april thru december 2007

i returned home from Brazil to find things changed, and it disturbed me to deal with the changes. it felt like time had been and was being lost and i became preoccuppied with an invasive repetitional inner dialogue. painting and physical projects helped, but hampered with a damaged rotorcuff, even my physical abilities were limited. it was my art and the reception that it was receiving that pulled me thru this period and what could have been damaging, transformed into being an insight of family dynamics that i'd needed. only later would i realize this, reading and thinking about the book 'The Art of Stalking Parallel Perception' by Lujan Matus. The shadow was stalking me.

"See that these imprints are like an ethereal landing pad that exists within that transparency and when the shadow applies pressure on these sites what invariably escapes is our energy, which then becomes a source of sustanance for those beings. This phenomenon is echoed in our behaviors towards each other, as petty enactments to trigger awarenenss into states of egocentricity and justification, which establishes the limited avenues of preoccupation neded to sustain more energy released. As you know this creates a perpetual cycle of excited gluttony for the shadow. When that energy is released, our power is redirected away from our true purpose. When people unconsciously enact their dysfuctions upon one another, thinking that these states of being are theirs to possess, they must realize that they are not the possessors, but rather they are being possessed by the pre-arranged phenomenon."

"As children we are given internal repetitious talk from our immediate environment and once the inherited imprint has been established through routines, the next generation further refines that inheritance through practice and adapts it to the present day. What drives this imprint is the shadow through accessing those implanted imprints, enlivening emotion and justifiable self-serving rationalization through that narrow avenue of preoccupation, not only on an individual basis but within a collective network. This hidden network is initiated thhrough intention, reinforced internally and then emotionally sustained. Remember, these imprints are so insidiously stationed that once triggered, they become self-sustaining through habitual identification, yet that usable network only connects in our realm if we are stabilized and fixed within familiar routines. If these routines are dismantled witin the living construct, the shadow will then have less opportunity to implant itself."

perhaps what's been most notable to me personally, was that i KNEW that this change of routine was what was needed. but only later did i open that book to better understand why. for this and many other reasons, whatever it is, this path i am on, it's to be mine and not to be imposed upon me. a path with heart.

tom jones, rio de janeiro, december 2007