Fukushima conclusions

Dear Everybody: PLEASE READ!

They say if a monkey sat at a typewriter long enough he would create the works of Shakespeare.  Sadly, it seems if that same monkey had access to nuclear power, he would eventually destroy the world.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany looked at the number of meltdowns and the number of operating hours of all civilian nuclear reactors and predicted that we could see a meltdown every 20 years. 

Why is this coming up now when the Fukushima accident happened over 2 years ago?  For some reason, I, and apparently many others, thought the powers that be would have been on it immediately!!  I thought this problem would be a top priority world wide!!  Insane world governments seem to think that if they don’t say anything about it, people will think the problem has gone away.  “The first thing to be controlled is the media.” Professor Michio Kaku.

DISCLAIMER  I don’t know how alarmed one should be, or exactly how grave the situation… the mainstream media is in a blackout about this and the governments and big industry lie to us to promote their own (insane) agenda… but for me… I prefer to err on the side of caution!  I went through a period of sadness and anger, and then I did some research.  What I can do is.. spread some intelligent info… 

The situation is more critical for people living on the west coast, but EVERYONE ON EARTH, will be affected eventually!  Acording to Author/Activist Harvey Wasserman, there are 11,000 fuel rods at Fukushima,  which can release 13,000 times the radiation of Hiroshima!  One of those rods could kill at 15 feet in a matter of minutes!  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NucjTiOXxSQ 

LET’S TAKE CERTAIN PRECAUTIONS!!!

What to do:

Take Iodine.  I am taking an iodine pill weekly.  I am not sure how much to take.  In the past one could take kelp.  Do not take kelp or other seaweed  as it may come from the Pacific ocean.  Avoid Green Tea as it is mostly from Japan.  I would use Ceylon tea, Yerba matte or white tea, **check where it is from!. 

Do take miso, ginger, and Garlic.. raw is best, also try using Himalayan salt and kumbacha tea!  The effects of radiation are cumulative, so although we all probably have had some exposure; let’s try to minimize it!

* SEAFOOD:  Question the origin of ALL seafood.  Assume that fish and crustaceans from the Pacific Ocean could be poisoned with radiation.   Avoid tuna and other canned fish.

* WATER:  Get a good water filter and avoid drinking unfiltered water!  Use only filtered water for drinking, cooking and ice.  The tap water that flows from your faucet has NOT been treated to rid it of radioactive particles.

* DAIRY PRODUCTS:  Milk and milk products from the West Coast states currently have the highest levels of radiation in North America.  I use Horizon milk and Mountain High yogurt (from Colorado) and cheese from Midwest minimally… Also I rarely eat out these days, as I don’t know where restaurants get their food!

* PRODUCE:  Leafy Vegetables, Wines, Tomatoes, Strawberries….all produce from California or any other West Coast State are also likely to be tainted.  Well, I live here, and I am not moving from California unless my kids do!  So what to do?  Wash everything that you eat, (use produce wash and filtered water).  

* MEAT:  An animal that eats contaminated vegetation on the West Coast has consumed radiation, and is poisoned.  This is any animal from cows, pigs, goats, sheep to wild deer and other game.  Primary consumers (vegetarian) consume less pollutants than those higher on the food chain.

* ALSO:  Personally, though I have loved walking barefoot on the beaches of the Pacific Ocean in the past..  I will no longer do so in the future. 

What are we dealing with here? 

Nuclear power plants emit deadly radiation from many different substances, including;

Plutonium, atomic number 94, only occurs in trace amounts in nature but is manufactured in nuclear reactors from uranium-238.  It is used as a fuel in nuclear reactors and as an explosive in nuclear fission weapons. “There are 15 isotopes (another form) of plutonium.  Pu-239 and Pu-241 are the most abundant of the fissionable isotopes of plutonium.  [At the “half-life” the element will be half as deadly as initially].  Pu-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years and Pu-241's half-life is 14.4 years. The plutonium isotope with the shortest half-life of 20 minutes is Pu-233. Plutonium-244, which occurs naturally, has the longest half-life of 80,000,000 years.  [So in other words.. this shit isn’t going away any time soon!]

(from Wikopedia)

According to Dr. Helen Caldicott, plutonium lodges in the liver and testicles.  She says that even a minute amount of plutonium in the testicles emits high doses of radiation to the cells next to it.  Recessive mutations can take 20 generations to show up.  She expects cancers to become prominent in 2 – 20 years.  She calls the nuclear power industry “the prodigal son of the weapons industry.”  She says it is a “Trojan Horse used to camoflage” [intent] and that any country with nuclear power also has nuclear weapons.  She states that over 1,000,000 have died from the 1986 Chernobyl accident. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsrik7HEvh8

Cesium 137  (or caisium 137) has a half life of 30.1 years.  It is among the most problematic of the short-to-medium-lifetime fission products because it easily moves and spreads in nature due to the high water solubility of caesium's most common chemical compounds, which are salts. [Why this can spread across the ocean!]  As of 2005, caesium-137 is the principal source of radiation in the zone of alienation around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Together withcaesium-134, iodine-131, and strontium-90, caesium-137 was among the isotopes distributed by the reactor explosion that constitute the greatest risk to health.  In April 2011, elevated levels of caesium-137 were also being found in the environment after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disasters in Japan. 

(from Wikopedia)

A study published in The International Journal of Medicine indicates that more than 14,000 deaths right here in North America can be directly attributed to the release of radioactive material from Fukushima.

You can’t predict where agriculture may be contaminated.  A “Hot spot” of contamination can exist right next to another area of untainted food source.   A Geiger counter is not so easy (for the lay person) to use and understand, but you can check out this web site:

http://www.geigercounters.com/FoodContaminant.htm

In Conclusion (waxing philosophical)

We don’t know how long we have.  The earth could be hit by an asteroid or be decimated by a super volcano or mega earthquake… you could be killed by a car tomorrow!   The people in Chernobyl have been living with radiation for generations.  Marianne Barisonek in her book “Cause and Effect” has studied and interviewed them extensively.   Important findings indicate that different people have different tolerances for radiation.  What would incapacitate one person in a short period of time, seemingly would leave another person untainted for decades.  Perhaps humans will live long enough to solve this problem… I hope so.  I pray every night for the future, for life on earth, I hope and pray for a miracle.  

Perhaps this is just the mathematics of the Mayan Calendar’s inevitable conclusion.  Perhaps it is just Shiva, calling us all home!  Spiritually, Life is a gift, the present is all we ever have.  Be a warrior of life!  Be a part of anything that is life affirming….  I am not going to stop living!!  If it comes down to it (God forbid) I will have a hell of a going away party!!   

My Daughter the Chinese Doctor

   My beautiful, daughter, Dawn, graduated in December 2010!  I'm so proud of her!  She received a Masters Degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine (Acupuncture) from Five Branches University in Santa Cruz (she'll actually be a doctor in one more year).  She received her Bachelors Degree from UC Santa Cruz in 2004.  After completing a course in massage therapy, she returned to Santa Cruz to continue her studies in the healing arts.  I can see that this is her calling.  She decided on this field herself and followed through, four years, to completion.  I know she will make a wonderful doctor, her compassion for others is a keystone of her character. 
   Before she returned to Santa Cruz, Dawn embarked on her study of acupuncture at the College of  Acupuncture And Integrative Medicine in Berkeley.  She was not happy with the Maoist philosophy of the school that separated the spirit from the body.  Dawn believes that the spirit and the physical need to be treated as one in order for healing to be complete.  That is why she has been concurrently studying medical Qigong and Daoist philosophy at the Institute in Monterey.  She told me that studying Qigong is like studying magic.  We tease her about going to "Hogwarts".  Dawn has also been to China a couple of times to follow this course of study.  I learned about a year ago that on these trips she has been initiated into an ancient Daoist order.  I am so impressed by her accomplishments.  
   Her dedication to this course of study is particularly gratifying to me personally.  I lost my faith in western medicine at the age of twenty when I realized that my own father, a medical doctor for 50 years, was out of touch with the real causes of health and disease.  At that age I also gave up my beliefs in traditional religion. 
   When you give up your belief systems, life becomes scary... It's like you are floating in the void.  You can no longer rely on others for answers.  As much as I wanted to believe that someone had the answers, someone in a white coat or a white beard, I just couldn't.  I had a mind opening experience working with a naturopathic physician in Sacramento.  I saw people with cancer that the medical establishment had given up on.  One man had a huge scar the length of his abdomen where the doctors had opened him up and then closed him back when they realized they couldn't help him.  I believe that chemicals, surgery and radiation do more harm to the human physiology than good.
    When Dawn was a child, I wanted to teach her and her sister, Gaea, about religion and spirituality.  But I didn't know what to tell her.  I let her know that I believe there is more to everything than we understand.  I also gave her a book about Edgar Casey, a documented healer, who saw his deceased grandmother as a child.  I guess not teaching her what I didn't know helped her to find her own path.  How exciting for her, a mature adult now, to embark on this new life as a professional healer.  Where this path will take her in life is anyone's guess.  Dawn, my beautiful darling, I am so proud to have brought you into this world.  Your gifts and light will be welcome where ever you go! 

http://www.fivebranches.edu/

The Next 1000 Years: Problems

   Herein is the continuing blog about about the Next 1000 Years...  It was a cold dark December of 1999, I was lying in our rope hammock under the clear starlight of the Sierra Foothills.  Gazing across the light years, I thought about the hype of the upcoming y2k thing.  Why was everyone acting like this was such a big deal?  Who cares about the stupid computers having a melt down?  People should be more concerned with how mother earth, Gaea, can survive the scourge of civilization. 
   Our oceans are being polluted with oil spills, and dumping of low level radioactive waste.  Then there's the Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that's twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists, composed of mostly plastics and plastic bags.  Chlorine is purposefully added to the drinking water (for what? to keep us healthy?) and the pvcs and pharmaceuticals in our drinking water are added unintentionally.  (I own the best water filter I can find, drinking lots of clean water is essential for good health).  Concrete and landfills are taking over the surface of the earth while the rainforests are being destroyed at the rate of more than an acre per second.  It's ironic that most babies born today will have contributed about 5000 non degradable diapers to the local landfills and the national debt they will inherit averages to about a million dollars per American worker (or 50,000 dollars per American citizen).  The air we breathe is polluted with factory smoke, vehicle exhaust and particulates from combustion of fossil fuels and garbage.  Surprisingly, the hole in the ozone from hydrocarbons at 22million sq km is actually the smallest it has been in a decade. Then there is global warming, or are we overdue for another ice age?  Who knows?  ENOUGH Already!!  Ok,  so what then?   The artist and print maker in me yearned to rise to the challenge ...  In the past when I wanted to publicize or promote something I made numerous screen prints as posters and/or bumper stickers.  The Next 1000 Years....   I thought to myself, if I made 1000 bumper stickers, a limited edition, with that phrase, in tribute to the new millenium... I could travel around and post them where they would be seen by others.  I wouldn't need to say anything more, merely

the next 1000 years

that is enough to make people think, to question, what does it mean?  All I wanted to do is plant the seed of thought.  Thought comes first... awareness, then action!!!!

Rockwell Sisters

    In biology circles there are known to be two kinds of parenting styles, investors and cheaters.  Investors are typically higher mammals, giving birth to only a few offspring during a lifetime.  Because they have few descendants, the parents make it a priority to invest sufficient time and energy into each individual to insure the survival and prosperity of each.  Cheaters, on the other hand, do not invest in the individual young.  They are usually of the lower species of animal life such as amphibians, insects and reptiles.   The cheaters insure the survival of their precious genes by creating numerous offspring.  Knowing that many will fall beneath the treadmill of life, they create multitudes of spawn in the hopes that some will live to reproduce again. 
    My parents belong to the latter category of animal life.  As Irish Catholic children of immigrants, (nouveau riche) mom and dad felt it was their personal calling to repopulate the world in their image.  I will say my folks must have had more chi, raw life energy, flow through their long lives than most people ever experience.  At the ripe old age of 86, each of them is the surviving sibling of their own large birth families.
    I was born into a big family that got bigger as I grew up.  I have six sisters and (had) three brothers.  My dad remarried twice and gave us also a half brother and a half sister.  One thing about my childhood, it was never boring.  There was always someone (or several) to play with.  I remember spending entire summers with no TV.  (My dad did not care much for TV, he cut the chord so often that eventually it was only two inches long and useless).  We developed imagination, a talent that post electronic generations are sorely lacking.
    Most of my siblings are writers of a sort.  My eldest sister, Kathleen  Rockwell  Lawrence was always there to look out for us youngsters.  I think a lot of the parenting/mothering fell on her shoulders.  She is well loved by us all and is still almost like a mother to me, in the very best of ways.  She is now a published author. The novels Maud Gone and The Last Apartment in Manhattan are among her works.
    My sister Mary Ann Rockwell was always very imaginative to the point of being almost otherworldly.  It was Mary who instigated and directed the various plays and imaginative games of our childhood.  She was a great artist as a kid and made us sit for (what seemed like) hours while she did a portrait.  The first I ever  heard of yoga or tarot or astrology (and Sonny and Cher and Aretha and Janice) was from her!  Mary still has a beautiful singing voice and is a published poet.  Her work has appeared in such journals as The Comstock Review, and Pharos.  She is also an accomplished artist, plays the penny whistle and writes a mean tarot blog (see below).
    Sister, Peggy Rockwell, barely a year my senior, was my "Irish Twin".  She was a star athelete while growing up and is also a fine writer. 
    My youngest sister, Brigid Rockwell, is also a fantastic artist.  She shows and sells her art in upstate New York. (She, too, had to put a fig leaf over the vagina of a figure drawing that was too sexy for the Hudson store window it was in). Brigid is also a very clever writer as you can see from reading her blog (listed below).
   Taine Rockwell, is also a fine writer and very creative individual.  She is busy managing a firm in Huston and raising a young son.  When she has time to write a blog, I will link it here.
   I, Terrie Rockwell, Rockwell sister #5, also self published a book called No Direction Home about life with my late brother Paul.  I am also a publishing house for my own limited edition arte prints.  If you want to see my resume and other accomplishments, go to my website, listed below.
    My brothers are also very creative.  Paul, Kevin and Gerard are (were) all musicians.  Gerard also writes stories and plays.  My half sister Alisha is a doctor and Susan is a Lawyer.  Not sure about Rocky yet... he's still young.
    I love my sisters and am proud to call them family.  Like other great creative families we will leave behind a legacy of our creative works!

Terrie Rockwell's web site
Brigid Rockwell's Art Blog
Mary Ann Rockwell Tarot Blog
Kathleen Lawrence Rockwell

Wild Thing... The Fugitive Kind

I was flipping around on the TV last night and I happened on one of my all time favorite movies; "The Fugitive Kind".  In glorious black and white, the 1960 movie stared Marlon Brando, Joanne Woodward and Anna Magnani.  This movie was based on a play by Tennesee Williams, "Orpheus Descending"  which itself was based on the classic Greek myth of the god of music's descent into the underworld to rescue his bride, Eurydice, from death.
The sexy, guitar playing, Val, comes to the small town and falls in love with the mature Italian woman, Lady.  Their romance is hindered by the fact that she is married.  Her dying husband's spirit is as sick as his body. 
The small minded townspeople are also jealous of the lovers' new found passion.
One of the most beautiful scenes in the movie is in the newly completed "confectionery".  Val has helped Lady realize her dream of creating a darling terrace off the store, where she hoped to cultivate a sparkling night life for the small town.  She has just found out that she is pregnant... it is Val's child.  After countless years in a barren marriage, she is overjoyed that she has finally found a love that will bear fruit.          
Lady recounts the story of a fig tree she owned that never bore fruit, everyone thought it was barren.  After many years it produced a small fig.  Enchanted with the small miracle, she pulled out her Christmas decorations and embellished the fruitful fig tree with her glass birds, icicles and delicate ornaments.
Dancing through the confectionery she cries

Decorate me!  Decorate me!

They embrace tenderly.  And then... well you know if you've seen the movie, and if you don't know, I won't ruin it.
At the end, Joanne Woodward's character holds Val's snakeskin jacket and says... (to paraphrase)

wild things leave their skins behind.  they leave their skins and bones and teeth behind, as tokens, for us to follow... the fugitive kind.

It was this prose that inspired the name of my multi media painting completed at UC Davis in  2001.  My painting "Wild things.... Leave behind"  is embellished with mouse skulls and bones, feathers and footprints.  These tokens I received from friends there (Troy Dalton and Michelle Disney)  who believed as I do in the reverence of nature and its creatures.  love animals

terrierockwellart at bonanza
terrierockwellart web site
terrierockwellart at Etsy

Rectangular Black Hole

    Funny, to me, how people are still so uptight about seeing the nude in art. It is 2010, after all!  Even this blog, has a button one must push to consent to seeing "adult content".  This seems so hypocritical when television and the media assault us daily with blatant sexual and violent images.  What is more pornographic, I ask, a classic nude painting, or the scantily clad torso of an emaciated young woman with an obvious boob job, blown up to triple in size, and shouting at you from store windows all over the mall? 
     My primary subject matter as an artist is the human figure.  Maybe because my dad was a physician, I grew up with the understanding of the human form as an incredibly intricate and intelligent machine.  This outlook was what called me to art in the first place.  I was in my early twenties when I took my first figure drawing class at Sacramento City College.  Northern California artist, Fred Dalkey was my instructor.  (Fred is a fantastic figure artist and his portraiture is stunningly beautiful).  I was going to study accounting, but when I took this class for the first time, something ancient awoke in me.  Learning from Fred was like living in a past life.  The whole atmosphere of the course was steeped in tradition.  We had to keep a sketch book (I filled up three that first semester).  Our text drew heavily from knowledge of anatomy.  Fred seemed to me like a latter day Rembrandt (his favorite artist).  I was able to repeat the course 3 times for credit.  My skills grew.
     I moved to the Sierra foothills and the first thing I looked for was a figure drawing group.  I found one, every Monday night at Tyler Micheleau's Gallery on Commercial Street.  I attended religiously for the next decade.  I happily abandoned my puritanical upbringing and stepped into the other side of the experience to model myself.  (It made sense to me that if I wanted to draw the nude, I should be able to model as well).  My kid's, Dawn and Gaea, just got used to having pictures of naked people hanging all over our house.  When their little friends came over they would ask Gaea why there was a lady with red boobs on the wall.  Gaea would just shrug her shoulders and say, "that's my mom's art".
     All this has been so natural to me, that I am still surprised at a street fair, or in my studio at the Placer arts Building, when the young kids stroll slowly past my art pointing and whispering, their parents looking too (often uncomfortably).  I remember then that the "real" world does not take nudity in its stride. 
    When I started oil painting, I wanted to create images of clothed people, as portraits, their attire reflecting their personality.  Funny how, many times, when I did ask a friend to model, they would just whip off their shirt or all clothing, to model for me in the nude.  I didn't ask them to strip, nor had I planed on it, but somehow, that's what they did....  I think being a woman artist in this day and age, gives me greater freedom than my male counterparts.  I am not considered chauvinistic for my subject matter, and somehow, my models feel safe enough to be nude in front of me.
     When my fellow artist, Menlo, agreed to model for me, I didn't ask him to take off his clothes, he just did.  The painting I came up with (above) is a reversal of the classical female nude (under the gaze of male society).  The artist in his studio, surrounded by his paintings, he named this piece for me; "L'homme Odalisque".  When I want to post this image in my Etsy or Bonanza online shops it is too sexy, I have to label it mature, and pull out the proverbial "fig leaf" to hide what god gave us all!  Well I didn't have a "fig leaf" handy on my  photoshop  samples,  so I used what I call a "rectangular  black  hole"  instead.  So if you  look into my  shops, and wonder why the paintings are censored, the vagina or penis is covered with the rectangular black hole, that is the reason.  My limited edition giclee reproductions are the original uncensored version.
(The original oil  painting was bought by my good friend Terry Hollowell, she loves the look of his bright pink balls and penis displayed proudly on her wall for all to see).  
http://www.terrierockwellart.com/
http://www.bonanza.com/booths/terrierockwellart

http://www.placerarts.org/
naked man paintings
naked woman paintings 
penis paintings

gray paint

I gave my first painting lesson yesterday to a couple of little girls I met while subbing at a Montessori School in the Sierra foothills.  We started with three primary colors, making a color wheel and added a tint with white paint.  I told them next time we would work with shades of gray.  I learned from northern California artist, Gary Pruner how to use gray paint in a scale of one to ten.  So today when I went to the Placer arts building to paint, I decided to work with only gray to start with.  I like to go to the Placer arts building where I am resident artist.  I sell my arte prints there and have found the environment to be very conducive to my productivity.  Sometimes I go down on  Sunday when no one else is there.  I bring my easel out to the front window, (it's good to paint in different light now and then) and unlock the front door, in case people want to come in and walk around. 

So I have been working on this long narrow horizontal painting that started out from a sketch I did of Angie's daughter at figure drawing.  I got frustrated with it repeatedly even though the figure and basic composition was good, it wasn't great (or potentially).  Then I turned her into a sexy nude Salome in an erotic Roman setting.  I struggled with that quite a bit, also, but I know that getting rich tonal gradations often takes layering, almost sculpting.  So I went in there today to paint with steps of the gray scale.  I worked for about five hours, immersed in the work, (or play)  painting only with gray, and I can see I am getting "there".  I know where "there" is, I will know it when I get it.  I can't express the sublime satisfaction that painting brings.  It's like, you feel sometimes in this life that you can't seem to get anything right.  Work, money, relationships, investments, so often I am banging my head against a wall.  Even painting, most days I just can't seem to get that right either.  But, today, it was flowing, for hours!!!  That is the gift... not thinking I have talent or anything like that, just that I can find it now and then,  that special quiet place that allows you to put aside your heartache for the time being, and just do the work that only I can do.  No one else can make my paintings, and that is my gift, the gift to me.  How lucky I am, when I have that for my work.  Will post painting in progress soon.

http://www.terrierockwellart.com/
red hat paintings   at fine art america
http://www.placerarts.org/