Category Archives: Uncategorized

Art, Native America, Uncategorized

I Started Painting: My Four Turtles

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I recently started painting. As a creative person I’ve dabbled in and experimented with several different media over the years. Along with performing arts, I’ve drawn and sketched avidly throughout most of my life and I’ve always wanted to try my hand at painting, a serious attempt far more than dabbling, but I never knew where to start and was always too busy with other pursuits to really explore this particular medium.

Well, over the past year my life has changed in some pretty fundamental ways and I found myself at a point where I could finally focus on new pursuits. At first I wasn’t even sure what to paint. I knew that if I got any good at it I would probably paint similar things to the drawings I’ve done, full of traditional Native, historic, and arcane symbolism, heavily influenced by the natural universe, and mythology.

I did some minimal research on the subject and gathered some basic supplies to get started.

In the time I was taking to make up my mind I found an Eastern box turtle drowning in a small fish pond and rescued it. It was the same species that Creek (Muscogee) women use to make their shell shakers in the Southern states. The first night I kept him in a laundry basket before I eventually released him back into the woods behind my house. That night it dawned on me that the turtle was the perfect first painting to make.

I came up in the Muscogee Creek tradition and in this tradition the Earth was created by the turtle. The turtle is the fundamental image of creation – the perfect symbol for art; and of beginnings – the perfect symbol for a new venture. And she is the perfect symbol to respect my heritage in which my life and creative pursuits tend to be grounded. I have worked for years under the name Lojah, anglicized from Loca which is the Muskogee word for turtle. As an enrolled member of the Cheroenhaka-Nottoway Tribe, my family belongs to the Turtle Clan,* so it all came together quite nicely. The Turtle would be my first painting. I opted for a traditional Native styled design that has been important to me for years with a medicine wheel on its back to represent the four directions similar to the images found throughout prehistoric and contemporary North American iconography.

So with no instruction, a few meager supplies and a whole lot of inspiration I put paint to canvass and created this.

#1 Buckskin Turtle

Turtle 1I decided to start with a general background, something just to contrast with the turtle image. I mixed up a sort of amber colored yellow and painted the background. Then I laid the turtle down. I found the medium perplexing and unfamiliar so the brushstrokes are pretty obvious in places and the color isn’t as even as I intended for it to be, but overall I was pretty satisfied for my first attempt. I later realized that the background color resembles tanned deerskin and named it Buckskin Turtle.

Naturally, my mother loved it and put in a request for one like it. It took me a little while before I got around to painting another one and by that time I wanted to make one for my sister too. I found my inspiration again and began painting.

        

 

#2 Space Turtle

Turtle 2I decided to paint another turtle for its meaning to my family and to perfect the techniques necessary to paint something I expect to become a regular staple in my catalog. I decided that it needed a more dynamic background. Since the turtle represents the earth. I figured she should be represented in space kind of like a planet. The fact that I recently watched Star Wars Episode VII, the Force Awakens is purely coincidental. This second painting took a little more time than the first one, and I experimented a little bit more with techniques like layering and scumbling. This one has more breadth and depth than #1, and I was really pleased with the results.

 

#3 Water Turtle

Turtle 3While painting Space Turtle I realized that I should do the next one on water, since the Creek Creation Story describes the turtle living in a world of water. I investigated techniques for painting water and experimented with the “z shape.” The water’s surface didn’t turn out quite like I had hoped, but the turtle was the best one yet. By the time I got into this painting I could tell that I was more comfortable with the medium. The colors are more distinct and smoother especially in the turtle. This one became my favorite pretty quickly.

While painting Water Turtle I had a realization that before I painted anything else I should paint a fourth Turtle. Four is a special number to most Native American traditions and since I had already established that I was beginning this new trade upon a traditional foundation, I decided that I should complete the circle I had begun.

 

#4 Sky Turtle

Turtle 4I painted this turtle on a sky background to represent the idea of the turtle as earth in a terrestrial atmosphere. My youngest daughter, Hailey says he’s flying.  In my opinion this is by far the best one of the four. I was a lot more comfortable working with the paints, and I felt freer to let go of some of the rigidity I had in working on the previous paintings.

 

These are my first four paintings. I plan to make a lot more, but I promise my next one won’t be a turtle.

* Being of mixed Native American heritage and active in both communities I am a part of the Muskogee Creek Panther Clan as well as the Turtle Clan of the Cheroenhaka-Nottoway nation.


Irish/Celtic, Music, Uncategorized

The Irish Wake: Music Presented By McGuire’s Irish Pub

The Irish Wake, McGuire's Irish Pub

Death is a popular theme in Irish Music. Emblematic of this is the Irish Wake, an often rowdy gathering of mourners around the body of the departed, traditionally held in a family member’s home. McGuire’s Irish Pub and Rich McDuff have drawn upon this theme in the production of The Irish Wake, CD of popular Irish tunes.

Proclaimed as “music for and about an Irish Wake that includes solemn to lighthearted and humorous tunes,” the Irish Wake delivers upon its promise. These are high-quality musical arrangements making use of traditional Irish instruments, and with a few tunes characterized by layers of vocal harmonies. This is most noticeably heard on “Amazing Grace,” sung by Molly McGuire, making for a creatively unique and interesting rendition of the song. Some of the other highlights include “Rosin the Beau,” and “Isn’t it Grand Boys” (featuring the Boston Boys, a group of young McGuire’s patrons), and the title track – a Rich McDuff original.
This is a somber disk containing 14 tracks, each one another variation on the theme of death, and in some cases resurrection. Packaged in the standard CD jewel case, the cover photo is quite fitting for the music on this disk; an old Irish cemetery marked by generations-old Celtic crosses enduring the turn of the centuries, reaching grimly toward a grey sky.

Produced by Rich McDuff, and featuring Molly McGuire, the McGuire’s Pipe Band, and many local singers and musicians who frequent the pub, The Irish Wake is a great choice for fans of Irish music looking for a mellower listening experience. Entitled to compliment the Irish Wake, a green, rum-based drink popularized by McGuire’s Irish Pub, this CD is a clever bit of marketing as well as a pleasant journey through Irish music. A patron can enjoy an Irish Wake at the bar or in the restaurant, and before exiting the pub, stop in the gift shop and pick up a copy of this disk to remember his experience at McGuire’s.
It can also be ordered at the link below.


Economics, Uncategorized

Dave Ramsey: Financial Guru for the Average Person

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Dave_RamseyDave Ramsey is a financial guru for the average person. Even if you think you’re doing alright with your money, Dave can help you see the folly of your ways that prevents you from truly excelling financially.

When I finally made the decision to focus on my finance and figure out the secret to creating wealth I explored numerous books, and audio programs by many different financial gurus. I read Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump, Brian Tracy, and even Gene Simmons, just to name a few. I began perusing business magazines, and I learned a lot by doing this.

The problem with most of these books and programs was that although they taught me a lot, most of them are written under the assumption that the reader already has a certain amount of capital at hand, ready to invest. But I was broke, getting by paycheck to paycheck. Sure, I knew saving was a good idea, but I was in debt, and any time I tried to save, some sort of emergency or an overdue bill sucked out that cash and it was gone. It began to feel futile.

I knew I should invest, but I was clueless where to start from my financial position, from broke. So one day, like a similar day years earlier, distraught with financial indignity, I made my way to the local book store to look for that bit of wisdom that I knew I had somehow overlooked. There, I came to a full sized advertisement for Dave Ramsey and his radio show, syndicated on a local station. So I browsed a couple of his books on the shelf. The advice between those covers was invaluable. What was best is that it applied to me, not just to someone with 30 grand waiting to be invested.

Being broke, I couldn’t afford to buy one of those books right then. Sorry Dave, but you told me not to spend money I didn’t have. I went out to my car and tuned into your show instead. It was one of the best decisions I’d made in years. I quickly became a regular listener.

    

Dave Ramsey has it down to a science. What’s more, he doesn’t assume you have any money to start with. In fact, his lessons begin (dare I say) with the assumption that you are broke, in debt, and completely clueless about money. It’s not that he talks down to you, as much as it is he wants you to clearly understand just how foolish the average person is about money, credit, and debt. He doesn’t try to sell you on a get-rich-quick scheme. In fact, he nearly condemns such ideas. The best thing is that Dave Ramsey told me were I should start and in what order I should do things to get out of debt and to prosper.

After listening to Dave on the radio for several weeks, Christmas was just around the corner. At the top of my list was Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover. I opted for the audiobook version, because as I graduate student I don’t have a lot of time for leisure reading, but I can’t read my assigned materials while driving or working. I later took advantage of a Veteran’s Day giveaway and enrolled in his online Financial Peace University. By following Dave’s advice and applying his baby-steps, I have seen my finances improve amazingly. On top of that, I have much more peace of mind than I did just a year before.

Dave’s first baby-step is to save $1000 as quickly as possible (or $500 if you make less than $20,000 a year). This is the emergency fund to be used only in a genuine emergency while you begin working the next six steps. About six months into the program I had just such an emergency. An auto emergency was going to cost me nearly $300.

At first I was angry. This was all I needed. I immediately went into my poverty mindset thinking about how much inconvenience this was causing me in my life. Then I remembered my emergency fund. This sort of thing is exactly what it was there for! A little smile came across my face, and I actually felt good. Of course nobody feels good about having to shell out hundreds for unexpected auto repairs, but for the first time in my life I was actually financially prepared. I managed to pay it all off with one swift payment and drive out of the shop beaming with satisfaction. And that felt great!

It was all just a bump in the road. A year earlier, I would have been in a real pickle. I would have had to beg, and borrow. It might have taken weeks, or even months to get the finances together for the repairs, and it might have impacted my ability to pay my bills. This time however, it didn’t even affect my fun money. I could still go out to the pub that weekend for some good old Irish music, and within two months my emergency fund was topped off once again.

For anyone who is serious about getting their finances together, unlearning all their poverty inducing bad habits, and replacing them with wise wealth creating behavior, I cannot recommend Dave Ramsey more. He has helped me replace my naive hope for wealth with a practical and realistic plan for creating it. Dave can’t help everyone, however. The path to financial peace is not easy. It does take discipline and perseverance. You have to be ready, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually to change your behavior, and to do the necessary work it takes to achieve it. The hardest part for many people is that you must be ready to take personal responsibility for your own financial situation.

If you really want to break the bonds of financial servitude and make your way toward wealth visit Dave Ramsey’s website now. Find him on your local radio station. You will be happy you did!


Anthropology, Native America, Poetry, Religion & Spirituality, Uncategorized

The Wise Words of Tecumseh

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Tecumseh02“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

~ Chief Tecumseh

          


Anthropology, Economics, Uncategorized

Your Life is Your Business

We all talk about starting a business as a means to wealth. This seems reasonable, but for the average impoverished person this really means very little. “How do I go into business without any means and possibly no idea what market to go into?”

First you have to realize that you already are in business. YOU are your business. Your life and your body is your corporation. As Dave Ramsey says; “You are the CEO of Me Incorporated.” As soon as you realize that whether you have a business license of not, whether you are technically an employee in a business owned by someone else or not, you are in fact self-employed. If you get your paycheck from a single source you are in fact a corporation with a single client.

Business Card

Even fortune five-hundred company owners have employers. We call them customers, clients, or investors but they are in fact the employers who provide the revenue for the business and pay the salaries of the owners, management, and employees of the company. As an employee, your employer is the investor in or financier of your business, even if your business is operating a broom at the local McDonald’s.

    

 

There is a sort of magic to your thoughts. If you see yourself as just an employee, a worker rather than a businessperson, you are likely to fall into the complacency of wage slavery. Here you wind up working just for the money, often a lesser amount than you are capable of earning. When you realize that your life is a business you become empowered by seeing yourself as a business owner: the CEO of You Inc. Jobs become streams or revenue, money becomes cashflow and capital. You will be compelled to learn more about business, and as your knowledge of the subject increases you will become more prepared to consider operating your own corporation.

A major factor important to anyone’s success is mindset and perspective. So adopt the mindset that you are already self-employed. You are already a business owner, whether that business is doing well or doing poorly. The same principles used by a successful corporation can be applied to your own life. This works whether you are married or single, have children or are childless. The only difference is the number of ‘shareholders’ to whom you may have a fiduciary responsibility.


Anthropology, Irish/Celtic, Music, Uncategorized

9 Top Irish Drinking Songs

The Irish have produced some of the best drinking songs ever written. Characterized by their catchy melodies, comical lyrics, and their tendency toward tragic endings; a good night of pub-singing is a communal activity with much crowd interaction and participation. The following is a list of my top nine Irish Drinking Songs, in no particular order. Why nine? If you must ask, perhaps you need to learn more about the Irish.

1- Beer, Beer, Beer

This is a straight forward song in praise of the fictionalized inventor of beer, Charlie Mopps. The name is meant to rhyme with barley and hops. The lyrics mostly describe how beer is made, where it is sold and how much better life is now that it has been invented. As far as creativity is concerned, lyrically this song is not the best. But it’s a great sing along tune the best thing about this song is its catchiness for group singing.

Jay_Dun_Aengus2011

2- Waxies Dargle

The singer tells us of his woman and his friend’s woman going about

trying to get money in order to go to the “Waxies Dargle,” a popular vacation spot on the bank of the River Dargle. Like so many other Irish drinking songs, the two women go about selling personal possessions, even some belonging to the singer himself in order to afford drinking money. The catchy hooks ends each round with the words “”What’ll ye have? Will ye have a pint? I’ll have a pint with you, sir. And if one of us doesn’t order soon we’ll be thrown out of the boozer.”

3- Whiskey You’re the Devil

A bit of a counterpart to “Whisky in the Jar,” this song is about the hazards of drinking heavy spirits. “Whiskey You’re the Devil” contains one of the wittiest verses in Irish drinking music; “Said the mother ‘Do not wrong me. Don’t take me daughter from me. For if you do I will torment you and after death, me ghost will haunt you.’” The chorus of this tune is the kind that just urges one to sing along.

4- Finnegan’s Wake

Tim Finnegan was a construction worker who had a bit of a drinking problem. He had a drink every morning before going to work. One day he had a bit too much and fell off a ladder and broke his skull. After everyone arrived at his wake, Finnegan’s widow served lunch followed by whisky punch. In short order some one said the wrong thing to another and a fight breaks out. Bottles of whisky are hurled through the air until the liquor platters over Tim’s corps. The whiskey magically revives him. Tim Finnegan stands up from the bed cursing the waste of good liquor and asking if they really thought he was dead.

5- All For Me Grog

Grog is a combination of liquors popular especially amongst sailors in the 18th and 19th centuries. Essentially it was a mixture of whatever was left over. The lyrics of this song tell us of what appears to be a pirate coming ashore with his plunder. He spends all his money on wild nights with gin drinking women. The poor fellow parties his way through several days until he is “sick in the head” and “full of pains and aches.” He eventually sells everything from his boots to his shirt for money to buy beer and tobacco and decides to head back out to sea in order to get away from all the trouble he has caused for himself in port.

6- Jug of Punch

Whiskey Punch is made with sugar, lemon, and water … and of course whiskey. This song begins with a man sitting peacefully in his room. Before long he is overcome with the desire to go out and have a drink. We next meet him in the pub with a “pretty wench” on his knee, but before long he finds himself in a bad way. The song traditionally ends with the singer proclaiming that upon his death; “just lay me down in my native peat with a jug of punch at my head and feet.”

7- Dicey Riley

One of the catchiest tunes in the Irish Drinking repertoire; Dicey Riley is about one hard drinking woman. She starts each day with a few drinks and continues on throughout the rest of the day. Each night she closes down the pubs, trashed and if she doesn’t have a friend to see her safely home she’ll sleep off her drink on a local park bench, only to do it all again the next day.

8- Whiskey in the Jar

Perhaps one of the most over played Irish drinking tunes, this one is a standard that has even been performed by the heavy metal band Metallica. The song is really about a robbery. The singer tells how he encounters one Captain Farrell in the mountains and demands his money at the point of pistol and rapier. He is eventually betrayed by his beloved Jenny, arrested and taken away by the very same Captain Farrell.

9- The Wild Rover

Actually a song written for the Temperance Movement, it is ironic that this song has been so lovingly embraced as a drinking tune. Simply put, the song is about a roving man who has decided to repent of his rambling and drinking ways. Along with “Whiskey in the Jar,” “The Wild Rover” is one of the most well known Irish drinking songs, so when it is played it is sure to get some crowd interaction.


Religion & Spirituality, Uncategorized

The Law of Attraction

The Law of Attraction is a metaphysical theory asserting that “like attracts like,” or those things that a person thinks about the most are those that will naturally be attracted to him.  Though recently popularized again by the 2006 book and film The Secret by Rhonda Byrne the term “Law of Attraction” was originally coined by New Thought Movement guru William Walker Atkinson in his 1906 book Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World.

Simply stated the Law of Attraction is established upon the premise that thinking positive thoughts naturally attracts positive affects and negative thoughts just as naturally affect one negatively.  If a person can form a clear and strong image of one’s desire in their mind and recreate it consistently, the acquisition of the desired object or goal will be realized.  Likewise if one obsesses over negative thoughts and fears, those things will become manifest in his life.  We become what we think about most of the time.

The key to activating the Law of Attraction in your life begins with simple visualization exercises.  Decide what you want, perhaps a better job, a pay raise or a new lover.  Sit down in a comfortable position and imagine yourself having this thing.  Make it as real in your mind as possible.  Feel the sensations you would have if you had this thing you desire.  If it is a new car, imagine the sensations of driving it, the new car smell and the way the sun gleams off the chrome.  Make this an enjoyable event, conjuring up all the positive feelings you can create and firmly attach them to all the sensations related to your desired outcome.

To avoid sabotaging yourself in this activity you must be sure to carefully monitor your words and thoughts.  Whenever we speak or think we effectively affirm certain beliefs in our minds.  Every time we say or think something like “I’ll never have that much money,” or some other limiting belief, we undermine our efforts.  You must maintain a constant certainty that your desired outcome is already yours and working its way to you at this very moment.

How Does it Work?

There are two main theories explaining how the Law of Attraction works.  The more metaphysical explanation is expressed in the book The Secret; that the thoughts we think are broadcast to the universe as if we were making an order from a catalog.  If we are thinking about and envisioning our success then the universe will deliver success.  If however, we are constantly fretting over our fears, those are what will be delivered.

A more pragmatic explanation for the Law of Attraction is that by practicing visualization techniques and by monitoring our thoughts we condition our subconscious minds to expect those things we think about most.  Since the subconscious mind cannot process a negative, then thinking about the things we don’t want is effectively the same as if we wanted them to come true.  By conditioning our subconscious minds to expect success, achievement or even failure, we become motivated to act and behave in ways that will bring that into reality.

                          

 

Either way one sees the process unfold, the core lesson to be learned from the Law of Attraction is that we are responsible for our own lives and conditions based off our own thoughts and conditioning.  This is more than just “positive thinking” or simple recitation of affirmations encountered in the typical self help seminar.  The Law of Attraction requires consistent maintenance of positive belief and deep visualization in order for it to be effective.  Love, wealth and happiness are ours for the taking if only we can visualize ourselves having them, not at some future point, but right now regardless of our current predicaments.


Movies/TV Shows, Uncategorized

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia: No Happy Endings

With situations that are simply outrageous and characters that are despicably endearing, “Sunny” is quite possibly the funniest show on television.

The show features “the gang,” consisting of Dennis, Dee, Mac, Charlie, and Frank who operate Paddy’s Pub, an Irish bar in downtown Philadelphia—once rated “the worst bar in Philly.”  Paddy’s seems to not have much of a clientele, and whenever it starts to see any level of success, “the gang” finds a way to ruin it within 28 minutes.

“The gang” is a vile concoction of alcoholic and virtually sociopathic personalities, unethical, ignorant, and narcissistic.  The main cast includes these five well developed characters:

Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton) started off the series as the player, completely in love with himself. His highest aspiration in life is to have as much sex with as many women as possible, and he was originally pretty good at it. He devised a system for getting laid called the D.E.N.N.I.S. System, each letter representing a step in the seduction process which he tries to pass on to the other men in the gang.  As the seasons progress though, Dennis becomes more unhinged, deranged and obsessed with his image that women become less susceptible to his charms and more creeped out instead. We find that the popularity he supposedly enjoyed in his youth existed mostly in his imagination.  By season 10 it becomes evident that Dennis is really starting to crack up.

Dee Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson), the fraternal twin sister of Dennis is the awkward girl who still hasn’t grown into herself.  She still has unfulfilled dreams of being an actress and comedian, a theme which makes for several mishaps along the course of the series. She’s rude to her customers, and can’t seem to get involved with a man who doesn’t have a myriad of problems without screwing it up. As the series progresses, Dee is shown to be quite verbally abusive to her lovers, and she becomes even more delusional about her star qualities. The gang treats her like garbage, unconcerned with her thoughts or problems and she is proclaimed at one point by Mack to be “the useless chick” of the gang.

          

“Mac,” Ronald McDonald (Rob McElhenney)— Early in the series Mac is essentially a wannabe meathead and fitness poseur obsessed with building body-mass and admiring men’s physiques. He pretends to be a skilled athlete and martial artist, but proves time and again to have fewer skills than anyone else.  From the beginning he displays a religious pose that becomes more important to him as the series progresses, although it is clear he has a fairly superficial understanding of the doctrines of his faith. In the first season there is enough evidence to question if Mac is fully comfortable with his sexuality and as time goes by it becomes more and more obvious that he is struggling with some homosexual tendencies which with his religious convictions reveals a rather conflicted personality. His father is a convicted drug dealer

Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day) is the moron amongst the idiots.  Other than being a partner in Paddy’s Pub, he has nothing going for him, so the gang made him the pub’s janitor.  An almost illiterate slob, Charlie is often opining over and sometimes stalking the coffee shop waitress introduced in the first episode. As it turns out, Charlie is a naturally skilled musician responsible for writing some of the series’ most popular songs like “Dayman.” While Charlie is apparently the  least put together member of the gang, as his character develops we find out that he is in many ways the foundation that holds the entire enterprise together, though he never receives any recognition from any of his friends.

Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito) is Dennis’ and Dee’s stepfather and possibly the biological father of Charlie.  A former high-power corporate CEO turned lousy con-man, he first appears in season 2 and scams his way into partial ownership of the Pub.  Frank is financially independent from past business dealings, and embezzles money from Paddy’s Pub. Perhaps the most depraved character on Sunny, Frank is determined to see just how weird he can get with the last remaining year of his life.  He moves into Charlie’s apartment and the two develop a strange bromance. Being independently wealthy from his business years, Frank is the financer for the gangs many schemes which allows for some rather pricey adventures.

The gang is remarkable in that the members always manage to make the wrong decision, ethically and economically in every situation.  In one episode Dee and Mac try to raise a baby they found in a dumpster.  Another time Dennis and Dee purposely become addicted to crack in order to qualify for welfare.  They destroy an immigrant family’s house by trying to perform an “extreme home makeover” after becoming inspired by the book “the Secret.”

In “The Gang Exploits a Miracle” Frank leads the gang into trying to profit from a restroom water stain that resembles the Virgin Mary.  This episode introduces one of the most dynamic side characters, Rickety Cricket (David Hornsby). Cricket is an old acquaintance from high school who enters the pub as an ordained Catholic Priest, to investigate the “miracle.”  In short order his life is ruined by his unrequited love of Dee, driving him into a life of homelessness.

The gang has also attracted the attention of a local lawyer, whom after experiencing first-hand their deceitful and shameless behavior has taken to occasionally making sport out of litigating against them.

In It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the standard sitcom structure doesn’t apply. The classic format calls for 20something minutes of mishaps, and satire that will all be wrapped up in the end with the lives of the main cast back to normal and okay.  At the end of each episode, the gang usually receives the karmic retribution they have earned, or at least they lose everything for which they were aiming.  No matter how bad the outcome, it’s difficult to feel sorry for any of them.

There are no happy endings in “Sunny,” just hilarious unfortunate consequences.


Anthropology, Religion & Spirituality, Uncategorized

The Basics of Jewish Mysticism

In Jewish mystical traditions there is a Four Worlds philosophy. This philosophy teaches us that human beings cohesively inhabit four separate states of being, each governed by a particular aspect of human experience. These Four Worlds are the physical, emotional, intellectual and the spiritual. God is perceived to be in all four worlds at the same time. By meditating on each world it helps the meditator come to know God more intimately.

The Hassidic Jews have developed many chants designed specifically to assist in this meditation, to help bring the adherent more consciously into these Four Worlds. The chant Shalom for instance is very relaxing. The word Shalom means peace or completeness and with the slow pulse of the chant causes a sensation of relaxed and centered attention. As Rabbi Ostrich pointed out, it is a sense of oneness, “Like a drop of water becoming one with the ocean.” This plays strongly on the physical body and the loosening of muscles in order to help us to be more receptive to sub-dermal experiences.

Modeh Ani L’fenecha translates as “I acknowledge you.” This is a very cerebral statement to make. Acknowledgement requires the ability to scrutinize our experiences, to separate this from that. This very empirically based discernment to life experiences is no doubt rooted in the world of intellect.

            

When we approach the chant B’rich Rachamana with its full translation it comes to us as, “Blessed is the Compassionate One, Ruler of the World, Master of this food. You are the source of Life for all that is and, and your blessing flows through me.” This is designed to engage the adherent in the emotional experience of God. Giving Him titles such as Compassionate Master induce an emotional response to prayer and meditation. We learn to regard God as benevolent, awesome, steadfast and loving. He becomes somewhat maternal in this world, a nurturer.

Elohai Han’shamah calls to God and proclaims, “The Soul which You have put in me is pure.” This particular chant seems to be focused more upon the world of the spirit. The soul as focal point is pure. Many times in life we don’t feel physically, or emotionally clean much less pure. A person who practices regular prayer or meditation with a bit of diligence can come to experience the true purity of the human soul which was created by and is a part of the Greatest of all Spirits, G-d. That is the ultimate goal of “Four Worlds” Jewish Mysticism.

Music, Native America, Profiles, Uncategorized

Shadowyze Bio

Shadowyze (pronounced shadow-wise) is a Native American hip hop artist who comes from a background of Muskogee Creek and Scots-Irish heritage.  He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology from the University of West Florida and his lyrics are woven within a fabric of insight and social awareness.



Shadowyze was born in San Antonio, Texas as Alvin Shawn Enfinger and relocated with his family to Pensacola, Fla. at the age of eight.  In 1989, Shadowyze launched his hip-hop career when his group, Posse In Effect, released the official theme song “Knock ‘em out the Ring Roy” recorded for then Olympic boxing Silver Medalist Roy Jones Jr. which received strong support on regional radio as well as NBC Sportsworld.

The big turning point in his career came after Shadowyze spent ten weeks in Central and South America and Mexico in 1998 where he witnessed the cruelty of the “low intensity war,” military oppression and poverty imposed upon the Mayan Indian population in Chiapas, Mexico which inspired his 1999 multi-single Murder in Our Backyard which was endorsed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Betty Williams of Ireland.

Shadowyze has appeared on over 20 compilations and released three full length albums; Spirit Warrior (2001), World of Illusions (2003), and his current 2005 release; the self-titled Shadowyze featuring platinum recording Latino artist Baby Bash, and the production wizardry of Nashville’s DJ Dev of Devastating Music; production engineer of the triple platinum selling album 400 degrees by Juvenile and Happy Perez (producer of Baby Bash’s platinum hit Suga Suga, as well as Frankie J., Mystikal).  In 2006 Shadowyze, DJ Dev and Lojah teamed up to produce the multi-single “Powda & Flow” on Backbone Records.


Shadowyze has supported the Mayan Indian Relief Fund and in 2005 attracted national attention by helping to organize and coordinate a Hurricane Katrina relief effort delivering several thousands of dollars worth of supplies to the Choctaw Indian Reservation in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

In 2005 Shadowyze won both the Native American Music Awards and the Pensacola, Florida Music Awards for best hip-hop and has been the focus of several stories appearing in Rolling Stone, Vibe, XXL, Billboard, New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. Shadowyze was featured on the covers of Downlow Magazine, Native Network and Get’em Magazine.

Through Backbone, Records; Shadowyze released Guerillas in the Mixx, a compilation in cooperation with Big Lo featuring Public Enemy, The Coup, Michael Franti, Spearhead, Afrika and Litefoot.

Shadowyze has spoken on Native American issues and performed his music on many Indian reservations, the Montrose Jazz Fest in Switzerland and the National Autry Center in Los Angeles.  His most recent release in 2009 on Backbone Records is titled after the Mayan prophecy “2012.”

Lojah featuring Sadowyze: Flow