Dreamtime Synastry

Last weekend I got together with Chelsea, Matthew, and Matt and we put together a performance peace involving projectors, drawing, and digiridoos. It was an amazing experience, and so much fun to work with such awesome people. I'll be posting the finished project up here soon.

Pirate Fest!

Tybee Island had their second annual day of drinking and booty calling, aka Pirate Fest. Darcy and the Crew (Jon, Sean, and I) made our wretched way out their and gave the whole shindig a kick in its crusty pirate pants. Twas fun...

Rat Brains, Galaxies and Love.

http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project.cfm?id=308


We've seen lots of pictures of individual galaxies, the round discs of light and whirpoolic forms. We've been looking at individual players, hugely massive entities that lumber through space, almost like plankton. But this concept of a homogenous mixture of galaxies slowly expanding from a singular point seems to break down under the auspices of being able to see the universe from a different perspective. What we see instead is a network, not chaos.
    This new image of the universe, is really really fascinating. Neurons are the part of the brain that transmit information by using electro-chemical synapse. They see and respond, really quickly, but with little "thought" to what abstract idea they may realizing on a gross scale. I begin to think of a chair, and suddenly millions of cells dance and vibe at the rhythm of "chair" none of them having any actual clue as to what a chair is. The thought is a result of the pattern. The pattern of information. Be it chemicals, marbles, electricity, or an idea, it is the pattern of the transfer that creates a thought.
    So, it would make sense that these galaxies are unaware of what galactic pattern making they are participating in. The flow of information generates consciousness on a  galactic scale, like the one seen above. Instead of chemicals or electricity, we might see a transfer of energy and light. As this light was transfered the patterns would induce a gross awareness, a consciousness.
   This is true in rat brains, our brains, the shape of the galactic network, and also in our individual lives and our relationship to each other and our planet. Our network, our relationships, create a flow of information that transmits ideas and emotions. This data transfer is the foundational synapse of a consciousness on a higher dimension that has only recently been explored by the Occident. The consequences of these facts becoming the paradigms of the new generations can only be affirmations of connectedness and community, as well as patterns and rhythm.

Re-Fest: An Essay

Over the weekend, more than 700 peaceful protestors were arrested on the streets of New York City. As part of Occupation Wall Street, these individuals gathered together behind a collective idea of a world different from the one we see today. A world of community, a world of creativity and awareness and freedom, a world where nature and the spirit of wildness inside all of us is granted relevance and expression.

Over the same weekend, I found myself in the midst of something called "Re-Fest." It took me some time to understand exactly what I was dealing with, where it had come from, and how I was part of it, but I soon found myself almost too excited to maintain a focus on the present as ideas and potentials began to exponentially excite my curiosity and passion. I saw the beginnings of many fertile connections being made, and the energy of the synapse between individuals, co-ops, alliances, and businesses was palpable.

The quiet mumblings of paradigm shifts are becoming conversations that we can all join in on, share and learn from. We are realizing our potential as individuals in a co-creative universe and events such as Re-Fest are only the most primal examples of what is to become. This is not only the future of Savannah, but of the world.

I was surprised by the lack of undergraduate SCAD students at the festival. The reasons for this may be attributed to a few things, but two stand out for me. The perception that Savannah holds of Undergrads and the perception that Undergrads hold of Savannah. A lack of advertising to the undergrad sector on the behalf of the leaders of "Re-Fest" due to the apparent uninterested nature that many undergrads seem to have with the community of Savannah could have emphasized a vicious loop that needs to be broken.

SCAD has the capacity (similar, I would assume, to many colleges) of becoming a universe in its own right that shelters students and insulates them to the tangible "stuff" that is Savannah. Especially at an undergrad level, it is easy to close the loop of your life entirely inside the bubble of SCAD. I feel that this is a loss both to the community and the individual as each has been denied the lessons the other stores.

Re-Fest and the Undergrad could have both strengthened each other. There is a feeling at SCAD that Savannah offers very little future, and what future it does hold is quite old-fashioned. What I took away from Re-Fest was that Savannah holds a unique mix of materials, spirit, and people. There is a slowness to the town that has kept it behind Portland, or San Francisco but I see this staleness not as a curse, but a charm. It allows us, right now, to have a lasting impact on the southern renaissance that I find myself in the midst of. Things are changing, whether we see it or not. We can either resist the change and feel the pain of holding on, or collaborate as a community to create the future we all deserve.

What excited me more than the festival itself was the potential that it created. The unsaid, unseen connections that were made. New York and Savannah may be far apart, but what happened in the two cities is connected by a willingness of individuals to take power over their reality. The New Yorkers have the burden of being the symbol of the collapse of corporate materialism but here in Savannah we have the responsibility and the freedom to create the new paradigms and start the patterns of a collaborative spirituality that can connect all of us.