For those of you who have been checking things out with Golden Drum, you might have noticed some posters that I’ve been creating. Its a nice quick turn around type of thing for an organization that’s obviously near and dear to my heart. It makes it a lot more like fun and a lot less like work. These two are posters for our community events that we host once a month. We invite the most talented chefs, musicians, yogis, speakers, and artists to create some really special events. I’ll be shifting gears to create more posters for dream collective as things get started up again. For now enjoy these! Here’s the invite to the facebook event page.

We’d love to see you! Peace.

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 1929 -1968

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I wanted to let everyone know that I’m going to be doing some live painting at 11.11.11 One Dream NYC this Friday into Saturday. I’ve never tried to paint in front of a bunch of people but I’m banking on having everyone get occupied doing other things so I’ll be able to have a little bit of peace. Either way it shouldn’t matter too much once I get going. Things kind fade out when I’m connected to what I’m creating. I’m still playing around with some ideas about what I actually want to create. Almost there I think. Hopefully I can come with something already fleshed out so I can just go at it when I get there. I’m hoping to paint the whole 24 hours. I love the excuse to stay up and do awesome stuff and meet great people!

I will also be selling my world famous Astral Snacks Popcorn the whole time. The folks from Golden Drum and my friends KA will also be there representing as they bring in the dawn Saturday morning. Stick around for the whole thing and check it out. Peace!

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The new batch of shirts are ready! Good news is that I’ll have a site up for the shirts up this weekend. Until then you can contact me at
matthew.canale@gmail.com. I am also printing all of the shirts on American Apparel. Made in the USA. So that’s good. All of the proceeds go to Golden Drum a community center that helped create in Brooklyn.

I was at Occupy Wall Street the other day with some friends. They were helping facilitate a Meditation Flash Mob. It is an event where people come together at a specific time and place to sit and meditate in public. It was the first time that I had attended one. It became obvious to me why what we were doing was so important. People need to see peace. It is not so often that people can be seen in a state of peace. Sometimes, just seeing people meditating is enough for others to be more calm. It is from that place of stillness that we can connect to the heart. We will not win over anyone through anger and aggression. If we are to proceed, we must come from a place of love and compassion. This is not a call to passivity. This is an invitation to connect to the space from within. If we are firmly rooted in peace and truth we will create the change that we wish to see in the world by first emodying that change. This shirt is a symbol of that spirit that I invite more people to represent in this great time of change.

Below are some photos of a test print that I made in the print lab the other day and the other is of my screen that I’ve been using. Enjoy!

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I’m excited to announce the first Life Drawing class that I’m offering at Golden Drum. Well … anywhere for that matter. It feels nice to be connecting back to one of the sources of how I really developed a fine love for the human form. I’ve been drawing relatives and friends for as long as I can remember. Everyone is a model to me. Especially people who sleep on the Subway. Fair game I say. Every gesture is a lesson in form and movement. There’s no better teacher for artistic observation than the human form. Nature is always a fantastic source of inspiration but there’s something about the shell of the soul that can speak volumes by the way a smile is rendered or how the reflection on an eye can be captured on a piece of paper that can immediately create a connection. Some of my favorite creative works were birthed while doing 30 second gesture drawings. There’s something so satisfying about being totally engrossed in observing that nothing else matters or can enter into the mind other than being consumed by the desire to capture a form on paper in a matter of moments. I still remember coming out of warp drive when the model moved to the next pose and gazing for a couple seconds at the marks that were left on the page before ripping the sheet to the floor and starting the process all over again. It was such a good lesson in detachment for me. Figure drawing really took me out of the mode of creating small controlled paintings and drawings. I have to admit that I’ve been moving back to that carefully designed format but I’m looking forward to revisiting the practice that broke me out of the mold to begin with. I am looking forward to sharing this practice with others. I hope that it can help others the same way that it has helped me.

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Hi Everyone. I’m catching up on a lot of things tonight and I thought sitting down to share about one of my new projects should definitely one of them. For over a year now I’ve been giving classes in NYC and talking about the art of lucid dreaming. One of the things that I’ve heard from a lot of people is that they enjoyed the workshops but were wondering if there was a way to follow up to make it easier for them to develop a regular practice. Even I’ll admit that there’s a lot of things to learn and process when it comes to delving into the world of dreams. One thing that I came to realize that it really helps to have other people to share the journey with. Even though dreaming is an amazingly personal experience we often are blind to many of the messages that come to us. Its amazing what a little shift in perspective can do to illuminate what our dreams are trying to tell us.

Sharing our dreams can be amazingly healing. One of the greatest benefits of becoming part of a dream meet up group is that you get to put yourself in the shoes of others. You get to see the real fears of people which in many cases are quite similar to your own. A friend talked to me the other day about how he heard 20 people talk about their dreams one day. He was amazed by how similar they all were! When we consider that we all feel the same emotions its really not that crazy of a thought. It seems like we are so separate but we are all working with very similar building blocks that make up our life experience. Once we realize that I believe it makes life a little bit more manageable. Its some what comforting to know that your anger is the same as some one else’. It may even look different when it is expressed in waking life or in a dream. We are all on a journey of learning and I think if we can be there for each other as we go through our own personal transformations then we will all be stronger for it.

I hope to see you at one of the upcoming Shamanic Dream Collective gatherings soon. Our next meet up is on June 22nd at 8pm at Golden Drum 97 Green St Apt G24 Brooklyn, NY. Until then, much love.

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