Indian Epics

For my next story, I am going to focus on the character Ravana. In the film, Sita Sings the Blues it focuses on how Ravana might not have been as evil as everyone thought. When he stole Sita he did not hurt her and did not rape her like everyone else thought he did. The entire reason that Ravana stole Sita in the first place was because Rama and his brother Lakshmana cut off the ears and nose of his sister Shrupanakha . It is kind of an ironic thing because Shrupanakha actually tried to seduce Rama but Rama would not betray Sita. Shrupanakha's brother wouldn't even try to do anything to Sita. But why is Ravana called the demon king? It goes beyond the earthly understanding. Ravana is used as an avatar of a rakshasa , who has a severe bloodlust to kill and eat humans. (Image of a rakshasa from Wiki ) After Ravana served a 10,000 year penance he could not be defeated by god, demons or spirits so that is the reason why Rama (the avatar of Vishnu) is destined to kill ...

(Created on Canva ) To create this post I made the graphic on Canva . This is quote is something that I try to make myself think about often. Effectively managing my stress levels is something that I am in constant battle with. Stress is what you make it. If you take time to reflect before you respond, a lot of good can happen instead of stress. 

I have been a huge fan of Pinterest for many years. Many of my boards are what I would like to call "Dream Boards," which are a collection of different things that I would love to do or have in the future or even things I look at for inspiration. (Pinterest logo from Wiki ) This semester I am in an art therapy class where I have to keep a sketchbook. At the end of the semester I have to turn in 91 pages of drawings, collages, etc. that I have done throughout the semester. I wouldn't consider myself a very creative person so I look to Pinterest for ideas. I have a Pinterest board titled " sketchbook " that I save pins to for inspiration. I keep most of my boards private because they are all for my personal use and I don't follow anyone or invite my friends to view my pages. But, I do have a lot of friends who like to share their Pinterest board with others and they have a lot of fun doing that.

This week, I chose to watch the film Sita Sings the Blues . The reason why I chose to watch the film over reading was because I thought it would be a good idea to change it up a little bit compared to the past couple of weeks. Also, a friend who took this class a couple of semesters ago suggested that I watch the film because she enjoyed it. At the beginning of the film when they are describing the past of Rama and the story of Ramayana , everything seemed similar to what I had read before in the PDE online edition of Ramayana . Here are the links to my past notes of: Section A  Section B  Section C Section D The film states that Ravana was an evil king, but the only truly evil and bad thing that he actually did was steal Sita away from Rama. Something that I also didn't realize about Ravana was that he was the king over Lanka, like in the past version I read, but in todays time that would have been Sri Lanka. And the bridge that Rama build with the army still exists b...