I JUST WANT A REVOLUTION, DAMMIT!

Maybe you think I'm not serious, spelling "dammit" like they might in the comics. But I am totally serious, and not yet sure what to do about it. I'm not talking about a political revolution. Politics is just money and power and illusion. I'm talking about a spiritual revolution - a love revolution. Through our evolutionary journey from microbes to humans, we have adopted certain strategies for the survival of our species. One of the more recent strategies we have come up with is love, which is still in a state of evolving into something better.

Every species wants to pass on its DNA, its life force. No species voluntarily becomes extinct. We humans have figured out that if we take care of each other, it is more likely that we, as individuals, will also survive and thrive to continue the species. So we take care of our sick and injured, our old and frail, our mentally challenged. In other species, these individuals would probably be eaten by predators. It is a fairly recent and radical theory that has us loving our neighbors as ourselves. It has taken us millions of years to understand that we should treat others the way we want to be treated. It is a kind of pact that we all subconsciously understand. And yet, it is not practiced by all.

There are so many who are born unwanted and raised without knowing what real love is. They grow up and, because of our innate desire to procreate, have more unwanted children who also don't get examples of how to love. Love should be a course taught in all the schools. It should be the most important subject of all. But we don't teach it. Sure there are churches and religions which are said to be all about love, but they tend to be more about ritual and superstition.

A thought occurred to me the other day, that it is ironic to call a Catholic priest, "father," when that is the last thing he will ever be. Wouldn't the church do better if these men who devote their lives to God and love could have families of their own - big families who would be brought up as loving children in a loving household and who would go into the world as ambassadors of love? Many of their children would probably be priests too. And women should definitely be allowed to be priests (no need to call them priestesses). A mother's love is thought, in our culture, to be supreme. Why would the church not want mothers to lead the congregation by example? Jesus did not die to take away original sin, because original sin is a myth. We are all born morally perfect - it is the weight of the world which forms our personality along with our genetic predispositions. If we had men and women priests who dedicated themselves to what Jesus was really talking about - love - then they would spread throughout the world.

When Jesus was asked, "What is the greatest commandment?" He didn't pick one right off the list of ten that the Jews had always followed. And he didn't pick any of the laws of Moses that God supposedly dictated to him. Instead, he said, "You should love God with your whole heart and your whole soul and your whole mind and your whole strength," (or something like that) and then he said, " The second is like unto this - that you love your neighbor as yourself."

Love. It's all about love. If you call yourself a Christian (which incidentally I don't, even though I agree with Jesus' teachings about love) then your whole life should be about love. And how do you love God? Well, I think that there is no separate being called God that humans will ever have access to. I think that God is consciousness. The whole world is God. Everything that happens in it is God. So to love God is to love everything.

This is challenging to us because it means total acceptance of everything that is - not just the good things, but all the "bad" as well. If you love the world, you love the whole world - famine, murder, war, rape - I'm not endorsing those things - far from it, but they are all part of God. That's why we invented the devil. Because we think that God would not start wars and kill children. But we think that God thinks like us - reasons like us - has emotions like us. I don't believe in the Old Testament God. The God that asked Abraham to kill his child sounds a lot like schizophrenia to me. The burning bush that Moses saw sounds like a hallucenation. And Moses had a speech impediment and had to have his brother, Aaron, talk to the Israelites. Why the hell didn't God just talk to Aaron? What was he thinking? So, if you try to make sense of God in human terms, you just can't. All of our Judeo-Christian writings about God contradict each other over and over.

But if God is the sum total of everything, then loving our neighbor as ourselves is loving God. Jesus was a genius who realized that our species would be sure to thrive if we loved each other. He understood the strategy that evolution had devised, though he didn't know anything about evolution.

Why is it so hard to talk about love? This is the revolution that I'm getting at. The presidents and monarchies should all be giving speeches about love. It's not religion. Why did we confuse love with religion? Love is how we survive, how we continue, how we thrive. The criminals of the world, the so-called evil-doers, the miscreants, the scalliwags, the hooligans, the misanthropes, they are not teaching love and were never taught love. If from our children's first moments we were to teach them that the world works because we love, and if every lesson reinforced loving behavior, then the world would grow more and more harmoniuos.

What would a world be like without love? We would all be afraid of each other because we would just be trying to get things for our own survival and comfort. This is all too close to the way the world really is. If I didn't love, I wouldn't think twice about murdering someone to get what he has. I would be afraid of being murdered myself and would isolate myself from society. I would live like an un-social animal.

But all social animals, and there are many, cooperate with their own species for the greater good. Humans have taken this trait the farthest so far. But we are all in competition with each other because we are still evolving into loving beings. We are not finished with Evolution. We are not at the pinnacle, just at a step along a graet way. Suppose the human race were to last another 150 million years. We are just at the beginning. But we have become conscious of the abstract notion of love. It is up to us now to teach it everywhere. We can own big comapanies and still practive love. There are more and more companies who are developing a social conscience. There are companies who are giving back to humanity - there are not enough of them, but it is heartening to know that there are some. Why can't a company's business plan include love?

"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, but render unto God what is God's." Jesus again. And what is God's? Love! Love your neighbor. Love God. Teach your children. Teach your neighbor. Teach by example. Don't be so damned timid about it! "Not hating's not the same as loving" one of my songs says. It's fine not to hate. But we are all so neutral. Neutral gets us nowhere. We need to be love activists.

This is where I make my own confession. I am neutral much of the time. When an action presents itself, I try to respond in a loving manner. But I need to do more than that. I need to be a love acivist. I want to teach love. I do my art and my music and my writing so that people will turn their heads my way. But once that is accomplished, I want to speak about love. It's all that matters to me. And I know I am not alone. I need you to do this with me. I don't know how to accomplish this on my own. I am just a voice crying out in the wilderness, like John, but instead of heralding the coming of Jesus, I am heralding the coming of a new era of enlightenment. It may come many generations after me, but we all have the opportunity to be a part of the gradual change right now.

One thing I know is that you don't love people by throwing money at them. We often think that giving to the poor is a loving act. But loving your neighbor is so much more important. Victor Frankl was able to feel love even in a concentration camp. The Buddha felt it among the suffering of his people. It can be felt anywhere at any time. It exists as an abstract notion, but is evidenced in our actions. Every action should be about love. I hope you can feel love as you read this. It is not my love. It is the love that humanity has developed, and is still developing. If it helps you to think that it is the love of God, then that's a good thing. The important thing is that we do something about it.

I just want a revolution, dammit!

Our True Purpose

We don't know why or where or how life on Earth began. We sort of understand the ingredients but no one can say why the first molecule replicated itself or how amino acids used protein to build cell walls or why cells grew so big that nutrients couldn't reach the nucleus and they divided into smaller cells which did likewise.

But somehow, the storm of life began and since the beginning, it has had one goal: to keep passing on DNA. It has found various ways of doing this, but life wants to continue, and growth and change help ensure that it will.

The body is like a huge corporation and, indeed, the word comes from "corpus" which means body. The corporation comprises billions of workers, all of whom have specialized skills. Some work in accounts receivable, some in advertising, some in sales, some in research and development, and they all answer to a board of directors which makes decisions which will hopefully lead to growth. No corporation wants to be stagnant or, worse yet, take losses. It wants to grow so that all the workers benefit and the company can continue to make its product.

The body is made up of billions of cells, organized into organs, tissue and bones - the departments of the company. The board of directors is the brain and the CEO is, perhaps, God. It is the brain who gets most of the benefits of a healthy body. Cells can die and be replaced and the brain doesn't care as long as the departments are meeting their quota. The male body makes only one product. Sperm. Sperm is the whole reason that the male animal exists. It is why every cell grows and divides, because every cell contains DNA which is the magic formula for Coca-Cola or Colonel Sander's 11 secret herbs and spices - the secret for successful perpetuation of the company.

You may think you are here for some nobler purpose, that your company makes music or art, that your company cures diseases or teaches children. You may think that your success lies in money, homes, cars, jewelry. But the real success of the male body lies in ejaculation. Every little process that occurs in the growing male body happens for one aim - to put sperm into an egg. Men are sperm factories. That is our sole reason for existence.

Perhaps if a male body grew up without ever having ejaculated (which will never happen) then the body would never die. But we'll never know. Once the body has ejaculated, it wants to keep on ejaculating because as far as the cells know, every ejaculation is a successful attempt at passing DNA.

When it has ejaculated enough, it starts thinking about retirement - the workers get lazy and careless because no one wants their product anymore. Workers die and are not replaced. Entire departments are closed down and soon, the corporation can't survive and goes belly up.

But its product is taken up by a young, upstart company with a brilliant future ahead of it. It, too, like its parent company, will be in the business of passing on DNA. If it is a male, it will be a sperm producing factory like its father. If it is a female, it will dedicate many of its workers to build a new factory in about nine months and then have a grand opening.

So where does this leave us childless people? We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. - Willy Wonka.

Serendipity

Here's a piece from a few years ago that led to a totally unforeseeable good bit of fortune. First, let me tell you about the piece. It is cut with an X-acto knife from a single sheet of Stonehenge paper. There was no preliminary drawing of any kind. I just started cutting and drew with my knife. Obviously, you can't erase when you draw this way. It took a lot of concentration to see where things were headed. It was rather hypnotic, and I hope it comes across that way to the viewer. I did a series of cut and torn paper pieces like this and I just hid them away, never having shown them in public, but imagining it would be a great show if I ever did.

Fast-forward a few years and a client sees this piece on my website, http://www.paintingtheearth.com/ and is interested in acquiring it. So I bring it down to Daniel Smith, where I used to work and where I still know someone in the framing department, and I'm waiting for the two ladies ahead of me to finish with their framing order. Cindy, the framer, suggests I bring my pieces out (I had two to frame) of my portfolio and start looking at moldings. So out comes "Maze" and all of a sudden the attention is shifted away from what everyone was doing and over to my side of the work table.

"That is gorgeous!" says one of the ladies. "Do you sell your work?" It turns out she is the curator for the Eastside Association of Fine Arts (EAFA) and they have a gallery at the Design Center where architects and interior designers and other people who buy art and have budgets shop. She all but guarantees that she would show my work. I gave her my card and she invites me to the next EAFA meeting, which happens to be on my day off. After many years of thinking my work was not right for a gallery, mostly because I do so many different things, and galleries want one-trick ponies who can stay on task and produce the same kind of work over and over, someone finally clicks with me. She wasn't really interested in my paintings - I guess anyone can make paintings.

In fact, when I am painting, I feel a kind of responsibility to the history of art. As much as I think my work is original, it is still bound by all the rules and conventions I have grown up with in the art world. But when I am cutting paper, I feel totally original. It's not as if it's never been done - the Japanese even have a name for it - Kitigama - and Kara Walker has recently become quite the art star with her cut-out silhouoettes of African American social history. But no one ever taught me anything about cutting paper. It's entirely from within me somewhere. Seeing the negative spaces and cutting them away reminds me of Michelangelo saying that to make a statue, you just carve away everything that doesn't look like the figure. I don't think Michelangelo really said that, actually I even once heard it in the form of an elephant joke - How do you make a statue of an elephant? - Get a block of marble and carve away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.

You can see other works of this kind on my website at the "Other Work" page. I'm working on a new one right now. I spent six straight hours on it yesterday. I think I probably have an hour or two left to go. I'll post it on the website when it's done. If these sell at the EAFA Design Center Gallery, I may be painting less for a while. I love painting, but I don't know if I'm a master yet (regardless of my Master's degree). With the paper cutting, I feel like I am.

This Is Not My Sky

Though you would not know it to look at me these days, I used to suffer from bipolar disorder. And I do mean suffer. It landed me in the hospital a few times with suicidal depression mixed with manic tendencies to do everything in a big way. The mania often spurred the creative process and I accomplished some great art in spite of often feeling out of control.

But those days are well behind me now, thanks to meds and some great doctors and therapists. Being human, however, I'm still subject to the occasional incidental depression now and then. I'm not sure what brought on the depression that led to he following lyrics, but I did snap out of it eventually. While that grey cloud hung over me, I realized that it was just not like me anymore to feel this way. So I wrote this song, which you can listen to at http://iacmusic.com/artist.aspx?id=128691

Someone Else's Sky

This must be someone else's sky
Cuz mine is blue
This must be someone else's love
Cuz mine is true
And as I look up to the rain
Can't help but wonder why
I'm under someone else's
Someone else's sky

This must be someone else's tale
Cuz mine ends good
In mine the hero doesn't fail
Although he could
But when the princess never shows
And the heroes don't prevail
This must be someone else's
Someone else's tale

These are not my tears
Falling from these red eyes
I know how it appears
But heroes never cry

This is not my brain
Cuz mine works well
This is mot my fate
To go through hell
It is way too late
To psychoanalyze
But this is not my
This is not my sky

There is a difference between a good painting and a good likeness. I think this is a fine painting - it conveys a mood, is an interesting, if simple, composition, makes me want to know who this person is. The model was Megan Taylor, a co-worker and friend. I caught something of her, but there are so many subtleties to what makes a person look the way they do. If the eyes are just millimeters closer together or farther apart, you get a completely different person. That's why, with seven billion of us, we get 7 billion different faces. It's amazing, the variation among just a few facial features. I like that she chose the black tank top to represent her. It shows off her strong, confident figure. And, apparently, her bracelet was her grandmother's, though I didn't know it at the time of the sitting. I might have featured it more prominently. Even though I like this portrait, I've decided that the personality may be better served with more interesting poses from now on. I always tend to do the frontal or 3/4 view. Just saw some great paintings at the Frye museum of Gabriel von Max, who did many faces from surprising viewpoints.