Words

Words. How precious they are when used as if they are precious indeed. How sweet the sound, when used well. For, we can make them pearls and diamonds or we can make them the cause of weeping and whips. Perhaps the most powerful feature on the face is the mouth, due to what it can emit. For this reason, silence has been declared, 'golden'. It is wiser to hold one's tongue, than it is to speak a word that may cause grief. But we live in a world where people are constantly prompted to speak and the silent one may not be viewed as favourably as the one that is constantly speaking. 

Words matter, yes. Some people can use them with eloquence. Some people stumble over them, some people use them as knives to cut others deep and hurt them beyond repair. Some people use them to woo and win friendship, some to destroy a life, with carefully woven lies. 

My high school principal gave the entire student body some wise advice some decades ago: Examine the way the mouth is constructed. The tongue is placed behind the lips, behind the teeth, and held in place by a lever beneath it. To speak is not always necessary. Think carefully before you do... 

She was an eloquent woman with powerful observation skills. Notice that the eyes don't have so many blocks in front of the lens.

I believe the more eloquent one becomes, the less one will have to say, because I think eloquence is a derivative of knowledge, skills, and abilities. The more one knows, the more one is able to speak with flow. So, I think rather than practice words and try to build a vocabulary by combing the dictionary, we should gain skills, secure knowledge, and develop our abilities. Then we will find that vocabulary and eloquence comes naturally. From a place of knowledge, skills, and abilities, one may choose to speak, or not...depending upon necessity. How pleasant it is to listen to such a person speak.

Mother Or Parent, Or, Just Stand-by.

Mothers Day is close by. Many mothers will be celebrated. Some won't even be remembered. Once each year, this life-long title is taken out of its closet, dusted off, rose-scented and magnified, then put back and forgotten for another while. 

It requires Grace

But why not? What a joy to bring a new life into this world! What happiness to create gurgle and 'goo goo' words with your newborn at every sound he or she makes! Shopping for diapers, pretty baby clothing and footwear...Oh so cute, so much fun! Miniature people to be dressed up and displayed for as long as they look like tiny adults. You have successfully mothered a child! In some cases you have WATCHED the child grow to adulthood. Why not let it be known every year at a pre-arranged time? Am I beginning to sound a bit grumpy? Come with me on a short realistic journey.

Parenting is life-changing for many women.

Mothering a child is just that. It is step one! Step one in the remainder of the life of that person.

Parenting is not an easy task.

I believe there is a large gap in the understanding between being a mother and being a parent. I believe that many, many mothers do not get past step one. I believe that many mothers try to get past step one with an attempt to become engaged in the routine day-to-day survival needs of the child or children they mother. I think some just stand by while the child grows from stage to stage (in most cases that is called neglectful parenting). I believe it is not enough. There is motherhood, there is parenting, there is teaching, and some sub-categories.

After we step past mothering which I think any fertile female with basic knowledge and skill sets can achieve, we get to parenting. Although the roles of being a mother, a parent and a teacher for the life for which you are responsible, are intricately intertwined, the most complex section of that intertwining, is being a parent. Not many make it. Some fake it and some make it half way, while some make it almost completely, by accepting Grace. It cannot be closely accomplished without Grace. For, it requires a level of understanding and skills application which may only be administered through continuous, deep inner guidance, coupled with degrees of experience, and academic know-how carried out in a timely fashion. Yes, it's that big, and it leans heavily toward the academic.

There was a time when the "academic" know-how was administered by the grand-parents and extended family, while the new mother got time to understand what it takes to be a parent.  That word, 'grand', attached to the word, parent, meant a lot in the past. Now that the family has been generally dismantled behind our backs in front our eyes, no similar provisions have been made for the general continued education of the new mother to develop as a functional parent. If you disagree with me, feel free to express your viewpoint.

The academic know-how is the key point here, because there are still families who live within the extended group, but the teaching and examples given by grand-parents and other family members leaves much to be desired. Better that the child was raised by dogs in a wilderness. It's painful to watch an entire sequence of three generations of families vanish from the realm of human qualities right in front your eyes, due to lack of continued training and guidance for the mothers in that group. I believe this is a training governments should offer routinely, to mothers, over the duration of the life of every child from babyhood through to adolescence. All this depends on how much funding can go towards supporting such a valuable concept. This is a valuable concept because being a mother is very much easier than being a parent, and societies need good parenting, not for the highest levels of success, but for the highest qualities of success. I said, "Quality".

It should be noted however, that NOT EVERY WOMAN who would make a potentially good parent, wants to be a mother. And more and more, women are being open about that. They understand that parenting requires a lot, (maybe this is how the God-Mother concept came about). Some don't wish to spend their entire lives devoted to a raising a child, but they don't mind sharing their God-given skills and some of their time to ensure the best possible development of a child.

Developing attachment, bonding as a family.

The development of attachment, trust, bonding, industry. The periods of observational learning, puberty, identity, cognition, and more. The guidance in mental, intellectual and social development, and more. Those are the parenting parts which require parenting academia and Grace. That is the part which is missing from mothers all around the world. That part is not about love and basic needs provisions. That part is very scientific. This is where mothers put on their lab coats and get to work for the better part of a child's growing years and the better part of their own lives, after childbirth. Now, the mother needs to understand the principles of schooling.... True schooling.

The general perception that schools are the place where individuals are prepared to fill a worthwhile place in society, causes many mothers to leave the parenting portion of a child's life to this stage in their process through life. This perspective on education and society is pretty much a requirement for people to be prepared to fill spaces in the working world. To ensure that institutions and industries do not collapse. So, we still find many people-related organizational issues, in the world of institutions and industry. The parenting part of filling societies is largely missing. This is my strong belief. Mothers cannot leave that part to the general education system. No provisions are made for it, there. It's a tough job, because, now education and parenting becomes mutually exclusive, which should not be the case! The most well-meaning parent often comes upon a struggle between administering what they believe to be best principles for their children to practice versus the children's apparent preference for principles of society which are meant to fill only a partial slot in their development. These are some of my views. Please share yours if you feel share-ish today!

This article is NOT about blaming, or bashing. it seeks only to create an additional level of awareness for future application. There are no perfect mothers or fathers. Far from it. But we can still hold hope for better parenting skills development in the future. It's a life-long requirement for every person who has or plans to have children. That is the thinking which this art and article hopes to stimulate. It's about being a mother and a parent, not just a standby. Expecting? Expect to be a parent also, not just a mother.

I hope you will look beyond the surface when you search into what I have said. It contains several chapters in the story of pregnancy, motherhood and beyond. Some of these images were created as a part of the teenage pregnancy series which I started working on in January 2014.... A friendly message to teens. 

This one was done on canvas and crushed paper, using mainly acrylic paints.

There is a beauteous type of joy which attends becoming a mother. 

A wonderful, thoughtful Mothers Day to all mothers, and to children who will celebrate their mothers, when that day arrives. 

COMING SOON: Living in a world with just one dream.

Living In A World With Just One Dream.

Woman

Woman: The flame that runs through her, that runs through him, who holds the one who next rules the world.

Finding Self

 

I'm not an illusion.

Individuating, moving forward.                                                               
Who am I?
All I've got is what I am,
What I am is how I feel,
How I feel, is who I am.

I'm not an illusion.
I am the psyche.

The Bonds Of Love

What Love has put a stamp upon, none can put asunder. 

What is Love?

Cats understand Love.

It is only cats that truly understand love. They understand that love is not a trap, not a chain, not a hook. They know that to truly love there must be no obligation to love. 

For love is a free force born to life and not to man. And when someone says, "I love you..." they've only just begun. The journey to love is an unending one which only cats understand...

"I love you," is a statement of commitment. But who truly understands commitment? And when we understand commitment we won't say, "I love you."
Watch the cat.
Love cannot be dragged down to a physical expression and still be love. At this point it is transformed into something else. Something else called, emotion. Emotion is not love. It's a longing after love lost through attempting to define it and hook it and harness it to a physical expression. 

We use emotion to give love a false identity and lose ourselves in that identity we have created.  Nothing created by man lasts forever. Love is everlasting. The things which are everlasting cannot be hooked, harnessed, trapped, chained. 

The journey to love is a long one filled with heart-aches and a multitude of mental and physical discomforts which is a result of emotion. Until we can put emotion aside, we cannot know love. Yet, until we have experienced emotion thoroughly, we cannot put it aside. But when we are ready, love finds us. We do not have to speak of it, think about it, nor even show it. It just, is. It is, for those who have eyes to see, and those who have ears to hear. It carries its own quiet storm. Only when we are ready. 

Until that time, emotion exists. Some call it love.