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February 2009



Getting organized. I am traveling in a few days and I already feel the anxiety of being away. My life gets pared down to a set of discrete items - necessities - things that are necessary. My drawing kit is included, of course, because I will try to keep posting via iphone. But I have started wondering, "If I had to pack my inner belongings which symbols and ideas would be taken on the trip?"
2.28.2009


Our inner light is special. But how much more special is our inner light than what surrounds it, protects it, cares for it and by contrast allows it to shine? Every petal and leaf is part of the flower.
2.27.2009


Caught in between. There are no clear choices and we are entangled by alternatives. How much should we take for ourselves and how much should we give away? What is the balance between karma and survival? Others and self? Inside and outside?
2.26.2009


Reorganization. Are we just taking the same things and putting them into different arrangements, changing their color, buying them accessories, connecting them to each other and interpreting them differently? Isn't it time to step back and consider why we have the things in the first place?
2.25.2009


Real contact. Two entities shield their inner light when they get close. For what percentage of the day do you touch another person? Sometimes a tiny moment is all we can stand. What would it mean to merge?
2.24.2009


Deeper waters. After descending through my frames of reference I find a quiet place. I have crossed a boundary and my experience is guiding me. I intend to travel as far in this direction as possible. I discover that resonance is the gravity of inner space so I document the harmony.
2.23.2009


Ten Year Anniversary

February 22, 1999...1999?...Yes. 10 years ago today I began drawing on 5" X 6" cards as a disciplined practice - one per day - then collecting the cards and storing them in boxes. The premise of the exercise was to use improvisational drawing to reveal my 'unwritten rules' and then code the rules into an autonomous drawing software. The software hasn't been written yet. But ten years of observing my own creative process has produced other amazing results. Today's drawing is the first in this series of thousands of drawings. What remains persistent? My fascination with variations of the grid, levels of scale, diagrammatic space, and whimsey are all still part of the practice. Was this a divination drawing even then? I think it is absolutely divine!

2.22.2009


Peak culture. As we watch the big boxes slowly deflate it is instructive to compare ourselves to other declining empires. Who would believe we could still learn from the ecstatic heights reached in 12 century Konya? Our transition from the binary rational world starts with the appreciation of the feeling within.
2.20.2009


When you are fully absorbed in something all your attention, every thought, is on that thing. Sometimes this state is called flow. I was in flow today while I was programming variations on a grid and the cycle in this drawing seems to reflect that.
2.19.2009


Can you see these one-after-another phylogons laid out like frames in a movie? Do they document change? Do they track my continually arising thoughts? Or the stream of moments in my day? Can I peer into them like they were windows? Or look at them as boxes with painted surfaces? Yes, all of the above, I'm sure, and more. And today's drawing is telling me is that the phylogons can also be mirrors that reflect fragmented views of another place.
2.18.2009


What is left to see when your meditation has removed all obstacles? Staring this deeply into the self, is it possible to see the meditator in clear reflection?
2.17.2009


Dendritic river as decision tree. I see these figures as river-trees with a flow that seems to go from top to trunk. The message I'm getting is that by making creative choices we can gather the separate branches of our lives together into one larger flow.
2.16.2009


Opportunity and flow are quite an auspicious combination. Seeing the river flowing over an entire cycle says to me that it is the time to open up creatively and things will happen. Does it show that the stimulus package being signed tomorrow will spark growth? Who knows? I'm taking today's reading personally. This is the 100th drawing I've posted to the site so I see acknowledgment from the source and commitment to keep it flowing.
2.15.2009


The frame underlying the frame. Yesterday's muses seem to have morphed to reveal something about flow and what is real. The un-manifest and post-existence flows are on a separate but connected plane to the frame we'd call our world where they take the form of a river passing through...
2.14.2009


3 muses? That's all I can think of to name today's surprising piece. My intuition was strong throughout so I am confident this is the message. Maybe this is what comes from mixing vedanta and Proust? I am welcoming the muses and hope they stay and share their gifts.
2.13.2009


Roundtrip. Like a planet circling the sun, we often return to where we've been but never get there exactly. Rivers, traffic, connected boxes, phylogons and cycles are all familiar territory for my drawings but each one here is new. This cycle says to me, "Be patient and appreciate each frame as you experience it."
2.11.2009


We simultaneously act individually and collectively. The reading today shows the balance of loyalty to the self and to the group being tested as plans become real. Keep in mind that we are part of the group but it is not us.
2.10.2009


Spillover. We are in the middle of a mid-winter thaw and the melt water is pouring over the banks of our stream. The coming flood of liquid capital from Washington should also spillover to larger areas of the economy. During this time we remind each other to temper our optimism. An early February thaw always gets us excited but we know the winter is not over yet.
2.9.2009


Deep integration is taking place. Last summer the stacks were well defined as separate cubes tipped precariously and signaling instability. Now the stacks have taken on a settled stratigraphic quality and the layers overlap. There is a growing awareness of our internal and external interconnectedness.
2.8.2009


Transparent Things. In my thick family life it is sometimes hard to determine where people start and stop. Boundaries, especially for the children, are fluid and fun to test. Feelings, of course, and pleas for attention, get mixed up and mutually interdependent but there are plenty of times, like being overpowered by the need to be held, when the bodies are not so easily separated either.
2.7.2009


Harmonic resonance. There have been clear signs for a few days now - things are getting back in sync. Is it in response to the technical analysis pointing to a bottom on Wall Street? Or maybe it is just because my birthday is today? Whatever scale I focus on I hear the first few notes of sweet music.
2.6.2009


Deepening entanglement. Our new realities (largely economic & political) are starting to sink in. The shock is diminishing but we can still leverage the change. This is the moment to rewire relationships.
2.4.2009


A student and his guru are sitting in an ashram. The student asks, "Are there fluctuations in the field of consciousness?". The guru instructs the student to visualize this field, meditates with him and then says "This is not a landscape".
2.3.2009


Assimilation of knowledge. Information is continually encoded...then uploaded. The web discovers itself as more connections are made. An enlightened network? It happens every day.
2.2.2009


I see two cycles conforming to each other along one edge. Am I looking at lovers? Politicians negotiating? A lake on a meadow? Mind and consciousness? Cycles are systems in motion but these two appear to be resting. Try and find a place where you and someone else fit together.
2.1.2009


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