Each object of art is its own thought-form. It exists before my hands pick up a brush or a ball of clay or a stack of wood. It has it's own life mapped out for itself. Like a child, it has its own destiny, and its parents can either support it, or create resistance and therefore diminish its potential.
I don't like the word ART. It is a silly word. It has been commodified to mean "something which the average person should not readily understand, but should appreciate anyway." That's bullshit. So I don't make art. I make objects. These objects are not my own. They are a story, a spirit that is calling to participate through form in our daily life.
Now, I'm ready to get on the road with the Landscapes. I've got to get out there and be in the middle of Aerica. It's hard to be here when history is happening, when I'm not seeing or feeling that the story of America is being told. I am not a falling over myself patriot, nor a nationalist of any sort. I am a translator of concept into form, and America is still a concept working itself out-- a story that, as my birth land, I have a vested interest and native ability to contribute to.
What else can we do but surrender ourselves to the story that is being told now-- throw ourselves into the mix of monologues, pitch in our best of dialogue, and listen to the conversation?
The Stimulus Shovels are waiting. I don't know how to make headway, who to talk to in Government. And I don't even know if Governemental sponsorship even serves them. If this can be done grass roots then it can truly serve the people and hold it's own distinct voice.
How do they get out there? How do I put cameras i the hands of the next generation of American Journalists? How do I get one of these into every City Hall, or Governor's office? Do I even look to them? I have had a lot of trouble getting through to the congress people. Not that they are not busy. They are. But here is a way to engage ourselves with this process in our nation on a grass roots level with maximum participation, awareness, and playfullness. Because once we lose our sense of humor what else could we posibly have? I believe a sense of play is absolutely essential to a healthy human being.
The question I have is- what is the path of least resistance for the shovels? How do they want to be called out there, in service to the people? Because every art form has a mind of its own-- an intention written into its form. It is undeniable, and its form will mark its path in its own unique way.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
The days pass.
I'm still in wonder, my friends, at this adventure that has happened. Is it past tense? Is it happening still? The lines of intent, the love and comraderie of Chiricahua feels remote. Are we all on separate continents now? Are our dreams, our visions and hearts so far away? Or are we still together? I am writing this to myself, I know. I have failed in many this experiment- this task. I have failed to create a forum for dialogue, a unified place of inquiry and discovery. I didn't know how. I tried. Harnessing a technology like this, I am young to these tools. They are awkward in my hands. How can I? How can I pull all this wisdom and knowldege and love from journey that took me a year into something that serves our people? That brings us around the campfire?
Looking out on a solid oak. To call an oak old is redundant. This one is solid. I wonder what nourishment the sapling needs that we planted with our hearts in the Chiricahua's. Who is watering it, and how?
How do we build the relationships we have begun with each other, to strengthen our relationship with this soil and sky, we all breathe, we all sit and walk upon. How do we strengthen this web of international inter relation? These are questions, if you are out there, please reply.
Looking out on a solid oak. To call an oak old is redundant. This one is solid. I wonder what nourishment the sapling needs that we planted with our hearts in the Chiricahua's. Who is watering it, and how?
How do we build the relationships we have begun with each other, to strengthen our relationship with this soil and sky, we all breathe, we all sit and walk upon. How do we strengthen this web of international inter relation? These are questions, if you are out there, please reply.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Meditation Mount
It is my fifth month back from the journey. I still don't know what it was about, and if it served. All I know is that while I was there, in the other winds and streets of other countries with a camera in my hand I feel alive, I feel vital, I feel the swift hand of my own personal history writing itself into my own memory.
I drive up through orange fields to a spot up int the hills of Ojai that overlook the entire valley. How can I walk in this spiritual place with shoes? So I quit them in the grass, and walk barefoot beyond the grass and gardens, past the silently grazing rabbits through a portal of shrubs into an open hillside. I plant my feet in the ground and dance-- I move. It is not a dance from the outside, it is still, it is internal, it is my sundance. I dance and ask my questions and slowly the mountains and sounds and air around me vibrate and expand. I can see my life, this living, these questions and these forms that are my charges-- orphans from the spirit world that I must bring to form with my hands, my body, to give them life and feel their form alive in this world, on this earth, a part of the ongoing story of myself, of man.
My vision shifts to gold. It all comes through, simple, discreet, inevitable. Here I am. What more is there? My mantra must be, "there is enough time, there is enough time..." and with it there will be. There will be and nothing made outside of the stillness of inevitability will hold it's form against the inertia of this world anyway.
I step away, back into my steel carriage, this wonderful machine that separates me from the truth of my own walking. I know this sensation, this uderstanding, will pass. And I know even if I return here everyday I have missed the point. I must walk easily with this, once I hold it is gone. And inevitably it is about trust, and surrender, and action. Perhaps I must issue the challenge to myself--if I am not meant to survive walking in spirit, then I choose death. That if I cannot live in this world according to the vision of my spirit, why should I live here? If I cannot live true to the calings of spirit, if spirit must be snuffed, allocated, moderated, why play this game? To see a lover, to live with a lover I am never permitted to love, only to wish for the accidental glance or brush of the skin.
I drive up through orange fields to a spot up int the hills of Ojai that overlook the entire valley. How can I walk in this spiritual place with shoes? So I quit them in the grass, and walk barefoot beyond the grass and gardens, past the silently grazing rabbits through a portal of shrubs into an open hillside. I plant my feet in the ground and dance-- I move. It is not a dance from the outside, it is still, it is internal, it is my sundance. I dance and ask my questions and slowly the mountains and sounds and air around me vibrate and expand. I can see my life, this living, these questions and these forms that are my charges-- orphans from the spirit world that I must bring to form with my hands, my body, to give them life and feel their form alive in this world, on this earth, a part of the ongoing story of myself, of man.
My vision shifts to gold. It all comes through, simple, discreet, inevitable. Here I am. What more is there? My mantra must be, "there is enough time, there is enough time..." and with it there will be. There will be and nothing made outside of the stillness of inevitability will hold it's form against the inertia of this world anyway.
I step away, back into my steel carriage, this wonderful machine that separates me from the truth of my own walking. I know this sensation, this uderstanding, will pass. And I know even if I return here everyday I have missed the point. I must walk easily with this, once I hold it is gone. And inevitably it is about trust, and surrender, and action. Perhaps I must issue the challenge to myself--if I am not meant to survive walking in spirit, then I choose death. That if I cannot live in this world according to the vision of my spirit, why should I live here? If I cannot live true to the calings of spirit, if spirit must be snuffed, allocated, moderated, why play this game? To see a lover, to live with a lover I am never permitted to love, only to wish for the accidental glance or brush of the skin.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturn Returns, NYC 2009
What does it mean to return? What is this planetary myth of change and challenge, and how can it inform my next steps into the world, born again from the limits of my own vision. When I told Kent "give me two weeks and I'll be there" I didn't know that I wasn't coming back, that this journey would take me out of the self I knew and bring me to question it, the goals, motives, and desires until now, when I return to New York, which feels more like my native city than Los Angeles, the place of my birth. We can never return to the same place twice. There is no such thing as place. There is only relationship, and what the city was before I left was my relationship to it, to those spinning streets and vaulted buildings.
The story must be told. There are two worlds, and this city holds one firmly in it's grasp, the focus of human creativity, expression, endeavors. The full externalization. And where is the listening? When I speak of this story here, on these streets, where some have not slept under the stars in years, I don't know how to translate it. How do I speak of something that is not about doing, but about listening? How do I rest into the stillness I have found in the deserts and mountains, the open skies and leaf green canopies, beyond the swath and swirl of New York City? How do we find our rest, our connection with the natural rhythms and patterns amid the rectilinear psychology of I-beams and plate glass.
How does the story hold itself in its delicacy within the velocity of this world? Is it still meaningful witnessed by this speed? Does it still speak?
The story must be told. There are two worlds, and this city holds one firmly in it's grasp, the focus of human creativity, expression, endeavors. The full externalization. And where is the listening? When I speak of this story here, on these streets, where some have not slept under the stars in years, I don't know how to translate it. How do I speak of something that is not about doing, but about listening? How do I rest into the stillness I have found in the deserts and mountains, the open skies and leaf green canopies, beyond the swath and swirl of New York City? How do we find our rest, our connection with the natural rhythms and patterns amid the rectilinear psychology of I-beams and plate glass.
How does the story hold itself in its delicacy within the velocity of this world? Is it still meaningful witnessed by this speed? Does it still speak?
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Radical Joy for Hard Times
Trebbe's vision has grown since we saw each other at her endless mountains vision quest. Now her vision of sitting on the earth's wounded places has grown to become a non-profit called Radical Joy for Hard Times, and I am on the band of directors. Usually it is called a "Board of Directors", but I? don't want to be a board, I want to rock out, I want to make music, I want to Jazz, so we are a band.
Other familiar faces from the Death Valley Experiment are Christi Strickland and Farion Pearce. I am beginning to see each person's superpowers light up the group. I am beginning to believe that in coming together groups of people can create beautiful things that are more resilient than what the mind of one person can create. We are talking about a cultural collective here-- a movement towards empowering people to take the first step towards environmental equitability and reconciliation with our natural world, our natural selves.
We go to Cazenovia Lake and sit. We sit apart, we look, we listen, we feel. We come together. We tell our stories. The method is very simple, but this does not diminish it's power. We all feel more clear, energized, loved. We, at the very least, have connected ourselves to our earth, have sung it's acknowledgments, have honored the life in this place. It is a simple act. Christi sums it up: Stop. Look. Listen. Feel. Love. Give.
What more do we need?
Other familiar faces from the Death Valley Experiment are Christi Strickland and Farion Pearce. I am beginning to see each person's superpowers light up the group. I am beginning to believe that in coming together groups of people can create beautiful things that are more resilient than what the mind of one person can create. We are talking about a cultural collective here-- a movement towards empowering people to take the first step towards environmental equitability and reconciliation with our natural world, our natural selves.
We go to Cazenovia Lake and sit. We sit apart, we look, we listen, we feel. We come together. We tell our stories. The method is very simple, but this does not diminish it's power. We all feel more clear, energized, loved. We, at the very least, have connected ourselves to our earth, have sung it's acknowledgments, have honored the life in this place. It is a simple act. Christi sums it up: Stop. Look. Listen. Feel. Love. Give.
What more do we need?
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The Gathering
Ahhh...! The Gathering and the Return. I am still shaking from the power of community coming together.
In the Chiricahuas we witness and participate in not only an inter-generational rite of passage, but an international community coming into it's fullness.
In the words of Black Elk: "We cannot have the power of the vision until we have performed it on earth for the people to see."
The Next-Generation and their elders sit in simple ceremony before the community. The youngers in the center, their elders flanking them. Stories are heard. Not long, just enough. A vision, a moment, a bird. And the elders pass along their mantles, these objects of power or acknowledgment or lineage, these objects that throughout the course of this experiment had become a resistant point-- (who is to say I have a mantle to pass on? Why should we receive it and not everyone?) becomes one of the most powerful moments in the ceremony. Because objects hold power. Because objects are symbols of relationships, and symbols have meaning, because an idea is just an idea, a concept, a feeling; but once it is put into symbolic form, once our hands can touch it, can feel our arms holding it, passing it, and releasing it, empty again, we feel it so much more deeply than before. The symbolic object brings more of our faculties, our senses into play. And as a symbol, the ceremony brought all of the groups senses together, what was once a group of people, passionate, and purposeful, now I see becomes a community. And that is magic. This is alchemy on a social level-- this is the birth of the new global community, one of touch and care, of tenderness and voice and witnessing. A community, newly born.
In the Chiricahuas we witness and participate in not only an inter-generational rite of passage, but an international community coming into it's fullness.
In the words of Black Elk: "We cannot have the power of the vision until we have performed it on earth for the people to see."
The Next-Generation and their elders sit in simple ceremony before the community. The youngers in the center, their elders flanking them. Stories are heard. Not long, just enough. A vision, a moment, a bird. And the elders pass along their mantles, these objects of power or acknowledgment or lineage, these objects that throughout the course of this experiment had become a resistant point-- (who is to say I have a mantle to pass on? Why should we receive it and not everyone?) becomes one of the most powerful moments in the ceremony. Because objects hold power. Because objects are symbols of relationships, and symbols have meaning, because an idea is just an idea, a concept, a feeling; but once it is put into symbolic form, once our hands can touch it, can feel our arms holding it, passing it, and releasing it, empty again, we feel it so much more deeply than before. The symbolic object brings more of our faculties, our senses into play. And as a symbol, the ceremony brought all of the groups senses together, what was once a group of people, passionate, and purposeful, now I see becomes a community. And that is magic. This is alchemy on a social level-- this is the birth of the new global community, one of touch and care, of tenderness and voice and witnessing. A community, newly born.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Regenerative Design and Nature Awareness Open House
In a damp half-mist dawn overlooking the coast of Bolinas a group of about twenty young men and women gently shuffle off into their own spots with a playful silence. Some are meditative, a couple tease and play with each other silently. We sit on stumps, rocks, in the thick dewed grass facing in many directions. There is no poise or "listening". It doesn't feel taut or tense like that. We are sitting, sitting and allowing what cals and songs and forms cross and present themselves into our awareness, and taking note of this.
Some coyotes sound off in the distance, it sounds like there must be twenty of them. We finish, gather ourselves, and walk gently and rested back to camp.
If my high-school was like Regenerative Design and Nature Awareness I wouldn't have "missed" over half of my classes in my Junior year. I would probably have grumbled about being up at 8 in the morning to milk the goats, but I would have shown up, because it feels important. I have never milked a goat before. Coddle, pinch, pull. Coddle, pinch, pull. I'm actually amazed this goat doesn't kick me in the face. She is very gentle.
The open house is a few sit down talks and explanations along with a tour. The only problem with the open house is I don't want a tour. When Penny shows us the greywater system attached to the main house, I want us to all build one right now. The cobb houses, I want to get my hands in that mud and straw. You almost don't need to see a curriculum, it's all right there, spread out and functioning in front of me. I want to do it now.
I have come here to catch up with Dave and Will, fearless adventurers into the unknown. I get to see the community that, not without it's growing pains, is a family of passionate, dedicated, intelligent, creative human beings. Watching Dave lead a basket-weaving workshop while another group builds drums from rough-hewn wood and buckskin makes me want to pitch a tent and not leave until I've absorbed every technique, ability, and technology that is being taught here.
There is a movement happening in this world, it is a movement to come back to this ground, this earth that we are standing on, and Will and Dave and the whole RDNA community are teaching and practicing and learning old and new ways to live on this earth together, abundantly, looking to the natural rhythms and cycles and ways for their model.
I wonder if the best economic stimulus package might be to send someone from every community in America to RDNA and other programs like it so we can bring it back and implement regenerative living and awareness of nature into our families, communities, and towns?
More than anything I am struck by the difference between what I hear on the radio and what I am seeing across the broad landscapes of California. Doom and gloom and economic disaster rock the AM and FM radio waves. I however, am sitting in record rainfall, on fertile ground, in one of the most abundant regions on earth. How can there not be enough? Which one should I trust-- an economic forecast I can neither see nor feel, or this rich soil under my feet, and a glowing red sun in the dusk of night?
Some coyotes sound off in the distance, it sounds like there must be twenty of them. We finish, gather ourselves, and walk gently and rested back to camp.
If my high-school was like Regenerative Design and Nature Awareness I wouldn't have "missed" over half of my classes in my Junior year. I would probably have grumbled about being up at 8 in the morning to milk the goats, but I would have shown up, because it feels important. I have never milked a goat before. Coddle, pinch, pull. Coddle, pinch, pull. I'm actually amazed this goat doesn't kick me in the face. She is very gentle.
The open house is a few sit down talks and explanations along with a tour. The only problem with the open house is I don't want a tour. When Penny shows us the greywater system attached to the main house, I want us to all build one right now. The cobb houses, I want to get my hands in that mud and straw. You almost don't need to see a curriculum, it's all right there, spread out and functioning in front of me. I want to do it now.
I have come here to catch up with Dave and Will, fearless adventurers into the unknown. I get to see the community that, not without it's growing pains, is a family of passionate, dedicated, intelligent, creative human beings. Watching Dave lead a basket-weaving workshop while another group builds drums from rough-hewn wood and buckskin makes me want to pitch a tent and not leave until I've absorbed every technique, ability, and technology that is being taught here.
There is a movement happening in this world, it is a movement to come back to this ground, this earth that we are standing on, and Will and Dave and the whole RDNA community are teaching and practicing and learning old and new ways to live on this earth together, abundantly, looking to the natural rhythms and cycles and ways for their model.
I wonder if the best economic stimulus package might be to send someone from every community in America to RDNA and other programs like it so we can bring it back and implement regenerative living and awareness of nature into our families, communities, and towns?
More than anything I am struck by the difference between what I hear on the radio and what I am seeing across the broad landscapes of California. Doom and gloom and economic disaster rock the AM and FM radio waves. I however, am sitting in record rainfall, on fertile ground, in one of the most abundant regions on earth. How can there not be enough? Which one should I trust-- an economic forecast I can neither see nor feel, or this rich soil under my feet, and a glowing red sun in the dusk of night?
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