The Disappearing Passage

A motif has captivated my imagination since my earliest days as a budding artist: the disappearing passage. As a boy, I sometimes would sit at my school desk with my pencil and draw on paper a horizontal line, and then make a road that steadily grew slimmer, until it disappeared at the horizon. Those simple lines gave me great pleasure and left me satisfied. Perhaps, it was my path into eternity.

Now, a half century later, I continue making images that lead the eye into a central location and end in ambiguity. Often, in the beginning, it is an unconscious attraction and only later I see that I have come to familiar territory. Most often the road or path seems to begin underfoot, and travels to a place of disappearance. But it can also be a river or a street . . .

It is as if I am in dialogue with time and travel, and I love symbols of issuance and continuity, even as they go to the mysterious place of vanishing.

 

 

 

Time and Space

Sunset at Polihale Beach, Kauai, Hawaii

When I was a little boy, living in my childhood dreamworld of imagination and wonder, life resembled a beneficent sea surrounding me on my blissful island home. I lived in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, and I remember that in my contentment of the fullness of space and consciousness, the future seemed far beyond the horizon and out of sight. I did not have sufficient experience of time and space, so I could not project ahead. When I was about six years old, in 1958, I knew that the year 1960 was coming, but it seemed an eternity would have to pass before arriving there. In other words, the distance of two years seemed an eternity.
Fifty three years have passed since 1960 has come and gone, and it could be the blink of an eye. When my wife and I argue about something and perhaps the matter is blown out of proportion, she has taken to philosophy to remedy the emotions. She says, “In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big issue.” I understand the sentiment, and agree immediately that the bigger picture of life holds the solution to everything.

Endlessly Changing

“Physical bodies are transferred past one barrier after another, from one life to another, and all things are subject to transformation and change, save only the essence of existence itself -- since it is constant and immutable, and upon it is founded the life of every species and kind, of every contingent reality throughout the whole of creation.” - Abdu'l-Baha

This quote is so beautiful and profound. I found it because a few days ago my dog had to be euthanized in front of my wife Lori and I. He was not even one year old, but had come to us with weaknesses that led to his demise. In the brief time he was with us, he had made our hearts more open and full. Now, we were faced with ordering his death—and in that we were also dying a little.

During this sadness, I felt again the feelings I experienced losing my beloved daughter, Naomi, who died from cancer at the tender age of nineteen. I have always known Naomi went from one life into the next, and she is in an exalted realm now. But what about our dog, Chamo?

The way I have been living is so simple, that I do not even own a shovel, or piece of earth. Lori has a house 45 minutes from Santa Fe, but when we put down Chamo at 6 AM, August 16, I could not go back there immediately, so we had him cremated. And that is all that is left. Our memories of him fill us with emotion . . . but nothing else remains. In this world, only humans have rational souls that can communicate through all eternity, from every dimension.

As for the physical elements that were held together by divine love and made the creature that we called Chamo—they have returned to dust, to be scattered and rise again in many forms, endlessly changing in the play of cosmic unfolding.

Not Burned By Fire,

I find it fascinating that people are so wrapped up in the material world. It is as if life and its meaning depends on being comfortable. Then, the more wealth a person has, the happier they will be. For me, this is illusion. THE DREAM is where my treasure exists, and it will never be exhausted.
This is not to say that the material world does not matter. Recently a friend in Nairobi, Kenya sent me a text message asking if I could send her some money to see a doctor, and mentioning that she and her daughter had no food in their house. In those situations, it is more difficult to be philosophical. I often wonder how I would face the world in similar circumstances.
I think that the death of my daughter Naomi brought me to the state I am in now. During her final days, I felt that all the wealth in the world was only dust scattering in the wind. Deep down, I knew how remarkable was THE DREAM that continually unfolded and that I am privileged to witness. I saw in Naomi a being that had surpassed the physical, and in my book, A Heart Traced in Sand, I quoted these words from the Bhagavad-Gita:
The bonds of his flesh are broken.
He is lucky, and does not rejoice:
He is unlucky, and does not weep.
I call him illumined.

Not wounded by weapons,
Not burned by fire,
Not dried by the wind,
Not wetted by water;
Such is the Atman,

Not dried, not wetted,
Not burned, not wounded,
Innermost element,
Everywhere, always,
Being of beings,
Changeless, eternal,
Forever and ever.