Sidetracked Charley

My mother was First Christian. Dad had been raised Catholic and then, as he would put it when the conversation came around to religion, went to war. In my formative years I went to base chapels and then turned to philosophy. I believe. I just refuse to limit that belief. In college I discovered Reciprocity as a construct of social psychology .  And if I have a belief system which guides my life that is it. That has had a major impact on my life because I fail to understand those that condemn or restrict or declare without latitude. I have continued to study the history of  religions because it is within religions you most often see a rigid condemnation of others. Religionists are your zealots, your fundamentalists,  your condemners of all who do not believe as they do. Religionists have nothing to do with faith or spirituality and often are counter to good moral practice. I find them very scary whether base of worship is Islam or Christianity. I find them scary be...

When the Rains Came 36 x 24 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas $1950 Since the first woman (yes, anthropologists now believe it was the females and not men) drew a bison on a cave walls of Chauvet-Pont D'Arc magic has played a large part for artists. And whether the figures of herds of bison and antelope were a shopping list or a charm for a successful hunt the artist was using their skill to call forth an image, or cast a spell, or make a wish. Charcoal figures or complex mandalas or prescribed sand paintings for healing all have an element of magic involved. Artists can be very superstitious individuals from having to have their favorite brushes or just the right color or pacing in front of the canvas waiting for the muse to visit them. Or panic they have somehow angered that muse. Ask an artist where they get their ideas and they may go into a song and dance about their first visit to Utah or seeing the work of Matisse as a youth. But secretly I think many of us believe we chan...