II.

Sometimes, one aspect gets to drive and choose where we’re going. If Bear gets hungry is so hungry that he won’t let Mr. Business Man stop to think then the Mr. Business Man needs to compromise for a moment and allow Bear a chance to eat, understanding that he and Bear share the same body and Bear’s basic needs are as important as his own. If the Mr. Business Man wants to make a deal that seems fluid enough but goes against the ideals of the Inner Buddha Mind then they have to talk it out and see who comes up with the clearest solution. Sometimes the clearest solution is turning down the deal. Sometimes, it’s just a rewording of a contract. If The Lover has just been let down, we must take notice of conciliations offered by Inner Child who really just wants to be loved and allowed to play. The desire to be loved wears many masks and sometimes becomes a motivation that has less than noble intentions for it is an i-me-mine sort of emotion. All the while, the Inner Batman, a vigilant watcher, keeps an eye on everything. Underneath that mask is only me. The inner Batman has the fatal flaw of seeming both aloof and sometimes overly righteous. Yet, he also helps maintain the nobility of all of these aspects, just as Inner Child and the Lover remind him of his softness and ability to yield. All of these aspects – both individually and as a whole – have the potential to devolve into the i-me-mine space.  Yet, they also have the potential of evolving into the all-one-being. So who watches? Who guides? Who is the overseer here? Whose eye is the all-seeing eye? And who really gets to drive?

All together, these aspects are a part of a larger whole that, like Jane’s Addiction or Phish or any other band of great musicians, is greater than it’s parts. That larger whole is both the ego and lack of ego. Ego is simply there as a built up identity structure that the mind creates as a placeholder for “i” in the same way that we create a concept around “cup” or “painting” or “Barack Obama”. We create a concept of an inherent being within us that we identify with. This is all well and good but when the intentions of this being become less than wholesome and the subtle patterning and conditioning of a lifetime of learning at the hands of the cultural norm which preaches the i-me-mine edict, it becomes, shall we say, rather hollow. Yet, when we start to subdivide it and learn it’s nuances, we find different identities who all developed in our being as answers to specific situations that life at one time asked of us.

This, too, is all well and good – my inner meditator might not be so suited for wearing the suit of the inner business man. So the inner business man is there to serve a valuable purpose. The inner business man has his mind on infrastructure and marketing awareness and fair deals and sustainability and growth and doesn’t always think about things like hunger, so there is this bear that is a pretty physically oriented sort of thing. Now, none of those can be tender and soft yet playful and child-like. So we have Inner Child. Then, of course, there is the punk-ass flirtatious lover. Well, to be fair, they are all lovers, but the punk-ass sort of has that bred into him. Watching over all of them is the Inner Batman, aloof yet fully aware of all that is going on – he is there to protect and serve.

I am the sum of my parts. I am like this table: the table is a collection of parts creating a concept of table. I am merely a conceptualization, walking through this world. My paintings are also conceptualizations. Everything that I create is a conceptualization of some mental concept. Even the person I’m creating when I look in the mirror before stepping out the door is a concept – a loose reproduction of what is inside or what I would like to create or be. The only time I stop maitaining this concept is when I stop thinking about it.

There is a magical moment in painting, when I am no longer thinking about what might come next or how that might interact with what has come before it, when the brush and the canvas and my hand and my mind and body and spirit are all one and are moving in this lovely beautiful aware flow. Sometimes these moment stretch… and stretch… Sometimes. Sometimes the mind checks out. Sometimes it’s a record on repeat stuck on some emotionally charged event or phrase or word or person or place. But even then, like a loop in some song, there is a release, a momentary space in which, if we remain open to the possibilities of life, an answer might appear. Most of the time, that answer is: LET GO.

This is the meditation. This is the concept of what I paint. In all of the flames, in all of the clouds and the dark corners, in the stars and spirals, I lose myself, I crumble. And I allow those pieces of me to remain there.

In it’s wake there is always something that goes beyond “a light”. It is what Mircea Eliade called, in all of his studies of the nature of spiritual experience, the “mysterium tremendum”. There really are no words for that space. However, the reflection of that moment of Letting Go upon the canvas is something magical, effulgent, creative. It’s a leap of faith. An effervescent line. A bit of laughter caught in the paint. It’s a reflection of a concept of absolutely everything and absolutely nothing. It is union.

As you may know I went to Art Basel Miami a month ago in December. While I was there I attended the Moksha Art Fair. It was a multi-faceted event and featured some really beautiful and powerful artwork. As I sat on the plane on the way home, a bit worn out from five days of, well, everything, I wrote a blog entry about it that was not entirely flattering and, I think, overly critical.

Ray Oracca, one of the organizers of the event, went out of his way to contact me and talk about some of what I had written. We had a long heart-warming conversation about art, communities, framing situations, etc. In the end, I could see where he was coming from and recognized the places I had misspoken.I sincerely apologize for any views I expressed that did not tell the whole truth, were tainted by my own lens, and, in the end, may have dissed an event that a lot of time, energy and love went into.

I don’t know a whole lot about the Moksha Family in Miami. Those people that I did meet, who were intrinsically involved, had warm hearts and a sparkle in their eyes. They were genuine in their openness and certainly working hard to create something beautiful. In the end, it seems to be a bit like my own Moontribe community – a disparate tribe hailing from many walks of life sharing a common love of art, music, dance, and fun. They are people who are working at being non-judgemental. They are allowing each other room for growth. They work at putting on events that bring people together in a communal space. They most treasure the open exchange of ideas and energy. In this way, we help each other with our spiritual evolution. They, we, all of us, working together on a common vision from a million different angles.

Thank you.

I’ve got to step up inside myself and stand there at my door sometimes; you know, not hang out deeper inside the mansions of my mind, thinking someone might find me back there, painting or daydreaming, biding my time, enjoying the view. Sometimes I’ve got to step up and be the doorman. Welcome! Welcome I say, politely, but with gusto, not over bearing but with just the right amount of exuberance tempered by tactfulness as a good host must be.

There is often, I think, a great hesitancy of inviting people in like that: what might they find there? How well do I, myself, the supposed master of my house, know this mansion? Did I leave the doors unlocked? Are there any demons hiding under a bed or behind a door with sheets over their heads? How might it show it’s face? In what glance or gaze or quirk of speech or passing phrase might it be evident in the course of the conversation between you and I?

I watch these things closely. Not because I’m afraid of what my hand might show, but because I, too, wonder: what might be in there still. What is the meaning behind that statement, what is the intention behind that phrase or point of reference or inference. I watch them because I am curious about what might be the underpinnings of my belief systems.

I remember when I first took ayahuasca and the shaman who was leading the journey, an older man, small and wrinkled and from Peru, said something like ‘let us explore the mansions of my father’s house.’ I always felt that phrase aptly poetic for the experience of the inner world and for the journey we were about to undertake into the fractalizing and sometimes very compartmentalized nature of our minds. There are no closets in these rooms inside, only more rooms, closets that open into foot ball fields, rooms within rooms ad infinitum. Within some are altars. Within others, the dirty laundry. I suppose it’s for us to examine for whom or what the altars are for and also, while we are at it, separate and clean the laundry.

There were times in our lives when we revered a way of being, paid homage to a trait of personality. There were other times when a reverence was laid at the feet of the holiest of holies. The holiest shifts in meaning, growing deeper, wider, broader and, sometimes, completely redefined. Old  altars are forgotten, new ones constructed. By the same token, shrines to belief systems now defunct are not always torn down only because we have a hard time letting go. Instead, new belief systems get built and a room gets closed off, forgotten, unused, but still taking up  space. Maybe house cleaning isn’t all that is in order. Every house could use a little remodeling.

So we stand at the doorway because inevitably we go out into the world – we discuss ourselves, what we do, from whence we hail and to where we are going, and we tell a story that treats us well as we attempt to elicit something from the viewer: a sense of pardon, a chain reaction of empathy to endearment to love. Because really, in the end, we only want ever to be loved, accepted for who we are and we wonder: am I the living room as much as the basement? Will this person understand?

‘Welcome,’ says the doorman. ‘Welcome to the mansions of my father’s house.’

His statement is a layer cake of meaning, a fine paella of statements mixed with nuanced spices.

Take heed, fair guest: my rooms are wide open. Let us explore together. You never know what you might find and, to be fair, neither do I. Together we explore and, in this house of mind and in the mansions of it’s rooms, let us hope we don’t lose ourselves and, if we do, let us hope that which we find is a greater treasure than that which we’ve lost.

In the exploratory stories, half way between the top floor and the deepest basement, in a storage closet that opens to forever, I’ve got a pile of sketchbooks that go back to the drawings I made as a lonely scared child. I keep them to remind myself of where I’ve been, where I’ve come from and where it’s all gone to. I did my best to dispose of the drivel. What’s left is enough of a cross section that it can let future historians have a sampling of where I’m from.

Here, in this attic, is a bottle, the first bottle and only bottle. It’s never been emptied. It’s always been half-full. I’ve done my best to finish it. I am in love with new beginnings.

This right here, this balloon, half-deflated, is quite significant, or rather, it was, at one time. Good thing the things of the mind are biodegradable!

How about this door? What might we find inside it’s corners….

Oops!

Where are we now? What, you say, you know this place?

O this is your old kitchen, from as a child, as a seven year old, scared from the bee outside and your mother was nowhere to be found and you felt it best to find her and when you did she was a disinterested mess? You know this place. This is your house. This is your mansion. It’s true, I’ve been to places like this myself. I think my own place like this was nothing like this. But you’re not the first, so let us navigate it together.

We arise, we fall. It’s like that. We traipse in and out of each other’s mental spaces. It’s just like that when two people open up to one another.

And in the nuances of our speech, in the subtleties of our movements, are written the understandings of our lifetimes. At times, there is nothing but joy and if you find me on the right day, I will have naught but love, dripping and dancing off of every note of my being. Find me on another day and it might be different. I might be a bit more like coal, for real. No one is to blame for that but me and the only reason I have is that I’m still turning that chunk of coal into a diamond. With enough concentration and patience, enough focus and mindfulness, it all turns into diamonds.

And one way or another, the dancing love, it remains. Why am I so convinced of that?

A little birdie told me.
And I listened.

Detail: Unmasking: The Deeper We Go, The Higher We Soar

Effulgent bubbling up love comes up and over like a pot come to a boil or a fire bent on over flowing or even just a long slow simmering of flavors and meditations. Mind wide open and alive and sparks from fires and flames all lapping and licking at my feet, my heart, and my hands pushing me inwards, upwards, and onwards.

The deeper we dig, the higher we rise. Digging and finding, searching and wondering, wandering outwards and into the investigation. Find a mask and unmask the mystery til we reach the next layer of interwoven illusions to uncover. Every time a mask is discarded our load gets a bit lighter and, through the course of some lesson, we find a touch more love, an ounce more compassion, a modicum of wisdom to add to the puzzle that continues to spell out what we always find we already knew – that mind loves a riddle to unravel.

There is a vast unfolding all around us… inside my heart and mind there is a… inside every thing, atom and sun, there is a…

a continual reaction.

But all things come to pass, to be used as the fodder for the next sun’s fire. Metaphorical understandings create day dreams that become new inventions inspiring another persons imaginings… and on and on.

I only pray for the grace to get it all done!

To what or whom do I pray? Maybe nothing, maybe everything, maybe whatever it is that ignited this reaction inside of me that, once sparked, seems hell bent on pushing ahead, forging onwards. It jumps and dives and crawls around inside ferreting out the uncomfortable places where ego tries to hide.

Whoa! hey! It throws it’s hands up in the air. Wasn’t me! Wasn’t here!

But we pull it out, get on up the stairs, and get back to the discussion at hand, a little more ease to the dance.

Where were you the night of…
Who were you with on the afternoon of…
What were you distracting yourself with when you should have been…

And on and on and on.

What is the best song to sing?
One that just doesn’t let up. One that just doesn’t let down. It is best to boggle the mind. The mind needs a good boggling every now and again just to put it in it’s place. Just to set the record straight. I’m just a scribe here, I’m just a channel.

It is in those moments that we can ask: who acts? Who is the “doer”, who is the “watcher”. Can the universe, and by universe I mean everything else that is outside of this shell of a body, can it play a guitar? Can the universe hold a paint brush? A pen? A sewing needle? If it could, what would it say? What would it paint? What would it play?

Love. Just love. In all of it’s multifold forms. It would be love in green and love in plaid and love in jeans and love in slacks. It’d be love in the woods and love in the streams and love in the alleys with their stinky smelly steam. It’d paint love in the canyons and in the cracked window panes, love on the fire escapes of the well-boggled brains of all those human beings, running and scurrying and planning and doing in that worlds they’re creating. It’d play love in the songs of the birds in the morning and the crickets who chirp towards the last light of evening. It’d be the entire world without words and it would be the words as well. It would say love in a way that you’d never considered. It’d place itself in ways that you’d always overlooked. It’d whisper in your ear, softly against your neck, touching you, just so, aside the curve of your cheek – listen, don’t give up, I am everything and I too shall pass.

Most of all, though, it’d be well outside the bounds of any form you may have believed to be the object of itself. It’d clothe itself as a breeze, a whimper, a laugh.

It is a very beautiful thing, this existence dance, the loving path.

Today is the birthday of a friend, someone I’ve not seen in quite a long time but a friend none the less – someone who is very close to my heart. I have that little reminder that pops up on the side of my Facebook page to thank for that notification and I have her to thank for lifting a veil, for calling me out, for changing my life.

It was maybe six or seven years ago (how time flies!) when we first met and there was some chemistry there. So we had a thing and I had a thing for her. We spent a bunch of time together all of a sudden, just like that. I was in my usual (at that time) space-surfing-no-home-to-speak-of mode, painting, partying, traveling a bit here, traveling a bit there. She was a painter and pretty focused on a Tibetan Buddhist path. At that time, I think she was in school, I don’t remember exactly. Anyhow, this is all just auxiliary information. The point is: there was a spark, a fire, a reflection, and I respected her.

A conversation one evening went something like this:

“Michael, you smoke a lot of pot. You’re stoned quite a bit.”

This was certainly a fair, inarguable observation. In truth, I would hazard to guess that I’d been stoned for 300 days a year, at the very least, for the previous eight years. Illuminating when you add it up like that. I had, in any case, gotten high at least once a day for those three hundred days. Some of those days – in the midst of the painting binges for instance – were spent in such a haze that there was no in or out, high or low – it was just one long sustain and all I could do, or think of doing, was keep myself there. While I may have felt I was productive in my painting, in retrospect, I wasn’t productive in much else. While I may have been experiencing great highs, I certainly wasn’t integrating much.

“Yes, well… I may smoke a bit in the morning, take a hit or two…” But I knew it was a tough one to argue.

“Well, to be honest, it’s tough to hang out with you because there’s always this veil – this sort of space between you and I. In fact, it’s between you and the world. Really, it seems sort of selfish. You end up forcing everyone to get through this veil and you’re in there but it takes some work to find you. You’re not straight forward with life. You’ve got this veil to hide behind.”

Well, she said that in so many words.

“So, really, I like you a lot but I can’t really deal with the constant stoniness. So it’s either me or the pot. If you want to be with me, you’ve got to give that up.”

So I chose her. I’d like to imagine it was an easy choice but truthfully I don’t remember. I’m generally aware enough, even in the most egocentric times, at weighing choices like that – door number one is a path you know, a habit, a pattern. Door number two holds something new, different – an opportunity for growth, maybe new adventures, some light.

I chose door number two.

The short end of that story is:
Ultimately, it didn’t ‘work out’ between us. But we are where we are when we need to be there. And we came together for the lessons we had to share with each other. Giving up smoking pot broke through all kinds of things – suddenly life was REAL. In fact, it was so very real that I started drinking heavily because all kinds of emotions came up – sadness, depression, loneliness, attachment, wanting, craving, everything! – and they were quite hard to deal with because I’d never actually dealt with anything. I’d lived in my head and my daydreams for so long that screwing my head back onto my body was, in fact, rather disconcerting. I didn’t know how to handle it and I freaked out for a little while. It was sort of a heart wrenching/heart opening time. The drawing above, at the start of this post, was drawn during that time. It is called “The Heart Dance”.

For people who say there is no addiction in marijuana and no withdrawals… Sure maybe for the recreational smoker, this is absolutely true. But, as with object of addiction – whether it be alcohol, drugs, television or hamburgers – if a person finds that it helps to squelch the real emotions that they don’t want to deal with and it works, and it makes them feel good, they’ll keep going back for more. That’s addiction. Take the object of attachment away and everything it was being used to block rears it’s head. That’s when it turns out there are a lot of demons down there. Granted, marijuana likely helped me in many ways – it was a tool that I had at my disposal; a teacher in plant form. But, as with any teacher, as with the parable of using the boat to cross the river: once you’ve made it across the river, it’s best to abandon the boat. For all I know, I’d been lingering on that shoreline for far too long, hanging out with my boat.

So for a little while, all I seemed to be able to do was calm the demons while I learned how to deal with myself, knowing I’d get back to the darkness. So I worked with the tools I had, picking up new tools along the way. I worked on finding a center (and dealing with the urges and cravings that sought to pull me away from that) and figured, however consciously, that I’d get to the darkness. All good things in their own time!

Ultimately, when I got back to painting – by that time it was in Costa Rica – my work was so much more present. I was more efficient and my lines and approach crisper than it’d ever been. To top it all off, I was having these experiences that actually felt like they could be integrated into my being and I began to understand what “Being on the Path” really meant. I’d never realized what I was missing. I’d thought, for a long time had convinced myself, that I ought to be high in order to paint. I’m sure I’m not the first artist to fall prey to this belief. Now I found a deep reservoir of creativity, an endless and boundless spirit, and I found I had the skills to illuminate it. As I passed through these things, so did the emotions rise and fall, rise and fall.

Through that process, as demons have come and gone and challenges have been met, I’ve discovered more than I’ve ever dreamt. I’ve pushed myself and allowed myself to be pushed in ways I’d not imagined possible. And I’ve found something inside, something nameless, shapeless, wordless, some truth, that allows me to participate in this world, through my work and my interactions with others, in a way that is truly enlightening.

This friend helped lay some groundwork for all that came after. She is someone who helped me to step onto my path and be who I am – and admit to myself who I am – without just living a daydream of what I might be. So I say happy birthday to you, my friend. And thank you. May you live long. And prosper.

This one is dedicated to you.
May all beings experience bliss.

But what of our fearless adventurers? Adventure: One man’s adventure is another man’s walk in the park. Wherever we find our edge – therein lies the adventure.

I found Violet’s hiking edge while we were making our way back to the trailhead in Bryce Canyon. We’d decided to hike the Fairyland Trail – an appropriately named trail that leads in and out of the “hoodoos” as they are called that make up Bryce Canyon, Utah – tall sandy spires, sometimes many stories high, looking like a series of towers in some child’s drip sand castle. The spires glow with an orange/sienna sand stone, streaked now and again with white or subtler colorings of green or purple or red from mineral deposits. Dappling them here and there are twisted gnarled trunks of juniper, bristle cone pine and, deeper into the base of the canyon, Douglas firs, thick-trunked and towering over the little washes and scampering chipmunks.

We arrived the evening before when we set up camp, and showered at the main visitor area/store/etc. We were rather beat from three full days in Arches and Canyonlands – lots of hiking, play, sun, and late night star gazing. Plus I always tend to wake with the sun so I’ll usually go out for an hour or two hike in the early morning by myself. The angle of the sun and hue it casts upon the world at the hour – a sort of golden fuscia – is too precious to miss. I treasure those early morning hikes through the awakening world – usually undertaken after my morning espresso by the Coleman stove and then transcribed through notes and sketches in my always attendant sketchbook (The by-now-default Strathmore 5.5″ x 8.5″ recycled paper sketchbook).

The morning we drove to Bryce, Violet had been up late the night before, tracking Jupiter through her telescope. I, the early riser, beat from a long day, a tasty and satisfying dinner plus wine, and the warming orange glow of the campfire, had retired to the tent before her. I was up early too, enjoying the still crisp desert air. After we had breakfast and fnished packing up, we drove through the emptiness that seems to be most of Utah, segmented every now and again by ‘reefs’ – staggered and steep rifts in the earth looking as if the ground had been wrenched in two then shoved back together recklessly by some careless deity, leaving jagged cliffs rising out of the generally rolling landscape.

Traveling to Bryce on a Sunday left us with little in the way of replenished veggies and other rations – supermarkets all seem to be closed in Utah on Sundays.

“Mormons,” we muttered.

After setting up camp, showers, etc, we checked out the canyon. Yep, it was a big canyon. We went for a drive. We saw some antelope. They were shy, kept to themselves, did not respond to our entreaties. We made our way back to camp, went to bed early.

In the morning I chilled for a while, drawing and enjoying the crisp morning forest air and tall trees that surrounded us, a somewhat different environment than the Moab desert we’d left the day before.

When Violet awoke I made pancakes with apples and bananas and topped with syrup and strawberries  a- good hiking breakfast. Then we packed up for a good hike. It was going to be 8 miles, not bad. I like a good long hike. The hike itself – somewhat uneventful. Bryce is certainly beautiful and I think if I’d not just spent the past few days enraptured by the iridescent quality of the sandstone and colors of Arches, then I would have found the soft glow of Bryce more inspiring. As it was, it was interesting, but not oh-my-frickin-god-this-place-is-amazing. Ah well. The landscape was gorgeous none-the-less and, the next morning when I trekked out early for the sunrise, the morning glow over the spires and hoodoos was quite a remarkable scene.

Well – it turned into a hot day, with occasional clouds coming passing overhead, a lot of hiking up, a lot of hiking down. Somewhere around mile six Violet said to me: “This is no fun.”

Admittedly, she is shorter than myself, with a shorter stride. I would think that maybe my 8 miles of walking is equivalent to her 5. The passage from Chogyam Trungpa’s “Training the Mind” on Exertion occurred to me. Here was the part where the fun was gone – the joy gone. Pain creeped up the leg, the feet were tired, the knees worked, the old track injury begging for respite. Yet, the car was not in the sight, the end not quite near, and so one had to push on. Where to find the joy? Where to find the energy of exertion?

We all have our edges. I might like to push myself with a good long hike and even when my own feet are tired, I rarely complain, but a few days before I’d had the most difficult time sitting drawing a landscape.

Some time back, my friend Robin and I were hiking to a waterfall in the mountains northeast of Ojai. The path edged over some very loose gravel and the edge of the trail dropped off rather sharply. She found herself without the ability to put one foot in front of the other. Joy: gone. Yet, she spends much of her life working with others doing spiritual counseling walking them through difficult mental traverses, and doing the same for herself. Yet, here, a physical manifestation of that experience and she was without a next move – without the will to put one foot in front of the other. The

It’s interesting how we all find our edges and when we push ourselves a bit further – we sometimes find an opening, a new view, a new vista. One way or another we come to know ourselves, the world, Life, just a little bit better, even if there are no words for that experience and that new found knowledge.

Granted, by the end of our journey, Violet found herself hurting a bit and a tad exhausted, but whatever doesn’t kill us just makes us stronger, yes? And she didn’t kill me for taking her on a long hike, so that must’ve made me a bit stronger as well!

The next day we left for the Grand Canyon and, after a circuitous trip to a grocery store, we set up camp at a reserved camping spot on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, looking out onto a softly fluttering grove of aspen, fortunately missing any of the heavy rain that that clouds seemed impregnated with. We cooked burgers of free-range buffalo over our fire, had a drink, went to bed.

And yes, the Grand Canyon is actually quite big. But more on that later.

I left Violet at the lodge where her other philsophy friends from UCSD and UCI were having a sort of informal conference and drove up the road a piece to the Fuller Ridge Trail – drove up a twisting dirt road and parked at a gate. I started hiking… p and up. Into the still silence of nature abounding where there is no stillness but no incogruous sound, nthing is out of place. Bird song, bird anser. A woodpecker in the distance and another bird that zooms past me at breakneck speed. I sat for a while. Feeling my heart beating. My breath breathing. My joints and fingers and feet.

I hiked further and higher… into groves of towering Douglas Firs with long striations of bark in several dozen shades of brown and red and tan. I stood up close to it, my face inches from the bark and breathed in the musky woody scent, mingled with the cold mountain air. I felt it’s tall peace and, as I stood there, felt myself – the roots and branches and leaves and fruits of my being stretching to the sun and the center of the earth. Maybe I looked like the "tree-hugger" type but that issuch a misunderstood idea. A "tree-hugger" gets hugged back as well – bt beyond that I felt like i was meditating there with this tree that was more than several hundred years old. It’s bark attested to fires and storms that it has weathered – knobs and gnarls of knotted wood giving away where a brach was blown free in the wintertime and charred edges and the cetner charring – a tunnel within the tree that has been charred and blackened. I felt it and tasted it an thanked it. And moved on. I stuck my hand in the snow and stopped now and again to let my footsteps catch up with myself. And in that moment – the moment of being caught up – i found a center – and ever evolving moving changing and constant center.

I kept going. I was getting a bt light-headed- hungry maybe, low blood sugar, tired, maybe it was the altitutde but I hadn’t see my "spot" yet. I always find a "spot", a place to stop and brath and feel everything a place that is high up and I can feel all of the elements at once. I’d stopped at a few rock outcroppings and a few tall trees but they hadn’t been :"it" but then as I rounded a corner I saw an angled granite face lit by the sun and looking out on who knew what. I understood that to be y stopping point. There is never a destination – the journey and discoveries along way are all the purpose – but sometimes we find a spot – a place where we find ourselves a little more, a little deeper.

I climbed up atop that collection of giant boulders and had the valley and mountains spread out before me, dropping off steeply, surrounded by Douglas firs and other pines and brush, the clouds rolling away over head, a cold wind sweeping up from below and a warm sun that would peek out every now and again. All of life circling grandly and lovingly – look at us! feel us! feel yourself – my breath, my body, my spirit, my mind, my soul, my everything – all of this one vision, one illusion, one thought, one breath. I sighed a long long sigh, allowing for the fact that I would soon find myself back in my studio, back before my desk r my canvas. But I take a piece of back with me and I leave a piece of myself here.

After a while, I knew it was time to turn back. The wind and cold were beginning to bite and their bites were no longer playful. My light headedness had returned and it was still a five mile hike back. So I turned and ran, hopped, walked, hiked and occasionally cut between the switchbacks and took a tumbling gait down the arid sandy soil of sand and pine needles and dried oak leaves. I breahted, smiled, sighed and returrned to the car. Listening to Sun Electric’s 30.7.94 album I drove to a little general store, picked up a Cabernet and drove back in the  setting sun, as it cast it’s glow over the pine, turning them a golden green, to the lodge where dinner would soon be served.

The artwork I create has to do something to ones spirit. Otherwise, it is simply decoration. While I am a craftsman, I am not just a craftsman. The same goes with being an artist: while I am an artist, i do not want to be just an artist – to be just anything is to be simply performing the mechanics of the thing – going through the motions – without partaking in the spiritual component of whatever action one might be engaged in. It is to be just a mechanic. However, the mechanic as well can transcend his own position to be not just anything; I do not mean to disparage mechanics. Does what you do uplift others? Does it challenge them to step beyond ordinary perception and push expand boundaries and, while you are engaged in your art, do you push yourself to be more open, more expressive and more aware of where your own edges are?

Violet and I had a beautiful wedding in Malibu, CA, on June 22nd. A wide open blue skies with soft breezes tempered the heat of the longest day of the year where, atop a mountain plateau high above the ocean, with a view that inspired all to a sense of awe, we were wedded. The ceremony, held at the site of an ancient medicine wheel in use for ceremonies since the days of the Chumash and used just the day before for a Solstice gathering and ritual held by Mary and Eric Wright, who own the land, brought together many traditions and cultures, all of the elements and our own families and community as witness to our union. The elements, represented by a male and female each, and all of them dear friends, were led in by Robin and Rafael, who officiated the ceremony. They have both been with us since we first met, with Robin being my go-to person to talk about Violet with and vice versa. Now, here they were, as our priest and priestess, directing, casting, holding space for us, honoring us with their own blessings. We were welcomed into the circle and, after the initial opening, directed by Robin to each element who, in turn, blessed us with words and traditions of their own choosing. Only our actions were rehearsed. The words, though written, memorized, etc, were fresh to all of our ears. It was not repeating lines but being in the moment, the truth.

I had a voice in my head though, badgering me. It was my father whom I could feel grimacing through the whole thing. He is a staunch Catholic and, as such, takes issue with any spiritual path that is not distinctly his and enjoys proselytizing, especially to me, his oldest son who seems to have high spiritual motivations but also has, well, tended to such an opposite path. We already had a moment a few days before while eating dinner at World Famous down on the ocean in Pacific Beach. Enjoying the sunset, eating a seared ahi salad, I told them about (<a href=”http://www.mclightenment.com” target=”_blank”>McLightenment</a>. I knew it would get his goat a bit but there is a message there (even for him), tho he wasn’t interested in hearing it. Instead he used it as one more opportunity to turn things around, find something wrong with it and then use it to start needling at other practices of mine, like yoga.

“Look, dad,” I said, “Let it go. You have your path to your truest self and I have mine. They might be completely different and there are some things we might never agree on but they are our paths and that’s that.”

He kind of stuttered for a moment realizing that was the truth. So he shut up, although thinking about it now and again it makes me feel a bit of anxiety. Every son wants to be loved by his father but not just loved but respected as well, respected for the choices we make, respected for the paths we choose. My father might never get why I have chosen the path that I have, although he seems to make every effort to sway me towards his own. I’m 32 years down a path that continues to get brighter, more loving and more compassionate. I am in love with the universe – this great spirit that is all things – and it is in love with me.

So here we are getting married then and I have his voice, echoes of discussion, judgment, passing through my head while I am trying to remain present to the words of love, the blessings, the admonitions and foundations that are being passed along to us from some of our dearest friends.

Leave, I tell it, get out. I have no time for you. This is my day. Not yours. This ceremony is a manifestation of Violet and I. It is our truth and we are living it.

And it quieted down. It lurched off. Our ceremony, you see, was almost completely pagan- the elements, the blessings of the spirit, all of these things: it chafed against all of his own beliefs, structures and systems. Yet, if he were to pause, he could have seen the beauty in it. I would like to believe that he did. My mom got it. My brother loved it. Our friends – to them it was completely natural and in tune with the rhythm of life and the love of spirit.

When we returned to the center of the circle, Robin and Rafael invited everyone to stand around the circle and hold hands and be witness to our union, as we spoke our vows, exchanged our rings and were pronounced Michael and Violet Divine.

The circle remained as we exited, holding hands as one.

Later our reception was held down under some great old oak trees, on a large deck, with a small waterfall cascading over boulders into a little pond of lilies. We danced, we drank some wine (<a href=”http://www.casabarranca.com” target=”_blank”>Casa Barranca </a>– Thanks Bill!) We laughed and hugged. We munched on tasty food. Pictures were taken. It is all a blur now or memories, memories and moments. A beautiful sun set over the mountains casting rays of golden magenta light. It was perhaps one of the most beautiful days of my life.

After days of hard work – from hand block-printing and accenting each invitation that went out to making the pants and skirts of all the elements who played a role in our ceremony to our own outfits- Violet’s dress, my pants and shirt, our necklaces and wrist cuffs… to the planning and phoning and meeting and deciding and buying and and and… To see it all come together and be a perfectly wonderful 7 hours. 7 hours of people who have come to celebrate with us in such a beautiful way- to see us united. It wasn’t a birthday party or even just a party in honor of us- it was a party in honor of our divine union. There are few other reasons I can think of to have such a wonderful time. To have it in such a beautiful setting surrounded by all of the elements – the ocean and the mountains, the sun and the wind… and the Divine.

Pictures and other info can be seen here: www.michaelandviolet.com

Marriage is a spiritual contract not just between two people but between two souls with the whole of the world as witness to their union. This spiritual contract, this union, is based on trust, commitment, admiration and, most of all, love. This love has no fine print, no conditions, and no murky sub-clauses. It is exactly as it is stated. The two souls entering into this union share a trust of each others intentions and motivations. They are committed to each others spiritual growth as well as to their own. They admire the life that each other leads now, has led and will continue to lead. And they love each other as they are, wholly and completely, not as they could be, as they would like them to be or as they once were. When we love another person fully, we extend our boundaries to include them within our sphere of existence. Their growth process becomes our growth process, their failures and triumphs become our own. We allow that their process may be different than ours and that it has gone on long before we ever entered the picture, but as long as that process is healthy and valid, as long as it allows for love, growth and change and does not create discordance of spirit both within and without, we support and engage it with them. When the growth process closes, when the door of the heart seems to shut, we do not turn our backs but, again, offer support, compassion and the challenge to move beyond such obstacles to a more harmonious and loving existence. There is strength in numbers and in the spiritual union of marriage, a container is created for greater growth and deeper spiritual connection, for a broader experience of life than the two spirits here before us have experienced on their own. The goal of a spiritual life is to live in harmony with the world – to rise as the world rises and set as the setting sun, allowing that all things are one, are dependent upon each other and come from and go back to Spirt. It is wise to enter into a union with one who seeks to support such harmony, to spread love and wisdom and to create a wise and compassionate world. The two spirits, Michael and Violet, have deemed it wise, each other fit as well as themselves, to enter into such a union.