Verdad Verde

Blue Note: Maya

2012-02-04T16:44:00.000-08:00

Blue Note: Ravel

2012-01-22T15:08:00.001-08:00

Blue Note: CUB

2012-01-20T11:32:00.001-08:00

Blue Note: Break # 4

2012-01-17T14:49:00.000-08:00

Blue Note: Witches Circle

2012-01-16T16:57:00.000-08:00

Blue Note ( Ren )

2012-01-16T15:18:00.000-08:00

Blue Note 2.2.2

2012-01-13T14:35:00.001-08:00

2012 The Gift

2012-01-09T23:11:00.001-08:00

I just received news that my painting " the gift " has won first place for the " Figure Now Contest " juried by Kent Williams. It's been an honor to be chosen by one of the best painters I know. 2012 is warming up! I'll be uploading tons of drawings I've been doing for the past year....wander/wonder retinal treats

NEW WORK

2011-07-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

From My first solo show: ELEMENTAL * blessings to all *

Couple. Luis and Ella

2011-07-02T17:27:00.000-07:00

MAJOR ARCANA 2011

2011-02-02T11:28:00.001-08:00

HOME revisited

2010-11-27T02:27:00.000-08:00

TAIGA

2010-11-25T21:25:00.001-08:00

KINDNESSKIND

2010-08-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

in the dream there were two spirits running through the forest. I could see their bodies sticking out above the canopy. When I saw them I started laughing and called their attention, they looked down on me...smiled, as they slowed their progression the sky turned black and immediately I was hit by a wall of rain

Sketchbook and Remoshindigaloops

2010-08-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

My New Approach is... to update this blog at least weekly. So a bit of backtracking .... had a show in July with mates The Creative Natives at Neon Forest Gallery in Orlando, FL. Check out this link for a video documenting the process and for more Creative Native info. Cheerio!

http://thecreativenatives.com/

August 20th. I participated in the Young Blood exhibition at the ArtSeen gallery Miami,FL. For those who didn't catch the opening the closing reception will be this Sat. August 24. Here's more infor ma cion

http://youngbloodnwsa.wordpress.com/

... and finally here's some sketchbook musings I'd like to share for the sake of retinal stimulation.

More is MORE

2010-08-21T01:17:00.001-07:00

Quanah Parker - Moksha Family Collection

OK NOW I'M BACK.... here are some upppDATES

2010-08-20T05:38:00.000-07:00

time to come back

2010-08-18T03:44:00.001-07:00

A little piece of mind

2010-07-02T22:26:00.000-07:00

I was about to use the word superstition but now after looking into it I realize I'd rather drop it from my vocabulary. Something interesting happened the other day. One way to look at it is as a mere coincidence, another is as synchronicity. Whatever it was, it happened. After a long night of indulging in some mind-bending hallucinatory confrontations, shadowboxing... singing and internal dialogue directed towards internal and external forces (which may all end up being the same thing), major realizations...moments of awe and terror.... I finally fell asleep at around noon. Later on I realized my computer had crashed (one of the reasons I'm not uploading any new work) and any movie that I put on my DVD player has a greenish tint. If there's any object that's red on the screen, it looks extremely saturated and displays a checkerboard pattern moving at high speeds. On that night it became very clear to me how much material posessions weigh me down. All this stuff/crap sorrounding me is a reflection of how cluttered my mind is. Clarity seems like the ultimate unreachable goal. I seem to be really fond of playing the game where I focus on one piece of junk so I can forget at least for a moment about another piece of junk and so on. I am very thankful that at least for a brief moment I've been able to have the awareness of life without our usual attachments. For a brief moment, we can see the games we play for what they are....GAMES. Games we've managed to adopt without realizing the toll they take on our human potential. "That's just the way things have always been and you can't change it!"...there goes that annoying voice as old as death itself. 1:11 If that voice could be embodied in a lil man spewing poison out of his mouth my initial reaction would be to strangle him. But perhaps I should bathe him in rose water and assure him it's going to be ok. The voice of reason told me a couple of times that all I ever needed I already had. I nodded and then did my best to ignore her. The trickster god is an essential figure most of us in this age could use a little getting acquainted with. " Eshu is a difficult teacher but a good one". You will see what you need to see. Seems like the last thing many want to do is to look inside themselves and face their shadow. Please don't make me look in the mirror, I am afraid of what I'll see. Reminders of death? Is death a taboo? Does change imply death? What the hell is death?

My hands sweat and that is always a sign. I used to be really unnerved by that but now I know how important it is for me to have that physical reminder...it happens when I'm nervous or afraid, whenever I find myself facing something unfamiliar, stepping outside of my comfort zone. I wonder how severely our relationship with the unknown affects our lives. How this relationship shapes the way we move about in our environment and think. The unknown is just always there, closer than we can come to terms with. If you stare at a familiar object long enough can it become unfamiliar? We've grown so used to lying to ourselves that this is what we now base our lives upon...disguised lies. We perpetuate the violence we've been subjected to by bringing more children into this world with the hope that they will lead a happy existence and not make the same mistakes we've made. You can't fuck death away, but yet people try. If there's one common factor we should celebrate publicly is our ignorance. I think this can actually change the world. Let's have a holiday, maybe twice a year where we celebrate in public our own ignorance. Children playing Monopoly with the owners of the Central Bank ( and winning!! ), Rocket scientists and yokels holding hands, holy men and rapists sharing ice cream, the homeless and heads of state slow dancing in the moonlight. It's a joyous occasion to come out of our prison cells and share the bond of ignorance. It's what makes us human!! We shall no longer hide this beautiful gift that allows us to see life in a new way!! PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!! LET'S MAKE IGNORANCE DAY HAPPEN!!!

Primordial Canned Soup for the Soul

2010-05-31T19:14:00.000-07:00

this is one of a series of works which exploded on my studio floor around the time I got back from NY last Nov.... I will slowly be emancipating them one by one... for now this one looks to me like a pond. I hope you're all doing well. cheers!

BEAR BULL MEDICINE MAN

2010-04-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

painted live... @ White Room, Miami, FL. 2010

micro landscaping

2010-03-01T18:59:00.000-08:00

Father and Son (closeups)

2010-02-09T22:05:00.001-08:00

Gyr and his dad. Based on performance at Edge Zones, Miami, FL 2000s

GREY HAWK

2009-12-23T04:40:00.000-08:00

Grey Hawk is Coming

kittens on my lap

2009-12-20T15:33:00.000-08:00

Mary

2009-12-18T15:40:00.000-08:00

bamboozle

2009-12-18T15:30:00.000-08:00

Sur and Valley

2009-12-18T15:28:00.001-08:00

Looking

2009-12-16T11:04:00.001-08:00

NEW YORK NEW YOLK

Kimberly Diamant

2009-12-14T21:19:00.000-08:00

this is a portrait commission of Kim Diamant by no other than Kim Diamant. Part of a family portrait.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11

2009-12-08T17:38:00.000-08:00

there are things I have no control over... here are some

2009-11-29T22:49:00.001-08:00

New York, New Yolk. METROPOLITANO

2009-11-27T15:30:00.001-08:00

as some of you know I spent a month getting to know New York and a significant amount of time getting to know the Metropolitan Museum of Art and within that a good amount of time ( 4 days to be exact ) drawing a sculpture of Ugolino and His Sons originally completed in plaster by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux in 1860-61. The version at the Met was executed by the practitioner Bernard under Carpeaux's supervision just in time for the Universal Exposition at Paris in 1867. The sculpture derives from the passage in Dante's Divine Comedy where Ugolino is faced with the decision of either starving to death, or devouring his own children and grandchildren who have just offered themselves to him. On several occasions I found myself sitting next to some outstanding craftsmen with practically completed drawings who were just there to put some finishing touches so I felt compelled to do a fairly accurate job at translating this masterpiece to graphite on paper. I was there all that time and didn't even bother to write down the name of the artist so all I knew was gathered from overhearing teachers talk to their students and museum tour guides. So before uploading the drawing I found some images of the sculpture located in an area of the museum I didn't recognize so I looked into it. Apparently at some point this sculpture had been placed next to a snack bar in which people could buy overpriced snacks while Ugolino is right there contemplating eating his offspring. Maybe they thought people wouldn't "get it" but some certainly did. Either way, starvation is no joke.

going back to the roots

2009-11-21T00:28:00.001-08:00

fire

Happy 11:11

2009-11-11T10:29:00.000-08:00

the natural robot

2009-11-11T10:10:00.000-08:00

ONCE upon all times

2009-11-07T13:46:00.000-08:00

The most rational of minds cannot perceive the experience of total identification with substance. As many have pointed out before, we are running on outdated software. It was said "here is the key, have fun". Beginning with an orange and black astral projection of the goddess. The interaction of different modes. Traffic through portals, passages, veins, dissolving, appearing on the opposite spectrum and complementing the black outlines of Buddha arrangements coordinated with an infinite number of stars. The realm of the sages, all gathered in different realms too many to conceive. Each with a multiplicity of forces synthesized, always still yet always moving. A FLASH! for a brief moment rupture/rapture allowed a point of consciousness to be present in that world. ONE. Giants made out of what seemed like Jade, floating over niches carved on the sides of mountains, like the Pueblo, like the Buddha. The point could only stay in this green realm for a flash and then it was off to fight or rather experience the fluctuating states of energy. A crunching sound which words fail to describe. The body sank, leaving body parts behind as consciousness descended which is to say it ascended at once. The unfathomable mystery that IS. Back to the waves, washed up on a beach, nothing but a grain of sand amongst billions. Communication attempt from local receptor/taste bud to main power line. Day to day experience in a mechanistic virtual reality seems too much like we're being looked down upon like insects. Blessings to the travelers of the mind, the great mind which is all minds. Watching body parts go as the point in space extends at incredible speeds into the macro and microcosms. An engaging dialogue with cells and neighbors. Having the constitution of a brick, a blip, a BOMB. The explosions are unbearable. Mankind's best nuclear weapons, dwarfed by the SUN, our SUN dwarfed by billions of others. Being as a brick, brittle, gritty-like, clay solid-space in between the snake in us, part sperm, as we were transcending our physical limitations. The snake-like double helix is updating its wardrobe. Silhouettes of giants morphing down in size. The beautiful embrace of a ray of light softened by the micro explosions of a thousand songs. Scale is diverted, scale is corrected and becomes as irrelevant as time. Digital time as glyphs. The 4s spoke in unison each with open arms in the gathering, offering and celebration of an event outside of time in which they came forth as cloud messengers. Fire horses of paint. The point comes back to realize the state of the body, the sound of mother coughing as the air conditioner rumbles, as we inside the robot lung shield ourselves from the stars... the same stars we can't see during daylight showers. The point must forgive her and learn to detach itself from the invisible umbilical chord no longer needed to sustain life which after its initial purpose of nourishment only serves as decaying obstacle reminiscent of all the other concept prisons many points find themselves in. Only unbounded, creative imagination can set us free. Getting up to reach the bathroom meant confronting the silly body stumble, naked on a sphere allowing all humans to accommodate their inherent frailty without reach of human-made accessories. A cold, harsh, brutal reality we constantly dress to deceive ourselves as others pass down the torch of deception and hypocrisy. Naked in geometry, roughness pressed against our soft skin/ formula bargain the traveler has seen. Different motions of state, North Korea, us, family, George and Jose those who have been here before. The waste, the sacrifice, the transference, merely transference, not completely wasteful, not righteous, merely a continuation Nothing Left. Left at T Left at the end which the monkey robot perceives as the cross on which Christ breathed his last breath before TRANSFERENCE. The joy in continuity but one that is unidentifiable, nothing less but a mystery. A know not, beginner's mind, no mind, all mind. The life-giving powers will rearrange the spectrum without regard to human concerns, the evolving master play. Moving from one family to another, we read on the cliffs of Norway, the drop of our hills. The meeting of archetypes, the shape of the wind on our body-flag surface. The continuous traveling spiral acting upon heavy solids, murky/opaque across luminous/translucent. The diamond reflecting itself showing the eye/I reflections of all the scattered fragments. The clear jellyfish transformation as the eye unclouded by cat malnutrition. The food taken does not belong to anyone the same as our bodies do not belong to us, the idea of who we think we are. Our bodies and minds changing as the Earth itself does and will continue to do so. Why this meeting of minds to displace stored ideas, checks and balances, building structures that keep busy neural construction workers. Moral judgement is just that. Buffers and facilitators. Limitations and rupture/rapture grand at all scales of interaction. The blink of the eyes that prevent dehydration is the tip of the black iceberg just as saccadic masking splices the stream of visual input. If we can only see the surface then it is up to our imagination and intuition, the inner eye, to create a more accurate take on reality. Circuit-bending ways for custom enjoyment.

IF...

2009-09-10T20:32:00.000-07:00

...we are going to be casting spells on each other, we might as well be conscious of what our intentions are
ABRACADABRA...triangle...9. Waking Life is my favorite movie. The dream becomes reality.

H

2009-07-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

H is for Heaven
H is for Hell
H is for Home
H is for Hialeah
H is for Himalayas
H is for Heart

on the rocks

2009-06-30T02:37:00.000-07:00

MILEAGE

2009-06-28T01:29:00.000-07:00

miles and miles and smiles take a while sometimes in All time we dial

Eli's wedding (Sunday Morning)

2009-06-13T09:49:00.000-07:00

it's all the same

2009-06-05T23:37:00.000-07:00

wether we do it with drugs, religion, dance, music, images, consumerism, it's all the same... everybody just wants to get FUCKED UP

Communi K shan

2009-06-02T02:59:00.000-07:00

This one is for Dennis and Alessandro.... for the intellect and the heart

"sketches and spells"

2009-05-16T18:34:00.001-07:00

DAAAAAAMN

2009-05-01T04:43:00.000-07:00

it's been a while. HELLOoooo! this is the final version of Eli's wedding, nice and big image. Be back with some more goodies. Love you all.

2009-03-05T00:53:00.000-08:00

alternate self

2009-03-04T12:57:00.000-08:00

this could have been me

Sometimes

2009-02-27T14:51:00.000-08:00

...I catch myself and it happens. When I'm able to tell exactly where something I'm saying (or thinking) comes from...and at that moment of realization I wonder really... WHO AM I??

Eli's wedding (Sunday Afternoon)

2009-02-24T14:58:00.000-08:00

CAN WE CREATE A NEW CULTURE?

2009-02-23T00:27:00.000-08:00

One of the most profound passages i've ever read...the following comes from the book "Total Freedom - The Essential Krishnamurti."

CAN WE CREATE A NEW CULTURE?

I think that one of the greatest problems confronting man at this present time is the question of creativeness, how to bring about the creative release of the individual, and if we can consider the question, not merely verbally, but go into it very deeply, perhaps we shall be able to discover the full significance of that word CREATIVENESS. It seems to me that this is the real issue, not what kind of political reform to work for, or what kind of religion to follow. How is it possible to bring about the creative release of the individual, not only at the beginning of his existence, but throughout life? That is, how is the individual to have abundant energy rightly directed so that his life will have expansive and profound significance?
I feel that revolution is necessary at the most profound level, not fragmentary revolution, but integrated revolution, a total revolution starting not from the outside but from within; and to bring about that total revolution, surely we must understand the ways of our own thought, the whole process of our thinking, which is self-knowledge. Without the foundation of self-knowledge, what we think has very little meaning. So it is important, is it not, that from the very beginning we should understand the process of our thinking, the ways of our mind; and the revolution must take place, not in any given department of thought, but in the totality of the mind itself. But before we go into that, I think it is essential to find out what it means to listen.
Very few of us listen directly to what is being said, we always translate or interpret it according to a particular point of view, whether Hindu, Muslim, or communist. We have formulations, opinions, judgments, beliefs through which we listen, so we are actually never listening at all; we are only listening in terms of our own particular prejudices, conclusions, or experiences. We are always interpreting what we hear, and obviously that does not bring about understanding. What brings about understanding, surely, is to listen without any anchorage, without any definite conclusion, so that you and I can think out the problem together, whatever the problem may be. If you know the art of listening, you will not only find out what is true in what is being said, but you will also see the false as false and the truth in the false; but if you listen argumentatively, then it is fairly clear that there can be no understanding, because argument is merely your opinion against another opinion, or your judgment against another, and that actually prevents the understanding or discovery of the truth in what is being said.
So, is it possible to listen without any prejudice, without any conclusion, without interpretation? Because it is fairly obvious that our thinking is conditioned, is it not? We are conditioned as Hindus, or communists, or Christians, and whatever we listen to, whether it is new or old, is always apprehended through the screen of this conditioning; therefore, we can never approach any problem with a fresh mind. That is why it is very important to know how to listen, not only to what is being stated, but to everything. It is clearly necessary that a total revolution should take place in the individual, but such a revolution cannot take place unless there is effortless comprehension of what is truth. Effort at any level is obviously a form of destruction, and it is only when the mind is very quiet, not making an effort, that understanding takes place. But with most of us, effort is the primary thing; we think effort is essential, and that very effort to listen, to understand, prevents comprehension, the immediate perception of what is true and what is false.
Now, being aware of your conditioning, and yet being free of it, can you listen so as to comprehend what is being said? Can you listen without making an effort, without interpreting, which is to give total attention? For most of us, attention is merely a process of concentration, which is a form of exclusiveness, and as long as there is the resistance of exclusive thinking, a total revolution obviously cannot take place, and it is imperative, I feel, that such a revolution should take place in the individual, for only in that revolution is there creative release.
So, the mind is conditioned by modern education, by society, by religion, and by the knowledge and the innumerable experiences which we have gathered; it is shaped, put into a mold, not only by our environment, but also by our own reactions to that environment and to various forms of relationship.
Please bear in mind that you are not merely listening to me, but are actually observing the process of your own thinking. What I am saying is only a description of what is taking place in your own mind. If one is at all aware of one's own thinking, one will see that a mind that is conditioned, however much it may try to change, can only change within the prison of its own conditioning, and such a change is obviously not revolution. I think that is the first thing to understand-that as long as our minds are conditioned as Hindus, Muslims, or what not, any revolution is within the pattern of that conditioning and is, therefore, not a fundamental revolution at all. Every challenge must always be new, and as long as the mind is conditioned, it responds to challenge according to its conditioning; therefore, there is never an adequate response.
Now, we all know that there is a great crisis in the world at the present time; there is enormous poverty and the constant threat of war. That is the challenge, and our problem is to respond adequately, completely, totally to this challenge, which is impossible if we do not understand the process of our own thinking. Our thinking is obviously conditioned; we always respond to any challenge as Hindus, Muslims, communists, socialists, Christians, and so on, and that response is fundamentally inadequate; hence the conflict, the struggle, not only in the individual, but between groups, races, and nations. We can respond totally, adequately, fully, only when we understand the process of our thinking and are free from our conditioning, that is, when we are no longer reacting as Hindus, communists, or what you will, which means that our response to challenge is no longer based on our previous conditioning. When we have ceased to belong to any particular race or religion, when each one of us understands his background, frees himself from it, and pursues what is true, then it is possible to respond fully, and that response is a revolution.
It is only the religious man who can bring about a fundamental revolution, but the man who has a belief, a dogma, who belongs to any particular religion, is not a religious man. The religious man is he who understands the whole process of so-called religion, the various forms of dogma, the desire to be secure through certain formulas of ritual and belief. Such an individual breaks away from the framework of organized religion, from all dogma and belief, and seeks the highest; and it is he who is truly revolutionary because every other form of revolution is fragmentary and, therefore, inevitably brings about further problems. But the man who is seeking to find out what is truth, what is God, is the real revolutionary because the discovery of what is truth is an integrated response and not a fragmentary response.
Is it possible, then, for the mind to be aware of its own conditioning and thereby bring about freedom from its conditioning? The mind's conditioning is imposed by society, by the various forms of culture, religion, and education, and also by the whole process of ambition, the effort to become something, which is itself a pattern imposed on each one of us by society, and there is also the pattern which the individual creates for himself in his response to society.
Now, can we as individuals be aware of our conditioning, and is it possible for the mind to break down all this limitation so that it is free to discover what is truth? Because it seems to me that unless we do free the mind from its conditioning, all our social problems, our conflicts in relationship, our wars and other miseries, are bound to increase and multiply, which is exactly what is happening in the world, not only in our private lives, but in the relationship between individuals and groups of individuals, which we call society.
Taking that whole picture into consideration and knowing all the significance of it, is it possible for the mind to be aware of its conditioning and liberate itself? Because it is only in freedom that there can be creativeness, but freedom is not a reaction to something. Freedom is not a reaction to the prison in which the mind is caught; it is not the opposite of slavery. Freedom is not a motive. Surely, the mind that is seeking truth, God, or whatever name you like to give it, has no motive in itself. Most of us have a motive because all our life, in our education and in everything that we do, our action is based on a motive, the motive either of self-expansion or self-destruction. And can the mind be aware of and liberate itself from all those bonds which it has imposed upon itself in order to be secure, to be satisfied, in order to achieve a personal or a national result?
I think the revolution of which I am talking is possible only when the mind is very quiet, very still. But that quietness of the mind does not come through any effort-it comes naturally, easily, when the mind understand its own process of action, which is to understand the whole significance of thinking. So the beginning of freedom is self-knowledge, and self-knowledge is not in the withdrawal from life but is to be discovered in the relationships of our everyday existence. Relationship is the mirror in which we can see ourselves factually, without any distortion, and it is only through self-knowldege, seeing ourselves exactly as we actually are, undistorted by any interpretation or judgment, that the mind becomes quiet, still. But that stillness of mind cannot be sought after, it cannot be pursued; if you pursue and bring about stillness of mind, it has a motive, and such stillness is never still because it is always a movement toward something and away from something.
So there is freedom only through self-knowledge, which is to understand the total process of thinking. Our thinking at present is merely a reaction, the response of a conditioned mind, and any action based on such thinking is bound to result in catastrophe. To discover what is truth, what is God, there must be a mind that has understood itself, which means going into the whole problem of self-knowledge. Only then is there the total revolution, which alone brings about a creative release, and that creative release is the perception of what is truth, what is God.
I think it is always important to ask fundamental questions: but when we do ask a fundamental question, most of us are seeking an answer, and then the answer is invariably superficial, because there is no yes or no answer to life. Life is a movement, an endless movement, and to inquire into this extraordinary thing called life, with all its innumerable aspects, one must ask fundamental questions and never be satisfied with answers, however satisfactory they may be, because the moment you have an answer, the mind has concluded, and conclusion is not life-it is merely a static state. So what is important is to ask the right question and never be satisfied with the answer, however clever, however logical, because the truth of the question lies beyond the conclusion, beyond the answer, beyond the verbal expression. The mind that asks a question and is merely satisfied with an explanation, a verbal statement, remains superficial. It is only the mind that asks a fundamental question and is capable of pursuing that question to the end that can find out what is truth.
QUESTIONER: In India today we see a growing disregard of all sensitive feeling and expression. Culturally we are a feeble, imitative country; our thinking is smug and superficial. Is there a way to break through and contact the source of creativity? Can we create a new culture?
KRISHNAMURTI: Sir, this is not only a question for Indians, it is a human question; it is asked in America, in England, and elsewhere. How to bring about a new culture, a creativity that is explosive, abundant, so that the mind is not imitative? A poet, a painter longs for that, so let us inquire into it.
What is civilization, what is culture as we know it now? It is the result of the collective will, is it not? The culture we know is the expression of many desires unified through religion, through a traditional moral code, through various forms of sanction. The civilization in which we live is the result of the collective will, of many acquisitive desires and, therefore, we have a culture, a civilization, which is also acquisitive. That is fairly clear.
Now, within this acquisitive society, which is the result of the collective will, we can have many reformations, and we do occasionally bring about a bloody revolution, but it is always within the pattern because our response to any challenge, which is always new, is limited by the culture in which we have been brought up. The culture of India is obviously imitative, traditional; it is made up of innumerable superstitions, of belief and dogma, the repetition of words, the worship of images made by the hand and by the mind. That is our culture, that is our society, broken up into various classes, all based on acquisitiveness; and if we do become nonacquisitive in this world, we are acquisitive in some other world, we want to acquire God, and so on. So our culture is essentially based on acquisitiveness, worldly and spiritual; and when occasionally the is an individual who breaks away from all acquisitiveness and knows what it is to be creative, we immediately idolize him, make him into our spiritual leader or teacher, thereby stifling ourselves.
As long as we belong to the collective culture, collective civilization, there can be no creativeness. It is the man who understands this whole process of the collective, with all its sanctions and beliefs, and who ceases to be either positively or negatively acquisitive-it is only such a man who knows the meaning of creativeness, not the sannyasi who renounces the world and pursues God, which is merely his particular form of acquisitiveness. The man who realizes the whole significance of the collective, and who breaks away from it because he knows what is true religion, is a creative individual, and it is such ation that brings about a new culture. Surely, that is always the way it happens, is it not?
The truly religious man is not the one who practices so-called religion, who holds to certain dogmas and beliefs, who performs certain rituals or pursues knowledge, for he is merely seeking another form of gratification. The man who is truly religious is completely free from society, he has no responsibility toward society; he may establish a relationship with society, but society has no relationship with him. Society is organized religion, the economic and social structure, the whole environment in which we have been brought up, and does that society help man to find God, truth-it matters little what name you give it-or does the individual who is seeking God create a new society? That is, must not the individual break away from the existing society, culture, or civilization? Surely, in the very breaking away he discovers what is truth, and it is that truth which creates the new society the new culture.
I think this is an important question to ponder over. Can the man who belongs to society-it does not matter what society-ever find truth, God? Can society help the individual in that discovery, or must the individual, you and I, break away from society? Surely, it is in the very process of breaking away from society that there is the understanding of what is truth, and that truth then creates the ripples which become a new society, a new culture. THe sannyasi, the monk, the hermit renounces the world, renounces society, but his whole pattern of thinking is still conditioned by society; he is still a Christian or a Hindu, pursuing the ideal of Christianity or of Hinduism. His meditations, his sacrifices, his practices, are all essentially conditioned and, therefore, what he discovers as truth, as God, as the absolute, is really his own conditioned reaction. Hence, society cannot help man to find out what is truth. Society's function is to limit the individual, to hold him within the boundary of respectability. Only the man who understands this whole process, whose action is not a reaction, can find out what is truth, and it is the truth that creates a new culture, not the man who pursues truth.
I think this is fairly clear and simple; it sounds complicated, but it is not. Truth brings about its own action. But the man who is seeking truth and acting, however worthy and noble he may be, only creates further confusion and misery. He is like the reformer who is merely concerned with decorating the prison walls, with bringing more light, more lavatories, or what you will, into the prison, whereas, if you understand this whole problem of how the mind is conditioned by society, if you allow truth to act and do not act according to what you think is truth, then you will find that such action brings about its own culture, its own civilization, a new world which is not based on acquisitiveness, on sorrow, on strife, on belief. It is the truth that will bring about a new society, not the communists, the Christians, the Hindus, the Buddhists, or the Muslims. To respond to any challenge according to one's conditioning is merely to expand the prison, or to decorate its bars. It is only when the mind understands and is free from the conditioning influences which have been imposed upon it, or which it has created for itself, that there is the perception of truth, and it is the action of that truth which brings into being a new society, a new culture.
That is why it is very important for a country like this not to impose upon itself the superficial culture of the West nor, because it is confused, to return to the old, to the Puranas, to the Vedas. It is only a confused mind that wants to return to something dead, and the important thing is to understand why there is confusion. There is confusion, obviously, when the mind does not understand, when it does not respond totally, integrally to something new, to any given fact.
Take the fact of war, for example. If you respond to it as a Hindu who believes in ahimsa, you say, "I must practice nonviolence," and if you happen to be a nationalist, your response is nationalistic, whereas the man who sees the truth of war, which is the fact that war is destructive in itself, and who lets that truth act, does not respond in terms of any society, in terms of any theory or reform. Truth is neither yours nor mine, and as long as the mind interprets or translates that truth, we create confusion. That is what the reformers do, what all the saints have done who have tried to bring about a reformation in a certain social order. Because they translate truth to bring about a given reform, that reform breeds more misery and hence needs further reform.
To perceive what is truth there must be a total freedom from society, which means a complete cessation of acquisitiveness, of ambition, of envy, of this whole process of becoming. After all, our culture is based on becoming somebody, it is built on the hierarchical principle-the one who knows and the one who does not know, the one who has and the one who has not. The one who has not is everlastingly struggling to have, and the one who does not know is forever pushing to acquire more knowledge, whereas the man who does not belong to either, his mind is very quiet, completely still, and it is only such a mind that can perceive what is truth and allow that ruth to act in its own way. Such a mind does not act according to a conditioned response; it does not say, "I must reform society". The truly religious man is not concerned with social reform, he is not concerned with improving the old, rotting society because it is truth and not reform that is going to create the new order. I think if one sees this very simply and very clearly, the revolution itself will take place.
The difficulty is that we do not see, we do not listen, we do not perceive things directly and simply as they are. After all, ti is the innocent mind-innocent through it may have lived a thousand years and had a multitude of experiences-that is creative, not the cunning mind, not the mind that is full of knowledge and technique. When the mind sees the truth of any fact and lets that truth act, that truth creates its own technique. Revolution is not within society but outside of it.
Q: The fundamental problem that faces every individual is the psychological pain which corrodes all thinking and feeling. Unless you have an answer and can teach the ending of pain, all your words have little meaning.
K: Sir, what is teaching? Is teaching merely communication, words? Why do you want to be taught? And can another teach you how to end pain? IF you could be taught how to end pain would pain cease? You may learn a technique for ending pain, physical or psychological, but in the very process of ending one particular pain, a new pain comes into being.
So what is the problem, sirs? Surely, the problem is not how to end pain. I can tell you not to be greedy, not to be ambitious, not to have beliefs, to free the mind from all desire for security, to live in complete uncertainty, and so on, but those are mere words. The problem is to experience directly the state of complete uncertainty, to be without any feeling of security, and that is possible only if you understand the total process of your own thinking, or if you can listen with your whole being, be completely attentive without resistance. To end sorrow, pain, either one must understand the ways of the mind, of desire, will, choice, going into that completely, or else listen to find the truth. The truth is that as long as there is a point in the mind which is moving toward another point, that is, as long as the mind is seeking security in any form, it will never be free from pain. Security is dependency, and a mind that depends has no love. Without going through all the process of examination, observation, and awareness, just listen to the fact, let the truth of the fact operate, and then you will see that the mind is free from pain. But we do neither; we neither see, observe to find out what is truth, nor do we listen to the fact with our whole being, without translating, twisting, interpreting it. That is, we neither pursue self-knowledge, which also brings an end to pain, nor do we merely observe the fact without distortion, as we look at our face in the mirror. All that we want is to know how to end pain, we want a ready-made formula by which to end it, which means, really, that we are lazy, there is not that extraordinary energy which is necessary to pursue the understanding of the self. It is only when we understand the self-not according to Shankara, Buddha, or Christ, but as it actually is in each one of us in relation to people, to ideas, and to things-that there is the cessation of pain.

Bombay, February 16, 1955

secretions

2009-01-31T17:14:00.000-08:00

fact:

it is no longer safe for my mother to ride a bike

observation:

tulips are green flags in merry weather
cheap sweat is sheep sweating leather
Ay Que, Ay Que si, ay que No
hitherto, hither foam,
find me pleasant, find Jerome
weaving aspects on my throne

many times as before, de ja vu ...toreador
many times, matador, lluvia seca... por favor
in E, Ming Lee, I need more, who's the master on the floor,
who's that figure at my door, is the army's janitor that poor?

1960s come and go, borrowed memories, vicarious rebellion
the state forms a square, our square plus your square equals the eagle's modern housing complex
windows for our eyes to follow, composition of opposites in dynamic flirtation

we are OFF to study things we care about
we are ON the cusp of true solidarity
but we are OFF ... looking out there before looking IN
internal conflict feeds the chaos
if we have less options will it be easier to make a decision?
treating a tumor with a baseball bat in medieval glory
the legacy of the industrial massacre feeds more mouths than ever but cripples with every bite

better to remain LOST than FOUND in the gold RUSH

YES

2009-01-29T16:07:00.000-08:00

IF I "LOSE" MY MIND I WILL GAIN MY SOUL

SHIFT (ice age)

2009-01-28T16:34:00.000-08:00

Man Woo

2009-01-27T12:11:00.000-08:00

there really is no mistake

Gate 1

2009-01-25T10:53:00.000-08:00

ultimately

2008-12-31T13:54:00.000-08:00

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern."
-William Blake

0101010010110011

2008-11-11T20:26:00.000-08:00

110001010001001001010101001010101001010101001000001010000010010010100101001010010101001001010100100001111111111000011110000111100001111000011110000111100001111000011110000111100001110000111100001111000011110000111100001111000011110000111100000111100000111000011110000111100001111000011100001111000011110000111100001111000011110000111101010100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100100101

past experience earmark

2008-10-01T23:04:00.000-07:00

this experience
this experience
this experience

every moment a marker, every second a stone eclipsed by the train, every one sparks the mind on behalf of the kind and giving the illusion of control we read minds to find THAT which evades us...the connection behind, behind, behind, from different distinctions of order the movement rains upon us missing or remembering catapulting thoughtful bundles of disparity. Masks of every kind slowly carving smiles upon one another's pastimes. The type of food in this habitat is ethereal forecast headclouds. You feed off the blue garden of canto leaves. Parts of our bodies go visit their relatives. The hive-eating tortoise reworks severed matches. Children are taught to gather as paupers before the wealth of their future selves. In retrospect everything was peach, a hairy peach preacher telling some not to dream. That no use ever came from exploring beyond the gate, over rooftops of commodity and incandescent pillows of glass. Forgetting how to catch the wind in our lungs, leaving traces of bread for motherbirds to eat. Clasp, Blast, Grasp. Sensations

in the air we fell on all directions
in the air we felt on all directions
in the air we fell on all directions

ice queen, home and the storm

2008-09-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

i know i've been away

2008-09-21T21:01:00.000-07:00

...beautiful people.

but i'm not dead yet

the autonomy of line -close up # 1 -

2008-08-10T00:11:00.000-07:00

After

2008-08-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

seeing twenty foot canvases with a couple of bold strokes being thought of as art, actually bought and collected ... I just don't know what to do but laugh even though it makes me want to cry.

blessing force and the word

2008-07-15T23:54:00.000-07:00

the scorpion's tail

2008-06-27T00:08:00.000-07:00

PS14 night

2008-04-18T00:13:00.000-07:00

So Sat. night I did some live/alive/1life? painting. and . wow. yes. the wow factor was incredible...I guess every moment should be a "wow" moment pow wow moment but unfortunatelly we can't remain in a state of ecstasy forever since we might give up eating or doing anything whatsoever and inevitably die. That afternoon I decided to climb my roof with Alex Grey's book The Mission of Art in my mouth. The teethmarks are a nice reminder. The sunset was amazing and there were rain clouds to the east. I could see a faint rainbow over orange lit rainclouds. I read outloud some of the preliminaries.

Remembrance - Remember we have only a limited time to live and do our art, so we should quit stalling and get on with our creative spiritual work. Remember the source of your inspiration.

Forgiveness- Forgive yourself and others for coming between you and your creativity. Don't pollute your flow of creative energy with hatred and resentment.

Intention- Intention is like a starter for the engine of creativity. Pledge to do your best work for the highest good, to practice your art as a way of spiritually awakening yourself and others. This can help purify or restructure your baser motives, such as how famous you might become or how much money you could get for a work.

Consecration- Offer yourself and your art tools to divine influence. Pray for inspiration, stabilizaton of the mind and body, and submission to the divine will. Ask for the blessings of spirit on your methods and materials.

Revelation- Access the highest grounds of the divine imagination by whatever means necessary. Bring fresh insights and visionary imagery back to share.

Repentance- The change of heart and mind that accompanies revelations must now be woven into your life by bringing them to form. Art becomes a vessel of this change of heart and functions as repentance, a way of getting right with the spirit.

yep

2008-04-08T22:33:00.000-07:00

...there was that place with red roses and whispering piano keys .pulp. luminous presence unrelenting incandescence in crescent beats of slowly roasted (we are evaporating), condenses . accor. dION according lemon sourlion of quintescence maple syrup in your presence I melt through you, convalescent.

my price is the absence of obtrusive compla sense. lioness den-making cloud rain beat shaker
tooth cloth arrow muse,
danses ghost circles
trepas trepas y miras el desierto, cubierto en un gigante oasis del invierno, contento con todo lo que proyectas en el tiempo. Me alertas cuando piensas que no tomo el momento sujeto .....Faltan muchos bailes de mascaras en esta canoa, enorme y suelta en el medio del mar violento.

que ves
me quitas el aliento

lately

2008-04-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

It has been wonderful. I've had the good fortune of meeting and getting to know wonderful people and I truly feel blessed for these experiences that I've been able to partake in. Synchronicity is manifesting itself all the time and I now realize it more than ever and with that realization comes a feeling of peace that I hope will allow me to focus on improving myself and therefore shining light on others as we grow together exponentially in this everchanging electric soup we're part of.

" The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
-Marcel Proust

by the way, a gypsy spirit has reminded me of how amazing the movie "Waking Life" is. For all of you hungry souls, this movie has some embedded golden nuggets of wisdom that are worth searching for.

love

agave, your new black dress

2008-04-06T03:31:00.001-07:00

freedom is the ultimate expression of truth

2008-04-06T02:58:00.000-07:00

2008-04-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

keep the covers on

2008-03-22T02:48:00.000-07:00

it's bed time, children. Stay warm and comfortable. You won't feel a thing.

expand

2008-03-22T02:24:00.000-07:00

stretching the limits of our self imposed boundaries can allow us to become in tune with different vibrations that would otherwise go unnoticed

if you want

2008-03-22T02:09:00.000-07:00

to fight the tide you can row out to sea and harpoon a giant neon octopus ...he'll tell you about the shapeshifting transluscent bioluminescent outfit you'll prefer in the distant future's past. There are self hollidays to celebrate.

fountain

2008-03-22T02:06:00.000-07:00

i am the fountain that never ends
i am you . you are the fountain that never ends

us them they all

2008-03-22T01:48:00.000-07:00

them
we are
us them
them are us
our we are us
them them are us hours
hours are their hours
are us hours are them
all are us are you
all all are you are you all are you
them.

2008-03-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

what the fuck happened

2008-03-19T00:06:00.000-07:00

I've never seen Gary Meyer more perplexed as when I put this up on the critboard. It all started as smooth as can be but by the time I got to the infamous "crack tower" I just felt compelled to throw some soy sauce on this and let it bake for about 15 minutes. Of course he had no idea about that... and I didnt feel like bringing up ghosts and time travel when I knew the only constructive criticism would be about the formal elements. Damnit I'm hungry. There were times when I really should have seen that MSG eye drop loving bycicle thief. TourdeFrance is a joke for you, milkman!!

ballpoint bubbahpen is mah friend

2008-03-18T23:50:00.000-07:00

well... I guess the best I can do by now is to be misunderstood!
Let's take a moment and consider the world through the eyes of a muffin

planetary motion yaaall

2008-03-18T23:35:00.000-07:00

everything here is anatomically correct in the 5th dimension

around the world in 5 seconds

2008-03-18T23:25:00.001-07:00

this is the only requirement my dear. you have to use your nose! think with your nose!
by the way PERFUME is a demented beautiful film. I highly recommend it to those that listen with their noses

the wheels of time

2008-03-18T23:05:00.000-07:00

When I stand up I'm upside down to someone on the other side of the globe and when I arch my back the boxcars align themselves on the tracks laid by white cobras

innercityfever

2008-03-18T23:01:00.000-07:00

at some point the hungry lions need to be fed

JSS knows

2008-03-18T22:59:00.001-07:00

sketchbook

2008-03-17T16:11:00.000-07:00

listen before you speak

2008-01-20T14:53:00.000-08:00

the last one was liquified on photoshop...just too much fun

KS VISION

2008-01-19T13:28:00.000-08:00

...while she was away in Germany.

Mother Russia

2008-01-17T17:58:00.000-08:00

Ironic how I grew up in Cuba,a socialist island, reading russian graphic novels and books for kids translated from Russian to Spanish and my first assignment from a magazine comes from the Russian edition of Esquire. This is Steve Buscemi in "The Rules of Life".

aahhh a new year

2008-01-15T19:35:00.000-08:00

man diggity dang e orangutan. so before I go on to rant about god knows what I will upload a couple of images...some are old .. some are new. The first drawing is pretty old...gathering momentum in the confines of my sketchbook. The second one is a fun small piece I did for Amanda. She told me I could whatever all I needed to know was that she's got some Cherokee going on, loves tea and elephants. So this was a treat and usually every time I draw native americans I feel a strange connection and I keep thinking like they're talking to me and saying things that I can't really understand or that perhaps I do understand but it's more of a subconscious thing. The last is some tripped-out ballpoint freakout I had in Alhambra back in the day. It's a drawing of Mary and Jesus after getting bashed in the face with a rock...a dirty self-righteous deed carried out by the Roman soldier on the bottom right. Truth is there are limitless windows into litmitless alternative realities but since we usually follow certain patterns of thinking our perception is limited... which is really really sad. This has been the cause of much frustration over the past couple of years and the only actions I can take that allow me to feel better about this is to dive in and immerse myself in an environment evolving out of the moment. Losing yourself in the work can be problematic, especially with so many distractions all the fucking time. A thousand tiny invisible hands trying to tear my flesh apart, numb my mind and dim my light. I had a great conversation with David about hypocrisy and I still believe that as civilized human beings one of the hardest things to do is not be a hypocrite. All of us deep down inside ourselves know right from wrong, we know what we want yet we fool ourselves constantly by false appearances and are at the mercy of systems designed to create followers. As I type this I'm aware of my own hypocrisy and it makes me upset but not as upset as to feel like tearing all foundations apart...perhaps one day an event will happen that will push me over the edge and I will be completely true to myself. To be true to my innermost enlightened self I would have to give up almost everything that I've learned to value the most... a difficult near impossible thing to do. But that's for the truly brave soul, perhaps one who doesn't believe he/she has anything to lose and all to gain.
I know reality is more complicated than left, right ... black,white ....right or wrong. We view things in simplistic terms. If we were able to use our brains to its full potential perhaps we would be able to visually and conceptually handle the limitless connections of history... the limitless connections of ourselves with each other, our planet and cosmos... perhaps we would be able to handle the vision of seeing someone and literally seeing naked reality manifest itself in front of your eyes... without any filters... you would see something that right now we are just not capable to understand....and we suffer because of this and will continue to suffer until some day we can shed all the baggage that we've accumulated.
We have so much potential... the sad but true thing is to create we must destroy. Destruction and creation are "two sides of the same coin". That's why first as artists we learn how to draw and once a person reaches a certain level of skill in order to evolve that person has to forget all he learns otherwise you may be able to be a great draftsman but that's about it.
There's more to art than just having technical skills. The real deal happens in the mind and how someone psychologically reacts to a work of art. In this journey I am alone and at the same time I'm not because there are others who know this and I've got thousands of years of collective memory to work from. I love you all and I hope you're on the path of self-discovery. Happy 2008!!
-Reinier

ICE

2007-12-13T14:29:00.000-08:00

part of a painting of Kimberly Sikyea I'm working on. Doing portraits is such a great challenge... I really tried to pay great attention to subtle shifts of color on this one. Left the angst for another piece. this one is love

THE SHOW

2007-12-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

was a success!! There was a very good turnout and I was happy to see lots of friendly familiar faces. I also met some beautiful old souls. The two fastest hours of my life. It just came and went. For the show I finished a painting I started years ago ... first hanging on my bedroom wall in Alhambra and eventually in Pasadena. Some of you friends might remember it... here's the bottom left corner. A symbolic birth and worship of the spiral. Psilocybin goodness!

I've neglected the BlogOSPHERE

2007-11-25T21:20:00.000-08:00

So I've been absent from this wonderful, secluded format... well somewhat secluded. I brought back from the dead a gigantic painting I had on my wall in Alhambra and then Pasadena for years... years ago.. wow.. YEARS!!! I watched Control Room and was moved by this image of a bomb victim being interviewed on Al Jazeera So I played GOD and used a bit of her likeness to make my own version of lady justice. I ripped off the shape of her body from a Bouguereau. I felt like Frankenstein and I heard thunder when I was done with this one. The show is coming up soon and I gotta finish this monster I started years ago.... hmm there are lots of ghosts on the way

FUCK YEAH!!!

2007-11-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

Finally!! 4 person show in Coconut Grove, Miami during Art Basel. Totally supa dupa stoked about this!!! Write more later, must paint paint paint!!

finito

2007-09-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

I took this flick under a dimmer light so the colors look warmer and more saturated than in the actual piece. Not only do I look like I have a migraine in this piece but it really was a pain figuring out how to bring together all the separate elements. It took me months to figure out what the hell I was doing since I started with a completely different idea. This process is exciting but it drives me nuts because I won't have a clue where I'm going until I'm about two thirds done. My hope is that one day I'm smart and capable enough to figure out the steps in my head... (as in a chess game) and avoid unnecessary mental stress and thinking I'm better off burning a piece than finishing it. But... this is life...and I'm thankful and lucky to be able to to manifest my thoughts.

waiting for the eye of Horus

2007-09-19T01:34:00.000-07:00

this is a funky snapshot of a painting slowly manifesting itself... I'll be more descriptive once I'm done

identity

2007-09-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

this woman

2007-09-10T10:48:00.000-07:00

has really nice features... I was seduced...so I HAD to draw her! I love cheap ass ballpoint pens

life and death

2007-09-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

greenstance

2007-08-31T01:29:00.000-07:00

QUAIL DREG LYRICS Music: Power Douglas

QUAIL DREG (featuring Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio)

clutching this transient dungaree shamshir in the mammalian dominion

pre.teen cougars panting for me

visceral breathing free clamor at brook, to cleanse this cobra flesh delirium ashes egalitarian ground soot

i must talk to the oak

it clashes with cathedrals and electrical behavior,fetal swans kodiak hunt for strangers

howling at the motherfuckin sun under miniscus dark banter came the burial for the wanderers

tonight i climb a conifer!

watch for the breeds tracing my cabin built on the covenant that i'll return to my engines and wine

i am

this splint here is lacquered in blood

when i weep i'm more fierce

binary love solomon them two

my hands gnaw a catacomb in the ravine soil down the waterflask

and oats remain cool the fangs of appalachian gust, i duel

cintaurs nest by yonder ridge, we trade stonemachines for figs

now i know man is younger than the moon

beige dingos whimper patriarchal strife

exuberant canyons snatched my wife

after the carpentry of clouds the heart is fertile

now i know man is younger than the moon

binary love solomon them in two

scribed and diagonally pierced by furor thin, new halogen burned by tunde adebimpe

copywritten and pantherism enforced

Namaste

2007-08-31T01:17:00.000-07:00

Yuki as dkem e nostro meeslsidixome diken yoru en cuanto assarishita neifarke tem ask assarishita kiyu-zu sarukan charaista nematis ka ala q state va faqurishdego ifkramen eker istremeacledeh ekna stakita