“As the poets and painters of centuries have tried to tell us, art is not about the expression of talent or the making of pretty things. It is about the preservation and containment of soul. It is about arresting life and making it available for contemplation. Art captures the eternal in the everyday, and it is the eternal that feeds soul—the whole world in a grain of sand. Leonardo”
David Hidalgo, Los Lobos Guitarist — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Cortez the Killer
He came dancing across the water With his galleons and guns Looking for a new world A palace in the sun On the shore lay Montezuma With his cocoa leaves and pearls In his halls he often wondered The secrets of the worlds Oh, and his subjects gathered round him Like leaves around a tree In their clothes of many colors For the angry gods to see And the women all were beautiful And the men stood straight and strong They offered life in sacrifice So that others could go on
Hate was just a legend And war was never known The people worked together And they lifted many stones They carried them to the flat-lands And they died along the way They built up with their bare hands What we still can’t build today And I know she’s living there And she loves me to this day I can still remember when Or how I lost my way
Cortez, Cortez He came dancing across the water Cortez, Cortez
Came dancing across the water
Came dancing across the water Cortez, Cortez Dancing across the water Dancing across the water Dancing across the water Came dancing across the water Cortez, Cortez Dancing across the water Dancing across the water Dancing across the water
● relax ● don’t compete ● always respect nature ● be patient and you will get there ● be conscious, rocks can harm you and others ● go new ways, boost your creativity ● let go when its time to ● push your limits ● never give up ● enjoy the art
Jack “Old Jules” Purcell — Photo-Artistry by kenne
In June of 2006 Old Jules wrote on his blog So Far From Heaven “The More It Stays The Same.”
I hadn’t watched Easy Rider (Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson, circa 1968) in three decades.
When I saw it again this past weekend I appreciated it again for the first time:
Nicholson: You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.
Hopper: Huh. Man, everybody got chicken, that’s what happened, man. Hey, we can’t even get into like, uh, second-rate hotel, I mean, a second-rate motel. You dig? They think we’re gonna cut their throat or something, man. They’re scared, man.
Nicholson: Oh, they’re not scared of you. They’re scared of what you represent to ’em.
Hopper: Hey man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody needs a haircut.
Nicholson: Oh no. What you represent to them is freedom.
Hopper: What the hell’s wrong with freedom, man? That’s what it’s all about.
Nicholson: Oh yeah, that’s right, that’s what it’s all about, all right. But talkin’ about it and bein’ it – that’s two different things.
I mean, it’s real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace.
‘Course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free ’cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are.
Oh yeah, they’re gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ’em.
Hopper: Mmmm, well, that don’t make ’em runnin’ scared.
Nicholson: No, it makes ’em dangerous.
Three young men searching for America who found it wasn’t what they bargained for.
“Thank Heaven For Little Girls” (Hoping they grow up with an appreciation and respect for nature.)
— Image by Their Classroom Teacher
“Thank heaven for little girls
Thank heaven for them all
No matter where,
No matter who
Without them
What would little boys do
Thank heaven
Thank heaven
Thank heaven for little girls.”
— from Thank Heaven For Little Girls by Alan Jay Lerner / Frederick Loewe
Spine-tipped Dancer Damselfly — Photo-Artistry by kenne
“Once in a while you get shown the light
In the strangest of places if you look at it right.
Well there ain’t nothin’ wrong with the way she moves,
All scarlet begonias or a touch of the blues.
And there’s nothing wrong with the look that’s in her eyes
I had to learn the hard way to let her pass by, let her pass by.”
— from Scarlet Begonias by Jerry Garcia / Robert Hunter of the Grateful Dead
In a Magritte sky clouds formed
from the smoke of a stemmed pipe one sunkissed on Catalina peaks the other an
Upflow Vortex
each a cathedral rock
named in history remaining covered invoking mystery concealing nothing.
— kenne
“We are surrounded by curtains. We only perceive the world behind a curtain of semblance. At the same time, an object needs to be covered in order to be recognized at all.”
When we stand at
the altar of nature, we stand with the greats; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and John Muir, each having helped define our relationship with nature and language — “every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact, . . . words are signs of natural facts.”
Nature’s beauty becomes a source of spiritual energy connecting all things into a universal whole with the energy of our
thoughts and will. We stand at nature’s altar not separate from her, seeing us in the flowers, insects, animals, mountains, creating a unified landscape of our inward and outward senses.
Like all relationships, the experience depends on the degree of harmony between us and nature, therefore becoming a gift granted while walking with nature as she is embraced in our minds – Enlighten, she shares her secrets, making the universe more “transparent.” Yet the gift may only offer a glimpse, to be shared in images and words,
charming all living things.
kenne
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. — John Muir