Sunday, June 24, 2018

The Itch


Can we perceive future events—without proof, conscious reasoning or evidence? This is intuition. Prophecy and clairvoyance are related terms.

I have experienced this. When I was a college student, I had an unmistakable vision of calamity before it happened. A friend, Raymond, suggested we drive with a few others from New Mexico to Los Angeles, California during a school break. He looked at me, offering to drive us in his car, and I had a very clear perception of the accident about to happen. But because I had no tangible proof of threat, and I was young and willing, I ignored my inner vision. A few days later, four of us set out. As we entered Arizona and were driving on a two lane highway in the old car, Raymond decided to pass a semi-tractor trailer. He got about half way past the rig when he spotted a car coming toward us. He first sped up but realized he did not have enough speed. I had been dozing in the back seat and woke just as the oncoming car was about to crash into us. “Raymond!” I shouted. He panicked and hit the brakes just as the head-on collision occurred. The two old people in the other car were shaken and bloodied. We were bruised and slightly traumatized. The accident occurred as I had sensed it would.

I had a momentous dream six years before my daughter Naomi was diagnosed with cancer. It foretold in symbols the death of a child very close to me. I was so disturbed by this grand, magnificent and powerful dream that I went to an esteemed psychologist to discuss it. I made a big painting depicting its symbols. Then I forgot it—until Naomi was suddenly diagnosed. Then the dream came back vividly. She died after a heroic two year struggle.

There are many examples in religious history of future times being seen by prophets. They foretell events that unfold thousands of years later.

On a lighter side, I have come to trust that when my left palm itches, money is coming to me soon. A little itch means a small sale and a bigger, more vigorous scratching means a bigger exchange. The phenomenon has to arrive unexpectedly, but when it does it is very accurate. I can count on a sale of my art when, from out of the blue, my palm itches and I scratch it.

I am not the only one:

“Call it the $64 million itch! Brooklyn grandma Mary Shammas was on the bus when her left palm started itching. Remembering the old superstition that an itchy left palm means money is on the way, Shammas, 73, jumped off the bus and bought a lottery ticket.
On Tuesday night, she hit a $64 million jackpot.” (Read the full article here: Jackpot)

The itch occurred yesterday morning and when I went to my gallery at the end of the day, I came in just as a sale was happening.
I like it.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

The Gift

For years I have been dazzled by skies at sunset. I study the time in the evening when the sun is disappearing and daylight fades.

Afterward, stars begin lighting up the heavens. On a clear night far from city lights the vault of the celestial sphere can take ones breath away. Have you seen the milky away in all its splendor? And then witness shooting stars?

But sunsets are the phenomenon I get the most pleasure from above the horizon. Here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA the elevation is 7200 feet (2200 meters) above sea level. The conditions are such that many evenings provide dazzling sunset spectacles. And each one is different than those before or after.

Recently I went to a friend's home and after dinner we walked. As the afternoon reached toward evening, we climbed a hill and sat waiting for the sunset show to begin. There were sufficient clouds to dazzle the western sky with colorful refractions and shifting forms. We could not take our eyes from the unfolding drama. I snapped some pictures as I often do during these events.

A few days later I made a painting to celebrate and commemorate the gift that The Creator gave that evening.

Amalia Sunset, oil on board, 10 x 10 inches
Click for more Steven Boone art.

Sunday, June 03, 2018

Something Special

It is alarming that people don’t read books much anymore—especially young people. “A number of recent studies have demonstrated that fiction — particularly literary fiction — seems to boost the quality of empathy in the people who read it, their ability to see the world from another person's eyes. And good works of literature, particularly novels, can grant you direct access to another person's mind — whether it be the mind of the author, or of one of their imagined characters — in a way that few other works of art can.
So if we're reading less literature, it stands to reason that we may be becoming a less empathetic country as a result (research tends to bear this out). If changing reading habits are indeed making us less able to see things from other people's points of view, that could have drastic consequences across the board." See this great article from the Washington Post: The Long, Steady Decline of Literary Reading

I remember in first grade, learning how to read. We practiced making vowel and consonant sounds, and read from a primer about children; Dick and Jane and their dog Spot.

Later, when my grandmother, (my father’s mother) visited, I would sit on her lap in a big comfortable armchair and read aloud my favorite book, Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. She lovingly and patiently helped me pronounce and understand words as I spoke them.

In high school I read avidly. My favorite class was called World Literature. We read masterworks, and I particularly recall Franz Kafka’s, The Metamorphosis. It is about one man’s dreary existence turning into madness. (One day, Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect . . . )

Before finishing secondary school I had read many novels, including great Russian masterpieces War and Peace, and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, as well as the American collection of poems Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman and more.

In adult life I have particularly enjoyed biographies, holy books, and treatise on psychology.

Shakespeare’s plays have had a profound effect on me.

I hope the libraries across our land stay vital in the face of video gaming and social media . . .
There is something special about going at one’s own pace with good literature in hand.