Forgiving Dr. Mengele: Episode 2 - Surviving the Angel of Death

Read Episode 1 Here

Awhile ago, I wrote a review of the documentary on Netflix, Forgiving Dr. Mengele and how much the subject of the documentary (an amazing woman by the name of Eva Kor) inspired me regarding the psychological aspects of my own troubled past.

At the end of the documentary, I was shocked to learn that not only was she alive, but that she lives in the same state as I do. Eva, with her message of hope, forgiveness and healing, was right in my back yard. I waited awhile, mulling over what I should do with this information.

On Mothers' Day, this year, my in-laws came to visit my family in our new house. Being distinguished and recognized in his field, I asked my father-in-law if he'd ever heard of Eva. "Oh, yeah," he said. "I served on a panel with her and Maya Angelou, once." The man always makes my jaw drop. I told him of my idea about Eva and he gave me encouragement. I sent out the email that day.
 

Hours later, I logged into my email, intending to clean out the clutter of the day. To my surprise, a familiar name popped up. Eva Kor emailed me back! Not only did she email me back, she granted me an interview with her!

So, my lovelies, sometime after mid-August, you can expect a breakthrough interview with Eva from me on this very blog. I've got my photographer all lined up and the times are set. Needless to say, I am over the moon with this news. Eva's message is on par with Mahatma Gandhi's and I feel so blessed to be granted the opportunity to sit down with this woman face to face.

Elie Weisel said, "For the dead and the living, we must bear witness." In order to fully do justice to this story, I bought Eva's book, Surviving the Angel of Death. I felt I needed to read it so that I could really know what Eva went through. On the day that it arrived in the mail, I read it cover to cover. So detailed is the story that I had to take breaks every few chapters in order to mentally digest all I was reading, but I wanted to bear witness. True and fully informed witness.

I've been coming at this story in a round-about way for years, now. When I was in 7th grade, I took a trip to Washington DC. There, we were shown the Holocaust Memorial Museum. I can remember walking through and just not understanding how in the world something like this could happen. I've never understood hate that runs to those depths.

The image that sticks in my head the most was a pile of shoes in the museum.

Shoes confiscated from prisoners at Majdanek, on loan from the State Museum of Majdanek, Lublin, Poland. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

I walked through the whole museum on that trip, completely silent, but I knew that I was witnessing something important. That trip, that museum and that pile of shoes does and will influence me for years to come.  

I am a visionary. I use my art, my writing and this blog to bring to light issues I care about. I care that people are mistreated all over the world. I care about human suffering and I care about inequality. I know that I can use my voice, my ability to write and all the other gifts that I have been given to speak out against hate and to speak up for peace, for healing, for beauty, for fun and for creativity.

Art can be activism. Art has power and can be used as a catalyst for change. Sue Hammond West, my art professor who influenced me the most, taught me that.

The only thing I can do, my lovelies, is hope to do justice to Eva and her wonderful message. I look forward to this adventure and to sharing it with you.

Remember, dears. We are all visionaries. We just have to figure out where we excel.

Love to All My Relations,

-Bri

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In an Instant - What I Do

My lovelies, I want to share this video with you. This man survived a plane crash. That, in and of itself, is amazing. What's more amazing is what he said that it taught him that we can all learn from.

Dearest ones, in my hometown bar a couple of months ago, I sat across from a man and had a beer with him. This sounds mundane, but it was far from that. This man, I graduated high school with and, in a town with only 3 stoplights, that's big. It means that we grew up our entire lives together. We saw each other grow and change.

In high school, I was very aware of social strata. I was a band geek. This man, he was a jock. In our high school, those two cliques don't talk to each other. They keep their distance because, most of the time, it was bullies vs. bullied.

This man, he'd never done anything to me, personally, but in our entire school lives of knowing each other, I don't think I said more than 3 sentences to him. In the interest of forging a new connection, I greeted him with a smile. We each bought our beers and we sat down to talk.

Conversations like this always come down to, "What are you doing, now?" That question is so hard for me to answer. It's not cut and dry. It's not short and sweet. The answer is long and I never feel like I fully describe what I do and what occupies my days.

"Well, I'm disabled." I tell him. And I tell him all about Systemic Lupus and chronic pain and what all of that entails. I tell him about the days I can't get out of bed. I tell him about all the doctors and how, at 31 years old, they're using phrases like, "the quality of life we can give you." I tell him that there is no fix and my prognosis is uncertain. I tell him about my strokes and all the tests that still need to be done.

Then, I tell him what being sick has taught me.

Life is not all bad. In fact, it's simple and miraculous. It's taught me that I want to spend every single day playing with and reading to my daughter Pookie as much as I can. I want to smell the top of her head and kiss Hubby and help my stepson with his math homework.

I tell him that I see getting and being sick, of having strokes and coming through them, as one of the best things that's ever happened to me because it put me in touch with what really matters.

When a stroke happens, there's no warning. All of a sudden your ordinary Tuesday gets derailed. Your entire week (and sometimes life) is derailed. Strokes don't care that you have to be at work. They don't care if your job might fire you because you can no longer do the work or can't show up because you're on a heart monitor in the hospital.

In an instant, everything that you've worked towards, everything that you think is so important, suddenly isn't anymore. When you can't speak or understand the language you've spoken since birth, when you don't know who your family and friends are, if you're lucky to come out the other side with most of your faculties intact, your entire life is re-prioritized.

In an instant, your life has changed forever and there's no going back.

Then, I tell him about this project. Visionary Bri. I tell him, "I write and do art. I run giveaways and write reviews, I promote and encourage artists (focusing on women) both locally and worldwide. I am a life coach and a creativity specialist. My followers and readers include cosplayers, LARPers, rennies, fashionistas, dancers, artists, mamas and gamers as well as other passionate, creative individuals from all walks of life. My audience reach is nearing 7,000 unique viewers each week with viewership in 79 countries (and counting). My mailing list subscribers are in the 800-900 range at last count."

"But mostly," I say, "I help people live the kind of life they've always wanted to live. I give them the encouragement and the connections to do so. I want to help people, so that's what I do."

The more I spoke, the more his jaw dropped. And the more his jaw dropped, the more I just wanted to pour out what I'd learned by facing my own mortality. I wanted to wake him up. I wanted to wake everyone in the bar up. I wanted to take everyone's shoulders and shake them a bit and wake the world up.

This is it! This life is short! Plan for tomorrow, but bask in what's important, today! You will never know when tomorrow won't come, for you.

I wanted to throw away all the economic statuses and demographics and ideologies and political views that separate us, as people, and show each of you how we are so alike. So much more alike than we are different.

I guess a simpler idea would be, "I try to wake the world up to the beauty and wonder of today. I try to empower people to chase 'their always wanted to's and 'why didn't I's. And I try to remind them that what's really important is the impact you've made on those that will survive you and carry on in the world after you're gone."

That is the short version of what I do.

I have so much to tell you, my lovelies, about what this life has taught me and I want to share it with you. And it's too long, too much, and too beautiful to give you in little blog post snippets. This is what I want to do, my precious ones. I want to write a book for you.

I'm in the middle of it, now, and it's coming along nicely.

 It will be a book filled with love and lessons from my heart and life.

Do you remember when I said that I was going to ask you for help? Well, my dears, this is it. I need funding to put out this book and I'm asking you, my wonderful fans and readers to help me.

On the left, at the top of this blog, I've put a "donate" button from PayPal. If you like my writing and would like it to continue, if you can spare even $5, it would help.

I'm saving up to purchase my own domain and to start my own press and I can't do it alone. Being disabled and on a severely limited income with a family, I can't really get a loan to start projects.

From one soul to another and from the bottom of my heart, thank you for helping me. I adore each and every one of you and look forward to hearing from you.

We are all visionaries, my beautiful ones.

Love to All,

-Bri


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Living Within Your Means

If there's one thing I've learned about living a creative lifestyle, it is this: you can not operate at your full creative potential if you're constantly worried about money.

It is only now, in my early 30's that I am starting to comprehend how much of a practical feminist work "A Room of One's Own" by Virginia Woolfe is.

To quote The Indigo Girls, "I wrote papers about her in college, but I didn't know what I was talking about."

If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. In this book, basically, Virgina examines why more women don't go on to become business people or creatives. It comes down to a simple perspective. A woman must have money - meaning a way to support herself that is not dependent on anyone else that can be taken away. One can not reach their full potential if they're constantly worried that their electricity might be shut off or that someone will get mad at them and kick them out onto the street.

The second thing that Virginia says a woman (or anyone) needs to be creative is 'a room of one's own.' This means space and time to be able to sit and hear one's inner voice. It is very hard to concentrate on creative work when you have no corner, no time where you won't be interrupted by the daily ins and outs of life.

I am very lucky. I have all my essentials. I have a house that is warm. I have food for myself and my family every day. I have clean water to drink that comes directly to my house. Not all people have these bear essentials in their lives. When I look around the world, I see that I am fortunate.

I am also fortunate to have Hubby. He helps in all the child rearing things like changing of diapers. He helps with the chores that need to be done and understands that, mama needs some time, just needs rest or some time to be the "me" I was before my identity of "mama."

Hubby is much less social than I am. In order to function happily, I need hang-out with friends. I need to be able to cut loose and stay out all night and drink coffee and talk. He has his time away, too, with his martial arts. But we respect each other enough to understand the need for time away. And give the other their occasionally needed breathing room. This, I think, is one of the most important things of being in a psychologically healthy relationship.

But, really, the most important thing for us is the money. Everything is taken care of. Everything we need, we have or can get. This is thanks to many different kinds of support systems. My family, we do not live extravagantly. We don't think we have to have a brand new, flashy car. We don't need the latest in cell phone technology. We don't even need an entirely new wardrobe every year. In short, we live within our means.

We don't have massive debt. We don't rack up credit card bills. We make, we make due, or we do without.

Living within your means is one of the biggest things you can do to support yourself, creatively. As the quote from Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) says, if you're not demanding that your creativity support a very extravagant lifestyle, it can be about where your art needs to go. It doesn't have to be about how much money it can make you.

I've known artists who have fallen into this trap of needing their work to make them a certain amount of money. They get burnt out very quickly.

Art, writing, dance, creativity of any kind does not thrive when you're constantly worried about your next mortgage payment or rent. You can not give of yourself and your talents, fully, if you're coming from a place of lack. In order to create, our hearts must come from a place of abundance, where we feel that we are taken care of, we are safe and valued. Only then will our spirit be able to speak its' deepest truth.

Reduce, my beautiful souls. What do you really need out of this life?

Keep this in mind, my lovelies. I encourage you to live more simply. I encourage you to live more sustainably and, more than anything, I encourage you to live the life that you've always wanted. A life that makes your eyes sparkle, makes your heart break open and makes your spirit sing.

Until next time, my dearests, please remember that we are all visionaries. We just have to figure out where we excel.

Love to All,

-Bri

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"Put it in a Pocket" and "Bookbinding"

While researching smash books, I came upon this video. Now, I don't know about you, but my sketchbook does a lot of traveling with me. (Yes, I bought my purse big enough so that it would fit specifically in there.) As I go about my life, I often find things I want to save. Business cards, napkin doodles and the like. Sure, I could just put them in my purse, but little things like that tend to get lost or mussed up.

My current sketchbook has a pocket in the front, which I just love. The tradeoff is that the cover isn't as sturdy as the kind of sketchbook I normally get. So, what a wonderful thing to find -- how to make pockets in your own smash book, sketchbook or journal. (Her voice is a little soft, so you may have to turn it up.) Now I can have the sturdiness of my favorite brand of sketchbook AND the pocket that I love. Woo hoo!

Also, there was something I learned at the Buddhist university that I attended-- making my own books. I only did this once, in the class, but I look forward to doing it, again. "Sounds hard," you say. Not so! In fact, it's pretty easy and can get addictive. Here's a video that explains the basics using widely available materials.

Well, my dears, I hope these videos inspire you this week. Feel free to post pictures of what you've been up to. I'd love the see them.



And please remember that we are all visionaries. We just have to figure out where we excel!


Love to All,

Bri


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Getting Started -- A Sketchbook. Now What?

Let's start at the beginning. You have a creative dream. You have at least one idea for a creative project that you would like to see manifest in this world and you've come to this blog for some mutual support. I'll assume, at this point, that you've taken my advice from the post The Most Important Tool and gotten yourself a journal or Sketch Book that feels right for you. So, now what?

The absolute very first thing I want you to do with your Sketchbook is to make it yours. I want you to introduce yourself to it. I want you to run your hand over the spine and get to know your partner on this journey. At times, I even talk to my Journal. My journal / sketchbook is totemic, to me -- meaning that my journal is a symbol of my dedication to living a creative, abundant and fun life. I want you to decorate the cover of your sketchbook, if you like. I want you to completely own and cherish this one tool. It is going to take you a long way and bring you closer to your dreams.

Visionary Bri: The Origin of a Blog

First of all, welcome to my little corner of these interwebs. Most of my friends call me Bri, though I am known in certain circles by different names. I currently reside in the state of Indiana within the United States. 

If we were meeting in the real world, vs. you reading my words on your computer screen, I would like to think that we could be friends. I love making new friends everywhere I go. I’d meet you somewhere; a bar, maybe, or coffee joint. We would order our drinks of choice and I’d like to think that we’d laugh ‘til our sides ached, telling each other funny stories from our lives. I also would like to think that there would be silences. I‘m not talking about silences that are uncomfortable and reflect the uneasiness of things not said, no. I’m speaking of the kind of silences where we could just sit and be with each other, person to person, and be okay in the moment. I would like to think that, if our topic of conversation led to stories of hardship and pain, that we would be able to wrap our arms around each other in an empathetic embrace.