This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. I'm Marcia Joyner and we are navigating the journey. Today is just a tad bit different than what we usually do. We are going to talk to my dear, dear friend, and you all know how I feel about dear friends. This is somebody that everyone in Hawaii knows, Domingo Las Baños. And I first met him, I don't remember when, at the memorial at the submarine veterans have every year on Memorial Day, where they recognize all of the submarines that were lost during World War II. And so, and he was there. And you kind of think, well, why is somebody from the Army at a submarine event? But we will talk about that. But first, let's introduce Las Baños. So, aloha, thank you so much for coming. Nice to see you, Marcia, and you look bellisima, bellisima. See why I told you about having friends yet? I got to say it. Why we invite dear friends? Bellisima. So first, tell us about Las Baños. And you were a child when you went into World War II. So tell us about Las Baños and World War II.  My five brothers were five brothers. We were all in the Army. And we fought in World War II, Korea, Vietnam. We were all in there. And my father was a Navy man. First World War. And my mother's father was fought against the American and the Spanish-American war. So now, you were here. You were born here in America? I was born here in Oahu. But your other family was in the Philippines? Yes. Oh, no, my brothers were all born here. We were all born here. Yeah, but your grandfather was in the Philippines in that horrible war. Early on. Against the Americans. Yeah, I know.  So tell us about being in Oahu. You were born in Oahu? Well, I was born in Oahu. I grew up until we were fourth grade. And then we moved to Kauai. But my father, when he first came in the 1920s, he jerk-sold it on Chinatown and worked in a literate bar right next to Hawaii Theater. But during the day, he went to University of Hawaii Pineapple Institute and he became a technician in chemistry and pineapple. So every pineapple field has an experiment block. My dad was in charge of that. Oh, great. And many of us grew up, we helped dad pick up pineapple, big pineapple. That was how we grew up. So each pineapple is different? Pineapples are not just pineapples? Yes, but I think he was checking the amount of fertilizer and all those things. That's why they have an experiment block. So our days with our father was always working in the pineapple field. And it is tiring work, hard work. It is. So you were 16 when you went into World War II, is that correct? No, no. I was about 60. When war hit, they took our high school away on Kauai. And so we had to go to other schools, to other places for schools. But I went to work for U.S. ED, suckers every day. You know the songs, U.S. ED, suckers every day? That's us. So I was a timekeeper for all the vehicles that built Mana Airport. And Mana Airport on Kauai is now with the ballistic missiles going. I also ran a gunite machine which shoots cement to the tunnels that were built. And we did that.  So when we went back to school, well we had, and nights were blacked out. But so we all had our dances with army bands and boogie-woogie and all that. Jitterbug, we had afternoon dances. So that's how I grew up. And I spent a year at the University of Hawaii and then getting into the war, into the army. So let's talk about the war. You know, when I say the war, this young generation looks at me and said, what is the war? And so let's say that World War II is still the war. I grew up with every day with the war. You know, my father was in the war. Everybody's father was in the war. So tell us about the war so that young people understand what we're talking about. Well, World War II was a terrible era. And just recently, just recently, I saw a review of Nazi Germany taking over Czechoslovakia and the next one and the next one. And then they took Russia in the tight turn. So I saw movies of this. I saw the growth of Mussolini, Franco, and also the Japan with its navy and its experimentation of taking over in Asia. All that just a month ago, a review. And then the times that, the time when America got in. On the day, I'm going through my participation and my knowledge of World War II. I was a youngster about 17, 18, 17. And that morning when Pearl Harbor was hit, they hit Manila also.  And I saw my kid brother and he said, hey, war, war! Over the radio came the news that Pearl Harbor was being attacked. That was our first knowledge of the war. And that was the beginning of my childhood, really, in a way. Because immediately after that, and one year in college at University of Hawaii, I went to battle. Where were you in battle? Well, we trained in Camp Roberts, California. In San Luis Obispo. Borded a train. The train took us to San Francisco Harbor. We got to Holandia. There we joined a convoy of ships with troops, material supplies going to Philippines. So you were, because for people that may not know, the same time that Pearl Harbor was bombed, Manila was bombed, Guam was bombed. Exactly the same time. But because of the time difference, it looks like, if you read the history books, it looks like a day difference, but it was exactly the same time. So you were part of the invasion? No, I came later. And this is where I'd like to say that the Filipinos say, when Pearl Harbor was hit, there were about 150,000 Filipinos who were in the States, working in fruit farms, hotels, houseboys to the movie stars, couldn't marry white girls, prejudiced against dismal life. It was. But when war hit, they wanted to join the army. They could not. So the old folks, the old Filipino fellows, were wise enough to invigorate President Roosevelt to sign an executive order, which he did. When he did, 3,000 Filipinos who were in the mainland showed up. MacArthur gets excited because these people knew the land, they knew the language. So he picked 500 of the cream of the crop of those who volunteered, 3,000, sent them to Australia, Trinitum, all the green beret, hand fighting, jungle fighting, armed them with radio skills. And he spread these people by submarines, snuck in secretly, and these MacArthur submarines, for the three years that MacArthur was away, he scattered these men along the 7,000 islands of the Filipino archipelago. And that's, we were part of the Australian coastal machine, coastal watch. And we're going to talk about MacArthur's Navy is what I call it now. I don't know what its real name was, but as we know, in fact, this is a very little story that I love, and because I'm going to tell it, that's how I met Las Baños. And it is, what am I going to say, a very special story, right? At the, every year, the submarine veterans, what they call sub-vets, have a memorial, on Memorial Day, and they recognize all 52 submarines that were lost in World War II. And so there's one, and it's gorgeous, gorgeous. If you ever, I don't know if anybody can get out there to see. The, do we have a picture of Las Baños at the, at the wall? At the funeral. Can you raise it just a little bit more, let me see if there's a picture. Is there a picture here? No, no, no, Ray, in the story here. Yeah, there we are. Anyway, Las Baños was there to place the lay on the plaque, and I kept wondering why we have army on a submarine. So the story goes, and this of course was in the 40s, and there was discrimination in the Navy, and all around. And so they were, despite being treated as second class citizens, they campaigned for the U.S. government to allow them to serve in the military. And the secret commandos of General MacArthur's battalion sent by submarines to act as spies behind the Japanese enemy lines. The Filipino soldiers became indispensable in taking the Philippines and winning the war in the Pacific. Let me tell you this, because of the discrimination, and in the Navy, the only one, Filipinos, blacks, Chinese, Chamorros, were all messmen. Cooks. They were cooks, and they served. Yes, messmen. Yes, messmen. It was their official rank. They served the officers. So as spies, they were dressed in messmen uniforms so that they could move in and off of the submarines, and they took money, information, all kinds of things in and out and in and out of the submarines. And it started in 1942 in Australia when the seven boys were dressed as messmen, and they boarded the grunion. Saluted the colors and proceeded quickly down the gangplank. The grunge and then slipped away from the dock and gently moved out to sea. So these messmen went for the whole time of the war, in and out, in and out, thoroughly disguised until the end of the war. And on the way back, after they had promised, like MacArthur said, I will return. And then, at the end, on the ship, on the seawolf, coming back home. Coming back home? Coming back. Oh, gosh. Coming back. And everybody's feeling like the war. Oh. And. Coming back. Coming back. Coming back. That's worse. It is. And then the ship, the submarine, was lost at sea. And so. There were 17 men. 17. From my outfit. Yeah. 17. Of the 3000, October 3, 1944. And it was carrying the 17 Filipino-American soldiers off Moritaro Island. It was inadvertently sunk by friendly fire. Friendly fire, yeah. All aboard were lost. So the names of the 17 soldiers are inscribed on the wall along with the crew of the seawolf. Now, some of them have not been identified. I mean, they all have been identified because the Navy keeps good records. Yes. But some of them, they're still family that haven't acknowledged. Yes. There's still some who are, we don't have pictures of. Well. But if you go to the, what is it? Oh, my gosh. Since the old ages. If you go to the, if you have siblings. Yes. Or family members who fought in World War II and were buried for you to get the ceremony of the bugle and the flag, you had to show your discharge paper to 14. That's valuable. And if your relatives are buried, any of the local senators here and in on the outside islands, I had a meeting with the association just last week and they have their 214. That 214 will verify they were, they were in World War II. Second, it will give the address of the, of the fellow who died. And hopefully the next of kin, you can take that and we can run it through the process and you can get a medical, the Congressional Medal of Cross. And that's what we're showing today. What we have here. And for those 17, they are included with the Navy. And at the museum, the Bofen, there is a file and it has all of them listed. And some of them still haven't been, their next of kin haven't sent pictures. We have to find them. And we have to find them. So we really want anybody who's, they think you can go to the Bofen or you can go to the Bofen online, www.BofenMuseum. And they're, they are, are listed. The Navy has done all they can to find them. Okay. Good. You, anyone, the Filipinos, if you're background Filipino and you know some relative was in World War II, this medal is waiting for you. This, can we, did we show the medal? This medal is, it's... Can we get a close-up of the medal? Congressional Medal of Honor. You want to flip it, if you want to. It's a beautiful medal. The original is in Smithsonian. This has a touch of bronze, but it's waiting for you as long as you get the proper information. Now, we are, we had one awarding and I was disappointed because for me, I was first sergeant to 300 local boys whose parents worked in a plantation. And all those 300, we are only five people left alive. The rest are dead. So I appealed to any Filipino family, if your boys and the ones I was in charge of, they were all 18, we were teenagers. Yes. Having a lucky love, dancing and all of that stuff. And what I was saddened when I got mine just on May 6th, when only eight of us got it and the rest are still, I don't, it's been in the papers, but they're not remembering whether their parents or relatives fought or not. So I appealed to the Filipino public hearing this, please respond. Remember where you put your family's body, go to that mortuary and you can get the 215, 214, the discharge paper and then they could begin the process. It's very important that you do that. And again, like I said, with the Bo-Finn Museum, they have everything and you may not know that your relative was on that submarine because it was so secret. Secret, yeah. So if you are Filipino, please, please go to the Bo-Finn Museum and they will help you because we need those people identified. I mean, the names are there, but we need the families too. Yes. Now these are families in the mainland. I mean, in the Philippines, but these are Filipinos. These are local Filipinos, some of them are local, some of them are mainland. Now I met Miss Joner when I went to one of these celebrations of the shift at town and I asked the admiral, could you, because he would give one chime. They ring the bell for every ship that's lost. Sure. So I said, in this case, Commander, can you give me, when you come to the Seawolf, can you give me 17 bells because we had 17 men on it? And the interesting thing when you mentioned about discrimination early on, well, most Filipinos and other colored groups were mess boys. So on the manifest, they carried men as stewards to hide their identity. So that's how I met Miss Joner. And ever since my buddies and I, we proudly and reverently attend their memorial every year. Every year. We need to take a break and we'll come right back and talk some more with our dear friend because he's got lots to tell us. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. And then we'll call the Delighted to visit with my dear friend, Domingo Las Bañas. And we've been talking about his time in World War II and the sailors, the soldiers who were in MacArthur's Navy, which were what we called, because they were on the submarine. Now tell us, since you have been out of the military and you've worked so hard with documentaries and all kinds of things to tell this story. So in the few time, little time we have left, tell us about your documentary. Okay. We have a documentary that took us five years to do, about $400,000, which gives the key battles that the First and Second Proprietary Infantry were involved in. But the three years that MacArthur was in, out the Philippines, all mission men were the only ones observing the Japanese, and life was hard and cruel and brutal and ugly. Those were the times when our people were doing secret mission. So when MacArthur came back after three years, all boys were the only ones and plus the people of the Philippines who were in, well they were the guerrillas and the Philippine scouts, they were the ones that helped MacArthur keep his promise to the people of the Philippines and America of I shall return. And return he did. When it came to summer and then began to come up the island chain and that's where we were, that's where I was as a scout, I was in combat. So we're happy, we're pleased that we can tell this story of the brilliant work of these Filipinas and guerrillas. See this medal is being issued to 260,000 Filipino soldiers from the Philippines and America. So how can we see the documentary? Okay, the documentary, we have that, you need to contact Mr. Manuel Izon. And it's, I don't have his address on my hand, but his name is Manuel Izon. And by the way, for this gold medal, we are going to plan another ceremony to award it to the proper people but we want to make the connections clear so that you, Filipino parents, please, or your necks of kin, get with it. Okay, now we have to go but tell us how they can reach you. Give us your phone number? Yes, my phone number is 497-1461. 497-1461.<PHONE_NUMBER>. 1461. Okay, well, thank you, my dear.  And you will come back. Oh, anytime. Great. Because we must get this given to the proper people. Yes.  Give him a call. Take care. And let's make sure that everybody gets their medal. Thank you. Aloha.


Welcome artists to Monet Cafe Studio! I'm excited to teach you my four easy steps for painting animal fur. I'm gonna begin with a beautiful springtime palette and I'll also be using these gorgeous grays, gorgeous Diane Townsend set. I'll be teaching you also how to choose the right surface and why it's so important. You'll also learn the simple stages of layering and essential technique for painting animal fur. And I'll share with you how to create beautiful loose backgrounds and oh so much more. Won't you come on into the studio with me? And here we go. This month in Monet Cafe and on my Patreon page we're painting furry friends. Anything with fur really. This is an album I've curated for my patrons on my Patreon page. They have access to this album and they can use these beautiful reference images from unsplash.com to paint animals this month. And I'm gonna be using some of these, of course, for my tutorials. And aren't they cute? Look at some of these animals. I love them. I gotta do some of those mice. And for today's lesson I chose this beautiful, it looks like a Persian cat. I want to thank photographer Reba Spite for this beautiful image. She has some gorgeous cat photography on her side as well. Check it out. And I love the springtime feel of that photo. So I chose a springtime palette. These aren't all the pastels I use but these are the ones that I started with and used primarily for most of the painting. Oh and this is obviously a soft pastel painting tutorial but these techniques that I'll be sharing could be used for multiple mediums. I find that many artistic principles convey across the board medium-wise. And I also loved this little Diane Townsend set. Thank you Diane Townsend. She gifted me this set of smoky blues and I thought these were some gorgeous colors for that beautiful gray Persian cat. I loved the blues and I'll be sharing more about this set soon. For step number one in this lesson I'm calling it Choosing the Right Surface. And for this painting tutorial I'm using La Carte Pastel Card. It's made by Sennelier. It is such a nice, it's a sanded surface but it feels kind of soft. Some artists use velour paper. I've actually never used that for animal fur but I think this Sennelier La Carte Pastel Card is absolutely gorgeous for animal fur. I'm able to get multiple layers but it just lends itself to a feeling of softness which is perfect for animal fur. Now you can do animal fur sketching on regular sketch paper.  This is just a pastel sketch on some regular drawing paper. So while you can paint animals of course on any surface I find sanded surfaces in general lend themselves to achieving a depth and a softness to animal fur. This bear painting was created on the surface I'll be using today the Sennelier La Carte Pastel Card and I believe it's the perfect surface for creating the beautiful softness of this lovely Persian kitty. So let's dive right in. I first began getting in the form of my cat with one of the gray Diane Townsend pastels and I could immediately tell you know what my audience isn't going to be able to see this so I chose to switch to a pencil. So I'm going to speed up a little pencil sketch here but I'm going to talk you through some of my concepts for getting the sketch in. And by the way animal portraits and people portraits definitely take longer than landscapes so this painting I think it took me almost three hours to do so I am going to have portions that are sped up but I'm going to have a special segment or lesson on my Patreon page about animal sketching in general so if you're a patron of mine you'll be getting a slower real-time version of just some general tips for animal sketching but let me give you some here while I'm speeding through this. I find it's very helpful if you get your painting surface in the same proportion as your reference image for example what I mean by that is you can see in the reference image to the right it's a vertical it's called portrait style versus landscape which is wide so I have my surface obviously in that orientation but I have the proportions the same in other words the cat is going to fall on my surface in the same size ratio to how is is in the reference image and I have a neat little trick to show you how to make your painting surface the same as the reference image I'm not going to take so much time to show it here but I have an idea to make a video you guys let me know if you want it I want to do I have like I don't know eight or ten of them ten art hacks or my favorite art hacks or art tips of general things that I do kind of like that little example I gave you and questions I always get like how do you adhere your paper to your board I have this little hinge technique I use so things like that so what I'm doing now is I can see that I'm kind of doing the silhouette of the cat here and the positive shape of the cat is the same proportion wise as the reference image and so are the negative shapes the negative shapes are the area around the cat and I've learned over the years to pay as much attention to the negative shapes as the positive shapes I have lots of lessons on negative painting and sketching and that is just really a great little sketching principle and as I mentioned painting animals definitely takes longer than landscapes you've got to get these features and proportions of the face correct if you don't get them correct your paintings can look very amateurish and I'm getting in just the basic positioning of things with the sketch I'm not focused on too much detail and that will start to take shape more as I paint but definitely make sure you get that proportions right in the shape of the face and by the way when I'm painting my angle is a little different from my camera because I have it off to the side then what you'll see with the reference image pasted on the right side and by the way patrons if you're patron of mine on my patreon page I'm going to be providing for my beginner artist a little template for you to work from to get the sketch kind of in place before you start painting and as you can see here I'm correcting things I'm constantly tweaking things I want to make sure I have my ears in the right place and I should have enough information at this point to get started with the painting now we'll be talking about step number two remember step number one was choosing the right surface and step number two is getting in that depth and building up the layers prior to creating individual hairs on an animal's fur I call it the under fur or the undercoat of an animal especially a furry animal like this cat or a bear or a dog there's an undercoat that they really have an undercoat but or most animals do especially the ones with thick fur but that's a great concept with painting we want to get the deepest layers first and typically deeper layers it's very similar to how I talk about painting trees or fields or other elements we want to get that under layer of darker values and shadows in first because the fur painting process comes in stages we don't go and start right away painting individual hairs on a cat or a dog as a matter of fact with this method you'll see by the end you're not really creating individual hairs at all you're creating more directional strokes and it lends to more impressionistic paintings overall and more believability and at this very beginning stage here I might lose a few of you if you're not used to the layering process if you're kind of doubting this because it really looks sort of messy and crazy right now skip to the end of the video and see what the final looks like and then come back here and you'll see it really does all come together but these beginning stages do look very messy at first so if you're brand new to pastel painting this is just kind of that process of learning a new medium you've got to really learn how it behaves and I remember when I first starting with soft pastels I wanted it to really start to look like something right away and so I overworked everything and I was the type of artist that would try to paint every individual hair and that's really not the way to paint especially if you want to paint with that very impressionistic and painterly style but let me talk a little about the process here you notice I've been using primarily those diane towns and smoky blues I think it's called smoky blues yes and I've used about three values this might be the fourth value here and they all have to do with the light notice I've chosen mostly cool colors right now and that's because I'm working on the cool side of the cat mostly and thinking of those under layers of the cat that will be in shadow and if you examine this photo you can see the sun is coming it's this cat is kind of back lit meaning the sun's behind the cat kind of shining through the fur I love back backlit photos but there is definitely more of an influence of light and warmth on the left side our left side of the cat and so I'm getting the blues and the deeper blues in mostly on the back and more to the right side gradually getting lighter blues and lighter lighter values on the left side that is catching more of the sunlight and the left side of the cat is definitely warmer that light is actually kind of creeping around or maybe a little bit a little bit in front of the left side our left side so you'll see me turn on the sunshine towards the end of this painting again this is about the layering process I'm not trying to get those values and colors yet I want to save my lightest lights to the end for those final top layers I'm sorry sometimes I cropped a little out of my viewing area there you missed a little bit of the tail but I'm still just working with these cooler and three or four values to get this under painting basically you if you've been on my channel much you know I talk about under paintings and this is kind of an under painting before adding some of the lighter values of the fur and I'm let me pop this over in Photoshop I want to show you a little bit about the color that I'm seeing here and I've got the reference image pulled up and what I'm going to do is grab this little tool over here you don't have to be familiar with Photoshop to follow what I'm doing here but this one little tool come on show me it's called a color picker oh I'm in the wrong one here it is it's called the color picker or I call it the color picker it's actually called the eyedropper tool I always call it the color picker so I'm going to click the eyedropper tool and it literally looks like a little eyedropper I know it's real teeny here but what it does is if I click anywhere on this cat it will show me the color and the value over here in this little gauge of color and value over here so what I'm going to do is I'm going to click on some areas I'm going to click this little you see how he has the white that wraps around his neck and it goes back it's got a little dark coming through it but right in here I'm going to click this color picker or eyedropper tool right here oh my goodness look over here what color that is in our brain we say that's a white white hairs underneath his neck but look how cool it is look at how turquoise blue it is and you'll later see me in this tutorial I didn't do this before I painted it's just been over years and learning to see color and value that's really there instead of what we think of in our mind that I I knew to pick a cool really cool color let me go on the back side of his neck here and it's about the same yeah that's about the same it's a little dark well it's a little darker and a little brighter I think or bolder so let me now go to like some of these areas well let's go in the middle of his back where it's kind of dark okay that's pretty dark right I didn't go with like a black black I didn't want things that dark in this painting but let me gradually come over and watch how things lighten up as I continue oh look that's even a little bit of that turquoise green family as I continue to move and at this point here I want to mention that's why I chose the cooler colors underneath this cat they're going to serve as those shadowy areas you can see we're very on the cool side now as I gradually move to the left I'll click oh my goodness this is what I'm talking about that I said I'm going to turn on the sunshine at the end of the painting not now look at these warm colors now I'm right here where the sun is kind of wrapping around it's gray fur but the sun is hitting it now the value just got lighter you see how that color gauge went up lighter in value and it's going to continue to do that it's going to get lighter and warmer oh look how light that is these are like in the whites oh there's even a little warm oh this is interesting me doing it after the fact I chose some pinks to put in the fur just by instinct and sure enough I there are really some pinker lighter pink very light pink values in here because these are almost all on the white end but look how warm they are and if I come down here I'm trying to find like maybe yeah there's definitely some warm sunshine coming around so now I'm on his side of his face here so anyway I hope that helps you that's why a lot of cooler colors are going underneath the fur and later you'll see me add some of these warmer tones I hope that was helpful so all right let's hop back this is so fun I want to keep clicking around let's hop back oh look at that green hop back to the painting right now I promise so now hopefully that helped it make more sense as why I'm choosing these cooler bluer colors for the underpainting of this cat and I hope these just few little suggestions help beginner artists especially because I remember how frustrated I was in trying to get started on my own without much information and I almost gave up I mean I just started I got a set of pastels and I started playing with them it's when my kids were getting a little older we're talking 15 18 years ago and I started thinking I got a little bit more time for myself oh I noticed the the form of this cat was not quite the same um I'll get back to the story about my kids and painting in a minute but um so what I did is I did this is the negative painting I was talking about I'm painting with some pastels to kind of form the cat and get a little bit of this background in to shape the cat so often even if we don't have something right or if something's a little too large we can kind of carve into it negatively to reshape it just kind of get in the shape of the backside of that little um a pedestal that he's sitting on and now you might understand why I actually see that as turquoise even in the photo it's kind of turquoise a little bit of purplish color in there too but uh I'm not going to um while I'm here working on this I'm not going to overwork this pedestal the focal point is not this pedestal it's not even all of those flowers in the background there's going to be a few that I'm going to have um kind of shining or saying hey look at me but it's mostly about this cat so um you'll see me trying to get the perspective of this pedestal correct and the basic shapes and values but I'm not going to overwork it um I'm I'm purposely trying not to now I'm going to just get a little bit more of this background in I typically like to work the whole of a painting I feel like it produces a harmony and um just a connected feeling to everything otherwise things can end up feeling very segmented so I like to get a little bit of the background in and I'm treating that background see how I'm carving into the cat now with that uh negative painting I'm doing but I'm treating the background similar to the cat I'm getting my cooler colors in first and later I'll add the sunshine um you don't always have to start with cool colors like this but um I find it's um in general kind of a good way to work especially when you're working on an area that is not in the sunshine you're definitely going to get cooler values and this side of the pedestal is not in sunshine either there's a few little parts of it that are peeking out and catching a little bit of the light but in general it's still very cool now we've talked about step one choosing the right surface and step two building up the layers I'll be getting to step three and step four soon but this is the point of the video where my patrons on my patreon page will get slower speeds and all full commentary so I'm gonna give you a lot of info here though on the Monet Cafe YouTube channel but real quickly if you would like to become a patron and get all of the extra content and extra goodies and join my Patreon family it's real easy it's only five dollars a month you can cancel at any time and you join such a great family of artists I get to see your work I just love it and real quickly if you wouldn't mind go ahead and hit that like button if you like this video leave me a comment and subscribe to this channel these little things really do help YouTube to share my video more often and I'd really appreciate it now back to painting and even though this is sped up I think you'll be able to follow along with my process of layering here actually sometimes when you watch it fast you can see it happen right before your eyes so what I'm doing is you know I originally got that deep blue down part of the Diane Townsend set now I've gone with a little bit of a darker value it's a kind of a dark purplish blue color so I used it to get some of the really shadowy areas on this cat and I like to work the whole so I got enough of the cat under layer down to be able to start working on this background a little bit and the reason I like to work the whole painting rather than just doing the whole cat and then switching to the background is because you end up with a painting that feels very segmented if you don't work the whole and I love to incorporate colors that are in one element of the painting throughout the painting it's called color echoing and I find I do that more when I work the whole I was trying to correct a little bit of the shape of that cat the chest area with some negative painting with the pastel and I decided to get my stiff bristle brush to kind of carve into the area and I discovered a happy accident I blend sometimes on initial layers to soften things up to get rid of all that paper showing through but I haven't often blended with a little brush like this and I just kept going with it and I realized it was really giving me such a soft effect on the background and then I decided let's go ahead and use it on the cat and look at how it's just softening that fur now this leads me to step number three which is called directional strokes when we paint fur we want to keep the strokes going in the direction that the fur is going so I know I was using a brush at that point but the same concept applies when you're using a pastel I'm making my marks in the direction and little gestural marks of how the fur is curving you can see it each time I add new marks and even when I'm using the brush so I was having fun with this happy little discovery and playing around with the brush technique I really liked that now I'm just going to let you know in advance I worked on this cat's face now these pastels are big and chunky so they were kind of hard to get into some of the more fine details of the cat's face structure and I did a lot of work on it but I'm going to jump ahead here and show you where I actually brushed out the cat's face I realized I had his eyes too low before and trust me with anything with animal or people portraits you've got to get those face structures you don't have to have a lot of detail but you've got to have elements in the right place so I raised the eyes and corrected some things with just a little pencil sketch and that did the trick now you're going to see me later work on these eyes more I was kind of avoiding them because I knew these pastels were just too large to get into some of those spaces so I'm going to end up going to a or some pastel pencils that I don't often use but the only time I use them is typically for small elements and things like eyes like this so now I can work on the cat's values I'm doing more of that layering process again I thought I'd go ahead and put in some of the color of the eye but realized yeah I'm going to have to go to the pastel pencils later but again I'm layering these values and what I'm doing now is getting some of the darker values in the areas of the face around the eyes if you squint your eyes and look at the cat's face in the reference image you can see where the dark areas are and if you get that value differentiation correct the cat's face is really going to start to feel three-dimensional so now I'm feeling pretty good about the placement of the face and the eyes and the nose and the mouth so I'm starting to add some of the lighter values this is a pretty gray from the smoky blues set and here's more directional strokes do you see me making those marks and I'm doing I love creating these the light coming through the ears with animals their ears often like lambs and pigs even and cats if you've got a backlit subject like this the light will shine through their ears they're very thin membranes there and I think blood vessels go through there so they end up looking very pinkish so I thought that just made a neat fun color contrast and so I got some of the lighter notice on the left side here it's lighter than the right side and that's because the sunshine is coming from the back like kind of coming around the front of the cat so that's why we're getting that pretty light on this left side our left side of the cat now why am I using these oranges or kind of peachy colors and pinks do you remember the photoshop tutorial when we started looking at the color that's wrapping around the cat it started getting very warm now I'm going to connect the dark and the cool and the warm together soon with some more layering but now I'm starting to add this backlighting this to me is just the icing on the cake where everything starts to really just feel like this cat is the focal point and I love backlit subjects and so I'm adding a little bit more of the turquoise and the purples and just making this cat come to life now this leads me to step number four less is more I've got a lot going on here with the cat I feel like he's coming along now it's where I'm kind of blending a little bit more with some of these grays but I don't want to paint every piece of fur or hair if you want to call it that I want to keep it very loose I like impressionistic style and often we just need to suggest things not paint everything that you see in a reference image all right so now I'm back to the background again I loved this background I loved painting this background and the background is easy peasy compared to the cat so I was like I'm getting home free now I've got to do the cat's eyes and a little bit of that pedestal but I'm definitely feeling more confident about my cat it's his form and really how he's coming to life and I wanted to add a little more color pizzazz remember again in our photoshop demonstration how there was that turquoise coming around his neck so I added some of that I'll do a little more layering on that in a minute but now I'm going back to the background remember how I said I love to work the whole now look at the reference image there's some really distant purples in the background but they're very pale and very neutral that's because things far away get lighter in value they're not as dark and they get more neutral in color so things are coming along with the cat and the background and I decided let's go ahead and tackle these eyes if I don't get the eyes right I'm going to really mess up the whole painting so I had a dark Terry Ludwig pastel that had a little bit of a point to it and I tried to get that pupil in the right spot it's just was too big and chunky so here's where I started kind of correcting things with my pastel pencils and having a sharp point is very crucial I will show you my sharpener here this is my favorite pastel pencil sharpener it's called Mobius and Rupert it's a brass pencil sharpener I'll have a link to that in the description of this video gotta have a sharp point for this and you could see how that was so much easier to get these pupils in and here are the pastel pencils that I use there's various brands of pastel pencils I have had this set for years because I don't use them that much except for little fine details like you just saw and I'll have a link to that in the description of the video as well so I used the pastel pencil also to get in a little bit more of the darks in the nose and the mouth and a little bit of that the cat looked like he had kind of like eyeliner on just kind of the top outside areas and a little bit underneath and I used some greens and some golds to get a little bit more of the reflection in the eyes so I felt thank goodness I got that over with and now this is at home free time to work on this background and oh my goodness like I was saying this was so fun for me because I just loved how beautiful these flowers were in the reference image and to me it's real easy to paint real soft impressionistic things like this because it's just so suggestive and now I'm going to give another important element to this kitty cat his whiskers he's missing whiskers right now so I got my pastel pencil again it's a white pastel pencil and a gray pastel pencil and I examined my reference image and just made quick little gestural marks in the general area where the whiskers were and on the right side is where I use the gray pencil because it's more in shadow and this is fun making more of this backlighting and I cut out my my cat I made a big print out of it and I cut it out just to be able to hold him up next to me that looks kind of funny right but now here's where I'm doing more of the directional strokes and more of the layering and this part is really fun where I'm getting in some of the flowers that I want to stand out a little bit more I don't want too many of them there's going to be some that are central focus you know they're the darker purple ones and there'll be some that are a little more buried some that are a little more magenta and I added layers of magenta on top of some of the darker purple it's really all about layering not just with cat fur or animal fur but with lots of elements in pastel painting and other mediums too acrylic and oil so this again I was having so much fun I'm just a color freak and I was like oh boy I get to play with all this color in these flowers and softening things up in the background still to make sure that's not getting too much attention and taking away from my sweet little kitty cat I added a few more whiskers with a softer pastel to capture some of the light that was really hitting on the whiskers and to give some brightness and my kitty cat is done and here I hope you can see that some of these steps that I've shared with you really do create an outcome that feels like animal fur so I hope you'll give it a try you're always welcome to share your results if you recreate from my tutorials on Instagram or Facebook but be sure you mention me or Monet Cafe YouTube channel and I'd appreciate it I'd love to see your work too and if you would like a little more you might consider again becoming a patron it's only five dollars a month it's a great place I love my Patreon family alright everyone as always god bless and happy painting


What's going on, you guys? Yes. Try not to be distracted by my November mustache. It's good fun. It's kind of been a while since I've done one of these videos. But today we're going to be talking about something that some of you requested that I cover, which is basically my favorite dating apps. Not really my favorite dating apps, but I think they're the ones that my clients do the best with. Now, it depends really where you are. These might not be the best ones for you. These are the best ones that I've seen in general for my clients. So what I would recommend that you do is actually try them out and figure out if they work well for you. Because not all of them are going to work as well as they do for, say, me or say one of my clients. Depending on where you live, another app might be better for you. The app that I'm talking about might not even be available where you live if you kind of live in a developing your traditional society. So what I would recommend that you guys do is listen to what I'm saying, why I think these apps are good, and if it makes sense, download them. But if you disagree with my top three, that's totally okay. But here are the reasons why I'm talking about them, and I think you'll still learn a lot from this video. Now, if you don't know how to actually message a girl on a dating app and get her to meet up with you in person, it doesn't really matter which app you have. It's still not going to work for you. So that's why on Sunday, I'm doing a free webinar on exactly how to do this. If you want to get registered for that, link is in the description box below. Okay, so now, I'm going to start with number three. Now, again, you guys, I don't know if you've heard me say this on my channel before, but I prefer that people talk to women in real life. But I understand with the times, there's going to be a lot of people that are going to go online right now. So that's why I started this video. Number three is going to be Facebook dating. Facebook dating, I think, is probably an app that a lot of people don't even know about, or maybe they've tried it just once, or maybe they've heard about it. I've seen some reviews online of Facebook dating, but I really don't think these people are actually taking the time and effort to do it. Maybe they just saw it and didn't like the interface or something like that. The interface I could care less about. I just care if I'm going to meet up with somebody that I like. That's really all I'm looking for. And for that reason, I think Facebook dating is still pretty good. It's not as good as it used to be. When Facebook dating first came out for single men, Facebook dating was the best thing ever. A lot of women were on it before men were. So it was a market that was very, very good for a single guy. It's not as good anymore because more people have heard about it and more people have signed on. But I find that it's still really, really good. Number two is going to be, maybe you guys are going to be surprised by this, it's going to be Coffee Meets Bagel. Coffee Meets Bagel is probably more for the relationship kind of guy, which is why I'm not really using it that much. I have used it a lot in the past. I find that a lot of my clients, if they're literally not getting any matches on other dating apps and they try Coffee Meets Bagel, usually they have a pretty good shot of finding a girl. Now in my areas and the areas of the states that I've seen people using it in, it can sometimes skew a little bit Asian. So if that's true and you're an Asian guy, I would highly recommend that you get on it. But if you're not, you can still do pretty well. I've seen guys do pretty well even if they aren't Asian. Now another benefit to Coffee Meets Bagel is that it's also 70% women. 70% women use Coffee Meets Bagel, which is the exact inverse of what's something like Tinder and Bumble and those ones are where it's like more than 70% men. And number one, the best dating app I think, my opinion, is Hinge. I think Hinge is a great dating app, especially in the United States and in the UK. A lot of people are using this one. It might not be available in other areas. If you're in another area that's not one of those two, see if it exists and if it exists, try it out. I think that it's the best where I live and where I've lived around the states and in the UK as well too. And in certain other areas, I've seen it available. But in other areas, Tinder might be a better option for you. There's a reason why I didn't list Tinder or Bumble first is because in the States, it's not that good. It used to be a lot better and they're just other apps that are better like Hinge. And the reason why is because Hinge, it makes it easier for you to start a conversation with somebody. You can see the little thing and they have a little tag or words that you can comment on. In Tinder, it's usually you get some 20-year-old girl with three bikini pictures, no bio, and you're thinking, wow, she must have a great personality. No. It's really difficult to message somebody off that or start a conversation. You don't know any of her interests or what she likes to do, so it makes it very difficult for people to connect for that reason. A lot more people will have Tinder and Bumble, but there's a reason why I didn't put it as number one. It's because in these areas, I feel like it's a lot tougher to connect with people and a lot of younger girls or younger people are on there who are not really serious about meeting up with other people. They're just kind of on there just, oh, I wonder what guys are on there. It's more of a fun thing for them rather than something that they're taking. I'm actually going to meet up with somebody on there, which is what I care about. I could care less if a million hot girls match with me on Tinder. If not even meet up with me, it doesn't really matter to me. I'm more trying to meet up with people that I like, and I think hinge is a great tool for that. Now, when you first download it, it's probably going to take a little bit of time to curate the algorithm for you, so give it some time. People who sign on the app and only use it for a day, they're not really trying it out. That's what I have to say about the top three apps. Again, there's a reason why I didn't put Tinder and Bumble in the top three, hopefully you've seen why. Not saying they're not worthwhile. I've definitely met up with women off of there, but I just think they're not as good as they used to be. There's a lot of better options for you to have a conversation and actually meet up with them in person. Again, that's what I rate these things by. Obviously, if you're a guy who knows that a text, who knows that a talk, who's a cool person, then it should be pretty easy for you to do that using some of these apps. If you don't know how to do that, like I said, I'm going to be doing a webinar this Sunday. There's actually two parts to this. The first part is going to be how to message somebody online and meet up with them in person. The second part is going to be how to actually attract that person, how to actually match with them in the first place, how to eventually progress to sex, dating, seeing her consistently if that's what you want. All that's going to be in part two. Part one is free and it's going to be this Sunday, so if you want to link that, link is in the description box below. I would love to see you all there, you guys. It's not often that I do some of these free things. I think it'll be really helpful for you guys. If you have a question, put it in the comment section below. Thanks a lot, you guys, and good luck out there.


The title out there is about Docker, and that turned out to be a lie. I've rewritten this talk about 10 times. Each time it gets better. This is the 11th time, so I'm sure that trend does not continue, and this will be much worse than the last time I rewrote it. So I apologize if it's awful. The way this will work is I've kind of broken it into five or six sections, and each section will have a little Q and A afterwards. So instead of me rambling for 30 or 40 minutes, you'll hear me ramble for five minutes, and then you'll hear me ramble about a question that one of you asks, or two of you ask. I do not, well, I do have a timer. Let me make sure I've got that set up so I'm not going over time. Let me remember how to set up my timer. Dude, dude. I swear, phones and printers are my nemesis. They are the two pieces of technology that I will never understand. Do not turn off. Autolock never. There we go. Timer. All right, now I've got a timer. So anyway, this talk will be about Agile infrastructure, and in order for us to begin this talk, we have to answer a question. What is Agile? Most of you are Agile practitioners, I'm assuming. You have been doing Agile work in your businesses, or been reading about Agile, or been applying Agile principles, and you've probably all gotten very familiar with the Agile manifesto, which is the core of all Agile practices. I have a few problems with the Agile manifesto, and so I've rewritten it for you today, and you can feel free to throw things at me if you hate it. Make sure it's not hard things, by the way, if you do throw anything at me. So the Agile manifesto in my mind is very confrontational, which was important. 15, wow, that long. 16 years, 20, I don't know. Back a long, long time ago in the dark ages before there was light, and I think that we need to reframe it a little bit if we are going to embrace Agile now, where we're not quite in the same space. So instead of just individuals and interactions over processes and tools, it's individuals and interactions supported by processes and tools. Any process or tool we have should be in support of the individuals that are part of the team, are part of the organization, and facilitating positive interactions between them, which is, again, it's not unheard of. This is kind of what the Agile manifesto meant, but because everything was so process heavy back then, it had to be very, like, gr. No, processes and tools are bad, which is, I don't believe the case anymore. Working software supported by useful and valuable documentation.


Okay, here's a post from my student. No call today, but put a new listing on the market and one more going live on Monday, both from Circle Prospecting. Thank you, Ricky Crew, for all you do for us.  It's insane, dude. This person just said she got two listings off of Circle Prospecting, like what I'm teaching people to do. When you eliminate all the fears and worries, you know, like where's my next deal coming from? What if the market crashes? What if this buyer uses a different agent? What if this seller doesn't pick me for to list the property, right? Yeah. When you eliminate all that and you know that none of that matters, you're just happy. So I have zero fears. I have 100% confidence. It doesn't matter what happens. Because you don't have anything to hide. You're here to help somebody. You know the emails that you get every single agent in my MLS gets those same emails. Wow. Every single one of them. Yeah. I haven't lost a single bit of business since I've been doing it.  And I'm like, all the secrets are already on YouTube. So you're up there. You're up there with Coolcox? Yeah, I'm just calling. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Company's planning to move back and fill the space up, you know. So you're saying like this? I don't even need a name. Bye. I don't like chicken wrap. I don't like chicken wrap. Today is the last day in the office. I'm absolutely crushed today. I got a guy shadowing me for the first half of the day. Got lunch with a client. Maybe. I got to check with him. I'm gonna get a haircut. And just going to follow up everything, crush everything, make everything just pop. She always tricks me and makes me think Patrick's here. You know, like that, you know? Yeah. Uh-oh. These are my New York glasses. New York glasses. You ready to roll? Yeah. Your back's back? Yeah. Where are they? In the car. Nope, you're lying. White chocolate, mocha, low fat, no whip. A medium? A medium caramel frappuccino. Y'all got some bacon bites back there? And then like, uh, and then, hey, Regina. Yeah. Here we go. Greg. You know, within the next 35 years. Check this out. This is a, this is an email from an agent. I've been, Ricky, I've been thinking about signing up with Red X, but I've always felt a lot better talking to someone in person rather than over the phone. I know it can save time, but at the same time getting to know the person face to face, I might have a stronger connection. With that being said, I looked at your YouTube video about the phone script. Would it be any different in person? How can I make it less awkward if they were to say no? They aren't planning on listing their property. This dude is missing the entire point. Okay, let me, let me rip this dude to shreds and then I'll go up there. Hey man, period. Thanks for following along. Period. For one thing, you're not going to ask them if they want to list. Period. You're going to ask if there's anything you can do to help them. And if you really pay attention to my phone script video, comma, that's what you're looking for. Period. You're looking for them to say they're not interested, comma, so that you can say, I got you. Well, look, is there an agent in the area you would work with? Period. I think you're missing the point there. Period. As far as in person or over the phone, comma, I've always found that that's just a cop out for being scared to get on the phone. Period. Use the phone to set up the face-to-face. Period. But yes, if you doorknock, use the same exact script. Let me know how I can help you further, man. Period. I'll do anything to help you succeed. Christy B. Christy B. Uh, uh. It's like I'm playing video games when I'm working on my phone. It's like, uh, uh, uh, uh. It's like I'm playing, I don't know what game, I don't know. I haven't played video games in a long time. A Gears of War. Yeah, whatever that is. Okay, here's a post from my student. No call today, but put a new listing on the market and one more going live on Monday, both from Circle Prospecting. Thank you, Ricky Truth, for all you do for us.  It's insane, dude. This person just said she got two listings off of Circle Prospecting, like what I'm teaching people to do. This is insane, man. Like, I get like four emails a day from people saying, I just closed another deal using your scripts or whatever, you know? Like, how do I stand out? How do I stand out? Like, you stand out because you did it for five years, you know what I mean? Guys, you gonna see Bill Tom here? So we're back on the truck, all right? All right. So I was just on the couch, you know, going through some emails and stuff that I was sharing with you guys. And I was talking about the agent that emailed me about talking face to face, like he's better face to face, which to me has always been a cop out too. I'm scared to make calls. Like, what's the difference, you know?  It's like you just need to make the call so you can be more efficient so that you can like use the phone to get face to face, right? So that's what I told him. So he just emailed me, emails me back and says, thank you for your help. So if they start wondering how I was able to get their phone number, what would I say? Holy smokes. So what I'm saying is, guys, is that this is literally the third time I got asked this question today. What do you say when somebody says, how did you get their phone number? And so I'm gonna say it on here for all the people watching. What you say when somebody asks you how you got your phone number is, is number one, you don't get like stopped by those little road bumps. You just smooth right over and keep going, right? Don't make it an issue. If you make it an issue, then it's an issue, right? So I'm gonna say, how do you get my number? You say, oh, I found it online. Look, I don't want to take it too much of your time today, but a house down the road just sold from you and I didn't know if there's anything I could do to help you, right? You just transition away from that weird, awkward situation into why you're actually calling and just finish the script. Let me get this on camera. You knew I was gonna get one. You got your bags packed? Yep. Tell the camera. They're packed. I'm ready. You don't wear sunglasses inside. We're going to Wendy Williams, man. We are? Yeah. Oh, Lord. All right, guys, here it is. It is 530. I'm still crushing. I just got a listing. I went and got it signed, Phoenix 10, 1015 for 5199. Really nice unit. I just did an Instagram story on it. If you want to check that out. And but look, this is it. Head to New York. Last day in the office, fixing to go up here and take a bunch of notes to make sure all my loose ends are tied up and everything is going to run smooth while I'm gone. I got Christie handling everything, holding it down. And I'm just super excited, man, to get back in the Big Apple. I've been there twice. I love it. So super excited to get up there and talk to Gary and the whole gang and see what's happening and take this whole social media thing to a whole another level and bring you guys more value than you can ever even imagine. So I'll see you guys when I get back from New York.


Hi there, we're from Lifetimes and we're a disruptor in the arena of Intelligent Workplace and we're delighted to be here at the third AI for Good Summit and play our responsible part and how we put forward with some of the biggest issues in the world of technology today. We provide technology that not only helps to make your workplace more intelligent but also puts the power in your hands. Ultimately, we don't know your company as well as you do, so we want to give you the tools so you can create and manage these platforms of technology going forward. And it's not just a story about technology, we know that technology is about people and AI for Good is the arena that we believe not only where we can contribute but we have a responsibility to contribute. We need to find that sweet spot between machines and humans and we want to play our part.


Dan O here. I'm with Brian Capps. You might not know he's the back-to-back winner of the Kentucky Derby Festival Burger Challenge. So we invited him over today to show you how he won. Check it out. First step, we cut our buns in half. Next, we'll take our Dan O spicy. Sprinkle generously. Put a little oil down. We'll get those buns on there. Next, we'll get our burgers. Get our buns nice and toasted. We take them off. Then we'll flip them over and cook both sides. While them burgers are almost done, we'll take a goat cheese and put it on there and let it melt just a little bit. Some fig jam on the bottom bun. We'll hit them with a little bit of that hot honey. Now we'll take some of that spring mix and put it right on top. Three o's buns. Look at that, y'all. The melted goat cheese, the fig, the Dan O's. I see why you won, my friend. Nice and yummy. I'm gonna get you some. Brian, thank you, my friend. Hit that like button. Hit the follow. We'll see you next time. Keep springing.


Those are just a few things that I want to say. Yeah. Yeah, so we started with your choice. We started with a note. And I've seen simple, I've even seen fine notes, and we can hear it. So I have to turn the power off every second and say, well, then we were fine. We get to the notes that are on the table. So I'm going to put that in the front. And then, uh, It was, it was just like everything. Just listen to it. Awesome. Don't know if it's going to be any good. It's just like, It's just like, Yeah. Yeah. and then when you look at it, it's all the same. Let's see how it's all going. I know, but there's only one piece of art here, so... Right, so we're standing here. So in the last course... All right. Yes. Please join me in a few moments of centering silence. And now, please remain seated and join in singing our in-gathering hymn, found in your order of service. Welcome to the first Unitarian Universalist Society of Madison. In this community, curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical, and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian Universalism supports the freedom of conscience of each individual, as together we seek to become a force for good in the world. My name is Carlos Moser, a long-standing and faithful member of this congregation, on behalf of which I wish to extend a special welcome to visitors. We consider ourselves a welcoming congregation, so however you identify yourself or wherever you find yourself on your life's journey, we celebrate your presence among us. We encourage newcomers to stay for our fellowship hour after the service to visit the library, which is directly behind you, across the center doors. Bring your drinks and your questions. You will find members of our staff and lay ministry on hand to welcome you. You may also look for persons holding teal-colored stoneware mugs. They will be members of the FUS knowledgeable about our faith community and who would love to visit with you. If you'd like to learn more about this sustainably designed addition to our national landmark, the Frank Lloyd Wright Design Meeting House, please meet near the large glass windows on your left side of the auditorium immediately after the service. Your guide today, Rose Detmer. We welcome children to stay to the service, if the child needs to talk or move around, we recommend a child haven just behind you or the commons are good places to visit where you can still hear and see the service. And speaking of disruption or noises, please take time now to silence your electronic devices. All of you probably have at least one that might cause a disturbance during the hour. Now I take pleasure in acknowledging the following individuals who help our service run smoothly. There are many opportunities for volunteering in our society, not only in the service, but in helping with, for instance, the search committee for the new replacement music director or selling books or in charge of the Monday night FUS meeting. But the volunteers who actually help us today are the tour guide I mentioned, Rose Detmer, hospitality for your drinks, Jean Hills, the ushers, our Douglas Hill and Tom Dalmage, the greeters upstairs where Elizabeth Barrett and March Schweitzer, in charge of sound giving me such elegance here, is Maureen Friend and our lay minister is Anne Smiley. Thank them and consider volunteering yourself. You may ask any of them how to do so. The notes in the red floors include, in addition to that, I do want to say something about solar panels. Putting solar panels on your home is a great way to lower your energy costs and you get to switch to a clean, renewable energy source that can feel good about your years to come, that can make you feel good. Solar Madison, spelled S-U-N, Solar Group, is bringing together Madison area residents to install solar at their homes for a negotiated low price. This free event at the First Unitarian Society will cover everything you need to know about going solar at your home, including solar energy fundamentals, how much it costs, tax credits and incentives, answers to common questions. Join us and bring a friend. Our speaker today is Nancy Wetter-Schultz, a longtime member of the Society. You have often seen her as one of the three sopranos or singing in the Society choir. In 2013, Nancy was named one of the Wisdom Keepers of the Goddess Spirituality Movement, alongside such luminaries as Alice Walker, Starhawk, Lynn Andrews and Sue Monk Kidd. As a theological columnist for Sage Woman magazine and blogger for the Tycoon Daily and Feminism in Religion, she has often offered spiritual growth, keynotes, workshops and classes since 1987. Nancy honed her speaking and workshop skills in the emerging field of women's studies at the UW Madison from 1975 to 1991. Her muse then nudged her out of academia to record Chants for the Queen of Heaven with the help of a Feminist Theology Award from the Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation. She is a writer, educator, workshop facilitator and musician, whose work has focused on empowerment and spiritual growth. She is most recently the author of The World is Your Oracle, published by Fair Winds Press in April of this year. She will be speaking about her new book today and offering an FUS class on it in October. I recommend you buy it. She also asked me to tell you that she has started blogging about The World is Your Oracle, offering oracular tips and history. So if you already own it, but have not signed the mailing list, please come to her table in the commons and sign up and there you can own it. So again, a warm welcome. We hope today's service will stimulate your mind, touch your heart, expand your understanding and stir your sluggish spirit. Our opening words today are from In lieu of Flowers by Nancy Cobb. A wisdom as constant as the North Star shines within all of us. It's always present, waiting to be tapped, waiting to guide us to advise us. We need only use it to prevent its atrophy. No matter what our background, profession, color or religion employing this universal compass, this innate sense of what we know to be true will help us to establish a lifelong foundation, a place we go to recover our sanity and to regain our balance. And now please rise in body or in spirit for the lighting of the chalice. You will notice that this is a responsive reading, so please read the bold words. Let us worship with eyes and ears and fingertips. We feed our eyes upon the mystery and revelation in the faces of our brothers and sisters. Let us worship not in bowing down, not with closed eyes and stopped ears. Let us worship with the opening of all the windows of our beings with the full outstretching of our spirits. And while you're still standing, reach out please and exchange friendly greetings with your neighbors. What do you want? Thanks. And please be seated for the sharing of joys and concerns. Once a month we gather generally to set aside a few moments at the first part of our service for the sharing of joys and sorrows. This is a time for members, friends, and visitors to the congregation to relate to the entire gathered community here some special event or circumstance that has affected your life or the life of someone close to you. As Michael always reminds us, this general announcements and news items and partisan appeals are discouraged during joys and sorrows. So for the next few minutes, anyone who wishes is invited to step to the front of the auditorium and light a candle in one of the two candle labras to my left and my right, and then using the microphone provided by Anne Smiling, our lay minister. Please share your name, if that feels comfortable, and a brief message. Please note that our services are live cast, so listeners are not restricted just to those seated in this room. You may also wordlessly light a candle of commemoration and simply return to your seats. And I'd like to start us off today because I have had two major births in my life recently. One of them is The World is Your Oracle, which is right down here. It better because I'm going to be reading from it. But more importantly, five weeks ago Mark and I were blessed with a new and our first grandchild, Leo Linden Steinman. And yes, thank you, Anne. Could you please put two candles? Oh, you did it, great, wonderful. And Mark fixed everything in our daughter's house. We cooked, we cleaned. I made sure that she got out for walks in this section and needed to get healing, which he is doing very well because she's a yogi. But I think we actually gained more than they did because we were for two weeks inside their love bubble because those two parents absolutely are head over heels in love with their little boy. So now I open the floor to the sharing of other significant matters in our lives. I'm Rosalind Woodward and this is gratitude to you all. I've since the end of January to now I've been having medical problems and many, many people have helped me out. And I just wanted to say thank you to this community for all the support and love you've given me during this time. So we just wanted to express gratitude. We went to Suzuki Camp this past week and we were able to spend a whole week together and we learned so much and we're just so grateful for the teachers and the opportunity to do that. Hi, I'm Sandy Curley. My son passed away in March 7. And I'm here because I'm very curious, a curious mind. And I came to a meeting here of bereaved parents, so his name was Cameron Cress. My name is Laura and I laid this candle today for my sister, Mara, who's recently diagnosed with breast cancer. So I'm praying for her and also for the joy of the weather which has been mother nature seems boundless in her wonder. My name is Teresa. I want to light this candle in commemoration of the life and the passing of my grandfather's half-sister, Dixie Kaufman-Zare. There was a divorce and there was kind of bad feelings between the two branches of the family and I had always been kind of sorry about that and I had just started to have some e-mail communication with her when she suddenly died. It's one of those feelings of regret for missed opportunities. Don't do that. Good morning, I'm Carolyn Wachsler and I have what will eventually be a joy but right now is a kind of painful and difficult time for my sister who is recovering from knee replacement surgery. So this is for her and for her partner and who is caring for her and she'll have the other knee replaced in sometime this fall and it will allow her to have greater mobility and do more of the things that she likes to do. This candle is for the Reverend Leslie Chartier. She was ordained in Corvallis, Oregon on July 16th and many of you will remember her as the partner now wife of Diana Vesmar-Valey who worked here years ago. It was a wonderful service. Good morning, I'm Morris Wachsler. Happy birthday, Marianne Kelman. She was 87 yesterday and I visited her accidentally on Thursday when I was downtown and she's at the memory unit and we have a lot of fun because she doesn't remember something and we had a great time. She's 87. My name is T.K. Browning. With my partner Kate, my two kids, we were members here from 2012 to 2014 at the seminary for the past three years and I'm excited to start as the ministerial intern on Tuesday and I'll be here for the next year. My hair was shorter then and I went by Tim, but now I'm T.K. I'm still tall. So in addition to those just shared we also acknowledge all of those unspoken joys and sorrows that remain among us. As a community of concern and caring we hold these in our hearts as well. Let us sit silently for a few moments in the spirit of empathy and hope and now you may rise in body or in spirit for the singing of hymn number 184 and since it's time for the kids to leave for summer fun we will be singing it three times through. Be lamps unto yourself. You may be seated. So today I'm going to read from my book The World is Your Oracle. Divinatory practices for tapping your inner wisdom and getting the answers you need. I gave the title to the book. My editor gave the subtitle to it. It's very long. So what's an oracle? From the ancient Greeks to modern-day North Americans people from cultures all over the world have gained insight into many questions by using oracles. These divinatory practices have been performed at times when significant decisions needed to be made. For instance, to establish new capital cities, to choose religious leaders, to create inventions, to dig wells, to write poetry or music. But more importantly, they can help any person in their daily life to stay happy and healthy. So first, what is an oracle? An oracle is simply a technique for uncovering the answer to a question. If you're stumped by a situation or by the behavior of a person in your life, an oracle can help you understand the situation. If you can't figure out how to proceed when it comes to crucial decisions at work or at home, an oracle can give you advice. Advice, that is, not device. These divinatory practices reveal guideposts for your life by helping you tap into your unconscious mind where your inner wisdom resides. After all, your conscious analytical mind only has access to the tip of the iceberg when it comes to your thoughts and your experience, but your unconscious contains much more beneath the surface of your day-to-day mindset. It's a storehouse of hunches, feelings, instincts, and all sorts of knowledge that you can tap into and access through divination.  So how do oracles foster wisdom in your life? Every day, we are bombarded by advertising messages, expert advice, campaign promises, and opinions of every sort. Sometimes it's hard to hear ourselves think. Instead, we need to listen to what Steve Jobs, Apple CEO and co-founder calls the whisperings of intuition. According to Jobs, these wise flashes of inspiration will help us to be successful in an environment of rapid change where analytical thinking no longer suffices. In fact, a gathering of 1,500 CEOs from around the world recently identified these types of creative insights as the best strategy for dealing with a world that's volatile, uncertain, and complex. Recent studies also show that to a large degree, we reach our decisions unconsciously. Our unconscious mind constantly monitors our unconscious and our internal and our external environments, and when it judges the information gathered to be important enough, it engages the conscious mind, and we become consciously aware of something. Oracles can put us in touch with our unconscious wisdom sooner, so we don't have to wait out those times when our analytical mind is stuck in a rut. On a more personal level, I found that a good oracle puts you in touch with yourself. It lets you discover your motivations, your feelings, and your thoughts about any questions that you're exploring. It also helps by alerting you to your hidden wishes and fears, those aspects of your personality that might sabotage your conscious choices unless you know about them and put them into account. Once you're aware of the beliefs that are operating beneath the surface of your mind, you can factor them into your conscious decisions just like any other conscious thought. Oracles can guide your life with a sure hand when you flounder. They can help you set priorities, meet challenges, and find creative solutions to your problems. At times, a divination can even point to an outworn habit that you need to discard or can encourage you to take a risk that you might be too timid to tackle on your own. Oracles can provide information that you need, warn you of possible dangers, and inspire you in your professional and creative work. The world is your oracle. This book I'm holding in my hands is for you to tap into your inner wisdom in a variety of ways. For instance, you can read the patterns in the stars. You can listen to a fire sing as it burns. You can flip open a book and read the first phrase that catches your eye. While writing this book, I opened a nearby volume and read, Listen to the cry of your own heart. Something wonderful is being said. I loved that. So finally, I think we all long to be touched by something greater than ourselves, and divination provides that experience. The ultimate aim of an oracle is exactly that, to open us up to a sense of wonder. Our lives can be imbued with a richer significance as a result of being brushed by the mystery of divination, as we experience ourselves in relation to something larger than just our routine lives. It can create an ongoing awareness of the adventure of our lives open at any moment to our inner knowing and the wisdom of the universe. Thus endeth the reading. So we now have special music by this special group of chimers. And that was special. Thank you so much for the beautiful music this morning. While I'm talking today, I'll be showing the paintings that my daughter Linnea did to illustrate the 40 different oracles that are in our book, The World is Your Oracle. So you may be wondering how this highly educated person became the author of a divination book. I was raised in a family of medical people. My dad was a veterinarian. My mother was a nurse. And they were both scientists at heart with a thirst for learning. As a result, I grew up believing that rationality was the sole source of wisdom and that education was the pathway to get there. But in my 20s, I began to have mystical experiences which I couldn't rationally explain. At that time in my life, I certainly didn't consider myself psychic and I still don't. But I began to realize that everyone has intuitive experiences. So I set out to discover how to develop my own intuition. As strange as it might sound, I began by reading tarot cards during the most rational period of my life while I was studying for my PhD about 40 years ago. I approached the cards from a fairly logical point of view regarding them as a psychological Roar Shark test for the questions that I was looking at. In retrospect, this was my first step towards comprehending insight triggers, those experiences that can precipitate understanding. And it was also my first step to understanding how we co-create interpretations of oracles and even the oracles themselves by coming up with associations that make sense to us. Spending time with other practitioners of divination, I was introduced to more open-ended and therefore more advanced oracles, techniques that depended on accessing the wellspring of my own intuition through a state of inward focus. I also began to realize that people use different senses to access their inner wisdom, the predominant ones being the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic, and that actually became the backbone of my book. The divination techniques are divided into visual, auditory, and kinesthetic techniques. And eventually I started to create my own oracular techniques based on, in one sense, on the adaptations of ancient or indigenous practices and some of them based on my own experience doing divination. And the ultimate result was, of course, my newly published book, The World is Your Oracle, a compilation of 40 multicultural divinatory techniques for tapping your inner wisdom. In North America, many people associate divination with either ancient religions or the occult. Traditionally this concept has conjured up the image of an old woman with a deck of playing cards who's trying to tell someone's fortune. And we don't have to look very far to discover the reason for our dominant notions about divination, because the first definition in most English dictionaries states that it's the practice of attempting to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge using occult or supernatural means. But from my perspective, this is an archaic understanding of divination, one that was created during a time when we had sharper delineations between the everyday and the mysterious, the natural, and the supernatural. Instead, I define divination as the active use of our intuition, employing a variety of methods for getting in touch with our inner knowing. Seers and sages have done this for centuries, perhaps even millennia. They've known that in order to answer questions that baffled them, they had to let go of their narrow, habitual responses to situations and to the people around them as well as to the questions that they faced. To do this, they often performed divinations. In the mental state created by divination, new ideas popped into their awareness, making these adepts the first to perfect what we now call thinking outside the box. With breakthroughs in modern technology, we now know why. Research has begun to shed light on how divination acts to facilitate aha moments, those creative insights that seem to come to us spontaneously out of the blue. Brain imaging technology using electroencephalograms, EEGs, and functional magnetic resonance imaging, FMRIs, have shown that flashes of inspiration like this occur when a person's brain is in a particular state, and this is exactly the frame of mind that divination facilitates. So in order to understand these eureka moments, we have to take a step backwards and look at how the mind normally works. Neuroscientists have discovered that every idea in the brain has associations with other thoughts, so that each calls to mind the next and then the next and the next until you have a stream of consciousness. Some of these associations are remote, and as a result they're unlikely to come to mind. We call these associations unconscious. In contrast, many associations are almost automatic, and we call these thoughts conscious. When we're in our normal mindset, using our conscious analytical mind, our thoughts remain wedded to the most obvious associations that we have, associations from our experience, from our reading, and from the ways that we believe the world works. Most of the time, this mental box created by these seemingly self-evident associations allows us to anticipate and understand our lives rapidly. It's sort of like a triage system that allows us to prioritize the likelihood of meaning in any particular situation. But these habitual associations also limit our thinking, causing tunnel vision at times. This can be detrimental when we're presented with new challenges in our lives. When we become stuck in our thinking, that's when we need an aha moment or a divination to free our thoughts. Then our minds can associate with the more remote ideas found in the unconscious, allowing new understandings to surface into our conscious awareness. So how does this happen? Most recent research has demonstrated that aha moments happen when two conditions are met. And the first of these is a burst of alpha wave activity called the brain blink.  This is what scientists call optimal inattention.  And thanks to this neural diversion, novel ideas can bubble up into awareness. This experience is very similar to the situation where someone asks you a question that's hard for you to answer and you either look away or close your eyes in order to not be distracted by their face or other extraneous factors. The brain does exactly the same thing. When you're asked something challenging an answer might already be activated at an unconscious level but there's always a lot of noise and distraction so that you can't retrieve it unless you have a brain blink. So if we survey divination techniques from around the world, we find that they operate in a similar way. The state in which divination takes place sometimes meditative, sometimes euphoric, sometimes involving what is known as brain wave entrainment which I will talk about later when I get to drumming is in each case distinguished by alpha waves in the occipital lobe of the brain exactly where the brain blink takes place. In addition, the very techniques of inward focus that are fostered by divination are designed to suppress unnecessary sensations or thoughts. They're designed to create optimal inattention. The wisdom keepers of the world realized this long ago. They knew that in order to tap into their inner knowing they had to walk in the woods, meditate, drum or dance ecstatically. All techniques that I have included in the world is your oracle. In other words, neuroscientists have recently discovered what ancient and indigenous seers have known for a long time. The glare of the external world can block insight. So that's the first necessary condition. The second mental condition that characterizes an aha moment or a successful divination occurs when a spark of inspiration flashes from the unconscious mind into consciousness. And on EEG and fMRI scans, this burst of activity happens in the right temporal lobe directly above your right ear. The brain's right hemisphere, we know, is where these flashes of insight occur, and it's also been shown that it's the major origin for creative thoughts. And the reason for this is because it has a much larger number of associations with any concept or problem. So with the help of optimal inattention and the alpha waves that produce it, the brain sets aside the left hemisphere's habitual and boxed in thinking so that it can tune into alternate interpretations from the right hemisphere and think outside the box. While science is just beginning to chart flashes of insight in the brain, people all over the world have been using divination techniques for centuries, if not millennia. So I want to look at a couple of these techniques, this wide variety of techniques that ancient and indigenous people have used for irregular insight and that I've also included in the world as your oracle to see how they work scientifically. So the first one we're going to look at is shamanic journey. Indigenous traditions the world over have performed shamanic journeys as a means of divination. And 30 years ago, anthropologist Michael Harner reexamined a large number of these divination practices and discovered many similarities among them, rapid drumming, ritual dance, and communication with a person's animal spirit or spirit guide. What he did then was to distill down these methods into an irracular technique that is called core shamanism. And this is a practice that now has thousands of proponents in North America. So taking a shamanic journey is an imaginative process that's much like daydreaming.  The steady heartbeat rhythm of shamanic drumming helps you to float into this altered state of mind. And in this mindset, you imagine a world known among shamanism practitioners, especially core shamanism practitioners, as the lower world. There's also the upper world, where I only included a journey to the lower world.  Often called your power animal, this being will escort you on an adventure to help you find insight into your irracular question. So from a scientific viewpoint, there are three different ways that this technique works.  Visiting another realm in your imagination, especially one that is far different from your everyday life, can dissipate thoughts that have become fixed in your mind, and this is what science calls fixation forgetting. You see, thinking is almost always associated with the context in which you have thoughts. For instance, I'm upstairs, and I'll go, oh, I need to get my iPhone. I go down the stairs, but by the time I get to the living room, I can't remember what I came for. So I go back upstairs, and oh, yes, it was my cell that I was looking for. So in a similar way, changing your context by getting far away from your normal haunts helps you to overcome those obvious first thoughts in order to tap into more obscure answers to your query. Once you've left your habitual judgments and assessments behind, you can think more easily outside the box. So that's the first way that it works. Secondly, when you call on a spirit helper to guide your divination, you also enlarge your thinking from your small personal point of view to include the larger perspective of the numinous, the spiritual. Seeing a bigger picture, in this case perhaps the biggest picture, is another scientifically proven practice that induces flashes of insight. It's one of the best ways to see more of the interconnecting pieces that make up your puzzle, even those that seem unimportant. Similarly to dreaming, the shamanic journey also involves a semi-conscious state of inward reflection in which novel ideas can be incubated from an miraculous question. This is the third way that this technique works. Science has now shown us that this type of unconscious incubation is what generates insights. Since hidden relationships brought from the unconscious to the forefront of the brain are the material from which sudden realizations are drawn. Incubation involves taking time away from your issue or your problem. The further away you get, the better. The easiest way to incubate an oracle is to sleep on your question and come up with a dream that answers it, which is also one of the techniques in the world as your oracle. But you can also take a short break from consciously considering a problem by taking a walk in the woods or in this case by journeying to the lower world. So some divination methods only involve one means of gaining miraculous insight, but this one has three. Changing your context, which leads to fixation forgetting. Secondly, broadening your attention and therefore broadening your thinking. And thirdly, incubation. So let's look at a second divination practice and see how it functions from a scientific viewpoint. Candle oracles have existed since antiquity. Depending on how the candle was used, the ancients called these divinations capnamancy, which was watching for signs in the patterns made by the candle's smoke. Saramancy, which is dripping melted wax into cold water and then looking at the images as insight triggers for a new concept or thought. And lichnoscopy, which is noticing the appearance, color, and movements of a candle's flame in order to discover the answer to an irracular question. Candle magic was found all over the world in Christian and Jewish contexts, especially in the Middle Ages. It's still found all over the Far East, for example, in Tibet. And you can find it today in African American hoodoo practices. In the world as your oracle, I decided to incorporate a candle divination that I created. It's called Light Illumines Your Inner Well, and it's for sure the most sensual and yummy divination technique in the whole book. In order to discover deeper insight with this technique, what you do is you relax in a warm bath with the water running and let the candlelight that is reflecting off of the water mesmerize you into a state of greater openness to your inner knowing. Light Illumines Your Inner Well uses sensory restriction in three ways, actually, to allow the person undertaking the oracle to look inward. The running water produces a type of white noise that blocks other sounds from being heard. The warmth of the water makes it more difficult to feel the boundaries of your skin and therefore restricts your feeling of touch. And the dim lighting limits your vision. The most recent research demonstrates that all three of these ways of restricting the senses can induce a powerful pull towards deep receptivity. And in each case, the sensory restriction cuts you off from your environment and draws your focus inward. So the last divination practice I want to look at is drumming. Also included in the world is your oracle. People everywhere, all over the world, have literally tapped into their inner wisdom using these rhythm instruments in Africa, in Europe, in Asia, in Australia, and in both North and South America. In fact, the discovery of drumming's oracular properties probably occurred within shamanic circles in the Paleolithic era. Shamans from Asia and the Americas used drums, and they still do today, to transcend ordinary consciousness in order to travel to the spirit world and find divinatory guidance. Tom Keepers, a cochiti drum maker, says, and I quote, to consult the drum, present your question to the drum, and then play a steady beat until it provides an answer. It's that simple and that profound. So this rhythmic technique uses what people call brainwave entrainment to create a semi-conscious state of inward focus. Entrainment can be defined as synchronizing the body's rhythms with some sort of outside rhythm. And consistent rhythmic stimuli, like those of the fast-beating drum, can synchronize the brain's waves to these same rhythms, including inducing a deeply relaxing state of altered consciousness. A recent study by Barry Quinn, PhD, demonstrates that even a short drumming session can double alpha wave activity, and as we've seen, alpha wave activity can lead to an aha moment or an irracular insight. So you know when people reach out to an irracular technique for answers, they're usually feeling frustrated and upset about the issue that faces them. Usually you're stuck in some way. Divination allows your mood to lighten and helps you to become more peaceful since it eliminates extraneous thoughts or feelings concerning your query. And this is perhaps the most important thing that I learned from the recent scientific research. You actually need to create a positive mood in order to get beyond your prior fixed ideas. So my suggestion is to smile. Because even earlier research has shown that if you smile, you become happier. And the recent EEGs and FMRI studies demonstrate that emotions like joy and tranquility and love all facilitate aha moments. As I say in my divination workshops, it's important to warmly anticipate the insight that will come to you. So let go of your anxieties and find that anticipatory glow for the outcome of your oracle. Or as Bobby McFerrin says, In every life there is some trouble, when you worry you make it double, don't worry, be happy. So now it's time for this morning's offering. And I think this community means a lot to many of us, so please give generously. Closing hymn is number 3848, Guide My Feet. Please be seated for the benediction and the postlude. We receive fragments of holiness, glimpses of eternity, brief moments of insight. Let us gather them up for the precious gifts that they are and renewed by their grace. Go our ways in peace. Blessed be an amen.