Jesus Believes in us ... Happy Easter!

Reflecting upon Easter this year, I find myself thinking that perhaps Easter means that Jesus believes in us … Believes in us so much that He was willing to lay His life on the line for our salvation. With that kind of backing:  how we can we not keep hope?  So count your blessings, find happiness in the moment unfolding at hand and May God's Blessing be upon you and yours this Easter, or as my kids would say "Happy Easter!"

The next progression ....

What's in a song?  ... And what happens when the music stops?  Ends?

Perhaps in Fiction ...

"Dazed and Confused:  A Rhapsody Beyond Pink"

@Copyrighted Photograph, February 2013.  All Rights Reserved: Isabelle Black Smith.

"Perhaps in fiction, we writers can unleash the demons
that lurk within the dark shadows of our subconscious minds. 
Giving them voice to freely untwist and unfold,
with sincerest hopes of achieving
a long-held wanting of release
and a final peace, as we ourselves are at last
with pen to written words set free."  
~Isabelle Black Smith

For I seem to be discovering, these days, that the words I am most in need of hearing seem to be coming --most unexpectedly-- not from without, but rather from deep within in a booming voice of subconscious release.  … And as I write, I see now that there are some wounds that cut too deeply to ever heal completely.

“Tick, tick, tick …”

 
 

"The wise man speaks when and where his opinions are
likely to have greatest impact."
~Me, Isabelle Black Smith

 

“The wise man also pauses to listen.” …

 

I've noticed --especially lately, since joining Twitter-- that people have a tendency gravitate towards those who are of a similar mind. You see this sort of behavior most often in subject matter pertaining to religion and politics. And once people are in this ‘comfort zone’ of like-mindedness they seem to find they like speaking at those who readily approve of their opinions/message ... though not everyone has an actual --or meaningful-- message I have found.  I say speaking “at” because of those speaking, those who actually pause for a moment to listen appear to be in lop-sided minority. There are, however, occasionally a few brave –or crazy as the case may be-- souls who will step up to the plate and openly embrace the posing of a counter viewpoint, and when the discussions that follow this posing are conducted in a civil manner, with fact-based truth and non-partisan speak, the potential for meaningful dialogue and enlightenment (the consideration of a previously unconsidered approach to the viewing of a problem) exists.  More often than not, from what I have witnessed thus far, these sorts of opposing viewpoint discussions rapidly degrade into worthless shouting matches and name hurling … which makes me wonder if everyone having a social media pulpit right at their fingertips is truly such a wonderful thing? With everyone shouting the likelihood of making meaningful progress towards solving the real problems facing our nation seems to be lost in the Echo … Echo … Echo ….

 
Respect works both ways.  Perhaps if people would exercise just a modicum of restraint, resisting the initial temptation to shout back when someone hurls a verbal blow their direction, and then stick to the facts, with the ultimate goal being an open and honest expression of opinion married with a willingness to truly hear the other side: then we would finally begin to make some headway in moving forward with the fixing of the multitude of problems plaguing our nation.  The way I see it right now, we have been seriously derailed as a nation. We’ve completely lost the far-sighted vision that once made America so great and are at present sitting in the ditch alongside the main road, merely spinning our myopic wheels while a multitude of highly significant clocks are tick, tick, ticking … Tick, tick, tick: the obvious national debt clock. Tick, tick, tick: Obmacare funding & unleashing … And the clock that should be ticking loudest right now: losing the Keystone Pipeline --our chance for immediate full-scale Energy Independence*, coupled with thousands++ of long-term jobs to stimulate our national economy without long-term government funding-- for failure to act while conveniently being distracted with sifting through the sands of Sequestration.

 
The clocks are ticking where do you stand? But more importantly, perhaps: when and where and how will you speak to effect change? And when was the last time that you stopped to truly listen?

@Copyrighted Essay, March 11, 2013: Isabelle Black Smith.  All Rights Reserved.

 * Energy Independence, meaning freedom from whims of Middle Eastern oil cartels.  Immediate and full-scale meaning a readily translatable into useable energy product, with existing technology and infrastructure to support immediate use on a large scale.

"People, Hell and Angels", New Jimi Hendrix Album

A new Jimi Hendrix album, compiled from various archival tape footage, is being released by Experience Hendrix -- the corporate entity run by Janie Hendrix, Jimi's younger step-sister.  This new album is scheduled for release this upcoming, Tuesday, March 5th.  The "People, Hell and Angels" album reveals a bluesier side of this rock legend.  You can have a listen and preview of the album for yourself at NPR.   Two of my personal favorite songs on the new album are "Izabella" and  "Hear My Train  A Comin'."  Enjoy!



"People, Hell and Angels" New Jimi Hendrix Album Preview

Image Source

I love this photo of Jimi!  The thoughtful look in his eyes, holding his beloved source of escape and inspiration: inspiration for the muse himself.  Click on the image source link to visit the site of  a record collector who actually owns a group of 21 albums from Jimi's personal record collection, as sold by Kathy Etchingham at auction in, in the UK in 2001. Cool to see some of the music that Jimi listened to ... his source of personal inspiration from fellow musicians. I wasn't surprised to see Dylan in his collection, another of my favorites.  Does make me pause and wonder how many of today's musicians don't have a tangible (can be held sans electronics) collection of their musical inspiration, a collection that can be physically perused, contemplated  ... collections now-a-days reside in the sphere of digital ones and zeros for the most part.  I still collect my favorites on vinyl though --whenever possible. I'm partial to the analog range and subtle nuances?

Here's a link to a USA interview with Janie Hendrix that shares her personal insights and reflections on her brother's music, found in this new release, as well as the parting bit of wisdom that he left her with.


3/5/2013  FYI:  Just checked and the new album "People, Hell and Angels" is now available on Spotify as well. 

Inoculation ....

Yahhhh .... Crowd Following, pretty certain I received that inoculation.  Would that this inoculation were more widely available????

Got Sand in My Soul ...

@Copyrighted Image & Poem, Isabelle Black Smith.

February 2013, All Rights Reserved.

Just some words that seemed to drift to together after to listening to country song about sand ...

Time is a flowing river made of sand?

An in-the-moment reflection upon Time, pondering mortal(?) perceptions of this elusive entity from a personal perspective ... how time affects who we are, who we have been, who we are capable of becoming?  As for a "void of reason" ... my thinking here is that the void of reason comes from without, a world slowly strangling itself, perhaps?  These are just the words that found their way out in the moment ... A friend of mine says, let it out, write down,  let it sit and then go back and mull it over.  Great advice, I've found!

  

All The World's But a Stage ...

via Costumer's Guide Library

[Love this photo ... Pretty much sums up my relationship w/Ken. We seem to be out of time with one another spiritually speaking
--w.r.t. soul experience-- but we fell in love with each other long ago, nonetheless.  Time will tell if our love can stand the test of time? ]

"All the world’s a stage" … How often, glancing through the chronicles of time, do we not see the same stories played out again and yet again? The same stories of love, triumphs and losses, played out with different costumes, different actors and the semblance of an accepted set of rules for a given period in time … but the heart knows no rules? I have to wonder does the script choose actor or the actor the script? I’d like to think that if we can hold onto that which we are born into this world with—the only thing we perhaps rightfully own—that the material then becomes immaterial.


“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

~William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII [All the world's a stage]

Image Source

But oh how this world will try ever so desperately to take this most precious possession from you ….

It would seem, I have a lot writing to do?



P.S. Wrote this early in the morning (early for others ... late at night/not having slept for me)after watching "Anna Karenina" ... Had forgotten that the Oscar's were to be this day.  So my post here fits rather nicely for the day? I have a lot of movies to watch ... I did happen to see the movie "Argo", yesterday, at least.  Great movie!  And "Anna Karenina" won for best costume design, so I guess I chose well : ) 

The Politics of Perception are Short-lived ...

"In the Balance of Time:  The Politics of
Perception are short-lived."

~Isabelle Black Smith


History has proven to be a discerning critic ...
How will you be remembered?

 

Image Source

 Sword of Justice, wielded with the pen to History's voice ...

 

[Cork Hill entrance arch to Dublin Castle's courtyard. Notice "Justice" is not blindfolded in

this depiction. Castle was formerly seat of British rule in Ireland.  Statue faces castles,

with her back to the city --said to symbolize the Irish people.]

 

 

“Balance of Time”

   Bear in mind, History has a voice all her own:
   A voice of truth and reason. She is not so
   Easily massaged and manipulated as fickle
   Perception, enchanted with his own reflection,
   In this fleeting here and now.
   Time has a way of balancing out Perception’s
   Tilted tale, thus ensuring wisdom of sage’s
   Will in chronicle prevail.

@Copyrighted Poem, February 2013. All Rights Reserved: Isabelle Black Smith.

Re-writing History and Our Living History ...

 

 

 

Image Source (unknown)

 [ note: previous image was cool piece of history, but didn't want people to read more into my selection of journals than was intended.]

I started watching the movie “1984” this evening, one with Richard Burton.  Haven’t finished watching it just yet … will have to finish this movie tomorrow night.  I read the book “1984” ( 1984 … you underline book title, right?) back in high school and my oldest is reading right now for her AP English class.  Watching this movie tonight made me stop and think tonight how easy it would be to change/re-write our history in this modern day and age of technology where so much of our written word resides only in the digital sphere.  Makes me even fonder of my own personal collection of hard copy books.  Makes me think on the importance of keeping a hand-written journal and importance of teaching our children how to write and form letters … how to write in script –which seems to be a dying art form these days. 

This movie also makes me reflect on the importance of our elders in a society.  They are the living record of our history.  They possess such a wealth of experience, knowledge and insight … a wealth that perhaps cannot be gleaned from the written word alone.  With the latter in mind, could it not be argued that a society in which the elders are not only respected, but truly valued and esteemed, will be the society that will live to thrive, prosper and survive in the face of unforeseen hardships?  Well, it is something to think on further in any event.  And with that closing thought, I shall try to steal a few hours rest from the begrudging hands of sleep.
 

A New IE9 Update Inadvertant Bug?

I use Google and Internet Explorer browsers both intermittently on my Windows machines. Wondering if there is a bug in the latest update for IE9.01.XX? Yesterday all of the text in my drop down menus for Internet Explorer disappeared (Google Browser was not affected). If I hit the ALT+X keys simultaneously the text would momentarily reappear, or as I ran the mouse down the length of a given menu the text options would reappear as the mouse went over each line item ... Problem seemed to affect my Spotify too, so Spotify must use IE9 as its baseline.  Anyhow, this was most annoying! I searched the web, but found nothing useful for a fix to the problem.  Finally, after reading on the Microsoft support web site for awhile, I found an obscure suggestion that seemed likely to help, so I tried it and it worked.  Here's the fix that worked for me if you are having the same problem: 

1) Close all open IE windows. 
2) Open a new IE window.
3) Click on the "cog" button/icon in upper right-hand corner of IE to launch toolbar menu option.
4) Select "internet options" from the pull-down menu, then click on "Advanced" tab to far right.
5) click "Reset" button at the very bottom of the menu page and areset pop-up frame will appear.
6) You can try performing the IE settings options reset w/out checking the box for "reset personal settings" (optional**) and see if this fixes the problem for you.  The problem did not fix for me until I performed all of the steps above with this extra option to "reset personal settings" enabled/box checked.

Note: Checking the "reset personal options" box did not wipe out my favorites/saved URLs in "Bookmarks." **And be sure to update the check-boxes under "internet options"/delete button, as these options will all reset to all not-checked when you perform the reset in step #6) above.**

Side:  While you are in the "Advanced" (tab) "internet options" menu you may want to enable the following options under the gold padlock (icon)/Security tab in order to improve your security, as these are not part of the default/standard settings:

a) check box for "Do not save encrypted pages to disk"
b) empty temporary internet files upon close of browser

VIP: You must click "apply" button at the bottom of this menu, then restart IE in order for the changes listed immediately above to apply.  I would suggest going back in and performing a) & b) above after you do the missing drop-down "menu fix", up above, in steps 1) thru 6).

Warner Media Group: The Big Brother of the Music Industry?

I've been meaning to write this post for quite some now.  Valentines Day is as good a day any, I figure.  So here goes:  Music is the rhythm of life to me.  For a time, I used to try to pick a song to go with many of my posts here ... a song that was in some way reflective of the thoughts, art, or ideas that I was trying to convey.  Music, when shared, can be such a joy and add amazing dimmension to life, I think. 

I look back over my blog here, today, and I find it void of sound.  I have shut down my paid site subscripton that used to host my legally purchased mp3 songs for sharing--awhile back now-- because even though I had leagally purchased these songs, apparently it is not legal to post these songs (on a site) for others to listen?  Doesn't seem quite right to me, but I received more than one notice from WMG ... "Warner Media Group" ... to this effect.  So then I tried sharing songs via playlist.com, but each time the song that I had linked to would vanish from the playlist.com database --most likely because WMG had gone in and had playlist.com pull the song for "copyright" violations.  So then I tried the popular Youtube.com  --I can be very resourceful and persistent when I want to-- but as I have gone back to revisit my older posts, here on Blogger, and clicked on the youtube.com links, I see now that almost all of the videos I had linked to, or directly embedded into my posts, have also been tagged and removed by WMG.

Well, as you can imagine, I am wholly disheartened by now. I seem to have run out of options.  WMG wins, right?  So I'm not sharing music here on Blogger anymore:  So sad!! To me, WMG's over-arching censorship of sharing music actually hurts the artists they represent and the music industry as a whole, because people sharing a song ... liking a song ... using a song to relate thoughts & ideas and connect with others should help to increase exposure for a given artist or group.  It's like FREE advertising to my way of thinking.  Why would you bring the hammer down on that? Because a small minority of misguided people will copy songs and not buy legal copies? That's like saying, I might get into a car accident if I ride in a car, so I will never ride in a car. Such backwards logic and faulty reasoning.  Well, I can't control WMG nor their strong-handed, far-reaching efforts to silence the music in my life ... BUT what I can control is who I will buy my music from and I have made a firm commitment NOT to purchase any song or album by any artist or group that is represented by WMG.  Thankfully, I now have Spotify, so I don't have to purchase songs anymore ... unless I really want to do so.  The down-side of Spotify is that very few of my friends have come around to using Spotify, despite my suggestions to give Spotify a try.  Funny how people become so accustomed to doing things a certain way that they hesitate to try something new? But, I digress --funny how often I seem to do that ; ) ... So bottom line: I don't really have the opportunity "to share" music much these days and that makes me a bit sad, but at least I can still listen myself, right?  Accentuate the positive.

/(Happy) Valentine's Day, WMG.

♥ Happy Valentine's Day to the rest of you!  Tutto ciò che sarà sarà (whatever will be will be), right? ... Or in my case, "che Syrah, Syrah" --my new favorite red wine:  Cheers!! ♥

[ Reading back over this post makes me think of the movie "Chain Reaction" --1996 American film starring Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman & Rachel Weisz-- where scientists at a prestigious university discover how to generate energy from splitting a hydrogen atom out of water (H20). Not really sound science, but an interesting premise in the idea of providing "free energy" to the world.  And of course corrupt government officials, backed by private industries, that would stand to lose hundreds of billions+++ of dollars in the event that the details surrounding the harnessing of this "free energy" were to be released to the public utilize every means possible to silence the discovery team of scientists. Well, just made me think of WMG ... Great movie if you haven't seen it yet, by the way.]

To Light the World ....

"Kindness and compassion can bridge gaps, take down barriers

and even move mountains." 

~Isabelle Black Smith

"To Light the World with Kindness & Compassion" (a.k.a "The Painted Winter Sky)

 

@Copyrighted Photograph.  All Rights Reserved.

I read the news of events happening around the world today and I realize how lucky I am and how much I have to be grateful for in my own life. 

Normal is for other people ....

A friend managed to sum up in words what I have been struggling with of late myself, trying to find normal in my life:


"Jolted from her temporary solace,
she contemplated if normal
might not be just a word,
bouncing around in an orb
of complacency,
Something to be abandoned
Rather than quarreled with
or achieved."  

@2013 DiAnne Ebejer.


This verse is from a brilliant poem by DiAnne Ebejer, titled "Quarreling With Normal" (click on the link to view the entire poem).

"Coloring Outside the Lines!"

@Copyrighted Image, February 2013.  All Rights Reserved: Isabelle Black Smith.

You see, I've let go of a lot of things lately and that's left me feeling out of sorts and almost numb.  I keep telling myself that normal will come again soon, but upon reflection as I look back over life:  I see now that in truth "normal" is not something that I have ever had and maybe at this stage in the game it's time to accept that normal is not something that I will ever have.  It's time to give up that ghost and stop running after something that just doesn't exist.  Besides, I'm all about no boxes ... coloring outside the lines, right?  So why would I ever want "normal" anyhow?  Guess, it's because that is what everyone else around me seems to always be striving for ... where they seem to be happiest ... at peace?  I'll just have to settle for numb for now ... in time that will turn into peace, I think.


2/4/2013  ... Wisdom from my young daughter today, "Normal is average and average is BORING! Take it from me, life is more exciting when you're the weird one in the room." ~EJ

To see a world in a grain of sand ...

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."  ~William Blake

 

"God's-Eye"

 

@Copyright Image, January 2013.  All Rights Reserved:  Isabelle Black Smith.