Category Archives: america

78 and counting…this morning I woke up singing

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

This morning I woke up singing, grateful for a new day, a new chance, a new hope and a bright future. I am going to try to never look back on the past four years and dwell there, because, at my advanced age, I have learned that if you drag too much baggage with you, you will miss the train. I much prefer to travel forward.

I am re-inspired and filled with anticipation after yesterday’s monumental Presidential Inauguration celebration here in the United States of America. We needed that! Our favorite leaders gathered in one place, able to smile and even laugh together while the newest among them is sworn into office was a sight for sore eyes. Democracy has revealed her fragility in this first month of our 2021st year. It is not the first time for that nor will it be the last. We have come through a firestorm of hot-tempered violence resulting in death and destruction at the very end of four agonizing years of holding our breath with a dangerously wrong leader at a vulnerable time in history. But we overcame and we learned from it. We have learned volumes of lessons, and the difference between cabbages and Kings.

There are always silver linings that reveal themselves long after a storm. Perspective teaches us.

This time we found one of those silver linings almost immediately.

We have a new poet laureate, seeming far too young for such wisdom and eloquence, but it is often the young who see things most clearly. She will be forever etched in our hearts and minds and when we seek inspiration and the correct words for any spectacular occasion we will look to Amanda Gorman, Youth Poet Laureate 2017. She asked us to seek the light, in her speech titled THE HILL WE CLIMB.

See it in its entirety on UTube.

To the rest of the world we have seemed like an immature foolish young nation as we endured the past four dangerous years, and we are. America is a mere adolescent in the overall scheme of things, plodding along at democracy; an awkward, stumbling, inexperienced, gullible rooky at this democratic experience. A poor judge of character, desperate for an insane quick fix is exactly what we have been, in our youthful desire to prove our maturity. It has only been 245 years since we declared our independence from Great Britain. Not even a nano-second in all of time. We are so very young but it nearly cost us our democracy. Thank god for the Constitution of the United States of America as our guiding light and some courageous leaders to follow it.

America’s faults are many but some reside in dreaming big, because that is what youngsters do. We are often impatient to get things right and yet at other times we are far too patient when we should act quickly. We often lose focus on the bigger picture, and we are indeed a huge picture to focus upon with 3 time zones and many regional lifestyles from sea to shining sea. We are proud to be multicultural. We have dialects. Our country is vast and diverse. We have a dense, rich history of immigrants and dreamers and we value that. We are still trying to incorporate all of those components and more into one cohesive whole with liberty and justice for all and for the most part we succeed. Sometimes we stumble, but people do look up to us for our earnest hope to be better, do better, and offer more with our vast opportunities and resources and our warm and welcoming nature. Everyone but the worst of the worst wants America to be successful in doing that. We try to be worthy of the world’s admiration. We seek to succeed at things we have been led to believe are undoable or practically impossible but our hope is to be the shining example. Some of us kid ourselves into believing that we have our problems under control when we certainly do not. We are still very much a work in progress, and we are not afraid of hard work and dedication. We want to mature into the dreams we have for ourselves.

How History judges us will be determined in time, but in my time, and your time here in the USA I hope we remain determined to do our best, the very best we can possibly do, to be part of the solution instead of the problem. We have an admirable new president now, eager to make positive change and bring us all together, but the responsibility cannot be placed on just one man…..let us all do our part and keep the dreams alive. There is no time like NOW.

Jo Ann Brown-Scott, author and artist

Art – http://www.artistjoannbrown-scott.com and ETSY at JoAnnBrownScottART

Instagram at The Creative Epiphany

Novel A CANARY FLIES THE CANYON on amazon and kindle

Non-fiction THE CREATIVE EPIPHANY and YOUR MIRACULOUS, TIMELESS CREATIVITY both on amazon and kindle

FaceBook – Jo Ann (Rossiter) Brown-Scott

78 and counting…10 Day Travel Photo Challenge, final day!

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

Day Ten A collage of my United States of America

Say his name. George Floyd.

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

Say his name, his family repeats…George Floyd. Say his name. Not even 9 minutes of time that changed the world.

Little did George Floyd know that he was destined to change the world in less than 9 minutes of tragic suffering. He paid the ultimate price; he had no choice in the matter. But he found his place in history through the hatred of a man whose name I choose not to remember. George Floyd is forever the hero of a movement that could easily be the pivotal point, the tipping point, the moment in all time when the history of mankind’s racial hatred toward each other would be forever changed. People have had enough.

Even those of us who proudly claim not to be racist have had our claims put to the test. We still have lessons to learn. We still need to feel the pain of racism on a deeper level. My personal bar of being not a racist is raised considerably higher during this time as I watch night after night of peaceful protesting from people who care enough to put everything else aside and walk for days and days. I feel the pain in the eloquent words from George Floyd’s family as they plea for peace and ask for the violence to stop, because he would not have wanted this. The amazing grace…the deep love….the understanding….the compassion…displayed in their words were like a prayer. Those words were holy.

If you are not asking yourself some questions during this monumental movement then something is missing inside you that needs serious attention. Go deeper. Personalize it. What if George Floyd was your friend, your brother, your child? What if he had done something valuable for you? A simple favor? A big favor? Saved your life? What if he had saved your child’s life?

Maybe he actually has saved your child’s life with his legacy.

Would his blackness make you any less grateful? Would you still feel hatred for him?

Well, George Floyd has done something for you – he has given you a wake up call. An epiphany. A reason to change. He has possibly saved all of our lives with his sacrifice.

In the words of John Lennon  –  IMAGINE all the people.

People are taught to hate by seeing that behavior in the people around them who want them to learn it. Our children and their children must witness a change and be taught to carry the change forward with pride of knowing that the change began with them. For the people who are fiercely carrying the heavy burden of hatred as adults, you need to find help. Open your mind to change, and if you cannot, then the laws of the land will eventually find you.

George Floyd will live in my heart forever. His name will now become a noun that means I am not a racist, I am George Floyd. Say his name.

 

 

 

(Deeper) Inside the Pandemic, Part III

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

blossom by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

Let’s talk about NARCISSISM.

The “I don’t give a sh** about anyone but me” syndrome.

In my previous two blogs during this world pandemic my attempts to describe our current situation were somewhat lighthearted. Today, however I am going to take a look at one particular affliction that might further, and more deeply, explain certain behaviors we are noticing on the daily news and with friends and acquaintances we are in touch with on a more personal level during these difficult times.

I am talking about the personality disorder called Narcissism…….the “it is all about me” disorder, when self-love becomes perverted into an emotional beast. A weapon of destruction.

Self-love is a good thing; we all need it in healthy proportions in order to seek the things in life that we are entitled to have……self-respect, ambition, hope, confidence, love and a shot at having “the good life well-lived”.

Chances are that you all know someone who is so self-involved that you can barely tolerate being around that person for more than just a brief interlude. Their consistent red-flag clue is their never-ending focus on themselves – the focus can be big-as-life-obvious or quite subtle. Their entitlement, their lack of empathy, their inability to offer help or charitable kindness or unconditional love to anyone without expecting something in return is pervasive and impervious to any attempts to change them. Therapists throw up their hands in frustration. The narcissist is highly manipulative; sneaky and subtle, or controlling and bold and every stage in between depending on the situation – always conniving and planning to get their desired results from relationships with people and situations and even countries. Always maneuvering. Everything a narcissist does has an agenda. Remind you of anyone?

You know who they are – these people are often in powerful positions. Think Bobby Axelrod on the tv show Billions. Think about politicians, and presidents and kings. Think about tele-evangelists who live as if they were kings. But then bring it down to a personal level. Think about that person you know who never asks you how you are doing and always steers the conversation back to him or her more-important self. The narcissists are the whiney ones, the “poor me” ones. The ones who always think they are suffering the most egregious of  injustices. They often see themselves as the victims when actually others are suffering far more. They seem blind to the problems of other people. Think about those narcissistic people, during this world pandemic, who congregate in large packed groups and party for hours, think about people who have their grocery cart taken away from them at Costco and are asked to leave the store because they refuse to wear a mask, while yelling about their ego-maniacal rights. Think about the person who walks into a grocery wearing a mask but does not put masks on her three kids.

Narcissists believe the rules do not apply to them. They are usually charismatic people, often good-looking and smart as a whip and always on the lookout for opportunity. They adore being adored. They love parties because they can work the room and grab everyone’s attention. They love compliments – in fact, compliments get their attention fast and if you continue to compliment them over a period of months or years they will probably keep you in their life because they need those compliments like they need air. If you are in the life of a narcissist for very long it is because they need you for something. And possibly you enjoy being there – because on the surface they can be generous and kind and funny and so you enjoy their company. But the selfishness is deeper and more malignant than that. If you wake up one morning and they decide that you can no longer provide a need for them they will find a way to drop you overnight. They will accuse you of being over-sensitive if you speak up. They will look for your weak spots and use them. You are never really their friend because they will eventually turn on you. They do not understand loyalty or unconditional love. They can become controlling and cold and stingy and withholding in a flash because the need is gone. Or perhaps because they suddenly realized that you saw right through them.

Do these few samples of some criteria for being a narcissist remind you of people you know, or people in high governmental positions? Of course they do. But some people are not narcissists to the extreme….they would fall somewhere below the “champion narcissists” on the scale of selfishness and they sort of fly under the radar for a period of time. Maybe they are almost consistently tolerable for most of the time. Maybe you can even live with a narcissist, or marry one or be a best friend with one, for a while, maybe for years. That is only if you are willing to live on the edge of destruction and remain agreeable, because eventually they will tire of you if you begin to even hint about their selfishness and they will begin the process of  tearing you down and kicking you out of their life. Do not kid yourself. You cannot win with a narcissist. In any number of possible attempts you will lose in the long run. If this particular narcissist is someone in the public eye, he will take pleasure in destroying you through blackmail or character assassination. He will put the blame on you.

There are many books about narcissism, some with simple lists of the top ten ways you can spot one in the wild. Sometimes they live and work in clusters. They are nowhere near being an endangered species. You see them everywhere, but especially so now, in a pandemic, as we are all trying to just keep our heads above water, and they do not like what is going on, perhaps because they are not being given the attention they need. There are no rules in their playbook, only agendas. They provide ridiculous distractions and they throw temper tantrums. They hurl insults and threats at innocent bystanders and they actually enjoy leaving a path of destruction wherever they go. They thrive on revenge. Welcome to the age of selfishness and greed where narcissists live in emotional luxury. Watch out for them because they will eat you alive.

Please let’s all vote, and vote for positive change in November.

 

Artist – http://www.artistjoannbrown-scott.com

Instagram – The Creative Epiphany

FB – Jo Ann (Rossiter) Brown-Scott

Novel – http://www.acanaryfliesthecanyon.com

Non-fiction – Your Miraculous, Timeless Creativity

and The Creative epiphany

 

Life Inside the Pandemic

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

IMG_3720  The gorgeous cards in this post are the artwork of my gifted Cuban friend Lazaro Iglesias. You can find more of his artwork on FB under the name of La Vie Boheme. He currently lives in Santa Fe. His art always speaks to me, but especially now.

This pandemic experience feels to me as if we are all trapped in a big crystal globe – really pretty to look at – ethereal – the kind you shake to make snowfall – only it has a more sinister trick up its sleeve. I have never in my life felt more vulnerable and I am sure you feel the same.

Every day something happens that is weirder than the day before. We must remain learners now – not knowers who cannot be enlightened about anything at all. There will be many discoveries ahead and we need to remain open and aware, living in the moment and not losing our places in the plot that continues to unfold by the minute.

Concentration is key, but my mind pings around from one subject to the next like a pinball machine and I cannot come in for a landing on any one thing longer than a mosquito bite at twilight.

I decide I want to use my time to re-read the Constitution. No – maybe the entire Mueller report. Or do I want to search on Pinterest for that recipe for gooey sticky buns. I do manage to read an entire book that I absolutely could not put down titled AMERICAN DIRT by Jeanine Cummins. I have not read such a gripping book in 30 years, I guess because it is so real and relevant to our current world. It is beautifully written, expertly researched and so very uplifting in the bravery its characters display. Please check it out on Amazon and please read it. It is a true page turner.

Maybe I can make myself paint today, I think. While I decide whether or not I can find that illusive creative spark I will have my second Cadbury egg and keep my eye on the third…while I play some older CD’s I have almost forgotten about. John Mayer – I grab for anything of his and wind up with WAITING ON THE WORLD TO CHANGE. Couple minutes later SLOW DANCING IN A BURNING ROOM comes on and he croons “we going down….” I look for something more mindless.

The phone rings a lot. One friend who wants me to read a couple Bible verses that she thinks are pertinent. A second friend who wants to gossip….really? How do you know anything about anyone right now? A third friend, a decade older than I am who wants to talk about the good old days, at this sharp point in time when I am all too aware of how old I am in the time of the world pandemic. Each friend is dear to me and holds a place in my overall scheme of things, but I am not in the mood for the wrong friend at the wrong time.

My brother has a couple drinks every evening and two is enough to jolt out his playful side from the darkness of the day, and he wants me to kid around with him on the phone. I live alone, and I hate to drink alone. It does not take me to a happy place. So I am busy doing other things when he calls and starts his silly routine. Because I appreciate the effort, I endure…..and I do love him. Oh ha ha.

Both my kids now live at altitude, after being raised at altitude in Conifer and Evergreen, CO just up the mountains from Denver. I talk to my son or my daughter, who always make me laugh. Kelly and her husband Jay live at Lake Tahoe – I mean they really live AT IT, on the water. Looking out at the Big Blue all day long in its changing light and seasons will keep anyone stable, I think to myself. That scenery is restorative and cleansing. We have good talks and she does keep me just sane enough, but not toooo sane that I  completely lose my characteristic craziness. It’s a fine balance.

My outdoorsy, “wolf boy,” mountain climbing, 14’er gobbling  son always has a new adventure on the horizon and must have the lungs of a Japanese pearl diver. Every weekend he is Up There climbing something. He must be clean and deep and fine when it comes to lungs. We make a date for him to visit with me next week in the greenbelt space outside my condo. I will order a pizza and have it delivered there, half to him and half to me, 20 feet apart.

The days blend into one long ordeal of time, grinding along and revealing new information every day about what we are up against. I have had some bleak moments, some dismal periods of time that are based in much more than a mere pandemic. There was plenty going on even before the pandemic arrived at my door. But I do see good in each day and spring is coming and the sun continues to rise and set and shine down upon us. Let’s make every effort to keep our chins up, ok?

 

ART   www.artistjoannbrown-scott.com

NOVEL   www.acanaryfliesthecanyon.com – Amazon

NON-FICTION   Your Miraculous, Timeless Creativity and The Creative Epiphany – Amazon

FB Jo Ann (Rossiter) Brown-Scott

Instagram at The Creative Epiphany

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Buffalo Bill Days in Golden, Colorado

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

Welcome to some snippets from Buffalo Bill Days in Golden, Colorado!

Nestled into the foothills just outside of Denver is the authentically western hamlet of Golden, home to the world famous COORS Brewery, the Colorado School of Mines with its giant M on the side of the mountain and the grave of Buffalo Bill located on nearby Lookout Mountain. This slice of Americana came alive last weekend with the parade and festivities celebrating Buffalo Bill Cody. Norman Rockwell would have loved to be there – so many charming homes, Clear Creek running fast through downtown all colorfully confettied with Kayakers and tubers floating along and laughing children everywhere. The local Golden Retriever population was out in force to honor their namesake town. We became caught up in the craziness purely by accident, arriving Saturday morning for what we had planned as a day of plein air painting. But there was no escape after we got to town; who could resist such fun! As you can see, we got so into it that it became inevitable that we commemorate the cowboy genre all around us…..

It is times like these that enrich our lives as we rediscover our childlike wonder and enthusiasm. If you read my new book titled YOUR MIRACULOUS, TIMELESS CREATIVITY, The Care and Feeding of Your Creative Gifts you will understand the importance of tapping into your inner youth, because in doing that your creativity will be re-ignited and amplified. If you would like to keep your creative soul alive and on fire for all the decades of your life do pick up a copy of my book and read all about yourself! All types of creative people – artists, writers, dancers, singers, actors, designers, athletes, chefs – are eager to stay at top performance.

How does one manage to do that for an entire lifetime? Read and you will find yourself  in the pages!

Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle!

Jo Ann Brown-Scott

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FB under the name Jo Ann Rossiter Brown-Scott

Preoccupied with Concern

Posted on by Jo Ann Brown-Scott

The pretty images above were all taken in Singapore, several years ago. Singapore is a lovely, orderly country where there is literally no crime or corruption, where people respect the laws of government and place a high value on history. Singaporeans exist peacefully with each other and their neighbors. The locale is heavenly, the food is fantastic, the architecture is stunning and the people are quite curious about America. The pictures were placed in this blog as eye-candy in hopes that you will read down to the following text.

But these days I am preoccupied with thoughts of destruction. I tried very hard to write something else today but I could not control my seething fingers. I have become so distracted, so preoccupied, almost oblivious to the memories of the way things used to be in our lives, before he was elected. All I see in my future is conflict. I am embarrassed and ashamed of my country for the poor choices we are allowing to be made for us and the new set of despicable values that have become the norm in Washington DC. We have lost our honor, America.

America, bless its ignorant heart, is killing itself. We have become suicidal.

I thought we had become better educated than this. I have become sadly preoccupied with watching America self-destruct as it unfolds in the daily news. There are not enough hours in the day for every single thing that needs our “powerless” attention and our hollow “hopes and prayers”. In a miniscule period, equal to one ten-millionth of the blink of an eye in  the universal scheme of Time, we have lost our democracy to an uninformed, poorly educated, narcissistic, sociopathic, immoral lunatic who takes sick delight in chaos and hatred.

Our fragile world is fish-tailing across time, bobbing and weaving under the pressure of the increasing number of internal negative elements whose common purpose is to take us to our knees and render us helpless to change anything. The path of destruction widens daily as new levels of insidious corruption and malfeasance reveal themselves. Things have always been dicey on this planet; no consistent certainty of which side is winning during the time of our existence. But now… these days, it seems clear that the good side is losing. Before I was preoccupied, I woke up optimistic about humanity. Now a disproportionate portion of my waking hours are spent in terror of what is unfolding right before my eyes.

I am ashamed of my government. It no longer stands for the greater good. It is infested with greed and corruption and hunger for power in epidemic proportions, destroying our foundation in methodical precision. As if by hoards of ravenous grasshoppers on a rampage, we are being chewed down and eaten alive by our elected officials, leaving a barren path of nothingness; devoured by politicians who are getting fat and sick on rage, revenge and the new Republican mantra of apathy toward the people who elected them. Do these people in Washington not have children and grandchildren? Where is their vision for the future? What sense of responsibility do they have, other than to their own egos? For all this their dark legacy will be remembered; they are the destruction-ists.

If you are a person who cannot see it, you are more than just blind; you are self-absorbed, in denial, numb to the truth, ignorant of past history or too lazy to care. You are not preoccupied enough with the current state of affairs. You must fortify your courage and read about this phenomenon. You must be informed. You need to know what we are losing on a daily basis and define just what it is that you personally believe is worth fighting for, not abstractly but in the bloody trenches. Do not remain blind, deaf and dumb to history being made in the daily decisions of ignorant fools.

Major accomplishments that have taken decades to put in place are being vaporized right before our eyes. Not only basic human rights and privileges for every human being, but environmental protections critical to our planet’s survival. Water and air are becoming more and more contaminated but clean water and fresh air are no longer considered a basic human right. Education loses and guns win. Poverty and hunger remain as ostentatious military parades are planned. Parks and national treasures are being destroyed and dismantled for the sake of more oil and minerals. Walls are built and fear is mandated. Does this sound like it could be a description of North Korea or Russia?  Germany during WW II? Hell yes it does, but it is happening here in America.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that a handful of treacherous men and women in high places have taken it upon themselves to promote, follow and enable a warped and perverted leader in the process of accomplishing his murderous agenda.

How can we allow this to happen?

What is wrong with us?

Must we allow everything to be torn down in order to see the light again?

History is always our teacher; nothing good can come from this.