Nineteen Out of One Hundred

I don't have the time to draw it right now, but I'm imagining this cartoon where a confused character is scratching his head whilst looking at a picture of President Obama and muttering, "But I thought Jimmy Carter was president."  What's behind this cartoon?

Thirty six years ago things were so much like they are today (with the exception of who was president) that one of the most often quoted lines in movie history (ranking 19 out of 100) was first heard in the 1976 film Network.  In it, news anchor Howard Beale states:

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be! We know things are bad - worse than bad, They're crazy!" 

At the end of his tirade, Beale tells his television viewing audience he isn't going to recommend they riot, or call their congressman, and he admits he doesn't know how to fix any of the problems.  Instead, he tells them they have to value their life and get mad as hell.  He tells them to get up out of their chairs, go to their windows, open them and shout: 

"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"   

Believe it or not, that's not what started the idea for the cartoon, but it works. The point is nothing ever changes except us.  In truth, nothing really exists except the ability to perceive.  How we look at things determines if the world is hopelessly dismal or as Howard Beale offers the only hope we have to effect real change in the world.

In addition to the presidential primaries and race this year, there are plenty of ways our attention may be hooked out of the power of the present moment, and diverted to fuel the planetary dream of loss, lack and limitation.

Like the vote, it may seem like a right or a responsibility to get hooked up in the world.  There are many who would say it's as "mad as hell" (read: insane) to consider doing otherwise, but that's what I'm suggesting based on my own long, long history of not being able to make anything better by focusing on how bad it is.

Lets all get mad as hell: smile inside, keep our outlook open, and to all that is dark and negative, happily shout out, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"  Forget what 'everybody knows', let's choose instead to create heaven in as many moments as we can.

links:   A great clip from the movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ELleCQvew  full text at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Network_(film) (Two good reasons SOPA shouldn't go through as written.)

With gratitude to mom and dad for helping me see what's really important. 

Celebrating New Cycle's Eve

Got plans for next Christmas? Some folks think you might want to move your holiday celebrations up to December 19 or sooner to beat the end of the Mayan calendar.  It's been almost 5,125 years since the count went into effect and there are plenty of ideas about what this means to those of us who have shown up for the finale.

There are some who point to various natural, man-made, and unseen changes in the world and say it portends the end of the world...a better world...or nothing new in the world. Since what happens in the world is subject to perception, at the end of the year there will be a lot of people claiming their predictions were right -- whatever they were.

This year more than any other year since Y2K, people are asking what to expect so they can be prepared, a strategy I hope will end with this cycle. For thousands of years this cycle has been filled with fearful anticipation. Expectations are the tools which have been leveraged to ensure personal safety, financial solvency and spiritual salvation, with rather poor results one of which is making life a matter of prevention. In this new cycle (and yes, there will be another cycle) we have the opportunity to live with intention as our way of life. This is the message shouted by so many from the wilderness to the modern times of the closing cycle -- wake up!

Unfortunately, those who are attached to any doomsday or nay-say 2012 story may well be missing the whole point of having a cycle that has an ending.  Closing cycles provide the opportunity (daily, monthly, annually or every 5000 years or so) to see how things are going, determine what works and what needs to change. The old cycle promoted an intention of inattentiveness which is being thrown off and overthrown around the globe.  Much of humanity is no longer willing to trade in freedom for fear.

The trick now is to release attachment to the past so the new cycle of intention may unfold.  Unlike the old cycle, the new cycle will not be about the bottom-line. The mastery of Intention is to live effortlessly, free of expectations and fear. The closing cycle would say that's irresponsible, even dangerous.  In the new cycle it will be recognized as unconditional -- like love, liberation and our true potential.

Instead of dwelling on the end of the old cycle, wondering what, if anything, will happen on December 21, Let's treat 2012 as one big giant New Cycle's Eve. Celebrating for a year is a far smaller fraction of the more than 1.8 million days in the ending cycle than one of our holiday weekends is to our 365 day year. So this is not overdoing it.  Forget shopping, we should have started celebrating decades ago!
 
Happy New Cycle's Eve!

Intuitive Renderings

  What works?  With so much to do what guides do you use to help determine what you really want, and what to watch out for as you strive to achieve your goals?  Maybe it's time to try some new ways to access your inner wisdom and remove the illusion of outer limits.  What is yet to come requires only our presence in the moment to find actualization.

  Next weekend I'm going to try something I've always done in a new way. I have always been able to draw from the verbal descriptions of others. I see what they say and put it on paper. That has turned into many beautiful paintings, illustrations and cartoons. I am also frequently consulted about dreams -- both waking and sleeping.  November 19-20 I am introducing a way anyone can get an intuitive drawing from me using The Deck of Prompts at the Victory of Light Expo, then again at a fundraiser for MUSE, Cincinnati's Women's Chorus on December 19.
  The Deck of Prompts contains more than 100 classic mystical dream, shamanic and tarot symbols in written form.  When you shuffle the deck with the intention of receiving inspiration, the word symbols align in a spread telling a story that can be interpreted like a dream.

    Your word prompts serve as the inspiration for a continuous-line drawing which illustrates the meaning behind your spread.  Your hand-colored Intuitive Rendering is yours to take home and keep. Come to Victory of Light and visit my booth, number 229, to get your Intuitive Rendering.  I will also have some inspiring posters, Numerology-inspired greeting cards, cartoon prints, and books that make great gifts.  Hope to see you soon!

When the Moment is Not the Present

 Watercolor Meditation Sampler     

simple art practices to express, reduce stress, engage peace

Monday, November 7, 7-9pm  $20

513-549-4607

email

Recently a student described by-passing judgement and criticism of her work as when something "just clicks".  In my art classes students practice oscillating between the present and the moment more than any other technique. This is the invisible step in the creative process.

The moment is not the same thing as the present. The present is filled, wrapped up and decorated, waiting to be opened in the light of contrast and comparison. That's what happens on paper and in our daily lives when we check and balance what is transpiring. The moment is empty, neither incomplete or whole, beyond comparison, the moment is not the present, unrelated to past and future.  

The limits of one's creative talent or belief system does not factor into the moment.  The moment is not a level to be attained, it is not a challenging process, a skill to be developed, nor does it make any of these possible. It is what is left when we let go of these notions.  It simply is the remainder of nothing, and the practice of art is a beautiful way to know it. 

The Remainder of Nothing

It is not necessary to suffer hardship and disappointment.
Life is not good only when there is joy. 

The end of suffering is to have no means to experience it,

no attachment to what has been or ever may be, 

grounded in that which has not been and never will be.

This cannot be attained only after years or lifetimes of cumulative effort.

There is nothing you can do to deserve it.

If you need it you cannot have it.

Only when you no longer want can it ever be

Enlightenment is the remainder of not doing anything.

When the end of seeking is no longer sought,

when what is known is not needing to know,
when what is felt is freedom of the desire to feel anything else,
what remains is perfect peace in the moment.

;)

Reds on the Greenway courtesy of Stewart Black's Photostream (no real name given) 

CC license: attribution/share alike

The Remainder of Nothing C. Pic Michel 2011

Drawing with Wire and Finding Hidden Dragons

Changing channels between artist and creative facilitator has its challenges. Oftentimes its tough to just find the time to get the word out.  So it is that I'm blogging at the last minute to let you know about two very different events both dealing with creative energy at the beginning of October.

Saturday, October 1, the Kennedy-Montgomery Building Art Studios will be open 6:30-8:30, 6566 Montgomery Road, in conjunction with CLICK! an exhibit of photography at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center (right next door).  I'll be in my studio pulling wire creating continuous-line drawings in mid-air while my paintings hang on the walls.  Ask about classes and commissions, or just hang out and have a cup of tea and conversation. One thing I might be talking about is a new group that will be meeting for the first time on the following Monday...

The Shamanic Arts Party is different from the classes that cross-reference life and art, in that we will be applying the media of creative energy to life alone as the canvas.  The first workshop is Crouching Jaguar, Hidden Dragon, Monday, October 3, 7-9pm.  In this workshop, the three Toltec masteries are blended with the metaphor of the Chinese Cheng Yu (idiom) to gain better understanding about how the jaguar could miss the dragon, and what the dragon really is.  We will use journeying, and reflective exercises (awareness) to positively identify, free and re-direct this energy in our lives (transformation) according to our will (intent).  Learn More about the Shamanic Arts Party or call 513-549-4607 to save a place (space is limited).

CC licensed Dragon photo by miheco and jaguar photo by magicmonkey at Flickr.com

Why Do You Fly

Listen, everybody! There's no limit to how high we can fly! 
We can dive for fish and never have to live on garbage again!

Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Recently I took this picture off of seagulls flying off the back of a ferry boat on Lake Erie.  In an instant the birds went from gliding so perfectly on the wind to folding their wings so they could dive into the churning waters below scrabbling against one another to get a pretzel someone tossed to them.  To see something as awesome as flight ditched to chase bits of refined-carbohydrates that couldn't possibly be healthy was at once entertaining and sad.  

The lady who was throwing the pretzels giggled and commented on how easily amused she was, and the crowd cheered when a gull managed to catch a pretzel in mid-air. It was quite a feat, but it reminded me so much of the hope Jonathan Livingston Seagull held out for his flock to fly just because they could, even as all but a few rejected his dream of freedom as a threat to their values that maintained the purpose of flight was only to gather food.

If I asked, Why do you fly?  What would you say?  Many say they can't fly, just as they tell me they are not creative when I talk about how I teach life through artistic practice.  They think being creative is difficult even as they fluidly and perfectly create that impression without a second thought.  They believe any attempt at art falls short until it accurately represents whatever one intended to create, and this is then their limited experience. They feel similarly about life and I wish they could see how beautifully they are flying.

Art is not what hangs on walls, it is the intent to create, holding space for creative energy to flow according to a process that continuously unfolds rather than getting done.  Life is the same way.  The best life is one that is constantly unfolding according to our intent. Art and life are all about getting messy, enjoying the thrills of chaos, getting it, being unattached to keeping it, and letting our creative nature soar unfettered.  Because they are so similar, art is an excellent place to explore life -- how we create it, judge it, and enjoy it.  In art we can make mistakes and laugh like children learning. 

A wise leader once said one must be like a little child to get into the kingdom of Heaven.  In Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the Elder Gull teaches Jonathan, “Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect. -And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there."  

Yes, I really did just quote an imaginary seagull alongside a spiritual master.  The point is this, if you would like to experience Heaven on Earth practice consciously "being" through some creative experience.  


Starting October 3 we will explore creating a masterpiece of life through discussions and practices directed at using our life energy as a creative media. Eastern and western philosophy and shamanic practices will be explored to help us free up our intuitions to soar through life effortlessly.  Make a reservation by email or call 513-549-4607.