Untitled - Alex Grey

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the
one that is the most adaptable to change.”
-Charles Darwin
Walton Ford
Sanctuary
1998
watercolor, gouache,
pencil, and ink on paper
153.7 x 304.2 cm
Chief Editors
Alex Grey, Allyson Grey
Creative Director, Graphic Design
Marisa Scirocco
Managing Editor
Delvin Solkinson
Press Manager
Eli Morgan
Media Assistant
Syd Gnosis
Contributing Designers
Sijay Macdonald
Syd Gnosis
Feature Photographer
Josef Schmidt
Translation Team
Gayle Highpine
Satoshi Sakamoto
Front Cover
Alex Grey ‘Ocean of Love Bliss’
2009, oil on canvas
Back Cover
Mitsuru Nagashima
‘Myth and Legend No. 20 - A Tree of Life’, 2008,
wood cut on Japanese handmade paper
Published by CoSM Press
Website : www.cosmpress.com
Phone : 843-632-3880
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All content copyright 2010 by the artists and contributors. Contact them directly for licensing inquiries.
CoSM Journal has been created with sincere dedication to the community and the environment. It is produced on 80% recycled, 60% post consumer waste paper that is green E certified. The production facility at Green Solutions Printing is Certified Ancient Forest Friendly, carbon neutral, powered by wind energy and is a certified triple bottom line company by B Lab. Deep thanks to Daniel Swantek for his generous help with this production.
CoSM Journal, published by CoSM Press, provides a forum for the emergence of Visionary Culture.
CoSM Journal shares with its readers the work and stories of artists, thinkers, and community builders
who are dedicated to transformative living and a commitment to the integration of wisdom and the arts.
CoSM Journal is offered to inform, connect, and inspire this evolving global awareness. The Chapel of
Sacred Mirrors, CoSM, is located at 46 Deer Hill Rd, Wappingers Falls, New York 12590. CoSM is a
sanctuary for contemplation and a center for events encouraging the creative spirit. The Sacred Mirrors
are a series of paintings that allow us to see ourselves and each other as reflections of the divine. CoSM
provides a public exhibition of the Sacred Mirrors and the most outstanding works of mystical art by
Alex Grey. The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors is a 501(c)(3) organization, supported solely by charitable
donations from the community. If you would like to make a contribution to the Chapel of Sacred
Mirrors please send checks to CoSM or make donations on-line at cosm.org.
A message from Alex and Allyson
Christopher Alexander, author of The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of
Building and the Nature of the Universe, showed people of many backgrounds
two pictures, one of a parking lot and the other a pond in the woods.
Then he asked, “Which image reminds you more of your Eternal Self?”
People invariably chose the pond in the woods. We were carefully
considering whether to continue a Chapel in an urban setting or to
build a new Chapel in a rural setting, and asked ourselves this
question. Because we felt that a Chapel in nature reminded us
more of our Eternal Self, we chose a peaceful patch of beauty
in the woods to call holy ground. Extracting poison from the nature field must become
an alchemical experimental process that humanity
is learning in the twenty-first century. The artists,
activists and philosophers in this issue of CoSM
Journal, have each examined this challenge from
its deepest source and appear to be expressions of
a world-centric or planet-centric self. These leaders
represent important new archetypes, heroes and
models for us to embody. Thomas Berry referred to himself as a geologian. He was a Catholic priest who saw the beauty of God’s
world being desecrated and believed that evolution
was a demonstration of the cosmos as creative and
inclined toward self-reflection. Pablo Amaringo was a Peruvian healer who
became an artist after shamanic journeying and an
encounter with a magician. He produced an outstanding
body of work that gives a first hand account of visionary
celestial worlds of heavenly crystals and exotic alien architecture.
These two giants, both featured in this sixth issue of CoSM Journal,
passed to the spirit world during the making of this special edition,
theme: Human/Nature. This issue is dedicated to them. In the woods we return to reason and faith… all mean egotism vanishes. I become a
transparent eye-ball; I see all; the currents of the Universal being circulate through me. I am part or particle of God...I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. –Ralph Waldo Emerson
H u m a n / N a t u re
f e a t u re d a r t
f e a t u re d a r t i c l e s
Symbiosis and the Gall Wasp
Alex Grey...8
Ecovention
Amy Lipton...10
Revival Field
Mel Chin...14
art feature
Walton Ford...26
Mark Ryden...28
Alexis Rockman...30
World Culture
Visionary Mapwork...42
North America
Madeline von Foerster...44
Steven Kenny...46
South America
Maria Isabela Hartz...58
Pablo Amaringo...60
Europe
Brigid Marlin...76
Daniel Mirante...78
Asia
Akiko Endo...88
Mitsuru Nagashima...90
Oceania
Andy Thomas...98
Africa
Anne Mwiti...108
Eco-Machine
Skip Backus...16
Soul Furnace
Alex and Allyson Grey...110
Building Bridges with Bees
Interview with David Wolfe...92
Nature of an Artist’s Soul
Alex Grey...114
Deep Ecology
John Seed...100
Altered States
Kate Raudenbush...116
Peace with the Earthly Mother Gabriel Cousens...104
Vicarious
Tool and Alex Grey...120
World Culture
Visionary Network...112
The Process
Allyson Grey...128
Bioneers Conference J.P. Harpignies...122
gallery
CoSM Family...132
Places of Power
Econoshamanic...126
History and Mystery of the CoSM Land
Alex and Allyson Grey...20
Creating the New CoSM on the Hudson
Alex Stark...22
Mycelial Consciousness
Paul Stamets...34
Being With Flowers
Anthony Ward...38
Remembrance
Thomas Berry...40
Art from Luna, The Butterfly Chronicles
Julia Butterfly Hill...48
Humans and Earth
Ralph Metzner...54
13 Indigenous Grandmothers
Carole Hart...62
Spirit Dance and Plant Wisdom
Kathi von Koerber...66
Visionary Permaculture
Delvin Solkinson...70
Damanhur Music of the Plants
Esperide Ananas...80
fashion
Dancing Shiva...84
CoSM Journal
volume 6
www.cosm.org
Alex Grey
S ym b i o s i s and the
G a l l Wa sp
“The artist blooms cultural flowers for the world, so
bee-ings can gather the pollen of beauty into
their hives and lives.”
Preparing for the Symbiosis festival that was held
in Yosemite, we were considering the concept of
symbiosis and learned about the gall wasp. This
cousin to a bee lays its eggs on a naked leaf, prey to wind, rain and insect
predators. The tree graciously protects the wasp egg by growing a womb to
surround each individual ova. The bulging ball or wart on the tree’s leaf signals
the presence of a developing gall wasp. When the egg is fully grown, the hatchling
eats its way out of the protective shell provided by the tree. What could motivate
a tree to host a gall wasp? According to Rudolf Steiner’s amazing book “Bees,”
European farmers have always known that trees hosting gall wasps bear fruit
that is qualitatively sweeter than those trees that have not been gall wasp hosts. Farmers bring wasps to their fruit bearing trees in order to have the sweetest
fruit. The wasp, the tree and the farmer are all in a symbiotic relationship.
Symbiosis : Gall Wasp and Oak Tree, 2010, oil on wood, 12 x 12 in.
Symbiosis is an opportunity to see the compassionate oneness manifesting
through the nature field. Symbiosis is an everyday miracle proving that
interdependence is a strategy for evolution. Evolution flourishes both through
competition – survival of the fittest, and symbiosis – a close and often longterm relationship between species. Each species, from single celled organisms
to primates, strive to be the best they can be, while at the same time existing in
direct interdependence with many other life forms and truly in relationship to all.
The diminishment of certain species, like bees and frogs, indicates a frightening
imbalance in our natural world. Awareness of this breakdown has led to an
upsurge in bee keeping worldwide. As our species consciously evolves, the study
of symbiosis as a fundamental law of nature provides a key to a sustainable future.
Alex Grey
www.alexgrey.com
www.cosm.org
8
above, Gall Wasp study, 2009, pencil, 8 x 10 in.
9
Ecovention
A my L i p to n
At this turning point in humanities
relationship with the natural world
comes a need for immediate environmental action. Philosophers, politicians, and poets,
architects, arborists and artists alike are being called to
have a more direct relationship with nature. The ecological crisis is bringing together all peoples and professions, governments and corporations in a collective
quest to curb the current environmental devastation. Out of this time of transition
comes the spirit of creativity expressed eloquently through innovations in the Arts. One
such new movement of artists is creating functional installations that help heal and restore
natural spaces while educating and inspiring others to do so as well. Here Amy Lipton talks about her
work with Sue Spaid sharing art that creates real positive change in the world while presenting sustainable
options to a global society in need of direction.
In the overlapping realms of Earthworks, Land Art, Earth Art, Environmental
Art, and Ecological Art, we looked for artists whose works literally had a particular transformative effect as an end result. Since all great artworks
achieve transformation on some level, we chose to limit
our search to art that fell into the following category:
an ‘ecovention’ is defined as an artist’s aesthetic
invention and/or intervention within the context of an ecosystem. Its aesthetic components
may be both visible and invisible, with a primary
emphasis on regional site-specific projects that
concern restoration, reclamation, renewal and
rejuvenation of polluted and damaged wastelands. Our next big concern was to demonstrate
how and why this work is defined as art and not science,
engineering, landscape design, architecture or eco-activism while
at the same time not trivializing those important disciplines whose components
might at any stage become part of the work. The key to this change in the viewer’s
perception is in challenging the predominant value system that determines what
an artwork can be.
In this respect, the exhibition reflected my own exploration over the last decade to
find artworks that cross the line from traditional art production and institutionalization, into the larger context of human and non-human natural communities.
In the late 1990’s, after more than a decade of working within the contemporary art world as gallery director and curator, I began to have questions regarding
my sphere of work. I wondered about the relevance of the art I was seeing, and
was faced with a serious dilemma: the planet was deteriorating
rapidly, while the prevailing art in galleries and museums
was mostly autobiographical and self-referential.
For decades environmentalists have foreseen
an impending disaster of immense proportions when the planet becomes truly unable to
sustain life. Our basic life support systems of
10
clean water, air and soil continue to diminish at an alarming rate. I wondered
why this larger global picture was being overlooked in the art world internationally. Every other pertinent socio-political issue has been addressed within the
framework of post-modernist critique. Through the nineties exhibitions focused
on AIDS, gender, feminism, identity politics, ethnicity, multi-culturalism, consumerism, the body - these issues were being scrutinized thoroughly. I questioned
if our planet’s environmental problems were too big for artists to tackle, and
why many were still more concerned with an aesthetic of critique or an insular
dialogue about art itself. I wanted to see works that were focusing on
our relationship with the larger, living eco-system, recognizing that our very existence depends upon its survival.
After some years of research I began to find
that an alternative vision existed. There is a
small yet growing, world-wide movement of
artists who are actively at work finding ways to
creatively solve ecological problems. They are
breaking out of the traditional confines of what
is considered art by engaging in real world issues
and daring for their art to have a function - thereby
calling into question the very framework within which
we define art. For years now, writers such as Suzi Gablik and Lucy
Lippard have been championing a social role and function for art, rejecting the
notion that aesthetics can not serve anything but itself and its own ends.
The purpose of the Ecovention exhibition was to create public awareness of these
innovative and inventive artist solutions taking place all over the world. Some
of these artists have entered into the new scientific field of restoration ecology.
They are reaching out across disciplines and helping to bridge the gap between art
and life by raising awareness and appreciation of our natural resources. By giving
aesthetic form to restored natural areas and urban sites, these artists are engaging
in a collaborative process with nature, practicing a socially relevant art. They are
helping to create a new paradigm by proving that art can contribute to society
as a whole, not merely in the politically correct sense or as a
social critique, but rather by participating directly in
the world. By focusing on the interrelationships
between the biological, cultural, political, or historical aspects of ecosystems, these artists are
working to extend environmental principles
and practices directly into the community.
By asking fearless questions that no one
else thought to ask, the artists in Ecovention
are taking on the role of visionaries, working
collaboratively with architects, planners, social
scientists, biologists, botanists, and communities. The goal for
Ecovention was to present these projects as case studies. In this manner we hope
that their experiences can provide access and information to those that might be
inspired towards making works of their own, paving the way for a whole new kind
of art that can help realize needed change in the world.
Essay from the Ecovention exhibition catalogue, published jointly by the Contemporary Art Center,
Cincinnati, OH, Greenmuseum.org and ecoartspace.
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Jackie Brookner
Turnaround/Surround
1989-present
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Laughing Brook
2009
Salway Park, Cincinnati, Ohio Jackie Brookner created a series
of biosculptures and wetland
habitats that filter stormwater
runoff from parking lots,
sidewalks and 3 acres of ball
fields before the water enters
the severely endangered Mill
Creek. As water flows over the
biosculptures, the plants and
associated bacteria transform
toxins into food by using
pollutants as resources for
their own metabolism.
Laughing Brook creates a
community gathering area
and focal point for park users
while demonstrating sustainable
urban stormwater practices.
It includes wetland and prairie
landscapes, butterfly gardens,
native plant nurseries, and
walkways.
For this project, 22 tons of recycled
crushed glass and mirror were
mixed into asphalt to create a
half-mile-long glassphalt path that
traverses this 55-acre former refuse
dump turned recreational park. Pine
and cedar trees have been planted,
along with four types of native tall
grasses. Perennials, such as roses and
herbs, emphasize the park’s prior
role as a smelly dump. There is also
an image of a galaxy grafted onto a
20 foot-diameter disc made from
colored, pre-consumer rubber waste.
Representatives of Cambridge’s 56
different cultures will provide the
artist memorable objects for insertion into the hilltop, thus converting
the site into a public monument.
Betsy Damon
Living Water Garden
1998
Chengdu, Sichaun Province, China
This 6 acre park on
the Fu River in the middle of
Chengdu was finished in 1998.
Dirty water from the river is
cleaned in a seven-stage natural
process that is designed to be an
interactive recreational park. Damon conceived of the park and
directed a design team consisting of
Margie Ruddick, Landscape designer, Huang Shida, Bio engineer and
numerous Chinese professionals. The park has been awarded many
prizes and initiated a national
dialogue in Chinese about bio
remediations. Flowforms are used
for aeration by moving water in a
series of vortices. Children play
for many hours in these multi
functional forms.
12
all photos courtesy of the artists
Mierle Laderman Ukeles
Aviva Rahmani
Ghost Nets
1990-2000
Gulf of Maine
Ghost Nets appropriated the term for lost
monofilament fishing drift nets: ghost nets.
That metaphor expressed how some
human habits are invisible, indestructible
and can destroy all life. The fact that ghost
nets continue to fish destructively many
years after disengaging from fishing boats
was an analogy to how difficult it is to
change destructive human behavior. The
Ghost Nets Experiment took place on the 2.5
acre site of a former coastal town dump on
an island fishing village in the Gulf of Maine.
It was restored to flourishing wetlands.
Amy Lipton is the co-director of ecoartspace, a bi-coastal non-profit
organization that creates opportunities for addressing environmental issues through the arts. Lipton has curated numerous exhibitions,
written for books and publications. She organizes and participates on
panel discussions, and frequently lectures on art and the environment. www.ecoartspace.org
Amy Lipton
13
Revival Field
photo: Walker Art Center
Mel Chin
Revival Field
originated in 1991 in
Pig’s Eye Landfill, St.
Paul, Minnesota. It is
an artwork that confirmed
that specific plants can absorb
heavy metals in concentrations
enough to consider their use as
tools in cleaning contaminated
soil. The project is a breakthrough
conceptual sculpture, which extended
the idea of land art beyond formalism
into an active process of transforming
an ecology by forwarding a scientific
technology. The initial experiment, concluded
in 1993, took the form of a replicated field test
using special hyperaccumulator plants to extract
heavy metals from contaminated soil. Scientific
analysis of biomass samples from this field established the potential of
“Green Remediation”. The historic field should be considered as part of
the larger artwork. REVIVAL FIELD is a work in progress, that catalyzed a
scientific process and remains committed to its stated goal: the transformation
of a hazardous, contaminated site into a living, productive environment.
14 photo : David Schneider
Mel Chin was born in
Houston, Texas and began making
art at an early age. He is known for the broad
range of approaches in his art, including works that require
multi-disciplinary, collaborative teamwork and works that conjoin crosscultural aesthetics with complex ideas. His work is consistent with a conceptual
philosophy, which emphasizes the practice of art to include sculpting and
bridging the natural and social ecology.
Mel Chin
www.stationmuseum.com/mel/chin.htm
www.fundred.org
15
The Eco-Machine
Skip B a c k u s
The Omega Center for Sustainable Living started about five years
ago as we were approaching a critical infrastructure issue. The
campus was developed in the 1950’s when the septic system for our
wastewater disposal was installed. Omega is a not-for-profit educational organization, so we wanted to take the opportunity to convert
wastewater naturally and educate people, closing the gap between
how we live and the decisions we make that effect the environment.
John Todd, the father of natural wastewater reclamation, suggested
that we create an Eco-Machine that mimics natural processes. Cattails on the side of the road in water is nature’s Eco-Machine using
micro-organisms, plant roots and aeration to reclaim water naturally. Demonstrating a deep green approach to architecture, Omega
agreed to utilize a program put out by the United States Green
Building Council called L.E.E.D. platinum which rates buildings
according to their efficiency and overall design. We also decided on
a Cascadia program with a series of difficult pre-requisites called
‘The Living Building Challenge.’ Omega would have to generate
100% of the energy quotient for the building itself. All energy including heat, lights, and pumps has to be generated onsite through a
green method. The Omega Living Machine building has a solar
array that generates 100% of it’s energy needs. All the water used
in the building must be recovered, so all Omega roofs had to be
connected to a rainwater harvesting system. You can’t have red list
chemicals like polyvinyl chlorides, formaldehyde, and cadmium
which are in nearly everything we touch. A lot of salvaged, reclaimed
and high recycled materials have to be used. Everyone who comes
on site during the construction process needs to be educated and
maintain a zero waste cycle. All contractors have to compost and
recycle what they don’t eat, and their trucks get inspected. From day
one, it’s an education process for everyone .
16
17
Skip Backus is the Executive
Director of Omega. For more
than 20 years, he managed
his own contracting business,
including residential and light
commercial projects, and
Omega’s operations including all of Omega’s buildings.
Backus has provided visionary
leadership for the Omega
Center for Sustainable Living
which is expected to be the
first “Living Building” in the
United States. Photos Courtesy of Omega Institute for Holistic Studies and Marisa Scirocco
The Eco-Machine pipes from the entire campus, 100% of the
water into two huge anaerobic tanks buried in the parking lot. These
tanks are filled with microorganisms that start working on the
digestion process. From there, the wastewater goes to the splitter
tank which divides the waste stream in half. The wastewater travels
along the length of the building and into the first two constructed
wetlands. A constructed wetland is like a four foot deep swimming
pool with a rubber liner, filled with gravel and plants like bull rush and
cattail. Billions of micro-organisms start digesting and living off the
materials that make up the waste stream. Roots are also pulling up
nutrients and using them for their own growth. Next, the wastewater goes by gravity to the lower two wetlands. All along the way
you can see the dramatic change occurring in the water quality. At
the bottom of the first two wetlands water no longer looks brown,
has almost no odor to it and is starting to clarify. The lower two
wetlands duplicate that process. Then the water gets pumped into
two eight-foot deep aerated lagoons located inside the building. Its
all hydroponic. The plants are on metal racks and there is no soil.
The roots go down three feet into the water, creating a habitat for
micro-organisms. Fish, fungi, and snails do all the work for us. We
add air to help the digestion process and keep the environment fresh.
From the aerated lagoons, the water goes down to a sand filter for
a final polishing. The water comes out of there as if you just took a
glass of water out of your faucet at home – from brown and nasty to
totally clear. This water is used to flush the toilets, irrigate gardens or
it goes back into the aquifer where it is treated as if it were rainwater.
We actually start this digestion
process when we eat. The
enzymes in our mouth and
the organisms in our digestive
tract are all part of our own
personal Eco-Machine. When
we are disconnected from
natural processes we create
a problem. Knowing that we
are a part of a cycle makes a
difference in how we live and
the decisions we make. Omega
is building an integrated way
of understanding sustainability
and modelling it. Omega Center for Sustainable Living
www.eomega.org/omega/about/ocsl
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19
History and Mystery of CoSM Land
Alex and Allyson Grey
On Allyson’s birthday March 3, 2007, Alex had a new vision of the Chapel of
Sacred Mirrors. A voice in his head said, “But where are you going to build this
Chapel, Mr. Grey?” So Alex logged onto findthedivine.com. There he discovered a forty acres site with six buildings, a barn, a pool and a basketball court only
65 miles up the Hudson River from CoSM in Manhattan. In fact, both locations
were 1,500 yards from the east bank of the Hudson River.
On Earth Day in April 2007, we visited the future CoSM site for the first time.
As we passed through the gates there were a pair of turkeys doing a mating dance
in the driveway. We fell in love with the site, whose primordial beauty came from
leaving nature to itself. Alex heard voices telling us over and over again that this
was the place and that we should do whatever it would take to make this CoSM’s
next home. It felt like holy ground and a place where we could imagine the next
phase of our journey. On Earth Day 2009 as we walked to the top of the land
with our staff, we spoke of building a sun altar to Horus and noticed a rainbow
with its ends turned upward in the sky like a smile.
The United Church of Christ used the property as a summer bible camp for
families. They held services outdoors under the trees on a stone pulpit that still
remains. Their church bell also still rings excellently. It turns out that the United
Church of Christ actually always wanted to build a chapel here. A map of the
property from 1960 shows the spot where they were considering building. It is
exactly the place we intend to build the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. Surely, the
land was calling us as chapel builders, to come and fulfill its destiny.
What is our destiny? We are here to create sacred space. Dedicating our work to
a higher power, we honor the legacy of the spirit of this land. As we transform a
carriage house into a magnificent art sanctuary, as we weave a wisdom trail with
a mythic narrative at each inspiration station encountered along the path, we
dream of infinite creative possibilities. Altars will be woven into the landscape as
we listen to hear what the land is inviting us to carry out.
It is especially restorative to walk in the woods and experience the trees communicating with us. Every tree has a special character. There is a Grandmother
Tree, a Heart Vagina Tree, trees in sexual intercourse. One tree that we call The
Sentinal, is at the heart of the land and after being struck by lightening, appears
to be pointing to the spot where the Chapel will be built. This was the spot
where the divine feminine, seven women from Allyson’s family, came together to
bury a rose quartz crystal on New Year’s day 2010.
We became fascinated with the history of the area and learned that the Wappani
were the native Americans that lived in this beautiful land and probably on this
forty acres. Likely, Dutch settlers coined the name of their town Wappingers.
The big Victorian house at CoSM was built in the 1860’s and the carriage house
in 1882. The Sherwin family lived in this house until they gave it to their church,
the United Church of Christ, in 1959. A brochure from that time shows a picture of the house with a quote, “Where God first spoke to us on the land.” It was
then called Deer Hill. What we do know about the United Church of Christ is
that it was a very forward thinking, activist church. They left us black and white
pictures of their black and white ministers on the pulpit together, and black and
white teenagers in robes engaged in ritual together.
Crystal Burial:
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On New Year's Day, 1/1/10
at 11:11 am, seven women
from Allyson's family
joined together to bury a
rose quartz crystal in the
heart of the land, planting
a seed for manifestation
of the Chapel
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When the Land Speaks to the Heart
Creating the New CoSM on the Hudson
Alex Stark
The road winds uphill from the river. Through the gathering mist, we glimpse
patches of forest on both sides of the road. Behind us is the Hudson, the mighty
river that, further downstream, will embrace the greatest city in the world. But
up here, miles from the din of civilization, the quietness of the woods surrounds
us as we climb further into the land which once sheltered the Wappani, one
of the many Native tribes that populated the Hudson Valley before they were
exiled by the arrival of white settlers. Their presence is memorialized in the
name of this town; their legacy, although dimmed by time and the encroachment of history, is part of this region and lives on in the stories of Washington
Irving and, much later, in the poetry of Walt Whitman.
But we are far from these concerns, as our hearts pump ever faster to get us up
the hill. As we approach the gates of the compound, a blast from a train whistle
startles us into awareness of where we are: somewhere between a native forest
and the commuter corridor that feeds the ever-hungry canyons of Wall Street.
This contrast highlights a seldom-discussed fact of topographical history: the
influence of the upland Hudson Valley on the history and destiny of Manhattan.
From the perspective of geology, the Hudson is a remarkable formation, winding
its way across three hundred miles from its origins in Tear of the Clouds Lake
in the Adirondacks. This mystical name belies its own magic: when Hudson and
his sailors first arrived in New York Bay they reported seeing clouds of migratory birds that obscured the sun as if in an eclipse, lobsters a full five feet long, and
enough shell fish to create mounds of shell-waste ten feet deep. The wetlands
of what is now the Meadowlands was a teeming cauldron of biological diversity,
now sadly impoverished. This natural wealth has always been the result of a
great river’s encounter with the sea. We need only name a few such estuaries:
the Nile and Mekong Deltas, New Orleans, Buenos Aires. This abundance is the
product of rich silt, marshy spawning grounds, and waves and waves of
biological migration that have criss-crossed these areas for
millennia. In part this wealth is also derived from
22 Alex Grey, Hudson River View Towards Marlboro, 2009
the fact that nutrients move along the river in two directions: the Native
Lenepes called the Hudson Muhheakantuck, “the river that flows two ways”
in reference to the tidal swings that can reverse the river’s flow as far back
as Croton, only miles from Wappingers Falls and the compound we are now
approaching. Occasionally, when the wind blows from the river, we can catch a
whiff of the salty mustiness that incongruously characterizes this estuary river.
But now the only wind that moves in this forest is our breath as the gates
appear through the lifting fog to greet us in this cold winter morning. We are
about to enter into Deer Hill, the compound that is to become the new home
of CoSM. Nestled in a patch of forest only a mile or so from the Hudson,
the property is surrounded by cleared farmland on one side and scattered
residential development on another. Within the compound, however, the
feeling is one of surrender to the landscape, as the path meanders sinuously
through acres of wooded slopes. At sudden turns, we catch glimpses of a clearing, as feeding deer scatter at the sound of our footsteps.
Once part of a now-scattered spiritual community, this land had been
preserved for its ultimate purpose: to serve as the heart and center of the
CoSM community. We are witnessing the transformation of CoSM from an
urban-based institution to one that is more deeply rooted in the land. The
purchase of this property has been the result of many small miracles, both in
the human and financial sense. The purchase is a momentous event, as it will
allow the congregation to transform itself physically as well as spiritually. Part
of this growth is the property itself, as its development and enrichment are
certain to become a central part of the ritual and spiritual life of the community. In this context, the layout of the compound will necessarily have to reflect
the principles and wisdom that guide the community: the integration of wisdom traditions in the unfolding of our own personal path of enlightenment.
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To this purpose, the new CoSM has been conceived as a three-dimensional
mandala, deeply rooted in the land and reflective of its power. The topography of
this site and its particular form and footprint are to be transformed into a reflection of the anthropocosmos, the concept that relates humanity to the land and to
architecture. In this concept, the land itself will become a sephirot, the kabbalistic
tree of life upon which the entire life of the community will be based.
As the diagram illustrates, embedded in the land will be a sacred geometric crystal
gridework tying together Grey’s vision of humanity and nature. This property relates
this location to our own body, mind and spirit. At key locations within this figure,
shrines will anchor the particular energy associated with each node or point: at the
center and heart of the compound, for example, a monumental rose quartz crystal will
anchor the loving commitment of the congregation. The creation of this template on
the landscape will also allow for the construction of a pilgrimage path that will serve
as a meditation tool in real time and space to guide aspirants into an understanding
of these principles. By walking the land, the seeker will also be re-enacting the millennial search for spiritual liberation. In a curious twist of irony, the anthropocosmos
that will come alive on this landscape parallel the cycle of the Sacred Mirrors, which
were themselves a reflection of ourselves as seen through the lens of art. In this case,
the land, its form, and vegetation will serve a similar purpose.
Unfortunately, years of neglect have traumatized part of the property, creating
stresses in the land that, like clogged acupuncture meridians, are in great need of
healing. These will have to be corrected in order to bring balance and harmony back
into the landscape. Using techniques known as earth healing, crystals and other
talismans will be buried at key locations in this traumatized pattern in order to
restore its original vitality. In this process, ritual and human participation will be
critical, as it is only when humans and the landscape come together that sustainable healing can occur. The CoSM community will have an opportunity here to
participate in the healing of a remarkably beautiful piece of earth.
Alex Stark is an internation-
ally recognize consultant, advisor, and teacher on issues of
creativity, efficiency, and design.
A graduate of the Yale University School of Architecture, he
is a practitioner of Feng Shui
and European Geomancy. He
advises on issues of design
and placement for residential,
commercial, institutional, and
industrial facilities, urban settlements, health care facilities,
and on issues of institutional
and personal transformation.
Alex is a recipient of a Ford
Foundation scholarship for
cross-cultural studies and was
named Scholar of the House by
Yale University. He has been a
consultant to the United Nations Development Program
in public health and regional
planning.
Crystal Burials on the land at CoSM by Shaman’s Imani White and Alex Stark
However, because all landscapes are
holographically connected to each other,
CoSM–and the community that it represents–will also be participating in the
healing of the entire planet. In this sense,
the concept of the anthropocosmos, which
began simply as a way to anchor spirit on
this one piece of earth, will also expand to
connect the congregation to its role as
steward and caregiver to all of nature. What
began in Alex and Allyson’s studio years
ago as a vision of wholeness and healing, is
now about to go global.
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Aerial view of CoSM
land with Grey’s vision
of the anthropocosm
Alex Stark
www.alexstark.com
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Walton Ford
R i c o rd a z i o n e
Ricordazione - Vinci 1452, Ford recalls a book by Leonardo Divinci: “Leonardo’s writing about
studying bird flight, referring to a bird called a kite. It’s almost like an eagle, frightening,
with a three-foot wingspan. He writes that when he was an infant in his cradle, a kite
came down and put its tail in his mouth and beat it against his gums and then flew off.
He acknowledges that it might have been a dream, then he just drops the subject. But it’s
as if he’s saying it was an augury, that God touched him as a genius. I’ve painted the infant
really pulling the tail into his mouth, like taking the genius in.” Expert from “America the
Beautifully Absurd” By Annette Grant
Walton Ford meditates on the often violent and bizarre moments occurring at the
intersection of human culture and the natural world. Although human figures rarely
appear in his paintings, their presence is always implied. Ford’s concerns do not center
on animals in the wilderness–as he told Calvin Tomkins in a January 2009 New Yorker
profile, “Before Fay Wray comes to Skull Island, King Kong isn’t doing anything. There’s
no story until she shows up…. What I’m doing, I think, is a sort of cultural history of the
way animals live in the human imagination.”
Walton Ford, Ricordazione, 2005, watercolor, gouache, pencil, and ink on paper, 108.9 x 158.8 cm
Walton Ford was born in Larchmont, New York in 1960 and lives and works in Great
Barrington, Massachusetts. A recent survey of his work was organized by the Brooklyn Museum in New York in 2006 and traveled to the San Antonio Museum of Art
in Texas and the Norton Museum of Art in Florida in 2007. Over
the last year, TASCHEN Books has issued three editions of
his large-format monograph, Pancha Tantra. Ford’s first
major European exhibition will open at the Hamburger
Bahnhof in Berlin on January 23rd, 2010 and will run
through May 24th, before traveling to the Albertina in
Vienna from June 8th to October 3rd, 2010.
Walton Ford
www.paulkasmingallery.com
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Mark Ryden
Ancient peoples felt an
intimate connection to trees.
They saw how their lives were
interwoven with the natural
world around them and so they
instinctively respected and
cared for nature. When they
cut down a tree they would
say a prayer to the indwelling spirit. One of the very
first deities humans ever
depicted was a forest spirit.
There are cave paintings of
a figure with the shape of a
man and the horns of a stag
believed to represent this
divinity. In the ancient Celtic
world, this forest spirit was
named Cernunnos. He was
a very important god to his
people and his representations
were widespread. Cernunnos
was a guardian of the forest,
and the trees were guardians
of both life and death. Trees
were so significant in ancient
people’s lives that the beginnings of all religious and
social life took place under trees
in sacred groves. When the
Christians began systematically destroying the sacred groves,
a monumental shift in our
thinking began. We went from
believing we are a part of
nature to seeing nature as
something to conquer and
control, something we are
above. The mysterious spirits
and essence of trees, plants and
animals have become more and
more obscure to us.
The Apology, 2006, oil on canvas, 32 x 24 in.
Mark Ryden came to preeminence in
the 1990’s during a time when many
artists, critics and collectors were
quietly championing a return to the art
of painting. With his masterful technique and disquieting content, Ryden
quickly became one of the leaders of this
movement on the West Coast.
Over the past decade, a marriage of
accessibility, craftsmanship and technique with social relevance, emotional
resonance and cultural reference has
catapulted Ryden beyond his roots and
to the attention of museums, critics and
serious collectors. Ryden’s work has
been exhibited in museums and galleries
worldwide. Mark Ryden was born in Medford,
Oregon. He received a BFA in 1987
from Art Center College of Design in
Pasadena. He currently lives and
works in Los Angeles where he paints
slowly and happily amidst his countless
collections of trinkets, statues, skeletons,
books, paintings and antique toys.
Four Elements, 2006, oil on canvas, 32 x 24 in.
Mark Ryden
www.markryden.com
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Alexis Rockman
Hot House
Hot House showcases a sprawling
glass and iron Victorian greenhouse that looks suspiciously like
the Palm House in Kew Gardens.
Here Rockman has conjured a
steamy vision of the most erotic
botanical specimens imaginable,
with the only caveat being that all
of the species depicted are real.
Most of them are jungle exotics
of one type or another, and each
is rendered to make as explicit as
possible their resemblance to
human genitalia. Although the
images are clearly as evocative and
even disturbing as their more
science-fiction companions, it does
come as a surprise to reflect on the
fact that the Royal Botanical
Gardens might well possess
examples of these same species,
in this very spot. With this gentle
reminder that the roots of today’s
genetic engineering craze can be
found in yesterday’s struggle to
define heredity through the crossfertilization of plants, Rockman
cunningly provides a historical
context for the current, extremely
heated debate on the subject.
Hot House, 2003, oil on board, 96 x 120 in.
Excerpt from Life and its Double by
Dan Cameron in Wonderful World
published by Camden Arts Center
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Boundaries and Categories by Stephen Jay Gould
But the modern mallard flies off to the left, the extinct pterodactyl
to the right. The central space in Rockman’s Evolution features a
titanothere (large extinct mammal) and pterodactyl moving right, a
turtle and duck going left. Rockman takes a standard icon of evolutionary biology (second only to the tree of
life)--the large rectangular mural, depicting progress in life’s history, left to right-and inverts its meaning while retaining its conventional artistic form. Evolution
presents a zoo with movement in all directions, not a sequence toward progress. The
left side contains more lumbering and slithering reptiles, the right some pretty birds.
I don’t accept the hierarchy of art as the improver of a coarser nature, but I do
applaud the partnership that allows art, for all its celebrated ambiguity and stress upon
the arcane, to bring nature out of her hiding places, down from her mountaintops (for
surrounding pervasiveness can be visible as careful sequestering) and into our scrutiny–
by asking more varied questions, rather than supplying fewer integrated answers.
Alexis Rockman
Evolution
Evolution, 1992, oil on wood, 96 x 288 in.
Alexis Rockman is a painter living and working in New York
City. Over his twenty-year career he has collaborated with people
from a variety of disciplines, such as science and architecture, and
has exhibited in solo and group shows around the world. These
include the Carnegie Museum, Pitsburgh, Serpentine, London and
the Brooklyn Museum. A mid career survey is scheduled at
The Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2010.
Alexis Rockman
www.alexisrockman.net
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Mycelial Consciousness:
The Emergence of Mycorestoration
Paul Stamets
CoSM : Your work with mushrooms is about both the health of
people and the planet. At this time of great transition on our planet,
what do mushrooms have to offer our quest to address pressing ecological concerns?
Paul Stamets : We are fully engaged in 6x, the sixth greatest extinction
event of life known on this planet. Two other extinction events, one 250 million
years ago, known geologically as the PT (Permian-Triassic) Boundary, killed
more than 90% of life on this planet. Whether an asteroid impact, volcanic
eruptions from what now is known as Siberia, or methane hydrate bursts from
the oceans – or all three simultaneously – is a matter of academic debate.
What is not debatable are the deep levels of extinction, and the surge of
fungal dominance. Prior to the PT Boundary, the ratio of plant pollen to fungal spore was 10:1. Directly after, fungal spores dominated
without pollen spores for hundreds of years. The fungus Reduviasporonites gobbled up the destroyed forests, and in the aftermath soils were renewed. Those organisms that paired with
fungi were rewarded.
We fast forward to 65 million years ago, and an asteroid
impact caused another massive extinction, jettisoning
enormous debris into the atmosphere, choking off
sunlight. Since fungi do not require light, another
fungal explosion occurred. Again those organisms that paired with fungi survived, and gained a
competitive advantage.
Ants discovered the value of fungus farming
nearly 50 million years ago. By growing fungal
mycelium in their nests, they could prevent
other diseases from destroying their homes.
Specifically, Atta ants found that by growing Lepiota mushrooms, the nests would
become honeycombed with luxuriant mycelium. The mycelium produced antibiotics that pre-selected a bacterium (actually
an actinomyces) that, in turn, prevented
an ant-colony fungal parasite called Escovopsis from invading the nest. Ants
discovered long ago, what we need to
re-discover now. By pairing with mushrooms, we can enhance our ‘host defense’ of resistance against parasitizing
diseases, and strengthen sustainability.
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As we are in the midst of 6x, I think the evolutionary lesson we should pay
attention to is that, by pairing with fungi, organisms – like us – have a better
chance of survival.
My book, Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, lists specific ways
we can ally with fungi to have practical, immediate and long term benefits. From
destroying toxic wastes, filtering water, building soils, growing fungal foods, to
creating biological guilds with fungi as a foundation for healthy ecosystems,
fungi, especially mushrooms forming fungi, offer us a menu of solutions that
can be implemented now.
Plus they taste good.
CoSM : So much of your work is helping mushrooms to have a relationship to
people. If there was a message the mushrooms were able to communicate what
might that message be?
Paul Stamets : Mushrooms are bridges to the underworld, a hidden landscape
beneath our feet. Mushrooms are the fruit of the mycelium, a vast network of fine threadlike cells that can literally extend to thousands of
acres in size, erupting here and there, like tips of icebergs, into
something we see and recognize as a ‘mushroom’. Fungi are
primary residents, co-existing beneficially within all plants,
in soils, from deserts to forests to arctic tundra. I often image “alexgrayian” works as a reflections of what strike me
deeply. If we could see only mycelium, in its luminosity,
all around us, we would see the exact same outlines
of plants now. Fungal networks make up the infrastructure of the ecosystem, the foundational food
web, the cellular fabric of being upon which, and
in which all land based organisms and we are
embedded.
Mushrooms call us to us as allies to help repair the catastrophes we are inflicting upon
the Earth. Unless we heed their call, we will
slip into extinction – an extinction of our
own making. If we call out to our mycological ancestors for help they will respond.
Few people know – even scientists – that
we are more closely related to fungi than
any other kingdom. A new super-kingdom, Opisthokonta has been erected to
join Animalia and Fungi together, reflecting our close ancestry. Ironically that we
are now discovering – at this late stage
in the game – how important and closely
related to fungi we are. Proto-fungi gave
rise to animals. And we are animals, albeit
debatably uncivilized in our view towards
nature.
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CoSM : What are some of the goals and intentions of your work, and the work of
Fungi Perfecti at this time?
Paul Stamets : Our goal is to spread the mycelial message far and wide, to instill
children with an awareness of the fungal networks upon which we walk, to let all
know that these networks are everywhere, they are alive, they are sensitive, and
they have a form of intelligence deeply meaningful, that resonate in both the material and spiritual realms. As a company, we have contributed more than 700 mycobags—burlaps sacks
stuffed with woodchips and mycelium – to our community in Mason County
(Washington State) for cleaning up water streaming into ditches and out-falling onto beaches, threatening the ecosystem with the pollutants that are carried.
We have approximately 10 sites currently, and third party testing by the Mason
County Health Department has shown a dramatic (10 fold) reduction of coliform bacteria, allowing in one case for a beach, previously closed for more than
five years, to be be re-opened for recreational shellfish harvesting. Not only do
these ‘mycofilters’ reduce coliform bacteria, but they also capture and degrade
oil residues, and reduce Phosphorus and Nitrogen impacts. Since parking lots,
farms, housing developments and industries emit pollutants, and since they are
carried ‘downstream’ when it rains, water run-off is a huge vector of pollutants. The architecture of mycelium is a network of cells that filters and gobbles
up many of the toxins we create. By networking the Mason County Health
Department with the Public Works Department and the local Soil Conservation
District, the storm debris generated from falling and trimming trees provides a
ready source of woodchips that can be used as a no-cost base for these mycofilters.
This is but one example of many where the use of mycelium has an immediate,
low cost, highly beneficial impact on downstream environments. The Life Box ™ is my re-invention of the cardboard box. Within its corrugations
are communities of seeds and fungal spores that lie dormant until the box is torn
up, soaked and planted. We envisage Garden Life Boxes with drought tolerant
seeds to ship food aid, or
to help ship books (Korans
or Bibles), Meadow Flower
Life Boxes customized to
help bees, Prairie Life Boxes to re-establish vanishing
grasslands, and many other
variations. Each Tree Life
Box™ will sprout a miniforest—essentially a tree
nursery. This is my idea for
re-foresting the planet.
Paul Stamets has written six mushroomrelated books. His latest book: Mycelium
Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World
has been heralded as a milestone for healing
the planet. He started a mushroom wholesale
and retail sales business, Fungi Perfecti, LLC,
in 1980. He is an advisor to the Program of
Integrative Medicine at the University of
Arizona Medical School, Tucson. His strain
collection is extensive and unique, with many of
the strains coming from old growth forests. In
2008, Paul received the National Geographic
Adventure’s Magazine’s Green-O-Vator and
the Argosy Foundation’s E-chievement Awards.
In November of 2008, Utne Reader recognized
Paul as one of the fifty Visionaries of the Year.
Married to C. Dusty Yao, a plant fanatic, who
shares a passion for fungi and their love of the
Old Growth forests, both believe that people
properly enriched with fungal wisdom can help
save the planet.
above
Ann Gunter
Mycelium Forest Scene, 2004
water color
Paul Stamets
Mycobag Filtration
photo : David Sumerlin
www.lifeboxcompany.com
www. fungi.com
37
Being With Flowers Anthony Ward
“In the work I do with Nature,
namely Flowers, the deep
connection with water is the
root of my art form. Without
water, my floral sculptures would
not last an hour. This work is my
calling and is my main spiritual
practice. Through my work I have
created for, and with, some of
the most important teachers of
Spirituality on this beautiful
Blue Planet we call Home. My
Dancing with flowers is an art
form most have yet to see. From
Spring until Autumn for the last
11 years I have been in residence
at Omega Institute in upstate
New York. I share a workshop
called ‘Being With Flowers:
Floral Art As Spiritual Practice,’
and create for weddings.”
CoSM: Your work reflects the wonder of nature with
such grace. Sometimes it feels like you are helping
nature to communicate to humans. If this was the
case, what do you think that message would be?
Anthony Ward:
The message is simple, its beauty.
“Behold me, I am you”.
It’s just a reflection of us.
Nature in all its glory and simplicity,
that’s what I am hoping to bring.
I am not trying to say anything
because I don’t have to,
Just look what’s happening,
These leaves are telling you to wake up.
“Remember you are alive”.
One of the things Thich Nhat Hanh kept talking
about was the Miracle of Life.
The fact that we are all just sitting here.
We can sit up.
We’re breathing also in the present moment.
Nature is an amazing and often beautiful way to
bring yourself to the present.
Something as simple as holding a flower in your hand
in silence.
Georgia O’Keeffe had this saying
“If you take a flower and hold it in your hand,
that becomes your world”
So this very simple meditation is
holding a flower in your hand,
and looking at it,
and being with it,
and letting it reflect you.
Something like the Sacred Mirrors
seeing the flower and seeing yourself
“There are certain things in nature that remind me of Alex’s work.
Often times its grasses, they have that iridescent sparkle thing that
he can do with paint.”
Anthony Ward
www.beingwithflowers.com
photos : LeAnna Rowe www.placidstar.com 38
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In this final reflection we look forward to a deepened understanding of the gifts
that are given us here on the planet Earth and beyond the Earth - the stars in the
heavens, the winds and the rains, the dawn and the sunset. We need to take care lest
we upset this most delicate design. Nature always enfolds us. We need only respond
to this all-embracing presence with care and gratitude, with wonder and praise
and resonance with that Universe wherein all things come together in intimate
celebration that is the Universe itself”
The more a person thinks of the infinite number of interrelated activities taking
place here the more mysterious it all becomes, the more meaning a person finds in
the Maytime blooming of the lilies, the more awestruck a person might be in simply looking out over this little patch of meadowland. It had none of the majesty
of the Appalachian or the Western mountains, none of the immensity or the
power of oceans, nor even the harsh magnificence of desert country; yet in
this little meadow the magnificence of life as celebration is manifested in a
manner as profound and as impressive as any other place that I have known
in these past many years. It seems to me we all had such experiences before
we entered into an industrial way of life. The universe as manifestation of
some primordial grandeur was recognized as the ultimate referent in any
human understanding of the wonderful yet fearsome world about us. Every
being achieved its full identity by its alignment with the universe itself. With
indigenous peoples of the North American continent every formal activity
was first situated in relation to the six directions of the universe: the four
cardinal directions combined with the heavens above and Earth below. Only
thus could any human activity be fully validated. The universe was the world
of meaning in these earlier times, the basic referent in social order, in economic survival, in the healing of illness. In that wide ambiance the muses dwelled
whence came the inspiration of poetry and art and music. The drum, heartbeat
of the universe itself, established the rhythm of dance whereby humans entered
into the very movement of the natural world. The numinous dimension of the
universe impressed itself upon the mind through the vastness of the heavens and
the power revealed in thunder and lightning, as well as through springtime renewal of life after the desolation of winter. Then, too, the general helplessness of the
human before all the threats to survival revealed the intimate dependence of the
human on the integral functioning of things. That the human had such intimate
rapport with the surrounding universe was possible only because the universe
itself had a prior intimate rapport with the human.
Written for ‘The Universe Story Journey’
Excerpt from ‘The Great Work’
Remembrance:
Thomas Berry 1914-2009
“The Universe is a communion of subjects
rather than a collection of objects”
As humans we have come into being just when the planet Earth has reached its most
splendid moment, when the seas and continents have attained their full expression,
when the mountains soar into the sky, the rivers are flowing through the valleys, the
flowers blossoming in the meadows, the wolf and the deer roam the forest, the birds
fill the air with song.
It is a precious moment for us as we come onto the scene. Our minds are filled
with the wonders of it all, our imagination responds to the beauty revealed in the
color and sound and shape of things wherever we turn. Our emotions respond with
delight to have such a world to live in.
Our need just now is to keep this world in its full wonder and beauty and delight.
We are all aware of the severe challenges that have arisen in recent times. Our
modern technologies have left us with a world imperiled in its every aspect.
We know, too, that the extinction of any species in the natural world is forever.
The Meadow Across the Creek
It was an early afternoon in May when I first looked down over the scene and saw
the meadow. The field was covered with lilies rising above the thick grass. A magic
moment, this experience gave to my life something, I know not what, that seems
to explain my life at a more profound level than almost any other experience I can
remember.
It was not only the lilies. It was the singing of the crickets and the woodlands in the
distance and the clouds in an otherwise clear sky. It was not something conscious
that happened just then. I went on about my life as any young person might do.
Perhaps it was not simply this moment that made such a deep impression upon me.
Perhaps it was a sensitivity that was developed throughout my childhood. Yet, as
the years pass, this moment returns to me, and whenever I think about my basic life
attitude and the whole trend of my mind and the causes that I have given my efforts
to, I seem to come back to this moment and the impact it has had on my feeling for
what is real and worthwhile in life.
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Beginning as a cultural historian, Berry has become a historian of Earth.
Berry sees himself, then, not as a theologian but as a geologian. The
movement from human history to cosmological history has been a
necessary progression for Berry. He has witnessed in his own
lifetime the emergence of a planetary civilization as cultures have
come in contact around the globe, often for the first time. It
is out of concerns for the future direction of human-Earth
history that Berry has developed the New Story. It is a
story of personal evolution against the background
of cosmic evolution. It is the story of one person’s
intellectual history in relation to Earth history. It
is the story of all of our histories in conjunction
with planetary history. It is a story awaiting
new tellings, new chapters, and ever deeper confidence in the beauty and mystery
of its unfolding.
Biography by Mary Evelyn Tucker
Thomas Berry
www.thomasberry.org
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Madeline Von Foerster
Wo r l d C u l t u re
V i s i o n a r y M a p w ork
Steven Kenney
Maria Isabela Hartz
The planet wide art culture
reflects a web of rich diversity,
a thousand facet world map
charting unique geographies,
traditions and lineages. Each
facet has its own art community,
technique and style, and yet all are
facets from the same world crystal
celebrating the spirit of the
visionary in art. Here we take a global journey
of art through five continents
of the world. From concrete
jungles of the new urban
America to tiny villages in the
rainforests of Peru and Brazil.
From the pastoral countryside of
England to the wide open lands
of Australia. From the garden
cities of Japan to the ageless grasslands of Africa. Everywhere we
journey we see new approaches
to art growing out of natures and
cultures inextricably interwoven
with the art they inspire. These
are the many faceted reflections
of a planetary culture, living in
harmony inspiring and inspired
by each other. Pablo Amaringo
Bridgit Marlin
Akiko Endo
Daniel Mirante
Mitsuru Nagashima
Andy Thomas
Anne Mwiti
background art by
Akiko Endo
“Sound of Silence”
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North America
Madeline von Foerster
These paintings invite the viewer into the
bewitching, claustrophobic realm of the
Cabinets of Curiosities, or Wunderkammern. These wooden cabinets intentionally allude to the once-living trees that
were their source. Some are carved into the
shape of women, personifying trees, whose
bodies have become cabinets. Meanwhile,
the “curiosities” displayed are actual species,
dependant on the trees for survival. “In my paintings, I attempt to unveil images of the subconscious underworld – my own and that of
my culture. I utilize the methods and the styles of the past, in order to reinterpret current topics
using the iconography of history.”
Madeline von Foerster received her art education at California College of Art. She also traveled
to Austria to study the Old Masters’ mixed technique of oil and egg tempera with Philip Rubinov
Jacobson. Born in San Francisco, she now resides in New York City. Amazon Cabinet, 2008, oil and, egg tempera, on panel, 30 x 60 in.
Tsariwa Mama (The Mother of the Tree), 2009, oil and egg tempera on panel, 30 x 40 in.
Madeline von Foerster
www.madelinevonfoerster.com
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North America
S t e v e n Ke n n y
“Our global society is ever more
reliant on superficial psychological,
physical, spiritual, social, and cultural
environments. In doing so we seek a
sense of stability, inner balance and
peace while attempting to drown out
the anxiety of our increasingly
technological existence. My work is
an exploration of the multi-faceted
relationship we have with our
collective and individual souls.
For subject matter I focus
almost exclusively on humans
and natural elements in
varying combinations. The
manner with which my
figures interact with their
Earthly environments is a
direct reflection of the
successes and failures
modern man experiences on a daily
basis.”
The Rain Gown
2008
oil on linen
32 x 24 in.
The Release
2009
oil on linen
38 x 26 in.
S t e v e n Ke n n y
www.stevenkenny.com
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J u l i a B u t t e r f l y H i l l Art from Luna
Julia Butterfly Hill , was born
Palestine, 1999, ink pen
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Divine Interconnection, 1999 ,colored pencil
photo courtesy of Omega Institute for Holistic Studies
Harvest Moon, 1999 (art), 1998 (poem), ink pen
Growing Into One, 1998, ink pen
on February 18, 1974 in Missouri.
She studied business in college,
before leaving to open her own
restaurant at age 18. A trip to visit
the California Redwoods caused
Julia to drop to her knees, astounded
by the silent holiness exuded by
the ancient beauty. A short time
later, she learned that 97% of the
ancient redwoods have been
destroyed, and destructive logging
practices were continuing. She
heard of people working to prevent
this destruction. One 200 ft.
tall Redwood, named, “Luna” by
Earth First! activists, claimed her heart.
Julia broke the 42-day American record and then the world’s 90-day
record for tree-sitting. After 738 days without touching the ground,
she was able to return to ground after she and her team successfully
negotiated permanent protection for Luna and the surrounding grove.
Julia Butterfly Hill’s work continues as an author, activist, and speaker
and her work with the Engage Network.
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CoSM : What is next for Julia Butterfly Hill
Julia: I get bored if I am stuck in one thing, I’m a butterfly. Put me in a desk job and there
is no thrivability for me. I am committed to diversity, many flowers, not just one. I am an original founder and donor for ‘The Women’s Earth Alliance’, an organization
bridging women, activism and the environment. This organization focuses on the three
issues which most impact woman globally; water, fuel, and food. Women come together
to share their stories and help solve problems in their communities. Four years ago, I started working with the farmers of South Central Los Angeles.
They had a fourteen acre urban farm for fourteen years, feeding over 350 families, the
largest urban farm in the country. It was extraordinary and the government sold the
land out from under them. I tried to help them hold off the eviction and buy the land.
That didn’t happen, but we are working to buy the land back, and to create other
farming opportunities that
will provide food for their
community.
T h e B u t t e r f l y C h r o n i c l e s Julia Butterfly Hill
CoSM : Can you talk about the relationship between humans and nature that you would like to inspire in other people?
Julia: Any problem we are facing, from the destruction of the natural world in
which we live, to war, to overcrowded jails, these are all symptoms of the disease of
disconnect. Disconnected from a forest, we could clearcut it and not realize the impact.
Disconnected from people, we could drop a bomb and call it a statistic instead of experiencing the very real human beings who are being obliterated. The largest crises facing the
human species is: ‘Are we going to be able to continue living on this planet or not?.’
We face this question because we have become disconnected from the Earth and from
one another. We separate this thing called ‘The Planet’ from this other thing called
‘Us’. Years ago I started a tour called ‘We the Planet.’ You always hear the expression,
‘We the people.’ If we could think, ‘We the Planet’ we would see the mess we’ve created.
To clean up this mess we have to answer the question ‘How long can we survive in this
ongoing mess?’, and not just ‘Can we survive but can we thrive?’. I am not interested in
mere survival. I am committed to thrivability. I want our human species to be nature
at its most lush. To get there we must reconnect with the Earth and the nature of our
human nature. It goes against our true human nature to rip out the roots that connect
us to our world.
Another project I helped
launch is called ‘Engage
Network’ which asks the
question: ‘With all of the
activism and all of the
actions, why isn’t there
more change?’ Taking action one issue at a time, we
create a sustained movement. A creative art space
like CoSM is a movement
of sustained action. Engage
Network supports teachers who bring creativity
and the spirit of service and
care into their classroom. ‘Engage Network’ promotes
inspiration in place of fear,
overwhelm, and anger,
which gets us nowhere. The
‘Engage Network’ builds
a movement of people
uncovering or clarifying their
purpose, passion and power
in order to take inspired
long term action. CoSM : If you were to communicate on behalf of nature, is there a message that you feel nature is wanting to
communicate to humans?
Julia: Nature has always been communicating and we have forgotten how to listen.
Global warming, massive climate change, and wild fluctuations in the natural world is
Mother Nature screaming, amping it up, because we haven’t been listening. 50
photos provided by
Shaun Walker: Otter Media
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photo: Barry Shainbaum, from Hope & Heroes
B u t t e r f l y Po e t i c s
Julia in the redwood tree which she named Luna
Pa g e s f ro m t h e B u t t e r f l y J o u r n a l s
“When I first entered the forest, I became conscious of an essential piece of my being
that had been hidden underneath religion, society, even my concepts of who I am.
These blockages began to dissolve as my tears fell to the forest floor. I sobbed because
the beauty around me reminded me of the forgotten beauty within.”
“I changed while in Luna, but it was through understanding myself. The experience
gave me an unshakable belief in the interconnection of life, because the only way I
could survive was to become one with the tree, to merge with it, to absorb it and have
it absorb me.”
“I could not have stayed in the tree for 738 days if my focus had been on destroying
the loggers– which it was in the beginning because I was so hurt by what was happening. When an animal is hurt or afraid its instinctual response is to strike out or to
run. I went through both of these reactions. Later, I woke up and asked, “How can I
offer my life today?”….The number-one factor is taking the time to be still. That was
a crucial part of what I did. I sat in one place for two years.”
“We are like the caterpillar when it goes into the cocoon and becomes liquefied; it’s a
total acceptance of death of the self we were attached to and a willingness to become
something we never believed we could be.”
“My prayer is that I may have an open heart… The root word for courage is the Latin
word “cor,” which means heart. That’s where the courage comes from. It is the heart
that motivates our greatest acts of courage and kindness. Courage is not an act of
bravado. It has nothing to do with ego or adrenaline. It has to do with falling in love,
and having the courage to give over fully to it.”
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“Offerings To Luna”
A tree
A life so many years gone by
History bound
in each new ring
and every scar
i lay nestled in Her arms
i listen to all She has to say
She speaks to me
through my bare feet
my hands
She speaks to me
on the wind and in the rain
Telling me stories
born long before my time
Wisdom
as only Ancient Elders know
Truths passed to me
through Nature’s perfect lips
She cries
her grief
sap that clings to me
to my soul
i wrap my arms around Her
offering the only solace
that i know
A pitiful offering
it seems
to a Goddess such as this
but of myself
it is all
that i have
to give
In Honor of Unexpected Friends and
Unexpected Surprises
A thousand butterflies
kiss the sky with their wings
as an offering
to the magic you are
in this moment
“You Reflecting Me,
Reflecting You”
You are a part of me,
and i am a part of you.
When one reaches out to another,
then one transforms to two.
But two is never separate
from the one it was before.
If anything,
two is the possibility
of one becoming more.
And if there were no counting,
no numbers to create a wall,
when we looked in the face of one,
we would see the face of all.
To me this poem includes all life, not just the
humans. If we could look into a tree, flower,
dog, cow, pig, chicken, mountain,
river, stream, ocean, anything, and see no
separation, our actions would radically begin
to shift towards choices of harmony, peace,
love, care, and responsibility.
Julia Butterfly Hill
juliabutterflyhill.wordpress.com
www.engagenet.org
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Humans and Earth
Are Humans the Nervous System
of the Gaian Biosphere?
Ralph Metzner
illustrated with art by Alex Grey
In the Gaia theory first articulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis we
consider the Earth a unitary system integrating the structures and functions of
litho-, hydro-, bio- and atmosphere in complex, interdependent webs of relationships.
According to this metaphoric image, Earth is an organism, and individual organisms
(human, plant or animal) are cells in the vast planetary organism.
Following the implications of this metaphoric image, if Earth as a whole is an
organism, and individual organisms are cells, then the ecosystems of the planet
correspond to the organ systems of the body, and species correspond to the
specialized tissues that constitute these organ systems. The organ systems of the
human (or other animal or plant) body function as energy-transforming, metabolic
systems, much like the great ecosystems of Earth – rain forests, oceans, prairies,
tundras and so forth. Lovelock develops this analogy between ecosystems and organ
systems in his book Healing Gaia, and introduces the term geophysiology for the science
of self-regulating planetary energy systems and their structures and functions. Such
analogies are not mere fanciful metaphors but encapsulate important insights that
can lead to a deeper understanding of the human-to-Earth relationship and a better
environmental ethic based on such understanding.
But in a second set of instructions, Adam was instructed to name the animals
and plants, that is to identify and communicate his perceptions. “Naming” here
encompasses all the functions of the human brain and mind (interpreting,
categorizing, etc) that also follow from the analogy of humans as the nerves and
brain of the biosphere. The domination and exploitation that have characterized
so much of human behavior toward the biosphere could not be sanctioned within
the framework of this metaphor. It seems to me that the human role of interpreter,
categorizer and communicator of nature is much more compatible with an egalitarian and respectful attitude toward the natural world. It leads to an ecological
worldview and culture that is non-invasive, naturalistic and supportive of all life.
The unprecedented industrial-technological assault on the biosphere we are
witnessing in our time is rooted in the mechanistic science of the modern world,
which deliberately divorced itself from spirituality, values and consciousness. There
exists a vast gulf in common understanding between what we regard as sacred and
what we regard as natural. Yet out of the direct experience of millions of individuals
in the Western world with ancient Earth-honoring practices, such as shamanism,
and the formulations of visionary scientists, we are seeing the emergence of an
integrative worldview that views all of life as an interdependent web of relationships
that needs to be carefully protected and preserved.
Excerpt from Green Psychology
The following question then arises from consideration of these analogies:
If different species correspond to the specialized tissues of the planetary body,
then what are human beings? Are we the heart, the brain, the genitals of Earth?
If we ascertain the answer correctly or appropriately, we might have the means to
understand the nature of humanity’s natural role or organic function within the
greater whole that is Gaia. Lovelock himself, in his first book on the Gaia theory,
raised the question whether “we as a species constitute a Gaian nervous system and
a brain which can consciously anticipate environmental changes and challenges?”
It should be noted that this analogy does not support a superior role of the
human in relation to the rest of biosphere. In physiology, there is no assumption
that the brain is somehow superior to, or more advanced than other parts of the
organism. We could say that the brain generates and communicates interpretations of
reality just as the lungs breathe air, the heart circulates blood, and muscles provide
for locomotion. Each organ has a specialized role (like species in ecosystems), but
none has a privileged or controlling function.
Using the analogy that we are Earth’s nervous system and brain, one could develop
a more balanced and integrative understanding of the human being’s role or
organic function. Is it not true that we function on Earth somewhat like a nervous
system and brain? In the Book of Genesis there are two sets of instructions from God to
Adam and Eve. In one, they are told to “subdue the earth and have dominion over
the animals.” In the history of Western civilization this text has been cited as the
scriptural justification for the human domination and exploitation of nature.
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55
Invocations
We call upon the Spirits of this Place
The guardian spirits of this particular place,
This house and this region,
Its landforms and waterways,
Its elemental forces and energies,
Its fields and forests, plants and animals,
Two-legged humans of past times and present,
The natives and the dwellers We approach them with respect and appreciation,
Mindful of our interdependence,
The continued balance of giving and receiving.
We call upon the Spirits of the Plants and the Fungi
as well as the molecular substances extracted or derived from them
Remembering our biospheric symbiosis,
Cellular webs of mycelial networks of independence,
With roots and bark, seeds and spores, flowers and fungi.
Those providing substance and sustenance of food;
Those healing sickness and relieving pain;
Those delighting our senses and souls
With beauty and color and flowering fragrance;
And the plant teachers, vines of visions, herbs of healing,
Mushrooms of magic, ergot of mother grains Gate-keepers and door openers to the spirit world
Helping us to cleanse the lenses of perception,
Helping us to know our place in the great Web of Life.
We call upon them with respect and appreciation,
always mindful of our mutuality, the flowing balance
of receiving and giving, giving and receiving.
We thank you, Grandfather Fire, who gives us warmth
We thank you, Grandmother Sea, who brings us peace
We thank you, Grandfather Air, who brings us change
We thank you, Grandmother Earth, who gives us life
Ralph Metzner, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist and professor emeritus at the California
Institute of Integral Studies. His books include Maps of Consciousness, The Well of
Remembrance, The Unfolding Self and Green Psychology. He is founder and president of the
Green Earth Foundation, dedicated to the integration of human consciousness and
culture with spirituality and ecology. Green Earth Foudation is publishing a new series
of seven books by Ralph on The Ecology of Consciousness, of which the first four have appeared.
Ralph Metzner
www.greenearthfound.org
www. metzneralchemicaldivination.org
56
Alex Grey, Holy Fire, detail
previous page, Alex Grey, Theologue, detail
57
South America
Maria Isabela Hartz
The “Ave Maria” idea came from a vision, from my
first trip to the Amazon in 1985 to meet Padrinho
Sebastião (the one on left with a white beard), an
incarnation of Saint John the Baptist, my spiritual
master. I say spiritual master, because through him, I met
my divine self.
I started drawing it in 1996 and took about two years to get the
whole conception finalized. To the right of Padrinho Sebastião is
Padrinho Corrente, a fellow captain. On the far right side we have Bob
Marley, Yogananda, Gandhi and an Indian called “Sete Flexas”, which
were all martyrs of peace and freedom. The angels with their back to us
are Gabriel and Michael. Santa Maria is holding the earth. Above her fly
two angels who are carrying her crown on a blue cushion. It’s an angelic
coronation of Santa Maria.
It’s about a vision. Padrinho Sebastião met the Santo Daime through his
master Irineu, the black tall men on left, who showed him his divine self. In
those times they just used the Daime. But when master Irineu passed away,
Padrinho Sebastião left his community to create his own spiritual center which
opened the doors for people from all the world and which introduced him
to the marijuana plant. He liked this, and one day he had a vision with Saint
Gabriel who took him on a walk in the jungle until they got to a place where
there was a lot of marijuana plants. Saint Gabriel asked him “What is this?”
and Padrinho responded “This is marijuana.” So Saint Gabriel said “This is
the Santa Maria, She is the Divine Mother, you will plant it and use it as a
sacrament with the Santo Daime in your spiritual work.” So happened
the most astonishing, ecstatic, incredible marriage: Santo Daime
& Santa Maria.
Maria Isabela Hartz has lived a spirited life illuminated
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with inspiration, learning, teaching and healing. Her
life, like her artwork, is devotional, a living prayer
dedicated to sharing a divine vision of love
with the world. Besides Brazil, she has lived
in the USA exhibiting her work and
teaching with Alex Grey and Pablo
Amaringo. Her holy mission is to
create a foundation with an institute, gallery and museum of
art, science and religion. This
sacred site can be an international pilgrimage point
and place where struggling
artists, particularly those
from the third world, can
engage in their artwork.
Ave Maria
1999
watercolor on paper
16 x 24 in.
Maria Isabela Hartz
http://isabela-hartz.lightscience.ca/
background image detail: Area de Trabalho : Angels Orchestra
2005, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 48 in.
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South America
Pablo Amaringo
The Fairy of Peronuga is a goddess who
presented herself to me in one of my many
Ayahuasca concentrations. There, she
declared to me that she is one of the
goddesses of Persia and her work is
to bring together many spirits to help
humanity in their healings with the wild
and domestic animals and plants. For
this, she unites the avatars, chimeras,
cimerios, dryads, sylphs, fata-morganas,
hamadryads, incubi, succubi, kelpies,
numen, peris, sybils, duendes, ghosts,
nymphs, and other spirit beings. All these
beings play a role in the function of the
terrestrial globe.
This fairy and all the beings who come together
with her teach us the spirituaity that animates us,
directs our path, orients us, helps us to have success,
to be ordered, to educate ourselves, to have good purpose and to develop virtues. The
influence of these spirits helps us to organize ourselves, it equips us to work
together in accordance with our trustworthy responsibilities, full of respect, love, and
altruism. The spirits who keep themselves within the Light want us to be excellent
and efficient people. Their orientation is to be loyal, precise, ordered, disciplined,
and expelling hatred, antipathy, distrust, rejection and fear. For understanding, they
inform us what has happened, what is happening and what is going to happen. They
equip us with the energy of love and make us optimistic. They teach us that one
must not lose a good sense of humor in any work. They tell us not to be egocentric
and not to hate anyone. They teach us to help and cooperate with our fellows in this
life. They teach us that the virtues that we have in our hearts are like the energies
that the plants have in their hearts, the energy a tree has in its center. In the human,
the heart is the center of feelings and motives; in the trees and plants, the energy that
motivates the effect of health and the construction of active force to cure kinds of
illness is the function of the Fairy of Peronuga.
Pablo Amaringo lived from 1943 to 2009. He was born in 1943 in Puerto Libertad, in
the Peruvian Amazon region. A severe heart illness, and the magical treatment of this
via ayahuasca, led Pablo toward the life of a shaman. He eventually became a powerful
curandero, learning the icaros, or healing songs, that the ayahuasca brew taught him. In
1977 Pablo abandoned his vocation as a shaman and became a painter and art instructor
at his Usko-Ayar school where there was no charge for the students to learn painting
from him. The school is dependant on donations. Many of his final paintings feature
angels as well as the flora and fauna of Peru.
Translation : Gayle Highpine
60
above:
Ada de Peronuga
2008
acrylic on canvas
44 x 64 cm
background:
Sacha-Uya
2004 Gouache on paper 18 x 24 in.
Pablo Amaringo
1943-2009
www.pabloamaringo.com
www.sensorium.com/usko
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13 Indigenous Grandmothers
For The Next 7 Generations
Carole Hart
In October of 2004, thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers from around
the world – the Amazon, Asia, Africa, Mexico, the Arctic Circle, and
the Northwest, Southwest and Midwest of the U. S. – gathered in
Phoenicia, New York, ancestral home of the Iroquois Nation. They came
in response to a common vision and prophecy. The prophecy they shared
foresaw this tumultuous time we live in and told them that they must speak
to the world in one united voice – a voice that would carry their sacred
and age-old wisdom forward at this critical moment. They created a formal
alliance, The International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, to
carry out their mission. Since then they have been traveling the world as
a prayer in motion, to speak on behalf of the sacred web of life and our
common future.
Their feature film is titled “For the Next 7 Generations”, It comes from the
Great Law of the Iroquois Nation which states that “in all deliberations,
we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next 7 generations.”
Carol Hart
www.forthenext7generations.com
www.youtube.com/carolehart
62
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For the past 4 years, producer/director Carole Hart and her crew have
accompanied the Council as they traveled around the world sharing their
prayers, their ceremonies and their message of peace, hope and unity. This
journey has taken them from the forested mountains of New York to the
deserts of New Mexico, where Nicaraguan Maya Grandmother Flordemayo
is currently making her home; to the heart of the Amazon Jungle, where
Grandmothers Maria Alice and Clara Shinobu Iura live in their Santo Daime
community; to the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico, home of Grandmother
Julieta Casimiro and the Ninos Santos; to Dharmasala, India, second home of
Tibetan Grandmother Tsering Dolma Gyalthong, where the Grandmothers
met with the Dalai Lama; to the Vatican, home of the Pope, and more.
The Grandmothers see an urgent
need for change, but their message
is one of hope for the future.
All the Grandmothers agree
that they can help people
experience a shift in
consciousness that will lead
them to an awareness of
the sacredness and interdependence of all life, to
a mutual respect for one
another, and to an abiding
love for our Mother Earth.
Through their prayers,
their ceremonies, and their
active collaborations with
like-minded coalitions, they
are working to preserve the
environment and create peace
among peoples. The movie,
like their message, hopes to
bring widespread attention to
spiritual solutions for healing our
planet and ourselves.
Emmy and Peabody-Award winning Filmmaker Carole Hart was introduced to
indigenous communities and their healing way in a dramatic way. In 1994 she
received a miraculous cure from a terminal cancer through a Native American
Church ceremony. It was during this time that she befriended Jyoti, a spiritual
teacher and founder of the Center for Sacred Studies (CSS), an organization
whose mission is to sustain indigenous ways of life through cross-cultural spiritual
practices. When CSS began to organize the first Grandmother’s gathering in
2004, Carole knew that this historic moment needed to be documented.
At the time of the first gathering, she never envisioned that she would be
spending the next four years following this circle of woman around the world
and telling their story. Since the Grandmothers were meeting each other for
the first time in Upstate New York, no one knew that they would decide to
formalize an alliance. But after three days of sharing their stories and visions,
it became clear that this was what they had to do; there was no turning back.
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photography provided by Marisol Villanueva
65
Kiah Keya : Encounters in Brazil
Spirit Dance and Plant Wisdom
It’s the first night of the week long retreat at Lua, a rustic eco-lodge
nestled in a river valley high in the Chapada da Veadeiros near
Alto Paraiso, Brazil. As dusk settles into the valley with a whisper,
the cicadas drone and the fireflies glow green. Thirty people sit
silently around a fire on the riverbank. The flames and shadows
dance across the ceremonial totem: a tree that has been
painted black across its trunk and adorned with
a feather headdress. Standing in front of the
totem, Keklêeni-sô, a leader of the Funio
Indian Tribe of northeastern Brazil, begins to chant.
“We are here to discover our spirit
dance,” Kathi von Keorber, the retreat’s organizer, explains during the
opening ceremony. “Rituals bring us
into communication with ourselves,
this river valley, and each other.” After
the initiation ritual, the group gathers
to participate in the first of three traditional plant healing ceremonies that
are led by a Colombian healer. It isn’t
until the pink sun emerges from behind
the hills that everyone rests, exhausted
from the medicine’s journey. “Welcome
home,” Mother Earth coos.
The retreat is structured around Butoh
dance workshops, nature excursions, and
plant healing ceremonies. Using organic
movement and guided imagery inspired by
Butoh dance and improvisation, the group
reconnects to themselves, each other, and
66
photos on this page:
Hernando Villa, Kathi von Koerber, Robert Johnson
Mother Nature. “The dancer
does not move the universe,
but rather it is the universe
that moves the dancer,” Kathi
von Koerber explains. Her
master, Atsushi Takenouchi,
talks about this mystery as
“Jinen”, translated loosely as “all
that is larger even than Nature.”
Jinen is the flow that dances
through all living beings, whether
we are aware of it or not. Butoh
dance challenges us to open to
the unknown. The group dances under
waterfalls, on river banks,
and among bamboo patches. In this way the dance
becomes a prayer. “The truth
of performance stimulates
the will to Live,” Kathi von
Koerber says. “It is the innate
longing that a Butoh dancer
shares with a tribal dancer: to
allow the true rumbling of the
universe to enter and unite
with one’s body.”
Selected from Discovering Your Dance
by Katie Clancy
Kiah Keya
www.kiahkeya.com
photos on this page: Benno Klandt
67
Improvisational Spirit Dance
Kathi von Koerber
Dancing with the source is a way of life.
As the Dine (Navajo) say, To Walk in Beauty.
“My workshop invites the one who wants to dance, to be danced by the universe. In affect to teach each his
own dance. I am a facilitator to help create the link between cellular consciousness/universal consciousness
and the letting go of the mind. I draw parallels to ancient rites and rituals that involve going into trance,
through breath, dance, spirit and music, initializing the profound nature of the human body to express, its
spirit and its capabilities. Improvisation is the only rule, allowing the flow of universe to enter. We are a
blank canvas, vibrant in colors, changing all time.” – Kathi von Koerber
The dance has a
purpose and offering,
a healing, a teaching,
a celebration, a sacrifice,
a giving thanks,
a requiem, a ritual. To walk in beauty is to embrace all life, the darker and the harder it gets,
the brighter the light of life will shine. Spirit moves us, but we have the
childish urge to interfere with the natural flow of life and existence.
Spirit is the will to live, like the seed of a flower that has the
natural urge to meet the sun. It grows towards the heavens,
and once it opens its petals, it brings a human to smile,
reflecting its beauty. Spirit emanates energy. Without
Spirit, we would be like a stem with no water, we
would shrivel. When we dance, we use our body and
being to communicate with Qi, energy as it is called
in the Eastern philosophy. Qi moves in circles, in
continuity with the cycles of life. We need water,
and water is life. We move our waters when we
dance. Water carries all memory on earth, it is the
ancient reservoir of life from long before humans
evolved. As babies we swim in the amniotic water.
Moving our waters is a mystical right, every movement has resonance, just like every word we utter
has an intention behind it that resonates. To move
our waters essentially means to take responsibility
for the greater existence of each individual. The more simple people live,
the more purposeful their life
might seem. Butoh draws upon the
image of a peasant, those who work
with the land, whose hands are in touch
with the primordial. Finding ones centre,
done in China with the Dan Tien, and
in the native American Tradition with the
Medicine Wheel, distinctly embodies the
source of life. In all ancient traditions, dance,
music and a wealth of plant knowledge have
been a communicative way of maintaining
connection to nature.
When we move our waters, we are offering our
being as a tool to communicate with that which we
cannot see or control. As we see in tribal dance,
an initiate is moved by Spirit.
Tribal traditions believe that nature is our
teacher and our guide, and our nature is to
respond to her needs. In the traditions of
ancient plant knowledge, the wisdom keepers
on our planet, it is a form of spirit that heals
and teaches.
photos by Robert Johnson
photo by Hernando Villa
The earth has provided us with all the
information we could ever need. In the depths
of jungles, first animals and then humans came
upon the healing and profound sacred plants
that enable us to harmonize, balance, and
come to understand that life is a connected,
everflowing event of purpose and intention.
photo by Hiroko Komiya
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photo by Hiroko Komiya
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Visionary Permaculture
World People Attunement
The relationship between humans and
the natural world can be traced through
our collective consciousness to the very
origins of cognition. This root relationship
defines the human condition and reflects
much about the state of our civilization.
At this turning point in history when a
vast divide between culture and nature
has created an ecological crisis like the
world has never known, it is becoming
increasingly important for us as individuals, and as a World People, to return to
a more harmonic relationship with the
planet. At the very brink of a
collapse in the inextricably
interwoven Gaian ecology and human society
emerges a plant path
paradigm with the
knowledge for creating a sustainable
and permanent
culture of nature:
a permaculture. Permaculture came out of the optimism
and utopianism of the 1960’s and 70’s.
Reflecting the Back to the Land movement it expressed a renewed interest
in natural living, focussing on organic
sustainable agriculture, minimizing
energy use, and softening our ecological footprints. Interested in creating and
maintaining harmonic systems, producing an abundance of food, medicine,
energy and resources, the early permaculture communities experimented in
living off the grid in a healthy way.
The three jewels of permaculture:
observe, integrate, apply, reflect a
simple approach to conscious decision
making and design. Starting at the beginning, permaculture prescribes a map of
the home land which shows borders and
boundaries, patterns of seasonal sun and
shade, identifying structures, elements,
plants and animals, testing water and soil,
and describing the history of the land.
Inspired by a planetary ethos of Earth
Care, People Care and Fair Share, permaculture understands that in these times
of transition for people and the planet,
its ok to use unsustainable means when
building a more permanent and sustainable system. Permaculture promotes a
slow but steady return to earth friendly
practices, lifestyles and industries by the
World Peoples. As we enter the final stretch towards
2012, a visionary model of permaculture is emerging. In a world of
hunger and inequality, Food Security
is fast becoming a catch phrase for the
new agriculture. Growing our own
organic food locally and welcoming
native plants into our seasonal menu
helps to support a bioregional diet with
a lower impact on the environment.
Sustainable agriculture based on forest
gardening in the style of the First
Peoples can bring balance to our
destabilizing ecology. Seed banks,
nurseries and community gardens help
to preserve guilds of sacred plants that
reflect the traditional practices, food
and medicine of the First Peoples.
Where the old model promoted alternative systems of holistic living away
from civilization, the new model seeks
to integrate into a society in need of
healing. Community education sites,
farmers markets and conscious restaurants are popping up everywhere from
rural clearcuts to crowded urban centers.
Working together, an emerging World
Culture seeks to create an integral,
intentional and consciously charged
design for the future of human
relationships with the natural
world. Together our fate is
intertwined with the fate of
the Earth and all who dwell
here. Permaculture points
a way towards the development of a healthy and
harmonic World People
living in the permanent
culture of a many splendored visionary future. Delvin Solkinson
www.gaiacraft.com
www.elvism.net
art by Pablo Amaringo
www.pabloamaringo.com
www.sensorium.com/usko
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2.0 Vermiculture
Gaiacraft Composting
A vermiculture worm bin can be located in
the compost area as well. These can be made
inexpensively when using an old sink or tub. A key principle of permaculture involves cycling energy. Nature
does this, recycling all its elements and thus creating no waste.
Modelled on nature, permaculture composting helps support
the healthy breakdown and reuse of all organic elements. 1.0 Composting
Composting is the science of renewable systems
showing how to effectively break organic materials
down into rich, healthy soil, mulch and fertilizer.
Composting works well in a shady space that is
covered to limit evaporation. If you can have two
containers for compost, fill one then fill the other
while the first one sits. A third container is helpful
for storing autumn leaves and dry grass.
1. Untreated wood can be used to make a box
or bin with a lid.
2.Line the bin with chicken wire if pests are a
problem. Leaving small spaces open will
allow the compost to breath.
3.Put cardboard at the bottom of the compost to draw up worms and kill any weeds or plants beneath it.
1.
2.
3.
4.
4. A layer of sticks will help with drainage
5. T
he compost is made with layers of green
material (nitrogen rich organic waste like grass
clippings, kitchen waste, coffee grounds, tea bags,
manure, garden weeds and other fresh vegetable
matter). 6. Alternating with layers of brown material (car
bon rich organic waste like leaves, dried grasses, or hay). Every 4-6 inches of green material we add up to 12 inches of brown material.
7. A
dd some soil every few layers to infuse the
compost with micro-organisms
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Stirring the compost will speed up the decomposition process but also result in a less potent finished
product. You may wish to avoid composting meat
scraps, bones or any food (cooked or uncooked)
that contains dairy, wheat, oil or fats as these
materials rot, creating odors and attracting rodents,
flies and other pests. With extra attention to layering and stirring as well as inputs of manure and wood
ash, you can help to process materials tending to rot.
After three to six months of sitting, sift the compost
through mesh wire to create high nutrient fertilizer.
5.
6.
7.
1. Build a box that can fit a sink and drill
small holes in the lid to let the rain in.
2. Put a bucket beneath the sink
3. Gather some newspaper, sticks, leaves or
compost, a bit of dirt and some worms.
4. Start with an empty sink.
5. Add sticks for drainage.
6. Add torn newspaper to regulate
moisture and for worm food. Dampen.
7. Add some leaves, dirt and worms to
activate the decomposition.
8. Feed worms with tender greens and other
nutrient rich plants. Worms often tend
towards mild flavours but will eat most things. 9. Put a bucket under the sink or tub to collect
the drips of infused water. Mix the resulting
nutrient rich liquid fertilizer with an
equivalent amount of water and use
directly on the gardens. 10. Collect worms and rich soil to add directly to the gardens. The whole system should be changed every couple of months.
1.
6.
2.
7.
3.
8.
4.
9.
5.
10.
1.
6.
2.
7.
3.
8.
4.
9.
5.
10.
3.0 Hugelkultur
Tougher materials like wood, blackberries,
egg shells or fruit pits that do not break down
at the same rate as the other composting
materials can be stored in the compost area.
This can be used to make productive living
compost ‘mound’ beds. 1. Choose an area to build this bed. Cut plant
growth down to just above the ground. 2. Lay down newspaper. Wet this well to begin
decomposition and attract worms.
3. You can put down a layer of cardboard here
too if available. This will ensure the plants
beneath don’t grow back.
4. Lay down heavy pieces of wood.
5. Then a layer of lighter wood.
6. Any brambles or vines can go now.
7. Add some soil to this to seed it with
micro-organisms.
8. Cover the pile with a layer of compost.
Biodynamic plants work especially well here.
9. A layer of soil can go on top.
10. Put in spike root plants like comfrey and potatoes along with biodynamic plants.
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Practical Biodynamics Here we review each of the elements needed for the healthy
development of plants and examples of dynamic accumulator
sources of these elements which you can add to your compost,
mound bed or worm farm. If you have room, these plants be grown
in the area around your compost. Using crystal dust, biodynamic
plants, kelp and cardboard in your compost one can create fertilizer
charged with the nutrients that plants eat. Here we review elements
used for the healthy development of plants. PRIMARY ELEMENTS MINOR ELEMENTS
N - NITROGEN
FE - IRON
K - POTASSIUM
B - BORON
plant growth and feeding microorganisms
found in : comfrey, stinging nettle, kelp,
dandelion, yarrow, clover, lupine, chickweed
plant digestion, resistance to
disease, cold, pests, develops buds
found in : chamomile, chickweed, clover,
stinging nettle, oak bark, yarrow, comfrey,
dandelion, crabgrass, morning glory and kelp
P - PHOSPHORUS
root growth, establishing young plants,
photosynthesis, respiration, plant growth
found in : chamomile, chickweed, dandelion,
yarrow, lamb’s quarters, morning glory
SECONDARY ELEMENTS
MG - MAGNESIUM
ripen and germinate seeds, absorption of p, n and s
found in : comfrey, dandelion, horsetails, kelp,
yarrow, stinging nettles
CA - CALCIUM
root system, cell walls, ripening of fruits and seeds
found in : chamomile, comfrey, kelp, horsetail, stinging nettles, yarrow, morning glory, lamb’s quarters
S - SULPHUR
chlorophyll production, helps plants
absorb k, ca and mg
found in : stinging nettle, kelp, garlic,
mullein, plantain, alfalfa
chlorophyll production
found in : comfrey, dandelion,
horsetail, kelp, yarrow, stinging nettles
overall plant health, formation of
fruit and seeds, absorption of water
found in : cardboard, kelp, euphorbia
MN - MANGANESE
seed germination, nitrogen assimilation
found in : chickweed, kelp, bracken fern,
burdock, garlic, plantain
MO - MOLY BDENUM
nitrogen assimilation and fixation,
building amino acids
found in : clover, legumes
CL - CHLORINE
stimulates photosynthesis, plant metabolism
found in : kelp
CU - COPPER
activates enzymes, chlorophyll production
found in : dandelion, stinging nettle, valerian,
yarrow, kelp, bracken fern, legumes
ZN - ZINC
protein synthesis, enzymes and
regulation of growth
found in : kelp, legumes, hay, kentucky bluegrass SI - SILICON
utilizing nitrogen, enzyme activation
found in : legumes
NI - NICKEL
Rebalancing
Remember our ecology is in crisis and can be helped by,
Reducing the amount of waste we produce by,
Refusing to buy toxically overpackaged items,
Reusing containers and items as much as possible,
Repairing broken things,
Recycling paper, plastic, glass and metal and Rethinking our relationship to consumption,
Redesigning our lifestyles in alignment with the planet,
Restoring biodiversity and ecological balance,
Renewing our dedication to earth stewardship,
Respecting the web of life Consulting on Plant listing :
Robin Wheeler : www.ediblelandscapes.ca
Dave Ryan : www.permacultureguild.net
protection from disease and stress
found in : horsetail, borage, valerian, plantain
CO - COBALT
nitrogen fixing
found in : bracken fern, horsetail, vetches
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Photos : Josef Schmidt www.poxin.org
Design : Sijay : www.onbeyondmetamedia.com
Curricula : Delvin Solkinson : www.gaiacraft.com
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Europe
Brigid Marlin
The Nativity of Christ,
is an oil and egg
tempera painting, done
in the Mische Technique a technique of painting rediscovered by Professor Ernst Fuchs,
who taught it to Brigid Marlin in
Vienna. In the painting, the tree, placed
as it is between heaven and earth, is used as a
symbol of mediation between the two. The tree is
formed from transparent crytals, and shines with
a mysterious inner light to signify its spiritual
origin. The glowing flowers and leaves form a circle to
honour to a God made man. Spreading outward, this
circle widens to portray the Universe, with the Christ
child at the center. All the elements, all the animals,
birds and fish bow before him, and Mary and Joseph
kneel in awe.
Brigid Marlin was born in Washington D.C.
She studied art at the National College of Art in
Dublin, Ireland, Le Centre d’Art Sacre,
Paris, L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Montreal and
The Art Students League of New York. She
studied in Vienna with Ernst Fuchs and learned
the Mische Technique, the painting secrets of the
Italian Renaissance Masters. She has taught the
technique at Weat Herts College in England, the
Museum for Modern Art, Nairobi, at the Triangle
Art Centre, Chicago, and at the Bezalel Institute
of Art, Jerusalem. Her work has been exhibited in
Museums and Art Galleries all over the world. Among
the portraits she has painted are the Dalai Lama
and the Queen Mother. In 1998 she founded the
Society for Art of Imagination to promote Visionary and
Fantastic art worldwide and is Director of the USA and
UK branches.
background, The Sun, 1992, mische technique, 30 x 42 in.
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The Nativity of Christ
2005
mische technique
30 x 38 in.
Brigid Marlin
www.brigidmarlin.com
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E u ro p e
Daniel Mirante
Sol rises and Gaian
Sophianic life stirs.
Dew fills the air. The
flowers grows. The birds
fly from one tree to another
like thoughts in a big leafy mind.
Have you ever tried to catch what
the birds are singing of? They sing
of nested existence, deep in nature,
singing the song of bird life, simple and
mysterious, ethereal and shattering, the
sound of the radiant void. The painting
‘Deep Ecology’ is about biological symbiosis,
and about how everything seemingly ‘external’ in nature is an aspect of a Great Mind,
a spiritual realm which everything physical
is extruded from.
Daniel Mirante is actively involved in the
revival and exposition of Sacred Art through
his art, collaborative studio practice, and
curatorship. A self-taught oil painter, Daniel finds
his inspirations within ‘ecology, spiritual warriorship, the sacred feminine, and perennial philosophy’.
His art has appeared globally in exhibitions, books and
calendars. Daniel Mirante is also the creator and director
of www.lila.info, a website project who’s stated goal is ‘to
explore, archive and present the emergence of a contemporary
sacred and visionary art within the context of global culture’.
Deep Ecology 11
2009
oil on canvas
120 x 90 cm
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Daniel Mirante
www.danielmirante.com
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Federation of Damanhur
Music of the Plants
Esperide Ananas
Imagine a concert where musicians can
interact with trees, improvising with
them through a special electronic
device that allows them to play music.
Imagine millions of people all
over the world having this
experience. Imagine all
of them realizing that
plants are alive and
sentient beings.
Imagine the change
in ecological and
spiritual awareness this
will create on our planet.
Imagine a world in which humans have learned that
everything that lives, humans, animals and plants, has
emotions and feelings and participates in life fully as we
do. Imagine gardens and forests in which trees and flowers
interact with human beings by means of sounds and music.
All this may soon not sound like sci-fi anymore, but become
part of the normal experience of every child of planet Earth.
Many years ago, in Italy, in the world-renowned Italian cultural
community known as Damanhur, a device was developed that can
translate electric conductivity of the plants into music and melodies.
Damanhur was established in Valchiusella Valley, in the Alpine
foothills of northern Italy (90 miles north of Milan) in 1978 and is
populated in part by scientists, doctors, researchers and artists who
dedicate their lives to understanding the workings of Nature as a living,
intelligent force. For many years, Oberto Airaudi, founder of Damanhur,
and his fellow researchers, researched bioelectric processes that are conducted by plants, trees and flowers. They discovered that the conductivity is a
core indicator of the life force of plants generating key pathways for water,
minerals, and other nutrients within trees and flowers. It is this electronic
process that is sensed by the unique, innovative device that Damanhurians
use in their experiments on the consciousness of the plant world.
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Damanhur’s extensive research demonstrates
how living organisms respond intelligently to
their environment, and is confirmed by an
earlier U.S. based study by scientists whose
findings are detailed in a book entitled
The Secret Life of Plants. Plants respond
in very sophisticated ways to both
physical and intellectual stimuli.
The data derived from these
studies demonstrates that
plants communicate with
each other through shifts in
their conductivity – shifts that,
until now, humans were not able to
detect or understand.
Damanhurians discovered that the electrical
behavior of plants could be captured using a
probe, electrodes, and a device. This combination of
electronic components “translates” the signals
being conducted by living plants into musical
sound. The pulse streams of each organism are
unique, with each Plant manifesting its own
individual biological “signature sound.”
Moreover, plants demonstrate that they can
learn to interact with humans. At first, the
plants “simply” realize that the sounds
emitted by the device are a consequence
of their electric activity, then they learn to
modulate it to change the sounds. More
expert plants, eventually, use the sounds
they modulate to interact with humans
and create a real form of communication.
When they interact with musicians for example,
they sometimes even repeat the same scales, the same
tunes and the same notes!
It has also been demonstrated that trees and plants that
have become experts in interacting with humans and
in controlling the music device can ‘train’ other trees,
helping them to learn quickly.
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The Music of the Plant Technology
The device that utilizes the revolutionary technology invented at Damanhur
to convert the energy of Plants and translate it into music contains a unique
software program, microcontroller as well as other electronic hardware. It
attaches to the plant via two probes, one of which attaches to a leaf (or the leaf’s stem)
and the other is attached to another leaf (or the leaf’s stem) or by the probe grasping
a small metal rod inserted into the soil close to the root of the plant. The electrical
behavior of the Plant is sensed through the probes and translated into music.
The device allows a plant to play music based upon its health, environment and
general demeanor. This is achieved by monitoring the Plants instantaneous
resistance. Dependant upon the level of resistance, different notes and cadences are played, from the selected music type, allowing the plant to actually play
the music. On certain occasions, the Plant’s resistance creates a spike, indicating an excited state. This can occur due to external influences such as
touch, watering, moving, etc. Sometimes the plant can spike its resistance
independently. Whenever a spike occurs, it causes a change in notes,
which may be more to the plants liking.
Because Plants themselves are complex entities, their internal
electrical pulsations are at the same time strong and subtle. The
Damanhurian technology is capable of responding to both
large and small electrical changes, and translating them into
musical sound.
Thus, the device essentially becomes a
musical instrument, which is played by the plant, through the Plant’s
electrical variations. The natural shifts in the plant’s energy impact the
quality and timbre of the music played by the Plants. The
Device used in translating the Plant’s electrical variations into
music captures and expands these complex variations and
translates them into different musical sounds. For example, the
same electrical variation stream can be made to sound like string
instruments, an organ, a brass ensemble, or the elements of a rainforest.
Regardless of the channel selected, the underlying musical progression is
unique to the Plant, and helps create a feeling of well-being.
Experiments with the Music of the Plants create awareness of how
plants and humankind co-exist in nature. A small, portable device in
the shape of a green leaf called “Plantunes” has now been developed by
Damanhur in collaboration with US based researchers, so that it can
be sold at a very reasonable price, making this experience available to
everybody. Plantunes will create a connection for millions of people
who desire to interact at a deeper level with nature. This product will
serve as a catalyst to bring forth ecological awareness, and, for those
in the holistic field, the device will serve as a facilitator to help reach
a meditative state of consciousness. It is a tool that offers a soothing,
relaxing and pleasant environment.
Esperide Ananas is a full time citizen of the Federation of Damanhur
since 1993. In the same year, she graduated from the Damanhur School for
Spiritual Healers. She is part of the Way of the Oracle of Damanhur,
and of a specialized group of researchers in “Selfica”. Selfica is an ancient
discipline aimed at directing intelligent and subtle energies, capable of
interacting with human beings and the environment. In Damanhur, Selfica is
used extensively to explore different planes of consciousness and for healing.
Fluent in five languages for over 10 years Esperide has been an International
Ambassador for the Federation of Damanhur, leading seminars on the
development of consciousness and human potential, and sharing Damanhur’s vision
for new social, spiritual and economic models for sustainability.
Damanhurian researchers are looking for partners interested in co-financing,
manufacturing and distributing the Music of the Plant device, so that it can become
an educational tool available to children and adults all over the world. Please contact
[email protected]
Federation of Damanhur
www.damanhur.org
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Dancing Shiva
Colorful fashion from
handmade Khadi-Cotton
photography provided by Dancing Shiva
Khadi is untreated, hand-picked,
spun and woven cotton from the
so-called “Village Industries”,
India´s biggest social project.
Founded by Mahatma Gandhi
in the 1920`s. Its purpose was
and still is to strengthen the
autonomy and independence
of India´s rural population
from major corporations and
to prevent the emigration of
desperate work-seekers to big
cities and inevitably horrible
labor conditions and low pay.
Until today, hundreds of thousands of people find work in the
“Village Industries”, fairly paid,
under humane conditions and at
home in their villages.
What fascinates us about Khadi
beside it´s beautiful and earthly
structure, is it´s subtle elegance,
it´s unbeaten wear comfort and
the sheer luxury of wearing a
fully handmade fabric in times of
mechanization and fall of value
is: the fact that in it´s traditional
process of manufacture neither
electric nor fossil energy is used.
Starting from the cultivation of
mostly heirloom cotton plants
to handpicking, spinning, weaving and –folding of the fabrics,
the production of Khadi goes
without the use of power-driven
machines of any kind.
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85
The project ideology initiated by Mahatma Gandhi:
Keeping and respectively encouraging rural people´s
autonomy and independence by creating employment among Indian villagers (who make up 80%
of India´s population) prevents the so-called
“rural exodus” –the emigration to large
cities in search of work. the controlled and fair
marketing through the KVIC (Khadi Village
Industries Comission):
After Gandhiji´s death, the idea of “Village
Industries” was taken over by the Indian
government. The KVIC controls important factors such as fair payment, strict
obedience of legal working hours, creation
of infrastructure in the villages, building
hospitals and schools.
We think that design, sustainablility and
social responsibility don´t have to exclude
each other….…..that being lovely, happy
and colorful is much more fun than cool
understatement ….
….that behind
unique fashion
and distinctive
style there can
also stand fair
thoughts and
big ideas.
Dancing Shiva
www.dancingshiva.at
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87
Asia
A k i ko E n d o
Endo’s importance cannot simply be relegated to her position as a female artist.
She resides in the space of a total individual, a painter’s painter with a determined
separateness in which realizing her vision occupies her every artistic movement.
Indeed, at a show’s opening, she is quoted as saying, ‘’To live is to paint. To remain alive
is to remain painting.’’
The Bell, 2008, oil on canvas, 333.3 x 498 cm
Excerpt from Endo Akiki: Poetry of an everlasting life by Andrew Conti
Published by Metropolis metropolis.co.jp
Since ancient times, Japanese people have believed that Kami (Spirits) are embodied in all
things in the universe, that they are everywhere including the mountains, the ocean, the rivers,
animals, plants as well as houses and all things. They give blessings of protection to all people.
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However, in the late 60’s, modernization rapidly destroyed a lot of nature and
distracted people from their sense of spiritual value in the natural world. In present day
Japan, materialism prevails over the spiritual basement of Buddhism and ancient
animism-like thoughts. We can’t separate them in order to find a way of living in the contradiction and uneasiness. My works have been changing along with the times and
inspired by the chaos of modern values. The recent series of my works represent magnificent
stories filled with reverence for nature. The message is not to aggressively overcome nature,
but to have a world where humans and nature live
together in harmony. Just as the seasons change,
people are living and dying, continuing in the cycle of
transmigration. In such a world, tossed about by
nature, humans seem fated to be fragile beings. However
everything is filled with vital energy.
While we lost something, we gained another. We have
a past that we can not return to. On the other hand
we have a future to which we must go. I would like to
express all those things fully in my pictures.
Translation : Satoshi Sakamoto
Akiko Endo
www.akikoendo.com
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Asia
Mitsuru Nagashima
I have continued to make works by my imagination, without seeing an actual object. For the last several years, I have
continued to peruse the meaning of the fantasy for humans,
in order to return to my starting point. In the diary of Paul
Clay, there is a phrase that “The fantastic arts are to make
what is invisible visible”. Fantasia Space is also an expression
of awe or yearning about what is invisible such as nature and
universe, and how to form it on a plane.
Metamorphosis No.8,
Miss Peafowl and Mr Eagle
1992
Etching on German etching paper 70 x 100 cm
With a dedication to detail, Mitsuru Nagashima
is a fine craftsman of art using etching, wood
engraving and drawing to express his artful
fantasia. Since studying Print at the Sokei
Academy of Fine Arts, he is an active member
of The Japan Print Association. After many
International exhibitions in Europe and Asia,
his art is finding international renown. You can
see his works in numerous permanent museum
collections in Japan, Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine,
and Spain.
Myth and Legend No.6-, The Giant
2005
Wood cut on Japanese
handmade paper 106 x 76.5 cm
90
Mitsuru Nagashima
www1.ocn.ne.jp/~fantasia
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Building Bridges with Bees
In the heart of autumn Alex Grey caught up with David Wolfe to discuss bees and bee keeping.
Alex Grey talks with David Wolfe
David: Bee products are the original idea of a superfood. Bee keeping allows us to
photographs provided for by Eric Tourneret
procure essence and manna from any ecosystem. What’s in these products is a summary
of the minerals and plant life available in the ecosystem. Honey and bee products inoculate
us to the flower pollens that are in our area, they are a homeopathic medicine for our
allergies to the environment. We get a summary inside of our own consciousness about
what’s happening around our ecosystem and how healthy it is.
I think the primary cause of the die off in the conventional bee industry is tobacco and
nicotine based pesticides. These are very toxic to insects, particularly in the larval
and egg stages of growth. Tobacco is an insect eating plant like the Venus
Flytrap, it’s part of how this plant procures its minerals and nutrients
from the environment. Each tobacco leaf can consume dozens of
insects a day. Concentrated spraying of this toxic juice on fields
contributes to the colony collapse disorder. There are other
factors too, like the way bees are treated. Conventional
Bee Keepers throw bees on trucks and drive them to different farms outside of their original habitat. Square
shaped hives have also been implicated in causing
confusion amongst bees. We can learn from
the Egyptians who used circular based hives.
Electromagnetic waves from cell phones and
EMF pollution could be confusing the bees as
well. Industrial bee keepers use sugar to feed
the bees and rob them of all of their honey.
Out of the 100% of the honey produced by a
good colony, only 40% of that honey is needed
to survive. What’s happening is that humans
have gotten greedy and are taking 80%. The
remaining 20% is being replaced with high
fructose corn syrup. This is collapsing the bees
immune system. Bees have become susceptible
to the Varroa Mite and other viral diseases
going around these colonies. Over 50% of
hives spontaneously died in the conventional industry last year!
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Alex: In your own philosophical and reflective depths, do you see that the bees not
only provide this kind of healing sweetness and nutrition to the human life stream,
but also that there’s something of the architect and something of the communal living situation?
David: I love beekeeping because it brings us into two aspects of the
human based spiritual journey. One is the light side; the fun, the
joy, the excitement, the giving birth, all those things that make life beautiful
and great. Then there is the other side, the shadow side; if you keep bees you
are going to get stung. This is a metaphor for how we get stung in life. As
a result of being stung by bees and the medicine of their venom, we are
taught that we better be careful. If we do get stung, even though we will
go through the pain, it’s actually good for us. The longest lived people,
who suffer from the least amount of arthritis, and who generally have
the best health, are always bee keepers. The Russians did 150 years
of research on longevity and found out the longest lived people in
their country were bee keepers and honey eaters. Rudolph Steiner,
a prophet of our time, saw beekeeping as an example of “right relationship” with the insect kingdom, which teaches us to see a whole
other grouping of intelligence and come into communion with it. Bees interact with each other inside the hive completely in the
dark, entirely through feeling. They feel each other, they touch
each other, and they work with a heart centered female energy.
The bee hive is run by a queen, so it’s a female oriented, matriarchal
system of governance. Each bee is working for the betterment of the
whole, and they produce more food than they can ever eat. We can glean
a little bit of their food off without hurting the overall vitality of the hive.
Alex: I have a friend who’s father was recently stung by a wasp that was hiding in
their can of beer. The wasp stung them many times as it went down their throat and
they died. Insects can be powerful creatures.
David: Bee venom and insect venom brings to light
Paracelsus’ famous phrase: that the difference between a medicine and a poison
is dosage. We all have to be careful
because some people are very sensitive to formic acid, bites and the
venom of bees. The best thing to do
if you get stung and go into shock,
is to use your urine, both internally
under your tongue as a homeopathic
agent, and also directly on the sting.
Your urine contains the antibodies to
counteract the venom. You can drink your urine
too. It’s very important information because it can save
your life if that happens to you. 94
Alex: Can you tell us a little bit about Ormus?
David: If you look at the chemical analysis of bee pollen and royal jelly,
there’s always between three and nine percent of substances that are
completely unidentifiable by modern scientific methods. Those are pieces
of the puzzle that we call ‘Ormus elements’, or levitational matter. Alex: In what kind of things do you find Ormus?
David: Just like some foods have more calcium or zinc than others, some
foods have more of these Ormus elements. Bee products are the top of the
list. Ormus elements have very peculiar properties that aid the immune system
and are good for your joints. Every living thing contains Ormus elements. Its been
estimated that we have ten times more Ormus elements in our
bodies than we do all trace minerals combined. Alex: Since the human
relationship with
bees is so long-standing,
and because of what
the bees are offering,
it sounds like there is
a sacred dimension or
celestial hierarchy
that the bees are
channeling. Have you
had some encounters
with those subtle
visionary dimensions
of the bee populations
and group soul of
the bees?
David: Bees are
channeling energies
out of higher
dimensional
geometrical forms
with an insect
consciousness
that we don’t
really understand.
When you approach a hive
that is well developed,
you observe hierarchies of roles.
There are watchwomen bees guarding the hive,
and as soon as you get close they will come
buzz in front of your third eye and hang out there.
If you make a wrong move they dive at the crown of your head. 95
Alex: This connection with a higher dimension certainly seems related to the
sacred geometric, hexagonal, close packed lattice that is the same strategy God uses
through the crystal matrixes.
David: We are beginning to realize the complexity and infinite levels of intelligence
that exist in the natural world. Life forms are channeling expressions of the higher
intelligence group soul of their species. Bees are one of the best examples of that.
It’s their sacred geometry. It’s their magic of forming each cell for their
larvae and how they place their larvae inside. Each one of
those bees is in a little hexagonal sarcophagi channeling
in hexagonal energies to produce themselves. Alex: This is really crucial information for
us, just starting to live in nature. Friends
have offered to help us get started with
our first hives. It’s inspiring to hear
your evolutionary perspective on
the nature of beekeeping and your
higher vision of offering quality
nutrition through reverence for
the natural world.
Eric Tourneret
Bee Photography
www.thehoneygatherers.com
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With a masters degree in nutrition, David Wolfe
is considered one of the world’s top authorities in
health, nutrition, herbalism, chocolate, and organic
superfoods. He has hosted nearly 120 cleansing and
rejuvenation retreats over the past fifteen years and
is the author of Superfoods: The Food and Medicine of the
Future (2009, North Atlantic/Random House, ) Eating for Beauty
(4th Edition), The Sunfood Diet Success System (7th Edition),
Naked Chocolate, Amazing Grace (2ndEdition), and The Longevity
NOW Program. David is also the lead content creator for
www.TheBestDayEver.com, an extra-ordinary
online member site resource for peak-performance
nutrition and health information. He is the
co-founder of Sacred Chocolate, an all-green and
eco-friendly organic cold-pressed chocolate producer
and education source. David is also the President and
Founder of The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation.
David Wolfe
www.davidwolfe.com
www.ftpf.org
97
Oceania
Andy Thomas
I am obsessed with the idea of Self Similarity – the fractal
algorithm that flows through all of nature, patterns within
patterns, from the biggest Galaxies to the smallest atoms. I like to
emulate this with the work that I create and the process in which I
create them, starting big then working in smaller and smaller detail.
I always have a basic idea of what I want to create. As I go along,
the form begins to grow effortlessly and new sections inspire ideas for
other sections. I try to guide the chaos as I work. Most of my
inspiration comes from nature. I am constantly amazed at how
vast and complex the ecosystem is. The work of the 19th century
scientist and artist Ernst Haeckel is also an inspiration.
His studies of natural forms are truly remarkable. I am also
inspired by technology and the uneasy union we as humans have
with the natural world. Most of my work at the moment is focused
on the idea of technology corrupting nature, mutating it into new
and bizarre forms. A parasite is an example of nature twisted and
deformed by artificial chemicals and man made bi-products. I am
excited by the process of using a computer to distort nature into
hybrid freakish forms.
Always interested in painting and drawing from
a young age, Andy began his career with his
involvement in Melbourne’s early rave scene back
in 1993 creating UV murals for parties. His love
of electronic music and all things digital lead him
into the realm of computers in 1997 after finishing a graphic design course at Monash University
Melbourne. In recent years he has begun to
experiment with creating a visual fusion between
Nature and Technology, by taking photos of plants,
insects and machines and compositing them with
artificially created forms in various 3D programs.
The very process of the art he creates is symbolic of
mankind’s continuing corruption of the natural
world. His photographic endeavours have led him
to such exotic locations as Borneo, Laos and the
rainforests of Tasmania and the Daintree River.
Parasite
completed in 2009
digital
170 x 130 cm 300 dpi
98
Andy Thomas
www.android.net.au
99
Deep Ecology John Seed
illustrated with art by Mark Henson
The Council of All Beings is a series of re-Earthing rituals
created by myself and Joanna Macy to help end the sense of alienation
from the living Earth that most of us feel, and to connect us with new sources of joy,
commitment and inspiration that follow from union with Gaia.
I had been working for the rainforests since 1979 first in Australia and then elsewhere
around the world. Although many of our early efforts were crowned with success,
I couldn’t help but notice that for every forest we were able to save, worldwide 100
disappeared. Clearly we weren’t going to be able to save the planet one forest at a time.
One green Earth or a bowl of dust, unless somehow a profound change of consciousness was to sweep the globe we could kiss the forests goodbye, the ones we had “saved”
alongside the rest.
In 1982 I first heard the term “deep ecology” and immediately realized that this was
a key to the change that was needed. After thousands of years of conditioning, the
modern psyche is radically alienated from the air, water and soil which underpin all
of life and this is reflected in the rapid shredding of all natural systems in the name of
economic development. The world is not as a pyramid with humans on top but a web.
We humans are but one strand in that web and as we pull the web to pieces, we destroy
the foundations for all complex life including our own.
To deep ecology, our relationship to the Earth is that of a leaf to a tree. We have no
independent existence - the pain of the Earth is our own pain and the fate of the Earth
is our fate also. No tree - no leaf.
The sap in the leaf comes from the tree and returns to the tree. Our much-vaunted
human intelligence is but a tiny fragment
of the intelligence of the Earth and there
is a constant exchange of water, soil and
breath between the Earth and ourselves.
Our psyche too is Earth-made and we may
therefore be guided and informed by Earth
wisdom if we but ask. Indeed we MUST
be so guided if our deeply embedded
‘unconscious’ concepts of separation,
isolation and arrogant superiority are to be
healed.
Now, although it is true that not many people nowadays believe that the Earth was
created a few thousand years ago by an old man with a white beard as a stage for
the human drama to unfold, nonetheless, this attitude permeates all aspects of our
society, our language, our very psyche. Growing up in a culture permeated with this
arrogant view of ourselves, we are isolated, separated from nature.
As long as we maintain a self-image created in the matrix of such views, a shrunken
and illusory sense of self that doesn’t include the air and water and soil, we experience
nature as “outside” ourself and fail to recognize that the nature “out there” and the
nature “in here” are one and the same. Moreover, we can’t think our way out of this
mess - the attitudes and habits are far too deep-rooted.
So, what to do? It is all very well to have this understanding but, as Arne Ness
(the Emeritus Professor of Philosophy from Oslo University who had coined the
term deep ecology) pointed out, ‘ecological ideas are not enough, we need ecological identity, ecological self.’ Wrestling with these issues, in 1986 I saw that Joanna Macy was in Australia and I attended one of her “Despair and Empowerment”
workshops. Here I came to understand that it was the denial of feelings that held the
status quo in place and in the days following the workshop Joanna and I developed
The Council of All Beings, a series of processes or rituals which synthesized the
ideas of deep ecology and the powerful engine of personal transformation that was
despair and empowerment work.
Many people INTELLECTUALLY realize that we are inseparable from Nature
and that the sense of separation that we feel is socially conditioned and illusory.
These rituals enable us to deeply EXPERIENCE our connection with Nature, in
our hearts and our bodies.
Mark Henson, New Pioneers. 2009, oil on canvas, 130 x 185 cm
We then, are like a leaf believing itself to be
separate from the tree on which it grows.
This MUST be an illusion of course or
we would wither and die (try holding your
breath for a few minutes if in doubt of
this). However, the power of this illusion
backed up by thousands of years of tradition
is such that we destroy the Earth and we cut
ourselves off from Her wisdom and
nourishment. Healing this mistake is vital
for the sake of both person and planet.
100
101
If we look at indigenous cultures, we may notice that without exception, rituals
affirming and nurturing the sense of interconnectedness between people and nature
play a central role in the lives of these societies. This suggests that the tendency for
a split to develop between humans and the rest of nature must be very strong. Why
else would the need for such rituals be so universally perceived? It also suggests the
direction we must search for the healing of the split: we need to reclaim the ritual and
ceremony which were lost from our culture a long time ago, and to our amazement
we find that this is incredibly easy to do.
In the Council of All Beings we weave together three important themes: After
preliminaries to introduce ourselves to each other and build up trust, we begin with
a MOURNING ritual. It is only to the extent that we will allow ourselves to feel
the pain of the Earth, that we can be effective in Her healing. As Joanna Macy points
out “Deep ecology remains a concept without the power to transform our awareness, unless we allow ourselves to feel - which means feeling the pain within us over
what is happening to our world. The workshop serves as a safe place where this pain
can be acknowledged, plumbed, released. Often it arises as a deep sense of loss over
what is slipping away - ancient forests and clean rivers, bird songs and breathable air.
It is appropriate then to mourn - for once at least, to speak our sorrow and, when
appropriate, to say goodbye to what is disappearing from our lives. As participants let
this happen, in the whole group or in small clusters, there is hopelessness expressed.
There is also something more: a rage welling up and a passionate caring.
‘Only if one loves this earth with unbending passion can one release one’s sadness’
(Don Juan in Carlos Castaneda’s “Tales of Power”). The energy previously locked
up in the denial of these feelings is released and becomes available to us. The sense
of numbness and paralysis evaporates and we prepare for action.
Then we move on to exercises which assist the REMEMBERING of our rootedness
in nature. For instance in the evolutionary remembering, we use guided visualization
and movement/dance to recapitulate our entire evolutionary journey and release the
memories locked in our DNA. We invite the experience that every cell in our body
is descended in an unbroken chain from the first cell that appeared on the Earth 4
billion years ago, through fish that learned to walk the land, reptiles who’s scales
turned to fur and became mammals, evolving through to the present.
We further extend our sense of identity in the Council of All Beings itself where,
after finding an ally in the natural world and making a mask to represent that ally,
we discover that we can indeed give voice to the voiceless ones. In Council, we lend
our voices to the animals and plants and features of the landscape and are shocked
at the very different view of the world that emerges from their dialogue. Creative
suggestions for human actions emerge and we invoke the powers and knowledge of
these other life-forms to empower us in our lives.
The Council also provides tools for practicing our deep ecology in our daily lives. As
many participants in this work have discovered, alignment with our larger identity
clarifies, dignifies and heals our personal conflicts. We see that the pain of the Earth
is our own pain and the fate of the Earth is our own fate. The Council of All Beings
empowers us to act on behalf of the Earth and gives us clarity and direction for this
work. In the same fashion it clarifies and orders our patterns of consumption, our
needs for intimacy and supports our priorities for action.
102
Mark Henson
Sylvan Serenity, 2001
oil on canvas, 30 x 185 cm
John Seed
John Seed is founder
and director of the
Rainforest Information Centre
in Australia. He has created
numerous projects protecting rainforests in South America, Asia and the Pacific through
providing benign and sustainable
development projects for their
indigenous inhabitants tied to the
protection of their forests.
He has written and lectured extensively
on deep ecology and has been
conducting Councils of All Beings
and other re-Earthing workshops
around the world for 25 years.
Mark Henson: Born and raised in California,
spends part of his time living an traveling in the
jungles of Costa Rica where he is
creating a retreat for artists, and Upper Lake
California where he paints daily in his
studio with his sweetheart Ms. Monti.
www.sacredlight.to
John Seed
www.rainforestinfo.org.au
103
Peace With the Earthly Mother
Doctor Sir Gabriel Cousens, M.D., M.D.(H), D.D.
illustrated with artwork by Alex and Allyson Grey
Peace with the Earthly Mother is the foundation of our physical and spiritual
existence on this planet. Peace with nature requires us to attune ourselves and
be sensitive to our inner nature so that we are able to know nature as an extension of our Self. One aspect of this peace is the ability to resensitize ourselves to
nature, to feel her energies, to know and cooperate with her laws, and to become
one with them as a natural expression of who we are. Peace with nature entails
understanding that we are but one strand in the web of life of Mother Nature.
Nature is a reflection and a reminder of our Creator. Our love of nature
enhances our communion with the Divine.
To be at peace with nature is to accept that, on the physical plane,
we are governed by the forces of nature. In understanding this, we
discover that our health depends on sunlight, clean air, pure water,
healthy food, rest in accordance with the cycles of the day and night,
exercise of our physical bodies, and harmony of our mind with our
inner and outer nature.
Conserving Topsoil
Every nation of this world is subject to the laws of nature. For example,
in the book Topsoil and Civilization by Vernon Carter and Tom Dale,
a clear link is established between the decline of a civilization and soil
erosion destroying its fertility base. Topsoil is defined as nutrientrich soil that holds moisture and in which our crops grow. It is the
basic foundation of our sustenance on this earth. The United States
Department of Agriculture has acknowledged a drop of seventy percent
in the United States cropland productivity as an unparalleled disaster.
Two hundred years ago, the U.S. had twenty-one inches of topsoil. Now
there are only six inches of topsoil left. According to Dr. Szekely, “Universal
history shows that every nation reached its greatest splendor by following the
great law of unity between man and nature.” Dr. Szekely points out that history
shows that when a nation led a simple life of cooperation with nature, that nation
flourished, but when the nation deviated from this unity, it inevitably disintegrated
or disappeared. We are but human organisms living in the topsoil, along with all the
other organisms. When the topsoil is destroyed, so are we. This law of unity between humanity and nature was held by the Essenes to be the guide
to how we should live in the material world. In the Zend Avesta, an ancient synthesis
and expansion of early Sumerian wisdom written by Zarathustra, it was taught that the
ideal existence entails always keeping in contact with the forces of nature. This law of
unity is the foundation for how we may best organize our life on the planet if we are
to have a healthy humanity. At this point in our planetary history, if we are simply to
survive, we need to begin to follow the law of unity between humanity and nature. If we
keep trying to break the laws of nature, they will eventually break us.
104
Unfortunately, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we seem to have
forgotten this law of unity with nature. In the last thirty years
alone, we have destroyed more of our environment
than all of the previous cataclysmic events of
previous civilizations on this planet. We have
completely broken this law of unity. We
act as if we were separate from nature.
We exploit nature rather than act as
co-creators with nature. We treat
nature as an alien force to be
fought and conquered. Driven
by greed and the search for
profit, we can’t seem to
comprehend the meaning of
the unity between humanity
and the rest of this planet.
In 1854, Chief Seattle, in
his famous address to the
president of the United
States,
forewarned
us
concerning the result of not
respecting the earth as our
mother: “His appetite will
devour the earth and leave
behind only a desert. Whatever
befalls the earth befalls the sons
of the earth. If men spit upon the
ground, they spit upon themselves.
Contaminate your bed, and you will one
night suffocate in your own waste.”
Because of our ignorance, greed, and alienation,
we are actively disrupting the ecology of this planet.
According to statistics compiled from official sources by Friends
of the Earth in the United Kingdom, each minute fifty-one acres of tropical forests are
destroyed, and fifty tons of fertile topsoil are washed or blown off cropland. Every hour
1,613 acres of productive dryland become desert. Each day 25,000 people die because of
water shortage and water contamination, and sixty tons of plastic packaging and 372 tons
of fishing nets are dumped into the sea by commercial fishermen. One species becomes
extinct every five hours. The greenhouse effect is changing our weather. People have
become afraid of our friend the sun because the ozone layer has become thinner. Famine
has become a regular phenomenon as desert land grows.
105
The Gaia Hypothesis
Interestingly enough, our own
technology has provided us
with a new understanding that
may inspire us to re-
establish
our unity with nature. This
new insight is called the Gaia
hypothesis. NASA has developed
an instrument called the telebioscope,
which, when placed upon the various
spacecrafts, can determine if life exists on various
planets. One experiment was to point this telebioscope at
our own planet Earth. The data collected showed that the
whole planet is not only alive, but that it possesses all
the essential characteristics of a single living organism.
From these findings, one of the NASA scientists,
James Lovelock, developed what he called the
Gaia hypothesis, which proposes that our planet
is a single living organism that maintains its
own homeostasis. Lovelock noted that a slim
margin of biophysical conditions on this
planet allow life, as we know it, to exist.
These biophysical conditions include
a delicate stabilization of the chemical
composition of the atmosphere, a ratio of
mixtures of barometric pressures, heat from
the sun, the axis spin rate, and the mineral
composition of the ocean. If these or many
other variables that maintain life on this planet
are shifted more than a slight degree, it would
end life on this planet as we know it. Lovelock
determined that these conditions necessary to
maintain life on the planet are not inherently
stable and that under the normal laws of physics
and chemistry these conditions should have only
lasted a short time. Somehow, something on this
planet has been self-regulating and maintaining the
equilibrium of these life-giving conditions for the
last four billion years. We see this sort of homeostatic
equilibrium in the human body. Perhaps the earth is
alive! Perhaps we are each equivalent to one cell in
this living organism!
The Gaia hypothesis—that planet Earth is a single living organism with intelligence
and purpose—is both new and quite ancient. Ancient cultures often regarded the
energies of the earth, all life, all minds, and the cosmos as one, and yet, at the
same time multiple manifestations of universal energy. This “new discovery” of
the Gaia hypothesis supports our small but growing rediscovery of the unity of
humanity and nature. One of the most exciting movements today is the tremendous ground swell of
interest in national and international ecological concerns. The more we get
in touch with the law of unity, the more we will be able to realize that the
basic foundation for a healthy humanity is peace with nature.
To preserve the planet is to affirm our own divine spirit. It is the
affirmation of life—our very own life and meaning.
Excerpt from Sevenfold Peace: World Peace Through Body Mind Family
Community Culture Ecology God
Dr. Gabriel Cousens is one of the world’s foremost authorities
on living food nutrition, holistic lifestyle and complementary
medicine. He is Founder/
director of the Tree of Life
Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia, Arizona. He received
his M.D. degree from Columbia Medical School in
1969 and completed his psychiatry residency in 1973.
He was the Chief Mental Health Consultant for
the Sonoma County Operation Head Start and
a consultant for the California State Department
of Mental Health.
Dr. Cousens is a holistic medical doctor, a psychiatrist
and family therapist, and a licensed homeopathic
physician in the state of Arizona. He uses the
modalities of live-food nutrition, naturopathy, Ayurveda,
homeopathy and acupuncture, blended with spiritual
awareness, in the healing of body, mind and spirit.
A best-selling author of Conscious Eating,
Depression-Free for Life, Spiritual Nutrition and the Rainbow Diet
as well as several other books.
Gabriel Cousens
www.gabrielcousens.com
106
107
Africa
Anne Mwiti
Anne Ntinyari Mwiti is a
college trained artist and art
teacher. Her first encounter
with art runs back to a small
village in the heart of Meru of
Eastern Kenya, Africa, where
she scribbled her first notable
drawing of a girl, at the age of
five years. After going through
the usual high school years, she
studied art at Kenyatta University where she completed her
undergraduate degree of Art,
and a Masters of Fine Art at the
School of Visual and Performing Arts, where she is currently
teaching art and design and
pursuing her doctorate in art.
Anne’s main passion is in
drawing and painting anything
visionary; and works along with
her undergraduate students towards developing their deeper
talents and art vision.
Rafiki Bioanuai, 2009, fibre glass and
acrylic paints, 130 x 185 cm
Rafiki Bioanuai, which means “Friend of Biodiversity” is a Kenya Wildlife
Service sponsored lion. The Kenya Wildlife Service has made a lot of effort
towards conserving the ever diminishing lion of Kenya due to the human-wildlife conflict. Currently, a mere 2,100 cats remain and are greatly endangered and
under threat of extinction. As the name of the lion suggests, Rafiki Bioanuai,
so is the body artworks that adorn this lion, which are the various ecosystems of
National reserves or parks. These range from the Marine ecosystems at the feet of
the lion, to the Savannas on its belly, up to the forests and rivers on the back of the
lion (the Tana River), to the rocky snowy mountains. Various animals are painted on
the body of the life-size fibre glass male lion, where they dwell within the landscapes.
108
Anne Mwiti
www.artofimagination.org/Pages/Mwiti.html
109
Soul Furnace and Stone Giant
Alex and Allyson Grey
110
In October 1988, while preparing for Zena’s immanent birth, we were invited
to create a permanent installation on the grounds of the Islip Art Museum in
Long Island, New York. Using cobblestones, we created the simple outline
of a human figure. Inside this low, stone wall, we placed discarded wood from
the renovation of Zena’s new bedroom. It was a time of harvest and a time to
burn off the past. Maize and pumpkins decorated the setting. At the appointed
time, accompanied by drumming, friends were led in a ritual procession, down
a path illuminated by many tikki torches, through a wooded area and into the
clearing of the Soul Furnace. The burn took place in solemn silence. After the
ceremony, stones were mortared into the ground permanently and a tree was
planted in the open heart-center of the Stone Giant. In November of 1989, when
Zena was one year old, we all revisited the site, and young Zena met the young tree. Subsequently, the tree died and the heart-center has become a fire pit for night
and off-hour visitors and ritualists.
111
World Cu l t u re :
V i s i o n a r y Network
NO R T H A M E R I CA
Pod Collective www.podcollective.com
The Pod Collective is a collection of North American visionary
artists and an online community forum for exploring aspects of the
art in culture. It is as interested in artists and their relationships
to each other and their work as it is in the art itself. The visionary
community, with its intent and collective power of manifestation, is the single greatest community yet created. It is an ongoing
collaboration between many people with powerful properties of
emergence and healing. It is this facet of the art gem that is at the
heart of the Pod Collective.
SO U T H A M E R I CA
U s ko Aya r A m azonian School
w w w . s e n s o r i um.com/usko
We want to contribute to the conservation of the rainforest.
The silent, beautiful factories, producers of oxygen, food,
medicine, living things beyond numbers. We, the jungle
people, see well and understand the bounty. Art is like
recreating the world, every sheet of paper has tremendous possibility. Our paintings are shown publicly around
the world in museums, galleries and with conservation
programs. The images are reproduced in art, medicine,
environmental and news media enlightening and engaging
minds, many of which are children’s, to learn more about
the relationships of humans, plants and their environments.
EUR O P E
S o c i e t y fo r t he Art of Imagination
w w w . a r to f i m agination.org
Our Society for Art of Imagination was formed to promote
Art of Vision, which combines imagination with craftsmanship, and to provide a forum for Artists working in this field. We
encourage fine technique coupled with imagination to create fine
works of art that transcend the ordinary. We intend to assist the
resurgence of interest in fantastic and visionary art by creating a
community of support for other artists working in this spirit. The members
of the Society work independently of one another in various countries yet their
work shows a consistent ethos and, whether the work is a painting, sculpture,
computer-originated art or 3D object, it speaks a universal language.
112
ASIA
I n te r n a t i o n a l F a n ta s t i c A r t A s s o c i a t i o n
w w w . i fa a . c c
Illusions and dreams are constantly with us all, and it is as if we are completely
immersed in nature. We use our imaginations to deal with the infinite diversity of nature, and to add the desirable aspects of our fantasies to the world.
As for persistent or insatiable illusions, they are a positive affirmation of the
notion of taking part in a world which is becoming brilliant. Rather than perceiving
artistic illusions and fantasies as a particular genre, one can view works of art such
as sculptures, photography, painters and so on as a much more comprehensive
spirited work, which we can use to associate and create relationships between the
various genres.
OCEANIA
Bein a r t I n te r n a t i o n a l S u r re a l A r t Co l l e c t i ve
w w w . b e i n a r t . o rg
BeinArt is a virtual haven of bizarre and mind-blowing
artwork, where one can discover hundreds of new artists
who are pushing boundaries within the Surreal and Visionary art movement. The collective was formed to increase
public awareness and appreciation of contemporary Surreal,
Fantastic and Visionary Art. Each individual artist’s contribution increases the movements credibility in the contemporary
art world. The central aim of beinArt.org is to show the work
of internationally renowned artists with the work of lesser
known, though extraordinary artists. These emerging artists
make up the majority of the collective, which represents over
500 artists and growing.
AFRICA
African Visionary Art Society
www.africanvisionaryartsociety.com
The African Visionary Art Society aims to bring together like
minded artists and create a platform of group art exhibitions and art
media, to foster the study, practice and appreciation of visionary art in
all media, to encourage exchange of ideas and experiences in this field,
and to promote these artists internationally. The purpose of the Society
is to foster development of visionary art in Africa, which crosses over times
and places as a thread that weaves through the collective history of all human
cultures. This will serve to help unify and network the visionary art community
in Africa and bridge with the visionary art movement all over the world.
background art by
Daniel Mirante, ‘Pangaian Wilds “
113
Nature of an Artist’s Soul
Alex Grey
excerpt from “Art Psalms”
The artist’s soul is like wildflowers growing in a ditch.
The artist’s soul is like the bee, busily gathering sustenance from God’s beauty,
returning to the nest of the studio and transforming the pollen of inspiration
into the honey of art, a sweetness for all.
The artist’s soul is like a mountain, indistinct and mist-covered.
It sometimes fades from view, as if not there at all.
The artist’s soul is like a tree with roots in the Heavens and limbs branching to
earth, explosively blooming creation.
The artist’s soul is like a toxic waste dump, feeding the culture back its own
carelessly cast-off poisons.
The artist’s soul is like the outrageous colors of fall, the dying plunge of beauty,
bleeding over everything.
The artist’s soul is like a deer darting out in front of our philosophical car.
In a moment of shock we swerve, wreck our car, the deer escapes unharmed,
and we need a new philosophy.
The artist’s soul is like a hidden spring leaking up through the ground,
making pools in the forest - both mosquitos and tadpoles thrive in it.
The artist’s soul is like a rocky field: plow it and you’ll bust your plow.
The artist’s soul is like a wasp which builds its nest on your house it’s beautiful but scary.
The artist’s soul is like a bear - big and dumb. Get out of its way.
It does what it pleases.
The artist’s soul is like the birds which herald a new dawn, up before everyone Their song is rarely heard breaking the still silence of night.
As the sun emerges from the horizon, inflaming the world with living color,
sharp orange and pink on the cloud - the artist’s soul is like that.
The artist’s soul is like the sky and clouds, constantly building amazing shapes,
now wispy, now tempestuous, completely blocking the source of light, then
dissolving into brilliant clarity.
114
top: Alex Grey, Green Buddha, 2002, pencil on paper, 9 x 12 in.
right: Alex Grey, Tree and Person, 2002, oil, 9 x 12 in.
115
A Visionary Installation at CoSM
Kate Raudenbush
A l te re d S ta te
photo by Robert Griffitts
116
photo by Kate Raudenbush
Altered State is a 27-foot tall
birdcage echoing the white
silhouette of the US Capitol
dome, yet symbolically covered
in a mirage of mythical creatures fabricated of elaborately
carved white steel and rendered
in the archetypal style of the Pacific Northwest Coast Native
tribes. A ladder of white swings
descends three stories from
above, and eagle and feather
imagery cover the walls, illustrating the birds connection to
the spirit world and the ascent
to the higher self. The shared
cultural symbolism of the eagle is
explored symbolically within
this framework of a colonialist
political power symbol, and, as
one ascends the swings, every
platform reveals the wisdom of
a different Native tribe carved
into the seat. This tangible
union of opposites offers itself
as a gathering space to ruminate on the origin of American
“civilization” amidst the enduring dignity and vision of its
Native Peoples. A government
building is transformed into an
Altered State.
photo by Hanah Thiem
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photo by Robert Griffitts
photo by Kate Raudenbush
Kate Raudenbush is a sculptor and photographer who
explores humanity with themes of social dichotomy,
history, mythology and sacred space. Using laser-cut
metal, acrylic, wood, fabric, mirror, glass, sound and
light, her designs become interactive, climbable,
enveloping environments that are given more
meaning with each visitor’s participation,
creating work that is not just an object to
behold, but an experience to be lived. Her
sculpture work has been included in the
permanent collection of the Nevada
Museum of Art, as well as publicly
and privately commissioned works
for festivals and performances,
with clients such as The Black
Rock Arts Foundation, The All
Points West Music Festival, and
five consecutive commissions
for large-scale public sculpture
for Burning Man. Kate’s work
has been featured in the New
York Times, Current TV, the
LA Times, CNN.com, Time
Out New York, Time Magazine, the Village Voice and the
award-winning Burning Man
documentary publication ”The
Burning Book.”
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photo by Kate Raudenbush
Kate Raudenbush
www.kateraudenbush.com
photo by Robert Griffitts
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To o l & A l ex G rey
Vicarious
The Vicarious video is a meditation on the nature of the Self. The story line begins
with a constricted vision of the central character as he experiences a self that can
only consciously see a myopic perspective of violent/negative stimulation. A violent
encounter knocks the Self unconscious. Upon awakening, he enters into a bright
world of infinite interconnectedness in the “Net of Being.” There he recognizes his
fate, waking up to his Oneness and integration with the planet.
The Vicarious DVD, released on December 18, 2007, contains an extended
version of the video counterpart for the song, “Vicarious” from the Tool album
“10,000 Days.” Having previously used stop-motion animation in their videos,
this work was entirely created in computer graphic animation, making it Tool’s first
full CGI video. The work was co-directed by Tool’s lead guitar, Adam Jones and
artist Alex Grey. Also included on the DVD is a documentary on the making of the
video reviewing the history of Jones’ previous brilliant animation and special effects
work, a presentation of Jones’ and Grey’s animation storyboards, and a feature on the
extraordinary CoSM Gallery in Manhattan.
To o l
www.toolband.com
www.adamjonesfmx.com
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Creativity, Diversity & Cross-Pollination
at The BIONEERS Conference
J.P. Harpignies
“Green is the new black” one frequently hears these days.
Environmental consciousness has finally become hip. Talk of
climate change, clean energy, carbon footprints, green buildings,
eco-fashions, local foods, and so on, seems ubiquitous and incessant. But despite
this undeniable (and positive) explosion of environmental awareness, the painful
truth is that our species is still very, very far from genuinely facing the magnitude
of the ecological predicament we face, let alone actually addressing it.
The profound changes we would need to make to our lifestyles, technologies,
social relationships and guiding paradigms in order to birth an authentically
sustainable civilization are almost never honestly confronted in mainstream
discourse. Not only are we not deploying the necessary solutions on a sufficient
scale, we are for the most part not yet even asking the right questions. And the
problem is that we are devastating most of Earth’s ecosystems so rapidly that,
despite the heartening increase in eco awareness, the pace of the destruction is
still far outstripping the emergence of new attitudes and cleaner technologies.
This doesn’t mean we humans will disappear anytime soon. We are a very hardy,
“weedy” species that consistently finds ways to live in even very harsh environments. The issue is how radically impoverished and toxic a biosphere we will
leave our descendants, how much suffering the poorest billions among us will
have to endure, and how much of the ark of life we will condemn to extinction.
All that said, though, there is no question that we have seen a remarkable eco
awakening in the last few years, and that countless groups and individuals from
all walks of life working in a wide range of contexts have been making inspiring contributions to the greening of our energy, agricultural and industrial
systems; our building and transportation, our land and water management; and our
socio-political, cultural and spiritual attitudes, at least laying a foundation,
planting the seeds for the future emergence of a genuinely Earth-honoring
civilization. It may not yet be enough, but it is a dynamic beginning. And there
may be no place to get as good a sense of the extraordinary variety, creativity and
depth and breadth of this movement than at the annual Bioneers Conference.
This uniquely diverse gathering, held in San Rafael, California (a bit north
of San Francisco) the third weekend of every October, now in its 20th year,
brings together cutting edge thinkers, indigenous leaders, scientists, inventors,
designers, civil and human rights advocates, public servants, organic farmers,
educators, grassroots activists, artists, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, independent
media pioneers, philanthropists, and others whose work is so cross-disciplinary
and inventive they are impossible to categorize. It exposes these very different
people working in seemingly unrelated fields to each other’s work so that they
all begin to realize they are part of a much larger movement to pull our society
out of its ecocidal trajectory and nudge it toward sanity. Like rich “edge” ecosystems, such as estuaries, coral reefs or coastal mangrove forests, in which many
different species thrive, Bioneers has spawned countless fruitful cross
pollinations and partnerships across disciplines and social and ethnic divides.
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Some of Bioneers’ core elements distinguish it
from nearly all other roughly comparable “green”
initiatives. Founded in New Mexico by filmmaker/writer Kenny Ausubel, it has always sought
to highlight strong Native American voices,
featuring over the years such leading lights as John
Mohawk, Oren Lyons, Winona LaDuke, and
Tom Goldtooth, to name only a few. Kenny
realized that our modern Western societies have gotten ourselves in the mess we are in
to a large extent because we failed to integrate
the deep ecological teachings of first peoples,
who had learned “the original instructions” that
came with the land over millennia. We moderns
didn’t even understand that concept and are now
paying the price.
One of Bioneers’ key missions is to highlight
the work of those who in very different ways
draw from a deep, reverent study of “Nature’s
Operating Instructions” to fashion imaginative,
efficient but benign ways of meeting human
needs without destroying ecosystems, people
such as Bioneers stalwart John Todd who has
for decades designed “living machines” that use
bacteria, plants and animals to purify water, or
mycologist Paul Stamets, who has discovered
new strains of powerful medicinal mushrooms
and developed revolutionary uses of fungi to
clean toxic wastes and deter insect pests.
photo by Chuck Casteberry
photo by Tim Porter
Another longtime core Bioneer value is that
social and environmental justice is central to
sustainability. The rights and health of the
poorest among us and the vitality of the natural
world are inseparably linked. From its inception it
has been grounded in a profound awareness that
human health is intimately connected to how we
treat each other, the land and water and other
species, and how we grow and distribute our food,
so all the leading schools of organic farming and
gardening from Permaculture to Biodynamic
to French and Bio-intensive have long been
represented at Bioneers, as have leading
herbalists, ethnobotanists and alternative/
complementary healers from Andrew Weil
to Wade Davis to Terence McKenna to the 13
indigenous grandmothers.
photo by Jennifer Esperanza
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photo by Chi Fang
photo by Chi Fang
photo by Chi Fang
124
photo by Tim Porter
A very dynamic youth activism
program has also become a crucial element in the mix, and the
nurturing of women’s leadership
has always been a cornerstone of
the event.
of the exciting emerging field of “biomimicry”-the development of
non-toxic, highly efficient technologies from the deep study of “how
nature does it” (water repellent paints that mimic the surface of lotus
leaves, wind turbines shaped like whale fins, underwater adhesives based
on mollusks’ secretions, boat hulls shaped like dolphins, super strong
resilient fibers based on spider silk, etc., etc.).
Of course, with such a diversity of
views and people, creative disagreements abound under Bioneers’ “big
tent” as organic ranchers and vegan
animal rights folks, anti-corporate/anti-globalization and green
business leaders, dreadlocked young
activists and European government
officials in suits, neo-pagans and
Catholic nuns, hard core secular
rationalists and mystics all bump
up against each other. Bioneers is
there to highlight what it views as
promising initiatives and projects
and ideas. It has a broad philosophical direction, but it accepts
contradictions, paradox and uncertainty, and has no party line.
The organization that puts on the Bioneers conference does much else
besides. It has published a line of books (five so far), has a radio series
syndicated on several hundred radio stations, develops specialized materials
for educators at all levels, has in the past run special training programs for
Native American and African American farmers on growing organic and
heirloom food crops and finding markets, and is currently working on
an experimental visionary strategic plan (Dreaming New Mexico) to
rigorously map New Mexico’s and then the Mountain West’s potential to
green its economy over the coming decades by switching to clean, renewable energy, restructuring its electric grid, shifting its building and transportation infrastructure and localizing its food production. These regional
templates, should they gain traction, could then be adapted as models that
could be adapted to other regions nationally and internationally.
The three-day weekend includes
featured plenary talks (beamed
to many other sites across North
America holding simultaneous
gatherings, so that up to 13,000
people see them in real time),
panels, hands-on workshops, discussions, social networking, art installations, music, movement and
dance, rituals, celebrations, performances, and a film festival. It also
includes highly specialized one-day
events on the Thursday and Monday
preceding and following the main
body of the conference. These
have ranged from programs
on the greening of schools and
curricula targeted to educators, to
creative fundraising for activists, to a
gathering of international experts in
national “green plans” from around
the world, to hands-on seminars
by Rebecca Moore and her team
from Google on using Google Earth
technology for community activism,
to a conference on the leading edges
Bioneers is only one of countless worthy organizations and events dealing
with sustainability issues around the planet, but it offers a particularly
inspiring and hopeful model because, while far from perfect or free of
flaws (what is?), it highlights a remarkable abundance of wildly varied,
brilliantly creative projects, inventions, ideas, campaigns and individuals
working in so many different fields at all scales, from the intimate to the
international, some well established, others nascent. Experts in
various fields will of course learn more about their own discipline
at their specialized professional conferences, but no other event
combines quite the cross-section of highly accomplished innovators
from so many realms as Bioneers. And, even for a temperamental
pessimist like me, it’s usually a lot of fun.
J. P. Harpignies, a writer/editor and environmental activist, is
an associate producer of the annual Bioneers conference. A
former program director at the New York Open Center, he
is the author of three books, Political Ecosystems, Double Helix
Hubris, and most recently, Delusions of Normality. He also
edited the collection on shamanic plant use, Visionary Plant Consciousness, and was associate editor of the
Bioneers books Ecological Medicine and Nature’s Operating
Instructions. J.P. also taught taijiquan in Brooklyn, NY,
for 24 years.
J.P. Harpignies
www.bioneers.org
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Places of Power: Portals to the Numinous
Econoshamanic
A place of power is a location in the physical world that
somehow, mysteriously links an individual or a collective to
something that is beyond the physical, to another reality, to a place
which is ultimately healing, renewing, whole and individuating. A
particular place can be a power spot to an individual, a particular group or all of
humanity. It can be a place in nature, something human made or a human creation
standing on a natural spot.
The idea of the place of power was popularized in the writings of Carlos
Castaneda in his book, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
(University of California Press, 1968). Carlos was sitting on Don Juan’s
porch when Don Juan suggested he find his place of power, or “spot” on the
porch. Don Juan explained that a spot is “a place where a [person] could feel
naturally happy and strong.” He went on to say that, in a person’s spot, nothing
can hurt them, because in that spot, the person is at their very best. The spot is a
type of ally. An ally, according to Don Juan, is “a power capable of carrying a man
beyond the boundaries of himself.”
Carlos spent hours trying to find his spot on Don Juan’s porch. Finally, he fell asleep in
frustration, only to awaken later and be told by Don Juan that he had found his spot.
This is an example of a place of power unique to an individual.
This subject fascinates me because in my own shamanic path, individual places of
power have been allies of mine. Several years ago, I lived in a house on a hilltop. While
walking in my back yard one day, I started to descend the stone steps to a lower level
of the hill that bordered my basement walk out. As I descended, a voice from the
center of my being said, quite loudly, “Pay attention. You are entering a place of power.”
Suddenly, I was totally present, attentive, in my body, here and now. The world around
me was shimmering with newness as if I’d never truly looked at anything before in my
life. I could see patterns of energy radiating everywhere – coming from the trees and
bushes and from the structure I called my home, and these patterns were filled with
meaning. It was magnificent! Yet far more magnificent and meaningful than what
I was sensing, was the flood of insights about my life that came into my consciousness over the next hour or so. I had to run to find a paper and pen to write what
was coming through. I ended up with several pages of text that served as a source
of profound teaching over the next several years. After this experience, I moved my
shamanic practice into the basement and right up against the walk out adjacent to the
power spot.
Places of power have continued to play an important role in my path. In my quiet
neighborhood, there is a large house with an incredible and wild hedge and landscape
in its front yard that I frequently pass. One day, as I walked by, I was drawn to the
hedge. It seemed fluid, moving. It’s hard to describe, but it seemed to be opening like
a lotus and telling a story as it did. Although I couldn’t quite decipher the story, this
flowing hedge fascinated me. I started to pay attention whenever I walked by. The
dance of the hedge continued – it wasn’t just a one-time affair. I resolved to keep
paying attention.
It turned out that whenever I passed this place, my state of consciousness
shifted. Sometimes I would be drawn into my body with a strong here and now
presence. Sometimes, insights about my life would flood into my awareness.
Sometimes, I’d just experience great gratitude.
One time, as I passed this place, I was sure the old tree in this yard was
talking to me! Not in words, but talking nonetheless. It told me one of its
heaviest branches was in danger of falling off and that I should tell the
owners of the house to trim it back. I debated for weeks whether to follow this
instruction, and ultimately decided against doing this. I was afraid of being thought
crazy by the residents of the house. A few weeks later, the old tree was cut down.
When I asked the workers who were removing it, they told me it was because of the
heavy branch. I was heartbroken and learned (I hope) never to ignore the calling of spirits.
Who knows why places of power become places of power? Sometimes these
places stay powerful for a long while; some remain powerful for only a short
time. Some are powerful because of natural forces, for example the Grand
Canyon or Niagara Falls. Some are powerful due to the actions of beings.
The powerful yard I just mentioned has a nature spirit that dwells there.
Sometimes places become powerful by virtue of intense psycho-spiritual practices
performed thereon. In India, it is widely believed that when powerful sadhus do
spiritual practices in a place, the place becomes holy.
In their book, The Magician Within: Accessing the Shaman in the Male Psyche (Avon,
1993), authors Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette talk of power spots as
openings between our ordinary world and “extraordinary space.” These
openings are discovered by shamans and mystics who go on to build altars,
temples and shrines on these power spots. According to Moore and Gillette, the
purpose of these structures is to keep the two worlds – ordinary and extraordinary –
separate. Without these boundaries between worlds, the energies of both worlds
would flood into one another. This is undesirable because, among other reasons,
we can’t handle the intensity of the energies of extraordinary space. They take us
deep within ourselves and reveal deep and often dark (or unbearably light) aspects
of our psyches. Extraordinary space is crazy space. Altars act as filters so just the right
amount of sacred energy comes through.
In truth, power spots are everywhere. If we are perceptive, we can notice them and
the opportunities they present for our growth. Perhaps one is here, right now. Enjoy
the moment. Then build your temple!
Econoshamanic (Kevin D. Sachs, Ph.D.) facilitates transformational processes,
events and crises for healing self, society and planet. An advanced student in
Grof Transpersonal Training, he offers Holotropic Breathwork with certified
facilitators. He also offers support during psychospiritual crises (spiritual
emergencies), integration of nonordinary experiences, design and facilitation of rites
of passage and shamanic healing. ©2009, Kevin D. Sachs, Ph.D. All rights reserved.
Kevin D. Sachs, PhD.
[email protected]
126
127
Allyson Grey
The Process
Allyson’s phenomenal painting series entitled, “The Process” was two years
in the making. It started with an inspired idea to deconstruct and reveal the
method she uses to paint all of her work. When the painting series was
conceived, its completion seemed impossibly daunting. Nearly every evening after a day of working at CoSM, and at every Entheocentric Salon
live-painting event at CoSM for two years, she sat at her table and worked
on this epic project. The goal: to complete this extensive project and
exhibit the entire twenty labor intensive works, at MicroCoSM Gallery in
Manhattan before our move at the end of 2008, a goal that was fulfilled in October
of that year. This kind of planning and follow through is a metaphor for all great
endeavors that may seem out of reach.
Any creative manifestation begins with an intention, the carrying
out of which involves a process. The cleansing and purification of the
ecosystem requires the united will of humanity with a focused and
indomitable plan. Healing our planet will be a long journey that must be
taken one step at a time, an essential process for fulfilling the most beautiful
and
crucial dream of our species. - Alex Grey
Each piece is hand drawn in
pencil using rulers and a square
template. Each piece is painted
one color at a time. This series, a
two year project, shows the progress
of a painting from finished drawing,
the addition of each color, to the
finished painting when all squares
are filled.
The concepts chaos, order and
secret writing symbolically expressed
in the compositions, colors and
systems of my art, represent
an essentialized world view that has
long been the content of my oeuvre.
Chaos in these paintings symbolizes the material world where
distinctions and judgments are
made. Explosions and drifts of
thousands of spectrally arranged
squares in the artwork represent
the presence of entropy, disorder and
unpredictability that exist in every
system in the physical world.
Order in the work, the interconnected harmonious patterns, suggest
bliss realms one might experience in
transcendental states of mystic unity
sometimes called Nirvana, heaven or
the infinite Divine.
The Secret Writing in this
series is comprised of twenty
unpronounceable letters, corresponding to the nameless presence
existent in all sacred writing, the spirit
imbedded in communication that
cannot be reduced to concepts. Secret writing in every culture is like a
window revealing inner concepts that
are manifested in the material world.
The Process is a completed work of
art revealing twenty steps of its own
creation. Each panel bears one of
the twenty letters of Secret Writing
centered and bridging a field of order
and a field of chaos, opening a visual
dialogue between the two realms.
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129
“Intending to create spiritual art, I feel naturally attracted to abstraction and to a written
sacred language. Every known religion reveres its holy writing. Sacred writing of all faiths,
however, come into conflict through human interpretation as the written word defines the
differences of philosophy and traditions, when truly the basis of all religion is unity and
infinite love.
Born in 1952, I have been Alex Grey’s partner and wife for 35 years. We met at the Boston
Museum School where I received a Bachelors and a Masters Degree in Fine Arts. I’ve
130
had one person shows at Stux Gallery and O.K. Harris
Gallery in NYC, among others. Commissions of permanent
public works include a 24 foot mural at the First Bank of
Lowell, Massachusetts and my paintings have been
collected by many corporations and individuals. I paint and
collaborate with Alex in Brooklyn, New York, and at CoSM
in the Hudson Valley.”
The Process, 2008,
graphite pencil, colored
pencil, oil on wood
20 pieces, each 10 x 20 in.
Allyson Grey
www.allysongrey.com
131
CoSM Family Gallery
132
designed by Syd Gnosis
photo’s provided by Susan Buck, Syd Gnosis,
Eli Morgan, Brian James, Kevin Hedley
133
Earthghost
Inspired
journeying
through
Laos, Burning
Man and New
York during
the last five
years has
brought about
Earthghost from
the land of ideas
into reality.
Earthghost is 165
acres of native bushland/forest
that lies in the beautiful Yarra Valley,
one hour East of Melbourne in South Eastern Australia.
please contact us at
www.earthghost.org.au
An Antipodean sister for CoSM.
We feel fortunate to be given this opportunity to open up this property to those
who wish to be interactive and effective in creating a site where the consciousness
exploring community can meet and express. We will be hosting a variety of art
workshops, ceremonies and small events over the coming year.
If you are in or traveling to South Eastern Australia and wish to visit or be involved
please contact us through the web site.
All love, Thy and <mOUSe-----
AD
Sponsor space in the next Issue
contact
[email protected]
Celebrating our nature in a time of transition, this magazine brings together
visionary artists and activists who illuminate and evolve our relationships with the
world. Each contributor included in this issue uniquely expresses the important
message of living in harmony with Mother Earth. Their chosen life path and
visionary art channels a deep love for the natural world and the interconnectivity
of humans and nature.
As a conscious part of the living ecology of Earth, we are inspired by people whose
sense of stewardship is reflected in their work, innovators who bring a renewed
sense of hopefulness to the problems of the present. With contributors from all
six continents, this global arts journal illustrates diversity and similitude, reflecting
these qualities in the emerging planetary culture. Thanks to all those who participated in “Human / Nature”, especially those who
sponsored spaces to make the printing possible. It was a pleasure working with
all of you, we honour the gifts you bring to the world and feel fortunate to have a
forum in which we can share the spirit of this endeavour.
Deepest of gratitude to Alex and Allyson Grey for the vastness of their vision
and all the joyful wonder they bring into being. We are so grateful to have Delvin
Solkinson joining our CoSM team. His dedication, creativity, and seamless
organization has synthesized this monumental issue. This magazine would not
have been possible without the magic of Marisa Scirocco whose endless work and
inspiring designs rendered this sixth volume of CoSM Journal from imagination
into manifestation. Shouts to Syd Gnosis who anchored our presence and helped
in so many unseen ways. Glowing appreciation goes to our treasured guide
Eli Morgan, who joined with Alex, Allyson and Marisa to initiate the CoSM
Journal in 2002, and whose innumerable influences can be seen in every aspect of
this light filled lineage.
We are excited to follow this flow into the future and have already begun work
on our next issue. Ten thousand blessings to Gaia and all her sentient beings. May the collective power of our love help heal our world. Marisa Scirocco
Two of Crystals, 2006, digital
www.alienambassador.net
Human / Nature
Eli Morgan, Marisa Scirocco, Allyson Grey, Alex Grey, Delvin Solkinson, Syd Gnosis