe in God, but I know the sky is blue.” I know the sky is blue because I can see it. I have proof. I have no experiential knowledge of God. A Sufi teacher once told me that she would not give her soul to something she wasn’t sure of; something she only had read of in a book or been told of by others. Her soul was too important to her. She had to have experiential knowledge of God if she was going to give her soul over to such a being. She argued that this was not too much to ask, and that in fact it would be foolish to do otherwise. This has always stuck with me. She said she had found it in the Sufi path. Indeed this is a recurring theme among seekers and the guides we meet along the path.
I did not follow that teacher or dedicate my life to her school. I did follow her advise though.
She said: “The best way to get directions to someone’s house is to ask the owner. If, however, you don’t know how to contact the owner, the next best thing to do is get directions from someone who has been there.”
“If you don’t know how to get to God’s house, find someone who has been there who can show you the way.”
Then she said this:
“If you don’t know someone who has been to God’s house, pray for God to send someone to show you the way, and if your prayer is sincere, God will send you a guide.”
I went home and prayed for a guide. Soon after I met someone who after much cajoling would teach me to meditate. I learned a great deal from this teacher. I learned much more than just meditating. Being on the Path is a way of life. It is the ultimate endeavor in life, and should permeate every aspect of every action and thought. Of course we are human and will falter. We must live our lives, pay our bills meet our obligations, and we must live a life that will last a lifetime. If we dedicate ourselves to God and don’t do anything else, and it doesn’t pay off in a short time, we may quit. But if we have the long term in mind, we can carry on with our lives, but with a new focus, through this new prism of getting home to God’s house.
I have moved on from life with that teacher. She told me from the outset that she too was on the Path, but had not been to God’s house. She showed me what she could and we have moved on with our lives.

Perhaps my prayer wasn’t earnest enough. Perhaps I held a fear that an enlightened master would make me give up more than I was ready to give up. Whatever the case, God sent me exactly what I needed at the time. Just as I believed He would

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None of Your Business!


If you hang around the circles I hang around, sooner or later you are going to hear the phrase, “Your life is none of your business.” There are many variations, like; “What happens to you is none of your business,” “What other people think of you is none of your business,” “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” That last one may not quite fit, but you get the idea. This is one of the annoying sayings that are deliberately obtuse. What is that supposed to mean? I finally gained some insight.
It’s really a variation on my last post. I didn’t realize that until just now. I guess I’ll just have to scrap this post and write about something else. Except this is kind of the point. If this is the post I’m writing, who am I to question its validity? The author? Well, no actually I’m not. If I’m getting this lesson over and over, then that’s the lesson I’m supposed to be getting. My friend Nate explained it to me; “If I’m doing my best and I’m not doing anything wrong and shit is still happening to me, then that shit is supposed to be happening to me.”
To me this means that if I’m not doing my best or I’m am doing something wrong, and shit is happening to me that I don’t like, I should clean up my act. That’s all I can do: Do the best I can and not do anything I’m not supposed to be doing. This will alleviate most of the problems I experience. If there is still shit happening to me after I have ceased to misbehave, then there are other lessons to learn.

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The Song of Awakening

There is long and interesting history of how God=sound. Where to start? How about the beginning?
 “1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” The Gospel according to John, King James Version.
I love the old English phrasing of the King James Version. This is easily my favorite Bible passage. Notice that God is also “Light” Most people will tell you that this is a metaphor. This is funny to me because many of these same people will tell you that the story of Adam & Eve is not a metaphor. Well the story of Adam & Eve is a metaphor (this is a story for another time as it could be its own blog post), But the idea that God is sound and Light is not a metaphor. God is more than sound and light, don’t get me wrong, but the idea that the existence of all things came into being through God as sound is accurate. 
In Sanskrit, the ancient Indian sacred language, this sound is “Om” and is written in what appears to Westerners to be a 3 with a tail, and an umlaut over it. In my description of of my hand carved lino print of this sacred word, I combine these two ideas and say; “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was Om” This ancient spiritual symbol is a sound and it is the Creator.
Sometimes the symbol is translated; “Aum” The thinking is that the vowel sound where the word originates itself originates at the back of the throat and the ending “m” sound ends at the mouth, thus traveling the expanse of the physical body creating it. This explanation is a metaphor for the beginning and end of all creation. Compare this to Jesus’ saying; “I am the Alpha and the Omega”. Here the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet signify the beginning and the end (which is the line that follows in the Bible) but also anything that can be spoken as Jesus is saying he is not just the beginning and the end but everything in between.
But you say to me, “Rod, What about science?” First of all don’t interrupt, it’s rude. Second of all, good question.
In the 1950’s the phone company, at that time concerned with quality service, wanted to get to the bottom of a buzz that was coming through on all their lines. They hired and deployed two scientists; Peebles and Dick to discover and fix the problem. What they found was that this sound was everywhere. It permeates everything. It is the background radiation leftover from the Big Bang. (you know, the sound and light that created everything that exists.) It existed at exactly the wavelength that the scientist who postulated the Big Bang theory predicted it would.
There are many mantras (sacred words or phrases to repeated many times) and prayers (like the rosary) that believers know will bring them closer to God. The Sufis have a saying, “Nothing exists save God” pronounced, “La Illaha Illa Allah” Which is more of a mantra than a prayer, but they don’t use the Sanskrit word. 
In his book “Autobiography of a Yogi” Paramahansa Yogananda states that sacred Indian music can bring us closer to enlightenment, as can the music of Bach. Astronomers and alchemists refer to the “Music of the Spheres”
Listen
It is all around you.
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The Only Path to Serenity

It is often said “Do your best and leave the results up to God.” This axiom can be found in multiple disciplines: I have heard it in the Tao te Ching verse 9 (written by Lao Tsu, in ancient China; his text is the foundation of Taoism, a spiritual philosophy of world influence), and in the immortal Bhagivad Gita. This is a difficult principle to understand, but doing it without understanding is actually the first step of doing it. What I mean is, as I struggle to understand it, I was doing it in some aspects of my life. I’ve written in the past about my struggling business, but I keep doing my business even though I seem to be unable to control my success or lack there of. My devotion to God is part of my work, so it doesn’t matter if it makes me any money or not. This is what I tell myself to keep me from quitting.
Today, I decided to look for some Shanti calligraphy on Google to aid me in a new design I’m thinking of doing. My search was actually “Om Shanti Calligraphy” Well, to my surprise, there on the first page was my own design!

Without trying to get the number one page spot on Google, I just did my best. God took care of the rest. Sometimes we get little displays of blessings in our lives to keep us going!

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All You Need is Love

Hi guys! I’ve decided to take my blog in a new direction. Although I’m sure you are all fascinated by my meanderings about my blind stumbling through the oddities of the print business, it occurs to me that we all might be better served if I write about: 1. something I have experience in, 2. something that’s interesting, and possibly 3. something that might benefit us by talking about.
My life and my art have centered on spiritual matters for years, so even if I’m not an enlightened master, I may be able to pass on some bits of information that could be passably entertaining to some. My other areas of interest in art like dinosaurs and myriad other subjects usually get enough research by me when I’m working on the piece to at least make a blog post about.
The first post on these lines will of course be something I’ve already talked about (repetitive and contradictory!) My spiritual outlook can be summed up thusly:

“I am the Blue Dragon. I serve the Blue Light; whose physical manifestation is the Universe: the One Voice, the Eternal Word, the Infinite Sound. All things are revealed by the Light. All shadows are created by the Light. Love is the Way of the Light. Either one serves Love or one opposes Love. One cannot claim to serve Love through hate. Anger and fear are the absence of Love. Love is omnipresent. There is nowhere it is not. It does not shirk; it does not hide. To be unable to feel its presence is delusion. It is we who turn away from the Light. It is constant and never abandons us. It is The Energy; The Force; The Power. The Source of all. Love is indiscriminate. Love is not concerned with what name it is called, or what rituals it is worshiped by. Love does not favor one over another. Love does not punish. Love wants you to be happy and healthy. For this to happen you must conform to Love. Love cannot be ruled by you. You are a manifestation of Love. There is no intermediary.”

This is not to say that I believe that I am literally a dragon or even believe in the existence of dragons. I was born on the year of the dragon, and in Eastern philosophy the dragon is a symbol of enlightenment. The dragon is just a metaphor. Try not to get caught up in particulars. Find the general theme. The theme here is Love.
What I mean is that God is not angry or hateful or punishing. You can’t worship God by being that way. If you can accept this principle, everything else will fall into place. Many religions have been corrupted by men to say that God hates, but this is simply not true. This belief is brought about by our own short sightedness. Don’t get me wrong, I’m human and I become angry and declare that I hate things, but I know this does not bring me closer to God. It separates me from god via my clouded perception.

Try to connect to Love in everyway you can. Listen to music that has a healthy view of Love. (Jealousy and other negative emotions connected by our culture to love are natural to have but they are not Love.) Know that we are all struggling through our daily lives and when we wrong each other it is usually out of the pain of our struggles than any vindictiveness on our part. In this way we can forgive each other as we need to be forgiven for out missteps (sound familiar?)
Finally a word about various faiths. The word Allah means “God of Abraham” which is a Judeo/Christian epithet for God. Krishna is known as the “Lord of Love” as is Jesus. Just as many cultures have different words for “hat”, and different ways to have weddings, so there are many ways to worship God. Religions that say otherwise were designed to say that by their leaders because these leaders want to be the leaders of everyone. It doesn’t nullify the whole religion, just the part that says they are the only way.
Remember, when Jesus says, “I am the way and the Light and the Truth” he is speaking as God. He is not saying Kali is not the way, he is saying that heaven can only be found through God. Whether you worship God as Kali or Jesus or something else is up to you.

Ok, now time for my shameless plug: I am so enamored of the Blue Dragon that I have painted many of them. (What the dragon says is absolutely true, even if he is fiction.) You can get any print of my blue dragons and you can have the blue dragon quote included with them if you want.

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Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Hello all! I recently read an article which encourages people to narrow their focus to gain success. The impulse is to expand and the author says that confuses potential customers. I am going to give this a try. I have been struggling for a while, couple this with the bad news that my gf & I didn’t get accepted into the craft fair we had applied to, and I’m looking to make improvements. Some things take a while and improvement is something all businesses must constantly look to but it’s hard not to get discouraged. I wonder if I’m marketing on the wrong site; Etsy is primarily handmade stuff, and while all my products are derived from handmade art, many of them are printed out of a computer. I love Etsy and am going to stick with it. I may have to figure out a better production system.
So, to narrow my focus, I’m going to make less greeting cards. Although initially greeting cards was my main focus, they were always just an outlet for my art. I never said, “What can I paint to make a good birthday card?”, I always said, “What kind of card can I make from this painting?” (Of course, I made many Christmas cards just for Christmas with that in mind, but sold none…) I know there are many factors at play but I’m going to give this advise a try. It comes from Handmadeology, which I respect alot.

What I am going to focus on is art prints. Mostly spiritual. I have a total of 21 Saint related product. This is not counting non Christian spiritual products of which there are 12. There are an additional 12 that are motivational or sober related that could be grouped into the spiritual catagory. That’s 45 and there’s still some Easter cards I didn’t count because they have the Easterbunny instead of a spiritual theme to them. I have 83 products total so the remainder are landscapes, dino prints, and other non spiritual products. Now just to be clear, all my Christmas stuff is down, or there would be more of both catagories. Aren’t you glad I’m telling you all this? My hope is that others going through the same struggle will be able to get something out of it even if it’s just commiseration.

So I added some new prints along those lines. I’ve completed 3 more paintings in my “saint” series and I love them all. I’ve listed them as prints on their own, or as posters with some text to go with them. I’ve been visiting the gf’s family and some old friends, so I’ve given up alot of creating time for that. I hope to redouble my output to keep offering great things to people.