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"Call and Response: John Robert Schulz"

2012-01-29T20:04:00.001-08:00

"We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
T. S. Eliot

The Call: I’m working on a series called "Call and Response". It’s about dialogue. I would appreciate it if you would participate. Just send 2-4 pieces of evidence. It could be images of your work, work you like, things you find interesting.

The Response:

From: jrs219@gmail.com
Subject: Evidence
Date: December 25, 2011 3:25:15 PM EST
To: tomschulzartist@gmail.com

Detail from The Book of Kells

#1. Interlacing / Intertwining: The Book of Kells and Wildstyle Graffiti

Lately, I've thought quite a bit about the interlacing of elements found in early medieval illuminated manuscripts such as The Book of Kells and how those images may have influenced graffiti artists in the creation of Wildstyle graffiti pieces. I've enjoyed experimenting with similar methods of intertwining on occasion and will continue this pursuit because I am absolutely fascinated by the history and the process.

An example of Wildstyle graffiti by Yurika of Bogotá, Colombia

A painting of mine from 2007

This link will take you J.R.'s website. Sparkly good fun!

#2. Subtractive Synthesis, Video Feedback Loops, Videodrome and Marshall McLuhan. I have enjoyed learning subtractive synthesis over the past few years and it has been extremely rewarding to me. I love the immediacy of hitting a key and hearing a sound as well as the idea of sculpting sound from a basic tone, much like a sculptor starts with a block of wood or marble. I have also enjoyed experimenting with video feedback loops (with a cheap movie camera pointed towards an old analog set) and seeing waves of color and shapes cascade forward as I adjust settings on a video enhancer. This particular interest was rekindled recently after re-watching the David Cronenberg film Videodrome. I think there are some very interesting ideas (though not for the squeamish) there concerning technology and how it can change us both psychologically and physically. I also find it interesting that the director modeled the character Brian O'Blivion after Marshall McCluhan who championed the idea that human inventions were extensions of the human body, like the gun being an extension of the human hand, the wheel (or car) being an extension of the foot, and so on. I feel that as our devices become increasingly focused on the self, a closed loop is formed much like a video feedback loop. An extension of the self presenting the self to the self, folding in on itself...

Here is a video feedback loop which I have framed within a painting of a fossilized Curtis Mathes television set. I composed the music on an Alesis Ion synthesizer:

And here is a clip from the film Videodrome (1983), David Cronenberg.

tomschulzartist responds: somehow or another I've become a kefir guy. Which is no real surprise, seeing as I started out in my hippied youth as a yogurt guy (having stolen a copy of Abbie Hoffmans, "Steal This Book").

I've got these starter grains that look like cauliflower and when I add milk and let it sit around, it ferments and creates a symbiotic matrix of sugar and lipids and stuff. The resulting cultured beverage is chock-a-block full of pro biotic organisms creating a network of interacting community (antioxidants began to have such negative connotations for me).

And that is what I find so fascinating in the evidence provided to this humble blogger: these pieces are of a whole. They (together) create a symbiotic matrix of information. McCluhan said that, "Art at its most significant is a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it."

What J. R. Schulz posits in this response is that we as a people are being acculturated by the very specific nature of our inventions. So as ancient nomadic shepherds of the Caucasus Mountains discovered that milk carried in goat skin containers fermented into an effervescent drink, then Schulz connects the dots and locates a soured starter seed of intertwining threads of interest and disinterest. And this seed feeds upon itself and grows. Our efficient and considered utilization of this potential sustenance becomes the mainstay of art. And culture.
Strain and refrigerate.

When the Ten Thousand things are viewed in their oneness, we return to the Origin and remain where we have always been.
Sen T'sen

While comprehending both the conveniences and pitfalls of a Cause and Effect existence, here at empathinc. we prefer to live in a Call and Response Universe. This series is an exploration of that space.

Thanks J. R., for Responding to the Call. Tom

Above: "Gordian Knot"©, mixed water media on paper, Tom Schulz, 2008.
From the "Interfaith Prayer Painting" Series

"Call and Response: John Bambach"

2012-01-10T10:40:00.000-08:00

“Maybe we try too hard to be remembered, waking to the glowing yellow disc in ignorance, swearing that today will be the day, today we will make something of our lives. What if we are so busy searching for worth that we miss the sapphire sky and cackling blackbird. What else is missing?
Maybe our steps are too straight and our paths
too narrow and not overlapping.
Maybe when they overlap someone in another country
lights a candle, a couple resolves their argument,
a young man puts down his silver gun and walks away.”
Naomi Shihab Nye
Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25

The Call:

Hi John,
Hope all is well.
I’m working on a series called Call and Response. It’s about dialogue. I would appreciate it if you would participate. Just send 2-4 pieces of evidence. It could be images of your work, work you like, things you find interesting.

The Response:

Tom,
These are attached in better resolution. Notations follow. Tell Sheila hello for me. – John

©John Bambach

Close family friend, Carolyn, with Jesse just prior to her orthodox Jewish wedding in 2003.
It was a photo shot with my last roll of film, just prior to my current digital lifestyle.

©John Bambach

Self-portrait.

John Bambach has taught and worked with photography since 1969 and was a founding member of the Light Factory in 1972. His career in education and multimedia technology spans 40 years, in both higher education and public television. His current work is most often done for Myers Park Baptist Church and the Cornwell Center where he works in visual media, technology and educational programming.

tomschulzartist responds: it took me a while. It took me a while to discern what this particular packet of information might mean. Might mean to John. Might mean to me. On one hand it seemed so scant - delivered quickly - almost on demand. On the other hand, the expediency and austerity had a certain urgency about it. Like it was there all the time waiting to spring across the ether, aching to be seen. But then, who's to say what is insight and what is unfettered imagination? That distinction is a hedgerow of leafless trees.

An awareness slowly made it's way into my conscious thinking like a methane bubble drifting to the surface of a silt pond: I had been delivered an autobiography. Succinct but layered. Discreet, but complete. A span of adulthood covering forty years of work and involvement. Chapters of personality shared in content and detail. Methods and materials and circumstances as adequate in precise description as dialogue and family albums. Lovely, concise. Funny and elegant.

I wonder to myself if I could carve my story to the bone like that? Perhaps you may wonder the same. I'm prone to layering. If one image will do, why not overlay a galaxy of images? But why not dial it back? Naturally, I can think of a million reasons. And irony is so 1990.

So maybe. Just maybe. Maybe, in 2012, elegant will be my new black.

“I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process – an integral function of the universe.”
R. Buckminster Fuller

While comprehending both the conveniences and pitfalls of a Cause and Effect existence, here at empathinc. we prefer to live in a Call and Response Universe. This series is an exploration of that space.

Thanks John, for Responding to the Call.
Sheila says hello. Tom

Above: "Aneurysm", watercolor, gesso, enamel on paper, Tom Schulz, 2004.
From the "My Nature" Series

"Call and Response: Billy Schulz / Stille Nacht"

2011-12-22T13:08:00.001-08:00

"Grace means more than gifts.
In grace something is transcended, once and for all overcome.
Grace happens in spite of something; it happens
in spite of separateness and alienation."
Yrjo Kallinen

Billy and I have always cracked each other up.
That's just good livin'.

Some years ago, I lived right behind my brother, Billy. I had torn down a raggedy log barn and constructed a tidy little passive solar house on the resulting plateau. Billy lived within spitting distance (seriously, I tried) in his own single-wide trailer. Espaliered Pyracantha spilled luxuriously along the facade of tawny metal siding. We thought of it as Hyannisport South.
Come Christmas, Billy and I would trek over the Balsams to Asheville for our annual Holiday shopping spree. No list required: for Bill always knew exactly what he wanted to give. The Mall our destination of choice for the purchasing, whilst el almuerzo de la comida Mexicana remained our customary repast.
Good times.

Everything about this photograph is priceless,
including both the gazes and the furnishings.

One year, we were pushing the deadline - shopping on Christmas Eve. The mall was extremely crowded with last-minute shoppers hustling here and bustling there. Billy had it in his head that he needed a very specific book for his beloved niece, Carrie. It took some hunting. My every alternative suggestion fell on deaf ears. Finally, we located the book. He was so pleased and excited, crowing, "Carrie are love this!"
And we turned.
And we saw the line. It stretched away beyond cooking, circled around self-help, and yawned beyond mystery and into science fiction. I checked my watch, picked up my heart from the floor and we lumbered into the queue.

"Check"
William R. Schulz

After an interminable exchange of shuffle and stop, we made it to the checkout register. Tensions were rising. I'm not overly perceptive in certain social situations, but I'm sure I detected some jostling.
Now, Billy likes to write a check in payment for his purchases. It is a ritual. A way of belonging, and of being an adult (maybe you can relate to this). The clerk rang up the book and announced, "That will be fourteen dollars and eighty three cents." Billy looked assured and pulled out his check book. He stretched out his arms, cleared his throat, and with a flourish, put pen to paper.
He paused and looked at me with questioning eyes. See, Billy doesn't spell so good.
The crowd in line behind us sensed a potential delay and I started feeling like chum tossed off the side of a shark boat.

"Each Day a New Day"© video by tomschulzartist

Billy cut to the chase and asked me to, "Help me with this". Sweating, I asked if I couldn't just write the check. "No", he said. "I do it myself." OK cool Billy, but the dingoes what ate my baby is nipping at my heels, if you catch my drift. So I jumped in, "Four. Teen...." "May minute, Tom", said Billy. "Thas too fast."
I stopped. The buzzing in my head was silenced. The pressure of the consuming crowd diminished. The demands of the schedule. The absolute critical adherence to a prescribed self image that (in the very moment) felt contrived. All of that melted away. Wonderful ghee. I took a breath. I spanned a breadth. I spelled.
F. (got it).
O. (got it).
U. (got it).
R. (got it). And as I spelled oh so deliberately and consciously, an amazing thing happened. The tension relaxed. Billy felt more comfortable. Folks began to whisper and point. A miracle was being recognized.
Smiles were shared.
And the book was paid for in full.
We wended our way home, my brother and I. Content and happy and looking forward to how our gifts might be received.
And so I ask you:
What line are you in, Pilgrim?
How receptive are you to the miracles in check?
Wait with me. Slow down with me.
If only for a spell.

"Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake."
Victor Hugo

Night, night Billy. Sleep tight. I'll see you in the morning light. We'll look beneath the vinyl tree and see what Santa has brought to thee (as miraculously, you near your fifty sixth year). G'night Victor Hugo. We have a hunch you'll be blazing across the cosmos, ringing a quantum bell. Our best to Sylvia Plath. Night night, Carrie. Wear tulle and leotards (more often)! Night night, Willoree. You are a Canadian Plains Princess and (I) a Trapper and Trader. That seems fair. G'night Phoebe: darkness defines the light. Dream on, Isaac - Merry Christmas across each type of zone. See you in the morning, dear Sheila. Chase your rabbits and know that your vision is most useful in the New Land. Thanks Ma, that's the best gift ever. Olive, if you can't paws - bark. Hey, Walker - if not now, when? Sweet dreams, Blaine - after twenty some hours of listening, I get it. Thanks for showing your best face, Emmanual Levinas. And by the way Mary, sprightly is a word.
No one's positive work is in vain. Such is the marvelous nature of the Universe.
With love. In love. Through love and around love. Night night to you all.
Tomschulz

EXTRA : COMPELLING BONUS MATERIAL

Ach, Ja

Dear Grandmother
Whom I did not know,

ach, ja

I think of you at Christmas
When I use your recipes.
When I bake your stollen
I feel the sticky rightness of it.
When I beat egg whites for kisses
I wait for a clear day, knowing.
When I roll your butter cookies
I see the cutting board’s grain beneath them

so thin

Even my father, whose memory
of yours was perfection,

might approve.

All I know of your demise is that each night,
After you cooked and wearied yourself in service,
Your hands rested on your aproned lap,
You sighed

ach, ja

And you would fall asleep in your chair.
Your belly grew like a baby was in there.

aber, nein

It was a tumor. My great uncle opened you up,
You were full of pearls, and he closed you again, crying.

ach, ja

Now I’ve been opened and closed.
My hands are your hands.
Merry Christmas, Grandmother.

stille nacht.

—Mary S. de Wit
© 2011

While comprehending both the conveniences and pitfalls of a Cause and Effect existence, here at Empathinc. we prefer to live in a Call and Response Universe. This series is an exploration of that space.

Happy Hanukwanzmas from all of us at empathinc.

"Call and Response: Anonymous"

2011-12-04T14:53:00.001-08:00

“There are worlds beyond worlds and times beyond times,
all of them true, all of them real, and all of them (as children know) penetrating each other.”

Pamela Lyndon Travers

THE CALL: I have a 'Call and Response" blog series going on. Would you be willing to participate? If you could somehow flesh out that how art inspired/inspires you - writing, examples, giving out for Thanksgiving, parenting - whatever. That would be great.

THE RESPONSE from Anonymous:

The summer of 2008, I had just quit my job at Lehman Brothers. I sat behind my computer screen with my jaw dropped as I watched Isaac do a live painting on YouTube. I had not seen this kid (now a man) in nearly 20 years but had always wondered where he had gone when we started high school. I watched another video and another one. It made me so happy to see him in his element, painting away, all the way in Japan. It was like seeing a big, gorgeous bird flying over the ocean. Like it didn’t have a care in the world and was just doing what God made him to do. I didn’t know where life had taken him after age 14, but I knew where he came from and was very proud of his accomplishments.

"I LOVE ROCK N ROLL"
Uploaded by disisisaac on Jun 6, 2008

There were a lot of reasons why I chose a legal education after dropping out of an arts conservatory. I had wanted to be a dramaturge and went to the North Carolina School of the Arts in high school and then to Purchase College for a year – both are highly respected institutions. My father’s extreme fear of poverty was somehow in my DNA. Then, there was the very real fear of poverty as well. We couldn’t (or wouldn’t) afford art school. I got caught stealing from the school cafeteria one day when I was really hungry and had no money.

At my house, art was something that small kids did. I stopped drawing when I was perhaps 10 years old. My sister’s dance major in college was “a lot of prancing around that would never pay the bills “ She switched to a science major and joined ROTC instead. There was a lot of screaming and crying about this issue, a lot of threats to pull funding from this dream or that dream – very real threats to kick kids out if they did not pursue a “real education” such as “business or engineering” that would put food on the table. Getting kicked out of the house was the physical consequence for following creative goals. But the shaming that a creative type would endure at our house is something I am still coming to terms with.

"ISAAC AND JUNKO"
Uploaded by disisisaac on Jul 5, 2008

Justifying my father’s position, he had been raised in a two-room house by an alcoholic abusive father with a third grade education. His dad was a hog auctioneer. He went to work in stockyards with his father when he was five. He went hungry a lot. Education and the ability to make money were important to him in ways that I will never understand. I’m grateful to my father for providing a life when I was a child where we did not do without things and were even sheltered from knowing the monetary cost of our standard of living. I think it’s important to be thankful for what’s good about your parents as you acknowledge the things about them that anger you. I think he really was trying to protect us by helping us to assassinate our little creative selves as we matured into adults.

"dream"

Uploaded by disisisaac on Mar 11, 2009

I went to law school because my father didn’t think I could finish anything “worthwhile.” I made a high salary for a few years. I know a hell of a lot about taxation of high net worth individuals and got to meet some of America’s most successful and talented entrepreneurs. But sitting on the edge of a trading floor, I used to imagine my boss as a gazelle being chased by tigers. (By the way, he totally deserved it.) To get through the day, I had elaborate fantasies about many of my co-workers as jungle animals. I was miserable and figured that no one else on the floor had strange daydreams like this to make it through the day. My creative self was pretty much DOA and this was its last ditch cry for help!

"STRIPE PROJECT"

Uploaded by disisisaac on Feb 2, 2008

So I quit. And when I got a little time on my hands, I saw Isaac painting, as naturally as breathing, on YouTube. And I had time to connect with all my friends from my previous life in arts school. And many of them were making a living and working as artists. How was it that all of these successful creative people felt they had the right to live their dreams? The right to paint all day, to design clothing, to write plays, and just to walk out of the house and say, “I am an artist.” It all seemed so brave to me. Didn’t their dads tell them to major in accounting, too? They must all be trust fund babies. Well, as it turns out, none of them were trust fund babies. What all of these friends had in common were parents who told them – or even better, showed them – that their creative dreams are God’s gift. I don’t know the dialogues that went on in these households, but I try to write them in my head so that I have a script for parenting my own child to realize his dreams, whatever they may be. Whatever the manifestation of them – you are the designer. You need to listen to that little voice and then go, go, go.

"Albatross, Tasmania"
Uploaded by jeffdjtube on Mar 1, 2007

Isaac’s dad, it turns out, is an artist. I am guessing the script at their house involved Dad painting stuff, maybe drawing and sculpting as well. Who knows – I wasn’t there. And I know that no parent-child relationship is perfect, but I envy the love and respect for life paths that I believe exists between the two of them. You can teach your kids to survive, or you can teach them how to live.

Willoree Ford. Third generation of artists working in the Spidey-Hole Studio.
In the background: part of the "Novena for Sendai" series (in process).

Oh, and you can also re-parent yourself as an adult. The bravest thing I did this year was to walk into a beginner’s art class and not run out the back door. And less scary, I allowed myself the luxury of beginning an art collection. I am sure that my parents would disapprove, which is a great indicator that it’s a fantastic idea. So self-indulgent, I just love it.

TOMSCHULZARTIST RESPONDS: Well gosh, Anonymous. You bring so much stuff to the conversation! Cultural stuff. Generational stuff. Happiness, pride, drama, fear, art, threats, shame, gratitude, misery, connections, invention and love.

So, let me share a story with you. You shared with me. It only seems right. That's at the core of what Empathinc. is about - fair exchange.

One day. Years ago ( I was the same age then as Isaac is now). I told Isaac, "Help me build a wood shed, you need to learn those skills." He replied, "Teach me to paint. That's what I need to know." Well, I don't mind telling you that I was in a tough place at the time, Anonymous. I didn't understand then that there is a perfection in the process of growing. I thought I was stuck. So I looked at this kid, and I thought, "What did he know? Was he just being lazy? My ability to design and build was paying the bills, for god's sake!"

But I knew he was right. I did need to teach him to paint. To let myself paint, and to know the complexities of what it meant to paint: to know that painting included concrete formalizing, abstract actualizing and and and - whole space.
Fathers.
Pass the beer nuts.

While comprehending both the conveniences and pitfalls of a Cause and Effect existence, here at empathinc. we prefer to live in a Call and Response Universe. This series is an exploration of that space.

Thank you Anonymous, for Responding to the Call.
"You can teach your kids to survive, or you can teach them how to live."
And you can show them the countless paths to freedom. Their freedom.
Good luck with that. Tom.

"Call and Response: Stevin Wilson"

2011-11-28T13:50:00.001-08:00

In another moment down went Alice after it,
never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

THE CALL: send 2-4 pieces of evidence.
It could be images of your work, work you like,
things you find interesting.

STEVIN WILSON'S RESPONSE:

hey tom. not sure of "format" correctness, but wrote a little whimsical chunk about my choices: __________________________________________________ this morning, while still separating my blurred psyche from last night's dreamland, i began sipping my coffee and contemplating this task. while a fairly basic request on the face, when you begin rummaging through your heart and fond memories, complexities may arise. i suppose, in part, that is why these 4 "things" sprung to mind. there's something close to magical about the ability to capture those things that go on in all of our heads, but rarely manifest in waking life, whether its a simple feeling, a connecting set of images or a more enveloping overall experience. whether its a longing fantasy or a recurring, disturbing nightmare. these things seem to somehow always insist on being just out of reach; seen but not touched. and so these are a few people i feel, throughout my life, have always been able to not only grab hold, but to then wrangle, arrange and regurgitate that which most feel ever eluded by. connect at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ShamGrammar/87454806804
high-brow lo-fi musician, chickenscratch wordsmith, and proud empathinc-er. _________________________________________________
lemme know that this all makes sense, links correctly, etc. and thanks again for the invitation to interact. i always enjoy contributing, and self is the easiest and most challenging subject, one in the same.

Editor's note: highlighted, underlined phrases take you to other links,
and interesting info!

"David & Goliath"© 2009 MEAR ONE
Mear One

Tom Waits (more specifically "Frank's Wild Years")

"The Work of Director Michel Gondry - Trailer"
Michel Gondry

"The Cocktail Party"
Max Dalton

Tomschulzartist responds: So, yeah maybe it's about bein' cool. Like Pythagoras was cool, cause he like, worked out the angles, and Hildegard of Bingen was cool cause she worked out all the angels. Copernicus was cool. Galileo paid attention. And that's cool. Like as in what are the relationships of the planets? How do you exist in a system? Family. Friends. Networks.
Shoot.
So, you do the ramificating, and me? I'm interpolating.
Conjugating, verbalizing - moving words is tantalizing. Break a mirror and shards you're seein'. But live those shards, and friend you're bein', a broken life that's full of strife, and Davey, "Who's that freein'?" Sling your stone at the confluence of power and dude, then it ain't the hour - for that shit be comin' down. (musical interlude, fade to black)

While comprehending both the conveniences and pitfalls of a Cause and Effect existence, here at empathinc. we prefer to live in a Call and Response Universe. This series is an exploration of that space.

Thank you Stevin, for Responding to the Call.
The "format" correctness patrol will send a citation. Peace, Tom.

SPECIAL BONUS ROUND! IF YOU KNOW TWENTY FIVE PEOPLE,
YOU CAN MAKE MONEY WATCHING THIS VIDEO AT HOME!

"Call and Response: Artist Carrie Schulz."

2011-11-17T11:35:00.000-08:00

Your own ideas are sane and rational,
but this is my unconscious
you’re trying to use, not my rational mind. . . .
You’re handling something outside of reason.
You’re trying to reach progressive, humanitarian goals with
a tool that isn’t suited for the job.
Ursula K. LeQuin, The Lathe of Heaven, 1971

THE CALL: send 2-4 pieces of evidence.
It could be images of your work, work you like,
things you find interesting.

CARRIE SCHULZ' RESPONSE:

"Happy Tuesday #1"

I wrote this, but where to cash?
(Editor's note: we will gladly endorse this.)

"Happy Tuesday 2"

Happy ____day! Presto. Sometimes I see wonder in the daily.
Other times I just wonder.

"Happy part C"

Rushing is the new zen.
Really, I'd stay and chat but I'm off to learn how to relax.

"No Title"

Pink is the new black. Or, what am I looking for?

"On Space and Being":
A brief interview with Carrie Schulz, by Tomschulzartist:

TSA: Edditington first 'proved' the theory of relativity by viewing a total solar eclipse and taking pictures. It was the actual 'blocking' that provided the insight. Can you comment on the convoluted paths of discovery?
CRS: la la la precedent research la la la baron von haussmann chops up medieval paris la la la cholera outbreaks la la la olfactory revolution la la la people start closing the door to the bathroom la la la
TSA: Brilliant!
CRS: Brilliance is elusive right now. Perhaps just around the corner or hiding under my desk?
TSA: So brilliance is sometimes elusive? And yet, it is always just around the corner. Or better still, is being bent gravitationally so that you must look perhaps peripherally? How do you see this as applicable in the "big picture".
CRS: Pack the truck. Composition. Present a project. Composition. Write a paper / composition. Right. Exit strategy. Evaluate all pieces. Visualize it all fitting. Edit. Load shift load.
TWA: Then, we don't see the writing on the wall cause we expect another language, so that is what we see? Then how do we translate that language and what would our coping strategies be?
CRS: There is this part of me that just wants to draw, but it is cool because the questions are about interstitial spaces and times, so i think I can delve into how we undermine our current urbanity to find new ways of being dense.
TSA: How do you know if the endeavor is worthwhile when you are bucking up against prevailing models? Is it change to polish up the apple and call it a pear?
CRS: Isn't that what we are attempting to do? Allow thoughts and feelings to come forward into fruition without even knowing what that means or how to do it?
Every seed in every apple has the potential to make a new type of apple (I learned that at the farm market) still related to the model, but new, an offshoot, a trajectory, a wave or ripple moving embarking, crossing paths.
TWA: It is my observation that you live into change as much as any one I know. It isn't work ethic so much as desire. And the drive to actualize that desire into a reality. It's sculpture on the most realistic level.
CRS: I need to build a quiet zone around myself so I can get really loud!
TWS:We tend to forget that the space between the points of loci are chock a block full of information and that we are not passing through it all, unscathed. Is that the way we troll for knowledge?
CRS: I feel so completely different and yet so much more some semblance of self I always was. Known and unknown all at once, and I think if I can handle it staying in flux, I can be informed and shifting all at once. If Corbusier is Modernism, and Venturi is Postmodernism (have you read Complexity and Contradiction?) - where is the text for our expanding moment? Hope all is well in the abstractly concrete world.
TWA: Thanks, Carrie.

Carrie Schulz, currently a designer at LTL Architects, has been known to jump off boulders into the icy mountain waters, regardless of their depths.

While comprehending both the conveniences and pitfalls of a Cause and Effect existence, here at empathinc. we prefer to live in a Call and Response Universe. This series is an exploration of that space.

Thank you Carrie, for Responding to the Call.
By the way, did you know that Leonora Carrington was born on April 6, 1917? Coincidence? Or Continuity?
Hope all is well in your concretely abstract world. Tom.

We may have to learn that the infinite whirl of death and birth, out of which we cannot escape, is of our own creation, of our own seeking.
Lafcadio Hearn, "Out of the East", 1895

"Call and Response: Isaac Schulz."

2011-11-11T08:19:00.000-08:00

To understand what I really am at this moment, I need sincerity and humility, and an unmasked exposure that I do not know. This would mean to refuse nothing, exclude nothing and enter the experience of discovering what I think, what I sense, what I wish,
all at this very moment.”
Jeanne de Salzmann

THE CALL: send 2-4 pieces of evidence.
It could be images of your work, work you like,
things you find interesting.

ISAAC SCHULZ' RESPONSE:

Isaac Schulz 5:08am Nov 6
trying to think of four things i like is hard for me

Tom Schulz 6:21am Nov 6
try four things of interest. Try four things that you don't like. Try four random things. Evidence.

Date: November 8, 2011 7:04:51 PM EST
To: tomschulzartist@gmail.com
Four things of interest have been sent.

This video interested me yesterday.

"I haven’t spent thousands of hours on the streets creating a name
for it to be used as some bullshit 'charity'."
read interview here.

Three: Shibuya Wildcats
follow blog here

Number Four: Me:

Tomschulzartist responds: My Grandmother lived to be just shy of 105. She would be furious at me for this disclosing indiscretion. I used to marvel at all the technological and cultural landmarks that occurred during her lifetime. But that's chump change compared to the speed of change that artist Isaac Schulz lives within and works into.

Currently based in Tokyo, Schulz chews through information like a vacationer at a seafood buffet - a hunter gatherer on aesthetic steroids. I find it intriguing that he can find more things of interest than things he likes. And one wonders if it is interesting yesterday, is it still interesting today? This is not to say that I believe information is disposable for Isaac. It's a Lego, a microchip, a structural component, a layer of paint.

What I see in these 'four things of interest' is a declarative statement regarding the significance of self. A responsible self that recognizes the essential creativity involved in Being.

It's like hearing. Really hearing, when Rilke says that, "...the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

And then that's exactly what you set about doing.

"Call and Response: Jane Hudson."

2011-11-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

“I don’t experience life in a linear fashion, in any kind of continuum.
It’s moment, moment, moment, moment.”
Amy Hempel

THE CALL: send 2-4 pieces of evidence.
It could be images of your work, work you like,
things you find interesting.

JANE HUDSON'S RESPONSE:

Hi Tom...I'm responding to your request for four things of interest for your blog.

Here's the first, which is from Cricket Creek Farm, a local CSA, that is part of a very active locavore movement in these parts. Sustainable farming/eating/economy being at issue.
I'll send other items under separate emails.
Cheers, Jane

Tom...here's one of my pictures of a house in my neighborhood. Clearly this building is from another era, cottage living. Thinking about small in this post-McMansion time. Idea of sepia toning is to evoke the past through an older technological frame while identifying its viability as a present trope.
Cheers, J

This is an image of a re-release of our music from the early '80's which includes all material recorded as Jeff and Jane in that time. Available through Dark Entries Records or on iTunes.

Phenomenal techno-thrill by the brilliant writer of Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age. Just blown away by it! Locate REAMDE here.

Tomschulzartist responds: I first met Jane Hudson fourteen years ago. I was a late-comer to grad school and she was gracious in pointing out to me that it didn't matter if I entered through the back door or the front door. Because there were no doors. She courageously challenged my artist's strategy of obfuscation. Well, evidently not all lessons take root.

I've been ruminating all week on the information that Jane sent. Looking for a connection, for a narrative.

I remembered when I was a kid and went fishing with my old man. Dad thought patience was something that belonged in a hospital, and not on a john boat. When his line got tangled (and his line always got tangled) he would pull and curse and smoke. Eventually he handed the muddled mess off to me. I learned to cajole and coax the ten-pound test like I was the freakin' mono-filament whisperer. That skill set serves me well here at empathinc.

Four things of interest. Then I saw it: the gift in the information was that I was allowed to discover my own connections. I wasn't told what to see. What freedom! Instantly all the shiftings from one time to another time, irretraceable cultural mores and digressions, skittering viabilities and evocative sustainabilities relaxed into nothing less than Ariadne's yarn.

Vernon Howard said that, "If you switch on the light in a dark room, it makes no difference how long it was dark, because the light will still shine. Be teachable. That is the whole secret.”

Fourteen years, and she's still telling me secrets.

On Oct 28, 2011, at 1:59 PM, Jane Hudson wrote:

Hope I didn't overwhelm. Did as you asked, and I await your response. Will you let me know when you do, or should I subscribe?
J

Overwhelm? Are you kidding? That's my brier patch.
I'll let you know, but subscribing is always nice.
T

"Call and Response: Melinda Schwakhofer."

2011-10-27T20:28:00.000-07:00

“One must not always think so much about what one should do,
but rather what one should be. Our works do not ennoble us;
but we must ennoble our works.”
Meister Eckhart

THE CALL: send 2-4 pieces of evidence.
It could be images of your work, work you like, things you find interesting.

MELINDA SCHWAKHOFER'S RESPONSE:

"Persona"

I am an artist who likes to put my personal signature on everything that I do. I may or may not be an artist in the conventional sense of the term, but I have a sense that my identity is, in some respect, my own creation. I am acutely aware that my persona is a construct – something which has been created and can thus be re-created. Some of my current work is about exploring persona via mask making - who do I show to the world and who/what is concealed behind my mask?

"PlayDough"

I make art from a wide range of media encompassing fibre, photographs and video, food. In the creative moment, I hope to bring something beautiful and good into existence. Not afraid to explore the darker side of life, I may endeavour to bring good out of evil, hope from hopelessness, meaning from absurdity, and to save what appeared to be lost; or at least make a darn good loaf of bread.

"Malvhina"

On a recent trip to Malvern, England, I came across a fountain, Malvhina by sculptor Rose Garrard. The design of the female figure, sculpted in stone and bronze, has a triple theme incorporating elements representing the three springs that supply the spout, the three roads that meet here and the three most important periods in Malvern`s history, - the ancient Celtic origins, the coming of Christianity and the growth of the town in Victorian times. Malvern spring water flows from a bronze disc where three circles interlink symbolising the sacred triple of the Celts and the Christian Holy Trinity.
Melinda Schwakhofer
www.inspiraculum.co.uk

Tomschulzartist responds: I first came across Melinda and her work in a circuitous fashion. I was surfing photographs of labyrinths on the web and was taken by a particularly lovely image. Playful shiftings of light and sheen across a delicately mottled pattern. Fascinated, I blew up the image and declared, "Hey, that's one of my labyrinths." I scooted to her blog ('my world' as she phrases it), Inspiraculum. Posted a note, and sure enough, it was the Myers Park Baptist Church labyrinth, completed in 2005. It's a darn good story.

I visit Melinda's world often.

I remain intrigued with Schwakhofer's ability to literally weave a tapestry of made and found objects and observations, and having not seen the evidence of her efforts in actuality have come to view her blog as a specifically coherent work of art. So when she shares with us that she may not "be an artist in the conventional sense of the term", I had the thought, "Well, who among us is?" Convention is ephemeral. Convention is fashionable, or political. Art (especially when removed from the wall and pedestal) is communication. The drive to wind out a conceptual thread and share the great mystery of discovery.

Perusing the evidence of Melinda's response, I'm reminded of a wonderful defining statement from R. Buckminster Fuller (himself a most unconventional artist). Fuller said, “I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process – an integral function of the universe.” ”
Which (of course) is An Other way of saying, "I am acutely aware that my persona is a construct – something which has been created and can thus be re-created."

And that's darned good living.

Thank you Melinda, for Responding to the Call.
That is a darn good-looking loaf of bread. Tom.

Above: "Alexandra", Oil on primed paper, Tom Schulz, 2001.

"Call and Response: Daniel de Wit."

2011-10-21T08:05:00.000-07:00

“Your head’s like mine, like all our heads; big enough to contain every god and devil there ever was. Big enough to hold the weight of oceans and the turning stars. Whole universes fit in there! But what do we choose to keep in this miraculous cabinet? Little broken things, sad trinkets that we play with over and over. The world turns our key and we play the same little tune again and again and we think that tune’s all we are.”
Grant Morrison

Daniel de Wit's Response:

Hey Tom, thanks for the compliment. Anything i've done is cool for you to use, you can make my submission all about sound if you'd like, but I'm trying to get away from being pigeonholed completely into sound. however if you'd like to make everything focused to work in the broader sense, that's great too. All of my stuff with the band is still in the weird prenatal stage, so I can't really send you anything in that respect.

Daniel de Wit is a musician, artist, and designer currently based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a member of the Rock & Roll band Dirt City Magic. He can be contacted by writing dd@danieldewit.com

THE EVIDENCE:

LISTEN:
"Urban Beatscape No.1" by DanieldeWit

"Energy Collision"

:LOOK:

"Intuit Cyborg Tissue Sample"

WATCH:
"Occupy Wall Street October 5th, 2011: Gathering at Foley Square and March to Wall Street"

Tomschulzartist responds: I have recently taken to not
listening to music while I work, ending a decades long practice. It had to do (at first) with a sodden Ipod and the associated elements of both liquidity and funds. But then it became a choice. My head is generally populated by a convocation of conversations, and the music shut the doors to the convention center. In altering that one habit, in flinging the doors open to that inner dialogue, I came to understand Evelyn Underhill when she wrote, “We will not enjoy peace until we enter into the wild strange place of Silence.”

The wild strange place of Silence.

Through my association with Daniel, I have become much more aurally observant. And that has greatly enriched my existence, from taking in a movie to taking in a walk. But I also watch him experiment. Music, sound, performing, drawing, writing. Taking chances. So much focus in contemporary pursuits has been placed on. Well, on being focused. In the world of Art, diversification may actually be a necessity. I look at de Wit's work and I ask myself, "Am I taking chances? Am I still capable of taking the Young Person's risk?" If I can look at another artist's work and get all jazzed about getting back to my work? Then I'm gonna say, "Yeah."

And that's just sound thinking.

Thank you Daniel, for Responding to the Call.
Hey, Tom.

"Call and Response: Fred Levy"

2011-10-02T21:19:00.000-07:00

“The result of the struggle between the thought and the ability to express it, between dream and reality, is seldom more than a compromise or an
approximation. Thus there is little chance that we will succeed in getting through to a large audience, and on the whole
we are quite satisfied if we are understood and appreciated by
a small number of sensitive, receptive people.”
M. C. Escher (1898-1972), On Being a Graphic Artis

Fred Levy's Response:

"Here are 4 photos from my tumblr blog. This blog is a creative outlet of things that I see on my day to day outings. Many of these photos are taken using my iPhone and taking a new look at the things I am passing by. Too often my head is down as I focus on getting from point A to point B. This is an attempt to look at the points in between.
Always happy to collaborate with you.
See ya,
Fred Levy, Photographer
617-458-1095
www.fredlevyart.com
thedogparkbook.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/FredLevyArt

THE EVIDENCE

Iphone ART #106

Iphone ART #102

Iphone ART #096

Iphone ART #106

Tomschulzartist responds: I have worked hard all of my life. Sometimes I have worked hard for other people and sometimes for myself – just because I wanted to. Working hard for your self is not just about being self employed. Although I have been self employed most of my adult life. Maybe that was a deliberate choice. Maybe I just stumbled into that reality. Or maybe I couldn’t get along with (my) perception of authority.
But, that is another discussion altogether.

What I mean by working for myself is all about joy. About choreographing effort. About the process of doing that which I refer to as real work. Real work is not confined to altruistic effort. Real work is not just defined as proper or helpful, though if all goes well, these aspects are a part of real work. Real work is all about crossing the boundaries of the ‘have to’ into the land of the ‘want to’.

I refer to this as transgressing the mundane.

I think that is what Fred Levy does in this series of Iphone images. He is making a conscious effort to recognize that which he might ordinarily hurry by unnoticed. In recording those marvelous moments, Levy sends each of us an invitation: transgress the mundane. Participate fully in the day to day. Expand the moment into its myriad lyrical infinities.

"Summeries #11"

2011-09-23T14:09:00.001-07:00

“It is not that I’m so smart.

But I stay with the questions much longer.”
Albert Einstein

So another season has shifted into another season, and we bid adieu to the "Summeries". Time is a grazing creature. Tonight, as my compatriot and I were cruising our haunts, we saw a group of perhaps seven gathered in the street. It appeared that they were pointing at us. I cautioned you as to the likelihood that they were Flesh Eating Zombies. Autumn brings them out, don't you know. I read somewhere that it has to do with the Puritan Ethic. Approaching, it was clear that this group was more positively animated than the Undead. "You walked right past them!" one Zombie declared. "One what?," I queried (in my nascent comprehension of the situation's significance). "Deer," replied the Zombie (who somehow lost her looming nature, given the street light and proximity). We turned, you and I. We turned and saw a two point buck and the doe that followed. And us one point five miles from downtown (now uptown) and the bank centers and NASCAR museum. And that sighting made us hopeful somehow. That in the midst of executions and demonstrations and Luddite yearnings, and urban sprawl and oiled interdependence and errant values could there wander a deer. And its companion.
Like us. Walking together. Sniffing and pondering.

“Actualized Dreams” #28.

So once again, ladies and germs: the same brick wall, the same scenario, the same set of circumstances. Maybe different colors. Certainly a new cast of characters (though one might argue that its different masks on the same troop of itinerant actors). But it was you that said, "You have to rearrange - you have to penetrate the system - and move beyond a single reality into the realm of possibilities". Sage advice.…..good times.
Key notation: April 20th. Sheila as teacher

“Actualized Dreams” #29.

You wrote a poem, I made a reference. You said, “The sun applied lipstick to the pursed lips of the horizon.” I had a bourbon. It reminded me of my mother. You wrote some lyrics and hummed the tune softly. I made a cryptic remark, but kept it to myself. We travel well together, the two of us. You and I…..good times.
Key Connective Concept:Stockholmes sin/drone

“Actualized Dreams” #30.

You constantly remind me to choose my battles. You ask me things like, "Is this a ditch you are willing to die in?" That always reminds me of the origin of the phrase, 'three on a match' and snipers and stuff, cause things remind me of other things. Like when you said someone was, "growing in grace" and all I heard was "groin in grace" and you said that my mind was like a bowling ball - always in the gutter. I guess it's all about knowing what to overlook. Yeah…..good times.
Key Location: Spiral notebook

All work by Tom Schulz, unless otherwise noted.

Please leave comments as you feel so inclined. Tom can be reached via the World Wide Web. tomschulzartist@gmail.com, tom@empathinc.com.
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"Summeries #10"

2011-09-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

“The question is not what you look at,

but what you see.”
Henry David Thoreau

Delving into personalized maps, sketches and observations has helped me understand that what was once significant to me, often retains
significance. That it would have the exact same level of meaning or value is impossible. I'm not the same person. These aren't the same situations. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about reminiscing, either. Here, it's like this. I'm working on a painting. And I get interrupted. Maybe the dog needs walking. Maybe I have to drive to New Jersey. Whatever. You get my drift. So I come back to that painting, and maybe I've been thinking about what I would do. And I look. And if I'm smart. And if I let myself, then I embrace the me that didn't even exist two hours or fourteen hundred miles prior. And I dialogue with the information before me and paint in the then and there. Sure, I run the risk of failure. But I run the equal risk of running headlong into the unexpected. The glorious unimagined.

“Actualized Dreams” #25.

Alright, alright, I admitted to it: I avoided conflict. Avoided conflict whenever I could. And believe me, I had some pretty legitimate reasons (not that I'll go into that at this late date). But as you pointed out, without conflict how can there be resolution? And then you described an elegant solution. That conflict and resolution were not binaries, but were an essential and indivisible characteristic of an invigorating life.…..good times.

Key term: quantum metaphors

“Actualized Dreams” #26.

Hello. Are you there? Please pick up. Please respond. Please take out a personal ad. Or leave a voice mail. Post a message on a social network. Leave a poem on a real to real and toss it in the trash for my brother to find. After all, we (each of us) are messengers. The UPS man knows my name because it is on the label. Or he knows more than you might think. Which is highly likely…..good times.

Key phrase: (Dan White confronting God)

“Actualized Dreams” #27.

I always figured that one muddled towards the level of one's expectations, but you argued that I was suffering from a low E.M. model. Which of course stopped me dead in my ignorant tracks (and Christ, I tried not to have that look on my face just so as not to give you the satisfaction, but there it was). "Yeah - E.M. Expectation Maximization. Your sequence structures of association are incomplete or weak." Which, of course, was not what I expected.…..good times.

Key: V=infinity

"Summeries #9."

2011-09-09T14:56:00.000-07:00

“The task is, not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought,
about that which everybody sees.”
Erwin Schrödinger

On 6/23 I wrote, "We basically choose our paths in two ways - by action and inaction.
Each is powerful in its own way.

I work only out of the purest of intentions. And I am nothing if not honest. So then, I can admit to this: I wanted to be a famous artist (which might be a lie, as in I probably still do). Not so much to be in the public eye (which is probably a lie, because I seem to place myself in the public eye as often as I possibly can). I just wanted to be so good at something that it would be recognized (which could be a lie because I most likely want approval and acceptance). Funny thing is, I was constantly making choices that seemed to lead into personal and career arenas that were in opposition to that desire to be a famous artist (which is a lie, because everything I have done has led me to be the artist I am today. Which is a lie within a lie because I have only just lately recognized that.). Truth be told, it is a meaning filled existence. Perhaps you know what I'm talking about.

“Actualized Dreams” #22.

You wandered from room to room without any apparent method or direction. I eventually learned not to search out a literal pattern - for that was beyond my grasp. But not beyond your criticism. Though much to my credit (and yet still keeping in mind the number of years it took), I have determined that you were creating an energy matrix. When you called it dropping thought turds, I figured you were just yanking my chain…….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #23.

Inventiveness separated Tarzan from his adoptive cousin, as both drank from the river. I suggested that animal instinct was being suppressed by technology (and heck, that was years ago). You countered with the supposition that what our culture called human inventiveness and what I perceived as being animal instinct were “methods of isness” intersecting at the corners of synthesis and intuition. Man, I bee-lined to those crossroads and sold my soul…..good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #24.

I’m wishing that Ariadne had given me a ball of yarn, or a freakin’ map or something. You told me that I was the kinda guy that would pray for deliverance and just sit there waiting for some golden chariot to pick my ass up. And then if like a little burro stopped by, I’d still be sitting there waiting on that chariot. But you were so wrong. I didn’t just sit there - I stood up and petted that donkey. It was cute…..good times.

All work by Tom Schulz, unless otherwise noted.

Please leave comments as you feel so inclined. Tom can be reached via the World Wide Web. tomschulzartist@gmail.com, tom@empathinc.com. Please join Empathinc. on facebook by clicking here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/empathinc/

"Summeries #8"

2011-09-03T13:37:00.001-07:00

“God has created the world in play.”
Sri Ramakrishna

I have never once considered myself obsessive. Not one single time. I much prefer the term focused. Such subtleties bring an ameliorative boost to my sense of well-being, though I hardly consider them a panacea for all my moods. Perhaps you know what I mean.
Anyway, in my focused state, I have recorded a substantial amount of information. And while the images and language are often the equivalent of an overgrown woodlot, occasionally I spot a truffle amongst the tangle of conceptual briers.
One project was a series called "Brilliant Notebooks©". The idea was that if someone were to arbitrarily pick up one of the notebooks and leaf through it, they might be entranced by the sheer random focus evidenced page after page, and be amazed. "Brilliant!" they would exclaim.
I would encourage you to try this technique. Brilliant!

“Actualized Dreams” #19.

So Dude: get this. I roll my garbage to the curb, and the city picks it up. Don’t matter what kinda garbage it is. City picks it up. I mean you flat out stared me in the face and told me in words that you wern’t never, no never gonna pick up my garbage. You said that was my job. Then the city freakin’ picks it up. Go figure..….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #20.

If the Universe was a series of undulating curtains, and I could only slice the fabric lengthwise, then perhaps I could gain proper perspective. Sine/cosine. A breathe: a heartbeat (this time on loan). Sign/co-sign..….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #21.

Was it Biology class with that Mr. What Was His Name? And you had to have a lab partner and you said, “I’m not working with Joy”. And I thought, “Heck, I’ll work with Joy”. And I’ve partnered with her ever since except when she goes off into the Wilderness. Which happens from time to time. Now, I’m not sure that I’m aging with Grace. And you sure as hell didn’t, unless it was outside the parameters of my understanding, in which case you sure as hell did…….good times.

All work by Tom Schulz, unless otherwise noted.

"Summeries #7"

2011-08-26T15:24:00.000-07:00

"I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

W.B. Yeats (The Wind Among The Reeds )

On 2/9, I wrote, "The only time that I rested was when I was sick or worked myself until I was sick or until I felt fragile, which for me is one and the same."

Now I am not exaggerating when I say that I am magnificently prone to hyperbole. But I did find it interesting in this case that I would associate my own human fragility with illness. Perhaps you may understand that connection. Perhaps you have experienced that connection. See, I have developed a life strategy to deal with this issue. I put so much authentic information out into the world. And it is all very self-revealing, in the sense that I am choosing what aspects of self to reveal. In doing so, I have girded myself in a virtually impenetrable armor. Density of content, layers of meaning, galaxies of images and words. Which of course, takes an incredible amount of work (please refer back to the above citation). Maintenance issues, etc. etc. So girded, I make my way. The "Summeries" Series is evidence of this effort.

“Actualized Dreams” #16.

Lightning struck at the top of the mountain and traveling all the way down towards the house on a string of barbed wire, jumped into the house and burned out the fuse box. Reminded me of the family that was sitting around the living room and spontaneously combusted. At least it was spontaneous. I don’t want to think they planned it. Been there, done that….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #17.

How funny that you would call tonight and ask me about the goat. Candy. Her name was Candy. And I would walk with her and Mona and Sally and Jasmine and Emu along uncharted trails for hours.That that would become part of your story is just like the Maraschino Cherry of my life’s canvas. I don’t care if Big Brother is watching. This is too good not to record….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #18.

And then out of the blue I come across a photograph of you delivered by some syncrocratic angel and it floored me. Literally. I mean, I just wrote that down. I’ll meet you at the lake at the appointed time. I’ll be sporting a Mullet for the occasion. Call me Rude. Evan Rude….good times.

All work by Tom Schulz, unless otherwise noted.

(editors note: yes, we feel total freedom to make up words)

"Summeries #6"

2011-08-19T21:23:00.000-07:00

".......this crumpled mass called material casts a shadow,
and the shadow belongs to Light."

Louis Kahn

When I used to think about time, I would frame it in beginnings and endings. Which opened me up for all sorts of disappointments and sadness and dashed hopes. Because everything was confined. New things were destined to become old things when caught between the bookends of stops and starts, births and deaths. Now I think about what I am calling tumbling durations. It isn't about time like tick-tock today yesterday tomorrow time. And I'm telling you from personal experience that you can lose twenty years in a twinkling with that kind of time relationship. I'm guessing you know what I mean. No, I'm thinking of time as an entity: with a personality. I'm thinking of entities of time wrestling and scrambling all over each other. Coming up to a boil and down to a simmer. Overlapping durations that may not have even moments extricated save to hold them to the light, those moments. Those moments that are frozen as experience and then melted away as memory. Those moments.

“Actualized Dreams” #13.

I was trying to bring up the precise word: duo? dua? due? It wasn’t clear to me until the concept of synchrodental came to mind, and I knew (recalled?) that all three words would in fact, be correct. What was that sketch? Where the distant future and the distant past overlapped in what you might have termed the near future and the near past. That someone else might refer to that as the present seems oddly confining …….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #14.

Tooling down the interstate towards Harmony and Union Grove, like that was gonna happen. You know, like when you got 10 hours under your belt and your destination starts slipping away? Time warp’s got nothing on that kinda situation. That’s when you took to designing the Roar Shock Test, to grade out just how loud the Old Man could actually yell… Yeah….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #15.

I woke up missing you. And yet so very excited about the choices that you were continuing to make. But then, like you always said, “Multiplicity deserves mystery.” The water meandered from the spring head to the inland waterway with the ocean shimmering beyond. I saw it all of a once and thought about forgiveness as a fluid stream of awareness. Forget, hell. You’d call that a stagnant situation….good times.

All work by Tom Schulz, unless otherwise noted.

"Summeries #5"

2011-08-13T16:36:00.000-07:00

“All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”

Oscar Wilde

As I hack my way through the briers and brambles of my exotic and unknown self, what makes an observation worth recording? As I ford the diverging streams of consciousness that may hinder my anticipated rate of progress without actually stopping my progress, then what thought is worth scribbling into an open notebook? What outcropping of insight appropriate to sketch? The mapping of a life is full of such questions. Significance in choices may not be understood until the sites once visited are then again accessed by a new pilgrimage. No point in sending ahead a scout, either. The Canaan that is my promised future is waiting on me to get there. Patiently. Fully aware of the requirements of my journey. And it is waiting for you as well. Friend. Companion. Pilgrim.

“Actualized Dreams” #10.

Encouragement is the work of the human gardener. Such is nourishment to the unfolding sprout - of comfort in awareness. The last time you appeared before me in your nearly exhausted format, we held hands and whispered words that lapped hypnotically upon the shore. You may as well have handed me a paint brush and told me to get busy. I caught your drift…….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #11.

Yeah, so I latched on to the First Law of Thermodynamics to prove the existence of the soul. Made sense - energy can neither be created or destroyed, and I applied that to life energy. Then I found myself at this bar and some dude was getting pimped to the bartender by his co-worker and it put me in mind of when you created the First Law of Egodynamics, cause dude was getting destroyed…….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #12.

Excuse me, but I’m pretty sure I was the one that said that anything that dangerous and with that many unaccountable variables was bound to bite us in the ass. And then you had to point out that our collective insistence in continuing to live out of Newtonian Physics was the real issue at hand.…….good times.

All work by Tom Schulz, unless otherwise noted.

"Summeries" #4.

2011-08-02T08:38:00.000-07:00

“Do not seek illumination unless you seek it as a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond.”
Ramakrishna

Yeah, I've felt that urgency. Felt it all my life (in one way or another). Maybe you know what I'm talking about. But it never turns out that well when I act out of that urgency: reacting in some perceived minuscule moment instead of responding in the expanded moment. Maybe you know about that as well. That's why I started pretending that I had all the time in the world. Time enough to transcend the pressure and constraints that are the shackles of urgency. Sometimes it's a great performance. Sometimes? Not so much.
Long ago, I was competing in a relay race. 440. The longest sprint. I took off like a banshee and heard the shouts of my team mates. "Slow down! Slow down! You'll burn out!" But man, I was flying.
Oh, and I burned out. Burned out big time. But I never lost that feeling. That feeling of flying.

“Actualized Dreams” #7.

I had no freakin’ clue as to what were you thinking when you said that you didn't have to be of this world. You said that you were a cosmic gypsy and I called you out on bullshit. I called you a Communist, you know, because that was like the worst thing I could think of to call you. You said that I would be best served to remain apolitical - that I was too porous for any affiliation. A statement that proved to be accurate, Commie…….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #8.

Even as I first heard of the idea of conscious parallelism it made sense to me. I mean, think about when you first started remembering the future and we stumbled upon that Jane Roberts lady channeling “Seth”, and you said we were just vessels anyway and that if I would just wake up I would understand that it was kinda like peeing on an electric fence. Which of course I had to try…….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #9.

“Have an opinion in all matters, and do your utmost to keep them to yourself”. I have quoted you on many occasions. I never give you credit, of course. Who would know any differently? You thought it would be a good idea to have a stenographer follow you around. Primarily to write down all the stupid things I say…….good times.

All work by Tom Schulz, unless otherwise noted.

"Summeries #3."

2011-07-29T19:47:00.000-07:00

TURN THE PAGE, PICK UP ANOTHER NOTEBOOK

“…This web of time—the strands of which approach one another, bifurcate, intersect or ignore each other through the centuries—embraces every possibility. We do not exist in most of them. In some you exist and not I, while in others I do, and you do not, and yet in others both of us exist. In this one, in which chance has favored me, you have come to my gate. In another, you, crossing the garden, have found me dead. In yet another, I say these very same words but am in error, a phantom…Time is forever dividing itself toward innumerable futures…”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899 - 1986) Garden of Forking Paths, Ficciones.

Yeah, picture this: a father and son in a skanky hotel in bumfuck upstate New York. And the son says, he says,"I am the creator of this reality and you are a character that I have created to serve my needs (or something like that)." And you're all like, "What the fuck? I raised you and made all these concessions and recessions and what not, and you deny my existence?" And he's all like, "That's the reality you are creating." And in this picture, you are the father. And you stop. And you get beyond all the things that carve you into the soap figure of your expectations and you realize that the kid has something going on.
We make notations and choices and reservations and these are the scaffold that support our realities. Trust your notes and letters. Fold yourself into the realities of your kids and your cousins and your friends and loved ones as if you were the most delicate of souffles, trusting that the yolk is always. And in all ways: on you.

“Actualized Dreams” #4.

You made every attempt to explain to me that no instance was disconnected and attendant to itself - that before any one circumstance collapsed, it was already overlapping another related occurrence. I continued to plait my lanyard, even as I gave you the benefit of the doubt…….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #5.

I once remember hearing you say that your imagination had been jogged and then we laughed so hard cause I thought you meant that your imagination had gone jogging, which made us laugh even harder, because that was exactly what you meant. I drew a sketch of an endless cycle while you went on about the pitfalls of giving. What did you call it? Oh yeah, cheap grace…….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #6.

I had the good fortune to hear James Forbes speak. Well he didn't so much speak as he elaborated. He was talking, I mean elaborating on the diminished vitality of self and all these unrelenting assaults on well-being. What did Isaac say? That it was like a cultural low grade fever? But anyway, it reminded me of your obsession with nitrogen fixing nodules and our need to re/leaf - to actually attach our disconnected selves back to the Tree of Life…….good times.

All work by Tom Schulz, unless otherwise noted.

Please leave comments as you feel so inclined. Tom can be reached via the World Wide Web. tomschulzartist@gmail.com, tom@empathinc.com. Please join Empathinc. on facebook at:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/empathinc/475680795088

"Summeries #2"

2011-07-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

AN INTERVIEW WITH TOM SCHULZ, ARTIST

“When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.”
Barbara Bloom

Artist Tom Schulz speaks at the dedication of

the Almetto Howey Alexander Labyrinth

34"1/2 X 58"
Water media, gesso, varnish on paper, mounted on canvas
Read poem by clicking here.

THE INTERVIEW:

CQ: Tell us about when you first identified yourself as an artist.
TS: Interesting question. I can’t think of a time when I didn’t think of myself as an artist. Even back when I was a kid, the world fascinated me. The sun through the clouds, dust motes, the rainbow in each drop of dew. Even the pattern of what my Mother called her horrible age spots. It all was just so compelling and beautiful to me. I wanted to connect with that. Still do.
CQ: And can you describe how you made that connection?
TS: Oh, I collected things, and drew. I read a lot, and developed scenes in my head that fleshed out the words. And I spent a lot of time wandering about. We lived in a subdivision that used to be a plantation – I could literally graze my all the way to the river during the summer.
CQ: So in the painting, “My Shadow” – is the image of the boy a self-portrait?
TS: I think almost everything I do is a self-portrait on some level. Actually, I spend a lot of energy tracing back to those things that impacted me as a child. This is an appropriated image from an illustration by Jessie Wilcox Smith. It was in one of my favorite books – "A Child’s Garden of Verses" by Robert Louis Stevenson. My Great Aunt Irma Hochstein gave it to me. She was one of the first people to encourage me as an artist. This particular image was illustrating the poem "My Shadow".
CQ: So why choose this for this painting?
TS: Yeah, well I’d come to the conclusion, after a lot of studying, that Stevenson had a world-view agenda and hid a lot of meaning in his children’s poems. There’s a phrase about the child’s shadow – “what can be the use of it is more than I can see.”
CQ: You literally painted those words along the bottom.
TS: Using the image of Polaroid’s, which was the way special moments were documented back in the day. Watching the image come forward. It was magic in my eyes.
CG: And the shadow?
TS: A reminder that our shadows are very important to us and have great use. Think of what Peter Pan had to go through to reclaim his.
CQ: And almost as an afterthought there seems to be another Polaroid image tacked on to the surface of the picture plane. We have included that as a detail. Can you speak to that?
TS: I make a lot of associations. And recognize patterns. Must be part of my wiring. The Abu Ghraib torture scandal had been all over the news – here again I was being inundated with images. And I felt like one person in particular. Lyndie England. I felt like she was held to support The Shadow side of the whole affair. So that was a type of sacrifice going on (on) a lot of levels. Something just clicked and I remembered the iconic image of the little naked Vietnamese girl running from a Napalm attack. And I linked them in a photograph type image to make sort of my own proof of the occurrences.
CQ: Is that Revisionist History?
TS: More like Connect the Dots.
CQ: And can you share with us how you see this painting relating to the text (editors note: in reference to "The Sacrifice of Isaac")?
TS: Well I have this Bible. I call it the Tommy Schulz bible cause it was given to me by my Grandmother in 1962, and that was the inscription. I’m amazed at how those illustrations stocked the shelves of my visual library and my sort of kid theology. Thought the story of Abraham was like the kind of Faith I should aspire to. Even named my son Isaac. But as I decided to develop a conscious adult Theology and intentional spiritual practices, I came to question my relationship to the story. Like I did with the Stevenson poems. So that thread runs through the whole fabric of my interests. I think of the process as an ideological death and resurrection. CQ: So do you consider yourself a maker of Religious Art?
TS: The same thing that motivated me as a kid? Still resonates. When I am at work, making things? I’m chatting it up with God. That doesn’t sound real religious to me. In the way that, you know, I think of capital “R” Religion. But I’ve embraced personal icons. So maybe it’s all the same.

All work by Tom Schulz, unless otherwise noted.

Please leave comments as you feel so inclined. Tom can be reached via the World Wide Web. tomschulzartist@gmail.com, tom@empathinc.com. Please join Empathinc. on facebook at:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/empathinc/475680795088

"Summeries" #1.

2011-07-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

“People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.”

St. Augustine

I take notes. It's more than a habit, it's one of my spiritual practices. Little bits of information, inventions, observations, lists, and some more lists. Stream of consciousness sketching while conversing or listening. I heard that Jack Kerouac had a really long piece of paper that he put into his typewriter so that he wouldn't have to stop typing - wouldn't have to interrupt a thought stream (I might be wrong about that and probably could look it up. But then again - so could you. Feel free to get back to me on that). Well it's just like that except it's not, if you catch my meaning.

So I am going to present a series of "Summeries". Random cullings from years of sketch books, notebooks, scraps of paper. I'll include associated responses as I develop a story based on the story. What I find fascinating is that I have been rather consistent in chasing after that thing that I have yet to name. Maybe you can appreciate that. Maybe you have been on a similar quest.

Summer reading. Summeries.

“Actualized Dreams” #1.

When I finish building this, I will come and visit you. We will be able to act like we have all the time in the world: because we will. And more. We can talk until sunrise and never be missed in our other lives. Our other schedules…….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #2.

At the close of each session, both guides would intentionally lose themselves among the ruins. After leading for so long, giving up control was exhilarating. That each one discretely left delicate blazes (simply as a matter of precaution) was a shared and open secret …….good times.

“Actualized Dreams” #3.

We visited the thin space: where our peripheries became osmotic, and we didn’t so much share things as we each exchanged things. One completeness for the other…….good times.

All work by Tom Schulz, unless otherwise noted.

Please leave comments as you feel so inclined. Tom can be reached via the World Wide Web. tomschulzartist@gmail.com, tom@empathinc.com. Please join Empathinc. on facebook at:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/empathinc/475680795088

"On Being Apparent"

2011-06-19T08:22:00.000-07:00

“The universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not objects to be exploited. Everything has its own voice. Thunder and lightning and stars and planets, flowers, birds, animals, trees—all these have voices, and they constitute a community of existence that is profoundly related.”
Thomas Berry

Theodor Adorno said that, "we only know ourselves by knowing our fractured selves." Or something like that. I could look it up. So could you. And yeah, I agree with the sentiment in that each fracture is like an emotional growth ring on a tree - signifying a break, a loss, a cut, an exchange. I realized this one day when I told a friend that I would never get a tattoo. She tenderly took my hands and studied the scars and the callouses and wrinkles and declared, "Darling, you've been giving yourself tattoos for years."

Mary Geitner, Ben Ford, Phoebe Ford, Willoree Ford

Lately, I've been giving more thought and directed attention to my integrated self (such as it is). I have always maintained you know, divisions in my life. As if I were a discount store with a variety of departments. This included my work, my real work, my work for money. My relaxed time, my stressed time, my no time, my time in a bottle. And my rolls and assignments? Rows 12 through like, a billion. Artist, father, husband, son, brother, friend. Builder, teacher, student. Story teller, bad joke teller, William Teller. The aisles were wide, for the most part. Uh-Oh. Clean up on aisle 57.

Robert Walker Geitner III, "Self Portrait with Micky"

But all those shelves (while particularly handy for storing all the accumulated bric-a-brac of an inquisitive life) end up being divisive, casting shadows on shadows and aspersions on rugs.

Isaac Schulz

And so I am in the process of becoming my synthetic self. Working out of and recognizing, that creativity is a series of overlapping interludes. To even attempt to understand how this might evolve would be to encapsulate the very activity of synthesizing into a tangible bauble of a thought. A synapse fossilized in amber. It might give me something to hold up to the light, but with most of the shelves gone, where would I store that thought? Besides, understanding is beginning to seem so very inadequate. What I am curious about is beyond understanding.

Tom Schulz using tools inappropriately in the Spidey-Hole.

Being a father is such a necessary and critical format of being for me. Being a father consistently requires that I upgrade my contract with Understanding. Being a father is not so much challenging to me it is a direct challenge to me. Especially now that the kids are grown up and spread far afield, especially as they create their own unique and complex realities, and especially as they deign to allow my reality to intersect with theirs in spiraling patterns of overlapping aspirations.

Sheila Ennis, Carrie Schulz, Jason Andersen

Sometimes, when I step beyond my clever self, I am able to access my innate wisdom. You know what I'm talking about. You do that. You might call it clarity. Or perhaps maturity. I just know that in those moments, understanding is not required because you. I. We. Are literally drowning in knowledge. Like that Peace that passeth all understanding thing. In these moments, I know that I called out to my kids and they responded. And they called out to me and I responded. Still do. And even when we aren't acknowledging it, my kids and I are calling out to you. And you are responding. And you are calling out to us and we are responding.
And that is so very powerful. And that type of power never, no never. Sits on no shelf.

Empathinc. was registered as a domain at 8:00 AM, September 11, 2001. It is an artist's ongoing investigation into how we occupy space, embody our own stories, and develop synthetic strategies of fair exchange. All artwork and writing by Tom Schulz, unless otherwise noted.

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Twenty Four.

2011-05-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

"HOW YOUR STORY COMPLETES OUR STORY:
To Cynthia Underwood"

empathinc.: our story would be incomplete without your story.
Monday at 11:45pm · LikeUnlike ·
2 people like this.

Cynthia Underwood: One of these days I'm gonna look into your story.
Monday at 11:53pm · LikeUnlike

empathinc.: and you will see a reflection of yours, Cynthia.
Tuesday at 12:10am · LikeUnlike

Cynthia Underwood: More info please.
Tuesday at 12:13am · LikeUnlike

empathinc.: Ok. but I have to ponder a bit.
Tuesday at 12:16am · LikeUnlike

Cynthia Underwood: I'll be waiting.
Tuesday at 12:20am · Like

“The dimension of the divine opens forth from the human face.”
Emmanual Levinas, Totality and Infinity

"Humanomaly"© 2002
Watercolor on Paper
From the "Commanomaly© Series"

"For Levinas, coming face to face with the Other is a non-symmetrical relationship. I am responsible for the Other without knowing that the Other will reciprocate. Whether or not Others reciprocate is their affair not mine. Thus, according to Levinas, I am subject to the Other without knowing how it will come out. In this relationship, Levinas finds the meaning of being human and of being concerned with justice......I am intrigued with the simplicity of Levinas’ idea that in the human face is found the original ethical code. From a look into the face of the Other we become aware of basic human responsibility and meaning. Levinas is critical of a society in which people are depersonalized, in which they move around side by side rather than meet face to face. "
From: Face to Face by Elder Lindahl (read entire article hear)

"Investigative Reporter"© 2004
Watercolor on Paper
From the "My Nature Series"

Yeah, well all this face time is cool and all, but I'm talking about story here. We share our stories. That we feel more fulfilled in the writing of them is another concern. We speak. Our faces contort, our muscles strain. Air passes over our larynx and produces modulated sound. Sound that has some sort of codified meaning. Our face and our story are indivisible. As I recognize my responsibility in recognizing your face, so I recognize the profound impact (on my story) of your story. If this implies that I cannot kill you, please don't confine that to physicality. There are many ways to die. Many ways to kill. An essential conceptual murder is in silencing. Turning a deaf ear to your story. Thinking of responses even as you are sharing your dialogue. Listening is great. Taking in an Other's story is a gift to both parties. This gift (enacted) is the God and The Universe conversation.

Women In Art from Philip Scott Johnson on Vimeo.

“Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect

when we meet them face to face."

Nelson DeMille

This concludes Week Twenty Four of

"The God and The Universe Conversations".

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Twenty Three.

2011-05-21T07:21:00.001-07:00

"The Sacrifice of Isaac"

CONCLUSION

Ideas are more powerful than guns.
We would not let our enemies have guns,
why should we let them have ideas?
Joseph Stalin

"There is the Would"© 2004
Watercolor and Gesso on Paper

and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, ¹⁸and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.’
Genesis 22, The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989

"Know We Have Them on the Run"© 2004
Watercolor and Gesso on Paper

From the Editor: So here we are. Our Hero has passed the test. The dogs have been called off, and now it is time for the bestowing of the treasure. Because isn't that what sacrifice is about? You exhibit your willingness to give up something.....let's even say something big. And in return? A little acknowledgement would be nice. But Abraham gets that and wins the bonus round! He will be the beginning of an entire peoples. Constellations and galaxies of beings. And that which might deny him access? The gates of his enemies? The gates of his enemies will not prevail, and he will be blessed because he obeyed without question.

Well, today (in this moment), I am going to accept Abraham's blessing. I am going to have as many creative ideas as there are stars and I am going to share them with God. I am going to be involved in as many positive interactions as there are grains of sand at the beach and God will think that is cool. I am going to recognize the impediments to being my authentic self and saunter through those gates that I have constructed. I will listen to the words of Lao Tzu, "Man's enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself." And the results of my involvement will continue to fascinate and encourage me, for I would have participated fully.

I will draw nearer. That's my plan.

"Sshoe Violins"© 2004
Watercolor and Gesso on Paper

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

This concludes Week Twenty Three of

"The God and The Universe Conversations".

All art and writing by Tom Schulz unless otherwise noted, or unless it is so cool
he will try to get away with claiming it as his own."The God and The Universe Conversations" are based on Tom's protracted reading of Process and Reality, by Alfred North Whitehead.

The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to
sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
Charles Du Bos

Movie Night at the Educational Center: "The Secret Life of Bees"

2011-05-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

"The truth is, in order to heal we need to tell our stories and have them witnessed...The story itself becomes a vessel that holds us up, that sustains, that allows us to order our jumbled experiences into meaning."

Sue Monk Kidd
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine

"The Secret Life of Bees: Reflections in a Cultural Mirror"

A Review by Tom Schulz

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Abraham Lincoln

If The Secret Life of Bees is a story about making honey, then Huckleberry Finn is a guidebook to the Mississippi River. No, this is an epic tale of awakening and discovery. Of transformation and stultification. And love. Love that supports no single meaning as it shifts and morphs and takes root all of a once. This is a movie populated by diverse and complex characters, where the very character and unwritten laws of the United States of America plays a pivotal (and un-credited) role. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood in 2008, The Secret Life of Bees is based on the 2002 historical novel and New York Times bestseller by Sue Monk Kidd. It is a thoughtful adaptation of the novel: clear in its visual vernacular of the year 1964. The film’s use of color captures both the fecund density and lyrical luminescence of the Southern light. Prince-Blythwood allows us to understand that if light is both wave and particle, it is equally capable of harboring shadow as well as illumination.

Lily Owens (portrayed by a precocious and convincing Dakota Fanning) is haunted. Her burden is summarized in an opening voiceover when she says, "I killed my mother when I was four years old, that's what I knew about myself. She was all I wanted and I took her away. Nothing else much mattered." Constantly terrorized and belittled by her father T-Ray (a relentlessly ferocious Paul Bettany), Lily finds solace and validation in the company of the housekeeper, Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson). Under the auspices of getting Lilly fitted for a training bra (a rite of passage indicating Lilly’s evolving transformation into maturity, and a subterfuge that would, of course exclude T-Ray), Rosaleen and Lily trek to town. Rosaleen’s intention is to register to vote, and she is accosted by a pack of feral rednecks. Under duress, Rosaleen sheds her cultural cloak of invisibility and stands for her human rights. Her reward is a severe beating. She is hospitalized for her “safety”. Lily is concerned that Rosaleen will be killed. A legitimate concern, given her understanding of male violence, and knowing – somehow – that there was no Atticus Finch to protect her Tom Robinson. Acting with more teenage passion than plan, she and Rosaleen escape their assumed fate and begin their search for sanctuary. Lily has instinctive reason to believe the grail of safety and discovery abides in Tiburon, South Carolina.

In Tiburon, Lily and Rosaleen find the Boatwright sisters – August, May, and June (played respectfully by Queen Latifah, Sophie Okenedo, and Alicia Keys). Each sister possesses a special access to the world. August is the matriarch, and decides to take in the fugitives. Rosaleen soon recognizes that, “They got they’re own special place, where the outside don’t come in.”
As the name Boatwright indicates, the three sisters construct a storm-worthy vessel of protection and love that affords Lily and Rosaleen the necessary craft to navigate towards self-actualization.

If my math is correct, the author Sue Monk Kidd was fourteen in 1964. Old enough to recognize the injustices that languished on small town street corners of the day and practiced their ill begotten sorcery of the night. And though the strength of love can provide strength in community, even Lily was aware that at any moment one could bring “the Outside in Here.”
During Lyndon B. Johnson’s term as John F. Kennedy’s Vice- President, racism became an increasingly important political issue. Vice- President Johnson expressed his understanding that something had to be done when he said, "The Negro fought in the war, and….he’s not gonna keep taking the shit we’re dishing out. We’re in a race with time. If we don’t act, we’re gonna have blood in the streets." As President, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a bill that changed the face of America. It opened all public accommodations to all Americans regardless of race, color, religion or national origin. A Texan, Johnson was criticized for using the issue of race and rights for political gain. But Johnson himself claimed to be an idealist who dreamed of making America a "Great Society". Earlier in his career he stated that, "This country won’t have to worry about isms [communism and fascism] when it gives its people a decent, clean place to live and a job.”

Even as The Secret Life of Bees presents a riveting and compelling narrative of a time passed, it forces the viewer to consider the current state of this Country’s malaise. It brings forth the critical question and asks, “What is reflected in the mirror of this particular History, and how shall we respond to what we see?”

"It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter

what sort of heartbreak is happening."

Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

Movie Night, 6:30 PM, May 20th at The Educational Center

http://educationalcenter.org/

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Twenty Two.

2011-05-11T07:52:00.001-07:00

"The Sacrifice of Isaac"

Part Five

“Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed
as if limits to our ability did not exist.
We are collaborators in creation.”
Teilhard de Chardin

"Towards Sheryl's House - 7:05 (Study)"© 2011
Digital Print

15 The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, ¹⁶and said, ‘By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷I will indeed bless you.....Genesis 22, The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989

"Approaching Newen, NC"© 1996
Acrylic on Canvas 4' X 8'

"where lamps are lit as symbols, not as facts"

FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS

We arrive too early at the Festival of Lights
where the tents are still erecting, the Ferris wheel
lies pitched against its axle, and the lanterns overhead
wait in ranks to be lit. I point you toward the Greek church
but you are willful as mercury, off the concrete walk
following your own low road across the grass
like a ball on a bad break, determined to bogey.
Your foot catches and you almost buckle
on the forked root of a droughtstruck tree,
but you run on, past a barricade of angels,
the crossed stone dolls of another generation,
over the lawn into darkness, away from me.

I find your shadow where the churchyard ends
at the edge of a fallow tobacco field
where the windings of raspberries and stronger grasses
rise up and stop you. Nothing here frightens you:
not night, climbing like moss in the trees,
or the truck beside you impounded in weeds,
hoarding lockjaw and bluebells in its clasped doors.
It is here you choose to play. I watch for weeds
with triplet leaves, for snakes sining the world
into waves of luck and danger, a covered ditch,
the small clay pots of budding hornets.
All we find is a box of Happy Meals
its yellow cardboard sogging in the leaves,
some half-ripe berries, a scrap of arrowhead
and a violet beetle that may or may not be dead
from harboring a virus I will read about
in next year's journals. It takes all I have
not to drive you away, but to stay and watch
as you inch your hands toward the thorny fruit
you covet. With such ease I could lift you up
to where you want to be, across this break
and into the wild garden, the forbidden field
that you cannot imagine you can be whole without,
where you would grow almighty, or not at all.

Son, we are here tonight to celebrate
what is neither light nor dark but both at once,
this margin we inhabit between eternities:
the one we think we know and struggle in
and the one that leads us on and seems to know us best,
like a car following behind us down the street
and forever offering to take us in,
its deft doors open, the strangers inside beckoning
to come and join them in that perfumed cabin.

Behind us, the hurdy-gurdy starts to swell
with children turning on the music rides;
their fathers lift a sledge to ring the bell,
they lift, and fail, and lift and try again;
their mothers clutch together in the halls
to speak small lies and taste the lamb for salt;
they drink retsina, watch the biscuits rise,
and set up tables as they talk about their faith
that still endures, although they bleed each month.
Come, turn back with me. Our place is there,
where lamps are lit as symbols, not as facts,
and every path lies twisted in unreason.

Son, turn back with me. This is the sacrifice
we make in terror every day.

Philip Bowman, The Museum of Childhood

"Story Time"© 2011
Digital Print

"we are here tonight to celebrate
what is neither light nor dark but both at once"

“Novena for Sendai Series©”. Study #5.
Digital Print

From the Editor: Where the darkness defines the light, the light loses its timidity. It is here that blessings remain undiscovered until illuminated.

This concludes Week Twenty Two of

"The God and The Universe Conversations".

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Twenty One.

2011-05-07T13:17:00.000-07:00

"The Sacrifice of Isaac"

Part Four

“It’s always been in between the things I thought I was doing that the real work has happened.”
William Kentridge

"Right"© 2008
Gesso, Marker, Acrylic on Canvas

From the Editor: I have a tendency to celebrate my creative energy when I feel its expression as powerful and exhilarating. I refer to these experiences as "Times of Flight". Maybe you know what I am talking about. I hope so. When I despair or wallow about in perceived failures, I abrogate responsibility and (most typically) look for something (or someone) to blame. In these moments I become blind to the source of plenty that surrounds me. This does not 'draw me nearer'. So I cannot be sacrificing - though it seems as if I am. Maybe you know what I'm talking about. Maybe not. The early translation into Greek of the Hebrew Jehovah-jireh gives the meaning as "The Lord hath seen." More contemporary translations render it "the Lord will provide", serving up a more literal meaning, kind of like, "the Lord will see to it". But right now, in this moment, I am going ask this question: High or low, ecstatic or bereft, panicked or at peace, is it enough to know that our lives and efforts are recognized? Are being 'seen'? Friend, if that is the case, then that in itself is Plenty. Maybe you know what I'm talking about.

"Morel Fabric"© 2008
Marker, Acrylic, Collage on Canvas

"If you cling to an idea as the inalterable truth,
then when the truth does come in person
and knock at your door,
you will not be able to open the door and accept it."
Udana Sutta

"L O V E"© 2008
Acrylic, Graphite, Gesso on Canvas

“to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
e. e. cummings

This concludes Week Twenty One of

"The God and The Universe Conversations".

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Twenty.

2011-04-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

"The Sacrifice of Isaac"
Part Three

For fear you will be alone
you do so many things
that aren’t you at all.
Richard Brautigan

¹¹But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ ¹²He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’ ¹³And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt-offering instead of his son. Genesis 22, The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989

From the Editor: I recently talked with a friend. She shared her story of a recent series of life decisions that have left her feeling (emotionally and fiscally) bankrupt. Her question to herself and to The Universe became both prayer and lament: "What was I thinking?". It made me think of Abraham with the knife to his beloved son's throat. It made me think of Jim Jones and Charles Manson. Susan Smith and Andrea Yates. And I wondered, why was it that Abraham required a mediating agency to stay his hand? Why was he so willing to act out of a concept of obedience? A concept that allowed his perceived directives to supersede his ability to properly judge the ramifications of his actions. Perhaps we should look at our interior Abrahams and ask what precious part of our selves are we are willing to sacrifice. Hannah Arrendt stated that, "The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be either good or evil." Let us not wait for intervention. Or mediation. Let us make up our minds. Let us make up our minds and hearts and interactions to be good. Stay your own hand, pilgrim.

Marc Chagall, Sacrifice of Isaac, 1960-1965

“There is no beauty in sadness. No honor in suffering. No growth in fear. No relief in hate. It’s just a waste of perfectly good happiness.”
Katerina Stoykova-Klemer

“He learned to live with the truth.
Not to accept it, but to live with it.
It was like living with an elephant. His room was tiny, and every morning he had to
squeeze around the truth just to get to the bathroom.
To reach the armoire to get a pairof underpants
he had to crawl under the truth, praying it wouldn’t
choose that moment to sit on his face.”

Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

This concludes Week Twenty of

"The God and The Universe Conversations".

Movie Night at the Educational Center: Batman Begins.

2011-04-12T11:47:00.001-07:00

"Batman Begins": Looking Back / Looking In

A Review by Tom Schulz

"Hidden things hinder wholeheartedness."
Cassian

I was a DC Kid. My friend Robby was a Marvel Kid. I embraced the epic struggles of Good and Evil, especially as portrayed through the Batman. Robby discovered kinship in tortuous transformations wrought by a Science run amok: Spiderman, The Hulk, The Fantastic Four. He declared me a simpering simpleton, overly concerned with issues of justice. I accused him of being a prima-donna elitist with no sympathy for the plight of the downtrodden masses. Yeah, we were the best of buddies. Good times.

Years later, as my son approached his teens, he introduced me to Frank Miller’s graphic novel series, Batman: the Dark Knight Returns. He would copy the magazine covers in loving detail for days on end and I devoured the stories after lights out. Here was a fractured soul, rolling the Sisyphean rock of guilt and vengefulness up the slippery slope of vendetta, with every intention of doing what was capital “R” Right. I was in. I could relate.

This was no longer a kid’s story.

In Batman Begins (2005), director Christopher Nolan maintains the spirit and look of Miller’s gritty graphics and eschews the cultural camp that had become attached to the Batman franchise. Taking place in the deteriorating Gotham City, Nolan owes as much to Dickens and Bronte as Homer. In fact, the city itself becomes a character in the film: flatulent and lost and sinking into the abyss of a striated social hell. The nature of our hero, Bruce Wayne (who interestingly enough was named after Scottish patriot Robert Bruce by Batman’s original creator, Bob Kane) is carefully revealed through an interconnected series of flashbacks. The young Bruce tumbles into the depths of an abandoned well on the family’s estate. Bats burst forth from the gaping maw of an adjoining cave, engulfing the panicked boy and rendering him helpless. That same helplessness is later embellished with guilt, when his parents are shot down in front of him during a robbery. Here are the seeds of fear and guilt planted. Here is where the desire for revenge takes root. Here grows the verdant field of obsession.

Heartsick and in despair, the adult Bruce Wayne (played with severity by Christian Bale) sets out to lose himself. His choice is to metaphorically tear down his heritage “brick by brick”. He delves into his own underworld. He makes himself physically impoverished so as to reflect his inner deprivation. He lays himself bare to the very foundations of self. It is only in this abject emptiness that he is able to manifest a new format of being – a symbol of being. And though he views this actualized symbolism as “incorruptible” he remains divided and at odds with himself.

The only major female character is Bruce’s childhood friend, Rachel Dawes (a doe-eyed Katie Holms). She has matured into an authentically concerned DA, and is appalled when she discovers that Wayne is seeking revenge on his parent’s murderer, outside of the law. And though her role receives short shrift, it is significant nonetheless. She plays both Penelope and Ariadne in our hero’s quest. Penelope in her ultimate steadfastness to her perception of Wayne’s character. And Ariadne in providing the mantra, “it’s what you do that defines you.” This one phrase gives both Wayne and his alter ego, Batman, the thread of reason that may lead him through the maze of divisiveness, anger, and fear.

Batman Begins is an origin story as mythically archetypal as Moses in the bulrushes. Sure it’s dripping with testosterone-laden action (Hello? The parting of the Red Sea isn’t?). But we the viewers can tumble into the lush darkness of the film and ask where these characters and situations and struggles reside in our lives. How do we unite our fractured selves? What is the authentic self that we ‘present’ in our relationships and social interactions? And what, what is the mask that we wear to protect our secret identity?

And that’s not kid stuff.

Movie Night, 7:00 PM, April 15th at The Educational Center

http://educationalcenter.org/

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Nineteen.

2011-04-09T05:56:00.000-07:00

"Living into the Labyrinth"

"The being who is the object of his own reflection, in consequence of that very doubling back upon himself, becomes in a flash able to raise himself into a new sphere. In reality, another world is born. Abstraction, logic, reasoned choice and inventions, mathematics, art, calculation of space and time, anxieties and dreams of love--all these activities of inner life are nothing else than the effervescence of the newly-formed centre as it explodes onto itself."
Teilhard de Chardin The Phenomenon of Man, 1955

From the Editor: In our contemporary world, The Word has taken on the promise of a new Significance at the cost of a potential lose of Meaning. We email, we text. We Tweet and blind copy. Blogs, conference calls, social network comments, LED scrolling, and white wall tires. We are inundated with words. Inhale them from a Language Noosphere the like of which Teilhard de Chardin may have grossly overestimated.

Then in an implosive irony, we lament a lack of meaning in our lives. Suffer through the maladies of an alienated self. We seek therapy for assistance in discovering the roots of our being. Drown our wellness in oceans of despair. We dare to pick apart Sacred and Ancient texts so that we might find some Historical confirmation to hang our hats on.

I am of this World.

And yet, I am of another World as well. The world of symbols. And Mythology. A world where meaning seeks me out and implores me to fully participate. Where words are most often superfluous, and (most certainly) inadequate tools for describing the complexity of relationships. Words are a handshake. Symbols are a loving embrace.

And when I get out of my own way, I am most likely to tumble into that embrace. Such is my work with Labyrinths. The Labyrinth found me at Myers Park Baptist Church, in Charlotte, NC and put me to work. And it found me at Presbyterian Hospital Hospice and Palliative Care and it put me to work. Then it told me to build a Prayer Wall and a Chapel. And then the Labyrinth sent Mrs. Almetto Alexander to find me and tell me I was to build her a Labyrinth. And she added this caveat from her Muse, “Make it different. And beautiful.” What a gift in those words. “Make if different. And beautiful” Like any good educator, she was giving an assignment, trusting that it would be carried out in a form that would be an extension of her vision. She was granting me permission to take what is most likely the oldest image made by humankind and somehow make it unique. What a gift! I was being asked to make this most ancient of symbols appropriate to Mrs. Alexander’s life journey. And to mine. And then to place it into a public arena so that countless others could walk the winding path that folds you back onto yourself.

I was asked to work past my expectations and previous experiences and cross the threshold towards a new center. And so in this way I have literally crawled into this magnificent symbol, and learned that the Labyrinth is not a metaphor for life lived.

It is life lived.

Lived in a way that is beyond the ability of words to describe.
Let us take note from the character Delmar O’Donnell from the movie “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” (itself a re-telling of the mythical Odyssey) when he warns his friends that they are about to be ambushed. He whispers hoarsely, “Do not seek the Treasure”. Good advice, Delmar.

Let us dare to have the Treasure find us.

“Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.”
Joyce Carol Oates

This concludes Week Nineteen of

"The God and The Universe Conversations".

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Eighteen

2011-04-01T13:38:00.000-07:00

"The Sacrifice of Isaac"
Part Two

“If you are not coming to put into question everything you do,
I don’t see why you’re here.”
Jacques Lacan

"My Shadow"© 2005
Gesso, shellac, watercolor on paper mounted on canvas.

^"9When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and^(E) laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son." Genesis 22, The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989

From the Editor: It is our current observation that sacrifice most often ends up being a way of making a demand. As in, "I'll give something up in order to evoke the results that I desire." In humanity's darkest past, when humans sacrificed humans to appease gods, and then to appease God, there was a mimetic power and control in the action. Today, while we deem our society too moral to practice human or even animal sacrifice, we embrace the same symbolic significance through ritual, sport, politics, and entertainment. Essentially, like Abraham, we are all too willing to take the knife to the throat to that which represents the very essence of our love. Maintenance of a violent cultural tension creates both victims and surrogate victims. Every time we place someone in harm's way, we make a human sacrifice. Every time we turn away from someone in need, someone perceived as different, or every time we stare, badger, and bully......we make a human sacrifice. How do you enact sacrifice, Pilgrim?

“About sacrifice and the offering of sacrifices, sacrificial animals think quite differently from those who look on: but they have never been allowed to have their say.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

This concludes Week Eighteen of

"The God and The Universe Conversations".

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Seventeen.

2011-03-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

"The Sacrifice of Isaac"

“How long will we fill our pockets Like children with dirt and stones?
Let the world go.
Holding it, We never know ourselves,
never are air-born.”
Rumi

"The Quality of Boundaries"© 1999
Oil on Wood

⁶Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. ⁷Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Genesis 22, The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989

Weisiger Chapel, Presbyterian Hospital, Charlotte NC
Concrete and Black Walnut Altar, LED lighting, etched Acrylic Panels
In association with Hospice and Palliative Care 2009

From the Editor: A common contemporary definition of sacrifice is: to forfeit (one thing) for another thing considered to be of greater value. In ancient Hebrew, the root of the word for "sacrifice," korban, is kuf, reish, beit. This root means "to draw near." Let's look at Abraham's and Isaac's dilemma in that regard. To draw near. Even as a child, I thought that Abraham's obsequious acceptance of God's dictate was admirable. But flawed.Yet, what I have only come to understand of late, is Isaac's relationship to these dueling 'fathers'. Isaac was capable of toting a load of sticks up a mountain. So he was stout. Surely he could have rasseled down his old man and avoided getting trussed up beneath a drawn knife. But he participated. He drew himself into proximity of a life threatening and yet also transformative situation. He said, "I see the wood." Then asked, "Where is the lamb?"
Rather, we should ask, "Where is the would?" Where is the motivation to take a stand and place oneself in a sacrificial posture - to draw near?
And instead of ramming towards altars, should we be considering alters? The Third Way; the Unimagined. And in community, could we become an alterNation? A collection of specific entities willing to be sacrificed and yet ask, "Where is the would?" In The God and The Universe Conversations, God states that, “Anything that serves as a catalyst for novel invention is invaluable in God’s view”.
Where is your WOULD, Pilgrim? What draws you near?

Workers prepare to assist at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant."We are not in a position where we can be optimistic. We must treat every development with the utmost care."

The birds don't alter space.
They reveal it. The sky
never fills with any
leftover flying.
Li-Young Lee Book of My Nights

This concludes Week Seventeen of

"The God and The Universe Conversations".

"One man gives freely, yet gains even more;
another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty"
(Prov.11:24).

Movie Night at the Educational Center: Transamerica

2011-03-17T18:49:00.000-07:00

A Review: Transamerica, 2005

"One is not born a woman, but rather becomes one."

Judith Butler Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 1990

The mark of a good story is that it keeps your attention, urging on your interest in the characters. The plot entrances you. Turning each page in anticipation or inching towards the edge of your seat. A great story allows unlimited access to your own story. The movie Transamerica (directed by Duncan Tucker, 2005) is such a story. Ostensibly a tale of a transsexual woman on the brink of her final physical conversion into her idealized concept of the Female, the plot soon shifts abruptly and sets the stage for a multi-faceted quest after a completed self. The movie begins with Bree Osbourne (played with amazing nuance by Golden Globe winner Felicity Huffman) molding and shaping….literally sculpting herself into an identity she cherishes.

Her very foundation is garmented. She practices modulating her voice. She tucks the remaining vestiges of the Stanly Shupak that she was and has despised between her legs. She is transformed, but still lacking. In the same way that we do not know when tragedy, joy, love, or an act of volatile Nature may instantly alter the path of our life, so the phone rings. Answering, Bree finds out that she has a son. A seventeen-year old son in a New York City Jail. It is just one week until to her vangioplasty. When Bree offhandedly mentions the fact that she ‘may’ have a son, Bree’s therapist, Margaret (Elizabeth Pena) withholds the envelope that contains permission for the surgery. In this act, she challenges Bree to face this potential for maintaining a divided self. She offers Bree an opportunity to unite her Feminine and Masculine selves. In one fascinating scene, Bree (a study in pink) makes arrangements to go see her son Toby (a haunting performance by Kevin Zegers). Resigned to making the journey, she sits adrift beneath an M. Tamplough print entitled “Crepuscule en Egypt”.

Crepuscular speaks of twilight – that transitional period of each day that holds both the light and the dark. It is that time of change. This is the moment that signifies Bree’s empowerment – evidenced in her (often tentative) involvement with her self-quest. All of the characters in this movie have secrets. Many of them from the underbelly of being. Secrets kept from others. And secrets kept from one’s self in the form of a fabricated and highly edited personal narrative. And certainly as Bree and Toby traverse the continent, the standard of what is normal becomes a strategic point of supposition. The essential question becomes: do we as individuals possess a core sense of self, or are we each an entire society of authentic selves? Are we born predisposed to a particular and genetically scripted way of being, or are we hammered and annealed into shape by our environment? And is a well-performed authenticity a significantly creative strategy of participating fully in the active and constant creation of self?

It is written that “Transsexual adults often request hormone and surgical treatments to suppress their biological sex characteristics and acquire those of the opposite sex. A team of health professionals, including the treating psychologist or psychiatrist, medical doctors, and several surgical specialists, oversee this transitioning process. Because of the irreversible nature of the surgery, candidates for sex-change surgery are evaluated extensively and are often required to spend a period of time integrating themselves into the cross-gender role before the procedure begins. Counseling and peer support are also invaluable to transsexual individuals.” http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Gender+Dysphoric

Theodore Adorno said that we may only know ourselves through knowing our fractured self. Trasamerica asks to consider that we may only know ourselves by embracing our integrated self.

"What had reached me, so powerfully cast from a human body, was Beauty: there was a face with all the mystery prescribed and preserved on it; I was before it, I sensed that there was a beyond, to which I did not have access, an unlimited place ... a desire was seeking its home."

Hélène Cixous Coming to Writing and Other Essays, 1991

Tomschulzartist

Movie Night, March 18th at The Educational Center
http://educationalcenter.org/

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Sixteen.

2011-02-25T06:33:00.001-08:00

Sitting quietly, doing nothing, not knowing what is next and not concerned with what was or what may be next, a new mind is operating that is not connected with the conditioned past and yet perceives and understands the whole mechanism of conditioning. It is the unmasking of the self that is nothing but masks — images, memories of past experiences, fears, hopes, and the ceaseless demand to be something or become somebody. This new mind that is no-mind is
free of duality — there is no doer in it and nothing to be done.
Toni Packer

"I-77, Exit 30 / Dust Landscapes"© (detail) 2010
Watercolor on Paper
Autumn Missed Subset

FROM THE EDITOR

14.) And finally: Use all your oil. This of course refers to the parable of ‘The Wise and Foolish Maidens. The idea is that the maidens that burned their oil in preparation for the coming of the Prince were perhaps optimistic, but should not be used as a foible for the other maidens (as if waiting around and shining no light would be the better action). We thought it might be just right somehow to ‘use all your oil’. Since then Tom has been thinking about the idea of the ‘fool’. And thinks that this level of foolishness –this enthusiasm if you will - may be illustrating not an opposite but an equal and perhaps viable ‘way’. After all it is the wise AND the foolish. The and here may be seen as an equivalency. After all, if we are exhorted to fully participate in life why sit around in the dark. Also, did not the wise maidens allow themselves the free illumination in the light of others?"

from "THE PORCH TRANSCRIPTS - CONVERSATIONS IN THE DARK WITH MY BABY" Compiled 10/23/03. Note: these recordings were originally written on a Harper’s Magazine in ballpoint pen. Conversants include Sheila Ennis in her current position of Goddess, and her adoring husband (Tom Schulz) working in his capacity of SAA (Supreme Administrative Assistant).

“Appetition”

“In terms of an Entities personal life-history, where does Desire become a motivating initiative?” asked The Universe of God. “Is Desire an aspect of the Creative Process?”
“Oh”, that’s tricky for an Entity - desire”, responded God. “An Entity can be consumed by a Desire to create and fall under the thrall of the Desire. Maybe it would better serve if the Entity were to discover the underlying novelty of a situation or set of circumstances and match the novelty of the surrounding environment.”

“Like that Autumn thing we got going on the planet Earth!” declared an enthusiastic The Universe.

Both God and The Universe liked this:

“It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with.

But what’s life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours-arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment’s additions existence. Life, in short just wants to be.”
Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, Black Swan, 2003

In a Stolen Boat,
push off what seemed safe: The fishing dock,
pitch pines, children glazed to sheen
by ruthless summers. Past

the jetty, past the past, to open sea—
all violet and green, that choppy path between doom and luck—
Put your back into it, and row.
April Bernard, "Romanticism" 2009

This concludes Week Sixteen of

"The God and The Universe Conversations".

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Fifteen.

2011-02-17T16:10:00.001-08:00

We need to get out of our heads to understand ourselves.
For we are not brains in vats of skull, we are animals, dynamically entangled with the world around us. Where do you stop
and where does the world around you begin?
Not at the skull, and not even at the limits of the body.”
ALVA NOË

From the Editor:
Fairly fresh out of High School and oddly reticent to continue attending college, I left Academia with the intention of hiking the entire Appalachian Trail with two chums. We were heading South to Springer Mountain and hitched a ride in the family Circus Wagon that was conveniently going in the same direction. Arriving at our destination, I piled out with my pack and high spirits: ready (yet ill prepared) for Adventure. We all said our brave goodbyes. I stole a glance back and saw the most abject look of loss, pain and worry on my Mother's face. I had never seen that look before. As I turned and headed into the Draw, I swore that if I had kids, I would never let them see that face on me. So much for plans and intentions. I walked the entire Trail alright. But not the one I planned. And not the one I intended. No. It has been ever more marvelous and mysterious than anything I could have Imagined.

“Trouble in Space ”

“Let The Universe just suppose”, supposed The Universe, “that a Structured Society, You know, Society like a group of Entities, has reached a State of Satisfaction. Then is it complete? If it isn’t complete, then what does that Society do - get more complex? Where is the stability?”
“God considers that the Satisfaction of a Society, especially a Diverse and therefore Healthy Society, can only be as Satisfied on the whole as the Smallest subset is satisfied”, replied God. This allows for the Process of Complexity to avoid the Extremes of Complication.”

“Yeah, cause there’d sure be trouble in space, then. Wouldn’t there, God?”

“Extensive Connections ”

“OK, let’s see if The Universe has this straight”, erupted The Universe. “Physicality is a type of relatedness that is at once measurable and discernible, given certain properties and assumptions regarding extensive connections. So, taking a family of straight lines, we can express a system of congruent society. Presto! Order!” Oh, The Universe was pleased to the point of smugness.
“Lovely logic, The Universe”, said God. “But what of competing families of loci with equal claim to a societal system? One set of realities tumbling into another set of possibilities?”

“Well, The Universe will spend some time considering that likelihood”, grunted a disgruntled The Universe.

Talk as much philosophy as you like,
worship as many gods as you please,
observe ceremonies and sing devotional hymns,
but liberation will never come,
even after a hundred aeons,
without realizing the Oneness.
Sankara, from "The Wisdom of the Hindu Gurus", edited by Timothy Freke

This concludes Week Fifteen of

"The God and The Universe Conversations".

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Fourteen.

2011-02-10T14:29:00.000-08:00

"Come to the edge," he said.
"No, we will fall," they replied.
They came to the edge.
He pushed them . . . and they flew.

From the Editor:
What holds us back? What stops us from moving, caring not the direction (or even the dimension for the adventurous)? Many of us might cite fear as a primary barricade impeding us from living into some perceived freedom. But fear of what? The unknown? Try making a list of what is known to you and what is unknown to you and get back to us on that. We must not let our dreams calcify. As Flannery O'Connor wrote in her 1953 short story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find", "She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." Whose hand is holding the gun to your head, Friend?

“Our Cosmic Epoch”

“The Universe hates to be obtuse," began The Universe, “but The Universe is still tripping on this idea of Disorder. If there are intertwining Societies of Entities, like planetary systems or galaxies, then wouldn’t their most effective form of existence require only Order? Wouldn’t that be the Prevailing nature of that Order?”
“Well.” God said, “Well, a prevailing Order can create Chaos through Dominance. But Dominance is not a creative action, except only in the sense that it can create Disorder by not respecting Harmony.”
“Oh, and that is Dissonance?” asked The Universe.

“No”, replied God slowly, “Dissonance is part of the balance. Dominance just shows a lack of key understanding.”

“Geometrical Order of Nature ”

“Abstractly speaking, God, does God require that The Universe believe in God in order for God to exist?” questioned The Universe.
“A belief system certainly has its intrinsic flaws”, opined God. “Suffice it to say that God is fulfilled by a considerate and involved relationship with The Universe as God currently exists in connection to The Universe.”
“That sounds like a lot of responsibility on the part of The Universe”, whined The Universe.

“Or just good livin’”, responded God

"Air on the Dirac Strings"

“There comes a time when the bubble of ego is popped and you can’t get the ground back for an extended period of time. Those times, when you absolutely cannot get it back together, are the most rich and powerful times in our lives.”
Pema Chödrön

Links:
On Rules
Context
Old/New

This concludes Week Fourteen of
"The God and The Universe Conversations".

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Thirteen.

2011-02-03T15:34:00.000-08:00

“To be an abstraction does not mean that an entity is nothing.
It merely means that its existence is only a factor of
a more concrete element of nature.”
Alfred North Whitehead

"Abstract" 2006
Cast Concrete, Bottle Lid, Polymer Stain on Concrete

From the Editor: Boundaries establish a binary conundrum - one is either inside the demarcation or outside the demarcation. Which reminds me of my favorite joke when I was a kid. "Two horses. One is running the range, and one is in the corral. Which horse sings Don't Fence Me In? The Answer? Well neither, silly. Horses can't sing." But in the unimagined land, horses can sing, and fences can come down. Entire Sciences are embraced and renounced and then held dear. The forgotten are re-membered, borders are crossed and erased and reconfigured. In the unimagined land reside my thoughts and dreams and aspirations til they percolate through my permeable walls and are set free in action. As Ken Wilber says, "The boundary between self and not-self is the first one we draw and the last one we erase.”
Imagine that.

"Moments in History - The Fall of the Berlin Wall"
Carston Cumbrowski 2008

“Mereotopology”

“Would it be prudent for The Universe to recognize that as an Entity, The Universe is best defined by its boundaries?” wondered The Universe.
God chewed on this question for a bit, and responded thusly: “a boundary can exist as a matter of necessity as an extension beyond that which is not included within the boundary.”
“Once again, The Universe hears God speaking in circles”, replied a confused The Universe. “The Universe is regarding the interiority that is The Universe.”

“Yes”, answered God, “and God intuits that The Universe’s concerns are justified. And those concerns are the vectors discerning what is there and transforms it to what is here.”

"Angel Oak Study #10" 2011
Polymer Stains on Canvas
From the "Revisiting My Nature Series"

“Closure Operators”

“Back to order”, commenced The Universe, chuckling at the unintended double-entendre. “Isn’t there indeed an order in Nature? And if so, can it be formed?”
“There are sequential elements in the interactions of Entities that create societies of intertwining Orders. But these societies are not isolated. Take for example a language that is first acquired and takes an historic route in its developed usage. Over time, this language may come into disuse as overlapping societies of Entities implement new prevailing languages. This is a type of Natural Order”, intoned God.

“Sounds like Greek to me”, retorted The Universe.

“When traveling is made too easy and comfortable, its spiritual meaning is lost. This may be called sentimentalism, but a certain sense of loneliness engendered by traveling leads one to reflect upon
the meaning of life, for life is after all a traveling
from one unknown to another unknown.”
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki

Links:
On Restructuring Habit.
Context.
On The New Land.

This concludes Week Thirteen of
"The God and The Universe Conversations".

The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Twelve

2011-01-25T14:24:00.001-08:00

"That's how you came here, like a star
without a name. Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights."
Rumi

From the Editor: One of the first rules of navigation required that one keep in sight of familiar landmarks. Early seafarers kept to the shore. The Phoenicians and the Polynesians turned their gaze to the heavens and made the stars their fixed points. Currents, trade winds, Astrolabes and Sextants. The compass and its mystical attractions. Lodestone, maps and now, the GPS. All giving us greater points of focus. But as Helen Keller said, "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." As such we must let loose the moorings that tie us to the shores of our familiar lands. We must run the risk of sailing off the edge of our known worlds. In every moment.

"Just One Particle" (detail) 2008
From "The Spidey-Hole Series"

“Interferometer”

“Oh, does God remember back in the day when God was the Judgmental God, but still liked a good joke and would be all like, “Order in The Universe!” and “Tighten that Asteroid Belt there, Mister”, reminisced The Universe. “Good times. But really, God. There must be Order in The Universe or The Universe would implode into Chaos, right?”
“God recalls when a young The Universe feared even the concept of Chaos”, said God. “But Order is a generic term. Vague. A specific order aspires to a full Ideal, which then, must include Disorder. The attainment of a generic Order that does not include Disorder is, of course, only partial and there we are galaxy deep in Disorder.”

“God is Out of Order!” bellowed The Universe. Then laughed timidly and said, “Yeah, good times.

"Angel Oak Study #5" 2010
Digital Photograph

“The Essence of Concrescence”

“The Universe is curious if God is satisfied”, said The Universe, fishing. "The Universe means this is a spectacular circumstance in which to be an Entity!”
“God comprehends the question”, answered God. “But in this moment, God is aware that if an Entity is aware of the Entity’s own satisfaction, then the satisfaction would become a component in the process of being satisfied, thus altering the satisfaction.”

“WOWZA!’ exclaimed The Universe. “That’s some crazy data embedded in God’s proclamation!”

"Things to Forget" (Detail) 2008
From "The Spidey-Hole Series"

“Ontological Mapping - for Joe Spencer”

“So, The Universe”, queried God, “The Universe stated a belief that movement was a type of progress - heading ever forward. Is that still the case?”
“Oh yeah, totally”, responded The Universe quickly. “Isn’t that the way of things? A trajectory of understandable causal events.”
“But doesn’t that leave out the ebb and flow of Becoming and Collapsing?” asked God, politely.
“Got it, God. Events transpire like a sine curve - regarding not an overarching mediating agency……..right?” replied an immediately tentative The Universe.

“More like a sign curve, to God”, laughed God.

Sly & the Family Stone Public Rehearsal 1973
"Everybody is a Star"

“Symbolism is no mere idle fancy or corrupt degeneration:
it is inherent in the very texture of human life.”
Alfred North Whitehead

Source: Hubblesite.org

This concludes Week Twelve of
"The God and The Universe Conversations".

All art and writing by Tom Schulz unless otherwise noted, or unless it is so cool
he will try to get away with claiming it as his own.