Circle In The Water

"Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperses to naught."
William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)

I wonder at the circles my life is creating. Many have already “dispersed to naught,” and some continue to ripple outward. Interestingly, my artwork will ripple in the world for many years, since it is designed to have a lasting impact as long as it is seen. Relationships continually send ripples; when we interact with others, we are changing each other in subtle ways that carry forth in subsequent moments.
My book “A Heart Traced in Sand,” continues rippling in the great pond of life. People continue to write me letters of praise, telling how moved they have been reading it.

Each life sends out ripples, and we are all in the same water, so must know on some level the movements. Even thought can ripple waters . . . how many times have you heard someone say “It is amazing you called, because I have been thinking of you.” Their thinking rippled the water enough to wake your unconscious into sending messages to your mind and cause you to call.

In the end, we have to be aware of the ripples we send into the world, making them positive. Think what our planet would be like if we all were positively conscious this way.

The Artist’s Fortunes

Artists are often romanticized for living lives of creativity and passion, outside the typical norm of society. It is also a sometimes brutal path, as Van Gogh and many other famous artists have shown. Being married to a creative muse is a fulfilling and demanding relationship. The outer world comes second. But the outer feeds the body, and has rules for gaining favor and privilege. The inner muse could care less. And this leads to conflict that often ends in some inevitable suffering. How often has it occurred that an artist is consumed in his creative work, making masterpieces that the world is not ready to absorb? Meanwhile, the artist’s fortunes steadily diminish to poverty. So many have died paupers, and later, the world throws accolades on their graves. Mozart, Rembrandt, Turner, Van Gogh, and the list goes on . . . all impoverished when they died. Yet, we would be impoverished if such beings did not give us of the richness of their inner life.
I am exhibiting this weekend at PhotoArts Santa Fe, and although there are many people who give me compliments for my work, sales are not happening. So I think of the good company I am in, and I am thankful for my creative comrades, living and dead, and I send them my love. It is the best companionship.

Dreams

On weekends, I go to a movie. Usually, it is hard to choose, since there are more than one I want to see, and more coming all the time. Last night I went to Paprika, a movie that reviewed favorably in the local press. It is an animated Japanese film with the plot based on the thin line between our waking and dream life. In the film, the protagonist is a researcher who has one foot in both worlds, and finds herself embroiled in a fight to keep a new tool that allows people to experience each others dreams, from falling into power hungry hands that would use it to control lives.
Imagine, we spend one third of our lives asleep. How much of that time is dreaming? For a long while I have noticed that when I wake from sleep, I am a bit sad. I guess that it is because I am stepping from the rich, boundless world where dreams live and spirit roams free, back into life as usual in a very limited body within this material existence. Also, my dear Naomi, ( A Heart Traced In Sand ) who I am so bonded with, exists in the other world, closer to Spirit and the freedom of dreams.
Well, at least in my creative living, I can bring the unconscious and dreaming into relation with conscious existence and make art.

Adventures in Wonderland

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where --" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The wide-eyed wonder of Alice is understandable because she lived so fully in her moments. I comprehend, since I am in my little boat of existence, floating in wonderment in a fathomless universe. I trust currents and fate. The strongest current for me is creativity. These days, I am preparing paintings for my annual one-man show at Adieb Khadoure Gallery in Santa Fe, opening August 17. Also, I am a featured photographic exhibitor at the upcoming Photo Arts Santa Fe Festival, July 20 - 22. Stay tuned!

The World Is One Country

Europe has come home with me to the United States. Friendships forged in Italy, Spain and France, continue here. I lost weight on my travels, and now I eat less and ride a bike. Some of my attitudes have changed, and I see more clearly how all people and nations are interdependent. Baha’u’llah, spoke over a century ago, saying, “The world is one country, and mankind its citizens.” He also said, “It is not his to boast who loveth his country, but it is his who loveth the world.”
I took many pictures while traveling. The painting above is from a photograph I took in Puglia, Italy. To see more, go to the Steven Boone website.

Cinderella

Time is relativity, which helps explain why five days in Paris, now that I am leaving, seems like one. In Spain, my hours extended languidly in the mountains, like the sun crossing the sky. With only nature and a few friends to occupy my thoughts, lassitude existed in each moment. Stepping from that world into the swirling cultural vortex of Paris, a city with 2,160,000 people, the atoms of my being are stirred with a different excitement. Paris has over 70 Museums, monuments and cultural tourist stops. Some of the best art in the world is housed in Parisien Museums. Stimulation comes from every direction, jostling me to think and act. In a state of hyper-experience, moments pass by quickly. I am now engaged and dancing to the rhythm, but it is time to leave. I feel like Cinderella, who at the stroke of midnight, finds her time at the ball has been all too short.

This Is Paris

I sat down with a couple of friends at a table outdoors at a crowded Paris café in the Latin Quarter. The evening was approaching midnight, and as we began talking, straining to hear each other amidst all the other simultaneous conversations pouring forth from the boisterous mob, a slight, elderly Parisian woman placed herself firmly at the curb and began singing. It was hard enough to hear our conversation, and now there was singing nearby to contend with. The woman wore makeup and dressed daintily. Her voice sounded frail as she gazed upward, sometimes using her hands for effect, and threw her melodies out to the group gathered directly in front of her. For some people, it was too much to compete with, and soon someone shouted at her, “ Shut up!” She ignored the insult and kept on without the least change of expression. Another man went up, put money in her hand and began singing alongside, but mockingly. She was unfazed. In between listening to my friends, at times I caught myself listening to her, surprised to hear some pleasing melodies in her song. When she finished, she put forth a cap for contributions, and then walked to another street corner to continue singing. “This is Paris,” I thought. All sorts of characters thrive here, adding their distinct form of panache to the pot of stew.

Fabric Of My Existence

It is almost three months since I left Santa Fe and arrived in Sicily. With only a few possessions, and without usual contacts with the outside world, the song of the wanderer has become my anthem and rhythm of life. All I have are moments, and each is a gift. Furthermore, what I do with these gifts is entirely my choice. Being able to choose is perhaps the greatest gift.
In Barcelona, over the centuries, a dazzling mosaic has been created and continues to unfold. I immerse myself and become part of the picture. While absorbing influences and making contact with this pulsing life, I change and transform. What is experienced becomes the fabric of my existence that continually is woven into an ever-evolving tapestry.

Commune With Ghosts

SATURDAY, MAY 26
Walking into the ruins of a home arouses many thoughts and powerful emotions. To explore the remnants is to commune with ghosts of lives past. Many people avoid such places and find them creepy. As I explore the abandoned dwellings near Darrical, it is obvious nobody comes to these buildings with their crumbling walls and broken roofs open to the sky. Often, thickets of shrubs surround them, and occasionally a tree has grown inside. Yet doors still open, and I enter like a guest, wandering room to room through the silence, observing the hand of time slowly obliterating vestiges of lives once lived.

Play From The Heart

May 22,
“You will like it here,” Pepa said with a big smile as I got out of the car at Plaza Nuevo in the old, medieval quarter of Granada. As we exchanged goodbyes, her eyes brimmed with laughter, and then she sped away.
Left alone on the street I soon found a room to put down my backpack, and went out walking, curious to see an important Spanish metropolis. It is cosmopolitan, but homespun, with fewer of the grand buildings and monuments of cities like Paris, or even a similar sized Italian city like Florence. Nonetheless, the bohemian atmosphere captures my imagination and I can understand how Spain has bred many great artists. The celebrated dramatist, Federico Garcia Lorca (1898 – 1936) came from Granada, and also was murdered here by fascist supporters. I have never seen a city so marked by graffiti. It is everywhere, and although some might find it repulsive, I look at the artistic, (if delinquent) merit, and the vibrant, primal qualities of line, color and subject. It adds a psychological twist to a place that is known for attracting students, intellectuals and artists.
Along a tree-shaded walk by La Alhambra, the famous city of Sultans and Kings that is now part of Granada in the old quarter, a young gypsy fellow caught my eye. He sat on a bench, strumming his guitar, with his brown dog at his feet. Both appeared ragged, and the youth had a hardened look, wearing sunglasses that hid most of his face. His long greasy hair, his scraggly, thin beard, and dirty fingernails, told me he lived on the street. Yet, to let it be known that an aristocrat lived behind the veneer of a vagabond, he wore a coat with fox fur collar. It was open in front down to the navel, revealing his bare chest. I slowed my walk and took a picture, then approached to ask if I could take more. He spoke in accented but quite understandable English, and replied, “it will cost you.” I had no coins, and pulled my pockets inside out to show him.
“Then you can’t take pictures.”
Sitting down on the end of the bench, I said, “You are playing your music for free.”
“Yes, well this is my life. “
“And you play from the heart.” I observed.
He resumed strumming flamenco chords. I quickly fell under the spell of the pure sound from his beat-up, old guitar. As I listened, a full, strong feeling grew inside. Looking around, I wondered at the people walking by, tourists who did not slow down, but cast furtive, passing glances our way. He began singing a soulful flamenco song.
“What was that?” I asked when he finished.
“Lagrimas Negras, (Black Tears) from the CD Bebo & Cigala, and he wrote down the words so I could buy the CD.
As we talked about his life, and a little about mine, I understood how he unequivocally lived a gypsy life—without illusion of what he was missing in exchange. A bit of sadness was in his philosophic attitude about the sufferings he bore and how it cut short his relationships, for he could not offer anyone much more than his song. Reaching in my wallet, I found a five euro note for him. He barely touched it, but gently pulled it to his side of the bench. Brightening up, he said, “Now you can take as many pictures as you want.”
I never saw his eyes behind his sunglasses when we exchanged hearty handshakes goodbye. As he took up his guitar again and I began walking away, I imagined there was a hint of the same laughter that was in Pepa’s eyes when she dropped me off in Granada.

The River Of Time

THURSDAY MAY 17
Carol asked me if during my travels, I get tired of a place and want to move on to the next adventure. In the ten weeks I have been on my “artistic odyssey,” it has seemed as though moments are seamlessly woven together into a whole. I am in a dream, and it is unfolding on its own. Each part is important and not to be rushed along, but fully experienced. I am not in a hurry to finish anything in order to get to something else. The river of time has me entranced from moment to moment and I simply experience traveling downstream, enjoying the ride, knowing ultimately I will arrive in a great ocean, but the river is already part of this ocean I am journeying toward.