calls here






Macaulay Library
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
(Weddell seal)

Phillip Guston
Painter's Table, 1973
Oil on canvas, 77¼ × 90¼ in.

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Now the vision that begins to manifest in the void is the image of mud which represents the earth merging into water. The image of smoke which represents water merging into fire. The image of sparks which represents fire merging into the wind. The image of a candle flame which represents the wind merging into consciousness. The image of a moonlit sky which represents consciousness merging into luminance. The image of the sunlit sky which represents luminance merging into radiance. The image of the night sky which represents radiance merging into imminence. The image of the predawn twilight sky which represents imminence merging into the perfect clear light.

Hey, immortal one, you who was called ______! In the death-point consciousness between, the reality clear light manifested. But unfortunately, you did not recognize it, so you arrived here. Now the spiritual reality consciousness between and the existence consciousness between will manifest for you. As I describe them, you must make every effort to recognize them without fail.


At this time when your spirit and body have parted ways, pure reality manifests in subtle, dazzling visions, vividly experienced, naturally frightening and worrisome, shimmering like a mirage on the desert. Do not fear them! Do not be terrified! Do not panic! You now have what is call an "instinctual spiritual body," not a material, flesh and blood body. Thus whatever sounds, lights, and rays may come at you, they cannot harm you. You cannot die. It is enough for you to recognize these experiences as a manifestation of your own mind.

At the same time the soft smokey light of the hells shines before you along with the wisdom light. At that time, under the influence of hate you panic, terrified by that brilliant white light, and you attempt to flee from it. You feel a liking for that soft smokey light of the hells and you approach it. But now you must fearlessly recognize that brilliant white, piercing, dazzling clear light as wisdom. Be gladdened by it with faith and reverence! Pray, and increase your love for it, thinking, "It is the light of the compassion of Lord Vajrasattva! I take refuge in it!"
It is Lord Vajrasattva's shining upon you to escort you through the terrors of the between. It is the guiding beam of the light of compassion of Vajrasattva - have faith in it! Do not be enticed by that soft smoky light of hell! Hey! That is the path of destruction from the confusion you have accumulated by your strong hatred!












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2000 Costa Rica

last year

I admire those old root fences which have almost entirely disappeared from tidy fields, - white pine roots got out when the neighboring meadow was a swamp, - the monuments of many a revolution. These roots have not penetrated into the ground, but spread over the surface, and, having been cut off four or five feet from the stump, were hauled off and set up on their edges for a fence. The roots are not merely interwoven, but grown together into solid frames, full of loopholes like Gothic windows of various sizes and all shapes, triangular and oval and harp-like, and the slenderer parts are dry and resonant like harp-strings. They are rough and unapproachable, with a hundred snags and horns which bewilder and balk the calculation of the walker who would surmount them. The part of the trees above ground presents no such fantastic forms. Here is one seven paces, or more than a rod, long, six feet high in the middle, and yet only one foot thick, and two men could turn it up, and in this case the roots were six or nine inches thick at the extremities. The roots of pines growing in swamps grow thus in the form of solid frames or rackets, and those of different trees are interwoven with all so that they stand on a very broad foot and stand or fall together to some extent before the blasts, as herds meet the assault of beasts of prey with serried front. You have thus only to dig into the swamp a little way to find your fence, - post, rails, and slats already solidly grown together and of material more durable than any timber. How pleasing a thought that a field should be fenced with the roots of the trees got out in clearing the land a century before!




Henry David Thoreau's daily journal delivered daily

John Thomas Serres 1759-1825
The Amazon Entering the Harbor of St. Lucia; The Amazon in a Hurricain; The Amazon shipwrecked
three, all oil on canvas
29 x 43" (3)

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Jacob van Walscapelle (1644-1727)
A still life of flowers and a branch of peaches in a sculpted vase, standing on a ledge
oil on canvas
21.375 x 18"

Peter Coffin
Untitled (Designs for Colby Poster Company), 2008

80 Posters, 
letterpress ink on cardstock
Courtesy of Andrew Kreps Gallery

thanks to Reference Library




..

1996

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1993

Formations along the wall of the Big Room, near Crystal Spring Home.
Carlsbad Caverns 1942, Ansel Adams

Roy, William
Sneffelsjokull, 1975
Acrylic on canvas

play

"Summing up the formal characteristic of play, we might call it a free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious’ but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings that tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress the difference from the common world by disguise or other means."

Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens; a Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.


"It is worth noting that play is categorized as an informal learning technique, regarded as advanced behavior seen only in developed vertebrates with the security for leisure time: big cats, orcas, human beings, etc."

Shewchuck, Gregory. "Burn Yourself Completely", Arthur 31 (Oct. 2008): 22.

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Tlingit tunic, ca. 1875. 

Alaska 
Mountain goat wool, yellow cedar bark wood, fur.
National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution
Photo by Ernest Amoroso 


Michael Maier's 'Tripus Aureus', published by Theodore de Bry in 1622.
courtesy of Bibliodyssey

Ciat-Lonbarde

Chris Johanson
Totalities (Detail), 2008

do; and surely
It is a sleepy language and thou speak'st
Out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say?
This is a strange repose, to be asleep
With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving,
And yet so fast asleep.

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.





Where the bee sucks. there suck I:
In a cowslip's bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.



I drink the air before me, and return
Or ere your pulse twice beat.
Exit

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Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics


multiverse

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sandpaper drawings

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Tal R
All Here Tonight, 2000
oil paint on canvas
78.75 x 78.75"
courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery (LFL)


interview

pop

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.

1993

Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625)
and
Jan Brueghel the Younger (1601-1678)
Still life of tulips, roses, narcissus, forget-me-nots, a carnataion and other flowers in a a glass vase, resting on a table with a sprig of rosemary and an insect
oil on copper
12 x 8.25"

Growing

[ Snoring ]
[Whistle Blowing ]
[ Snoring ]
[ Snoring ]
[ Snoring Continues ]
Look out the window.
And doesn't this remind you of when you were in the boat?
And then later that night,
you were lying, looking up at the ceiling,
and the water in your head...
was not dissimilar from the landscape,
and you think to yourself, "Why is it that the landscape...
is moving,
but... the boat is still ?"
And also-- Where is it that you're from?
- Cleveland. - Cleveland.
- Lake Erie. - Erie.
Do you have any parents back in, uh, Erie?
They passed on recently.
And, uh,
do you have a wife...
in Erie?
No.
- A fiancee? - Well, I--
I had one of those, but, um,
she changed her mind.
- She found herself somebody else. - No.
Yes, she did.
Well, that doesn't explain...
why you've come all the way out here,
all the way out here to hell.
l, uh,
have a job out in the town of Machine.
Machine? That's the end of the line.
- Is it? - Yes.
Well, I...
received a letter...
from the people at Dickinson's Metal Works...
Oh.
assuring me of a job there.
Is that so?

sequencer
made for Bjorn Copeland by Gavin Russom

.-- I had a dream and you were in it

detail from milarepa, originally uploaded by this is emily.

Lama (Milarepa)
18th c., pigment on sized cotton
Tibet House Repatration Collection





During the day I had the sensation of being able to change my body at will and of levitating through space and of performing miracles. At night in my dreams I could freely and without obstacles explore the entire universe from one end to the other. And, transforming myself into hundreds of different material and spiritual bodies, I visited all the Buddha realms and listened to the teachings there. Also, I could preach the Dharma to a multitude of beings. My body could be both in flames and spouting water

Having thus obtained inconceivable miraculous powers, I meditated joyfully and with heightened spirit.

I was actually able to fly through space, so I flew to the Cave of the Eagle's Shadow, where I meditated. Then an intense Fire of Tummo radiating warmth and bliss arose in me, immeasurably superior to any such experience I had in the past. As I returned to the Horse Tooth White Rock, I passed over a small village called Langda, where a man was plowing with his son. This man was the older brother of someone who had been killed when my uncle's house collapsed. The son saw me and cryed out, 'Father, look at that fantastic thing! A man flying through the air!"

The father stopped and looked up. 'It is no great wonder. It is the son of that wicked woman, White Jewel of Nyang; it is that cunning, obstinate Mila, wracked by starvation. Don't let his shadow fall on you. Keep on plowing.'

Llanungpa, Lobsang P. (translator), The Life of Milarepa, Boston: Shambala 1985
(original text: Mi-la-rnam-thar by Gtsang-smyon he-ru-ka rus-pa'i-rgyan-can (1452-1507))

holy mountain

Alejandro Jodorowski on wikipedia


Times article