Many of you already know me from my versatile work on our former blockchain over the past few years, and now I feel the time is appropriate to give myself a proper introduction on the Hive blockchain as well. My original introduction post from early 2018 is extremely comprehensive and actually still very accurate, so please read that first if you have not already. In that post I reference needing to publish a part 2 intro since there is too much that goes into my life to cram in one post. Since I have yet to publish such a sequel, the introduction of Hive has granted me a perfect chance to do so with updates on all the new projects and interests I have been recently developing.
ELAmental Music
In my original intro article on Steem, I explained how I was on the verge of publishing my first professionally produced and mastered musical work. Since then, I have released that mastered album (no purchase required btw) which I entitled The Hex Wrecker, held a successful record release party with more lit blunts than I have ever seen, performed at several shows with a myriad of other dope conscious hip hop emcees including two shows in Acapulco, Mexico during Anarchapluco 2018 & 2019, helped organize, promote, partially sponsor, and perform the final show in Portland on Alais Clay's Constellations Tour, and recorded an entire music video in Acapulco in 2019 for my new track Shift the Focus (unfortunately that footage was lost).
FF to Present
Three years later after my Steem intro - I am now on the verge of releasing my second professionally produced album entitled Power of Truth, which features other amazing artists including my homies @Alchemage & Perk. I have also released a Hive exclusive unmastered single that will be on this upcoming album called No Consent, which I plan on sharing with 3Speak soon as well. I am also coordinating with my homie Simon who is in charge of recording and editing a new music video from a different track on the Power of Truth album called ELAmental Forces.
I previously did not know how I was going to fund my new album's production costs, that was until shortly after I started blogging on Hive. I had some liquid saved up when Hive spiked to almost $1 usd, and since I was able to switch some of that to BTC, and then Bitcoin went up, I can now boast a mostly (if not completely) Hive funded album when Power of Truth releases. That is how I can tell this is a great platform, Hive has barely just started and it is already providing me with opportunities I did not have before. I honestly could not have planned a more perfect start.
What I bring to the Hive
Cannabis/Hemp Wisdom
Aside from providing dope beats n' rhymes to the block, I enjoy sharing my wisdom for growing cannabis, hemp, and other crops, especially through my BackYard Cannabis Farming video series, which is now on it's third season. Moving forward I would like to host this video series exclusively on Hive & 3Speak, as Steem seems to downvote all my, and others in my community's posts into oblivion (zero), and also since Dtube is seeming to have some serious moral issues arising that I do not want to associate myself with.
I am also continuing my participation with #canna-curate and #weedcash network here on Hive, and am a semi-frequent guest on the Jon & Blunt Show on @Canna-Curate's voice channel of their Discord server.
I also was working for Oregon Hemp Genetics & Analytics before the covid-situation, and am about to start working there again next month. I also have a job opportunity to possibly manage a larger recreational/commercial cannabis grow - it will be nice to direct people instead of doing all the manual labor myself for a change.
Graphic Design Coordinator for Logos
As the design contest coordinator for TSU formally of Steem, I have organized some spectacular designs for several communities and an event logo. I have manifested professional logos for communities like @TribeSteemUp, @EarthTribe, the @TribeVives initiative, and the largest Anarchy/Crypto conference in the world, Anarchapulco. These contests included entries from some of the most prolific insignia artists the platform had to offer, which include but are not limited to: @EDXserverus, @theMonkeyzuelans, @CritterCrats, @Gade4rt, @Erune, @Kayrex, @theWalker, & @StateofAnarchy.
More recently I held the most highly participated in and successful logo contest I have ever hosted, for our rebreanded TSU community on Hive known as @Abundance.Tribe. We gave away 1100 Hive in this contest, awarded 3 prize places to @CapitanZek, @LisbethSeijas, & @Auelitairene, and supplied a hefty TSU vote to every single account that entered our contest, whether they won or not. To further exemplify the Abundance namesake of our community, we even pulled together donations from tribe members to award about an additional 20 Hive participation prize to every single account that did not place for a top prize in the contest.
In addition to my participation in the cannabis communities of Hive, I am currently also active in @NaturalMedicine, #ecotrain, @CreativeCoin, #powerhousecreatives, the new #art communities Creative World and #onchainart, @Build-It, #SilverGoldStackers, and obviously @Abundance.Tribe... with many more soon as they come to my attention.
Organic Clothing & Natural Dyeing
Click here for more info & links
I not only manifest community logos, I also transfer those logos onto other mediums such as t-shirts and stickers (I am also in the process of coordinating production of new stickers and poster prints for #AbundanceTribe). So far I have created shirts for @TribeSteemUp & Anarchapulco. When I do create t-shirts, I always use unbleached organic fabric, with either herbal/plant dye or low environmental impact dye, while also using no synthetic chemicals in the design dyeing or any other part of the process.
I utilize a process similar to sublimation (except for natural fabric) that embeds logos directly into the fabric, instead of a typical plastisol screen print which simply transfers the logo on top of the fabric. None of the logos I put on the shirts I create will peal or crack off as a result. This process creates the absolute healthiest, and most environmentally friendly clothing possible. One of our missions is to raise awareness about how what we wear affects our skin and overall health. Since we are transdermal creatures after all, we absorb everything our skin touches, including potential synthetic chemicals present in most mainstream clothing brands.
My partner @Hempress has taught me everything I know about herbal dyeing with plants natural fabric. She has become quite the connoisseur and now possesses years of experience in her practice. Each summer, we even collect all the different parts of blackberry bushes to create two different color batches: gold - made from cut up leaves, stems, pods, and leafy shoots of the plant, & silver - made from the blackberries themselves.
@Hempress is developing her own custom clothing line using the principals and processes described above. She is creating mostly women's garments at the moment, and has already completed many sales and trades.
@Abundance.Tribe & Assosiated Weekly Contests
After the success of the AT logo contest, I was asked to host and manage two weekly contests on the @Abundance.Tribe account. One of these contests is called #EarthDeeds, which I formerly held on Steem a while ago, and recently resurrected on Hive via AT. This contest is designed to inspire people to create content that reflects their services to the Earth, and to inspire others to do the same through their published actions. Click here for more info & to enter this week's EarthDeeds contest (6/9 - 6/16/2020).
I dubbed the other weekly contest I hold for AT: Sharing the Abundance Giveaway, aka the #STAG contest. In this super easy to enter weekly contest, I give away one semi-valuable conscious collectible out of my vending stock. This is helping me share some of the wealth of my overstock caused by a lack of vending events (due to covid-19 shutdowns) where I would normally be able to sell most of these items. Once again exemplifying the abundance namesake, I am happy to share some of what would otherwise be collecting dust for some time, while being compensated via votes at least partially if not completely for the items I distribute. I love when synergism is enacted like this, it is the natural order of things that needs to be embraced by more people to achieve true symbiosis in our world. Click here for more info & to enter this week's S.T.A.G. contest (6/11 - 6/18/2020).
Free Full Spectrum Oracle Readings
I recently developed a full spectrum spirit reading formula combing 3-4 decks - 2 oracle and up to 2 tarot. This concept-formula combines an Animal Spirit Oracle deck called Messages from your Animal Spirit Guides, a Plant spirit Oracle called The Illustrated Herbiary, and a Gaia Spirit Tarot called Dreams of Gaia. The Gaia deck uses the 4 elemental forces of nature (fire, air, water, earth) in place of the traditional minor arcana, and each element (suite) is headed by one of four elemental dragons. If one of these four dragons are drawn in any reading, I also pull a card out of a fourth deck known as the Dragon Tarot.
I occasionally perform these readings on Hive (and now 3Speak) when I am called to it, always free of charge, in hopes of improving anyone and everyone's life that has dealt with anything traumatic, heartbreaking, and/or confusing. These readings which are presented in written/photographic & video form, are intended for anyone reading or watching these publications. It is simply a matter of fate, those who are meant to encounter each reading - will... and there are divine messages therein for anyone open to receiving them.
Click here to recieve my most recent full spectrum reading
"Never loose love, never loose hope, do not despair, and you will win." - Paranormal State
Self Owned Souls
I am about to offer Hive my biggest contribution to any blockchain so far in the near future through my Self Owned Souls movement/collective. With great assistance from my friend and programmer/developer @Qwoyn (@HashKings), we are developing a website platform that will be cross platform, and fully integrated with the Hive blockchain - incentivizing even more types of people to create and utilize Hive accounts, to gain greater accessibility within our site, and obviously the already in place incentive to monetize their content.
The S.O.S. platform is designed to hold a space and provide a focal point for a selected collective of conscious creators to collectively promote each other's work, that is in addition to their individual promotion of their own sites and social media, and having the option to sell their merchandise on the S.O.S. site directly . This will also be an access point for all other artists outside the collective that will provide options for every type of creative production. This will include audio production, video production, graphic design, animation, professional promotion, website design, blockchain creation, album art production, promo-item production, and many more categories that will be ever expanding for all newly developed mediums. Additionally, each artist who wants to utilize the sites producers will have multiple options, profiles, and portfolios to consider, as to manifest the best match for style and price between the seeking artist and potential producers who's services are being sought.
I will be publishing a full article outlining this initiative in much greater detail in the very near future once the site is further developed, along with an official announcement/release of our official Self Owned Souls lapel pins and logo.
Gems, Crystals, & Fossils
I have been a precious gem and fossil enthusiast, collector, and crafter most of my adult life, and have had an affinity for them and been collecting since I was a young child. My father gifted me my first mineral specimen when I was four years old, which was a huge piece of pyrite he purchased in the gift shop after our visit to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, DC. - which I still have to this day. My gradmother also gave me my first fossil (a fish) around the same age, which I also still have.
I also found my first gem in nature when I was four, which I also still possess. I used to attend my father's softball games every Friday night in the fall, and usually had a bunch of other kids to have fun with. On this particular evening however, there were no other children present, which led me to sitting on a newly exposed sandbar in a nearby creek behind the ball-field at a place called Ben Lomond Park in Manassas, Virginia (where Splashdown Waterpark now resides). I was kneeling down and looking at the water for quite a while, but when I looked next to me, an already pre-cut agate/quartz slightly blue tinted thunder egg was sitting in the sand on this little creek island. When I showed my Dad later after the game, he did not believe that I found that in the creek.
These days I frequent the World Gem Show in Tucson & Quartzsite every few years to pick up stock for creating jewelry and some resale for my vending stands. I also am planning on mining a few different gem types myself later this year. I currently have quite a massive collection of different fossils, minerals, crystals, and gems. If you are in need of anything in these categories, I can most likely help you acquire what you need at no more than 2/3 retail - feel free to ask :-)
Art & Artistic crafts
Lapel Pins
I have designed and produced four custom lapel pins so far, Don't Force it Use the Force Jedi Order Greatful Dead pins, Weed-Wings, World Gem Show 2020 event pins, and Self Owned Souls pins which I have yet to officially announce online.
I plan on producing some Hive community themed lapel pins next, as well as a ton of stickers and poster prints with newly developed Hive community logos. This is something I can assist with to some degree moving forward if you need help with a similar project for your community or tribe.
Wire Wrapped Jewelry
While I used to craft exclusively in copper, I now almost exclusively craft in pure silver. I hand craft all of my wire wrapped designs, and create all sorts of ensemble accessories such as, pendants, wax-dab tools, spoons, earrings, and sometimes even glass pieces. While I still use colored copper for dab tools and spoons, all my pendants are now crafted in .999 Sterling and/or Argentinian silver wire.
I recently designed two series of four pendants each, my moldavite series, & my Ethiopian Fire Opal series, which you can get full descriptions, photos, & videos of from the above links. The opal pendants are currently sold out, but I still have a few Moldavite ones as those are still freshly crafted. I can also craft custom pieces for a fee if you are in need of something - feel free to ask :-)
ELAmental Emcee Logo & Name Explanation
My involvement with logos is more than just coordinating with graphic designers in contests. I have also crafted my own personal emcee logo which doubles as my personal insignia for Hive. I drew this logo by hand which took me two full days of sketching to complete. I was eventually given assistance to digitize my drawing through the first graphic designer I ever met on Steem called @Baa.Steemit, who was introduced to me by @DynamicGreenTK. The logo you see before you is the final result of this interaction, which I hope to have upgraded with more definition and animation in the near future.
The name ELAmental came to me in deep thought one day, breathed in like a sudden gust of wind. The name itself has in-depth meaning and intuitive foundations, and can only be truly understood by reading my detailed explanation about the ELAmental name.
My Queen
My long time partner in love and life is known by most as Ginger - her Hive acct is @Hempress. When I released my Steem intro a few years ago, our relationship was in a very good place, and we were filled with love and happiness. We have been though the most amazing experiences of our lives together, and have also been there to support each other when we were both at very low points - including when we were living in the back our our pickup truck for years. I would not trade any of that for anything, will always cherish those memories, and hopefully many more great memories yet to come. We have also been referred to as a power couple by some.
Recently however, our relationship faced some extreme tribulation and turmoil, and our loyalty, honesty, and integrity were all tested individually, and experienced together. While I confronted something inevitable from my past with complete honesty, and brought my partner with me for the journey every step of the way to show her my authenticity, we both approached a very uncomfortable situation, trying to help someone who in the end, treated us with no respect, understanding, or compassion. Even though it was hard on both of us, I did things the right way, the best way I knew how, and I thought at the time that our relationship eventually grew stronger as a result - despite repeated harassment from this third party.
Later that summer my partner was tested in a very similar fashion, but she chose to handle her situation very differently. She chose a path of infidelity with someone who I trusted to stay in my home, and a lot of undeserved dishonesty was directed towards me as well, the truth of which I was made to uncover on my own. These challenges almost destroyed the sacredness of our connection, but our love for each other is too strong for this to be permanent.
Honesty is what is most important to me in all my interpersonal relationships (if you can't tell by the bluntness of this section), so for me to try my best to look past these serious indiscretions shows how much I truly love this woman (especially since I have been cheated on in every romantic relationship of my adult life), and what I am willing to sacrifice and endure to save my relationship with her (it has been and is harder than I could ever describe).
Before this happened, I was ready to propose. Now I am focusing on healing myself, our relationship, and being patient waiting for her chances to make it up to me. She is also working hard to prove her loyalty to me, regain my trust, and has certainly felt the gravity of my hurt. Sharing these experiences is helping my healing process, and it is my honest hope that we can both heal and be in a good enough place eventually to still pursue a marriage, but much still needs to be proven before that commitment will be made and deemed the right choice without a doubt. I do still love her with all my heart, and I know she loves me deeply as well, or we would not still be together. Ginger is the love of my life, and I have never been so comfortable with any other human on this planet.
As a self owned soul, you own yourself, but with that comes the responsibility of also owning your actions - good or bad, it is of the utmost importance to STAY REAL. Fear not the consequences of your indiscretions, hiding them will always result in worse ones for everyone involved.
Life of Agorism
My energy has seemingly always preferred to be spread in a variety of areas constantly and simultaneously. I find myself starting one project, getting half way through it, and leave it unfinished to start a brand new project that may or may not even be in the same creative arena as the first. Sometimes I will keep doing this until I have 10-20 different projects partially complete before I decide to go back and finish a few of them.
This cycle has been a fairly consistent theme throughout my entire life, but only recently have I discovered that there is actually a term for such a lifestyle - this is known as Agorism. This philosophy has been at the forefront of all my endevors without my conscious awareness of it until now.
"Agorism is a libertarian social philosophy that advocates creating a society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges by means of counter-economics, thus engaging with aspects of peaceful revolution. It's basically telling the State to stay out of your life" (source). - not that I am libertarian or a full fledged anrachist (I don't really like to consider myself an anything-"ist"), but I do align with some of the core values in each respective affiliation.
The creator of this political and economic system known as agorism was Samuel Edward Konkin III. His ideas for how to operate in the marketplace while peacefully resisting government market regulation and open economy practices was inspired from the agora of Ancient Greece and Athens. This type of truly free market caters well to those (like myself) in positions of creative energy scattering.
Click here to view my real life example of our agorist market under attack
"Through his interactions with libertarian luminaries such as Murray Rothbard, Konkin refined his ideas, eventually expounding a “New Libertarianism,” consistent in its application of the principles of the agora, the open marketplace. Political libertarianism, at least for Konkin, was a contradiction in terms, libertarians being opposed to politics in principle. Agorism instead emphasizes the importance of building the “counter-economy,” libertarian economic institutions and enterprises existing outside of the legal strictures of the dominant framework characterized by state intervention and coercion. Agorists regard this counter-economy as a form of nonviolent direct action, a method of simultaneously challenging and evading state power, in the process building a free society based on the principles of unrestricted voluntary exchange. Counter-economics underscores the fact that given the volume of rules, regulations, and licenses already choking economic relations, almost everyone has already participated in the counter-economy in one way or another, perhaps quite unwittingly. By simply paying no heed to arbitrary rules that attempt to prohibit completely voluntary, mutually beneficial trade, agorists are engaged in an attempt to change society without resorting to political action, which agorism regards as capitulating to the existing power structure. Agorists believe that by becoming politically engaged, running candidates and attempting to reform governmental structures and lawmaking, libertarians fall into the trap of politics — the delusion that if we only elect the right person or pass the right law, we can attain freedom. For agorists, the processes and institutions of politics are inherently and unchangeably corrupt and coercive. Konkin thus maintained that it was impossible to accomplish “libertarian ends through statist means, especially political parties” (Source).
Conclusion
While I hope to see any of you beautiful people reading this article at a music and arts festival this summer, the local event shuts downs of 2020 may prevent these opportunities for now. I have been hearing tell of a secret event being planned close to Portland to occur sometime in July or August if events are finally allowed again (hard to image these ridiculous restrictions lasting much longer).
Even though the past year (2019-2020) has been the most difficult and painful year of my life, I look forward to the future with great optimism as more impressive opportunities for success present themselves, and I am still immensely grateful for everything good in my existence. I also am still surprised how many doors can open when you are finally prepared and ready to walk through them.
Despite all the inflated hysterics of this so called "pandemic", the rioting, looting, general discontent of the world, and threats of our American government unleashing the military on its own citizens, I am feeling inspired more than ever to create beauty, harmony, and happiness in the midst of turmoil, with the help of a much more decentralized and uncensored platform called Hive, and the support of the best and most adaptable communities I have ever had the pleasure of being a part. After all... true gems sparkle even in the absence of light.
::All photography in this article is owned by @ELAmental, all images in this article are either owned or were procured by @ELAmental, and all writing in this article was authored by @ELAmental::
Click here to hear my single: Shift the Focus on Soundcloud from my upcoming album: Power of Truth
Click here to hear my un-mastered sample of No Consent
My debut conscious Hip-Hop album The Hex Wrecker is completely free for download on Bandcamp & Soundcloud (click the links to go to my music on those platforms), or CLICK HERE for download instructions.
