Create You: Fearless Artistry and Creative Identity

"I began to dream heavily, violently, every night, and then I learned how to wake up…" 

"Consciously or unconsciously, all writers employ the dream, even when they’re not surrealists. The waking mind, you see, is the least serviceable in the arts. In the process of writing one is struggling to bring out what is unknown to himself. To put down merely what one is conscious of means nothing, really, gets one nowhere." 

Henry Miller 

Creation is life. More, the incipience of creation is the life of the creator. The life of the artist is bound to their creation, in the same way that a mammal survives on each breath of fresh air. As long as the air is fresh, the artist will continue to create, and as long as the authentic substance of heart issues from the core of the artist's own vision, the arist-seer will align and harmonize with all of creation. 

To forego a path without heart is acceptable. The great mystical physicist of our age, Fritjof Capra, began his famed text, The Tao of Physics, with that realization. Yet, on the path of heart, a different narrative runs its course. To remain true to oneself is to hold fast to the consciousness of one's life source as not merely the beginning precepts of one's physical subsistence, but of the visionary path onto which one is led through to the heights of meaning and becoming. 

The proud artists will realize their vision in the instant of a moment, at simply being the processional experience of creation, the ever-beating heart of co-unity with individuality and universality on Earth. To not over-think is the key to strengthen the creative momentum, reminds Henry Miller, the American author with a self-professed Chinese ascetic's nature. 

So, in holding fast, the artist and author of self-creation, is near-shattered, sensitized by the flood of the fleeting that files down the materialism and consumerism of an all-pervasive cultural fear, to belittle the uncultivated mind to ignorant non-being and blind negativity. In this way, the inner sanctum from where the creativity of an artist is strengthened by the water-like ability to be vulnerable, naked, raw and emotive in a full and unbridled formless truth. 

To all artists, and to the Self, I call on you to be strong, and to claim the ideas and visions and dreams in your mind and heart and being as you would claim your rightful place on Earth. For that creativity, and the perfect imagination of its fruition in your life, is your truth, your heart, your mind, your being, your soul, your foundation, your meaning, and all your own, it is you, your nature, your life, all yours, be it and be proud. 

Everyone, as with one mind and one heart, is capable of becoming sensitive to the expression of your truth as an unheard knowledge that only you possess and that is invaluable, necessary in its tragedy, absolute in its humour, refined in its judgment, authoritative in its experience, wild in its reason, cautious in its aspiring, and pure in its love. Create you. 

___________

Around this circle danced the flame of eternity. In the green spark licked the tongue of heaven. Spring in the Jungle bloomed with effervescent majesty among the ruined foundations of another remote, human wasteland paradise. The veils of fame and belonging passed like a soothing tide, recoiling in the abyss of oceanic depth. We smoked the herb of forgetfulness, harmony and love. 

Ernst Haeckel's 1905 Wanderbilder (Travel Pictures)

The smoke coiled around our lazing necks, floundering amid the slow-moving river, her brown body motioned like a heavy emotion. One among us, an artist of metal and flowers spoke up as paper and marijuana stung our eyes, blinded by the greedy moment, a fleeting light. "Native community leaders announced their wish to use our space. They will hold facilitations, meetings and workshops on the militarization of the Indian people; their War." 

Coolies on the Road near Kalicut, Malabar by Edward Lear

A shade lifted and a heaviness shrank as our hearts wept and our minds faltered along the brink. She, the speaker, high as the azure, fled to the banks, to swim and cleanse in thoughtful reflection. She swung on a low-hanging vine, falling into the naked river, dressed still in paltry coverings, now a resident of the Amazon for well over a decade. Her eyes spoke of what her tongue could not shake. 

Young hunter by Ferdinand Keller

They arrived, and we vacated the area, as a show of respect. And one day, on the top floor, whereon we store our arts, with wood canvases lain and strewn, I saw her. She was not Native. She was a woman of the Old Country. Her heart was cold as a perennial shadow. Her moonlit face eyed me with an inhuman glare, and her blood then boiled, raising her hair, intoning a voice as harsh and ghastly as the screaming bite of a bullet ant. 

14 abril by Yolanda Palomo del Castillo

I ran. And then falling with desperation in the rushing river, we were swept along. In the instant of our near-death, she lunged towards my angular body, stretched out above the surface, in full display of my superior experience on these riverine lands. I watched as the infamous cult leader, impostor of the Cocama ethnic struggle was buried in the open jaw of the current, as her bones cracked in the turbulent stream. Awash, I lay at the edge of reason. 

Giant tree in Brazil's tropical forest by Johann Moritz Rugendas

Then, I saw the body. The tattooed flesh, gouged and lacerated. Two arrows pierced the man's underside, widening a deep, mortal wound. With bowels distended, his blood having since let almost completely of his sunken frame, I cried, lowered to the wet jungle floor, bleary-eyed. Not only had his own turned on him, but the man also suffered bullets. Scarred and mutilated, his body is the story of his people, dead to the world, brutalized and beaten down by the perpetrators of human trust, by invaders and blood alike. 

_________

Andamese Teaching: From Kill or Be Killed to Communicate or Be Killed

Talking History - A Lakota Storyteller

"Myths and legends were told...usually at night around the village fire and the telling was reserved to the "dreamers" or medicine-men, the Oko-jumu...There were three ways a man, and much more rarely a woman, could become an Oko-jumu. One was by "dying" and then coming back to life, for example by fainting or by having an epileptic fit and then recovering. Another way was to be "kept" in the jungle by spirits: if a person showed no fear of spirits, it was believed that they would refrain from killing but they could still keep their victim in the jungle for a while. Yet another way was by talking to the spirits in a dream. The spirits were the dead and any contact with them either killed a person or made him or her into an Oko-jumu." George Weber. The Andamese. Chapter 23: Myths and Legends.

This study, originally from A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, is especially pertinent to the study of rites of initiation, where the primary function of this social form of belonging, not only within the human group, but with humankind's higher spiritual faculties in cohesion with subtle ecological presence. This gives us insight into the source of human knowledge, as an intergenerational narrative, and even represents the role of conflict transformation and the relegation of the aggressive principle in human nature from a kill or be killed to a communicate or be killed.

For a comparative study between the Lakota and Andamese peoples with relation to the role of dreams in the making of traditional storytellers, read From Social function to Pedagogical Function on Mythic Dreams.

_________

Tramping through the corridor of my grandparents in the Hampton hills of New York, the beige linoleum lies dirtied with a score of recent visitors, and the angel light of the winter’s day breathes with an icicle heart onto the feet of the whitened doorstop. With a running muck of puppies, my father swings the door open and shoots me out into the dizzying cacophony of wild dogs, huge and menacing. Their growling eyes bear down with starving, cannibalistic teeth.

Ceremonial Orgies by Dog-eaters by Anonymous

As my father quickens back through the warm house, the slow-motion snow gathers under my frosted eyelids, as I work myself back up to my feet in the subzero temperatures, at eye-level with a host of swarming canines, wild and diseased. I notice the back leg of one dog’s been bitten clean to the bone. Their wounded sting of necessity chokes my well-wishing brain into a heady daze of a feral calling.

Gypsy dog-killers by Anonymous

And in the mind of my love, a dream of lightening news props up our necks to an after-life view. Our grandfather, recently deceased, visits us. He’s traveled hundreds and hundreds of miles away across the entire scope of the prairies, a young man of excellent hue, whose eyes invigorate the humble walls of our sleepy apartment. Again in his prime, he offers a blessing of material coordination with our passionate, creative hearts. An ingeniously crafted wooden box, shaped of his exceptional Norwegian whittling hand I presume, is handed over, as a gift, to us.

The Willow flute by Christian Skredsvig

Within the glorious arboreal artwork, two handcrafted wooden flutes of a celestial order are presented hearteningly. They appear as long bamboo flutes, however with a sound equal to a half-Shakuhachi, half-recorder timbre. We play them with delight, and upon sounding the first note, the golden presence of our late grandfather vanishes in a heartbeat of silence; a gift from the prime centre of our earliest known life.

_________

Drift of a fist to the sky
In the activist’s pause
Before standing unannounced
At the gates of eternal misery
Where strife finds embittered ground
And the inglorious suffering breeds childless offspring
Mourning for ancestral greed
Sprouting from a native gourd
With cracked shell
Lying abandoned and weakened at the skin
With taught shell-string clacking
With fortune’s boisterous western noise
Shrinking into the mist
Without echo
From musician’s deep sleep
Over the ancient soundscapes passing
Through electric wilderness
To heart

excerpt from "Ancient Soundscapes, Scholarly Jazzdoms"

Succubus, Temptress of Mystic Remembrance

Lilith by John Collier

"In folklore...a succubus (plural succubi) is a female demon or supernatural being appearing in dreams, who takes the form of a human woman in order to seduce men, usually through sexual intercourse. The male counterpart is the incubus. Religious traditions hold that repeated intercourse with a succubus may result in the deterioration of health or even death." Wikipedia

In Hebrew and Arabic mysticism, the figure exhibited above, of Lilith, is the central character for mythic remembrance of the succubus folklore, where she is a source of domestic superstition and the root of cosmic evil. Read more from the Jewish Women's Archive.

________

Low-lying jungles emerge only steps from the sea wall. As I enter through the darkening canopy my footprints sink deeper into the unsure ground of dying vegetation. I see a man and woman walk assuredly in Muslim dress. 

Muslim shawl-makers, Kashmir 1867 by William Simpson

This is Mother India, though I feel I am trespassing, at the dangerous edge, where two worlds have collapsed side by side. At seeing their weary countenances, their grimacing jaunts, I recoil nearer to the seaside, where the forest is less thick and try a new entry point. Again, wandering through the sweep of jungle, my mind presses onward with increasingly bleary sight as the landscape closes in and my sight nears my eyes, confronting the formidability of a climaxed rainforest. 

Lovers shoot at a tiger in the jungle.
 Illustration to the mystical Sufi text Madhumalati by Meister des Madhu-Malati-Manuskripts

As I enter through a clearing, I see a young woman, a Punjabi Sikh. She welcomes kindly, and warns me of the dangers ahead, though she reminds me that as long as I travel through the lands of her people, the Sikhs, I will be safe. 

Portrait of Rani Jind Kaur aka Jindan by George Richmond

I wander on, enlightened by the meeting with such a kind and endearing sprite. Increasingly entangled in the impenetrable bush, I come to a massive tree. Immediately, I begin climbing to gain a vantage point. The limbs are smooth and strong, a true jungle arbor. As I feel for a lookout, the branches stretch me inwards, and I rest on a limb as thick as my body, crawling toward a knot of branches creating a homely stand, a shaded hollow within the body of the tree. As I press on amid the enwrapping arms of the humungous tree, a woody formation beckons with the same quality as my bedroom. 

Abu'l Hasan and Mansur Squirrels in a Plane Tree by Abu'l Hasan and Mansur

Again, I wake, remembering the seaside cliffs beyond the jungle’s edge, the grandiose rocks, welcoming my step, as I notice two women of different religious custom playing, bounding from rock to rock with amiable laughter and sisterly freedom, I begin sketching in primary colors and rough lines, with an innocent beauty, and gravity enough to keep my word.   

_________

Where does the apple fall?
From a rootless tree?
A groundless source?

- excerpt from "My Name"

3 Waterfalls Over the Dream of an Exotic Settler

Manuscript Cartography by Exotic Settlers - Rusty Kjarvik

As a fledgling artist whose writing creativity catapulted him into the realm of visual art, I never dreamed to exhibit such art publicly beside truly innovative and dedicated artists of a high order. Such dream creativity sparked when I stumbled upon Asemic Writing. Simply, I am drawn to my writing craft from a visually creative standpoint as a youth whose eyes were pressed to contemplate the magic of the Hebrew alphabet, and its sheer visual wizardry. 

Visit - The New Post Literate: A Gallery of Asemic Writing to see my featured exhibit of 3 first shots in the dark into mixed media visual writing art.  

___________

I find myself whirling through the lushest forestation, a gripping riverine jungle, and I float recklessly down the coursing flow of its river in a dugout canoe. Many times I follow others, as they whip in and out of half-sunken tree trunks. The mossy greens of all shades mixed with the reds, blues and yellows inland express a whole range and host of wildlife and biodiversity. I am immersed in the heart of this living being. Suddenly, as I begin to think, what if I come across a waterfall, I will surely be flown off its edge without heed at the velocity with which I row through. So, I slow down, and lo and behold, I near a waterfall. I see many other canoeists marooned atop the waterfall, and to my surprise, a few of them are handicapped. I wonder how they got here! As we all look for a way down, one young man in a wheelchair dips over the edge of the waterfall embankment to the fright of us all, and almost lunges headlong over its edge, however he remains on safe ground. More to the side of us, a tramcar gondola seems to have been installed for just the reasons we need. I help the handicap travelers to hitch their things on the gondola line on special hooks meant for collapsed wheelchairs and walkers of different kinds. We all board the tramcar gondola.

Next, I find myself immersed in the village life of the jungle. There are dark-skinned women with satchels carrying infants and sacks of fresh vegetables. We ask about the local origins of their food. They seem to be living an ideal environmentalist way, with foods only brought from nearby villages by the same means that we had arrived from the river. This gives them enough diversity in their food that they could ever wish with such an unindustrialized forest, thick enough to give privacy at any moment’s notice! As I begin to spend some days in and around the village, I feast upon the luscious fruits and raw beauty of their sustenance that they so pleasantly offer without hesitation. I even come across one Rastafarian man, who slightly resembles the lead character in the film, “Countryman” but also Bob Marley himself, who sitting amongst locals as if they were his own, provides me with some kindly living wisdom.

After I exit from the jungle, I next find myself in a beautifully set convention room for a new civil society organization. This is my Cultural Fulfillment Center come to life! There are pictures of immensely successful inventors, travelers and social justice activists of all types wandering around the room to view the open house presentation of all the achievements each of the members has brought to the table and combined for the efforts of the center. My poetry, in the form of the collection, “Exotic Settlers” lies piecemeal on the wall. I am slightly embarrassed that it is showing, and even though people are very keen to see it. I stumble on my own feet in facilitating their knowing about my activities and background. 

____________

Waterfall

"To dream of a waterfall, foretells that you will secure your wildest desire, and fortune will be exceedingly favourable to your progress. Dreaming of a waterfall symbolizes beauty and grace. It may represent your goals and desires."

____________

I remember Africa

A skeletal footprint
Awakening humanity


To Earth
Her being

Mater

Basho Pops My Dream Bubble of Jungle

Picture and Poem by Matsuo Basho

Still I have always been drawn by windblown clouds into dreams of a lifetime of wandering.

—Matsuo Basho, Narrow Road to the Interior, Translation by Sam Hamil

Source

_______

I walk into an ecological sanctuary where exotic plants and fish thrive in a hot greenhouse. The humid air transports one to a transcendence of spatial dimensions, wherein time breathes with the quickening pace of an intensified microcosmic environment. Jungle leaves brush against my face as lotus-bloomed lilies freshly spring from the fish-born soup of breathable life in the density of my deeply woven surroundings. A plant scientist and professor live in a nearby hut within the transplanted immersion of moderate rainforest. Also an active marijuana enthusiast, he keeps to himself, remote behind a fastened wall of swollen wood. I and a few friends meander through the delicate passageways, magically mysterious fruits and vines hang down with a gift of flowering beauty unknown to our Massachusetts scents. Our eyes glisten in the cool dank inner workings of such magnificent spires as they that mount upon the blank calm of a recess and serenity in this isolated outgrowth of our Earth’s most advanced biological developments.

As we glide effortlessly, weaving in and out of the rejuvenating corridors, a glint of an eye sparks in an unseen corner. The walls open to encompass the ever-widening viscera of inbound flora. A blue panther sneaks beyond the encircling brush, masked by the glowing façade of a charged, fearful night. We are unprepared. Dropping everything, we rush headlong into the deepest corridor, seeking refuge. This otherworldly animal, prehistoric and enigmatic, bleeds into the folds of any remaining sensation of physical security. We manage to find refuge beneath an enclosure of tables. Frightened beyond the immediacy of thought, we smash the external glass of the sanctuary and carefully stretch outside into the neighboring cold, modern presence of the un-bubbled Earthly night.  

________

Jungle

"The jungle in dreams represents the wild, passionate side of your personality. How you feel about the jungle in your dream indicates how comfortable you are with this side of yourself." (iDream)

_________

gills 

swung & cushiond by a sacrament of fear

bluish

fine heard at the doorstep 

launch into the outer, outer face

punishd by grub 

bleary & entwined 

drunken 

hatching

encouraged to bleed freely

whitish as the granted 

millions of empires 

hunting forgotten, manmade laws

strapped to so much matter 

wholed or scrappd

left out, dried

mushroom fat, swollen spiritual 

mind 

one  

- excerpt from "stir." 

Vietnamese-American War Waste

Triumph of Death by Pieter the Elder Bruegel

On a bicycling tour in Vietnam, open dirt pathways, clear visions of jungle green, translucent blues above and the rich yet sporadic proximity to exotic life, all of a sudden off the bike and crouching low behind a large tree, there are helicopters and smoke trail missiles and bullets whirring through the air with a silent menace, the colors become subdued with a steamy incandescence, a warning boldness that brings out an undead fear in hiding, I look to my right and soldiers are behind another tree preparing a massive latrine, taking out what looks like seed pods of human waste, and at once, it seems to me to double as a mass grave...

Fri, May 27, 2011

Concave Jungle and the Murder of Christ

A Thicket of Deer at the Stream of Plaisir-Fontaine

I have a body running through pure jungle, a light body, toned and fair, the jungle is thick, bright and full of movement, shadows begin to appear, the jungle thickness becomes bent over to obscure holes and open spaces leading not to light but to darkness, the structure of the environment becomes more and more concave, threateningly stern with an almost mechanistic tinge, I can not see myself nor any movement and the first shaft of metal appears replacing the sunlit openings with industry, next I am driving a convertible down route 6 in Massachusetts, USA, I am instead a thin blonde lady, I get to the Quaker church across from the motel and enter, the silvery gray light fills the antique wooden house of worship, there is a sculpture of the wounded Jesus lying on a table, I murder him, stabbing into his wound, and get away, the police are out looking for who murdered the man, especially the reverend, however no one can find me, except my own self

Sun, May 8, 2011