now mercy rests upon the throne—
humility hath pulled the sword from stone!
the sun suspended like a golden pearl—
o my beloved iridescent world…
@newartdealers@smokethemoon
<3
for a moment, so brief,
the mysterious iridule
rippled through your hair
and then dispersed
faintly into the night.
such strange enchantment,
some small and swirled
fragment of eternity—
perhaps a passing
hierophany—rolling
along the glossy strands
that lingered in my hand.
a vision most distinct,
swallowed by beclouded sky
only to be born anew
with whirring preeminence
at every edge of perception.
my thin little iridule
holding together
every light across the darkness.
oh, the ageless beauty
that has pierced my
aging heart, bellowing
below the moon
of my solitude,
come to call me home!
a prophecy ignites,
for you and me, baby,
to burn through this exaltation;
a pleasure i bear
flickering its many wings
back to the everlasting
silence.
~
you found me, sweet hierophany!
oil on linen
48 x 36 in.
at @newartdealers in new york next week!!! @smokethemoon
there is a place in the heart,
a secret place
that harbors only
the stillness of God.
a place where the mind cannot go,
where memory is forgiven
even as it chants backwards
for barabbas…
we have been pulled together
to the edge of desire
like tufts of light
that lay themselves against
the faintest, feathery
fringe of cloud.
we have also been brought
to the penumbral
haze of pain,
where we have been pierced
at the side
by the intellect’s temerity.
darling, i know both
how to be abased and abound!
and in both conditions
have i found for myself
a most hearty humiliation,
the awe of beauty,
that has drawn wide
my curtains of heaven!
~
i am here to announce new paintings!
i have, once again, withdrawn from the world to wander through the woods of my own heart’s labor! i stand now, at lofty mountain’s crest, to look out upon the vast and misty terrain i have been so intimately immersed in! i sustain my station of witness and watch as tiny bits of the atmosphere briefly opalize as if to make semiotic gestures towards me—a transmission that sneaks by the intellect to communicate directly with my aching soul! a flash of iridescence awakens something old—perhaps even timeless—that has awaited silently at the center of my being…
fully absorbed in the anagogic, enlightening world of painting! the world of art! so much so, that it did at times seemingly dissolve the boundary between the paintings and me…
deep i dove into the process to encounter the glowing pearl of wonder that buzzes at my core and to be humiliated by the overwhelming awe of beauty. sweet cosmic beauty, sweet earth of ours, what a blessing it is to bear your witness…
oh beauty, we marvel at your grace! you offer respite to the wandering heart…
oh beauty, how you embarrass me! how you uplift me! how you crucify me!
oh beauty, before me you are forever reborn!
and here the hour has come to finally share the first of these new paintings…
this new series will debut at @newartdealers in new york in like three weeks with @smokethemoon !!!
okay, thank you all <3
~
“a place deep in my heart”
oil on linen
38 x48 in.
o, my sword—
forged in a flash of light
at the beginning of the world
when the waters first swirled
into orphic observance
and the sky was wounded rose-red
by the foreshadows of heartbreak!
i know i was born for this, born
to carry this cosmic pang
across land and sea,
like a delicate princess in exile,
back to her royal homelands,
to lay her in soft slivers of moonlight.
i have come to find you,
from the tender tomb of time’s undoing
from whence illumination is born
to the silent desert where
birds laid shadows that
moved like sinuous runes across the sand,
i have crossed and conquered it all.
o, my sword—
i come to you now
with the music of revelation
thundering in my rapturous heart.
beauty kneels in weeping
at the bruised feet of redemption
as i take you in my weathered hands.
the smallest speck of eden’s memory
glimmers in my eyes as i gaze upon you.
it is from my own stone that i pull you away
and cast you towards the heavens!
o, my sword—
i was born to set you free!
~
this is final call for lady of the lake/sword in stone shirts @laurarbenson and i made together !!!
the sword in the stone is one of my favorite alchemical allegories. we begin with the symbol of the stone, the indurate, physical world (in the alchemical tradition, the “base metal”) from which our spirit (the sword) must ascend… upward we pull, up the spine and towards the sky, in order to reclaim the crown—spiritual consciousness!
printed by @depress_press
available until sunday!
oh goodness, we have so many orders to ship out already
thank you all so much <3
make a way for love, my dear,
and it will surely find you.
make a way—though
you are wounded
like the pinkened sun
being pulled down
the sky, howling
into a deeper nihility—
love will come
to carry you home.
men are fools
to speak on anything but love!
fools they are!
scraping their shapeless
hearts against the
sordid grindstone!
i have been one of the fools
before, baby, i have been—
long ago, entombing myself
in words that would only
become bird-song
by morning at best.
we knew each other then—
strangers in an ancient land
that would form a bond
eternal…
a sojourn in a strange
dimension is love,
born from eternity
beneath the only star
brave enough to believe in it.
there was only one that could
stay, faithfully, beyond oblivion,
with her long, silken
hair that hung over mid-night
dripping oil down to the plinth.
brave enough to turn her face
towards the sepulcher
and see a garden
beyond the darkness.
i love this world
we are in, baby,
even as it weeps
in anguish.
i love it, your world so young,
as your hand is taken by mine
and the sunlight
falls through your leaves.
all meaning
kneels bleeding in gethsemane.
love is silent at the end of prophecy
where God is always beginning,
as everything that will be, that could be,
coalesces around a center of
crucified beauty.
and we will return again
beyond the haze of mem’ry
(to start a new earth)
yes, we will return
(oh to kiss your neck,
to kiss your chest again)
we will return…
𓅬 available to preorder now – link in bio!
the lady of the lake, guardian of the subconscious…
a shirt to ennoble the swordstress in each of us!
the lady of the lake is a potent archetype of the feminine force of divine wisdom. it is her stewardship of the mystical sword—the inner light of knowing—that enables the fulfillment of divine calling.
“i am not afraid…i was born to do this”
—joan of arc
these shirts are being printed by @depress_press and a special thank you is due to @unviral.value for helping with the font layout!
the world needs more poetry, baby—
a song-bridge across
every piece that has been
broken apart.
we need more, my love, because
mere words will only sit as silent
as nails
driven through the cosmic body.
poetry is for the part of everything
that is bodiless.
it is there in the darkness
where the new image is born;
where the roots entangled
of a flowered-world beyond
the sepulcher
drink in silence.
it is there as our allegories
stagger towards the sun,
seeking the end
of distinction, bearing oils
for a new beginning.
your long hair
falls over me, as we spin
seven times around tonight
and i return
over and over again
to you, my beloved.
it is poetry that pulls us together.
~
two mary magdalene colored pencil studies inspired by a couple of renaissance paintings of “penitent” magdalene. the first drawing is based on titian’s painting from 1531 and the second on tintoretto’s painting from ~1598.
the name “magdalene” is derived from the aramaic word for tower, and is for this reason a potent symbol for spiritual elevation.
now, despite being the most common iconographic depiction of mary magdalene, the theme of the “penitent magdalene” is a misidentification of mary magdalene’s true character and role. this tragic and erroneous misrepresentation began with pope gregory the first, who (in an easter sermon in 591) carelessly debased and corrupted mary magdalene’s image and identity. this misidentification would end up persisting for centuries, leading to pervasive confusion about the nature of the “first apostle” and her spiritual significance.
as the first witness to the resurrection, a new conscious reality, we are given a symbolic clue into mary magdalene’s esoteric role as high priestess...
time is no suitable
environment for lovers—
it’s just not enough.
love, true love,
must always break open
into a timeless dimension.
history has tried
to be the master of love
and history has failed,
leaving little accretion
waves at the bottom
of the eschaton.
the domain of form has tried
to collar love
and has itself been collared,
ambulating around
the parousia.
love has already overcome the world,
darling, and she is waiting for us.
she does not get herself
entangled in doctrine
nor in programming. she climbs our
towers and she plays the bells
in our bodies
to move heaven on our behalf.
love does not belong to thought,
for she doesn’t betray reality.
she takes her course
through each of us,
to have our hearts broken
open—just like the temple
veil rent in twain, just like
a spike of lightning
cuts a wound into the sky.
it is love that sustains
wisdom as her swan-wings
whir. it is indeed love
that purifies consciousness.
we have been untrusted
with such a great task, darling:
to find her
beyond the edge of ourselves
like a rush
of iridescence
~
a couple of pink romance studies drawn whilst contemplating the myth of eros and psyche as an allegory of the soul’s journey of return to its divine station.
oh my heart, my heart
of thunder
that strums the star-strings
between heaven
and earth!
oh my heart, my heart
of lighting
climbing the crystal ladder
at the center
of my being!
oh my heart, my heart
of love
that wanders through your desert
in search of
itself!
oh my heart, my heart
of mercy
that prepares within me
a birthsite
for God!
oh my heart, my heart
of compassion
let us all be the beauty
that we acknowledge
in each other!
oh my heart, my heart
of thunder
that breaks open the sky
in the spirit
of prophecy!
~
this is the final week to go see the 12th site santa fe international “once within a time” @sitesantafe curated by @ceciliaalemani
“once within a time” opened with an oracular pulse in the heart of high summer and now closes peacefully, cindering in the mythical hearth of winter’s sublimity.
i’ve truly had the most marvelous time being a part of this show and working with every lovely person who helped bring it together
thank you all, once again
<3
my darling, we are made for love! we are brought here, into this delicate, reticulated system of impermanence, to pull forth from our soul the eternal force of love! love is not a merely an event in time but rather love is where time breaks open to welcome eternity! love is that which is the deepest ground of our being and it is the absolute truth of our being! we must live in love! we must be wild for love! courageous for love! shameless for love! love is not something we pursue nor is it something we fabricate the conditions of: love is the source we must withdraw from within ourselves and propagate outwards! fearlessly, through the thickets of life’s pain, through the thorns of suffering, and through the inconvenient, often ignominious limitations of selfhood, love must be claimed! being in love is the biggest task we have at hand, my darling! we must, at every moment, fall deeply in love lest we lose ourselves to the illusions of this world! we must journey through the side-wounds of life’s crucifying demands with love clasped at our bosom! we must let love transform us! rebirth and renewal! we no longer believe in time!!!
~
to love and to be loved!
here is new shirt! to the world that you are fearlessly committed to loving and that you understand the metaphysical principles of love!
~
thank you to beautiful sweetheart @santanacalvillo for modeling!
and of course thank you @matthewbgarza and @unviral.value@depress_press for printing these
thank you all! let us journey onward, wild and ready for love!
a list of 30 solstice thoughts from this morning:
1. my love, i feel the fire in your soul!
2. a great anointing is upon us!
3. it is beauty that must stir the soul awake!
4. the broken-open heart will hold eternity!
5. a dawn is coming when the mountains will run with new water!
6. beauty beams from the eternal core of everything!
7. call me to the work of your heart!
8. i hear the song of summer flowers stirring in the soil
9. an image of mother
10. an image of child
11. the sky opened like a broken heart, rose red
12. a story of redemption!
13. to love the cosmos clean
14. a ribbon of radiant light unwound within me
15. at the center
16. i remember the night when starlight spiraled into your heart
17. behold! the image of eternity!
18. love is holy work
19. the primordial moan of the earth
20. my woman in the cave
21. tiny rainbow
22. Christmas (born at every moment)
23. through the desert
24. motherly love
25. playful delight
26. solar force
27. tethered between psyche and cosmos
28. i remember heaven!
29. so intimately
30. when we first kissed/the beginning
otter’s big day is here! her first birthday!
what a special year it has been—a wolf initiation indeed.
wolves represent the integration of polarities within the psyche. they teach us that, in order for an ecosystem to be balanced, to achieve a clarifying wholeness, the aspects of the shadow need not be suppressed but rather fully integrated. the unconscious impulses are signaling devices that call us towards a reclaimed intuition so as to achieve total mastery of our mysterious human faculties.
true discipline does not come from repressing or running away from desires and fears but from inviting them to be fully present, to invite the wolf to lie with the lamb, and reclaiming them in mystical, psychological union.
wolves as apex predators are symbols of potency: they are ecological balance keepers and they maintain balance by preying on weak points within the ecosystem that can overgraze the new growth. wolves are indeed symbols of both fear and desire, and those impulses must be intrinsically reconciled. to repress them is to reject the quest of life to harness our desires, to overcome our fears, and to transform primal impulse into heavenly portal.
life asks not of us to thin our souls and avoid her wildness, but to immerse ourselves in her complexities, taking in as much of her as we can and expanding our hearts with it. we must bring balance to antipodal forces.
we have been cast into being with a heart-sewn desire for our return to source and it is by confronting and moving through the dark and foreboding forest of our inner psychological ecosystem that we may return.
the wolf must lie with the lamb.
this is how we fully love with everything we are.
so thank you otter! what a wolfy year! happy birthday to you and your siblings!
