I'm psyched!  15 years away from art and this past fall I returned to what I found to be a wonderful gift back in the school years.  My wife, Charity, took up photography and, in the process, was taking a drawing class.  Through working with her as a mentor (for lack of better word), I found the inspiration to return to it.  Shortly after, and I forget exactly how the process went, I explored the possibility of selling paintings online.

And this is where the shameless plug comes in.  *lol*  In all honesty, the timing of this blog isn't accidental.  ;-)  I've just recently launched my own website:  http://www.t-demas-art.com/ and, yesterday, launched my first eBay auction (search URL for my stuff is http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?ht=1&from=R4&satitle=Demas&sacat=550%26catref%3DC6 if it works, though it may pull some unrelated stuff).  I have enough paintings lined up to launch a new auction every day for several days and will be doing more as I go, so that is only the first!

It feels really good to get underway, not just because of the financial income that it may present, but also because it feels so good to be able to share my work!  I like the thought that maybe some of my pieces will strike a chord in someone, somewhat forging a link between artist and those who appreciate the work of the artist.  And, no, this blog isn't all about "go buy... go buy!"... it's about sharing it and expressing the excitement!

Anyway, I hope everyone's having a great day!  I also just realized this is my first blog in over a year here... tsk tsk...


Tim

"I should say, indeed, that only in the perfect uncontamination and solitariness of individuality may the spirituality of religion positively come forth at all.  Only here and on such terms, the meditation, the devout ecstasy, the soaring flight.  Only here communion with the mysteries, the eternal problems, whence? whither?  Alone and identity and the mood - and the soul emerges, and all statements, churches, sermons, melt away like vapors.  Alone, and silent thought, and awe, and inspiration - and then the interior consciousness, like a hitherto unseen inscription, in magic ink, beams out its wondrous lines to the sense.  Bibles may convey and priests expound, but it is exclusively for the noiseless operation of one's isolated Self to enter the pure ether of veneration, reach the divine levels, and commune with the unutterable."

In the movie V for Vendetta, Natalie Portman's character, having just undergone a tough period of emprisonment during which she learned to surrender fear, stepped out into the rain awash with the feeling of the transcendence of fear, stepping in small, shuffling steps.  She looked  upward in amazement and breathed...

"God is in the rain!"

The moment in the movie is moving (sent chills up my spine the first time I heard what she said) and curious to those on an enlightenment based spiritual path, especially to any who have experienced simliar peak experiences and feelings of elation.

However, the movie is not the most positive nor, in Hawkins terms, "integrous" of movies, and one wonders if the "transcendence of fear" is truly revealed to be a higher state or, more likely, a cathartic experience followed by an apathetic lack of fear.  If it were a higher state, how could later violence be sanctioned?  If this is a state which V achieved, and yet we know his heart to be Vengeance focused, how can this be a higher state?

Oh so close in portrayal for that moment and yet sullied by other parts of the movie!

3 Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you.

When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty."

113 His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?"

"It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it."

From the Lamsa Translation (from Aramaic):

John 14:12:  Truly, truly, I say to you.  He who believes in me shall do the works which I do; and even greater than these things he shall do, because I am going to my Father.

Matt 18:19-21: Then the disciples came up to Jesus when he was alone and said to him, Why could we not heal him?  Jesus said to them, Because of your unbelief; for truly I say to you, If there is faith in you even as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move away from here, and it will move away; and nothing would prevail over you.  Nevertheless, this kind does not come out except by fasting and prayer.

((Note:  The illustration above by M.C. Escher is an appropriate one to look at while pondering spiritual evolution!))

"With contemplation and meditation, the belief in an imaginary 'I' as one's actual self diminishes as all phenomena are realized to be happening of their own and not as a consequence of an inner volitional 'I.'  ... It becomes obvious that one is the witness of phenomena and not the cause or doer of them.  The self, then, becomes that which is being witnessed rather than identifying with it as the witness or experiencer."  [The Eye of the I]

"One does not even have to destroy the ego or even work on it.  The only simple task to be accomplished is to let go of the identification with the ego as one's real self!  With this relinquishment of identification, it actually goes right on walking and talking, eating and laughing, and the only difference is that, like the body, it becomes 'that' instead of 'me' or 'this.'  All that is necessary, then, is to let go of ownership, authorship, and the delusion that one invented or created this self and see that it was merely a mistake.  That this is a very natural and inevitable mistake is obvious.  Everyone makes it, and only a few discover the error and are willing or able to correct it."  [The Eye of the I]

"...the mythical entity that one had always assumed was the wellspring of experience had disappeared and dissolved into the absolute oneness of the universe.  The Self, in its totality and completeness, is beyond and before all worlds, universes, or time, dependent on nothing and caused by nothing.  The Self is beyond existence, neither subject to existence nor nonexistence, beginning nor ending, time nor space.  It cannot even be included in the concepts of 'is' or 'is not.'  The Self is neither manifest nor unmanifest and is beyond any dimensions implied by such categorization of concepts."  [The Eye of the I]

"Death is not possible to life anymore than a shadow can kill light.  Truth is not impaired or negated by falsity, and only its expression can be misunderstood or misrepresented.  There is no opposite to life, to God, to Truth, or to the Allness of Reality."  [I: Reality and Subjectivity]

"Even with logic, it is obvious that a transcendent God would also have to be immanent as well or else God would be characterized as limited.   This would result in a rediculous depiction that God is everywhere in the universe except in man so that each man would be like a hole in the totality of the universe.  This would be like depicting the omnipresence of God as a block of Swiss cheese, with mankind living in the holes."  [I: Reality and Subjectivity]

"...the objects we contemplate and that which contemplates are identical - both are thought.  The subject cannot surely know an object different from itself. "  [from Plotinus to Flaccus]

"You ask how can we know the Infinite?  I answer, not by reason.  It is the office of reason to distinguish and define.  The Infinite, therefore, cannot be ranked among its objects.  You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer - in which the divine essence is communicated to you.  This is ecstacy.  It is the liberation of your mind from its finite consciousness.  Like only can apprehend like;  when you thus cease to be finite, you become one with the Infinite."  [from Plotinus to Flaccus]

"How to get rid of the lower self.  The blossom vanishes of itself as the fruit grows, so will your lower self vanish as the divine grows in you."  [Ramakrishna Paramahansa]