KRISTOPHERKUPPER.COM

A Farewell to Say Hello

Kristopher — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:45:00 GMT

Duh!

What was I thinking?
I have been writing, reaching out into the dream/ether,
making sense out, shaping and sharing this practice of mine.

It all worked itself out.
All the pieces fell into place.
They were already in place.
I just happened to notice.

That is, except the act of blogging about it.

Who am I talking to? Why?
Most of what I say is just going to raise defenses anyway.
Who do I need to share this with but myself?
Who's dream is it anyway?

Anyone who seriously considers the concept of absolute truth
will reach similar conclusions.
Anyone who looks into the nature of the present moment
can open the gift.

This perfectly un-worldly logical philosophy is there
for anyone who wants to grok it.

So, friends, if you want to hear more from me about my practice,
I'll keep in touch by email.
Leave your email address and name when you leave a comment.
I won't approve the comment, so no one else will know.

Oh well, It seemed like a good thing to do at the time.
That time is gone...only the words remain, for a while anyway.

Blogging helped me process the ideas and, wallah, no need to say anymore.

Those last several blogs pretty much laid it all out.
Now is game-time.

From now on this will be an art blog;
just one of those pretty items in the window you can pass by
and appreciate or not.
Maybe it won't be soooo ordinary.
Maybe you'll hear the silence of what I'm not writing about.
Maybe you'll see it. That would be cool.

It's always there if we hear it or not.

Peace, Love, Happiness, Forever
As It Is...
No Substitutes

To Decide Is To Kill God

Kristopher — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:16:00 GMT

Taken from the latin dei=Deity and cide=to kill, the word "decide" states clearly that to practice decision is to kill God. Every day, in fact, every moment we are making the decision to kill God.

How can this be? How can our decision to order a mocha latte, for example, have anything to do with murdering God? How could anyone kill the Eternal One?

We don't literally kill God, which is impossible. What we do is create another god and worship it instead. The new god is us. We make two of what is naturally one. We either make a decision to kill our own god, our idol, which simply brings us back to Truth, or we kill (omit from our awareness) the true God and create a world, a god or gods, a personality etc. of our own.

When we make a decision on our own we say to ourselves that we have the power to separate what cannot be separated. We make a colossal lie and believe it. Why do this? To be our separate ego self.

Everything we think we are is a lie.

To quote Descartes, "I think, therefore, I am." This is the quintessential idea of the ego mind, the separated one. It presupposes that I exist separately and that my thinking proves it. It is the banner of victory the ego waves in God's face. "I think, therefore, I am, and you can't do anything about it." Who is this "I" that thinks? It is none other than the psycho/spiritual/physical manifestation of our "self", our brain in a body in a world, that we embrace as our reality, no questions asked.

Who is writing this post? I am; with fingers that type and a brain that thinks. But let's look deeper.

If you extend the quote to,"I think, therefore, I think I am," some opening is introduced; perhaps I am just a thought. The idea of who or what I am is secondary to the belief that I am a thinking something, a thought that thinks. Still, even if a disembodied idea I am still separate. Who is pondering the question? Me. How am I pondering the question? With symbols that serve to further fortify my extant agreement of who I am. It is an inescapable trap. In a sense I am always referencing myself as I try to figure out who I am. The decision to be separate is secure. It's a fools dance in the palace of smoke and mirrors.

In any thought a decision has already been made. It is the purpose of the thought wherein lies all the power we have.

Is the purpose to be right about who I am and what the world is, whatever that happens to be today? Or is the purpose to let go of my need to define myself and learn of who I must be, who we must be. I do have reality, but only in Truth.

If Truth is...then it cannot be meaningfully decided against except by way of illusions. We can deny the truth, but we can not alter it. The truth is decidedly not an illusion. To accept the Truth is to "kill" the ego god. Who is the ego god? Any god we believe in. God does not need us to believe. The Truth doesn't change because we deny it or accept it.

The only sacrifice, which is not a sacrifice at all, is all the drama we chose over the peace of God.
The only sacrifice, which is not a sacrifice at all, is all the drama we chose over the peace of God.

As I have said in earlier posts...we are not important. However, our decision to accept Truth and to let illusions go bye-bye is the most important action we can undertake.

The Truth that sets us free is the real Truth. What it sets us free of is our ideas of a separate reality, of not being free, of being small and in need. It allows us to remember who we are, who we were and always will be; in Truth...not in illusion, which never was. The veil disappears and we see our True Self.

It is an amazing and terrifying thought to consider...I do not exist; this person, these friends, this world, all that I identify with, all that i believe. It is incomprehensible. But let's not let that weakness of the ego mind deter us from re-discovering Truth.

The embrace of Truth is perfectly secure, wholly loving, and entirely ours, always.

Happy Independence Day

For A Good Time Call God

Kristopher — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:20:00 GMT

Warning: this post begins a bit heavy but ends on a Light note

It’s interesting to me how most “paths to heaven” include the traveler and the path but little or no consideration of the destination beyond romantic idealization. “How do I get there?” is the primary question; few ask, “What is there?” Philosophers waste a shit load of candle wax pondering the question “Who am I?” Or, if they are feeling more humanitarian, “Who are we?” Ritualists’ throughout the ages sell “their” paths as if they are truth revealing itself, for the small fee of your concentrated attention (i.e., your life).

The only reason, they insist and we agree, that we haven’t “made it” yet is that we haven’t followed the path to its fruition. People have their Yogis, Senseis, Teachers, Priests, Sergeant Majors, etc. all telling us which way to go. Folks, just like these leaders, none of us are going to get there by way of a path! Yet we trod along, sometimes dutifully, sometimes not, judging our progress and that of others. Doo-do-doo, dumm-da-dumm, walking along, running, tripping, whatever.

Some people reach a “stage” where they have an experience of the love of God and stay there, holding onto that “idol (get it?) thought” with their lives. These are the ones who say, from the point of view of their separate identity, “We are all one! We are God! We can change the world.” They say they give love but they are terrified. Separation is terrifying, I know. We may find comfort in friendships but nothing save convenient fantasy seems to bind separate beings. If you are a witness to war, desperation, sickness, loss, heartache, etc. you are not in heaven. OK? Heaven is Love is Peace is Safety is Strength. Bringing a memory of love into the present only substitutes your memory (read “illusion”) of love for the real thing.

Love is here now. It can not be found in any other time, because there is no other time. If we ever arrive in heaven it will have to be now.

Let me illustrate this. In western cultures, the ritual of the journey or evolution of awakening often begins by passing through two pillars. Some call these strength and establishment…or something like that. They represent on opening, a doorway (from one way of being to another) like the one between our mother’s legs. They have many names. These many names, whatever they may be, serve to illuminate to the mind that there is some pre-existing structure and function that we enter into; call it the world. You can find these pillars in Cabalism, Freemasonry, Egyptian symbolism, architecture, etc. etc.

I assert that these two pillars only provide strength and establishment to illusion, specifically to the illusion of time and the lives that are born and eventually die in time. As we pass through them, we use them to provide support to our illusions of life, to the illusion that we are important and that our worldly teachers have something meaningful to teach us. It is only the space between the pillars that is of value and may offer us a glimpse of truth, not the pillars themselves or the path that lay ahead.

Let’s imagine that one pillar represents the past, the other the future and between them is an unobstructed reality, the open door to heaven. In the rituals, a person passes through the pillars with little consideration of what they mean. To the initiate it is the path beyond the pillars that matters, their personal transformation or self-acceptance. But today, let us pause between these pillars before deciding to move on through another’s ideas of the Journey or the Work.

When in between the pillars of the past and future, we notice that we are blocked on the left and on the right. We can neither move in either direction, nor see through the pillars to what may lay beyond. They are solid, unlike the space in between, where we are. They are not at all like the space in between in any way. The present is in no way like the past or the future because it is here and they are not.

What? Aren’t we a product of our past, our parents, our culture, the alignment of the stars, something?!!! Sorry folks, our ideas of the past are just that…our ideas. There is no reality to the past, even though it appears undeniable that there is; that what was somehow became what is. We are creating this entire universe in our minds now and it is a substitute, a replacement for true reality; a reality that we are doing our very best to avoid.

The tired ass monk says, “What? That is nonsense. How could we have come from nothing? God created the universe and we are in that universe, you dirty rotten blasphemer.”

Here is the amazing truth. It goes against everything we think we know about ourselves, about the world, about anything. Are you ready? Now don’t run through the pillars too quickly. Try to stay in one spot when I say this.

OK, here goes...

We do not exist (as separate selves).

Metaphorically speaking, this is a dream one mind is experiencing about having a serious case of multiple personality disorder. When It wakes up, the dream goes away in its entirety. That means us, folks. We do not wake up in the dream…It wakes up from the dream.

Anyone who says they are awake here in the dream is a fraud.

We are figures in a dream folks. Just as when you dream at night, all the people, including yourself seem perfectly real; so do we seem real to ourselves here in the world. Before making a b-line back into the matrix, hang with this thought because it leads us to the thought of truth.

What is truth? It is not the facts, Jack, as they apply to this world. Facts happened. The Truth is happening. We can recall good and bad times in the past and look forward or not to good and bad times in the future. But the only good or bad times that come close to existing are here, right now. However, only good times right now make any sense at all. Why? Bad feelings cannot be manifested without some reference to a thought of the past or a fear of the future.

What reason can you find now to feel bad? She left me---past thought. The stock market---past thought. He said so-and-so---past thought. I did what?---past thought. Jesus died---past thought, etc. The reason that happy thoughts may be a true present experience derives from the one true fact that we can actually know, that the past is not here now. Therefore, it cannot, unless we let it, have any effect on our reality. What is left over when all threats ("bad" thoughts) are gone? Peace, Happiness…happy thoughts.

OK, back to the door to heaven metaphor (remember all that pillar mumbo-jumbo). Standing in the doorway, so to speak, we can indeed experience at least the memory of truth. Being dream figures, we aren’t really experiencing anything, shocking as it may seem. But as the dreamer, we can remember who we are by what must be.

Point one: Either asleep and dreaming or awake in truth, we are here now. So, even as a dream figure of our self, as one of our many dream personalities, truth is present here and now.

Point two: We can see through this portal (the present moment) into truth because we are present and the truth is present. Someplace, same time.

Point three: The truth is Real and everything else is not real. Our seeing does not make truth what it is, but it will tell us who we are by what it is.

What must the Truth be?

(I know I have written it in other posts, but what else is really worthy of writing about. Besides it might help to confuse you again.)

Back to point three: Truth is and nothing else is. This means that there is no competition. Illusions (competitors of the Truth) have no reality no matter how badly we wish they did. No competition means no threat. No threat means peace, no need for defenses, no anger, no fear, nothing to judge, nothing to condemn, nothing to change, nowhere else to go, because here is good.

What is the feeling of this reality? Happiness. To accept happiness, then is to accept reality and vice versa.

Allowing ourselves to remain in this thought leads to an expanding knowledge of Truth, of Love. To feel Love is to know Love.

Lastly, if God is real, and reality is only to be experienced in the present. And since the present moment, free of the threats of the past, is therefore the sole domain of happiness and love. And to experience Love all we need to do is call upon the present moment And since love feels good, then...

...as the title of this post asserts…and reason maintains…for a good time, call God!

Like A Hurricane

Kristopher — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:22:00 GMT

Entering the moment with determined intent, I feel like I'm facing a torrential wind storm of thoughts and ideas, each trying to pull or suck my attention away. Some fly by unimportantly; some seduce me so well I temporarily forget what I am trying to do. I've no doubt the moment is still and peaceful, but the comfort and strength I know must be there is hard to experience. It's like a hurricane in Heaven.

I wasn't expecting this to be easy; neither did I expect it to be so dramatic, that I would meet with such resistance. Thoughts rush toward me through the gap between my intended position of being totally present and the stillness and freedom from fear that reside here in the moment. I have often heard of the veil that lies between our experience of illusions and reality, between us and God. That image sounds restful and delicate. My experience of this phenomenon is anything but that. The illusions flood over me.

Breathing becomes an all-important anchor, returning my mind again and again to my purpose. The thoughts seem to attack me and I keep deluding myself that I need to defend myself against them.

Until I remember that the goal has nothing to do with defenses and everything to do with overlooking the insanity, I try tricks like moving the thoughts off to one side or another or seeing them and releasing them.

Paying any attention to them at all is giving them the power to tell me what is going on instead of discovering it myself. The present moment has a message. It is constant, not a series of lessons. It waits for me to stop fighting myself and relax.

Herein lays the answer to this rather overwhelming dilemma. To relax is really to surrender, to accept that these attack thoughts are going to do their worst and to accept that they are not the Truth, to remember that Truth exists and they are nothing but a strategy I long ago devised to keep the truth from my mind. Why I did this, why we do this, is a mystery to look into at another time. Accepting that it is being done is enough to teach me move on to another way of knowing who I am.

Ultimately, the lesson is to accept that Truth exists and that illusions do not. This seems simple enough, and it is. However putting this into practice is a formidable challenge. The solution lies in accepting that solution already Is, that problems are, without exception, self-made. They all serve the sole purpose of distracting me from learning what is really here now. Problems that seem to be in the physical world are no different in purpose than those that play chicken with me in my mind.

Problems may come in terrible forms or seductive forms, each vying for my attention. Every time I give them my attention I am again lost to what is really here. Not only do these "problems that need solutions" work to distract me, they also seem to arrive complete with my invested interpretations. They are con thoughts. They con me into believing in them by exploiting my prejudices and beliefs.

(Yes, I understand the irony of writing and thinking about this phenomenon at all, it's just anther distraction, isn't it? But while I am still with you and with these ideas of myself, I shall push on.)

So…I'll let that inner war drift away for now while I speak to the outer war.

It has been highly illuminating to practice present awareness with people. I don't know them presently like I thought I did before. This is a lot freaky. My experience isn't as directed by my interpretations of past experiences. In this sense it is like meeting people I may have know for a lifetime for the first time. I get to see where they may really be right now, not just where I thought they along some iddentity track in time. There is a sense of innocence that I experience in others and in myself that is rather refreshing.

That's all for now my beloved handful of readers.

May today hold you in its eternity.

Only Love Remains

Kristopher — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:10:00 GMT

Why allow any lie to enter this moment, any weakness, any fear? In this moment resides all Life, all Truth, Perfect Strength, and Perfect seamless Love. These qualities can not be found anywhere else. This moment is complete, it is all life, all real experience, all time.

Two weeks ago I made a vow to open and close each day with the thought of Peace. That decision led to intense transformation and ultimately a new understanding. It has led me through several trials, to one major blessing, to the willingness to forgive myself and being willing to do the same for everyone else. It led me toward letting everyone go and to see who is really lucidly here and willing to share this moment with openness, with freedom, and with love. It has led me to embrace the practice of being present. It has given me the will to see through illusions, to realize that this is the only practice worthy of me.

There is that old saying, that if you love something let it go. It makes sense, not because that something or someone will come back if they love you too. Rather, it is a lesson in truth, because only love remains. No matter who we love, we drink of the same well of love. There may be different forms, i.e., different limits to our sharing of love. But these forms are not love. Love moves presently and can extend as far as we let it. Ultimately, as we let go of all of our fear, we realize, again and again, that love is all that remains.

This letting go is the act of forgiveness. All forgiveness is, ultimately, self-forgiveness. As I forgive myself I have no longer any interest in withholding my forgiveness from anyone else. Forgiveness is the Philosopher’s Stone, the act that reveals the perfect beauty that is here presently regardless of the illusions of the senses and imaginings of the past.

Jesus said something like, “Heaven is here now.” If Heaven means perfect love, eternally real, perfectly natural, and wholly complete, then that is certainly true; now and only now.

In this moment only Love remains.

Vow #2 – I am determined to remain with the realization that this moment is all reality and all life, to continually let go of the past (because to hold onto nothing is insane) and to strive to remain present and open always.

This present moment is the greatest present and the only present given us. Now is the time to open it!

That last vow knocked my socks off. This one is sure to leave me naked and on fire.

Where is Love?

Kristopher — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:28:00 GMT

Recently, while spending time on Facebook, it occurred to me that there really is little or no reason to reach into the past. Whatever relationships were there, no matter how cherished, despised or neutral, have no meaning now. I give them all the meaning they have for me by believing in what is not here. If I choose to think that the past is still a part of the present relationship I am fooling myself. Unless I am holding onto a grudge against someone else or myself, there is nothing else to hold onto.

Past relationships are lost in the past because the past, undeniably, isn’t here anymore. Where could I find the relationship but right now. Sure, I can use the past to conjure up feelings, like watching a movie I have already seen. Sure, I can change the memories around a bit to suit my current belief about what things ought to be like, editing here and there, enhancing, deleting and denying. But all I am doing is trying to decide on my own what is going on right now by thinking about what is certainly not going on right now.

Metaphors are like this too. The one that comes to mind now is the idea of driving forward while looking in the rearview mirror. Metaphors help to explain concepts, to create order. They are easy to remember. Yet, like memories, they are not the same as present perception.

Presently, what is the state of my relationships? Who are my friends now and what is the nature of and the experience of those friendships? They are those who I love and who love me, who I respect and who respect me…respect being a form of love not fear. It goes both ways and it is happening now.

Love is now. Where does anger come from but fear? Fear of the future; which is often the fear that we’re going to get what we deserve for what we did in the past. Neither the future nor the past is here now. So I ask again (from an earlier post), what is the compulsion to see something that is not here? Isn’t this a form of idol worship, of placing our ideas before reality? Isn’t this our sole way of changing reality...by denying reality our awareness?

If I dislike someone for what they did in the past, who do I really dislike? Obviously myself, because in thinking about them judgmentally I am forcing myself to feel bad. It works the other way too. To consider someone in a good light is to allow myself to feel good. Both of these thoughts are just jerking around the present, but only one of them gets close to what the present must really be.

Consider this, if the past is not here it cannot touch you. If the future is not here, at least in this moment, the one that is all the time, then it cannot reach you either. If you are safe from the past and the future there is nothing to fear. Hold that thought and find yourself in the present, where only peace can be since there is no threat, that is, unless we choose to replace this peace with our own imaginings.

Cielo Amanti

Kristopher — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 02:45:00 GMT

This is "Cielo Amanti" -- Sky Lovers: a street painting I designed and drew in pastel along with my wife, my best friend, and my Mom. It was a 10'x10' square. It basked in the light of day at the San Rafael Italian Street Painting Festival in June 2008. It was front row, right next to the big stage. Rockin'!!!

Check back in.  I will be uploading more art soon.

Also, I am beginning to interview models and artists to discuss the silent spaces in the art experience.

BTW: Day one of "the mission" has passed sweetly, very mellow. It's a quiet space remembering the Love all around.

I notice that visual stimuli and sounds pull my thinking inward while thinking of Peace extends it, sees beyond or right through the sensual world.  Alternating my attention on one and then the other is kind of like breathing with the brain.

One Step Over

Kristopher — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 02:42:00 GMT

Love…It’s everywhere.
It doesn’t change, it waits.
It embraces everyone.
Can I handle it?
Can we share it?

Nobody can be left out.
If I exclude anyone the whole thing falls on me, shatters around me, becomes something it’s not.

What a predicament.

I think Love is like this. That’s why relationships can be so challenging, even when we love each other. The moment I hold a grudge or feel afraid, I abandon our love. It’s like trying to be in two places at once. On one hand I know I love you. On the other I want things to be different. This can’t work. It’s irreconcilable.

Just in case anyone reading this doesn’t know what the hell I am talking about, I have begun this mission to stay in the thought of Love, the idea of Peace, whatever you choose to call it. I want to remember it’s there always, to invite it to be a part of every moment of my life, whether I am working, painting, playing, watching a movie, driving, whenever.

I am aware this is probably impossible, but what the heck. At least I might get pretty good at it along the way.

I am determined to stay right here and now, because where else could Love be? Where else could anyone be? I am determined to let all the lies fade away, go by, die, or do whatever they do when I don’t let them stick to me…and see what remains.

I will do my best, to give up the fight and be strong, build a fire and see who shows up.

I like to bite off more than I can chew, but this seems like a lot more than I can bite. Yet here I go. One step and over the cliff. I hope there’s Someone to catch me. I hope it's me. I am counting on it.

Vow #1 -- I will open each day and remember my mission and I will close the day allowing Peace to embrace me in my mind. I will allow peace to reach out toward everyone, especially those I think deserve it the least. Afterall, it's not up to me to withold what belongs to everyone.

Putting My Feet To The Fire

Kristopher — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:54:00 GMT

There's an ongoing battle of light and dark. Actually, calling it a battle is incorrect. It is an ongoing refusal to stay in the light. And the darkness isn’t some horrible place as much as it is pretending I don’t know what I want, or, worse…wanting to be nowhere, numb and nameless. When I think about the light…well, it’s a little like when I used to refer my thought to my first Revelation in order to get back the happy feeling (something I don’t do at all anymore). Now I am left where I am, wondering why I don’t say what I want. I have “what I don’t want” nailed to a post, and I settle down and read the list over and over. I don’t bitch about it like I used to. Maybe that is the reason why I don’t seek the light like I say I want to; because the pain just isn’t strong enough.

I went to see a little wise man today, up on some high mountain peak in my mind. There is only room on the top of the peak for him and me. I asked him (after thinking to myself that there is way too much information in this world to ever try and understand it all, that every world belief, no matter how broad, is a fool’s belief) what I am supposed to do? Every page in his book of answers said ART and the color of every page was red. I asked him what stopped me from going whole hog as an artist. His book told us that it was the FEAR OF NOTHINGNESS, written on every page, each page colored a light blue.

What is the fear of nothingness? I already knew. It was the fear I felt right after I realized that nothing mattered and nothing could keep me from the experience of wholeness, of holiness. That was a feeling of perfect peace and joy. It was just there. It didn’t include my kids, my friends, anything at all that I knew in the world. Before the world literally vanished it turned all white, a soft white, and then I let it go. That’s when the jolt came. BAMMMM! I was forcibly removed from where I was, overwhelmed with fear from this jolt. Instantly the world returned with all its places no one can see, with all its problems and misunderstandings. I saw before I fully returned into this world dream that what I am looking at when I look around me and who I identify myself as being is that same jolt that shocked me out of the presence of simple pure holiness, but here it is spread out over the far reaches of time and space, to make it, it seemed, more tolerable. I learned that the jolt, this horrible forced removal from perfect peace is the world. One is instantaneous, the other entended everywhere in through all time.

So the fear of nothingness is really the fear of getting hit by the world, the universe all at once again. This is what I must overcome to return to real peace. No small task, it would seem. From a worldly perspective it is no less than walking straight into death. Eyes wide open, “Give it your best shot asshole!” No defense. No fear.

As paradoxical as it seems, wanting life is the same as wanting death. Not for death’s sake but for life’s. A fearless life does not fear death. And neither life nor death is what it seems here. Life is safe, it is eternal and free. This is a world only of death…postponed. We eat, we breathe, chase after other bodies, cuddle and fight, feel, strive, succeed and fail all for naught. This is not living but a substitute for living. This life is surrounded everywhere by death. It is a witness to death only, to constant change, to forgetting and loss. It is death’s game, not God’s.

What then is the reason to do anything except to return to peace? To keep fear as my standard? What does it take to return to peace? How do I know I ever left? It could just as easily be that I am choosing to dream of something else because I decided I can’t handle peace.

Any peace found in this world is bound to end. It isn’t real peace. Just like my first love isn’t real love. It felt like something way back then. So did my second love, my third and so on and so on. I mean is love real or is it some transitory relief from a non-love state? How can reality change? How does truth become something else?

So this blog is going to go a different direction than I had first proposed. It will be a record of some guy trying to remember who he is, trying to move through his fear of living so he can let this mis-given gift drop by the side and accept what must really be his. No substitutes!

At the Alter of the God of Good Cheer

Kristopher — Fri, 29 May 2009 22:58:00 GMT

So Who is this God of Good Cheer?

Well I'll tell you what I know.

GoGC is an Idea that exists happily far beyond the trials & tribulations of so-called normal life. It resides as a thought in a mind (in your mind) where there is no threat of any kind because it is everything, surrounded only by itself.  There being no threat, there is nothing to be afraid of. And where fear is inconceivable, only happiness remains. It's the foundation for the idea and experience of perfect love, eternal well-being, irrepressible joy. It's Heaven folks. And it's within your reach because it's in your mind. And who's mind is it anyway?

What did you just say? That's some high-fallutin' crazy dumbo-jumbo.

OK, Take two:

I spent a large portion of my adult life irritated or angry, resentful, remorseful, depressed and grumbling. On the outside I'd usually appear smiley and A-OK.

You may know what I am talking about. You know, all those opportunities that make you say F-you to someone for a slight or insult or just because they're a stupid so-and-so (that's my grandma speaking). Despite the old adage reminding me that two wrongs don't make a right, I'd say, " Who cares, they deserve it." But I was the one doing the heavy lifting.

Somewhere along that rough and rugged road I began a-thinkin' (long blade of grass sticking out of my mouth, patchy jeans, you get the picture), "They ain't gonna change and nothin' ever gonna change what happened, so why am I going on and on about it? Is it because I needed to have some excuse for being who I thought I was? (blade of grass falls to the ground). In condemning them, it occurred to me, I was really just condemning myself. The next thought is, this is playing stupid.  I was making up the movie as it went along. It's a form of hallucination, of seeing what is not there.

Queue the preachy bits:

Reality doesn't care if we believe in it or not. Truth doesn't alter itself based upon our needs and desires. Thank GoGC. Yet we can elect to experience joy or not, to let truth be what it is or demand it be something it is not.

It doesn't matter what is going on around us now. It doesn't matter what just happened or what happened decades ago. We're not that important.

All that matters, all that "causes" our experience to be what it is, is on who's behalf do we act. Who's your Daddy?

Think about this...if you are upset, who are you upset with? That person or event is the who in "on who's behalf we act".

Put it this way, if your experience were really what you wanted it to be, on your behalf, why would you choose pain? What is accomplished when we suffer? What good comes from punishing ourselves or someone else?

Answer is...No Good at All!!!

That's what I am finally understanding. Life sucked because I gathered together all the bloody evidence. Like lining the inside of a mask with no eye holes, I walked around the world blind, thinking I was resolutely facing the truth. I was a fool.

So, what does all that have to do with this super-sensational spinning solar-bound sinking ship of fools? What does this have to do with art?

Well...since we decide wherein to invest our thought, aka our reality, we can, if we choose, think about that Place, God's crib. All we really need to do is be willing to think about It and It comes to us. The more time we spend visiting this idea of Peace, the more we realize it in your own personal experience.

The more time an artist paints or dances or whatevers while attending to this thought of....yes, Love, the more it finds It's way into the work itself.

Just as the more time we want to think about how messed up everything seems to be, the more we embrace anger, fear, and depression, the more we "let the darkness" take us over.

We are the bridge and we are the gatekeeper to ourselves. We can extend ourselves and we can separate ourselves.

This is nothing new and always new. It's now, if we want it.

Right now, what is going on? Is there any good reason not to be happy? What reason do we need to be happy?

Here's the kicker: Once you get a taste for joy, see how long you can hang with it. It is humbling for me to see how quickly I want to get back to "reality", how willing I could be to fall from Grace just to get myself back to familiar territory.

What's on your mind?

Coming soon...an investigation into the silent spaces within the creative experience. Expect some tantalizing podcast interviews with mysterious beautiful women.

Travesty of a Happy Artist

Kristopher — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:06:00 GMT

"Get real!"
"What have you got to smile about?"
"Just take a look at this @#%& hole world."
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH...is there anybody out there?"

These are not the words of the happy artist.

Artists aren't supposed to be happy, right? We are realists and escapists (for those who can't handle the "Truth").

We, the realists, are poor and destitute, living aching dark pitiful lives. We share our dire vision with the world in some insane attempt to align ourselves with reality.  Ah, the gory glory. It hurts so good trying to be understood.

We, the escapists, are shivering and trembling beneath the protection of our pretty images and pleasant piles of money. Do not look at that man behind the easle.

(Of course, most artists reside somewhere in the center, but how relevant is that to what I am talking about?)

But, hold on, what if an artist stands up and says, "Holy rap music, I am just freakily happy, and all I got to do is want it!"?
It does happen.

Chick-chuck (shotgun loading sound).......BLAAAMMMMMM!!!!!!
Splattered happy artist brains on a white wall. Now that's art!

Coming soon...the secrets of the eternal Happy Artist revealed. Hail to Thee O Source of Good Cheer.

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