While it appears the entire banking system is on the verge of collapse here in the US, for the sake of sanity, I've been trying my best to busy myself with lots of other things. It's becoming more and more apparent that the "lunatics are running the asylum" here in this country and elsewhere in the world.
As an American with one foot still in the legacy financial system and the other in crypto, it's very difficult to know the right thing to do financially. For now I'm staying as diversified as possible and hoping the FED and the SEC come to their senses. The more you learn, the more worrisome it all becomes. All I can say is these last few years have left a lot of us extremely fatigued and seriously considering other options for citizenship.
Cinco de Inko
As I mentioned in my previous post, Cinco de Inko, I scheduled a new tattoo session for May 5th. The centerpiece of this new tattoo is the Sri Yantra (you can read more about the meaning behind it here
I decided to have the Sri Yantra the focal point of a larger mandala. Greg, my friend and tattoo artist created the transfer of the piece on his computer, applied it to my arm as a guide, and immediately got to work.
This is what it looked like after about an hour in the chair.
This is my seventh appointment with Greg and each time I'm amazed by his talent and how fast the hours go.
After two hours the line work was completed and then came another hour of shading.
The needles used for the shading are a little larger and you definitely feel it more.
This is the final result after three hours. I'm thrilled with the results. After about seven days of healing the shading within the mandala will fade to a light grey and there will be much more contrast between it and the darker line work. It always amazes me how Greg can produce such precise and straight lines while tattooing. He said it took him nearly a decade to get to the level where he was fully confident as a tattooist. The amount of time that artists have invested in their craft is really what you're paying for when you get body art like this.
Next, I'll have the mandala on my upper arm connected to this Sri Yantra in some way. I haven't quite decided how I want to do it yet.
First Long-ish Bike Ride of the Year
Also this week, my good friend Romeo and I decided to attempt our first bike ride of the year. This was the very first time I've ridden more than five miles on my Brompton.
The Brompton performed way better than I expected. It was fast, nimble, and very comfortable on the, nearly twenty mile journey.
Romeo and I have been friends for over ten years now and have logged hundreds of miles of cycling in that decade.
It was a incredible ride made better by friendship, lunch, and a few beers at Malcolm Yards. I tried the Korean Chicken sausage from Abang Yolo. It was delicious and gave me all of the fuel I needed for the ride back home.
I slept like a baby after burning all of those calories in the sunshine. I would do this every day if I could. Cycling might just be the best antidote to the maelstrom of f*ckery in our world today.
All for now. Trust your instincts, invest in you, live boldly, and take chances.
~Eric Vance Walton~
(Photos are original.)
Are you interested in joining Hive? If so, click on this link to sign-up and begin sharing your thoughts and ideas with our global community.
Poetry should move us, it should change us, it should glitch our brains, shift our moods to another frequency. Poetry should evoke feelings of melancholy, whimsy, it should remind us what it feels like to be in love, or cause us to think about something in a completely different way. I view poetry, and all art really, as a temporary and fragile bridge between our world and a more pure and refined one. This is a world we could bring into creation if enough of us believed in it. This book is ephemera, destined to end up forgotten, lingering on some dusty shelf or tucked away in a dark attic. Yet the words, they will live on in memory. I hope these words become a part of you, bubble up into your memory when you least expect them to and make you feel a little more alive.
Pick up a copy of Ephemera today on Amazon.
Most of us have experienced a moment of perfect peace at least once in our lives. In these moments we lose ourselves and feel connected to everything. I call these mindful moments. Words can’t describe how complete they make us feel.
These moments are usually fragile, evaporating in seconds. What if there was a way to train your mind to experience more of them? It’s deceptively easy and requires nothing more than a subtle shift in mindset. My new book, Mindful Moments, will teach you to be much more content despite the chaos and imperfect circumstances continuing to unfold around you. Upgrade your life experience today for only $15.99 on Amazon.com.