Instagram - Instant, Connecting, Creative & Invasive

I've recently discovered Instagram and was inspired to do the photo-a-day challenge thanks to one of my dance mom friends. It's really quite easy and I'm quite happy at how artsy my images are turning out. I guess I will try to upload them continually to this post throughout the month. Here's what I've done so far.

http://instagram.com/p/SuF7_AIyDE/

DAY 1 - My view today. Painting with little dancers. :)

http://instagram.com/p/Sx2g6foyAU/

DAY 2 - My favorite holiday movie

http://instagram.com/p/Sx3Pw8oyAw/

DAY 3 - Red. At South of the Border

http://instagram.com/p/S1eIKToyD1/

DAY 4 - Joyous. The 10 of cups embodies that word.

http://instagram.com/p/S3-L2KoyBw/

DAY 5 - Today's Temperature. From my car's dashboard in sunny Florida.

http://instagram.com/p/S6XRmiIyKh/

DAY 6 - Shopping. Anthropolgie. One of my favorite stores.

http://instagram.com/p/S89MdRoyJN/

DAY 7 - Bright. My neighbor's palm tree. It gets decorated every year and just gets brighter and brighter!

http://instagram.com/p/TAAl9XIyCj/

DAY 8 - Ornaments. Although we haven't gotten the tree up yet, the ornaments are down from the attic. So I just snapped one of the prettier ones.

http://instagram.com/p/TCizZHoyGx/

DAY 9 - What I'm reading. Cloud Atlas.

http://instagram.com/p/TE0z9TIyFZ/

DAY 10 - Wrapping paper. Busy day. Uninspired....

http://instagram.com/p/TJDOoJIyOb/

DAY 11 - Green. My beautiful butterfly plants after an overnight rain.

http://instagram.com/p/TJES-jIyPG/

DAY 12 - A Beautiful sight. My daughter dancing.

http://instagram.com/p/TLmmq-IyAy/

DAY 13 - Family.

http://instagram.com/p/TPMd9_IyG9/

DAY 14 - Christmas Tree. No Christmas tree at our house yet, it's the one from the sushi resturant.

http://instagram.com/p/TSEzZToyH2/

DAY 15 - Favorite Christmas Song.

http://instagram.com/p/TUgPhBIyAp/

DAY 16 - Outside Christmas lights.

http://instagram.com/p/TW1XWNoyJS/

DAY 17 - Presents. My grey cat Sivee is the best present!

http://instagram.com/p/TdyP0CoyFA/

DAY 18 - Stockings

http://instagram.com/p/TdxKi2oyEB/

DAY 19 - Candy Cane.

http://instagram.com/p/Tyc7HHIyI0/

DAY 20 - Tree Topper.

http://instagram.com/p/TzxMtVIyJL/

DAY 21 - Peace

http://instagram.com/p/TmJNPcoyC-/

DAY 22 - Tradition. Christmas Cookies, A Herbert tradition.

http://instagram.com/p/TyeDhYIyJw/

DAY 23 - Scarf. It doesn't get very cold in Florida. This was kind of tough.

http://instagram.com/p/TzyHENIyKK/

DAY 24 - Favorite Part of Christmas Eve. Midnight Mass.

http://instagram.com/p/TxG0PjoyM7/

DAY 25 - Morning. My grey cat Sivee is the best present!

http://instagram.com/p/T4MlY9IyOH/

DAY 26 - Grateful. Want to be more so in 2013.

http://instagram.com/p/Tw9aPmIyBK/

DAY 27 - Night Time

http://instagram.com/p/Tzvt7MoyHr/

DAY 28 - Words. From a book of Russian legends.

http://instagram.com/p/T1ZKkWoyLF/

DAY 29 - Sky View. Shot at the entrance to our neighborhood.

http://instagram.com/p/T4Lv4QoyNW/

DAY 30 - Your Winter Wonderland. My childhood winter wonderland, circa 1971. Yikes! So long a go now!

http://instagram.com/p/T69ZkAoyIx/

DAY 31 - Fun! Christmas Eve with my designer friend/client KC Malhan. Check out their website! www.kcmalhan.com

The other really cool thing I love about Instragram is being able to see celebrities view of the world through their Instagram posts. My current favorite is @bigbaldhead or Norman Reedus or Daryl Dixon from The Walking Dead. Here are some of his latest posts.

http://instagram.com/p/SwUd40McMv/

http://instagram.com/p/S1jY29scDL/

http://instagram.com/p/SoHXBsMcC1/

Zombies

I've been reading tarot cards for 21 years. Wow! That makes me feel old. I never thought I could do anything continuously for 20 years. Tarot, meditation and other spiritual matters/musings help you focus on the world differently. You begin to see signs in everyday life, synchronicities and serendipities that are like magic! You see Jung's collective unconscious on TV, in books and in national events, even words spoken by friends. For the last few months I've seen a lot of zombie symbols and decided to talk a little about them. Maybe I'm exercising the zombie in me? What is the collective unconscious?

The collective unconscious, originally defined by Carl Jung, refers to a segment of the deepest unconscious mind. As opposed to the personal unconscious, which is composed of long-forgotten memories and experiences, the collective unconscious consists of archetypes that represent an inherited set of beliefs and understandings. These archetypes exist to varying degrees in all humans. Many believe that over time, the collective unconscious evolves and changes to incorporate new information that is globally recognized and accepted. Some believe that their may be a genetic memory that collective unconscious that ties into and it helps our evolution and our survival as a species.

Zombies are a product of our modern collective conscience. This archetype is so prevalent currently, with the popular AMC series Walking Dead. (I love that gory show, although I am behind in viewing the second season.) We even have an example of the myth coming to life and the 6 o'clock news with the Miami man who viciously attacked and chewed on the face of an older homeless man. Tests showed that he only had marijuana in his system. Was he operating on a mental level that allowed the zombie archetype to express itself through him? We will probably never know why he preformed such a horrific crime.

Originally zombies came from an ancient African voodoo belief that a corpse could be put under the spell of a sorcerer who reanimate it and control it like a mindless automation. many say the practice still goes on it Haiti today. George Romero gave Zombies a scarier twist in "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) by retaining the "rising from the grave" element but losing the idea of the controlling sorcerer. Romero also introduced the idea of a "bite" turning people into zombies and that there was no controlling force or reason/explanation for their existence. That gave the archetype a modern twist and power.

So we have to ask ourselves what are zombies trying to tell us? What is our "collective unconscious" trying to tell us, with so many zombie examples around us? It seems to me that zombies are a symbol for the great indifference of our population, to our politics, to our gas prices, to our wars, to our everyday automaton 9 to 5 life. We are the protagonists but we are also the zombies. Our deepest unconscious minds are telling us to "wake up."