PURITY

At the end of the inhalation… at the edge of exhalation…. there is a pause. In that pause the crack opens & all I need to know is revealed. It is the pause at the end of the arc of the child's swing. The suspension at the top of the grand-jete  in ballet. It is the gap  between waking & sleeping. You have been there. You are there thirty two times a minute. Think on it. It is there you will have a hint of the purity I am talking about. Perfection is the true Chimera. There is purity. When you know that purity in your heart you will be at ease. The heart itself is an instrument of purity. Light. Water. Music. Numbers. These are pure. Unblemished…. unblemishable purity. All that happens in time & space... these are just filaments…. tendrils…. sparkles of the fathomless purity that sustains the Creation. I am so grateful for moonlight…. the moon yes… but it is the moonlight that tells me whatever happens in this ever-changing kaleidoscope of my life there is Great Natural Peace sitting just inches away in the depth of the night sky. I devote the rest of time to entering into & embracing that Purity.

SOLSTICE

The darkest day of a dark year. Winter starts. How do we as intergalactic travellers… how do we come to terms with what we are doing out here on the fringe of the Milky Way Galaxy? I know the Taoist concept of the Return. The year ends today. We begin the annual return towards the Light. I am part of the great revival in Divine awareness that is swelling up through the undercurrents here on the watery planet. I return…. we return to the simple certainty that there is a loving kindness… a compassionate presence that creates all that is in this very moment. The doubt… the falling away…. even the despair all serve to underscore the Oceanic brilliance of the Love that creates everything. This is not belief... it is knowledge. Here on this the darkest day of a dark, dark year for human civilization I know with diamond purity the Creation is perfect…. always has been…. always will be. The Returning. The Returning to the Light goes on.

WHITE on WHITE

I am trying to come to terms with the unfathomable beauty of the world we live in. The moon was so white early this morning…. almost as white as the centre of the sun streaming in through my window. Have you ever cracked open the brown hairy surface of a coconut to find this impossibly white meat delicately moulded to the undersurface?A pail of freshly squeezed udder milk in the galvanized grey of the pail. Snow… snow… snow….. the roads closed… the fields flat as a plaster wall. Pages of foolscap cracked free from the plastic wrap. The flesh of red apples. The wake of the speed boat against the aquamarine. Appaloosa Stallion with the one red fleck on the yellow Buffalo grass. The  pool of cream in the mouth of the ceramic pitcher. The canines of my brother Wolf against the pink of the tongue and the red blood of the fallen elk buck. The lacquer skin of the abalone. Lambswool under the ewe… twins. Osprey wing feathers. Rattle snake eggs. The cliffs of Dover. Polar bear swimming across the Beaufort Sea… all alone. Lotus petals on a frog pond. A passing thought. I walk in Beauty. The Creation is perfect

THE VIRGIN OF THE BIRCH GROVE

This summer I had a profound awakening… a reconnection with the roots of who I truly am. My spiritual teacher took me to an island of paper birch trees on a northern lake in the boreal forest… asked me to press my cheek up to the cool bark & to listen to the trees talking. Skeptical, I approached. There were thirty trees…. each forty years old… They were lean…. muscular…. tall & very very white.  At first I though I was simply hearing the wind in the oscillating leaves. Wind after all is not the way a tree would talk. Wind is wind. Suddenly I was transformed. The trees swayed & danced. The roots spread below me… the branches above caressed each to each.The trees were talking all along… on that island where we seldom go. The Creation is infinitely more beautiful & intricate than I ever knew. How could I be so ignorant?  Human language is so limited by its definitions & labels. Of course trees talk to each other. How arrogant to think that language is some human prerogative. The only way to hear the speech of trees… or ants…. or loons… or cats…. is for once & for all to just stop talking… to be silent … & to hear….. to hear the true language of the Universe. It is all around, below, above …. within.

DHARMA

The three refuges.... my true self, the truth, & the community of sentient beings that support me. I always thought of Dharma as  "the teachings".  I now know it to be the truth that the Creation is founded on. What is it that I know with complete & utter certainty? I no longer have the slightest doubt. The sword may be sheathed, or carefully placed in its scabbard, or wrapped in the finest silk & kept out of sight but make no mistake there is the finest steel... the purest crystal resting at the origin. I have not yet shrugged off the details of this hectic, chaotic, baffling existence. I push forward with purpose. I know with complete calm & the stillness of fact of the Divinity of the Isness of what Is. This sword is neither weapon nor tool. It is manifestation. It is affirmation. One word. The word.....

YES!

JUXTAPOSITION

The simple & complete nature of poetry is to place two dissimilar objects against each other & to create a third more powerful identity. “The Ace of Swords”… perhaps the one great card in the Tarot deck of the pure power in unity… in the knowing…. the clear use of the rational mind to achieve enlightenment. A simple card but there are elements that seem disparate… hard to reconcile….. the palm frond…. the olive branch… the six drops of gold…. the crown itself…. the blue mountains… the grey sky….. The olive branch is clear to me….the offering of peace… the symbol brought to Noah after the catastrophe of the great Deluge… & the palm frond…. perhaps the branches laid at the feet of the master as he entered the city for the final time… but the six drops of gold… that to me is a mystery…. explained in some arcane text… but not open to easy interpretation. My role as poet… as artist… as mystic... is to unfurl the holy scrolls… to present the code in the sacred text… & then to decode even a sentence or two….. One fact for certain…. we are dealing with great mystery whose meaning we have only just begun to glimpse….. 

SACRED GEOMETRY

The universe is exponentially older than we can imagine. Human consciousness seems so recent. Why is it so hard to envision the possibility that our awareness… even our civilization is infinitely older than we thought? This is obvious…. one look at the pyramids & you know there is an abiding mystery we choose not to see. We are immersed in amnesia. Mathematics/music/astronomy …. these are the keys & chinks & touchstones that let us know that our limited sight is just that… limited. There is good evidence that this age is coming to an end. There were previous ages of awareness… even here on this green blue orb we live on. This is not science fiction. Look at the codes in the hieroglyphics of the people who lived on the Nile thirty five thousand years ago. There are technologies & sciences & abilities  we have merely not been aware of.  I do not hope for some resurrection of these abilities…even if I feel their intimations within myself… it is enough to know they exist. I am dedicated to the Return… to the resurfacing of who we really are. It is underway. Here & Now.

ALIGNMENT

The sword represents the highest order of the intellect... the soul distilled to the essence of clarity... to the purity of certainty... to Truth itself. Who wields it? Do I wield it? I do. It is within my grasp. I use it without claiming it. It is not mine. It comes to me. It comes through me. There is mind & then there is Mind. They are simultaneous. My acceptance is not contingent on the certainty of the absolute. The certainty of the absolute is not contingent on my acceptance. It shines with or without me. It shines. My sole & abiding movement is toward alignment. To make my myopic vision focussed on the vision of the greater clarity of the Source. In my impermanence I surrender to that which is permanent. I would like to say this knowing flows. It feels like the bonds in the hardest crystal known to creation. I am not always in the perfection of alignment but when I am it locks in like the faces & planes of the diamond of verifiable fact.

SYNTHESIS

I am not whole. I am partial. There are fissiparous forces that fracture me into fragments of who I might be. The mushroom has seventeen genders. Five of those genders need to come together to allow the fruiting of even one mushroom. We are limited to two genders. Just two!!! I am in awe of all the women I know in my life. In awe & humbled to my very core. It is the violent separation of the understanding of the male & female that engenders most of the discord that defines human endeavour. Once again I return to the path of synthesis… of synergy… of harmony….. I have been in error all these years. I am neither male nor female. I am legion. I am constellation. I am multitudinous. I allow the blending of all that is. Not two. Not multiple. Infinite. One.

ARTEMIS - QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

What soothes my primal drive? I confess I harbour a molten orange core of rage that pulsates in my inner heart . I like to call it my masculine nature but it really is just my foul anger at all the creative forces that dared put me here in this beautiful blue watery place. I accept. I accept. The red lion of rage is really on a certain level who I am. The true nature of the Universe holds back but She is there. She strokes my fiery mane. She circles my gnarly neck with garlands of forget-me-nots. How did I forget? How do I forget? I am protected & guided at all times. The nature of the Universe is two fold... compassion & truth. The Divinity of the Universe is fact. I know it in my molten furnace of a heart. The Divinity is verifiable if I only just stop trying to grasp it... to wrestle it to the ground... to possess it. That Divinity is female. The feminine... that  is the deeper principle. The flames die down. surrender to  the cool indigo light of the setting full moon at dawn.

ECLIPSE.... (eclipse)

The fire lion…. the burning core that still consumes me… as a male… as a mortal... I wrestle with my options… should I stake my claim & rage… rage against the dying of the light… burn with righteous anger… just say no… or do I sheath my claws… submit to the great unfolding… expose my vulnerable underbelly… surrender to the ever-rising tide… let it be… I align myself with the vortex… that burgeoning power of the great Sun energy… the momentum of the masculine… but I know the true embrace is the vast still field of the female... the encompassing… the enfolding… I no longer seek dominion but union… the fire has burned long enough in the crucible… my alchemy… convert flame to pure white light

RED LION

Is it one? Or is it two? Is it two? Or is it one? The male pulls apart from the female. The female reaches down. The male stretches up. Ah surrender… surrender. Rage cooled by serenity. The red succumbs to the white. The physical pulls away from the spiritual. The beast wrestles with the angel. The cool hands stroke the fiery mane. The fire quenched by the cool breeze. The fire stirs the spiral of the wind. The vortex spirals outward, inward… round & round…. on & on…. & so it goes, Caress…. thrust…. ease ….. strive…. grip… release… Circles… Circles. The Red Lion. The White Woman. The sun touches the green line of the sky on the verge of the horizon. Two great principles in the embrace of the One.

SCARAB I - Moon's Day

Archimedes said "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." The four certainties on which I base my entire philosophy are the solid facts of the earth, the sky, & the sun. The fourth certainty is the grace & evanescence of that mysterious & ever-changing orb called the moon. Just as the sun's dominion is the day, the moon's dominion is the night.There are seven days of the week... each dedicated to one of the ancient deities. The week ends on the day of the Sun. The week starts with the day of the moon. We are blessed with the containable interval of one revolution of the planet we live on. I can do anything for one day... anything. The waxing & waning, the ebbing in & out of the moon over the twenty eight days of the month is my lullaby. Monday... the moon's day.

SCARAB II - Tiw's Day

Interesting... only one day of the week is devoted to Freye, the goddess of fertility; three days are devoted to Gods of War… Tiw, Woden, & Thor. Ferocity. I respect Ferocity. Channelled righteous anger. In the Tarot it is the suit of Swords. Check out the images… they are powerful. Tiw in Roman lore is Mars the god of war in later times. How do we define ourselves as humans? Are we truly war-like… or have we evolved into something different? Is dying in battle the only way into Valhalla? I see us becoming a different type of warrior. I will myself to be wide awake, wise, tough, lean & mean… prepared for what must come. I am standing firm. Prepared to die or do what is necessary to herald the new Kingdom that is surfacing. I claim that courage… a new type of warrior. A warrior of the Light.

SCARAB III - Woden's Day

The great sadness in our culture is the amnesia we have for our ancestors. Every other tradition honours & venerates those who have come before. My ancestry is Viking. The Chief god of the Viking Is Woden. The AllFather. He represents sacrifice for me. Lost an eye to achieve Wisdom. Had himself hung for nine days on Yggdrasil the world tree in penance for the world he created. With a raven on each shoulder one for thought & the other for desire. The Lord of poetry. The creator of Runes. Married to Freye the goddess of fertility. Mythic but potent. This is just another story we tell ourselves… yes but that is the story of all ancestors. I tell those stories. So glad we have a day of the week named after old Woden the king of the Viking gods.

Scarab IV - Thor's Day

My Viking ancestors were warriors. Tiw, Woden, Thor, & Freye… all warrior gods. I call myself a warrior of the light. The mindset of a warrior is one of willingness… the willingness to die. To achieve that willingness requires dedicated preparation…. perpetual preparation to be ready. The Sioux Warriors in the last days of the original people of these prairies danced the Ghost Dance. The thunderbird rises on the ghost dance shirts worn by those warriors. The thunderbird rises. When rain ends a ceremony it signifies a great blessing. A thunderstorm is best. The mighty god Thor wields his hammer. Thunder cracks the sky. Thursday is his day!!!!!!!!!

SCARAB V - Freye's Day

TGIF. Freye, the Goddess of fertility, love, creativity. She contains the charms of Artemis the Pure, Aphrodite the Beauty & Athena the Wise. But Freye stands apart. She is a northern girl. The one with the auburn hair & pale blue eyes who ravens & wolves befriend. She is the Divinity of Snow. The Lady in the Pine Forest after September rain. The redemption she offers is not of ripe fruits & perfumed flowers. It is the fruition of mirrored steel. She offers a fertility of the soul that locks in with the certainty of sacred geometry in a solved theorem. Friday. We honour many things in hidden ways. I honour Freye the woman of the fertility of the North where my ancestors come from.

SCARAB VI - SATURN'S DAY

Curious. We celebrate seven days with the names of four Viking gods.... Tiw, Woden, Thor  & Freye; the moon, the sun..... & Saturn! Saturn is the roman version of the ancient God Cronus who is older than time itself. Saturnine refers to the mood of melancholy... of sadness... the sadness I feel when I think of the turning of the great wheel of time & how insignificant I feel in the face of the great significance in which with joy I choose to manifest.  The planet Saturn travels around the sun every 29 years. Our life is governed by three orbits of this mysterious ringed orb at the far edge of the inner solar system. 29, 58, 87 the three ages of life. I am at the end of the second age... two orbits of the planet Saturn. Every winter at the time  of the solstice the Romans celebrated the return of the sun with a week of ecstatic dancing in honour of Saturn. They called it the Saturnalia. Saturday.... Saturn's day.

SCARAB VII - SUNDAY

The Egyptians venerated the image of the scarab. There is humour in the lowly dung beetle pushing the ball of dung filled with larvae across the dusty plains. Especially contrasted with the fact it represents the resurrection of the soul & honours the great disc of the sun. The days of the week have great names attached to them. The greatest name however is Sun-day. We have a day named in honour of the great stellar phenomenon that allows us life in the first place. A lowly purple beetle. The great orb of sun. Light & life pours around us. Doubt is trumped by the verifiable fact of the brilliance of the Source that is manifest every day of the week.

KIT KAT

As always it comes back to the real... to the here & now. Kit Kat ... a black cat with green gold eyes & the pinkest of tongues... prowls  the tall grass, eyes the ladybugs scuttling after aphids along the Cottonwood roots, sniffs the dew on the fender of the junkyard Half Ton, ears perked to the magpies scrawling up on the rooftops of the garden shed, delicately touches the tip of his tongue to the tuna fish flakes tumbled from a tin can in the toppled trash bin, lets the night breeze off the slough-pond whisk his whiskers. My greatest humility is to fully acknowledge that being Human is not enough. I join the circle of all sentient beings. My freedom is not just for my fellow Man. I  accept the sovereignty of each & every creature in this bounteous Universe. The black cat called Kit Kat narrows his gaze. He sees me. Blinks once... twice.        He knows.                      

DEATH METAL

My brilliant young friend Jordan Sasakamoose stands as the new man of the upcoming flowering of the human tribe. Cree Nation… Canadian.… Citizen of the World…. Intergalactic…. we are birthing a new type of human. Jordan has fingers of lightning. The electric guitar sings in the thunderstorm of his music. I now understand Death Metal. It is the deep rhythm of the explosion of stars…. the boiling of magma in the heart of the volcano… the lion roar of creation in the face of the void. In Jordan I meet one of my warrior brothers. We are warriors of the light. We are ready for what has to come. We are not afraid. We accept the challenge.

ULTRAVIOLET

Ravens can see in the ultraviolet spectrum. We see ravens as dark, black, inky, spooky birds. Ravens see themselves as indigo, glowing  violet & infinite blue. Even in the darkest night. Imagine flying with your mate through the no moon night. Not shadow against shadow but numinous against luminous. Great mystery abounds in the incandescent glowing of those soaring wings. Infinite Universes in the dark space between galaxies. I see with new eyes. What I think I know is limited. I am not who I think I am. In the cave of my solitude I see only shadows. In the night sky I see with the eyes of Raven. The New Light is depthless. Abide in Beauty. See with the spectral eyes of Raven!!!

RAVEN CAT

When I was a child I was frightened of the dark. On autumn nights as the moonless sky grew cold I sat by the fire & drew comfort from the dancing light. The black surrounding welled with fear & I drew closer to the glowing embers & wrapped myself in my poncho, glad of the circle of my fellow beings.  When I stood up from the circle of yellow & white & submerged myself in the darkness my first feeling was apprehension. At once, I knew in the dark I was the dark & that darkness offered a new freedom. A freedom from fear. Darkness is akin to stillness. The dark is the loamy top soil of a freshly turned  flowerbed. The dark is fertile with possibility. The magnetic field of the Universe awaiting the first heavenly body. It is from the dark that all creation emerges. Do not fear the dark. Embrace it.

RAINBOW BODY

We default to seeing ourselves as corporeal beings. On the level of chemistry we are complex webs of protons & electrons.  On the deep plane of quantum physics we are swirling entities  of energy. Our souls… of what substance are they made? That is a gnarly question. There is an understanding that our true spiritual being is made of light. When the surfaces & planes are reduced past the outside going in or going way way out… we are purely & simply made of light. It is our quest… our spiritual voyage to manifest this deep pure beauty of the inner light of the Source that nourishes our very being… we open up to our rainbow bodies… the fractal seeds of the great prismatic play of impermeable light. Irridescent. Incandescent. Incalculable

. 

SENTIENT BEINGS

Why do we feel this world is our dominion? I am so fatigued with the arrogance of my species Homo Exaltatiens. The living creatures of this beautiful planet are myriad. I choose to see this world, & yes, the Universe at large, as one interwoven living organism. Humankind teeters out of balance from the symbiotic harmony that defines our place in the Creation. Yes… I use the images of animals to tell a story in my paintings. In my work, I see the symbolism of the Age of the Ram giving way to the Age of the Fish at the time of Akhenaten while the Dove of the Resurrection rises up & the Cobra of Eternity coils above the head of the Emperor. But I  see also that each of these creatures has its place in the Creation as living, conscious spiritual entities… no more inferior to me than woman is inferior to man, or one race from the other. That will be true spiritual liberation when all sentient beings exist on the same plane as beloved equals.

SPHERICAL