05/16/22

Welcome home baby,

It’s been awhile since

We last saw you.

You’ve been pretty busy, huh?

Ah, well

Ah, so

Here we are

Again -

At last:

Welcome to forever,

Welcome to your center.

How may I direct your call?

Moving from Knowing to Feeling

Maybe to be truly alive emerges from the momentary revelations we never even knew we had. It’s not in the knowing, it’s in the being. To know is to reduce our very own feelings into analytical data. We are not machines, we are quirky little star beings naturally comprised of infinite nuances, many of which we will never even realize in our own self. I once thought the essential point in life was to ‘know the/my self,’ and at that time in my life maybe that was the point, but I’m finding now that knowing is just a perfectly straight road with an endless dead end. Knowing, or the sense of knowing, removed what made me vitally human. To live in a sense of knowing is tempting: it gives you an immensely comfortable sense of stability but at the price of stagnating the rivers of openness, curiosity, imagination, deep feelings. So, give me back the confusing roundabouts and the small winding mountain roads, let me get lost in the feelings of being human.

To Know Your Self

Do you know how to find out if you know yourself? If you do, then you do not. The prerequisite to knowing yourself is for your self to be incinerated, obliterated, utterly annihilated. Only then can you hope to know yourself, only then does the true journey begin. 

Culture as a Cultivator for Consciousness

Rise above the surface of illusion. You are suffering (however that may manifest, such as states knows as stress, anxiety or depression) because you see the illusion as real. You see the job you work at and the myriad of tasks you have to complete as bigger than you, as something that overpowers you. But remember that the job is a small piece of a larger cultural structure, and it all began from the mind of a human, and human minds tend to cast a kind of psychological trap over other minds. The strongest, most convincing net is the trap that wins, but culture does not call them traps, rather they are considered ideologies, and when a certain ideology persists through generations, we come to beleive the frail ideology as a concrete, fundamental structure of reality. You must see the job and its tasks as smaller than you, you overpower them. No man made mental construct can overpower you unless you allow it, for you are from a much more ancient lineage. The mind is of a temporal land while your consciousness is an extension of eternity. Do not despise the temporal realm, simply see it for what it is: an illusion appearing as reality. When you can go beyond the veil of illusion, the veil of believing the man made world is dominant over you, then you are set free and experience a peace more still than the furthest depths of the sea. A job is but one example, one shard of the illusion. There are shards all around us as we tip toe our way through the illusion, but break even just the tip of one, and you’re off on a lifelong adventure. By recognizing the material world as illusion, one is able to live more fully in it, becoming re-born as a consciousness that chooses to play the game rather than a prisoner forced to serve his self-imposed sentence. 

Beyond Culture

The artist’s “authority comes out of a psychological experience, not a social ordination..”
- Joseph Campbell (learn about him here)

The greatest are does not come out of culture, it comes from that deeper source and pierces through culture.

The favorite books of mine (like Solaris by Stanislaw Lem or The Island by Aldous Huxley), the songs I am drawn to, the humans before me that I feel an indescribable connection with, they all live at different lengths of the same thread: they do not merely reflect back culture’s mirror, they offer underground tunnels through the confined corners of culture and into the infinite wonderment of being itself.

There are only two great voices: the voice of culture, and the voice of the soul. For most people who live out their lives in the construct of culture, they have heard only the call of the world and move according to the changing voice of culture. On the other hand it is the people who, through one experience or another, find themselves alone out on some unmarked trail deep beyond the undergrowth that live by the voice of the soul. Before the creation of culture, the voice of the soul rang the clearest. The dawn of civilized man, filled to the brim with his new heavy cinderblocks of logic and thought, came the setting of the soul. This is not to say logic and soul cannot co-exist, but that logic, the mind, has undeniably overshadowed the soul in our society for some time now. The ‘soul’, or ‘heart’ (or however you linguistically identify with such a representation) does not raise or lower its voice. It does not change tone or have an age. The voice of the soul is eternal, untouched by time, synonymous with the linguistic references of ‘truth’ and ‘sublime clarity’. The voice of the soul runs deep, she is the root of our entire being, of our entire universe, of all that exists and does not exist. The voice of the world is the opposite: evasive and rooted in the shallow grounds of the mind. No matter how much you nourish the shallow ground, it will never compare to the soul-nourishing depth of the voice that beckons, ever patient, ever present, ever loving. Her voice has never left. The soul has been here all the while, for she is timeless and knows that eventually the voice of culture will tremble, crumble and fall, and through the wreckage of culture will emerge the infinite wisdom of her eternal being. But she will not command your attention. To find her, you must quiet your mind and go far within beyond the reaches of culture, of the mind itself. While the voice of culture brought you outward into the clanging world, so the soul will call you to the deepest most silent source of your being.

Tunnels Into Eternity

‘Poetry’ is just a term, a human made term of logistical nature to describe that which is beyond logic, that which is beyond language itself, yet here I find myself time and time again, talking about what cannot be spoken. Words are but pointing fingers, secondary references, unable to be that which they appear to define. Don’t get hung up on the words, go beyond the edges of the mind, out into a field of endless wonderment. Take any term, it doesn’t need to be ‘poetry,’ choose any you like, then all you have to do is follow it into itself until its logical nature inverts upon you and a tunnel into eternity is revealed. All this and you didn’t even have to go across the street. The greatest mysteries, the greatest discoveries and journeys, they all happen within oneself, and when you follow yourself into itself, its illusionistic separatist-nature inverts upon you and a tunnel into eternity is revealed. You see, there are endless tunnels, and if you follow but one through to its end, I will greet you at the threshold. And, eventually, digging new tunnels becomes a silly, childlike game of hide and seek with the universe. There is nothing heavy about the game, in fact this subtle game is the exact opposite of ‘heavy’: it is the emptiness of the mind, it is the weightlessness of body, and it is going in the opposite direction that the ego desires to venture towards.

Childish Wonderment

 
spring has sprung in Central Park 🌺🌼🌸 frolicking with @savvyzone 💖
you look for the light in other people, in other places, but the light you really seek is within yourself, hidden underneath the rubble of the ego’s disguise 💜
It was a sliver of a dream I hope one day will swallow me whole
what we know of others is but a mere fragment, we are all marvelous mysteries, even to ourselves
morning light stroll ✨

Finding more fascination in the process of looking, of visual discovery, of childish wonderment, rather than securing a tidy end-result product, composed to perfection, flirting with the potentially treacherous precipice of commodification (via Instagram)

 

I often forget how very human I am

I am aware of its strangeness, but I often forget how very human I am. I am realizing this was a dissociative response to pain, I fled my own body out of emotional terror. It was too much to bear, the flashbacks of cruelty embedded into my skin made my body feel like a devilish prison. Now it is no wonder to me that I look at clouds with envy and longing, for they are free and unburdened by form. But I do not want to live a life of longing to be what I innately cannot have so long as I breathe. To do this I must be more mindful of living my human experience through my physical body and not despite it. Self portraiture is a tool that helps remind me that I hold the power to unite my mind, body and heart, and that no one or thing can ever again unbind the trinity of my being. My body is my home on this planet, my body is the sanctuary that houses my mind and heart, a vessel that deserves my own adoration and respect.

Thoughts / Psych Analysis from Peaky Blinders, S. 6, E. 2 (Black Shirt)

Thomas Shelby (Cillian Murphy) has been teetering between the collective reality shared between he, his family and friends and the inner reality lived solely by his own occupancy ever since returning from WWI. In season 6, episode 2, it is clear Thomas has none but his shadow left in that collective reality. Is this choice by his own design? No, I do not believe so. While he could have made more conscious choices along the way that brought him closer to the collective reality with his loved ones (as he eventually did with Grace (Annabelle Wallis), only to lose her in the end, which undoubtedly pushed him further towards his own private reality) I believe his fate was sealed beyond his choosing the day he went to war. It was war that altered and redirected his destiny, as we see in the show that no man truly returned home. For Thomas the initial and ongoing example of this is his flashbacks to the war, a common symptom of PTSD. But he refused to share this with anyone, instead choosing to keep it to himself, to keep it bottled up. So he pushed on, he kept busy. He became busy because peace made him restless. Silence held the realities he couldn’t face, and so he muffled the silence by keeping his thoughts so busy that he forgot about the past. But the past never works that way, it has a way of seeping up through the mud no matter how deep you think you can bury it. In season 6 episode 2 he is markedly detached from collective reality. He has shut everyone out, unable to love or truly connect with anyone out of his own fear and pain. In this sense, Thomas is a victim. He has lost control and yet somehow still presents the facade of personalities people expect of him, this is most obvious in his appearance at the Labor Party rally for volunteers. He has enough awareness to know he is broken, but something keeps him from letting anyone in to help him.

This show is not to see Thomas healed and living peacefully at the end, though my own desires wish it would. The complexity of Thomas’ mental state is rich, it is a stunning example for examining human consciousness in relation to traumatic events. What is it with certain individual’s consciousness that gives them the endurance to keep going while fellow survivors fall victim to the same psychological repercussions? Thomas of course has been slowly breaking down over the course of the show, but his ability to refuse and delay the ensuing psychological darkness that has been lying in wait at the edges of his mind for so long is extraordinary. He is equaled in mental strength to none, it was only Polly (Helen McCrory, RIP :() and Grace who could see him clearly and shake him out of himself at certain moments. But without them, he is left in a world of his own, despite the efforts of his wife Lizzie (Natasha O'Keeffe) and his sister Ada (Sophie Rundle) to reach him, two characters who are both acutely aware that Thomas is not okay in the least. Only an equal to his own experiences could save him from insanity now, someone who has lost their mind from the result of trauma and carved out for themselves a way to live in peace with their life and in the knowing that it is unlikely to ever be understood by another living soul. This of course, is my own wish for how such a story would end. 

“Our intention is to affirm this life…”

“Our intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we're living, which is so excellent once one gets one's mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of it's own accord.” - John Cage

How could I add more to what is already succinctly said: let yourself be as you already are in this very moment.

How do you dislodge yourself from…yourself?

It’s a paradox. So long as you feel stuck or lodged within yourself, you will never be able to dislodge from yourself because you’re chasing your own tail. There’s no self to dislodge from, it’s all just concepts in your head. But that doesn’t make the experience less real for the experiencer. You just have to sit with your thoughts and watch them, until distance between you and the thoughts naturally emerges, and then you will be free. You are not the thinker, you are the watcher.

Just because you can touch it doesn’t mean it’s real..

Just because you can touch it doesn’t mean it’s real;
Just because it’s immaterial doesn’t mean it’s a mirage.

This is just as true for feelings, emotions and our own consciousness as it is for NFT’s and other forms of digital art. The NFT and human consciousness are running along a parallel experience. Think about the power of memories, of plans you have for the future, they hold a gravity to them and yet they only exist inside our own heads. As the wise words of Dumbledore to Harry goes:

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”

Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

(― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

What You Think You Know Never Lasts For Long, available for purchase as an NFT (https://hicetnunc.art/objkt/644978)

The GIF as a Fine Art Medium

We know what a photograph has been, but what fascinates me more is in what ways it will continue to evolve and expand. There is something special about a tangible photographic object and there is also something magical about a photograph existing in the ether of non-materiality.

The digital sphere is a space for the borders between mediums to blur or in some cases dissolve altogether. With this in mind, I am interested in pursuing and exploring the purely non-material, ephemeral nature that the digital sphere offers for photography. Below is an example of such an exploration. GIF’s are a common digital file format, a format that has provided some of the finest, most hilarious memes I’ve ever seen. While I enjoy my fair share of good memes, I believe the GIF is also capable of serving as a magnificent force for the evolution of digital photography. It allows the concrete photograph to loosen, allowing it to move and breathe with other images. It is a mode of movement that is familiar (think of flip books) yet in a digital form it does something different. It is a format that is fairly easy to create with and even easier to share.

Ultimately, what draws me towards the digital sphere is its ephemerality, its inherently ungraspable nature. I feel more at home in the qualities of ephemerality and ineffability than a do in our traditional reality of form and logic. It was the near death experience that happened when I was 21 that radically transformed my life forever, yet no words could ever explain it in full. The light that came to me when I was in the void felt like home itself, and I was ready to be embraced by it. But instead of embracing me, it brought me back to life. Now, my core focus for the remainder of my life is to honor that light, to remember it, to share it. It is a light not only seen with the eyes but felt with the heart. While my art practice is seen as photographic in nature, it is more so a way of being.

Recreating the Light that Came Through Darkness When I was at Peace with Death