another postcard from nowhere. i actually got lost in this sucker for 4 hours yesterday. close to finishing 2 oils.

pleasant surprise visit from lowell yesterday. always interested in sharing notes with folks who navigated thru the same worlds i did to arrive here & now, bemused, disgusted, puzzled, thankful, and looking foward with mixed feelings about what might lie ahead down the road.

reading an old (96 special 5th anniversary issue) issue of tricycle richard lent me. about the relationship between the psychdelic era and the buddhist explosion that has occured since then.

item:
"there are probably 25 million americans who have taken LSD and who would, if pressed in private, also tell you that it profoundly changed their lives, and not neccessarily fot the worst.

i will readily grant that some of these are hopeless crystal worshipers or psychedelic derelicts creeping around oregon woods. but far more of them are successful members of society, CEOs, politicians, teachers, ministers, and community leaders."

john perry Barlow
from the above mentioned tricycle issue.

i would make 2 comments:
one:
this is an observation that many live with, but one that is not reflected in mediated concensus
reality. taboo meme?

and two: so what?

art folks - if you happen to land here, note that this site is for friends, family, admirers, my sanity, and various concentric spheres. in other words an excercise in mental health.

picture a day keeps the doctor away. keeps mine away anyway. that's all i'm going to post for awhile, new picture done on the day i post it.

but i think that at this juncture it is maybe more important than ever to act politically, even though i also think what is happening is past politics. there is a part of me that says just let it go. another part that feels it is time to speak up, out, and over. talk past the noise. it's just that i'm so much into silence these days. then again maybe that makes for clearer conversation.

the weather has been so incredibly beautiful this week. clear, translucent, snappy. finally got out to see some of it yesterday. visited steve and friends yesterday AM for awhile and had the kim-chee omelet special for breakfast. in the afternoon took a drive with richard to big ivy, davis falls, nice walk through the mountains.

have a new plan for today. richard mentioned how he would like to take a day off and just catch up on reading. i think this is a good idea and that's what i'm going to do today. turn off the computer and try and finish "non-zero sumness and human destiny" for book club tomorrow. and putter. need to find 2 missing pieces of paperwork i stashed somewhere long ago and paperwork, as we all know, keeps the world spinning round. i'll let you know how this worked tomorrow.

this picture started out as pencil sketch in the woods this afternoon. now it's your's to enjoy. me, i gotta keep moving - slowly.

what a treat to read something about today that scans. makes sense. far larger context than is embedded in what for most of us passes for life:
from
Asia Times - Asia's most trusted news source for the Middle East:
"German and British universities once produced spies who could speak half a dozen Arab dialects and recite the Koran from memory. Today's only superpower cannot recruit enough Arabic translators to handle routine intercepts."

tonight's delerium
what i think is that a bunch of corporate oligarchs had a coup, but kept it quiet. now that the discomfort level for everybody else is so high, even the easily led are wondering about, if not the sanity, then the common sense of this bunch.

dean seems capable of elevating the media language back to the personal. if he can talk straight long enough he might win it all. straight talk could pull in the working southener, and just about everyone else, maybe even some republicans.

if this starts to happen, the reaction of the republicans will be very interesting. peculiar events could occur.

still working on my orientation to now. got groceries and laundry today, met with counselor, bill o from hville paid a visit, got a prescription phoned in, and discovered what happens when you put guache on top of sumi on top of oil pastel on top of watercolor. the quotidean, so nice when the weather is cool, breezy and moist, rain somewhere nearby, restless cloudy day.

the difference between thinking and conciousness is finally dawning on me. anyway i think about it a lot.

got back home from a long, intense, pleasant and exhausting trip. arrived in several pieces, but not so many that i can't function. above is about the only picture i came back with.

but i did visit with all my children and their families and some old friends. all is good. the Meher Baba Center remains tangled inextricably with my present sojourn on the planet. i don't understand why, but then i don't expect to.

long drive back, only got lost once and then only briefly. still arrived back in town 2 hours after sunset, plunging down the highway through a world of blooming lights and fuzzy fast luminosity. climbing back in the saddle as we speak. lots of projects to peck away on. a lot of old and new friends phoned while i was away.

is today the first day of the rest of my life? i hope so.

back nov.17.

today had that odd off balnce feeling, not unpleasant but just a little off. beutiful weather, the trees have turned, the breeze is cool, and voices can be heard, lef-lookers gathering on the front poarches and rinking burboun.

leaving tomorrow for trip to visit old stomping grounds (chapel hill). was i doing the stomping or being stompe?

all four of my children and two grandchildren will be there and it will be a pleasure to visit with them. there is something inherently satisfactory about seeing them grow into the world while i recede from it.

then on to the Meher Baba Center in SC for a touch of the Real, a clue or two about how to live in the world.

i haven't written much lately about the world. the news. current events. i feel like i've retreated to the lobby while the scenery is being rearranged for the next act. only when the scenery is reconfigured so are we. the experience of being a person-in-the-world (or -play if you prefer) is changing.

the limitations of all institutions as the carrier of human effort and organization has reached the end of the line, and some new way to organize humans is in the wings. fear-based effort (the job, career) is evaporating. facets of human conciousness we all have but that have been successfully ignored during the past 300 years or so (the age of the descended grid - wilber) are slowly resurfacing.

a year or so ago i told my son-in-law doug, who is ultra-conventional in his outlook, that if we won the iraqi war in one day and saddam's head was delivered to the white house via fed-ex that huge monumental troubles of long duration, the likes of what we have not yet seen, would just be beginning. i haven't seen lately anything to change my mind. the question is if i and other bottom-feeders could see this, why couldn't the folks in charge of our government?

one possible answer is the nature of institutions as they now exist. to perform effectively in say the federal government or a hospital or a bank or a large corporation or university, an individual has to repress any knowledge of the outside world, has to smell and talk right, has to speak a constricted highly styalized language, has to occupy him or herself with turf battles to the exclusion of any other parts of life. to be successful in this setup is to be ill informed about other worlds. the temporal and geographical provencialism of the modern allows ignorant people (ignorence, from the verb "to ignore") to blunder into untenable situations and not have a clue that they don't have a clue. the rube oligharchy.

99% of the babble during the "run-up" to the war was inbred. imaginary constructs, straw men, empty rhetoric. false issues like, if you are "against" the war you are helping the enemy and harming our troops.

a clear straight voice from the heart speaking in the public domain could shred this kind of fantasy colloquy in a minute. if we could hear it.

life is strictly a doodle.

i'm packing, getting ready to travel, a little at a loss, a little way ahead of myself. transitions are tougher than they used to be for me. i handle it by starting way ahead of time (just as i used to try and do when i was in graphic arts). avoid the void.

on the other hand i'm using oil pastels to make a quick birthday card in the midst of this madness. of course, what other madness is there? as many as the minds of senscient beings. and they're all the same.

edwin schrodinger: "conciousness is the singular of which there is no plural."

i've said it before & i'll say it again: "a picture a day keeps the doctor away".

"la esperanza muere Ultima"
studs terkel on what news has become. not that you didn't "know" it already.
from
t r u t h o u t - Studs Terkel | No Brass Check Journalists

very social day today - went to a book club meeting this morning for the first time and mister wilber meeting tonight. worked on layout of jeff's book. kind of dozed off around four.

so what did we talk about today? the usual, i think. what's real and what's not, memes, trends, metaphors, looking at the boundry between self and other, how to live.

it was remarked on by travelers to constantinople in the tenth century that everywhere you went in that time and place there was a continual conversation, theological and philosophic at the same time. almost everyone, from the emperor down to the baker, had much to contribute to these questions of that day.

one thing about growing older for me is that i am beginning to realize that i live in a similar situation. i am not the only one looking up in wonder, or sitting watching my big toe.

we're all asleep in the same boat.

i've changed my travel plans. driving straight to chapel hill nov.5. time with all my children and grandchildren. this will be a real treat. then i'll drive to the Baba Center and stay a few days. i am long overdue.

meanwhile this just in:

"Now, however, it seems to have been automated: some clever programmer working for one of these iniquitous outfits has written a tool that goes around a list of weblogs and collects information on the various posts made to it.

It then creates the right HTML to fool the blogging software into thinking that a comment has been entered, and the resulting advert is posted to the blog as if it was legitimate."
from
BBC NEWS | Technology | How spammers are targeting blogs:

sunday morning, nice gentle rainy morning. rose too late for friend's sunday meeting.

yesterday was a beautiful fall day, perfect. i went to a quaker-sponsered meeting on "death and dying", interesting hour and a half. then a rare foray downtown for outdoor art extravaganza and lunch with winnie.

i enjoyed talking to the artists' most of whom had really interesting work hanging. two subjects were constant: one was what is a "print" and what is an origional, this question stemming from the giclee process. the other was framing, and i may have gotten a lead about a florida company that sells plain-jane frames cheap. i also observed that texture is a big deal, especially in some of the larger paintings.

mimi hay was exhibiting, and her japanese-based fabric wearable art, kimonos and such, was quite impressive. i'll meet with her tomorrow morning to see if i can help her with a web-site. i've cancelled all plans today, realizing how behind i am with several projects that i would like to complete before i leave on trip. in fact i just now decided to leave fri the 31st instead of thursday the 30th. now on to finish typesetting jeff's book.

[much later] marathon day. i got that grayed out feeling. but i got a lot done. so now i need to watch some tv with the sound turned off.

i bought the first CD in about 10 years last week thru daedalus books. 4 CD set, the complete lester young. someting like $18. i played around with the picture above which is from a very well made booklet included. i've been chasing a recording of "dickie's dream" for 30 - 40 years now, and it's included. doesn't sound at all like i remembered. the boxed set is put out by an english company proper records.

the weekend has exploded. mimi hay will be showing her creations downtown at some giant (170 artists) outdoor festival. i'll certainly go at least one day, and maybe two. i'm very interested in how maniacs like me might move some stuff.

plus sat. morning is the first meeting of a friend's-sponsered 4 week deal on death and dying. curious about it so i'll be there sat. morning. and attend Baba meeting sunday afternoon.

as far as the kosmic situation goes, i am more and more convinced that everybody is right - there's a big change coming.

surprise!

here is an email i tried to send early this morning:

"what a nite. listened to mp3 of ken wilber and rabbi somebody, phone conversation, you sent, late last nite. an eye-opener, so to speak.

then i did my bedtime thing, which these days consists of a little reading, very little. �non-zero-sumness and human destiny�. the kind of book i would have really enjoyed a few years back, and one that is chock-full of entertaining anecdotes concerning cultural evolution. i could nit-pick it to death, but won�t. suffice to say that �parable of the nine tribes� and �guns, germs, and steel� should probably be read also for balance.

then i turn off the lights and start book on tape, story of iris murdoch by her husband. starts off very oxbridge, in the 30�s i would guess. it puts me out pretty fast. so far for 3 nites i have fallen asleep in middle of first side of first tape.

but this morning... woke up from a dream, the first i can remember having in a long time. went something like this:

airplane lands at narita airport outside tokyo. i�m dressed in coat and tie and have several hours wait for next flight, so i decide to take a walk. quickly i am in small japanese neighborhood when i see someone who looks like rob, an Australian vw mechanic i used to know. it�s not him but he invites me in where i discover that lynn, old time dealer from the past is living there.

she talks about the owner of the place, who is a secret presence responsible for vast shipments of cannabis in and out of the place. i ask who this person is and whispered conversation takes place. turns out that it is somebody that remembers me from the ancient past, but her identity is withheld.

meanwhile cooking, chopping is going on in kitchen. the guys who live upstairs, foreigners like everyone else in the dream, move pounds of coke every day. or so i am told. all of this biz bothers me a little, and i have visions of japanese storm troopers raiding the place.

so some of us begin the stroll back to the airport. i take a rest on a bed in a room that is open to the street. there are many beds there. housewife comes out and busily sweeps the outdoor bedroom and i realize that i am being unmannered, hop off the bed, and hands in front, palms together, bow to her and turn to catch up with group walking to airport. she says something in japanese, sounds irate but not too extreme. i get the idea that foreigners like myself are known to be a little crass.

catching up with friends we end up in another large room where two men live. the place is full of tatamis, tapestries, and blade runner like holograms floating here and there. the two are american, and one of their business cards reads �i find things�. they are both young entepenuers, fairly successful. one of them mentions �this isn�t woodstock anymore�.

now we start to try and remember what time plane is leaving and do we have time to catch it. wholly confusing, i can�t figure out what time zone it is or where the airport is. one of the group mentions a sore throat he is dealing with. the two who live there mutter that this guy is having entirely too much trouble with his throat. a thought occurs to me, and at the exact same time i am thinking �things are breaking up down there�, one of the two says it. i tell him what just happened, and he nods his head. one of us says �dylan�.

we decide we might make the airport in time for departure, and start long journey up and down escalators, hallways, public underground spaces, total confusion. i am realizing that we are completely lost and wake up shaky, low blood sugar, fluorescent balloons blooming in front of my face.

--
chris
http://modernpeasant.com
We seem to believe it is possible
to ward off death by
following rules of good grooming.
Don Delillo "