Saturday, April 27, 2013

SPRING: SANTA FE ICE CREAM AND BOMBS





Last Sunday in Santa Fe PQ and I sat on the plaza eating ice cream cones watching people enjoy the greening grass as birds seemed to float on the air from tree to tree.  The clarity of spring made hope seem as close as the grass on the ground and I felt a bit high from the fresh air. A young man with dread locks drifted on his park bench almost as high as the birds. He was in another dimension but somehow his obviously blissful state fit the light as air afternoon. The whole world seemed transparent. Time moves by quickly holding a measure of eternity like a pond. But on a round world it can only flow in circles.

I feel subtle changes in the experience of time. I’m also more aware of how small our individual piece of it is. Time down here on earth moves too fast to catch so I mentally zoom out to scope a larger span, always hoping for a time-lapse shot.  I know there are horrible things happening with each tick on the cosmic clock.  It seems they occur closer together lately.  There seems to be a crisis generator operating out of the mass mind.  Disasters seldom come one at a time.  But, the transcendent world seems still and remote while we desperate humans thrash about in panic, like ants whose hill was kicked by a giant.  Strewn across the earth are all the horrors of the past. When I watch the evening news, I remember the way my uncle’s cattle bellowed and stomped enthralled and in fear while encircling the area where one of their own was being butchered, although greatly disturbed they couldn’t leave the scene. It appears that 24-hour news spawns the same reaction in the human herd.
Rain on the Mountain

The beautiful and the terrible are parallel channels. Perhaps one couldn’t exist without the other as a defining contrast. Yet, they aren’t honorably equal. The terrible emerges as a shadow behind the beautiful, especially when too much contrast makes the shadow very dark. 

 Astrologically, there were some explosive aspects at the time of the Boston Marathon bombing, and the Texas fertilizer plant explosion.  Pluto square Uranus, the god of the underworld, instigator of deep plunges into dark places, and radical cleansing experiences was in a tense aspect with Uranus the planet of quirky behavior and unexpected changes. In addition, the Sun was conjunct Mars the god of war in the sign of Aries, traditionally ruled by Mars, but so was Venus goddess of love and beauty, in this case perhaps, a bitter twisted love. Two young men who seemed normal on the outside but were apparently building up an explosive inner pressure, do they also reflect a larger unconscious tension. Their use of an exploding pressure cooker has a powerful symbolic facet. Terrorists often act out unconscious contracts and collective tensions. 

Complex times push us beyond ourselves into situations that bring out the best and the worst. Again, the contrast makes the picture pop. I sense we are all inwardly dispersing on the floodwaters, blowing over shores with hurricanes and blanketed in deep snow. This summer in the Southwest, it appears that we will bake like the dry earth, but it is all evidence of primal forces. We have the weather inside as well as outside and we are both victims and co-creators whether we like it or not. 

I don’t believe that our neighboring planets cause anything, but the universe is just that and the changing patterns of the cosmos are replicated on every level. Meaning is ours, as we explain to ourselves why the gods should not eat us. I remember that Gurdjieff used to tell his students that we humans are food for the Moon. I’m beginning to get a glimmer of what he meant.  For one thing, the Moon has always been associated astrologically to soul, moods, emotional connection to family and tribe and sense of belonging. When distorted by unfulfilled emotional needs it does indeed become a predator hiding behind our personal shadow. One of our modern delusions is the belief that we humans are rational creatures. It should be obvious that we are first emotional and that emotion trumps reason every time. Here in America we fear terrorists and feel safer with our guns even though a family member is more likely to shoot us than a terrorist is to blow us up. It is this primal fear of the dangerous outsider, someone from an alien tribe that grips us. Ironically, probably the same emotion inspires the terrorists. 

Potted Cat Through the Window
I’m not suggesting that we should try to be more rational. Part of the problem is that we are trying to be rational and the much stronger emotional component devours reason and takes command.  What I believe is more significant is that we unapologetically honor our emotional nature and develop it rather than leaving it in a primitive undeveloped state. Emotional desires hijack reason and take it for a ride. There are IQ tests to evaluate intellectual potential and ability but emotion develops as best it can or as worst, as the case may be. 

Once again, a weekend is approaching.  It is beautiful outside after several days of cold and wind. I’m trying to focus on some projects that have been awaiting my attention for several weeks. What is the emotional component that keeps me sidetracked? I’ve been noticing that such interruptions are also avoidance reactions to ideas that challenge me emotionally. It is time to step up the game and come out of hiding.  The winter nap is over.  Of course, there are seasons on many levels. The heart holds this knowledge. I must relearn its wisdom.







Friday, April 19, 2013

TUMBLING TUMBLEWEEDS MEET THE FENCE




I have not written much lately. PQ and I have been busy preparing for a new art showing at 15.Quince, a wonderful Mexican restaurant in Jerome Arizona. However, spring is a changeable time, and today owner/chef Vladimir Costa informed us that the restaurant is moving to a new building in Cottonwood.  Here we were trying to get everything together for a show the first week in May and now the date of the show is open-ended.   Actually, our life has been moving unpredictably in other ways as well. It is the essence of spring for events to be up-in-the-air like the tumbleweeds blown from who knows where and stopped in their tumble only by our coyote fence.  Maybe we are the same way.  We tumble for a while until some obstacle halts us and that is the beginning of the next focus in life.

My feline friends have been an interesting lesson.  A few mornings ago, I opened the door to see who was coming to breakfast and the yellow cat, white cat and little feral black cat were there but so was a large longhaired yellow cat with the same face as the adolescent yellow.  I’ve never seen this cat before and she hasn’t been back since. However, what followed left me wondering just how the cat people communicate.  The new adult yellow cat acted as if she knew all about this morning ritual. There was nothing shy or surprised in her behavior.  But, the really interesting part was the way her presence influenced the others. The little black cat that never allowed me very near, and ran for cover if I looked at her directly, suddenly was at ease and rubbing against my leg.  I reached down and stroked her back and she arched it rubbing against my leg like a house cat. This was very strange. The other cats were also at ease with each other. The black cat has continued to be far more sociable and friendly. It seemed that the older yellow cat had communicated to the others the belief that we were all family and then went back to wherever she came from. She was wearing a silver collar, so she is somebody’s treasured pet.

The more I watch animals the more I realize that we seriously underestimate them.  The Starlings that live in our bathroom vent have a very complex language that includes wing flapping and shaking as well as an incredible verbal repertoire.  These creatures may not have a language of words but they certainly communicate some complex messages among themselves and even with us if we pay attention.  We humans are very homocentric. Humans may have to face this prejudice soon.
We took the drop cloth out of the dining area and enjoyed a few days of living in the whole house. But, I’ve changed during the past three weeks.  I actually miss the clutter of brushes, paint and drop cloth in the middle of the house, while PQ works intensely with flying colors (literally). In fact, something is definitely shifting in my mind and heart.  Not only am I OK with the dining room studio, I’m letting go of the fear of driving over the edge into the unknown without any foreseeable income.  Much to my surprise, I'm feeling a new calm expectancy about what I might find at the bottom of the drop.
I put together this slide show of some of PQ’s new work with his song, “Among the Stars” in the background.  


Unusually large amounts of allergens in the air are challenging PQ’s lungs, and he finds our Taos’ altitude another obstacle but stays positive. We hope someday to live in Cottonwood again but are rolling with the spring winds right now.  Like the tumbleweeds, we cannot know just which fence will stop us.  Sometimes at night after the lights go out I think we are doomed to run out of resources and luck and all the possible awful outcomes attack me in the dark. PQ is not inclined to these attacks.  He assumes that there is always an opportunity around the corner.  I once read that the sign of Cancer needs to emotionally binge on dreadful possibilities now and then.  After we explore the worst, we have that covered and can move on with life. Cancer isn't my sun sign, Gemini is but, with Cancer rising and Moon conjunct Jupiter in Cancer it starts everything I do. After I go through one of these dark night confrontations with doom, my upbeat Gemini sun rises ready to go out to lunch and window shopping since I don't have to come up with the mortgage until the end of the month.  

Yes, change is in the air and in the earth too.  I can feel it like melting ice beneath my feet.  It doesn’t provide a steady foothold but the thaw is encouraging.