California reality, the ART ACADEMY, the creative moment

J.F., thanks for the comments via e-mail;
Before I start this replay, I want you to consider uploading your comments to my Blogger.... if you want to stay clear of cross-promotion, then load them as anonymous...

Feel free to be a wide range of "truthful attitude" that might stir others to comment. But please don't invent attitude, and if attitude is necessary, then please just remember BE RESPECTFUL , and I'll be fine with it... your last e-mails are excellent content for my site, so I hope you consent to allow me to publish those, or just leave future comment right here, since they get forwarded to me.

I trust you...

but anyone I don't know, who reads this, is also encouraged to join in here.

I'll keep the forum alive if it furthers everyone.

What I love about the current process, is that associates (geniuses such as yourself and the others who are also writing) from past shared life success are responding. We each have a journey that includes value for folks who are following our tracks, looking for their own path. This is where we could possibly help create flow towards reliable fruition.

In my case, I have my own share of mistakes to "OWN UP" to, and I will mention points for the learning that comes from the lesson inside of challenges or what other people call mistakes. Out of respect for other participants in those lessons learned, I'll try to help keep their part quiet or use psuedonym. I know what I learned, and I can speak from that.

Ultimately, everyone I have ever spent valued time near, also has a catalog of incredible beautiful music, art, inventions, coaching books, etc. etc. etc.

And , it's partly in hopes of charting that network to their contributions, along with allowance for possiblity that by doing so, the audience is going to request copies of the whole process, or buy tickets or perhaps encouraged to create something similar of value (or better) value....

My own catalogue, will take years to put online. I have 400 images to re-shoot in-house and double that "out-house"... you know what I mean... then there's the songs, (4000+) and the TV shows (100) and the short films (about 30), and the features (8, still need editing).

I can't explain it, but I have this sense that just like the world food storage contained in Grain Mills worldwide, plenty food is available to feed everyone for years, but locked away, rotting as we speak, while children and the elderly die... so, too, is the world's beauty, locked away within the same city block, unknown to each other shelved in front of a tv watching the WWE. Right among us, seemingly locked away while we starve for it, there are brilliant masters of life... slowly carted to a corner of a nursing home. IV fed, while insurance and medicare is sapped to the last dollar... ouch. I say, give it up... stop reading, stop thinking.. do a painting write a song... film the birds flying, while you still can. .

Just think what it could be like to influence someone to pick up a brush again, or sing a song again or dance again, run for office again. Who says that, (since when is it that) only Elvis could sing like Elvis. I bet there were thousands of parties in the south, for over 50 years with versions of what Elvis was doing; basically, poor white guys/gals growing up with balck role models; listening to the blues from front or back porches, or filtering out from the kitchen window at breakfast table.... evntually the kid steps up to a microphone at a wedding between bands and belting out some early rock and roll, not even knowing it was supposed to be anything but just joyful singing with a dance to match... rarely, if ever recorded, known only by family and close firends... all cultures being their cultural community, and the fringe observers joining in, cross-cultivating the joy back to their own genetic.... the energy flowing eventually back from where it was firts introduced.

The Black performers of Blues and Jazz , performed their music during the centuries before we knew it as Blues or Jazz, NONE OF IT ON TV. It was more real than any re-enactment through any one person. When the songs did their most work, was when they were first born, perhaps in the fields in order to relieve some of their burden. They got powered up with the wealth that they had to offer, because of the conditions against their creative expression. But, by being true to his own internal music, which he learned to connect with from his neighborhood friends and mentors, Elvis's fame helped to bring attention to the REAL one's who had inherited those work songs... nevertheless, we must remember, Elvises family picked cotton right along side of them. I am talking about how the most deep zen passionate music bursts forth.

What the true inventors of Rock and Roll had been doing, for probably a couple of centuries before Elvis, was not a mock-up. It rose out of real life and real hardship. I think Elvis' family being born in similar conditions, working in the fields, imprinted the value of music from an experiential level. Elvis sang to comfort himself. It made him feel good. He wasn't doing it to be a star. It made his mother happy. So he made a record. If he hadn't made a record for her, Sam Phillips would not have offered him a chance... But the force of the music was ancient... Elvis was just the steam at the top of the kettle, but when the lid blew off that coffeee pot, the wealth inside there was already boiling.

What Elvis always and could ever do , Elvis could ever do... joyful party and dancehall music through times of hardship, well, that's what he learend by being there where the muisic was sung for those reasons... hearing it in the Gospel choirs, witnessing it's healing, burden freeing qualities. I can't say I have ever stood in the shoes of sheer poverty, until recently, so my perspective is flawed. But I do know pain. And I do know that the right kind of music lightens burdens and ultimately music heals, just like any vibrational process, it can uplift and release worry, so the inflow of energetic chi can light up a darkened room. lifted his own.

The reality of California, the world's 7th highest economic power, is that the neighborhood barios and cul de sacs have music and neighborhood parties. Various ethnic groups, holding each other together as a community while they endure the harships of trying to merge with America. Sometimes this is the American Indian, sometimes Black, sometimes poor white, polish french or russian... many, many many, an mesican and all the rest, asian, etc. etc. German (my people).... and their music held thme together... the ones who are cleaning these California offices, where they can't even afford to live, serving and cooking the food, digging the ditches that are holding this ship together. If it weren't for the neighborhood Salinas, or Snoop Dogs, or Leonard Cohens/Elvises/Bob Dylans..... this whole world would erupt in ashes of fire.

What saddens me, sometimes, is realizing that my former music collaborators had to walk away from their music, art, beauty, in order to keep the economic machinery of this industrial society running. It saddens me to think of how I too had to endure years upon years and got nowhere simply because I wasn't a backstabber... But the incredible number of lives that endure such hardship, lose connection with their potential just to raise a family... the one thing that was guaranteed if you had your own land.... Well, it seems all we can do is pass the garbage pail to someone else, and say "you clean it up". What an inheritance. And when these upscale Bay area offices are cleaned each night, it's like the garbage in each cubicle cans holds the songs, poems, dreams and it seems as if the janitor's fingers through his mariachi trumpet, are the final musical procession. His sacrifice for his family and his people gets sent in the mail to keep the village back home from destitution. He/She holds it together,. yet the joy of being able to do that, and to appreciate it that deeply is still in those hearts... eventually converting to music and dancing to release the burden of participation.

I'm not feeling like a society changer these days. Not a whole lot of time to mess with probems. Might better be used singing a song or writing a computer game/painting a painting.

In a sense, I lightened my load with music and creative pursuits... but another viewpoint is that it helped me not die in my heart.

The mexican office worker is a symbol for the idea as contained in this blog item, for what my dad and my whole family has also had to do... and the who truly seem to be holding holding California togetheraren't acknowledged for it, nor paid for it. The reality is that the wealthy love to have servants, and they can still get me to run for their coffee, but the truth is, none of us would have a chance if we ran for president. It helps to be happy with what you have, focus less on what you don't have, and make what you have work for you, if you can. I'm trying to write this blog without a sour puss.

It is also an acknowledgement towards some of the people who have helped me by the way they walk with integrity on the road we paved together... and I can almost see more road ahead.

It's up to us to make the footsteps were're walking valuable.

So, when my friend Jose's Mariachi band plays for the local neighborhoods, the smiles are so wide and bright and freeing. Just like the family gatherings of my youth... but that was Polka music... music is music. If you see the route of energetic, it's as if the music had to be played, and it got played... but all the people did not hear it all at once. This is the sadness of modern society and modern humanity. Few world leaders seem to be "of the people" ....I wonder how they would feel if they slept in my art truck.

What sadness is this? It's the sadness of any "white guy" for any ethnic party/office party where among the staff are many buried elvises, salinas, bonos, who default to a cd compilation of dead guys for the party sound, having no one request their music, preferring a machine... a cd player, a hired dj or band, when among the staff there may be ample talent that could grow along with bank accounts... what is wealth, when the joy of life is so vacant... for so long...

live music can save the world. No thanks Steve Jobs... we'll discuss this later, I promise, that we will... then I'll give him a copy of the discussion personally.

to all you readers out there, ... consider setting up a basic Blogger at Blogger.com. Put anything you want as content... talk about the mini coup... whatever... it's free... then , Along with that (all free, including hosting and space) they provide a software called "Hello, and another which is a image/music sharing program that makes it easy for gandmas and grandpas to do image sharing... that's basically the level of intuitive software I use these days, so consider sending direct without the Blogger connection, hours.

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JT: A little history about my choices back in 1975, second year of the ART ACADEMY, I was feeling my spiritual calling, the desire to improve my talent faster, and need to get to a place where I could just create full-on, non-stop... and from the flawed vision of youth I was willing to renounce the safety of that ploace for other risks, even life-risk in the last days of Vietname....I felt that staying in the ART ACADEMY may be slowing my process. I had the over-anxiousness of youth, I guess, was firing all that up on hormone surges that were out of control....

In any case, I had taken all the physicals for enlisting in any branch of the service that would provide a way to "get to" full on expression, way back then.... silly me, silly me...

If I had just talked about those deep dis satisfactions way back then, I would have been there already by now.

But , in any case, I was a hair's breath away from joining the Air Force, but then chjanged my mind before getting on the bus... instead I went on a solo motorcycle road trip, got "abducted by UFO's", (or was that just drinking too much cheap wine out of an unwashed campfire pan?)... partied with strangers that seemed to want to ride motorcycles fast for fun through Kentucky... then went back to the Art Academy. Strange , but sort of true.

For any new readers, out there, I have a great story I will tell about that UFO stuff, but you gotta keep it to yourselves...

.......keep in mind that memory and perception are elements in every "truth". This is why I say "in theory" before I ever say something I think/feel/believe is truth. I have fooled myself before. In the modern world, it's actually fun to watch whole masses of people being fooled, or fooling each other on purpose, then waking up and realizing it was only you and a dirty canopener....

The truth waits.

So, anyway, back in 1975, putting action towards a part of myself that felt disconnected from me truly influenced every move I have ever made since, the system of meditation I practised, all the roles I ever have played in those realms and now as anartist/songwriter/film maker/ performer are all attempts to draw from that mystery part that is both inside my world and out there around us.

As goofy as this all may sound, it's art into life, life into art. anything and everythig is the same expression coming towards me or coming out of me. The responsibility I try to rise to these days is maintaining balance inside and out (needs and wants, achievement, mentoring, seeking to express share, amintain love.... etc, trying to make a difference) is all the art.

Recognizing this part of me, though it is still a mystery ( and probably needs to be) makes it far easier to recognize the reality of the same thing "out there" as well as in you.

Maybe the main thing to remember about all this, is knowing it or not is actually not the real question. Simply , are we filtering in and filtering out the best of the best and applying our skills and wisdom to adjust choices up, not down.

Every breath that comes in, can be released energized, or dimishied. Every action we perform can comfort or trouble those who cross it's path.

The only thing I know for sure, is that every coonscious person plays a conscious part in our world. We either leave garbage for each other or sustenance.

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Back at the ART ACADEMY of Cincinati, I saw you doing a series of paintings/images while you and DT were hanging out together. You did these great big colorful penises. with splatters, and so did she...

It seems to me, the images that affected me the most have been re-cast by my memory and sort of validated through life as a human being. Body parts are beautiful, who really cares about the meaning. the are all beautiful. The appeal for doing those paintings (to me, back then) was disgusting and obcene, but that viewpoint was put upon me truly all based on Catholic Guilt viewpoint I hadn't yet shaken.

As I have gotten older, I have recognized that life is more fun if you without judgement and fear. I removed a lot of those veils by just accepting the beauty inside me, and around me, then quietly refusing to judge what other people find beautiful. Eventually, I seem to have acquired viewpoints from watching the way people value the beauty in their lives, I remove myself from considering or judging their choices, because the beauty they seem to share , at lease from where I stand observiung, seems to enrich them. ...

In any case, paintings or creative flow in any direction defintiely includes a range of art wider and deeper than I have time to get acquainted with.

Those paintings were great, I'd paint the female figure... but hey, I have been pretty happy in my life painting a wide range of things/people/places.....

and I look back, I have to recognise that the way you put those paintings all over every wall one day then defended them may have been just a revolutionary action you were intentionally tweaking people with absurdity... but the paintings still exist in my memory and they were quite good.

I shudder that I need to convince you that that day happened in my life back then, where I saw you do this in our 1st or 2nd year at the Academy. I don't want to break the spell that it existed, by trying to prove it or disprove it's existence. all I know is that you were there, you'd put the stuff up, we discussed it in a critique and and time went by. The beauty is in the assurance that it was a series of moments we shared and I don't really care about whether they were sharpened detailed memories. All I know is that your demeanor was what I was learning from, between us and that the paintings were great..... even better now, to realize they were done, had their lasting effect, but did not have to mold in your attic like my 30 year catalogue currently is.... Like one of my kids, I watch over them hoping they will become/achieve their potential. distance is not the reality I carry, the love is there without words... I am connected to the art as well. And it hurts to watch it rot.

John, I have drawings from my ART ACADEMY of Cincinnati years, still.... and some are as good as the day they were made, others exist as half eaten fungus battlegrounds. I hold on to them, trying to get them to a level where they can be sold as prints. I have learned to photoshop them, but can't yet affor the computer fast enough that could get me thorugh the portfolio of all 400 of them in a reasonable time..... so I watch them fading and pray, pray pray.

You seem to have been released from all those ideas and connotations , including the memory... while I have found a circle to complete, then validate. So, I get to refresh your memory in such a way that you get all the recognition, but none of the pain of having to care for the material portion or the burden of the style of circle I had to walk to revist the beauty and truly see it... there is a beauty to that. And that is what art /cretive process can do... in a sense, it proves that once something is created, the responsibilities and action reflected off of it's existence have a life of their own.

Tibetan Lama healing Sand paintings... a group of Lama monks spent 3 weeks, round the clock, in shifts, creating a huge healing sand painting in Union Square (or was it the Asian Museum). As soon as the last grain was ettling into that masterpiece, they proceeded to wipe it all away. It had completed it's journey and exists now only in memory.

The truth is, whatever we do, it will always eventually be this....Time/space details may be different.

The current role I play here at the Aha! Center, has touched on this reality. In fact, maybe we get whatever we envision right to that one point of materialization, then have to watch it fade in front of us... Ah, but the beuaty, the old folks say (and prove) is that it existed, we played a part , and we were enriched/changed by all that.

In a field, out in the middle of the woods near Tahoe, I created a heart sculpture 6 years ago, from nature. Two people who's hearts were torn that day, built that heart out of pine cones, needles, deteriorating forest floor. Right under the ancient 2000 year old trees who have seen it all before and again a 1000 times.

There are photographs, but the photographs will fade. There are negatives, but the negatives will burn or be lost someday. There were hearts there that day. One second they were small, the next they expanded through tears, joy, love and art.

I bet, if I go to that trail in Tahoe I will have a surprise.

I bet that heart never was torn apart.

I bet it has been added to.

This reality, where we get to leave something on the trail for the next hikers, this can change our world more than any president or any office worker, or any Elvis (inside or out). The travel wil happen. The time will be spent. The lives will be lived. Whether we know it or not, we are leaving stuff on the trail for each other.

And I have so much gratitude for the people I have shared my life with, whther, a few seconds or 4 years of proximity with. as with you... I need to find a way to enroll those memories into the woven heart memorials, while I still can.

Enough time has been spent discussing what others are leaving on the trail I thought I have had to walk... Instead, how bout walking where my feet lead me, honor the symbols on that trail encountered, and marking a way for anyone so they can get back alive... in the mean time, they can have a campfire, a prayer, or make love next to that heart I built with Polly, after I chastized here for leaving her pager in her napsack back at the truck. Whatever she said to me that day, only reminded me that she wasn't hearing how much I was trying to get connected with my son who may have been on a meditation retereat within 2 miles of us. As much as I wanted (and she needed) to share time with here, I was trying to be available and do my part, that day... and in reality, today, I realize I pushed her to look at why she'd left the pager behind.... and what I fool I was. Tears and a heart couldn't change that I said the right things in the wrong way.... But at least the heart was left as a symbol of TRYING.

Maybe it's existence on the trail will/has snapped someone else out of saying foolish things... being foolish while thye have life's blessings surrounding them, a little more gratitude never hurts.

...........

the rest of this e-mail sounds like a soap box for self-validation.

It's a little hisotry - I love that sotry.... is better than story. but I also love the new writings labeled "herstory" - "His story" ...

It's a little history of the range of research/journey whereby I have tapped into a range of talents I seem to have, that I had no idea I had back in the Academy.

Creative Flow is everything. I no longer restrict my identity as solely an ARTIST, even though I realize it will be more convenient for folks to identify me as an artist. Others know me in different ways, but it's all art to me, as well as all Feeling and all healing. all touch.

................ So, here goes.

I've got a great eye for tapping into trends, proven by bringing in dollars over these past 30 years (sadly, not for me, but for others). I saw the SUV thing, 10 years in advance, told people about it, named it as such, and I have archieved those conversations. The same goes for amny ranges of creative insight. It was all practise, now it's someone on-going and I study the shifts, and changes... I love to study when trends that seem to have value/purpose, shift and get recovered deeper inside a bigger expansion... and that trend I formerly saw seems to have been like the art that got wiped awway to create foundation ofr the painting that was paintied on top of it. I also saw the Belly Button trend themes in advance, and told folks there was a bigger expansion of consciousness arising where the body as art would be embraced, beginning with the womb shape of/contained in the female belly.

But, generally speaking, I tend to be about 2 to 3 years ahead ... and one thing I love to do with artist, is to help them see they also have something of this talent. The perception of the artist is similar to the perception of the shaman healer, if embraced and developed it sees glimpses of the road ahead beyond perception. This also relates to the Native American imagery I have produced in the form of paintings. I wanted to make a difference for them, but I had painted those images my whole life. It was an echoe of responsibility I felt awakened while my family visited the Reservations on vacations growing up, listening to lying history books, or in response to my family's upbringing that helped me to see that we have responsibility for the world around us. I was trained not to walk away. And I had seen the helplessness of the Indians back then, first hand. So, the first images (officially released) were during years at the Art Academy. I hid them away, only rarely presented them in year end portfolio reviews. Stewart Goldman was a great painting instructor, but years after graduating form the Art Academy, he asked me if I ws still painting the Indians... I said "what?" ... in dismay. I thought those images would be writtenoff by others as hobbyist guilt ridden attempts to deal with guilt the european races have to embrace while they live here, and get over.

But he said he always loved them, because of the passion expressed inside those images. surprised me. when he asked me about that, Sue was pregnant and to my dismay, we all walked to the Academy and torued their newer facilities, all the while i was discussing my durrent projects, all Native American imagery at that time. What a circle that was.

Now, here I am another 16 years later and getting ready to expand back into and further than ever before, along those themes... whew. ain't life beauty .

In 1975, I crossed paths with a few books about the Native American(and German) artist Fritz Sholder. And I was different after seeing his work. I loved Fritz Sholder's paintings because I am , a painter first (like Singer Seargeant. whistler, Duveneck... and others) the subject matter is one really excellent level, then there is the art of paint which more subtle, more profound, longer lasting in impression, healing and all that beyond subject matter... color is energy. A good painting changes you forever, by doing it, ... changes the viewer forever, by seeing it... and NEEDS no batteries...

For me, like you, the abstract colors and brush-work are the true painting, which can be viewed as energy fields in the form of color patterns that actually influence levels of thought/healing. The image seems not as necessary, in a sense, but like it or not abstract imagery makes solid form from a distance... so I decided to use that space in favor of luring people deeper through symbol.... but also, it something of an impression to leave folks with.... It might seem like a slight deception create paintings of "things" while knowing that theenergy embodied in the painting in the form of color, strokes, time, intent all play a huger part in the lasting impression/transformational value.

Imagery can have value to draw people in, and while were're at it, it can reflect parts of our world and influence thought forms that in turn can influence/inspire change.

After the Art Academy days in 1977, I needed to embrace my own internal transformation. I had so many passions running wild and I was seeing the suffering in the world around me. I wanted to use my art to make a difference, so I traveled deeper inside through adventurrous journeys including meditation, back-packing, motorcycle roadtrips, experimental film, sky-diving... etc. etc.

Over a period of 12 years to 25 years, I explored many realms and those are just the tip of the iceberg I call Process) we all have one. I am sure yours is filled with excellence, unique to your own needs.

I never stopped painting, my shows were in my dorm room where I meditated and volunteered to support "world peace" through influencing the world energetically through group meditation. All scientifically validated through research. While there, as each day went by, I expanded, then re-expanded, then re-expanded. I found I had many ways to tap into the creative flow, this included writing and performing songs, creating huge shifts in audience via video - film (moving paintings), hands-on healing techniques, martial arts, walks in nature, ceremony , and on +on.

There was a point, before leaving the safety of Maharishi International University land, that I embraced a wide range of metaphysical arts. One of these intensives was for developing my skills as a trance-channel. (ouch that hurts to write, but there are no other words to describe the process... even so, it is nothing like what one usually sees/feels/thnks when hearing those terms.) . I thnk a better way to describe my process at that time, is to understand that I was tapping into a deep, deep flow of suffering that seem to case us all into frozen matter. The further I went, the huger it seemed and the more infiltration it had on every action. I was determined to amount of that vision form inside my heart... yes I affected the external world, still do... but the internal one is where I need to be more able to "draw from the well" at will.

I have used the skills I developed back then, but truly, I have also understood that the skills exist in every creative person. We all use them , to a degree.

In relation to the American Indian suffering; In 1983, had a series of eerie expereinces , where I felt as if I was able to journey inwardly and sense the anquish trapped at various battle sites on this continent, and I felt I was given a task to perform, to meet with Native American Traditionalists and see if they were also trying to relieve that suffering. If so, then, together we could go to the sites of torment and recognize the sacrifices of our various genetic past, and reach it to comfort through ceremony. that was the vision, and that's where I went and what happened ever since has changed me, my art and sometimes I notice that I may have actually helped with a few tiny steps....

Back to the story;

So, I set out to a reservation to join with others to do ceremony to relieve souls who were not at peace, realizing that, whether it were so or not ws not a condition for the prupose of the journey. The journey was it's own purpose. I met medicine people, participated in ceremony and went forward with echoes of the shadows of pain that exist (still) on reservations today. I went to various battle grounds, conducted my own provate ceremony anonymously, felt the invisible dancers around me, danced at Pow-wows... met certain Indians, some inheritors of legacies you can read about in American History, (once the stories have been correctly told, in person, you get to see more to the human side of interconnected reality, it's beauty, it's flaws and how it seems to build, them disperse on it's own ). Slept in their back-rooms, or back pastures.... heard their dead releatives calling, singing... sometimes, chanting, sometimes imploring for change back to more harmonious ways...

that's what you get , if you do art as a spiritual path.

In theory, I stayed sane.

Returning back to Iowa, I found myself doing 400 sweatlodges in my own back yard in the next 2 years. Of those , 99% were solo, simply because that's the level of the journey through prayer and intnetion I was doing. Sometimes, though, I would invite close trusted friends into the lodge, and I would try to impart the ingredients of the ceremony within respect to the traditions I had been introduced to. Later on, since Iron John had come out and the men's helaing movemnet started to blossom, I was flown to conduct ceremony for white guy men's groups, condict lodges elsewher. My only reluctance to build recognition through this, was that I was not yet journeyed enough to convince myslef I could be beneficial.So I kept my participation to semi-anonymous levels and did not seek to create group events... I responded if I was invited, near or far... whenever I did those ceremonies, I offered up a huge personal benefit along with prayers before even starting to speak, then I would attempt to allow the prayer meant for the gorup to come thorugh me... I kept a close eye on not pretending to know something I did not know, and I always emphasized that the prayers we pray are complete and sacred between each of us and our chosen form of recognizing the Creator in our own way. Then , there were always the teachings that seemed to teach me most by allowing nthose words to flow through me. Humbling. Kicked my ass. And the message was always the same; we are one.

I never did any of this to make money painting it. So I never made money painting it, not even yet... if you want to buy a painting, I will be willing to start... but I am newer now than I was then. It takes years to get new again.

But, painting these back then;

I felt it would be a step down as an artist to paint those images. But for my "soul mission" it was mandatory and these above reasons have been what I learned from it. My stuff was shown in all the key spots around this country in many forms and publicised well while being shown. So, in a sense, I sort of held these healing ceremonies at certain vortex spots/energy spots or what others might call (when they reference physical body healing) the pressure points /trigger points or the accupuncture point.... or as Castanada describes it (within the soul/body relationship realm) as the "assemblage point".

In any case, I saw the results of my work (not the sales) but the results.

Sadly, the tribal traditions do not provide a platform to deal with massive wealth in-flow. Sadly, the tribla councils are not the tribal (ancient tradidtions), but they could become those as they evolve. Luckily, there are enough of those mantel bearers willing to try to carry their traditions... I am not of their traditions, so I woul;d not be able to say how much of that anyone is actually doing.

But we can see the garbage outside the casinos, and we get to assertain whether a casino benefits the community of the people it impacts, on a case by case basis... so, there again, those pepople are discovering who they are, and lets hope they rise in powe4r to lead their people towards more harmonious ways... that's my hope for them. In the mean time, it is somewhat disgraceful if they lose their value before they share it's integrity with us. This country needs the Native American wisdom. they have already been creidted for the birth of democracy. Our democracy was encouraged based on their tribal methods. We have mcuh more to learn about just that basic life-giving-empowering factually powerful role they play in our lives (those of us who feel disconnected for the "authorites" in our world, we could help to reconnect our culture by rising up to take a role in our own democracy befor eit no longer exists).

Sadly, I have been told, in some cases the outside managers of (all... but a few) a control/managing element based on corporate methods that do not truly align with tribal democracy. Is this a sell out for money? Maybe. Is it permanant or temporary? We'll see. The casinos are SO successful, the people with their hands in the pie are getting rich, and it's not always shared... have we seen this before? You bet, Where? In the world where most are born, and where life is threatened daily by the land-holders, a reality which the rich may never know. But the youth of the tribes seem to be short changed, in the mean time. The future may have to pay for the money being made now, incidentally, a huge portion goes to the managing companies.... Who can say if that is good or bad, except the ones who have a power to change it fo rthe better but who hold on to their profit instead. Bottom line; I have my own world responsibilites and they are these.

All I care about is whether it helps us experience the art/music/beauty of part of our American culture that can feed/enrich allwho partake. so far, that is still a question unanswered.

It's discouraging to recognise that the streets eat up the people who live on the streets, locked out. And then to see the folks who take on the street credibility and marginalize where that wisdom survived through... then to see it show up in an image/movie/song or expereince that looks good at first, but is no deeper than the puddle of crap we stand in daily.

that's when we all sense we lost something we never knew... and we still don't know what it is.

the money changers like it that way.

Will we watch it as "the movie of the week"..... or will we live the life that the movie of the week is based upon. Where is the real learning experience?

As far as I have seen heard/ the tribes that turn their lives around through the routes of doing deals with the worst of the worst kinds of people, seemed to have learned THAT methodology from that conquered them. Up till now, this is how this Nation has tended to build itself. When a child from a tribe, who is raised in a on a reservation and knows the struggles of his/her people, then learns about the methods that were used to oppress his/her people in the Universities, it's hard to balme them for utilizing those methods, in order to have running water, or charitable programs for dealing with alcohol addiction.

Casino land in your neighborhood may have been their only route out of 3rd world reality inside these borders of the richest nation. It appeals to me to watch what they do with the results of this first step. Do they eventually get back to the best parts of their ways, then introduce them to us... since we all need more harmony with nature, but none of us seemed to have ever known it for very long... including the inheritors of the native traditions...

Quite frankly, I have studied the energy component of it, from the standpoint of trying to understand how a certain strata wealthy would be so entertained by the act of gambling that they would journey far and wide to throw money away that I will never see in my life. they'd never give me any, in order to see art/music prospered, but they will gamble away 50 grand without thinking about why. It's more than the secret sex they get through power.

Quite frankly, I believe that most of the people gambling, who are playing those high stakes seem to realize (sub-consciously, but still) they do not /have not earned their wealth. They know that it is symbolic of the people they have "killed" through predatory legitimate business. The biggest war on this planet is not the terrorist war. The biggest war is an ancient war, and has always been a war between the "haves and the have-nots", where the HAVES will do anything they can to decieve the have-nots into believing there is no war, while they work the have-nots to death for their satisfaction/status/life of luxury.

In the mean time, the ones with lives in shadows and no peace are the ones most enslaved... and they are the ones we may never meet, but they know who they are whenever the pharmacuetical confidence wears off.

In a sense, the casinos offer the rich greedy person a chance to relieve some of that freif through the entertainment of gambling. Gradually, the balance is going back to the ones who carry the genetic of the ones who truly earned the right to inherit their world. Deception took it away from them, now 3 centuries later, it's gradully going to rebalance, but in the mean time the possibility of using the pwoer fo wealth and money may have been lost. Those ancient ways are still our truest guide, and definitely available to anyone who can hit their knees and pray. Harmony with nature is for everyone,and it enriches all.

Perhaps, in the end, it may be those of us who have debated the sacrifce of our humanity of money, who may get the chance to teach the wealthy native american about how to use money wisely, and not like the real estate barons who have all but destroyed both them and us. This would be interesting, it's like the way the Native Americans trained the early pilgrims to survive the harsh winters. If they hadn't done that , time and again, there would be no casinos for them to build or run, nor would we have had anything like the world we were born into, or this dialog to share.

Maybe all that is happening is that souls are evolving and reteaching to each other whatever the "best of the best" they learned through exp[ereince.

If , for no better reason than harmony in one's own life, even the Native American will be doing meditation/yoga, breathwork (either their own version from their tradition or another, equally as efficient)... and eventually, no matter how we earn our money, we still truly need internal peace with ourselves...

Replicating greed of the profiteers never will fill one's heart like living a true life and helping others.

on..........................

I've tried to risk the adventure that have taken me to what seemed to be truer, purer visionaries (if there is such a thing), the ones who are constantly surveiled because thier passion is deep and their vision far forward. They see the despicable behaviour of their own tribes, ones they tried to help... and they aren't happy about what you see/I see/they see either. Nevertheless, in spite of what people fear about those visionaries, they take their part (the part they play) as an opportunity, and it is their compassionate prayer (in my estimation, if such could have any validation) that keeps this wheel in turn. They remain vigilant, but they also recognise that the Will of GOD always prevails, and that Creator blesses this process, for it is a process and still in process as a process.

People used to say "practise makes perfect" that's a lie. practice never makes perfect. But practice does make progress.

Progress is a funny thing.

Sometimes our ideas and agreements with/about progress seem to be real, other times we get the surprise that, while watching all our eggs in the basket, one that fell out hatched on the side and that chicken is now biting our ass. Seems to me, more often than not, that progress sneaks up on us and there is little anyone can ever do about that. Our efforts matter, but no always in the way that we think they matter.

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My indian paintings started out as a mission from God, or so I believed. Along the way, some of our world leaders walked past them. W, Bill and Hillary, to name a few... only surprise equations brought about through others could have made that possible. My painting hung in restaurants where those folks ate and elbowed each other, that happened. but the part I played in their interpretation was all in the integrity I brought to the creative flow of the process of paint on canvas.

The real life encodings in the paintings appeared in the paintings as part of the process and the progress of that painting's evolution. And while trends may have have shifted the interpreted meaning inside the paintings (or inside me) , it's all still evolving. in cluding my own interpretaion which, is by it's very nature flawed, because to describe those levels involves limiting them, and they are still in flux where they arised from. Lao Tsu siad it best, the unnamed thing had 10,oo names, but speaking it will never be it...I can only speak about the part I played in helping the paintings become what they became. IN a sense, it was part of my own process of allowance, practised through the painting as a symbolic battleground for idea/image/symbol/creative Flow. Now tha they exist, they have become my cross to bear (on down days) and my rocket ship to creative beauty (on up days)... between the two, they are like the slow ebb and flow of the tides...

In answer to your questions in the other e-mail, all the reasons you cite as the reasons beyond/behind the images... you are very astute to recognise those elements within these images, artistic perception is well and alive in your world. ... they are some of the thoughts I was thinking while doing these works... but the process of doing each image changed the prcess itself as well as me. This is also the cutting edge of current thinking within NEW PHYSICS, but even though people underline the process, they never started it, nor did I, nor could they truly change it, since it is a flow of creative force that actually is US... and always has been us. the intellectuals that discuss string theory should just expereince it in the creative process... maybe then we could have the solar panels we deserve (and the computer dating programs that could lead us to our true soul mates!).

In the mean time, it is hear/here for us already. If we are tapped in, we sense it... and if we can allow it to flow, we know we are IT, and if it flows in a way that others get to exeprience what flowed through.. then all that really happened is we tapped into a mystery we can never fully know, but still become and bear witness to, through creative process.

Some temptations in the world are hinged on driving people far away from the creative moment. As long as you know you can drive to vegas and feel something other than guilt, you are boudn to do that gambling and quick fix... but a life free from guilt might involve going to the streets of Ruwanda and seeing into the eyes of what you knowingly/or unknowingly create through greed. That ability to face and see through the mirror, can be better releived by giving back to the ones that the past has damaged/destroyed. I never invented the syustem. But Andrew Carnegie still needs to build a thousand more libraries to make up for theones/families he enslaved into the grave to build his ego-wealth. Nothing can replace the reality that Andrew Carnegie destroyed life, but created railroads we still ride on...Just a fact. Man, and I am so glad I was not him!!!

Nowadays, I sometimes create an image where the symbol is the reason it is there, and not for any firm interpretation that I can know or nail down. I seem to have trainedmyself to co-operate with a certain kind of part of the mystery without need to know it's details. all I need to see is the glow of beneficial upliftment surrounding it, and reflected from the test viewers, in ordeer to bless it to still exist. When and artwork creates a response other than that, I shelve it until I can say whether it needs to go back to the dust and tried over again.

I seek to establish a subtle bondinside the artwork with universal interpretations beyond even what I may ever fully personally know...

Those paintings, appear in people's magical dreams, and they have told me this, though I understand that I only played a small part in that magic for others. It takes incredible fortitude to continue painting over a masterpiece, because the painting that wants to come (which will cost you more than you could ever make from money creating it) needs to manifest. That style of artist is closer to the tribal shaman. I can assure you i have been working on paintings that felt like they would carry me out of debt and back into the status realms of this society, then had to take that turn in the road within the paintiing becuase the intent to be honored would require something that may cost it's appeal to the ones who have the dollars to spend. I have taken those turns inside a painting consciously... it was part of my vow as this kind of artist that I realize I am. I have truly co-operated. They are bigger than me... They came thorugh me, I was not the creator, but only a participant.

............since I leave the mystery parts to discover themselves in the reflected hearts of the viewers, I am still enfolding/unfolding trust.

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The common people, the truer hearts, the purer "tribal indians" (both in white gentic and red/yellow/white/balck etc.) all see beauty, anquish, inspiration and sense the elements you speak of inside my work. But by doing so, they are only reflecting to me that they percieve those elements in their worlds. It validates all of us being alive at this time, and the necessary work we each have to do in response to that "vision of reality".

I see that they have touched the part of them beyond this bull***t which is bull***t for everyone. As close to living in harmony of nature anyone is/will ever be, you may still need to drive a car to survive in this world. In a sense, we have been limited in our choices by the ones who have structured the inventions built to serve us. We all sense a bigger truth. The technology has always existed to sustain us beyond machines... the real-estate angent and barons/baronesses of the world want us to forget that. by driving the gas poluting cars, we contribute to keeping them lording over us... we know it.... they know it...

Go to nature and 3 days later, you wonder why you'd ever want to see a computer or a car again. And then, the hovering dragon fly sized robot camera with pa system on says "you're late for work"... there is no mountain whre a ceremony can occur without it being beamed via satelite into anyone's office. privacy was gone long ago, but we won't find out for 50 years...

Meanwhile, why not just be a happy artist today.

does it really matter???

So, the artwork, as well as the process of creating art is like the ceremony of old, and becomes the highway invisible route that happens between artist, viewer, subject matter, and back through all those hearts reflected. That journey changes you, if it is real, and with each change you get a glimpse of how many more there are from there forward.

Like George Harrison said, the further you go, the less you know.... if so, then all expereince is transformation....and what better reason for creating art than that.???

....................

J.F.;

I'll be honest, I really want to see you working symbols/meaning into your paintings beyond just strokes and color. I know you have it in you... and I have survived doing it, so you should too.

The reality is that , like you, inside each of my paintings are about 100 tiny paintings , each abstract, and each very healing in reflected value.

If I can slowly encourage a person to shut mind (resistance) down, and draw them close enough to visit with one of those 2 inch square paintings, then the spark in their eye is far bigger. All the images up tilll that point (the large noble savage in the distance, the sad/honorable leader closer up, the imploring beseaacher close-up with thoughtful distance between the eyes (between the heart/mind brain as represented by how one side meets the other in a face), and the closer than close (you want to touch it) "icing" of thck colors mixed on canvas.

All these levels matter to me,

But beyond all that . energectically charged canvas exists like a super-charged battery and lasts hundreds of years "powered up" on walls of a museum/house.... getting to this level requires deep true intention, investment of time/space sacrifice and deep care.

If I position myself in front of any blank piece of paper, and simply solely manage my thoughts, and draw freely... no matter what the subject matter the final impression (and most lasting) is the level of integrity I bring to the moments I spend there.

I suggest a version of meditation of meditaion or yoga if this all sounds inviting (and if you haven't consciously embraced any similar ideas or experience).

But the final reality is that we do the big work, always, whether we intend to or not, if we bring integrity to be true to ourselves and what we think and create, and what we think about how well we a re doing is always a flawed view... and almost never applies. and even if we did, it wouldn't matter, since thhe audience always decides what will stand the test of time.

-toekneeCALIFORNIA dec 2004

l

"...another interesting test adventure into the magic of intention on the material plane"

Art into Life
-Toe knee