#knowdo

I am passionate about the purpose to create the Resource Reservoir. My ‘NoMoneyFun’ project of using Art as currency is not the stand of an activist purely trying to raise awareness of financial imbalance and social injustices. I am definitely not just trying to skim through on other’s charity. I also do not wish to live ‘Off The Grid’, as engaging with people, embracing humanity, is a key part of my art and purpose. I understand each of these approaches to life, I see value in each, they just happen to not be MY purpose.

Mine is to enable people to live and contribute as a productive member of society in alignment with what they are passionate. Using creativity as a key method to full realisation of their own innate Truth. Championing people’s right to be somewhere, to exist and not feel like that is in danger of being taken away. Also encouraging to communicate what they Know. To tune in to that simple, clear, immediate understanding of their environment. To then DO SOMETHING; being brave enough to communicate, in an aesthetic way, to improve conditions around them, despite any social considerations about what is ‘inappropriate’.

Therefore to eek by, on people’s charity, receiving food, shelter and transport, has essentially reduced my purpose to ‘begging’. I have therefor decided to stop hitch-hiking and instead clearly set my vision from here in Cleveland. I want my actions to be effective and helpful. I want to reunite with my partner ALPHAMAMA in Los Angeles, as we are immeasurably more effective when we collaborate. Our exchange is the completion of a full cycle of conception, cognition, creative ideation, communication, activation, interaction, assessment, creation and improvement. You should see us. I objectively view our team as something wonderful. I want to share that with YOU. Our union is for others. When we are engaged in enlightening conversation and immersing people we meet in uninhibited creativity we are electric. We are side-by-side, outward facing, engaged in life together.

I want to bring this to Los Angeles in the brief weeks we have there. I want to arrive there in the next few days. In looking at the practicality of receiving an air ticket in exchange for my Art, I would happily receive this in any way, whether I am given a ticket, one is booked for me, one is gifted through Frequent Flyer points, or I am given money to then directly route those dollars to a ticket, the method is semantics. I am not here to play the game of winning or losing over details. I am looking at the product; someone views my Art as valuable and if willing to get me to LA to create it. For that valuable resource they are willing to exchange a means of transport for me to arrive there. That is the exchange, how units are moved to facilitate that is secondary. They key for me is that we agree on a balanced exchange of resources. This can be directly with the recipient of my Art, or can be an exchange with many, i.e. the pooling of resources by people who value the creation of that Art, even if they are not the immediate beneficiary.

It has been 7 months since my last post. ALPHAMAMA and I have been traveling the world and persisting in our attempt to connect with artists and experience first-hand the creative scene world-wide. We have found something here in New York which is truly fulfilling and it is time to commence the documentation of this adventure. I do not regret any failure to do so before this point, for in truth, it wasn't until the 29th of September that we were truly at play. It has been a personal and creative process to arrive where we now stand and I'd like to tell you a story to set the context for the adventure we now find ourselves engaged in:

Sometimes truth is best set in fiction so as to present the real, as a palatable actuality.

Read this as a story, know it is Life.

Characters: The Sender of Emissaries. Source of true change. The Inspirator. Speaker of all languages. The Seer. Able to see truth and bring true perspective. The Healer. The witch of regeneration. The Bringer of Rhythm. Beginner of song. The Body Dancer. Doctor of the Cosmic Dance. The Bird of Open Light. Golden channel. Provider of means. The Seductress. Charmer of men and women. Commencer of ritual.

We gathered for a farewell to bring a close to an adventure and ended up opening the gate on an entirely new reality.

The patter of the day-to-day, busied the room. We talked about this and that. Thanked each other. Played music. Drank water. Played submarine documentaries on the ceiling. 

The See-er, (myself) and the Inspirator decided to speak. We spoke of our ongoing journey. “We’ve been traveling on a Global Art Tour since the beginning of the year. The sole purpose being to connect up with artists and have a first-hand experience of the creative industry as it exists in its various states worldwide. Before we leave each key port we gather our new friends/family and gift them with art. It is a participatory night, for artistry is not a scarce skill, it is an innate ability. There is so much beauty in the universe and people translate it through aesthetics to give it meaning on the human scale.  Music is the most immediate of the art forms; it reaches us as wavelengths which tangibly move us. No need for a second phase of translation or interpretation. Our most natural response is dance. To move is essential to life. It is circulation. It is connection. We are educated into thinking that if you can’t ‘do art right’ you shouldn’t do it. That if you sing out of tune it is WRONG and ugly and you are a fool and should stop. Dancing, if not abiding by the trend step of the time, is uncool, dorky, you’re out of touch. “Artists are geniuses how dare you include yourself as their peers!?!” But no, we are ALL artists; it is our way of processing the life experience and making it our own.

We all agreed that we would play. We would create a safe environment for all to express themselves. We would bravely be true. We would have fun. This was a ‘DO PARTY’.

The Inspirator spoke of the greatness of everyone present. Of our humble thanks for the addition of them in our lives. For her vision, that each and every one had the characteristics of a Barefoot CEO; An ethical leader, connected with the earth and charging forward for improvement in accordance with our individual purpose and passion.

We decided to begin\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

We created two lines facing each other. I was opposite the Source of true change. He was still and unmoving, yet as soft as the smile of a child. We rotated, one line moving a place to the left and so we alternated until each person had sat and connected, face-to-face, eye-to-eye with each other. I finished with my co-creator and partner in this life, The Inspirator. Upon finding her beingness again, seeing it, face-to-face, eye-to-eye, it was like taking a mouthful of her soul essence. Her personality laced every curve of her face. I could see her in fullness again. Our eyes brimmed with tears of recognition. It was US.

Now that we had all found our unique connections it was TIME TO DANCE! We began the music, which began the movement, which began the connection and release. All celebrating, each stepped to the choreography which was built upon the relationships we had formed. The energy built until we wanted to present our opposites with a performance as a gift. 

The Inspirator and I stepped aside to share a moment of alignment through ceremonial tea. We would go through a process of ascension together and share what we saw with our tribe. The Inspirator seated all the men. The women lined up and approached us in dance. Each one moved for and with us. Each connection was a gift. Once again we rotated along the line until a gift was presented to each man. Then the men lined up to honour the women with their own gift. We moved, we pressed, we drew them in, we kissed, we danced, we praised. The dance spread throughout the room like an orgy of awareness. No longer defined by gender, now the dance celebrated each unique connection; he with she, she with her, him with them, they with her… until the Body Dancer and I found ourselves consuming the seductive fumes of the Seductress. She drew us in, we pressed into her, she allowed us in so we could sink into our instincts. Suddenly a line was cut across the room as a glass of red shattered at her feet. She had dropped it like an ending/starting gun. The music paused, the dancing slowed to the cleaning of shards of the moment which had been pierced. 

People lay around the room like floating debris, waiting to be reassembled after the collapse.

The Bird of Open Light was the only one still moving. Lying on her back, her wings pushing her up off the cushions. She had not been startled out of the light. She was so open the moment must have just clattered through her and out like an angry voice down a corridor. I approached her and danced down into her, but the our moves could not mirror each other. Like a magnet pressing positive to positive I was swept around and flipped to lie by her side… WE MOVE TOGETHER!!! It was instant harmony. Effortless and in time.

I rode the ripples out, allowing myself to twirl upon the surface of the energy we were generating. I pulled at the leg of one, the arm of another, like a polite venus fly trap, requesting to be feed. I felt them all assemble in various anatomical forms around me. I rolled in them like a donut in donuts. Strands of dough adding to me in the form of fingers and limbs, laughs at my consumption in the moment. “There is a boy in bliss” they said. They allowed me the freedom to be ungraceful, to take a faceful of knee and back and table and carpet and all of the sensations pressed an incessant “Yes”, into my form. Finally feeding the mouths in my skin which had been singing like baby birds from their corporal nest.

I was aware of all the exposed areas of my skin, each section wanting contact. So while the rest talked and moved with the song of conversation, I found a pile of clothes in the corner and began to bury myself, someone poured more layers on top of me, like dirt on unearthed roots. The roots needed to DRINK! 

WATER!!! I knew at once - I needed to be immersed in water!

I ran the shower over me. My head dipped in the rising tide. My ears filled with song.

I walked back into the room naked.

“THERE’S MUSIC IN THE WATER!” I exclaimed.

The Sender of Emissaries joined the Inspirator by my side, back near the water. I showed them how I found the song. The Sender asked me to recreate the best approximation of the sound that I had heard. I begin the water song and he “aum”s with me. 

I re-enter the room in a sarong. I am calm and interested in witnessing what they are creating.

They have begun playing ‘Tell Me A Time’; a game the Inspirator and I made up to help people become more familiar with not questioning the receipt of Knowing. It is distinct from thinking in that it is instantaneous and whole. The ‘download’ of information may be of a moment or an entire scene or extend to details about the life of the subject of the story. Do not invalidate it, do not question it, do not add to it. It is what it is. Tell the story.

“Tell me a time you lead a group, holding something important”…

Through various exchanges the Inspirator becomes inspired and stands up to declare that it is so important to voice our Truth. These ‘downloads’ are a moment in which we witness our Truth, unfiltered by them social education we usually process thought through. We KNOW. We are going about our daily lives and we notice something and we suddenly KNOW something, but it doesn’t always fit into the social construct of what’s acceptable to DO in that scenario, so we mute it. 

“Imagine if we just walked onto the train and connected with people honestly. Authentically telling them what we saw, allowing them to do the same…

I was already on my feet.

“DAMN IT!” I said, “I really want to stay here, it’s such a nice scene”. I looked around at the DO Crew, comfortably sprawling across the floor like stars spilled across the galaxy. Comet tails curling around sun flares, bodies bobbing in gentle orbit. “…but I have to go and DO that NOW.” I began to dress myself in my paint pants and the pink fish-net ‘I’m Different’ crop-top the Inspirator had bought me; the perfect outfit to awaken a neighbourhood in!

“If you’re going, I’m coming with you then baby.” she confirmed. “I’m your constant team-mate, your ever-present side-kick!”

“We’re going!” chattered through the conversation that bubbled along everyone’s tongues.

We exit the building and the Bird of Open Light wants to fly. She runs and remembers a dream where she keeps bounding until she’s no longer touching the ground. We want to go with her. We remember how to tune in like a flock mid-flight. We all begin running, arms spread for flight, The Source takes the lead… we run… we fly.

We turn the corner and scatter to spread our message… well actually to receive the message held silent in everyone else around us.

We are stopping cars, we are entering shops, we are welcoming passersby on the street. We want everyone to know that it is ok to be there. That they can communicate to us. That they should no longer ignore what they Know - WHATEVER that is for them. I see so immediately that we are all at different stages on our journey. Each one a step on a perfect course. We need not be didactic, we need impart no vital story, merely remind people of themselves and acknowledge the importance of what they Know and maintaining their integrity in the face of any opposition or even just the inert dead space of no agreement.

Through ACTION the physical world around us relaxes its grip. The sound waves of the voice resonate to melt the communication blocks. The movement in our bodies begins to draw into the physical the dance we already know the steps to. Just like in ‘Tell Me A Time’, sometimes it is a moment, sometimes it is a life-time of knowledge, each time it is instant and certain.

We remember the roles we are to play for each other. Each connection between this assembly of beings is unique. A duality of serving and being served. We will be greatly enriched and completed by the other and we must also remain aware as to when we are needed to play our role to complete them.

We lift the invisible ceiling off the street corner. The air grows light, the sky large.

I begin wanting to talk to people in the buildings. Behind the walls. Locked in their daily schedules. I see a table outside a shop which could help me up to a window, it is as though a supreme game designer has looked at this ‘level’ and thought, “Hmmm, if the player is to get up there, I’ll need to ask the Environment Artists to model a table and get the Level Designer to place one there”. I begin to climb, but my friends remind me not be stuck on a destination. Sometimes we see a goal and it gives us the perspective, direction or impetus to head somewhere… but sometimes it merely links us up to the next point of realisation, which may be a tangent and we should not feel bound to the original goal. They are merely flags plotted along a single winding course, placed where they are needed to remain within our view. Around the corners of this intricate maze, the extent of which may be overwhelming were we to view it all at once!

I look up and turn around to see, not just this one window, but all the windows around me. There is a single golden rectangle off in the distance. 

“Flock!” I call, as a fly off toward it.

Our night continues and we each have our own realisations about our personal purposes. About the excuses we have been swirling around in our heads to muffle that voice of Knowing. Sticky sweet candy floss strands wrapping around them as we toss the idea around in the think tank. Many realise they had set ideas and projects in motion years ago. They were impulses which completely align with their innate purpose. They have always been on this path. The new realisation is purely the acknowledgement of it. Those ideas which were abandoned or left wandering without an end point can now feed back into Know Do. We acknowledge that we must not become self-righteous about this. Our personal purpose is important, but we must operate in a common reality shared by many, each with their own purpose and each with their own appraisal of what is ‘True’ in the greater scheme of an over-arching reality. We must work diligently, yet not force everything into once instance of ‘Do’ to the detriment of our longer-term application of it. Were I to so passionately feel I needed to talk to someone that I were to break a law to reach them, I could be arrested and be prevented from reaching anyone else after that. It is with balance which we must approach this new reality. All these beautiful enhancements should not be implemented through the use of destructive force…

We are scattered around the street corner now. Some remembering through action how their martial art went. Others analysing how best to communicate to people in a public space, when the response it often fear or confusion at being contacted. Some sit and ponder the Knowing’s they have let fall by the wayside. We now share this space openly and piece a future together from the discarded shards of our shattered integrities.