Tag Archives: postings

The Turning – A New Project Site

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theturning_header_5I’ve been spending the last few days putting together a project site for The Turning, which is now open and ready for use… you can visit it here: http://theturning.onehumanbeing.com/ (site no longer available)

On the new site you’ll find the story has been organized to make it easier to follow.

I’ve added extra material to help you understand the various ideas from the story – Monthly Mayan calenders with downloadable PDF ‘s of the different periods of The Tzolkin, a playlist of songs that the story is partly based on, and even a scrollable timeline of postings… and I have many other things planned for the future.

I have also moved STEW, an allegorical story about the 2008 election, over to The Turning site, where these two story will soon be merged into one…

What Is The Turning?

This is serial – a story that will unfold over a seven year period of time – which tells the story of a mythical and imaginative journey taken by Jon, onehumanbeing that blends fiction and non-fiction as it explores ideas about time, being human, bipolar disorder, god(s), creation, history, Mayan calenders, astrology, space, the sub-conscious mind, quantum physics, American Christianity and the coming Long Cycle – among other things.

But most of the time this story is more about the questions it stirs up in you than anything else…

Find out more here... About The Turning

What Is A Project Site?

As an artist I’m always at work on more than one thing at a time. For example, when I’m painting I usually have about 5 paintings going at once – all in various stages of completion.

Currently, much of my work is done on very large scales. As an example – The MMJ Project, which uses my local city and community as the studio and working space for my various activities involving Medical Marijuana and the long struggle to get it established and normalized.

Some of my other projects include Redbot Loves You! and The Turning – A Serial. I also have some others that are “in the works” and not ready for public consumption yet…

To keep my various projects, and the different materials, concepts, and campaigns from getting lost in a confusing mass of stuff, I started to start creating “project sites” for each project idea – sort of like spin-offs from TV shows – and this gives each project it’s own home.

By using this “multiple project sites” approach, I find as my focus shifts over time I can move from one project site to the next, adding new material, making changes, adjusting the project to keep it on track, and whatever else needs to be done at that time.

Then, after a while, a shift or a change comes over me and I’m onto the next project – and around and around it goes…

I hope that helps you understand the process going on here at onehumanbeing.com

Until later, best of health…

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Tracking The Storm on Facebook

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I had a pretty bad depression storm move in this last week, and I’ve been tracking it by making daily posts on Facebook. Tonight I thought I’d try to elaborate a little on those postings…

Day 1 – Wednesday

This storm started on Wednesday morning, the 22nd – I could feel the storm coming and I tried to hang on to the positive mindset I woke up with, only to have it slip away as the morning wore on… that night on Facebook I wrote:

Facebook Posting: Wednesday, July 22nd 10:56pm

Heavy and dark depression today – tired of the mantras of stupidity and failure endlessly repeating themselves in my head, for hours, all day long…

Mantras or looping tapes – don’t know what to really call them – just the endless repeating of crap – STUPID STUPID STUPID SHITHEAD FAILURE… (that and worse) over and over all day long… it really does gets a little tiring and if you had to live through it (and many people do) you’d quickly understand why people turn to alcohol and drugs to numb their poor, tortured soul.

Day 2 – Thursday

I was hoping this storm would just be a quick, little, one day event, but no, it continued on into Thursday – and I woke up to those same crappy tapes playing in my head  – the same as when I went to bed – damn. Just relentless from the word go…

Later on, I ended up watching an interesting documentary on the Catholic Channel on TV (who knew we had a Catholic Channel?!?) about a priest named Father Solanus Casey. I’ll write more on Father Solanus in a future post.

Facebook Posting: Thursday, July 23rd 10:47 am

Another heavy and dark day – Slowly posting a retrospective of my paintings – So far – Line Abstracts from the mid 1990′s – http://onehumanbeing.com/blog/resources/art-works-a-retropective/line-abstracts/

I’ll let people know when more work is posted…

I thought I’d do my best to work through the storm, but I didn’t get very far and spent most of the rest of the Thursday sleeping.

Day 3 – Friday

Facebook Posting: Friday, July 24th 4:41 pm

Depression – Day Three – Yet one more time down this road… Today the depression moved on to the physical part – like having the flu – sort of. Hopefully that means this storm will move out in a day or so. I’ve been here many times before…

In my opinion, depression is a physical illness that affects your thinking and thought processes. As a bout of depression runs it course, I have days where it’s mostly a physical experience – tired, nauseous, achy, irritable and uncomfortable in my own skin – very much like how the flu feels.

This phase can mean this bout is nearly over, or it’s just warming up for round two… I just have to wait and see.

There’s a line in a song by The Verve that runs through my head on these days “Just tie yourself to the mast my friend and the storm will end…” It helps keep me alive.

On Friday evening I went with Tania to Friday Night Happy Hour, a weekly tradition with our friends, which I’ve been skipping out on lately because of depression-related issues, and did my best to be present. Our friends and the co-founders of our little Happy Hour group are leaving this next week on amazing new adventures – and I couldn’t miss their last Happy Hour with us.

Day 4 – Saturday

Facebook Posting: Saturday, July 25th 1:14 pm

Depression Day Four – 15% better – Took photos at AAC this morning of Pure Kush, The Purps and Razzle Berry – beautiful herbs! Will be posted on the AAC menu later today (this is my volunteer work that keeps me going) http://aacollective.com/inside/menu/

On Saturday morning I was determined to start turning this around – wake up – go take photos – come home and spend the afternoon processing photos – go, go, go and out-run the tape loops… on sugar and fake energy, anxiety and frustration – doesn’t work for long and I end up just drained before the day is nearly half over.

Day 5 – Sunday

Sunday – is it Sunday? No, just Fogday in my head and I can’t shake it… sometimes the clouds seem like they’re going to clear, but no, just a false hope and more gray fog thickly and slowly oozing through my day and into the evening…

Facebook Posting: Sunday, July 26th 11:04 pm

Depression Day 5 – gray fog and heavy clouds – now it’s just settled in, thick with slow motion… an endless day with tiny, quickly evaporating breaks in the mental weather.

Tough storm so far, but you never know… tomorrow could be the day I wake and the sun will be shining on my eyelids and whispering appreciations and hopes that blow away the looping tapes and make this just a memory and a story.

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Updates to The MMJ Lists

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Note: the project known as The Medical Marijuana Lists is now using a shortened version of the name – The MMJ Lists

From The MMJ Lists…

Catching Up…

vaderkush_04_30_2009_full_2

I’ve been dusting off the files, photos and various materials of The MMJ Lists to move it closer to how I envision it…

Since January I’ve been taking photos at A Soothing Remedy Collective and more recently, AAC – Apothecary’s Assistants Collective, where I also volunteer as a bud-tender, front desk clerk, joint roller, or whatever else is needed while I’m there for my shift.

Monday (April 27th) I was there for the afternoon and evening shifts… and spent most of the evening rolling joints of White Widow to give away to the members.

AAC gives you a free joint every time you stop by to get your herb… it’s part of the “member-focused” approach to the Medical Marijuana dispensary movement and an effort to slow down the collective-hopping (see below) that goes on.

(read more here…)

Also… I’ve added to the “About” page…

About The MMJ Lists

In June of 2008 I started taking photos and posting menus on WeedTracker.com for a local, Long Beach collective called CCLB, Canna Collective Long Beach.

The whole thing started as a fluke – I just wanted CCLB to keep up with their menu posting because gas prices were soaring and online people wanted to know what was available before they made the long drive – sometimes coming all the way from San Diego – a nearly 300 mile round trip.

My round trip to CCLB was only 10 miles, so during June I started my volunteer gig as the Menu Guy for CCLB. Over the July 4th weekend, through a series of events I’ve written about elsewhere, I officially became an unpaid, community volunteer at CCLB and through October of that year I photographed nearly 80 different strains, some of them several times.

It was almost an overwhelming situation, and it started to seem like I spent all of my time photographing, preparing the photos, posting them and then posting the menu… and by the beginning of November I had to halt the project as it was going, and think about how to present the photographs. (The price of gas had fallen too, so my original reason for posting menus had ended.)

(read more here…)

The link to The MMJ Project is: http://mmj.onehumanbeing.com/

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Come On Wheels, Take This Boy Away…

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2009-03-07-come_on_wheels_take_this_boy_away

I was given a new bike today – the best bike I’ve ever owned… and no, it doesn’t look quite like the image above.

[A note about the image: I took some photos this evening of my new bike, none of which were very good on their own... Tania suggested a photo-collage...]

I’ve been sorta-wanting a bike for a while, not really needing it, just thinking it would be an added value to my life, eliminate some car and gas use, and be a nice way to get around Long Beach, which is slowly moving towards bike-friendliness…

But this last week, a friend said to me as he was helping me move a love-seat up our stairs, “Man, you are out of shape. You need to get some exercise, you need a bike…” and I had to agree. Continue reading →

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Double Rainbow

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Double Rainbow Detail - Click to see full Image of the Moment

Please note: I am publishing this post about a week [2-25-2009] after I first wrote it. See the note at the end of the post for more details…

Ripples After The Splash

The last 36 hours have been very difficult. (the story gets better, really…)

I’ve experienced this before, the relapse after a big depression, just as you’re heading out of the whirlpool. It’s like ripples from a big splash in a pond.

Peeved

That’s the word I settled on to describe how I feel today. I’m angry, bothered and vexed – but mostly it’s wrestling with God, trying to get through my confusion of the moment…

So today, I’m not the best to be around – I have a short temper, and I feel like I have an agenda in every conversation… most of which have been with Tania who had the day off today and got to enjoy my dark windstorms and blowing clouds…

I don’t get this way very often, and haven’t in a long time, so it’s really throwing me around this time, and tripping up my footing.

I believe in a God of big promises, and today I need to see some of those show up… like I said – I have been peeved today. Maybe it’s something I ate, my various medications – I don’t know…

A note to those who don’t understand the work of faith: faith is not blind, it’s a force that strips away all your illusions and makes you face the real problems, like food on the table and clothes to wear. To learn about faith that works you have to ask questions, it’s fear and doubt that keeps you one quiet.

I found out from Tania as I was muttering about in my peeved ramblings this morning, that she was dealing with the same kind of thoughts, and she had been praying about the same things that were bothering me.

Praying – a much better response. That’s how we’ve moved from questions to answers in the past – we prayed – and it has worked every time so far…

We both agreed that we needed to see some of those promises, and now was a really good time, really… and we prayed.

Rainbows

Later this afternoon I drove over to A Soothing Remedy Collective, and saw my new friend Dr. Shillstein (that’s his weedtracker username), the guy who runs the place.

2009-mmj-week

I usually enjoy visiting the Dr. but today I was just a dark cloud coming to visit. I had gone there just to drop off some MMJ (Medical Marijuana) Week buttons for them to give away,  but I also picked up a gram of Mango OG Kush (the Dr. recommended it for my situation – a very good choice) and left…

After I got home and had some of my new herb (still feeling peeved, but in a nice, kush-induced, fuzzy kind-of-way) I glanced out the front window and saw the most beautiful rainbow I’ve ever seen (and no, the rainbow wasn’t because of the herb).

I called Tania over to see, and we both ran downstairs to try and get a photo of this amazing sight.

I’m very serious when I say I’ve never seen such a brilliant, complete, colorful double rainbow. The composite photo above does not do it justice.

Now I realize that there are “rainbows” and there are “Rainbows: The Amazing Version” – This was the latter…

I have never seen one such as this, but I imagine that the one Noah saw must have been like this, because you look up it and go, “Wow…” – you just have to.

You might or might not know that the rainbow Noah saw was a sign to him from God that represented God’s promises to him, God’s covenant with Noah, and all mankind after him. I feel like today, God answered my storms with a rainbow…

An after note: 11:30 pm – I’m still feeling a bit peeved – I hope this feeling goes away when this current depression ripple passes because I do not like feeling this way…

Note from about a week later – Feb 25, 2009

I didn’t publish this post on the day I wrote it because in it’s draft form it was such an incomplete picture of what was going on in our life, the much bigger picture where this is just one footstep of faith leading to the next – but for those that don’t walk this way it could cause confusion.

My life is about fanning the spark of faith in the people I meet, and I don’t want to do anything to blow out that spark…

This double rainbow was followed up by a show the next day on the Science Channel about Uncertainty and Quantum Physics. When I need spiritual clarity, I turn to Quantum Physics – it gives me great perspective.

All the peeved feelings melted away after that night, and my questions have started to return to me as answers that help me see the world with more love, hope and purpose…

And I have a new material for my work now – Uncertainty. More about that coming up soon…

So now, over a week later, I’m starting to understand in an even-more-amazed-way the beauty of that rainbow, on that particular day, and that moment. It’s a gift that keeps on giving. My faith is now stronger and has a larger vision…

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