337.

Principles

Psychology

Ego or not  

If one has to choose a direction or activity how does one know if it is from ego or just natural?  It can be hard to know the difference.  One way of approaching such a dilemma is this; just make the activity another choice, something that is before you, but don't be for or against it.  Be willing to let it go if it reveals itself as an ego choice, or continue it if it seems honest.  It can even start out from ego but turn into something reasonably healthy. 

In doing so the decision is not life and death.  You are bigger than the choice.  Just have a sense of peace about you and pursue it.  If you fear a vacuum if you reject it, don't.  Life will provide and fill in the gaps and still pass through you in a meaningful way.

336.

Principles

Systems, patterns, and understanding

Spheres and the Torah  

I suppose as you live you grow towards certain understandings and let go of others.    It doesn't necessarily change what you do but your consciousness is not quite the same. 

When young my drawing was all over the place. Different influences pulled me this way and that.  The core to myself got lost somewhere and there was just not enough time for just doing it.  It was a scattered and stressed environment I felt.  Still, I stumbled along and somehow some things got done.  Recently I ran across a lady who taught a very simple principle in art.  Draw a sphere from your mind as well as you can.  It would be done theoretically.  One was to imagine a single light source  and then draw a circle and put values in.  There would be a highlight, then light, then a transition tone into the shadow, and within the shadow on the bottom reflected light.  On the surface would be a cast shadow.  This would be like Plato's ideal form, as perfect as one could imagine it.  How freeing to able to realize and do this.

Usually I drew by observation and copying tones and values and shapes.  I was dependent on what I saw and knew.  In this exercise you are drawing the perfect form in the perfect light as conceived perfectly in your inner knowing.  This is so core and at the bottom of everything.  All shapes and forms and lighting are merely variations of the imaginary sphere.  Your perfect standard has been tapped.  It doesn't get more basic and fundamental than this.

Unrelated, I heard a tape from a Kabbalah rabbi who said the Torah is a complete instruction guide for living  life.  He went on to state it goes back 3300 years.  In the comment section a lady, who had been a Christian but then converted to Judaism, commented that Judaism was a complete system.  Both comments resonated with me and clarified what I suspected.

I've always sought to understand the nature of how things work. One moves in all directions on this.  One refines certain categories and then one has to build a whole new paradigm outside of the categories.  Layer upon layer is built, and previous categories have to be remembered as well as built upon.  Then one assesses the truth and non truth of each.  You then have to absorb and practice what you've learned and seen.  Experience plus observation is your laboratory.  Doing this as an individual, however,  can become daunting as one takes in new information and well as new realizations.  Living by realization is good but it also places a lot of responsibility onto the individual.  'It's all on you, so to speak.'  Even remembering what you've learned is not always easy.  And many ways of thought are not always compatible.  For instance being in the now contradicts learning from history.

I've suspected all along that everything I've ever come up with was somehow in the Torah and its commentary directly or indirectly.  How can one mind realize and maintain the accumulation of collective minds over 3300 years that was recorded and saved.  If I was starting a system to learn, record, and realize all the wisdom of the world, and honor the past,  I couldn't really design a better system.    Even concepts that seem to contradict its premises are discussed somewhere in the texts and considered.  For instance, in Christian fundamentalism it is claimed Jesus brought grace to the world, superior to the merit system the Jewish people seemed to follow.  But yet, in the Torah, didn't David often admit how helpless he felt and that he needed God to help him because he couldn't do it on his own?  No merit system there, just mercy. 

All the directions I've looked into and the different systems,  Hindu yoga and mysticism, zen, meditation, Christian salvation, pagan cycles, Greek philosophy, the American Indian spirit world, all are there in some form.  Why?  Because its old and a continuous effort and people over time needed and went through everything.  True, the Jewish story has a certain a certain thrust and purpose, but hidden in the various corners and cracks of the Torah are all manner of thought.  As one considers all things it is definitely part of the whole, at the very least a level of seeing things that is part of the many levels one needs to balance it all out.

So appreciation of two truths happened to me recently.  Will they stand forever?  I don't know, but they were notched into me in some form and I'll nod and then continue to move through life as I steer and get steered.

335.  Past

(This poem accompanies drawing 331., Despair 2.  It is the second poem for this drawing.)


Despair 2

To search and find is not easy,
and if done remains a problem.

To search and not find leaves
one empty.

In this age of nothingness
where can one turn?

One has to find God,
all else is despair.

Even if found there is despair,
but a despair from knowing.

334. Past

Who am I writing for

Awareness and sensibilities

I write for the person who because of his/her awareness and sensibility is a victim of sorts.  They are punished for what they see.  When growing up, I was taught to feel for children starving in Biafra, for poor whites in West Virginia, and for southern black people.  Their suffering is real, but it is basic and obvious.  Those struggling to keep their consciousness alive die a thousand deaths.  The first group suffers to survive.  The second group suffers on all levels, on the micro and macro scales.  Their suffering is an appreciation of life in a sense, of its transience, and it pays homage to it.

333.  Past

Principles

Life and living

Something is wrong

I recall seeing a video clip of white American young men vacationing at a Mexican resort and a group of Mexican young men gathered around them and told them this was their territory and they had to leave.  A scuffle ensued and it seems to be even but one American was an excellent fighter and he submitted one Mexican kid after another.  The leader of the Mexican group stood in front of him and said something and spit in his face.  The white kid set up and with one punch knocked him out.  That was the end.

Now perhaps they could have talked it out.  Perhaps they could have discussed where each party was coming from.  Both sides had some legitimate grievances and resentments even if the tourist area was technically open to the whites, but the Mexicans chose to be bullies because they thought they could get away with it, until they couldn't. Men in general will take what they can until they are stopped.  There is a basic error within us.

I also recall watching an animal show that caught a young bison fighting with an older bison, probably over a female.  The older bison became wounded, and backed off to die in the swamp.  I felt empathy for the older bull, left to die, humbled, his stature shattered.  What was the purpose of it?  Why did he have to die?

This all brings me back to a basic cry of why life is so.  I know some spiritual reasons, but still, why is life like this?  We need help and comfort because we are in a predicament.  This is often the land of death and it can be scary.  There is beauty and harmony here, but there is still something wrong.

331. 

330.  Past
(This is a poem accompanying above drawing.  There is another shorter poem to the drawing not here, hence the number.)

Despair 1
       
It seems as if there’s       
an error with humanity.     
Something is not right.
        
Many run from this      
and try to build a wall of safety.
        
We despair,       
they act and get ahead
and life goes on.      
        
The basic questions in life still persist,
“who are we,       
where are we going,       
where are we from?”

They seem too busy
to think about such things.
We torture ourselves
looking for answers.

If you are one
who goes through such struggles,
best not deny it.
Live like the others,
copy them if you must,
get through anyway you can
and just,
just wait to see what happens.

At the very least
you might stumble
across a similar soul,
compare notes,
and be grateful
you are not the only one.

329.

Principles

Friends and acquaintances

Left naked

There was a lady I knew some years ago who worked part time in an optical store who I saw a couple of times a week as I also worked part time in the same area.  She also wanted to make a living as an watercolor artist and eventually she gave various classes on technique and made a couple of videos using a special paper.  Her paintings caught a certain whimsical and humorous side of life.  She was funny and lively and attractive and we had some good laughs along with another employee in her store where she worked.   I knew, however, she was burning the candle on both ends.  In appearance vivacious, in reality her life had been tough.  From what I've observed people who do have a tough life don't always end well.

Recently I saw on Facebook a post from someone I haven't seen before.  He also painted in watercolors somewhat abstractly.  They were attractive in their own way.   He posted a picture of a flower painting he had done years ago that won an art contest.  I'm not fully clear on this but I think he uncovered the painting while going through someone's estate.  He then mentioned C, the lady I've talked about, and how he would miss her wild and crazy and wonderful self because she had passed away, still in her 50's. On the sidebar was a photo of both their faces squeezed together in a flirting manner.

That night I thought of C and in my mind tried to give her a meaningful farewell.  Many of us think of ourselves in such times and I tried not to.  The funeral had been a week before.

The next morning, mind emptied from a night's sleep, I thought of the artist friend who mentioned C on Facebook.  He was tall, had long blond hair recently shortened, and I'm sure played his attractiveness to his advantage as I looked at the seminar pictures he posted showing him giving classes to many adoring women.  Probably at some point C had taken one of his classes or gave a class at the same seminar.  Again, his art had an easy flair to it but only went so far, at least for me.  I've learned to look at art on different levels.

I thought of this man as I scrutinized his face and seemed to read him and his shortcomings, both in his person and in his work.  He had done nothing to harm me, but I saw what I saw and felt at odds with him.  I took solace that my own artistic or spiritual pursuits or both  would expose him for what he was.  He settled for easy answers and that's what he got.  Hence he would see my light and be shamed.   It would be my way of getting justice.

But here is what briefly came to mind and has become clear in this last period of time.  I can no longer run for cover under a spiritual banner.  I also can no longer have my art speak for me and shield me from the world.  Neither is a buffer, for both have their own holes.

Rather I am as I was when I was a kid, feeling nervous and naked and not knowing where to run to for protection. What I thought was protection isn't.  I too am exposed.

328.  Past

Personal

Hurts and conflicts  

I always thought the end of my family would be good.  I don't know yet, but it might not be so.  I thought my art could unify the family.  It would be the umbrella uniting all activities.  But it hasn't happened and I have to be a realist.  We are 1200 miles apart and it's an expedient that we stay where we are.  If they are hurting I can't help them.  For instance my father broke his arm and I wasn't around to assist.  It became clear I was not their back up.  It hurts after all these years not to be able to help your parent.  Part of me almost wants them gone so as not to be burdened by this guilt and part of me never wants them to go.