I have tears today…
easy yet hard to explain…
I have tears for the innocent victims…
I have tears for the innocence ripped from the lives of the shooters…
I have tears that are innocent….
yet my innocence is being drained….
I want to smell a rose…
I want to feel like a child again…
I don’t wish for these tears…
I wish for innocence….
I got to thinking…in two years we will be celebrating the Summer of Love's 50th Anniversary…in less than 2 years…I will be 70 years old, Goddess willing…that is so hard to fathom…this photo was taken in 1970 on a pond that was once my front yard…I had returned to Oklahoma from San Francisco and the Summer of Love the year before…the following year (1971) I went to New York…Life has been so rich…So full of platitudes and a few nights in the gutter…so today…I embrace this journey that continues to wind around a magic mountain offering sustained views of the Groove…the pond has expanded…over here…over there…
I have a confession: I felt like a loser growing up…I felt un-noticed and dumb….I made up for it in all the wrong ways…Today I realized that creating Casa de Las Ranas and the Chapel of Jimmy Ray Gallery has been…… "like this elaborate scheme to have an audience.” I found that line in an old New York Times article this am…and realized that I have to fess up….this scheme has transformed my life and that of Richard also…as a Divine Friend once said, "Only Losers Win in This Game"….
I completed the piece that you see in this photo back in 2012…I sold it off the wall….The couple who bought it went back to the US…They decided it was too large for their new space…so they gave it back to me and asked if I could sell it for them and they would give me half……ok…..that sounds good……I showed it to this lady who was very politically active for many years…she liked it….Shock and Awe……The Bush Sisters….any takers? By the way…the lady's name is Bonnie Raitt…….
I am trying to remember why I never went to Burning Man….for the same reason I never saw "The Sound of Music"?….I ask myself that question when I see all these incredible photos…could I be stumbling to the beat of a different drum? I can't from afar be in judgement…such beautiful talented spirits mingling and reverberating on the Playa….It just feels too …like a country club…I guess that's it! There have been other events and causes and cultural gatherings that I had an instant yes to dive into….but Black Rock City? Let those folks flourish there…it is a rite of passage for some…I prefer my spectacles to be a bit more personal…less mainstream…..just some thoughts on a morning before breakfast, laundry, studio…….etc
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…….Well folks, I watched the last installment of Madmen today….on the internet….and I have to admit…a tear or two was shed…..I found that Don Draper's redemption or tempo-redemption was totally believable… much like the awakenings for those of us who passed through the "Me-Decade" of the '70's…in some ways it paralleled my personal journey and the journeys of countless others from that era….I found myself draped in orange in India with a new name and a somewhat clean slate in 1978 and what a profound discovery that was for me….I am quite amazed that I gave myself that chance to leave the gutters of downtown Manhattan and to claim a new costume in order to shed the old skin….. And then years later…in the gardens of Marin County deciding to shed those orange robes in order to move on without the training wheels that I had claimed in India…In this evolving and revolving I am reminded of reading Hermann Hesse so many years back and the chapter, "For Mad Men Only", in the book Steppenwolf…how that title was so spot on for my early days in India…..and now miles and smiles and tears and fears and years later…..here in Mexico……in this spiral culture that I have come to embrace…"For Mad Men Only" rings in my ears…..and I allow it….and the sun has a twinkle….