Pure Being & the 'Cultural-Self'

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The version of myself that I am when in culture begins to feel like a prosthetic once I am able to gain some distance. When I get closer towards the space of timelessness, where the shifting sands of culture are non existent, I am clear. Here, there is no rollercoaster of emotions. Here, there is no personality, no distinction between ‘me’ and ‘you’, there is only the ecstasy of pure being. Here, in eternal unity, I am home.

But such a state I find cannot be maintained when living in the heart of contemporary culture, when you are always someone to someone else, when you have a job to perform, etc. The state of pure being exists in a non-hierarchally higher realm than the realm of culture. The culture-self is but an avatar that pure being experiences physical existence through. When one remains in the avatar for long enough, the culture-self begins to feel real and final. And it usually requires something tragic or heavy, some sort of unbearable pain to rouse us from this familiar automaton state, so that we may realize our true nature.

My view towards the culture-self is tinged in disdain and nihilism, and that is my own personal work to unravel in time. Maybe it is simply because I often view culture as a world of entrapments instead of a field of play. All I know in this moment, is that my disposition is best suited to the woods, in a quiet, slow place who nurtures peace and solitude. It is this kind of environment that feels like an extension of myself, or myself an extension of it.

“I love not man the less but nature more” - Lord Byron

Mental Transmutation

When a negative thought arises, see it for what it is: an illusion based on a habitual pattern of perception. Transmute the negative thought into a loving one. What you experience as reality is experienced in the mind; control your mind and you will eventually come to live the life of your dreams.

Veiled by Clarity; Confused Conduit; To Be A Mirror of Eternal Selves

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Veiled by Clarity; Confused Conduit; To Be A Mirror of Eternal Selves (Self-Portraits), 2022

Ordinary Enlightenment

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All of my art is made from a space of love for the everyday - for sights and moments that often go unnoticed and under appreciated. These moments, predominantly of natural light, do not call out for attention, but are perfectly enlightened in their own presence - wishing neither to be noticed or to become more beautiful. These moments are perfectly themselves, and each time I witness them, it feels like a gift: I am peering into a realm accessible to all but entered by few. These moments are my ephemeral and ineffable gurus.

“The luminous and shocking beauty of the everyday is something I try to remain alert to, if only as an antidote to the chronic cynicism & disenchantment that seems to surround everything, these days. It tells me that, despite how debased or corrupt we are told humanity is and how degraded the world has become, it just keeps on being beautiful.” - Nick Cave

To See / To Capture

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Sometimes I don’t want to translate what I see, so I choose to see without the desire to capture. I’ve seen more than what my camera has documented. What I have translated with my camera is a fraction of the pictures my eyes have witnessed. 

Meaning

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Meaning is not inherent, it is not something to be dug out and discovered, it is not distinct from ourselves.
Meaning is created from within, giving beautiful colors and intricacies to the canvas that is our very life.

Without meaning, inner life is hollow and lived in minimalist monotones.
With meaning, inner life is filled with the chaos of color.

Let the more loving one be me

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THE MORE LOVING ONE
by W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

(From The Marginalian)

Mind's Edge

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Walk to the edge of your mind,

Find the feeling of that edge -

Your feet teetering towards the teeming unknown,

The ground giving way to emptiness.

Now, JUMP.

Only those who have lost themselves completely

may hope to understand who they truly are.

New Work Added to my Print Shop!

I am so excited to now be creating one of a kind Polaroid pieces! Each piece comes framed and ready to hang. Most of the Polaroids are double exposures, often combining nature elements and city views to create unique visuals. Many more to come, I am currently also experimenting with framing the Polaroids in acrylic blocks. Updates on that soon! In the meantime, check out my current piece for sale in my shop here.

She Dreamed of Eight Moons

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Eight moons encircled us in the night sky above

As I stood in the heart of a familiar forest.

Every pearl slowly revealed herself after the last,

Clear yet veiled by a familiar mystic design.

The radiance of a boiling star passed as she spoke,

“true wisdom lies beneath the illusion of distinctions.”

We awoke in the luminous shade of Crescent street,

I could not find the moon for she became me.

She Dreamed of Eight Moons (I and II), 2022, Limited Edition Lenticular
Photographs, Multiple Sizes Available, Shop HERE

 

Who Are You?

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Who are you? Beneath your thoughts, your wants, desires, hopes, beneath your appearances and status? This is the realm of questions I have lived my reality in for the last several years. Everything I was being was towards the answer of this question, and I found it, and I lived it, to occasionally rise to the surface of that sublime state of eternal nothingness to pay the bills, to drive a car, to socialize. I believed such a state of perfect emptiness was the ultimate ‘goal,’ with everything else being a distraction. That space gave me a time in my life the way a cocoon works for a butterfly. But now I see that I was not made to stay in that cocoon, though it provided invaluable and ineffable truths. From emptiness, one is able to re-create, to re-design oneself and that is the phase I find myself in - one of outwardness: developing likes and dislikes, particular goals and desires, rather than constantly being in a state of letting everything go.

Into the Void

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“He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch.” - Jean-Luc Godard

The references of this linguistic verbalization touches a core inner state of essence. Ultimately, how one comes to the void does not matter, what matters is the experience of the void itself and what follows. To jump into the void implies an active choice, a conscious decision to throw oneself into oblivion. This sentiment is not one I can quite understand. For me, I neither jumped nor was pushed, rather I slipped into it unknowing of its presence until enveloped by it. I would not suggest to anyone to consciously seek the void, for when you come back - if you come back - you will not return as the same person. It is not a trip for entertainment, it is not temporary like taking a psychedelic or smoking weed, whose effects eventually wear off. No, the void is a complete and total destruction of who you once were, of everything you thought you knew about yourself and the fabric of your reality. Now, who would consciously choose such a path? Obviously, some do, whether or not they understand the consequences. But I would not suggest it. It is irreversible. There is no one ‘correct’ path, but I am a believer that when something is ready for you, it finds you. To seek something you cannot fully comprehend can be seen as either adventurous or foolish, and I cannot say which is true. All I know is that the natural path of ones life moves in accordance to ones soul, and to tamper with that path through ego-driven pursuits is not advised, for the ego manifests a world of uncentered confusions and illusions. No one but you can walk (or dance) your path, no one but you can lead the way, it is you and only you who knows which way to take. Listen to none but your heart, follow the call of none but your soul, and life will open itself to you in ways no ego-manifested world could dream of. But such is my path, we are each of us free to choose how and when to move.

Long Island City, Queens [Aug. 14, 2022]

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Yesterday I walked from Williamsburg, Brooklyn (grabbed pizza at the delicious L’industrie) to Astoria, Queens. It was later in the day, and it was magical to watch the light morph all around me, creating deep shadows and highlighting the vivid colors of building facades during golden hour. The entire concrete world was defenseless against the divine power of the ephemeral light, and there was something soul stirring about this: as if the universe was visually saying ‘no matter how built up your temporal egoic constructions become, they are powerless in comparison to the eternal nature of the soul’. Here are just a few images from the walk.

Expanding Presence

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“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.” - Alan Watts

We must learn to expand our awareness of the present moment if we wish to live an enriching, soul-nourishing life. In the same way we expand our lungs when we take a full, healthy, deep breath in, we can expand our awareness of the present moment. A slow, deep inhale refreshes our senses, helping us to be more conscious of our internal state of being. So, we expand the present moment in a similar way, by breathing it in deeply, by tuning into its subtle frequencies. We can attune ourselves to the moment by focusing attention on our physical surroundings through color, light, textures or through our very own breathing. Find a way that works best for you, for we each experience and attune to presence in our own unique ways, there is no prescribed path to worship or follow. As we find our way to grow conscious of our experience with the present moment, our perceptions of the past and the future will naturally grow distant, their looming power will fade. The present moment will expand from feeling like a dimly lit alleyway being crushed in by the weight of the past and future and into a luscious meadow of vivid greens and crisp wind as a warm light washes our soul clean. Our preconceived perceptions of the past and future will not intimidatingly peer over our shoulders into our little moment of presence as they once did, for in the meadow of presence nothing but the here and now can be felt. Here, all is limitless, all is infinite, all is love.

Frisco by Little Dragon

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Read the full lyrics of ‘Frisco’ by Little Dragon on GENIUS

[Verse 2]
I always try to set every course
(Every course, every course)
The fastest route without losing control
If I fall in and relax, will I float?
Let longings release so I see the whole deep blue sky

An honest experience of a spiritual human: caught between the ego’s desire to control and our soul’s nature to surrender. Culture screams to seek, heart whispers rest.