"Refresh" post...

Just a little something to keep Sol Quest in the system..

Brave Old World

...I found I had to renew my password/google acct. associated with SolQuest in order to comment on a dear friends charity bike ride(http://kencarlson-ah-ride-2009.blogspot.com/)...

I have also been following his brother Keith's musings and trials on digitaldoorway.blogspot.com for many years...

Perhaps with the advent of Facebook, and the wonderful networking opportunities that haven arisen..I may use this venue from time to time to record my more lengthy, personal dissertations on life, art and food..

I DO need to create a virtual/transparent venue for my creative process... and perhaps engaging the "page" will be a catalyst for the building of "GilXFox.com"...a work NOT in progress for lo these many years...

....like lark's tongue in aspic. 

"Hero of a Thousand Faces"

"Our truest life is when we are in a dream--awake..." Thoureau.

row,row,row your boat gently down the stream....
merrily,merrily,merrily,merrily.....
Life is but a Dream.

I have been ruminating on lofty subjects of late....Mostly in the face of maintaining a level of productivity in the face of my own character defects of procrastination and sloth. I am neither lazy nor unindustrious - yet having a achieved a level of serenity, or awakening, I enjoy my own thoughts and am comfortable in my own skin. My perception can bring me such entertainment that my greater mission of Creation is put on the back burner. I can easily justify perusing the drawings of Peter Paul Rubens (at the Met), or watch Kurosawa's Rashamon again. I must have no fear in cultivating my "Way". The buddhists say to remove pain, remove desire! , but it is only " growing pains" I feel , as I am compelled to create, to draw, to make my music!

"The only way to live is to accept each minute as an unrepeatable miracle, which is exactly what it is - a miracle and unrepeatable." Margaret Storm Jameson 1891-1986, Writer

Do the next right thing....but my creativity lives in the space between knowing everything and nothing at the same moment! ....so trusting myself to act/exist without fear, or too much left-brain ego can really take the chip off my shoulder.

"There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living."
Nelson Mandela Former Prime Minister of South Africa

Ultimately, I have no problems...I only think I do-- they are an invention of my ego--that what I am- is what I have- or DO..... and this is seperate from the Tao, God or Perfection.

Then what is left?
Joseph Campbell, the scholar, author, teacher and sage, when asked by his students what was the meaning of life....after reviewing the synthesis of the hero's quest in the masks of god across the fecundity of human mythology and folklore since the ascent of man....he said:

"Follow Your Bliss...!"

The gratifying thing is that as apriori knowledge, Jungian archetypes, and Campbell are concerned.... I may not yet have an original thought in my head. Crossing the second ego barrier characterized by despair and alienation(The Road of Trials) and allowing the heart chakra of compassion to bloom, I trudge the road to happy destiny in an act of mental synthesis through which the spiritual values of all ages are percieved as simultaneously present and vitally alive.
This has always happenened-is happening-and always will happen.
The books compell me to believe it is every being's birthrite.

What did the buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?

"Make me One with Everything"

Movement within Stillness

I am indeed a human "being", not a human doing. Thankfully, nothing is ever truly still 'cause entropy sucks...Meanwhile back on planet earth, listening to Gea has always been part of my doing, and part of following my bliss. I may not be assured of my conciousness or even my existence....but I am certain of my Rapture. The serenity that is granted with meditation is one of the greatest gifts of communion with the Tao. It is easy, however, to be a holy man at the top of a mountain. Conversely,.. win the Rat Race, and what are you??....the Top Rat!!!
True zen resides in the idea that after you have mastered "playing the game", you can purely act/react and "let The Game play you..."I may be primarily a "spiritual being" having a "human" experience and not the reverse...But...

"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950, Irish-Born Writer....

"Nothing happens 'til something moves...."

....is one of my favorite Einstein quotes......along with the lengthier-"Our eyes are the most deceptive organs of all... for they give us the impression that we are seperate... " I am about to travel to Brooklyn again for a science class at Pratt... finishing off a 3 credit course that will bring me within one more art history class of my B.F.A. I should have finished in 1984, and thankfully, at least the teacher is older than I....
I enclose the quotes as a reference and nod to the material plane, or the paradigms of thought that present day physics can explain. It is refreshing to voyage to my old campus and read Berthold Brecht's "Galileo", wherein confronting Rome about the geocentric model of the universe could prove fatal.....as the Earth was newly round.
Gotta move.

"Cheryl at Rest"

Time and Space

I consider "time" a human invention or construct. At the moment, I can think of no other manmade mechanism that can so control the workings of our lives. I have always preferred the calendar, the seasons, the phases of the moon... which are far more akin to my bodily rythmns... It seems like it has been a long "time" since I wrote early yesterday morning...and with this marking of time I am indeed more aware of the activities that have occured since. At my age(103 allowed me to be born in my proper year-the ox), a month or a year can sometimes feel like a gratifying eternity, yet in the same breath-a wink of an eye!!.... I love the passing of time now.... since I am no longer a drunken or drugged animal.... time is my friend.... for I probably won't die today..... but frankly, the best part is.....if I did...I'm okay with that toooooo.......

Built blue collar.... 

Test Drive

In an effort to continue to multitask along various fronts...this venue of expression seems pretty palatable. Given my limited exposure to HTML(ect>) and even typing and word processing, and my desire to start/keep a journal--or as 'Sources of Creativity' calls them- "artist pages", this may be a perfect marriage.....If these putterings result in a speedier formatting(?) of me.com....well then all the better.
I must spend the time and effort to learn the basics of web design and the tools available, even though I feel-as I always have- that "easel time"-drawing or painting, will always be the most important use of any waking hour....