When will he come back home?

I don't know if I will be updating this blog anymore. Time will tell. I no longer feel at home in the forest and have migrated to tumblr. It seems to be for the best...for now.

I've been blogging obsessively on Tumblr again. I wrote something under a photo caption of another artist, then changed my mind and posted it independently. I don't know what it ultimately means; but I think I am becoming increasingly homeless in my heart and want to get away from this place, this city and these limitations.


He is straddling borders; not a citizen, just a nomad. He is a doomed dreamer with broken glass swimming in his heart, cutting him and filling him with the most exquisite torment. He is attended by icons and moths, by ghosts and halos. He is intoxicated by the wine of handsome warriors and the incense priests swing from pots.

He is not going home, instead he is running away. You seem him through a broken mirror and that mirror is distorted. He does not speak your language because Earthly words have left him. Look! He is ready to sprout wings and hover over your contempt.

Nomad

This is a cross-post from my Tumblr blog.

I've been reading about inspiring cities and places around the world.

There are several destinations I am dying to visit before I die, and not just because other people want to visit them too: Paris, Tokyo, Constantinople, Alexandria, Carthage and Rome. These are magical cities; place names that resonate with so much power and history. These are cities that roll off the tongue like mantras to the beat of tribal drums. Cities that glisten with the promise of love, marble and self-discovery. Cities that are calling me home to discover myself in.

I believe that I have left pieces of myself in some of these cities; that it will be my life long mission to regain shards of myself by visiting them. These are more than just vacations, more complex than mere negotiations with the self: this is pilgrimage. Going back to the source. Finding myself again after losing everything and regaining something substantially better.

Then there is the allure of spiritual transcendence and intellectual stimulation: a trip to St. Catherine's monastery in Mt. Sinai; gazing at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople; a trip to see the ruins of Carthage. Imagining blood, sex, commerce and Emperors. Contemplating the big, unanswered questions of life under church domes a thousand years old. I long to gaze under the naked desert sky, attended by stars billions of light years away and wonder what it means to be alive and conscious of the universe.

I imagine the people I will meet, the books I will discover in dusty libraries, the lovers I will have, the music I will hear and the strange foods I will taste for the first and last time. I imagine coming back from these hegiras armed with fresh self-knowledge, new perspectives and the smell of spices in my hair and under my arms.

I relish improbable fantasies that would make Danielle Steele jealous: the thought of waking up in a villa in Lake Como; visiting the Blue House in Mexico and admiring Frida's accouterments. I imagine buying bargain treasures in flea markets and old antique shops; meeting holy men in Coptic churches swinging pots of frankincense. I imagine Lhasa and Moscow and the works of art I will see with my own eyes.

I imagine and I dream and I long. I am, therefore I must travel. I must flee and come back before I become one with the dust that calls out my name.

If I am a traveler with no home; if this restlessness means my soul has no anchor, then I must wander and experience the full expanse of everything. It will not mean validation, it will not mean sanctuary. It will simply be a semi-salvation before the fire that blazes deep within consumes me whole.

I want to live and I want to die. I want to love and I want to fall apart and get glued back again. I want to know everything and who I am. I want myself to undulate in all directions, all dimensions like a primordial ocean. I want to experience life

Why do I spend so much time updating this blog, my twitter, my Facebook (and now) my Tumblr account when it is so obvious that no one really cares?

Love and Lous XIV

I realize that one of the reasons I read the Antonia Fraser's biography of Louis XIV over and over again is because of the love he felt for his secret wife Madame de Maintenon- a woman he loved deeply for over twenty years. Their love was so touching and believable; the only love story from history I ever really believed in. And I envy them; what made them so special? What had they ever done to deserve true, profound love?

I want to be in love. I want to experience the real thing. I want to be the great love of someone's life and I want to be able to love back with the same momentum.

I want to love so much it hurts.

Dawn

There is a point where words end. Words after all, are only a portion of our consciousness.

I'm trying to tell you something with these pictures; if you are listening or even care. There is something I want you to know and I hope that you understand. My words have failed me; maybe these pictures won't.

Elijah

Impressionistic pieces alluding to the moment Elijah was whisked away by a flaming chariot and translated to heaven.

Hildegard von Bingen's Scivias

I've just read an article on Wikipedia about Hildegard von Bingen's fascinating visionary book Scivias. It was composed, according to Bingen, 'by the commandment of God'. Indeed this extremely long book has remarkable similarities to the ancient books of prophecy found in the Old and New Testament. Scivias is an extremely long and powerful record of visions, discourses, songs and poems. The original manuscript also has many beautiful illuminations- so transcendentally beautiful that I did a series of digital painting based on it last night.


I first came across Hildegard von Bingen's work as a child: When I was about twelve, I asked my mother (or rather begged her) to buy me a classical CD recorded by Sequentia called 'Canticles of Ecstasy'. Hildegard was probably Europe's first great feminist and intellectual: she was a religious leader, an intellectual, a scientist, an artist, a poet, and if that wasn't enough, an adept musical composer. I saw an advertisment for the CD in a classical music magazine and begged my mom to purchase that very CD for me (which she did). The CD cover had a very powerful, enigmatic image of a blue figure in a Hellenistic robe. Arms raised up and eyes towards heaven, this being seemed to be experiencing another, more ecstatic realm of the senses. Over the years I have never bothered to research the images found on that CD cover. In college, I remember seeing a copy of the Scivias illuminations in a book about feminist artists under the heading 'Scivias' but did not bother to research on it. Last night out of curiosity, I wiki-ed the word 'Scivias' online and was pleasantly surprised to realize it was a book of propehcy.

I still love Hildegard von Bingen's chants and canticles: they remind me of angels singing in a heavenly choir, the revolving of multi-hued cosmic spheres- indeed everything that made the intellectual-spiritual dimension of the European Middle Ages so remarkable.

It only now, as a twenty-five year old man, that I have come to understand Hildegard's importance not only as an artist but as a religious mystic. Yesterday night I discovered that the Scivias illuminations were meant for a very important book- a book that has been largely ignored in our century except in esoteric circles.

I deleted my Myspace account

I just deleted my Myspace account after almost two years of using the service. I did it because I almost never use this social networking site and virtually none of my real friends are on it. I just kept on adding famous singers, artists and cute people and in the end it wasn't really getting me anywhere.

So for better or worse, I have gotten rid of my account, though I do lament the loss of interesting comments and messages I have received from certain online 'friends'. Oh well, sometimes you need to burn bridges when something no longer makes sense.

This makes me wonder whether I ought to delete my friendster account. I mean I have memories on that account too- testimonials, pictures and friends I have added but no longer keep in contact with. Friendster is the past since I have migrated to Facebook.

On second thought maybe I will keep it but not actually use it anymore. I will preserve it for memories- sort of like a high school year book.

Maybe its my Multiply account I ought to delete. People haven't been commenting or even viewing any of my pictures, art works, blog posts or even notes. The only real reason I even have a Multiply account is because I need it to express myself and archive my creative portfolio.

I dunno what I will do. All I know is my Myspace account is as dead as the dodo and if you really want to get in contact with me, my Myspace and Multiply account is your best bet to reach me.

Cosmos, Scivias