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………it was 30 years ago today that I arrived at the Commune in Oregon known as Rajneeshpuram.  I remember it like it was just yesterday.  I was picked up in a Greyhound bus station after flying from San Francisco and busing from Portland to Madras.  The experience of being there all those years ago and being so deeply entrenched in that experiment has been a highlight in my life.  For many years, there has been singular event…a hallmark… where everything was somehow compared to those moments on that Muddy Ranch with Bhagwan and "his people"…as the years have passed there are now more beacons on the horizon line of my life…However, I am forever grateful to have been part of that experiment and at the same time I have moved on.  So…. today I am reminded of my arrival in the dusty Ranch yard and the excitement of seeing so many old friends.  I am reminded of our unbridled enthusiasm and our love for Bhagwan and our innocence….our devotion…and there is a bittersweet tug in my heart…not a sense of longing…but a sense of remembrance that is imbedded deep in a root governed by Silence and Love and a bit of Sorrow. So….Gracias for this Life…..I felt I needed to mark this day…..

…..home from a short stint in Mexico City with Richard.  We took our friends Perry and Doug down here to see them off for their return to California….so it is back to work for Anado.  It was busy while they were here…but I spent a lot of time away from the studio…so I need to get to work.  Why do I work?  That is a tough question because there are many reasons that I could give…but ultimately:  there is no answer.  If I look beyond the day to day…I see a spiraling…a winding…a return to a familiar place…but still unknown…I once did a piece titled…Return to the Source…I copped the title from a Bhagwan book.  When I was in India I worked in the Ashram where all of Bhagwan's books were stored…I sat in a basement (they called it a go-down) and looked for imperfections in the books……my first book that I perused was called "Return to the Source"…so I guess this work enables me to attempt to Return to the Source…Return to the Unknowable…and all the flutterings of sales and tours and galleries and art gossip really means nothing other than the skin shedding from a serpent like quality that winds its way deep into something undefined…but familiar…..

 

……..it has been awhile since I checked into this blog area……it has been a busy time…things have been quite successful at the Chapel of Jimmy Ray…we were in Mexico City….then house guests arrived (Perry and Doug) and it has been full tilt with dinners and excursions and studio and Wheels our Beloved Dog Queen has a cancer scare and Bill Weber was down from SF and we showed his film, We Were Here at the Biblioteca and we are going back to Mexico City on Tuesday with Doug, Perry and Carol Wheeler and I have to really get moving in the studio/gallery/home front when I return with Richard and Semana Santa is coming up and Spring is in full blown flower and seeds to plant and beads to string and tiles and mosaics and dots and that kind of stuff…..and this……and that….seeing…being……listening….. and more of this…

……and that which grows…….yes:  This is Life!  I came home this afternoon after making some good business with my art and when I got here:  the mantle had separated from the wall in our upstairs bedroom…..and well…I do not do well in crisis…luckily Carlos and his brother are here to fix it because I have a big tour coming out tomorrow…so some cosmetic surgery is in order…huge cracks will need to be mended….plus things need to be re-arranged in the Gallery before 10am tomorrow…….this is the hand that I have been dealt….In this photo…I am pointing to what happened……Such is Life…..

……I was born in Oklahoma where the wind goes whipping down the plain…but I felt there was nothing there that smelled so sweet, other than the wind of opportunity that blew from West to East: the opportunity of movement pointing to get the hell away.  I always felt that there had been some kharmic mistake and that I was really from Huntington Beach…but alas…I was Sooner born and Sooner bred…but I knew I would not be Sooner dead.  There was something really creepy about the place…embarrassment hung in the air…to this day, I believe it was all the bad press that Okies got when fleeing the Dust Bowl.  But quite frankly, the Dust Bowl of the Mind has never vacated Oklahoma.  More to the point…it is the vacancy in the minds of many people who inhabit that State…that forced my escape…I was out of there at 19 and have probably been back maybe a dozen times over the years…which brings me to R. Santorum…the Jerk- off of all Jerk-offs…the main enchilada of the 17th Century plate of bile that this man inhabits…and tonight I learned that he won the Republican Vote in Oklahoma…forcing me to write this blog entry….I shake my head…I shake my head…and I bow down to that child in me that knew he had to go elsewhere…and that….I have done…I can observe from time to time from a far off vantage point…I shake my head…..I shake my head……The Dust Bowl of the Mind…….

……..that is my only choice.  And like Manchas who is seen here drinking from the fountain at the Chapel….I need to refresh myself.  SInce the Opening we have had a number of visitors.  So my time is spent in the studio and the Gallery…I need to find a way to get this more organized and grown-up/real life…people are interested in seeing what we have done and I really enjoy that fact…and……I also need to work.  I have a busy week ahead of me…..work…gallery…..clients…..a Museum tour from a reputable collection in Washington D.C…….so breathing….exhale…..inhale….do my chores…chop the wood (not really)……..um uh like carry…..no drink water…..embrace "what is"… 'cuz, darlin' friends……..that is all there is….I am fortunate to follow the Groove……