Happy holidays and peace on earth!
time of giving means a time of selfless being - we may achieve abundance in giving that which we want for ourselves, that which is most difficult for us to give is what will create the most growth and bliss in ourselves. so during this time it is important to think of giving the smiles and love that we have eternally and can never exhaust. when we give this great gift to those around us = the generosity is passed along creating such a great effect that we are uplifted to a place of tranquility so easily - by thinking not of ourself we can realize how much we give to ourself in spirit and we can then know that a great blessing is upon us, somthing that is worth more than any thing we can give away - and somthing that lasts as long as we keep this state of mind. please let peace come into us through these acts - the acts of the inner love for a truth that is contained in every one of us.

tandem?
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"In my own hands I hold a bowl of tea; I see all of nature represented in its green color. Closing my eyes I find green mountains and pure water within my own heart. Silently, sitting alone, drinking tea, I feel these become part of me. Sharing this bowl of tea with others, they, too, become one with it and nature". - Soshitsu Sen XV

The painings below are done by Alex Grey, a very enlightening artist. I'm excited to go check out his gallery in NYC at the end of this month.

Kiss - Alex Grey
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Dalai Lama - Alex Grey
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this is my latest painting. its the heart- the heart energy - the everything - the center of all of us. to me it represents a giving, an emitting of pureness which can be simply put as love. 'i am that i am' is this essence to me - it is the all that pervades and means that i am a part of everything as that which flows through all things. i am that - and that- and this. whatever you say you are i am that too, we are all i am's - and are born from the same light.

i am that i am - 8"x10" acrylic on canvas
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We’re all artists, rightfully so, we all take our own paint to the medium of life. We all have different ways of expressing human, emotions and colors, voices and sculptures of realities. The art of being human is expressed in who we are – what we do (and what we don’t do), and even the subtle thoughts that no one could possibly know about. So what does this all mean – that I’m the center of the universe- and the thing is, you are too. Each human expression is a soul’s expression, and that is universal expression. Artists at work creating our own meanings to life – but what’s at the heart is truly becoming the expression you are and realizing it. What color are you today – what sound, what vibration, what echo, what sensation? Don’t categorize it just be it.

everything melts
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This video may take a few moments to load...many smiles comes to those who wait.

Q: What is self-realization
A: Entry into the Kingdom of Heaven within, getting out of the field of relativity, crossing all limits of creation, and getting to the field of the Creator, is realizing the Self. Suppose anything experienced - a flower- the flower has occupied the mind so fully that the nature of the mind is not found, the nature of the experiencer is mising. Only the eye, the sight, and the object remain. The subject is annihilated, only the qualities of the object remain. Pure Bliss Consciousness, that Bliss Consciousness of Absolute Nature, has been overshadowed by the impression of the object.
Meditation is a way to reduce the impact of the object gradually. It cannot be overthrown suddenly. If we want all of a sudden to forget the flower, we will be remembering to forget! So, we just use a technique. If suddenly is not possible, then gradually do it. The best way is this.
If we know the process of continously going from the subtler to a point, and as the object is being reduced in its status, the experiencer increases his status, until object is nil and subject is full. This is Self-Realization. Self is realized in its full 100% glory, devoid of any objective experience.
This is the way to increase the capacity of experience. As it is, the senses are capable of experienceing only gross, long experiences though the eyes, nose, and ears, entirely gross experiences. And experiencing the gross for a long time, the capacity of subtle experience is rusted, the machinery is not used. Only gross facilities are used and when all the time the gross facilities of experience are used and the finer facilities of experience are not used, then life becoms dry and dulled. Tense.
Meditation is just oiling the machinery and making the unused parts come into use. Refining the faculty of experience. Eventually the faculty of experience is increased to such a great degree, that inner Bliss, the all pervading God, comes to be lived a hundred per cent. When this stage is reached, and the flower comes before the sense, the subject maintains himself and experiences the flower at the same time. The quality of the subject, the Self, is maintained and also the flower is experienced.
this is the process of getting to the field of Being, and then coming out, the Self is maintained by Itself. Get to that status of the mind where the individual mind gets on to the Cosmic mind, and is That. Meditation is the way. Just a matter of learning a technique.
- Meditations of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi-

Sacrifice Suffering
Oh Lord, the way is yours
I am tired of spinning in fantasy
Drawl the curtains that blind me
I would cut out my eyes to see
Speak words of simple wisdom
I would tear off my ears to hear
Remove the dams on the river of bliss
I would break my limbs to swim
Oh Lord, the way is yours
I am still imprisoned in alien thought
Tortured with misinformation
Bring peace in daily bread
I would burn my tongue to taste
Teach compassionate justice
I would loose my head to know
Be love eternal
I would sacrifice all to feel it

Born unto Light

My motherfather knows me
My motherfather planted me
My mother waters me
My father shines on me
I was born on
The sacred mountain of fire
Where the word is spoken and all can hear
I break my flesh
And bury it
They regenerate cyclically
My motherfather pervades
All colors converge
On the sacred mountain
Where pure light is born
And the beacon in my chest is fueled
My motherfather calls
The names of all children
With one word
That burns us unto
Our essential nature

this is the meaning of christmas
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a winter sort
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q
adorned
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The snow made me skip class, it made me...and stole my milk money too (soymilk). But at least i got some good pictures of it, jee, why am i'm so optimistic.
that reminds me i was watching a documentary and this is a quote:
"i am cursed with an optimistically looking face, but really im not optimistic at all"

p.s.
Forgive me, but i guess i had to

las verdes bonitas
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lost treasure
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reflecting the light
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babies in waiting
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Bud
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i know
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Reverberate Emptiness

My heart has lost its strings to serenade
They’ve been plucked before
They’ve made music before
But now all that’s left is a hollow body
Ready to reverberate
Waiting to be restrung
My heart has lost its strings to serenade
What good are the curves of acoustics
If they can not even sing of sorrow
Without a single vibratory string
My heart flat lines
With the soundless songs
Of yesterday catching up with today
This score waits to be compiled again
With the single syllable of creation
Reverberating the truth
Reverberating a passion
To want to be warmly humming
The tune will want to
Want to
Love the days that harmony
Flowed swift in the vessel of my heart
If the purpose is to serenade
My instrument remains only an echo overplayed

I Only Wanted
A starving shadow waits to be blown across a skull capped desert
The cacti provide the spiritual source of greenery
The clouds wait to rain
Wind hesitates to breathe
Oh bold sun, forty times you reappeared
With poisoned water and stolen bread rejected
I wait
To glimpse the source

I want to look like this
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"why can't we all be the cause instead of the effect (affect)".
-quoted by myself-
supercilious
resilient
estrallas and no one is looking
its ok
with my eyes shut I see you too

I Fly my Kite
Whistles are melodies flying in the wind, tethered to the heart,
Constantly dynamic depending on conditions both within and without.
The spirit decides to let colors go flapping
While the chain of command is sitting and watching
The relatives of rainbows reunite,
Inspired to cycle up their own emotional mountains.
When the outside gets a chance to play with the inside
We float in the bath of decompressed bliss

sun
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The Essence

Spring turns into fall
-and there are changes
fall does what it does best
-and winter gets a good start
winter dies off by coming alive
-and spring shows that it was always there
time disappears in cycles
change changes itself
yet the essence
permeates the thousand jewels
and beings
become one

standing tall
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"your mind is the flow of God, your body is the temple of God"
- as it is written by Yogi Tea -

temple at high noon
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awakening
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up to the heavens
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"Grandma said everybody has two minds. One of the minds has to do with the necessaries for body living. You had to use it to figure how to get shelter and eating and such like for the body. She said you had to use it to mate and have young'uns and such. She said we had to have that mind so as we could carry on. But she said we had another mind that had nothing atall to do with such. She said it was the spirit mind. Grandma said if you used the body-living mind to think greedy or mean; if you was always cuttin' at folks with it and figuring how to material profit off'n them...then you would shrink up your spirit mind to a size no bigger'n a hickor'nut. Grandma said that when you body died, the body-living mind died with it, and that's the way you had thought all your life there you was, stuck with a hickor'nut spirit, as the spirit mind was all that lived when everything else died. Then, Grandma said, when you was born back - as you was bound to be - then, there you was, born with a hickor'nut spirit mind that had practical no understanding of anything. Then it might shrink up to the size of a pea and could dissapear, if the body-living mind took over total. In such case, you lost your spirit complete. That's how you become dead people. Grandma said you could easy spot dead people. She said dead people when they looked at a woman saw nothing but dirty; when they looked at other people they saw nothing but bad; when they looked at a tree they saw nothing but lumber and profit; never beauty. Grandma said they was dead people walking around. Grandma said that the spirit mind was like any other muscle. If you used it it got bigger and stronger. She said the only way it could get that way was using it to understand, but you couldn't open the door to it until you quit being greedy and such with your body mind. Then understanding commenced to take up, and the more you tried to understand, the bigger it got. Natural, she said, understanding and love was the same thing; except folks went at it back'ards too many times, trying to pretend they loved things when they didn't understand them. Which can't be done. I see right out that I was going to commence trying to understand practical everybody, for I sure didn't want to come up with a hickor'nut spirit. Grandma said your spirit mind could get so big and powerful that you would eventually know all about your past body lives and would get to where you could come out with no body death atall."
The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter

expressed against a wall
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This type of day, how beautiful she shines
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Standing Tall
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I can feel the way...we all can. It is running through us, our very veins, the connections between spirit and man. We all have it, we are all it, and there is no separating - no duality - no nothing because it is everything. This very thought doesn't exist, to speak of it - "it" is not it. It is simply a matter of being, a feeling coursing through life - mine and yours and all. my matter is energy, my mind is not matter, all is vibrations of the Way - dense or free. creations - thoughts - manifestiations -
why is this spirit experiencing humanity - so limited, but only to relize itself.

jammin
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Landmark
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i
What ARt?
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as it twas
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just here
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Layers
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"Don't feel sad, Little Tree. It is The Way. Tal-con caught the slow and so the slow will raise no children who are also slow. Tal-con lives by The Way. He helps the quail." Grandpa dug a sweet root from the ground whith his knife and peeled it so that it dripped with its juicy winter cache of life. He cut it in half and handed me the heavy end. "It is The Way," he said softly. "take only what ye need. When ye take the deer, do not take the best. Take the smaller and the slower and then the deer will grow stronger and always give you meat. Pa-koh, the Panther, knows and so must ye." And he laughted, "only Ti-bi, the bee, stores more than he can use...and so he is robbed by the bear, and the 'coon...and the Cherokee. It is so with people who store and fat themselves with more than their share. They will have it taken from them. And there will be wars over it... and they will say a flag stands for their right to do this...and men will die because of the words and the flag...but they will not change the rules of The Way."
-The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter-

A Reason for the Season
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Moving on uP
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Moving day....Eli?
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What is the Reason?

The earth gives up her children
To feed our burden
The leaves fall for a reason
She’s falling, but when do we rest
Life goes on with the clamor of being
Forgiveness for the pavement that nature calls treason
The leaves fall for a reason
When the human dream turns to human drama
The wind sweeps and the trees collect karma
The pigeons gather to watch Shakespeare in action
The Way is a living lesson in every season
The leaves fall for a reason
Children play infatuated with our mother
As they grow they forget about sister and brother
TV replaces the weather and grass turns to plastic
Our living womb has been renovated into another statistic
Where is the world we learned to dance on
The leaves fall for a reason

Let it all out on the Inside

We’re drowning by astounding numbers
It’s the consciousness that lacks
It’s the accumulating this and that
We even accumulate deficiency
Based on choices without facts
What other cure do I have
Than to walk and think
Sit to expound just write
Let it last just as long
As deep as we’ve been able
To empty ourselves out
Carving knowledge in the caverns
Of the things we were taught not to shout

Reversed Twins

What’s the beauty behind the blue door,
A mysterious twin I’ve never seen before.
Is it a coincidence to see myself,
In the market and places I go,
Separated during creation,
Lost in societal confusion,
Discovered through dharma,
Completion of connection.
Yin was never without yang.
Without looking behind the blue door,
Just a knowing I’ve known before.

Just a glassy girl

She’s such a starlit girl
(on the outside)
She goes home at night so pleasantly
(you never know what she’s going to write)
The feelings inside don’t escape
(until the evenings date)
What you wear has no consequence
(beauty lasts without confidence)
Lacking till the day one dies
(we can be filled if we just decide)

my life
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pungently fertile
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Thanksgiving
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nature's veil
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firey fall
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more than symbols
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Whats Missing?
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weeping
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Its time again i got back into this posting thing....
i got fleas and im missing dreads...oops.

We Do Why

Why do we
To know something but not feel it.
Like the weather man and fantasies,
Like white pages and books we read.
Why do we
To feel something but not admit it
Like no presents under the tree
Like secret stashes of chocolate
Why do we
To speak but without heart
Like supermarket thank you’s
Like superstar interviews
Why do we
To listen with defense
Like the war on terrorism
Like a criminal in the wrong
Why do we
Why do we even why?

bodie lighthouse
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Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Stairs 

looking down 

angels by the sea
they are looking for me
show me where to go
walking down the shore
if i had to live my life again
i wouldnt do it
i love all the scenes and the people i’ve met
i dont regret
angels by the sea
they are ready for me
just say i need to go
ieave my body on the shore
time to view my life again
this time it’s different
i’ve learned all the things that were ment for me
no reason to flee
angels by the sea
darkness sparkling
was it just a dream

What? Chuckle!
slowly slipping the soul between two pillows,
doesn't mean safety,
the should and shouldn't of self hate
the second guessing of security
to get now, means you don't think you have,
and to do try signifies lack in your mind
(what?) cant admit comfort
(what?) cant admit intelligence
(chuckle) you are knowledge
(chuckle) you are magnificent
there's only one chance left to be yourself
(and it's really not a chance at all)

Show me a Sign 

ive been working hard at the moving company and so no time for leasure activities..., though i've had great moments on the job, it creates another life for me, like i'm one person during the day - vegetarian moving mike, and when i come home im boring tired michael that can only think about eating and sleeping, and but there is always time to notice, but as you may have seen, no time to note. such as today, out on a job from 7am to 9pm, the way showed me the perfect time slot to watch a silent sunset, a whole 20 minutes of waiting for my crew to come back to get me..at first i was so anxious to get home but i figured i was where i was at and there must be a reason, so i sat down and the tree was glowing orange with the setting sun behind it, just the right breeze and not hustle bussle of richmond in my ears too...i heard that.

look under - your feet
thats the only place you can be
- not in the past...
- not in the future...
- not in the moment....
where the hell are you.

when you say the things
you really dont know
it hurts your mind
more than it hurts your mouth
so dont run - in the other direction
water knows the only way to go

dont trust hate -
- but give into love
dont trust me -
but get it from above -
dont trust words when you feel inside
dont believe that there's a day you'll die

if you think your alone
your forgetting about your toes
they tingle when your asleep
they know what you dont know
go have a conversation
call collect and revisit your ache toes

what's it all got to do - with living right - in your shoes

(can you believe that sympathy is dancing among the fallen leaves) (for them the day is old everyday)

What it's all about 

Thanks for all your comments, they are well recieved, positive or negitive they all inspire me. I have never pushed my beliefs on anybody, and never said what is right or wrong in this world. there are a few things i know to be positively true, and one of those things is that i know i dont know anything. people who push their beliefs on other people, positive that their ways are the only way, need to step back and look at the whole picture, look beyond religion and look beyond the single sided world they know. it is true that there hasent been a single culture or civilization that didnt have some form of religion, some form of the supernatural, even people who call themselves atheist. think about it, with all of the beliefs out there who is to say which one is reality, which one is truth. Almost everyone takes on the beliefs that the majority hold in that society, for americans its mostly christianity, our government was even built upon it. for people of other cultures they have the say training as they grow up to believe certain ideas or certain supernatural beings. this is true, so who is right? everyone of course - so if you really believe god created animals for people to enjoy them, thats great, but would you treat anything god created as factory farms treat them? on those farms god didnt create them, laboratories and chemicals did, but that does not change their nature, but it does change ours. our idea of animals has changed so much over the past 50 years or so that people loose the love for the gifts we have, they just want more, and quicker too. If you had your own farm, fed your animals and then decided to eat them - ok. you undersand the nature of eating, but to go to the store and pick up a plactic waped piece of steak - what is that? an animal, food, or just materialism? just another thing to buy and consume, without thought to the before and after and of what it does to your own body and mind. it creates greed, it destroys compassion, it makes you loose touch with what the real world is really about... i dont know but i make it my duty to get past the bubble that we live in, i dont want to accept anything as the way it is, because i do know that there has got to be more, beyond the wal-marts and shopping malls, beyond the fast food chains and the nightly news.

ok lovely comment on the previous posting. feel free to stop by and take what you please, if i've reduced my spirituality to "things" i might be upset. by the way something - if your hungry i can make you a free vegan meal that would not involve harming other beings to feel better about yourself.

ok...by the way...whats inside the house, and how the rooms are layed out, is for me to know and for you to find out.

The Ward
well, it wont be long until we get everything done and move in. Probally in a few weeks or so. The house is in Jackson Ward, in richmond of course, and right near the famous Bojangles monument, ha. But let me give my thoughts on this for the moment and a bit of background brought to you by my education in urban studies class. There are postives and negatives living in jackson ward. It is a historic black neighborhood, where it was home to many freed blacks after the civil war, and quickly became a economic center for them. It housed many of the first black owned businesses, like banks and law firms, but lets not forget the clubs and resturants, and thus was known as the "black wall-street". Also we must note that many rising talents in the music industry regularly played at the famous Hippadome club in jackson ward, furthering the popularity of the neighborhood, some even called it the harlem of the south due to its cultural center for blacks. This all slowly crumbled due to blacks moving north to get away from the jim crow laws and after the world wars due to the govt' policies on breaking up cultural centers, as it was seen as dangerous, almsot unamerican, to have a area dense with one group of people...(this was B.S). Today it is one of the few historic black neighborhoods in the nation, and has seen better days. But since 2003 Richmond has been promoting the revitalization of its historic neiborhoods and providing insentives for rebuilding. So this also has an unseen effect, partially due to VCU's presence also. Many afluent people are buying out the historic homes and renovating them, then renting them out to students or selling them for more than people who would normally live there can pay, thus taking away from the traditional neighborhood. The population that has usually resided there were middle to lower class black families...yes families. But now that you throw in students in the mix, who are renting and have more money to spend, this changes the impression of the neighborhood, and many families move out and are sometimes even forced out. The renovation is a good and beautiful thing, but when property values increase, lowerclass homeowners are forced to sell because they can not live in that area anymore, mainly from increased taxes and economic pressure. So Richmond's program recoginizes this also and provide tax credits to renavators when the homeowner will actually be living in the house, no renting. Im sure there are many other factors at work here, but as I walk by and see our middle aged black neighbors I can only guess at what they think of who I am and why I'm living there. Am I ashamed becasue i know some of the detrimental factors that i may be contributing to...no, because i know i will do my best to help the people that need it most, and of course once i get a talking with the neighbors I think they won't have a problem with a guy with dreads.
jackson ward

The new house!!...and meaghan's bike I painted.