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M-Train: how artist grieve, book review….

15 Thursday Oct 2015

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How artist grieve:
I like reading all sorts of people’s perspectives on how to grieve and live and honor life well. Certain artist teach others how to grieve, which we all have to do, in the end.
Patti Smith’s latest book (her first one, “Just Kids” was an amazing poetically moving tragic memoir of her life in NYC in the midst of a cultural movement in the 60’s and 70’s), M Train—able to grieve for others through art is one of the things I’m learning through it.
She’s also a ridiculously talented writer and poet.
The ability to hold and evoke a container for collective un-grieved things, through her books and art. It’s a unique priestly activity, to be able to help others grieve things which they didn’t know they were grieving.
Wonder if this is one of the truer roles of art. Just reading her latest book today.
Not for everyone-raw beauty-her style, though it is brilliant, but this thing of giving others a
metaphysical/spiritual circle to grieve in, by articulately expressing your own, and really honoring each person and experience which entered, as having meaning and matter—every person, a poem worth beholding, pronouncing. Powerful stuff. The healing aspect of priesthood. With her, of course, she is also grieving lost artist from her own generation; she is holding a vigil for the special ones, which i relate to. The lost levites. Nice, and instilling read so far!

15 Thursday Oct 2015

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A friend of mine said to me today:
“Living well in the midst of tumult is a sign!  It’s not a denial or escape from suffering-we live with our hearts-eyes wide open, and do our best to alleviate the pain of others- but we become a sign that it is possible to have full life in the midst of darkness and tumult. We become portents of things to come, which are half-way already here through us.”

Angelic Umbrellas!

13 Tuesday Oct 2015

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Reading old charismatic literature tonight-love this quote by a very old retired minister:
(seriously, he knew where to sit!)
“I’m hanging near the Stream, in case you wanna find me. I’ll be there. The Stream of the Holy Ghost, and His host, and that sorta Life space. Ain’t gonna leave this spot until He comes. I’m in the first Peter continuum!
Again, for practicals, if you do indeed require a meeting or desire to commune, that is if ya need to talk or even chat beyond this passing, fleeting doom, you gotta come to The Stream of true Being to be with me, so we can meet face to face, where it’s truly at, as people in His Glow do and are meant to meet! As for me, I’m mostly sitting under angelic umbrellas.” (quote from Reverend Shoehorn, pentecostal by birth!)

Soil, Sight and Skin

13 Tuesday Oct 2015

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Soil, Sight and Skin—rediscovered!
Just re-discovered this entry in one of my old notebooks. (“I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now,” to quote Dylan; and yet, nice insights from when i lived at L’abri, a spiritual community in Switzerland) I was thinking lots then, about where traditional Christianity was lacking or not tuned into the Divine conversation at the time:
“Soil, sight, and skin. Three neglected areas of Christ lordship and our partnership with Him, or open dialogue with the Divine understanding. These are areas, we haven’t entered the deep and practical dialogue yet, and pressing areas of concern and burn.
Areas of understanding our relationship with the earth, the healing of how we see (perception, art, symbolic—there is a poverty of the imagination in the church) therefore, interpret and know (sight is related to knowledge, if we don’t see right, we don’t know well); and our relationship to our physicality, our bodies (what to do with our tents, as one teacher put it).
He is Lord over every dimension of Life, every area. So, He is waiting to be dialogued with in each of these vacuous areas. These are also gap-zones where the vacuum gets filled by many things.
In the area of the earth, new age and paganism enter, in the area of perception, pornography and advertising and commercialism (disguised materialism); in the area of our bodies, “mass supermarket- yoga” and other partial forms of integrating mind and body. Christianity has still not properly dialogued with these three.” I must have been deep back then! Nice to discover, at least I wasn’t asleep spiritually, and was “minding the gaps”! Are we dialoguing actively and articulately with these three areas yet?

Considering Parables–a puzzle in process!

13 Tuesday Oct 2015

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Considering Parables
Thinking about Jesus’ method as well as His Message, which He was—in His case, the medium really was the message! He’s talking about planting words of truth, even as He IS The Word and The Truth! Gotta love it. There’s a self irony in Jesus’ Way!
And then, this little parable is all about planting the Word as little mini-farmers!
Anyways, just re-reading the parables today. Just the fact that symbolic stories were the way Jesus taught to people in the outer circle is cool and kind. Not just stories, but symbols.
Symbols draw people into the Reality of what they symbolize, as all good art does! Riddles, puzzles, parables—what an interesting method to draw people to spiritual understanding. Someone said the purpose of art is to drawn people into Real Reality!
Not abstract truths, but metaphors which called them towards…something which puzzles the everyday habitual mind (as clowns came out, in Hopi culture, before the chiefs, to get the people ready for wisdom!), and attracts the spirit towards some deeper reality.
He shocks, shakes, calls awake and forth—listen! Pay Attention, if you have spiritual ears, hear this…then He precedes to deliver the message in symbolic story. Fascinating!
Love this particular parable-a gardening farming one; (Jesus used farming, finances and fishing metaphors most often—all very down to earth!).
This sowing or planting metaphor reveals our typical obstacles to spiritual growth. Could meditate on it forever.
Jesus is in a boat on the water as He teaches. You have a Master on water teaching! Water=message word, mystery; and the people are still of the flesh= land shoreline, but the ones who are seeking, come to the edge of the shore. The whole metaphor is pitch perfect.
Then He starts teaching them about their obstacles to encountering the Kingdom (and describing the Kingdom itself as that which is reproductive and fruitful), and to spiritual growth-he does so, in a way which draws them towards overcoming them, at the same time as training His disciples with Him.
The three basic obstacles to spiritual growth: bad soil, no roots, cares of this world. So simple and true. He uses stones and thorns as symbols of types of blocks, and really breaks the inner meaning down of each type.
He articulates each type of block to growth. And at the same time, He is training His own students through the experience. He, breaks down the riddles and puzzles-the symbolic expression for them later on the water.
Then, He rebukes the storm, again training them about what is about to happen—understanding how to take charge over things which are being rebellious against His Nature, and He keeps teaching by symbolic actions!
Then, they arrive on the other side, where, immediately, a demonized man needs deliverance. He was preparing them to experience what He modeled!  Great passage. The whole trajectory of the story has teaching in it, and is itself a symbol! Modeling it as your talking about it, real Mastery Teaching. This is how to sow-look for good soil! Here are the things which will block the growth of what you plant.
Even if you hate religion, these parables rock! Jesus was a good teacher. Even if you just consider how people learn and grow. Enjoying studying them again.
Take care of how you hear—what you listen to, and how you take it in! Take care of how you symbolize and teach. Understand the resistances, and be wise. All just in one little passage. Jesus rocked and rocks.

11 Sunday Oct 2015

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evening light:
each part of day, has its own particular glow
that part of day, we call evening, when even our noisy jets, overhead,
glow in their long streaked stretches towards something….recall what
 the gulls have been doing at sunset forever…especially this one-
reflecting, as we do, with their wings and sound-calls of something like lament.
feathers tumbling through light…
which, we, somehow, try to emulate…
(or it happens, regardless of us, unless we’re not willing)
So that, if you look on any particular sunset
into our busy skies, all you see
are fuchsia and gold streams of glory, us.
trying to re-enact something above us,
even with what we leave behind
which still-glows without us.

How to translate becoming….some works in progress.

01 Thursday Oct 2015

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How to translate becoming…
//
I have to recognize,
our firmly placed insignificance. And.
Simultaneously, our cherished-ness.
//
The running fountain water
I saw this morning in the park,
is enough to keep me flowing all day.
Let’s play in it with our eyes, until we spy
our significance again, until my mouth overflows with blessings…
Thanks for pointing me towards that running water, this hour again.
Now, let us drink it, in gaze together until the end.
Where we begin again, in some towering fountain stream, Somewhere.
//
Coughed up, before circumstances prevailed
we were surprised to see the glory of the object still glowing.
the beginning of a short story still unfolding…
or a friend’s body, who lost it in the night…
//
the rattle of words heard at that particular instant were
softened by the pavement of falling that night.
having found a friend passed out on the sidewalk, they
called the cops and me, for some reason.
if he bleeds to death from the blow of an imagined foe
i will still shed real tears for him, regardless, I remember
saying to myself or someone.
This looks like an oil spill, the cops said.
that’s blood friends, mixed with liquor maybe.
test it in the lab of life
until we each know love. Or,
until, we taste Grace.
//
two squirrels criss cross in the midst of the street today
just before my jeep nearly interrupts their frenetic meeting.
is that a dance, symbolized
or how we actually were meant to meet.
//
types of streets:
the street outside my house
is too proud of itself today
thinking about its Roman origins
gives it a false glow. a lofty thought as if it knows
the way to go.
We know better, who grew up on dirt roads, pathways really-
and the basic metaphor of human travel.
He washed our actual feet.
Glad to have it smoothed over,
but not glad the road lost her glory.
//
Diary entry about what I learn from my dogs:
I have two types of dogs-
one with very specifically focused affections;
the other, who gives them everywhere;
both ways, seem useful
depending on the day
or the situation.
Jakob doesn’t care
as long as he’s not in trouble.
the rest of his life is sheer
love of everything at once-every scent and motion, a
potential path to explore. ( i relate to that)
a gusto for the universe
without discrimination,
a ubiquitous scattered passion for all.
So, a love willing to be worn thin again and again,
yet, trusting it will return.
The priest, Henri Nouwenn spoke of
putting boundaries on our loves, so they
become more potently focused, more accurately planted. More, potentially fruitful.
As you put edges on a garden, so you can notice the whole process,
make it yours,
 learn from it.
I’m not sure Jakob has downloaded that teaching yet.
Nor have I fully.
Pearl, my other dog, is often pointedly concerned,
she carries the weight of caring, the burden of being,
having come out of Hurricane Katrina-
a pearl of great cost forged in suffering.
Often, I want to make her life simpler, lighter
for her, for her own sake.
Just so she never wastes her suffering.
Both of my dogs teach me things about who God is,
and how to be a better, or at least more observant, person, more my best self.
Freda, who passed or even walked over death recently, had another gift.
When she prissed into a space, everyone noticed her.
She seemed almost only temporarily a dog; a type of grace.
she walked lightly, even prancing at times
she also saw angels. With her, it was more
about giving her room to shine
to carry glory well. She still, had to pee and poo
(like the rest of us)
but even that was a private privy affair with her.
she had no carbon footprint, but
 left a light trace on the earth when she passed-i still have an imprint in clay. it,
like a streak of light or fleck of color on water really, but still
with a sort of weight.
She, more like a glisten, a shimmer. Maybe she had more to do with Glory-
a creature, outlining the contours of Light, or at least, highlighting them.
and it was almost as if she didn’t die, but stayed herself, immediately, in another realm.
She had an Enoch ending, one i would like to emulate myself.
She also already lived in both worlds at once. So,
was used to the atmosphere of heaven when she got there.
//
Why wood? the construction worker asked me….
Wood is just a world
of memory and knowing.
It holds us, somehow in place
until we ourselves, remember, who we are.
The Cross was made of wood.
The ultimate juxtaposition. It’s a material meant to hold stories,
without splintering, recalling endlessly,
the ultimate story occurring forever.
Skin and bones of the right one, on wood
the memory of that wood still echoing in my bones…
tells us who we are. Sorry if that was too deep an answer.
But we, definitely, need to work with wood. Is that ok?!
Perhaps, i over explained why we need wood on that particular
counter top.
//
I’m not sure the difference between light and glory.
We are told to walk in the light, but to move
from glory to glory…
Perhaps glory is her contour.
In the meantime, which is where we all live,
this grilled corn
tonight in yellow texas evening light,
looks nearly perfect.
//
you gotta do what you mean.
//
across the street a young woman tends the elderly.
today they are watching rain fall
and being thankful in small ways
she often wears blue dresses
but unlike a nurse, for pleasure.
today, she leans over the railing with one elderly man
looking at a freshly wet blue bird
stuttering around for seeds or something
the bird is startled to be seen, but then returns to her happy hunting
in the moist earth. today, i notice she is pregnant.
//
write your own name on your loves
as they say
define things with your love
tell them, they are, they exist, they matter
the pen we write with is Love, the ink, His Blood. That’s how we contour things
into Being.
if you can’t tell something it is loved,
you can’t be yourself, yet.
//
europe is lonely.
in a dream, i come to her to listen. to be with,
her thoughts seem so deep and distant, as if
she feels irrelevant to herself.
i ask her what she thinks about at night-
“all that has come before
how did i get to this place
given so much foresight?”
we talk for many hours
i slip my hand into hers
as the sun, finally rises.
//
don’t pare down your life.
the old man said, then he went on…
i gave my wife a bucket once for her birthday
told her to fill it with things she wanted;
she chose chocolates.
i was happily surprised as she could’ve
filled it with car keys or diamonds
or anything else which made her smile;
we ate dinner, then made coffee,
and eventually made love, and then
 had chocolate for dessert.
////HE
 He went around shining, in a
simple, understandable, form.
People could mingle in His Light at will.
He was trying to make Love
conducive. To make a condensible expression and compression
of “love
one another.”
/…
what we said here, were pools of light,
to dive into, whenever.
or, wherever language made us
most likely to jump!

29 Tuesday Sep 2015

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Another anonymous monk’s prayer poem translated! This one is about communing with God through perception! One of my favorite subjects, and something i believe is, at least one of the reasons for art. The original language is more musical, but i did my best. I was born on St Patrick’s day, so i love this mystical stuff!
Sear me into Your Sight:
Be my vision. Be my delight. Be my eyes today too.
May they merge into the open sky of You.
Sear me into your watching.
For once I see, perhaps i will be useful to others, and to Thee.
Also, be my strength, my fortitude is frivolous apart from Yours.
And let me wear You today again, until i know You as my own skin
Let me put on Your suit, until i recall my own contours again.
See, I can’t recall who i am today.
But I do see You in all i look at.
Perhaps, I did die already, or some parts, at least.
Am I dead enough yet? Is our sight merged?
What’s left of me feels rowdy, boisterous, even clamorous.
I’m tired of myself.
You seem silent to me at Your Center.
I seem, far too noisy…
shifty like wax, me
You, stable like fire.
Burn me up if I’m not already burnt.
Put me in your electric choir.
Make me what I am in You, this hour. Or,
at least lunge me towards the furnace of You, where,
I am seen, illuminated, even on the surface like a planet reflects light.
I want to be re-calibrated, to be made right. A disco ball in Your sight.
Become Yourself in me! Help me see.
We see together here. That’s what we do!
I lurch behind Your eyes-like lint
on sunglass shades. Or dew on a leaf blade.
We gaze out together
And this will be
our perceptual communion
until the end. We see together.
And this is how we will see one another on that day-
as we are seen.
I’m havened again, in Your gazing today.
Sear me into Your sight.
And let that be Your delight.
A much shorter version:
By sight,
We are becoming one.
union.
You, giving me myself.
Me thanking You.
And me also staring back.
Us, lost in this co-gazing.

Why I stole silly putty from my grandmother’s sewing drawer

26 Saturday Sep 2015

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It’s a short story really, but the one in which i learned true guilt verses false shame. When i was young, i loved silly putty. It came in a plastic egg, and you would take the magic stuff, and roll it over comics or any newspaper article and it would make a copy. Sort of permeative zeroing. To me it was magical. It’s all I ever wanted, and endless supply of silly putty. Anyways, I had bought some with my ice ream money and stashed it in my grandmother’s sewing drawer.
She said i could play with it at the end of the day, if i did all my chores. But I just couldn’t wait. As I picked up the papers and books around the house, i kept seeing potential things to copy. I’ve always had this desire to copy things, and to make them portable.
When I lived in Jerusalem years later, i would record all the conversations I had with the kids I was teaching. That also got me in a lot of trouble when i left the country. But that is another story.
In this one, i decided to “clean” out the sewing room. Of course, i got out the silly putty and started making copies of magazine prints. One of them, it turns out was actually a pattern my grandmother was using to make a garment.
She eventually returned to her sewing room, and saw that part of her pattern had actually been lifted. Let me explain that silly putty is not a perfect medium; sometimes, it actually lifts off the print on the thing it is making a facsimile of. That was that. I was busted. My grandmother came downstairs with that look of justice. Derek, did you use the silly putty to copy my pattern upstairs. Yes mam, I did.
It was useless to plead innocent, the proof was still in the putty.
She put the fear of God in me that day, by making me sit in silence for one hour and consider what I had done. After that day, I never disobeyed her again, but I did maintain a healthy supply of silly putty all the way into my twenties.
I remember the first time I went into a small printing press and had that same rush of excitement I’d had when i first discovered silly putty. That never went away. Neither did the fear of disobeying my grandmother.

Why I melted those crayons on that radiator

26 Saturday Sep 2015

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It was a new pack of crayons with endless colors. Those huge packs that had colors in them which had barely been invented or named.
I had snuck my little sunkist can radio into school that day. They used to make these radios which were in the shape of a soda can. I would wrap mine in tin foil so the teacher couldn’t figure out it was a radio, or were that sound was coming from.
On this day, the teacher was out of the room, and i turned on the radio.
They were playing motown, and I saw this amazing pack of crayons on a desk in the back.
Recently i had seen a picture of a painting by Jackson Pollock. I knew what I had to do. There were those old golden colored radiators in that school, and today was a cold day, so the radiator was very hot. Well, the rest is art history. After going to the principal’s office and being told I would be suspended for three days, I realized the price you pay to make art in school. After that, i really only ever wanted to go to art school when i grew up.
I remember the principal called me son, then he called me boy. I remember telling him, or rather singing to him the little song i used to sing to myself all the time at church: “I’m not a boy, I’m Derek Demonte.” It had a melody, and I would repeat it all the time. I’m not sure why i felt the need to sing my own name all the time, but it kept me happy back then.
I think, even then, i liked to celebrate the identity of things, including my own. Later when i read King David’s psalm in which he celebrated himself as a poem of God, i felt vindicated. It’s ok to celebrate our uniqueness as part of the poetry of God.
When we write the song of ourselves from the right place, we are actually worshiping God, as one friend put it.
I think David probably melted crayons in school too.
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