the love artist dot org

freedom garden (the beginning)

refraining (special tla commentary to follow . . )

on refraining pema chodron writes:

(from When Things Fall Apart & from the chapter Not Causing Harm):

"not causing harm obviously includes not killing or robbing or lying to people . . it also includes not being aggressive with our actions, our speech or our minds . . . the most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage & respect to look at ourselves honestly & gently. . . the next step is

refraining

mindfulness is the ground; refraining is the path

refraining is one of those uptight words that sounds repressive.  surely alive, juicy, interesting people would not practice refraining.  maybe they would sometimes refrain, but not as a lifestyle.  in this context, however, refraining is very much the method of becoming a dharmic person.  it's the quality of not grabbing for entertainment the minute we feel the slight edge of boredom coming on.  it's the practice of not immediately filling up space just because it is empty

. . . i make all kinds of little jumpy movements when i feel like i am losing ground.  i do things like: pull my ear, scratch my nose or head when it doesn't itch, i straighten something . .

noticing how we avoid basic groundlessness is a way to get in touch with it

refraining – not habitually acting out impulsively – has something to do with giving up entertainment mentality

through refraining, we see that there's something between the arising of a craving – or the aggression or loneliness or  whatever it might be – & whatever action we take a result 

there's something in us that we don't want to experience & we never do experience it because we are so quick to act

underneath our ordinary lives, underneath all of the talking we do, all the moving we do. all the thoughts in our minds, there is a fundamental groundlessness.  it's there bubbling along all the time.  we experience it as a restlessness & edginess.  we experience it as fear.  it motivates passion, aggression, ignorance, jealousy & pride but we never get down into the essence of it

refraining is the method for getting to know the nature of this restlessness & fear.  it is the method for settling into our groundlessness.  if we immediately entertain ourselves by talking, by acting, by even thinking – if there is never a pause – we will never be able to relax . . . 

refraining is a way of making friends with ourselves at the most profound level possible . .

we begin to relate with what's underneath all that shows up & expresses itself as uptight, controlling & manipulative behavior. 

underneath all that, there's something very soft, very tender, that we experience as fear or edginess. . .

when we've seen ourselves completely, there's a stillness in the body that is like a mountain.  we no longer get jumpy and have to scratch our noses, pull our ears, punch somebody, go running from the room or drink ourselves into oblivion.  a thoroughly good relationship with ourselves results in being still which doesn't mean we don't run and jump & dance about.  it just means there is no compulsiveness.  we don't overwork, overeat, oversmoke,

overseduce

in short, we begin to stop causing harm . . . "

refraining (love)

"i once caused your cells to shimmer,
and you once caused my cells to shimmer
(now we go all the night without love)"

~elvis perkins in dearland

the thing is, falling in love rarely brings security

falling in love rarely brings the things you think you need to feel safe

falling in love rarely brings completion

. . . & falling in love almost never ever brings satiation

this causes almost all of our pain, my dear love warriors

when we fall in love we want more but the fact is

WE ARE MORE

we don't want to be more, which is our liberation & what we are here for

we just WANT more & more & MORE

the love does not comply with this & then we are frustrated

falling in love cracks us open & suddenly we are absolutely everything, absolutely everything, absolutely everything

love, a world without borders . . .

this is uncomfortable

our psyche experiences this as a reverse void

we feel out of control.  at first it feels amazing, love, like the exquisite drug that it is, but after a while we start to feel edgy & then the amazing feeling starts to scrape the bottom of the bowl, like boredom

you know the kind of boredom I am talking about, when boredom has an ache to the edge of it, like the last bit of pleasure has been worn away from the sensitive lining of the inside of our skull

we have reached the edge of sensation with that particular lover, because we kept going back to the same sensation, wanting the same thing, over & over, back to what made us feel more than we ever were . . . the shimmer of love cannot survive this over-harvesting . . it is delicate & it's pleasure can be finite when it is connected to a precise physical body outside of oneself . . it becomes a dependency

we want the love to make the pain go away

but the truth is, that in the long run, love makes the pain (in the body) worse

it begins to remind us of all the places we have held onto hope

hope that there will be an easier way

hope that we will finally be cherished

like we know we deserve to be

love makes the body ache in the almost ridiculously sad & tragic places where love has not (seemingly) been able to grown before

but has maybe been growing there more than anywhere else

more than ever before

it is in the truth of the gorgeousness of this ache that we will be set free

but we continue to exhaust ourselves

using all of our strength and stamina to hold the ache away

& convince ourselves that it will stop if we just try harder

we try harder and harder & then

we push each other away

we try harder and harder (& the subsequent pushing away) because we felt like

we were missing something in the first place

before this lover ever ever showed up

your poor Beloved pushed away for not filling a hole they never made

pushed away for this missing thing that the Beloved seemed like

it might be

but could never really be

oh no, it was the wrong one, this time

if only we knew that the outcome of love was dissembling rather than completion, if only we knew that our lover was there to remind us of the glorious plasmic chaos from which we were so were born & in which we have the wondrous opportunity to swim EVERYDAY then there would be no blame or disappointment

ever

we would know we had arrived at the right place

& as there is no end to dissembling, there would be no boredom, we would endlessly become more essential by the act of loving

because there was never a perfect way of being, not either of us separately nor all of us, together

& then opening one's heart to love, & the beautiful chaos of dissembling would become so non-specific that we would no longer ache at all

ever

because there would be no more resistance

& no expectation of the other

& unlimited opportunity

the fact is

we are shimmer

I AM A SEEKER OF JOY & I HAVE NO FEAR

of course as soon as you examine refraining and you gain some clarity . . you get high from your clarity and then you are no longer refraining

the next step is temptation

again

they say once a drug addict always a drug addict . . but i have to say, it is a fixation on Joy that drives me to wanna get high.  i know, i know that this addiction is as treacherous as any other controlled substance 

it is not that you can have too much Joy but to expect nothing less than utter Joy is dangerous territory

i remember once hearing a girl say that ever since she stopped drinking, she felt centered & whole ~ healthy happy & free ~ but still felt ripped off because she had grown up thinking that

her entire life should be a state of outrageous, hanging from the chandelier delirium & bliss

and that anything else felt cheapened, that she continued to feel ripped off even after years of health and serenity

i started drinking coffee a few days ago.  it is not back to everyday, not yet, & of course i think i could stop at any point still, but we will see . . . treading on dangerous turf & totally enjoying it

it was glorious at first sip, of course.  i was tripping immediately, differently than the wheatgrass tripping . .  though initially it felt sort of the same: everything brighter & backlit, seeing the energy swirls moving in the air, swirls that reminded me of the time i was in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, just days after magically conceiving the princess nola (but of course i didn't know it at the time) off the grid with my insanely controlling & erotically fascinating secret lover E, who held me as an emotional & sexual hostage in that tiny room, not that i was complaining, sometimes it is only in hindsight that we know we are hostage . . she wouldn't let me put my clothes on, i made her go downstairs to the bar to get me coffee, i remember her standing at the foot of the bed, not letting go of the cup, a roach in the other hand held as if it was a precious stone and telling me:

this is what they call being in the closet. you love women.  you are living a lie

all this after 3 days of non-stop shape-shifting stoned sex with only some goat cheese and mohnkuchen to sustain us.  me tromping around Amsterdam in hot pink opaque tights & a ridiculous butt-hugging ruched skirt & witchy black heels

i did not listen to this propaganda, well maybe a tiny bit, not enough to leave my husband & family, not for her anyway & not for many years

we made it as far as the museum that day, i believe i was still stoned but it is too long ago to remember, i do remember that i thought i really "got" Van Gogh in that moment, got his innate spirituality that spoke to me through the swirls of paint revealing the "i am part of everything & everything is part of me" – ness of Van Gogh, which of the course was the "i am part of everything & everything is part of me" of myself which was so thrilling & made me feel special & electric & connected for about a moment & my little secret, til i realized that this must be true for everyone else there in the museum, & through them, everyone in the world, whether or not they realized it, whether or not they cared, whether or not they could let it in

i am part of everything & everything is part of me

so not so special but everywhere or all special and ultimately more connected than ever

so my initial response to the coffee was this pulsing cord from the base of my spine to the swirls of energy emanating from my beating heart that pushed out into the sky & started magnetizing the clouds

it was S who supplied the espresso down the beach, conjured up in a tiny little pot that took about 20 minutes to brew 2 double espressos on her ancient hot plate . . of course i immediately had to have two, even though i knew that this was clearly counter-indicated as I have been flying and unable to sleep on the energy soup and wheatgrass alone. . . that's just the kind of love artist i am

i had made the deal with S a few days before, when she came to sell her wares: second & first hand clothes of the somewhat decadent island girl variety as well as some beautiful costume jewelry.  she shows up every few days hoping that the detoxers will be just high enough to be drawn in by the bright shiny objects & not too high to just levitate by.  i can't remember how the conversation came to coffee, tho i did contemplate it the other day when surfing the net at the Natural High wifi joint, but i was alone & it was afternoon and i genuinely don't want to get into that jag, so i didn't want my first ingestion to happen by accident but by rather intentional design

she secretly revealed to me that she had bought this tiny stainless pot & had gotten this outrageous Puerto Rican coffee from maricao that they sell at the gas station down the street.  this is where i get most of my produce, whatever i don't grow myself, where there is always a gang of men of all ages, constantly & who are all invariably in some stage of getting completely drunk or already there & there is the one who can really work me even if i am stalwartly resistant.  i believe it was from him that she purchased the coffee.  this is the same one i made write down his phone number & told me that he could get me noni & would deliver it personally to my home

ms. S lives just 5 minutes down the beach.  i used to be able to stroll through a scruffy lot to get to her house but as is wont to happen anywhere there is beach, a condo is being built there & with it a huge blank concrete wall, so now i have to run down the beach holding my flipflops above my head to beat the rushing waves that crash against the steps up to the yards towering above.  there also used to be more beach to walk on, but it seems that the ocean is gaining momentum, covering more and more of the beach as the real estate values rise . . .

i was just getting into my morning kundalini practice called upon by propheta west as part of my prescription to keep HWSNBCBN at a "safe etheric distance" while i am here doing the work i am meant to do . . about halfway through my sadhana ms S called, way earlier than i thought she ever woke up, duly excited by the prospect of a coffee drinking significant other

the coffee was already on, there was no turning back

(to be continued)

the unbearable lightness of being (pt 1 of . . . )

"As part of your healing, you must see each person you meet now as all of humanity ~ a mandala, with the whole universe residing within them, and they are desperate to open up and equally desperate to keep hiding, to say in pain because it feels safe.  Help them come out.  Help us all to be free . . . At every moment of every day be conscious, make effort to purify and upgrade your thoughts, vibrations, and frequency. Activate the four chambers of your heart, keep practicing that and then please tell us what it means and how we can do the same. 

Any pain, let it go, offer it up to the ocean in the dark hours before sunrise, do this over and over until you can go to the ocean with emptiness and only receive.

The universe wants to open you up completely – like a perfect lover . . . "

~new moon healing, ms propheta west 2/6/2008~



***********************



the other night X laid with me . . . the second time, two days in a row, where i wrapped my body around him & laid my head on his chest & said no

no more than this

he marveled at how intoxicating my unavailability was

i said, no, not unavailable, i am here, i am here

i am really with you

i feel your hand here, i feel your breath under my cheek, i feel your finger tips on my shoulder . .

i am breathing you, i am with you

i tried to explain that i was giving his energy the opportunity to grow inside of me

sometimes even in the kisses there is so much yearning

& i have to stop

but that night, the second night, i told him how with him i was

hanging out in his gorgeous vertiginous subtlety

talking to me like the wheatgrass

talking inside of me

i had woken up in the middle of the night & crawled out to juice some grass, stealing a little extra (or borrowing. . . i hadn't gotten my own stash up to full capacity)  . . i did an implant at 2 in the morning and promptly fell back to sleep . .

i fell into that twitchy thick tremble of green that lays over sleep & i was instructed by the grass itself, through my slumber, to slow down

i had a dream of what clarity could be like

in that clarity, the grass said stop (again)

the grass said i was angry underneath & that anger made me always want more

that all this hurtling through my life had an annihilatory effect, like mowing down

but it didn't say stop with so many words

it was more like a wave

it was more cathartic, more somatic

the wind was blowing through the grass, in sheets, pressing, spreading

instead of growing up, vertically

the grass was pressing it's body closer to the earth

making love, pressing every square inch closer to each other

& somehow this pressing and expanding was connected to my breath

when my breath was deep & low the grass was pressed close to the earth

rich

when my breath was agitated the grass was growing high into the sun, getting leggy, losing chlorophyll

love

at the roots white, reaching

the grass was teaching me how to slow my breath (& through that everything else) and this was creating a horizontal effect that brought peace

it was a flat line, something that i would have related to death in the past

somehow the grass was teaching me how to turn down the volume so i could communicate with everything



i realized in my writing class the other night that it was my resistance to the real cellular message of the green light inside me that was making me cranky

the light right before my fingertips was just so bright

my proximity to all I desired was way too close

as indicated in the previous posts, i had begun to abuse the light, utilizing it, instead of closer connection to the divine, as a method to relieve my symptoms of discomfort, to get away from myself

be generous & gentle with yourself love artist

this was compulsive & a true detour from what my cells really wanted me to do

liberation

why is it so hard

even my gratitude was utilized like a drug to save myself from sadness

i was holding on while I swore i was letting go

& i was cranky because my inner fingers were exhausted from gripping

. . & so, with X

he asked if he could hold me all night

& i said no

what a fool

dear love artist / confidential

confidential to the mystery man who slipped a note under my door on valentine's day:

i believe you when you tell me that your relationship was golden & sexier than original sin but it is what your behavior tells her now, after she got fed up & split, that confirms any suspicions she may have had all along.  telling her she is the only one for you EVER while you're hanging with another woman is not convincing. false remorse is not attractive.  i can see why she isn't responding.  as they say "half measures availed us nothing" . . . 

doing absolutely whatever it takes to get her back, being the man she always wanted you to be, being courageous, that's what's gonna work, i guarantee you.  as a matter of fact it will benefit absolutely everyone in your immediate & extended vicinity including, of course, yourself.  be courageous, go it alone into the darkness of your soul & you know what, if she doesn't return, you will have your integrity & that, my friend, is priceless . .

sincerely, the love artist

osmosis (fig. 1)

osmosis: the flow of a solvent by diffusion through a semipermeable membrane from a more concentrated solution to a less concentrated one, until the concentrations are equalized. it is a major factor in regulating the movement into and out of tissues in living organisms

***********************

i haven't been doing a very good job as the love artist, if i am to be totally honest. i know it probably looks good on paper, & i have been working very hard, practicing calling the ether in & moving energy in & out of my heart & getting very still & listening to the ocean & the wheatgrass & low moan of our connective tissue

all night long

but truth be known, i am the bitchiest love artist EVER these days . . .

i have ridiculous standards for my own clarity & state of mind. that is how i got myself into this mess in the first place. i believe in the old cliché that you get what you ask for & ever since i started this whole true love project business, of loving the world one person at a time for one day, one hour, one evening or an afternoon at a time, the world has thrown me more and more complicated situations to test this seemingly easy equation . . . let me tell you, i don't know what you think you might know what it is like to be the love artist, but it is not easy to love everyone, not if you really mean it

what happens for me is, again, the high standards. i do not believe in a

kissy face, on both cheeks, you are so fabulous, let me take care of you or fuck you/seduce you

kind of love . . not that any of that is not love necessarily & not that i don't do any or all of these things on a regular or semi regular basis, but what i am talking about here ~ as my daily love artist practice ~ is:

1) lowering my resistance to any human being to as close to zero as possible (no mean feat, try it)

2) after this resistance is lowered, putting equal value on both of us as separate beings

3) eliminating the barriers between our separate concentrations of molecules so that we become, through osmosis, the same liquid flow of molecules

4) after we become liquid & the same & every molecule between us belongs to both of us then

5) that everything is love

(more soon)

osmosis (fig. 2)

this is the standard i have set for myself

it wasn't always this way.  in the beginning of the True Love Project,

i thought i was so cool

& it was all about seduction.  i thought i was really good at falling in love with people & people seemed to be really into falling in love with me.  it was a natural talent, like having perfect pitch or having the potential to be a ballerina or an olympic swimmer . . not necessarily guaranteeing automatic success, but teetering often on the brink of spontaneous combustion, just waiting for a match to light the forest fire

that kind of love, seduction, is really about control

even if we are madly attracted to someone, even if it feels as if the chemistry between us offers no alternative.  it is about spinning a web to lure the object of your affection.  it is about managing the other, wrangling.  it needn't be malicious or predatory but it is an action towards rather than a being with, and something to be aware of, especially if you are an olympic level seductress.  i learned the hard way.  i still love seduction but i need to be very clear what i am looking for when i engage in it.  be present.  it is astounding how often anger lies behind seduction or any number of other agendas that have nothing to do with the seductee . . . more about that later in the seduction section of the love artist manual (coming very soon)

but anger yes, anger i can discuss here – actually, these days there is hardly a moment where anger is not an appropriate subject.  i don't mean to sound naïve but when i decided to take these three months to live in paradise & mainline wheatgrass & come face to face with my light body, i didn't expect to be wading hip deep in resentments.  i know it's all about the clean colon here at Wigmore & that a clean colon means getting into every last crevice & clearing out every last piece of ancient piece of shit (literally) but i was very optimistic &, i guess, deluded when i thought i came here rather clean to begin with.  i don't know what i was thinking, arriving after a semi-hellish breakup with a raw nerve for a heart (and that was just the top & most present layer, or the first two weeks, of my detox) 

now we are 7 weeks deep in the shit sanctum, where even the brave fear to tread

they say, courage is fear holding on a moment longer

& i'm here for the long haul so I guess i am brave.  at this point i am so far inside the dark cave of my psyche, i'm beginning to think, perhaps foolishly, that the light on the end of the tunnel i'm heading towards is much closer than the one i left from 

we'll see

i started here by saying i thought i was a shitty love artist & i guess that is true, i am looking through the shit for the gold & i left squeamishness aside long ago. i am cranky & moody but i am not afraid, i am in it.  i was worrying too much about what other people thought ~ when you call yourself The Love Artist out loud day in and day out you run the risk (often) of people saying "I just don't see the love" or

"show me."

i've been so angry lately. it's just what's up.  i still show up & i am toiling out here in the love fields. it's easy to love when everybody is smiling and there to serve you, when everyone's bright and shiny and thinks you're bright and shiny too. but really, who wants to show up when it's pouring rain & there's no shelter, when you wake up & every situation that presents itself is one of either intense humility or unyielding boundaries AND you still have the daily practice you committed to in the face of god, of osmosis, compassion & becoming one, you gotta do it cause you gave your word & that is true love and that is true love art

you

tethered

i want to see what it is i am scared of, what i am avoiding

i think i am getting close

7 weeks in & 4 weeks to go, i am sure i will not dissolve.  a few weeks ago i was in the same state of fear, feeling too light, but i was much less conscious, compulsively deep in seduction & intrigue, cranky & edgy as hell, staying up all night on wheatgrass & suddenly, sneaking out to drink coffee and eat some Puerto Rican food . . yummmmmy, meow, could go for some right now

i am starting to pump up the calories but still stay with the highly vibrating food, i currently have a vat of green smoothie next to the bed as i write:

copious amounts of bananas, mangoes, coconut water, flax seed, sprouted buckwheat & buckwheat greens (the greens i grew w/ love myself) blended up

the seduction is on ice (we will see, he's due back in town in a hot second) & i have recommitted to my semi-cloistered lifestyle, had a crazy hallucinatory colonic with the poop goddess, the gorgeous Queen E just a couple of days ago that i have yet to recover from, crying all day yesterday

it's like those crazy close to death experiences where you are almost touching the light & a voice says come back & you open your eyes and all your loved ones are around you

i am very much awake now

last night i happened upon a woman from my writing class the night before, one that I hadn't officially connected with as she had left without sharing & i didn't even quite remember her name but all the same, she stopped me as I passed her table, as she was eating her energy soup & held my hand

it was dinner and there were loads of people around but she was alone & her face was wet under her glasses as if she had been crying

she apologized for leaving the class & said she had been feeling so emotional and raw as she was on her second day (this is where you love yourself even harder love artist, in your 8th week) & was quite vulnerable at the hands of her detox

she told me she was a writer & she opened her journal & started to read a page to herself & then started to cry and cry and cry

i didn't even know her name but i got down on my knees in front of her, still holding her hand

& something (many things) has (have) changed, as i did not move to hold her or stop the tears but was held in the theater of her release

it was simple

she told the story of just recently falling in love & how he had called that day & left a message but she was unable to retrieve it from the UK & it had caused so much fear in her, the apprehension of what the message could be, that it was hanging somewhere out in the ether & would some how be disintegrating

& she with it

her tether to love, her attachment so fragile, partly through distance, partly through history of lost love & partly through her own evolution

so she wept & i knelt

the healed relationship

~ from the course in miracles:

"the holy relationship

a major step toward the perception of the real world, is learned

it is the old, unholy relationship, transformed & seen anew

the holy relationship

is a phenomenal teaching accomplishment. in all its aspects, as it begins, develops & becomes accomplished, it represents

the reversal of the unholy relationship

be comforted in this;

the only difficult phase is the beginning

for here, the goal of the relationship is abruptly shifted to the exact opposite of what it was. this is the first result of offering the relationship to the holy spirit, to use for its purposes

this invitation is accepted immediately, & the holy spirit wastes no time in introducing the practical results of asking it to enter. at once its goal replaces yours. this is accomplished very rapidly, but

it makes the relationship seem disturbed, disjunctive & even quite distressing

the reason is quite clear. for the relationship as it is is out of line with its own goal, & clearly unsuited to the purpose that has been accepted for it. in its unholy condition, YOUR goal was all that seemed to give it meaning. now it seems to make no sense. many relationships have been broken off at this point,

& the pursuit of the old goal re-established in another relationship

for once the unholy relationship has accepted the goal of holiness

it can never again be what it was

the temptation of the ego becomes extremely intense with this shift in goals. for the relationship has not as yet been changed sufficiently to make its former goal completely without attraction, & its structure is "threatened" by the recognition of its inappropriateness for meeting its new purpose. the conflict between the goal & the structure of the relationship is so apparent that they cannot coexist.

yet now the goal will not be changed

set firmly in the unholy relationship, there is no course except to change the relationship to fit the goal. until this happy solution is seen & accepted as the only way out of the conflict, the relationship may seem to be severely strained

it would not be kinder to shift the goal more slowly, for the contrast would be obscured, & the ego given time to reinterpret each slow step according to its liking. only a radical shift in purpose could induce a complete change of mind about what the whole relationship is for. as this change develops & is finally accomplished, it grows increasingly beneficent & joyous. but at the beginning, the situation is experienced as very precarious

a relationship, undertaken by two individuals for their unholy purposes, suddenly has holiness for its goal

as these two contemplate their relationship from the point of view of this new purpose, they are inevitably appalled. their perception of the relationship may even become quite disorganized. & yet, the former organization of their perception no longer serves the purpose they have agreed to meet

this is the time for faith

you let this goal be set for you. that was an act of faith. do not abandon faith, now that the rewards of faith are being introduced. if you believed the holy spirit was there to accept the relationship, why would you now not still believe that it is there to purify what it has taken under its guidance? have faith in your friend/lover in what but seems to be a trying time

the goal is set

& your relationship has sanity as its purpose. for now you find yourself in an insane relationship

recognized as such in the light of its goal

the healed relationship . . . . "

me you

this makes me high

this is my dog bella.  she died a few years ago at the happy age of 14 or 15.  here she is in a video that i made for an installation that was titled

this makes me high

it was a chronicle of a month of my life ~ where every time i met someone that made me feel high, i filmed them looking at me. staring into the camera, for three minutes, loving me or whatever they felt like doing, then I strung them together in a video of about 3 hours in length & played them in loops of various lengths, at random intervals, on a pile of 10 tvs -- the old fashioned kind with cheesy wood veneer and tons of buttons and dials -- there were wires everywhere, it was a chaotic mess . . . the version above was a memorial exhibit a few years later, but whether large and unwieldy or small & somewhat elegant, the effect was the same, that you, the viewer, were showered with the love that was coming to me, the love artist . . .

actually i was not the love artist yet . . this was a year that i had taken off from making art, everything was a struggle that year . . . i just felt like giving up

i was working as a teacher of activities of daily living in a private lockdown facility for severely traumatized teenage girls & absolutely everything seemed inordinately difficult

one of the few times i worked a real full time job, more than full time, like 50 hours a week

i would arrive home so exhausted I could hardly walk my lovely dog bella.  i couldn't make art & i was so not in love it wasn't funny

i decided that year that the only way i could live was if i let go of the expectations of being in artist or believing in romantic love.  it was the only way i could cope, to just eliminate these things from my list of expectations

it worked. i would just come home from work & kind of vege on the couch & was happy when my kids were around, you know, maybe take a bath . . . that was literally all i did for a good 6 months . .

all of a sudden this idea popped into my head, of filming everyone i saw that made me feel good & then i suddenly started to make art again from the idea of letting go of being an artist completely & utterly

a year later i started the true love project . .

i got the idea from a yoko ono film i saw, Film No 5 (smile):








Film No. 5 ("Smile") by Yoko Ono, 1968

Cast: John Lennon
Camera: William Wareing
Music: John Lennon
Light/location: Garden
Instruction: Bring your own instrument
51 minutes
Premiere at the Chicago Film Festival 1968


"One afternoon, John and I went out in the garden and shot Film No. 5, the smile film, and Two Virgins. They were done in a spirit of home movies. In both films, we were mainly concerned about the vibrations the films send out - the kind that was between us. But, with Film No. 5, a lot of planning, working and talking out things had preceded the afternoon. For instance, I had thought of making Film No. 5 into a Dr. Zhivago and let it go on for four hours with an intermission and all that, but later decided to stick to a more commercial length of an hour (approx.). 8 mm. copies of the film are also available for people who'd like to have the film on their wall as a light-portrait Also, we'll store some copies for the next century."

"Imagine a painting that smiles just once in a billion years. John's ghostly smile in Film No. 5 might just communicate in a hundred years' time, or maybe, the way things are rolling, it may communicate much earlier than that."

"Some critic recently commented on us, John and I, as being lollypop artists who are preoccupied with blowing soap-bubbles forever. I thought that was beautiful. There's a lot you can do with blowing soap-bubbles. Maybe the future USA should decide their presidency by having a soap-bubble contest."

Quotes from the essay on Film no. 5 (known as Smile) and Two Virgins by Yoko Ono, October 22nd 1968

smile & this makes me high & you2

ok, so the last post was a set up for a call to arms . . now i know this may fall flat, cause a lot of people, myself included, don't like to be put on the spot globally . . but last week when i posted the YOU video, well, you know that was me loving you . . . & then i got the post below as a comment on my myspace page . . . deep & the peacock loving me back . . so send me a little movie of you loving me or just loving & i will put it up, it can be tiny, you can do it on your phone these days, not that i know how to do that, but i could learn

bring it on: [email protected]

i love you xox the love artist