Triangulation, Order in Chaos and The Incredible Lightness I'm Feeling

The three paintings below are part of a group of nine works now hanging in the Kerr Hall Chancellor's Office Gallery at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

 

Triangulation

El/2010

Order in Chaos

El/2010

The Incredible Lightness I'm Feeling

El/2010

How It Is

Child's Play, El/2010

How do I make it stop?

Press START.

But I want to stop it.

Then press START.

You mean I need to press START to stop?

Yes.

But that's insane!

Yes.

Variations

To Glenn Gould
El/2010

Watching Youtube vids of Glenn Gould and

Remembering the voices from my childhood saying

His name with the deepest reverence and respect.

A genius they said.  

Our country is so very proud of him

A great Canadian

Indeed.

He was himself in spite of everything, 

Most present when he played

Most real, most transcendent also

A privilege to see him play at home
In black and white with his dog, 
His sudden jump up off the bench, still humming

A lively hum at the window, quick turn about again

The tie of his robe hanging half off he leaps

Back to the bench where the most beautiful sounds 

Explode from his fingertips

Like they simply must be heard, must be made real

Must be expressed by this man and in this way

Thank you, Mr Gould 

for your variations

El...2010




Glenn Gould at home, playing Bach

Spring Muses

Spring Muses

El/2010

Web Light

We communicate via streaming pulses of light 

Thoughts and visions criss-cross timezones and borders

Have meaning, content, tenderness, humour, and

While never touching touch our deepest, truest selves

That beingness unique to each expresses and is understood

And is affected by the knowing of the other

What does this say about what is Me?

A body is surely irrelevant here, but thoughts?

Those are free to come and go
As will permits and soul decrees --

Such amazing times are these!

Communities of souls rise like waves in the sea

Products of passing collective interest they rise and fall 

Never the same, always new

The flowing of infinite vibrating awareness

And Shiva dances!

El...2010

Sounds of Thelonious

Monk at Minton's

El/2010

Thelonius Sphere

You shattered preconceptions

of what sound is for

With your power, precision 

clean harmonies, tight rhythms

You woke me up with your jazz 

like shards of glass falling through the sun

Don't let me slip back into complacency

Your music is life stripped clean

of attachment to anything

It is pure Being

entirely without prejudice

Thelonious Sphere...El, 2010

Snap, Crackle, Pop!

Snap, Crackle, Pop!

El/2010

This is how I am today

It's glorious and bright, you see

So I'm painting like a fiend

I wish you Joy!

The warmth of spring sunshine

Come dance in the lilies, my dear one

El/2010

Come dance in the lilies, my dear one

Come dance in the sunshine, my love

We'll paint with our love and our turnings

A delight to our father, the sun.

Nexus

Am I evolving Fast enough?
El/2010

We're Here Now

Time to turn on the juice; we're coming home.

It doesn't matter what fairy tale we believe

About why things are the way they are

We can't get around the fact 
We're about to hand over

Grandma's little basket 

To the wolf under the covers.

We need to be conscious now
And stay that way because

What comes next takes teamwork
Focus and a lot of love.

El...2006

My sister, this small, graceful tree

Eve...El/2010

Maroon Maple

  

Spring has quickened almost everything now

The moist morning air richly scented with new life --

Spring's vitality reflects the fire behind my eyes

As I stop to prune and fuss over the Japanese maple.

Always last to waken, it stands still even now

Surrounded by the fresh green of things

A trunk without decoration, branches leafless

No hint its lacy maroon unfolding.

I am in this state also

Suspended between two knowings

Blissfully alone in the void

Sublime in the space between

Tranquil in a sea of potential

The maple and I await our own renewal

And this year we share a sense of timing.

El...2001

At the ending of the day

 

Here

I am here in the places where

The autumn sunshine touches my skin.

I am here in the knowing of this

and the hearing of that, 
And in the shifting of wind and eye. 

I am here in the birdsong and the truck roar 
And the boom, boom, boom of the music within.
I am here in the cat on my right and the dog on my left 
And in the roll and curl of the surf along the shore.

The Bay is me,
The Bay and the sea and the sand. 
Where a thinly-hidden-along-the-horizon-me,
A dark-blue-line of me, blushes for the sun.
I am here in the 'snap' of the towel as I fluff it, 
And I am here in all the comings and the goings
And at the ending of the day, 
In every way, 
I am here.

Who is it that comes between me and my experience?

 I Am

El/09

Practice

Lighting candles before practice,

Some director in my head critiques the setting.

Noting background, lighting, sound,

Narrating everything like I'm living a documentary!

And I'm listening to this chatter as if IT is my reality.

Who is it that comes between me and my experience?

Time slows, candles glow, I begin to meditate,

Then Kathleen Battle sings Vorrei Spegarvi, Oh Dio! -

Sweet Shakti!

Laughter bursts through me

And I really am lighting the candles.

And breathing in this body I love

And my hands move past the candlelight, dancing.

El...2001

My mustard seed...

Sacred

I worship Life as Joy,

Wonder, and Eternal Astonishment.

I worship Life as Conscious, Living Light.

I practice my faith by exploring who I am.

I pay joyful attention.

I get subtle.

I swim in infinite awareness.

I take responsibility.

I am breathed by God.

Jai Ma!

El...2004

Silver Buttons

 Mummy & Me

Silver Buttons

Mummy gently poured the buttons 
From their silver tin onto the carpet

In a glorious jumble of singles and clusters 
Strung upon threads and silk ribbons.

We picked them up and fondled them, 
And to the chink and click of the buttons

As they poured from hand to hand, 
She told their stories.

"This one closed Nana's Opera Coat 
against the winter wind.

These tiny pearls buttoned Great-Grandma's 
Beautiful Sunday dress.

Those brass ones flew on Daddy's 
Air Force uniform during the war.

Those satin ones ran up the back 
Of Mummy's favorite ballet costume and

These were on your tiny knitted baby sweater
 That Auntie Tannie made."

There were lots of buttons. Buttons

Smelling of bone and silver and brass and leather,

Sparkling with rhinestones, pearls and glitter

Feeling smooth and bumpy, rigidity and fine

Whispering of lives lived and loves lost and won.

People have buttons, too - 
The fastening-feelings kind, forced by life's events

Holding long locked doors to places 
Consciousness wouldn't, couldn't go,

Embedded in the body's cells -- 
That nagging backache,

That tightness in the throat for words held back,

The headache that never really goes away.

People buttons begin to slip loose

When we're ready to experience 
The feelings they've held fast.

Honour them gently, 
Like the Buttons in Mummy's silver box.

Let them tell their stories, 
Knowing you may safely listen and savour

The wine of past experience to its fullest

And feel what has been held for you there.

And when you do, your soul will fill with light

And you will know Ecstasy.

El...1999

The end of a friend's long, dark night...

This poem reflects my joy upon seeing a friend triumph over a very dificult time.

Stone & Steel

El/2010

Truth, Simplicity & Beauty

Don Juan's egg drifts in swirling, feathery wisps of light,

Its many coloured bands spiraling softly

Through one another, in Straussian time.

  

You stand most beautifully in the stillness of this moment.

Your new-found peace a joy to behold,

Telling your soul's journey through the past months' struggle.

Years of dedicated, disciplined introspection have

Honed the diamond edge of your intellect, permitting

This phenomenal adaptability and mastery of change.

I rejoice in your return to Center,

Your life enriched at a higher order -

You have recaptured the Citadel

And are sovereign there.

El...2001

When You Go

Butterflies & Cactus Flowers

El/09

When You Go

When you go I shall miss:

The sparkling gold flash of you

Bursting into the room with a new idea,

Falling asleep to the sound of you

Softly moving about the house,

The supple geography of your face

Dancing through the stream of your vocabulary,

The river of your spiri-cerebral connections

Rushing to the ocean of your Tao

I shall miss the way you weave webs of laughter

Around life's contradictions,

And the impeccable awareness, determination,

Decisiveness, honour and compassion of you,

When you go I shall miss

Your light, your love, and your companionship.

I shall miss, my dear friend,

The absolute joy of you

El...2001

Eternally

This poem is a quiet celebration of Being.

I Was A Rock Once

I was a rock once.

Solid, Strong, Patient, Calm

And very, very happy.

I was huge.

The world moved ever past me,

And my heart sang.

All the life in the world was a part of me,

And my heart danced.

Summer breezes tickled

The tiny crystals of my edges

And I hummed.

Winter winds cast sand against my sides

Smoothing, sculpting me.

And nothing, Nothing

Disturbed my infinite bliss, my rockness, my Self.

My face to the world was a steep, granite cliff

With ledges, nooks and crannies.

A dense, northwestern forest blanketed my back.

Ocean waves broke and played

Upon the rocky shores at my feet.

And all the while I watched

And remembered

And hummed.

El/2004