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Yes, but remember...

"Flow, River Of My Soul"

I am feeling great love and nostalgia today for "Flow, river of my soul," an album released in 1994 by Single Gun Theory, an Australian band formed in 1986 consisting of members Jacqui Hunt on lead vocals, Kath Power on vocal melodies and synthesiser, and Peter Rivett-Carnac on guitar, synthesiser and sampling.

This incredible album was unlike pretty much anything else out there at the time and this still holds true. An electronic album, it was awash with a phenomenal mix of song and spoken word samples as well as influences from world music and spirituality.

But the underlying sense of the entire album is one of paradox. There are references to enlightenment and higher thoughts and beliefs while simultaneously referencing the horrors we perpetrate on each other. It was C.G. Jung who said, "The sad truth is that man’s real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites—day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end."

It speaks to this exact paradox of life with great highs and great lows, that we are spiritual beings having a temporary physical experience. But that realization does not mean that one is exempt from physical reality and whatever suffering that may bring. It is a complicated psychological juxtaposition, one that requires care and attention. And it seems to be particularly timely now which is perhaps why the album flashed through my mind recently. We are certainly living in a paradoxical world with so much attention brought to the inequities and torture so many must endure at the hands of those who are either willfully oblivious or filled with malice. But at the same time, we see so much hope among people who believe in the best of humankind, people who know that things can get better, and are willing to work toward that goal. It is hard to get through a day sometimes, seeing and feeling this overwhelming moment in history.

With that in mind, here are some select tracks from "Flow, river of my soul" by Single Gun Theory.

The opening track, "Transmission" acts as a kind of prologue with the following vocal sample setting up a motif for the reset of the album:
"I give you this for your consideration. The most important factor in any metaphysical exercise is the release of belief systems, boundaries, and fears. All limitations are self-imposed."

"Fall" is a gorgeous track that begins with the quote, "Energy never dies, it just changes form." We also hear a sample from Robert Fripp's legendary track "Exposure" which in turn sampled a talk by author and mystic J.G. Bennett saying "It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering," as well as Rod Serling from his television series "The Twilight Zone."

"Energy never dies, it just changes form."

"It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering."

The sea calls me to the end of the pier
The sky is clear
So is the ending
The termination
In this moment of realization

I had a vision of a very calming place
Where we fall like lovers into embrace

We fall like mist on mountains
Sensibilities lost
Like meteors from heaven
A stone in water

I had a vision of a very calming place
Where we fall like lovers into embrace

"Energy never dies, it just changes form."

"The time is now."

"I'm going to count from 1 to 3 and when I count the number 3, your feet will be lifted off the ground and you will be pulled by that silver white cord.
1, 2, 3."

I had a vision of a very calming place
Where we fall like lovers into embrace

"It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering."

"Energy never dies."

"The time is now."

This next song "The Sea of Core Experience" begins with another great quote:
"I dedicate my life to the mystic law of cause and effect with the vibration in my voice."

"I dedicate my life to the mystic law of cause and effect with the vibration in my voice."

Here above the clouds
My porous body floats
Transcending my thoughts
To essence

Flow, the river of my soul
To the sea of core experience
A thousand million hands are joined
In embrace here

Wind is rushing past my face
And streaming through me
I am rarefied
And abstract

I will come to you
And kiss you in a dream
The still of night
Roaring through me

"Decimated" is where things start to take a turn. It contains a recording of Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb, recalling what went through his head as he witnessed the first detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945. Air raid sirens can be heard on this track.

A chemical haze falling around me
It's a bright sunset on this day

So decimated

"I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita: 'Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.'"

"Phenomena" plays like the soundtrack to the film "Poltergeist" with a sample of a paranormal investigator narrating some film footage of an alleged metaphysical incident.

The song "Metaphysical" is another supreme juxtaposition with words of rapture occupying the same space as predictions of war and the words of an American military strategist recalling the conditions on the day of the bombing of Hiroshima.

I can feel the rapture of spiritual love

Thank you forces of good
Thank you positivity
Thank you joy
Thank you alive

"As a result of my study in markets and economics I applied...I applied my predictive techniques to the subject of war. I formulated a US war clock. The probabilities are 78% that the US will be involved in a major military confrontation between 1988 and 1992."

"The day was clear..."

Thank you god
Metaphysical love

"The day was clear when we dropped that bomb..."

Thank you god
Metaphysical love

"The Point Beyond Which Something Will Happen" contains a reading of the words of a Hiroshima survivor describing his surroundings ten minutes before the blast.

"You are about to experience it in its reality. In this moment, know yourself, and abide in that state."

I lie down in a river of love
Go to the edge and fall
Plunge to the deep and hold my breath
Braced against the oncoming

I lie down in a river of blood
Go to the edge and die a thousand times
Look to the viscous barrier
I might end, I might heal this night

At the point beyond which something will happen
At the point beyond which something will occur

"The morning was fine. I saw a red dragonfly land on the wall in front of me."

"Thetan" is an elegy, an ode to a departed loved one. Grief is the price we pay for love, another aspect of being here in a body, in this physical reality. The opening sample here comes from the 1991 film "Whore" starring Theresa Russell.

"I must be some use to somebody. I mean, there must be a reason for me, right?"

"1. Consider the probable reality that all time is simultaneous."

Like fallen autumn leaves lying on the ground
I hate to think it's over
It's just that you were so young
And didn't seem to have a chance to make it good
The skies are grey with the loss of you
My heart sighs

It's in the way that I feel
It's in the way that I breathe
It's in the way that I see for you
It's in the way I believe
You are my reprieve
I can't accept
It's over

Like fallen autumn leaves
A morbid wind through barren trees
I hate to think, I hate to think
You were so young

"2. You are the universal consciousness.
3. The pendulum must swim both ways before it is brought to rest in the middle.
4. All limitations are self-imposed.
5. The mind has every potential and all knowledge"

Like fallen autumn leaves lying on the ground
I hate to think it's over

"Consider the probable reality that all time is simultaneous.
You are the universal consciousness, at ease as your consciousness drifts more deeply into the state of all that is."

And if love is a tide
Then it's taking me down to the depths of despair

The album closes with the track "Still Closest to My Heart," the epilogue to the collection's prologue. It is a recording of a translation of the words of Pope John XXIII (1881 – 1963): "My day has ended. My final thought is again for those closest to my heart, multiplied and diffused throughout the world."

http://sgt.com.au/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Gun_Theory

BEAUTY: Sculpture--Rhonda Wheatley

Artist Rhonda Wheatly combines spirituality and sculpture into fascinating objects. She explains in her Artist Statement:

"My work is grounded in the speculative, metaphysical, and spiritual, and through it I explore healing, consciousness expansion, and transformation. As an energy healer, I imbue my work with meditative focus and intent. Each sculpture is attuned to the combined energies and symbolism of my materials—vintage found objects and electronics, as well as organic and natural materials, including fossils, cicadas, barnacle clusters, moss, and shed snakeskin. I treat these materials as ingredients that flavor each piece with purpose and power. For instance, barnacles, which attach to objects or other lifeforms for the duration of their lives, are a 'glue' that enhances one’s ability to adhere to intended changes. Fossils bring the energy of millions of years. Clock radios reference time manipulation and frequency—moving through states of consciousness—while antennas and crystals amplify signals.

My long-form titles, themselves written works, are integral to each piece, as they indicate the objects’ uses as shamanic tools. While I push the limits of reality as it’s commonly understood, I also explore often-uncomfortable limitations. Caveats such as 'For self-use only' on a power object that transmutes negative energy and 'The future is a moving target,' on a hybrid device that predicts future outcomes of potential decisions highlight these limitations, emphasizing the importance of others’ free will, the inescapability of unknowns and uncertainty, and that there are few guarantees in life. Ultimately, my objects and accompanying texts hint that acknowledging a universe of vast, yet-to-be-understood possibilities while relinquishing the need for total control, is key to attaining radical freedom."

FULL TITLE: Empath Protector. Helps empaths create healthy energetic boundaries so that they may clearly distinguish their own emotions, needs, and desires from those of others.

MEDIA: Vintage mannequin hand, wooden beads, natural fluorite crystal octahedrons, and acrylic paint.

FULL TITLE: Life Review Device. The Life Review process uplifts users from depression and despair, triggering a life re-boot. Users re-experience their entire lives in a full/extra-sensory consciousness download, infused with the hope and purpose with which they entered this lifetime. The device facilitates the process of releasing blame and grudges, forgiving one’s self and others, and getting back on mission.

MEDIA: Three vintage clock radios, vintage TV antenna, and quartz crystal cluster

FULL TITLE: Energy and Intention Reverberator. Increases strength and resonance of healing energy one receives and.or one’s intention and will.

MEDIA: Vintage mannequin hand, barnacle cluster, ceramic with glass, shed snakeskin, quartz crystals, hand-cut paper, collage, and acrylic paint. Round canvas and moss.

FULL TITLE: Karma Planning Device for Future Lifetime Maximization. Instantly assesses karmic debt accumulated throughout user’s earth incarnations. Knowledge embedded in dormant memory cells, activated by soul at opportune times. Does not override free will. Increases chances of reincarnating at higher levels in subsequent lifetimes. Positive past lifetime impact reverberation highly likely.

MEDIA: Vintage clock radio (metal), vintage TV antenna, and two orange rhomboid calcite crystals

FULL TITLE: Power and Energy Amplifier. Increases power and healing energy one receives and/or sends to others.

MEDIA: Vintage mannequin hand, barnacle cluster, titanium quartz crystals, cholla cactus wood, and acrylic paint.

FULL TITLE: Subconscious Translator. Navigates unconscious mind. Decodes messages from one’s subconscious self received via dreams, physical ailments, and mysterious behaviors. Gets to root of self-sabotage, projection, haterism, addiction, and more. Provides emotional protection as painful suppressed memories surface. For self-use only.

MEDIA: Vintage headphones, beads, quartz crystals, plant roots, fossilized shark teeth, snake skin sheddings, collage, and acrylic paint

FULL TITLE: Trauma Healer. Repairs damage to physical body brought on by emotional trauma, beginning at the cellular level.

MEDIA: Vintage mannequin hand, wooden beads, snakeskin sheddings, various seashells, snake bones, catfish atlas bone, and acrylic paint.


https://www.rhondawheatley.com/

Santcum by Levi van Veluw

Late last summer 2019, artist Levi van Veluw created an incredible installation, Sanctum, shown at Tenuta Dello Scompiglio, an Agricola and art/cultural showcase outside of Lucca, Italy.

This intense, transcendent space resonates with me deeply for many reasons and on many levels. I will let the artist explain:

"The installation Sanctum, developed especially for Tenuta Dello Scompiglio, testifying of a fictitious religious conviction, engages all the senses of the visitor. The last room where visitors ended their journey in Kerguénnec, nell'installazione 'The relativity of the matter', becomes the starting point for a more elaborate proposition in the expositive space of Dello Scompiglio. Levi van Veluw based Sanctum on of the first religious buildings, the Tabernacle, also called the tent of meeting. This tent served as a place of worship and symbolized God’s presence amidst those who had gathered.

The interior of the Tabernacle consisted of 3 spaces: the Forecourt, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, sacred in ascending gradation. Like the Tabernacle, Levi van Veluw’s work features symmetry and harmony, to express the strive for divine perfection and reflect the divine holiness through the careful gradations of the three phases. As such, he plays with the age-old composition of the religious structure and thereby lures the spectator deeper and deeper into the Sanctuary.

After a long descent, a mysterious dark blue glow shines through a narrow crack in the wall. The visitor enters through this opening into a high-ceilinged, underground space, the forecourt. Massive columns emerge on both sides and mountains of coal lie scattered across the floor, while the path in the centre is kept open. Static forms set in repetitive sequences recall the structure of an ecstatic building, made to glorify an unknown higher purpose. The space slowly comes into view, an open passage at the end leads to what appears to be a ritual environment, the Sanctuary. Fragrant water flows through an ordered pattern of geometric incisions in the floor. At the centre, there is a chapel, composed of a detailed network of grids, boxes and openings, the Holy of Holies.

Is this an opening to a new world in which religion, again, plays an important role? Or does the artist use existing symbolisms to lure the mind into a new religion? These are questions the artist leaves the spectator with."

Please do take three minutes to watch this beautiful walk-through of the installation which will give you a clearer picture.

Many years ago, in what seems like another life now, I attended regular Friday night services at a Hindu ashram in Oakland, California. They were wonderful times, but the thing that sticks with me is the magnificent sensory experience of the main Meditation Hall. It was bathed in a low indigo-violet light and the heady smell of incense (delicious Nag Champa and Dhoop). After a video talk by the guru (or sometimes a live talk if the guru was in residence), we would chant or sing in Sanskrit (thankfully it was always projected in phonetic English on a wall), and I regularly had transcendent experiences in which I felt a unique consciousness shift. It was very special and van Veluw's Sanctum seems like it has a similar feeling with its deep, penetrating color and fragrant water, and the sense of a place that is a manifestation/representation, however limited it may be, of a state beyond the physical.

And this profound installation has been resurrected for a site specific presentation at Het HEM, a former ammunition factory, now a home for contemporary culture, in the Dutch city of Zaandam. The artist refers to it as a semi-permanent installation, so it seems to be an open-ended chance to see this marvelous piece.

"Sanctum is a deep blue chapel that appears to float in between two floors. The work invites for contemplation while examining what the architecture of the spiritual consists of. Why do we assign value to objects, to the tangible, within the immaterial realm of faith? What is the basis of our devotion to altars, relics and icons? In the colossal space of Het HEM, Sanctum tests the boundary between an artistic and a spiritual experience."

What the artist is really working with is the idea of symbols and stand-ins for ideas and states of consciousness that are beyond our physical world. These objects become the machinery of the sacred, while ritual is the technology of the sacred. Of course these things can be used in ways that are not so pure or transcendent, which is the basis of a great portion of human suffering. But in a pure form, objects and rituals can be illuminating and serve as a connection to a place in us to which we all, all of us, personally have access.

https://levivanveluw.com/

“Singularity (after Stephen Hawking)” by Marie Howe

http://www.mariehowe.com/
https://www.brainpickings.org/2020/04/23/singularity-marie-howe-animated

BEAUTY: Painting--Tae Lee

I like Tae Lee's paintings of people as part of the universe. Her artist statement says:

"My work is my exploration of place of human consciousness in an universal causality.

Finding patterns in ancient investigations of consciousness of the Buddhist sort, to the New Age American psychedelic movement in the 60's and 70s, I am striving to connect the blips of various epiphanies the world provided. Painting as a process gives me the time to focus on this contemplation, not only in an opportune sense, but the act of manifesting itself seems conducive to capturing clues from the Universe.

Are we free to make decisions or is every current moment the ultimate product of the mechanism still reacting and forming from the beginning of time?"

Top to bottom: All The Unwanted Parts Of Himself; Cosmosis; Invisible Waves; Last LIfe In The Universe; Rejoicing In The Ordinary Things; Sending A Dream Into The Universe; Smiles and Tears

http://taelee.net/

Just finished reading...

...the 2017 experimental novel LINCOLN IN THE BARDO by George Saunders.

Writer George Saunders is a well known, celebrated short story writer but this is his first full-length novel. And while it was indeed engaging, moving, and thought provoking, it ended up feeling like a short story.

Perhaps it is the fact that the story itself takes place over the course of a single day. Or perhaps it is due to the enormous amount of white space on the pages as the story is told through excerpts from books (some actual historical books or biographies and some fabricated by Saunders), letters, and spoken monologues from the various characters and players in the story. The structure of these excerpts looks like a stage script with lots of room between the "lines."

But this is just an observation as it does not diminish the story itself or reduce the power of the ideas that Saunders is working with. The novel concerns itself with the death of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln's eleven-year old son Willie Lincoln from typhoid fever. There are accounts of his short life and death as well as the extreme grief that both Mary and Abe suffered at the loss of their son. But this story takes a different, metaphysical perspective on these historical events by following Willie after his death into what Saunders calls "the bardo." The term bardo comes from Tibetan Buddhism and is an intermediate state the soul must traverse between death and rebirth. But Saunders takes liberties with his bardo, mixing Christian and Egyptian beliefs and iconography into the Tibetan Buddhist idea of an afterlife, or between-life as it were.

This device allows the author to explore the thoughts and actions of all the souls who occupy this bardo with little Willie. We are introduced to people from many different backgrounds and walks of life, male and female, white and black, straight and gay, noble and base. And it allows us to experience a kaleidoscope of social, religious, and political points of view, particularly about slavery and the coming Civil War. But at the heart of this loss is President Lincoln who actually went many times to the crypt where Willie lay in his small coffin to visit him and hold his body, to try to make sense of the loss. And we encounter him in this story, weeping over Willie's body, unable to comprehend what has transpired.

LINCOLN IN THE BARDO is an enigmatic novel while, curiously, being fairly straight-forward. The bardo is rendered quite vividly here and the details Saunders peppers in are quite disturbing. I have read THE TIBETAN BOOK OF THE DEAD and while the English translation has some known and documented translation issues (due to the lack of knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism on the part of the translator!), the general sense is one of a place where the soul goes through a series of trials, and depending upon how one lived one's life, one passes or fails these trials. But Saunders' bardo is actually quite a cruel, twisted place, not full of trials but seemingly endless suffering and enslavement. It disturbed me so much that I actually had to put the book down at one point before steeling myself to go on. And I am glad I did because Saunders' ultimate idea of this bardo is that it is one of our own making, and one we stay in of our own choosing. There is some comfort in the idea that there is not an objective cruelty infecting the universe, but instead there is a subjective pain that comes from our own perception. And what could be more Buddhist than that?

History, war, slavery, the state of childhood, the state of grief, theology, love, courage, anger, psychology, sexuality, spirituality... As you can see, this is a layered, complex story neatly packed into a relatively short read.

Recommend? Yes, give it a try. No need at all to be a history buff, or a devotee of Buddhism. And if you end up not liking it, no worries, it's a quick read.

http://www.georgesaundersbooks.com

BEAUTY: Digital Collage--Luis Toledo

Luis Toledo. Graphic artist. Maximalism.

"Death, spirituality, necessity, beginning and end.
Death is just one more step in which we abandon the skin to continue our existence with another form. The liberating end. Another aspect of life, so vital and necessary as life itself.
The mirror that our eye escapes from, but nevertheless, charges against without remedy in these images.
The other side becomes visible, evident, melted with the reality from which was never separated.
Skulls, skeletons, insects, fungus, bodies with no face and solitaries expressions, abstract and geometric forms, all in an unmaterialized arsenal.
The reality ( material ) is obvious, monotonous and predictable. It is easy than to understand the fascination of the author for the none-material and spiritual part of life and how they are related and represented.

Time, past, present and future and eternity.
The definitive illusion follows its path in a clock-time rhythm.
We run desperate after each second trying to stop it, trap it, take it, use it. “ Time is gold” they say, but in reality is only a measure like weight or height. Your life is not the time that has been until the moment, of course not. It is necessary that we are conscious of the present moment, taste it, enjoy it.
This is an idea that is developed in each work with fraction complexity inviting the spectator to stop and appreciate with care each detail.
An attention call for the consumer society, and even more, for the constant images designed to use ans throw. Something that the author calls out : “ hurry kills”.
The brief instant becomes the key of eternity.
The use if images and aesthetics picked up from the past, mixed with abstract and contemporary forms, transport us into a un-timed territory; and in here, present, past and future mix in a symbolic reality."

Top to bottom: Offering Ritual; Portrait; Thangka; The Secret; Logic of a Dream; The Mushroom Garden

http://laprisamata.es/

"What if, when we die, we wake up?" by Alan Watts

Alan Watts (previously here).

http://www.alanwatts.com

BEAUTY: Illustration--Jenna Barton

Animals and mysteries. That is what artist Jenna Barton says she draws.

Top to bottom: Interstate 15; It came through the yard again; Mountain spirits see and love you; Shrine; There was something in the pool last night; Familiar

Her blog:
http://dappermouth.tumblr.com/
Prints and clothing:
http://dappermouth.storenvy.com/