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Below all layers, below even the deepest barriers we use to keep us from ourselves, life keeps pulsing, keeps living, keeps singing; oblivious to our needless complications.
Through the night we rise, almost touching the brightest stars. There is truly nothing out of our reach.
Realizing you have just passed a critical threshold, taken that one step that brings you to a whole new level – it’s one of the most amazing feelings, ever.
Whenever I come close to the point of thinking that I’m finally starting to grasp everything there is to know about fractal flames, I promptly find myself at the doorstep to the next room full of mysteries. The discovery of this amazing artform brings me joy every day.
Now that this particular phase of learning is coming to a close, I feel an itch do something more, a gentle pull in my hands. It’s far to soon to articulate it in words – we’ll just have to see what comes streaming out of my fingertips next.
Steve Pavlina has been a big influence in my life ever since I discovered his blog a bit over a year ago. At that time, he opened a lot of doors for me leading to my discovery of the wonderful blogging community I’m now a part of.
With that in mind, I have to say I was pretty excited when I learned earlier this year that Steve would be publishing his first book, one that promised to go beyond specific and narrow topics and right to the heart of what growth means for a human being, through the 7 fundamental principles he named truth, love, power, oneness, authority, courage and intelligence.
Has he achieved this highly ambitious goal? I can’t answer that for everyone; all I can do is to share my own impressions and let you draw your own conclusions.
I’m quite familiar with Steve’s writings, so I felt right at home when I started reading his book. It’s always refreshing to see someone capturing highly abstract concepts and expressing them in a down-to-earth, practical manner. The main thesis explained in the book is that overcoming every single challenge you face in life can be reduced to the application of 3 fundamental principles: Truth, Love and Power, from which all other are derived.
As I read through these chapters, what he wrote somehow felt right. It’s as if he had tapped into some universal, deep wisdom to extract these concepts. This is nothing new, as Jeff notes in his review, but the absolutely practical way in which these ideas are expressed make them easily applicable to daily life. This is Steve’s biggest accomplishment by far, although in his usual manner he heavily infused the text with current american culture, going a bit contrary to his stated goal of writing something universal and timeless, but that’s just a small caveat.
I must say I was very fascinated by the first half of the book, where the 7 principles are explained. I found them so obvious and elegant that I immediately added them to my intuitive vocabulary, and started to rethink my life in these terms. This happened even before reading the second half of the book, which explains precisely how to do that and which, in a sense, was more of a series of how-to guides than core content.
Here are the 3 main principles in short, in my own words:
Thruth is the capacity to learn, to see beyond the obvious and to face even the most uncomfortable facts.
Love is the feeling of connectedness and respect towards everything present in life.
Power is the means through which ideas becomes reality.
In conclusion, I would say this was definitely a read providing me with value orders of magnitude higher than my time investment. If this post has piqued your curiosity, the book can be found here at Amazon.
So-called insanity occasionally takes over my life, and I’m quite proud of that fact. One of the latest creative bursts I had involved Python swallowing me whole for a couple of weekends, capturing me with its intricacy until the break of dawn. While I don’t know exactly what will come out of my newfound ability to write hacky code, fractals have already been thrown into the mix – as a prime ingredient no less.
The point this ultimately brings me to is one of passion: Truly great things never happen without it. They don’t happen when there’s a clearly defined plan, when everything is laid out. They don’t happen at a relaxed pace, or even a 9-5 hectic one. No, what we need is something entirely different. Something which can’t be forced.
Letting my mind wander for no apparent purpose, having the opportunity to explore things I’m curious about (just because), gives me the chance to refill my creative well and let it spill out over all areas of my life. Even if its practical applications were not clear from the beginning, finally being able to program a bit is actually a childhood dream come true. Isn’t that what we life for, after all? And it might just be the secret to make things happen.
“It” can be anything. It can be your own fear, your perception that what you’re doing is not right, that you somehow don’t hold up to the imaginary standard you set for yourself. Your energy is constantly expanding, but when you put the various “it”s of your life in the way, you will only block yourself.
There are several things I’ve had to clear out of the way lately: The idea that any and all of my images must be accompanied by “thoughtful and deep” words, thinking it’s ok for a completed image to remain unpublished just because I don’t feel like writing today, believing I don’t need to share what I do with the world, that I only do it for myself.
All these things have proven to be so wrong on so many levels. I can’t keep hiding behind this kind of “it”. I owe that much to my creative spirit. Just like most paradoxes in life, as soon as you face it head-on it has a tendency to resolve itself, to vanish into air. I don’t have to write content to pad this wonderful image I present to you, but curiously, I can’t help it from pouring out of me.
99% inspiration indeed.
It feels good to be writing again. I usually love the silence, but I was twitching to blog something lately. Some time away from the keyboard and the weekly pressure of posting has been very refreshing, but it’s time to pick up the pace again.
There have been a lot of changes in my life, which have made me think about the direction this blog should be taking, and I have lots of ideas in mind that I’ll be slowly adding to this space.
In the meantime, my artwork has started to show a new light; the energy behind my creations is coming through much clearer and as vibrant as ever. This is the perfect time to make up for a long standing debt, the promise of making (some of) my artwork available as wallpapers.
The elements have been speaking to me again lately, so I thought I’d honor them with an update to this old series. It’s incredible to go back just a little in time and see such a difference in composition and polish between those old fractals and my new work. But you be the judge of that, and let me know your opinion in the comments!
Elementals (2nd series)
Click on each image to see the larger version , then right-click to download.
Air
Fire
Water
Earth
I have always known – at a mental level – that there are divine aspects present in our lives, no matter how I specifically choose to perceive and name them. One or several forces, entities, things I can hardly describe in words that make sense, surround me at all times. Most of the time, however, I somehow manage to ignore this fact, living my life as if there was absolutely nothing special happening.
That changed somehow after watching one of Stephens latest video post about Ho’oponopono, which made me (re-)discover this fascinating concept (I don’t know how to pronounce it either!). It really hit me on a gut level that our own connection to divinity is not something we vaguely know to exist, but something that can be lived with every cell of our bodies, every moment. This connection is one of the most amazing gifts of this life – the ability to just let go of our pains and be filled with love and inspiration by just asking for it.
In my case, this connection to the divine manifests itself in the form of digital art, words, ideas; but it’s something different for every person. So what about you? Do you nurture this connection to the divine in your life? How does it express itself physically? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments.
I don’t think she does.
Beauty is fundamentally subjective, and no explanation does her justice. Just let her flow right into you, let the seed she carries be planted. Soon, you’ll discover that an unexplicable spark – usually only noticed in those rare moments you seem more awake than usual – is present everywhere, whispering to your senses. What a joy life becomes when you find that spark!
I missed writing about this yesterday, but it’s still worth saying even if it isn’t news anymore. The eclipse was beautiful, and I was lucky enough to watch it from the roof of my building sometime after wednesday midnight. I tried capturing the moment, but ultimately settled for this abstract depiction (which hardly does the experience justice).
Intuition has always been very hard to describe for me. Generally it’s nothing more than a whisper, easily mistaken for the senseless chatter of the unconscious; it’s only the worldview I choose that gives the word its significance. Other times, such as this one, it’s a feeling so strong that it just forces me to drop everything and follow my gut. As usual, I found out about it the same day it was going to happen. As usual, the lazy part of me tried to convince me that it wasn’t going to be anything special; but as usual, the overwhelmingly strong urge to be there got the best of me.
It was definitely not the kind of thing I’d want to miss. The full moon was shining golden, red and orange, with such a force that it permeated me. It seemed like it was pulsating life, energy, pure fire. It certainly struck a chord inside, and the next day I just happened to stumble upon a story fit for the occasion, which spookily reflected my own inner struggles.
I wonder what opportunities I have been missing that could have made my day even a little bit more magical. Every night could be like this if I just chose to make it so. And what about you? Feel free to share your magical stories, ecplise-related or not, in the comments.
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