Hi friends!

It’s been a busy time in the house of Lordflea. We’ve been having lots of bonfires all week, powwowwing and music-making, dancing inside our hearts and outside under the stars. Ever since ol’ mr and mrs Hawk moved into our big tall pine tree, built their nest at least sixty feet high, right outside our back door, there’s been lots of excitement around the neighborhood! Meaning: our little slice of life has become a haven for flying critters defending their territory against the Big Bad Predator.

Boy, i wouldn’t want to be the bag guy around our neck of the woods. Every bird, especially the menacing mockingbirds, takes a turn harassing the hawks, dive-bombing their tail feathers as they sit atop their sky-high perches, as the smaller kamikazes loudly defame the hawks’ right to be there in defiant, persistent, nervy-strength decibals.

Down on the ground we have a troop of neighbor cats roaming our hunting grounds that are inhabited with other wild and swift-footed furry ones (squirrels and other rodents, armadillos, turtles, raccoons, occasionally a possum or two); reptiles (lizards plain and posh, ooh so many guppies in the stream and snakes in the underbrush, of every color but no rattlers, but possibly a moccasin, in which case we’ll prompty remove him/her from the near vicinity, or get those unfriendly-to-human cats to form a serious moccasin-huntin’ pack). Did I mention the profuse butterflies, hummingbirds, and insects of every tropical description (north Florida-style)? Plenty of excitement at our place, which i call “Veritas Shambho”–Veritas meaning “Truth” in Latin, and Shambho is  Sanskrit for haven of Bliss. Two attributes—Truth and Bliss—that  we pay serious attention to here, in the house of Lordflea.

I’m thinking at lot about the heart. and how my job: as artist, writer, blogger, creater of environments, mesmerizer, person, etc.—is to help others open their minds and hearts (preferably, their hearts) to new things. Here’s a drawing I did in honor of this subject, taken from what Annie Leibowitz wrote in a book about WHY she creates her stunning photos:

“You have to make art stronger than life so people can feel it. Like Franz Kafka says, ‘You have to take an ax to the frozen sea in people’s hearts.'”

Thinking about the Heart, the Core of things, the central Hub of existence: my week.

I’ve been asking myself this question: What is it, exactly, that I want to achieve by doing this creating, make-art thing, and writing being an important part of it, of course. Lo and behold a few days of thinking this we take a drive in which Carter, my consort, and I pass along a country road see a sign “Heart Island.” I said, “Wow, that’s it! That’s why. That’s what it’s all about.”

To live in the Heart.

And thus…in honor of my fog-clearing revelation, I have changed the name of my autobiography, which I’m now offering on its own special blog–from Dharma Brat, and then Outsider, to…  “Heart Island” … Please visit my new blog www.heartislandstory.com where I invite you to read — in chronological order or not, your choice — excerpts from the book I am now looking forward to publishing, but offer to everyone via this blog.

My life’s goal is to always live on Heart Island.

To bask in the sun of Truth and feel alive with Wonder.

To feel the Warmth of goodness about what’s Happening.

To “see” the Everything Happens for a Purpose.

To tune into the excitement of what’s possible … which is absolutely limitless.

This, my friends, is Heart Island.

But THIS … is what may happen to Heart Island if things don’t change….like NOW!

Consider this image a moment, will you, and see if you can “feel” what it’s about? No, it is NOT an orgy.

here’s what it’s USED to look like, same place, different era (before global warming)

Another thought to wonder about: Global Warming at Glacial Park. For those of you who have been to Glacier Park (Montana) when the summer heat gives a jaw punch to the experience, you’ll “get” this depiction of our environment’s plight. Please send your positive thoughts (also called in some circles, “prayers”) to the healing of our world, to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill resolution in the Gulf, to the resolution of the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. We can solve anything with our combined thoughts — the BEST place to begain to turn negatives into positives. If we all tuned into POSITIVE CHANGE…the world would positively change.

in the Light, with much Love, lordflea