“When governments rely increasingly on sophisticated public relations agencies, public debate disappears and is replaced by competing propaganda campaigns, with all the accompanying deceits. Advertising isn’t about truth or fairness or rationality, but about mobilising deeper and more primitive layers of the human mind.”
– Brian Eno
Alphonse Osbert (1857 – 1939) – Visione, 1892, oil on canvas, cm 235 x 138. French Symbolist painter
Greetings…
A short one. Worked this weekend on a book for a poet. Going over illustrations, corrections, alignments, etc. I love the construction of a piece of art, and all the aspects of it. Happy as a hound as the saying goes.
Lots of work going on with the site. The Daily Art Continues to grow, and I am now working with 2 different types of forum software plugins to allow people to comment on the art found on The Daily Art. My hope, and dream is that this site can be used to bring community together, and to foster change and awareness, channeling the energy here to constructive ends.
Art by its nature should help bring community together. From the Paleolithic onwards, art has been the great focus of our various peoples. Make no mistake, art is a force for change, and it has always been so.
Icy wind of night, be gone.
This is not your domain.
In the sky a bird was heard to cry.
Misty morning whisperings and gentle stirring sounds
Belied a deathly silence that lay all around.
Hear the lark and harken to the barking of the dog fox gone to ground.
See the splashing of the kingfisher flashing to the water.
And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees,
Laughing as it passes through the endless summer making for the sea.
In the lazy water meadow
I lay me down.
All around me,
Golden sunflakes settle on the ground,
Basking in the sunshine of a by gone afternoon,
Bringing sounds of yesterday into this city room.
Hear the lark and harken to the barking of the dog fox gone to ground.
See the splashing of the kingfisher flashing to the water.
And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees,
Laughing as it passes through the endless summer making for the sea.
In the lazy water meadow
I lay me down.
All around me,
Golden sunflakes covering the ground,
Basking in the sunshine of a by gone afternoon,
Bringing sounds of yesterday into my city room.
Hear the lark and harken to the barking of the dog fox gone to ground.
See the splashing of the kingfisher flashing to the water.
And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees,
Laughing as it passes through the endless summer making for the sea.
______________
Here is to fond memories… Angus and Ira became involved with “Bardo Matrix” via John Chick in Kathmandu, in the mid 70’s. I first came in contact with Bardo Matrix in 1966, when I was in Colorado, and just discovering art, music and other delights. The work of Bardo Matrix helped shaped my aesthetics in multiple ways. I first discovered Mandala art through them, and multi-media shows. Now, we host the site for the Bardo Matrix… More on that site soon. There is wonderful His/HerStory about Bardo Matrix. Fabulous Art, Happenings, Publications. Truly wonderful!
Angus and Hetty, 1970’s
Ballad of the Gone MacLise
(For Angus MacLise, died Summer Solstice, June 21st, 1979)
“In the fire is no end
but in the tall grasses
but on the riverbanks
but in the cool breezes urging
but in the long empty days.”
(From Jaguar by Angus MacLise)
Ballad of the Gone MacLise
(For Angus MacLise, died Summer Solstice, June 21st, 1979)
In the poem one can lay down
the heartline, the harp can bring the tears
muffled by the sound of the drum,
your gamelans cut by the Buddha’s knife
of compassion.
Down at the Snowman I heard
them discussing your cremation:
“A dervish has fallen off the roof
the tall skinny one with the coat-hanger shoulders.”
I know the way the pillars of the Vision
trembled before you in the sunlight.
You saw the door of Konya open in the slums
of Brooklyn where light shafted thru’ abandoned
factories in the amphetamine dawn.
Now the shades of Mecca are drawn for you, Poet.
The five Dhyani Buddhas transcend your deep-freeze
and await your burning with cloths of the 5 wisdom colors.
Your unsatisfied cravings fly out of the pyre,
the blessings of your friends crackle with ghee
the white and black til seeds (sesame) burn in
the untrammeled day, and still you are wandering Angus,
passing thru the Bardo Keyhole –
Listen once more to those Tibetan horns,
they are calling you past Freak Street
where you sold the White Goddess for junk
Forget all your regrets and go now with the egret,
put on your robe of sky –
The Vagabond Maverick Poet MacLise
has left these burning halls,
the windtraps are wild with sound,
I see your hands beating a Persian rhythm
on suitcases of itinerant dreams,
I hear the droning of Beelzebub’s flies
making clear the ghastly way,
an opera undone by a chorus of 108 Mahasiddhas
singing your discarded lists of cembalums,
symphonic poems, untold futures.
You bummed cigarettes from Ram,
borrowed time and change from Krishna.
Now that your balance is finally broken
go in peace to the Buddhafields,
nodding in to the sound of your tartan.
The bane is over –
A new wheel is spinning its song.
Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock
we will meet at the Vidyaswari Ghat.
For you it’s free, this one way ticket
which is non-transferable,
Remember that before you try to come back.
May light mantle your shadow and
may you not see what is not to be seen.
Farewell, MacLise, thawing on the Riverbank,
I do not expect to meet your like again,
Farewell, brother, the shadow of Don Quixote
lowers its lance and you are overstood.
– Ira Cohen – June 27th 1979. Kathmandu, Nepal. Ira Cohen
_____________
John Dowland… The hours spent with his music. Here, to share with you.
Hey Friends,
Just a quick one. Be sure to check out The Daily Art!!
Yuri’s Night!
So, tonight is Yuri’s Night. I raised a toast tonight with my son Rowan and his beautiful lady Suzanne to Yuri’s bravery, and adventure… Being the first human in space, pushing the evolutionary bubble further and beyond any place that to that point any known human had gone. I cannot imagine what it was like, but heavens, what a feat. This is a celebration of the spirit encapsulated in one man of what we are capable of doing as a species. I don’t care if he was Soviet, Russian, whatever.
Here is to you Yuri, thank you, thank you, thank you for leading the way. Raise a glass to him if you will, step outside, look up to the stars. We are at home in the Multiverse.
Yuri Gagarin
I dreamed of Yuri Gagarin straddling an atomic bomb,
I dreamed of grace and annihilation weightless and atmospheric
I dreamed of gravity as the tyranny of man
I dreamed of a view of this world from the sun, ashes in a cosmic crematorium
I dreamed of ice and fire, winter and war
I dreamed of mutually assured destruction, eyes watching the sky
I dreamed of watching from on high, all glory hallelujah and twinkling giants
I dreamed of falling back down, arms spread in unbreakable faith
I dreamed of Yuri Gagarin, alone among the stars, saint of that
great abyss, smiling as he met God, and asking him in a calm and
reassuring tone, where he’s been all this time
– Tyler King
_____
Yuri Gagarin Was a Great Russian Poet
Yuri Gagarin was a great Russian poet;
Russia shoved him out of herself into the sky,
as if into exile,
as if to the Caucasus,
and he boarded a carriage, that is, a rocket –
for the path of rockets, that’s the path of poets – said: Let’s go!
and smiled his Gagarin smile.
And in that smile was the whole Earth,
the very best that’s here,
Earth in blue radiance,
news to the sky from humanity –
because the poet’s the one who speaks with the sky,
overcoming gravity
as if it were the language barrier.
– Inna Kabysh
The poem was read by Natalia Romanova
Translated from the Russian by Katherine E. Young
_____
Ballad for the death of Gagarin
Look at Gagarin, strong
His life
is not a submerged rose
he becomes neither mud nor moss
In the blast of the fall
no one heard the flood of death.
The world cries. But why? The life
of the hero is suspended in a star
Oh, world! He can see you
and offers you a flowered branch
In the blast of the fall
no one heard the wind of death.
His face is stopped, lies unmoving,
but his voice echoes and spreads
from life in life, and life in life.
Look at Gagarin, strong
In the blast of the fall
no one heard the thunder of death.
He left on a flight with no boundaries.
His blue light floods the night
and every star blazes.
Look at Gagarin, strong.
In the blast of the fall
he passed and smiled over death.
– Nicolás Guillén, (at one time the national poet of Cuba)
…
Balada por la muerte de Gagarin
Miradlo a Gagarin fuerte
Su vida
no es una rosa sumergida
ni en lodo y musgo se convierte.
En el fragor de la caída
nadie oyó el agua de la muerte.
El mundo llora. Mas ¿por que? La vida
del héroe está en un astro suspendida.
¡Oh mundo! El puede verte
y brindarte una rama florecida.
El el fragor de la caida
nadie oyó el viento de la muerte.
Su rostro se detuvo, yace inerte,
mas su gran voz resuena repartida
de vida en vida y vida en vida.
Miradlo a Gagarin fuerte.
En el fragor de la caída
nadie oyó el trueno de la muerte.
Partió en un vuelo sin medida.
Su luz azul la noche vierte
Y cada estrella está encendida.
Miradlo a Gagarin fuerte.
En el fragor de la caída
pasó y sonrió sobre la muerte.
_____
Gagarin In Space
Up here, being enclosed in the spaceship ‘Vostok’,
I feel like a fetus penetrating into another world,
as the soul of Orkath in the painting of El Greco.
From the porthole I see the earth in pale blue,
while outside, by my side, exquisite colors spread,
from the palette of the sky on the canvas of my eyes.
As I get back I’ll speak in Cyprus and everywhere,
that from that height I saw the Nazi tyrant as an ant,
I saw the World Bank and other Pharisees like dice
thrown by Heraclitus and the children of Ephesus.
I was terrified seeing the Finance as a house of sins,
I saw muddy waters swallowing limousines avidly,
tsunamis, hurricanes eating carnivals and casinos,
I saw the Colosseum cracked, letting lions to rush out.
I cried watching the forests and glaciers to fall dead,
I saw torn land, the migrating birds blown out on air.
However I see the young man finding gold veins
with a value that is gained but not be donated.
He is the buried seed, now resurrected as a tree.
Here there is light, not coin, product of the verb ‘think’,
I have learned to paint the truth of Greatness,
doves of peace flied over here to be my companion.
Here is the high art, where the light works inside us.
– Joseph S. Josephides
__________ Laika – Almost Sleepy
Jean Delville Jean Delville (1867– 1953) -Belgian symbolist painter, author, poet, and teacher.
“There exists somewhere, around us, without or within us, in the depths of the unseen world, spheres where are formed the eternal images reflected in our intellects, and which the artist or poet filch from Mystery by the magic…power of their imagination, that mysterious divine faculty which must be known in order to be in tune with the harmony of the World.” – Jean Delville
_________
Just a quick one…
You can find updates on the site in The Featured Artist Area, The Writing Area & The Daily Art Area. Also, we are continuing to feature “The Nova Express” Mix on Radio EarthRites. Please check them out!
Here is an entry to let you know what is up on the site, and a bit on a subject I have been reinvestigating as of late. Years ago, before Carlos Castenada, I was introduced through metaphysical studies, the realms of the Occult. Not really unusual, but along the way I discovered Sorcery, and specifically Sorcerers… I will not go into great details about them, but I realized that there are often parallel worlds occurring around us that we are unaware of, and struggles going on that would seem inconceivable to the everyday reality. The concept of Sorcery has been raising its multifaceted head lately though, and again I have turned my attention to it. In films (Dr. Strange!) and in other forms of media the term and reports of it are popping up. Sorcery takes many forms. It is not all capes, flying through the air, or casting spells of doom or light. It is often a persistent nudging of consciousness, an exercise of will.
Anyway, I have written a bit about it. You can find it below…
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
________ On The Menu:
Sorcery
The Links
New Moon Duo!
New Blotter Art Available!
Les poètes maudits
Moon Duo – Sevens
__________
the use of magic, especially black magic.
synonyms: (black) magic, the black arts, witchcraft, wizardry, enchantment, spells, incantation, witching, witchery, thaumaturgy
“the practice of sorcery was strictly forbidden”
Middle English sorcerie, from Anglo-French, from sorcer sorcerer, from Medieval Latin sortiarius, from Latin sort-, sors chance, lot
________________ Sorcery…
So, we are seeing a fine bit of sorcery as of late in the world…
Some of the basics in the sorcerer’s bag include the manipulation of language, repeated ritual, the application of will. One can cause a shifting of realities through combining these. It is the oldest of tools. Weave a version of a story of how you would want it to be, repeat it again and again, and again with ritualistic intent, the steady application of will and you’ll change the way your audience/participants caught up in the ritual perceives the world, and presto! You’ll have influenced reality to your model.
This is not a new tool, and it’s been a tool of statecraft and media since the concept of rule began. This shaping of reality is a constant, and deliberate act. It has led to such fruitful ideas as “Sacred Kingship”, “State”, “Patriotism”, ad nauseam. This line of sorcery, is only matched by it’s twin pulling along the same chariot: Religion.
As of late, the waters around these forms of sorcery have been in many cases strengthened by the new systems of communication, i.e. Radio, Television, Internet (especially Internet!) Yet, the center shall not hold. There are so many competing players now with so many variants in agendas that the foundations of these ancient structures are now collapsing. New Mages are emerging. Sorcerers with competing world views are now in combat in new realms that were never explored before. The whole show that we have been enthralled with since the neolithic is now in great upheaval, and traditional delivery systems are moving into collapse with great acceleration.
From Meme Sorcerers on the Right, to Meme Sorcerers on the Left, new fields of battle are being exploited. New beings are arising out of AI, beings that will engage with you, talk to you, try to persuade, and if that doesn’t work attack you. These are beings that are growing in strength, and are moving at break neck speed into the arena’s of light and dark.
Expect more chaos, has arrived… and it is not all bad!
__________________________________________ The Links! Sorcery… The Mind Of The Flat Earther… Catfish Can Fly!
__________________________________________ Moon Duo – Will Of The Devil
_____________________ New Blotter Art Available!
_____
Library of the doomed (XIV): “Les poètes maudits” by Paul Verlaine, published in Paris in 1884. A homage to Tristan Corbière, Arthur Rimbaud, Stéphane Mallarmé, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam and Pauvre Lelian (Paul Verlaine himself).
La fileuse file en versant des larmes
Sur son lin choisi s’inclinent ses charmes.
Le fil oublié glisse de ses doigts,
Et ses chants d’oiseaux tremblent dans sa voix.
Sa quenouille est là toute négligée…
Oh! d’un jour à l’autre on est si changée!
Quoi! plus une rose à son front rêveur!
Qu’est-ce donc qu’elle a? Je crois qu’elle a peur…
Elle était hier au banc de l’enfance
Avec ses fuseaux pour toute défense;
Mais le soir l’enfant ne les avait pas
Quand quelqu’un dans l’ombre a suivi ses pas.
Personne aujourd’hui ne la voit plus rire.
En si peu d’instants qu’a-t-on pu lui dire?
Ah! pour qu’elle file en versant des pleurs,
Il faut que dans l’ombre on ait pris ses fleurs.
Ein Lämplein verlosch in meinem Zelt!
Heil sei dem Freudenlicht der Welt!
* * * * * * * * * * * *
And now, the bright sun rises
As if nothing happened during this night!
The spinner spins while pouring tears;
She impresses her charms upon her flax.
The forgotten thread slides through her fingers,
And the songs of birds tremble in her voice.
Her distaff is utterly neglected…
Oh! One is so changed from one day to the next!
What! No more rosy bloom on brow of this dreamer?
What, then, does she have? I believe she has a fear…
It was yesterday upon the bank of her childhood
With only her spindle for defense;
But one evening the child had nothing
When someone in the shadows followed her steps.
No one today sees her laugh anymore.
In those fleeting instants what might one have told her?
Ah! In order that she spin while pouring forth tears
It is necessary to take some flowers.
A little lamp is extinguished in my tent.
Hello, oh joyous light of this world.
___________________ Jean Delville
___________________ Moon Duo – Sevens
The Evil of Perversity, 1891 // Jean Delville Jean got carried away with his titles at times…. 😉
Welcome to Gwyllm.com…
Anyway, it’s Saturday, and I am working away on a couple of projects, but I thought I would take some time out to bring some new art, and ideas to the feast.
The Daily Art:
We have a new page… The Daily Art … It seems that I am losing the ability to post on Facebook (which, okay, I get it) is kinda like the universe nudging me away from that place. Instead, I will be posting here daily.
On the board as well is the idea of having a forum connected to the images, for comments etc. If you have any thoughts on this let me know.
Radio EarthRites:
The latest Show! Tune in! “The Nova Express!”
9 hours of music, covering a large, very large field of diverse bands, solo acts and projects. Give it a go if ya like.
Thoughts On A Year… I found this in my unpublished section. It is a take on the last year, and the changes it held for me. A bit personal, but maybe of interest: (another take on Hello! Goodbye!)
2016: It started out very well, I was turning out art, had a hell of a good time speaking at The Exploring Psychedelics Conference at Southern Oregon University in mid April. Shortly after, my Step Mother passed, followed by my Father, 19 days later. A week after that, we received notice that the house we had lived in for the past 2.5 years was going up for sale. Of course, there was all kinds of scrambling after this. We did eventually find a new place (quite nice actually!), and I have had to make a couple of excursions down to Bat Country to take care of family biz with the passing of the parental units. I have only gotten back up on the creative horse again, after what has been a very, very dry 7 months.
With all that passed with the year, I started to think about a larger picture, that being our lives, from inception to ejection from the earthly realms. I try to hone ideas down to a frame work that is easier to grasp. I came up with this: “The first part, or half of our lives we are saying hello. The second part, or half, we are saying goodbye.” A bit simplistic maybe, but hold on for a bit as I build on the basic idea. We come into the world, we say hello first to our mothers, to light, to darkness, to touch, family, the round and turning world. Everything is new; everything a discovery. We say hello to friends, to school, to the creatures of the world as we discover them one after another. We are bathed in Hello! We discover and say hello to ideas, to stories, to the myths… to meeting our first loves, to our first lover, to work, to beauty, and more.
Of course we are saying goodbye probably from the start; from the natal ocean, and as it goes along, to innocence, to the purity that we come in upon. The goodbyes accelerate as you get older, to the first deaths of friends, perhaps in ones youth, to older family members. We say goodbye with more and more frequency. We say goodbye to myriads of situations as we grow, we say goodbye as we shed old identities, we say goodbye to other lovers perhaps when we become married, we sometimes say goodbye to those we marry through divorce. As we age, our mates, our friends, hero’s, places, all change, or die. In the end, we say goodbye to this wonderful place called the world. It is a process…
We cannot have one without the other it seems. As the years go on, I have found myself standing in a middle ground, and watching the process unfold. I think the term for some is “non-attachment”, which plays out as the opposite of “fond attachment”, which seems to be the standard operating mode. As I watch the hair on my head slip to growing out on my ears, in my ears, on my back… you get the picture. Everything changes. Change of course is the constant. We move, or become stuck in stasis. Life is always dealing these lessons, up to the very end.
You learn to say Hello with Love, and Goodbye with Love. Abilities grow, and then perhaps flee, your lovers (on all types of levels) one day are gone. We learn to look into the self, and appraise the path you have trodden. Hopefully, regret will not play a huge part in this.
It was a wonderful, and terrible year. So much to process with the passing time.
Here is to another year seemingly flying by so quickly, with all of its new opportunities. May your time here be filled with love.
Bright Blessings,
G
___________ (René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (1875-1926). Painting by Maler) Poesy: Rainer Maria Rilke
Sacrifice
How my body blooms from every vein
more fragrantly, since you appeared to me;
look, I walk slimmer now and straighter,
and all you do is wait-:who are you then?
Look: I feel how I’m moving away,
how I’m shedding my old life, leaf by leaf.
Only your smile spreads like sheer stars
over you and, soon now, over me.
Whatever shines through my childhood years
still nameless and gleaming like water,
I will name after you at the altar,
which is blazing brightly from your hair
and braided gently with your breasts.
_____
You Who Never Arrived
You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don’t even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me — the far-off, deeply-felt
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and
unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods–
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.
You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house– , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,–
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening…
___
At The Brink Of Night
My room and this distance,
awake upon the darkening land,
are one. I am a string
stretched across deep
surging resonance.
Things are violin bodies
full of murmuring darkness,
where women’s weeping dreams,
where the rancor of whole generations
stirs in its sleep . . .
I should release
my silver vibrations: then
everything below me will live,
and whatever strays into things
will seek the light
that falls without end from my dancing tone
into the old abysses
around which heaven swells
through narrow
imploring
rifts.
___
The Poet
O hour of my muse: why do you leave me,
Wounding me by the wingbeats of your flight?
Alone: what shall I use my mouth to utter?
How shall I pass my days? And how my nights?
I have no one to love. I have no home.
There is no center to sustain my life.
All things to which I give myself grow rich
and leave me spent, impoverished, alone.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
__________ Tomorrow Never Knows – Electric Moon
So, welcome again to the new site. This is a fairly extensive entry, lots to mull over, and to spend time with. I will be posting here more and more, so stop back often. 😛
It seems that Radio EarthRites has admirers, at least enough to copy and past our old logo from earthrites.org, and run a stream pretending to be us… which they are not. Listen to the original, please.
Getting ready for Exploring Psychedelics Conference coming at the end of May. I am contemplating a small review of the talk I am giving, which is “Emerging Culture and Psychedelia” tracing the roots back over a wide range of time. I hope you check out their site, and I hope to see you all there.
New Art!
I have some new art to share, Blotter work: Gwyllm-Art Blotter! I am very excited about it, this is the first blotter of mine that has been released in many years. The first piece, “Aldous Huxley – Doors of Perception” was designed specifically for Blotter Art years ago. “The Chemist” is a more recent design, put together as an homage to the late Sasha Shulgin a year before his passing:
I hope you enjoy these two pieces. I so enjoy the process of creating them, and to see the results. We still have some low numbers left, in the signed and numbered prints, as well as in the Artist Proofs.
______
With all of that said, enjoy your visit, look around and if you want to send me feedback, or suggestions on the site, content, please let me know. Lots more soon, please stop by again, and share gwyllm.com with your friends. 😉
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
_____________________________ On The Menu:
The Links
Sunspot – Of The Wand & The Moon
Elise Cowen Poetry
The Architect Tonality of Psychogeographic, or The Hieroglyphics of Driftwork – Hakim Bey
Hanshan Poetry
Et in Arcadia Ego
Virelai – Skåledans – Toasting Dance
_______________________ The Links: The Lost City Where Did They Go? Darwin Sez.. Chill. Emptiness? Cassanova?
_______________________ Sunspot – Of The Wand & The Moon
_______________________ Elise Cowen Poetry
[Your arms around me all night]
Your arms around me all night
I woke to find me there
Cramped
Frightened
Not knowing what you held
Cramped Frightened
By the tenderness holding me
And once my eyes opened on
Creation
Tearing through your face
In the act of come,
I didn’t know you looked like that
Alone.
Time.
Everything I love, I need to be
Hides in you.
____
Emily,
Come summer
You’ll take off you
d jeweled bees
Which sting me
I’ll strip my stinking
d jeans
Hand in hand
We’ll run outside
Look straight at
d the sun
A second time
And get tan
___
The first eye opens by the sun’s warmth
to stare at it
The second eye is ripped open by an
apothecary & propped with toothpicks,
systems & words
and likes to blink in mirrors
I only know there may be more because
one hurts when I think too much
The first eye is blind
there is no other
___
TEACHER–YOUR BODY MY KABBALAH…
Teacher–your body my Kabbalah
Rahamim–Compassion
Tiferete–Beauty
The aroma of Mr. Rochesters cigars
among the flowers
Bursting through
I am trying to choke you
Delicate thought
Posed
Frankenstein of delicate grace
posed by my fear
And you
Graciously
Take me by the throat
The body hungers before the soul
And after thrusts for its own memory
Why not afraid to hurt elig–
couldn’t hurt me except in wit, in funny
I couldn’t, wouldn’t art in relation
but with a rose or rather skunk cabbage
Just–Mere come I break through grey paper
room
Your
Frankenstein
What is the word from Deberoux Babtiste
the Funambule I
Desnuelu (who’s he?) to choke you
Duhamel and you
De brouille Graciously
Deberaux Take me by the throat
Decraux
Barrault
Deberaux
Delicate
French logic
Black daisy chain of nuns
Nous sommes tous assasins
Keith’s jumping old man in the waves
methadrine
morning dance of delicacy
“I want you to pick me up
when I fall down”
I wouldn’t and fell
not even death
I waited for
stinking
with the room
like cat shit
would take me
Donald’s first bed wherein this fantasy
shame changing him to you
And you talking of plum blossom scrolls
and green automobiles
Shame making body thought
a game
Cat’s cradle & imaginary
lattices of knowledge & Bach
system
Fearing making guilt making shame
making fantasy & logic & game &
elegance of covering splendour
emptying memory of the event
covering splendour with mere elegance
covering
sneer between the angels
Wouldn’t couldn’t
Fear of the killer
dwarf with the bag of tricks & colonels picture
To do my killing for me
God is hidden
And not for picture postcards.
EMILY…
Emily white witch of Amherst
The shy white witch of Amherst
Killed her teachers
With her love
I’ll rather mine entomb
my mind
Or best that soft grey dove.
Allen Ginsberg & Elise Cowen/When they were lovers…
_______________________ The Architect Tonality of Psychogeographic, or The Hieroglyphics of Driftwork– Hakim Bey
(in memoriam Guy Debord)
obscure & mysterious grottoes into which they enter, imitating serpents – spaces of return to an intimacy that “once upon a time” was shattered by memory – by the simultaneous reiteration & belatedness of memory – that faculty of human consciousness “closet to the divine”. But don’t they say that “to forgive is human, to forget is divine” ? In the ritual reiteration or “remembrance” (dhikr) of the sufis one forgets the “self” precisely in order to recall the Self; – thus to re-member is to erase separation, & this erasure is a species of forgetfulness. (In certain key Islamic buildings like the Alhambra the reiteration of dhikr as calligrammatic text becomes the very definition of built space as mnemonic device or “Memory Palace” – not ornament but the very basis or crystal-precipitation-principle of architecture.)
“Since we are Jesus Christ,” as one of the Brethren of the free Spirit boasted, “the only issue is that what is already perfect in us should be reiterated …” This process however leads to a paradoxical un-learning – hence to a loss of fear – so that one can “let oneself be led by one’s natural senses, like a little child”. Now, the cave stands for unconsciousness; – the goal however is not to lose unconsciousness but to recapture that which unconsciousness separated us from, that which consciousness “spoiled”. Thus within the dark grotto itself memory must be paradoxically inscribed – key images are reiterated (literally repeated in some cases by a palimpsestic or incisive over-drawing) – images which represent out lost intimacy as a pantheon of animals (“good to think with”) – each animal a special joy or “divine” function. Thus the the cave becomes the first intentional architectural space, the intersection of unconsciousness (the bliss of “Nature”) & consciousness (memory , reiteration).
Ever since Plato we’ve been taught to revere anamnesis – but let’s descend to the pre-Platonic cave, the paleolithic grotto, to recover the positive dialectic of amnesia – without which memory becomes simply a curse, coagulating at last as History (the degree of zero of memory as suffocation): the first city (Çatalk Hüyük) is already arranged as a gridwork, the very antithesis of the grotto’s aesthetic shapelessness, it’s meandering & amazing spaces, it’s melted stalagmites & stalactites – its organicity (which is never the less expressed as mineral life). The cities of Sumer & Harappa were likewise laid out as severe grids, cruel abstractions of linearity. To draw a line is to separate, to create spatial hierarchy (between priest & people, rich & poor, surplus & scarcity) and to define the topia of memory against the dark unconscious of the tribe, the u-topian cave, the organic wild(er)ness. The tertium quid or coincidentia oppositorium here (between “grotto” & Babylon) might appear in the medieval city (which still survives in a few places in the Islamic world) where the excessive cruelty of the grid is mollified – not erased but softened – by a recording of a space according to the tree or the river-delta model (chaotic bifurcation ranging to complexity based on intra-dimensional “strange attractors”) – an urbanism of the organic, the aesthetic, & the complex or plural (as opposed to the inorganic, the ideological, & the simple or total).
The medieval city is an extruded grotto Some of these cities introduced allegorical pageants or parades in which huge emblem-complexes (composite hieroglyphs) were built & set up or carried around the labyrinth of streets. Myths & legends were acted out: – sometimes the Lord Mayor played the role of “Lord Mayor”, wandering thru a street-theater of encounters with symbolic characters (like Bloom in Nighttown), thus re-newing the City as its elected Hero undergoing the initiation of ritual marriage with the urban goddess.
Here the Free City comes to a synchronic & ludic consciousness of itself hic et nunc, rather than succumb to the miserabilist diachronism of power’s violence. In this Hermetic City we find the background or womb-space of the alchemical Emblem Books, and the narrativity of a Bosch or Breughel. Memory loses its heaviness here & takes on a folkloric air, carnivalesque (the festival as reiteration of pleasure) with built shapes that appropriate (thru design or thru the accidents of decay & accretion) the forms of breasts, phalluses, wombs, rocks & water, moss & flowers, even of wind & light.
The Babylonian grid-city wants memory to persist thru time – smooth & empty time – but as Dali showed, memory persists only in the deliquescense of measured time. The medieval-hermetic city (like Blake’s Green Jerusalem) preserves memory but in a “disordered” way – like akashic marmalade – time which is textured & full. “Babylon” preserves order (or else!) – but what happens to memory there ? Isn’t it transmuted into the poison formaldehyde of History, the re-iterated tale of our poverty & their power, taxonomic myth of the ruling class ? Who can blame us for harboring both a nostalgia & an insurrectionary desire for the narrow winding alleys, shadowy steps, covered ways & tunnels, middens & cellars of a city which has designed itself – organically, unconsciously – within an aesthetic of festive & secret conviviality, & of the curvaciuos negentropic mutability of memory itself ?
The psychic urbanism of the 1960’s constituted yet another attempt to reclaim built memory for this “Romantic” project – rus in urbe, as F. Law Olmstead put it – “The country in the city” – reintroduction of the eternal “baroque” (as in “baroque pearl”) or spontaneous form – (like the miraculous fungoid cinnabar grottoes of Mao Shan Taoism, created by the Imaginal potency of the Adept) – which is also the “divine” spontaneity, unconsciousness & forgetting, of Nature. A project for the builders of some near-future No Go Zone: – the city of psychogeographic resistance, the anti-grid, architectonality of driftwork, festal space – and the Cave of Fluid Memory. Rock & water – the reverie of the bard, the forgetfulness of the gods.
________________ Hanshan (Cold Mountain) Poetry
Beyond Silence
Blue-green spring water,
white moonlit mountain.
Quiet wisdom of the spirit:
empty gaze beyond silence.
______
Here’s a message for the faithful
Here’s a message for the faithful
what is it that you cherish
to find the Way to see your nature
your nature is naturally so
what Heaven bestows is perfect
looking for proof leads you astray
leaving the trunk to search among the twigs
all you get is stupid
______
This rare and heavenly creature
This rare and heavenly creature
alone without peer
look and it’s not there
it comes and goes but not through doors
it fits inside a square-inch
it spreads in all directions
unless you acknowledge it
you’ll meet but never know
______
You have seen the blossoms among the leaves;
You have seen the blossoms among the leaves;
tell me, how long will they stay?
Today they tremble before the hand that picks them;
tomorrow they wait someone’s garden broom.
Wonderful is the bright heart of youth,
but with the years it grows old.
Is the world not like these flowers?
Ruddy faces, how can they last?
________________ Et in Arcadia ego
Et in Arcadia ego (also known as Les bergers d’Arcadie or The Arcadian Shepherds) is a 1637–38 painting by Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665).
Had a night of vivid dreams of returning to my stepfather’s & mother’s house from years ago. No one was there, all had passed on. (as they have in “Reality”) Yet, in the house were treasures. I was bringing people in, to choose what they could use in their lives. I brought a young friend in, pregnant now with her 3rd child to choose what she would need in her life.
I found a shelf of beautiful books of my stepfather’s. He was a master book binder, but also had an incredible Occult & Metaphysical collection. I touched each and every book, knowing that they held great value for me.
I stepped into the ancient stream, finding my place in the great dance….
Excerpt:
“Et in Arcadia Ego …” — These words may have first appeared in a painting by Il Guercino (c.1618) of the same name. Throughout the Renaissance, this phrase was used as a sort of code word for “the underground stream,” an invisible college of kindred souls who secretly shared their esoteric knowledge with one another, passing it around Europe via a network of secret societies and mystery schools, often utilizing its arcane symbolism in works of art and literature. Such symbolism shows up, for instance, in the works of Rene d’Anjou, Giordano Bruno, Leonardo da Vinci, Nicholas Poussin, and many others. The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail(Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln) describe thusly the symbolism of the underground stream:
… the motif of an underground stream seems to have been extremely rich in symbolic and allegorical resonances. Among other things, it would appear to connote the ‘underground’ esoteric tradition of Pythagorean, Gnostic, Cabalistic, and Hermetic thought. But it might also connote something more than a general corpus of teachings, perhaps some very specific factual information — ‘secret’ of some sort transmitted in clandestine fashion from generation to generation. And it might connote an unacknowledged and thus ‘subterranean’ bloodline.
_________________________ Virelai – Skåledans – Toasting Dance
Alvin Booth: Osmosis, Untitled #9905475, 1999
100 x 50 cm (40 x 20 inch)
Silver Gelatin Photograph, Copper and Glass, Ed. 10
____________________________________
Goodbye:
Dear Friends,
So, after 12-13 years and over a 1000 post, I am laying “Turfing” to rest. To be clear, it was a name chosen by William King, a friend down Austin way who first set up Turfing for me on some ancient platform (this place is set up on Word Press). I took the name gladly, it was a gift in his regards for my efforts, and ideas. He gave me a kick to the butt to get out in the world and it worked! I want to thank William for his efforts on my behalf way back when.
This is part of the process of reinvention that started a couple of years back. I am a bit like a snake shedding its skin. I have felt this coming on for awhile. I started earthrites.org to be a collective. Turfing grew out of that. The collective idea kind of withered away, but Turfing grew and went on to do some great things, as example:
1. It got me to write again
2. I was able to share my favourite poetry.
3. I was able to share art that I loved.
4. I was able to share music that moved me.
5. My curiosity grew through the searches I performed for material for the blog.
6. Feedback. It was nice to hear from people, and to know that I touched people with what I had found, shared, and talked about.
Turfing has been more than what most think as a blog, but more of an ongoing magazine, journal, catalog of social events, and it helped build an on line community that is still vibrant in many ways
So, out of Turfing came a creative run that was fever pitched at times. It got me off of my creative duff, and made me produce daily. Out of this period, in large part my art was reborn, and The Invisible College Magazine came about.
So, I lay Turfing down now as the juices for it dried up over time. It revived recently, but in preparation for this change.
John Dee At The Court Of Elizabeth The 1st.
Hello:
I had begun to think along the lines of a different sort of set up, and this will be what I call, “The Hare’s Tale“. I will be weaving stories and essays that I have written, presenting videos of talks that I am now starting to give, sharing new and varied artist along with galleries of their works. One might ask, why “The Hare’s Tale”? If you have followed me at all on social media, you’d of seen multiple images of Hares & Rabbits over the last few years. It really isn’t an obsession in the classic sense (well maybe it is 😉 ) Anyway, living in the UK years ago, I used to coarse Hares & Rabbits with my friend John in Devon. He had a beautiful Lurcher, a wonderful dog. 9 out of 10 times though the Hare or Rabbit would get away. Often before diving into the brambles and undergrowth, they would take a celebratory leap, or do a strange dance movement whilst in mid-air. As I recall, standing there, watching that leap, I had always been fascinated by them. It turns out I was born in the year of the Iron Hare (Chinese Calendar), and being born whilst the sun was in Virgo, The correspondence of Hare with Hermes/Mercury, and various Celtic deities.
(This was not hunting for sport, but for food. John had a family to feed, was unemployed at that time, with a weekly benefit of 6 pounds, which would buy you maybe 4 pints at that time…)
_______________________
Part of the plans includes more book reviews, discussions on art creation including supply suggestions, and more ideas along these lines.
There still will be plenty of poetry, articles, music. That will never go away, but the field widens now to what I feel are larger cultural concerns.
This really in the Beta Testing Stage…
It is now a wide unexplored field, stretching towards the imaginal horizon. I plan to make the next few years the most productive of my life, and to see where this project takes us. Thank you for being along for the ride.
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
______________ I’ll Let Maddy Explain:
______________
Now, for a bit of content.
I put this together in response to the current “Administrations” proposed cuts to social spending on such items as “Meals On Wheels”, School Lunches, Housing Vouchers for the Poor, etc. The convoluted logic that it is passed as policy is nothing short of Barbarity. I know that we can come together in our communities to protect and stand with those less fortunate than us, those that are discriminated against, those pursued by unjust, and inhumane laws and policies.
“I abandon myself to the fever of dreams, in search for new laws.”
– Antonin Artaud, from ‘The Death of Satan and Other Mystical Writings’
_____________
Roberto Ferri – Vanitas
I posted this painting by Roberto Ferri on Facebook as a contemplation of death, much in the line of “The Vanities” oft portrayed in art. It turned out to be the straw that broke the camels back. For posting this image, FB banned me for 30 days. I want to thank them for reminding me what I was actually here for, and it wasn’t to fit into their concepts of a closed feedback loop, that fed commercial exploitation of information shared on line.
If I had a poem to pick to go with it, it would be this one:
“Death”
Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all;
Many times he died,
Many times rose again.
A great man in his pride
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision upon
Supersession of breath;
He knows death to the bone
Man has created death.
“I abandon myself to the fever of dreams, in search for new laws.”
