Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Found an Amazing Blog! ("Jyoti Art Ashram")

Nowadays especially, I am always on the lookout for great artwork with spiritual themes and did I ever hit the jackpot stumbling across this blog: Jyoti Art Ashram! OH MY GOSH IT'S INCREDIBLE!!!

I absolutely, instantly fell in love with this mandala of the shepherd with a hundred sheep who seeks out the one that is lost; a revival of my all-time favorite genre/style: medieval Europe, pre-Renaissance.

And look at this gorgeous painting of the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus at his baptism!

And this one of "Guru Jesus and his fiery sermon"!

And I LOVE this one of "Jesus the Healer"--depicted as a member of the Dalit/"untouchable" caste.

And this joyful sketch of the healing of the paralytic, and this fascinating image of the "Trinity in the landscape," and this one of a 15th century mystic poet, Kabir.

Wow wow wow! That's what I have to say!

The only bad thing about this blog is that it hasn't been updated recently and it's kind of hard to navigate. In fact, the only way to find one of the brightest gems in the collection is to scroll halfway down this page to the "Surya Namashkar" entry, which is a series of yoga poses, beautifully illustrated, of the stations of the cross!

Let me just repeat that for anyone who failed to catch the absolutely amazing awesomeness of that the first time: it's a beautifully illustrated series of yoga poses for praying the stations of the cross!!!!!!!

I feel like I just discovered a buried treasure chest filled with wonders beyond my imagining!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

"How To Make Six Figures Online"

A few weeks ago I went to a free lecture on how to make six figures on the internet. It was pretty good. The guy who gave the talk shared his experiences and the strategies that ended up working for him.

The primary take-away for me was that you can make buckets of money on the internet if you really want to--but you have to really want it, and it's a ton of work.

Personally, I have never particularly wanted to make a lot of money, so I probably never will. I would guess that's true of most people. Anyone likes the sound of "six figures" but very few want the money badly enough to do the work required to earn it.

So, lesson number one is, most people should stop complaining about how little money they make. If it were a higher priority, they could be making plenty more. They just don't care enough to get off their butts and do it. (And I mean most Americans, by the way--can't say about people in other countries.)

And then the other lesson is, you can accomplish all kinds of things that seem beyond the reach of ordinary people if you're passionate enough about it.

Someday I hope to write some books that will actually be accepted by a publisher ... but at the present time, it's not a high enough priority in my life to actually happen. I think that's okay, though--what all is going on in my life now is future grist for the writing mill ...