...A Year's Worth of Reading

I've devised a reading list of books I want to get through this year. I call it "The Hippie List" because most of the books were either written or recommended by self proclaimed hippies. Anway, here it is-if you have any books you recommend, let me know!

* Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
* The Trial by Franz Kafka
* Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
* Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
* Coraline by Neil Gaiman
* Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson (didn't know the movie was based on a book)
* One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
* On the Road by Jack Karouac
* The Dharma Bums by Jack Karouac
* Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (poetry): Also the name of a really good movie starring Edward Norton
* Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (I'm tired of feeling like the only person who doesn't know anything about Don Quixote!)
* Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (didn't know there was a book until I saw the movie)
* The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
* Siddharta by Herman Hesse
* Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
* The Bhagavad Gita
* Confession of a Buddhist Athiest by Stephen Batchelor
* anything I can get my hands on written by the Dalai Lama

...My Tree!

I was playing around with paint the other day, drew this little doodle, thought I'd share it with you. It's the first thing I've ever successfully drawn on the ol' pc that actually looked like anything!

Some people who looked at it saw an image of sadness, despair, and loneliness; others thought it was peaceful, calm, and inviting. I find it interesting that the same colors and image can look so different to every person who sees it. It all, I think, depends on your personal, subjective experience of the image, based on your emotional and mental state at the time.

...the Year of the Lotus

2011 is my "Year of the Lotus." I named it because this is an important year. Let's just start at the beginning-Day One, January 1. On Day One I finished my first short story written with intent to publish. I submitted the story on January 1 to a competition in a well known and highly renowned short story journal. Whether or not I win is not important. Whether or not I get published is not important. It would be nice-amazing-if I did, but it is not what counts. What is important is that I submitted it. I took a risk and put my name out there. I am getting someone to read my story, someone who didn't know my name before. I took a piece of my soul, my imagination, and put it out in the universe. Step One, complete, on Day One. What a way to start the year. This year is my year to take risks, to open the Lotus.

This is my year to push myself farther than I've ever gone before, do things I never did before, explore parts of my mind and imagination I didn't even know I had. I've opened my ears to the voice of the universe, and I'm ready to take the year and make it mine. It's like I've been walking through a vast labyrinth of dark tunnels up until this point with no end in sight. But then, one day a few years ago, I decided to go left when my brain was telling me to go right. I walked and walked, and suddenly I felt the tiniest whisper of a breeze that led me through 2010. On January 1, 2011, I saw sunlight. One bright golden ray, peering through a crack in the rocks, urging me onward. The ray of light is always there. I can't touch it, but I see it. I feel it. I know it's with me. I carry my closed Lotus flower in my pocket, nourishing it with only the energy from my persistence. I know the Lotus will blossom if I don't give up, because I know I will make it out of the tunnels if I keep walking, if I just keep following the ray of sunlight.

And so, onward I travel, seeking what I know I'm meant to find.