The ipad Forest

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack....................

Been so busy! But let's get right to it. A couple months ago I finally broke down and bought the new iPad. And you say, who cares? I come to this blog to escape the modern world. Or more likely, what are you talking about, I only came here to lift an image and I'm confused by all this. Well bear (pun intended) with me, I will get to the forest part.

Other then driving through Flagstaff a few times in the past year, there have been no forests for me to return home to. I feel like a starving, lost orphan. And it gets even worse. Recently I've accepted a wonderful teaching position somewhere else and I will be moving....but even further away from the trees. I'm moving here....

Fascinating, yes.....but not a single tree can be seen for miles. If I'm really super lucky, there might be one toughing it out in the teacher housing parking lot. So I left an area of few trees-to none. At this rate, my next locale will be on the moon. But you know what, I will be okay with it and here is why. I may have talked in another post about how being in a forest for even a brief amount of time seems to suck the mundane thoughts out of your head and you can eventually enter into a meditative state. In environments like the one above you end up in an esoteric state. This is literally because there is nothing else to visually fixate on: Cashlands, Walmarts, or dollar stores. All there is, is you and the vast landscape. After looking out at this for awhile your throughts natuarally drift into concepts of timelessness, creation theories, and the ancients. You go deep, real deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep............like this deep:

The other thing that is going to get me through my forestlessness is my iPad. Why am I saying such things? Well for starters, my wallpaper is a deep forest scene with ferns all over it. I have every forest and nature app available. I have forest games, songs-you name it. With the new retina techonology, the visuals are like you could just reach your hand in and pick a wildflower. And my iPad goes with me everywhere! Not intending this to turn into a commercial for Apple, I love my iPad for the places it can virtually take me. At anytime I can touch the Netflix app and watch a documentary about forests or national parks with forests. I can get on a travel sight and book my next vacation to a forest- Sequoia National Forest (or park-whatever) this October via Amtrak- here I come! I can bid on forest books on ebay and Amazon, and I can watch videos about forests on YoutTube. I can pass on the wonder of nature to my friends on facebook with the amazing forest pics I post on there. I can draw nature scenes on drawing apps like ArtRage and post those too. A forest in one hand, in my purse, putting me to sleep at night with my campfire scene alarm clock with cricket sounds.   Seriously, it's like I carry a mini forest around me everywhere, as I'm always in a forest in my mind anyways....      sidenote- I hope I'm still kinda normal.

I guess living treeless, if nothing else, helps you revere all the trees even more. I can also look at it this way, I will totally be free from any danger trees can cause I guess, like these....

Because I've totally tried that make my apartment look like a forest thing. It just didn't cut it no matter how much I tried. In a real forest I wouldn't have to clean up my crap everywhere, or hear my neighbors pound up and down the steps all day. See what I mean below? Not that same nature-y feeling.

Of course people who are rolling in the money do a much better job of it....

They probably even have a buzzing bug sound from the speakers and mushrooms growing out of bear poop somewhere. Anyway, I've moved every year for the past six or seven years so and I'm sick of it so I've only kept what I absolutely need to survive. Actually by the time I move to the next apartment in August, it will decorated like this...

as long as I can get a projector that's hooked up to my forest-laden iPad, I will be okay.

Are Forests Really Evil?

You know, I just don't buy it. How could a forest be haunted or evil? It's just people's imaginations running wild when walking at night. Forests are so beautiful and peaceful! How could they harbor evil in them when all they have is plants, trees, and cute wildlife?
If you believe in the unseen world of fairies and elves (and I'm not saying I do...), than they could only ever also be seen as magical! Every time they show a haunted forest on TV, especially this time of the year in October, I just see a dark beautiful forest. It's funny how there is never any real evidence of an evil forest on any of the paranormal shows these days, but that topic will definitely be another blog post.

However, in paranormal legends and folklore, there does seem to be something called "land spirits." These are spirits that may have lived in the area for a long time, died, and because they were so attached to the land they never left. This is probably why so many American Indian ghosts hang around on sacred sites forever. They are so tied to land and they don't care if it has a strip mall on it now. So maybe this is how there could be forest spirits. Apparently, some land spirits may have never lived at all, they are just unknown entities. But I still think that if you were a spirit that dwelled in a forest for eons you would eventually be overcome by the tranquility of the forest and could care less about scaring anyone. But then again, what do I know? And when you think of land spirits, think more or the one pictured below....

and less of the ones in the next picture......





But now that I think about it, if I have my choice of what to do in the afterlife, maybe I will be a forest ghost too.Maybe I could look something like this....

 I hope I'll be that thin,and hopefully have better boobs too.  But not an evil one! I'll just wonder around the woods all day and help out lost people and stuff. But if someone tries to cut down one of my trees I'll do all kinds of ghostly crap to them. Hey, maybe that's why so many woods are "haunted" already?

The High Definition Forest

                                                                              

Recently I realized I had a few extra bucks in my pocket, and despite all my impending financial obligations I decided I would purchase the most necessary of items, a television. Okay, first off, I'm not one of those who sit by the TV and watch sitcoms, soaps and sports all day. I'd rather self-induce a coma before I'd turn into one of those people. I don't actually see any difference in a coma and people that watch that stuff all day. Whew, I know I'm going to rack up a few angry comments on that one!

But anyway, I'm actually a History/Discovery/Science/PBS channel junkie. And yes, I do realize how many other people could relate that to being in a coma.  However, I simply must be kept up to date on the latest low-budget docudrama. So when I packed up every necessary thing I owned in my tin can on wheels and moved to Arizona recently, I arrived without any TV access. At first I thought, well I can handle it, I have the laptop and Internet access. Then I realized that the awesome WiFi signal that my landlord promised was in reality, a serious piece of crap. It "mysteriously stop working well" around the time I arrived. Oh, and my landlord doesn't know what to do about it since the cable/Internet company closed their office and he can't figure out, or handle, automated phone lines.




So I sort of hacked into someone else's signal, for as long as that lasts. When I say hacked, I mean they left it unsecured with no password requirement. This allows me to watch half a YouTube video and a whole movie off of Netflix that is interrupted five times so it can reload. Well needless to say, that is getting very old. I guess I'm either spoiled or old fashioned, or both, when I say I want the good old TV format back.

So I wander in to my local Best Buy to see what's available. You pretty much have to buy a HDTV these days, if you don't, you set off some sort of silent alarm at the store. Then by the time you get home with your back alley, anciently styled relic made in Taiwan, a bunch of men jump out of a white truck with white uniforms and take you to a looney bin. So you might as well appear normal and go with the times with this one, especially since HDTVs are not as expensive anymore. You can buy a decent name brand HDTV for about $300. The only drawback is being that the TV for that price is the size of a postage stamp.


Well when I went into the store, I was hellbent on something cheap and somewhat modern. I was NOT going to overspend. Now, I don't want to accuse Best Buy of the old bait and switch technique, but it was sure funny how they couldn't find the same exact TV I asked for that was plastered in their Labor Day Sale ad. OH, and DON'T YOU DARE try and buy a TV there, or anywhere without buying the protection/service plan! The salespeople will tell you that not buying one is like making an unholy pact with the devil and his minions and then getting it up the you know what later. The sales guy who was helping me must of mentioned it a few hundred times. He literally said, and I'm not making this up in the least, "If you don't buy our Black Tie Service Plan (or whatever it's called), and your TV breaks, then you're out the money and you got Jew-ed down." After I recuperated from the shock of him saying that, I realized what a bummer it was that I didn't have a microphone on me just then so I could walk out of there with anything I wanted.




So back to the getting what I went in there for part. While waiting on the Hitler's youth (the 18 year old sales guy) to check something for me, I saw it. A big plasma 52" wall mountable TV with 3D capability! I said to myself, "self, you shouldn't go over there and try on those 3D glasses and look at that stunning underwater coral reef show because you can't afford to buy it and you'll just be disappointed and disgusted."  Well I don't know why I ever talk to myself because I never listen to myself. I really think I should, because myself is wise and thinks of best courses of action to take, then I go off and do the exact opposite of what myself told me to do.

Of course I go and look at the coral reef video on the 3D plasma TV that I couldn't afford and I almost cried. It was so beautiful! A gorgeous lion fish came out at me from the TV screen and paraded in front of my eyes. I swear I could almost feel the sway of its long fin-like stingers and faintly tasted a bit of saltwater in my mouth. There for a little bit, it seemed like the lion fish waved one one its' long flowing fins out at me to beckon me to come in his world and stay a bit! And I'm standing there at Best Buy, with Tom Cruise-styled 3D glasses on reaching out to this fish telling him "I will some day, I will some day!"

Kind of like this, but only a lion fish.

So yes, I left Best Buy and the Hitler's youth's' assistance and I was very disappointed. I thought to myself, no other TV will do now. I then headed to Walmart to see if they had anything like that but at a more affordable price. Well you can imagine where this is going to lead. First I had to wait for the one electronics employee (during a Labor Day Sale) to finish activating some one's phone for fifteen minutes. I'm not sure this employee spoke English or understood what I said, but he did sort of tell me that he'll check in the back when I inquired over a certain model. Ten minutes later walking at old-lady-with-a-walker speed, and all the while checking his cell phone, he eventually tells me "we don't have it" and that was it as he continued on past me.

But at that point I guess I didn't care anymore anyway. That cheapo Vizio 3D TV I was looking at wasn't a plasma and no majestic creation of nature swam out at me, beckoningly. I left Walmart disappointed, but also I left with two hundred bucks less then what I walked in there with because of buying other miscellaneous crap I guess I needed.

Many lessons to be learned in this post I guess. The main one I'm getting out of this one is to save the money I need this time to get what I want without credit or other means, even if it takes awhile. I won't settle for less, by damn. I'm getting that 3D Plasma TV if it kills me, it's stuck in my mind now and won't leave. Now I'm thinking that the lion fish subliminally planted it there.

The Tired Forest

For those two people who've noticed that I haven't blogged in awhile, I been really busy and a whole lot of tired. I'm so tired, I'm tired of being tired. In fact, I'm so exhausted that I think I might actually blog about it so I can express it even more! The past month has been strange, wonderful and frustrating all at the same time. And speaking of forests, if I were a tree right now, I would be this tree....

But it is so good to be back blogging. I checked my stats before I began writing this post, and I have a thousand more hits than the last time I posted! That just proves it, there are some people in the world that want forest-oriented blogging! Maybe now, I've finally found my niche in life. Anyway, I think I'm on a easier trail now. I'm getting less and less exhausted everyday and I'm actually starting to enjoy my new job and my new apartment. I now make enough money so that I can afford to drink human jet fuel everyday (energy drinks) and that really helps to transform me in the morning from a useless ball of dead plasma to a functional human being. Yeah, they may kill me one day, but at least I will have accomplished something by then.

Six hours is better than sleeping in a box for a lifetime because I can't get my butt out of bed to go to work. What I don't understand is why they don't sell energy, or more specifically, caffeine, in transdermal patches. Then you don't have that energy drink taste to deal with, you know that old/fruit punch/urine taste? To me, it still tastes better than coffee. The only coffee I like is Starbucks Iced Mocha, which you have to run a ponzi scheme to be able to afford everyday. One time I found a bag of coffee I liked. It was sold at a nature gift shop and it was nine bucks a bag. It was shade grown and all that in the Amazon. I think it benefits the Audubon Society. So with your morning plasma, you can also buy yourself some eco-do-gooder ego. But alas, that stuff is too hard to find.

Actually, what I really need now that things have calmed down a bit is some good old forest therapy.

This is a real bummer because I live no where near a forest now. I hope I didn't just disillusion anyone out there who thought I ran this blog from a little, hollowed-out tree house in the deep woods. I'm actually right smack in the middle of the desert. What to do, what to do. I turned to the Internet for suggestions. This is what I found:

These are shoes you can put on to make you feel like you're standing in a forest. Wow. It looks like a bum made shoes out of hard plastic packaging and added moss for comfort. I hope you'll forgive me that I didn't take the time to provide a link or a price for those (I was too tired).

So then I thought, I just need to create a small nature sanctuary like this one.

In order for me to do this:

1. It would cost over a thousand dollars.

2. It would look like a pile of crap in two days.

3. It would turn into an internal bug exhibit in hours.

4. I would have to drive a half an hour to the nearest assembly of trees and somehow put an magically invisible enchantment over the area so no one would see it.

Which leads me to another rant. I would love to decorate my apartment with lots of fake trees and fake greenery to create a forest-like atmosphere. So can anyone tell me, why the hell does fake leaves cost so much? Seriously, you can buy a cell phone for what it cost to buy a decent fake tree.

= big rip off

So I guess I'll have to settle for traveling to the forest, instead of trying to bring it to me. It's time for me to get in that old clunker of mine and blow something bad for the environment out of my exhaust so I can extol nature. I could totally use a week in a place like this below, where I can just sit by the window and stare out at nothing but real trees, real nature for awhile.....and also hope I don't crash down and roll to China.

The Metaphysical Forest: When will it let me in?

 

Even though I grew up in a particular religious tradition, I've always been kind of a metaphysics junkie. I remember being a little kid scouring the adult paranormal section at the Miamisburg, Ohio library for ghost stories because I thought the children's section was too juvenile. And I also have to admit I love the cheesy kind of new age art like the picture above. This kind of genre will never end up at Sotheby's or on the cover of Modern Art, but I love it's other-worldliness and it's "age of Aquarius" color scheme.

Even though there's a lot of kookiness (UFOs, pyramid hats) in new age philosophy, there's a lot of non-traditional truth I believe. Metaphysics fully embraces each new discovery in quantum mechanics. I love this about the new age movement, it adapts with new scientific discovery, even if it takes those adaptations a little out of field sometimes. Metaphysics asks all those really "out there" questions that the "normal" people of the world never would. I do try not to take my metaphysical inquisitiveness too far though.

For me personally, life is one big metaphysical journey. I'll hop on any new age bandwagon that comes my way, at least for a little while, to see what's on it and where it might take me. Then eventually I'll want another perspective and then I'll wait for another new age bandwagon to roll by and I'll hop on that for awhile. Assuredly, I come across some serious BS along the way, but it's the ride that's important!

There are a few things that I just can't figure out though. The first one is Chakras. I think it's an interesting concept, but yeah, whatever......

I mean, really, what are you supposed to do with these supposed power parts on your body? All I know so far is that you're supposed to keep them aligned and there are a lot ways you can supposedly do that like with yoga and stuff. Apparently, if you're feeling funky, out of sorts, or even sick, your chakras can be misaligned. When I have these symptoms, it usually means I need to procure some caffeine, FAST. Or maybe I'll just sit outside in the sun for a few minutes and clear my head. If I'm feeling really discombobulated, I'll drive all the way to my Doctor so he can look at me like I'm a hypochondriac and tell me that he'll run some tests "if you want me to". But anyway, I really started questioning the importance of chakras when I saw a thing online somewhere that was talking about the chakras of trees. Now c'mon, even a tree hugger like me has got to be skeptical about that.

Poor tree can't even do yoga if it's chakras aren't aligned! And speaking of yoga, that's another thing that hasn't won me over. Of course yoga isn't really "new age", people have been doing this for centuries. But a whole lot of new age type people do it. I tried it once, all it felt like to me was that I was stretching out seriously underused muscles. The spiritual, mind focus thing was totally lost on me. Mostly because my mind was more focused on the fact that with the next unpredictable sway of my butt way up in the air, it was concussion time.

This thought leads me to my new theory that the only reason people take yoga classes is to show their life is balanced enough to afford it, and to shop for future flexible dates.

Below: That would have to be one sturdy tree limb, or I'd be in a permanent yoga pose called "The Coma".

Okay, Okay, lots of people have actually said that yoga really helps them out in life and even helps their back from hurting. I'd personally rather hop into a nice, clean hot spa. Now on to my next metaphysical misunderstanding, astral projection.

Wow, would I love to be able to do this! I could ride Pirates of the Caribbean anytime! And then I would do all kinds of things like check out what's in Area 51, become an amateur underwater archaeologist, and have on-stage tickets to any concert I want. But no matter what techniques I try, I come up with nada. I've tried the countdown method, and the focus on the flame method. I've thought "fly! fly! fly!", but to no avail. There were sometimes when I had some pretty lucid dreams that some people might consider to be astral projections, but who knows with my weirdo psyche. Gods willing I'll get it all figured out before the new age apocalypse, 2012.

 

If not, the good thing about the new age world is that you can always find some professional help.

See! Nothing to worry about. I have to go now, I'm going to drive up in the forest and lay crystals all over my body for a pick-me-up!

 

Forest of Illusions

     Do you ever walk in a forest and see something that you thought you saw but didn't? Have you ever seen something in the forest that looked like something and you wished it would come to life? Have you ever been scared by something in the forest and saw it was just an eerie assimilation of branches and rocks? That's just another one of the many magical things about the forest, how its' presence is shown depends on the eye of the beholder.

     And one's perception of it is very telling. For example, if you are distrustful of nature, you will probably see a lot of signs of danger. Such as footprints of a stalker or shadows of a rabid raccoon. If you're an "in-sync-with-nature" kind of person, you'll probably see patterns in fallen leaves and smile at the sight of a snake curled up and basking in the sun. I'm in this last category that I'm about to describe, the "mind-runs-away-with-nature" type. If I'm out in the forest and I see a little hovel caused by a pile of collapsed branches, I imagine it's a portal to another dimension. If I hear what I think to be footsteps all around me, I think that I'm surrounded by all the spirits that live in the forest.

      So the following are some forest-y type illusions that you might like. Some are better than others, and as usual with pictures, my two cents are included.

I think he's about to say something.

                 Deer, as in one or more deer?

 Delightful forest setting, or creepy skull!

I see you!

Yikes! Stripes!

"Oh, that's just the fog looking like that kid I beat up in high school who was going to come back and haunt me til I die someday. Nothing to be frightened of."

"Well this looks like a peaceful spot to camp, kids."

This fox seems to think he's not alone.

Illusion? Maybe. But what else in nature could mimic giant red lips and realistic blue eye balls? This is probably more better off in the fantasy art realm.

 

A rare example of how someone's butt could end up as a nose.

Ridin' on into Heebie-Jeebieville! Probably not a good place to see a man about a horse (snicker, snicker).

This forest makes me feel like I've been a naughty girl. I'll spare you the explanation.

"I keep getting this strange notion that we forgot something.... Oh GOD! We left our kid at the rest stop!!!!

 

Lols, I think I just might have to do another forest illusion post someday. Until then, it's back to the illusion that I call life. C'ya all, I hope your week is fantastically unreal.