* * * * * * *
When I was learning how to use Photoshop software, a few years ago, one of my assignments was to design a postage stamp to celebrate a pioneer, in any area of human endeavour. I chose Frida Kahlo. As I looked at reproductions of her paintings, I saw how she would have loved to play with Photoshop too. Layers and transparencies would have pleased her, I think.
'My Grandparents, My Parents and I', and
'What I Saw In The Water/ What The Water Gave Me'
are both ancestors of Photoshop imagicianings.
Learning how to work the new technotools as I produced the thing I wanted to see, I took a detail of her painting -
'The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Myself, Diego and Senor Xolotl' - and I pasted in a small photoportrait of her, over where her painted, young, tearstained, face is in the original image.
The photo was taken eleven days before she died, it is black-and-white, and I found it in 'Kahlo', by Andrea Kettenmann, published by Taschen.
So the image in my stampdesign was the Universe tranquil maskface behind the deep Beauty of Cactus-haired Earth, behind Frida, looking like Martin PrechtelÕs description of Dona Chona (see May 14th post) : "a tired type of pretty, full of pride, survival and grief..."
The synergy of the image I made moves people when they see it. My invasive digital-surgical procedure with her tender created image and her precious last-days face somehow worked, the graft healed ok.
Today I went to see 'Frida'; the recent movie with Salma Hayek.
I glanced quickly through my Kahlo book before going.
Many paintings shown onscreen had stories that went untold.
Something about that selectivity bothered me.
It mattered to me that neither my beloved 'Love Embrace' painting or the superstrong wild 'Mi nana y yo / My nanny and I' showed up.
Maybe I missed them among the moving-montage scenes.
It is said, about the latter, in my book:
"The artist considered this one of her most powerful works."
So the omission of it onscreen mystifies me.
Many stories were told, in the movie. Strange rhythm, moments, beauty in abundance.
I cried often.
My own experience of plastercast jacket fittings were nowhere near as photogenic as Salma's.
I suspect that even beauty-full Frida's might have been a little less beholdable too, in real Life.
* * * * * * *
jaihn [9:51 PM]
* * * * * * *
"So the Guidance might wait until you become committed to the truth before allowing the healing."
(from SpaceCruiser Inquiry - True Guidance for the Inner Journey, by A. H. Almas.)
Brink-ness. My throat went on fire for a couple of days there, to mirror my heartandSoul goin on fire for a couple of dancinignition hours, a week since, already.
Dross-burning, realignments, refinings, it felt like. Hot tears too.
The last words on NYPD Blue got me : " I love you daddy." "I love you too, Theo."
Howling from my department.
Giggling earlier, too, at Tony SopranoÕs bowing out from therapy :
"After all the c***s***ing, motherf****ing dream interpretations. WhereÕd it get us?"
I dreamt, amidst flurries of goings-on, of a beautiful naked man.
Kneeling, facing half-away, but being with me, and our bodies contouring gracefully easily together.
My dreamleg could feel his warm dreamskin.
A sleeptreat, a trick of delight. A treasure to keep me cookin, overhere.
It has been a feature-theme of my experience, to have wild Soul-Love
with men who are not this-Life partner possibilities.
Good poems get written. Leaves me achin for human-being-thereness tho.
The Love flushing out the sorenesses.
The diminishments and unkindnesses, the voices who would have me outcast, still, again. The unLove. Torturous attacks.
And seeing this time, thru the Love-flurries stirred by the surprise ignition, a newness unfolding.
The commitment to the truth is becoming stronger than the addiction to the hurt.
I wrote about another Soul-Lover: "You gave me more me without you, enfin."
White Bull once said to me:
"And you, dear one, would rather a moments Ecstasy than a Lifetimes Mediocrity."
ItÕs true.
Though I still harbour fond hopes that my Soul menu may include some more simple spacious earth-translations of the soothing ferocities of hot-hearts and starjuice-eyes, too.
IÕm hoping that that Healing may have been danced a little closer to being allowed.
* * * * * * *
jaihn [2:19 PM]
* * * * * * *
"So much greater and lasting fulfilment can come
when you identify with the fragrance, the unmanifest.
Remember, whatever storms may rage
or any other adverse conditions may arise,
nothing can damage the fragrance.
And remember too,
the fragrance is not simply an emanation from the rose,
it permeates it,
and so your physical body will respond most favourably
when your attentionÊis directed to this reality."
(from White Bull)
* * * * * * *
jaihn [1:58 AM]
* * * * * * *
"Three things differentiate living from the soul versus living from ego only.
They are: the ability to sense and learn new ways, the tenacity to ride a rough road,
and the patience to learn deep love over time."
(from Women Who Run With The Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes)
* * * * * * *
"So what does it mean to live your life as if you were pure love?
That is something you will have to find out yourself,
because there are no definite rules to follow. ..."
(from SpaceCruiser Inquiry - True Guidance for the Inner Journey, by A. H. Almas.)
* * * * * * *
jaihn [12:54 AM]
* * * * * * *
Sometimes when 2 people dance 2gether
it becomes 2 wings of a bird.
Sometimes it's a little old old old couple
juss puttin one century in front of another,
tidylike; orderly, sortin ourselves out
in time in rhythm inbreath out breath
Hips. Hips. Hips. Breath. Birth. Breath. Death.
Stoppin short of slammin skulls, takin care
to not hurt each other, this time.
Butterfly bones thru which the babies come
thru which we come
again again again
Hips movin in perfect time 2gether,
2 times my body is in me
equals one deepjuice finedelicious dance.
Moving.
Makin a home for the Living Daylights
to come back on in 2 where they
were so sorely missed. Lettin there be
a spacious welcome
A ferocious quicksilver torrent of comfort.
Nothin you could put your finger on,
really,
juss unsought Grace.
Splinter logs swept away, lavaflood
pushin on, clearin the decks, makin way.
Makin it nice, this too. And this. All one.
* * * * * * *
jaihn [5:21 PM]
* * * * * * *
"Abiding in Holy Omniscience is a very beautiful condition
in which you retain your humanity without losing your divinity."
from Facets of Unity, The Enneagram of Holy Ideas, by A.H. Almas.
Yes, we Danced lasnite, we did dance.
* * * * * * *
jaihn [1:17 PM]
* * * * * * *
"As our use of language shrinks and as we pay less attention to the written word either as reader or writer,
and in the name of efficiency resort to slogans for information, so do we collude in the expansion of dictatorship of all kinds.
And writing becomes a diminishing faculty of discrimination and distinguishing.
The unqualified headline can create a connection and plant a judgement in us almost without our knowing it."
"...the choice we perhaps don't know we have, of using language for expansion or prevention.
To see to begin with how we collude without knowing it in our further diminishment."
(From 'Write For Life', by Nicki Jackowska.
ISBN 0 - 8264-6105-0)
* * * * * * *
jaihn [3:31 PM]
* * * * * * *
"I am not in my body. My body is in me" - "Try it - try it and see..."
said beautiful Gabrielle, tonight, in the cool air of the Camden hall.
And tomorrow night we Dance, 2gether.
In our bodies, in us, here, in London, in May.
Mercury rolled over and went direct this morning.
Already plans laid during retro time have been laid asunder by the moving times.
And the Sun moving through, movin on into the geminian department. My kinda sunhouse.
"Love the one you're with, we also practice..." said G - and then:
"You can take the person outta the sixties, butya can't take the sixties outta the person..."
There we were, and here we are.
With my body.... which is in me.
The fluffy dumpling baby blackbird department today had only one little body, in the branches at my window. Little being sitting still for hours, getting wet and looking up, peering. Tonite none of the little fellows remain, they all flew the nest, again. And this time, I was ready for that.
Innocence called twice, loudly this afternoon. A sticker for the drink on a cafe door as we left, and a grass-covered van, parked by Madame Tussaud's, with huge bottles of Innocence drink embedded....I swear. Surreal in the City.
World of Rhythm...
* * * * * * *
jaihn [10:06 PM]
* * * * * * *
"... we will be moving people over to a new version of Blogger", I see...
... a fresh start... archive dates that make sense... in our new e-abodes....
I opened a new still-private test-site, to play with newness.
In real-Life too, I have a new version of home-space in which to move.
Three of my doors have been removed, and the doorways widened.
Easier flow for wheels.
The forms are shifting all around me.
Two of the original four baby blackbirds only were still here today.
Yesterday three, with one a bit smaller. But it didn't look so small as to render it vanished by today.
The two remaining birds seem less fluffy-innocent to me today.
Fierce competitive appetites which killed their siblings - it is an Innocence, of sorts.
Wild little eyes blazing out, jostling to be fed first.
* * * * * * *
" That is the work of self-realization -
to become aware of, to become certain of, and to become continuously in touch with,
the fact that Essence is one's intrinsic nature. It is difficult work, but that is the Work."
(from Facets of Unity - The Enneagram of Holy Ideas, by A.H. Almas).
* * * * * * *
jaihn [9:31 PM]
* * * * * * *
"Dona Chona was three hundred times more beautiful than her daughter,
having been cooked down by life into what she really was,
a tired type of pretty, full of pride, survival and grief,
vital and able and more substantial in her soul than anyone I'd ever known before."
- from The Toe Bone And The Tooth, by Martin Prechtel.
floweringmountain.com
* * * * * * *
jaihn [12:34 AM]
* * * * * * *
This week flew with no posting, till now.
I just sent in some excerpts from my journal, as my final assignment,
to an online writing class which I have been taking for ten weeks.
Seem like nice pieces to post, too. The baby blackbirds in this excerpt now have little siblings - the second batch are here, waving their translucent pale orange beaks,
just-visible above the nestrim, from below, where I sit.
* * * * * * *
(from 19th March)....
...And the mamabird caring for her eggs - she has no idea how long this waiting will last.
Which may or may not be true too for the bird. No babycare preparation manuals in birdworld.
Just instinct, knowing; or notknowing. Just being - and the gorgeous perfect doings that emanate from there.
A nest. She missed the building of the nest, it was already there, perfectly imperfect, exquisitely
positioned, when she drew up the windowblind in her playroom after wintery covered weeks.
She wonders about the first few moments of building,
when it can only have been a mouthful of material,
and a dream of a place for the as-yet not-here eggs.
Bird as visionary, mistress manifester,
and now as endlessly patient, bringing-to-birth eggwarmer.
Such a gift, to this woman who can be with this private process,
this intimacy of Nature, so close, so visible in its invisible mystery.
* * * * * * *
...24 March...R.Pk.
There are two young men playing Scrabble near her. The sounds of the plastic
lettersquares in his plastic bag, ritually rattled and prayed to, alerted
her. Elsewhere young men are hurting and killing each other. Here, these two
play an attentive game together. There's a bottle of water on their table.
One holds his hand protectively, like a kid, round where he writes
somethings. They're both taking their game together seriously.
Rules are being referred to. They've created an easy space of focus between them.
Like men who play chess in public. But she's never seen young men play Scrabble
together in a park. Amidst war, it is beautiful.
One has the Nike tick on his back, the other who looks at the paper-rules
often, he wears a dark brown leather jacket. They look a little rough-haired,
not so cultivated gell-spikey as the 'dipped' people of Covent Garden.
More a mid-European refugee rough hair. She's wondering how she surmises this from that.
It's the combination of information.
Young English men just don't usually play Scrabble together in parks.
She wants to go close enough to hear their exchanges.
Pleasant, friendly, familiar,comfortable companions.
Men who play communicative games, with kind intentions, in public.
In Nature, in birdsong, in spring evening pleasantness, their easy laughter
and gentle direct focus is a tonic to behold amidst bombardments of images of war.
* * * * * * *
jaihn [5:42 PM]
* * * * * * *
ON SEEING, AND HEARING, AND SEEING AND HEARING, SOME MORE.
I chanced upon a documentary about Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side Of The Moon'
album. Latenite teevee again. Talking with M this afternoon, I learned he'd
seen it too. For both of us the original release of the album was something
from our older siblings' worlds. I was 10 in 1972. My oldest brother was 18.
As purely a part of his musical generation as I would be, five years later,
of mine.
Neptune and Uranus transits, and Youth Culture. I first learned about
youthculture-as-expression-of-Something in my foundation training year at
the-then St Martins School of Art, and I learned about the trans-personal
astrology correspondences later, in Life.
* * * ( We, the NeptuneScorpio crew. Post-Peace-dreaming idealisms of those
NeptuneLibra babies. We, the ones who embodied, for a time, extreme
spiritlessness: the real dark side, of ÔNo FutureÕ.
The ones who would grow, if we made it thru our suicidal tendencies, to
enjoy the world of connectivity, such as it is, today.
In 1977 before the technology showed up, we were wondering how, on Earth,
we would do the things our bones and visions told us we would, togetherapart.
Why the Hell we Should was part of our uninitiated approach too,
as I recall.) * * *
M and I spoke of how moved we both were, watching this documentary.
I never hitherto found an older man as attractive as I found the guitarist.
Helped along by many images of his youthful Beauty, his very Nordic male
grace. His style now is so undercover.
But the fierce subtle glow of a man who fulfilled his soul contract to the
best of his abilities so far, lit his calmly animated face, and the deep
confidence of a man who has learned well from his experiences informed
his comfortable, steady, precision-flow of eloquence.
The editing of the film was sweetly done too.
The same spirits of inspiration, collaboration, synergy and grace
which were being discussed hadclearly danced with the film-makers too.
M and I remembered the water-pictures; sunlit surf-tunnels
with music brought through by true musicians.
There were a lot of explosions and irises up-close too.
I saw a new astro-connection - Uranus now fresh into Pisces.
The inspired and emotional artforms suddenly make a new kind of sense.
We have a new connection now, to work made at that time -
or, maybe, in that place - of inspiration of such flavour.
The men who had made the music - even the engineers and visual artists,
all mentioned the emotional driven-ness of it.
Three decades on, some of us have manifest somewhat less-dense emotional
bodies - I think that's where our renewed, refreshed connection to the
informing spirits, the in-spirations, of that work may be.
I suspect that as Uranus glides further on into the Piscean deepwaterzone,
other echoes from all sorts of pasts will find new hearings in our
Eustachian tubes, and new reflections on our retinas and innerscreens, new
resonances in our new bodies.
Something Saturnian - and Virgoan - in the studio-plans shown too, in this
film. Structured lists: layers of components, ingredients, contributions to
be synthesised, stirred into the synergy soup. This was not the product of
space-cadets. This was a complex collaboration with serious shepherding
involvement.
It was clear - especially in the recent interviews with men who have
continued developing their practice: nurturing their passions, growing their
artistry - that they were all truly on track in 1972, and that staying on
those tracks was a natural progression which brought its own deep
satisfactions to each of them.
There was an air of lonesomeness too about each artist - maybe shone up
because each was interviewed singly, but more deeply it felt like the
loneliness that comes as part of following one's art into wherever it
demands to go. The self-containment of surrender to soul-directives.
As John OÕDonohue writes so beauty-fully - "There is great lonesomeness in
becoming implicated in the creation of something original."
All the individuals involved had had a specific-to-their-unique-talents part
to play within the album-project. For the moments it took to create that
project, those people all became part of a specific whole, a group with a
shared focus. All leaning in, all facing in the same direction.
Pursuing their crafts and their paths later must have meant letting go of
that particular collaborative grouping, maybe going solo - and finding ways
in to being parts of another whole; the bigger, subtler one: the one we all
belong within, somehow.
John OÕDonohue, again: ..."It is only when we recognize this intimate unity
that we know that we are not outsiders cut off from everything around us but
rather participants at the very heart of creation. Each of us brings
something alive in the world that is unique. There is a profound necessity
at the heart of individuality. As we awaken to this sense of destiny, we can
begin to live a life that is generous and worthy of the blessing that is
always calling us."
...
Watching the film last night, discussing it with my friend today, and
writing about it now, I sense(d) the vibrant individuality of all the
players involved in the surrender to the creation of that album.
And how they had been gifted with the privilege and opportunity to make work
together, and how they had allowed themselves to be swept along by
imagination and guided by delight. They even invented new things,
machine-instruments, to bring through the specific excellence they wanted
to hear, the sounds that wanted to be heard.
The album had phenomenal numbers of sales, and an exceptionally long
chart-life. There was a lot of talk about spirits of the times. Magic, as
in good things just happening. As in keeping out of their own way and
letting the work pour through.
The cover image of the ray of light becoming rainbow through triangular
prism, and the picture of the pyramids, for the inner-sleeve, remain strong,
and simply beauty-full. The designer said they all knew immediately which
images were right, and that that group surety had been like an energetic
signature throughout the project.
Seeing those images again, and hearing the music, brought me many memories.
Of which I may write more, in Time.
Hearing and seeing the stories of involvement in such a passionate deep-felt
artistic collaboration sounded a deeply hungry resonance in me.
Maybe the 'Dark Side of the Moon' work has some more stories for us to hear,
now, if we listen again, with our new ears.
* * * * * * *
jaihn [1:38 AM]
* * * * * * *
The Artist as Permanent Pilgrim
from Eternal Echoes - Exploring Our Hunger To Belong,
by John OÕDonohue.
For most roles in life there are structures of study and apprenticeship to acquire the skill
to function in that profession. Though there are certain structures there for training in the arts, the artist is different.
The artist trains himself; it can be no other way. Each artist is animated by a unique longing.
There are no outer ready-made maps for what the artist wants to create.
Each is haunted by some inner voice that will not permit any contentment until what is demanded is created.
The artist cannot settle into the consensus of normal belonging.
His heart pushes him out to the edge where other imperatives hold sway.
There is great lonesomeness in becoming implicated in the creation of something original.
Rimbaud says "I have no ancestors."
In a sense the artist is called not so much from the outside but from the unknown depths within.
The invitation to create comes from elsewhere. Artists are the priestesses and priests of culture.
They coax the invisible towards a form where it becomes faintly visible, silence towards voice and the unknown towards intimacy.
Artists help us to see what is secretly there. No artist stands alone in a clear space.
Every artist works from the huge belonging to the tradition but yet does not repeat anything.
The artist belongs in a strange way.
He inhabits the tradition to such depth that he can feel it beat in his heart
but his tradition also makes him feel like a total stranger who can find for his longing no echo there.
Out of the flow of this intimate foreignness something new begins to emerge.
The artist is fiercely called to truth.
Despite all the personal limitation and uncertainty, he has to express what he finds.
Sometimes the findings are glorious....
* * * * * * *
jaihn [9:15 PM]
* * * * * * *
MamaBlackbird continues to nest.
I think in fact it was nest repair and not wormconvoying that was happening a while back.
She seems very resolutely sitting, not feeding, for over a week now.
They must be coming soon - meanwhile I love her patience, her presence.
* * * * * * *
jaihn [8:42 PM]
* * * * * * *
This afternoon in a cafe near my home, I enjoyed a light meal,
with the Columbian percussion section behind me -
culinary implements played in delightful harmony with the moosica.
Plastic cutlery never sounded so sweet as when Oscar is doing his polyrhythmic thing with them...
After eating I drank delicious coffee and wrote
about the ad I saw yesterday, for a car, and the perfect graffiti overlay.
Neatly within the car profile a human had written: "How Many Lives Per Gallon?"
Since I was driving, and slowed in a queue at that moment, it really spoke to me.
Then, later in the wee small hours, another teevee marvel.
This time an Open University documentary about road-building.
The rocks required for the roads needed in SouthEast England aren't easy to take from the Earth there,
so now there is quarrying of remote Beauty-full mountainous terrain near GlenCoe, in NorthWest Scotland, proposed.
I didn't see when the film was made; it could be a realised idea by now.
It made a kind of sinister sense, except that it was based on the presumption
that we really need more road.
And in connection with my earlier sighting,
I realised that the companion graffiti overlay question for this is: "How Many Mountains Per Mile?"
* * * * * * *
jaihn [12:38 AM]
* * * * * * *
Here's a link in this mode - my first one on this page...like this....
ACalltoDance.com
* * * * * * *
jaihn [12:07 AM]
From Eternal Echoes - Exploring Our Hunger to Belong
by John O'Donoghue:
"When we set out to construct our lives according to a fixed image, we damage ourselves.
The image becomes the desperate focus of all our longing. There are no frames for the soul.
Consequently, we are called, so far as we can, to live without an image of ourselves,
or at least to keep the images we have free and open.
When you sense the immensity of the unknown within you,
any image you have built of yourself gradually loses its promise."
* * * * * * *
"When we receive the courage to stand gracefully in the place of pain,
we mediate for others the gifts that help heal their torment.
Through the fog of forsakenness a new shoreline of belonging becomes clear."
* * * * * * *
jaihn [10:00 PM]
Is It Because My Mercury Is Back??
O this is good. Gettin it to work out. New look for a New Moon.
I saw a sticker on a car that pulled in front of me today : "Why Worry. God is In Control."
I liked how sure it was, And it helped me relax my belly again.
I just spent a while learning, in another hiddenprivateonlyme site, how to do the lynx.
And now I have it. So now I can begin to be more lynxy on here, which is what I always wanted.
...Tiggerish colouring.....
xxx x xxx
jaihn [5:30 PM]
send word : post thru the electric cupboard...
note for new navigators: links = hand-picked treasures: once there, enjoy exploring sites further (by deleting some address, if no other way shows)...
[ lynx / Links ]
pics
electric cupboard
light a candle here
+some more here!
White Bull
floweringmountain
World of Rhythm
archives: 04.03 05.03 06.03 07.03 08.03 01.04 02.04 03.04 04.04
