I’m pleased to announce my next workshop at the Alignment Center Thursday August 19th. With the movie Inception just coming out, there has been an increased buzz about lucid dreaming. It’s exciting to know that so many people are interested in this subject. At the next workshop, I will show some more animations which will help illustrate some concepts of lucid dreaming. We will go deeper into the mystery of the dream and more importantly how we can become aware within it. The dream is a tool that has been used by cultures from across the world for as long as recorded history. It is obvious that this essential element of the human experience is no less important to us today then it was thousands of years ago.
As for the poster, the design was inspired by the art of the Huichol people of Mexico. They have beautiful yarn paintings and intricate bead work. Their use of color is almost childlike, but has an amazing luminous quality that I’ve seen in few other places. I have some friends who have a great project to make sure the Huichol community has clean water to drink. The organization is called Water for Huichols. You can view their crafts online and buy them and the money goes to help the cause. Visit them at http://www.ecozoicera.net/ Sweet dreams.
Here’s the latest animation from my Dream Signs series. More on the way. The nice one about this technique is that once you do it you’re already thinking about flying. Just a quick recap of a dream I had the other night. I was lucid and was just standing there looking at my hands. They wobbled and morphed before my eyes. I looked at the guy next to me and asked him if it was happening to him as well. It seemed like I was the only one that had it going on at the time. I hopped into the dog washing van from Dummer and Dummer as it drove by. I was in the van still perfectly lucid and I was wondering if there was anyone else in the van that was dreaming as well so I told them all that it was a dream. They didn’t seem impressed at all. So I decided to ask a question. “What is a dream?” A man appeared next to me and said quite simply, “Grammar.” It seemed so bizarre that I had to ask him to repeat himself. “Grammar,” he replied again. “It is the grammar of the soul.” I didn’t understand it intellectually after he said it. Sometimes things are so deep and yet so simple in dreams that I have a hard time understanding the meaning behind it as its happening. I simply made a point to remember the man’s answer and went on with my dream.
I’m still mulling the whole thing over. Maybe I’ll see him again and ask him to elaborate a little. Maybe you have an idea. Sweet dreams.
Before I left for the Amazon in 2008, I sat down with Itzhak Beery for an interview. We talked about his relationship with shamanism, plant medicine, and what its like to be a shamanic practitioner in New York City. I planned on having it be part of a documentary about my journey but it didn’t turn out like that. Much thanks to Itzhak for meeting with me for this talk. It’s about an hour and a half so grab a snack, sit down, and enjoy!
Here’s a nice article that appeared in the Times recently. It talks about how more and more people are taking notice of their dreams and talking about them with other people. Apparently they are the equivalent of book clubs at the moment in some places. I think it might be fun to get a study group together as well. Lets say meeting up once a month would be a good practice. Get back to me if you think you would be interested. When I’m not having workshops it would be nice to have a small community where we could share our journeys together. I had quite the experience today that I’ll share a bit of tomorrow. I was once told that if we are given gifts of knowledge from the divine and we don’t share them with one another we are like thieves. Dreams can be personal and difficult to talk about but I feel like there is a wealth of good that can come sharing them. So often we can’t even recognize our own patterns. Sometimes it takes another person standing at a different angle to recognize them for us.
A great piece that deals with what is actually being done to help the state of the environment. Regardless of what you think the cause of global warming is, the video offers some very helpful solutions that could greatly help humanity by using the technology that already ties us together. There is also some great insight into the social movement of the 60′s by talking about what worked and what brought about the it’s end. I really love this video for the kaleidoscope of styles and techniques used. It’s good to know that there are videos like this are being made and that time is being spent on them to make them look amazing. It’s my hope that many more projects like this will be made in the future.
In the spirit of putting one foot in front of the other, I decided to go ahead and try something new. I made this while I was watching the Netherlands vs. Uruguay game. I had not made anything before my trip to South America. No images were coming to mind so I decided to start with a single shape and see what happened from there. In this case, this is what happened. Something novel in terms of my usual creative process. After scanning the drawing I wanted to color it in a Huichol style. The Huichol are one of the few untouched shamanic cultures of Mexico. The conquistadors never found them which has made for a spiritual knowledge that goes back for thousands of years. Just as amazing as their wisdom is their art. I’ve been in awe of their color schemes for a while now and thought that this would be a good opportunity to study it a little further. You can bet that there will be more of this type of color exploration in the future.
I just got back from my trip to Ecuador and Peru yesterday. I’m still digesting everything little by little. While that’s happening I think that I’ll share an experience that I had yesterday while I was riding my bike. I went down the street and noticed everything moving faster then I had remembered. What was causing this shift in tempo? Was it something that was externally effecting my surroundings or was it something internal that had shifted. Things were much slower where I had just come from in the country side. Was it just typical culture shock? Perhaps on a certain level. Then what causes that shock? Two different frequencies coming together suddenly. It then occurred to me that the city had not changed as much as it was the speed at which my mind was moving. Over the course of my trip I had slowed down. The interesting thing was that even though things seemed faster, I felt more calm then I remember being as I rode through traffic with taxis buzzing past. I had traveled these roads hundreds of times and yet it was never like this. I suppose that it will always be changing. I hope that this change will continue to allow me to see more of the wonder that is around me.
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