How should I introduce this series of drawings?
Describe the distance between the everyday problems and activities of being human
and the comprehensive position of being in Life.
Show the connection between being an individual and living as a social animal.
Show the connection between being a human animal and living on Earth.
Describe the externalities of tool-making, technology, economics, government,
language and culture that have evolved with being human.
Acknowledge Human interdependence.
Acknowledge our independent and collective dependence on the planet.
Acknowledge the cosmic source of our being.
Discuss identity and the self.
Discuss identity as security.
Discuss identity as separation and the source of conflict.
Admit not knowing and grant the possibility of something larger than what we know.
Admit death, quotidian and final.
Forecast extinction as a suicidal act.
Forecast extinction as an act of neglect.
Forecast extinction as dullness, lack of caring, and extreme self-centeredness.
Forecast extinction as the inability to see the sacred.
Consider love,
Caring, interdependence, responsibility, stewardship,
As the only possible solution to all that ails us.
Consider seeing beyond the personal and tribal self.
See beyond the delusion of psychological time.
Reject the story as the truth.
Get off stage. Take off the costume.
Stop becoming, Be. Aware.
Admit the similarity between you and me.
Admit the life cycle is the same.
Admit that desire, pleasure, fear, anxiety, hatred, and grief are common elements in our psychological structure.
Admit that social conditioning happens to everyone. It determines our reality. It is the template for our insensitivity and bias.
Admit that humans have a collective consciousness.
Acknowledge that every being is held to the Earth by gravity.
Grant that every being needs clean air, water, food, and space.
Acknowledge that every body is one with the Earth.
Do not take for granted that we are a species that emerged and evolved with the planet for millions of years.
The whole of being is our common ground.
See your defenses mobilize when your psychological territory is threatened and your progress is blocked.
See your defenses mobilize when your reality is challenged.
See your defenses mobilize when another wants what you want, wants what you have.
Ask if you allow the other the right to exist.
Cry when you see neglect and brutality. Cry when you see war. Cry when you see destruction and depletion for greed and overconsumption. Cry when you see the loss of life for a symbol, a flag, an identity. Cry when the bombs fall and the people are displaced. Cry when habitats are destroyed, and animals lose their homes. Cry when you can’t see the wholeness of life. Cry when you don’t care.
Admit that you will never see your own face. Admit that you are Life looking out from Life. Denounce the misunderstanding, the falseness of walking on top of Life as a separate being. See that you are fully embedded, nothing in and by yourself.
Allow for uncertainty. Don’t insist on control. Wait and see. Be available.
Be patient in the fallow times. Embrace the fallow land. Keep the home fires burning.
Allow that you may not be what you think you are. Nothing may be what you think it is.
Deny separate being and becoming.
Be open to the mystery.
Be open to the unknown.
Be open to miracles that you did not anticipate.
Feel the awareness of the universe.
This is the introduction to the book, Exploring the Cosmic Mind, a compilation of 77 graphite drawings produced between 2020 - 2023. It is available for purchase from the printer, Lulu.
Comments