Visions in Viridian

Green begins to mend the popped seams in the land of a thousand heartbreaks (where the human beat was assumed to be pre-programed for an industrial age inferiority complex, the trance of the train tracks de-railed compassion, following in the evolutionary footsteps of our large lumbering lizard brethren, lazy in a cock-pit fantasy of continuous consumption, yet bound to be bound; parenthetically found) to be reunited with youthful ancient dreams, re-aquainting each other with our synchronistic synaptic paths and Arteries now occasionally overlook the mechanical tracks as we smell fresher airs of contribution and reciprocity, exhaling change back into farms of wind and enriching our soil, sun-soaked squares carry the soft hum of electricity pulsing softly as the sounds of the snarling CO2 combustion machines begin to fade away, fade away ... fade away... now kept on display as heirlooms of achievement, toyed with for curious mind's release- as a sideproject, the sounds of the forest and the prairie start returning to the edges of infrastructure, cars swish smoothly by, and light rail allows for brighter skies, less interrupted by the rumbles of jet engines, the trees and plants have started listening to each other again

Freewrite #2 8/31/ ('99?)

This short story was written during a class I had in high school called Writer's Workshop, during a regular practice of the class called a Freewrite, wherein our class would begin with a 15 or 20 min. session that involved a piece of paper, a writing utensil, and whatever you wanted to write. And there was usually some music, too. It was part meditation, part pure expression, and I credit it nearly single-handedly with my development as a writer. As I've mentioned before on this blog, I'm mainly a poet, but here is a rather entertaining short story piece of my juvenile literature.

Once upon a time there was a squirrel. His name was Alfred. Alfred was a pretty normal squirrel, except for one thing. Whenever there was a full moon (no, he didn't turn into a werewolf-squirrel thing) he would get amazing superpowers. How he was so fortunate no one knows, but he was of a special breed of super-squirrels.

One day poor Alfred was crossing the street trying to prepare a stash of acorns for the winter when out of the blue a reckless teenage driver on his way to school ran a stop sign and crushed our super squirrel into the asphalt. Why not use his super powers, you ask? Well, because it's not a full moon yet dumbass. But Alfred was in luck, tonight there would be a full moon and his eye that didn't get run over had caught the license plate number of the reckless teenage driver: WATCHIT.

The full moon began to peek out over the roof of the house whose yard Alfred's tree was parked in. He could feel the positive energy of the moonbeams recharging his power (and scaring away all of the maggots that had bothered to pay his decaying body a visit). In one great blast of moon powered energy Alfred sprung from the asphalt, rejuvenated. Now it was time for action.

I would like to end this entry with a quote by Stella Adler. "Life beats you down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one."

There's escapism, and then there's an insane skillful playfulness that pulls you into euphoria and beauty and actually accomplishes something. That is all.

!SLAM!

This is a poem I wrote quite a while ago. A little curious to look back on since I was in a car accident about a year ago, and when I wrote this I had never been even close to being in a car accident. There's also a nod/pun to Slam poetry in the title which seems a little smart-ass considering the subject matter in retrospect. You decide. All in all, it amazes me what imagination can come up with and I give thanks to the greater powers that involve me with it. Thanks for reading. Love.

Poetry pouring out as binary code

Poetry pouring out as binary code:
initiated by Spirit, interacting with mind,
integrated with machine,
flowing through fingertips touched to keys, popping into appearance as text,
turned out into the physical realm coded by binary
to be bounced back into textual visualization
for other integrated mind machine participants:
Poetry pouring out as binary code.

Goodbye to Gaia.com

The website Gaia.com is shutting down. It began as a site called Zaadz, which is Dutch for "seeds," and an honorable idea of being a community and network site for spiritual, progressive, and artistic minded people. It still seems to be pretty active today, the reason for the site closing being noted by the owner as the "current economic conditions." I really enjoyed the site initially- I had a few friends that signed on at the beginning too, there were some good questions posed for website discussion, and I was able to reconnect with old friends from the Rime Buddhist Center. One of my favorite things about Gaia was the tag names underneath the members' given names. They read things like, "wakingdreamer," "~SmAsHInG dUaLiTy~," "Tantric YoginiShaman," and "Post Metaphysical Punk." I think that many of these names pointed to individuals' true higher aspirations and some were even trans-religious, combining practices such as Yoga and Shamanism, Buddhism and Taoism, which demonstrates the zeitgeist of people looking to integrate spiritual practices together to form an even larger picture of what God and Spirit means. Another highlight on the site was my friend Michael Garfield's page and blog, containing essays on topics like Cymatics (the study of the visual patterns that sonic vibrations form on surfaces and in three-dimentional objects) and the Rosslyn Chapel, Integral Art, and the classical minimalist composer Arvo Part. I think that all of these essays and more will still be able to be checked out on Michael's myspace page: myspace.com/michaelgarfield. And, from my humble Gaia page, I've archived my only blog entry, about the death of Bob Nash, the last connection to the Beat Generation that flourished in Big Sur. He died about two weeks and two years ago.

And with this, goodbye Gaia, glad to meet you.

A Beautiful Beat Poet Passes On

Posted on Mar 6th, 2008 by Chris

Hello friends,

Somehow I came across this lady's online journal entry with her personal account of the death of Bob Nash, "the last connection to the Beat Generation that flourished in Big Sur and the Carmel Valley after WWII." This lady, Susie Bright, and her friends carried Bob's body, craddled in sheets and tucked in with rosemary, up a hill from his residence to the road to meet the man from the mortuary. Here is a link to the article; the photos are incredible: http://susiebright.blogs.com/
And here is a poem:

Upon Meeting Bob Nash, 1964 by Ric Masten

one wonders
about an eccentric
content to live and work
in the claustrophobic confines
of a tiny camper shell
truckless
perched on flimsy redwood piers
and in terrain so enormous
distance is measured
in light years

the word
on Partington Ridge is vertical
horizontal
only on warm summer evenings
sprawled in the dry grass
mesmerized
by a towering uncloaked sky
hushed by the size of it all
this
while at my elbow
a monkish little guy
talks my leg off
piling the verbiage up
until there isn’t
nor will there ever be
a crock
large enough to contain it all

of course

the same thing can be said
about the human heart
and love
which gets us to the place
where Bob lets us see his art
pen and inks
so minimal and microscopic
they might be easily ignored
but in the right light
if you focus
the sparseness and simplicity
takes you aboard
until you find yourself
in league with molecules
closer to zero
than you have ever been before

lines as fine as these
can only be drawn
by someone who knows
precisely
how many angels can dance
on the head of a pin
and realizing this
one wonders

Peace and Love Everywhere,

Chris

African Shamanic Staffs

..Tibra & Mtwalu..

New Photo Pieces

Here are a few photo pieces I've been working on recently:


This one's title is "Sometimes Spiderwebs Are Tree Branches When You Get Closer."





The title of this one is "Planetary Greeting."



*disclaimer- photoshop was only used for touch ups

Three Cheers for Escher!!

This guy is amazing. What genius placement. I really feel like I'm looking into his head.

PFX-54

Here, friends, is a short story. I'm not usually a short-story man, I mostly spin poetics, so please forgive my intentional lack of adhesion to prose-ology.


the man had an 800 pound silverback gorilla on his. . . back. and a dog at his feet that was always cold because the damn gorilla used all the electricity. and so it went, monotonously each day stretching out like a scroll of a to-do list as long as an interstate highway. if it wasn't for the gory, greusome, chopping up and maiming of small animals that he did with a large machette on saturdays and sundays in a large field of dead grass just over the hill from the traintracks, his life would feel completely meaningless. the flies were a whole other matter entirely.

being that his father kept, in the backyard, a compost heap of all of his mistakes ever since he could remember, when he finally moved into his own place, he figured he would do the same. he had become comfortably numb, an orangutang, wit dulled to a spoon- too big for the bowl.

his actual power was only matched by his fear of his true power, which he met one warm, foggy night while he was driving to his parents' house, alone. the fog was so heavy that he slowed down and turned on his low beams, creeping through the thick fog. just at that moment an ominous, menacing, ghoulish shadowy form lurched out from a blindspot that had been created by the limited nature of his feeble, man-made headlights and the utter charcoal blackness surrounding the area not lit by these incompetent lights causing him to explode in a fiery burst of shock that split seconds into trillions of tiny shards and wracked his body with such a fierce terror that the instant after it was felt he began to repress it. tires screeched, mouth contorted, eyes bulged. and as the thick, rolling fog momentarily cleared, the heinous beast came into view: a young deer, slightly startled, but clear-eyed, it jumped back into the night, a silent little gallop.

TechnoLogic. Move it, make it, chop it, break it, cut it, shape it....

“I think technology has its own agenda. The question I am asking myself is what does technology want? If technology is a child, a teenager even, it would really help to know what teenagers want, in general. What are the innate urges, the inherent bias, the internal drives of this system we call technology? Once we know what technology wants, we don’t have to surrender to all of these wants, anymore than you surrender to any and all adolescent urges; but you can’t buck them all either. WILL these things technology wants happen? I believe they want to happen. What we know of technology is that it wants to get smaller (Moore’s Law), it wants to get faster (Kurzweil’s Law), and my guess is that technology wants to do whatever humans do (Kelly’s Law). We humans find tremendous value in other creatures, and increasingly in other minds. I see no reason why robots would not find humans just as valuable.” -Kevin Kelly

If this interests you, then you would probably enjoy the whole conversation:

http://integrallife.com/editorial/humanity-i-and-great-google-sky

Word up.

Adding the Golden Spiral to an AQAL/Spiral Dynamics Map

Alright, here's a fun little experiment of art and spiritual/developmental science that I have put together. I have been studying the AQAL framework - a sort of map which integrates All Quadrants & All Levels, and also All Lines, States, and Types of development - put forth by Ken Wilber, for the last few years. If it sounds a little overbearing, well, it's just a map, it's not the territory. I may go into more detail in later posts if I feel like it, or people are interested, but for now, if you'd like a little overview I suggest http://www.integralwiki.net/index.php?title=AQAL. Also, I have been studying Spiral Dynamics, which is a system of organizing decades of psychological research, and was created by Don Beck as an extension of the developmental work of Clare Graves. This image up and to the right ................................................--------------------^

shows how Spiral Dynamics can be woven in with the AQAL framework to create a biopsychosocial illustration of the qualities of different stages of development. I suggest http://spiraldynamics.net/index.shtml and also the book Boomeritis, by Ken Wilber for more information on the Spiral Dynamics Intergral. This interwoven map is the one that has been of the most use for me.

As an artist, student of science, and student of geometry, I have also been fascinated with the Golden Spiral (aka the Golden Ratio) for some time. Here is my Golden Spiral (in turquoise) that I traced.---------------->
What inspired me to trace this Golden Spiral were the two straight lines that intersect at the origin of the spiral. It somehow reminded me of the AQAL map and so....

As a visual and creative exercise, I've overlayed

the Golden Spiral onto the AQAL/Spiral Dynamics map, and it's pretty fascinating, synchronistic and amazing how these 3 images fit together. What's cool is, if you look at the rectangles that

are formed by the dimensions of the continuing arc, starting at the center with the smallest, it takes 5 rectangles to get to the Archaic realm, and it hits the map right on the archaic level 1 number; then only one completed rectangle later we are at the Magic realm, hitting the ethnic tribes level 2 number on the dot; the very next rectangle charts right between levels 3 and 4, a jump that lands between the Power Gods/Egocentric realm (3) and the Mythic realm (4); continuing on to the next rectangle we are, again, right between two levels, the Scientific/Rational/Modern realm (5) and the Pluralistic/Postmodern realm (6); the next rectangle is a quantum leap type growth through Pluralistic/Postmodern, Integral (7), and Holistic (8), in fact, this rectangle ends at the outermost edge of the map, it ends at the place where a 9th realm would be... and so we are approximately at the end of our charted territory; but there is one more rectangle on this illustration: the area that this completed rectangle covers represents the space of about five and a half levels, essentially, the last two rectangles cover more space than the whole of the AQALSD map. My theory about this is that we, humans, are in tune with a sort of learning curve of evolution that we can "steer" into ever-more alignment with. It is ever steepening (if that is a made up word, it means: getting steeper). I think that each level, or realm, is circular because you exist in them going round and round like the Earth round the Sun, gathering experience. As you move up through the levels, you need to spend less and less "time" in them in order to realize them. Just to realize them, not necessarily to instantly fully realize them, though that did just happen somewhere out there, but more to be able to recognize them and tune in with them more and more quickly and easily the next time, which makes the next level that much more likely to be recognized, and the next, and the next, and then I believe the spiral comes in again by plotting out the path of someone/thing moving "too fast," if you aren't prepared for the levels and the speed at which it's moving you may spin out and have to return to a lower orbit, which is probably right where you should be if that happens, but if not, you keep riding the learning curve of evolution to higher-in-quality, wider-in-scope-and-embrace states of consciousness. And we are obviously a large influence on everything on the entire planet and our actions are tuning in the rest of the Earth with this growth. I think that each rectangle represents a sort of biological psychological spiritual piece of acrchitecture. Maybe they represent a certain amount of time/space ratio, and the smaller ones are denser amounts of time with less space, and the bigger rectangles contain less time, and there is more and more space. I'm up for ideas, I'm inspired.

May All Be Blessed by Visions in Tune with Infinity.

Before Beginnings and Endings

God, you were here before this,

before us, before me, before

light & dark, before they started

pavin' over parks, before the

larks and hummingbirds, before

time and other dirty words, before

sounds and drug dogs barkin loud

though tennements, before pictures,

before anything venemous,

before the first flex of technology

that led to jet engines, before games

& cowboys and indians, before enslavement

and brave men who overcame it and

put to shame the ones that made that

shit, before thugs, killers, & gangstas,

before slugs, brillo pads and bloody

coat hangers, before beginnings and

endings, torn clothes and mendings, &

before death, ascending & descending

thanks for reading.


The above was directly written as it appeared in my sketchbook, original line breaks formed from the size of the page. And here is a more literate version, punctuated as-close-to-the-way-I-would-speak-it-myself-as-I-can-get within the structure of the printed word, for those who suggested it.

God,

You were here before this,
before us,
before me,
before light & dark,
before they started pavin' over parks,
before the larks and hummingbirds,
before time and other dirty words,
before sounds and drug dogs barkin' loud through tenements,
before pictures,
before anything venomous,
before the first flex of technology that led to jet engines,
before games, & Cowboys and Indians,
before enslavement and brave men who overcame it
and put to shame the ones that made that shit,
before thugs, killers, & gangstas,
before slugs, brillo pads and bloody coat hangers,
before beginnings and endings,
torn clothes and mendings,
and before death, ascending and descending


Maybe that is clearer on the page. I still like the original version, because when I look at it, it's structure it has more of the-moment-I wrote-it-in in it for me, and I read that better.

love.

I heart Spiral Dynamics

It’s simply that we have to awaken to new ways of thinking. I believe it makes no sense to spend a lot of time attacking the current realities. It is time to create the new models that have in them the complexity that includes the older systems as a part of these larger wholes. And to the extent that we can do that, and do that quickly, I think we can provide what will be necessary for a major breakthrough for the future.

Poem from the vaults, newly rotating

catapult me into infinity watching
snakes slither to tell of the apple to

the first humans get the code, break
the code, make the code breathe

fresh air atmosphere of quickly 

scooting taxis and transport vessels

as i stay firmly planet rooted in

soil winds ask dancers to come with

them, they dance in my eyes like

fireflies twinkle and dust from a 

meteor sprinkles down on my 

shoulders, holders of scrolls keep 

them under their tongues and flicks

of lava start to warm the center 

of the universe, perfected structures

lay in their right places, like

playground equipment with childhood

memories playing on the monkey bars

and balancing on beams with fresh 

grass cut and the smell of it and

dirt mixed with sweat on hands

and i realize shelter does not have

to be a physical location, although

physical locations help too, but this

is a place of awake resting where

monks hover with me above the 

clouds bestowed with jewels of rainbow

reflections and lectures end and

schools out and i feel my pig 

in shit happy snout, God, whoever 

you are, forgive me for my profanities

they just seem to help me like handles

help me forgive myself for the pure

full enjoyment of my physical form, it

feels like food and now i know it's 

good and i don't want to go back,

but back and forth are ends of

a stretched out sircle, pulled

like a rubberband and man i want 

to stretch this out and be not

just caught by my fears and my

voice, but pushed on to new 

eras, new horizons, new sunset skies

clouds burning beautifully and taking

my outside in and my insides out

gets good blood flowing fresh and

new and i hope i never stop going 

and growing and standing up to

wake my legs up and give 

myself a hand forgiveness is so

simple whenever words run themselves

in sircles or into walls of reason

built over seasons but new seasons

arrive to free men

i spelled circle, "sircle," because i wanted to continue the contemplation of: "back and forth are ends of a stretched out sircle..." get it? okay.

thanks for reading

.Endnote. My good friend Ryan McBee, writer for presentmagazine.com, has been gracious enough to collaborate with me on the "sircle" contemplation. This can be found at his new conceptual/actual blogspace: http://suitcaselegs.wordpress.com/2008/12/17/a-reply-to-romagnitross/

Love and Happiness

A Watercolor by David Titterington

Here is a beautiful painting done by one David Titterington in the year 2000 (if I am to believe the information written on the back). It seems to have been painted in Japan, at least I hope so. It could have been painted later, in America, from a picture taken in Japan. It is done in watercolor. This painting was given to me by Mr. Titterington many years ago (2003-ish). I love the subtle changes in color as the light wafts over moss on the big stones in the front. The little stone buildings behind the mossy stones are part of Japanese tradition. The Japanese have kept a strong bond to nature throughout history, beginning with the original religion of Japan, shinto. Shintoism is a nature based religion. The main idea is that everything in nature has a spirit, has an energy. From trees, to grass, to rocks, to oceans, to animals, everything has a unique energy that gathers as it is able to exist in its natural environment. The Japanese people began placing shrines into forests and on trees as a way of thanking and respecting these spirits and energies. I am not sure of any more details of the shrine in this painting, but looking at the moss that is growing all over it, I am guessing that, like the forest it inhabits, it has been around for a while. I wonder how old this forest is? And what kind of shrine is it? The other things I love about this painting are the little flecks of yellow and white that make it sparkle. And if you look closely at the upper right side of the largest rock you can see the tiniest hairs of moss growing there. Oh, and I just found a little creature hiding towards the top middle of the painting, in the tree! I just showed this to my Mom and she laughed and said, "I wonder if he even remembers painting that!" Oh, Mom. I wonder if it is any relation to the soot workers of Spirited Away. =) I love that movie. Is Miyazaki going to come out with another film, or is the master done?

At it again, Back at the (electronic) pen

Well, maybe not so much writing here, but more than I have for.....umm...2 years..hahaha! Wow, well, I changed the name and the format, so it's practically new. I did also comment on David Titterington's blog about a Robert Brawley painting that he has recently acquired, and it is fantastic. I will try to get a link to his blog on here soon. If you search David's Blog, you might find it. I just put my first and as-of-yet only YouTube video on this page. It's a video I made to a beautiful! aphex twin song, called "Avril 14th." For those of you wondering, it is the same aphex twin who is usually found making insane IDM gizmodgery and twirlyglitchwinks. Please let me know what you think. Also, I am currently trying to figure out how to post videos from my "favorites" in YouTube onto the blog. I thought there might be an easier way than searching the videos again in the blogger video search deal. If anyone knows any other ways I would be interested. See you again.

keep it up?

So it's 8'05AM and I like to write and type and I'd like to get better at typing without looking at the keyboard, a talent I admire in others and never really wanted to learn when it was being taught to me but now I feel this whim of wanting to keep up with this blog may help me develop these typing skills. I feel like I'm just guessing when I type for the most part because I never got with that whole home row thing. But I think I may be ready to come home. If I could find a simple little typing program...geez I think this blog will be very boring to some. But carrying on... Here's some stuff I've been up to recently: For the fourth I met up with Ryan and friends over at Jeff Harvey's house and we went and watched what felt like the longest fireworks show ever. There was a finale burst at first, then a long period of singles and doubles, then a mid-nale, then more slow singles and doubles, then a second mid-nale, then even more slow singles and doubles, then the finale fianle. Wow, yeah. I wisht they would have just done all of them at once in one huge finale. Oh, then I set off some black cats in Jeff's backyard, which was more fun than the whole fireworks show. 

 

 Summer is good for weddings I guess, because Crystal, Ryan, and now I have all taken part in these celebrations of wed, all in the span of a couple weeks. My neighbor across the street who I've known basically forever tied the knot in Wichita. It was nice, a small gathering, and concise ceremony, then we all got really loose and crazy on the dance floor to songs like "Cotton-Eyed Joe," "The Electric Slide," and "The Chicken Dance" after chugging lemonade and sparkling grape juice. Fun in a this reminds me of a highschool dance scene but everyone only knows 1/4 of the people and I'll probly never see the other 3/4 again so who cares if I embarrass myself a little bit, it's all cheesy and endearing.

 

 Also, this really nice guy Randy let me borrow his sampler that I've been playing with all day today. I actually skipped work for the third time since I started a few weeks ago, but they haven't seemed to notice, they are so laid back about everything. I really should be working though because I want money to pay for my semester in the dorm and then my time I would soooo love to spend in California after I get done graji-ated. So tomorrow I'm working, celebrating my sis's berfday, then tomorrows I'm organizing for next semester and probly going to play some drum in Westport again soon. I think I'm going to the Pitchfork music festival at the end of the month too.

Nocturnal and underground

This is the first blog for me on this here new piece o' web real estate. It's gonna be short and sweet because I really just want to comment on my friend Jen's spot. But I thought I would let everyone out there reading this (*crickets sounds*) know that I am going to the Subterranean Art Show held in the tunnel that connects the Union and the Spencer Art Museum. Yes, there is a tunnel that connects the Union and the Spencer!! It's awesome, although I've never been to it I know it will be awesome. It is underground! And it reminds me of an idea that me and my best friend in my early pubescent years had.....to build a tunnel connecting our two houses with a spot in the middle for a studio/practice room where we could play our protopunk/punk/post-punk/shoegazer/experimental/improv music and not have parental units crashing the party. So this is going to be like half-realizing a dream for me tonite. Anyways, hope to see you there.