Rainbow

Dear Hakaryu,
Well maybe they aren't all rainbows, but some days don't need to be...I truly get the feeling that finally in the beginning of Hakkai and I's sixth year together we have hit our stride. There is a happy ease to our lives i don't think we've ever known. We have more things we want to accomplish and many things we enjoy doing but we don't feel rushed or in each others way...and we have found some new things out about how we relate to one another....
I'm not sure if he even realizes it but some of the things he has been doing lately have made me feel loved beyond words. he is deeply involved in his Songk'eeper training and is some of the happiest I have ever seen him...in a million years I never thought he would embrace it so whole-heartedly and well...it is a joy to buy him new music and to share the experience with him not to mention a feeling of unexplainable intimacy when we hear a song and both instantly and might i add telepathically know where that song would belong on a compilation or image album...and then there's when he makes me a themed tracklist on the compy to keep me company and provide inspiration while he's away...Music,lyrics, melody have always been very sacred to me and to have someone care enough to know that and know the healing power in has for me and the joy it brings to me makes me feel sacred...and to me when you hold something sacred that means basically you love it a gazillion more times than you could ever say.....
Hakkai is sacred to me and I hope he knows that...
oh I almost forgot while I'm singing hakkai's praises...you should see what he has done with my work, he has spent hours tweaking it on the computer and WOW..the way I try to explain it is this...my art when I am finished is like a good but rough demo tape but when he gets done with it it is polished,gorgeous,presented as the absolute best it could ever be like the album ready to be mass produced and sold to a lot of fans...not to mention it makes me want to draw more and more and more...
it's kind of funny though I really do feel like I'm living two dreams at once..the journey of the art is wonderful..but it's funny I also feel like I have a band..and I get to be the lead singer/frontman with an amazingly skilled talent pool behind me and in front of me I don't know that even we realize the rhythm we are capable of or where it could take us...I've just realized the explosive creative fun stage though so I hope our agent is ready to market us cause i just want to sing!!!!!! I never thought art could be like that but it is awesome, better by far than doing it alone...
oh my god..the dk just brought the first of two skeletons I asked him to work on today and damn...wow...as I was saying it possesses a magic we could never acheive alone...he is quite a composer to my lyrics..
just a quick pat on the back for me...i have planned out the entire 78 card saiyuki deck...I did it Friday night in the course of three hours!!!!! Unreal!!! and the first four cards in my Yaoi tarot are ready to be made into cards and given an entry..and I just gave dk the skeleton for the first Yuri card TRUST....
one more thiing while i am making happy announcements...the sky will be the kind to fly an orange paper airplane in all week my sunshine is on vacation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And as you know that is my favorite kind of sky...the one where the rainbow sleeps because it is not needed to remind us how magickal life is because we are already aware...

Brainstorming...

Dear Hakaryu...
Well It would seem i have one more tarot i want to work on...the list is becoming scary but this one won't be denied...
I am going to make a Saiyuki tarot deck and it is going to be really something...based on four suits one for each of the boys and their particular journey...it started with the idea I had for our family talisman where i was going to take and make a pic for each of us based on the positions of Buddha to bring various good things to our home..it would seem it occured to me that these would make great meaningful card designs but wouldn't quite work with the Yaoi oracle so i got to thinking and came up with the four suit Saiyuki oracle..
Hakkai I think is learning about his own worth in the present...and is driven to make the road a happy home for himself and the other three...if only he can truly free himself of the past
Goyjo I think is learning what it feels like to truly belong somewhere...to not be shunned...to stop thinking the world would be better without him and lose his self-loathing
Goku perhaps suffers the most because he sees the beauty and the cruelty of the world unfiltered,he is learning what it is like to be free after years of imprisonment and seeks more than anything how to return to himself
Sanzo although the monk and the spiritual leader really is just learning how to love and be loved in return...he likely has the longest way to go on this journey of any of them...as he is not a fast learner...
Already along the journey they have made many stops and been forced to deal with their faults, their fears, their good points, their truths and they are learning without really showing major epiphanic moments...there is a beautiful meaningful tarot deck in there somewhere and i will find it...
what I have so far is this... the four suits start with where each of their journeys start...the past incarnations, then you have the next version their early form in their present incarnations...and you have them as they were before they came together for the journey and what they are now...and finally back around to the ones i am doing for the family talisman that show what they are trying to learn from the journey...that is four times five...twenty people cards...they are also going to connect in a way so that if you get two from the same incarnation the picture meshes and the card is read as one...
then there will be another five cards each that show significant points of their individual journeys...ie, for Hakkai helping the one boy from the orphanage...or Goyjo protected the little half-breed baby...which makes forty
and three cards each to show a facet of each in relation to the other...another twelve...and that makes 52
four more to show a person that for better or ill each carries in their heart makes 56
which would actually leave me 22 if i wanted a major arcana...which i could make at the end of it based on twenty-two guides along the journey...people they meet,enemies they face...here is where you'll see the MG, Komyou,Ni,Kami-sama,Homura,Shein,Zenon,Hakaryu,...
but first it starts by making the talisman
Hakkai will be Happy Home which according to research will have him seated with a parasol behind his back
Goyjo will be Abundance again research says that is hands raised above head, holding bowl of plenty pot
Goku has Spiritual Journey which means he holds a gourd of enlightment hanging from a stick, fan in one hand, and necklace of beads
Sanzo gets Love which is seated feet together, holding weath ball, bag over shoulder...
what I envision for this is four very pretty pics that go together to form
another pic...also I want one set to be them playing mahjohgg...and the one with the wings that i have already started(that will actually appear in two decks but in different ways ...well i guess i'll go for now cause i have a lot of designing and stuff to do

Flood

Dear Hakaryu,
Today is a flood. A flood of emotion. Glad you are here to listen.
Rain is not in itself a bad thing unless you are the Sun. It can cool and it can nourish. But what happens to the Sun. It stays right where it is and continues to shine, it simply does there is nothing noble about it, it is made to do so. and when the storm clears and the rain has passed it will be there shining again. If the Sun had feelings this would be infinitely more difficult a task, if the Sun had hopes and dreams of it's own, and just lived for itself ...then the flood that would come would be it's fault, the rain would unchecked and leave nothing in it's wake and fury. Good thing the Sun doesn't refuse to shine after the storm where it is all but forgotten. It joins with the remnants of the rain and rainbows appear. Rainbows do not always appear and even then are they always beautiful if they sometimes are the result of a neglected Sun...
Five years ago today, shone a truly dazzling unhindered rainbow whose beauty is to this day unmatched. Back then, I was in someways stronger in most weaker but I knew what I wanted and after long suffering I got one day to be with the one I'd been in love with quite literally as long as I can remember. And that is the truth, I can retell the events the events of this day with the fuzzy clarity most people have when they speak of an event in their childhood. For me, most memory before that day is gone, I remember feelings of unconditional love, conditional love and empty loneliness but little else. But five years ago today shines like a gem with fine points of clarity...
Oddly enough, it was the first time Hakkai and I headed West together...just us no parents. no them...it took a lot of guts for me to ask him to go to the concert. And I told myself if he said no, I would stop trying and settle into the abusive control of the "relationship" I was in. I got two meals a day and was sometimes given presents when I was good and I was mostly left to rest after a particularly violent night. It was that or suicide and I was too afraid of the reprecussions of that...and after that summer I could barely stand on my own two feet...so when Hakkai said yes and offered to drive all the way to Wisconsin, I just wanted that one day of happiness with him. Even if like that other person said, he didn't really want me.
The day was perfect. Everything i could have hoped for. The kind of road trip with music and in'jokes and serious conversation and laughter and magic that makes you never want any one else as your travelling companion as long as you live. We ate at this place called Apple Holler, this whole place smelled of apples and home cooking, and the food was devestatingly good made better by the company. We wrote in the Upper realities and met a waitress named Sandy who seemed to read minds. and our seats were fantastic and the band never sounded better and every song seemed to tell us we should be together and...
what I realize now is that day had an unreal magic that maybe could never be repeated, but perhaps hakkai and I need to be careful...we can not judge every day by that yardstick though I think we both do...sometimes we ask too much of ourselves(what we are doing wrong) sometimes we ask too much of each other(if you cared more, that magic would still be there)...what made that day different I often wondered did we love each other more than we do now...what made that magic...what made the sun shine on that day...ah you think this where my brilliance shines through and i speak a wise truth...sorry not today....
All I know is I love Hakkai beyond expression and together we've seen a lot of rainbows and most of them have been beautiful...and I hope the one I see over the near horizon is too...

the 10th question...

Dear Hakaryu,
feeling incredibly inspired today...first have added a FOURTH tarot to the list this one a yuri deck...first one i will do will be Sora and Leila from Kaliedo Star...it's going to be based on the idea that they are in a show that tells the story of the moon falling in love with the ocean...
on the others Hakkai has just said do what you want to draw and the tarot will create itself plus he has offered to write the corresponding passages so that frees me up to create...yesterday I already came up with five skeletons I gave to DK and now am working from sketch storyboards he provided....
I have to talk about this though...because it's one of those Alkhemyist lessons from an anime I hope I never leave behind...when you see the best of yourself, the worst of yourself and perhaps most important of all the truth of yourself in a character or situation it can stop you in your tracks and then start you on your way...this happened just recently...
in the last episode of Naruto I watched the 25th i think(I apologize if this is a spoiler) the young genins(apprentice ninjas) are faced with a harrowing test that will decide their future as ninja in the chunin(that would be the next step) exam...
I have identified with Naruto from the start...he is made fun of, shunned, not taken seriously, and yet lives and breathes to become a ninja...just just any ninja either but the Hokage(the greatest ninja in his village and the next leader of his people)...did I mention he is not perfect...his most perfect moments occur when he is just being himself but he is stubborn, egocentric, reckless,sometimes when in doubt he will purposely pursue attention in not always the most constructive way...he is also incredibly sweet and adores the few people he lets get close to him...
however this episode made me really understand a little more about him and myself...
The test begins with a written exam...a difficult written exam and not Naruto's strong suit anyway...45 minutes to answer nine questions and if you get caught cheating too many times you are out of the test..and so are the other two partners on your team...the test is over for all of you this year...SCARY...but you have to make a choice...already you are likely caught up in what you might do in this situation( I was)...
Naruto's three person team consists of him, rival (and friend)Sasuke and tough girl tomboy genuis Sakura. Naruto knows that Sakura is likely able to answer every question and Sasuke will find a way to cheat without being caught...Naruto is desperate he is unsure if he can cheat without being caught and try as he might he can not begin to answer a single question on his own(making his score a zero for the time being -yet another way to destroy all three of their chances of moving on to the next test this year) agonizing over it the sweet girl next to him offers to let him cheat off her paper which he considers but again the price of being caught is too high(even if he could stand to wait a year he can't stand the idea of holding any one back especially his two comrades..so he waits for the tenth question to be given at the end of 45 minutes maybe he can get that one fair and square and save all of them from having to leave...
So if you too are sure how you'd act at this point don't get to ahead of yourself...the number of prospective nins is dwindling as cheaters get caught and get themselves and their two fellows thrown out...then it is time for question 10...here is where you really learn something about yourself...alright the examiner says, now that they've weeded out the weak ones the ones not ready to be chunin..he will give you the question...
but first you must choose to take it or not....
If any of the three team members takes it and gets it wrong, they will never get to become chunin ever!!! if they leave, walk away right now they will forfeit their entire teams chances for this year...
You learn several things about Naruto's friends, Sakura who already got everything right up til now can't just sit there and begins to raise her hand she'd rather wait til next year than see Naruto risk it all his dream possibly crushed because he gets the wrong answer and she fears he will take it anyway not to jeopardize her and Sasuke's future...Sasuke is silently mentally trying to tell Naruto it is okay to raise his hand it's not worth it for him to stay though you can tell Sasuke does not want to be sent away...then Naruto raises his shaking hand shocking both Sakura and Sasuke...
and though he only is speaking his mind and making his choice when he is done with what he says...no one else raises their hand, no one else asks to leave and the examiner is left with the largest group of prospective chunin to ever get this far in a single year...
remember I am working with subtitles here so I paraphrase but Naruto says he will take the question because he has already decided to walk his own path to becoming a ninja and even if you tell him he will never be more than a genin he will STILL become the next Hokage...but this is the next step in his dream to get to that goal and he won't walk away from any oppurtunity so great...he will take the question and if this way is blocked for him from doing so he will make another...but he will not just turn from the chance even if it means never for him and next year for his teammates...you see then all the hands that had been raised go down and Naruto is competely oblivious to the rippling effect of his conviction.
the teacher knows though, there won't be anymore volunteers to leave the room...he sighs and announces Question 10...
The first nine questions were used to test your information gathering skills, they were encouraging you to cheat...you are after all NINJA it IS an important skill...but none of those answers are important it is all about Question 10...
Ready...
Okay..
You pass and move on to the next level...question 10 WAS the choice you made about your future.
I was just like WOW..you passed, you are one step closer to your dream because you weren't willing to walk away even if staying meant possibly losing the oppurtunity forever and leaving meant only a year of waiting possibly before it came again...that is the explanation for most every decision I have ever made, most of the ones I have been mocked for, all of the ones I have felt regret for...but when viewed this way it is all Question 10...so I pass every time...and here I am without a single way I want to go blocked because of it...
there's a line in the end title song of Naruto that I take as one of my own...
"waiting is wasting for people like me"
and for everyone who takes the chance and answers question 10....

New Horizons

Dear Hakaryu,
I think I like this blue color today...I'm stating a doozy of a project today...three tarot decks....my unicorn one(everything before now is officially filed under the word...sketch), a fanart yaoi oracle, and an anime Alkhemyist tarot...oh my God, am I cracked or inspired...somewhere I hear Hakkai answering equivically YES...
But...let's be honest I am not doing this half assed...
I am going to meditate on the traditional cards I'm going to keep track of(sort of stole that idea from Hakkai) every stray thought about any of this(see Goyjo I listened) plus when I get the picture in my head I have a valuable resource and a good friend waiting in the wings to help me make it everything it can be(you are truly invaluable, DK ) plus TohmaM to whispersing in my ear encouragement from his computer fortress many miles away ...in other words with my Alkhemiyst clans' support well quite frankly I have no excuse not to get ambitious...do I?
First and foremost, these are for me...one of 27 schools of thought and magic to remember my Esta'qualey(Master Alkemiyst) position is Light Bringer(a very artistic/visual school)...okay I SO have to refer to my own notes here..brb...
ok self here it is in b+w...our mission statement(the smaller version) so we never forget...
(from the Upper Realities (Alkhemyist Rising))
....may I always remember it...

Exhausted Frank put the quill down as he finished writing the last sentence.
"I want to show you something," the Unknown appeared as Frank finished the sentence, "This is my God thoughts so to speak. You've earned the right to read it."

The Realm of the Real(cont.)

One,*******, has chosen to live and die in a heartbeat of a moment as I need him to, in order to access everything of every lifetime and in doing so become immortal and infinite and aware. By doing so, he will possess the knowledge of the falsity of death and never truly forget
...also to be restored and torn from soulmate

restored as one, Stacey G, gifted with the ability to rediscover and recreate the Upper Realities. Soul path of the Phoenix. Last walk as human of the Real. Soulmate restored.

reborn as ...Rae Firechild, final carrier of the ring of the Silver phoenix, soul path of the Phoenix. To realize and restore the old ways to the Upper Realities by experiencing the gift of a shattered soul with Uncle Frank. Also previously the Ultima of Death

and Uncle Frank, walking the line between self realization and self parody in the search for understanding and eventual forgiveness towards soulmate. Choose to have soul shattered to acheive this. Sworn to learn the truth of Karma at all costs. Also previously the Ultima of Death

The Unknown flipped ahead. "This is the most important part."

Frankie Alkhemiyst, Father God of the Upper Realities living in the Real to become originator of the Alkhemyists. He who IS the Unknown, beloved creation of the Source. To know great love, to give it equally. To foster, guide cherish and govern the world he created and continues to create as the Silver Phoenix, Rhay'nemecurial. To reunite with the Golden Serpent,Sire'ean and end their eons long quest for each other. To rule fairly and justly all of his part of the Multiverses.

To take his true name by walking in every world boldly and enthusiastically. To find and share new worlds and new stories.
To realize his true purpose in the Real: enjoying everything with the heart of a De'mon and the soul of an Ochian. To love and be loved by his Soulmate. To contribute to the beauty and magic manifested in the Real by creating art and speaking his truth.

Greatest Challenge, manifesting the Unknown, first in the story, then the Upper Realities until it permeates the Real. Must learn and except is no longer a human who dreams of becoming a magical being but a magicial being of De'mon/Ochian descent who is the embodiment of the Silver Phoenix, Rhayn'emecurial. God of his realm. No more or less a part of the Real, no more the Real's property than a myth.

Frank finished reading. "A myth?"

"A living myth. For what else is an acting god but a living myth. Now your world has many myths, many ways to the Source, as does the Real. You are in the Real as a favor to the Source. You chose to live as myth. The myth of yourself. Frank Alkhemyist, sound and story, fire and home,wizard and god,artisan and lover. While you do so, you lead others to their own myths of their selves."

'Here's the secret, by becoming living myth you make a new gateway to the source for anyone who wishes it in the Real. Anyone who finds their way to you can find their own way to the Source even enter the Upper Realities if they wish and call you teacher, Father Alkhemyist. But don't concern yourself with that just yet. Now, expect to be this for a very long time because the source wishes to know every one of it's children and you and the Other are it's ambassadors from the Upper Realities. It asks and will aide you in defying the mundane part of the Real if you will accept and become the Unknown, here and there."

"I don't know, i just don't know if i can do it." Frank wiped away a tear. "Though it is what I truly wish to be and do. It sounds too incredible, to important to trust to to me. Why me and not another more worthy? I couldn't possibly..."

"What if I could prove it to you? That you are. That you can."

"If you could, I would try."

'Alright, I want you to call all the threads of the Ultima's around you as you write this. Imagine them forming a beautiful cloak around you. Alright now, got it? Look at the shirt you are wearing."

"Come again?"

"The shirt. The one you are wearing in the Real. It possesses every color of every Ultima, does it not?"

"This is weird. And I fail to see what it proves."

"No, it's not. This is what IS real. Here and there, every minute of every day. Change what you are looking at and reality shifts. Fred wasn't as crazy as people thought."

"Hey wait a minute. It's gone. My necklace, the Cross of Illsarek! The stone fell out!"

"Go see if you can find it.."

(returning) "You will never believe what just happened"

"Let me guess, you witnessed a child pick it up and proceed to tell his friend a certain famous boy wizard secretly gave him the Sorcerer's stone to keep safe. And no one, Frank, no one will ever be able to convince that child otherwise. Because that stone fell away from your necklace when it became complete and you didn't need it anymore. It became an Alkhemyist Stone, the first one brought into being. It will go on to unlock that boy's dreams his wishes his true self if he so wishes. And someday he will, so see you have just given birth to another Alkhemyist. That child will have that special moment and that little stone forever unless of course he passes it on to another when it has been completed for him."
Frank,no I blinked away tear and was once again here and there all at once. "That is how you change the Real. You may not even know you are doing it. But I wanted to cheat a little to get you over your doubt." The Unknown smiled warmly, "Now, are you ready for what comes next?"

That was written over three years ago, I look back and go wow and I have to ask myself how i'm doing and if indeed I am ready for what comes next? If I am doing it for me then I think that answers the question itself.

Hey Sanzo where you been?

Dear Hakaryu,

I am sure that is the question on your mind today...where have you been...ah well i have been doing the whole let's see how many different emotions we can fit into two days kind of thing...
today is going to be choppy and I ask you to bear with me...
On Sunday I went on nothing less than a personal religious pilgrimage...I saw Clay Aiken in concert...those who know me know I have always found concerts to be highly moving enlightening occurances...not just because of the concert smell(a joke about how most concerts I have been involove clouds of marijauna smoke and a contacy high)
But this was different...I knew from the first note that the young man I was seeing was not just a singer but an instrument of the Source plain and simple...and of course because nothing is ever JUST plain and simple for me I started to think about how each one of us has that ability...not just an artist but an instrument of the Source...not just a writer but an instrument of the Source...
then I start to think but I don't like that being just an instrument it takes away too much of my individuality...
then I thought on it some more...an instrument is a creation made with love and skill, no two are the same, how can the be even if you made them with the same love and design, each would be made of a different blending of raw materials...a musician breathes life into the instrument so it can share it's sound and story with the world as much as the musician himself wishes to do...
ok so I ask myself is there anything in this world as beautiful and complex and the sound and structure of an instrument..few things...in fact isn't it a great metaphor for the human soul...
so if I consider myself to be an instrument of the Source that means by MY definition...the Source breathes life into me allowing me to share my sound and voice the way a virtuso can play a unique violin and bring out it's very essence...
hey, maybe that isn't such a bad thing...
after all the most well made love fostered instrument doesn't really come to life if it stubbornly refuses to accept the musician's aide...it will sit in a corner somewhere and maybe look beautiful but it's soul will cry in pain if it is not allowed to sing...and it can not sing without the player...
so I've decided to see it a little differently and see what happens when I allow the Source to pick me up and play my music...I wonder what will happen I wonder has already changed inme...
Back to Clay..here is an example of someone who already knows what I've just considered. He sings and you can feel the Source and you can know the Source. Emotive truth,healing sound. If only every concert left me so Source-filled. But this one was special and it reminded me that special awe inspiring moments occur. At a time when I had nearly lost faith in the power of a live concert...but as I could write a book I'll leave it there and say see you tomorrow when we might even discuss Buddhism or the merits of putting pineapple on hamburgers