"Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers." Hans Christian Andersen
Sunday, June 12, 2022
Magical Doors
Sunday, May 15, 2022
Buen Viaje
Travel has become so complicated. Today’s world is one of peril.
It could not happen in today’s world. The tragedy of airplane hijackings and mass destruction on 911 changed travel. Hidden bombs have blasted airplanes full of passengers out of the skies. Everyone is suspect of evil. People and items are scanned for contraband. Everyone must partially undress before proceeding to the gates, and go through scanners. Multi document checks are required.
Now, in the time of mass pandemics, even more obstacles must be negotiated before reaching a seat aboard a plane.
When Amy left, I started coughing, sneezing and had congestion. After a couple days, it dawned on me that if I have covid our trip would be ruined. Everything is booked in advance. In a bit of panic I went to a local lab and paid 25 dollars for a test. A half hour later I got the result: negative. Good Lord!
To get into the United States, test results taken 24 hours before boarding is required. I still have slight cold symptoms.
I have been praying a powerful prayer called the Long Healing Prayer.
Meditation tells me I do not have covid. I hope it is right.
My neighbor Mayolo, his wife Marta, and granddaughter Frida came to the house on my birthday a couple days ago. They brought dinner and a birthday cake. Then we watched the Disney movie, “Coco”. I don’t speak Spanish and they don’t speak English. No matter.
Mayolo will come get me on Tuesday and take me to the airport for my 10 AM flight to Washington DC. His daughter Kaoni, son in law Carlos and Frida are house sitting for us. I saw them today. We went over details about the house.
The last thing Kaoni said was “buen viaje” or good travels.
Sunday, April 17, 2022
Procession of Silence
Sunday, April 10, 2022
To Paint A Dream
Since moving to our little village outside Oaxaca, Mexico, Amy and I have have been strongly influenced by our new culture. From our second floor studio in our home, we have been slowly but steadily producing “las pinturas con una diferencia.” At some point we hope to mount a public show together. Our styles and subjects are different enough to make it quite interesting.
Amy has completed a new work from our studio, called, Into the Mystic, acrylic on board, 24"x39". She says:
"Xoloitzcuintle or xolo dogs are revered in Mexico since ancient times for their profound, otherworldly abilities. They are uniquely hairless and are considered to possess healing abilities, as well as guides for their Master on his/her journey to the spirit world. I decided to paint a dream I had of the end of the fifth sun, when the old paradigm departs and the sixth sun commences. In my painting, the xolos challenge Quetzalcoatl. The humans are in partnership with the xolos⏤conjuring the New Day. The female xolo with her newborn pups represent the coming of the sixth sun. We see the phases of the moon…the passage of time.
My true hope is to have a xolo. But for now, I can only visualize them as part of my world."
Sunday, April 03, 2022
Light of Unity
We are blessed with children coming to us in our village of San Pedro Ixtlahuaca, in rural southern Mexico. On Sunday mornings, the “vecino”, neighbor kids, come for art lessons and snacks from 10:30-12:00. Our "pueblo" is impoverished⏤so we provide everything. They take home sketch pads, colored pencils, erasers⏤whatever is part of the lesson. Food and drink, with music, is offered at the end. We meet on our front patio under the roofed entry outside our home entrance. One mother comes with her daughter and son.
So powerful is the light of unity that it can illumine the whole earth. - Bahá’u’lláh
Sunday, March 13, 2022
A Way of Life
Amy and I moved to Oaxaca, Mexico one year ago. For months I did not paint, mostly because we were settling into our home. When I began making art again, everything depicted figures from life down here. And then the “muerto” or death symbols, which are widely accepted in Mexico as themes for remembrance of the departed became a staple of my paintings.
"Watermelon Man," oil on canvas, 24 x 28 inches |
When I finished my painting of a skeleton man eating watermelon, I began gathering ideas for the next work. A mural downtown caught my eye. It included a crowd of people, with a man carrying somebody on his back. That gave me an idea to have death carrying someone.
I researched for pictures of a grown person carrying a child.
When I began my painting, I quickly realized it was autobiographical.
To begin, it brought up strong emotions of darkness and grief. My artist wife Amy had trouble painting in our studio with my dark artwork next to her. The war in Ukraine had begun and so had the period of Bahaí fasting we observe. Nineteen days of no food or water from sunrise to sunset. This is my last year⏤after having practiced the annual event fifty years⏤those over 70 are not bound by it. I have dedicated my efforts to the people of Ukraine.
I am pleased to have made another “memento mori” work. It reminds us of the ever presence of death and its inevitability. Down here in Mexico it is a way of life.
Sunday, March 06, 2022
Winds of Despair are Blowing from Every Direction
War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace. -THOMAS MANN
The spectre of war continually afflicts the world. Center stage now is the conflict between Russia and Ukraine; with wider implications for the planet.
Here are some cogent and insightful remarks regarding war.
Mostly from Bahaí writings:
Today there is no greater glory for man than that of service in the cause of the Most Great Peace. Peace is light, whereas war is darkness. Peace is life; war is death. Peace is guidance; war is error. Peace is the foundation of God; war is a satanic institution. Peace is the illumination of the world of humanity; war is the destroyer of human foundations. When we consider outcomes in the world of existence, we find that peace and fellowship are factors of upbuilding and betterment, whereas war and strife are the causes of destruction and disintegration. All created things are expressions of the affinity and cohesion of elementary substances, and nonexistence is the absence of their attraction and agreement. Various elements unite harmoniously in composition, but when these elements become discordant, repelling each other, decomposition and nonexistence result. Everything partakes of this nature and is subject to this principle, for the creative foundation in all its degrees and kingdoms is an expression or outcome of love. Consider the restlessness and agitation of the human world today because of war. Peace is health and construction; war is disease and dissolution. When the banner of truth is raised, peace becomes the cause of the welfare and advancement of the human world. In all cycles and ages war has been a factor of derangement and discomfort, whereas peace and brotherhood have brought security and consideration of human interests. This distinction is especially pronounced in the present world conditions, for warfare in former centuries had not attained the degree of savagery and destructiveness which now characterizes it. If two nations were at war in olden times, ten or twenty thousand would be sacrificed, but in this century the destruction of one hundred thousand lives in a day is quite possible. So perfected has the science of killing become and so efficient the means and instruments of its accomplishment that a whole nation can be obliterated in a short time.
The Promulgation of Universal Peace, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, pg. 123
Gracious God! Even with such a lesson before him, how heedless is man! Still do we see his world at war from pole to pole. There is war among the religions; war among the nations; war among the peoples; war among the rulers. What a welcome change would it be, if only these black clouds would lift from off the skies of the world, so that the light of reality could be shed abroad! If only the darksome dust of this continual fighting and killing could settle forever, and the sweet winds of God's loving-kindness could blow from out the well-spring of peace. Then would this world become another world, and the earth would shine with the light of her Lord.
Selections From the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, pg 320
"The winds of despair", Baha'u'llah wrote, "are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divides and afflicts the human race is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order appears to be lamentably defective." This prophetic judgement has been amply confirmed by the common experience of humanity. Flaws in the prevailing order are conspicuous in the inability of sovereign states organized as United Nations to exorcize the spectre of war, the threatened collapse of the international economic order, the spread of anarchy and terrorism, and the intense suffering which these and other afflictions are causing to increasing millions. Indeed, so much have aggression and conflict come to characterize our social, economic and religious systems, that many have succumbed to the view that such behavior is intrinsic to human nature and therefore ineradicable.
The Promise of World Peace, Pages 1-3: Universal House of Justice
Banning nuclear weapons, prohibiting the use of poison gases, or outlawing germ warfare will not remove the root causes of war. However important such practical measures obviously are as elements of the peace process, they are in themselves too superficial to exert enduring influence. Peoples are ingenious enough to invent yet other forms of warfare, and to use food, raw materials, finance, industrial power, ideology, and terrorism to subvert one another in an endless quest for supremacy and dominion. Nor can the present massive dislocation in the affairs of humanity be resolved through the settlement of specific conflicts or disagreements among nations. A genuine universal framework must be adopted.
Certainly, there is no lack of recognition by national leaders of the world-wide character of the problem, which is self-evident in the mounting issues that confront them daily. And there are the accumulating studies and solutions proposed by many concerned and enlightened groups as well as by agencies of the United Nations, to remove any possibility of ignorance as to the challenging requirements to be met. There is, however, a paralysis of will; and it is this that must be carefully examined and resolutely dealt with. This paralysis is rooted, as we have stated, in a deep-seated conviction of the inevitable quarrelsomeness of mankind, which has led to the reluctance to entertain the possibility of subordinating national self-interest to the requirements of world order, and in an unwillingness to face courageously the far-reaching implications of establishing a united world authority. It is also traceable to the incapacity of largely ignorant and subjugated masses to articulate their desire for a new order in which they can live in peace, harmony and prosperity with all humanity. -The Promise of World Peace, Pages 6-9: Universal House of Justice
There never was a good war, or a bad peace.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Sunday, February 27, 2022
Mexico City
A trip to Mexico City is a phantasmagoria of sights and sounds⏤always with surprises. Amy and I love visiting and hope someday to live there for at least a few weeks. The worlds fifth largest city, Ciudad de Mexico is bigger by population than any city in the USA. It is six hours away by car from our home in Oaxaca, or about 1 hour by airplane.
Along with two friends from Chicago, we went by air from Oaxaca City to Mexico City on February 22 and stayed until the 25th when our friends returned to Chicago and we flew home. As usual, our visit was fun, educational and dreamlike.
We like to stay at Le Meridien, a 17 floor, excellent hotel in the Reforma area, centrally located downtown. From there we take taxis to destinations, or simply walk.
This visit we went to The National Anthropological Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Antique Toy Museum and Diego Rivera Mural Museum. Amy and I had been to all the places but the Toy Museum, which Amy found online and because of her passion for such things was determined to visit. What a treasure it is! As we were leaving we met the founder and collector of toys, Roberto Shimizu, Sr and sat with him talking. Then we met his son, Roberto Shimizu Jr who is curator.
Here is a slideshow video of highlights:
Sunday, February 20, 2022
Monte Albán
Visible to the east from our rooftop patio, standing on a mountaintop is Monte Albán, one of the most important archeological sites in all of Mesoamerica. Several times since we moved to Oaxaca ten months ago we have attempted to go and visit, but found a line of vehicles waiting for entry. We turned around and left, choosing to try again later.
Recently Amy and I received our first guests to our home. Harold and Becky live in Chicago and I have known Harold for over forty years. With Monte Albán close by, we took a chance to go again, hoping for easy entry. Success at 11 AM on Friday!
I felt a happy sense the moment I arrived in the parking lot and climbed a few steps of the ancient place.
Under blue skies we strolled in the midday heat, experiencing what was a metropolis and capital of the Zapotec people for 13 centuries, between 500 BC and 800 AD. Monte Albán is a world heritage monument and located on a low mountain range overlooking the city of Oaxaca⏤with its surrounding plains and villages.
Exploring the site, I felt exhilarated with inspiration, sensing history and countless footsteps of those who had trod the ground under my feet.
Monte Albán reminded me of another place of exceptional importance I have been to: The Acropolis on Mount Olympus at Athens, Greece. Its most famous structures, such as the Parthenon and Old Temple of Athena were constructed around the same time as Monte Albán. I thought of how remarkable that these very grand construction sites were also lofty places overlooking their surroundings. That meant they were very difficult choices for building sites. And such marvelous monuments were made!
When something grand is made with human determination under extreme difficulty, in order to honor earth and heaven, it is holy.
Now that Amy and I know we can drive up the mountain sides and get to Monte Albán without too much hindrance, we are eager to go back often for inspiration.
Sunday, February 13, 2022
Angels and Ants
I thought about ants. They work so hard and industriously, making kingdoms on earth. In New Mexico, USA they seemed innocent enough, even noble, crawling busily over the high desert floor. At the time, I had traveled much and made art for over thirty years. Deep down I felt like stopping everything to simply become an observer. Watch ants work every day. Meditate.
Almost two decades ago, after my oldest daughter died, a poem came to me and included ants as a metaphor for elemental spirits of the world:
Destroyed jasmine plants |
Sunday, February 06, 2022
Inside Your Darkest Everything
Amy and I have lived in our home in Oaxaca, Mexico going on one year. There are many festivities during the year, but undoubtedly the biggest, most famous, is Dia de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, that occurs at the beginning of February. Significantly it is time for prayer and remembrance of friends and family members who have died. Its universally observed in Mexico, but also regions with large Mexican populations. In Oaxaca, skeletons and skulls are widely depicted as emblems of death and afterlife, and can be seen year around on walls.
Twenty one years ago my daughter died of cancer. It has taken me this long to make a painting that includes death as protagonist.