back soon

Coincidences (!), that, of course don't exist, and soon to end deadlines didn't let me to come here during last period.  I am up to cover the void soon. :) 

more memories

Below I have two more I found from 2005.  Just small sketches, more about remembering.  I love chess and candles.  I enjoy a good game of chess, when I have the chance to play and I almost always have some candle light when I am at home.  More memories...  I hope you like them.

old memories

Many many years ago I was living in a small greek town called Edessa.  I was for years member of the local Artists' Union and for some time its secretary before life takes me from there on new adventures.
Today, searching among sketching blocks, I found some sketches from that period and I got touched by old memories.
The one below pictures a small street through a beautiful area of old houses in Edessa called Varosi.  It's a preservable area of the town from the time that Turks had occupied the place.  As far as I know, it remained the same and I hope it will always be this beautiful, saved by today's modernness.  I draw it at 1990 and the block is yellowish now after so many years.  I tried to fix this but I don't know if I managed it.  Below I have both versions.

politicians in Greece bring people together

I suppose all planet knows what's happening in my wonderful yet comfused country right now.  Although to really know the games that they play under the table you have to be a political analyst, a financial expert or at least a very well informed, who does nothing else in life, possessed person with the agony of  tomorrow - and yet miss some elements for sure.  Right now I know many of these possessed people, who don't have anything else to do anyway since they recently lost their job and try to survive, and it's a madness spread like virus in a country that doesn't trust its politicians any more as, maybe, everybody should anyway.

It's not that I don't like politicians at all.  I suppose they have some kind of excuse to exist and maybe some of them started with good intentions.  How things change on the go is a mystery.  How they lose the fire and how they get fixed into their chairs of power and suddenly all of them become one with the wall, one with the system, is something that no science managed to figure out yet.  Not that these things happen only here.  And not that real power has anything to do with politics or titles.  But this is an other subject.

There is an impression to the rest of the world that greek people are lazy and we live by our wits or sponge on others for an easy life.  I don't want to excuse anybody but I am greek and I live here and I usually sleep five hours and work the rest of the twenty-four hours.  So at least you can be sure, there is an exception.  And I know many other exceptions too.  In fact, I know very few people who may have an easier life and many that their life is much harder than mine.  Especially now. 

Recently I was talking with a friend about our financial state.  We were trying to understand how we will manage to pay what we should for rent, bills, food, children, the very basic stuff, with the salary we earn from our work.  Because in this problem, mathematics can't help.  Maybe my beloved quantum physics, the law of attraction or some other universal power can make the numbers look more attractive.  

My friend told me "At least you got married" - I got recently remarried - "and you have two salaries at home."  And after some buzzing and bubbling on the subject we started to think of it more seriously.  When a salary can't cover the expenses, then two can.  When people feel weak because of the circumstances, then they join together.  Families may start coming together as used to do many years ago and live at the same house to share the rent or even go to the countryside, many small villages forgotten by humans can thrive again, who knows.
Let's say, there is a woman and a man who could manage some year ago but now they can't.  Even if they are not perfect match, they can share the rent, the bills and the food and survive.  And, who knows, they may find some interest to each other in time, or not - but the rent would be paid anyway.
From now on, I think many things will change.  And one of them would be the proposal.  The question that men will pop will not be "Honey, will you marry me?", it would rather be "Will we join salaries?"  And why somehow I have a feeling that this may work?  Maybe because now enlightenment hit me and I see the great plan, the wisdom behind our innocent politicians and the political scene: they want to bring people together, at the far end of the tunnel there is light, they want us to be happy!  Whether we like it or not.  I hope the bump will leave soon.  And I also hope that George Orwell will not effect me more and lose the counting of my fingers.

wild yellows

For Fall's Challenge of DPW, I wanted to paint something that would be both wild and brown.  Mostly because brown is one of the colors that go with fall in my mind.  I found these flowers in a friends garden and they were both beautiful and thinking of their farewell excuse for this lifetime.  I think I made a good choice, don't you?
(please have in mind that this particular photo doesn't justify the painting)

oil on canvas
15 cm x 15 cm (6" x 6")

the why I don't fly question

I heard that too. Gravity doesn't exist. Erik Verlinde, not any just scientist but a respected string theorist and professor of physics at the university of Amsterdam, says that gravity is an illusion, doesn't really exist, and the effects we usually notice during our everyday life are created as side effects somehow from the complex interaction of simpler things and powers.
Yes, it's surely complicated. This statement has put the scientific world into opposite camps. Scientists are arguing agreeing and disagreeing with the idea. Others are still skeptical wondering if Mercury is retrograde or what. And, as time passes from that cold December day of 2009 that Erik put the bomb, more and more scientists think again and discover that not only gravity doesn't exist but in fact it was something we already knew, of course.
And, then, why I don't fly? I may do so in some of my dreams but that's an other fairytale. If gravity doesn't exist, why I don't fly like superman? Why gravity works for me and not for superman? I want my own anti-gravity license and I want it now. Emmm, sorry, back to our gravity something where I hope to find the answer.
It seems that there is an anti-gravity fire lit that has to do with a specific fact. That in quantum theory there was always an uneasiness with this physical law. Most other laws go with the flow of the new physics but gravity? No. It's too old-fashioned to behave properly. So, it is a thorn in the eye of scientists who lay the perfect quantum table. Like nobody told them there is no such thing as perfection, at least in this world.
Trying to understand the whole story and its quantum branches, I realized that either I had to accept the unknown or I would have one of the greatest headaches in history. I chose the first since headaches are not one of the things I personally enjoy. So, gravity may or may not exist, we may exist in a level of cosmos where it is a possibility or a holographic kind of reality where it doesn't really have any meaning if it exists or not or it just has to change its name to something else like John. Till the next apple falls down or we start floating in the air.

music suggestion

I don't speak german and I don't really find the specific language very attractive when hearing but in every thing there is an exception. And the german language becomes very attractive when you listen to it from the right mouths.
One of my favourite songs I have ever heard is Isis of Faun band. It's a german pagan band that I suppose serves the norse tradition with their wonderful music. I don't know why or even what the lyrics say but listening to this song, as happens with most of their songs too, puts you in an other world, a magickal and seemingly distant world of miracles.
The existance of such bands also indicates that there are people who can still dream the good kind of dreams and this brings hope to my heart. Not the dreams that bed down our consciousness but the ones that wake up the power of visualization and open doors to inner places.
Have a good awakening. :)

a disaster example

I became really angry when I heard about the BP oil accident at the gulf of Mexico last year.  And I am afraid it didn't get better with time.  We have the "ability" to create so much destruction on the planet that we never get bored. The one disaster follows an other in the everlasting human made dance of horror.
Being so angry all the time for so long is not good for health or even our sanity. But, on the other hand, the apathy we can slip in as a reaction is even worst. How can someone react to this madness? I have a friend who boycotts BP by not buying his oil from them since then. Although I agree with him, I don't know if this is a solution. It's like BP is the bad guy and all the other super oil companies of the planet are ok, so we can buy from them. Because they didn't have an accident so far or because we forgot their accidents or because they cover their accidents better or something similar. And what is the solution? To boycott all oil companies?
What a great idea. We can boycott all oil companies and turn to more eco-friendly energy sources. But, in this case, who will protect all these innocent inventeurs who invent water-moving vehicles and stuff like this and have a tendency to disappear in thin air some dark night? And who will protect their protectors too?
It's like a cloud that covers any real revolutionary act to keep save the ruling status. A mist that disappears people and funds, so we will be always under the "protective" umbrella of big companies like BP and any other BP.
I don't want to think that we won't find a way to skip this vicious circle of power and weakness. Mainly when we deeply know for sure that it is a fake weakness because of laziness, stagnation and leisure. Because we are used in this situation and we became ourselves' worst enemies. Maybe this is the worst disaster of all.

something wicked swam the oceans

It's something we could find in a fairytale, a monster that nobody could defeat. And in its time nobody could defeat it really. And it's new to us although so old that in its time humans were a sperm in the mind of the divinity that would find a fertile womb millions of years later.
It was a big whale. You can easily say, haha, even now there are big whales, even huge ones, the kind of whales that photographers swim around and they look like flies.
It was a big whale about 17 meters long. Em, you could also say, there are much bigger whales right now traveling the oceans like in their private pool.
Ha, it was a big whale about 17 meters that had long teeth 36 cm long with 12 cm diameter each (at least double the size of any other whale's teeth) in both in its upper and lower jaws that could bit and chewed its victims. Well, that's a new one.
This creature, named Leviathan, who we all know was, or still is, the name of one of the seven princes of hell, was found recently as a whole for the first time after 12 to 13 million years at the coast of Peru and it used to be one of the biggest predators of the planet. Do you want to see it? Check this.
Maybe the extinction of Leviathan and dinosaurs was one of the reasons that let the humans space to exist. Otherwise, what hope would we have? Although there are still the ones that say that dinosaurs never really wiped off the map but they just went down in the ground or they changed to fit into humans world. And, who knows, they maybe plot right now ways to conquer humanity and take over the planet, as all decent "bad guys" do.

great vegan books

Do you want to dive into the science of feeding? And I am not talking about advanced feeding like completely raw or fruit diet or, much more, sun light or chi diet. The more common vegan nutricion that anyone can try and succeed without too much effort.
It will need its time, nature is never in a hurry, but it worths the time and the effort for someone who has understood the values and the need for such a diet. In this particular case, as in almost everything, we need to become conscious about it.
How to learn more about veganism and feed the mind before the body? There are a lot of books but only a few know the subject well and in depth. Doing my research at the beginning of my diet change I found a raw food guru who crashed all my health questioning that was based on the program that had been created in me from family, friends, the society and the collective subconscious after so many flesh eating millenniums. He is not the only one but he is of the kind that knows deeply and seriously his subject. Who is Gabriel Cousens? I won't bother you with his bio, since it is something that anyone can find doing some google search. I will challenge you to read his books and I will suggest two of them that I simply love: Conscious Eating and Spiritual Nutrition.
Don't feel frustrated by the number of their pages as I was when I first saw them. Soon you will want them to have more of them since each one is an informative diamond opening gates to the mind.
Read, understand, feel, make them your own and when your program starts to crackle experiment, taste, smile.
Believe me, it worths the try.

Eggs? No, thanks

Many people say: ok, not to eat meat, the flesh of an other creature, but what about milk or eggs or similar products? These products come from animals but don't hurt them. Why to go without my delicious eggs and cake with eggs and all egg stuff that water my mouth? Well, if you have some heart, you will think again if taste is more important than your conscience.
Even in the case we forget that an egg is the promise of a new life, even if we also forget what chickens eat, that pass through to their eggs, and how they live their counted days in half a foot place in farm factories, does the plastic full of color and gustatory chemical addends taste of an egg worths the view of this video? See for yourself if egg production doesn't hurt. Or you will choose again to turn to the other side? Isn't it a boring and mechanical habit? Isn't it time to make your revolution?

ecology

It's not just a word - it's a way of living and feeling for our planet. It's caring for this blue lovely marble that travels for so long, billions of years, in space. And it doesn't matter how many times we will see her, we are always touched by her outstanding beauty. A small ball, a grain of sand among uncountable such grains in the endless beach of our universe. A heat in our heart.
And still, this tiny sand molecule is also such a wonderful sum of vast worlds: oceans, forests, mountains, endless worlds inside worlds that could be our own ever home if we didn't have the habit to look dreamily at the stars too.
She is our Mother and we kill her every moment in every possible way. And she still loves us. I don't think we deserve it. I can't really understand the why she keeps protecting us and providing everything we have and taking back in her arms our bodies when we step out of here.
Ecology is not just a seven letter word. In these days, it has become an intense need and we are all called to help, to do something, anything each one can, to stop or, at least, slow down our wrongdoings as a specie.
It's amazing how much we can hurt nature and her creatures, ourselves included. We do our worse every day. But it's also amazing how much we can do if we unite and join forces to do the opposite. Many organizations exist in almost all countries like greenpeace and wwf that can have some impact and force even governments to change some of their politics about nature protection, specie preservation, global warming and subjects like this that affect all of us. But this is not enough. The "bad" guys always escape and manage to keep on their work. Usually the "bad" guys are the ones who make the decisions too. We have to gather and become stronger and raise energy that will give some real results. And this needs you too.
Think what you can do yourself, it doesn't matter how small it is, and think that you may do more also. Usually we can do much more than we can think of. Join other people who feel the same and make some revolution of your own kind.
Nothing is lost if we make this revolution. Everything will be lost soon if we close our eyes again and continue the easy path of witting ignorance. And soon is sooner than you think.

River Flows in You

I just want to share this amazing piece of music. It's so tender and sensitive and strong at the same time that I simply love it.

River Flows In You by Yiruma
(or Bella's lullaby from Twilight).

if we only realized

All of us, that we are a bit interested in our food, know some of the good and also the bad that affect it. The bad ones some times are so bad that make us shudder with terror. And although we must not be afraid of our "enemies", it is wise to think again and again about the consequences of their actions that go slowly and sneakily and poison our food, our lives and any hope we may have for spiritual awakening.
When we talk about food, at the top of the list of the "bad" guys stands Monsanto, a bio-tech giant company that controls our food chain destroying the natural seeds and creating havoc and mutant seeds that are the only ones to survive the chemicals of the same company that destroy all other plants and insects around. So, we have strong and perfect-like food that, don't worry, will pave the way to cancer and graveyard. Please, see the video to have some idea. There are many like this that don't usually go out but worth the search.
A couple of days ago, a friend of mine gave me a small piece of paper. I started laughing with its content but I am not really sure if it was more appropriate to cry. The paper said:

Monsanto recommends:
To eat food with pesticides,
chemical fertilizers,
colors, hormones, preservatives,
improvers E1 to E8098,
meat from crazy cows
... and in particular foods with genetic mutagenesis!!!

This is a gentle donation
for the greek consumer

Panhellenic Union of Morticians
"The Underworld"

Death

One of my very favorite subjects! Don't get it wrong. I am not a sadistic monster, I don't dance naked in graveyards in the night, I don't find any pleasure in bone something activities and I surely don't worship devil. But, let's say, death was always for me an interesting subject, something to search and meditate upon and look in the eye.
Only the idea of death is strange. I mean, think about it, we just come here some time in a newbie body, walk or run a life of about 70 to 80 years more or less and leave in a way like the one we came: go out of the door from which we had come in. And then? Why we do this? What purpose serves and what's happening before and after? This ignorance is maddening. At least for me.
Usually people don't bother. They just try to survive or do the best they can do or have a great time for the period they are here. But to me it's a problem. The before and the after seems more important than the in-between. Where the heck we go? Do we go anywhere or we disappear in the mist of time? I know that these "existential" questions seem very boring to a lot of people and that are being asked for so long that they have become like the air, exists but we don't usually notice it. But does this lessen their importance?
If we skip the probability of nothing after death, which, I think, has no logical meaning, we start to think about theories like other dimensions, purgatory and the bright light with the tunnel thing I've read about in after death books.

We say that nobody can know about the after because nobody has come back before. But I've heard that a lot of people have done so. People with after death experiences, shamans who work with the other side, even world walkers that go forth and come back all the time. Why they don't tell us about? First of all, they do. Many people have talked about such experiences, but who listens? If we want death an unknown mystery we will close our ears and do everything to remain an unknown mystery. Second, most of the people who occupy themselves with such activities don't believe that common people are ready for them and even if they were willing to do the step, like the ones who did it, they will face controversy, negativity and even aggressiveness. Why to do such a thing to themselves? They are so well when they are self-effacing. Well, I would keep my knowledge to myself or at least to some few who will pass their tests with success.
But, you know, after all these about physical death, which is not that special as we may think, it seems appropriate to mention real death. Because physical death is just an transition, a change, a natural way to walk through bodies since flesh bodies are damageable and we should change them as we change a cloth that has been worn out.
The real dreadful death is the one that comes most times without even noticing it, it's the one that kills our present moments like a shadow for the sake of fantasy and egoistic purposes and sucks our energy. This slow death is the worst thing that can happen to us and it usually happens all the time. It's the death of consciousness. And the veil that covers true reality. It's so sad living like this and not even knowing it.
And, then, there is also the third kind of death. Hehe, yes, three kinds. What did you expect? We have variety. It's an overproduction subject. And although the physical death is neutral, since it's just a transition, and the consciousness death is the sad and negative kind, the third one is positive, promising and brings the hope in our lives. And it's the way to overcome the second kind.
It's the death of ego, the death of our smaller and bigger monsters we keep inside us, the ones that steal our energy and dance laughing crazily when we identify ourselves with them. But we can do it, we can regain ourselves, our energy, our lives and the chance to wake up in a better and conscious way of living. A lot of traditions talk about this work although usually in a hidden way. It's obvious why. Most people don't realize the fight that takes place all the time inside them and they are not interested in escaping from it since they are completely identified with thoughts and feelings that don't really belong to them. That's why the third death is for those who are willing to overcome themselves and gain an other higher level of existence.
So, isn't death really an interesting subject? Haven't I drawn your attention? Think about it.

flower stones

                    

Something happened to me lately with this tendency to paint all the painting around.  It didn't exist earlier.  It may be some virus or something like this but I like it so far.  Who knows what will happen in the future.  It will show.

This painting doesn't have a frame and it doesn't need it anyway.  It's a colorful bunch of stones, each one with its own personality, beautifully blend with the white pentalfa flower.  Everyone that sees this painting has a tendency to choose a stone that he/she likes more than the others.  This way different things about the personality of the person are shown...  Hmm, maybe this painting should go with a catalog that would describe the characteristics of each stone's lovers.  Or maybe I should write a book about this.

oil on canvas

50 cm x 50 cm (19,7" x 19,7" )

Mercifullness

My mother says that we should eat meat because we can't live without it. We should take the necessary ingredients that meat has to survive. Ok, that's an old fairytale, although it has been supported by scientists and doctors. Especially doctors that frighten mothers, like the story of the wolf and the red cap girl, which, of course, was written by the girl herself.
A friend of mine says that at least the animals are treated well, remembering animal farms she had seen a long long time ago in an other country. That's an other fairytale, of course. She hasn't heard about factory farming and the real way of animal treatment. Many people when it comes to animals and food prefer to keep in their mind the picture of the open fields and the happy animals, the ad image that relaxes the resistances and beds down the consciousness. Because they want the taste without the guilt. It's easier and effortless. Although, in our days, it is difficult to close the eyes so much. This kind of "ignorance" is just kidding ourselves.
You want to learn something about the truth? The real way we treat the about 57 billion (without measuring the see animals at all) sensitive other creatures we kill every year for food. You want to learn about the creatures whose eggs and milk find their way to your table?
I give you the Vegetarian Starter Kit from Mercy for Animals. Read the information, see the images and become conscious of what you eat and what you do backing the biggest extermination in history that happens every day in every country with the human majority's blessings. And, then, eat your delicious steak.

Sudoku

I just love this painting.  At the photos above I show the edges around of which I am really proud of.  It's not that they are just painted, they just look so gorgeous from near that these photos cannot show it enough.
The painting at front is like this:

...and with the wooden frame that lets the painting show itself all around, it's like this:

The distance between the painting and the frame lets the edges be shown clearly and nicely.  I am just so proud of that small flower at the center and above that someone can see only in three dimensions but I can't explain the why scientifically.  Maybe in an other lifetime...

oil on canvas
framed in a wooden thick frame that is around 2 cm (0,79 inc.) far from the painting itself.
painting size: 18 cm x 24 cm (7" x 9,4")
painting + frame size:  24 cm x 30 cm (9,4" x 11,8")

Flower Power

Who doesn't like flowers? Maybe some freeky emo with dark tendencies and gloomy approach to life. Not that I have a problem with emo. If they don't have a problem with me, hehe.

Nature has given us plenty of gifts and flower power is one of them. Or better a package of them wrapped together with the golden ribbon of health and well-being.

It is well known from the ancient times - and I know what I am talking about since I am greek - that nature is the drugstore of the divinity. All that these recent chemical drugs do can be also done with natural essences, usually in a milder way. All except the side effects.
The fact that people don't usually believe that much to the power of nature and its contribution to our lives has mostly to do with the science medicine praise. We forget that most of the medicines come from natural ingredients, plants and flowers and trees and even animals. And the chemical ones have also started from the properties of natural sources.
Bach was a man who believed in nature, searched, experimented and found out that specific flower characteristics cure specific health troubles. Here you can read about these 38 flowers and the rescue remedy, that by the way can save lives, and also the mixtures you can make yourself for specific health problems.

cups on cups

Cups on cups - inspired by a DPW challenge.  I like the colors and the way they are ready to fall - but they won't fall because they are stuck into a painting.  What a pity! :P

oil on canvas
framed in a wooden thick frame that is around 2 cm (0,79 inc.) far from the painting itself.
painting size: 30 cm x 20 cm (11,8" x 7,9")
painting + frame size: 36 cm x 26 cm (14,2" x 10,2")

the wise rose (3rd of set)

It is wise, experienced and a beauty by its own right.  It understood a lot of life's lessons and now knows that real knowledge is beyond this plane, so it is almost ready to skip it from here soon.  But this doesn't make it sad, at least not much, since it knows that the road goes on beyond the shaking of its petals and beyond the white light, there, to the land of the energy, where it will keep searching for miracles and adventures.

oil on canvas
framed in a wooden thick frame that is around 2 cm (0,79 inc.) far from the painting itself.
painting size: 15 cm x 15 cm (5,9" x 5,9")
painting + frame size: 21 cm x 21,5 cm (8,3" x 8,5")

the rose (2nd of set)

This is the second rose - beautiful and independent, passionate but also stabilized, walking the way of the clever rose - hoping and wandering also.  It knows that it doesn't know a lot of things, worries about life's troubles but still has time for fun and a cup of tea (organic one!)...

oil on canvas
framed in a wooden thick frame that is around 2 cm (0,79 inc.) far from the painting itself.
painting size: 15 cm x 15 cm (5,9" x 5,9")
painting + frame size: 21 cm x 21,5 cm (8,3" x 8,5")

the rose bud (1st of set)

Life adventure is pretty strange: we come and go, come and go, come and go... and come and go again.  It wouldn't have a meaning if these walks weren't the classes of a strange also school.
This and the next two small paintings have to do with a rose in its various ages.  Here it has just come and it's a bud, full of joy and excitement, ready to conquer and/or save the world.

oil on canvas
framed in a wooden thick frame that is around 2 cm (0,79 inc.) far from the painting itself.
painting size: 15 cm x 15 cm (5,9" x 5,9")
painting + frame size: 21 cm x 21,5 cm (8,3" x 8,5")

Immortal Animal?

I didn't discover it. I just found out this very interesting article written by Bryan Nelson, Mother Nature Network, and it was too interesting to skip. The jellyfish below may be the only immortal animal of the planet due to a strange recreation ability it possesses.

(Photo: Peter Schuchert)

--- "The turritopsis nutricula species of jellyfish may be the only animal in the world to have truly discovered the fountain of youth.
Since it is capable of cycling from a mature adult stage to an immature polyp stage and back again, there may be no natural limit to its life span. Scientists say the hydrozoan jellyfish is the only known animal that can repeatedly turn back the hands of time and revert to its polyp state (its first stage of life).
The key lies in a process called transdifferentiation, where one type of cell is transformed into another type of cell. Some animals can undergo limited transdifferentiation and regenerate organs, such as salamanders, which can regrow limbs. Turritopsi nutricula, on the other hand, can regenerate its entire body over and over again. Researchers are studying the jellyfish to discover how it is able to reverse its aging process.
Because they are able to bypass death, the number of individuals is spiking. They're now found in oceans around the globe rather than just in their native Caribbean waters. "We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion," says Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute." ---
So long with the aliens. Now we have the jellyfish. From now on I'll live with this horror. I needed one horror more in my life. Or should I start searching for a communication code with them? Or, even better, leave the jellyfish alone and worry about the scientists who try to find the secret of immortality and apply it to our bloody human specie? I think, in the end, I am going to protest for the innocent and unsuspected jellyfish, all the poor jellyfish that will be sacrificed in the name of our vanity.

dark break

Break the darkness, the three magical candles will help you to do so.

oil on canvas

framed in a wooden thick frame that is around 2 cm (0,79 inc.) far from the painting itself.

painting size: 14,2 cm x 21,2 cm (5,6" x 8,35")

painting + frame size:  20,3 cm x 27,1 cm (8" x 10,7")

the 7 candles to light

The 7 is from ancient times a sacred number.  The seven dimensions, the seven chakras, the seven days of the week, even the seven ...dwarfs makes it wonderful how this number comes up all the time in physical and beyond physical levels.  The candles show the way to walk each path to the light as it should be, with a trembling and respect, with a hidden fear and with a great joy.

oil on canvas
framed in a wooden thick frame that is around 2 cm (0,79 inc.) far from the painting itself
painting size: 18 cm x 24 cm (7" x 9,5")
painting + frame size:  24 cm x 30 cm (9,5" x 11,8")

The good dirt

I must admit I am not a great housekeeper. Not that I like my home dirty or in chaos. But, let's say, cleaning is not the first priority in my life. Maybe neither the second one. I do what I have to do to continue living in an environment that can sustain life. And keep my valuable time for things that I really like and enjoy.
My mother was never happy with this. She is the kind of woman that has learned to run after every dust particle and sterilize it with a maddish smile and glance. "Muahaha, where have you been you naughty spot? I have been searching for you in all the house!" But that's usually mothers. Maybe living in such a cleaning lunacy made me a bit careless about sterilizing things or lives. Or maybe it's my natural as a crazy gemini I proudly am.
But being too clean has it's negative side also. Like the dark side of the moon. You see the shining silver moon and you are astonished by her beauty, but then, there is also this dark side, the one that is necessary to keep the balance.
In the case of extreme cleanliness, which is what a whole world of ads, which is their job by the way, and scientists suggest and even brainwash with all kinds of miraculous products that will kill and completely destroy any sign of germs, bugs and viruses, the darkness lies in the inaction of our immune system, in the laziness and the easy way of life of a system that exists to protect us and meets stagnation cause it doesn't have an enemy, it loses its purpose and stumbles inside our bodies searching for what, for a way to prove its value. What a system like this can do in this case beyond of becoming a drunkard or taking drugs or something similar? You have a great fighter, a champion, and you put it in disuse. Do you think it's happy? Mmm, I don't think so.
And, voila, yes, I was waiting for this, hehe. At last, other scientists found some time now that dirt is not that bad, it's not the enemy of the world, and a reasonable percentage of dirtiness is needed, it is even precious to provide stimulation and training to the immune system so to ensure future health.
Especially to children who are starting their voyage on this plane, it is important their body to be within call. When too much protection makes it incapable to react, the body becomes unable to protect itself. Then, the next wave of ingenious products come. The ones that fight allergies and asthma and other similar stuff. Which means beyond any doubt that we have become fenceless and unprotected and open to attacks.
I am not a dirt lover, I just try to think logically in a maze of too many completely useless products and services that want us to be dependent and helpless instead of having some common sense and some trust to our own body, to the natural power inside us that needs some stimulation to build an invulnerable, or at least strong enough, system.
It's not that we will never come down again. But this is a natural stuff and a training for us. Maybe the real answer is to find the golden section, a more natural way to live between the opposites. And laugh more. Because, more than any other, laughter is the strongest shield we can ever have before any illness inside and outside us.

Some of my photos and paintings :)

Below I have some of my photos with my daughters and, of course, paintings of mine.

Me, in the middle, and my daughters with some of my small paintings.

Me and my daughters again - a happy moment.

Me and some of my paintings, most of them made the last month before the exhibition.

Exhibition photos

Some photos of the exhibition opening below.

The President of the Union with guests.

An overview of the central area.

Wine served to guests at the main entrance.

Me and my friend Ilona with some of her paintings.

Talking with friends and guests about art.

Ilona's jewelry - very nice work.

Art Exhibition of the Artistic Union of Pieria, Greece

Time to wake up!  So, after long years of inactivity, the Artistic Union of Pieria gathered again ready to make an active come back to the artistic world.
We gathered with a nice feeling in heart to meet people we missed for years and new blood with talent.  And we opened the Art Exhibition of the Artistic Union at the Urban School of Katerini, the capital of Pieria from 28th of May till 20th of June.

Can I overdo it a bit?

That matrix thing that many people talk about, especially after the well known movie I, II, III etc., is not a new story. And maybe some times we mention it as a complicated theory that, of course, can't have a real impact in our real everyday life, at least as we perceive it, but some of us keep also in a place behind our brain a small thought, an "if what" that makes our real everyday life not so real.
All these secret sects in all known eras knew something more about the theory of matrix and how much of a theory may be. Not, of course, a matrix like Neo's with machines that run a computer program. But still a matrix that works with our mind, a program that covers our consciousness and drops a veil that hides the reality.
How can we know that we are in a matrix and that there is an "other" reality? We can't really "know". That is the power of the veil. But we can surely "feel" it. We feel there is something different or weird or more than what we see or perceive. And we don't feel it all the time. Just some times that we are more sensitive and start questioning. And not all of us. Isn't it strange?
Isn't it also weird that science, the new kind of it that is quantum physics, which I think is still in fashion, yes, describes the matrix in details. Discovers the true abstract reality and the illusionary world we take in with our five senses and wonders "what the heck happens here?"
Of course, there are reasons we are here and reasons that we are limited in the information we perceive in our everyday life. Not all people are ready for the truth. Not all want to jump to a boundless and unlimited beyond time and space somewhere. We have to earn this and the road to prove ourselves is long and hard. Or instant and easy. Opinions differ. And when easy, maybe too easy for some to accept it and this maybe is much harder than the long and logically hard road that anyone would have the time to accept.
And always a lot of people won't want it. They don't want the red pill. Can we blame them? New souls need the experience of this world, to walk the peel, time to leisure and find a snug berth. Why not? It's their right and always will be.
So, red or blue? Blue or red? Each is right for someone and wrong for someone else. It's such a personal question! Can you answer?

The World is Vegan (or should be!)

Do you see me?
I won't harm you.
Why should you?
We can live together in a bloodless world!

Buddhist Prayer

I am not a buddhist and this is not a usual buddhist prayer. It's a prayer for all animals that suffer an unreasonable and horrible pain due to human ruthlessness.

Buddhist Prayer for Animal Liberation

.

It's important for our souls to become sensitive in this pain. The other creatures who co-exist on this planet with us suffer physically and emotionally because of us. And, whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not, we are part of this suffering, it perforates our hearts. You think you are the pain free exception? Think again. You just don't realize it yet. And, maybe, when you do, it will be too late for you.

Free food life? Nothing impossible!

Have you heard about the yogi that doesn't eat or drink at all? And he does so for about 70 years? Here in Greece all the news were talking about him. And because of the economic crisis that hit our door, some dream of learning the secret of the yogi...
I had my doubts, I must confess. I may do a diet that is not the common one, I may have in mind that I want to go raw some time - the sooner the better - and I may have heard about the ideal food that is the pure light of the sun but hearing it in this reality seemed impossible.
Then a friend of mine came from India. The timing was just weird - since I don't have a lot of friends from India. Of course, I discussed it with him and his wife and to my sincere surprise I learned that our new found yogi is nothing strange or mysterious for his country.
"Many yogis do that. A lot of people don't eat or drink and most of them do so from their childhood. Yeah, nothing special really."
"But how? I mean, how how? How do they do this? If people can live without eating why kids die from hunger in Africa?"
"It has to do with yoga and practice and meditation and the simple life these yogis live. It's not easy but not impossible too."
This was a bit disappointing for the greek people who were looking for the pill the yogi takes for his free food life. I am afraid that such a diet can't easily combine with our everyday neurotic nervous breakdown stressed and full of anger and misery life. It needs a clear mind and a happy and open heart.
What did the yogi said? He can meditate for many days, even months? I suppose the mind that can do this, can do many more other things too. It's mind over matter.
What has arrived in my mind right now? Ha. Yes. That story about Apollonio the Tyaneas, that ancient saint who was imprisoned for his strange ways and at the court, tied with heavy chains, he said to his persecutors: "You can do whatever you want with my body but you can do nothing to my soul." And then he thought about it again and said: "Now that I think better of it, you can do nothing to my body either," and he snapped his fingers and banished from the court. There were rumors after this that he was seen in different places far away from there. He just remembered he could do the impossible. Because for the people who break the program of this matrix we live in, nothing really is impossible...

Vegan food

Many people ask me when the conversation reaches food: "what do you eat?" It's so strange and difficult for some to imagine a diet without meat and/or animal products and so full their diet with meat, meat, meat, that they find it hard to think of something beyond meat. They fail also to understand how restricted a meat diet is. "Everything except meat and dairy", I answer.
"Everything? What else exists?", they usually wonder. Mmm...
A lot of things! Do you want some taste? Look here: Vegan Food Pyramid, hehe.
Do you want recipes? Oh my! The whole web is filled with vegan recipes. Try this: Delicious Vegan Recipes and this: Vegan Chef's Suggestions and even this: Vegan Choices. You want something simple? Check this: Simple Vegan Recipes.
It's so simple really. And so wide the range of available probabilities and delicious food choices and varieties that it is strange that people usually have a small problem to see the whole picture. And the grains and sprouts, oh my! Mmm, so yummy that maybe we, vegans, should keep our diet selfishly for ourselves. Or maybe let you kindly just try, even only for health reasons, to reach a revolutionary way to open the mind and extend the programmed thought mode that the misled majority uses so far. Taste for yourself. :)

Weird astro facts

Did you know that Lucy, a star in the constellation of Centaurus, is a huge diamond of 10 billion trillion trillion carats? Wow!!! Or that Pluto's moon Charon is considered to be a double dwarf, which means two planets orbiting each other? Or that Jupiter is so big that its mass is more than twice the mass of the rest of our Solar System's planets combined and that 1.000 Earths would fit inside Jupiter while the Sun could hold about 1.000 Jupiters? Oh my!
These and many more facts, yes facts, can be found inhttp://www.sciensational.com/astronomy.html. 
You want more scientific uni-weirdness? Checkhttp://space.about.com/od/humor/a/AstronomyFacts.htm. 
Visit also http://www.universetoday.com/category/astronomy/ - it is interesting too!
Ok, these are not that weird - the most weird is that we are here, alive, in the middle of an unknown and totally wonderful cosmos full of black holes, dark matter and uncounted other fascinating phenomenons.

Micro and Macro wonders

One of the things that truly amazed me even from childhood was everything weird and strange and whacky that had to do with the two worlds that exist in an untouchable way above and below us. Or, better, around us, but can't touch us and they can't touch each other too.
It is so wondrous that we usually fail to realize it, especially in our everyday life. We have to be in a consciously aware state, very well grounded and waken to this reality with our mind expanded to reach this information: we are just in between two fantastic groups of worlds, worlds inside worlds, live realities detached from our own but we live in both of them too, part of them and so far away at the same time.
The microscopic world of the very small and the macrocosmic world of the very huge. The acari and the atom and the vastness of galaxies. Both keep going over to the even smaller than we can ever imagine and/or discover and to the even vaster than our sight would ever reach.
Unaware, we don't usually realize the miracle. The far more that life is. The wonders that wait and happen every single moment that we get bored, we feel miserable, we see things black and white instead of the multicolored unlimited wonderful truth of existence.
Do we really have the luxury and the right to keep ourselves all the time into our gray boxes?

Veganism

Here in Greece it is an almost unknown word. The few hundred vegans we exist, even if we live a completely normal and common life, when it comes to food habits, we get the attention which says "you are an alien or what" or the "what's wrong with you" or, some times, the "how do you do this?" look. Some times puzzled or with a gleam of a very well hidden admiration. When the life is not so "common", we may feel a bit more alien than usual, hehe. And that's my best part...

When I changed into vegetarianism nobody believed I would manage to do it. Because nobody from my environment was doing it. But they didn't know me well. After more than three years meat free, my mother still tries to tempt me with "delicious" for her foods. How can I explain to her that I don't smell and I don't taste the same way any more? That cooked food seems dead to me and meat, goodness sake!, is like eating my beloved cat, smelling like a smoked battlefield and coming right away from horror movies. How can I explain to someone that still eats meat the difference, the freedom, the sense of expanding? How I could do this even to me about 4 years ago?

And it is still so simple and beautiful. I didn't do it to lose weight (although I lost about 16 kilos all the way and I ended up to the weight I had in my teen past), I didn't do it because of a fashion that could change in three months the most (I am not a fashion type anyway) and I didn't do it because of a health problem (I was and still am perfectly healthy in a strange way).

One of the main reasons I stopped meat was the pain. Not a physical pain, although it could also transform into physical. A soul pain I didn't really knew I had, a pain well hidden into the corridors of my psyche, slightly moving embarrassed trying to realize itself. I was different from my childhood, "very sensitive" my mother would say, "why you puzzle your mind?", "you won't save the world". I didn't save the world, not yet anyway. But I was always feeling the weight of the world, not so much at my shoulders but in my soul mainly. The feelings of the others were my feelings, as a child I couldn't say the difference anyway. So, there was always something wrong with me. I had the pain, a reflection of a universal pain that others were feeling. I thought it was just from the people around me and, after working with it, I became a lot better to understand and dissociate myself from it. But there was always a grief, a silent despair that would not stop, an other kind of desperation.

After a couple of months meat free I started realizing the why. For the first time in my life. If I knew earlier, I would never eat the flesh of an other creature. But I didn't. Nobody told me. Nobody would tell me what real freedom is. Maybe because none around me knew also. I realized that when we eat an other creature, when we eat flesh, we also take inside us his/her whole of psychology, the experiences and the complication of this creature's feelings - yes, all creatures have feelings, we are not the only ones - and also the pain and the death. The worse the human behavior to this creature, the worse we load over the pile of our own unconscious chaos' the more painful the death, the more pain and more death take inside us. The more the unconscious mourning we fail to understand, I failed to understand.

I can tell from my own experience, although the grief is not completely over yet, that only after some adjustment time I realized that something had happened. I was lighter, more peaceful and happier without some external event to justify this happiness. The pain was moving in slow motion, my inner time was changing and I was feeling more free with more strength. Mmm, I didn't know if it was to worry or to be glad about. And slowly I found out it was to be glad about.

Now, I would never change this freedom with any taste on earth. Even if it wasn't plastic and full of hormones and chemicals, it would still be death. And I don't think I like even the taste any more since the smell of cooked or roasted meat is unbearable to me and makes me sick. And an other good result: I don't have any guilt now to show my love to my cat Merlin or to any other animal, I am not going to eat neither them or any other relative of them, close or distant on the planet. :)

There are many sites that protest about animal rights, this one has a video with real events, the way we treat the other living creatures, the real way and not the one that ads tell us. It's not isolated events but the way almost all industries use everyday. It's too sickening and horrible for me but worths seeing it even only to be disgusted with ourselves and our specie.

Earthlings

red rose

 

I wanted the rose to be dark and mysterious.  I don't know if I managed it but I liked the result anyway.

oil on canvas

15 cm x 15 cm (6" x 6")

bite by bite

 

 Just a bird eating.  I like the colors and all my flying friends.  I may do something like this again soon since flying is a dream of mine that this pal has easily in this pocket (if he had a pocket!). :)

oil on canvas

15 cm x 15 cm (6" x 6")

the clouds above

The sky at this painting was calling me to paint it.  It's like the eternal battle between good and evil, light and darkness, where the light rays manage to find the way to freedom in the end.  I caught these rays and the light and I am happy with it.

oil on canvas panel
23 cm x 30 cm (9.1" x  11.8")

fruit love

Who said fruits don't fall in love? Even different kinds of them? These two seem very happy together.

oil on canvas
18 cm x 24 cm (7.1" x 9.4")

Click here to bid.