The Gift Of Bliss

"Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention." ~ Deepak Chopra

Good morning; afternoon; and evening friends and fans! Namaste. I know I've mentioned I've wanted to create a spiritual blog and write a lot of my own personal experiences. There's several things I want to disclose in this particular blog and how I respond to every little thing. I was outside saging one of my pink quartz crystals (have two pink quartz crystals) and have to redo my intentions that I wanted to "program" into the pink quartz because there was something I wanted to do on my own at home for a change. Since it's my birth month, I want it to be about promoting self-love since I'm going to be hitting 40 this year and it'll be my own personal theme this year. Well, my theme for this year will be promoting self-love; health; wealth; prosperity; and abundance. As I've mentioned somewhere in a past blog that if you don't love yourself, along with the good, the bad and the ugly than how can you possibly have anyone else love you? I hope in some way shape or form it makes sense for those reading this blog. You don't necessarily need to be a psychologist to figure this one out after all and in the end it's not other people for you to blame but self-love has to come from within and if you can't love yourself then I don't know what to say. I'm not a fan of blaming others because you have to hold yourself accountable for your own actions at the end of the day. If you don't hold yourself accountable for your own actions and thoughts then who in the world will? 🤔 If you're able to love yourself in a positive way then you'll attract people who love you for you, nothing else and I haven't had that positive experience in my own life because I've always had people take advantage of my unconditional love. After I came back in, my mother thought sage "smelled" like weed and how in the world do you get sage from weed? Go figure! Nonetheless, maybe she needs to smoke weed to loosen up so she's not so uptight. So this is a start with saging my crystals and I have other crystals to sage, ones specifically for employment and finances. At the end of the day, I just need to sage a lot of the things I have and hopefully my mom goes to Atlantic City, New Jersey overnight so I can spiritually cleanse the entire apartment. I'm sure she's going to say sage smells like weed, go figure and no point of explaining it to her whatsoever because she wouldn't understand! There are things that I've been thinking about when it comes to spirituality as of late and it's been an interesting journey for the past year or so. Although I've always been into witchcraft since high school but never did anything with it until the last two years. Just know that I'm spirituality sensitive, meaning if you attempt to do something sinister to me, I will know and will do whatever I have to do to protect myself. Since I'm not getting paid for my own spiritual work and not sure how many people believe in this line of spirituality without thinking I've lost my mind. I'll hold off on the wishful thinking.

"Like success, failure is many things to many people. With positive mental attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, and a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order to prepare to try again." ~ W. Clement Stone

Another thing is I had a dream over the summer that an ex-friend had came back to New York from Atlanta, Georgia and I believe it was my son, Stephan who told me that this chick, Nargiss and her son, Amen had came back to New York because life in Atlanta was too much for her to "handle." I doubt my mother would have made mention of it for whatever reason she has and I'm contemplating whether if it's worth it to do spiritual things to Nargiss to keep her and her son, Amen in Atlanta, Georgia for good! I don't need her or her son anywhere near myself; my son and family. If need be, I'll head to Original Botanica in the Bronx for a Saint Alejo candle in the upcoming weeks. I had that dream on September 5. 2022 and it's not going to be my first time and nor will it be my last time I'll have these types of dreams. This chick who was once my "friend," I know she's still butt hurt over the email I've sent her two years ago just because I spoke the truth and she didn't like it (boo-hoo). Hey, it's facts of life and technically I didn't "throw it in" their faces and they can continue to live in denial all their lives but let's see how long this silent treatment will last. As mentioned before, if I could have done things differently, I would have waited until New Year's Eve to send the email by adding just enough that it'll be good enough for me. Anyway, let's see what happens whether if this dream I had will manifest into reality and I hope it stays as a dream because I don't need Nargiss coming around while I am at work as she's done in the past and I have to hear it from my son, Stephan.

"We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own." ~ Cesar Chavez

I've been looking on YouTube regarding prosperity bowls and there is an item of interest at Original Botanica in the Bronx. I already have the crystals needed and will have to head to Namaste Bookshop for crystals as I'm figuring out exactly where to place my prosperity bowl and it's going to be very interesting putting together a prosperity bowl until I'm able to purchase a 35mm film camera than eventually upgrade to a digital camera. For now, I just want to focus on getting a film camera and improving my photography. Yeah, I understand that digital photography would be way more economical than going down that nostalgic route of film photography where you'd be spending more money on buying film and dropping film off at places such as B&H for film processing. All in all, I feel that film have that look that digital photography lacks. I'm well aware of how expensive film photography really is in contrast to digital photography.

Blessed be,

Jennifer

College Dreams

"A high school diploma will no longer be sufficient. But that post secondary education does not have to be a four-year university or a four-year college. It can be a career technical education, vocational education, community college." ~ Raja Krishnamoorthi

Good morning; afternoon; and evening friends and fans! Namaste. With the mandates, having to be fully vaccinated in order to attend your child's school event (such as graduations, PTA meetings); hold down a weekly/bi-weekly income in the New York City area or even attend any CUNY and I also believe all SUNY colleges, you'd have to be fully inoculated in order to attend college. I pray that this does not effect those who are attending online courses and if this is my only available option at the moment, I'm open to the experience, although I prefer going in person. I do miss the experience of being around people in my own age group. Nonetheless, I don't mind being around people of all ages but not for a long period of time. At the end of the day, as long as I get to have a career that I truly enjoy and something that is fulfilling because I'm used to being pushed to the slide like I don't exist, like I'm shit, nobody, someone without talent. Furthermore, I realize I have so much to offer in this life and not many people can see that, maybe they do see it but they choose to keep me in a cage locked up keeping me from flourishing talent wise or they simply turn a blind eye as to what I can do. Maybe I'm doing this to myself, who knows and I don't believe in blaming people because I would rather raise above it and go on with my life. I don't feel the need to get into other people's business, I don't expect people being all nosey in mine and I'll be fine as long as I stay in my own lane. Meaning, what I do during my spare time is none of your damn concern, however, I do appreciate your concern (just know that I am perfectly capable of keeping myself out of trouble) and whatever you do during your spare time is none of my concern. I need to make my own decisions in life, whether if you agree with it or not and at the end of the day, I can only be me. As much as I would love to go back to go back to school, at the time of this blog, I unfortunately cannot go back to college because I'm not inoculated and for the time being, college will have to be on the back burner until further notice. I hope the mandates in all schools will be lifted so I can go on to earning an Associate's Degree from LaGuardia Community College so I can transfer to another school such as Fashion Institute of Technology; The New School | Parsons School of Design; International Center of Photography; or even New York Film Academy for a Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Photography. I've read articles on fellow photographers who are in the photography industry who have not finished college and they've made a steady career as a photographer from the time they've decided that college wasn't for them. I'm contemplating whether if I should also major in business once when I have my Bachelor's of Fine Arts and I am shying away from business because of calculus [and all things relating to arithmetic]. I'm leaning more towards Fashion Institute of Technology for photography.

On the other hand, I'll shy away from business as a major because I only have a fourth grade math level and it sucks when all things mathematics are my kryptonite. I'm not all that confident with my math and no matter how many times or showing me different ways of solving a math problem that is so simple for someone else to solve but a challenge for me to understand on so many levels. Whenever I look at a math problem in algebra, I'm instantly confused and it's hopeless to explain to me and anything to do with reading and writing I would consider my super powers. It's not easy having a learning disability and a speech impediment but it doesn't mean that I'm incompetent or any less human than the next person who does not have a developmental disability. I know what I know and no one can take away my knowledge and personal experiences because that makes me who I am today! I figured with having a college degree in business will help me become successful but I doubt I need a degree in business and it will be very interesting to have my own photography business here in New York City. If I play my cards right, I hope to expand my business and every three to four years sounds good to me to slowly expand since I don't need for my business to collapse like a deck of cards.

At the moment, as much as I want to go back to school but can't due to the [vaccine] mandate and it's going to be a bit of a challenge because I'm a photography major at LaGuardia Community College. Therefore I don't have access to the darkroom at school if I were to take online courses, on top of the tuition and cost of text books; film; chemicals needed to develop my film or make prints; cost of special Ilford paper used in the darkroom; and transportation costs, it's not going to leave me with much to go to Bushwick Community Darkroom. If I'm not mistaken, it's $25 per hour and I'd have to contact them for the correct information but don't quote me on that exact price just yet until I get the correct info from them. It would make my life so much easier if I created my own darkroom at home, it would be a headache to set up, however, it'll be worth it but again a headache of having to properly dispose of the chemicals used when developing your own film or making prints. It's going to be one expensive bill on my end! 😬

Blessed be,

Jennifer