​Art isn't a popularity contest. In fact if your art is very popular I suggest you stop and question yourself; are you being true to yourself? Or are you trying to be liked by everyone? If that is the case then just bake sweets or make pizza and feed people. They will love you. No point in getting your clothes, hair and hands dirty with paint, not to mention floor and furniture.
You paint because you know that it is what you must do through inner compulsion much like a drug addict. And most probably no one will like you, because you will always be going against the grain, much like salmon up the river. But perhaps that is how it is meant to be. It works out for the salmon they spawn and give birth, and so should the artist.

a woman knows mystery in the eyes of her newborn child
she sees the world beyond from whence that child was born
she is guided by the same intuitive force to raise it to full grown
as she cooks and teaches and heals and creates a better world

for all, men too, whose envy of her knowing, makes them blue
and lose their own knowing by being afraid of women
and thinking they need to put her down, to arise
by building dick rockets to nowhere, to hell and Mars

taking the word woman from written pages or IDs
will not remove woman from earth that made her
and sooner or later earth will fall into total chaos
rebelling against dick rockets they prefer over her

and only then will they understand
the folly of their senseless pursuits

instead we could all cherish life made sensual by love
of the child and each other and animals and plants
And know that as one person dies another is born
and the cycle continues forever more, there is no end

respect each other everywhere and every time
seeing the god/goddess in each and every one
before it is too late and the gods leave
while we are left with heads bowed

gods/godesses were substituted with money
and men will do anything to continue in the faith
that only money will make them great
fake news causing the end of life on earth.
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and only then will they understand
the folly of their senseless pursuits

a shaky left foot carefully placed so as to not crush the earth
a buckling of knee, not in prayer, but loss of balance in reverse

hell is made of not being well
can you tell

an eye flutter, a pupil too big, bigger than the other one
you see no end to body morphia when health is on the run

hell is made of not being well
can you tell

on the other side of earthly living doing, eating, making
is a golden sphere of loving undoing, awakening

heaven is made of being ecstatically well
can you tell
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living in limbo means you are neither here nor there
waiting for an invite from either heaven or hell
as you run the last lap around the sun
waving earth a thank you and farewell

Being Awake or Woke
Another sleepless night, but all is not lost because I figured out where we all went wrong and that is allowing techies to dominate every facet of life. Many moons ago when I was an addiction counsellor there were no computers so after sessions with clients I wrote notes by hand. Then my secretary (that was the official name) transcribed them on a typewriter and catalogued in a very efficient system. The beauty of that system was that May and I had coffee together during breaks, chatted about current affairs, our lives, what movies we watched, and never for a moment did anybody feel that they were better or more important than the other. She even looked after my salary cheques.
We laughed often and at home time I did not feel the exhaustion one feels when sitting in a cubicle at a computer alone writing notes. Of course that is what happened, secretaries were no longer needed because I could do the the counselling and the typing and the cataloguing, so after some difficult sessions I got to sit by myself typing instead of relating to another human I knew well and laugh a little.
Now things have advanced further with AI, where nobody will have a job, because AI will fulfill all civil desk type jobs and eventually do the counselling virtually as well. And if a meeting occurs it is across the screen. There is an energy exchange between humans when they are in proximity that doesn't exist virtually. An energy that is greater than the sum of two people that lifts our spirits, no matter the conversation or relationship or the task at hand.
Our world is shrinking because that energy is disappearing.
Now the Techie King (Musk) wants and has explicitly said over and over again that AI will take over all non menial jobs and people will be paid supposedly a sum just enough to live. Only the The 16 year old brilliant hacking techies will be controlling all the wires AI needs. In other words running society. There is talk that we will be swallowing a chip to connect us to servers in a candy of some sort.
And who will be at the apex of all this , Musk of course...
He is practicing on the Federal US system as we speak, all the workers are fired and AI will take over dispensing and collecting social security, pensions, disability payments etc. And who will decide how much people get to live on, Musk, the master of thrifty and cuts for others but not for himself.
Musk's aim is to rule the world by being in charge of first Doge then all countries governments. He has no clue what life is about and what people need. People need to have meaning in their lives and May felt she was important in her role and I couldn't do without her. Victor Frankl a holocaust survivor wrote a great book about this. "Mans Search of Meaning". My son a U of T grad from Law finds more meaning in fixing somebodies toaster than doing corporate law.
We have deviated too far from the essence of living and allowed technology and techies to mechanize everything. For what reason, comfort or ease? There is much more depression and discomfort in the world than when we washed dishes by hand instead of loading our machines.
I used to put on good music and dance with the dishes and when it was done there was a sense of accomplishment.
We have created a society where children in school spend half their day looking on the phone instead of thinking of creative things to do with friends after school or really getting excited about learning.
Now that I see the end game I will not get worried or angry or fearful or opt out because it is still important to support the good guys in politics…by saying truths and facts. I think my art in a slim way also tries to do the same…with some laughter mixed in.
The talking can take over and art needs space both in reality and in our minds, so it is a choice everyday and how loud the Muse is.
Sorry for this lengthy note but maybe I will sleep for awhile now…hahahaha
Musk needs to be stopped and AI killed everywhere. It is not needed not even in business where it substitutes for a creative brain. It will also not be in medicine as a doctor is trained to treat the whole person and not just the systems. Definitely should stay out of the art world and leave artists to enjoy their own commune with muses and hands on making. All the digital artists will scream at me but know that it is not worth the disintegration of society which is what we are now experiencing.
We didn't know how to stop scientists before they created the atomic bomb and we didn't know how to stop the Musks from taking over all of life.
Smart phones are just another addition like heroin or watching Netflix all day or drinking oneself into a stupor.
I am afraid that the Universe will punish us royally if we dont wake up soon to the techie dangers.
Musk hates the word WOKE because it reminds him a smidgen that what he is doing is wrong. That we need to move away from AI and humanoids and all the rest of the death of living inventions. Musk is not happy and that should give you a clue . He microdoses with ketamine to lift his spirits and probably has never had a belly laugh in his life. Computers are stimulating intellectually but void of emotions and spirit any way you look at it.
Forty years ago I saw a cartoon of a skinny man with a big head sitting in a cubicle wired up to a machine that gave him everything he needed so he never had to leave the cell, and here we are. Are people happy ? How many people do you know that are actually filled with joy in their daily life. The only ones I know are Tibetan monks...with no money and no smart phones and a spiritual focus in their daily lives.
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Not knowing is an excuse
Not seeing is a choice
Not saying is a throat burr
Not hearing is an ear ringing
Not being is a wish.


The fascist snake lay coiled around our feet
While we cheered for a Mars retreat
Enamoured with global rapport 
Not seeing the wizard behind the cables 
Of techies rapacious shores


Too late, we are bought, with no where to go
Mars was never the aim, but earthly gold
And we have been had by techies goal
Of money, power and fame
They will now rule in every domain


Destroying earthly remains and 
Art and Spirit and Human Life
And All Angels in the Unseen World
Until The Real Wizard appears
To Flood the Techies into Retreat


This is not the end but a wrong turn
To the Right instead of Left
Of Life instead of Machine
After all even flies have our DNA
And robots can not be buried in our soil.

Life is a mystery. And I don’t need an AI Guru, who gobbled up all the world,s irrelevant data to tell me how to live.
AI, the epitome of the Information Age, keeping us glued to our chairs watching a lifeless screen, is the invention of money and power-hungry people to enslave our intuition, wisdom and souls to do their bidding, curtailing our freedom of living and choices. Have a question, ask AI. Need an art inspiration, let AI do it for you.

We don’t need to seek the meaning of life, as AI will tell you what it is. Who needs God if you have a Smart Phone.
Mystery is no longer a legitimate pursuit for artists, as they compete with machines and robots.

The Industrial Age, also not a friendly place for artists, has morphed into the Information Age officially with the advent of AI.

A Famous Rabbi once said that the soul is like electricity and death is like being unplugged from the body, it never dies just like electricity doesn’t when you unplug a fridge.
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As artists, we need to remain in our bodies and be in touch with that electricity at the same time.

Despite the fact that mystics will tell you we all have a unified field beneath the cloak of our material bodies, we are not all at the same level of awareness or in the same morality grid. I doubt very much Trump's field will ever meld with Dalai Lamas'..
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Thus the billionaires are on one end of the spectrum and the poor on the other and good and evil exists depending on your particular level of consciousness and distance of separation.
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Andrew Harvey, contemporary mystic says that we are experiencing the dark night of the soul and that will change. We are on the cusp of a new evolutionary cycle. Just wondering if some of us will be left by the way side, like Trump and Putin.

The problem is that everyone discovered that creativity is a good thing that makes one happier. And everyone can be creative. But that does not mean everyone should be a professional artist. As soon as one took some courses or spilled something on canvas they wanted to be famous and sell that thing.

Abstract art facilitated the death of professionalism in art. Kandinsky created something new he had something to say in a new way, but after Rothko any monkey and elephant and dog could then paint.

Anyone in any field could be creative and a few art courses might facilitate a doctor or lawyer or teacher being more creative in their field. That is what creativity is about, not competing with artists who studied their craft for years and dedicated their time and poverty to it...because that is their real vocation and they had something to express that way.
I am sick of all the pollyannas that tell me anyone can be painter, you don't need talent or a calling. Just enough money not to have a real job and enough contacts to invite to an exhibition you foot the bill for.
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We don't have an Art World but an Art Mafia!

It's interesting how people react to art. There are the ones who follow the art world and know that an art piece besides grabbing your attention usually has something to say. Others less knowledgable just think art is a decoration and should be pretty. They may also be in awe of technique, usually when painting looks like a photograph.
I am happy when my art moves people even if it is to be disgusted, because then I know that the viewer has discovered something about themselves.