I used to bug my parents about Santa Getting stuck, because our chimney was so narrow.
OH NO! SANTA’S STUCK! – © LYON 2025
They always told me he ‘magicked’ his way down, shrinking himself and his presents until they landed, when they’d all return to normal size.
Watching TV with all my buddies.
Watching The Game – © LYON 2025
Not that I even have a TV.
But if I did, maybe it might look like this on a fine rainy afternoon . . .
Who could resist sitting around with your best friend and critter buddies?
-=-=-=-=-=- Continue reading
It was only after I spent a few months in Italy carving marble, that it dawned on me out-of-the-blue one day where the word comes from –
DELIGHT – © LYON 2025
It comes from the word in Latin meaning ‘grace.’
When I was in sixth grade, Latin classes were mandatory. I pretended to hate it, but truthfully, I was fascinated how some many of our english words are derived from Latin.
Years and years after Latin being drilled into my skull by the fierce, unrelenting Mr. Clum, I’m so glad that that training gave me deep understanding of english word-origin and meaning.
And yet sometimes the simplest words – like gratitude – pass me by until they smack me in the face, practically screaming – gratitude is feeling grace! Grace! It’s about grace, you ninny!
I used to get panic attacks all the time. I never knew to call them that. I just thought I was being stupid-overanxious.
BEAUTY PREVAILS – © LYON 2025
A friend of mine had a monstrous panic attack a few days ago. When I read what she’d gone through, I wished I had done what I promised myself I’d do long ago – write a post about how to handle panic. But – I didn’t. Ah well. So here it is now.
Why Pyramid? Well – the word just popped into my head. So there it is! I had been looking at a lot of Egyptian art lately – think maybe it had some kind of influence?
PYRAMID – black, gold and brown design for silk scarves. © LYON 2025
Nah, I don’t think so. I was just fooling around with triangles. And golds and browns and black. Sometimes the idea behind a piece isn’t all that profound.
Nonetheless, I sure like this one – one more design to get printed for fabric! I’d wear a shirt with this design any day.
Today I had a long list of got-to-do items. I didn’t do a single one of them. Instead, I got hung up in watching some of the save-the-horses reels on facebook.
FREEDOM! – © LYON 2025
It completely blows my mind how people just throw horses away as if they are worthless pieces of trash. There was one horse who was 2 or 3 years old, and, even so young, was a race-track champion. Ribbon-winner.
He got sent to the auction yard within 2 hours of winning his last race. Pardon me, but what-the-feckingeverlovin’ hell? Who DOES that?
Did you know that cheetahs have part dog DNA?
Cheetah Mama and Babies – © LYON 2025
I wonder who did that – it was a long, long time ago, whoever it was! But it’s why they have such long legs and such a small head in proportion to the body!
I was listening to one of the Beatles’ albums tonight and their Blackbird song came up. I ‘saw’ this image right off, and hadda draw it. I love the colors!
Blackbird Fly – © LYON 2025
Enjoy.
Yesterday I told you how I found out about transforming the perpetual, unrelenting pain in my back into mere background noise, rather than full-front, attention-grabbing annoyance and agony.
Making Magick at Midnight – © LYON 2025
Simply by wishing blessings upon it. And then upon all of me. And then upon others. And other things. And other places. And the whole planet. And all of life!
So of course I had a waking dream where Blessing gave me the gift of Making Magick with my hands. Or maybe it was a deep-seated memory, because I have always made magic with my hands, it seems.
I have many friends who are struggling hard every day – either dealing with weird family BS, money stuff, illness, or pain – it’s unreal how unrelenting life can be sometimes.
Blinded by Pain – © LYON 2025
It makes me wish I had a magic wand I could just wave once or twice and their problems would turn into Good Things.
When I was a kid, I was bullied relentlessly by a trio of nasty boys.
DON’T PUSH ME IN! – © LYON 2025
They’d pop out of nowhere and surround me, taunt me, and push me around until I fell or spilled whatever I was carrying. Or they’d torture any animals in sight just to see what I’d do.
At the pool one day they threw a cat in, and I had to dive in and get it, poor thing. I was so pissed I vowed ‘never again’.
Light. We need lots and lots of light.
Bright – © LYON 2025
Times seem so dark and foreboding – so – here’s some light for you for today!
Have you ever noticed that most times we look at plants from the side? What happens when you look at them straight down from the top? This!
So I’m left with my Real Self, which has a red face, sharp teeth and unpadded words. Ever have a day like that? Not fun!
And to top it off, the stew I made last night was meh. So sad.
But at least I got my page with my goodies up – I’ve been working on it for centuries, it seems!
Here it is, if you can stand to be around someone so very Not Nice!
NOT NICE TODAY
© Angela Treat Lyon 2025
More fabulous art here:
instagram.com/angela.treat.lyon/
Did you know that there’s a wild plant that is so effective that many healers carry its root and dried leaves around with them?
OSHA — © LYON 2025
It looks like the carrot plant, with its tall stems and big white umbrels. But the root is way more powerful than the carrot’s. It’s anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-inflammatory. It helps with asthma, bronchial infections, and sore throats.
Because why not? How else will we perpetuate love and joy?
Waving to my friends – © LYON 2025
I invite you to choose to have fun today, and purposely add a whole bunch of good hearty laughter to the world.
I find solace from the woes of the human world by being in nature. Even if it’s only standing on my door stoop, taking time to take breaths of not-house air.
Plant A World Tree, and Dance All Night – © LYON 2025
I’m reminded today about the first time I did that – stood out on my stoop, just breathing in the lovely clean sea-air of Santa Cruz. It was many years ago when the air really was clean.
I got so dreamy-spacey, visualizing things that made me happy, that helped bring love, joy and peace into the world. I saw the World Tree.
Why? Because sometimes life is short, hard, and brutal.
APPRECIATE YOUR LIFE – NOW! – © LYON 2025
And some people only get a few chances at The Good Stuff.
And some people get mowed down, their lives cruelly cut short.
It’s sad and discouraging to think people value life so little that they have the gall to take other peoples’ lives, ending a life-path that could have done so much good. Or bad – who knows? Now we won’t know.
Pisses me off, really. How many good men have we lost to carefully aimed wads of metal?
When I was a kid, I used to love watching the resident raccoons wash their food.
Rocky Loves His Fishie Dinners – © LYON 2025
I thought they were the most fastidious critters I’d ever seen.
Then one morning on my way past the trash bins on my way to the bus stop, The raccoons had tipped over one of the bins and there was trash EVerywhere.
In our not-too-long-ago past, there used to be little fishing villages where the guys go out every morning and come back with their boats laden with fishies.
The Good Catch – © LYON 2025
When they return at dusk on the rosy horizon, the women and chilluns gather round down on the strand and dance and sing, celebrating the good catch as the men unload and fold up the nets for another day.
Do you get leg or foot cramps? Did you know those cramps are known to be caused by lack of water in your system, and possibly not enough magnesium?
Leg Cramps! – © LYON 2025
Next time these debilitating cramps wake you up at night, or pounce upon you as you sit at dinner, or as you walk down the street, you might try the following:
We don’t play enough. We’re so serious, our faces dragging across the floor like wet mops, full of regret, anger and seriosity.
Rock, Paper, Scissors – I Win! © LYON 2025
Remember your mom saying, don’t frown – your face is going to get stuck like that? Turns out it’s true!
And then we look aghast in the mirror at the lines running down the sides of our mouths showing we frowned for 50 years; crows’ feet at our eyes; and sad lines down our cheeks and around our noses.
Today it was so hot I felt like someone was sucking my energy right out of my cells. Have you ever felt like that? I think it was pure miracle that I didn’t just wither and slide into a fluid puddle on the floor!
Heart Birdies – © Angela Treat Lyon 2025
But I have a Secret Thing I use to re-energize – I spend time looking at artwork! Either my own, or others’ art. It puts the juice back in my veins, and the muscle back on my bones.
I’ll sometimes go into my files and start sifting through my archives. Some of which I have never shared.
Are we tired of chaos yet? As if it will ever end! Right? It’s the nature of this contrasty world! That still doesn’t mean I can’t wish for a moment of peace once in a while.
Peace Birdies – © LYON 2025
Actually, I’d like a very lonnnng moment of peace. I find I’m the one responsible for that, however – I can’t depend on politicians (snort! hahahahaha!) and I can’t rely on friends, family, customers or clients to provide me with it, either. Ah well – too bad!
Because, as you know, it’s up to me and thee if we want peace. I have to look for the places I like least about my life, and make choices that either support or undermine my peace. It can be hard – I love cruising on FB, but too many reels and I feel drained. Know what I mean?
Well, maybe it is – I think so, anyway!
So – how’s your frequency lately? Are you radiating light yet?
RADIANCE – © LYON 1999
I was homeless in the late 90s. The only thing that kept me out of desperation-depression, and kept me going every day, was being able to make art.
I sat in my car drawing, I set up my paints and painted as I sat on public benches, in friends’ homes, house-sitting – where ever I was, I tried my best to focus on what was most important to me – making art that lifts people, that makes them laugh, or feel sweetness.
Because you just don’t know when the End is.
CELEBRATE! – © LYON 2025
It’s really that simple. Life is precious, but we treat it as ho-hum, it’ll be here tomorrow. Well, maybe it will, but maybe you won’t.
I’ve had friends just up and leave the planet – no warning, no illness, just – poof – gone. One got hit by a car as she biked down the street. One fell of a cliff, of all things. One died in childbirth.
Although my kitchen sink was replaced recently with a beautiful stainless steel one, somehow they forgot to update the funky old sink-swallower. Generally called disposals, but I like my name better.
Fix the Leaks! – © LYON 2025
I don’t use it much. Because instead of oh-so-nicely downing and chewing the content inserted, it rears up and gags and spits and roars and rumbles down inside there, sounding like a freight train trying to run over river rocks. The whole kitchen trembles.
The last time I tried using it, the pipes under the sink decided they didn’t want that stuff in them, sprang leaks all over the place, and soaked the entire cabinet and half the kitchen floor.
It’s whale time of year! So many whale videos lately! Breaching, jumping, having baby whales, humans swimming with them — I never get tired of them.
Breaching the Blue – © LYON 2025
Makes me remember one of the best things I ever did in my life. I sailed from Kauai to California in August, 1984. It was just me and Skipper, an older guy from California, on his beautiful 31-foot double-ender ketch.*
We saw dolphins every evening at 5:00. Never failed. The first time it happened, on our second day out, I was sitting at the very point of the prow of the boat, my legs hanging down, my toes just barely able to dip into the bow wave upon down-bounce.
I was just spacing out, happy as a clam at high tide. Suddenly, I looked up, and there was this funny kind of frothy boiling thing right on the horizon. Alarmed, I jumped up and called, “Skipper! What’s that???”
Pain vs. Beauty is a real thing. Life can be so distracting!
Singing Home the Flowers – © LYON 2025
I have a chronic pain thing that keeps trying to usurp my energy and attention 24/7. Such a bludy PITA. That’s one of the reasons I do so many designs. During the time I’m drawing – it’s like imbibing a whole bottle of pain-relief – I don’t feel it as much.
Last night I sat down and organized my latest to-do lists. Long term, short term to-dos, and in betweens that don’t really fit anywhere.
Egg-Birdies – © LYON 2025
Planning, of course, that when I got up today I’d dive right in and tick them off one by one as I got them done.
Have I done any of them yet?
And she knew it. And she kept on smiling that big fake smile, even though she also knew she might be dying.
We are Me – © LYON 2010
Today I happened upon a post written by an old friend who had just gone through a near-fatal bout of pneumonia.
As I understand it, she had “I’m fine’d” for too long, and almost got too sick before getting help, because she wasn’t facing how she really felt.
She said, “I lied. I’ve been lying for years, saying ‘I’m fine’ and smiling and acting like everything is wonderful . . . when it wasn’t. I’m not lying anymore.”
I admire her courage in coming out with such an admission – she has a huge following, and she might have been concerned about losing some of them.
But she won’t. I guarantee it – because she is out-there-honest about everything else, sharing things most would cringe to even think about. Because it helps the people in her crowd see and heal their own glitches. And they know that and appreciate her for it.
Now I’m calling her out. Because I think she is judging herself way too harshly. It’s not surprising, this so-called lying – we live in a world where any lying is Bad Bad Bad. Even if it is helping you survive.
