“art Wellness classes are thoughtfully designed and expertly facilitated to draw out the unique art from inside you, and quiet your inner self-critique and self-judgement. We then have a dialogue about the art through discussion to reveal it’s meaning”. Sameeta Sparks

In the summer of 2003, I was between Junior and Senior year of Highschool. Things were great! We had just gotten back from a family vacation and I was celebrating a friend being in remission from Leukemia. I was getting ready to begin my senior year and was looking forward to it!

I’ve always had these problems with sticking with one idea. My mind will jump from one to the next trying to wrap itself around a fleeting wisp of smoke in a hazy room. They’re so compacted in my head that, when one slips out, I have to grab it then body slam it to the floor to daze it. I need to stick with that idea, or it will never be finished. I can never decide what I want to write about. Do I want to talk about how I always seem to procrastinate writing essays? Or how I used to write stories during math class in elementary school?

Mindful [Art] Projects

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from having anxiety and depression, it’s that life…well, life isn’t always beautiful.

Throughout the martial arts community, it seems that there has been a slow dissipation in the role of traditional values, in many cases, there has even been total abandonment-a disturbing observation. However, given that values are not the motivating factor for most enrollees and that most people, in fact, enroll into martial arts to become stronger, tougher, faster, and meaner (the exact reverse of the teachings), many schools have conformed to those demands in order to survive. Although to some extent, we have to appease the students in order to keep their interest, does that require desertion of the traditional aspects? After all, we have to pay our bills, and the instructors must make a living.

Funny how a random conversation with a fellow knitter turned into a comparison of the unexpected similarities between the mechanics of knitting in the round and how to use prayer beads.