Christmas Karmic Eve

My recent practice has involved applying the methodology of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, in particular, that of passing through the Bardos of the wrathful deities. The logic being that if you apply this practice in life, you will make progress here, and be familar with it after dying.

Poetically enough the wrathful deities, like the three wise men, decided to visit me on Christmas Eve. A peaceful evening walking with throngs of Christmas revelers later gave way to a deep sense of anxiety and nightmares.

Toward the deep existential dread that came up, I was able to hold no grudge and remained fairly neutral, understanding it as karmic residue that I could accept as coming from within myself. This was a marked departure from the teaching I received early on that these feelings are evil, and need to be exorcised.

As the experience unfolded, I began to find compassion toward that young child I once was, and also toward those well-meaning, but ultimately ignorant teachers and preachers of my youth. I also found gratitude that my own children are progressing at a much younger age toward wisdom and realization than I was able to.

Through a Christmas night filled with unsettling dreams I ventured, not attaching myself to them, nor pushing them away, but trying just to be present and allow the energy to complete itself.

And so this is my current resolution, to experience the karmic residue of a million existences, and watch as it burns itself out, at its own pace. I couldn't escape the irony that this realization came on the symbolic night of another very celebrated painful birth into this world.

This seems to me like an honest path to liberation.

among the ruins

the old ways no longer work.

though they still stand, they are incapable of carrying meaning.

those established forms will either evolve, or crumble.

there are new forms emerging, sprouting up from among the ruins.

they will engage new directions, even as the old gives way.

we are in this transitional space already, even though it is not readily apparent.

the old symbols continue to serve a function, that of providing a framework,

even as they are subsumed into the new.

the earth goddess, ancient rome, mithras, each had their time and place.

when they were no longer beneficial, new forms came into being,

born out of and adapting what was useful from the former.

and so it is with the time and place in which we find ourselves, here at the cusp of something new.

Vipassana Pop

Vipassana Pop

These are new works on paper I've just finished. The project began as a "tabula rasa", in which I would complete a collage, then paint over it, obliterating the image, and lastly add a final layer to coax something out of the background.

Deni Bleu, Discourse on Emptiness, 1,2,3,4 (Joey)

They were conceived as band posters for a bar in a decrepit alley behind an ancient cathedral.

Been a Son

I place them on the street, some in alleyways, some outside of a club, or by an old railroad trestle, and photographed them in each of these settings.

Pieta Cola, Vipassana Pop, Rockfu

The energetic history of each of these locations interacts vividly with the works. This is a fundamental idea that comes out of my curatorial projects, that of art existing in real world contexts.

notes on (no) self

you are an unruly child,
wielding violence and the cruel, thinking yourself just.

yes, you are right, against
all that is wrong, so maintain your illusion.

and reinforce yourself through concepts,
your faith, your holy book, your flag, your right, my wrong.

and what is it really,
this need to push so hard to justify your existence.

against the fear of emptiness,
of the infinite space that permeates the body.

of connectedness, of bridges
crossing the great spaces of the immaterial.

of the pulse, the flow,
the vibration of your own unsustainable nature.

cease the struggle, resist not,
only then does your illusion give way to the real.

Clouds

"I've looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow, it's clouds illusions I recall, I really don't know clouds at all." - Joni Mitchell, Clouds

"One potent metaphor for the Void, often used in Tibetan art, is the sky. As the sky is the emptiness that offers clouds to our perception, so the Void is the 'space' in which objects appear to us in response to our attachments and longings." - Phillip Rawson, Sacred Tibet

Yesterday evening, I watched a gathering thunderstorm as I walked. Having brought along my camera, I began to take pictures of the clouds, slowly, deliberately. These images became the starting point for an exploration of the processes of the mind, to look at the ways in which it constructs meaning, reinforces its own conditioning, and attempts to justify its own existence.



Later, as rain fell outside, I worked with the images on my computer, cropping and mirroring, using pattern and repetition to create fractal heavy mandalas from the original photos. As I continued, striking images emerged, some humorous, some haunting, all demonstrating 'clouds illusions' quite vividly.

From one image, two faces, framed by large curly locks, stared intently into each others eyes. In another, a pair of devilish skulls guard either side of a dark chasm. In a third, a wrathful Tibetan deity looks out at me with googly eyes.

And then I realize, it's all there...and not. It becomes clear that the mind looks for and sees not only anthropomorphic patterns, but also, and more subtly, connects to and reinforces the layers of memory and interpretation that it has already created.



So my conditioned responses tend to see Dio album covers, Franklin Ajaye in the movie Car Wash, Thangka paintings, angry wolves, and, duh, sexual members both positive and negative in form. Depending on the time and place of your existence, you will see what is particular to that experience.

It was a potent realization of the ways in which we as sentient beings take in essentially neutral phenomena, and project onto them our sense of meaning and identity. 'What you see is what you get', right?

Guess again: that is where the Matrix effect kicks in, as the images metaphorically tumble into cascading 1s and 0s, and reality begins to unfold with more clarity. The constant procession and change of the clouds in a blue sky is equivalent to the ongoing mental processes taking place in the mind.




And this vivid demonstration reveals that the 'I' which sees and experiences all of these things is just that, another formation of changing clouds passing through a clear sky.

So...I...let it go... With awareness I can watch these transitory thoughts and images as they rise and fall, seeing them as temporal chatter unfolding against the backdrop of a larger, undefined reality.




It's all an illusion, not in the sense of being fundamentally unreal, but in its incomplete grasp of that reality. And yes, it's a richly immersive illusion at that, but still nothing to be attached to, or held onto for long.

Yes, it seems that I lost my 'self' in the clouds of last nights thunderstorm.

Broke Down in Amarillo

headin' east, the sun behind,
a trail o' smoke kicks up 'n around.
the breeze it's warm, summer's come,
it's Amarillo, and i'm broke down.

((chorus))
broke down in Amarillo,
i'm here w/nothin', nothin' but now.
broke down in Amarillo,
i'll turn the wheel, get out somehow.

met a young brotha', name o' Kevin,
reads the Qur'an, 'n drives a tow truck.
picked up my ride, let me crash at his place,
said "i been there, been down on my luck."

((chorus))

a fella called Nick, so it says on his shirt,
but his name's not Nick i was told.
he's under the hood, changin' the hoses,
will i get to the next round, or will i fold?

((chorus))

my mind is open, it's free and it's empty,
like water moves in a clear running stream.
where to next, where will the flow take me,
on a hot sunny day, in this waking dream?

((chorus))

i am not (prajnaparamita)

i am not this body, these sensations
neither the pleasure, nor the pain

i am not the tender hug, or the sweet smile on your face
neither the ecstatic embrace, nor the first smile of morning

here, the emptiness always unfolding,
in such proximity, yet always just beyond reach

i am not the numbing fatigue, the half-closed eyes
stumbling, somewhere between waking and sleeping

i am not the laughter after the joke
nor the ringing in my ears

again, a sensing of the all expansive,
yet nowhere to be found, no place, no time, no thing

i am not the dull ache of distance and separation
neither the memories, nor the regrets

i am not the racing thoughts of this mind
not the watering in my mouth, nor the scent of a lilac

here, passing through all these experiences
my true self is revealed through what i am not