This is probably going to be a short post, but I'll try and drag it out un-necessarily long just for the cheap laughs. Anyway, aside from making the topic sound like a manga chapter, I refer back to my post called, "My Empire". In said post, I mentioned my imperial banner baring a very special orange rose. While the symbol does hold some corporeal elements of reference, the true significance of the sight was something more akin to a spiritual awakening within me. Although I am unable to fully recall the exact date of the event, I do seem to remember that it was Autum-2005, around midOctober to early November. I was out taking my dog for a quick walk and I passed one of our many stone encirclements that held various different flowers and other plants and I didn't seem to notice anything particularly important about it that day, much like any other. However, upon my return from the walk, I actually stopped dead in my tracks just as I neared the side-walk up to my front door. After allowing my dog to scamper inside, I sat transfixed with awe at the simple site of a single orange rose in the middle of an otherwise completely dead plot of mulch. I found out later that orange roses, while are rare, do exist throughout nature but at the moment the fact that I happened upon a flower to the tone of my favourite colour just seemed very foreign, yet enticing. I must have looked like a freak squatting there and having a staring contest with a flower, but I was unable to look away.

The next eventwas so strange I find it impossible to describe but here it goes... The day was cloudy and for a brief moment, the clouds broke in such a way that golden radiance bathed the single flower in utter luminescence. It was also then that a strong current of wind blew from the north (where my house faces) and knocked me over, almost as if the rose wanted me to back away. Naturally, I hurried inside, hastily found my camera and snapped a dozen pictures before scurrying back inside. The next morning was almost disturbing in a rather docile way, after being up for a few hours I offered to take the dog outside for a morning walk and when I excitedly rushed over to see the rose, it was gone. I don't mean like, it died or withered, I mean as if it literally disappeared from all existence in a single night. This was the final key to the spiritual lock, whatever it really was. I found myself thinking ALOT afterwards, much like I do now, but I namely contemplated how fickle life could really be and how easily it could be plucked right from its roots (pun very much intended) and removed altogether from your mind. Also I think I can at least infer now that nature, as a whole, is not a series of random organisms and tissue, rather, it is a symbiotic system of linked minds that go with the ebb and flow of the will of existence, in other words, a collective unconsciousness.

To wrap things up I'll say something really weird that happened. First of all I should make a mental note (again) to go way more in-depth about my wonky dream escapades I tend to have, but a particular one sticks out in my mind when regarding a certain orange flower. Skipping past most of the details, I was an observer to a massive invasion of a human city which looked very advanced and almost utopian-like committed by an enormous legion of lizard/dragon men with incredibly advanced and unorthodox (as in, ships transforming into skyscrapers, tanks that rolled up into balls, and battle mechs with jet engines for cannons) weaponry that completely decimated all of the defending humans. Like I said, I'll go more in depth in a later post, but the most un-nerving part about the whole dream, nevermind that I just saw the beginning of humanity's conquering, was that, when the smoke cleared, one of the lizardmen planted a flag on top of a hill outside of the city. That flag bore an orange rose as its centerpiece. Right then and there I remember waking up in a complete state of shock... ugh and rightfully so, I still have issues trying to decipher that mess. Could it be possible that I am to bring humanity's downfall to light? :?

I do not notice the paint on the canvas, rather, the frame around it.