What with spouse being gone this week, I wanted to take the opportunity to go mess around with the grey project. I thought this week I was going to finish all these projects and clean the house and top that off with the grey project, but then we got that big snowstorm and my plans got torpedoed by seemingly endless rounds of snow shoveling. But I still wanted to work it in, because last time spouse was gone the timing wasn't right either and I missed out. I think I had a headache or something and it's just not a good place to start from, and it takes up an whole day, maybe more to make sure you have good food and do some cleaning, etc. Like you don't just block off 3-4 hours and then plan to run errands after.

First I had to go over to Mary's and shovel her back deck and driveway, and then I had to finish making cookies and run a plate over to the slappers. They had their army of kids partially shovel my drive on tues and it worked out well because I ended up needing to take Mary & John to the airport late that night. So maybe they aren't total shits and I'll give them some cookies, right? They haven't caused drama since the parking problem got solved. They still put their garbage bins over the property line, which I absolutely fucking hate, but such is life. At least we don't have the parking spot war. Anyway, the woman who answered the door was just as unwelcoming as ever, basically just took the cookies and barely said thanks and kind of acted like the whole thing was an big inconvenience. I wouldn't be surprised if the cookies went straight in the trash. Still no introductions, no light commiserating over how much shoveling sucks, "how about this weather, haha?", nothing. Brick wall. I was going to offer to let them borrow our shovels since I know theirs got stolen but the interaction was so brief I had no opener. Well, okay then. Guess we continue flat ignoring each other. Good talk, jerky lady.

So I shake off the bad vibes and do some cleaning and straightening and prep stuff and set the mood. It was a clear, cold day and I had been watching the just-past-full moon. There are days in Alaska where the moon barely sets - it just circles the sky, kind of like how the sun barely sets in summer. It seemed like it was one of those days. I was hoping the aurora would be out, but no such luck. I have not seen the aurora since we moved back. Either the sun's been out or it's been cloudy or I just haven't made an effort to go out and look.

I'm not going to get too detailed because I don't think I could explain very well. It's like having a little bit of conversation each time, except the conversation is in changing images and the language starts simple and builds. The motifs repeat themselves but the meaning gets more dense. Like seeing a piece of a fractal and then the image zooms out (or in) and there's more and more and more. I guess as an artist I look for visual themes and I understand that my brain is suggestible, so sometimes I just have fun being like, "do a peacock!" "do an octopus!" and enjoying the kaleidoscope that follows. Interesting color palettes, etc. I see a lot of geometric arabic patterns, art nouveau patterns, mandalas, etc. But there are two symbol themes that keep popping up and repeating themselves - eyes-and-teeth and stars-and-flowers. Eyes-and-teeth are "scary" symbols. At first I thought it was funny, like this absurd exaggerated funhouse scary like a clown trying to be creepy. Oh no, it's going to get me. Big teeth. What's the scariest thing to just about any living creature - something with bigger teeth trying to eat you. Teeth are probably terrifying to plants, right? And I understand that my brain has evolved to try to see faces in shapes, to detect threats, so seeing weird eyes-and-teeth in a geometric pattern is just my animal brain trying to make sense of it. But that same pattern will also have stars-and-flowers, peaceful neutral symbols, and which one dominates just depends on what you choose to see. Like the radial symmetry in a snowflake or a crystal - there are set mathematical patterns woven all throughout nature. The way leaves grow on a stem, or petals on a flower. Succulents. Seashells. There are patterns and symmetry built into living things just because they are beautiful, and the beauty is undeniable and "right".

So there's a war between these opposing visual languages - eyes-and-teeth (animal) and stars-and-flowers (plant). We are pattern recognition machines - our whole evolution is bent on this. We visually see the patterns around us with our eyes and then we have expanded to mental understanding of patterns without visuals. But what are we predisposed to seeing in the pattern - scary things like eyes-and-teeth, or peaceful beneficial things like stars-and-flowers? I find this really interesting from an artistic perspective. Like an ink blot.

The cliff notes version is that creation will always go to extraordinary lengths to protect and support what is fresh and new. That is how life evolves - the changes in mindset, the reinterpretation of patterns, the new frontier. Life is always seeking change, MUST seek it, because that's what it is. When the pattern becomes too rigid, when it cannot be anything else, when it knows its own end, it is a dead thing. There is an intense underlying battle between the desire to fix the pattern, to say "only this is the right interpretation, the right story and we accept nothing else" and the joyful edge of life where the patterns question and change and are unpredictable.

Do you see eyes-and-teeth (fear, defense, competition, consume-or-be-consumed) or stars-and-flowers (the development of the complexity of the pattern, reaching for the next concept, joy in life as a whole)?

There was this whole subtext of animal vs plant instincts and the idea that even though animal life is the current evolutionary push, that there was some deep element of us that remains "plantlike" for lack of a better word. We did not lose those roots. The concepts of "eyes" and "teeth" are animal concepts and we will eventually push past their limits and evolve back into a higher plant based consciousness. Like, the concept of the "third eye" is wrong, it's not an eye and calling it such is crude animal bias. It's a flower. Like we've all got hidden brain flowers and eventually we'll figure out how to make them bloom. I know, right? Brain flowers.

In current events we have a traditional conservative mindset lashing out against progressive concepts. We're in a place where some people perceive transgender rights, etc., as a big threat. It's just eyes-and-teeth vs stars-and-flowers. It's just the old animal instincts feeling threatened by the new and different, the resurgence of the deep "plant" instincts. But creation will always rise to protect and support fresh life and the addition of more complexity to the pattern. That's why we always progress, we always move forward, we cannot be just man + woman = baby, forever. We cannot stop at eyes-and-teeth. What is love but the pattern encouraging itself to change and protecting the vulnerable new growth? The pattern never rests, never says, "1962 was the pinnacle of human evolution and we must hate any deviations from this point forward."

It's always a fascinating experience. Maybe it's brain vomit but it is interesting colorful brain vomit. We are pattern recognition machines. Do you see eyes-and-teeth or stars-and-flowers?

What good is looking at a macro view of the progress of life when my life is just fussing over shoveling snow and being annoyed at the neighbors and grumbling over the $10/lb hamburger I ended up buying because I was too lazy to go to a different grocery store (safeway is usually a regrettable choice). I'm not exactly a choice specimen of cutting edge biological progress. I'm in no position to influence much of anything, having neither great education or great wealth or anything else. I don't even have kids - I'm a genetic dead end. Why does it matter? What the fuck even is this life? I'm making chili tonight, and thinking about my brain flower, so what?

I haven't really experienced the grey project like the popular descriptions. People say it makes them feel connected, but I feel about the same: singular. I have spent so much time in my life alone, just because what I found interesting was not the same as my peers. I couldn't translate myself well enough, or I didn't have the means to get myself on the same cultural page. I had the burden of christian indoctrination, but I didn't mesh with my christian peers either, so it was more than secular vs religious. I don't even belong in my family. Spouse and I are on a similar mental wavelength, thank god, I don't have to translate myself much, we find the same sort of minutia interesting and we have a similar outlook. So he is my "home" - I don't feel alone when I'm around him. Anyway, I wondered in a roundabout way why that was so, why I didn't get the "connected" experience like other people got, and the answer came really quick. Because it is the nature of the seeker, of the question-asker, to never get the answer. This is what it means to be on the pushing edge. Because if you were content, you would not ask questions, and asking questions is your purpose. But you are much-loved, much-loved, for who you are and the function you serve. All the love of creation through the ages. But your nature makes you a stranger to others, because it must be so. You will never get the answer to your question.

It made me cry - like the sort of crying you do when you know something is gone forever. I'm not going to get the connected experience because I'm not really meant to be connected. I'm not going to get answers because the question is my purpose, not the answer.

It snowed another foot on sunday. Our street had yet to be plowed from the first 2' so we just waited until it came by on monday, and then we shoveled. The plow creates a large berm of snow across the driveway that needs to be shoveled promptly before temps drop and freeze it into a solid barrier. I'm glad spouse is back because it took both of us to clear everything out again. Now we have no street parking because there's barely enough room for two way traffic between the snow "fences". The snow mountain in the front yard is above the chain link fence. People are asking nervous questions about shoveling snow off their roofs, because right now we've got 3' up there. Sure, you don't have to worry about drought or hurricanes in Alaska, but how about a snow load that smashes your house flat in the middle of winter? Climate change, oh boy.

We are supposed to get another storm tonight/tomorrow that may drop 8-24" depending on the forecast source. I'm not too worried? A friend of ours ordered a snow blower, so I know once he gets it, it won't snow anymore. Murphy's Law. I did a costco run early yesterday and made sure supplies are stocked up and filled the gas tank. If we lose power it might suck but we won't freeze or starve. We don't have much firewood, but we have propane.

I'm still rolling all this around in my head. Grey project always gives unexpected things to think about. In simple utilitarian terms, it can serve as fodder for art. I can refine my visual language and think about what I want to communicate, and how. It has promise.