Above is the new painting. Poor photograph of it, but it gives an idea of the colors, which are like shown above. Attempting to avoid glare I went with too little light and that was not a solution. It has some fairly subtle color differences in the background that are completely left out of the photo, though the subtleties in the colors in head and hand and words made it through ok. I tend to see the head as something vague like a memory, even a symbol of memory, given that we know others in our memories. Someone dead or someone living though not present, both live in the memory. The head is rendered by the artist. The hand is the artist's hand, a print taken directly from the hand 3 times. The head recedes visually, while the hand comes forward visually, like with an outstretched arm between them, the hand saying STOP: Thought Xing. The head in perhaps meditation is thinking. The Old Abbot. He's considering other and self, which, when you get down to it, is every relationship, and ultimately the entire world we live in.
Meher Baba gave me a good one when he said others are God, self is not God. Self is ego. That one stays in the back of my mind floating among other enigmas that I don't quite know what to make of. It felt like I got it automatically the first time I came across it, but when it comes to saying what I got, I'm stumped. Self as ego goes for all the others too, but seen through the self (ego) the others are God. It takes me to when Jesus said, talking to us (others), "ye are gods." His ego was gone, so I take it he spoke not from self, but from other. That's another one like love your neighbor, 2,000 years have passed and we still don't get it. Does that make us something like a coin, a god on one side and ego on the other? Two sides of the same consciousness? Some religions like to call the ego the devil, which I'm ok with when it comes to interpreting what they mean by the devil. Only problem is, people who like to see things in terms of the devil tend to identify others as the devil, when it's self that is the devil. There's where things get all mixed up and Jimmy Swaggart plays sniff without scratching.
I prefer not to put things in terms of the devil and evil. I see too much of people calling themselves Christian, who get fixated on Satan and the Devil and Damnation and agony forever, to the point it becomes the subject of their focus. Entertainers like Ozzy Osborne use the imagery of hell as their projection, and what I see they're about is ego run riot. Like the old feller said, Same differ'nce. Charles Manson, who liked the Satan imagery and lives in prison for being evil and committing evil acts against society, I tend to see an Xtreme ego-maniac without any regard for others (God). Totally involved in self (ego). I won't say anything about the spirit world where there are indeed the dark, evil, hideous spirits, as well as the spirits of light. We're veiled from that world only a shaman has access to, the reason a shaman must be brave as a warrior. In my everyday life, I'd rather look at the difference as self-centered and other-centered. Self-centered behavior takes us to the inner dark, whereas other-centered behavior takes us to the inner light.
The news about Rupert Murdoch is hilarious every day. It's become a serial comedy. Tune in to the news for more laughs. Not only has he learned from Ronald Reagan to keep on pushing for police state and never let up, he's learned from Reagan how to get away with lying under oath, "I don't remember." Visiting my mother a few years ago, I picked up a Reader's Digest I'd not seen in so many years I almost forgot it, flipped through it, looked at the ads and pictures, read titles of articles, started reading one and thought it awfully much a right wing propaganda. Stopped reading it and picked another article. Same thing. I looked in the front and saw Rupert Murdoch owned Readers Digest. I put it down.
He also bought the Village Voice in New York, one of the last little voices of free press in America, to shut it up. For many, many years I've waited, hoping for the day Murdoch would overstep his bounds shutting down free press and replacing it with police state press. Rupert Murdoch is a serious enemy of democracy. Every once in awhile amidst the world news pops up good news. The press about Murdoch now is good news every day. Though he won't suffer any more than inconvenience for the mess he's trying to make of our world, I'm glad to see him at least get flea bit on the ankle. I say glad, because it resembles justice slightly. So many of those people get away with what they do to the rest of us, justice appears much of the time to be on hold for the rich. A poor kid in this county who stole a used tv from a charity for the poor got 2 years in prison, and not tennis camp prison. Going by that system of justice, Murdoch needs his neck put to the chopping block, sent on to his next life as a gypsy girl's baby in Tirana, Albania, living in a train station toilet. Karma rules. Only problem with that solution -- it's a little too messianic. May you be born in a manger! I have to remind myself: look out what you wish for.
I don't look for anything much to come of the present legal ordeals old Murdoch is going through, but inconvenience for the old boy who'd rather be at the club with the other old boys talking about it over drinks. His son is the equal rogue who needs censuring as well. Legal justice seldom touches the mega-rich, meaning I don't expect anything of a legal nature to come of it besides bluster and other people's heads rolling. He's already done so much damage, maybe exposing him at least might keep him from doing more. Maybe this court experience will satisfy his appetite for more.
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