Tattoo Design

American Selebrity Tattoo

American Selebrity Tattoo

American Selebrity Tattoo

North Korean Barbarism Propaganda Pictures

Source : angrybull

Great Halloween Costume

This halloween costume is awesome.

Rain Rain Go Away

I've been sick all week which isn't fun... today it was pouring down rain. This is how I spent my day.

I wrote a few letters that are way overdue!

I watched a movie that makes me happy.

I sorted out a bunch of my fabrics... here are my new favourites from spotlight.

I resized a bunch of photos of Dave's tattoos.

I also drank many an imaginary cup of tea from this little missy.

Girl Tattoo For Back Body

Wow.......innovation is very good for our ...

"...Star differs from star in glory..."

(Vincent Van Gogh, "Starry Night over the Rhone," 1888)

I Corinthians 15:40-44:

"There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body."

I had a magnificent set of evenings over Memorial Day weekend sitting out among the moon and the stars--even sleeping out all night in my yard one night, it was so glorious--and seeing the lightning bugs begin their summer debut for the season. It was simply a magnificent weekend to be a speck in God's Universe. The sheer size and awesome timelessness of the "big" things in nature--the sky, the stars, the ocean, just to name a few--have always been the major spiritual grounding rods for me, my entire life. People just don't do it for me the way nature does.

I looked at the stars these last few nights and pondered the paradoxical dance that "people" seem to occupy in my existence, thinking how each star, in its own way, is its own "person." How like the stars in the sky, we are called to community, and how each of us in our own way feels called to individuals in that community. Yet for me, the paradox has always been nothing gets my goat like people sometimes. I can only handle people for so long, and then that secular monastic in me takes over and I retreat to my safe hermitage of my country life. There is my daily retreat from work, as well as "add on" forms like my occasional "silent Saturday morning," and my "stay-cation retreats where I never leave home." Yet I never feel "un-called" to be a part of a community. When I am home alone, after a certain amount of time enjoying my alone-ness, I think of what it is I am supposed to "do next" when I enter back into community. When I am in that community, after a while I start daydreaming of what I want to do next in my "alone time." Each needs the other, and truthfully, each feeds the other.

On one of those nights, I sat out and thought about different people with each star--what they were experiencing in their lives, and how it is that I am supposed to combine with them to light up the sky, yet maintain my own individual "star-ness." Each one of us with the incarnational light of God within us, but manifested in so many unique ways.

There seem to be at least three kinds of stars in my life experience. Most valued are the "stars I can always see"--for instance, in the winter, I can always find the constellation Orion, and in the summer I can always fix my gaze on Scorpio. They are like the people in my life who have now been my friends for three decades or more. How we relate to each other has changed drastically over the years--sometimes not even close to the roles in which our relationships started out--but we somehow can always adjust. Sometimes their light is very intense and intimate in my life, and vice versa; other times, the light is dimmer. But they are constants. They are appreciated for both their longevity and their versatility.

Then there are the stars that once were a major focus, but I now no longer pay much attention to. I really don't pay much attention to the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, or the North Star itself, per se. But there was a time I always looked for them. They are like the people who were once very involved and intimate in my life--old lovers, intense best friends, etc.--and somehow no longer figure much into the tapestry other than to be a thread once cherished, but no longer. Some of these fizzled out in a supernova of conflict, whereas others just sort of atrophied and slowly burned to extinction. Sometimes their light returns--but it is almost never of the same intensity that it once was, nor does my need to tend to that light return with the same intensity. I appreciate those stars for the history they have given me, even if it includes hard lessons.

Finally, there are the stars I just got around to noticing, like the time I first recognized all of Ursa Major, rather than just its "dipper." The first time I realized the dipper could be converted to a bear, it was an exciting time. It made the sky seem a little bigger than it used to be. I think about the gifts and talents in people I just now got around to appreciating in people who have been around me all along, or about the new people that come into my life over the years, and something about them challenge me to tend their light and let them tend mine. I appreciate those stars because they represent hope and promise.

Even the stars are perishable--which enhances my knowledge that people are perishable. It makes me understand the urgency of the Gospel of Mark, and in Paul's letters. If even stars are perishable, then people definitely are. Yet timelessness and infinity rides within all of them. What a beautiful, but messy, dance it all is!

Trinity Sunday

It's Trinity Sunday, the feast of the Holy Trinity. 

This concept of the Trinity, it's one of the mysteries in our universe, our faith, and  my mind.  In fact, if you ponder it long enough, and get close to thinking, "Aha! I've got it! I understand it now!"...then back up, you've just slid into heresy, presumption, and you're wrong. 

There is no fully complete understanding of this. It's a mystery with a capital "M."  One our puny human minds can't ever really fathom: three persons in one God.  The simplest way I've been able to grasp it is the catechism answer: God the Father, Christ the son, and the love between them SO powerful that it begets it's own person, the Holy Spirit. {Yeah, sounds familiar, no??  In marriage we love each other so much that our love begets another whole person, or more....  Kinda the same thing, but with the Trinity it's compounded to a factor of unspeakable billions, beyond our ken.} 

This is a short terrific book about the sign of the cross, which is, in it's purest form, a visual, physical recognition of the Trinity.  A very good quick read, but will make you think again about this common gesture.  As you make the sign of the cross, touching forehead, chest, shoulder, shoulder, and say these words: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."....well, you've pretty much just summed up the most important bits of,  um, everything.  

Anyway, I'm no theologian.  If I start to think too hard about the Trinity, this mystery, my brain starts to scramble and ache. I prefer to gaze at this icon, above.  It's one of the oldest, most classic and best.  It does the best job of what icons are meant to do: to be windows into heaven.  They help represent the unknowable, the divine.  They help our minds and hearts and prayers step through that window into the divine.  Gaze.  Rest. Look.  Ahhh. 

Happy feast of the Holy Trinity!

God, we praise you:
Father all-powerful,
Christ Lord and Savior,
Spirit of Love.
You reveal yourself in the depths of our being,
drawing us to share in your life and your love.
One God, three Persons,
be near to the people formed in your image,
close to the world your love brings to life.
We ask you this, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
one God, true and living, forever and ever.

From the, collect:  prayers of the day.

Darla Teagarden

I've had a folder of images from this lovely lady on my computer for a long time now that I look to for inspiration from time to time. I'm a sucker for details so photography that uses props and hand painted backgrounds instead of photoshopping every detail in really moves me.

Miss Darla Teagarden creates her dreamy images with props and costumes she made by hand. Her resume will make most of us jealous... pin-up and fetish model, makeup artist, writer, cabaret dancer and vintage clothing buyer just to name a few.

So here's a bunch of her photos. I hope they inspire you the way they inspire me.

All pics were taken from here.

Her blog is worth a look too!

If you like these pics you will enjoy these also.