15

15 years old and trying to get,
How to grow up,
Without throwing a fit,
My classes are hard,
I feel so scared,
Having to do homework, chores, and more,
But wanting to watch cartoons like I did before,
Needing some comfort,
While standing up tall,
And just praying not to fall,
I'm not grown up yet,
But sometimes, that I forget,
Having to act responsible,
Yet feeling so reckless,
Confused and worried,
Confident and secure,
Trying to grow up,
Yet trying to be pure.

84% of HNWIs surveyed this year remained optimistic about the short-term future of the global art market.

The Art Basel and UBS Art Survey of Global Collecting 2025 by Arts Economics reveals how HNWIs are thinking about the global art market’s short-term future – and their https://t.co/aIs1YheJfs

Ostuni - Lino Tagliapietra

Art is Therapy

• Any kind of creation is an act of God, and the creator feels better after the creation has been completed.
• Art is Therapy, and is healthy for you, just like eating well, or regular exercising

🎨 Embrace the magic of colors! Every brushstroke tells a story, and every canvas is a universe waiting to be explored. Let your creativity flow and transform your thoughts into art. 🌈✨ #ArtisticJourney #Inspiration #Creativity

In death

Floating along the wisp of life.
Feeling lost in heavens great strife.
My love is finally broken in shards.
The hatred that begins with you ends
With news of angst from stars and bars.

I read your palms time after time.
None of it can make any sense.
Joking and poking with a mime.
Often you gave in to your tense
Meaning when Venus was Aline with mars.

Getting no where with this simple song.
My anger is burnt up with your desire.
The angel in black has burned with fire.
Laughing with its evil, grinning bong.
My shroud is grass, the coffin is now.

Borrowdale, Cumbria - William Collins

A single difference in a sea of sameness can elevate a novel

• I can’t understate the importance of having an exciting feature that becomes the essence of the work
• It’s better to write a memorable-yet-flawed book rather than one that’s polished but resembles a hundred other stories.

What Everyone Can Do to Promote Racial Equity

1. Control your behavior and seek out repetitive contact with or substantive exposure to out-group members.
2. Be mindful of societal-level power differences without perpetuating them yourself.
3. Be respectful.
4. Leaders should devote considerable effort and attention to creating the right conditions for optimal intergroup contact.
5. Practice simple empathetic mental exercises like putting yourself in someone else's shoes and thinking about what life is from their perspective.
6. People must be given the chance or opportunity to do better.

A consecrated space experientially reminds you that there is much more to life than you think.

Mexico: Capirotada

Recipes for capirotada — a bread pudding served on Good Friday — vary across the country, but it's usually made from:

• Bread similar to a baguette (bolillo), which has been soaked in mulled syrup made from sugar, cinnamon sticks, and cloves.
• Nuts, dried fruit, and sprinkles are common toppings.

Capirotada is meant to signify the crucifixion: the cinnamon sticks represent the cross, the cloves represent the nails, and the bread represents Christ's Body.

Parting Ways (The Day The Music Died)

The last note still ringing in his ears, the night’s events still swirling around in his head, he walks out of the door into the warm evening air.  The entire atmosphere is one of joyous sadness.  Emotions course through the air, giving it some sort of charge.  The next morning shall be the last exchange of the drink of the fruit of passion, and yet the solemn first for him.  Later tomorrow he knows, they all know, that they must part ways.  They must all leave their oasis of comfort and security to dive again into the vast sea of reality, of conformity.  Yet still they cherish it, hold on to it.  Even in the last moments of such a magical night, they open their minds, their hearts, open their souls to each other and learn to love that which is there in what others have exposed.  The chants of “…MORE, MORE, MORE, MORE” truly resound in not only everyone’s thoughts but in their utmost desires.  

Late that night, lying in that same old bed for the last time, gazing up at the concrete ceiling.  Finally, his thoughts allowed to sit and slowly filter out.  Shock, insubordinate yet knowingly unjust anger.  A few muttered words from the other side of the room, a brief agreement of opinions. Then silence.  The hazy recollection of events over the past three weeks, the bittersweet insanity which so marked each and every day.  The mistakes made, the friendships formed, the battles lost and won.  And as all of this starts to settle down into a gentle murmur, he drifts off into sleep.

The next morning, torn from the warm embrace of his frail sheets, down to the circle, sips from the glass, toasts to a fallen comrade.  Soon enough the group all progressed to go through their daily routines one final time.  They returned to what they knew was the inevitable.

They were there, it was time to be rounded up and brought back to their respective lives.  Tears were shed, last goodbyes, every single one of them joined as one united being, as one entity separate from their single selves.  Each and every one of them will never leave the spot they were when they knew it was time they had to leave.  Those who knew they could never return let fall the rains of their misery.  Their true love for something so intangible yet so true and so real ripped apart their true selves and lovingly joined their true selves back together in an instant.

But, as inevitabilities go, by midday it was empty and silent.  Once could almost feel on the air all that had occurred there so few hours ago.  That evening, He finally lay in bed before sleep.  All were dispersed from that place they cherished so dear, back in the true world but thinking of naught but what they had left behind.

And all at once, without warning, from places near and far came the sound of 300 voices:  “This will be the day that I die…”

And Who Knoweth Whether He Shall Be a Wise Man Or a Fool - Byam Shaw