The Totem

I am proud of it.  It's my third app but it has a unique place in my heart.  I truly truly love it.  And I can write a lot of this loving stuff here, as much as you can handle, till the universe gets too bored and my pc starts to send thunders all over the place and make me send you the next post from the other side.

It's in apple store for some week now and I am still thrilled of the event.  It has to do with our animal friends/guides/protectors/advisers/healers who are with us in each lifetime and help us in various ways and how we can find out our personal totem, how to communicate with it and built a real stable relationship that can change our lives for the better.
We will all gather at facebook totem pages to meet, play, learn and have fun.  I can't wait for The Totem community to start coming alive.  The perfect work of the designer is unique and I love it also.  And at its first update, The Totem will include a matchmaking quiz that will give specific results according to each ones totem animal.

The description I wrote for The Totem says:

"Humans were always connected with animals in various ways from the dawn of our existence. Ancient tribes were driven by their familiar animal spirits to the lands of safety and prosperity. Wise men and women called shamans were communicating with their totems to heal and get rid of negativity. Animals in physical and non physical forms were always helpers, guides, healers and protectors throughout our written and non written history.

Although in our "modern" world we don't usually understand the deep connection and the vital importance of this relation, all of us, deep in our souls, we recognize the need to find and connect with the spiritual guides that appear in different forms. The most usual form is the form of an animal. Any animal can be a totem, but each one has a specific animal that it's the basic totem of this person. Shamans and Native Americans had developed the ability to be in synch with their totems and nature and make the most of their lives.

We don't choose our totem, the totem chooses us. Sometimes we have expectations or specific ideas of what our totem should be. This can only withdraw us from our real spiritual helper. This app is made with respect and love for the spiritual beings that wait beyond the veil to communicate their wisdom and strength. It can help you find the one basic totem that it's your steady companion at least for this lifetime and also help you communicate with him/her in visualization and create a real relation that will change positively and enrich your life in ways you can't even imagine right now.

70 totems were chosen carefully to participate in this test. 100 questions with multiple answers lead to your own totem that waits for you. 5 different question categories search for your totem's attributes in different levels. The more questions you answer, the most probabilities there are to find your true totem. That's why you should start at least from 20 questions. Answering all the questions will lead you not only to find your totem but also to start a fantastic journey of self-discovery since our totems' attributes are in fact very similar to our own. Each totem has special characteristics that make it unique and you will find out that even the most humble animal guide can be an awesome helper and open worlds of wonders for you to travel.

Don't wait any more. Open yourself to the miracle, meet your best friend and make the first step to the wonderful next part of your life."

new exhibition :)

Back in action.  Yesterday we hold the opening of a new art exhibition at Katerini's Art Center - I was there with a selection of paintings from various periods of my life, a retrospective exhibition, and I was glad to hear great reviews. :)
I will post photos as soon as possible. Life is wonderful.  Again!

Apperception

My elder daughter has a talent in making small films (small so far! :P) and I am not the only one who thinks like this.  Although it took some time to forgive her camera for taking me from below in a way that it seems I am talking to the ceiling, I can surely recommend her next small film, where I am not inside (how lucky can you be?!).
It's called "Apperception" and it worths seeing it, not only because I am not there but mainly because it has a message to share.  I would tell you what this message is for me if I wouldn't believe that discovering it is something personal and that new messages can come up in an open mind.
An other good thing is that, although the previous video (with me!) was in greek and a non greek person would need to develop his/her imagination, not to mention intuition, to get something from it, this new one is in english and can save time and mental efforts to be watched...

hey, me on youtube :P

My elder daughter is a student at Aristoteleio University of Thessaloniki, Greece.  Three years now.  And she loves her studies.  Lately, she had to do some videos as lesson assignments.  In one of them she decided to get an interview from me about my relationship with my younger daughter.
I have to admit that we are a strange family.  Although I divorced with both their fathers, the three of us, as a group, we are very close and tight and the fingers of a hand that can easily become a strong fist (well, a fist with three fingers! :P or whatever...) and at the same time being, each of us, very independent and well with each ones separate activities.
The video, although I talk about my younger daughter, shows this element pretty well.  Congrats, daughta! You got it! ...as always, haha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzVgkYBWUPs&feature=relmfu

I believe...

I am vegan for years and I support this way of thinking with all my heart.  More than half a year ago I bought a book that I was to read and kept postponing as usual.  Its title is "The Liberation of Animals" by Peter Singer.  It helped the animal liberation movement start as the first ring at the domino chain that created a lot of animal right organizations and similar stuff groups and even helped new laws to come up in come countries about animal's fair treatment.  Today I found it in my library and I felt it was waiting for this moment.  Then I fell on a site.  The text below is not mine but I want to share it. :)

I Believe.....

I believe in Ahimsa and that we have no right to harm other animals. I believe in abolitionism and that we have no right to use and enslave any animal; human or nonhuman. I believe in nonspeciesism and that we have no right to unfair and irrelevant prejudice towards a victim based on species membership. I believe in 'Reverence for Life' and that we have no right to disrespect others as in exploiting, assaulting, and killing. I believe in 'Animal Rights' and that we have no right to deny any sentient animal the fundamental right of bodily integrity from human harm or ownership - as we generally give to all human animals, but need to extend to all other species of feeling, breathing, conscious animals, too. 


I believe in picking fresh vegetables or tree-ripened-offered fruit, and that we have no right to steal our food by believing that barbaric slaughterhouse-sourced animal flesh and secretions are food fit for consumption. Animals are not food. I believe in Truth and that we have no right to wrong others or the planet that sustains all life. I believe in the Golden Rule and that we have no right to do to other animals that which we would not want done to us. 


I believe in Love and that we have no right to exemplify such a lack of love towards other creatures; especially those who would never think of harming us. Humans oppress the helpless – because they can - not because they have to. 


I believe in Evolution and that we have no right to hinder its progress of achieving a more civilized way of living on Earth. I believe in Peace and that we have no right to inflict violence on anyone. I believe in the Vegan Ideal and that we have no right to do anything but to try to live up to it as best we can.  I'm a believer.

http://thevegantruth.blogspot.gr/search/label/I%20Believe....

mushrooms

They look so much better than in photo.  I just wonder if there is a chance to learn how to make good photos of my paintings in this lifetime or I will have to wait for the next... 

Yes, they are mushrooms at the basis of a tree in a wonderful green forest.  I wish you could see their real colors.

oil on canvas

butterfly

Color, color and more color... oh, it's never enough.  I wonder what's happening to me, it's not spring or is it? ...  I keep on disobeying a basic painting rule : never your subject at the center... haha!  I love it!

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

the drop

It came when I was having a bad migraine and I needed to focus on something.  I also liked the drop.  But it was just a drop.  And I decided to make it a double painting - two paintings that continue and fit to each other. I loved the result and the effect of rusty sheet of metal.  I don't know if the colors fit to the idea but I like them so much that I don't really care.

The double triangle painting...

 The upper triangle and ...

 ...the down triangle.

Oil on canvas

Painted all sides around with the continuance of the painting.

never trapped

I like this fellow.  It's my drawing option of this little bird that it is so small that can't be trapped in a cage.  He/she will be able to escape his/her phenomenal prison and fly to an other better place.  An advantage of being tiny and fluffy and cute.  Who would want to trap this fellow anyway?

oil on canvas

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

an other lady bug

I like bugs, especially on leaves.  Maybe it is the contrast between these two supplementary colors, the red of the lady and the green of the leaves.  Maybe it is the freedom this bug symbolizes for me, the freedom and the simple stress free life that I would love to live.

oil on canvas

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

shake or wave?

This is the hand of my younger daughter Katerina-Io.  It was to be a part of a challenge but I finished it too late for this.  So this is it.  Hmmm, I think I will like yellow again...

oil on canvas

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

Does size matter?

There is a coan, well known to Tao students that is used, like the other coans, to stop the mind and attain meditation state.  In fact, coan is a question that it seems that it has no answer.  The mind trying to solve the riddle reaches the state beyond thoughts, which is the desirable result.  Of course, this kind of desire is beyond desire too but that's an other story.
Back to our specific coan.  Its question says: "If everything is reduced to its unit, then its unit to what is reduced?"  Here, of course, when we say unit, we mean the smallest part of what this everything is consisted of.  So, if everything is reduced to its unit that consists it, this unit to what is reduced?  Hmmm...
I thought about this coan when I recently saw a youtube video that compares the sizes of different masses out there starting from small moons to stars to galaxies to clusters and going beyond our known observable universe of the 93.000.000.000 light years (omg!) to reach at the end the unconfirmed Omniverse, where no man has gone before and etc... This is too huge for a mind to really think about it and remain sober and sane.  But it is also a reality that we, here, take our eyes from in order to concentrate on our small and insignificant everyday trends like fashion, football and gossip.
The point to all this is that when the video reached Omniverse, I realized that it reminded me of something.  And I remembered... omniverse looks like a cell, yes, a human cell, as I had seen it in biology many years ago. And that was the moment that time froze and the objects around me got a new meaning and I was not so sure about anything in particular.  Because I also remembered the answer to our coan.  And it says: "If everything is reduced to its unit, its unit is reduced to everything"...
I call you to realize what this may mean and start counting from now the uncountable worlds above and below us that may exist this very moment according to a thought that can seize the ground where we stand and remind us that life is alive and extraordinary by nature.

my second app!

9 days ago it went out of the shell and into the apple itunes app store: my second app.  I know I am late to show my happiness for my new born baby but it was a tricky period for me and didn't feel like it.  Now some things have gone behind me and I can be myself again for ...well, I hope forever. :P
My first app was "Ελλαδάρα Quiz" and it was made in greek to test our knowledge about greek stuff in a funny and entertaining way (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/elladara-quiz/id448996047?mt=8).



And now, my second one, "How Greek Are You?" is a hilarious app in english with 100 funny questions and many many funnier answers in our pursue to find each one's percentage of the traditional greek figure.  How Greek Are you? is not to frighten people, some, very few I would say, have no greekness at all and being 100% greek in this app I don't think is the best thing that can happen to a human, but I really love the procedure and it may prove that we have some hidden greekness the way that non greek people, and even greek ones, consider really unacceptable. But we will have fun for sure.



http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/how-greek-are-you/id508367255?mt=8 - this is where my baby born app is about 9 days now and I can't wait now to start my third one.  Sometimes I worry a bit about me, but what the heck: all things are for humans and some of them are excited and interesting and I prefer to jump and swim than sitting at the beach.
Hmm, ok, I may do some break to paint too.  I miss it terribly.

tricky fairytale

Ok, I found it while cleaning... Who said cleaning is not cool!  I am up to new drawings and paintings.  Things started moving up a bit lately and this is surely for good!  I also have some news that kept me busy lately and now will give results at last...  I will keep you wondering for some week more till my news are out and I can talk about it. :P

We saw a white day!

When I woke up yesterday morning to go to work and stepped out of home, I saw a snowy car.  I thought "where this car has come from?"!  Then I saw a car next and I thought that these cars were somewhere together.  And then I saw the third one and I thought "they were at the same wedding!"  And I got out and saw the rest of cars too and thought "wow, it was a big wedding or something is happening".  All the cars at the streets around my home were snowy but not a single puff of snow at the streets.  And I realized that it had rained and the snow didn't touched them...
All day I was thinking my daughter's complaint, that "in all Europe was snowing, in all other Greece was snowing and in Katerini, no, it was not going to make us the favor".  But this same afternoon, I realize how small-minded we both were.  From the moment the first snowflake met our blink, we were mesmerized by the white dance of the uncountable crazy tiny dabs that were covering everything we could see ceaselessly but with no hurry at all.  They had all night, they knew it and they were just having fun.
Today I saw the white scenery like from a fairytale first thing in the morning.  Still dancing snowflakes but now white on white background.  I went out to go to work and I stopped at the door facing half a meter soft and tasty fluffy solid water.  All the streets were white in front of white houses with white cars parked next to white bend from weight trees.  I was just happy.
After more than fifteen mins to do the distance of five, I reached work.  Very few of us reached the building, very few people came, but what?  Nobody cared for this.  All day we were in front of the magical dance that was still at play out of the glass.  Now, snowflakes are very few but the snow has covered almost everything, the schools closed because of the weather and happy children were playing snowballs and snow angels.  And they had one more reason to be happy about: schools will be closed tomorrow also and they will have an extra day to have fun before the weekend. :P
So, in Greece of crisis, yes, we finally saw a white day!  No thanks to our politicians but thanks to a blessed phenomenon that brightened our day.  Because if we waited for our politicians, we wouldn't enjoy even this first winter snow that we hadn't seen, in such extent, for around a decade here in Katerini.

Here my younger daughter plays with her friends.  And this is the beauty of winter. :)

Curiosity - pencil on paper

Ok, they are curious about the butterfly under the branch...  A small sketch, pencil on paper, around 15 x 21 cm.  It was so fun to draw them that I want to do it again soon.  Drawing something else, of course! :) 

Merlin

I do have a cat, well, the same way that my cat has a human, me!  In fact, he has three mammies.  I am mammy A, my elder daughter is mammy B and my younger daughter is his mammy C.  As you already understood, it has to do with age.  Merlin, the magnificent cat, our love that walks in the house with all the grace of his synonymous wizard, knows his power very well.  He knows that he will miao and we will run to find out what is happening and why he did so.  And he knows also that, in this time of crisis, his bowl will be full all the time in case he wants to have his meal.
It's a bit embarrassing to admit that we love him so much when we have, at the same time, so many problems.  But he is not to blame for the crisis.  And from the moment he came home, as a tiny kitten the size of a handful, he changed all the atmosphere in a positive way.  He is there for us, especially when we need him the most, with the tenderness and the unconditional love that a human would hardly give.
Lately, he explained us, his own way, that he wants his soulmate.  After a lot of search and a lot of difficulty, we found a possible mate at a friend's house at a village outside Thessaloniki.  We went there to spend the weekend with them and their cat, a beautiful confident female named Sourtouka.  We, both families, were watching their first meeting the way a scientist watches his first discovery, that would lead definitely to Nobel prize, at the microscope.  Totally rudely and tactlessly.
They didn't kill each other at the first moment and this was good.  They kept a safe distance for some time and then they started talking in a strange way.  It was the first time to hear Merlin having a deep voice, something like Scotty McCreery but in a cat's way, maybe even deeper.  Once they were to fight but it didn't happen.  After some time we found them in an other room, on the same sofa, the one at the one side and the other at the other side, looking each other for more than half an hour.  They had more adventures, of course, as the time was passing which we talked about next to the fireplace in the evening.
In the end, next day, we left without the inevitable to happen.  I was puzzled and wondering what went wrong till my friend explained to me that cats don't mate just because they will find each other.  They need at least three days to flirt, to examine each other, to smell and pass a lot of tests and ritualistic procedures.  And it may not happen in the end.  But they are animals...  So what?  They have their codes and their psychological gradual approaching to prove that they worth the honor, something like courting and getting engaged and coming closer one step at a time.  But humans many times do this "procedure" much quicker, I said smiling.  Yes, but cats are not humans, she said seriously.  I looked at the floor and, in some way, it was coming closer to me.
Back at home, from the fiery manly male he had become for a day and a half he became our own pampered guy again.  We will go back to Sourtouka's home and I hope they will remember each other and we won't start the rituals from the beginning.  Because we won't have three whole days for him to flirt.  But I have a good feeling about this newly born relationship.  Even away from e-mails and skype, it will flourish one day and Merlin will become a proud partner of her.  And I don't want to think of his rivals, since I saw with my own eyes that under the spoiled look he hides carefully a small tiger...

The ...tiger!  Here he is much younger than he is now but I just love this photo!

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IDAP community and more

I recently joined IDAP (I Draw And Paint) community, which is a friendly place for people who love painting and drawing using different mediums like oils, watercolors, acrylics, charcoal, pen and anything two dimensional art can be made of.
It's a place where I feel comfortable presenting my art and looking at the art of others, both newbies and professionals, and still be able to become a friend with some of the most interesting and creative persons.  I hope this will help me keep alive and even develop my artistic life, which is not at its best right now because of too much non artistic work...
At the same time, Greek people see our lives getting tough day after day.  So, we have to survive.  This is not easy at all for some who lost not only their jobs but their homes also and the ground under their feet.  My elder daughter, who is a student at Thessaloniki university, told me that last week she was walking at a main street with her boyfriend and they saw old people trying to get warm or sleep on the benches of Aristotle square covered with coats or blankets or nothing with their body warmth.  They gave them bread and milk and heard stories of loneliness and abandonment.  Some of them lost their pensions, some other were thrown out of nursing homes that closed because of the crisis...
My younger daughter went to the camp on August 2011, where she goes every year, and she told me that she met some girls that came with an arrangement of the orphanage where they lived and the camp headship since they had no family but after a couple of months their orphanage was to be closed, because of the crisis again, and they wouldn't have anywhere to go.
This is no joke and both my daughters, as everyone else here, are growing up quicker than their age because of what they see.  I am really concerned on what will be done and how low we can go as a country when we leave unsheltered the elder and the young.  Where do our "values" go and how much time will pass till we realize that we have already hit the bottom?  This is not a real question, this is hanging over our heads and weighs on our hearts till we break this situation.