In response to those questioning the “value” of grad school & #education at #university :
”As a very grateful honors #student who LOVES learning & as an early admissions earner of multiple scholarships, who worked part time AND earned my masters from amazing #NYU at a very young age – grateful for every #teacher #educator I’ve ever had the great honor of studying –
I’m cognizant that it was my PASSION & DEDICATION to my own path as an artist- that guided me through education… and while I’m always suggesting to anyone contemplating their own path- it’s your own motivation that determines much (not all) of the experiences we might have as students, as humans being, I do believe that NOW MORE THAN EVER: WE NEED AN #EDUCATED POPULACE … an #Educated #Electorate – to balance out the sheer ignorance perpetrated on our #democracy by the obvious slashing of funds for #authentic education across this nation. In observing & enduring the political conservative insanity, it’s obvious that many of us have clearly lost our minds & hearts & souls to the devilish enabling of craven greed. The only medicine for this toxin is EDUCATION. Any attempt to denigrate the PRICELESS value of a real #LIBERALARTS #EDUCATION. — YES — LIBERAL 🦋🌊🐬🏳️🌈🐛🎶🎬🦋 – the denigration & toxic doubt of the inestimable VALUE of the FRUITS OF #TheEnlightenment as FOUNDATION for #civilization – Is folly – as that very seed of doubt is a poison pill, enabling those who wish harm on civilization, people and our dear old Mother Earth. The #enlightenment#enlightenment is our foundation for the #CivilRightsAct … for #WomensRights#Votingrights & #Marriageequality — ALL under attack by the #InferiorSupremeCourt … a #SupremeCourt so poisoned by its own inferiority complex that it is jealous of the girl who brought her to the dance : #Humanity … and SHE – needs us to stand up for her, lest we pay the tab for our own gluttonous apathy and indifference.”
🪷 “resting happy face 😊🪷 “ by cali lili @CaliLiliIndies™️ Currents
Leaps
N’
LandingZ™️
As a kid, yoga brought me healing from the “toxic stress” of an abusive childhood home. As a dancer I had already found tremendous joy in my art but something about the rabid competition in the entertainment world led me to seek solace in yoga, not as a replacement for dance, but as a companion for life as an artist in the 21st-century. Yoga also accompanied me on many NYC subway rides and it was a land-based version of surfing my beloved oceans, whenever I am too far away from water. I am a water creature and yoga helps me cope with land based behaviors.
Ironically it seems that yoga has now become a competitive space in some social media and live places. LOL the joke will always be on us if we choose to worship disposable culture we will continue to be treated as disposable humans. There is so much more value in honoring timeless eternal values, we ignore our own inherent non-commercial value at our own peril.
As soon as I saw the “asanas” (yoga poses) from photos in hatha yoga books I knew this ancient body architecture was for me, especially when I found myself too far from the sea. Whenever I’d practice the meditative technique of dropping my mind into my heart space, I’d visit my voice box and I’d discover sadness but still, I was happy for no reason. Eventually I discovered my speaking and singing voice too.
Some people told me that I was being “phony “ if I was just generally a cheerful person. Those types of negative haters would tell me I was just “acting” because I’m an actress (fyi good acting is not lying ). Now that I’m sort of a grown up it’s easier to spot the negative types even from a distance. These are the people who will immediately criticize the lifestyles of others, even if those lifestyles don’t impact their own lives. They are the people who will immediately put down ideas they don’t understand, instead of asking questions, or opening up a moment of curiosity. Those who drive by something unique like a unique house, built in an unusual style, and they will immediately begin petitioning against it in order to destroy it. I’ve encountered these people often because there are several areas of my life where I don’t conform to norms whether it’s clothing or speech or lifestyle. Gentrification in Venice Beach, Los Angeles brought us into proximity with such ugly haters who actually attempted to take people’s homes away from them in order to suit both the empty-handed bullies and the billionaires who fund the bullying. In some cases, they succeeded but not when people united and stood up to them.
While it’s quite possible to learn how to fend off such rude, loud haters, and refuse to allow them to deter us, they can potentially waste our valuable time and affect our health, both of which are our most valuable resources. The bully’s intention is to throw a wrench into our peace and into our family’s sacred spaces.
That’s why fending off bullies should not be left to individuals alone. This kind of thing is mutating as the virus it always was, now encouraged by craven bestial whistles from public servants who mirror and goad outrageous, psychotic, sociopathic, behavior in places like school board meetings, and other places that are meant as civilized constructive public spaces. Their intentions are corrosive to healthy cultural societies.
We need public service announcements incorporating history lessons, showing the very simple trajectory from the loosed arrow of normalized public malevolence into its ultimate target bullseye destination : authoritarianism, which is abuse.
Abuse of power is the same as any other abuse : child abuse, domestic abuse, sexual abuse, animal abuse, environmental abuse etc … In a democracy with rule of law, all abuse requires intervention.
Doing Nothing is not an option because the law requires protection of the vulnerable among us. These days that group is growing but we can turn this toward our mutual advantage by uniting against the bullies.
During my yoga practice, as a kid, I worked through the sadness in my heart, placed there by abuse until recently, I was able to practice the meditation technique of dropping my mind into my heart space, as taught by my first Thai Buddhist and suddenly a new journey began.
As a result of so much chaos in the world I reclaimed my meditation practice and recently I dropped my mind into my heart and a very funny thing happened – I felt so ticklish that I literally burst out giggling then, laughing as in “laugh out loud” until I realized that ticklish feeling is just plain bliss! That same feeling I get when I’m in the ocean! Pure bliss! From within. I was familiar with this feeling, but it never occurred to me to try to call it up consciously. Now it felt like a superpower.
The spiritual practice of meditation, whether it be in yoga or other disciplines, is a healing practice that re-aligns us to our internal compass and reconnects us to our natural born joy.
It doesn’t matter anymore if anyone thinks of this meditation joy or any other joy – female joy, black joy, multi-cultural joy, lgbtq joy, intellectual joy etc … You know, the joy that always seems to get on the authoritarian abusers’ nerves, is “phony “ or “acting “ (again, the art of a good actor is working from a sense of truth not a bunch of lying).
The lesson I discovered in meditative “bliss” is equivalent to the lesson we must all learn as we grow up. Remaining unperturbed or at least undeterred as result of abuse or criticisms & unreasonable cruel negativity expressed by others.
Unfortunately we live in a time when some of us condone, even encourage the kinds of abusive, even violent behaviors that would previously have caused most communities to unite and fight back together, in spite of political differences.
It’s time to unite.
As I’ve written elsewhere :
The 21st Century is “A Time of Useful Consciousness”
In my Oscars Contender “eVe N’ god this female is not yet rated” many images and concepts explore these themes, posing questions and positing hopes for healing.
I hope you will check it out and give us a good rating / review on any and all platforms including IMDB, Youtube Movies, Apple TV, iTunes Store Movies, Google Play Movies and Vimeo.
Lyrics to my debut album / original soundtrack “Cali Lili This Female Is Not Yet Rated” also explore these themes and can be heard everywhere music streams including Youtube, Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal Music, Pandora music, iHeart Radio etc…
Cali Lili “ Eve N’ God This Female Is Not Yet Rated “ Movie Trailer
Movie Review Of Cali Lili ‘s Oscar’s 2020 Contender “ Eve N’ God This Female Is Not Yet Rated “ Movie Trailer
snippets of the songs can be found on social media sites like instagram, tik tok, tumblr etc …
As we work on the NEXT movie and album we so appreciate your positive likes and shares!
Please help us share my sustainable, empowering projects
We are “HandMade To Make A Difference” ™️
And we invite you to join us, share the love, join us already underway surfing the waves in Currents Leaps N’ LandingZ️ ™️ onward toward our next release.
+ sometimes unwittingly, like the air we breathe, by OSMOSIS :
If You Love Movies + Music : Please ReadTheIndieLabel™ + Ask : WhatsInYourIndie™
If you love your basic democratic freedoms : please support authentic journalism, journalists, a free press + ASK QUESTIONS – like – who’s lobbying in your legislature, and who benefits from legislation?
We Consume Culture + a sometimes it’s OSMOSIS.
As an indie artist – I ask movie + music lovers to SupportTheARTSustainTheARTisT ™
#CureAteFoYoSelf™ so many “curators” are working with big money sources of content to make their “picks” that it’s pointless to consider it “curating” especially when we are living in a far more diverse 21st Century – where – so-called “curating” amounts to gate-keeping – when we CAN + SHOULD discover on our own – it’s SO MUCH MORE FUN!
Reading ‘the indie label’ is not unlike reading a nutrition label.
” A Sacred Space :
SupportTheARTSustainTheARTisT™
Neighborhoods built from scratch by dedicated, caring, working people, are – like great relationships and also like great works of art / craft made by artisans in communion with culture – a ‘sacred space’ – which must not be violated by the pale glow of so-called ‘progress’ fueled by the zero-sum games of bottom-line parasitical leeches : cultural imposters – bottom-feeders + 1%er top-slurpers .
The 21st century #dedicated #workingclass indie artist – like 21st century – middle-class/working class humanity –
It’s not solved with #PublicityStunts + #gimmicks – the kinds of ‘ #charity / #charities employed mainly to bestow grace on the Charity-Giver and to absolve them of their quiet #EconomicSins –
When ” citizens united” was passed by the ” scotus corporate subsidiary” they opened the door for future elimination of individual human innovation – to be gentrified by corporate-owned “Artificial Intelligence” –
If successful – this would amount to a full scale attack on free-thinking, free-living individual human “genius” (for lack of a better term) – in favor of a “wholly owned subsidiary / subsidized ” form of “genius” – only allowed to see “daylight” once fully patented by the corporation who ultimately “owned” it outright through astronomical – financially – subsidized legal means. Corporate welfare – seeking to eliminate human welfare (unless it serves the corporation).
are the silent marauders sowing seeds, like harmful weeds + even more harmful pesticides, like both – virus and it’s over prescribed antibiotic – culminating in the overgrowth and dissemination of an antibiotic-resistant ‘strain’ of an ongoing economic discrimination virus –
– a virus fueled by it’s De-Nihil-ISM™ siblings – racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism , climate denial – where money doesn’t just ‘talk’ – it screams obscenities – and destroys culture + more importantly – it destroys the living artist.
What’s worse is that some of these Intruders – dare to Don themselves, Cloak themselves in the mantle of ‘artist’ – twice insulting the artist + the culture she serves, the culture she weaves, the culture with which she is interdependent.
Sometimes well-meaning, often self-serving “entertainment reporters” / “curators” ( pronounced cure-haters at our studio) who sometimes come in the form of what is often referred to as ‘ arts + culture journalists’ whether they work for high-brow or low-brow publications / media – are often entitled dilettantes / trust-fund babies themselves – who contribute to the so called “curator class” and either detest us because they can’t make art themselves – or simply do NOT understand or care about the real – flesh and blood and guts – and life of an artist –
These “culture-vultures are virulent enablers of this GentrificationOfCulture ™ – and are literally destroying the Culture – and more importantly – the living breathing artist who needs the Culture as much as we need oxygen. Guys – you don’t get it – and I’ll continue to try – to explain.
De-Nihil-ISM™ + GentrificationOfCulture™ – is cure-ated in a healing medicinal born of #RESPECT + #selfdetermination –
It’s about sharing not only the wealth but also the opportunity –
#WhatsInYourIndie™ :
It’s something Audiences – cinephiles and audiophiles alike – can be aware of when ever we purchase movies + music —
The term “indie” is much appropriated and it’s not a matter of race or gender- it’s about – asking the same questions we ask of our nutrition – who made it?
Did some Corporate entity swoop in and find a malleable “candidate” ( as is done in politics) to mold and shape into the “image” of “what they tell us – we the people – want”?
and together we would pushback AGAINST the Corporate dominance over us ALL – because we are in the same boat.
We need to support the professional artist in media, movies , music, books – in their daily dedication —
getting a fair shot but ALSO what’s getting discarded in many industries and economies : the waning respect and growing indifference to the so called “middle class” which IS the so called “working class.”It’s about respect due – for merit as well as professionalism and dedication of one’s life to either a craft — or just as worthy – any profession – any job done well.
The Professional Artist who is an Authentic Independent Artist – is quite discernible by anyone paying attention to the “nutrition label” – it’s often someone who’s – not ‘signed’ – not ‘owned’ – not ‘in the club’ – or simply – unwilling to follow club-rules but also unwilling to sacrifice the wellness of her Culture for personal gain or ego. She’s – a crafts-person – and viewers + listeners should consider supporting the Authentic Indie Artist —
while corporate middle-persons should support + respecting those who’ve dedicated years to that craft –
not stand ‘in the middle’ of an artist’s relationship with her listeners + viewers – with your hand out, nor your tongue – slurping off the top –
Cali Lili Indies™🏝 PicturesWordsMusicInMotion™🎬🎧 femt0™studi0🏄🏽♀️🏄🏼♀️🏄🏿♀️ CuttingEdgeOfThePacific™🦀 ©CaliLili™AllRightsReserved. 
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