Girl Uninterrupted: A Visual Diary

                                                              



Note To Self:

Most of all, be true to yourself
Stand firm in your beliefs even if you stand alone
Allow others to experience you without becoming dependent
Always acknowledge your good feelings and your bad
Know your worst self so you can always be your best
Love your fucken smile because everyone else does
Oh, and most of all, BE TRUE TO YOURSELF+

SHANTARAM - Quotes to share!!

“The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men. It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds and bad deeds. Men are just men – it is what they do or refuse to do that links them to good and evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone – the noblest man alive or the most wicked – has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, everyone of us, every atom, every galaxy and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God”.

“Suffering is the way we test our love, especially our love for God”

“Suffering is happiness, backwards”

“Suffering of every kind, is always a matter of what we’ve lost. When we’re young, we think suffering is something that’s done to us. When we get older – when the steel door slams shut, in one way or another – we know that real suffering is measured by what’s taken away from us”.

“People always hurt us with their trust. The surest way to hurt someone you like, is to put all your trust in him”.

“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end, that’s all there is; love and its duty, sorrow and its truth. In the end that’s all we have – to hold tight until the dawn”.

________________________________________

“Are we ever justified in what we do? When we act, even with the best intentions, when we interfere with the world, we always risk a new disaster that mightn’t be of our making, but that wouldn’t occur without our action. Some of the worst wrongs, were caused by people who tried to change things”.

“Shame gives exultation its purpose and exultation gives shame its reward”.

“What characterises the human race, cruelty or the capacity to feel shame for it? I thought the question acutely clever then, when I first heard it, but I’m lonelier and wiser now and I know it isn’t cruelty or shame that characterises the human race. It’s forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would’ve annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive”.

“There is no meaness too spiteful or too cruel, when we hate someone for all the wrong reasons”.

“The most precious gift you can bring to your lover, is your suffering”.

“Mistakes are like bad loves, the more you learn from them, the more you wish they’d never happened”.

“Every virtuous act has some dark secret in its heart, and every risk we take contains a mystery that can’t be solved”.

“The worst things that people do to us always makes us feel ashamed. The worst things that people do always strike at the part of us that wants to love the world. And a tiny part of the shame we feel, when we’re violated, is shame at being human”.

___________________________________________________________________

“People say that money is the roof of all evil. But it’s not true. It’s the other way round. Money isn’t the root of all evil. All the money in the world is dirty, in some way, because there’s no clean way to make it. If you get paid in money, somebody, somewhere is suffering for it. That’s one of the reasons, I think, why just about everyone – even people who’d never break the law in any other way – is happy to add an extra buck or two to their money on the black market”.

“Sooner or later, fate puts us together with all the people, one by one, who show us what we could, and shouldn’t let ourselves become. Sooner or later, we meet the drunkard, the waster, the betrayer, the ruthless mind, and the hate-filled heart. But fate loads the dice, of course, because we usually find ourselves loving or pitying almost all those people. And it’s impossible to despise someone you honestly pity, and to shun someone you truly love”.

“Missing the people I loved was a kind of grieving for me, and it was worse, much worse, for the fact that – so far as I knew – they weren’t dead. My heart, sometimes, was a graveyard full of blank stones.. But there was nowhere to go: nowhere that wasn’t emptied of meaning and identity and love by the vacuum of those who were missing and lost forever. I was the fugitive. I was the vanished one. I was the one who was missing; missing in action… We can deny the past, but we can’t escape it’s torment because the past is a speaking shadow that keeps pace with the truth of what we are, step for step, until we die”.

“At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. What we should fear and dread, of course, is that we won’t stop loving them, even after they’re dead and gone. For I still love you with the whole of my heart. And sometimes, my friend, the love I have and can’t give to you, crushes the breath from my chest. Sometimes, even now, my heart is drowning in a sorrow that has no stars without you, and no laughter, and no sleep”.

“The tears, when they come to some men, are worse than beatings. They’re wounded worse by sobbing, men like that, than they are by boots and batons. Tears begin in the heart, but some of us deny the heart so often, and for so long, that when it speaks we hear not one but a hundred sorrows in the heartbreak. We know that crying is a good and natural thing. We know that crying isn’t a weakness, but a kind of strength. Still, the weeping rips us root by tangled root from the earth, and we crash like fallen trees when we cry”.

“Anything that can be put in a nutshell should remain there”.

“You can’t kill love. You can’t even kill it with hate. You can kill in-love, and loving, and even loveliness. You can kill them all, or numb them into dense, leaden regret, but you can’t kill love itself. Love is the passionate search for a truth other than your own, and once you feel it, honestly and completely, love is forever. Every act of love, every moment of the heart reaching out, is a part of the universal good: it’s a part of God, or what we call God, and it can never die”.

“The cloak of the past is cut from patches of feeling, and sewn with rebus threads. Most of the time, the best we can do is wrap it around ourselves for comfort or drag it behind us as we struggle to go on. But everything has its cause and its meaning. Every life, every love, every action and feeling and thought has its reason and significance: its beginning, and the part it plays in the end. Sometimes, we do see. Sometimes, we see the past so clearly, and read the legend of its parts with such acuity, that every stich of time reveals its purpose, and a kind of message is enfolded in it. Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny, precious wisdom that they give to us, even those dread and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be”.

SHANTARAM - Book Review

In the wake of everything mundane and languid, that continuously pushes its existence upon our everyday lives, causing extreme boredom and occasional mischief, shines through a glimmer of hope, a ray of syntactic brightness, a narrative that gently nudges at your spirit and shocks your moral standing – a nine-hundred odd paged novel that is based on a true story of a heroin addict, with a 27years prison sentence that manages to escape from an Australian prison into the full belly of Bombay in India. Shantaram is a brilliantly written novel by Gregory David Roberts that comes, not only as highly recommended but as a necessity to the even not-so-avid reader.

The story begins with Lin arriving in India, after escaping prison, to the wide open smile of a Bombay guide, Prabaker. Manouvering their way through crowded streets, fast-moving cars, spice-smelling air, body-hugging humidity and incense-filled shops at every corner, Lin and Prabaker become tied by their initial trust in each other. Their friendship intertwines them through disease infected slums, black market dealings, love lusts and dark secrets, mafia brotherhood and heartless killings, lice crawling India prisons and heart breaking deaths.

Through the eyes of Lin, you will be left wondering of the intense pain one human can feel in a lifetime. Similarly, the greatest lesson that one can take from the book is the power of forgiveness, the over-reaching hand of love, the never-ending saviour that is hope through bloody wars, bitter backstabbing and irresponsible choices of man.

Unapologetically exposing the cut-throat underworld of India, the author also piquantly delivers philosophical messages that find their core in humanity and spirituality at the end of every chapter.

Shantaram is a book that will make you devour every word with your third eye, whilst gently forcing you to look at yourself in relation to the world. A human story with a universal theme – forgiveness and love.



Life on the road

So here I am, straddling along the quiet landscape, a world new, a world embraced. I am on the road, stamping my way through the harsh reality of nearly being arrested by Lesotho border officials for car theft to being released into the starving hands of music lovers that accept me due to association.

Trekking down the brown plains of the Free State terrain, I am overwhelmed by the enormity of the silence. Something that I envisioned for so long which now stands real to my gypsy soul. The wheels of the green micro bus roll on and on and on, the silence escalates and I am hit by the obtrusive sound of nothing. I think, last night, I was surrounded by multitudes of appreciative good-wishers, today I face the emptiness.

For the first time since being on the road with artists, I understand how they can easily jump the rope, cross the line into a bare protectiveness. How do you deal with the ferocity of the lights? They call it the limelight. What a mind fuck!

I was at the beginning stages of a very bad breakup that lasted a year beyond then and I was yet to still understand the psychological impact that the life of a musician has.  I say this from an introductory level of being in the music industry. Many people don’t understand. Many people expect. Many people have opinions. Many people don’t know the creative process. Many the process engulfs.

Performing artists are dead and alive. Many tour managers, I imagine, relate to this conflicting internal feeling.

I believe in where I’m at any given time, and in this moment, I feel loneliness beyond measure. My insecurities are heightened. My relations are fucked up. How does one maintain the normality of a family life? Friendship? Self?

Perhaps I give too much thought in everything I do. My downfall inwardly but my greatest asset when entrusted in contribution to the picked out artist.

Someday, my struggles, my unnoticed effort, my love for the minds that stand barren in their destitute creativeness, shall be seen. Or not. I don’t care. I did what I wanted. No one can take that away from me. Not any artist that I’ve worked with or still shall. Not even myself because I am an artist in my own right. We have all been blessed with a wretched curse. Let all our souLs fly free.

Artist Bleeds

Battle scars bleed profusely, aches from my heart cause soul tremors

My body double bends from the hunger of poverty

I watch oppressors scrape the plate and I'm left with no appetitie except that of destruction

My heart palpitates from frustration of no pennies and I get escorted down corridors of shame with men and women dressed in blue to forever bar me from work of my own sweat

I am kicked like a dog, left to lick my own wounds, as they deliberately blind themselves through their dark hued windows. I see the corners of their mouths slightly upturned, their impudent ramblings a mockery to our art.

The cords they strike reach far deeper than their ignorant eyes, only kin knows the devastation of their in-fighting

Re a lela

Words the artist knows. We die everyday. We will die for the art that chose us.

We are not a bunch of entertainers yet we stand a circus of colourful jokers to serve their perverted satisfactions. Them that are supposed to serve us. Them that steal from us. Them that abuse us. Them that reject us. Them that sit there because of us. Them that don't care.

Battle scars bleed profusely, my heart aches with soul tremors.

I am depleted yet still grateful to be alive. One of us is dead.

One of us whom this injustice touched too.

She lays rested, her soul flies free.

Through her death, I am given hope. My spirit is renewed and I will stand tall, to be seen by those that think their mirage power can make me cower in my proud stance.

I will stand to be seen, along with many others and I will not be afraid.

I have never been afraid.

Let the cries of our hearts be heard in the spirit world where human heirarchies don't exist.

Let the cries of our hearts be heard by the spirits of all the creative powers of nature.

Wildflower 2012 (C)

 

In distant calls towards soul neglect, when the chase of the dragon becomes a repeated reality, therein lies the fantasy fuelled by escapism of a warped mind, battered by bright lights and crackling sounds from the ever-ready paraphernalia, the always waiting to lurch on spirit, to drift away into blissful oblivion, egotistic chatter through clenched teeth.

At a time when things fall apart consistently, the root of the problem waits to be exposed through self-reflective moments, causing only deep seated sabotage borne of an unknowing emptiness. A confessional hypochondriac, viewing life through a one-eyed blurry vision and limping walk, struggles to hold on even when the reach of many pillars stand firm along the way.

Recoiling back into self to scrape the remainders of powdered down goals, to catch them before they blow, for them to come oozing out, as tears roll down and as the crashing echoes subside. Double bended sickle, nauseas belittled, relationships fickle by the momentary strenth of the unrelenting monstrosity that has become the wide-eyed psychosis formed in the mind of a precious flower.

A wildflower turned grey by it's own defaulted strangeness.

Wildflower 2012 (c)

I Apologise / Forgive Me

I never wanted to hold you
I never wanted to carry you
I wished to throw you up in the toilet every mornig
I wanted to eat vile food so you may disintegrate into nothingness
But you found your way and I felt nothing more than loneliness
My nights were filled with nightmares , days were not painless
I never cried. If I did, they were crocodile tears.
I didn't want to cry for you because I was never to know you

The time came and I blacked out
I pushed thoughts of you far aside and smiled instead
Smiled at the old self I would be re- united with
Not the stranger I turned into when you were a part of me
I don't feel sad nor guilty
I didn't say goodbye and your departure I embraced.

Now I lie on my bed and think about you
You that I don't know and can't even make out
Its a strange feeling the feeling of emptiness
I feel like this when I recall the times we were together
This is why I'm asking you today not to hate me forever
It was a mistake, fuck, we could've never walked any further
Further than the glass doors and way in the world yonder
I had to let you go to keep my life going
I do apologise for the red clotty suit I sent you away with
I do apologise for taking away your last breath
Do you think you'll ever understand??
Will you ever forgive me??

In This World . . .

In this world, I am encapsulated in the belly of all possibilities, where my motor functions temporarily cease, my ability to function in the physical world is a non-existent reality.

In this world, I plunge into the realms of insanity, where I feel the most sane, where my nothingness turns into everything. Anything.

In this world, I indulge in the foreign complexities that come with every delivered word, the simple contradictions, the well-structured prose.

I feel most at ease with the intensifying stomach twirls that are borne of the anxiety from the wonder of the next words, where life breathes its truth into my heart.

In this world, I can transcend every logic, be free of all human ideologies and create my own ideals that flow like Lake Nyasa, ever-changing

In this world, I gain all strength to question even the most highest of powers, and I berate my tendencies of insecurity. For in this world I can abandon my presumed maturity, my natural fury to all the prevailing injustice, to be appeased by the pregnant silence that lie in the syntax, the light emotion of a character’s soul, making my woes and joys worth it all.

In this world, I am alive. Totally engrossed.

In this world, is where you’ll forever find me, where you’ll forever see my soul, where my spirit has room to travel all the wonders of the earth, even when I appear stationary in your eyes.

In this world, I know the meaning of truth and love, of vulnerability and strength, of reason and faith, of exposure and defeat, of uncertainty and remorse, of forgiveness and pain, of leadership and fellowship, of sexuality and sanctity, of a life-long learning. All of these which are me yet cannot define the eternity within me.

In this world, I can release a piece of my tortured soul.

In this world…this world of books+

Wildflower 2011 ©

Venom From A Pen

Photo from deviantART.com

In the confines of my mind

Where I have allowed myself to dwell for hours stretching beyond a day, hours stretching beyond the many moons of the whimpering night sky, and languid days of the yawning sunshine

I have remained immobilised by the growing awareness of my unavoidable bright light

Yet the fear gnaws at my shameless repeated insecurities, my exhausted excuses of the white line that I‘ve watched mark a cross on my dreams, on my deeply embedded visions that persist even at the resistance towards my inevitable path.

In the confines of my mind I have allowed myself to delve into the throngs of absolute creativity, where the aches of the imaginative mind pierces through self-destruction, leaving behind droplets of blood stains mixed with ink from a paining heart.

The confines of a creative mind that allowed the many doubts of unjustified criticism to instil a tremendous fear on its psyche, distilling all possible realities that only its’ heart continues to fathom.

The confines of the imaginative soul whose spirit knows no bounds no more, whose spirit rages with multitudes of expressive venom that only the pen can dispel, to expose all damaged internal ramblings and reveal the colours of the eternal seeking soul, whose journey remains with no limits, no exits, no goodbyes, no ending.



Buy any Motswako Artist from as little as R10! ONLY IN MAFTOWN!

Get served from a MOTWAKO QUARTER MENU -  AVAILABLE ONLY IN MAFTOWN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvHVeHgSPO4&feature=youtu.be

Stop by opposite the University of North West in Mahikeng and get served with Mo'Molemi, Khuli Chana, and more from as little as R10!!
Delivery also made! O batla mang for lunch? lol!

#THE POWER OF BRANDING#

The Art of Trekking

stock photo

“You need to get out your house, get off your block and see something, go do something, go change something, or else you fall for nothing. You need to travel the world”. No words ring true than those offered by Jean Grae on the song Block Party. It is hard to believe that in these times, there are people who are not open to exploring the millions of opportunities available to them to travel and experience a different reality to that which they know. The general thinking seems to be around the misleading perception that one needs to have loads of money to leave their front door. Planning is of course always necessary, but people need not let the fear of unknown territory and possible culture barriers paralyse them from experiencing the rewards one gains through travelling. Different the gains may be many have sworn to have returned with a renewed spirit.

When Sho’t Left media campaigns spread like the flu germ in a first grade class a few years ago, there was an unspoken yet electrifying sense that we were certainly moving towards a reality that was indeed brimmed to capacity with tangible hope. Attracting young South African people, who possessed gypsy-like souls and had wanderlust spirits, travelling was finally reflected to be one that excites and can be accessible to anyone, anywhere. Nothing reflects better the energy of the travelling person than the words of one of the greatest storytellers from Mafikeng, Mo Molemi, in his sophomore album, Motzamai – Rebel Without A Pause, with the title song Motzamai. His hoarse laced words churn out, “Ntshutele ka tsela ke a itsamaela/ke ya madiso/ ke ya go phudutsa mabele/ Ke ya go phota/ke ya go tlhatlhola ketlele/Don’t matter ko ke yang a ko ntshutele ke a itsamaela (o ska nkemela)//Ntshutele ka tsela ke a itsameala/ ke ya Lesotho/ ke ya go palama dithaba/ ke ya Lusaka/ ke ya go reka dinawa ko Blantyre/ going to a better world suta ke a itsamela/”. The song paints a vivid picture of one trekking along paths with adventures brimmed with mysticism and fun.

Bringing it back from idealistic spheres, there are many opportunities for artists within the country to travel cross-continental and internationally. Art Moves Africa, an organisation that sponsors artists to travel within the continent, has seen many artists go on artistic, cultural expeditions by doing what they love and sharing it with like-minded individuals. Many other avenues are available to make our travels a reality. All we have to do is inquire, research and make the first move to exploring ourselves more deeply, opening our eyes more wider and appreciating the challenges that we may overcome during our endless creative darkness that affects most of our creative souls.

Pursuit to fly free...

picture by: Tshenolo Mabale

Suddenly, the feeling of pure dread and total confusion sets in my life and I find myself having to make many decisions all at once. I am shocked by all the demands that life is throwing my way and I have a constant urge to leave it all behind and run..run..run… But ofcourse, I cannot run from my life. It is me and this leaves me with many sleepless nights and very bad dark rings.

Suddenly, I feel that the things I wanted two years ago are not what I want now and going forward in my life. It’s almost like I have been re-born into this new world and the feeling to explore burns deep within my souls’ core. My impulsive, independent nature and carefree spirit, combined with this non-ignorable desire to fly free, leaves the people I care about deeply hurt and detached. It breaks my heart to watch theirs break yet I am somehow content with the repercussions of my decisions. It is this feeling of accepting what others’ reaction to my sometimes foolhardy choices, that I struggle with. Am I really a selfish person, only concerned about my needs at any given moment, that I’m okay with people’s reaction to my choices no matter which way they go or are these truly the wheels of change occurring within me and in my life that no matter how hard I try, because my needs and feelings are different/changing, they will occur anyways due to simple nature? Does this even make sense? Am I the only 20something that has tumultuous weeks and extreme levels of opposing emotions in one hour?

I am most grateful of all the blessings in my life, from friends, parents, work, etc but why do I feel like sometimes I want them all to disappear? I constantly get nudged by this strong feeling to run free and explore this God-given earth and it tugs at my heart every second of everyday. I want to leave it all behind and start anew. My spirit calls for re-birth and I yearn to be at a place where I feel like “I am nothing and everything. A place between dark and light, where all becomes right”.

Is it that I cannot stand the heat? Is it that I cannot handle the continuing pressures of my work that can get personal? Or is it that I cannot stand the personal pressures that come with handling other people’s hearts?

In quiet moments and even frantic ones, I always remember a film I watched recently that spoke deeply to my BEing. In Into the Wild, Christopher McCandless, a young man, leaves his middle class existence in pursuit of freedom from relationships and obligations. He gives up his family and all his possessions, to spend time with nature, with ‘real’ existence, away from the trappings of the modern world. He decides to trek around America ending up in Alaska and 20 months leading up to his Great Adventure, his travels lead him to self- discovery, to examine and appreciate the world around him and heal from his troubled childhood. Christopher eventually dies in an old school bus, in the freezing Alaska, alone and isolated.

For me, inasmuch as the film might indirectly be affirming the apparent fact that, “Happiness is only real when shared” through Christopher’s somewhat sad end, his decision to give up all his possessions and let his spirit reign free was what captured me. I wondered if I’d be able to give up all that I have to find peace in my soul. Are we as people, so free within ourselves to let go of our spouses, our partners, our children, should they make that decision? We are so obsessed with possession that we forget that we really, truly don’t own anything except our souls. All this confusion is caused by trying to rationalize what I know to be true about me. The very nature of me is free and that will never change. Let us all fly free+