I AM. 5x5'. Oil on panel. 2013

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“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”
~Sylvia Plath

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
~Jesus

“We are not primarily biological, with mind emerging as a kind of iridescence, a kind of epiphenomenon at the higher levels of organization of biology.
We are hyperspatial objects of some sort that cast a shadow onto matter. The shadow in matter is our physical organism.”
~ Terence McKenna

“I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one’s being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.”
~Martha Graham

“May the space between where i am and where i want to be inspire me.”
~Tracee Ellis Ross

"Who do you say I am?" asked everything in the entire universe, ever.

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Google heart chakra Jesus; Riley & my inner child; Closeup meditator

Jess: A Grand Collage. My Studio Bible.

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Who is this ancient one that camps out in my quiet?

The seed image for this work is a picture I took in such spacious stillness. I went for a random adventure in the wee small hours of the morning with a Lady Painter friend to a community where she had been leading art classes. It was a giant celebration for the Virgin de Guadelupe at a local congregation of Catholic Latinos. Inside, pomp + costumes + wall to wall + music + incense + The Faithful. A great show, but still I opted for the orange-purple sky of the winter night, and solitude. Car-lot flags merge sacred and profane, and call the wind in to witness –cordon off sacred space— we are standing on holy ground, k? Now.

The way the image inside the altar blurred her lines spoke to me of the dissolving of self, daily practice. “Why be a drop in the ocean, when you can be the Ocean in a drop?” I have Rumi’s wooing to thank for my spirit’s homecoming, after fleeing the burning building that was the top-down, dogmatic, rule-clad attempt at Union ~ religion of my youth. My full-on buy-in meant brainwashed desire. Coming alive again has meant concerted listening to little Lyndsey, reclaiming.

I was drawing with a kindergartner named Riley; when she drew this figure, I gulped in recognition. “You must come as a child.” Rainbow-hearted and with full trust, she waltzed center painting – boldly to the throne! – with her pet dragon, the shapeshifting Shadow who guards the greatest-pain-is-the-greatest-gift.  The sagrado mano waves, beckons.  The eye in the sky winks like it do.  A visual quote from Jess: FIAT.  Let it be done, a command or act of will that creates something as if without further effort. Can we collaborate with All That Is, this way?

Start again. And again.

This is the second of the “5x5s” — these biggish panels I’ve been lugging around like they have something important to teach me.  I’ve decided that they are chapters of learning – I create like grateful altars, cairns to mark the path.  The first, ACE ME, encapsulated the body-mind principle and receiving the plant world as my healers.  This, I AM, gathers in a return to the Sacred – - through practice, opening up to the Universe as it reveals itself, stardust and soil, masculine and feminine, temporal and eternal. I am in love with this mystery of embodiment, and I am game to hone this vessel as a love poem of thanks. The balance/tension between the digital & natural realms, in this exploration, still continues to cause me to quake at some subtle level, so i tune in without judgement and see what comes. I do know that encountering Android Jones’ Night Rainbow today made me question retiring pigment for pixels.  But I think I’d just as soon retire image-making and be the reed that the breath blows thru.  Huuuuuuuuuuu ~