Episode 123
Rediscovery

A new year and we're still communing, lucky! What can we expect from a podcast episode on the day after the first day of 2019? Rather than resolutions, goal setting, or a recap of the past year, I'd like to mutually rediscover an optimal presence in the now. How I love to BE, capital B, capital E. Big BE. Not because we oughta, or gotta. Just because we wanta. A Big BE not just for me; maybe there's a BE for you, too. Episode 123 Rediscovery, Daughter of Godcast Season 4, Choice.

Let's begin with project news. A fellow can spend a lot of time tweaking a website, getting things just so. That's true of movies too. Of art. Of life!

After three weeks, am I still gently coaxing forth Daughter of God's web presence? I must confess, yes. Climbing the BeaverBuilder learning curve, discovering Google fonts, adjusting color schemes, rewriting content, fixing broken stuff.

www.dog.movie is kinda huge, I've been rediscovering. With 123-plus podcast episodes, at least 20 hours of media and more than 180,000 words of transcription, equivalent to one book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Plus 20 minutes of movie scenes with feedback from the Best Beloveds and 5,000 words of poetry in Signals from a Nearby Now. I've been single-handedly shuffling through all that.

Astounding. I've rediscovered how prolific I've been the last couple of years, venturing into a whole new media while making steady progress on the movie. I've shared a lot of my work and myself with the world. Dog.movie documents the singular transformation of yours truly, complete with an extensive backstory, Season One, The Gentle Release.

A few episodes ago, I would have loved to hire a web designer. Now I get why web designers weren't beating down my door.

I love to be surrounded by creatives of every stripe. I am excited to celebrate new collaborators and an expanded palette of expertise. A crowd of activated people sharing some bliss overlap. That's my impersonation of how an enlightened person might complain.

How would having a diverse contingent of virtuosic collaborators feel? What comes up immediately is my own experience of feeling juicy, inspired, lucky. When I revel in my own virtuosity, I effectively delegate to the universe the details of collaborator recruitment. That's the theory.

I often preach about how emotions are a choice, and past episodes have told the story of how emotional autonomy was rediscovered. Nowadays, keeping the rediscovery in the forefront of my awareness is easy, most of the time. I know that my experience is only as stellar as I allow it to be.

Am I writing a riddle? Perhaps a spell? A magical incantation. My choice of words on this topic is quite deliberate, because words concretize belief, and therefore focus what we are. Words are a construction not just of ideas or narratives, but of our now. Words can either flow our fullness or build a dam. Wait, BeaverBuilder? Damn!

There's probably lots of ways to be fully alive. Being in wilderness, falling in love, getting physical, adventuring with hallucinogens, meditation... that's my short list.

Trying to translate fullness into words is a wonderful game, delicious. The words we choose are a map to fullness, pointing the way to the treasure. By making the map we become the treasure.

I was talking about a team. That was the gist of all those deliberate words, Navajo code talking so the Nazis couldn't follow the Allies' battle plans. I AM looking forward to an expanded crew of adepts. For tonight though, I'm enough. Who could I have assigned the writing of this episode to? What gorgeous actor would I have hired to perform these words in front of the camera and microphone? Naw, producing Episode 123 would have been a bitch to delegate, since this is my freaking podcast, the Dan Kelly show. Also my flashlight, flare, and flaming sword. I've been leveraging this podcast to invent myself. Would I want someone else to wear my cozy wool socks? To flip my luxurious auburn hair in slow motion?

Resource blooming is inevitable. For now, there's no urgency to attract or magnetize new talent. I am an artist, and artists make art. Improbable, audacious, unreasonable art. This movie has been my most ambitious undertaking yet. Let's say that again. My Most Ambitious Undertaking Yet. Epic and… ridiculous. Ridiculously epic.

Maybe someone can make a feature film and be the same person at the finish as they were at the start. What's the point of that? Figuring out that I had to make myself to make this movie — wow. Or that making the movie made me. Same difference.

I occasionally get skittish pretending there's too much left to do. What's a quest without monsters and peril? We are going way beyond what we were. That's the definition of an ambitious project.

Most of the time I am pretty certain that everything's going to turn out beautifully. I am absolutely certain that so much already has. Countless robust and easy outcomes. Energy is moving.

Backtracking all the way to the web presence: Yes, I AM enjoying personally attending to dog.movie. Another teasing out of clarity, the website makes me too. Geez. Each variant of this creative quest opens the flow of the big BE.

AND clearly this scanty ration of project news isn't keeping the podcast from happening. We can crank out a 1,000 words with one keyboard tied behind my back, even if all that happened last week was a grand tournament of masturbation and Netflix bingeing. That's just a hypothetical example; my only non-DOG activities since Episode 122 were eight hours of Diablo on the Nintendo and cat teasing.

According to the Gregorian calendar, today is the second day of 2019. Thirty-five days remain before Daughter of God is done, squeaking just under the wire in the Chinese year of the DOG. Do I really and truly mean done, completely absolutely cross my fingers — I mean heart! Cross-my-heart finished? Specifically, done enough to launch at a film festival or two and test screen in front of audiences with questionnaires and feedback?

Doable. If I can stay happy and yummy and satisfied and easy and excited just to be alive. Totally doable.

Before we wrap up this episode, I want to remind all y'all that dog.movie would benefit from your feedback. Please opine on the visual design and the organization of information in the comments for this episode. What pages work for you and which don't? You don't have to be an expert, artist, or geek, all you need is a sense of what you like and what you don't. Your impressions and insights boost the likelihood of Sweet Redemption in our Alternative Economy of Fun and get you on the list of Best Beloveds. She Is Coming... and YOU can help! Pretty please!

That's the Daughter of Godcast, Season Four, Choice, and this has been Episode 123, Rediscovery. Thanks to reptilian liaison Carrie Bailey at immortalcoffeenovels.com, I'm now emboldened to lose the hyphen in post apocalyptic, thus steepening the pitch on the water slide that is the landing page for dog.movie. I'll do anything to drop the bounce rate!

Carrie's all about coffee too, except she's likely assimilating orally, but who knows? Do you have to be me to understand half of what I'm talking about? If you are easily decoding my encrypted transmissions, does that mean you might be a spiritual commando? Flowing the fullness often? Poised to parachute into 2019 and the rediscovery of Big BE with ME?! Yes, my Best Beloveds, oh my, yes.

8 Comments

  1. The Cosmos on January 2, 2019 at 10:18 pm

    Facebook 1/3

  2. The Cosmos on January 3, 2019 at 3:00 am

    Facebook 2/3

  3. Allison on January 3, 2019 at 3:18 am

    Hey Dan,

    Overall, I like the web site. My first note: it took me several page loads before I realized that the Title Text and the text around it were a navigation menu. I think it was too subtle, visually, in that the text doesn’t stand out strong enough from the image. I know from experience, that this can be difficult to optimize. Not sure what to offer in terms of suggestions. I rather like the earth tone subtlety here. Maybe have the text be outlined?

    • Allison on January 3, 2019 at 3:20 am

      or, maybe its that on the home page, the “learn more” is the only link and it takes to you the move page. perhaps it could be “learn more” (without being a link) with “movie” and “podcast” hyper-linked text below it?

  4. Dan from dog.movie on January 3, 2019 at 1:57 pm

    Facebook 3/5

  5. Dan from dog.movie on January 3, 2019 at 3:37 pm

    Facebook 4/5

  6. Dan from dog.movie on January 3, 2019 at 5:38 pm

    Facebook 5/5

  7. Jil on January 6, 2019 at 11:12 am

    These podcasts are a guided meditation for me. I laughed out loud a the masturbation sentence. What do you mean by ‘pages”? What ‘pages’ do you want feedback on? You are so talented, Dan. I am going to re-read your poetry. As I recall, I loved it.

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