Artbabygod and Sex in the Garden

A:  I practice art-making because it turns my focus from outside of myself to inside of myself

Q:  And that is a good thing?

A:  Perhaps not in an of itself but it makes me aware of the existence of an alternate inner reality that seems in many ways to be oppositional to outer reality.

Q:  And so you practice art making because you want to know about this alternate reality?

A:  Yes, I think it is a kind of orientation towards the power of life inside of us.

Q:  So you focus on the power inside of yourself and deny the power of outside reality?

A:  Well, yes, I do.

Q:  And how is that working out for you?

A:  I am not suggesting that it is necessarily a good thing to deny the power of outer reality.

Q:  And yet you do it.

A:  Yes, I do it but it is not my purpose.  The purpose of my art making is to grow a stronger awareness of the power of inner reality in order that I might one day balance the power of my inner reality with the power of outer reality.  I see this balancing as the purpose of my life and in a sense the ultimate art - the art of living life.  The power and longevity of art is about balancing the outer reality of form with the inner reality of content.  The true artist creates form that is empty and spacious enough to maximise content.  I see it as a paradigm, a pattern for living life that allows me to subvert materialism.

Q:  And this is important to you, why?

A:  I guess it is because as human beings we seem capable of the most extreme forms of evil.  And we allow and encourage and perpetuate great evil because we value the power of outer reality while we deny the existence of inner reality.  I want to practice my creativity because it helps me subvert my fear of outer power.  It seems that it is only through my creative practices I find the courage to act despite the incredible pressure to conform.

I think all of the greatest evils perpetuated by humans are only possible with the support of the realistic who conform.  I do not believe that Hitler could ever have come to power without the realists who conformed.  I want to know how those who resisted found the vision and the courage to act, though their actions jeopardized their careers, their security, their families and their lives.  Where did they find the vision that allowed them to see what was happening, rather than simply avert their eyes, or deny what they saw?  Where did they find the courage to act when their very lives and the lives of their families depended upon conforming?

Q:  Okay so why not tell us then, what is it you know that is so valuable?  That you wish to “carve into your skin”?

A:  Are you being cynical? or just disrespectful?

Q:  You are much too intense and dramatic…therefore easy to tease.  Please answer the question.

A:  Your cynicism sometimes makes me very sad because I know you are the part of me that works so hard to conform and you are that part of me who has become dominant during the past year.

Q:  I have become dominant because you failed to make a living as an artist, you are a failure, again. 

A:  Yes I know I failed.  I set an unreasonable goal.  I gave myself a very finite and specific time frame for achievement of my goals.  This specific time frame allowed me to subvert my logical knowing rational self in order to follow a deeper search for truth, and to invest everything in that search.

Q:  And now I am back to help you realize what an idiot and a failure you are.

A:  Yes, I know how you help me, but I am neither an idiot nor a failure.

Q:  Well you have certainly failed and you have behaved like an idiot because everyone knows that you cannot make a living as an artist.

A:  And I know that logic and rationalism has never served me well and in fact what you encourage me to do is to live in fear of the unknown.

Q:  What’s wrong with that?  It makes a hell of a lot more sense than the way you choose to live.  Making art (or at least that is what you call it) which you seem to have difficulty giving away, and almost impossible to sell.

A:  I believe that art exists and that its existence and reality and can transform people’s understanding of the world

Q:  Well good for you.

A:  Yes it is good for me, because believing in the reality and existence of art is kind of like believing in spring.

Q:  Your point?

A:  Well you do not believe in the reality or existence of art do you?

Q:  I believe in the practical, the logical, the rational…what exactly is art anyways?  Define it clearly and I will then tell you whether or not I believe in it.

A:  I cannot define it, I have been trying to define it since 1980 and I have come up with a lot of definitions but I cannot define it.

Q:  And yet you have devoted and continue to devote an enormous amount of time towards trying to make something which you cannot even be certain, actually is , what you intend it to be.  Sounds like a kind of madness perhaps or somethinhg that could lead to madness.  Its certainly not the activity of a same person.

A:  So you are calling me insane then?

Q:  I did not call you anything, I just said that there seems no point to the activity.

A:  So art making is pointless?

Q:  Well what is the point, then?

I was raised in a fundamentalist sect of Christianity to believe in a god who condemned and destroyed the disobedient.  At the age of 19 I was suspected of disobedience and following a short trial I was condemned. 

My anger towards those who found me guilty sustained me for a few years, but after awhile I began to realize that I could not escape the image of god that I had been taught to worship throughout my childhood and youth.  I had internalized this image and it could not be destroyed as it had no literal form.  This image had been skillfully inserted into my psyche through two decades of skilful, constant programming.  This image of god wanted me obedient or he wanted me dead.  He wanted all or nothing.

The rules I was expected  to obey were very clear.  I was expected to go door-to-door selling his publications for at least 10 hours/month.  I was to spend a minimum of 5 hours/week attending meetings to practice salesmanship.  I was forbidden from pursuing any forms of higher education and not allowed to question or disagree with any of his rules.  I was not to form any kind of relationships with anyone who did not share a belief in him or who did not follow his rules.

After I had been condemned as a disobedient evildoer, my name had been announced at each meeting house in the city where I lived.  Therefore the group effectively cleansed themselves of evil by expelling me and I found myself without friends or family, outside of the protection of belonging.

I lived without protection from the war of Armaggeddon which had been planned for 1975.  Then I lived through the Armaggeddon planned for 1980.  Then I lived, unprotected, through the Armaggeddons planned for 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1984.  It never occurred to me to question the image of god who lived in my head, as he was all-powerful and all-seeing and I was just an evildoer who deserved to be punished.

Seeking forgiveness, I decided to adopt another image of god.  This one had a lot of rules too, but this god didn’t expect me to sell anything.

In 1980 I began to study the art of image making.  The new image of god battled with the old image inside of my head.  The old image started to shrink a little and occasionally looked almost small.  My head began to exhibit signs of small fissures.

I decided that I would devote my life to the study of image making, hoping one day to become skillful enough to deconstruct the images that had been constructed by others.  I imagined they could be safely defused and then separated into their component pieces and thus become innocuous.  The ticking sound  inside of my head, distracted me from the growing fissures.  I began to practice the art of image construction and deconstruction as though my life depended upon it.

After 20 years of practice I can call myself a survivor.  I am living proof that art saves lives and even gods designed to terrorize can eventually, with skill be defused.

The other images of currency

The following images are for testing my newly developed technical skills. 

I have begun a series of small pieces which I call the “currency of free vision”. 

How do we value what we do not see?   If our symbols of value (money) do not reflect the quality of productivity that has generated profits - then the activity of the arms dealer will be more valued than the activity of the farmer.  Art frees vision from form which holds no value for content.

Using my own images I frame images representing the literal “hard” currency of Canada.  Through this created currency, I seek to subvert materialism by using art as a frame or paradigm which includes value for both form and content.

When the literal form of currency does not reflect a value for non-literal content, form has subverted content.  This results in productivity that opposes creativity and leads to cancerous growth.

Currency is a piece of paper imprinted with color and image.  As a symbol, it reflects what is collectively valued.  If our symbols do not reflect what is valuable then we, as the creators of those symbols, can deconstruct them and create new symbols.

The artist practices seeing the subjective non-literal.  Art is form spacious enough to include the “otherness” of non-literal content.  Content is conceptual and the conceptual is perceived through the practice of envisioning the invisible.

My currency is designed to reflect value for the practice of seeing which can lead to vision large enough to include both the literal form of life as well as the conceptual non-literal content.

Okay, I have not updated this blog since last year, and my only excuse is technical difficulties.  I tried to scan the two cartoons I created last year, but after many unsuccessful attempts involving sporadically functioning scanners, dissolving digital images and disappearing internet connections, I let go of trying to achieve technical goals and focused on work, staying warm and surviving the winter.

I have finally forced a very good friend to create digital images of my work and allow me the weekly use of his internet connection/computer.  Today I will (hopefully) show some of the work that I have created between November/08 and April/09.

I am still almost completely fixated upon trying to define the concepts of success and failure and the process by which the artist finds enough validation for the practice of art-making  to continue the practice. 

How to value and make space for a practice which can appear almost completely unproductive for decades (to those whose lives the artist’s life impacts most intimately).  How to continue practicing an activity which not only appears completely unproductive to the eyes of those whose influence is most felt by the artist - but which demands enormous resources in the form of time, energy, materials and physical space.  Resources which “normally” invested result in  measurable returns (most commonly symbolized by regular paycheques, health insurance, old age security, etc.)  How the artist continues to use resources that “normally” result in not only measurable returns but also a sense of connectedness to a world where people who appear unproductive are suspected of laziness, mental deficiency. perversion and easily become targets for the fear and anxiety of those for whom “normalcy” is conformism to an appearance .

How does the artist who finally acknowledges her/his practice and validates it by calling herself an artist - discovering the existence of others like herself who also practice and for the first time experiences a sense of belonging discovering that that belonging depends upon the validation of the product of their practice which must compete against the product of other practicing artists for scarce resources - and discovers this sense of competition often destroys community.

I stopped painting in August/08 when I acknowledged the end of my resources to continue buying materials and studio time.  I had seriously overextended myself during 2008 and in August I acknowledged the end of my grand experiment.  This body of work represents three different styles of working which have grown up in response to various restrictions involving time and space.  I am planning to post daily art images (once or twice a week) on this blog, beginning this month. 

Fine art prints of my original art are now available and can be ordered using a paypal button at my site at: samfalk.com

Please allow 10 business day for the order to arrive.

In this place where the light of the known does not reach we discover the threshold marking the existence of the dark alongside the light, the duality of our nature and the origin of vision and the birthplace of maps.

Everything created by humans which manifests in the world of outer reality began its existence in the inner light of this dark unknown. Everything that exists in reality was once only imagined. Everything - no matter how large or powerful began in the imagination.

To believe that outer reality is more valuable or more powerful than the imagination is to misunderstand the relationship of the fruit to the seed. The process by which the fruit grows is invisible to outer vision, but the seed is always the origin of the fruit.

The fruit is the literal truth of outer reality but the seed is the non-literal truth which when separated from the fruit still contains the fruit as possibility. The fruit separate from its seed is the literal truth and becomes product.

As a child who becomes separated from its caregiver will eventually die or be consumed as food - so the apple without the gardener will die or be consumed as food. The fruit valued for its literal truth only will die or be consumed as product. To value the literal truth over the non-literal truth is called materialism. When materialism becomes a collective truth it manifests as a paradigm or a map and the literal truth of product becomes separated from the non-literal truth of the creative seed reality. Quantity then becomes the only value.

To understand the relationship of the fruit to the seed a different kind of map is necessary. One which represents/marks the dark of the earth where the seed must be buried and the seasons which while being distinct from each other do not end except to begin again. A map which represents the paradigm of the circle where the end of literal truth marks the beginning of non-literal truth - the end of the light of the visible marks the beginning of a descent into the dark of the invisible. A map which includes the paradoxical truth of opposites which are not in opposition to each other. A map where the one is not separate from the other - rather the mark of the directional diversity of the nature of the circular whole.

The loss of outer power brings us to the threshold where we are challenged to become explorers and journey inwards. To remain at the threshold valuing outer power only is to believe in separation, death and darkness as a reality, a destination, rather than a threshold marking the existence of totality.

To turn from valuing outer reality only towards inner reality’s invitation to explore marks our awareness that the source of light is also the source of dark. The reality of this dual nature challenges us to grow an awareness spacious enough to include the whole.

No amount of outer power can protect us from the reality of this dual nature which marks the source of both life and death.

Falling off of the edge of a map marks the end of expedient travel and the beginning of the awareness of the journey. When we travel we use maps to measure the quantity of travel. When we explore we become aware of the quality of the journey.

To discover a need to develop an ability to measure the quality of our journey is to move our awareness from the outer reality represented by maps to the unmapped inner reality. As a map is a symbol of an imagined whole it provides collective knowledge which lights our journey with the strength of a collective vision. When we turn our focus from the light of the collective known represented by the map we face inside of ourselves where the darkness of the unknown greets us and invites us to become explorers.

In this dark dwell our individual and collective fears therefore the invitation to explore is often avoided. It is here where we discover the limits of the great light and protection represented by the map.

It is the experience of being lost which marks the limits of our map as we reach a place which is unrepresented/unmarked.  Being lost/without a map brings us face to face with our first discovery - our fears.  Our fears mark the everpresent gate which separates unexplored regions from mapped regions and the limits of the great power and protection afforded by maps.

To be outside of this protection is a place few of us consciously choose but it is this place outside the map’s protection that provides us with the awareness that the map’s protection does not extend to those who travel to unmarked places. 

This marks a second discovery.  Maps are designed to protect the travellers who move along the marked routes to and from the marked destinations.  Those same maps offer no such protection to those who become lost.

To move through the portal/gate of fear is the activity that distinguishes the traveller who has become lost from the explorer.  The traveller who has become lost is focused upon fear and seeks fervently the continued protection of the map -while the explorer focuses upon becoming aquainted with fear, aware that maps cannot afford protection to explorers.  An awareness that the protection provided by the map is a cost that the explorer cannot afford - as protection from fear is a luxury only the traveller can afford.

The Direction of a Dream

So many people have responded to my description of my “magnificent failure” with the statement that my goals were unrealistic.  In many ways I see the past couple of years as my own private social experiment.  When I move contrary to accepted realistic goals, I become aware of the attitudes and beliefs of the culture that surrounds me.  Again and again I have realized that many people do not understand the concept of the dream.

To follow a dream is to pursue a direction dictated by the dream.  When pursuing a dream, being realistic is secondary.

So much of this past few years has been about practising the courage that allows me to act while facing my most powerful fears.  And I suppose that this is the true nature of the dream - a vision that so inspires one that it irradiates the space where it grows.  Our dreams are the seeds of the possible which we as gardeners are challenged to nurture with the elements of our short material existence.

Our suffering and our failures and our crippled humanity can be seen as filth and waste that through awareness and forgiveness (of ourselves and others) we can process and break down until with time and patience and faith they transform into rich and valuable compost that supports the earthgarden of our lives allowing us to grow the seeds within us.  Seeds represent our potential selves, the glorious beings that we have the opportunity, through laborious work, faith and the wisdom encoded in the garden to grow ourselves into becoming.

For 8 years I lived in a world surrounded by people possessing fabulous wealth.  My illusions about the value of money/security were shattered.  I became aware of how the lure of money, power and security can cripple one’s soul.  The materialism that dominated my world view was threatening to destroy my soul.  I came to know this not through some romantic quasi-religious dogmatic idealism but through actual life experience - as my own truth.  I discovered “that people are frantically engaged in attempting to get hold of things which by universal experience are hideously disappointing to those who have obtained possession of them” - Arnold Bennett

And that is perhaps the best way I can describe my experience as a creative.  Art is for me a practice that allows me to subvert the materialism which anchors me in the belief that material security is a primary goal in life. 

The only real art is the art of life.  I practice art as paradigm.  Art as paradigm empowers me to focus on that which I love.  Focusing on that which I love empowers me to act in the face of my fears.  Acting in the face of my fears empowers me to grow my connection to the inner source of all authentic power which exists with me awaiting the light of my awareness.

This is of course, the subject of my book and the theme of my first and second show, Eyes, Lies and Butterflies and Sex in the Garden and Channeling John Lennon.  They are all of a piece and after all these years of exploration I am realizing that what I am really doing with my art whether it is visual, written or spoken word is exploring this theme as it relates to my work and to my life.  I often feel that I am simply excavating some existing large creation which lies buried within me and all of the pieces which seemed to me in my 30’s and 40’s to be so disparate and unrelated are now appearing as signs of the wholeness of a pre-existing design.  A design that introduces me to the paradigm of the art of wholeness. 

Magnificent Failure

I think that I have finally realized that I can let go of my  internalized image of success.  What I have really been learning especially since my “magnificent failure” is that my image of success needed to be deconstructed in order that I could recreate it to include failure as the other part of this duality.  Therefore my failure has been about developing awareness and subsequent letting go of an idea of success based upon a belief that I had contracted to fit the framework of a paradigm designed without enough space.  Failure is the “otherness” of success.

I have lived my entire life in fear of failure.  It is this fear which has defined my addiction to self-hatred.  Exploring ”art as paradigm” has allowed me to grow an awareness large enough to feel and be aware of my fear while simultaneously practicing my love of art-making as a symbol for wholeness. 

I chose to practice belief that would challenge me to grow my awareness by investing all of my time and resources in art-making and in growing my career as an artist.  I chose to practice this belief despite my logical knowing that very few artists are able to earn even a small living.  Despite my logical knowing that a culture dominated by materialism denies the value of creative practice.  Despite my logical knowing that even great artists have often created work that went unrecognized and unvalued in their lifetime (or even any other).  Despite my logical knowing that the art world is dominated by cynicism and fads that move in and out of favour according to the ever-shifting opinions of a few.

My resources came to an end in August/08 and I was forced to recognize that I had failed to achieve my goal to make a living as an artist.  I have named my failure to achieve my goal as “magnificent” in acknowledgement of the success I have achieved in growing my new paradigm which includes failure as a necessary aspect of exploration.

To allow myself the freedom to explore I subverted my logical beliefs in material reality (which paralyzed me with fear) by practicing my love of art as a symbol for a vision of a whole.  I failed to realize my goal to earn a living as an artist but I succeeded in practicing belief that gave me the freedom to explore.  I now see my failure as evidence of exploration and an aspect of evolutionary growth that is by turns productive and creative.

My materialistic paradigm has always focused my awareness upon the surface appearance of reality in denial of the existence of the invisible seed/core reality.  This contracted and reduced my awareness to fit into a part of the whole.  My contracted awareness resulted in my enslavement to fear.  I feared what my paradigm excluded.   

Maps represent the vision of an imagined whole.  The whole is imagined through the collected recorded experiences of explorers and travellers.  The presence of highways indicates popular routes of travel.

There is an important distinction between the activity of the explorer and the activity of the traveller.  For an explorer a map represents unexplored areas while for a traveller a map represents the expedient routes by which one reaches a destination. 

Maps are dependent upon explorers for their creation.  Travellers are dependent upon maps.  At times we are travellers and other times we are explorers.  The awareness of moving from the activity of the traveller to the activity of the explorer is marked by the awareness of being lost.  Falling through a hole, or off of the edge of a map marks the end of expedient travel and the beginning of the awareness of the journey itself.  When we travel we use maps to measure the quantity and speed of travel.  When we explore we become aware of the quality of the journey.

I think there are two kinds of people, the kind with maps and the kind without. You can usually tell which one is which. The ones with the maps know a lot and the ones without them don’t.

I think life is a lot easier when you have one (not easy, but easier). First of all you look a lot better when you have got one because you know where you are going and you can move a lot faster because you always have a destination point and some idea of how long it will take you to get there. Most importantly you never feel alone, because you travel upon well-known roads.
As long as I used the map that I inherited I knew exactly where I was going, until one day I found myself in a place that was not on the map and realized I was lost. After spending a lot of time living in the fear of being lost I began to realize that maybe fear was not my only choice. I decided that if I could call myself an explorer, I could focus upon developing the courage of the explorer even while experiencing the fear of being lost.

This could be the real difference between those with maps and those without them. The ones without them are free to get lost.

And artists, who are often closer to children and the feeble minded than to the grown-up.

I think it is to do with where your consciousness locates itself. Hitting bottom definitely got my consciousness out of my head (as that was the area that was controlled (patrolled) by the energy that wanted me dead). I became aware that my head was not a safe place and my sanity depended upon not spending too much time there.

Its like getting out of the city. Or discovering that the space in which you spent all of your time was actually only a very small defined area located within a really large house (or province). At first you are motivated only by the awareness that the space where you’ve been holed up is no longer livable. But slowly as you become more familiar with the outlying areas you realize that something is really wrong with the place you have been living. But you’ve got to get out first in order to get some kind of distance.

And getting out is not enough because no matter how many times you get out you always manage to find a way to get yourself back in - only now you recognize where you are and know you can’t stay there anymore. But since you have invested so deeply and heavily in that space that your resources are completely tied up you are forced to try to understand how this tiny little space became your whole ugly polluted little world.

You begin to realize that its because you were trained to see only outside of yourself…to believe that what was outside of yourself was real. You start being aware of how your valuing (seeing) only the outside spaces came from your belief that inside space had no value.

So you become aware of how if your thoughts build they become a vehicle that transports you to the place you are so familiar with, so you figure that with different thoughts you should be able to build a different vehicle. But you have no knowledge of where you want to go. Your motivation is your awareness of where you can no longer afford to be. You need a map, but using other people’s maps is what got you into the mess you are in. So you decide you have got to make your own.

Now this truly is re-inventing the wheel as there is every possible kind of map out there with new ones being popularized every day. You know its not really possible to make your own map and most of all the maps ever made are just collage, anyway.

So the consistently miraculous is not easy to describe but I will dare to try. It is a term to describe a reality that dominates my art, my life and my health. It is not logical.

The latest manifestation of this reality is this website. If there were a logical sequence of events to explain the existence of this website it would probably go something like this.

I decide I need a website; I find out how much the website I need costs; I find ways to create and market salable images until I have the financial wherewithal to contract with a website designer; I hire a photographer to take photos of my work and on and on.

I would be in control every step of the way.

The reality of how this website came into being goes something like this. A couple of the many people who visited my studio during the Wave Artists Studio Tour asked me if I had thought of creating a website to showcase my work. I told them that I wanted a website but I was not financially able to commit to its creation at this time. They took a few photographs and left.

Two days later I received a phonecall at 9:00a.m. from George Siamandas telling me that my website was a reality.

Its not easy for me to talk about this without being flooded with an enormous sense of gratitude and George Siamandas (in my mind) morphs into St. George, Slayer (of dragons) and Master of sticky tech labrynths.

I have recovered from the first stages of shock and realized that George is not just a saint, a slayer and a master but also a regular guy who like Superman spends most of his time in civilian clothes pretending to be a quiet reserved sort of person.

But the connection that has resulted in the reality of this website, a beautiful modern conveyance which has the capacity and the power to transport my work anywhere is a miracle. Just like looking in your driveway which has been empty since they towed your old beater away and seeing a brand new vehicle, spanky shiny and new.

I’ve always been told that this kind of thing occurs only in fairy tales and that growing up means you believe in probabilities, leaving possibilities to children and the feeble minded.

So simple to focus upon ridding oneself of the unknowns in life and valuing that which can be controlled as insurance against the inevitable appearances of uncontrollable circumstance.

Problem is finding some kind of balance.  Always seems there is too much of one - not enough of the other.  Control, I mean.  When in control one is insuring a degree of security from the unknown; but beyond a certain point control becomes obsessive, leading to the belief that all challenges can be addressed through more and better control. 

This kind of thinking is the root of fascism.  Collectively been there, done that, what now?  Have been pretty actively involved in practicing letting go of control (not in the belief that having no control is a good thing in and of itself) but rather as a response to hitting bottom.

Hitting bottom is not always about substance abuse.  Perhaps it is never really about substance abuse but rather something deeper that underlies all addiction.  No substances attracted me.  I was simply addicted to self-destruction without any conscious suicidal tendencies.

After decades of incredibly high highs and correspondingly deep lows my physical health and strength disappeared along with the limited mental health that had allowed me “normal” function.  The bottom of the body is the feet, a good place to go when life becomes strict and orders a time out.  Regression to napping and crawling forces one to refamiliarize oneself with the ground of being.  Discovering the existence of a netherworld parallel to the “normal” plane where I came face to face with the energy inside of me that wanted me dead (yesterday) I slowly so so slowly began the laborious, painful process of restoring connections to the mysterious life at my centre.

This process began almost two decades ago and am often now able to balance one with the other, having been forced to abandon my belief that I could insure myself from the unknown otherness of life. 

Knowing insurance as illusion has not ended my yearning for such comfort.  Inhabiting a parallel reality which is no longer unbridgable remains an arduous journey across great distances.  But the unknown otherness of life has had its way with me and I live to tell the tale and my values reflect the reality of the consistently miraculous.

Being much overwhelmed by materialism (whenever I get tired I return to my defaultsetting…materialism).  As an artist am trying to live life from the inside out.  The continuum that is me being at one end dark being nature and at other end light knowing nature.  This dual nature having for much of my life tried to deny/escape/dominate each other am now trying to practice a new paradigm.  I call it art. 

The idea being that materialism has programmed me to fear the otherness of my own being nature as it is dark/unknown/mysterious/powerful whereas art as practice is plugging the knowing masculine nature into the being feminine nature in a creative act and the desire for the birth of growth.  The continuum polarized by its seemingly opposing natures suddenly remembers itself as circle returning to an awareness of the individed whole and the peace of oneness. 

Of course the creative act is temporary and is followed by return to the continuum and an awareness that no longer allows proper function as a materialist.  Materialism is the collective agreement that connects the individual to the cultural family of origin.  To disconnect from the collective agreement is to be “other”.  To be “other” and survive one must learn to process fear and be alone.

Sometimes wonder whether materialism is not simply the result of constipation caused by unprocessed fear.  And corporate religion based upon the simple awareness that everyone feels pretty damn good after letting go of a big load of psychic waste product which naturally and regularly accumulates as a result of living life.

But in an effort to ensure its own survival the corporation needed to guarantee the dependence of its users by ensuring they remain ignorant about the basic simplicity of this natural function.  To ensure ignorance they created the belief that there was only one officially sanctioned place in which to let go and in order to have access to that one official place one must first agree never to practice letting go in any other place.  Obedience thus ensured by the threat of the hell of autointoxication.

Am overwhelmed by the possibilities that present themselves.  Am trying to ensure that in my lack of knowledge of this technology I do not run around creating limitations and then subsequently believe in them.  Baby steps and learn as I go and hope that I will not hear only the sound of my own voice which is awfully loud.

Artbabygod and Sex in the Garden describes the continuum that is me as well as the paradigm I am using to redesign my reality.

Above word/image…”my truth unfolds behind me/a mess of creases and color/mapping stories and treasure/buried in eternitylovingtime”