Intermission 4 comments

6 Sep 2002 @ 00:06, by John Ashbaugh September 5, Thursday evening. Second whole day in a row without a cigarette. Third consecutive night. Like that is a major accomplishment. Last art class was tonight with Lawrence and Sergio, then Curtis and Robert and Johnny. Everyone has turned in their research papers, except Matthew, for this class. Learn to reflect upon the day, as I once did in so much detail with the material I lived through for two years in India. I burned all those diaries from India in ‘77 or ‘78, when I was living on Franklin St. in Madison, in the apartment upstairs from Bobby Jo and his family. That was where I drew out my first set of drawings for The Gathering, and where I painted that old wooden door with a textured and terrained map of the American continents on one side and an image of the central American peninsula around the Yucatan on the other. I painted my symbol on that door, and that door was given up around the fall of ‘87 when I moved into that warehouse in Madison. One set of destructions after another. There have been some nice things that I have made that have been lost along the way. It seems that certain sacrifices must be made along the way in order to open gateways leading to newer realizations. The gospel of detachment is the path of liberation. I can come up with some good stuff if I set my mind to it and practice. There also needs to be some sort of motivation, driving force, or vision. Lately, I have been motivated to attempt communication with a handful of people at the NewCiv.org web site. I bumped into it about two months ago and joined this group of Newsloggers. What I have to communicate is a book of poetry I composed 20 years ago, which has undergone a couple of revisions since then, but it is essentially the same. The audience for this material has always been microscopic, and I wonder what I can do to create a wider readership. It occurs to me to use this website, whose Newsloggers provide various forms of political, spiritual and artistic content, and are all directed towards visionary approaches towards solving our planet’s ecological problem, which along with the threat of a conflagration in warfare, are the problems that today’s and tomorrow’s generation must face. Most of what passes for news in the newspapers does not deal with these issues in any meaningful or effective way. The problem solvers and the problem creators are living on two different worlds, all on the same planet, and it is the creative visionaries like those who inhabit the various rooms of the NewCiv Newsloggers who contribute to the solution, which will emerge as we participate together in the growth of our individual and mutual awareness. My personal approach is formulated in my book of poetry. I dropped, for the most part, the first person singular from this narrative of a journey along the pathways of my neural connections, and the images they evoke. Depersonalizing it Universalizes it. This is my personal little version of 21st century mythology looking into a hypothetical future for our planet according to my perception of present trends. I am looking into tomorrow and I am looking into the world of generations to come for as far as I can see. What will there be left to believe in? Where will direction and guidance through mystery come from? As I began posting the pages of my ancient contemporary poem in the Newslog grand central station, responses and comments emerged through that pixilated universe, and I realized that communication was in fact, occurring here, and that my own current explanations, commentary, and active participation were going to be an integral part of my intention to share my universe. Ever try to write your own myth, the story that puts all of your beliefs, contradictions, dreams, and everything else in your real and imaginary universe into a coherent framework of images, and depersonalize it? That’s my little story. This is a rare and special opportunity for me to be sharing this material with the Newsloggers and visitors of NewCiv.org. I’m old enough to still be rather amazed at the idea that I am finding real friends behind these keyboard characters and pixilated images, but the reality of it all speaks for itself, and it is impossible to doubt that what is going on here is real. So members come, and members go, just like in real life, every day and every year. We speak our words for the part we play, and move on, as the voice we hear and speak tells us which way to go. Tells me. Tells us. Tells you. Tells the Listener.

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