Crossroads Dispatches

a constellation of stars that have been spellbound into believing they're dust

When mind knows, we call it knowledge.
When heart knows, we call it love.
And when being knows, we call it meditation.
- The Book of Understanding: Creating Your Own Path to Freedom, OSHO

Maybe it's too premature to speak of coming together in unity. Community. The worst fate I can imagine for an art colony (that's this planet eARTh, by the way) is a constellation of stars that have been spellbound into believing they're dust.

When as individual, we find do and say what we think THEY want to hear that's the kiss of dearth. That was no pun.

dearth (dûrth)

n.

1. A scarce supply; a lack: "the dearth of uncensored, firsthand information about the war" Richard Zoglin.

2. Shortage of food; famine.

A comingling unity only exists when everyone is FREE, and whole onto themselves, rather than hole. Then, genuine spontaneous easeful expressions of love and wisdom and beauty and abundance can suffuse through space and place.

"I teach selfishness. I want you to be, first, your own flowering. Yes, it will appear as selfishness; I have no objection to that appearance; it is okay with me. But is the rose selfish when it blossoms? Is the lotus selfish when it blossoms? Is the sun selfish when it shines? Why should you be worried about selfishness?

You are born - birth is only an opportunity, just a beginning, not an end. You have to flower. Your first and foremost responsibility is to blossom, to become fully conscious, aware, alert; and in that consciousness you will be able to see what you can share, how you can solve problems." - The Book of Understanding, OSHO

Don't ask your friends, your priests, your astrologer, your real estate agent, your gurus, your experts, your newspapers, your talk show hosts, your bookshelves, your politicians, your "leaders" for advice and guidance. They don't know (although they may from time to time act like know-it-alls).

You have a compass that's uniquely calibrated for you and you alone. The time has come (if you haven't already), to commune with your own higher self, peak to your own higher self.

I don't want to outline step-by-step's and how-to's for tuning into your own higher self, but I will offer some potential triggers so that maybe re-collect what works for you over the next X or Y days. (Aye, do I need a number a priori? How's 33.3?) Heck, I hope to re-call some long lost friends of me own along the way. 

Don't look over your shoulder at what the other goddess is doing, there are as many ways as wayfarers. 

"While you play the melody of your journey's spirit song, the Creator provides the harmony.

Melody is to music what story line is to story. Utilize the elements you have chosen for exploration in your life - your gifts, talents, abilities, motivations, circumstances, and the other characters in your play. Orchestrate the most interesting and growth-engendering story line from this combination of possibilities. Understand that you are the player and the played in the melody in your life." - AstroDreamAdvisor.com report for new Mayan year

Art © 2007 Don Dixon / cosmographica.com. You can pleasantly spend a couple of space-time lifetimes enjoying Don Dixon's amazing starwork which often graces the covers of Scientific American. Above's only a teensy sampling: today's picture of the day for 9/6/07 "Magnetar...a burst of magnetic energy is released by a starquake...";then 450 blackhole blowback 02; and 429 FuriousGulf.

learning edge, or you can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf

"A university can provide you with a library, but what makes the book you are not looking for fall off the shelf into your hands to give you the material you need is not understood by any university." - William Irwin Thompson, Darkness and Scattered Light (kinda like this book jumped off the shelf, kaboom!, at Kaboom book shoppe in New Orleans)

My blogging bud, Colleen at Communicatrix tagged me with the What's Your Learning Edge meme (p.s. she'll be delving into hypnotism): "I invite you to pick something that you’ve always been curious about, and dive into it with all the passion of a two-year-old on a playground." Goodie!

"Feel free to mention any books you’re reading, classes you’re taking, people you’re learning from or collaborating with, etc. Tell us about the gems you’re picking up, the fun you’re having, etc., especially if they’re shifting the way you look at what you do." - Adam Kayce, Monk at Work, "What's Your Learning Edge?" (p.s. he'll be delving into the Law of Attraction)

"To know the pine, go to the pine. To know the bamboo, go to the bamboo," scribed the wandering hermit haiku poet Basho eons ago. (BTW, all who wander are not lost.)

I'd like to edge myself to draw forth my own innate sage and abide by that sage especially when it veers from convention. To swing when and where my hip feels the beat especially when I'm not on a dance floor. To rekindle the communication that transcends language, that expands the soul and speaks fluidly to Yours, especially when my brain clings to encylopedias. And trust the soul knows how to do this in the doing of it.

And when you come to the crossroads
And you're deciding in the dark
You've gotta listen to the whisper of your heart - Trisha Yearwood, Listen to The Whisper in Your Heart

In short, to learn how to commune directly, immediately, with higher self's Will to guide my soul's highest evolution.

1. plumb my own innate wisdom

So no searching out books, classes, workshops, websites, experts, etc. on how to be a soul pilgrim, and confirm that I'm on the right track. (If I'm supposed to be exposed to an outer teaching, it'll effortlessly drop in my lap.)

I'll be going to straight to the pine, touching the bark, smelling the needles, hearing the roots heave sighs, seeping pine bark tea with the spring water from the Well, for myself. Then sipping this tea with wise children and mischievious merlins for companions. I shall leave the comprehensive, illustrated field guide to North American pines at the library.

"When the living descendant of the lineage of Rumi - his name was Jelaluddin Chelabi - visited Atlanta, he sat me down and said "What religion are you?" I just threw up my hands. He says, "Good. Love is the religion, and the universe is the book."" - Coleman Barks, "Fall in Love the Rumi Way", Beliefnet.com

When I am a stranger in a strange land, without any maps, I want to be able to call spontaneously on higher guidance, be aligned with true north, follow the signs strewn through the universe, and sense my own way Home.

Ian Schrager, born in the Bronx and raised in Brooklyn, has always run his business – by instinct ["not market research or logistics"]. “I always work viscerally. I throw myself into new projects like a man who’s besotted with a woman. It’s completely emotional. When I want something, it’s a gut-reaction…” - "But Who Is Ian Schrager?" French Vogue

2. sway from the hip

"If someone has a reputation for "telling it like it is," he is often said to shoot "from the hip." For a cowboy, such an action would indicate impulsiveness, and perhaps a lack of self-control. For a martial artist, it could indicate total readiness at all times, acting instinctively without need for aim or preparation.

For a Star Child who is totally connected and operational, being "hip" is about living within a kind of FLOW. It is an alignment that happens between nature, circumstance, and one's deep inner self. When we live "from the hip," we are functioning at all times from this balance of spontaneity and Oneness with All That Is." - Daniel Jacobs, "The Star Children"

3. speak in the tongue of the soul

I twittered today, "i imagine schools where the tongues of color sound light geometry glyph & symbol are teacher, deepening conversation w/ sphinxes, scarab, ravens, river Niles, trees, trolls &"

"Little by little, the planet is developing a UNIVERSAL TONAL VOCABULARY -- consisting of physical symbols, sounds, colors, words, and phrases that immediately invoke virtually the same inner experiences, wherever they appear." - Daniel Jacobs, "The Living Language of Light"

4. just do it even if it's never been done before, learn by doing, the total immersion approach

"The residents of the Haight [pre-1967], remembers Richards, were mostly students and artists, drop-outs from various political movements. "San Francisco was a magnet for those kind of people," says Richards. "It attracted people who had been involved in social protests and were tired of preaching about it." They came to San Francisco, he said, "to be what they were talking about." - Dave Richards, Janis Joplin roadie and her Porsche artist

I'd love to tag Nick Smith, Siona van Dijk, Marilyn, Leah, and Eve to join What's Your Learning Edge? foray. No child needs an invite to explore and expand. It's an open call, eternally calling in sweet song.

p.s. The quote in the headline is from Jon Kabat-Zinn. Imagine I shall be practicing my fluency of the soul language of light, color, glyph, and myth more here.  Perhaps a wee less D.J. remixing, and more of my own original live music? Yearning for immersive sensory multidimensional experience that's only possible in the world of matter, beyond bits and bytes.  Love to collaborate with a few magical kids in San Francisco to weave together something hands-on in July if you're in the neighborhood (I'll be in the Mission, near 24th and Folsom).

p.p.s. Heeding the truth of my own soul guiding itSelf towards its highest evolution automatically is congruent with the law of One, law of love, law of creating (a.k.a. law of attraction), and glides one to fulfillment, grace, ease, love and abundance.

Art: Children painting mural photo via Rochester Art Center's "art in the classroom" program site; a Lineage II game character, a hip and ready elven; unknown painting of a bard via Druidry Information Pack, by David Smith.
 

fifth dimension: and love will steer the stars

"My mother said to me, "If you become a soldier, you'll be a general; if you become a monk, you'll end up as the Pope." Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso." - Pablo Picasso

"Each of us are on the spiralling journey of our Soul, and conspiring (beathing together); it only seems we are here buying and selling," I twittered earlier today. I was thinking about how to answer a request from a young marketeer who is going to begin blogging for their company.

I don't write about marketing as a separate music genre any longer. I see this entire universe as music, birthed from primordial sound. Being poetic, I'm being quite literal as well.

"Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument." - Carl Jung

I see trios and intimate bands drawn together the way tuning forks quicken. Interlocking with other bands the way the flower of life mandala twines. Resounding resonance amasses in waves of mass movements. All is vibration seeking to sing in tune, in harmony. Melody harmony rhythm arises in symphony, each crescendo and finale fluidly leading to the next improvization with perhaps a fluxing dance ensemble of instruments, a new merry band of pranksters. The music goes on and on, even the gaps, the silence, the shuffling of feet is incorporated into the river of music.

"When we are dreaming alone it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality." - Dom Helder Camara

I was thinking about 5D the other day, and came across The Fifth Dimension's "Age of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" 1969 video. (Recommended listening. Groovy planetary zooming and zipping. Very apropros, and I'd have embedded right here if it'd been allowed.)

If you had to pin me to define 4D, I'd say that's the imaginal realm, or wherever it is you deem your ideas come "from." If you had to pin me to define 5D - well, honestly if you're pinning and I'm defining we've definitely left the realm of 5D - I'd say that's the realm where your soul is singing in a conspiracy of beauty, a concert of One with a kaliedoscope of sacred mirrors.

Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius - "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In", The Fifth Dimension

Regardless of appearances in flatland, we are never mute.

Yet what is the soundtrack of our lives humming?

I sing the body electric
I glory in the glow of rebirth
Creating my own tomorrow
When I shall embody the earth - "I Sing the Body Electric", Fame

I'm not sure how long I can keep up the 3D tone here at this blog.

Some people claim they don't understand when I write 4D. This is an example of the way I write when I'm firing all 4D cylinders: Nonlinear sworly soup w fractal laser fog and buzzing prana and ringed torus serpentine infinitudes of delish delight de light.

The vibration is moving, morphing and will probably end up of its own accord somewhere else. Kind of the way I just started adding photos from Flickr one day, and that morphed to art from my friends and famous artisans, and finally that sashayed its way into what you see today.

And you'd think looking backwards with 20/20 hindsight that I planned this as some master strategy seeing as most of my new blog readers come from Google's image search function.

No calculation. No strategy. All I did was glide with the music.  

We might say that the group Fifth Dimension won the musician's lottery in recording the hit classic "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In" if you ascribe to randomness.

We might say that they were astute marketers following their strategy marketing plan if you ascribe to MBA theories.

When you flow with the Tao - that's living in 5D. Following instinct after instinct, that divine music within collaborates with the divine music without until the seam is seen through and through as a construct, a figment of the imagination, so "within" "without" is simply "with" - that's living in 5D.

The Fifth Dimension was simply jamming with the universe, in five dimensions:

Florence said, "It was a real fluke. We were performing in New York City and Billy lost his wallet in a taxi. The man who returned it invited us to see a play he produced. [Interesting how the music weaves together perfectly.] The play of course was Hair. Well we heard Aquarius and we all just looked at each other and said 'We've got to sing this song. It's great.'" It was producer Howe who suggested splicing Aquarius together with lyrics from another number in the musical which became "Let The Sunshine In". [No coincidence: If you've become aware of 5D, you'll know how the solar star fits in.] He got together with arranger Bob Alcivar & put the two songs together, making them work as one single. "We recorded that song in Las Vegas, in this small studio," says LaRue. "Our voices were all tired, we'd been performing there for over a month. It was the quickest thing we ever recorded and it was one of our biggest hits." [Yup 5D simply glides.] They were very close to the railroad tracks, and while they were singing the final chorus, a train rumbled by. You can still hear the locomotive, though, just barely, on the final master.

"Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In" remained in the #1 spot on Billboard's chart for 6 straight weeks and remained in the Top 40 for 16 weeks. Both the single and album "Age Of Aquarius" went Gold and received two Grammy Awards for Record Of The Year and Best Contemporary Vocal By A Group. They were also nominated for Album Of The Year. The song was also nominated for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist. The song eventually sold over three million copies, making it the biggest selling single that year. The original song was over 7 minutes long and it was Bill Drake of a Los Angeles radio station who suggested the song needed to be shortened to about 3 minutes; so Howe released 2 versions, one just over 3 minutes and one under 3 minutes." - The Fifth Dimension, profile from ClassicBands.com

p.s. Nope, multidimensional and hyperspace art is not a throwback to the sixties. I'm just playing with the 1969 Fifth Dimension mythos. Much hyperspace art has not been created yet, although it's all been created too, and at the same time simultaneously. Here's a modern hyperspace artist, Paul Laffoley's work, The WORLD SOUL of Plotinus - travel between two and three-dimensional forms (2001).

Art: A multidimensional Buddha photo, by Celia Fenn, from her newsletter, Earthlog May 2007: ("This image conveys the feeling of the Buddha energy in the 21st century, for me. It is a "multi-dimensional" image. It was taken into a shop window, in a street in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, when I was there last month. There is the image of the Buddha "floating" in the foreground. Then, the reflections of the buildings in the shop window, and if you look very closely, you can see me, taking the image, with my friend, Jeanne. There are layers of imagery creating a "holographic" image of the Buddha energy in a specific place and time."); Fifth Dimension 1970 album cover, Portrait; Dawn Grace's "Soundtrack of Our Lives" concert poster via the interdimensional ezine, Turntable + Blue Light); Hair original publicity poster (looks like infinity symbol, eh?); Paul Laffoley, The WORLD SOUL of Plotinus - travel between two and three-dimensional forms (2001).

Bonus: I glid across this more scientific and mathematical blog, Dialogos of Eide, that seems to speak frequently of 'extra' dimensions. "Plato," the author states, "Dreams of science came later in life, although I had this predisposition to always wanting to know the mysteries of life." (Me too.) This post, "Vision", resounds loud and true, including this quote from Dr. Michio Kaku's article "Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey, A look at the higher dimensions":

"Why must art be clinically “realistic?” [Even artists have confined Reality.] This Cubist “revolt against perspective” seized the fourth dimension because it touched the third dimension from all possible perspectives. Simply put, Cubist art embraced the fourth dimension. Picasso's paintings [just a coincidence that I started this post using a Picasso quote, and later in a Google image search for "fifth dimension poster" found the science and cosmology blog...and found this article...yes, it's all One Co-incidence fluidly fluxing] are a splendid example, showing a clear rejection of three dimensional perspective, with women's faces viewed simultaneously from several angles. Instead of a single point-of-view, Picasso's paintings show multiple perspectives, as if they were painted by a being from the fourth dimension, able to see all perspectives simultaneously. As art historian Linda Henderson has written, “the fourth dimension and non-Euclidean geometry emerge as among the most important themes unifying much of modern art and theory."

Bonus Deux: Snippet from Ascension Magick (not Christopher's complete description of Age of Aquarius): "The fabled Age of Aquarius is promised to be the Golden Age reborn. The reason for this is that Aquarius is the sign of universal sisterhood/brotherhood. Aquarius is the sign of freedom and individuality, where all are able to freely express themselves.

mm, I get high with a little help from my friends

"Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread." - Pablo Neruda

A poetic soul plumbs the depths of realms seen and unseen. Some poets - perhaps the present day bards, ovates, druidesses - take the next leap, midwifery. Nurturing that pregnant moon into the birth of a luna piena by the sheer certainty, unwavering clarity of a waxing moon stitched into their belly and heart. (This sometimes goes by the name in law minded circles as the "law of attraction".)

Really, like Neruda says it comes from inner peace radiating outwards whether spilling towards words on paper, or knock on wood masterpieces of matter.

“Wishes are recollections coming from the future.” – Rainer Maria Rilke (hmmm, truer words have never been spoken as past-present-future collide into Now, as one takes a bird's eye view of Time)

So I may sprinkle some insights here and there throughout this Beyond "The Secret" series into the poetics of soul and matter since (so-called) miracles and joy magnetize in equal proportions to the clarity and bouyancy of your vision(s).

"Where there is no vision, the people perish." - Proverbs 29:18

Myself, my growth spurts along with my muses, my sacred mirrors, my soul friends. As I shared in previous post, this small cadre, circle, moai, supports each other. But more than anything we are quickening each other to greater and clearer heights through our overflowing love for each other and the world at large.

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."  - Albert Einstein

I'd like to share some examples of how this poetic friendship can be most precious gift, particularly in a culture that has more TV sets than intimate friends.

Trust me, some of us have seen through our surrender to the Creatrix where This may all unfurled-unfurl-unfurling, and where we're headed jointly: the future quite luminous and numinous. Yet none lives in the future. We're blessed each and every moment by Presence, enveloped by, never necessitating, each other's presence.

Don't get me wrong, we still have our share of doubts and disasters, but we're there, and there for each other whilst vitally alive for every dip and lurch of the Roller Coaster.

So a friend texts me and asks what I'm up yesterday evening...

I am inhaling life and sunrays and dandelions, why?

If u breath deeply alday u get very high.

If u just allow sky to pervade thru the hollow body too

Turn ourselvs into fun nels.

[And with that entry-way, we start jamming... I'm sharing only a few snippets of the deep rush of fingers scurrying across quixotic keyboard at the park during sunset imbibing the silky wind, the awen...

"The smell of ink is intoxicating to me, others may have wine, but I have poetry." - Abbe Yeux-Verdi ]

Sacred vessel, musical instrument, and canvas for light and sound to splay splash painted rainbows and harpisodic fountains
Pure transparent diamond.
Floating swirling opalescent seamless boundariless mercurial bubbles of milky light
Pillars of sunlight heaven to earth to heaven
Liquid raindrops in pools of ocean whalesong reverberates
Rippling feathers beating rhythm of petals and juneteenth breezes
Enamored by silhouettes of flapping bird wings across sunset golds
Sometimes feels like magnolia sweeps down, bows and takes my hand to present its perfume right close to me
Ur a tree lover
Oh more flagrant than that...gaia lover...just lover lover

In an IM last week I learn another muse (recollections of a faun) shares my vision for the future of 'transportation' - and much more:

12:43 PM our true nature is without definition

 me: Mystery, unfathomable Mystery

12:44 PM faun: curiosity is thankfulness upons its own quest of questions

12:45 PM egad, wishing ever so recently to perfect the buddha body of perfect resource

 or in otherwords the imaginary sphere of self transportation

 me: curiousity is everything

 what do you mean?

faun: have you seen fantastic planet?

12:46 PM me: no

 faun: ninteen seventies french animated psychedelic film

 me: oh, sounds interesting, do they fly, bilocate

 faun: hmm

12:47 PM whilst meditating > light bodies translocate within floating spheres

 the world may be greener if so

 a wish of mine to escape the solitary confinement of the automobile

12:48 PM of course, flying is also enjoyable..

12:49 PM me: i was hinting at light bodies actually, and i think it's possible to shapeshift too into something more dense, then fly with dragonfly wings perhaps ;-) on a whimsical day that tis

12:50 PM faun: oh how the dragon fly inspires

 fine eyes

 me: taking a blurb I wrote a few months ago...This would be the year I'd have enough money to get that Bentley Azure. Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price: $329,990.

Now why on earth is it my heart's desire to have a Bentley Azure? Is it because the convertible evokes freedom and adventure and elegance and outrageous abundance? I totally respect its audacious boldness.

But own a car, no not really my heart's will.

The actual deepest depth of truth is this is for me: I am devoted to walking and wandering and roving and stumbling across hidden valleys and alleys and flowerpots and street corners and graffiti and flyers tacked onto light poles. I adore tumbling and racing downhill like a creek surrounded by fern covered hills and gurgling by cougars and coyotes and cactus and wild oats. I want to cavort in the nether realms with angels and faeries and tree spirits and wizards. I adore the deja vu of sitting next to strangers on trains and subways and busses. And to walk through walls, skate on water, bilocate and time travel and fly across the sky (with better aim than Icarus) and glide across galaxies and beam me up Scotty!

And no I'm not settling for a mere car anymore.

 oops, hit send early, that was blurb from a blog post... thougth it would be too out there if i mention light bodies

12:52 PM faun: beauty

 kids play in light

 my eye twinkles and skirts across the periphery

 is this happening?

12:53 PM two thousand seven

 this story is, nevertheles, will endlessly write, unveil.

12:54 PM enthusiasm & excitement

 sing

 me: singing and laughing is sufficient

 complete

 exuberance

12:55 PM faun: people ask why so often laughter is my expression, life is humorous

 me: divine comedy

 hindus call leela, gods at play

12:57 PM strange, not so strange, i feel your Presence right here

 faun: deities were present, switzerland, january 11th, 2006, 100th birthday of doc. albert hoffman

 you are simply smiling immortal light

 me: i know

12:58 PM who is dr hoffman?

 faun: discoverer of lsd, psychonaut nonetheless

12:59 PM me: ah, i was glancing - harder time reading of late - at book 2012: Return of Quetzalcoatl last night

 mention of ayahuasca, the church "santo daime" in brazilian amazon

 tho i've never done drugs, i'm trippy enough

1:00 PM faun: naturally the amazon beckons

 briefly researched certain tribes, mythology of the peruvian forests

1:01 PM telling of synaesthetic language (hear colors, etc.)

 me: hhhmmm, thought of peru too

 faun: vegetable plant goddess

 serpent like creation myth

1:02 PM me: i had a teacher in new orleans, she has had 'overlaps' (?) into 5D, she mentions more colors, maybe  80? too

1:03 PM faun: awe

 experienced spherical vision

 yet 5d is nonetheless a mystery
[edited out part of discussion here]

 faun: thinking to have read that in zen keys, a book by Thich Nhat Hanh

 me: now that i think of it, the people i met in nola that had 'bled' into 5d, all artists

1:10 PM faun: the source also of alex grey?

 me: what do you mean source?

 faun: good question

 perhaps a better word would be 'home'

1:11 PM me: oh, maybe, i just noting they were visual artists plus being energy workers yada yada

 faun: interesting

1:12 PM breathe, lifetimes within lifetimes, bookmarks, bridges, doors, breathe.

 me: my friend told me it was painting - the process of surrendering to - that 'helped' him awake

1:13 PM faun: reminds me of experimenting with written mantra, continuously writing the mantra until the words form image

1:14 PM me: hmm, never tried that, i don't consider myself visually gifted, but yet i see things in vision, and then try to use words to convey rather than paint

1:15 PM faun: in your elvish ways you an ever so gifted artist

1:16 PM color is

1:17 PM me: thank you...meant i have at least 1% chance of conveying beauty i've seen through words, almost none if i tried to paint/draw it, and yet nothing can really do it justice, it's that moment and it cannot be pinned down like butterfly cant

1:18 PM faun: free to be

 me: love color love all the senses i love touching flowers and bark

1:19 PM faun: let leaves tickle a skull walking beneath, love to sit lotus above roots

 muses whisper emotions disguised as words

1:22 PM me: ah, i was once mad at words for being so slippery and language separating from Reality yet now they are also fun to play with in sound and texture and turning it over like a mossy stone in your hand

1:25 PM faun: poetry loves subconscious..

 refreshing to think about water. and also the dreams which delved into a literary level not applicable to this abridged world

 remembering ..

 me: subconscious, call it The Well

1:26 PM a reservoir infinite

 faun: the attic

 library behind the revolving bookshelf, spiral staircase, descend into the philosophical dwelling & think about thinking

1:27 PM me: ha, interesting idea, last year when i sat down with tea & toast to write for 40 days, whoa, had no idea where that process would do to one

1:28 PM faun: si belle cette idée cette vie

 me: mostly wrote in my neighborhood, in my garden, the redwood grove (small consolation for living in surburbia) near

 faun: ascetic esoteric

 hocus pocus

 flowering lotus

1:29 PM me: hocus pocus hmmm

 i dwelled in the garden of Eden truly and

 faun: would you ever seek a vision quest?

 me: wherever the Song of Songs is written

 faun: you already have..

 me: and in Renaissance Italy

 and i went to all sorts of places i had no idea i already knew

1:30 PM seek a vision quest? hmm, it seems like an everyday occurence
[and more poetry unfurls...]

p.s. Just joined Twitter... Inviting ya into my Twitter twibe...mainly thinking to use with text messages more than online (too beautiful summer to be indoors on laptops)..so we can keep in touch with the spontaneous poetry weaving through our lives. Blessings, E

images Cosmic Ice Cream, by Gil Mellé (yum poetry in color); Dreamscape, at Keith's Fractal Images  (ethereal Otherworld fractal art); not sure who is the artist to thank for this scrumptious winged poetess, found via the enchantress via the delightful magick blog, Blogickal. Along with the art, came these musings from poet, Langston Hughes:

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

The Secret: Thou art Art! Dance the Magic!

Wrote the other day: "You are holy, wholly complete holographic fractal of the Whole. Thou art that."

One poet-visual artist (practically second half of myself) friend writes back: "Yet, you are holy, wholly complete holographic fractal of the Whole. Thou art art."

I reply:

"Thou art art.... almost wrote that but stuck to conventional, so few understand what I mean when i say i don't segregrate my life from art, or art from life. life is art. not so much the writing.

saw a beautiful bumper sticker in nola, it read: EARTH
cept because of the colors it clearly said: e ART h
or, E art H "

My life is my poem. Sometimes in invisible ink.

Ive always believed the byproduct of a artist is shit. Its only in the process, that one becomes delivered. - a visual artist text message to me

I adore paper in all its skins and colors and aromas and tastes, so I had to check out the new Paper Source store at Santana Row this weekend. Though I nearly choked on the way out - the birthday card and the this-and-that card 'kits' were bad enough as half the joy in creating is the serendiptious discovery of objects to construct cards with and of. But it was their tagline that threw me. Their motto's stencilled in the window: "Do something creative every day."

"The act of focusing our consciouness is an act of creation. Consciousness creates!" - Gregg Braden, The Divine Matrix

What? They're meme-ing out the same ol' let's segregate creativity from the rest of our life thoughtform. Here we have the the 'creating' part of our day (which assumes a tangible doing product is produced) and this over there is what? Our destroying part of the day?

Too much like God is for church on Sundays theory for me.

"We need to look at how every single action we take can be made into an act of magick. People miss this concept all the time." - AngelPaths Tarot on the Magus

"The Secret" is at this level of wizardry and mastery: "We are aware of our tools, and we use them in building and improving our lives. We have grown into our magic, and it helps us. We manipulate it. It becomes another tool."

However, THIS is what I'm aiming for personally, and what I'd like to see with the beyond "The Secret" series: "We are beyond worrying about moving or manipulating the Magic, beyond feeling the need to stick to convention: As Shaman, we DANCE the Magic. We are the Magic, the tools companions in our work." (from "Psychology of the Magus", Enchanted Spirit)

We are the Magic.
Thou art art.

Even my text messages are as poems. A friend texts, "resonance with the world and everything in it"

Reply: "renaissance w world cosmos & every blooming thing sentient being and"

A little later: "could not decide betw white peach or chocolate at store. chose prana"

Next: "bus stop ad can u believ sez: a whole new world is opening soon"

And later: "bus blissfully late"

Much later that evening he writes: "I rember sharing a cup wth u. In the 1200s."

Then: "The aura the cup.the grail.the body the stone.philosophy.philo y sophia.balnce.the blood.ruby cinnabar.liquid light"

I speak in symbol, signs, archetypal image to my poetically embodied friends. It makes utter sense to us -- more so than complete sentences. And it's how I began to understand the hieroglypic language of birds without the benefit of any translation to English thoughtforms. To see with the eyes of an poet, an artist, to surrender to art in every way every moment, is to meld with magic.

"People think they are seeing a forest of facts; it's a forest of symbols." - Vladimir Kush, private conversation

Artist and filmmaker Melissa Ulto shares this 15 second trip into her psyche. (I've included the screenshot below, you need to visit the link to play "Be Art".) That simple: Be Art.

Oh, and, never ask an artist-magician HOW questions. It's more difficult than asking a bird how they know to migrate south in the winter.

The answer to How is Yes. And what follows Yes is a serendipitious spontaneous discovery and collaboration with inspiration. Director Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth, and upcoming The Golden Age film) writes in his blog about the creative process:

"When asked by a studio head once how I would direct the film, I said, well ..... Ummmm ..... I would put some film in the camera ..... And umm .... I would find a nice place to put the camera and umm ..... Needless to say I did not get the job, nor would I work with anyone that asked me that question.....

The process of creativity, if not a great adventure of exploration is flat and unimaginative... Like job work. We thrive on being surprised by our own work, while increasingly we are asked to be able to explain exactly what we are planning. Like asking Piccaso to explain the colour schemes of his paintings before he has done them.

So what others see as chaos, independance, or even arrogance is nothing but us protecting that child within us that is completely at play. For on the child's naïve and innocent play, or on that child's anguish, depends our ability to create." - Shekhar Kapur

Bonus: "The Fool represents the seat of the imagination, The Magician represents the seat of the intellect, and the two delight in their endless dance. It is this dance that the mage knowingly participates in as the basis of magick; to be open like The Fool, yet active like The Magician; to first recieve [inspiration], then project, to resonate with determined intent. But, the recieving is endless, as is the projecting and resonating. That is true for     all of us, regardless of our self-attunement, or intent. Focus is the key that bridles chaos, that opens the door to the Eternal for the mage." - The Philosopher's Stone Tarot

p.s. Apologies...this being one of those duller explanatory rant posts. Just had let it off my chest and reinterate my position on the inseparability of Art, Life, Magic once again because it is the cornerstone of everything I'll be blogging about... as it is the cornerstone of my expression on this Earth.

images Morgan Le Fay, by Johanna Pieterman; The Soul of a Rose, by John William Waterhouse; Be Art video clip, by Melissa Ulto

'The Secret', Power, & ripping silly maps of the Known for bonfire kindling

On the sea, the mirage of the horizon shimmers only three miles away.

From the ship, it appears we might just tip over the cliff of the world if we head yonder.

From a boat, it appears that if you see a wave swallowing the horizon, that you best move away from the water and transfer your passengers quickly to dry, safe land.

From a kayak, it appears that if find yourself pushed against a rock by the current, that you'd struggle free by pushing away from the crystallized river ogre.

Mirages deceive. Miracles reveal truths. Do we know the difference?

Not everything is at it appears to Fear.

"If we can remember that we're the art as well as the artist, then perhaps we can also remember that we're the seed of the miracle as well as the miracle itself." - Gregg Braden, The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief (highly recommended)

Fear comes from the defended heart of the projected past and congeals the dancing ruby jewelled wavelets of blood into the viscuous stew of paralysis.

"We see light streaming like a river from the sun. Like a river it is always the same form, but the energy is always different. If we shift our point of view slightly, this river of light will look solid. It will fill the whole space between the stars just like the nerve system." - Miguel Ruiz, Beyond Fear: A Toltec Guide to Freedom and Joy (highly recommend; re-reading, though for what appears the first time)

Christopher Colombus wrote in his own words  that he did not rely on maps.

Oh, of what use were those maps anyhow? Sea monsters etched in the four directions weren't exactly alluring omens that sung out joyously, Yes, yes, go, west young man!

"Others don't give you strength, you create it by dissolving your resistance to the Divine Source of all power. Your significant others are here to help you, but ultimately they do this by mirroring your own power and beliefs to you." - D.K. Brainard's snippet from Gemini horoscope, Week of May 28, 2007

Rather Columbus heeded words embroidered in the flame of his heart which fluttered with the inklings of visionary Isaiah. Which words of Isiah I have supposed myself to have been these: "There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers, the One who is stretching out the heavens just as a fine gauze, who spreads them out like a tent in which to dwell."

When we lay out all the maps before us in this day and age, we shall witness sea monsters galore gallavanting and gourging on lost souls in every single one of the four directions. (Psssst, I don't call them dragons as dragons are actually gentle creatures whom lived in 3D in a time of great glaciers and crevasses.)

"Look here," she points to the emerald-amber monster tangled in seaweed and kelp to the North. "Ugh, perhaps the conditions aren't just quite right. Too ferocious." Furiously nodding in agreement to herself after the obsidian-ruby scaled mangle of the East writhes and roars: "Yes, yes, it is best to stay home. Have another cup of tea. Darjeeling tea! That's East essence and presence enough."

Whew!

"Raven is crazy, anyhow," she murmurs slinking back into the fullness of the moon. She lies back, relaxing, putting away all those silly maps and caution-to-the-Winds callings of light explorers and warrioresses. "I need to stop heeding His absurd messages, initiations and invitations. Maybe my mom is right: maybe, I'm not, egads, normal. Maybe my worst fears are materializing -- no, not that I'm becoming my mother, but that I'm becoming a... a ...a New Ager."

"Be still and know that I am God." - Psalm 46:10

when the clock strikes me

the powers of being

will prevail

over the powers that be - hip hop spoken word artist Saul Williams

Then and only then when only a cup of only Darjeeling tea existed -exists -existing -existence, El Morya (or was it Kuan Yin) whispers within the aroma of cut leaves boiled in summer moon,
"Consider this. Who drew those maps of the Known?"

"Consider this: The anagram, the opposite, of Evil is Live."

Thank you, thank you, she speaks in the unspoken language, recalling: "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." - Psalms 119:105

And she begins to pack her Light bags.

Bonus: Twenty-one monks from the forest sangha in northeast Thailand spoke on Christmas Day, 2005. I heard one say:

"In Thai, the word understanding means coming from the heart. One of our teachers says to understand suffering means to stand under suffering. It's the journey from the head to the heart. After suffering and impermanence you start to look for the 'owner' of the suffering.

And you begin to travel with really light luggage. Instead of a dam, we become a river."

Bonus Deux: Some mirages are truer, O, Fata Morgana, Morgan Le Fay, She of the Raven and Sword of the Word:

"When the residents of Grand Haven, Michigan looked westward that night across the relatively cold waters of Lake Michigan, they distinctly saw city lights and a flashing red beacon. But the nearest urban area westward from them was Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 120 km (75 miles) away, well below the geometric horizon and thus normally not visible. Their sightings were later confirmed to have been Milwaukee when a Grand Haven resident timed the blink rate of the flashing red light and linked it to the Milwaukee Harbor entrance beacon. (US Weather Service records also confirm that strong inversion conditions were indeed present that night.) The unseeable had indeed briefly become visible." -  "The Superior Mirage: Seeing Beyond", The Weather Doctor

p.s. As for the swallowing wave, the oral history of the sea gypsies of Thailand, the Moken, know it as laboon, or 'the wave that eats people.' You are compounding a disaster to be anywhere near boundaries when a tsunami comes. Steer clear of boundaries, of limits, and ride the vast gracious Ocean. Even the freight train of a tsunami wave is a gentle arising and falling bounce in the absorbing Space of sea. Yet same wave crashes with a fury known to few on shore. (This, I know, from literal and metaphorical experience.) After the tsunami, we did eventually get back to our sightseeing boat briefly to head onto a ship taking injured parties to a hospital. The tsunami wasn't even a speedbump to the crew that stayed onboard.

And in kayaking, you lean towards the obstacle, be it rock or other object. Same with all resistance, you lean into them, and the current will lift your boat and spiral you away gently back into the main Tao-stream. Pushing away has destroyed novice boaters.

p.p.s. "Here, Isaiah uses the Hebrew word hhug for circle, and this word means circle in plane geometry (2-d) and sphere in solid geometry (3-d)." Wonder what it looks like in 4-d, 5-d, 11-d?

images met Vladimir Kush "by accident" the other day (another story, and I shall share); At The End of the Earth by Vladimir Kush, Metamorphical Journey by Vladimir Kush; Sunrise by the Ocean, by Vladimir Kush. (Scrumptiousness. He has the richest, most fantastical art book just released. Amazing. Prescient ("Prescience is the ability to predict the future through vision.") Evocative of Golden Age culture arts & sciences. Called (quite appropriately), Journey to the Edge of Time.)

muggles coming out of closet (broom optional, wands not included)

I used to cringe when people labelled me bohemian:

"A Bohemian is simply an artist or littérateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art." ["Westminster Review," 1862] - bohemian, via Online Etymology Dictionary

Doesn't sound so bad, eh? But there's always an undertone of dilettante itinerant vagrant vagabond ne'er-do-well to "bohemian." Not likely someone with a good credit report, and straight A report card. (Well, I did have a 3.9 GPA once.)

"my views are pretty unconventional, but i guess each of us harbors an unconventional heart of our own" - me, in an IM to a friend

Nope, wouldn't help telling me that  Rockefeller had a bohemian streak too.

"Like many itinerant vendors in rural places, he was a smooth-talking purveyor of dreams along with tawdry trinkets, and Eliza [his future wife] responded to this romantic wanderer." - Ron Chernow, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller

That is until I learned recently that the French word bohémien (translates to bohemian, or gypsy) comes from the old French word "Boem" meaning "sorcerer."

sorcery

c.1300, from O.Fr. sorcerie, from sorcier "sorcerer," from V.L. *sortiarius, lit. "one who influences fate, fortune," from L. sors (gen. sortis) "lot, fate, fortune" (see sort). Sorceress (c.1384) is attested much earlier than sorcerer (1526).

Now that I like: I am the mistress of my so-called fate dreaming this story-dwelling make-believe game up as I go. Plus all the things that happen and beings that are met along the way aren't to be struggled with - any more than I'd struggle when reading an intriguing fairytale fantasy that keeps me in suspense. As I skip along the yellow-brick road choices will present themselves as the never-ending story unfolds (not necessarily linearly), and we get to participate with breathless wonder.

I can't pretend to be a muggle. I keep giving all y'all (Nawlins' talkin') plenty of hints that we're boarding the Hogwarts Express here - in case you don't want to.

The train is departing shortly presently to a glorious, enchanting haven... though you need to leave your limitations behind at the customs desk. (There are quite different customs over there yonder in hyperspace. & Spontaneous wisdom & grace glides and dances adroitly on the high-wire without any fall-back belief net. Beliefs make one too top-heavy for spritelyhood.)

"If you remember the station scene in the Harry Potter books (or movies) in which the wizard children were able to board the Hogwarts Express on platform 9 3/4 by walking straight through a concrete pillar, then you will begin to see how all this works. What is delightfully easy for wizards is equally impossible for muggles (non-wizards)." - "End of World Theories", Circles of Flight (for the record, I'm not agreeing with this article, the muggles will and are also in their right place, right time)

Being a wizard - or a gypsy sorceress - is easy. You just stop fighting the magic in you, spilling out of you. By coming out of hiding for starters. The bible puts it this way: "Nor do men light a lamp and put it under the bushel, but upon the lamp-stand, and it shines for all who are in the house." (Matthew 5:15) 

Being a wizard is a choice. (I know, I know Mickey underscored over and over for you in Fantasia that it's very dangerous Pandora's Box.) A glorious choice, actually.

"Never give a wand to a man that can't dance." - old Celtic proverb

Sometimes it's nearly ordinary. With a twinkling twist, though.

A creative friend who claims a past life affinity for Lady Guinevere was lamenting about her interior design business last week. I tell her, "You aren't creating this for the beauty salon owner's benefit. This isn't for her [ah, yes, she was clashing a bit with said owner]. Millions more get their hair cut, and get their nails done than go to churches on Sunday or attend a Buddhist retreat. You're creating a subliminal temple of beauty and harmony and love for every single person that walks in those doors to remember what they've always known."

But that's just the beginning of wizardry. Infinity knows no bounds.

p.s. Old bohemian secret....psssst, if you want to know about wizardry, follow the children.

"No child but must remember laying his head in the grass, staring into the infinitesimal forest and seeing it grow populous with fairy armies." - Robert Louis Stevenson, Essays in The Art of Writing

Their eyes, actually their perception, just see what they see even if it isn't supposed to exist according to grown-ups. They haven't grown accustomed to beliefs. A reader begins an enchanting email:

"Through the transparency of your blog, you have been the catalyst for the mystical, magical turn of events my life has taken lately. Last night my son (age 1) and I saw an angel (or something) – from the corner of my eye, a fluttering followed by my son’s squeal of delight."

Which reminds me that a friend texts me the other day: The children are ruling the world.

(Hallelujah, praise god.)

Bonus: From World Wide Words by Michael Quinion:

[Q] From Annlasa: “I would like to know how the word bohemian came to mean someone or some idea that is offbeat.”

[A] It comes to us through French, in which language the word (as bohémien) has long been applied to gypsies, who were thought to come from Bohemia, or at least to have entered Europe through that country. This is just the same way our gypsies were so named, because they were thought to have come from Egypt (gypsy being a corrupted form of Egyptian). In the nineteenth century, the word shifted sense in French to mean somebody who was a vagabond, or a person of irregular life and habits, an obvious enough extension of meaning if you accepted the then common disparaging view of gypsies. This sense was introduced into English by Thackeray in Vanity Fair in 1848: “She was of a wild, roving nature, inherited from father and mother, who were both Bohemians, by taste and circumstances.” The word quickly came to be applied with special reference to an artist, writer or actor who despised conventionality. By 1862, the Westminster Review was able to say that “The term ‘Bohemian’ has come to be very commonly accepted in our day as the description of a certain kind of literary gipsey, no matter in what language he speaks, or what city he inhabits ... A Bohemian is simply an artist or littérateur who, consciously or unconsciously, secedes from conventionality in life and in art”.

images Star card by ©Stephanie Pui-Mun from a Gypsy Tarot deck in progress (more works by Pui-Mun);  a psychedelic gypsy from 60's Rock and Roll Legends gallery; Persian Goddess by ©Sara Haase, her whimsical online gallery is titled Wispy Gypsy

weekend boost: the good news about spring cleansing...

I'm aware during these times that many of us are experiencing a bit of personal spring cleaning and wondering how I can continue to talk of miracles & magic when all manner of things and understandings are washing away.

A 'cleansing' and stripping of old ways and old roles and old limitations comes first because we are carrying too many decaying burdens to freely express what is innately light and spontaneous to our Being.

Cleansing's natural if we're still layered with gunk and second-hand beliefs. We don't need to be a cookie-cutter version of our neighbors anymore & each expresses our most essential core uniqueness and sing our original harmonious songs with the Whole. Here's one take:

"The Waves of Love are also washing away many of our old disguises and outdated roles. The multiple layers with which we had covered up our true beings are being stripped off, revealing our naked core selves. And that is all we can be anymore. RAW.... REAL.... TRUE.... PURE TRUE LOVE.

Throughout 2007, the Waves of Love will wash away our hiding places, both within our selves and without. These are the tiny, cramped places where we have crammed ourselves to stunt our growth and avoid embodying our true vastness and magnificence. The places where we stuff our most precious dreams and most intimate desires so we won't have to face the potential heartbreak of their possible failure." - Solara 2007 Surf Report

images The Mermaid (1910) by Howard Pyle

creative expression beings move e-motion

When there is stuc or held energy (sometimes we call them e-motions) my laptop eyboard alerts me.

Sometimes it can be the "eye" (i) column and sometimes the "sex" (6) column although differing columns have been clenched tight for minutes or hours or days at a time at different occasions the last sex months.

Right now...

(For instance) holding bac rage & outrage.

Right now... (For instance) am needing to cut-and-paste the "i" (as i way too important). Sorry totally give up cut-and-paste cay and comma and the eight etc.

Ah what a royal pane: though tis a peecabo window into precisely where the soul isn't allowed free expression.

Violence & war in my world are not abstract or in far off iraq. They are writ large in situations in my friends lives...

and random: when strolling by then slamming shotgun cottage doors and yelling - "you want to hit me doncha?!" - "worp all day forgodsates! when would could screw around?"

... and the flowing camellia roses dress (easily slip into Junior League unnoticed) mom shuts her five-year-old girl inside the car - and returns to six-year-old boy doing the motions of doing his homeworp at the a/c cafe - on sunny humid day all because the girl glowers - catch edge eye catch tear glisten - not cowers to mom's escalating 'discipline'.

"Most of your peoples cannot differentiate between love and control." - Ra (via David Wilcock)

So don't tell me not to react... violence is unwarranted. Will not accept this too.

Right now...

Rage & outrage & nope am not resisting. Screw correct Spiritual attitude of loving acceptance (until unless that is authentic unconditioned & not contrived nicety). Allow. Feel what you feel.

Denial choxes life. X0X0X0XXXX must be real - or the holding at bay is too its own violence.

Done being polite repressed. EXPRESS is the new game.

"The Spirits of Loving Essence on Earth that are saying that they have no resistance to what is happening_ and _now that it's all fine and there is nothing they need to do about it_ are disconnected from major parts of themselves." - The Right Use of Free Will: Healing and Evolving the Emotional Body (ughh, please replace _ with cay or comma as needed)

So bump into a few friends at Flora's this morning - even Anoo and Lucy too. "Peace is an action not a goal" one tells me.

No need to blab out feelings. Talking is for talking. Whoa... The k is back. Ah, relief. The keyboard is unstuck!IIIIIKKKK,,,,,,,,,,,,,,*8<I8i8i ,,,,,iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikkkk

(Hooray! What power runs through my blood! Pure, free, open, gushing keyboard gushing flowing e-motion! a dam breaks....)

So anyhow talking's for talking & Feelings for feeling and they move through like clouds - like weather when you let them slide across the sky.

Feelings want the space to stretch their legs. To vibrate their lungs. Breathe deep to the belly. To sound and boogey and chortle and sigh big. And they go by real quick that way. "You need to do whatever the feelings suggest to you." (Hmmm, now that I think about it, violence is last lost resort of long denied emotions making a getaway.)

"Once the old charges are released and spontaneity regained, feelings will accompany and enhance your life like music." - The Right Use of Free Will: Healing and Evolving the Emotional Body

Whew. Sigh. In this space of clarity (clear of stagnant emotion) comes the question: so, where is the violence I see without, within me?

I am quite familar with psychological projection, Bryon Katie's The Work, Ho'oponopono, The Course In Miracles, you name it. (Catching my projections has been my #1 spiritual practice.) So I can't just leave this at the level of feeling the feelings alone.

Where is the violence I see without, within me? This rings true to me:

The violence I commit internally is any time when I negate myself. When I deny what I know to be true for me and "go along" whether for pete's sake or peace's sake. Whenever I scramble to hide the light of divine spark just because it is too blinding too radiant.

Please don't take my word for it that this has something or anything to do with the violence out there. See for yourself. Query yourself. Because simply going along with me without checking in with your own Wisdom would be yet another act of violence.

Peace ;-)

Bonus: "We're either killing ourselves or nurturing. There is no in-between." Ihaleakala Hew Len, Ph.D.

Dr. Len worked in a prison for the criminally insane. He healed within him that which was ailing the patients - and they never met face-to-face. Within a few years, the unit was closed because everyone was released healthy.

"Dr. Len appeared to be exposing the energy field of his consciousness to the energy field of the criminally insane patients. And over time the energy began to rectify until the patients healed sufficiently for release into the community and the unit closed. For most of us exposure to this kind of chaotic energy, this degree of environmental dis-ease and aggression, would fall under the category of "do not try this at home." I happened to visit that particular prison unit as an intern in 1977 and the vibe was extremely aggressive." - Meredith, Graceful Presence blog

(Yep, unless you are a "shadow worker" you don't need to try this at home. Try The Work first.  And if you are a "shadow worker", you've already been working with projection for some time already, and perhaps this may be your next leap.)

images Rebirth (computer art, 2001), by Sam Kennedy; Tribal in the collection of the Kyrgyzstan  National Museum of Art via BellyDanceArt.com

UPDATE: Feels like those of us on the same wavelength are fluxing together, doesn't it? Reading this 5-10-07, day after I published this post:

"On a personal level I've been through a GREAT deal of healing work — I had emotional issues come up to be processed that were strong enough that I had to stop everything else and move through them. This included listening to music associated with the people involved, and crying the hurt and grief out of my system. For hours.

There is a point at which if you don't actually do this, you are doing yourself much more harm. Emotions get frozen in linear time and the only way you can really heal them is by releasing them in the present, once they finally come back for review. In those moments the hurt is just as strong as when it first happened, but by releasing it you also free YOURSELF on an energetic level." - David Wilcock

imagination, information, art, me! wants to be Free

In Spanish, there are two distinct words for free.

There's free as in liberated, or as in an empty seat that's not taken (libre), from Old French liberté "freedom." And then, free, as in no payment necessary, maybe as in gift (gratis), possibly from M. Latin gratuitas "gift," probably from L. gratuitus "free, freely given."

"Practical imagination may be more in line with having beautiful radiant things, but idle imagination is more in line with being beautiful radiant things. But Being, idleness,and productivity coming together these days." - Steven Suggs' comment on "in praise of idle imagination"

Yes! yes, I write back, and: "I sense that imagination needs FREE rein to be as goofy, outrageously unproductive, uncontrived, boundless as it wants to be. And miracles are actually as efficient, and natural, as it gets."

With the New Orleans Jazz Fest starting today, the Times-Picayune front-paged the article, "YouTubeFest" in the Living section. The article tells you how to catch some of the headliners' acts on YouTube. It's accompanied by the sidebar story "Surfer beware: YouTube is a copyright infringement minefield" (newsprint version headlined thus) warning of "guilty pleasure," as many of the posted concert clips are, "strictly defined, stolen."

"Whatever your naive beliefs about information wanting to be free, Murphy is not being a bad guy by doing so. [In contacting a Japanese TV network to ask them to contact YouTube to pull down a video he produced for said network]." - "Surfer beware: YouTube is a copyright infringement minefield", Times-Picayune, April 27, 2007 (sidebar story on pg 12-13)

I don't think that Murphy is doing anything wrong either. I'd love to see more original & indie content - not cut-and-paste, not television - myself.

Pleeez let's not tarnish words.

Naïve?

Etymology: 1654, from Fr. naïve, fem. of naïf, from O.Fr. naif "naive, natural, just born," from L. nativus "not artificial," also "native, rustic," lit. "born, innate, natural" (see native).

Naïve as in: "Spontaneous. Never Ordinary. Completely Genuine." Those are the title words to a Jazz Appreciation Month (April 2007) poster I saw once (maybe at the Alvar Public Library who knows) put out by the Smithsonian.

Naïve is an amazing way to  live...and free, as in liberty, and quite probably, free, as in gifts too. These words, concepts, dance well together.

I'm reminded of a beautiful passage in Dreams Underfoot, where the character Zinc, a seventeen-year-old performance artist/runaway squatting in a downtown building in a fictional city, is musing to himself, after an exchange with his visual artist friend Jilly:

"You didn't make art by capturing an image on paper, or canvas, or in stone. You didn't make it by writing down stories and poems. Music and dance came closest to what real art was - but only as long as you didn't try to record or film it. Musical notation was only so  much dead ink on paper. Choreography was planning, not art.

You could only make art by setting it free. Anything else was just a memory, no matter how you stored it. On film or paper, sculpted or recorded.

Everything that existed, existed in a captured state. Animate or inanimate, everything wanted to be free.

That's what the lights said; that was their secret. Wild lights in the night skies, and domesticated lights, right here on the street, they all told the same tale. It was so plain to see when you knew how to look. Didn't neon and streetlights yearn to be starlight?

To be free." - Charles de Lint, Dreams Underfoot

images Star Bright by Art-; Stairway to Heaven by blue_fam; Dream Logic by MontanaRaven; all these Flickr photos found on this most breath-taking must-see spirally inspired collage, Spiral Gallery