{"id":345,"date":"2010-05-19T11:44:02","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T19:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/onelife\/?p=345"},"modified":"2010-05-19T11:44:02","modified_gmt":"2010-05-19T19:44:02","slug":"the-humble-muralist-and-the-reproachful-buddhist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/?p=345","title":{"rendered":"The Humble Muralist and the Reproachful Buddhist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This island girl&#8217;s latest work-in-progress. I am reminded of the Jung quote Dennis E. Bolen used in his book <em>Kaspoit<\/em>! &#8220;Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual&#8217;s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.&#8221; I&#8217;ve noticed a lot of islanders fleeing their shadows. There are no no shadows in Paradise, no darkness allowed and nothing bad ever happens even as the RCMP investigate the murder of a 17-year old girl. Hypocrites.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Humble Muralist and the Reproachful Buddhist<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Island roads are only as long as the island,<br \/>\ninvariably leading to the vortex every island hosts,<br \/>\nthe village or burg hugging the cove or bay,<br \/>\nthe place where sweaty, unsighted, unrepentant<br \/>\ncocaine and alcohol abusers<br \/>\ngurgle down to, wind up in,<br \/>\nrubbing elbows with the vigorous<br \/>\nTilley-hatted, swamping landowners<br \/>\nwith their nasty habit stench.<\/p>\n<p>Island roads snake lowly<br \/>\nthrough a bucolic landscape;<br \/>\nswaying grasses, expansive elms,<br \/>\nlambs, cows, horses, llamas.<br \/>\nDo not be lulled.<br \/>\nAnxiety stalks the <!--more-->dales and hollows,<br \/>\ntamped down, concealed behind neat,<br \/>\nquaintly rustic wooden fences,<br \/>\nskulking in the cottages<br \/>\ndespite a plethora of yoga, meditation,<br \/>\nacupuncture outlets and pottery classes.<br \/>\nHere there be much intestinal discomfort,<br \/>\ntrembling, ceaseless aspiring,<br \/>\nstraining, toward the light<br \/>\nof heaven, secularists and believers alike,<br \/>\nstrongly believing mostly in our island selves.<\/p>\n<p>Dolly for example is the biggest Buddhist,<br \/>\nthe baddest, blackest sheep<br \/>\nherder on Vancouver Island,<br \/>\nhappily bending over<br \/>\nfor regular shearing<br \/>\nas long as the tax man<br \/>\nis tranquil about it<br \/>\nand she\u2019s back at the ranch in time<br \/>\nto inject herself<br \/>\ninto the t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eates<br \/>\nand with, nectar.<\/p>\n<p>Her resident good egg Greg studies<br \/>\nthe recommended sutras,<br \/>\nworking on his anger,<br \/>\nmoving past it, out<br \/>\nof his townie flat to create<br \/>\nmurals in the great outdoors.<br \/>\nGrandiose depictions,<br \/>\ntowering <em>trompe l\u2019oeil.<\/em><br \/>\nOstentatious? Yes,<br \/>\nbut they have provided<br \/>\nour meek hamlet with an angle,<br \/>\na tourist attraction.<br \/>\nIndeed, they have saved us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This island girl&#8217;s latest work-in-progress. I am reminded of the Jung quote Dennis E. Bolen used in his book Kaspoit! &#8220;Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual&#8217;s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.&#8221; I&#8217;ve noticed a lot of islanders fleeing their shadows. There are no no shadows [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[100,149],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}