Another Winter Solstice

Climate change? The yard is brown and soggy without a speck of snow or ice. Mums are trying to bloom again and the forsythia has a single yellow bloom on it. I need to collect dry wood and put it into the woodshed for the bonfires, otherwise it seems the various Holy Days are marked with a week or so of rain and you can't hardly get a match to light. I suppose this is why the Catholics got into lighting candles inside... it's the same phenom.

Since we started asking our homeowners insurance to pay for the ceiling falling down it has rained almost continuously and not a drop seems to be leaking inside. Go figure. That seems to prove the "ice dam theory" as why it leaked so much last winter. The new year will see so many changes and maybe we'll get a new roof. Maybe it will be dry enough to grow tomatoes and beans. Maybe I'll get my sciatic nerve burned in half again and suffer a little bit less. That would be swell.

Analogous to What?

The trouble with analogies is that they are at least one step away from the Truth of things. The longest journey begins with but a single step, and so you can go a long way away from the Truth of things just by committing to an analogy. For instance: on a stormy afternoon a rumble of thunder passes by and we are told "That's Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp fighting it out at the O-K Corral!" and yet our father told us that it was but the rumble of ionized air when a lightning flash passed through the atmosphere! This could create a crisis of faith between a boy and his father and that would be very sad. If the boy is George Bush, well it could be disastrous. But it doesn't really matter who the boy is, there was trouble which could be avoided if George had just been struck by lightning.

The picture to the left here is another case in point. The image shows a shrine to a local fertility god framed by two sacred trees which have the attributes of the primal male and female. During a drought the local tribal women paint the figure in red mixture made from goats blood and milk. They festoon the trees with garlands made from their hair and offer cups of beer on the ground before the shrine. Since they can't make beer during a drought they have the responsibility of always saving aside a jar or two of beer.  In good times they will rotate out the cups of beer to insure quality of offering. They drink the "exhausted" beer themselves. During a drought they may not be able to offer as many cups of beer, but still, they can count on a few cups of beer for the family until the rains come back. If they run out of beer and the rains still have not come back they will chop down the sacred trees and burn the figure in a huge bonfire. They dance and toss wood into the fire as long as they can. When they have exhausted themselves they collapse on the earth. Then the rains come, filling up everyone's jars, the local streams run again, and the night air is filled with the sounds of animals again. In gratitude they take the last log from the fire and fashion a figure from it. They prop it up at the site of the last shrine and plant two seedlings of their sacred trees.

That's not a shrine to any thing, it's a piece of driftwood, flotsam pulled out of the Hudson and propped up against a couple of trees. But the story told more and conveyed more than just the collection of the words and that influenced how one might view that picture, even after reading this.

Now suppose it happened that you felt very strongly that your life had been blessed by Life, the land, water, sky and spirit of the place has sustained you through many hard seasons. There's a place you like to go to, a stream of water flowing past an enormous cedar tree. The roots of this tree embrace the earth, covered deeply with moss, a spring trickling out from below, through the moss covered roots and down to the fast flowing stream. It has a quiet and a calmness which is Great. You take some clay from the stream and you start forming the clay into a figure that gives you the same feeling somehow. A round bellied female form whose arms extend out and up to embrace the sky while Her feet arm firmly in the Earth below. You put it nestled against the mossy hollow there. When you go there you can close your eyes and still see the green and the rich brown while the stream still tumbles and the spring sparkle... in that time without time you feel not apart from the All, but truly a Part of it. That is one step closer to the Truth of all things.

Others took to resting by the stream and one puts a large rope around the trunk of the tree, to see how big it is around. He leaves the rope. In time people have meditated on the Rope in that Holy area, the shrine of our lady of clay, and perhaps they have collected many truths about the story of our lady. Let us say that in that far away time I come to the shrine and park my bike against the gate post, walk up the trail and down the path. I kneel in the moss as had thousands through the years, a pair of round depressions in the moss from all those knees. As I start to meditate on the figure of clay I notice a small depression, like a belly button. I lean in carefully to see it better. It's a fingerprint! I note one or two others here and there. I sit back and think about it, all the various stories of whose finger and when? My time is up, I leave the shrine confused and somehow distant from my Goddess. Many days later in the city I take my recently acquired AK-47 and my improvised suicide vest and stride toward my assigned target, finally feeling as if I know where I am in the scheme of things.

Clearly it's best not to examine the symbols very closely, nor the figures of clay sitting in the Holy of Holies. Leave the spirit where it belongs, deep in that mossy hole you call a heart while the spring of Life still trickles from your breast.

Spring into Summer

Ain't Misbehaving, neither me nor Louie. It's a drab and dreary day, typical for the time of year. You have two types of weather, too hot and too damp. It's as if a sauna had escaped and was roaming the hills. But that's life and that's the way it goes. Could be worse, could be a skeeter dodging drops and looking in vein for an arm.

I haven't seen Jon in many weeks thanks to the old back and this transitional weather. It takes a couple days to uncontract my muscles and get limber enough to chance a 100 mile drive. Then it rains again. But the beans need it. We have a nice garden started here, beans and taters, tomatoes and peppers. It is an exercise in control and chaos. I build the tepees and plant the beans and then see how many sprout. This year all my pole beans were raptured up apparently. I planted them twice to make sure and now I know Kentucky Wonders are either good Christian beans or the moles like them.

We have a new puppy, a 2 year old named Buddha whom we call Buddy. Like Wrigley he is a half Corgi but this half is a Pembroke Corgi which comes with no tail. The other half is Beagle so he has the nose and the body. He's more stubborn than Wrigley was, he is willing to stand for several minutes leaning into the leash in an effort to go THAT way instead of the way I want to go. I have proven more stubborn by leaning the other way for several minutes and then I simply sit down and wait. I guess waiting for Jon to get a break has honed my patience. I should wind up a bunch of rings and make more chain mail. I still haven't finished Jess' shirt.

There is something going on in Washington and I doubt it means Good Times for one and all. I suspect it has to do with our 14 trillion dollar debt and our inability to raise enough taxes to pay the interest on it.  Japan gets Washington state, Oregon goes to India and California goes to China. Debt settled and we can go on from there, borrowing from the Chinese to pay for our 4-5 wars.

What does the Creator think about all these bodies? It must be like seeing your blackboard being erased by the chalk. Is it possible for the Creator to become afraid of his creations? Sure, says so in the Bible. He was afraid we'd get not only as smart but as immortal as He and the angels. So he killed the Tree. Now when people die, they are Dead. Or that's the way it is for Yahwist people. Pagans like me keep coming around. Not sure which idea I like best, but the idea of having billions of "first kisses" is a Hell of a great idea! Looking at my son being born, and my daughter being born... and my beautiful wife on our wedding day... to be able to do all that again certainly is a great reason to go through the process. I think Yahweh hasn't been the same since he got his divorce. he needs to get out and meet some nice divinities of the female persuasion. Do a world of good!

Equinox -Spring 2011

It should be remembered that the All, in it's infinite purity, hasn't a quirk to hang a personality on, nor a flaw which offers a lesson, yet it does; that lack of flaws must be balanced by an infinity of flaws in a infinite field. Thus all those flaws concentrate upon finite Things, if it is a flawed Thing, or a psychosis if it is of the Mind. It requires no trick of the imagination to determine that Infinity must be balanced and if it is, then does not Evil equal Good? In a Way, yes, in the Way that the sun is halfway through it's Path from Solstice to Solstice. It happens, every time it is time to and it doesn't last long, not really, it just feels that way when it's happening to you. So one should remember that Evil is no Quirk of the Infinite One, it is a Quirk of something further down the way to Nothing. Humanity in the form of one person can be “quirky” enough to be called evil, but not Evil itself.

Like the equinox, evil happens in an instant and the echoes of that happening, the reverberating memory pains upon receiving this evil, are what seem to never end. Now an eclipse can last for several minutes, and you might not think of it as an instant of time, yet how does the Moon feels about that brief encounter with a shadow? Hardly a blink. It happens, then it's gone. But it has an impact. People have died, by hand or by happenstance, people have looked up to see death. Thousands have washed up onshore, crushed and rent by some insane hatred of order and balance. They will mine for flesh amid the rubble and drowned debris for weeks and months, but the cities and towns of Japan that have been so torn asunder and drowned are now being irradiated by the unwillingness of humans to face reality for years and years. Is that evil? All those deaths and all that destruction seem to point to a malice behind it all. So we could call it Evil and give it a pitchfork or lightning bolt, or we could even imagine that the Universe itself is inherently Evil to turn a blind eye on those people now gone forever, with grieving loved ones left behind. Some are able to make the kindly Grandfather in the Clouds an occasional wife beater and child molester, but all of that is trying to hang a personality on that which can have none. The quake, the wave, the burning debris floating on the ocean all leave you feeling weak and sick to your stomach. You feel like tearing your hair and screaming. You close your eyes and try to find a quiet center, someplace where it makes sense. 

Where is the balance point at the Equinox, the point at which the egg can stand on it's head? Both science and Belief tells us that the point is within our heart, in the way we see ourselves and our place in it all. It is the point where change can happen. When you find that balancing egg in your heart and know the moment is passing, which side will the egg topple to, guided by gravity and what's inside? You can't know, because there are an infinite number of rays streaming from that point, pointing to where the egg will fall. The further from that point the more room there is for more rays, and more ways to fall. This is where personality comes in and takes a stand. This is where you know where you are going from this moment on. We cannot face the next wave of evil while we refuse to move from the last. We should not want to be part of the next pile of debris, so it's good to think and act and to think about higher ground. In acting, you become a creator, you create a future for yourself. You move, and all things which move are alive. So be alive in your new world, your new creation. At the equinox point you may fall, but you have a chance to determine the direction. If I say you will fall in the direction at which you are looking, remember that in science we know that some basic elements of the universe are determined by the thoughts and actions of the observer. Thus, as your personality perceives the Universe rushing up at it, it knows which way to go, guided by what's inside it.

So at this time of year take your philosophy out and set it on the table standing on it's end. Decide which way it will fall and be ready when it does.

Looking At It

With Wrigley dead there is very little to smile about. I can understand why the Universe would want to hurt me, I'm an asshole sometimes, a real arrogant twerp. So it would make sense to hit my head while bitching about losing a flashlight as if someone else moved the thing, which by the way would be in my coat pocket. So that makes a certain sense. But here's the Thing: what possible Universe would prefer it if the most perfect, intelligent, frisky and kind animal in the world, ever, were to be dead. I repeat the word because a sentient creature will recoil from the illogical and this makes no sense.

Now there are these religions I have read about which imply the Creator is a Cosmic Micro-Manager and can take full responsibility for unkind deaths, wars, virii and SDS as well as Saint Somebody and Doctor Izzo. I can, to a degree see logic in that, but it produces such a Psychotic Creator, such a murderous mind that I cannot associate that with Creation at all. From there I have to go to a Mother-like Creator, because only a female can extract life from Her own body. Only a Female Entity can give birth. As Below, So Above. This makes sense to me, and Mothers raise kids differently, and Grandmothers more so. As you go from the One to the Family to the Tribe you still get more progress from Mothers than from Fathers, especially Psychotic Father in Heaven raining down fire and lava and burning napalm. I'm even willing to extend the metaphor to include mercy killing of mal-formed kittens. But you should not enjoy and anticipate it.

Then there are religions which are much more self-in-All oriented. Life and Universe are co-equal. The Universe can in fact rain down fire and burning napalm on children and mothers. It can even produce the elements of a body to supply a home for Life, but only Life will make that a Home.

It is within the soul of man to confuse one for the other. It is within the mind of man to have the curiosity to constantly test the truth of both. But here there can be no mistake: my friend Wrigley is dead and I have to take home his ashes. There is an expression: all is ashes. This carries with it the image of a burned dwelling, Life has fled. There are but shattered walls and blackness under the gray. But I have images, too, of a tiny pine tree growing from a half-melted stump, aglow with moss and tiny flowers, all eating away at the air, the dew, the stump. What is left behind becomes part of the Universe and what leaves returns to Life.

A religion is not a faith. I have no religion but I have a faith. I believe in myself first of all, from this island of being I can sense both seen and unseen, tasted and untasted. My mind can feel other mind. That which is felt is also feeling, that which is alive is also changing, we change ourselves just by breathing in a particular piece of air. If you hold your breath just in time to avoid that virus which would have killed you, is this not a miracle? Yet no one is applauding, no one noticed.

Two people noticed when Wrigley was hit. Each had a truck and although Wrigley loved trucks and loved new people, he was under my truck and would not let the other man near him. So I picked him up and I put him in the truck, our truck HIS truck and I drove him to a place I thought might just have to kill him, like Hidey the cat was killed. But he was sleepy and in pain and I stroked his head and like I tell my son every time I see him, "You're a good boy. I am so proud of you. I love you so much." But I will not know in a sure way if he heard me because Wrigley was always pretty quiet in the truck. He liked to sleep while I drove.

I'm Being Watched

I have evidence that I am being read. They never leave their name and they don't always write in American, but they seem to enjoy reading what I have written. Interesting. Just in time for my acquiring fans my knuckles are getting bigger, the finger tips are pointing the wrong directions and my toes hurt. The edges are fraying. I always feel that my pains are from my son, in order to bear his pains. That would be about right, his hands are curled and useless and my fingers are throbbing. His feet have dropped and my toes can't stand pressure. IN a perfect world a son would inherit what his father left behind. In my world the father fades and curls like an Autumn leaf in a fire, burning in the passion a father feels for an injured child. My words are also my children, and they can't leave this page any more than Jon can walk away from the Center. But it's nice to know somebody has come visiting and left a kind word. Now if Jon fares as well, he will smile and focus his eyes on something nice.

Amazing

I am really surprised to find someone who is incapable of wrapping their heads around the concept of the universality of soul, I would find it unnerving to think that we are all of us divided by our souls rather than joined to Soul. Curiously though I am able to begin to pin down when that idea took hold, that we are all "Us" and the rest are "Them". The walls that some have built are as formidable as the ones which encircled Berlin and now Gaza. And perhaps for the same reasons. If a portion of the Humanity believes that the Many are, in fact, at the Essence One, and a portion believe that the concept of individual Souls created by the One is Truth, is there an equation to find a Law to encompass both Truths?

Clearly, the answer is Yes. but a lot will not like it, they can't wrap their heads around the idea. I believe that Adam and Eve suffered from this when they ate of the Tree of Knowledge and discovered a lot all at once. They were in shock, as I have been from time to time at an "AH" moment. So the tendency is to take it slow and await for a little aha moment. I favor sudden smart blows to the mind. Like a mace. The mace is short and to the point and it means what it says. So is an enlightenment, but lately we are bombarded throughout our daily lives with other people telling us what to think, how we think and why we all want to get laid. Or sometimes NOT get laid. But to take it slow can just prolong and delay the inevitable shift in thinking.

Imagine the Milky Way Galaxy with the center mass and the streaming arms. They cluster around a central arm and the whole pattern is repeated down until the Solar System with it's streaming planets, comets and meteors. It's what they call fractal. Now imagine that each bit of each bite is a personality or epiphany of that fractal pearl. That's Us and the other bites are Them. And that's the Truth. However, that set of bites, their Truths and their planet, are all bits of the Galaxy, the Milky Way, named after a very old story of a Cow who licked the icy brine to create Gods. Someone kicked the bucket. That Cow, those briny Gods and Goddesses all are part of a Pantheon of a Society filled with Functionalities and Celebrities and Administrations and Corporations and All of those are Persons under the Law, which we assert, Rules All.

I actually do not enjoy working in a union shop because I am forced to send part of my check to administer the rest of the money they take. I prefer to work alone, mostly, alone. So I understand the allure of thinking ones soul was unique and alone from all the Other souls, yet we have to admit that Soul and soul do look a lot alike. Something there...It's as if one were a pattern for the other. Like a fractal looks like the Milky Way, or the black spots on a cow in a field wanting to get milked.

I make no apologies for having borrowed from several sources to construct what I feel helps the whole AHA moment work. For example: you can only see a certain range of light waves and only feel a few more. It's not nearly enough to cover the full spectrum, so how reasonable is it to say you "see" something? Yet we do, and we mostly know what Others mean when they say they See something too. You can wear goggles to see into the infra-red ranges and see things you never saw before. In that universe things can blend together if their heat ranges are the same, if they have empathy for one another you might say. Like a warm sheet and a warm body, they can be said to have blended in a way, into a red-yellow spot. That would be a true vision and would convey a Truth. When we shake hands, or kiss, or slap, or strangle we merge in some level and become one form, maybe several levels.  If I had a person whose goggles had been strapped on for some time they would no doubt be having interesting thoughts. Suppose we upped the ante and tossed in ultra-violet? merge the two visions and what would we see then when two people or more touched?

Naturally if someone had never heard of nor seen infrared goggles they could not be faulted for not being able to wrap their minds around the idea that at various levels we are all linked as a common Being, the One, and yet we are also capable of, as this Infinite Being Knows, Being in a very small bite of the Cosmic Muffin. The difficulty is when people cannot find it in their hearts to admit they cannot see into the infrared and insist that heat does not "radiate" and there are no fields of amorphous blobs in amazing colors which not only surround us, but which link us to every other living thing, although it would include a lot of what we might call "inanimate" but which a Shinto believer would suggest it had a Soul. Big stones in the sun, for instance would certainly blend into a person's field when near. What does this mean, what lesson does it contain? Don't try to touch a big hot rock.

And beyond the Milky Way are other galaxies which do what they do so well, they spin like Dervishes around one another, getting dizzy and losing themselves in the Dance. I too am lost in a dance, in a trance, seeing things which others do not, and don't we All?

On the loss of Memory

Virtually everyone knows about the loss of short term memory. They heard about it when they started smoking weed and when they did other less civilized ways of dealing with short term sexual tension. But then there's Age and it brings with you short term memory loss and immediate memory loss and brief totally fictional memory, i.e.implanted memory... so many ways to lose your way. But, there is a way of memory that you might call the Way of Mid-Term memory loss.

We all know how the next breed of humans are not prime material to face a world of competition. But we don't breed humans for the most part, only for sport and never for politics. The thing is you can't judge a buck by his cover.

When a blacksmith has in their hand a piece of work so fine, so just no better, they, in the end, are holding iron, metal of some antiquity and a Master of working iron is standing on the shoulders of those who worked bronze. There are books with detailed instructions on the theory and execution of a carburetor producing a dose of gasoline fumes and oxygen in a compressed cylinder while being struck with a spark in the midst. This can move people to want more power over their lives. They may want to move without horses!

There was a time when men of some experience would hang out a shingle of wood with a sign showing what they thought they knew. For many real and political reasons the Blacksmith would be found at the edge of town, mostly near a bridge if they had one. A Smith would hang out a sign of an anvil and if another Smith should come around, the newcomer would no doubt have a reason to doubt the first Smith's territory and skill, so he would dispute the first and a competition would occur, a great occasion for  folks of all ages. The Smiths would go thru all the usual blacksmith accomplishments and move into the more esoteric, producing more and more complex pieces of work, lances that never dulled and puzzles for the little ones. People would bring in things to repair and sharpen and the meet would go on for hours, perhaps but at some point one Smith would concede defeat and the folk would go home and no doubt the Smiths would go sauna or drink and chat about what was going on here and around here, down that road from which had come the new Blacksmith. Perhaps here he planned to make a stand, to teach the skills of iron, bronze and copper. A Smith could locate ore, smelt and refine the ore using local clays, stone, wood and fire brought from the Smith in a little bowl.

Once smelted, the iron, bronze or copper could be shaped by Master Smiths into any shape you could imagine, and any device you could imagine they could build. There were lone Masters who lived apart and repaired odd things and made one-off devices or jewelry. They were harder to find and were almost always very old by the time you did in fact find them and present them with your great-grandfathers mantle clock which no longer chimes or runs. But they took great care handling the clock and looking inside like a sloth counting ants on a hive.

Boots were repaired by elves behind closed doors. Everyone knew that. I, myself, have had a pair of excellent leather boots repaired, re-soled by a tiny little man with a thousand nails in his mouth and he Knew what to do. A few days later, a new pair of wonderful, excellent-fitting boots would appear on his counter and you would leave a small offering of odd metal chips for the Master to take home. This was a time when the coins were worth their weight in whatever.

So that was the Smith. There was also the Rag Man. He usually had a wooden cart filled with things and a pile of this and that. He did also have a pile of rags which his wife might turn into quality quilts for sale later, or she might repair certain gowns. But things got repaired and delivered and sometimes message, too, if the wagon went a certain way. It was a kind of Facebook, an early Facebook. Now, all Farmers need Smiths sooner or later, just as Astarte needed Vulcan. The Smith and Farmer both needed big families to run the shops and barns and such. In some towns a certain Master might work in fine metals or in glass, and they might catch the attention of locals as having Special skills

Gardener was a Son of Farmer, and he worked very hard or sometimes She worked very hard at growing herbs and spices and oils, infusions, rubs, and decompression techniques for the overworked. She lived on the outskirts of Town, which is where two roads came to-gather. And roads were named from roods, or reeds, which is what the Sumerians used as a unit of measurement of distance, ala along a road.  Where is your Smith today?

Most of our society will argue away the Smiths and the tinsmith and the Herbalist or Hedge-witch or all those mid range Masters who would hang out a shingle so people knew who to go to if something needed help.

Now, hold onto this thought: You don't know any tailors, so you cannot clothe yourself. You do not know a Blacksmith, so you cannot have tools made to work your trade. You cannot heal when you need it, and when things go wrong, as they often do, you only "know" the Yellow Pages. As we got rid of all the Masters who were not familiar enough to ply their trades locally, we could do with some one with a big dog to watch over our sacks of wheat and rye and taters and onions etc what makes up a society. We have no muzzled or not monster to slow down the would-be sackers of humanity.

Mercury was a Messenger, trusty-worthy or not, He was it for getting the word out. There were people hanging out around banks and barbers to take the occasional message for the occasional chip of copper, a common metal. These might be Mercury!  But he got the job done and he did not form gangs with inappropriate tattoos on their necks and faces. They did not go cutting off peoples heads. Among themselves they told tall tales about their messages and their travels and they argued about which was the greatest, fastest, most cool messenger of all times. Now nobody needs someone to take a message without stopping, just get it to this person and there's a piece of silver for you if you get it there by the tenth bell. Without all these half-starved kids running all over town with notes they could not read we would not now have the hydrogen bomb!

Suppose every small hydro-dam generator looked like an ancient crumbled mill? would that satisfy the People? Think of it... you are riding down Main Street in a two pony cart and your driver gave the Boy to run ahead and tell Granny you were coming! O! What a lovely day- 2025 AD! If we wanted it to be...But we probably won't want all that humming so close to our bedrooms, so I guess not. Frankenstein did it, the Doctor, not the monster. But not new York City, for all it's watery options.

Who needs a tinker when all we have is un-repairable? Who needs a Rat-Boy or a Messenger, or a Flower-Girl, a basket-weaver, a Miller? When our Apple juice and Chicken jerky dog treats comes from China dare we ask where our eggs and flour have come from? Who maintains the quality? We have been told there isn't any money for all of that, just enough money to hire enough Thugs to collect the taxes. Not enough to heal the sick or educate the illiterate, just enough for Power to apply to the masses. and In the process the Smiths have vanished, the Barber is gone and there are no Potters or Bone-Setters either. We are on our own.

You can design a house in your head, or maybe a room, but you cannot think of what the house down the road has to do with the house you want to live in. But is it upstream or down, does it shade your land or not, and in a pinch does the person living there like you enough to give you shelter if you Needed it?

Do you know who in the neighborhood knows CPR, to put a modern spin on things? Do we even know the occupations of our neighbors' neighbor? Not much of a neighborhood, but a start. Who knows how to make bricks? who knows how to make glass? who knows how to grow food?, who knows how to drill wells? But we can go to the moon...or can we? The Saturn V booster is the greatest strongest machine we ever built and yet the last one is rotting on the ground because we don't do that any more. We don't build hydrogen blimps anymore either. We don't bend wood into a circle so we can roll our asses across the ground instead of walking!

The loss of a key element can set a society back generations. The less we know, the less we can go.

Studio Views

In the winter when the snow is about two feet thick and it's almost into the negative temps, I often stop off at the studio, after closing the hen house, and fire up the propane heater so the room gets more tolerable. You can't work frozen clay and glue does not flow at 2 F, but pencils work and I can rearrange sculptures and look at things a new way. Before it got very cold I was able to tear apart pine cones and glue the shingles on my bird houses. Hope to sell some in the spring. The other things, the nearly abstracted objects and rearranged stuff, I try to see old things as new. So I get some roots and objects and stack them up and stir them up and stare at them awhile until I have a neat little vision of what might be.

The Green man face is mounted onto a honeysuckle clump and pine cones are stuffed here and there to produce an amalgam of images, flowing into one another and writhing in your mind. I doubt I will show this one. Years ago I obtained part of a hat form and it sits in the studio waiting. I took "The Nurse" mask and mounted it on the form to see if it might be good for posing masks for studio pics. Now I am looking at and wondering about what this means. In anthropology they tend to declare objects are religious artifacts if they don't know what it means. So if my sculptures are religious, in what way? So I study my own work to see if I can figure out what kind of societal purpose they might have had if I had found them in a ruin. Funny way to look at one's own work, but it makes things old somewhat new again.

Sticks and stones and white tail bones, antlers, branches and string. What can we do with this old leather shoe and what will the spring time bring?

Once You Know

Once you know, once it really sinks in, you don't move for a moment, and then you just straighten up. You want to face this head on. Cats can both hold objects with their paws, but they can also sell them on eBay! This is what Wrigley had been trying to say.

Suppose, and this is just "suppose', there were ways for thinking entities somewhere "else" to affect things here? Suppose limes were just lemons who in another dimension were not yet ripe? Suppose except for avocados NO fruit got green when ripe? Oh yeah, I know what you are thinking, sure and what about beans? But beans are always and forever Veggies, or vegetables, because they are all kinds of colors anyway. I myself grow purple green beans... or red streaked white beans. never could get lima beans to grow much. Too much rain I suspect, at the wrong time. But I digress.


Obviously if invisible beings permeated the atmosphere we'd feel them if we couldn't see them. And yet we do feel something in the air, something cold coming down from the north... and when Uncle Heath dies in January from the Grippe, does anyone not think it was bad spirits which took him? Unless, of course, you have enough money to have professional Undertakers to relieve you of that Burden which Fate has cast aside... like his jacket and his wallet and his, oh yeah- his body. But say it ain't as bad as those Indians who burn their loved ones on the banks of a sacred river and then cast the ashes into the waters! Better to contaminate the Los Angel's water shed and leave the Ganges for the downstream rice farmers. But we still shit off our skin cells after death and so our bladders, and so our brains, no doubt, but I swear by Erda before me I will go out as befits a Great Ape, noisily; thus making damn sure I attract the attention of a Chaos god...no...no, that's in that computer game I play. No Chaos Gods here. Everything makes some kind of sense, unless you get distracted, and then none of it makes sense. Life is like talking to Abbot and Costello and You are on second base.