You Are The Kind Of Person You Are.

There is more to Spring than just the Bee's Dreams of a Meadow. Sunshine warms the petals of forgotten roots. Wildflowers sway gently, the breeze whispers secrets old, Life Blooms, and Love Unfolds

If you sift through and break yourself down to it's smallest parts. What would they actually look like honestly? I think some of us would automatically respond, positively. And insincerely. Not honestly.

I think it would all do us well to better inspect ourselves.

That woman in the photo is my Mother and that child is me. As you can see I am momma's son. I share her eyes, her hair, and her sense of humor. If you have ever laughed with me. You have laughed with her too. She is the presence who has always had my back. Even if she did not always agree. My Mother. Who had me at 13. Her life barely beginning , already committed to loving someone as small as me. I was a premature baby, very tiny. She was my first best friend, who probably cried more than I did on my first day of school. She wasn't able to finish her schooling but she went back and got her G.E.D. so no one could ever say to her "You Failed, You Didn't Succeed" she set her kids up with a model, and something to try to achieve. They say the love between Mother and Child is sacred, being known and loved by her I'd have to agree. There is no sacrament I could give to her that wouldn't be trinkets compared to what she gave to me. My Mother, who held me and called me precious. She, herself, however is something I will always treasure. Thank you, Mom. I love you dearly.

BEKKATHYST FIRST GIVEAWAY IN AUSTRIA

~This giveaway is in no way affiliated with Tumblr.~

Please read thoroughly before entering!

Hello lovely Tumblr folk! It’s that time again- I have a giveaway for you all. This is our first giveaway since we have finally finished moving and are now settled in Austria - and back in business! 💜

We have an online store that could use your support!

About us: My business is a small, family run establishment that I started here on tumblr in 2013. I’ve been lucky enough to grow to the point where this supports me, my partner, and our daughter. In the US we also had a brick-and-mortar shop in which I employed my mom and a few of my siblings. However, we closed it to be able to move to Austria, my home country! 💜 I strived to put compassion and ethics above all else in my business, and I hope that shines through. We have a website but also run many fun sales directly here on Tumblr.

This giveaway will have two winners.

What the first winner receives:

The assortment of crystals pictured above! If the winner chooses, I can also include some tea and cookies local to me here. There are 14 crystals in total and a handmade (by me) rainbow moonstone pendant. The full retail value is about $450

A $100 gift card that can be used for our online store or tumblr sales!

What the second winner receives:

A $50 gift card that can be used for our online store or tumblr sales!

Rules:

You must be 16 or older. (If under 18 you MUST have parent’s permission)

You can be from anywhere in the world! I am shipping from Austria.

Shipping is entirely free, I will cover it. But if you live in a country that that charges import tax, you are responsible for it. If it gets sent back to me, you will need to pay shipping to have it sent again.

You must be following me, so you can get updates if anything about the giveaway changes.

Please check out our online shop!

DO NOT tag this post as giveaway. That will risk the notes getting messed up, and this will be ruined for everyone.

Reblog this post to enter. Likes count as additional entries. No giveaway or spam blogs. If you reblog on a side blog, let me know in the tags what the name of your blog is that you’re following me with.

Please don’t spam people with reblogs- limit 2 reblogs per blog per day.  

At the end, each entry will be assigned a number and the winner will be chosen by a random number generator.

The giveaway ends Tuesday, August 30th, 2022.

The winners will be messaged and must respond with their full name and address within 24 hours, or a new winner will be chosen.

Please respect me and my rules, and have fun!

Damn the stars that shine. Damn the lies that were mine. Damn the lover’s love.

I dreamt of a dark and failing world. Where I met an Artist who wept for his wife. "Oft people believe that better is a lingered life. I tell you different now, which of these would you prefer Rotting or Dying. Dead is better."

And later in this dream a giant disembodied hand that blazed and burned, took the man's aisle and turned it upside down. There he was burned and crucified. Leaving only ashes of an artist and a painting of his wife.

I woke up with the strangest feeling of loss, grief and regret this afternoon and it's lingered still. I thought of this exchange once when visiting with my parents. I sat at the dinner table in the kitchen while my Mother was making dinner. I was complaining about some problem I had, "I really wish I had listened to my Father." My Mother asked "Why? What did he say?", and I admitted back to her "I don't know I wasn't listening." I thought about Daedalus his son Icarus in the Fields of Asphodel colliding into one another in their grief, both now just souls on the other's side of River Styx, their version of the hereafter. Daedalus holding his son's face in his hands, with streams of tears running from his eyes. "My son I am so sorry" he would say over and over again. "No Father, do not be sorry, it was me I should have listened". Daedalus in his grief and regret "I only wanted you to be free.", Icarus would try to reassure his father despite them both already being dead "I was, I was free, even if only for a moment, from the sun to the sea."

I'm just gonna talk here for a minute. I've been stuck at home a lot these last few days quarentining. I just have had thoughts I want to share I suppose and when you are single and live alone in the middle of a global pandemic, sometimes it's hard to find an ear. Like seriously TL;DR who wants to be lectured at. So sit with me for a minute or scroll past this I guess. A lot of us are probably familiar with the famous Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh as an Artist. He was born in 1853 to a middle class family in the Netherlands. He was kinda solemn and quiet. He worked as an art broker for a while in London, and even was a missionary for a time in Belguim. Before becoming a full time painter in France. In his life time he made over 800 Oil Paintings mostly in the last two years he was alive. He wasn't successful as an Artist until after his death. In life he only sold one painting. He was known to struggle with Mental Illness. A Great record of this is in The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. They are available for reading for free through the Van Gogh Museum. This where I'm a lot more familiar with the artist. More as a Writer. There's over six hundred collected letters between him to his siblings, to other impressionist artists at the time or even to critics. Written across three languages, Dutch French and English. Most of the Letters are to his brother Theo van Gogh. In his Letters to Theo he writes with this sense of duty, and calling. Of Urgency. Vincent very often questions his place in the universe, and what he could be doing to better it. If I had time to annotate and write and comment about all 600 letters, I would. There is a lot of meat there to understand him as a person, and by extension an Artist. And when you understand someone else's story better you also sometimes understand your own better too. But I'm just gonna take some selected thoughts here and think alongside him. In April 1878 Vincent writes to Theo pontificating about the proverb "We are Today, what We were Yesterday.", to Segway to my next thought I want to say twelve years later in 1890 Vincent would die by a self-inflected gunshot wound. He was 37 at the time of his suicide. There's this book, "A Grief Observed" by British Author C.S. Lewis which was written in response to his wife's death, American Poet Joy Davidman. Lewis writes "The Pain I feel Now, is the Happiness I had before. That's the Deal" it's published almost a hundred years after Vincent's letter. I wonder if in those last few days of their respective lives if they had thoughts that looked like this often. Where Compassion decays into Despair, or "The Pain we are in Today, is the Happiness we had Yesterday". We can't ever know for certain what thoughts Vincent had on that sad height. But back in that April Letter, I think he finds some peace there. In his closing thoughts he writes "Woe-spiritedness is quite a good thing to have, if only one writes it as two words, woe is in all people, everyone has reason enough for it, but one must also have spirit". Almost all of Vincent's paintings were made in the last two years of his life. Those are the things he left behind. Those are things we inherited. His Woe, but also more importantly his Spirit.

Secondhand thrift stores

and animated movies

This is me; my Life

I believe we are apt to see the truth as lies. Lies sometimes are alluring, sweeter to the ear, or easier to believe. We trick even ourselves, justifying them and enabling them. Pain and Anger are the greatest among the liars. They hurt us, so we doubt the truth. We define our Identity by our Truths. I will share with you what I have thought, felt and learned. Love, the complete commitment to the well being and happiness of yourself, another person or people without any condition or modifier. Integrity, the practice of being uncompromised in one's values and actions. Kindness, it is a behavior defined by consideration and concern. It is gentle, and it is generous. We become the truths we believe in. We accept the lives or the lies we agree with. We can choose, more importantly You can choose these things. But do not do this partially, or reluctantly, you have to accept it wholly. It is a challenge and it takes time. I am still learning. But if you allow them to they will change you.