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Act like the sun in love and compassion.
Act like a river in friendship and fraternity!
Act like the night in covering the faults of others!
Act like the soil in humility and selflessness
Act like dead one in anger and furry!
Either act in accordence with the way you look,
or look in accordance with the way you act!
RUMI
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (July 11, 2023) Midshipmen 4th Class, or plebes, of 27th company from the United States Naval Academy class of 2027 run through the obstacle course during Plebe Summer, a demanding indoctrination period intended to transition the candidates from civilian to military life. As the undergraduate college of our country's naval service, the Naval Academy prepares young men and women to become professional officers of competence, character, and compassion in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. (U.S. Navy Photo by Ensign Annie Quo)
Karen Armstrong, in accepting her 2008 TED Prize, has two things to say that I find very important to me these days. One is that compassion as expressed by the "golden rule" is common across all the major religions. Two is that our modern conception of belief as applied to religion is quite likely flawed.
Belief, which we make such a fuss about today, is only a very recent religious enthusiasm. It surfaced only in the West in about the 17th century. The word belief, itself, originally meant to love; to prize; to hold dear. In the 17th century it narrowed its focus [...] to mean an intellectual ascent to a set of propositions. Credo -- [i.e.,] I believe -- it did not mean I accept certain creedal articles of faith. It meant "I commit myself. I engage myself."This trip I took last weekend to Tijuana to help with the building of homes there for families who need but can't afford them was, in part, a test of Ms. Armstrong's statement.[...] So, if religion is not about believing things, what is it about? What I've found across the board is that religion is about behaving differently. Instead of deciding whether or not you believe in God, first you do something -- you behave in a committed way and then you begin to understand the truths of religion. And religious doctrines are meant to be summons to action. You only understand them when you put them into practice. -- Karen Armstrong
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (July. 15, 2021) Midshipmen 4th Class, or plebes, from the United States Naval Academy Class of 2025 from 24th and 25th companies, particpate in the obstacle course during Plebe Summer, a demanding indoctrination period intended to transition the candidates from civilian to military life. As the undergraduate college of our country's naval service, the Naval Academy prepares young men and women to become professional officers of competence, character, and compassion in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. (U.S. Navy photo by Ensign Quinn P. Schneider/Released)
This dock channel leads out to the Halifax River. The largest marina in Daytona is downtown, on Beach Street. The Halifax Harbor Marina is where friends of mine live, and so I spend some time there now and then, watching the water, boats, and wildlife. The boating lifestyle isn't for everybody, but those who live on boats don't seem to want to exchange them for houses until they are too old to still have their sea legs!
This view is especially poignant for me, since a couple of weeks ago, my friends and I had just gotten back from a drive, and a photo shoot, when we heard the news that the man in the boat just behind the big one had been found dead by his girlfriend.
Before learning of his fate, I had been in a hurry to get home and get things organized for work the next morning. When something like this hits you, though, everything else fades into the background. We waited while the police finished up their reports, and for the medical examiner to arrive to determine cause of death. It was completely sobering, especially since just hours before, we had been having a quiet prayer meeting right about where this shot was taken, and we sensed nothing unusual, even though the man had been dead for hours, perhaps even a day or two.
Just before they wheeled his body down the dock, leaving for the morgue, where he would be autopsied, his traumatized lover, stunned and sobbing, made her way out to a waiting car, while two friends held her up so she wouldn't stumble and fall. I've only heard that kind of grief coming from a human being three times in my life. The first was at my highschool boyfriend's funeral after he died of leukemia, and his mother couldn't be consoled. The second was when my own mother died, and I was the grieving person left behind, and the third was that night. I cried for my dad when he passed, but we weren't that close, and it was nothing like that.
That woman's pain made me realize how precious life is, and how we should value others, but it also made me realize that certain situations leave people completely vulnerable and unprepared, and I'm not talking about just the grieving over a loved one. I'm talking about the complications that can arise after a loved one passes.
The lady whose boyfriend died, had never married him, or, I should say, he never married her. They lived on the boat together, and when he died suddenly, she not only found herself without a lover, but without a home! She had no legal right to the boat, and she had just lost her job, too! Thank goodness she had some good friends who came to her aid when she called! Now, she will have to live with family in another city. Her life is permanently disrupted and altered simply because they were not legally married.
Many of you on here know my religious beliefs. I am a born again Christian. (The term is redundant, since no true Christian ISN'T born again, but I use the term to denote that for me it is much more central to my life than for most. I'm not better, but perhaps a little more zealous than some.) Anyway, while morally I side with scripture on issues such as marriage being between a man and a woman, and know that sleeping around is considered wrong by God, I still can recognize a permanent couple when I see one, regardless of the legality. When people choose to make a life together, there should be some way to designate property, etc.
People I know would believe that this lady made her own bed, and now she must lie in it. While technically that is true, there's certainly no compassion coming from that perspective! She helped pay bills, and cook, and shared a life with her lover. His decision not to marry probably had its roots in bad relationships of the past, (who hasn't had those?!) and while the commitment was in his heart, it wasn't on paper.
We Christians can come across somewhat judgmental about our stand on moral issues. I don't judge. I know that I am far from sinless, and that I do plenty that could be judged by others, and by God! I DO feel that if a couple lives together monogomously, there should be some laws in place to protect things like property. I've been told that in many places, if an unmarried person is hospitalized, their partner can't even visit or receive updates simply because they're not married
Perhaps it's time to consider life partnership as a legal route to protect people with common law marriage and gay relationships. All I know is no matter if this couple was living "in sin" or not, I don't think that he would've wanted her to go through what she's going through now, and had he really thought ahead, might have at least taken some legal steps to ensure she wouldn't be left without a home after his death.
Life is complcated enough without having to suffer something like that on top of grieving for a loved one! Is there a way not to compromise one's faith and beliefs without becoming callous and judgmental? I think so. Love the sinner; hate the sin. On that Sunday night a couple of weeks ago, that phrase made more sense to me than it ever had before. We are all imperfect, and there's not one of us who hasn't done something wrong in our lives. Compassion rules.
Durga
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In Hinduism, Durga one who can redeem in situations of utmost distress; is a form of Devi, the supremely radiant goddess, depicted as having ten arms, riding a lion or a tiger, carrying weapons and a lotus flower, maintaining a meditative smile, and practising mudras, or symbolic hand gestures.
An embodiment of creative feminine force (Shakti), Durga exists in a state of tantrya (independence from the universe and anything/anybody else, i.e., self-sufficiency) and fierce compassion. Kali is considered by Hindus to be an aspect of Durga. Durga is also the mother of Ganesha and Kartikeya. She is thus considered the fiercer, demon-fighting form of Shiva's wife, goddess Parvati. Durga manifests fearlessness and patience, and never loses her sense of humor, even during spiritual battles of epic proportion.
The word Shakti means divine feminine energy/force/power, and Durga is the warrior aspect of the Divine Mother. Other incarnations include Annapurna and Karunamayi. Durga's darker aspect Kali is represented as the consort of the god Shiva, on whose body she is often seen standing.
Durga Slays Mahishasura, Mahabalipuram sculpture.
As a goddess, Durga's feminine power contains the energies of the gods. Each of her weapons was given to her by various gods: Rudra's trident, Vishnu's discus, Indra's thunderbolt, Brahma's kamandalu, Kuber's Ratnahar, etc.
According to a narrative in the Devi Mahatmya story of the Markandeya Purana text, Durga was created as a warrior goddess to fight an asura (an inhuman force/demon) named Mahishasura. He had unleashed a reign of terror on earth, heaven and the nether worlds, and he could not be defeated by any man or god, anywhere. The gods went to Brahma, who had given Mahishasura the power not to be defeated by a man. Brahma could do nothing. They made Brahma their leader and went to Vaikuntha — the place where Vishnu lay on Ananta Naag. They found both Vishnu and Shiva, and Brahma eloquently related the reign of terror Mahishasur had unleashed on the three worlds. Hearing this Vishnu, Shiva and all of the gods became very angry and beams of fierce light emerged from their bodies. The blinding sea of light met at the Ashram of a priest named Katyan. The goddess Durga took the name Katyaayani from the priest and emerged from the sea of light. She introduced herself in the language of the Rig-Veda, saying she was the form of the supreme Brahman who had created all the gods. Now she had come to fight the demon to save the gods. They did not create her; it was her lila that she emerged from their combined energy. The gods were blessed with her compassion.
It is said that upon initially encountering Durga, Mahishasura underestimated her, thinking: "How can a woman kill me, Mahishasur — the one who has defeated the trinity of gods?" However, Durga roared with laughter, which caused an earthquake which made Mahishasur aware of her powers.
And the terrible Mahishasur rampaged against her, changing forms many times. First he was a buffalo demon, and she defeated him with her sword. Then he changed forms and became an elephant that tied up the goddess's lion and began to pull it towards him. The goddess cut off his trunk with her sword. The demon Mahishasur continued his terrorizing, taking the form of a lion, and then the form of a man, but both of them were gracefully slain by Durga.
Then Mahishasur began attacking once more, starting to take the form of a buffalo again. The patient goddess became very angry, and as she sipped divine wine from a cup she smiled and proclaimed to Mahishasur in a colorful tone — "Roar with delight while you still can, O illiterate demon, because when I will kill you after drinking this, the gods themselves will roar with delight".[cite this quote] When Mahashaur had half emerged into his buffalo form, he was paralyzed by the extreme light emitting from the goddess's body. The goddess then resounded with laughter before cutting Mahishasur's head down with her sword.
Thus Durga slew Mahishasur, thus is the power of the fierce compassion of Durga. Hence, Mata Durga is also known as Mahishasurmardhini — the slayer of Mahishasur. According to one legend, the goddess Durga created an army to fight against the forces of the demon-king Mahishasur, who was terrorizing Heaven and Earth. After ten days of fighting, Durga and her army defeated Mahishasur and killed him. As a reward for their service, Durga bestowed upon her army the knowledge of jewelry-making. Ever since, the Sonara community has been involved in the jewelry profession [3].
The goddess as Mahisasuramardhini appears quite early in Indian art. The Archaeological Museum in Matura has several statues on display including a 6-armed Kushana period Mahisasuramardhini that depicts her pressing down the buffalo with her lower hands [4]. A Nagar plaque from the first century BC - first century AD depicts a 4-armed Mahisamardhini accompanied by a lion. But it is in the Gupta period that we see the finest representations of Mahisasuramardhini (2-, 4-, 6-, and at Udayagiri, 12-armed). The spear and trident are her most common weapons. a Mamallapuram relief shows the goddess with 8 arms riding her lion subduing a bufalo-faced demon (as contrasted with a buffalo demon); a variation also seen at Ellora. In later sculptures (post-seventh Century), sculptures show the goddess having decapitated the buffalo demon
Durga Puja
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Durga puja is an annual Hindu festival in South Asia that celebrates worship of the Hindu goddess Durga. It refers to all the six days observed as Mahalaya, Shashthi , Maha Saptami, Maha Ashtami, Maha Navami and Bijoya Dashami. The dates of Durga Puja celebrations are set according to the traditional Hindu calendar and the fortnight corresponding to the festival is called Devi Paksha and is ended on Kojagori Lokkhi Puja
Durga Puja is widely celebrated in the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam, Jharkhand, Orissa and Tripura where it is a five-day annual holiday.In West Bengal and Tripura which has majority of Bengali Hindus it is the Biggest festival of the year. Not only is it the biggest Hindu festival celebrated throughout the State, but it is also the most significant socio-cultural event in Bengali society. Apart from eastern India, Durga Puja is also celebrated in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab, Kashmir, Karnataka and Kerala. Durga Puja is also celebrated as a major festival in Nepal and in Bangladesh where 10% population are Hindu. Nowadays, many diaspora Bengali cultural organizations arrange for Durgotsab in countries such as the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Singapore and Kuwait, among others. In 2006, a grand Durga Puja ceremony was held in the Great Court of the British Museum.
The prominence of Durga Puja increased gradually during the British Raj in Bengal. After the Hindu reformists identified Durga with India, she became an icon for the Indian independence movement. In the first quarter of the 20th century, the tradition of Baroyari or Community Puja was popularised due to this. After independence, Durga Puja became one of the largest celebrated festivals in the whole world.
Durga Puja also includes the worship of Shiva, Lakshmi, Ganesha, Saraswati and Kartikeya. Modern traditions have come to include the display of decorated pandals and artistically depicted idols (murti) of Durga, exchange of Bijoya Greetings and publication of Puja Annuals.
made with vinyl, cut out with the sihouette sd -- these are jars to hold money for the Compassion International Children.
Those leaves in the crack revealed they had struggled to grow through the crack to reach surface to survive.
They thought once they reached the surface they could have a better life.
One who liked them, walked pass with a smile, and one who didn’t “see” them, step on them, ended their hopes and lives.
This photo was taken one night on a street when I was heading home after dinner. At the moment I photographed this photo, I thought of recently refugee crisis in Mediterranean.
People are dying and suffering, their homeland has became war field and they are fleeing continuously from war and conflict to European country. They struggle across the ocean on overcrowded boats seeking for shelter. Some survived, but some buried in the ocean.
I believe that every living beings have the desire to be happy and to overcome suffering. And this desire should be equal.
I believe that this is the hard time for the refugees, but also the time to test one’s compassion.
We pray for Cristian, a little boy we sponsored in Honduras, with our children over dinner so often. We talk about the things he likes and ways to make his sponsorship successful. This is a photo Kristi took in the Carlos side of The Compassion Experience.
Photo taken inside The Compassion Experience inside the "Carlos" side when it was at North Side Baptist Church and such a great experience.
Sponsorship | The Compassion Experience, Compassion International
More about us: Mr + Mrs Blog-Site | Mr + Mrs Most Interesting
MARSYAS/MYSELF
MYSELF Diptych, Detail
Below is a transcription of the handwritten text on the detail pictured above:
Art
Desire—Creativity—Release
"To embrace absence. To cradle and enfold the freedom and purity of immolation. To distill all need into the heavy metal of desire. To need no allies. To know that there are no allies. To know. To find sustenance in the ashes. To set corms into the ashes and bring forth all that which is no longer there. This is not despair. From this place springs the emptying of self after the purging of ambition. From this place springs Art. I have pitched my tent in this verdant wasteland of contradiction and set no value on any other place. From this vast horizontal, only the horizon defines me. A speck of desire on a polished orb. I hold in amputated hands the future of the future and have dedicated my life to the poverty of self-awareness. I am not afraid. I want nothing. I have no regrets. Let me speak for Art. Let me speak as Art. Am I not qualified? I have destroyed the audience and created silence. For myself, I have created the silence. Silence, then, will be my audience. As Art creates silence, Art speaks for silence. I speak for myself. Am I not qualified? I speak to the silence. Listen. I have established the eternal present. It is on this scale are all illusions weighed. I judge nothing. I am the shifting paradox of possibility. Nothing more. I am now. Nothing more...but there is a caveat: I am of human invention. Like nature, I am. Like rocks and rivers and the passing of days, I am. I exist when perceived. I impose my existence when engaged. Through perception, I confound the conception of time. Through engagement, I re-create myself within the living Now. I am more ancient than the caves of Lascaux and when perceived, I confront human consciousness with the power of Isness. I have no past. Like nature, I am. But within the caveat of human invention, I am born of desire. Though I am the most enduring of human enterprise, my purpose is unclear. Let me speak to this. Some would claim that I exist to illustrate the passage of time thus supporting the invention of history. But history has to do with memory and the cataloguing of events, a neatly arranged rationale of cause and affect, one influence on another through linear time. But this is not my purpose. Because I exist, like nature, in the eternal now, I belie such definition. To impose such limitations on my purpose is to confine me to the cage of intellect. If one accepts this definition, it is he who lives inside the cage, not I, though I concede a certain compassion for this usage as it enables the blind a kind of vision. But I am made of fiercer stuff. Compassion is not my purpose. My purpose is to destroy illusion. Linearity is my enemy and because I exist always in the now, to impose linearity upon me is to pervert my purpose. I am created when perceived. Being born of desire, I mirror the desire of the perceiver. Together we confirm the eternal now. There is no history, only the encapsulated instant of recognition. Only the birth of silence. Only the transforming re-creation of the creator. A duet and a paen to the purging light. I am the by-product of the creator’s desire to create himself. Having himself been created through the purging light of re-creation, his pursuit of the light causes my potential for creation. How simple it seems. What obvious and unquestionable truth. As light feeds the eye and sound the ear, odor the nose, friction the touch and taste the tongue, the now is created and sustained. So, too, is Art. Because I am created by the perceiver, my creation is sporadic and serendipitous. I am of the moment. I am in the now. As long as my materiality exists, my potential for conversion exists, from noun to verb, objectivity to response. Artifact to Art. Those who would force me into linearity turn actions into events and anchor my identity within the reflective mirror of history. They fear me. They fear what they cannot see. They fear what they cannot feel. They fear what they cannot control. They fear chaos. But I, too, have a protocol. Because it alters and redefines their position does not preclude their viability. It simply means that they serve me rather than I them. This is not chaos. It requires only the acceptance of a more humble role. Simply put, the protocol for my Isness is thus: The artist creates himself. The culture-maker creates metaphor. And the perceiver creates Art. Obviously, the recognition of this shift in roles requires an almost total restructuring of the cultural gestalt. I flourish and propagate within the eternal feminine. Masculine entelechy is a hostile and barren landscape. It would nullify my purpose. In this arid desert of the intellect, my sensuality is veiled in sand. I am contained and controlled, bourkhaed in masculine fear. To restrict and confine my purpose to the identity of the artist is to re-enforce linearity, history, knowledge, and illusion. For the one who makes me, I am but a by-product of self-creation. Hermaphroditically conceived within the artifacts of desire, I exist solely for the purpose of connection. He who makes me is not she who creates me. Art is conceived within the womb of perception. I exist when I am created without prejudice, cultural correctness, or linear logic. As for taste, good and bad have nothing to do with my inception. Moral judgment serves group identity. These strictures cannot constrain my birthright. I exist where I am perceived. There is no such thing as good or bad art; there is only Art and I am created by the perceiver. All else is artifact. Whenever and wherever I am perceived, Art exists. The fusion that occurs between making and creating forces my becoming and reinforces the eternal now. This fusion is the peak of human experience: Being without metaphor, simile, or trope. As with physical orgasm, the orgasm of aesthetic response is not filtered through the intellect. The experience defines itself through a tautology of sensation. How would one define an orgasm? It simply is. Though procreation is its purpose, procreation is not its definition. This is true also of aesthetic orgasm. Though cultural enhancement is its practicality, the sensation of response is indefinable. Orgasm is the ultimate reality. It is wordless and transcends all boundaries. Its communication is total, a connection so intense that ones existence is confirmed. Some speak of me in terms of spirit; the response I invoke, a religious catharsis. I think not. Religiosity distorts my purpose, and spirit separates me from my totality. Appreciation is another facet of response, as is beauty, as is seduction. I am a gestalt of many metaphors. No one characteristic defines me. I am defined by the indefinable. Totality. When I occur, when Art occurs, it is with the violence of disconnection and the sublimity of connection. In the moment of my creation, the armor of the intellect is pierced with the turgescent light of recognition and my creator is filled with my maker’s desire for self-creation. Because I am a gestalt of many metaphors, by examination and deletion, metaphor by metaphor, I shall define my purpose. Through distillation, I might define my purpose. Because I am all of these and no one of these, my totality is indefinable, unexplainable. My outline can be etched by describing what I am in part and through deconstruction that which presses out may be released. In the orgasm of my inception, the perceiver is disconnected from the linear masculine and enveloped within the spherical feminine. This episode, this moment, this lifetime is my birth. Art is realized within the bourn of the creator. The variables of causation for orgasmic perception are infinite, chaotic, and serendipitous. Like the artifacts that induce the sensation, connection occurs when connection occurs, without judgment or foreplay. Two basics exist for my creation: attraction and seduction...Art can happen to anyone with any artifact at any time. There is no such thing as good or bad Art; there is, however, such a thing as profound or mediocre orgasm. Only the perceiver can distinguish the experience. Whether the orgasm is sexual or aesthetic, it occurs within the bourn. It belongs to the perceiver and no other. It lies beyond the reach and control of the culture-maker’s protocol of intimidation. Culture is my enemy. For it to exist, it must defeat my purpose. For a culture to exist, it must establish its identity on the necklace of linear time. This beaded processing of artifacts and events called history would place one of myriad metaphors above all others as my defining gestalt. That art as evidence defines me is a perversion of my purpose. It would use me as decoration rather than the defining force of human Isness. It is my entirety that defines my purpose and that entirety is revealed with the bourn of the perceiver. That Art is a reflection of its time is as much a truism as Art History is an oxymoron. This propagandizing of a single metaphor as my defining purpose is the ultimate confusion of artifact with Art. Most of my metaphors tie me to concepts of culture and group identities. Two do not. That Art is beauty and that Art is truth may pit the perceiver against the active and pervasive cultural metaphor of the perceiver’s time and require a degree of courage and a desire for self-creation through the orgasm of response with its residual euphoric sense of enlightenment. I have brought perceivers to their knees and tears to their eyes. I have no peer in terms of emotional power and epiphanic response. My ability to split the individual from the numbing complacency of the group can be cataclysmic. My potential to induce the insurrection of solitude is extreme. Of all my metaphors, Art is beauty and Art is truth are linked in controversy. They tend to provoke heated and emotional intellectual criticisms and commentaries on idealism, romanticism, ignorance, taste, sophistication, naivete, sophism, empiricism, fascism, egalitarianism, aesthetics, history, historicism, elitism, and on and on and on. These two metaphors are the intellectual battlefield on which the war between culture and Art is fought. It is a conflict that cannot, will not, and must not be resolved, for it is through this conflict that humankind’s evolution transpires: individual enlightenment vs. cultural control, freedom vs. repression, individual courage vs. group fear. Life vs. death. Art is entertainment is the metaphor whose dominance most contorts and ridicules my purpose. It perverts human endeavor and diverts the search for being. It requires audience, gratification, and applause thus embedding my determination in linear time. It is a crippling, procrustean enabler of social control. This metaphor, with its sibling, Art is money, reduces my significance within the cultural gestalt to product, and my maker, a comedian on the stage of trivialities. These metaphors breed nihility without the blandishments of hope. Their fertility is cancerous eating away the potential for joy and replacing it with the immediacy of amusement. And though pleasure is often a part of me, it is subsidiary to my purpose. Culture is my enemy because it selects a single metaphor from my pantheon of metaphors to define my significance within its gestalted singularity in linear time. It manipulates me to control individual response and maintain the status quo. That Art is entertainment and that Art is money are metaphors of a fearful culture, stagnant and repressive, hostile to excellence. These metaphors, if taken as my primary distinction, condemn my artifacts to flaccid mediocrity. This is not a judgment against the majority; rather, it is a complaint for the minority which seeks neither to be entertained nor to buy and sell art. Their desire leads toward challenge rather than pacification and materialism. They are forced to seek me outside the paradigm of the culture of entertainment. This most self-creating segment of culture is driven into the linear past to create the eternal now. Branded as elitists, these futurists secure my furtherance. The most avid culture-makers force the artifacts of first appearance as their definitions of my being. Newness, however, does not define me; it reflects, rather, their own ambitions. Art is created by the perceiver regardless of cultural imperative. The culture-maker has no purchase in this transaction. Nor does history. The shoulds and shouldn’ts of cultural propriety are the shoulds and shouldn’ts of cultural identity. Exactly that. To be culturally correct has to do with the ordering of the group, not with the creation of Art. The perceiver may or may not create Art from the acceptable artifacts of the culture. If the perceiver cannot, Art will be created outside of that culture’s prerogatives. I exist when and where I am created. No authority can prejudice my becoming. My essence is amoral. Because aesthetic orgasm is my purpose, I do not qualify the means of attainment whether by attraction and consent or rape. Seduction or surprise, my inception is irrepressible. I occur within the being of the perceiver and my only recordation lies within the perceiver’s bourn. My only history is aesthetic memory. Cultural and artifactual history lie within the purview of the intellect. Further deconstruction of my gestalt would be the metaphor Art is communication: what the perceiver reads into me, what he is told to read into me, and what is discussed about me. It is through communication that the hierarchy of the culture is established, promoted and maintained. Constructed on military, traditionally proven protocols of control, words used like cattle-prods direct and channel large segments of the cognoscenti into an oligarchy of historical distinction. This oligarchy is dependent on an elite group of culture-makers which has jockeyed itself into positions of authority through education, political wisdom, and brilliance of intellect, qualities which have nothing whatever to do with my creation. How tribal the human condition! How masculine the fierce competition for advancement and retainment of control, rank, and command. The ordering of culture is controlled from the top down. With military pragmatism, the ordering of culture-making proceeds from the upper ranks of the culturally elite and descends through the various levels of worth, wealth and sycophantism. Through response, curiosity, education, intimidation, and imposition, culture-makers initiate, propagate and maintain cultural correctness through the various structures of communication. The artists of any culture are not necessarily culture-makers; all induce aesthetic orgasm and thus the creation of Art. Through communication, culture-makers create history. Through silence, perceivers create Art. Happily, for the evolving human condition, we are not mutually exclusive. As cultures invent and record the repetitions of linear time through the alphabets of history, I await discovery by the perceiver within the artifacts of silence. Words do not enhance my perception. Alphabets of communication obscure my purpose, bits and pieces, shards of descriptive analyses opaque my seduction. Aesthetic orgasm does not occur within the mind; it occurs unexpected and unexplained within the fertile bourn of the perceiver. My inception can be neither induced nor denied by instruction or imperative. Acculturation is my enemy. It muddies and opaques my transparency of purpose. Noise. Business. Confusion. I am recorded within the wisdom of myth rather than the knowledge of history. Transformed by the tongues of silence into the nodding recognition of self, I await my perceivers. I am discovered where I am found. Without qualification or judgment, I mark their journeys. As history records the alphabet of repeat, Myth affords the epiphanies of evolvement. Myths are connections within the eternal now for the self’s process of becoming. They transport my significance. My most expedient and perplexing metaphor is: Art is what artists make. This truism absolves the culture-maker from the advancement of aestheticism to the promotion of artists. Celebrity becomes product and its creation becomes culture. On the beaded necklace of linear time, this metaphor is of little moment. Its artifacts are created and sustained by contrivance: Culture-makers create culture-makers who create history. The perceiver, the artist who creates me, re-creates my maker in the eternal now. Through this creation-re-creation, one sees what the other seeks. This is my purpose. This is Art.
Subsequent to the completion of STUDIO SECTION 2002-2005, Marsyas/Myself, the artist created another studio section, STUDIO SECTION 2005-2007, The Seven Deadly Sins and Three Diptychs from The Winter Notebooks. On Pages 7 and 8 of The Winter Notebooks he reprised MARSYAS/MYSELF in retrospect visual and verbal consideration and wrote the following excerpt about it:
"Marsyas/Myself was completed in 2005 and entered into the permanent collection of the Crocker Art Museum in November of that same year. My three year involvement with this studio section was epiphanic and liberating, the separation nearly complete. However, the song of the artist, the skin of Marsyas, hangs heavy and will not be silenced. It lingers still, as Myself lingers still, and will not be silenced. As long as artists create artifacts and as long as viewers persist in creating Art from these artifacts, the myth of Marsyas is the truth of the artist; his life, his pain, his ecstasy, and his fate. By subjection of myself as a particular artist in equation with the corpus of Marsyas, an attempt was made to recast the drama of art into an anti-fascisttic and non-authoritarian process; a complete reassignment of roles wherein the viewer becomes the sole creator of Art and all else is cultural rhetoric. It was also an attempt by this artist at total honesty. As we know virtually nothing about Marsyas, it was my intention to reveal everything about Myself even to the extent of confessional boredom. All information has been made available to the viewer. Setting the plight of Marsyas in his challenge of Apollo within the context of a contemporary sculptor’s studio establishes the parallel of the cautionary myth with all artists who would gamble their lives on a rigged contest. There is no drama greater than the artist’s struggle with his own mortality. The transmutation of mortal desire into material artifact into immortal response is the distinguishing principal of humanity and it is the artist who personifies this principal in its sublime purity. No challenge is greater, no reality more intense. Marsyas is the artist’s myth and it is to this myth all artists conform…."
STUDIO SECTION 2002-2005, Marsyas/Myself is a multi-part installation work that requires a space approximately 40' x 40' for exhibition in its entirety. It consists of free-standing sculptures, and large panels hanging on the walls and a combination of these and evenly divided into two metaphorical dimensions: "Marsyas" and "Myself."
Collection:
Crocker Art Museum
Sacramento, California
Compassion.
Exposition (MAS, Antwerp, Belgium).
Bread being distributed to the poor by David Vinckboons I (ca; 1600).
This is the a Buddha I inherited from my grandfather when he passed away.
He sits facing east in a little wooden house under my favorite staghorn fern.
When I speak about love and compassion, I do so not as a Buddhist, nor as a Tibetan, nor as the Dalai Lama. I do so as one human being speaking with another. I hope that you at this moment will think of yourself as a human being rather than as an American, Asian, European, African, or member of any particular country. These loyalties are secondary.
Dalai Lama
"This photo was taken in Nubia, Egypt while our HUG group was visiting a local village. We rode camels to the village and were welcomed into a villager's home where we were served tea by a kind, warm couple. Their precious baby was being passed around by all the girls in our group, and I was able to hold her for about ten minutes. She absolutely stole my heart." Photo courtesy of Lacey Brown.
In the Palestinian city of Al-Khalil (Hebron), Zakariyyá brings candy to hospital patients fulfilling the Islamic moral commandment to visit the sick.
Photo by Michael A. Zaccaria published on p. 39 of the 2021 edition of Harmony Magazine, a Humanities Magazine from the Medical Humanities program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.
At the time of the crucifixion, the dogwood had reached the size of the mighty oak tree. So strong and firm was the wood that it was chosen as the timber for Jesus' cross.
To be used for such a cruel purpose greatly distressed the dogwood. While nailed upon it, Jesus sensed this, and in his compassion said. "Because of your pity for my suffering, never again shall the dogwood tree grow large enough to be used for a cross. Henceforth, it shall be slender, bent, and twisted, and its blossoms shall be in the form of a cross–two long and two short petals.
"In the center of the outer edge of each petal will be the print of nails. In the center of the flower, stained with blood, will be a crown of thorns so that all who see it will remember."
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