Upon the screen of time, the scope and breadth of ones life can be viewed as a work of art...seductive, unbounded, animated, performance art. 

We are not the artist...we are the medium...the color, the light, the sound, the texture.  The artist’s skillful applications give the piece dimension and shadow.  The magnitude and implications of this work are best understood and appreciated from the perspective of observer...

Sometimes we look from the inside out and other times from the outside in…all times through the lens of our own shallow or sharpened perceptive powers of comprehension. 

Slow down...

    ...pull back...

           ...get quiet...

...observe from the position of your personal and private vantage point...eventually, you will see even redwoodpeckers are an integral part of this masterpiece called "life"...

The key to a clear vision of the artist’s masterful strokes? 

          Don’t struggle, just be. 

Oh yes, the artist? 

         Circumstance and innuendo.

Early on a bright summer’s afternoon, the drive going north along the Malibu stretch of Pacific Coast Hwy is gorgeous... it's my favorite part of going up to Paradise Cove. 

Enjoying a relaxing excursion after a particularly complicated workweek and the anticipation of an especially mouthwatering lunch were only the excuses we gave ourselves for indulging in the exorbitant cost of an almost forty mile road trip in our luxurious gas guzzler but, budget be damned, off we went. 

Dropping down from Sunset Blvd onto PCH never fails to take my breath away. The sun’s rays reflecting off the water always remind me of diamonds dancing glittering pirouettes atop each tiny wave.  Since the weather was so beautiful and both of us were coincidentally at loose ends, (which hardly ever happens), we decided to make a full day of it and made plans for dinner along the coast as well, so I restrained myself to lunching only on a small fresh crab salad and iced herb tea...but dinner was going to be another story.

Later that evening, after a sumptuous meal served on the beach, we waddled up to the car continuing to smack our lips while remarking how pleasantly stuffed we were…grateful for the change from our usual weekday fare.  There were appetizers of calamari left over and we decided to pull over to the side of the hwy and enjoy the sun’s last dance on the water and feed the leftover tidbits to the seagulls.  I was throwing bite-size pieces of calamari out the window and the gulls were gathering and scurrying to get their share...it was fun to see them maneuvering each other out of the way in order to get a nice morsel.  Well, one clever little gull decided if he could get closer to us maybe he could charm us into giving him more, so he flew on to the hood of the car and walked right up to the windshield and peered in, his beak almost touching the glass.

 Mark immediately got excited because he didn't want his paint job scratched so he leaned his head out the window and started waving his hands and yelling, attempting to shoo the bird away...but the bird was so bold he would not budge…he just stood there, staring fixedly, beak against the windshield, brazen brown eyes bent on conjuring seagull magic.  Mark was getting frantic in between peels of laughter...I was no help...I was cracking up at the boldness and persistence of this intimidating seagull stance…finally Mark got out of the car and shooed the determined bird off the hood.  In the meantime, I tossed the paper container, still full of calamari, to the ground and rolled up the window.  Suddenly, that same bully bird swooped down out of the blue, grabbed the rim of the container in his beak and took off into the evening sky carrying the whole thing away streaming tidbits in his wake, leaving a gaggle of angry, squawking, hungry and confused seagulls behind...it was soo funny…it made our day!

lovespirit

 She discovered the meadow quite by accident while meandering about the woods behind her home.  It was solitary perfection, an expanse of emerald green, lush and fragrant, with patches of the most intense yellows and purples, blues and whites scattered throughout.  She was immediately struck with the realization that here, in this small secluded paradise, was the privacy she'd longed for where all her joyous inhibition could be expressed through dancing with sweet, wild abandonment, unencumbered by clothes or peering lustful eyes to interrupt. 

 Having studied the terrain carefully, being assured she was quite alone, she removed her sandals and lifted her dress high over her head letting it drop to the grass.  Drenched in the noonday sun, her body, a work of sensual perfection, began to sway to the music of her life.  Turning and moving, moving and turning until without forethought, she leapt high into the air never touching earth again until the fading of the light.  Delightfully exhausted, she lay down in the grass, adrift in the pure ecstasy of having discovered her very own field of dreams.  When she was fully rested, she gathered her clothes, reluctantly put them on and made her way home, determined to return again tomorrow and dance once more as she had danced today.  

She had no knowledge of the sly black wolf watching from an old grove of trees at the edge of the woods.

IN THE LAND OF THE BLIND, THE ONE-EYED MAN IS KING!!!

In this day and age of the most sophisticated media blitz capabilities in the history of audio/video communication, the voice of reason has all the effect of a warning whispered over the roar of an avalanche.

In order for a society to effectively acknowledge and embrace an awareness of their mired existence, they must, in the process, confront their own complicity in the establishment and reinforcement of that existence.

Full cognition of their seduction, acceptance of their responsibility, and the grave implications of their submissiveness to programming, would, in and of itself, lead to the logical conclusion that they had been duped, manipulated by fear and greed, and conditioned to subsist on nothing more than practiced, perpetrated drivel! 

Upon this undeniably mood altering acknowledgement, a sense of survival should compel the beginning development of a reactionary mindset and consequently, they should instinctively be motivated to revolt as a means of redemption from their duplicitous enslavement, thereby, “…trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored”.  At the same time, (subconsciously?) realizing there is no revolution without the shedding of blood, they, the greater percentage of them, rather than fight for liberation from civil oppression, will, most likely, choose to retreat into their comfortable cave of denial and continue to enjoy the affluent lifestyle (or just the mere opportunity to keep breathing with a, however false, sense of peace and stability) that created it in the first place.   

In conclusion, the ultimate purpose and advantage of mass hypnosis, mass manipulation, and mass conditioning being:

You cannot institute, input or sustain survival instincts in those who have had their sense of reliance on those instincts meticulously dulled and cauterized by deliberate mind and soul manipulation through a constant, non-nourishing diet of DRIVEL!. 

It’s impossible to make sense with those who have no sense!

The programming is too effective...they can't hear you..

lovespirit

I’m reminded of something R. Buckminster Fuller said in his book, “Critical Path”.  There is now irrefutable scientific evidence that each of us (every human being) emits an electrical vibration that is, because of the nature of electricity, a direct influence on the atmosphere, hemisphere, ionosphere and stratosphere (you can throw in the tropos and mesos if you like) and polarizes with every other vibration on the same current, i.e., positive or negative.  These vibrations/currents are transmitted or conducted through the realm of the mind…our thoughts and are flowing or emitted from our solar plexus or our “heart” as we romantically refer to it.  (We’ve all heard the saying, “thoughts are things”, right?)  So, long story short, a “Peaceful Heart” ultimately and definitely does contribute to the peace of the planet and chaotic/negative hearts/thoughts do unwittingly contribute to the overall evidentiary chaos.  Of course, RBF stumbled upon a spiritual truth that was established before the foundation of the world.

Solomon more or less summed it up when he said, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” 

I think even the Gestalt Theory lends itself to this concept except that rather than “the whole being greater than the sum of it’s parts”, I think the theory can be advanced to reveal that “the whole is actually representative of the sum of it’s parts.”

You know what this means?  In a nutshell, it means ultimately, we all bear responsiblity for the conditions around us... and  a resounding YES, A PEACEFUL HEART CAN AND DOES MAKE THOSE CONDITIONS BETTER, MORE PEACEFUL...how could it not!!!  

Just as one man's death and darkness diminishes life and light everywhere, one man's peaceful heart infinitely increases peace everywhere.  So, I'm grateful for "Peaceful Hearts" from whomever they come and in whomever they are found...may they always and in all ways continue to beat on one accord. 

Let love abide... 

lovespirit

In the process of expanding ‘self’, i.e., intellect, will, emotions, conciousness, it’s impossible not to encounter the more expanded (or higher) degree of the principle of, or the relationship with, cause and effect, i.e., causality. 

I agree with the scientific field’s proposition that there is, indeed, a “Theory of Everything”, and not only is it the basis for a unified field theory, but it is considered the grandest of theories. 

There is an underlying force that sustains and maintains the physical universe and as unscientific as this may sound, I believe this force to be Love!  This belief determines Love to be, not only the answer to all questions, but in and of itself, the essential question as well, leading us to recognize Love, in it’s preestablished ascendancy, as All in All. 

I am using a scientific concept to support spiritual truth.  All things exist and consist in this Truth which is, Love is the Infinite Creative Force underlying all beginnings!  From this point, every advancing stage of growth and development is a “becoming”.

Because you and I are simultaneously expanding our awareness of ourselves through sharing love of the creative process, i.e., expression of ideas, poetry, literature, art, music, philosophy, etc., we are eternally in an ongoing process of “becoming” new. 

Any time energy is devoted to and expended toward the development of questions and ideas and then extended  to the implementation and resolution of those ideas and questions, it becomes a consciousness expanding experience from which we will not emerge as we once were, hence, we will be new.  We are constantly being “renewed” by the transforming of our mind (s).

It’s very possible that through the process of sharing, we will become aware of Love for/ from one another, but then, it will only be the awareness that is new and not the Love.  This is because Love is the Constant Is.  What is impossible, however, is that we may not interact with each other, even in the most innocent and abstract way, without, at some point in the process, becoming one. 

after thought....Compassion and kindness are manifestations of Love. 

lovespirit