The Art of Awareness

As we move into the next phase of our global renaissance, copious creativity is the axis on which our elevation will turn. How deeply are we willing to tap our inner reservoirs? Can we expand our perception of what constitutes "art"?

Jose Argüelles, who adapted the evolutionary secrets of the Mayan Calendar for the Western mind, saw art as the unifying field, a path to help us move "from biospheric waste to artistic regeneration," by attuning ourselves to a natural time frequency expressed as an equation: T(E) = Art. Energy (E) factored by time (T) equals Art. Energy is essence: a rock, a flower, a star, a human being. Time is a frequency. When we use our energy in concert with natural time cycles, we are living creativity. In other words, Time is Art…not the clock on the wall or the cash in your wallet.

Eye of the Beholder

What this means in terms of cross-cultural energy exchange opens unimagined doors. A woman traveled from Denmark to the tiny West African country The Gambia, toting numerous colorful plastic bags — prized by Gambian women as symbols of status and respect — to use as barter. (Women of The Gambia also recycle worn or ripped plastic bags into one-of-a-kind purses).

In the marketplace, she discovered a hand-carved figure of an African goddess and, through gestures, opened negotiations to purchase the stunning piece.

But the indigenous artist had no interest in money. She wanted plastic bags. The Danish visitor tried to give her all the bags she'd brought, explaining that there was a surplus of these in her country. The Gambian sculptor accepted three, and each woman felt she'd enjoyed the better bargain. Plastic bags or a unique woodcarving: equally sacred art in the eye of the beholder.

Then there is the children's book that became a collaboration between two Jewish translators, a Protestant editor, a Muslim painter and a non-profit publisher in the deep South. It was a collective endeavor all the way, explained one rabbinical writer: "An Arabic Sufi tale (originally penned in what is now Iraq) translated by a rabbi into Hebrew in the Middle Ages and translated by us (into 21^st century language and sensibility), with a Sufi publisher and a Pakistani artist." The subject matter — animals protesting their treatment by humans — transcended all ethnic, cultural, and religious boundaries.

The Art in our DNA

The universal urge toward the aesthetic is coded in our cells. Theologian and author Thomas Moore writes, in Care of the Soul, "Children paint every day and love to show their works on walls and refrigerator doors. But as we become adults, we abandon this important soul task of childhood." When we relinquish this soul expression to professional artists, "we are left with mere rational reasons for our lives, feelings of emptiness and confusion, and a compulsive attachment to pseudo images, such as shallow television programs. When our own images no longer have a home, a personal museum, we drown our sense of loss in pale substitutes, trashy novels or formulaic movies."

Because art arrests our attention, living "artfully" might require of us something as simple as pausing: taking the time to shift from acquire to inquire, to let go of buying more in favor of being more. This is what honoring our collective creative impulse can do for humanity: restore us to wholeness, holiness, health. "Whole", "holy" and "heal" all spring from the same root. To be whole is to be balanced and harmonious in body, mind, soul and spirit.

It's this level of awareness that will characterize the coming Psychozoic ("spirit life") era, says Argüelles, when, having rediscovered who we are, we can create a culture based on the three virtues of true time: autonomy, equality, and loyalty to the truth in every moment. These are strikingly similar to the Three Commitments delineated by The Reconnections: stay free, stay present, follow the energy.

We already have fusion food: a culinary blending of cultures to delight the palate. Now we're primed to feed our deeper hunger, to fuse mind and heart into healing art, and reawaken the sacred dimension in daily life.

And if we make a subtle shift — move the "h" in heart from the start of the word to the end — we create "Earth". We live in a heart circle. Earth heart. The beat goes on.

How to See Yourself As An Artist

Are you an artist? You're probably thinking, "no, not me." Here in the West, we've been taught to squelch our creative impulse — especially at work. In other cultures people live as natural artisans, creating sand paintings and song, poetry and architecture, drumming and dancing in tune with the rhythms of the Earth.

We too can allow our inner artist to live out loud. As soon as we surrender our resistance to seeing what we do as art-in-action, we become artists.

Succulence: Your Natural State

Inspirational author and artist SARK has been demonstrating how to live juicy for decades. From a 200-square-foot self-described "magic cottage" in the heart of San Francisco, she writes all her books by hand, in a profusion of colors. Each SARK creation is a feast for the senses. She says, "My name has become synonymous with transformation, color, healing, movement & FUN."

I framed and hung her inaugural poster, How to Be An Artist, on my home office wall as I launched my first business. Her invitation to "Make signs that say yes! and post them all over your house" invoked my own creative impulse. Each night before bed, I'd face my office (set up in a corner of my tiny apartment living room) and give it the thumbs up sign. A simple, powerful, YES! for success. My business prospered.

Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of Simple Abundance, writes, "Creation has three layers: the labor, the craft, and the elevation. She who works with only her hands is a laborer; she who works with her hands and her head is a craftswoman; she who works with her hands, her head and her heart is an artist." READ MORE

Weeds Help Us Flower

We're verging on the Vernal Equinox, which means the Rite of Spring that one friend dubbed The Mowing is about to begin in earnest. Not a blade of grass — certainly not a weed — is safe.

I understand this obsession. Growing up in suburban America, I observed a rampant homeowner disgust with the "lowly dandelion," scourge of suburbia's well-manicured lawns. Much later, I discovered that dandelion is one of the most healing herbs available to humanity, offering itself in abundance wherever we dwell. It's a supreme liver tonic, known to help detoxify the body's "processing plant." In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the liver equates to the emotion of anger. If you want to release that pent-up rage in a healthy way, the remedy is probably available, free and easy, in your own backyard.

Dandelion can act as de facto compost, gently surrounding and helping to decompose back into rich loam that which no longer serves. Yet we curse the weed and uproot it, spray poison to keep the green carpet unsullied. "Living for the lawn" keeps us focused predominantly on the external.

When we can make the subtle shift from ego mind to Universal Mind, we see with such great clarity the incredible gifts all around us! Our teammates are everywhere, in the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms — if we have eyes to see.

As we move deeper into our collective rebirth process, we'll be releasing people and places that no longer resonate with our lives now. Doing this with what the Buddhists call lovingkindness is our mandate. It's a ripe moment to ask yourself, Who or what in my life seems like an outsider? Am I willing to look again, to become inclusive rather than exclusive, to see beyond imaginary borders?

Below are seven practical steps to enlarge the lens this Spring: to slow down and look with the eyes of wonder, like a child. You'll find many more on my CD, What You Need to Know Now: A Road Map for Personal Transformation:

• Keep a journal. Buy a beautiful blank book and a pen that feels comfortable in your hand. Then allow yourself to write whatever and whenever you want. No one else need ever read it unless you choose to share, so send the censor packing! Journaling is like ingesting dandelion leaves with your pen — a great way to purge emotions and discover what really matters to you. And writing by hand is very different from blogging online.
• Dance your evolutionary process. Do you instinctively sway as you talk, or dance around the room when you get excited? Express your change process as flowing movement. Maybe it's yoga, or tai chi, or free-form dance, such as Contact Improv.
• Make art. Are you a natural with a paintbrush or clay? Splash your emotions onto canvas, pour them into a mold, sketch them into being. Remember, this is art from the heart: done for the sole/soul purpose of enlarging your own vision.
• Sing! Is your voice your most powerful expressive tool? If you love to sing but don't know any songs, make up nonsense words to tunes you like, and sing them — in public. This is also a fabulous way to break free of the "What will people think?" trap.
• Be in Nature. Sit by moving water. Sit in moving water. Sing while sitting in a stream!
• Prepare a meal that is as aesthetic as it is nutritious. As you combine ingredients, imagine that you are cooking up a grander vision for your life.
• Hush. Spend a day, alone or with others, in total silence.

Have Body, Will Travel

On the freeway one day, an engaging tour bus slogan snagged my attention at 65 mph: "The Art of Transportation." I maneuvered closer to read the company name and logo: "Van Go," with the image of a paintbrush daubing the "o". What a playful, memorable way to advertise bus travel! Since I've written about how to see yourself as an artist, this tickled me. As usual, it also got me thinking:

What is your vehicle of transport? Will it get you where you most need to go? And are you driving/piloting/captaining your vessel, or are you a passive passenger?

While in the throes of my awakening odyssey, I often had dreams of riding in the passenger seat of a car. It's enlightening, then, to note who (or what) is "driving you." The symbolic language of dreams can often be both revealing and humorous. A friend who taught speed-reading once dreamed of driving in a car that had no brakes — but he found he could stop it with his mind!

And I dreamed of being in a car with others as we skimmed across a shimmering sea. It felt glorious, yet even in the dream, my questioning mind wanted to know how it was possible for a car to glide effortlessly over water. The answer that came to me, not from my fellow passengers but from Existence itself, was, "If you believe there is a bridge, there is."

Here on Earth, our bodies are our primary means of transport, our third-dimensional "space suits". What shape is yours in? Will it serve you well as your bridge to quantum being-ness? It's harder to house the infinite in a neglected vessel.

Perhaps some cosmic re-coloration with the planetary paintbrush is in order. We might begin on the physical plane, and then add a little airbrushing of our mental, emotional, spiritual and causal bodies. Another dream image of mine involved walking into a doctor's waiting room and picking up a magazine entitled, "Woman, Clean the Mind."

Tossing out excess baggage from all of our bodies will make it that much easier to travel light, and travel into the Light.

Build Bridges, Not Malls

In the current issue of my newsletter, themed, "To Tell the Truth," I offer dance medicine in the form of ecstatic grooves for an awakening world by Om At Last, which includes powerful lyrics if you listen closely. I also rediscovered this wonderful world anthem, A House Divided, from 2006. Music, like art, is a cross-cultural bridge to unite us far beyond our superficial differences of age, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic level… If you think about it, these external challenges exist in order to allow us to go deeper, to cross the great divide into harmony.

I've just read a book that defies easy description as it demonstrates the shamanic essence of life, disguised as entertainment: The Death and Resurrection Show: From Shaman to Superstar. Our thirst for the paradigm-busting truth it contains is evidenced by the book's scarcity: it sells for a minimum of $122 on Amazon — and that's for a used copy. Clearly, we feel the call to Mystery, even as we seek to demystify daily life.

But too often, we get malled instead. That's not a typo, it's a sigh.

A month ago I blogged about the new shopping mall going up in a nearby town. Right now it's a swathe of dirt paralleling the highway, but the words that spring to mind are Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks." All the foliage has been desecrated in the name of profit.

Except they got the homonym wrong: it's prophet, as in augury, herald, divining a new world. We don't need more bling for the outside, but to let our radiance shine forth from the inside. This is how we build the bridge across forever, to the new human, the new world we're co-creating. The clarion call to awaken and step up to a higher Love is being answered around the planet; it's the most amazing time to be alive, to be witness and participant in the wonder of the shift.

While it's always fun to dress the part, express, not excess, is key. A new outfit to honor your Divine self? Sure! Another megamall to wander in soulless surrender while boosting the GNP? NOT!

Day Out of Time: Celebrate Possibility!

Wednesday, July 25th, heralds the annual "Day Out of Time" on the Thirteen Moon Calendar — a calendar on which every Friday is a lucky Friday the 13th! And in this spectacular year of regeneration on every level, it's about breaking through old paradigms and belief systems to align with natural rhythms and human biology, enabling us to access fourth and fifth dimensional frequencies. The daily affirmations (260 in all, referred to as "kin") work on an intuitive level.

What, then, is the Day Out of Time (also known as Green Day)? Here's a summary from the Foundation for the Law of Time.

Around the planet, this day is reserved for festival and community. Central focuses are: Planetary Peace through Culture, 'Time Is Art!', forgiveness, atonement, freeing of debts, purification, and the Art of Peace.

Celebrated annually since 1992, the Day Out of Time always falls on July 25th. On the Thirteen Moon Calendar, this day is not a day of the month. It is a day in between the closing of the previous year (July 24th) and the dawning of the new year on July 26th.

The Day Out of Time is a day to celebrate "Time Is Art". This is what hundreds of thousands of people who follow the new calendar do every year on Gregorian calendar July 25^th. And since art is the basis of constructive peace, this day is also celebrated as International Peace through Culture Day. Peace through culture is a fundamental premise of the Thirteen Moon Calendar. When you celebrate time is art you are promoting peace through culture.

Here's an article about How to See Yourself As An Artist, and one about using the questions of the 13 Moons: Embracing Paradox Can Help You Beat the Clock

The energy signature for Wednesday, July 25, 2012 is White Rhythmic Mirror, and sounds like this:

I organize in order to reflect

Balancing order

I seal the matrix of endlessness

With the rhythmic tone of equality

I am guided by my own power doubled

I am a galactic activation portal…enter me

On this Day Out of Time, we can join kin around the world in deepening our commitment to the truth that Time is Art, and that we can free ourselves from the oppression and confusion of mechanized time. As we liberate ourselves from its distortions, we awaken from the 5000-year spell of history, re-membering (making membership again) our connection to the galactic time magic residing in every human heart. And from this connection, true prosperity can flower.

The Law of Time site says: "Give the human a harmonious standard of measure and then a harmonious human will walk a harmonious mile.

Harmony ~ that's what the day of time is all about."

Day Out of Time — Forgive Debt, Celebrate Possibility!

How intriguing that Obama says we are "out of time" when it comes to the economy and debt relief. He's absolutely correct, albeit on a meta-level he's not consciously aware of:

Monday, July 25th, heralds the annual "Day Out of Time" on the Thirteen Moon/28-day Calendar — a calendar on which every Friday is a lucky Friday the 13th! Breaking old paradigms and belief systems, the Thirteen Moon Calendar is aligned with natural rhythms and human biology, enabling us to access fourth dimensional frequencies by reciting each day's "energy signature". These daily affirmations (260 in all, referred to as "kin") work on an intuitive level.

What, then, is the Day Out of Time (also known as Green Day)? Here's a summary from the Foundation for the Law of Time.

Around the planet, this day is reserved for festival and community. Central focuses are: Planetary Peace through Culture, 'Time Is Art!', forgiveness, atonement, freeing of debts, purification, and the Art of Peace.

Celebrated annually since 1992, the Day Out of Time always falls on July 25th. On the Thirteen Moon Calendar, this day is not a day of the month. It is a day in between the closing of the previous year (July 24th) and the dawning of the new year on July 26th. The official flag for the Day Out of Time is the Banner of Peace.

The Day Out of Time is a day to celebrate "Time Is Art". This is what hundreds of thousands of people who follow the new calendar do every year on Gregorian calendar July 25th. And since art is the basis of constructive peace, this day is also celebrated as International Peace through Culture Day. Peace through culture is a fundamental premise of the Thirteen Moon/28-day Calendar. When you celebrate time is art you are promoting peace through culture.

Here's an article about How to See Yourself As An Artist, and one about how, by using the questions of the 13 Moons, Embracing Paradox Can Help You Beat the Clock.

The energy signature for Monday, July 25, 2011 is Red Overtone Skywalker, and sounds like this:

I empower in order to explore
Commanding wakefulness
I seal the output of space

With the overtone tone of radiance
I am guided by the power of birth.

On this Day Out of Time, we can join kin around the world in deepening our commitment to the truth that Time is Art, and that we can free ourselves from the oppression and confusion of the frequency of mechanized time. As we liberate ourselves from its distortions, we are awakening from the 5000-year spell of his-story, re-membering (making membership again) our connection to the galactic time magic residing in every human heart. And from this connection, true prosperity can flower.

In this time of reinventing resources (and expanding our resource-full-ness), Caroline Casey says of the U.S. economic crisis, "All debts are off!" And Jaison Starkes agrees: "Debts are an agreement on an old story."

The Law of Time site says: "Give the human a harmonious standard of measure and then a harmonious human will walk a harmonious mile.

Harmony ~ that's what the day of time is all about."

Summer Solstice: An Opportunity to Become More Whole

Summer Solstice celebrates the sun at the peak of its power. Both the sun (male energy) and the moon (female energy) are waxing, or increasing, now. June 21st marks the longest day and shortest night of the year, in the northern hemisphere. (Winter Solstice for our southern hemisphere allies). It's a stillpoint. A time to reflect. A potent moment to set your intention, because the manifestation momentum is strong.

The day goes by many names: All-Couples Day, Feast of Epona, Gathering Day, Midsummer, Litha, Vestalia. In ancient times, June was a popular marriage month, since summer offered a window between the sowing and reaping seasons. The June full moon was considered the best time to harvest honey from the hives, and newlyweds were fed honey during the wedding feast to encourage love and fertility. The tradition lives on in our modern post-nuptial getaway, the honeymoon.

How might we translate our ancestors' emphasis on love and union at Solstice to our lives today? In other words, how can we best live this light?

It's a grand opportunity to burn away old patterns that no longer serve our highest good, in order to become more whole. Whole, holy and heal originate from the same root. We can use the power of Solstice to assist us in integrating the masculine and feminine energies inside ourselves. The moment is ripe for sacred reunion. What do I mean by this?

Most books, films and songs that speak of love refer to romantic love between two people. We've been taught to look outside ourselves for completion, to seek the Other and to rejoice when we connect, or to keep searching.

What we're really seeking is a part of ourselves, which is why we often feel incomplete when we hook up with someone whom we hope will fill the empty place inside us. The wedding of the light and the dark, of the magnetic, receptive, lunar, "feminine" self and the dynamic, assertive, solar, "masculine" self, has to take place first within our own being. And yet — it's through relationship that we get there!

The beloved is a catalyst to help us merge the complementary aspects of ourselves. This is a radical idea, and challenging to hold. It turns everything we believe about romantic love on its head.

One of the ways to shine your own light more brightly is to celebrate yourself and each other, through whatever art forms call to you: music, dance, poetry, painting, comedy improvisation, theatre, ritual, chanting/singing, multimedia … and silence. Enlarge the lens you look through by asking, how can I expand this experience, become inclusive rather than exclusive?

This Summer Solstice, I invite you to sound the clarion call for your own companions of destiny — those who can see and honor your authentic self. The Mayan Oracle (a book and card deck based on the Mayan sacred calendar) says, "When you have been truly seen, you feel empowered, and remembrance of a shared sacred trust is ignited."

Acknowledge your connection with all life, and allow the simple to nourish you. Sitting beneath a tree, enjoying the sun on your feet and the wind in your hair, being thankful for life itself, is wholeness exemplified. The romance of living — and the wedding — begins first within you.

Context: The Sequel

The "Tao of Now" for my October What Shines newsletter is Context, and how, as Anais Nin observed, we see things not as they are, but as we are. Today I experienced another, literal, "frame of reference":

I'd wandered into a local art gallery, in part because a new client had mentioned his photography was being exhibited there. After finding his work, I continued to enjoy the other artists' creations ~ until I came to a canvas that appeared to have crumbling strips of white plaster pasted on a background, with a little blob of red in one corner. The price was $1350, and I shook my head in amazement. While I aim never to criticize art, as it's the epitome of personal preference, this looked like something a child might have done when bored.

I strolled to the entrance and saw a fellow I've seen here before; one of the exhibiting artists. We struck up a conversation, and I mentioned that, as usual, I loved seeing the new works on display, although there was one that I didn't understand. Something kept me from saying anything more judgmental. I was glad I'd obeyed my intuition when Bob revealed himself as the creator of the piece.

A recent transplant from Taos, New Mexico (a noted art colony) he explained that the white strips represent the dominant Caucasian culture — which is crumbling — and the red dot, Native Americans, whom we've dominated. All at once, like a trick cube, his work appeared brilliant, and I asked why he didn't include a brief Artist's Statement with the piece to help people understand his intent — even something as simple as "Anglo / Native American". But he wants it without training wheels, so to speak. Enigmatic, though quite powerful, once I had a context.

Where are you making assumptions because you're missing the proper context? It's a potent exercise for us to practice every day: staying open to new information that could completely shift our interpretation of what we think we see.