BUILDING A NEW EMPIRE

It's been quite some time since I've posted, but be assured I've been turning my wheels more than ever.  Some may already know of my efforts to produce a concept album, a commentary of our times and a way to get more people to listen to it without being turned off by the often heavy content. I aim to mask the content with infectious beats and alluring visuals that leave the listener elated and inspired. We live in an age of over stimulation. We live busy lives. We work hard...and play harder. At the end of the long day, week, month, we simply want to let loose and forget about the bad things. We deal with crabby clients and anal bosses, crowded sidewalks and congested highways. There's not enough time in a day and so we are left to pick and choose. I realize in order to get people to listen it has to be entertaining. We must be entertained, or we will simply put it off til tomorrow, in place of the easier option today.

What will we do today? What will be leave for tomorrow? 

There's a million and one excuses for "saving it for another day." God knows I've used many myself and still do. It's the very excuse for not posting sooner. I've been engrossed in my writing. Along with the concept album turned film score, I have undertaken a new chapter of this ever evolving(and what will surely be a lifetime)project. It's a story. Spawned from a few lines from the original album. There emerged four characters with stories of their own. I sought to understand who these people were, why they were and where they were destined to go. I didn't know it then, but this project found me from some far reaches of both the outer universe and my inner psyche. It used the passion, drive and talent I was gifted with to make itself be known. I am not the one that should get the credit here. The time I was born into gets all the thanks. My journey and the people in my life are to thank. I feel so blessed to have gotten the opportunity to learn from people who grew up sixty years ago and were able to tell me their perceptions of the world and how it has changed drastically. I have musicians, artists and authors who have come generations before me to thank for contributing to my passion and drive. I have to thank scientists, technicians and engineers who have gifted me and my generation with limitless tools to learn about the globe and the about different philosophies from around the world with never even having to go their in person(though I hope to some day.)

Everything I have done, seen and learned in my life has gotten me to this point and now I feel a tremendous desire to do something with all I've experienced. For me, it's not enough to keep the knowledge to myself and let people do as they will. I know there are many people out there who are like me and don't know they want to make a difference until they are inspired, either by information, trial and error or experience.

As an artist I know my greatest tool is that which inspires others to look inside themselves. But I don't do it vainly.  Like any other person who aims to bring their work into the public eye, there comes a great responsibility. I have to keep myself in check constantly that I don't know it all and that just because I believe something to be true, does not mean others will. We all have our paths, but along those paths we can maintain a role as observer, taking everything in that we pass. Pressing ourselves to consider other perceptions. Asking ourselves what if? What if that was us? What if those odds were stacked against us? What if we were at the receiving end of this deal? What if we went right instead of left? What if we stayed in and not out? What if we chose silence over sound?

Everyone on this earth has asked themselves these questions. The ones who challenged themselves to see it from all perspectives often took a leap of faith. Sometimes they failed and sometimes they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. For every person who asked themselves "what if I reached for the top?" there is someone who's asked themselves "what if I just stop here?"

We have to decide if we want to just stop where were at or if we want to keep going. It's important to understand that for everyone of us who is passive and complacent there is another out there who is ceasing the opportunity to take more of what's available, whether it be property, knowledge or basic human rights and they aim to keep it for themselves. I fear passiveness. I fear complacency. I fear apathy. For me, it is a disservice to my time on this planet. It is a disservice to my ancestors who have come and gone hoping that their children would live in a better, healthier world. I owe it to them. I owe to myself.

So where do I go from here?

I've always known I wanted to be an artist. From the time I could remember I loved coloring and drawing. I loved music and singing. I grew an appreciation for film and design. I saw art in everything around me, from the trees towering high above my head to the hundreds of shards that glistened in the beach sand at my feet. Back in my home town of San Luis Obispo county I would sit on the beach of Oceano and day dream, imagining that the crashing waves were clouds, that the ocean was the roof of the sky and that the beach I sat on was the shelf of Heaven, as if I was already elevated into another realm and that whatever lay below the actual sea level was the earth and everything in it I did not know. It made sense really. I grew up in the church and new so much about what the kingdom of heaven would be like. The artist renderings were reminiscent of the landscape on the beach. Vast white sands, blue waters and clouds. I swear the footprints in the sand I saw before me just might have been Jesus' like in those depictions I grew up seeing on the walls of my family member's houses. As far as the world though..Earth? I didn't know much about it. Sure, I learned the geography in school. I knew about American History as it was taught to me. But The World, That was as unknown to me as the deepest depths of the sea are still unknown to scientists. At times I swore I could pierce through the oceans surface and imagine what lay below the countless leagues of deep blue. In reality, it was merely my imagination and what I thought should be there. In reality I had no idea. I wanted to know but I did not get the answers I sought in school, in church or at home. So I simply waited and used my love of art and music to imagine what the world could be. When I turned eighteen, I was clueless. I was not raised with the proper tools to take on the real world. I was taught what the world was from a religious point of view, which by definition is very rigid indeed. So I ventured out with passion and ambition and I learned. A lot. I needed to understand why people learn lessons. Surely, it's not because their parents or the bible "said so." They learned lessons from their own mistakes, so mistakes I made. Many many mistakes, and eventually I learned. Within the last few years I learned about my talent as an artist and that it is indeed a gift worth pursuing and sharing. But in the back of my mind, I knew I didn't want to make art for art's sake. It had to say something. It had to contribute to something greater than myself. Over time I crafted my passion into a literary work that would become the lyrics to my concept album. It was from those lyrics and the characters I envisioned that would change my life even more. In order to understand the characters I created I needed to know everything about them. In the process I had to create not only their lives, but lives of their ancestors. I have to care for these legacies so that the readers too will care for them. They must be believable and relatable.

Currently, I'm working on the second draft of my storyline. I hesitate to call it a novel since I'm not officially trained to be a novelist. But it is turning out to be just that. A Novel. In order to make these four characters resonate, I have pushed myself to do much research in the realms of the plot. These four characters are public figures in the 21st Century: A rogue journalist, an aging socialite and corporate heir, an online activist and a professional athlete. The actions of their grandparents led them to their current lives and so the story really begins with their grandparents. The research has led me to world events dating back to the First World War. In the process I have learned about American Economics that were not taught in school. I've learned about the very real presence of the corporatocracy that sprouted from seeds during WWII and have branched out in every faction of international government, corporation and banking system. This is NOT a story of a conspiracy. Before my research I may have fantasized that all the wrong in the world is due to a close knit group of men who sit around a table in an undisclosed european compound and pull the strings of a New World Order. In my findings I've realized that that is simply not the case. It is foolish for us to scapegoat the elite, this imaginary roundtable of superpower strength.

In reality, there IS a business relationship between business, government and financial institutions. All you need to do is a little research and connect the dots yourself. But it's not some secret conspiracy. "Conspiracy" is a relative term and the presence of a conspiracy can be argued both ways. In the end it's irrelevant to what is really going on.

So, what's really going on?

Over the last few months I have learned from many sources about the history of banks like JP Morgan, religious institutions like The Vatican and their ties to such financial institutions. I've learned about incestuous investment practices of Wall Street and their monopolies on oil, engineering and media corporations. It is simply business. The latest book I finished helped me connect the dots even more easily. After WWII, the U.S. decided to use The World Bank(an independent financial institution) to develop third world countries by offering them billion dollar loans. The stipulation was that these countries would have to use US construction and engineering companies to do the job. The third world countries were expected to pay off the loans with fossil fuel profits from their homelands. In other words, a struggling, underdeveloped country with coveted natural resources such as petroleum would have the chance to get  brand new infrastructure(roads, electrical grids, telecommunications) in exchange for their precious and valuable resources. The loans of course would be too great for the countries to ever pay back and they would then be enslaved by the US titans who now owned them. This is old news to so many people I now know. But a few years ago, the people I knew, my family members and friends did not know about this stuff. It's no fault of anyones. The gruesome details about these ventures that aid in our economic success and maintain our reputation as the "greatest nation on Earth" are kept from us, and for good reason. We are human. To truly understand what sacrifices are needed on the behalf of other nations in order to maintain our own quality of life is tumultuous. We thrive on a clean conscience. So we look the other way because it's easier than accepting our role. We have a choice. It may not be easy to make the right one, but we have the option nonetheless.

How can I make a difference?

Whether we want to accept it or not, there is a war raging outside our borders. And America is a key player much of time. For the last 70 years America has tightened her grasp on the Global Empire of Capitalism. We may not be pulling the triggers of the guns that occupy their villages, we may not hold the pen that signs the contracts that grant exploitation. But as consumers of this country, we do our part. I know, it seems impossible to not be a part of it, but there is hope. The first step is to educate yourself as much as you can about the reality of the companies we choose to support. The next step is to tell everyone you know. I'm sure many of you who know this have many family members who do not. Start with them. Our greatest weapon is knowledge and our second greatest weapon is our wallets. Choosing to support local and organic business is always better then supporting a large corporation. Large corporations are aided by the global empire and undoubtedly benefit form the exploitation of lesser developed countries, their people and resources. We can't be perfect and we all have at some point have to buy something we know is contributing to the lesser good. I'm not asking you to never buy from them again, but simply cutting down to at least half of the time is a huge step in the right direction. If everyone in America cut their consumption of brand name commercial goods in half and supported local business the other half of the time, that would still help tremendously.

There is also something else we as individuals can do. We are all unique. We all have a talent and a passion. That is the beauty of being human. My passion is art, and so I vow to use my art to educate and inspire with the help of other passionate artists in a global and collaborative effort. Find your talent. Find your passion and push yourself to exercise that talent in a positive and productive way. Imagine if we all used our talents and knowledge on a local level, bartering services and trading resources among each other. The need for outside, large-scale companies would diminish greatly. We would help our neighbors and at the same time send a message to those destructive forces at the top of the chain that we don't need them as much as they would like to believe we do.

While that 1% fights to win the throne of Global Empire, often turning on itself in the process, We, the much larger 99% should strive to reach out for each other's help. Our differences are what make us great, and powerful. The Elite would have us believe that we are enemies with one another, that we need to fight each other for what is rightfully ours. In reality, we are all on the same level. We are being imprisoned and incriminated by our silence. I want to help build the New Consciousness within myself as well as my brothers and sisters. We can continue the true revolution that our conscious ancestors started. We can build our own Empire that surpasses the globe. A Universal Empire. All we need is one another's help and compassion. We must take back this country from the clutches of a few greedy and faceless corporations that have enslaved the less fortunate for their own profits.

"The titles and words of the prophecies differ slightly. They tell variously of a New Age, the Third Millennium, the Age of Aquarius, the Beginning of the Fifth Sun, or the end of old calendars and the commencement of new ones..."The Prophecy of the Condor and Eagle" is typical. It states that back in the mists of history, human societies divided and took two different paths: that of the condor (representing the heart, intuitive and mystical) and that of the eagle (representing the brain, rational, and material). In the 1490s, the prophecy said, the two paths would converge and the eagle would drive the condor to the verge of extinction. Then, five hundred years later, in the 1990s, a new epoch would begin, one in which the condor and eagle will have the same path. If the condor and eagle accept this opportunity, they will create a most remarkable offspring, unlike any ever seen before...The standard interpretation is that it foretells the sharing of indigenous knowledge with the technologies of science, the balancing of yin and yang and the bridging of northern and southern cultures. However, the most powerful is the message it offers about consciousness; it says that we have entered a time when we can benefit from the many diverse ways of seeing the world, and that we can use these as a springboard to higher levels of awareness. As human beings, we can truly wake up and evolve into a more conscious species." - John Perkins

Let's Evolve Together.

REVELATIONS

It's been quite some time since I've made an entry on this. Apologies. Looking at the list from the beginning of 2012 and the goals I made for the last year, I see many I've accomplished and there are surely things I haven't. In any case I am proud of the lessons I learned along the way.

The biggest realization was that it will undoubtedly be harder before it get's easier. In order to succeed in our goals it takes more sacrifice than we like to make. I was living with a desire to be more conscious but only had one foot in it. It is not possible to half-ass anything. In order to really change for the better we have to completely dissect ourselves and pinpoint all of the problem areas. I was picking and choosing which ones I wanted with little success.

My relationship has seen some major change. I've always been the first one to give my love on all levels to anyone that would have it. I'm a lover by nature. What I was confusing was the types of love I possessed and gave in return. There are indeed different types of loves. Love for our family. Love for our partners. Love for our friends. Love for our professions. Love for our ourselves. I took for granted the love for my family, partners. I knew it was there and never challenged myself to work for it. I failed in that respect. Friends come and go, but the real ones graduate into family. Family is forever. Family understands the sacrifices we must make sometimes. I am so blessed to have so much family who supports the decisions I make, even when they are not the right ones.

I am even more blessed to have not one, but two lovers. Lovers who are patient and give me the freedom to make my own decisions and connections with other people, even when they are not a part of them. I took that for granted. But never again. I realize with freedom comes great responsibility. And just because we have freedom doesn't necessarily mean we should take it. A permit does not make a license.

I have lived a decade of decadence. My twenties have seen my in less than desirable positions and there were times I thought I would literally die. I pushed my body and my soul beyond it's limits. I always had my husband by my side and eventually our fiancé. You may ask why they didn't stop me from making poor decisions. Well, it isn't their job. A common misconception is that out partners are there to control us. I even accepted that. I learned to never lie and be brutally honest. If I doubted a decision I was making was the right one I would ask them if they were ok with it. They would say 'you do what you need to' and I ran with it. The problem was that I never asked myself if I was ok with it.

Since moving to SF I have done the most damage to not only myself, but to the ones I love. It was never intentional yet it was real just the same. My lovers did what they needed to: Love me, support me and wait for me to get it. Patience, however, does have an expiration date. And to be honest, so does the power of love. Love is forever. All you need is Love. This is true. But we can't expect it to be enough when it comes to relationships. There must be self sacrifice. There must be acknowledgment of our own actions. There must be a consequence for those actions. It's the natural order of things.

I became so accustomed to getting everything I wanted because I asked permission first. But it's not OK. I am so incredibly grateful that I figured it out before my boys' patience ran out. In a sense it did. A  serious action led to a serious talk like no other. The daunting conversation that every relationship must have: What do we want? What do you need? Am I really the one to give it you? Are you really the one to give it to me? It's a frightening dialogue. Honesty is scary like that. Sometimes we hear what we don't want to. Much of the time we hear things we need to.

I was lost in a world of material obsession. I still am. Aiming to attain enough money to buy the clothes and fashionable accessories that I imagine myself to possess. Aiming to befriend all the "important people" that will get me ahead in the industry. Aiming to hold onto a pretentious youth that fades faster than I like. Aiming to gain the love from every stranger to prove I am worthy of breaking the mold when it comes to love. Challenging myself to live a healthier life while still going out and chasing those tired demons.  Lying to myself that my relationship was truly perfect when there were holes here and there, with me as the main cause.

Everything happens for a reason. This art project of mine has already had so many incarnations and continues to evolve into something bigger than me. In it's process I have challenged myself to learn about the world around me, even when it's less than pleasant. I have learned about my most basic addictions and how they are regressive to my growth. I've felt like a hypocrite for "preaching" a better way of living while making the same foolish mistakes I see in others.

I've decided to stop blaming my surroundings and simply accept them. We can't change ourselves or the world overnight. It will honestly take an entire lifetime to make the smallest change. To acknowledge that and to accept is all we can ask for. There are many aspects of our society I despise. These elements are the catalyst for my project. The album lyrics and the story I'm working on reflect the world we live in and the very possible direction it will take if I don't change. Change starts with ourselves. We must hold ourselves responsible every day of our lives. If we have problem, change it.

I am posting this not to preach, but to confess. I guess my catholic upbringing will always be a part of me, even if I'm not religious anymore. I always feel guilt for actions I make, but instead of confessing it to a faceless man in solitude I'd rather confess it to the world. That way I know I must hold myself responsible. Once it's out in the open I can't go back on my word.

Now that I'm 30 I welcome the next decade as a construction chapter in my life. Deconstruction comes first. Clearing the foundation, reorganizing the plans and purging all of the rotted walls that have inhabited it for far too long.

My love for myself, my family and partners comes first and foremost.

To love myself, I must stop the abuse of substance and focus on a healthy lifestyle. Taking time to exercise and be creative as well as cutting out toxic ingredients in my diet. I've been pretty successful in the last few years but I could improve further.

To love my family I must keep in contact with them and invite them to be in my life more than just the holidays. I need to call them more often and tell them about my week and ask them about theirs. Even the smallest phone conversation can show them that you love them and are thinking of them.

To love my partners I must make real time for them. I must not just ask if it's OK but put myself in their shoes. What would I want for me if I was them? What could I sacrifice in my own selfishness that would truly show them I care. What can I do aside from love them to prove I love them?

To love the world around me I must take full responsibility for my own actions and invite a different perspective. I must aim to understand things I am not knowledgeable of without fear. I must offer my help more often and extend a hand beyond my direct family. We are all here together. We all love. We all want something better for not just ourselves but the world around us.

I promise to make real sacrifices this year that will make the world a better place, not just for myself but for you and your loved ones. I'm surrendering my pride and my comfort so I can continue to learn the necessary practices needed for survival. If I plan on surviving I must evolve. It won't be easy and I will stumble surely, but I will know it's never too late to make it right and that I will never be alone.

Call it God. Call it Love. Call it Light. But Call It. It is in You. You in It.