The Incessant Quality of Mind
All thru' the day I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.
The Beatles -“I, Me, Mine”
All thru' the night I me mine, I me mine, I me mine.
Now they're frightened of leaving it
Ev'ryone's weaving it,
Coming on strong all the time,
All thru' the day I me mine.
What is it I spend all my time thinking about? I am pretty sure I’m thinking all the time. The only time I am not thinking is when I am full engaged in what I am doing (excluding things that require thinking; concentrated thinking is different than distracted thinking) watching a movie, listening to someone speak, painting, walking along the beach. There are these actions- all sorts of them. And I listen, I engage, each of them- eating, walking, yoga, painting, and there are moments of illumination, like a fish cresting a wave, jumping in the sun. These times arise when I am fully present. They arise when I am in the flow of life. Even if it is just sitting and I stop trying. I stop stopping. I stop.
How We Give
I'd planned on painting this evening but the current painting is finished. Instead, I found msyelf working on the second in the series, having finished the fifth. After drawing for a while and once again asking Fi (the cat) to graciously not curl up his twenty pound body on the drawing pad on my lap, I found myself reading up on some CSS manipulation for a site I've been working on and then looking into Rollingstone.com to see what was up there. I find interesting articles in amongst the music stuff, which I am less interested in than the journalism. I stumbled upon an interesting article about a fellow named Larry Brilliant - real name - and his philosophies and current station as head of Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm, or tentacle if you will.
I understand that all things that come across in writing, no matter how... objective they may strive to be are still subject to the conceits and filters of the writers and editors. Larry will come across through what he makes available to the interviewer and delivered to the reader through sound bites, snippets and word play, a few casual observations and some interviews with allies, associates and critics. Yet, the final feeling i get from it is "Why do we do what we do- for profit, personal gain, or... something more estimable?". Mr. Brilliant has found himself asked to head up Google's giving back system, and at that sitting upon a pile of cash to do something with. Not bad for an ex-guru-following-acid-eating-hippie (a highly stressed point as it were, as if to make the RS reader more sympathetic to him and to give him some street cred). But regardless of his history and his story, the point of the matter is that he is a guy who has tried to do a lot to help others and has, in many ways, succeeded, at least, according to this article and according to the perspective I'm left with.
The Song We Play
The silent stillness of late night surroundings finds me solitary and drinking a glass of red wine with a side dish of cheese and olives. It is a usual place for me on a late night Monday night these days listening to late night music like Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma. What a weird collaboration of soundscapes and mental landscapes it is and yet, it was through this experimentation and willingness to go “out there” (and, incidentally, “in there”) that led them to great albums like Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. . The willingness to walk the edge, push the boundaries, leads us to find the new. In this world of the reinvented, the borrowed, the done time and again, it is that newness that stands the test of time.
The other day, I found a collection of music called Psychedelic Archaeology vols. 1-10. Interesting, I thought, I always wanted to see what I’d been missing in my collection. This montage, if you will, of Psychedelic rock from the 60’s didn’t purport to have any Beatles, old Pink Floyd or Jimi Hendrix. It was the underground. And rightly so- none of it held a candle to that which I already have. Much of it “sounded like…” or “seemed to borrow from…” or something and so was quickly forgotten, having never had an authentic and true voice and having never having had something really real to say. This is not to say that Ummagumma is a great album- it’s weird, psychedelic and distinctly of that era. Yet, because Pink Floyd went on to create bolder and more beautiful work (peaking out with The Wall) the early work has greater significance. We can see this with some artists. Early Picasso and Dali pieces or any great artist in fact. Although the early pieces may not hold the same clarity of vision (or confusion as the case may have been!) that the later works have, early works often show a passion and a willingness to push, to find the edges and see what lies over them. The challenge as an artist is to always be willing to push, to explore and to never settle into a “groove”.
Breaking through the Boundaries
They say: “Trust in [insert your god’s name here] but [lock, tie, secure] your [car, camel, canoe]”.
What’s this mean anyway? It means trust in the rhythms of the divine but take precautions because precautions are necessary. Are you precipitating disaster? By thinking you might get robbed are you manifesting theft? Just because I have car insurance am I inevitably going to attract a car accident? What foolish superstitious nonsense! This is not the dark ages. Our superstitions may trade disguises; they may shift their verbage and tones of voice but they are still the same voices of self-defeat trying to eat us away and hold us back from taking chances, from truly stepping into and experiencing the rhythm of life.
Spontanaeity
I have been exploring other modes of painting creativity. I get very detail and precision oriented- and, right now, am working on a very tight mandala kind of painting which is growing into something very beautiful and softly gorgeous. But then my arm wants more because it can only hover in a kind of holding pattern for so long. My mind wants more. It wants the flying part where the paint is streaming out of me and I am painting on the edge of things. So i have taken to, while I am painting some crazily detailed painting, to work on something else or two as well. And it feels so wonderful.
I am awake now, at eleven am, after painting for many hours last night and then doing yoga in the wee hours before going to bed. I painted one new small painting (10" x 20") and then revisited an old painting which was left unfinished. There are a few paintings I have which were left unfinished. This one that I worked on last night, I saw it suddenly; I felt it and saw what I was afraid to do in it when I'd started it a year ago. Saw how to bring it together. So i pulled it out and it opened up and now is such an electrifying kind of swath of color and unfolding.
How to be the Infinite Blue Sky
Sitting in a cafe. The blue sky supports my sense of endless being. So does the americano. Then I read the news, my emails... and slowly... slowly the great and infinite sense of personal power is stripped away. Chiseled and chipped... war.. famine... my rights are usurped by fear mongers. The country I live in is being sold off left and right to religious zealots, the rights that many died for are being nixed in the name of freedom are all rolling over in their graves moaning and groaning and casting curses towards those who deem themselves the rulers of the free world. What irony!
Then I look at the bills piling up, debts, etc...
First, The Dishes
Phew
That happens from time to time. I am going along
in my simple life
and all of a sudden
there is this driving urge to save the world.
it overcomes me and i'm like What can i do? Where do i start?
My heart is exploding and i'm just about overloading.
And a little voice is like, well, you could start by doing the dishes in the sink.
And a bigger voice in my head is like: WTF: how is that gonna help?
And the little voice is like, you'll see...
So i wash the dishes.
Then it's like, well, we might as well water all the plants outside.
And I can't argue with that, though the bigger voice is like WTF...
Next thing you know, i've finally unpacked those last couple of boxes and i am now painting
the very precious
jewel
which resides at
the center of all being.
And next thing you know,
I am at the grocery store, buying an apple.
and the person in front of me is taking forever and the cashier is getting nervous and knows her other customers get impatient and everything, to her, seems like it might fall apart at any moment and then she is finally done and it is my turn and she says
"I'm sorry about the wait."
And i say it is not problem at all
And she knows i mean it, that i really am being sincere in this lip service world.
And she relaxes a little.
And is a little more open to the next person.
And the little voice in my head says:
It starts with the dishes in the sink.