Mushrooms, Balloons, and UBOs

This drawing evolved from the ink washes mindlessly applied to the page. The rest derives from my RoarShock associations with forms and may have something to do with my time as a seminarian.

Below: Another wash beginning. Fruit, cuckoo bird and balloons Must go somewhere ...

 

I made this drawing a couple weeks ago. Yesterday, while paging through Carl Jung's Red Book at a friend's house, I saw a similar sharp toothed creature eating.

We attended a Multiple Sclerosis informational dinner last week during which the speaker, Dr. Aungdin, told us that MRI brain scans show not only the black holes of demyelination, but also UBOs. The meaning of these Unidentified Bright Objects is unknown. 

Learning to Listen

Ink Therapy sessions 4, 5, and 6 were awash with the struggle to relax my attitudes toward white space. 

In session 4, I had to start with written words again. Not my idea of what should be happening. A few more scratches here and there. A few more words. A couple of ink washes. 

Tanda was no help this time; he kept his distance. Back and forth I went with myself. I struggled with me. We struggled with we. The result: a muddy, complicated story hardly worth interpretation. Looks like my muse is getting raped by a story line stork! 

No sure way to experience a resurrection. No impeccable inkings here. 

Click drawing to enlarge

The devil is in the details.

Session 5 began with a few small rivers of ink wash, an oil slick. I searched for continuations of these image streams, but few appeared. 

First to appear was the horned bull. Next was the dweeb hunkering under the Roman helmet. The dog showed me his backside was nothing more than my fingerprint. A pineapple like vase erupted in faceless heads as if their identities were all tied up.

After the beacon of help shone from the lighthouse, a space age Tanda pretender appeared in a small water craft. Inking was pretty stupid today, I thought.

At last go, the notion of Time did present itself with a meter’s hand protruding from a black ink peninsula. 

Click drawing to enlarge

Oil Slick

During session 6 things began to make sense; I began to get some of the story I was looking for. 

It appears my muse is energizing Mitote, the human and cultural fog Toltecs tell us we are born into. Life has been hijacked by vested interests pretending to offer Truth, pensions, and possibly the favors of Lady Gaga. How much of that hogwash did we blindly accept?

Time reappears like soggy pizzas afloat in rolling seas. Tanda is afloat, seemingly brain dead. There is no Cogito ergo sum; sum is dead and buried. Mitote wins.

It’s time for a Revolution to begin.

Click drawing to enlarge

In Mitote we trust.

Next time: Conflict Resolution

Ink Therapy Resurrects Old Friends

My hope is that Ink Therapy saves us from this crazy, greedy, violent world. And that's just as good a reason as any to spend hours doodling with black ink on white paper.

My second inking session (Doubting Tanda) started at the top of the page with a series of short, parallel lines that eventually turned into a wooley creature with a noble probiscus. How do these things happen? Do these wooly creatures inhabit my brain? yours?

Grab a pen and paper and start doodling. Just make marks. Lines, circles, chevrons, dots, whatever feels good. Don't think too much. My ink therapy is not an activity that depends on plans or forethought or ego. Just the opposite; I simply doodle until the pen starts moving by itself.

Click on image to enlarge.

Before long a formally attired, pen-headed character and his strange dog-like buddy appear at the bottom of the page. Nothing too intimidating for a 70 year old inkster with viagra in his pocket, however. 

The pen-headed character is Tanda, an old friend from previous ink therapy sessions. Tanda always shows up with weird baggage; that’s his nature. Tanda is my psychological Shadow; his full name: Tanda Lobit Shadowself. He's here to amuse me.

But Tanda's first appearance was one of uncertainty on the page. He was dubiously amused when he showed me how he's changed during the past 16 years. He had been resting in a near visible sofa world waiting to make a reappearance in india ink. 

I told him he looks like a full professor on his way to a brandy sniffing party. 

Toltec Rising and The Four Agreements

About a month ago a dear friend of mine offered me a small book purported to contain ancient Toltec wisdom. The Four Agreements by nagual Don Miguel Ruiz was subtitled: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book). 

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Agreements-Practical-Personal-Freedom/dp/1878424319

How could any fan of Carlos Castaneda’s writings decline such a title? I accepted the book as my next reading assignment.

The book was an ideal fit with my lazy self; Here was a small, simple book that could be breezily read. It provided the perfect momentary diversion, I thought, to reclaim some kind of sanity in this crazy world.

Before concluding the book, I had decided to follow the path of the Toltec Warrior, as best I could, by adopting the Four Agreements.

The Agreements were obviously roaming through my mind when I recently decided to reenter pen and ink art therapy sessions again after a layoff of sixteen years. The difficulties of facing a blank white page were initially resolved with words. Then shapes began to emerge.

Here is my first pen and ink doodle-drawing of the year. Subsequent drawings will explore the mysteries of this Toltec Rising.

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