Marathon Blogger Prompt 3 - Monday

Monday comes knocking on my door every week after Sunday, asking me to start the new week with new thoughts.

It’s a vegetarian day, just dhal, rice and fried potatoes will do.

Some of my friends pray to lord Shiva and go on a fast for half a day, skipping lunch. A religious lady friend takes her bath early morning and makes her trip to the temple to pour the milk on Shiva linga. Every Monday, she listens to same Shiva story, his power of endurance and strength, his temper strong enough to destroy evil, and his passion for perfection, his tanda dance.

Every woman prays for a perfect man, she seeks Shiva’s blessing for a good husband.

Many believe that Linga represents the male organ but there are many other interpretations behind the linga.

“The experience of the Shiva linga in Yogic meditation is an experience of a pillar of light, energy, peace and eternity, expanding the mind, opening the inner eye and bringing deep peace and steadiness to the heart. From it radiate waves, currents, circles and whirlpools of Shakti spreading this grace, love and wisdom to all. To concentrate our awareness in the linga is one of the best ways of meditation, calming the mind and putting us in touch with our inner Being and Witness beyond all the agitation and sorrow of the world.”

Source: http://www.vedanet.com/2012/06/the-shiva-linga-and-its-meaning/

A true devotee chants 'Satyam, Shivam Sundaram'

Marathon Blogger Prompt 2- Thirst

It’s a thirst for knowledge that makes us go to places where we wouldn’t go on our own.

Visit to any place/venue is an adventure by itself, be it at a restaurant, movie, or even at a spiritual discourse.

If you have been to a spiritual discourse, you will realize that there is nothing new that you are likely to learn. Every discourse has same message to give. The magic mantra to peace and love is to watch your thoughts.

But thoughts play a very tricky game. Have you watched your thoughts today?

Lets do one experiment.

Sit straight, cross-legged and close your eyes.

Think only of a flower. The flower is red in color. It has sweet fragrance. It has velvet touch.

Set your alarm clock for twenty minutes. You must only think of this flower and just repeat ‘This is beautiful”

Visualize the red color, feel its velvety touch, inhale the sweet smell.

In twenty minutes, did your mind wander? What else did you think?

Your thirst for knowledge will never allow your mind to rest. While repeating the words “This is beautiful” your mind might wander to many more such beautiful things, then maybe to ugly things, about the people you met on that day, the things they said to you, the number of times you got irritated and thoughts wander on and on….

Did it happen to you? The more knowledgable we are, the more distracted we are.

What do I talk about twenty minutes? Even if your mind was still for just two minutes it will be a miracle.

While reading this two-minute post, were you able to keep your thoughts on this post alone?

What else were you thinking while reading this post.??

Want to share???

Marathon Bloggers Prompt Post 1 – Colors -Fractal Art.

I am in creative mood.

Many years ago, in moods like these, I normally would take the paints and color the walls of my room. There were many such patches on the wall with blotches of paints here and there. Some near my bedside, some on the table, some behind the doors and some even in the stairways. But that was long time ago.

I can’t possibly do that now. Can I?

But still I do get creative sometimes, and since most of my time is spend on digital activities, photoshop comes closest to honing my creative spirit.

Working on few layers, with blotches of colors here and there, playing with vector design, I was able to create this fractal art.

This gave me an idea to work on an eye.

Quite happy with this frame, I decide to work on this eye on many layers.

In every layer, I played with transformation, changing the width, length and angle of the design. Added filters to some layers  and a circular 3-D effect

Voila! Finally made a visual digital fractal painting that looked like this.

Chap Book For Little Dude

Little dude has started school. Early morning he wakes up, dresses up, takes his breakfast and water bottle and goes to school.

He learns nursery poems, listens to stories, and gets potty training and learns how to socialize with other kids.

I thought he could be ready for some sight-reading too and decided to make for him a chap-book.

The easy way to get the child interested is to show him something that he is familiar with. Every child is familiar with the people he meets everyday. The family that is close to him. Hence I decided to make a chapbook with the pictures of his family members.

I went through his album and selected the pictures of all his family members. I then worked on Photoshop, writing text, drawing balloons wherein I inserted sounds, splitting the words into syllables.

With all the pages in order, it was ready for printing, cuttings and arranging the pages in order.

Next was stitching the pages to make a book.

The greatest joy was seeing the little dude excited to see his own pictures in a book!!!

Yes, he is learning phonetics now!! I am extremely happy……