Happy Turkey day!!! From an Indian!

Well, this is an interesting day for me and Holly!  How to celebrate Turkey Day?  Holly thinks it is offensive for me... I like the turkey!!!  But as a Native American it has always been a little odd at times.  I mean have you ever been asked to dress up like your historical enemies and star in a school play singing the exploitation of your people!?!  LOL!  But let's not get to serious now!  I mean WE NA's came make more fun of anything than anyone else can!

So pass the gravy and don't scrimp on the Potatoes!

But then again I have to remember a couple of quotes I have come to like over the years.  And what better time to share them than right now!  So here goes...

Historically speaking, we went from being Indians to pagans to savages to hostiles to militants to activists to Native Americans. Its five hundred years later and they still cant see us. We are still invisible WTF!?!

The objective of civilizing us is to make Indian history become our permanent reality.

Both of these hard hitting quotes were by John Trundell, who I know nothing about but these two quotes. But I love them!!!

   So here we are celebrating the slow demise of my culture and stuffing our faces like only americans can... but that's cool!  I'm still here and having fun.  I even made a new piece to post on On Second Thought's Facebook Community Page and it is going over good!  I hope you enjoy it!

Love to all my friends and hope and prayers for a better future for all mankind!  The one I made for other Native Americans I'll post on our secret websites later!!!

Respect is where the heart is

The other day I read about two friends with completely different beliefs.  They believed in different policies, different candidates, different forms of government and even different gods!  But the one thing they had was friendship.  What made this possible I wondered and they told me it was just simple respect.  They respected each others differences and liked each other for them.  They rarely even argued... they just got along.

It is things like this that give me hope for humanity.  Hope that we can turn our differences into interesting things to talk about! Turn our dislike and maybe misunderstandings into topics to bring us closer even if we don't subscribe to these beliefs.  To do any less is ignorant and selfish, period!

So please remember that when you take a hard stance on an issue, due so with at least kindness to others.  For when we judge others through our own beliefs, it is these very beliefs that are hindering our growth and learning.  Take a chance and accept a person as a person first and reserve your judgement for their actions as a person.  You world will open up and you will have less stress, more comfort in situations with others and less negative feelings.  Don't hold yourself back by trying to hold others back.  Enjoy yourself, your life and the world around you!

    -Crowe & Holly

Live a little and be yourself!!!

     The deep belief in yourself is sometimes all we have to hold on to.  You have to know ou can do it in order to do it.  I use to be so scared of failure I wouldn't even try!  Would quit before I even tried.  Better to miss out than not to make it!  ...well, That's Bullshit!!!

     You know I missed out on so many things in my life doing this.  It is only now after I missed out that I see what I really missed.  I cared so much what other people thought I would let them choose and never think for myself.  God are you going to wear that?  Are you going to hang out with HIM???  Don't you wanna go?  What are ya scared?  Who the hell were they huh!?!  I an adult now and I kick myself for falling for any of it!  So stupid and scared of not fitting in, or not missing out I went along with a hell of a lot and missed out on a hell of a lot more.  Well I'm sick of it!!!

     I've changed so much since those days.  I do what I want and have fun doing it!  I don't hurt anybody and don't judge people very much on what the do either.  You know it is so much easier to find out who your real friends are when you be yourself!  Think about it!?!  How much do you bend for other people???  Ahh... you too eh?  Well not me brother!  Not anymore!

     Last year I took two friends with me to eat at a Mr. Gatti's Pizza.  We all ate the buffetand I left a huge tip. (I love leaving tips!)  Anyways, as we joked and walked to my car some people come outside.  After us!  It's the ENTIRE STAFF of the MR GATTI'S PIZZA.  The pizza cutter is even holding his two handled cutter and shouting!  The manager says,"We  don't want your KIND back in this place again!"  Kinda slow for a minute I look around.  I mean I am a 6'3" Biker looking Native American and mean looking even on a good day!  LOL!  Then I get it.  My friends, one is black and the other is flamingly gay.  Or maybe they really hate us indians... don't know... don't care!  I turn and start walking back.  Love a good fight, but the black girl pulls me back and the scatter like the cowards they are.  And I shake my head.  In this day and age!  Amazing!  I guess I should have been dumb and white and toothless that day or something!  lol!

      Anyways, this is what I am tell you!  Stand up and be proud of what or who or what you believe you are!  I never did care about being seen with them... they are my friends.  I was having fun and refuse to let ignorance or stupidity slow me down.  Stand up and be yourself.  At least one day a week eh!??  Live a little, I promise you... you won't regret it!

                                                  - Crowe & Holly

A little bit of kindness goes so far

   We have recently added a few articles that we hope will help anyone who happens to visit. We do this, in hopes that if you are feeling bad, depressed or sad that maybe this will help. We've all been there, but sometimes a word from a professional in the field could really help. We hope you don't need it! ...but when or if you do... there it is!

   As for us, we have been having crazy days as always!  We have started a series of Deep Thoughts that takes all the seriousness out of seriousness.  We call it,"I Wonder..." and is an OST original!  We hope you like it!

   I read something the other day about how the little things that we do to help each other can have enormous affects on others.  I read it and thought about it a little bit.  I tried to imagine what I could have done that really made a difference... and you know what?  I couldn't.  But that's OK, because I don't think it is the HUGE things that we do... it is the little bits of kindness that makes the biggest differences.

   I guess my advice for this is just to be kind to each other and good things will happen.  "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow... but soon and for the rest of your life!".  I love that quote from Casablanca.  It really is the little things that make all of the difference. Thank you!!!

- Crowe & Holly       

Do something! Anything.

   I made this picture for OST a long time ago.  I have always loved the sea and lighthouses of course and the quote is mine.  I was very proud of it.  It conveyed what I wanted it to.  A symbol of hope when life looked dangerous and stormy.  A single vestige of promise looming out of the darkness.

  Sometimes we all need that.  Something to hold on to.  Some sign of hope and security in this rolling world of ours.  Like a last bastion of sanity when we have reached are wits end.  I guess we all need that sometimes.  I'm tired of crying out to the horizon with no one to hear me cry!

   We all need something.  Love, caring, understanding, hope... something.  Human companionship.  Something so small and so easy to give, but impossible to obtain, or so it seems at times.  Why can't we just give it.  Why can't we just be supportive when someone needs us.  Maybe it's just to listen.  To nod your head and say, "I understand.  I've been there.  I know something that helps."

   The opportunities are out there to do something but nobody is out there to help!  Where are you?  Where have you been?  Can't you just slow down for two minutes to hear me cry?  Is that two minutes so vital... so precious you can't spare them if nothing else???  Where are you when your life is making sense and mine is not!?!  Why can't you stop ...just stop and listen to me?

   I hear these unspoken words in so many of us and it's sickening.  It sickens me.  We say we help... but do we really?  Do you take the time to just listen?  Really listen?  Feel something!  Anything... anger even!  Yell at me and say it is going to be OK!  Do something... don't just stand there.  Reach out and touch me or hold me and something.  Listen for once and help me.

   You know... if we just did that this world wouldn't be in the shape it is now.  Do something for someone and you will be paid back... tenfold!  Just do something.  Anything.  OK?  Alright... I will be right back after this shot of Demoral...

Make your life better for all of us!!!

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.        - Albert Einstein

    I wish there was an easy way to convince people to just try to like each other.  Just to talk at least civil to one another and I believe the world would be a much nicer place.  It always seems that the moment you try to change the world someone stands up and pushes you down.  Maybe it is fear of change or of progress forward.  I think it is because without hatred they would feel weak and vulnerable.  A better to be tough and lonely than open to ridicule and the fear of ones own acceptance kind of attitude.  I don't really know, but I know we are all guilty of indifference from time to time.  Maybe it is just easier not to care and look away.

   All I know is this  if WE don't try to make our lives better then who will?  There is no pill or therapy session to make us want to improve this world.  And I know the easiest way to make this world so much better starts with us.  Make the world kind and accepting and your world will open up and your burdens you carry around with you will disappear.  I'm starting today... maybe you'll try a little too and we'll all be happier.

                                                          - Crowe

Daily Inspirations

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

 - Martin Luther King

     I re-read these words today and had to stop. They echoed so much the feelings that I hold for all of us. To me, it speaks of warm ideas and the beautiful freedom to share them freely with each other. Without bitterness on either side and without foul judgement or retribution.  To be able to say, "I am different from you, my beliefs are different than yours, let me share them so we can be closer and friends.  Accept me as me and do not judge me before you even know me.  Because if we could only see each other then there would be no hatred between us.  If we could just see each other with all our differences as unique and beautiful then this world would be a better place and us a better people."  To me this is what his words scream out from so many years back.  BE MY FRIEND FIRST!  LOVE ME BECAUSE I AM ME.  TAKE JOY IN OUR DIFFERENCES!  LET OUR DIFFERENCES ONLY ADD SUBSTANCE TO THE SOUP AND NOT FUEL TO A FIRE.

I just wanted to share this with you today.  I wish the world would not judge first and ask questions later.  After all my years I have found Hatred and anger only hinders yourself.  It has no positive outcome.  It has no positive properties.  Car about someone you don't even know and you will be a better, stronger and happier person for it... I guarantee!  Thank you so very much for listening.

 - Crowe & Holly OST