The Ego has a moment and the soul learns nothing

There was a moment, years ago, when I thought I understood exactly the relationship between my ego and my soul. And now, I spent a morning haunted by that lost clarity. Which now seems like the lost light from another realm. An image, briefly captured, but now dried up and leeched of the color of true understanding. 

I wrote Sometimes ego is not as clever as it thinks it is. When things go wrong, Ego has a tantrum. Ego hides. Ego walks away. 

I was journalling towards healing a past wound, describing it as an ego lesson. To understand the lesson, I needed to make sense of the nature of ego and the masks it wears to impersonate my true self. Because your ego is not you. I knew that then, and I still know it. But to be frank, I am unsure of whether I retained my past sensitivity at detecting the difference between the two, after more than a decade of trying to survive in a world intensely optimized for ego stroking on a massive scale. 

I remember once reading that Gurdjieff and his closest disciples played a game of cutting each other down with insults. A game designed to pare away the ego's disguise and enable the higher self to take control. 2026 sensibilities would no doubt define such an exercise as toxic and abusive. But that replaces introspection with something more comfortable and easily accessible. Outrage. The ego has a moment and the soul learns nothing.

The ego is your child, shaped by others.

The ego is merely an idea of you. A reactionary youngling that doesn't want to appear stupid or scared or mean or, above all, wrong. I could use other, more specific slurs and buzzwords, but I'm sure you know them already. Because no safe space remains for the insult game anymore. It has evolved into something fiercely fixated on annihilation. Something that feeds attention economies and drives ever-shifting power hierarchies. 

So, where are we? Are souls blinded by the illumination of so many ego-driven meltdowns polluting our mental horizons? Has your ego become the dictator that numbs you from feeling anything real? That makes you afraid to look at anything with emotional honesty?

How to create a book cover illustration (Case Study: Sultan and Charlemagne and the Wild Winds of Time)

 Images can say so much more than words and with the cover art we wanted to convey Sultan's larger-than-life charisma, while at the same time making sure that the little cat on his back (Charlemagne, of course) doesn't completely disappear from view. There's quite a size difference between an elephant and an ordinary cat. Preparations began with several elephant drawing for practice, which weren't worth publishing here. This early concept drawing was done with soft pastels. 

The cat in this early sketch was a little crude and the red lines and paw prints didn't really work. So I switched to my treasured Colleen colored pencils to be able to show greater detail on our two animal protagonists.

The background was done with oil pastels (one of my favorite mediums). Here detail was less important than strong color. 

I added lettering, just to see how the white on blue would look. 

The finished illustration on the sketch pad. It was done in A3 size. We experimented with different fonts and even different colors for the lettering. 

Would you have gone with the red lettering instead? At this point we decided to make Sultan's blanket a brighter red as well, which looks so much better.

The final version. From the first sketches to here took about two weeks. Don't forget, Sultan and Charlemagne and the Wild Winds of Time will still be available at 75 percent off on all platforms until 30 June 2026. Click the link below to go to the sales portal. (You know you want to!)

https://books2read.com/u/bWwLWM

75 percent OFF for 75 days... Book Promotion for Sultan and Charlemagne and the Wild Winds of Time

"The tale of Sultan and Charlemagne oozes with old world charm and a sense of wonder. As the two animal protagonists tumble on a romp through time and space, they also learn more about the value of life on our beautiful blue-green planet. The story is told with great vision, insight and imagination."

Sultan and Charlemagne and the Wild Winds of Time was written by my late cousin, Ben, a mischievous storyteller, whose insatiable curiosity made him into a well-read visionary, who was always full of ideas and suggestions on how to make the world a better place. These noble sentiments found a focus in an endearing fable in which the adorable young elephant Sultan and his accidental companion, Charlemagne the cat explore human history through the lens of their innocence. My main contribution to this project was the cover illustration, a mixed media work of colored pencils, oil pastels and black ink.

Starting tomorrow, the ebook will be available for only 99c across various platforms. This promotion will last until the 30th of June. After that, it will be available at that price for an additional 31 days on Smashwords, to coincide with the Smashwords annual Winter/Summer Sale. 

Follow our adventurous friends Sultan and Charlemagne by clicking on the link below. Happy reading.

https://books2read.com/u/bWwLWM

Watching the Grass Grow...

When I was a kid, one of our projects was growing beans. You know the stages: wrinkled skin on day one; then that fracture through which the root pushes; the first sight of greenery... And so on...

Fast forward to today, and I find that same simple pleasure in growing pet grass for my (mostly indoor) cats. About two weeks ago, I began a new grass patch and decided to document the process. 

Day one: Nothing to see. To begin the process, you have to punch a few holes at the bottom on the container and then add water to the mulch and seed. 

Day three: Beginnings. Look closely and you'll see the beginnings of an almost translucent root system at the bottom of the container.

I'm not the only one taking an interest. Leo's also taking note. Behind him, the old patch, which really needs to be replaced.

Day five: they're here! The first blades are breaking ground. 

Day seven: everything green. It's difficult to imagine now that there was nothing a mere seven days earlier. This is the fun part. You can literally see them growing.

Leo is happy with the results. Every morning he spends some quality time presiding over his grass. He doesn't eat that much of it, but he loves to wash it.