Sometimes I wish I could just quit school and all this paperwork and diagnoses work for it and just work on my art and starting my business like I want to.
But I made a promise for my parents, and I don’t break promises.
I just have to keep reminding myself “Just 2 more years and you’ll be done. Just 2 more years.”

(Me venting out some of my frustrations out about school and life under the cut)

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keylasrixx:

I’m not sure if my cat loves me or hates me. Probably both

showslow:

Abstract art by Mark Lawrence.

I’m having some really interesting reactions to these pieces, synesthetically. Anyone else getting anything? It’s like I’m hearing a musical movement, with bells, trumpets and horns, and deep pianos.
The first one is almost like the instruments are trying to battle for space, and the second one is deep and eerie, but also soothing. And the last one is an interesting clash of segments where they’re trying to “borrow” room to spread their sound, but end up clashing with the sounds next to them, but not like a battle like the first one, but almost like a family taking up room.

Now I have some people telling me I’m not allowed to be upset about this situation.

Of course I’m upset. There are fake individuals out there spreading false information about my family and my people, and I’m allowed to be upset that she is breaking rules and giving us a false image.

I just…ugh.

Had just come across some woman who called herself a spiritual leader of Taíno. I was curious and decided to look into her work. And of fucking course, she is just some woman who has been studying Taíno heritage and spirituality for a few short years and is suddenly some walking Medicine Woman with practiced Boitiu. I looked into what she knew, and she is MIXING Taíno with Plains Tribal beliefs, and South American different Tribal beliefs. She rolls her eyes at a lot of actual Taíno who keep correcting her and keeps baiting a bunch of hispanic individuals with Taíno blood who didn’t grow up with their history, into learning what she claims to know. She is teaching them a mix of different things, changing our songs, and using our masks and staffs wrong.

I haven’t been studying Taíno, because I am Taíno. It runs through my blood and my families blood. I will hold the knowledge of my elders above anyone who has been ~studying it~ who attempts to call themselves an expert.

She keeps trying to speak for all Taíno, however she should fucking know that Taíno traditions and even beliefs can differ depending on your island of birth, etc etc.

I don’t fucking take kindly to people attempting to “correct” what I know more of, and that is my family and our histories and traditions. While I love that this woman is dedicating her life to study Taíno, and she has said a few correct things, it is, however, in my blood, in my mothers blood, and my grandmothers blood, and my great grandmothers blood. It is something that runs through me, within me, and she was not born and raised in it. She can not correct me or other born Taínos on something she was not raised in and is mixing with other cultures and belief systems. She should be open to taking in what actual elders say about it, so she does not spread incorrect information. She should also know that was have rules, and she is breaking them to make herself seem like an all knowing chosen person outside of Taíno blood.

I am so mad because I hate it when this kind of shit happens. Entering our culture is a wonderful thing, a wonderful experience, but she is not my elder, and I will hold their knowledge above hers, because they were raised in it, they understand it. It beats in their blood, and spreads through their system.
There are a few things, a few rules, to people who enter our culture that they aren’t allowed to do because it is not in their blood. You can not just LEARN to be a Boitiu. It is something you are chosen to do at birth (at least in my Taíno traditions. I don’t want to speak for every Taíno. But for the most part, it is something you are born to do, and non-blood Taíno aren’t allowed to do).

Taíno aren’t even considered to be EXISITING by most historians, and it fucking frustrates me that a lot of individuals with Taíno blood are wanting to learn about their family history are getting their fucking information from some woman who doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about. It frustrates me that they will take what this woman says as complete and total truth spread wrong, appropriative information. It fucking frustrates me because we’re already shit on by most people who won’t even allow us to identify ourselves as existing, and yet she gets to call herself a leader while other actual leaders are shit on and fight against continuous racism. While she is looked at as some sort of savior for us hispanic people. Frustrating as hell.

I really hope that with my own work, my own animations, and with the ok of my tribe, that I am able to teach others, both blood born and interested in, the correct way of the Taíno. I want to spread correct information and knowledge of my people, to reach out to other Taíno, and those interested to learn the correct culture, and just have an open conversation about Taíno and general indigenous culture, without appropriation and haughty personalities to ruin it.

This woman is just ensuring me that one of my goals in life with my art is to do just that. Continue to listen to my elders stories and knowledge, and spread what I am allowed to spread about my tribe. To help people learn correctly, without fakes coming in to take advantage of the ignorant.

I feel like my blood is on fire now and it is with this I am determined to succeed all the more. I refuse to let this woman take away our identity even more than we have already been robbed with. My blood’s fire will continue to burn and I will not lose, and especially to this woman.

Sometimes I really, really miss living in my old home. At least that little mountain side was sort of ours. We grew everything, we had a farm, and took care of our animals, and it was really beautiful.

The home was built on stilts to level it to the mountain side, and behind the house was a beautiful view of some of the other misty mountains. All of them holding stories and secrets of their own.

I remember I used to go with my siblings and we’d jump off cliffs and into waterfalls, and we’d travel through the caves, and we’d build fires and told stories all the time.

I mean, I certainly count the blessing I have living here. We do still grow a lot of what we eat, and we have our little fires, story time, chants and drum circles. But sometimes I feel a longing to go back.

I don’t think I ever will go back to Puerto Rico, though. The laws, the government, and the people are toxic. I feel lost around them. Sick.
But the land is what I miss, and the mountain, and her playgrounds.

It’ll always hold a special place in my heart, that’s for sure.

Spent the day with my parents making final plans and getting the items we need to finally install the firepit in my backyard!

For years since we’ve moved here, we’ve made them little makeshift fires and things like that when we needed them for ceremonies, dancing, etc. But we’re finally going to install a permanent one! And expand our herb garden!!! So excited!!

Trigger Warning: Mentions autism, synesthesia, anxiety, OCD, seizures, panic attacks, and self-harm in the form of violent panic attacks.
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Now I know I’m not the most talkative person, but I think writing this out will help me gather my thoughts about recent events that have taken place in my life.

Since summer of last year, my anxiety and OCD has gotten out of control and it’s becoming harder to control a lot of other things in my life. I had to, once again, take a semester off of school because I couldn’t go without seizing up and panicking around large crowds. I keep having nightmares that keep me up much too often and I’m getting very little sleep. I’ve become, what some “ex-friends” have called me “trigger happy”. My panic attacks have become so severe that I started pulling my hair and skin out when I panic, which of course is not a pretty site at all. It, of course, severely hurts my art and working with most of the things that bring me joy, because my OCD will kick in and my anxiety will join it and I never get much done.

Because of this, at the beginning of this year I decided that I needed to take greater action to “fixing” this problem because this is definitely not a way to live, this is getting in the way of literally everything, and it’s becoming too much. I needed to find a proper diagnoses, I needed to understand why some of symptoms did not match up to regular Generalized Anxiety Disorder and OCD diagnoses I’ve had.
I was discussing this with a friend (I won’t name for privacy reasons), someone I’ve met recently and connected with right away, and we were discussing her autism. She was describing some of her everyday struggles, and I shared some of my own. Long story short, she mentioned that perhaps I was a little more than anxious, and maybe had undiagnosed autism. So I decided that it couldn’t hurt looking into it.

Now autism is something that runs very heavily in my family, on both sides. I know enough to understand it, but I never really considered it for myself, I just thought I was always a little different.

I then decided that I needed to talk to a professional. This was a bit of a roadblock because it’s very hard to find people who will work with adults, let alone diagnose adults with autism. But I did manage to come across a very nice therapist who wanted to talk to me for one session, just so I could discuss everything, from beginning until now. So I described my general personality, medical history, etc etc and my mother was there for support and helped me with adding in her point of view of raising me, and how different I was, compared to my siblings.

The lady, of course, mentioned that I did have anxiety and OCD, but also said that I have synesthesia. I had a vague idea of what it was, but I never actually considered it for myself.
She then decided she needed to send me to a specialist, and gave me a few numbers.

Pairing that up with a friend of mine, who his friends mother works with autistic children and adults, I’ll be taking a few tests and getting a full synesthesia diagnoses for my records. The woman said that there is a high possibility that I have High Functioning Autism or Aspergers, and wanted me to go to a specialist and not a regular therapist.

I feel that, while can be a bit of a scary road, it almost feels like a boulder is being lifted from my shoulders. Because understanding what I have, the reason why I see or do things a certain way, and actually knowing there are people out there like myself really helps me a lot. Even if I don’t get dianosed with autism, or anything like that, just knowing that I’m not making this up in my head and that people more than just family understand what I’m going through, have gone through, have seen it before, is…indescribable. There’s a lot less self-hate on my part, knowing that I’m not bad, just different.

And while I have had lost quite a few friends, the excuse of me being “too much to handle for them” (which I guess I understand), it is nice knowing that I do have support (even if it is small).

There’s a lot going on right now, which explains my silence (especially as of late), but I’m hoping that this is leading me down the right path for me to understand myself better so I can get past this road block and continuing moving forward, instead of standing still like I have for so long.

I guess we’ll see where this goes. Here’s to hoping for the best.

Booked my flight to Puerto Rico in May. Really excited!!

Had a fire and water ceremony today! I was allowed to snap a few small photos of the fire, after the reading!
While meditating in front of the fire, I kept seeing my Hawk spirit in the fire, sending me messages of different things. So I snapped a few photos so I could look deeper into it. Of course it’s hard to really tell in these photos but I’ll try explaining what I saw anyways.

The fire was pretty intense and centered at first:
It was really interesting because I was just standing in front of it and I kept seeing the Hawk dancing.
And then it started to spark:
The hawk seemed to be diving down, landing, and preparing, wanting to take off in flight.
And then the wind picked up and it reached out:
As a finale, the Hawk spread it’s wings and took off and in that moment the wind picked up and the fire flew outward (excuse my mother’s shoulder in the picture).

There was more to it, but I’m really glad I got some pictures of this particular moment. It was a very beautiful moment, although the predictions were bittersweet. It was pretty chilly last night, although the wind wasn’t picking up until that moment where the fire blew outward. But it was a really beautiful and intense moment.

I have to practice my readings to do one in front of my family soon, next. I’m pretty excited for it!