A Ramble of Stuff. 04

Dower Toc in Toc's favorite hat (still new)

BLACK is Toc-ward.
GREEN is AreBear's words.
RED is quoted. And RED as Tree.
BLUE is the dated who-what-when-where

(1/17/05) My pal Tree will have a one man show at the Ricco/Maresca Gallery - 529 West 20th Street 3rd Floor NYC - Opening on Saturday 2/12/05 - 4 to 6. You are most humbly invited. The following is her statement for the show. It is pure Animal Ethics.

I'll see you there.

Saints and Exiles from stories never written

Small, highly detailed porcelain clay sculptures of Saints and Exiles from stories never written.

Tricia Cline is self taught and has been sculpting Direct Observation in the female and animal form for over 20 years. Tricia's images are complex metaphors describing our relationship to animals and to ourselves as ... Animals.

Each kind of Animal is an ambassador of its perfected niche (a definition of holiness). They have become so perfected, that they are archetypes inside of us. Archetypes that are beyond our insistence of meaning and yet completely shape our feelings.

Animals

This body of work is an ode to the Animal, its ability to perceive, and our return to that perception.

An animal is its very form. Its function is its form. A dog runs at full speed, a distinct scent and specific sound alters its direction. The legs, the nose, the ears of the dog are its function, its bliss.

When an animal recognizes another animal it reads with an instinctual eye the character in the form - the essential nature in the form before it. Its text is not a concept or static idea about what it's looking at but a full bodied response to the shape, smell, movement, and stance of the image in front of it.

The language of animals is the language of images. An image is not an idea with a defined meaning, it is itself an animal. An image is a vortex of complex feelings and concepts that present themselves in an intuitive instant (a vertical movement of inward deepening).

Is a circle an animal? "To an animal all things are animal," says PopeJoey

This is the ode - to reconnect with our own animal perception is to clarify and heighten our perception of who and what we are in the moment. To perceive and participate in the intelligibility of the world.

The exiles migrate between the human world and the animal world and carry this awareness on their backs. They are the silent embodiment of this Quest.

The saint (Pope Joey in his various forms) understands the language of animals and is a self-appointed ambassador from this world. He is firmly seated, in the language of animals, the language of imagery. He has succeeded.

________________________

Well I am finally reduced to begging some mega-ton publishing house to reject me for all of my careful and obvious insignificance, completely ignoring those few crumbs of significance offered on that tray by the door. I have finally run out of donors (alpha') for my comics. I have used up all the grace that has drifted my way. I am becalmed, lying splayed and bleaching along the high tide line where even full eagle feathers look like aborted and gluey-spew.

"An honest man is always in trouble, Simon," says Henry. I-am always, and have often come close to seeing honest. I really have no idea what is appropriate, (though desperation feels appropriate). Between Hal Hartley and Roger Ricco writing intros how could a submission editor not think twice, and twice should be enough. ("think twice before you think" -eec-). I mean, if the work doesn't work it's Self on them, then it's not my fault, I'm just the worker. I get to do what I am told ...yessir.

Oh-divine-gosh of gluey-spew, please lend Hal a hand, and don't let it be too painful.

Synopsis: Kids of Lower Utopia - Softdoor Scout Finnagain and Daffodil Dash Eleven:
Some kids are born with a talent for being awake inside their own Dreams. Born a Shaman without a tradition, a tribal Dreamer without a tribe, a natural Animist in an age carelessly dying in it own technology. In such a time how would the subconscious (Heart) teach such a kid.
This is a present day story of a girl living in the Catskill Mountains who has a talent for strong Dreaming. It is a portrait of a child prodigy, not a prodigy of the intellect but one of the Heart. An Animist tale, in which our young Dreamer through a small ritual and story, attempting to draw her friend closer to her world, and into an old religion of Dreaming.

I asked Hal Hartley to write an intro-praise along with Roger Ricco. Hal is the writer/director of a pile of films like "Henry Fool," and Roger is the director of the Ricco/Maresca Gallery - the green isle for "Outsider" artist.

"Hurray for GuruDev!" Says Toc with his soft-sliding seven year old voice "Teacher of the Gods" is what GuruDev means, right? But once upon a time He was a kid, just another kid, Observing the world. Hurray! I was so relieved to read that account where He was discovered at a morning pool by a "Grasshopper," and He showed the man His Yantra with a rube, that he made Himself. (Am I remembering this right ? Don't-don't tell me.)
He made it for His ...Self.

It meant to me that GuruDev was in the presence of his Self with his eyes Open. The very definition of DiOb. That was a great seed that has lived in me.
GuruDev did exactly what we are doing, absolutely choosing His own reality over anything that comes from out side of His VerySelf. He was absolutely Brave and Doubtless, and so … He became his own …God. He becomes a God. And therefore is a God. Backed by a total array of personas. A God worthy of love.
He tells me, like a true animal, that nothing is sacred unless everything is.
Being your own God is the best that this life can offer. To live on the very ground of your Awareness Personified, and speak, and befriend a mutual language, visual-verbal+ (full of ancestry), living symbiotic with its life by way of love. To enter the Holy Tradition of Humanity. And thereby owning the most powerful and fulfilling, and the most precious thing in the world … in life, that Thing is Perception.
Is perception a virus, or just a perk of mutation? DQ would probably say so.
But it seems that most people rarely get into even the Presence of there Superego (Old Superman or Superman Jesus) much less get past him to their VerySelf, this is not a judgment this is a Direct Observation. I suppose it is what is meant by Kali Uga.

Do you have "The Best Hits of Kali Uga?" Those guys ... are like animals …they Know.

leets and Brother Jason!

We so much enjoyed hanging with you guy, but so many things we didn't get to chat.
Rambling…
Odd, but from our conversation I wanted to mention first how little I trust Work done under the influence of the Little Smoke (Homage), I found that she tips the balance (for me) too far into the subjective, too far away from the objective. So if you find this also …then I have found other ways to placate the intellect, to lure it away from the presence of the Work … happily. Besides music, one of those ways is listening to unabridged books on tape (or CD's). The availability of these books online through your public library is astounding! It's a bit of mind-divide but if your intellect is as veracious (nervous) as mine you will find it "works-a-doodle." Some say yes some say no.

"If you have never had a book read to you, then you won't understand what wonderful depth of feeling is offered here. Even more than comics, "Readings" are a very little recognized art form but some performances are true moments and will open you. The Cunning man read by George Guidal. Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man read by Donal Donnelly. The Stand read by Grover Gardner. A Star Called Henry read by Roddy Doyle. Slapsticks read by Dan Lazar. The Deptford Trilogy read by Dan Lazar. Razor's Edge read by Frank Muller. Siddhartha read by Michael Thompson. Little Big Man read by Grover Gardner. The World According to Garp read by Michael Prichard. The Witches of Eastwick read by Donada Peters. That Hideous Strength read by Grover Gardner. To Kill a Mockingbird read by Sally Darling. Shardik read by Dan Lazar. These are just some of the many exquisite experiences."

leets, at one point you mentioned certain actions as being meditative, and now I'm wondering what you know of "meditative"? And if you or Jason might be interested in a much more Direct meditation, maybe my pal Arebear (coming 3/2 till 3/8) would hook-you-up with an old Perfected Form of such, that we have been involved in for umpteen years. Remembering …that the art represents the You that is you, and not you it.
AreBear is the only one among us who still remembers all the steps in teaching it, he is as smart as a top hat and sweet as a drunken bee.
I offer this old and perfected trick-of-attention to you as a comrades-in-arms, as fellow explorers - I mean, you would want your friends to go spelunking with out flashlights, right?

"Atheism is a way of keeping the attention of love and devotion in this world where it is so needed." -Comrade-X

I was listening to Comrade-X (how could I not) who said, "An atheist (meaning me) is a person who recognizes their God as so unlike any description, that the very word has no meaning …or …automatically becomes parody."
The Idea of God so innately defies all combinations of words (forgiving only poetry) that it seems to want a perfect intimate privacy. It is by degrees, Awake in the subconscious …Observing just deep beyond the light of the heart. In the close light of the heart stands the voice of Old Superman who looks at the world with a careful love, like a door guardian to the Place that is the ground of the Heart. He says, "What is your favorite color?!"

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win." -MGandhi-
This pattern occurs with the subconscious/Heart as well. First you ignore it, then you are incredulous and amused by it, and then you fight it (depression and all of his dogs) and then …It wins! Yea! Hurray for the Losers!

I have just come across this very old poem (haha) which so succinctly describes the life of art (an old Vedic prayer)

O my Very Self
I offer these flowers of my sight
at your feet
Whatever I have, you have given to me,
and I dedicate my life to you;

I have no love
nor do I truly know you.
I don't even have the strength
to worship you,
But this mind of mine, this body of mine,
my every self is dedicated to you.
You are the one who is in my heart
and in my thoughts.
You are the one who I call out to.
Now make me your instrument.
Everything I am is dedicated to you.

Pow! (Sounds familiar huh?)
Here is Rumi's way of saying it, in a poem called: I Have Such a Teacher

Last night my teacher taught me the lesson of Poverty: Having nothing and wanting nothing.

I am a naked man standing inside a mine of rubies. Clothed in red silk.
I absorb the shining and now I see the ocean, billions of simultaneous motions
moving in me.
A circle of lovely, quiet people
becomes the ring on my finger.

I think the following is one of the most important poems in my life, not for its beauty but for its true encouragement. I might have sent it to you before. Everyone who makes art should give it to everyone else who makes art. It is a kind of virtual no-holds hall-pass for all students of art. In the words of Robertson Davies:

"Feeling is the point. Understanding and experiencing are not interchangeable. Any theologian understands martyrdom, but only the martyr experiences the fire."

A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feeling through words.
This may sound easy. It isn't.
A lot of people think or believe or know they feel-but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling-not knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else-means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn't a poet can possibly imagine. Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time-and whenever we do it, we're not poets.
If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you've written one line of one poem, you'll be very lucky indeed.
And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world-unless you're not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.
Does this sound dismal? It isn't It's the most wonderful life on earth.
Or so I feel.

Or so I feel!
It will be cool to see you at Tree-girls opening, it is a sweet luck to have met up with you at all …funny world, so dark and yet we get to meet-up? Sweet luck.

When you remember Her smiling on you, you have (like in the old Fairy Tales) separated Her into an Idea-Image of your most positive feelings, but She is in fact also the muck that strengthens you as well, who tempers your steel (punny-haha). Tree says …make a shrine to your Her - invite Her to come, offer Her the love of your attention, pay attention, and ask Her what She wants. (Essentially what She wants is a depth of attention. Attention is love. Everything is about love.)

You never get past the horror and fear that is there between you and the Work … that is a given. You can only act "impeccable" like a warrior, as don Juan would say. (What he doesn't say is how insidious, and how much greater is the misery of not acting impeccably). Forgive me for interjecting some old proses by Toc and Comrade-X here but they once said it the best for me during work on V6.No2.Pg4:

"I will never ever get beyond the impossibility of art. With each new piece I feel I am even further from knowing how to make things, much less the image of ''INNER-NECESSITY'' that is wrapped up in the tattered rags of my filthy snarling heart. ''The Image'' (that says, "I-must-be"), is just …there …in hindsight, emitting a feeling so exactly beautiful, and beyond my known self, that I must be …it. I must become it. And It… is a feeling of being "There." "There" is looking back at me.
So I just begin staggering towards it, pretending I can, flailing, whining, sickly, with a hundred other things fighting to jump in the way. I feel drunk with failure. I grow tiny, and do tiny doings, failings, and fixings. To let the impossible size of my desire frighten me is to not be a man. It is a thing of eating pain.
And then, without a transition, I suddenly find THE WORK (its Self) has arrived at the beginning of a place where I'm who I Am, when I am no one else. And my head invariably echoes… "WHAT! 'HOW DID I GET HERE?'' (Blind…again). Hell of a way to make …anything, as if jumping off over Nothing equals flying.
Fear-of-art …always had it, always will. (And yet …my memories of doing the work are exulted! Hindsight …has its own life.) And now there is nothing I can't do as long as I am willing to eat my Self, and I've yet to meet a failure I can't fix."
''Sssoo,'' says Comrade-X, as if he were waiting for me to make a point. Cocking his head like dog, and lifting his leg, he says, ''What-a-small-parade. You're awe-fully proud of that blind spot, arent-chya. Why don't you go find your hands?''

I must say I have never gotten along with the word "faith". It is a word that grovels and begs Reason (who guards only the roads) to let it pass. Reason is so very small; I prefer bushwhacking by way of the doubtless feelings of essential schizophrenia.
The Truth is a scenario that fits a moment and then is gone. The Big Truths of perception make the substance of the world almost transparent. In Old Vedanta truth is like a thousand petal lotus, the part is an echo of the whole. Here in the west it is more like a smelly onion, but still delicious!

"Analyze, spin, question, until I have turned something that should be clear, and straight forward, into a web of confusion" -leets-
It, (the world), is how you see it, it can only be perceived with your perception therefore the world is as you see it, it is you, and I know that doesn't help because it sounds like a looping riddle. But like Agnes says the negative experience is far more helpful in point the way then the positive. The positive experience is omni-directional, points in all direction, because, centered in the positive; everything is sacred. The negative compels you to make your Stand; it compels the hero's path.

"To be nobody-but-yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else-means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." -eec-

eec says this almost blithely… but it is a hard fact.
…Welcome to art. It is the oldest religion. It is the ritual in which you make real the struggle for consciousness. (All struggles are essentially this struggle)
The product …is… the process …only the emphasis is on the process revealed - the process revealed is consciousness achieved (even if temporarily only in the product).
Dip in the dye - dry in the sun - dip in the dye - dry in the sun - dip in the dye.

The-Little-Smoke is what I called Her in homage to don Juan's ally. She is an old and dear friend to us. She is the first Initiator for so many of us. We love her, she is so very patient, and full of beautiful secrets. But she, like so many Others, told us "This is what you have, but ...This …is what you can have. I Am a state of awareness that you are capable of. I come to remind you, but I am not here to be you."
We love her. She reminded us how intimately we fit the world. She directed me towards learning meditation back in 73.

If you have a library card with a barcode number the riches of a thousand worlds are your. Request till your heart is content, (and then request some more). Have all requests sent to your local library. And not one book-on-tape is beyond your beckoning. (And not a cent spent).

"Our resistance to being nothing, to having nothing, and to being a nobody is at the very core of our human suffering." - D Fords -

Essentially ...if you can feel an image in the direction of Perfection than you have a God, who is the embodiment of those feelings. God is our best idea embodying all that we love : Love - Kindness - Freedom - Work - Happiness - Fullness.
To be an Anima-atheist is to defend the perfectly private experience of your very own God.
What a laughable egotism to image that your personal God created "The Universe" when he can't even manifest a ten-spot without you doing it for him (co-enabling God). It goes without saying that your God is at the center of "Thee" Universe, your personal perceptual universe. But to make your God agreeable to others is to betray your experience.
That is the pivot of my resistance to all Theisms, the pretence that my God, or your God, is "The One God" and the same as everyone else's God, as if any two people are the same person, much less the very source of their individual feelings being the same. I think that your most individual feeling is the very "why" of your existence. To carefully track those feelings back to their origin is to become your VerySelf, to become your own Heart. The way you feel (feeling the feeling before words; trap, cage, and kill-it) about anything and everything is/are like careful bread crumbs laid out in a line before you leading into the dark. Be brave - follow. The beginning of everything awaits you.

(So let's just push this metaphor till it winks. Let's say that Beliefs and Reasons and Knowledge are mostly dead weight, and tend to hamper your movements as you track the path. And eventually the bread crumbs end at the beginning of a silver thread, and on and on until the path itself begin to do the all work for you, and you find your self under the influence of gravity and oh-look your falling, "Curiouser and curiouser" says Alice. Of course you live on crumbs [on feelings] and finding that some of your crumbs are utterly vile, [you learn how to be choosy … eating is an art … eating is art]. And of course you'll have to riddle your way past some really big and ugly thing that you [stupidly] created in your past, that went on ahead into your future to wait for you. [The secret is; to find a way to give them the honest love they deserved back when they were smaller things].
And that's enough of that.)

So, yes, the most brilliant idea of love can be shared. Yes, we can agree that by the virtue, and grace of Perception, we each have access to our own most beautiful Idea of all ideas - God. And we can agree that acting in love has proven its Self the best way to live with others … and even with your own secret God.
How do we know this is true?
We Feel it!
"Or so I feel"