Morning Routine: A Collaboration with “She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”

I have always been a bit of a lazy, undisciplined wretch when it comes to a morning spiritual/wellness practice.  Oh, I do just fine with the functions of the day job.  In fact, I get criticized for being a bit too rigid in my routines and processes.  But when it comes to doing those things that strengthen and motivate my interior life, well, not so much.   I’ve tried but usually backslide in a few days after “re-committing myself to my practice.”

But then I decided to collaborate with some technology I have on hand and it has made all the difference.

To make a long story short, I created a “routine” on one of those digital personal assistants.  (I don’t want to name names because she wakes up every time I say her name and won’t shut up.)  Anyway.   I programmed “she-who-must-not-be-named” to run a routine that I activate when I wake that gives me the date, time, weather, news brief, and then an in-bed yoga routine where the last asana gets me out of bed and on my feet.  From there I can manage a few sun salutations.   When I end with the savasana, I tell HER to play some appropriate music and set a timer for 10 minutes.  I know then that I can meditate and pray without falling back to sleep on the floor.

After this, I set another timer for doing devotional reading and journaling.   When that timer goes off, I proceed with getting ready for the day job, preparing breakfast, and packing lunch.  Finally, I set one more timer to tell me when to leave for work.  This usually is enough time for me to eat, watch the news, and maybe even work in my sketch book.

So far, so good.   But it’s only been one day.   So we’ll see.

The ancient sages and devotees managed their spiritual practices by watching the movement of the sun and being accountable to each other in the communities where they lived.   I guess I am a little like that too — except my abbess is some AI chick in a little round container.

ljg 2020

 

Collaborate

RDP Tuesday: wretch

Noisy Toys: How I Start a New Creative Project, Part II

In yesterday’s post, I shared how I engage in a new creative project. In the process of working the plan I ran into a glitch. Or, to be more optimistic, you could say I expanded my knowledge base on a grand scale. At first, I almost jumped through the loophole I articulated yesterday of admitting the plan was not workable. Instead, I powered through and made the first of I hope many recordings of my own percussion music.

To make a long story short, I had no problem mixing a very short audio clip. The problem came with sharing it. Oh, is that not the bane of the creative’s existence: showing the rest of the world your work? In order to share the audio, I ended up having to make, with great difficulty, a video. Even though I felt like I had enrolled in a crash course in film editing, I was pleased to learn some new applications, and refresh myself in some old ones.

What I learned is this:

1. Pushing the boundaries in my creative process requires hard work and a headache. The idea came easy.   Mastering the tools and technology, well, not so much.
2. It is not enough for me, at any rate, to create. I must also share it with an audience for it to be worth my while.
3. Finally, I will never be happy with just one creative genre. I need to be trying new things on a regular basis. I may never be very good at music making, but I enjoyed the process. And that is just as important as the product.

Without further delay, here is my twenty-four second sound mixing experiment.

Note:  To create and share my percussion work,  I used my iPhone to access Garageband (only available for Apple products) and to shoot the video,  a PC laptop in order to access Windows Movie Maker, my email application to mail the audio and video files from one device to the other and, of course, WordPress. Oh, and the instruments:  A darbuka, an egg shaker, and a cowbell.

Oi.

ljgloyd 2018

Playing with Images

As a creative, I like to repackage reality and present it in new and hopefully interesting ways.  I do this mostly with words, but sometimes I do it with image.   Here is a photo of some crystals hanging from my car’s rear-view mirror, slightly enhanced with Photoshop to make it a little more “more,” if you get my meaning.

“Hanging Crystals”, manipulated original photograph.
LJGloyd (c) 2017

Resources, Reference, and Inspiration

“Spring”, Lawrence Alma-Tadema [Dutch, 1836 – 1912], Oil on canvas, 1894

I have always relied upon images seen in museums, art books, or online to jump start my creative impulses.  Because of this, I was so pleased to find out a few days ago that the J.P. Getty Trust is now allowing the download and free use of nearly 5000 high quality digital surrogates of its collection.  The plan is to eventually add more of the Getty collection over time.   Here is what they say on their blog:

Today the Getty becomes an even more engaged digital citizen, one that shares its collections, research, and knowledge more openly than ever before. We’ve launched the Open Content Program to share, freely and without restriction, as many of the Getty’s digital resources as possible….     To read the entire post and access the Open Content collection, go HERE.

 So I am taking advantage of this opportunity and posting one of my favorite paintings in the Getty collection.  It is “Spring” by Dutch/British painter, Lawrence Alma-Tadema. It is a fairly large painting (70 1/4 x 31 1/2 in).  Here is what the Getty says about it:

A procession of women and children descending marble stairs carry and wear brightly colored flowers. Cheering spectators fill the windows and roof of a classical building. Lawrence Alma Tadema here represented the Victorian custom of sending children into the country to collect flowers on the morning of May 1, or May Day, but placed the scene in ancient Rome. In this way, he suggested the festival’s great antiquity through architectural details, dress, sculpture, and even the musical instruments based on Roman originals.  Alma Tadema’s curiosity about the ancient world was insatiable, and the knowledge he acquired was incorporated into over three hundred paintings of ancient archeological and architectural design. He said: “Now if you want to know what those Greeks and Romans looked like, whom you make your masters in language and thought, come to me. For I can show not only what I think but what I know.”   Alma Tadema’s paintings also enjoyed popularity later, when his large panoramic depictions of Greek and Roman life caught the attention of Hollywood. Certain scenes in Cecil B. De Mille’s film Cleopatra (1934) were inspired by the painting Spring.  (See this text HERE)

Each time I go to the Getty, I spend more time with this painting than I do with most of the others.  There is a story in every face in this painting.   This painting alone could generate ideas for several stories.  I could use it as a reference for drawing exercises.  I could excise parts of it for use in a digital constructions. My point here is simple.  You probably already know this, so use this as just a reminder:  Look at what other artists and writers have done and use it as a jumping off point for your own work. If any of the Getty folks are reading this, THANK YOU so much for making your collection available to us.   What a fantastic contribution to creative persons everywhere.  — ljgloyd Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

Fooling Around in Photoshop

I have not done much visual work lately, so during my lunch hour I started fooling around in Photoshop.  Here is a manipulation of photo with a mandala I created a few years ago.

“Portrait of Woman and Mandala”

ljgloyd (c) 2014

Index Card App

A few days ago I downloaded a new app:  Index Card by Denvog.  It is a tool for writers to organize idea and story components on virtual index cards (just like the old days when you had to write a research paper for school) right on your IPad.

I started using it last night when an idea for a short story came upon me.  I am still on a learning curve, but what I am finding useful to me at the moment is that I can storyboard ideas from the comfort of my reading chair with the tap of my thumbs rather than having to spread out cards on my desk or the floor.

When I complete my story, then I will give you a final assessment of the product.  In the meantime, you can see how the apps works through this video review:

Playing with WordPress

To my WordPress followers:

A writing colleague of mine has started a blog on WordPress Basics.  If you are into WordPress, I  highly recommend that you take a look.    Click Here