Visualizing compassion.

As I have gotten caught up in the strong emotions surrounding the presidential election, I have found myself feeling somewhat disturbed by the intensity of my negative emotions toward the right-wing. I have been feeling things like 'only a retard or an ass-hole could possibly be a Republican'.

That is what comes from the emotional part of my body. But the rational part of me recognizes it is not true. I know there are kind-hearted and intelligent people who desire many of the same things for our country as I, but disagree on how those things can be achieved. And even those who aren't intelligent and kind-hearted, or desire things for our country I believe to be bad, my feeling negative towards them doesn't help them or I.

(The debate I had with Jon Wells, the kid I knew in high school, as well as those on the pro-prop 8 Facebook group has, perhaps, given me an unfairly negative sense of the character and reasoning people use to support their right-wing tendencies. As well as watching clips online of people like Bill O'Reilly. My body is generalizing from these few individuals to an entire group of people.)


I think we are all familiar with being able to recognize something with the parts of our mind associated with reason, yet not be able feel it with our emotional mind, even if we want to.

I don't like the feeling so poorly of a group of people or towards particular individuals, especially when I know my feelings are a distorted stereo-type. When our emotions become high, particularly in negative, angry ways, it clouds our judgment, making it difficult to recognize when we are wrong. It creates within us a sense of superiority, indignation and barriers between ourselves and others. These are all things I want to avoid. And of course it is difficult to feel peaceful and calm while feeling negative about others.

Ever since I had that powerful experience doing visualization meditation, I have been doing visualizations regularly, and experimenting with a variety of techniques (while I haven't yet had as intense of an experience as the first time, it has always been very powerful and euphoric).

One thing I have been trying is to imagine positive emotions, energy, love, and compassion towards those who may evoke feelings of frustration within me, such as a certain mom(not mine) who is constantly putting me down. I have found this to be very effective. I imagine this positive energy flowing from me to them, until I then genuinely feel positively and compassionately towards that person. The feelings then remains with me throughout the day, or if I feel the negative feelings returning, it only takes a little effort and time using visualization to bring the positive feelings back. I have found this not only works for other people, but things as well. If there is something annoying me while meditating, such as an itch on my body, or construction banging outside, I imagine feeling positively towards that disturbance, until I then develop genuine positive feelings.

Today it occurred to me I could try this technique towards the entire right wing and hopefully overcome the negativity I want to free myself from. (well, what my imagination has created for me as the stereotype of the right wing.) I tried it and found it worked well. It is a little more difficult to try and imagine a group of people, most of whom I don't even know, but it proved effective. I now feel much more compassion towards these people. I still struggle understanding how people can believe certain things, and be so inconsistent in their thinking, and I still very much disagree with them but overall, I have found myself being able to empathy and compassion towards this imaginary group of people, and the people who aren't imaginary like Jon Wells and Bill O'Reilly. I am happy about this. I feel a greater peace and calmness returning to me that had lessened over the past little while.

The first polls are just now closing. Fingers crossed. Crossing myself like a Catholic. Nailing myself to a cross.

Here are a couple photos I took in my yard in Olympia. The first few are of the chicken coop in my back yard that I am returning into a Tea Room. The first photos were taken when I very first opened it up, and discovered vines, a tree, rotted wood and old chicken coop things. Then after I cleared some vines away and removed the coop things. Then a photo of it partway through the renovation. It is a lot further along now, but I don't have a more recent photo. The work has been going slow, because when I am not at school I am usually working on my show, doing homework, or talking to Marissa(hi Marissa♥). After the tea room photos are photos taken in my yard on a foggy morning. Almost every morning is foggy because we live in a marsh.

What I want from a home.

I often think about the house I hope to have one day. I have many many ideas. As a former architecture major I spent an enormous amount of time thinking about what makes a good house. So much so in fact, that was part of the reason I changed majors. I was far too obsessed with houses. I would myself losing sleep about what I would like to see built.

But unlike other arts, there was little I could do about it. I could sketch it in a notebook, or even make a 3-dimensional rendering with a computer, or build small scale models, and I did all these things, but that was only partially fulfilling. Even after I would have graduated and become a licensed architect, it would still be many many years before I would actually be able to have my designs built. One often does not become an actually 'architect' until they are 40 or 50. Before that time they are a draftsman for an architect. Actual architects usually just make rough sketches which their draftsman make into plans that can be built from. A person must either move up in their company until they are head architect, or start their own firm, which would likely not receive much solicitation for a long time. I felt such a burning desire to create buildings, yet not only did I not have an outlet for this, and knew I would not for many many years.

Also unlike other arts, architecture cannot be easily escaped. Almost anywhere one goes, a person is surrounded by buildings. Being surrounded by buildings, I would constantly be thinking about what I would do differently. Growing up in Utah, where the architecture is monotonous and uninspiring, I felt frustrated by my inability to do anything about the the buildings by which I was surrounded. Once I finally gave up the desire to be an architect I felt released from that.

Though I still think about buildings and designs, my sketch books often contain a handful of floor plans and renderings, but I no longer obsess over it.

There are some things I would really love to have in my house:

A sacred or holy room. This would be a room that would be simple and uncluttered. Full of light and good feelings. It would be a place of quiet one could go to meditate, pray, or possible read. It wouldn't have much in it, it would be a place to get away from the worlds. I imagine it having plants and big windows allowing lots of light and an attractive view of plants or water something. I think it would be nice if this was something common to all houses. If people had such a room, they would be more inclined to take time out of their day to sit in silence and feel the warmth of the universe.







Rooms like wide hallways:
I love rooms that are very long, with one wall being all windows.









A library:

We all know what a library is.

Hallways with windows.

I love hallways that have windows on one side and doors or whatever on the other side.

A studio:
This would maybe be attached to the house, or a little building built near the house.

A tea room:

For tea ceremonies. This would need to be in a separate small building outside the house as a part of the tea ceremony is walking the path leading to the tea room.












A very large kitchen with a very large dining area.

Kitchen's are one of the most important parts of a house. People spend a great deal of time in them. I think a good kitchen should be open and light, with enough space it feels uncluttered yet one can still have all the necessities of a kitchen. Below are two kitchens I like. Though I think the first could use more natural light.





A cool bathroom with a nice bathtub because I love taking baths. I like bathrooms with lots of wood.:










I want a small house. In my opinion big houses are silly. They waste lots of space. My grandpa(one of the co-founders of Enron) has an enormous house, yet all his time is spent in his library/study, or the kitchen/breakfast nook, or the bedroom. He has this gigantic entry way, yet he himself enters through the garage into a little side room. This is typical of many houses. The entry is one of the largest, most elaborate parts of the house, yet that isn't even the door the home owner typically uses. It is just to impress guests and waste space. He has a giant size living room, but it isn't a comfortable place to be in and no one ever uses it, except, perhaps, for parties. I think when building a house the money would be better spent being invested into nice materials and craftsmanship, rather than large size.

I would also like to have a large vegetable garden where I can grow as much of my own food as I can. I love it when gardens are in the front and back yard. This also cuts down on grass which is a big water waster. But some grass is nice, for kids to play on, and bbqs and back yard parties. I would like a flower garden because flowers are pretty. I would like a greenhouse to allow year round growing. I would like a variety of fruit trees.