A Return....to Sedona Arizona

I had returned to Sedona. Ironically not many things had changed around me that were too obvious, and then some less obvious, a greater sensation that the last several months I had spent away were more of a reprieve, just a reprieve for the holidays, if that!

The truth is I was feeling “worked hard and laid up wet” Feeling the western emotion of laid up wet and run dry, was the heavy sensation of the trip to Texas, where I could of stayed, I presume...or maybe.

The outlook when I left was a permanent situation of change. When I arrived there, it looked good or perhaps optimal to my pursuits.

But we have our cause-effectual deals here among business as usual in bad or even treacherous economic times that puts one to a test of 'treatment'. Sedona was the same. It is always the same. Its a pretty town, and enough said. Its beauty it in the rocks, not necessarily in the culture that collects tourists, or visitors and then sees them on their way. It is a revolving door community, this I remember all too well. Not too much more to say.

It has some lights, an atmosphere controlled by the tenets of big business, corporate industry, and the residents which uphold their own upper class swave, and exudes a feeling of Disneyland at a big cost for tourist. The locals are mostly retired or tourists. Young people drift from this town in search of themselves, clinging on to masters both ascended and misdirected, of the mortal variety who seek profit of words delivered to ears of the entrained. Of course try to live here and one may either be sent up...to religiosity, karmic development, crystal gazers and the like..and then down on the same elevator, spending ones last nickle on hopes of a healing from a shaman. Oh we know this, I’ve lived here, and have tried to introject an intelligent viewpoint..to the aspects of Nibiru, cosmic events, crystals and vortex, which boggles ones mind in pure science explanation as to why people believe in such things. But this is Sedona. It is a perspective two or three day gamble at a crystal monument for the tourists, twittering ones experiences back home at how they were saved by ascended masters, an then off again for most, carrying the same burdens and fears with them, perhaps even more if one gets into the local ideas of superstition, ancient mythological ancestry worship, crystal vortex, full moons, drum circles and mystical enlightenment...if not sex magic. It is a pretty place. 

It was a place where I had my things, my belongings on a return form promises and prospects, being lifted up and out of this environment into another, and set back again by pure misunderstanding. I had hundred of paintings left, and plans for a further convoy to Huston, safety for my work as well as many others that did not happen as expected. Now why did I return??

I went off on a dream, did what I did in Texas, and then returned. It was a plan that was a risk, a big risk and I knew it at the time but was willing to be at cause for the task. I knew it was chancy, that things may change, or people, being fickle to their own wants may try to envelope me in some scheme for their own cause. One thing I have said to myself...never try to figure why something is, it just draws more questions, especially when it means ones life, ones presence, or things that matter, should matter...my life belongings are here. This must be my placement, my base, home or center for what comes next.

Texas was now a long way away. I felt encouraged on my plans of Texas, and to Houston, but as I found...everything is for a time. To expect plans to work as planned is to cheat oneself out of adventure of miscalculation.

I remember the rush of encouragement in my departure from Sedona. That encouragement was a long way away now, and I found myself back in the red rock, the basin, a high cavernous chasm. Like bricks they lay about me, as though a tomb. The scheme of escape had ended in my return. Some mystics may call it Karma, but logic has reason and it was logical that if Texas didn’t work out this would mean a return.

My entry into Sedona again after this trip first felt like a visit to a salad bar in which appeared colored jello. The energy after my return seemed to change, so I thought then. At first it seemed gentle with the days, weeks and months that had passed. A new feeling of "possibility" was in me, a re-generalization so to speak.

How ones mind tricks oneself to believe that things do change is a mystery. The feeling of coming home, those feelings are unmistakable, yet I knew I was a visitor here, all I could be, watching an waiting for Hope, Faith and Dreams to enter my realities in this place.

I tried to make the concept positive of a return home. But the longer the hours past, and then the days, I found it the same old place, not energized but filled with that mock culture of plastic, uneven in its definition of actual, rather a viral place of this pseudo crystalline nature, this spiritualist play-pen, a place that stood still for those who got caught in it to be trapped in.

Oh how I tried to escape this mockery, this vortex, assembly of disbelievers. It again became the same old Sedona, an awkward place with the variety of perspectives and colors placed in a still of the imagination. Nothing was here, and again I was at work trying to assemble myself for placement elsewhere but... I was here again.

It was like a trip back in time, unaffected by the time that I was gone, and noticeably unchanged. The place still had an air about it of something that needed deliverance, something somewhat crusty and deeply entrenched. I’m talking about energies and substance that are more appropriately attune to Christian Deliverance, as though some thought form, some resident entity attaches to ones delusional here, a prayer, marking of oil, another prayer for God to come through once and smile a little as it did for a bit in Texas during my all to short residence.

I was welcomed back and asked how my travels were, what happened and what I had seen. All this for an actual 5 minutes of conversation which was long for conversations not about the current integer of "their" experience...now, if then, it had all seemed lost in a dream. I was welcomed back, and I seemed miss in a 5 minute passage of conversation. These conversations would start..."Where were you?" and end "Oh your back...missed you". Conversations would be left then to other issues of the day about this person and that, who had come and who had gone, but all seemed stuck here. 

Sedona has a way of having people stuck here, I found out. Most say they will leave, and then find themselves right back in the same red mud, clay and essence of this place. Its a strange place altogether. I had hoped there would be that bright light of possibility come and illuminate the pathway from here, but I was teasing myself in this belief.

A strong whack on the back, a knife snare smile in the welcome and other gregarious actions were my welcome. “Love Ya”, “Missed Ya and other statements were the echos of the remembrance of the general insincerity of Sedona. It was trick to feel that these were genuine and not a scheme to sell someone something. There was still nothing here, and it just seemed compounded by that interior belief that I should have left...and I mean left Sedona! I possibly should have! The longer I stayed, in a week, I felt that entrenchment.

Muthra, my Sedona muse, was still there with her dramatic ways. Her life had been more drama. Patterns of astrological forecast in meaning and mysticism troubled her mind when I was away. She had only seen the stars and more drama in my absence. I had emails sent to me from her on my travels. She relayed daily worries about thus and such and then, those people that came in to the excitement of Sedona which only realized this place as the most boring place between heaven and HE..double toothpicks.

Oh yes, I worried about my muse and her perspective, although it was no longer a romance, but a placement and friendship. Life went on there with the drama even though I was away!

There were the stories I heard of people that I knew who were trying out their spiritual paths and were lost in it. Such psychic voyages here in Sedona could end one up in an insane asylum. I remember how many casualties I had remembered among friends who gleaned from the ascended ones only to find themselves with the burden of medication registered on the “likely list” of self endangerment after their unseen enemies came to attack them in the rampant paranoia that ones sometimes sees here. One, two, twenty three people still here that I remember doing exactly what they had been doing before...selecting their spiritual path, falling from it and gleaning it again by wild tantra, fanaticism and thus and such, and thing-a-ma karma that gummed the letter of their presence here like glue in the pavement, not to move forward.

I looked back to Houston and said...at least I took a chance! Yes, the times are tough and the economy a disaster but I took a chance at things that were possibly better than wallowing in the red mud and sand and calling out for spirituality, the gods wreathing from the hills in that wikken breath of some kind of energy that was and still is Sedona, and eclectic foundry of pseudo this and that, calling itself an arts town, but really not being what it is...and probably never will come to the title of 90 in the nation except for the sign, "Arts Here". Well it was the energy, and I was used to it! Nothing plus nothing equaling the sum total of finding a reason, any reason to take some step up to the plate of success in a place like this. The only other two-three-four artists maybe three, or maybe one were still wandering their same path, one in front of one coffee shop and another having an exhibition of a few unframed works for sale at another coffee shop. It was still the same old iskabible, I feeling as though the only person had actually changed...and I was again pretty much alone in this great abyss again, living, trying to live and trying to gain anything in this myriad of non-potential, pseudo-zen and lame spirituality that focused on rock and crystal cultures non existent on one and and "deliverance" for a full 3% of the population labeled Christian.

I have always been a Christian, and even a card carrying Christian being ordained as a Christian Minister at a Anabaptist Church where the lead Bishop was from Czech Republic.

Of course to say one is Christian in Sedona has its danger. This is apparent. That I am a minister? Well perhaps I could purchase the rack...just that way.

Of course I was always more compassionate to Christians, being one myself, feeling too Jewish also in one way. Religions set aside, a human was more likely to my condition. I wasn’t a Shaman, that put me off the list in Sedona. I did not try to deliver or pretend any obvious thing that I couldn’t perform at the moment in the way of spiritual beliefs...but had to deliver silent prayers most all the time for my own safety.

One has to live here to understand. This is a Pagan resort. Most people are Pagan stone worshipers if not agnostic or atheist. I had absolutely no purpose here for my religious beliefs...and this was a mountainous struggle each step of the path.

Altogether I was one member of that 3%, taking it for granted that I was perhaps the only one feeling the pressure of this energy, and energies cast upon me and wiggling out of them as needed in the perspective conditions trying to meet life with some positive influence.

I came back form Houston with a truck load of artwork and paintings!

I was actually rebuilding my life slowly during that time. It seemed that life had been gracious enough to allot me an allowance of being creative once again after months of being in the dry minded desert maintained inward in this cavernous void of a paradox called Sedona. I came back from Houston with CD’s and DVD's of new work that I was personally proud of as well as the events that were seemingly going forward during my short escape into a world that was more like what I needed than this one that I was enchained to in Sedona. Well the economy was rough and still is as to the date of this letter. The arts are down and perspectives are as rare as perhaps at any time during the last century. It dosent take field glasses to see what is happening in the arts, moreover the rackets that are popping up left and right to convince one that the arts are healthy her, and in many places, but where in the essence of truth, the wall and musical halls are laid bare to people, dreams, and fair art if not good art. I have spent my life on a dream and conquest. Here in Sedona it is rare to have contact with an apt peer. I have showed my work in New York, London, Prague and Paris as well as have been in books on the subject of art. Why shouldn’t one be proud of some measure of success? Is this not allowed? The arts in Sedona are embarrassing in their scope and variety, a consistent let down for anything that bridges beyond the commercial product that China can put out in plenty adorns every shop in the Old Town. There is no reason to gift the purpose of art here in Sedona for it is taken for granted..a mirage that comes forth with words and disappears into the radioactive sands of per-established yet debatable senses of mystical consciousness. One cant fight this desert, nor try to enlighten the dissicated. I instantly recall stories of many artists that had come here and walked out with their tails wrapped around their hind legs. Nothing more than nothing can be found, except if one has money, then someone can buy some local “Star”- One of a handful of per-selected captured markets, a foreigner to these parts not neatly becoming a member, rather a club to a closed group, pay for play is the perspective. Call it 20/20 it is not surprising in cities such as New York or Paris, big cities that centuries forward have given art as a base for their culture...unfortunately in a small desert town, a mere 10,000 people depending on the season, most of which call themselves artists, roughly 10% having any fashion of an undergraduate degree, and rarer yet any who have given significant exhibitions- where the record shouldn’t be hid from the peering eyes of the locals, for sure that someone is under inquiry of being some kind of fraud...a place where ones better mind would say not to live as an artist, 20,000 artists live here, 10,000 more then there are residents. Such a whacky landscape.

Well in Sedona one has far less that 15 minutes of fame to produce...if one can get a viewing of ones art aside from the viewings of the locals, or reading of ones poetry or book, or listening to music one has certainly found some success with just one...one viewing...usually the bold and wide eyed eyes will look you over from head to toe, and one may find that one second to explain oneself while others of course may drain to naught your pleasure in what you have done simply saying...well I could have done that myself! 

Not too much sophistication. One has to take whatever one has done and hide it from the fury of an inbound ignorance which is like an ingrown toenail, it hurts so much to touch!

Far less than 15 seconds may be allowed in an explanation of good things that one has done here, there or anywhere! One is enlightened that there is a spirit of oppression written over Sedona unlike any place I could possibly find in the world outside those places I could imagine...and never would stay.

Heaven of my return was quick in leaving and nothing really had changed except some had become more entrenched in their beliefs of religion and spirituality...little elses, speak of art "not" a drought!

Even a week after my return I had some "hope", but that was drained away quickly for the mindset here is almost like a plastic bag being placed over ones head and slowly strapped at the bottom, breathing becomes hard. 

Poor Muthra, my friend who spent many months with had gone from Astrology and Crystal Magic, tarot readings and enocian magic to other measures of interests. She looked worn and dragged out. She was looking for someone to hold her hand telling me stories of drunken stupors of others, parties of the awry and those things which bring one down sharply. I tried to keep the light, but more and more I kept running into her and the results were down and down further. The word cannot describe...but some don’t change.

I had spent allot of money for this specific reprieve to Houston, with that chance or what-not. In all it was a 50/50 proposition for going all the way to Texas on the concept of a good sense of "change" or being stuck in the hole of Sedona an never seeing the possibility, visible or invisible. 
On the return home I was tired from the interstate and the lack luster villages, dried up towns and vistas that were the same in 1967, unrepairable, as they were today. I was tired of the road across again, the artists might in trying to accomplish gain down there was only a ghost of opportunity shoveled in the lot to him. Now there was a return to this home, what I had here, these perspective, a nail in a piece of wood on one end of the chateau and gilded palaces climbing up the stretches of one hill and down the next. Yes, it hadn’t changed. 
I had heard of some terrible incidences upon my arrival though, but not personally consequential, keeping my distance of emotions at bay as a matter of protection. 
When I arrived in Sedona my funds had been dwindling rapidly from the opportunities set before me in Texas (seemingly in such a way as if I never did the trip I would have been in an equally better condition economically than if I had taken the long journey. 
I kind of smacked my own head in this case to look at the realities, the changes in me that had taken place and the gross and overwhelming feeling that no change in my current environment had taken place. It was my Karma, the windswept chasm of Sedona that was stretching out before me, not that I liked it, or disliked it...it was there as an old bolt holding the machine together. 
I thought back on the great prosperity that I saw in Texas, and it was here too only delivered into cavernous mansions along the hilltops. I thought of the great access to culture that I had seen in Texas...no it was not here. Sedona hadn’t changed. Smacking myself three times on the head I almost felt like driving through, throwing my precious paintings and belongings away just so not to be entrenched in this two way tabernacle of Affluent meets affluent, the rest be damned. I immediately felt the wind behind me wanting to just keep driving to the coast of California perhaps to Monterrey or Carmel in order to visit other people or just perhaps derive some beauty of the road instead of being entrenched once again in the rust filled vortex of Sedona. Closing my eyes I could envision the sea, or sand, or something beautiful in front of me, to the side of me and those loose thoughts, desiccated totems, along the road once behind me. 
At this same time I felt revived, somewhat artificially of possibilities...but heavens knows why, its a desert town, but a beautiful place too, dusty and sparse with its real culture, synthetic with the advertising, and a relatively hopeless place for any artist to want to be remembering the sequence of events that brought me here, gave me an opportunity to flee and brought me back. Of course there were reasons for my return. 
It was not the spirituality of Sedona, lest the vortex tours sold right and left, nor the men in feathers who would assemble, do their chants and dance for the tourists at a fee. No it was not this reason I returned. It wasn’t the rugged mountains that delighted me, they get to one after a time...trails, leading to trails and then more trails into dusty ferrous under dust. The reasons were practical...I still had a trailer of thing important to me that was promised to be in safe keeping....my life’s work! 
This had been a long trip. I had been promised a reprieve by angels. I held my hands up in mercy to realize there are only human angels after all, all else being something of a manufacture of illusions, and often disillusions too. 
I had a new Kurtzweil! I remember the times I had it plugged in and was practicing for hours in Texas. Even in a couple of week that illusion drifted into another dream altogether back in this town. Where was I to set up? Where were the engagements? 
I ran into a friend who looked busted and tired from the 'pay to play' gigs that were offered to him...oh too well do I remember this misery of trying to get set up, get a show together, make an appearance on hopes and dreams only to find the jar after a months preparation nearly the empty console. No. It was the same Sedona with drum beats, seances and caravels of rapture on moonlit nights by the Wicca people. 
I got on my knees one night and did pray for something to be made of this, for it not to be the same jar-headed burg of incapacity, fruitless, soggy and plastic hopes.
Perhaps it was in my own thoughts. Again the perspective of opportunity’s couldn’t be far out there? I fooled myself into believing this one once before and was inaugurated into the slogan: Visit Sedona, if you know whats good for you!
Three days past in Sedona and I was praying for whatever desolation I saw, whatever entrenchment to get its talon feelers off of me! 
As a Christian, my might was still in the Good Book, and pray I did even to the point of seeking Deliverance!
Deliverance? What are these words written? 

In charismatic Christianity, deliverance ministries are activities carried out by individuals or groups aimed at solving problems related to demons and spirits, especially possession. Leaders of and adherents to these ministries emphasize the activities of evil spirits in many physical, psychological, or emotional maladies that people experience. The practices and many of the underlying beliefs of these ministries are not accepted by all Christians.

Sedona is only 3% Christian, those are the statistics.
It seemed on one side, there was treachery that immediately focused on me coming to Sedona in the first place. It was not a matter of choice in the beginning, but after all the things I had seen, experienced and witnessed, or lack thereof it seemed almost 'logical' that one should be delivered from entities if one is going to spend any time here, and repeat the clause on a weekly basis.
It was not a long time before I started to remember those friends who had been taken ill by unknowns, or lost it altogether because of the magic entrenchment, wikka assortment, and crystal endowment.
It was only hours after my arrival in Sedona I felt that darkened shroud come around and encapsulate! Of course that is my imagination, but then too, I remember well the rituals I had seen in Papua New Guinea and Borneo.
I was a tourist then, and as the statements goes, the tourist pay to get the whammy just for show.
Now I do remember all too well the victims of a girlfriend to the logic of gray, sepia or black encumbrances, and tossed them out I did as illogical.
These entities may have meaning, when I went to a Christian healing center and a venerable and good Christian minister to do the honors, I just thought a good spirit cleansing would be a pretty good thing to do,especially after the extreme contrasts that I had seen in the last months!
It was a Thursday night and I pressed myself forward to a place called the Solid Rock.
And hour passed after my plea and soon I was beckoned to come into a room where three people stood before me.
I had no concept of the outcome, assuming that it would be a couple of prayers and then on to the next subject.
What I felt was a giant white cross being held within my peripheral vision that seemed to be growing and growing as the session began to unfold.
I felt myself fall back a little and then a tremendous burden lifted from the saddle of my shoulders as well as pounds of "dust" (whatever it was, lightened me a great deal)
I did not flow into a tantrum or feeling like an exorcism of sorts, because I knew for the most part, this entire issue of hardship or burden was not my own causing---when a light filled the room like a Roman candle as words were said and the most beautiful colors seemed to fill every place and space.
I saw the face of Jesus in my field of vision and felt as safe as a child in his own mothers arms with Father standing guard!
Most amazing! I drifted a moment and felt light as a feather! In seconds I became encased in light as oil was placed on my forehead!
(OK here the clincher, I almost felt skeptic when I walked in, a little cringed by the long trip, and the opportunities that seemed to be left out there. I was skeptical, but now---Enlightened!)
For the next hours and day or more I felt like I was 23 again! Simply amazing! All the problems and worries, the recession, problems and discourse of worldly worries, simply out of me!  
Time progressed through another slow week and on Thursday I returned! It happened all over again with a bigger burst of light and so many beautiful thoughts that I could hardly explain myself!
One must trust in the power of God after all! My two years seeking ministry brought that back to me!

   A reference to Gods Power, seeing the world around me pale and placid, full of magical incantations, spells and the want-not and various new age things couldn’t surpass the truth! I was waiting for hope and it came, and then went with a notion, and a wind, I now fully exhausted of money and having no reserves to pull from for the continued stay here.

Hope-

Now some form of hope had revived- It was nearly a month after my arrival back in Sedona. Unfortunately the "spell" of this place seems a dynamic! Once your in it one must pray for 'Deliverance" (Be pure of heart, mind and soul--and hope the Good Lord provides) Like a wind, it bent up like a tin can laid in the fires, and then collapsed.

I had put forth for some jobs, totally outside art in order to try to make a living for myself. I think those measured in terms of 20 or 30 applications made just upon ,my arrival back in Sedona from the trip back east.

Its that Sedona thing, some clasp of magic or dark persuasion that seemed to have no note of success. Now I was looking a month later at the same chasm that I left in the beginning. No jobs...put out for such, and not a thing, not even a refusal returned! 

Do I remember this? Yes, it was not a figment of imagination...to be here in under the precipice of red rocks again.

Not even having the "basics", one would think that surely a word out would turn something up! Its not like this in Sedona...no logic whatsoever! 

The nerves were tought once again as I was making myself live on close quarters with my last cent.

I have said before that Sedona is NOT an arts town, only perhaps some syndicate, of a mirage to such! And again I was facing battle without sustenance! 

I pray for some kind of help, but I do know in Sedna’s mock Spirituality one must "Do what one Wilt"--And now I cease the opportunity to know better, and curse this thing off, as I know that is the saying of Wicca, the basic law inter defined in the surface and depth of this world--Sedona, a new-age quantum of fiery footsteps! But then again I pray! 

Its not like I don’t have many, not just some abilities, but the restrictions of living here are definite! No matter what abilities or talents one has this place has a tendency to eat one up...alive and whole! So prayers go out again for a cleansing for myself and others whom are alive in the Spirit!

True Heaven is so far away when one is in the talons of Sedona (The feelings are generous of whatever cloaked figure guides this place...and the hands that reach from that underneath cooking fixture that seems to lead into ideas of a commissary of complete suppression!) 

So far away from where I am now seems the good and perfect road...

I will have to pray, setting aside my talents for they are wrapped up in the Geist of Frustration, on this date for that which can come in---or is managed, or can be reserved for an exit to this place. 

Problems occur in the first month

There is no assistance...

Will have to pray again!

Its not like I don’t have great abilities, but am feeling all the suppression of that person who might be caught along that train platform and roadside in Austria...sending and binding these thoughts and feelings (casting them down to Hell from where they came, I remain vigilant, and busy with other things in my life....but the creative aspects are in danger! Again, in this place. 

I’m not able to practice the piano---no place to practice

I am not able to paint....my life’s blood

Creation has to be marginal, as resources are terribly scarce! I will have to pray for the Almighty wings to come forth and take the burdens off my shoulders...these burdens should not be, but are! 

I should wish 10,000 percent better than things are now! What is wrong seems-right here and what is right, seems totally wrong here in Sedona! 

Hoping and wishing? Personal actions seem overly futile in a dense and almost lowly stupor of the people who are gainful around me with positively no assistance being offered! Again, I know what Hell can be like in this place without food or sustenance...only quarters...embarrassing! I wait, and pray...and know, that however bad this is, has a rippling effect around me trying to promote some positive emotion, even scarcely made of plastic to guise what I feel and go through! Many Americans seem to call this "Medicine", but it is not medicine, unless one wants strychnine for ones taste. Sedona for me is a place relative to an abyss that should be cured by Love! It is affectionate in this Love as a very poisonous bark scorpion...I having to watch my back on each incident of complaint, for those who prowl their ethereal sobriety make gains by any turmoil of what they see in their laughter, that kind of medicine, the black bottle with the skull on the tincture, bitter almond, it feels as though this is sugar sweet honey of this place...

Well, at least I was not caught on the road in the vast desert between here and Houston, where promises went up and came down in a slight of temperament--desires quenched for a while, candles lit and then put out by the "proper" elements that stirred the fire for why I left Houston and Spring in the beginning---It would have been far worse there I feel. And as supplements to my living, or a roof over my head dissolved rather quickly in Spring...at least I have to look back on this entire story of: Sedona and Back Again in a hysterical way, kind of like the man in black who offers the child candy to take a drive with him, if it were good...or offered a true sense of safety instead of a hackle of an expensive reprieve (for myself over Christmas) I would have opted for Texas...as at least it seemed like opportunity was there...if the rugs weren’t pulled out from under me! Somehow I knew too that that wouldn’t last long no matter how I worked, practiced or pitched it---somewhere it was like: I came to entertain--take care of the dog, rest until the next battle, be allowed to get "some" work done---and then be shuttled back to where I came from---Spring/Sprang! 

Now I am here! I could have stayed and it would have been less costly--

I will have to deal with the elements here---take whatever medicine is bitter to the taste. Even though the current situation spells "Totally Wrong" I’m going to move forward as though it were an honest, and in fact good medicine of a situation! I must survive!! And again I must pray to almighty God for a definite deliverance and a cleansing of things around me to make a honest and good path straight though what I feel is again a walk through a  terrible and precipitous land!
Travels to the Hopi Reservation and a cleansing by native chiefs for the benefit of a friend---Muthra who had recently taken on Christianity and given up the New Age movement.

Lets just say it was a good thing as far as I was concerned.

But even when one converts from Christianity form a New Age radicalism...now there was a religious discussion for 24/7 of doctrine, You Tube videos of "the end of the Earth" and the rapture.

Unfortunately I felt that Muthra again had fallen into the deep end, better--not crystal gazing, nor scrying, astrological scalar waves, times of planets were gone...Jesus was in, and on the street corner, with the Day of Wrath with Aliens, Grays and Green Men lurking in the shadows (not as helpers now) but devils..and Satan’s dens uncovered and delivered! Now the subject of the Earth, Eugenics and Adolf Hitler were brought into  the discussions as well as You-Tube videos 24/7 of these things....loneliness being my commitment to myself not wanting to be a part of such conspiracy things, and trying to keep my life at least half way sane in the quandary and quagmire of what people go through here to find themselves.

Needless to say after a Christian Deliverance and renewed Baptism, one had to repeat this episode weekly in Sedona. 

The energies here hadn’t changed from the Vortex Set or sense of the Wikka, rock pondering, tarot card readers. On guard I was once more from this energy of Black Sabbath which seemed to creep through the streets here. 

I was well aware after two weeks of living in Sedona that I wasn’t back into the arrangement comfortably at all..and that an incursion on my talents and abilities were again knocking me back and forth in the low energy vortex of Sedona proper. I did now see through Sedona, and the Wikka, the disturbance. 

My project began in December in Houston began to melt down. Houston was now a long way away...The music too forced to the side by a very difficult economic condition that seemed to be precious to the artists of Sedona like no other territory. 

I could no longer practice the piano, or keyboard. Nor was I allowed the possibility to do so in the low energy cycles of Sedona which seem to be protected by the darkest, most vain forces possible...anything like real art could skip aside this energy, vortex, perfunctory vestment of darkness.

That I would have to survive Sedona once more was absolutely evident!! Sedona is not a great place for the art, or even a doable place for artists, intellectuals that have dreams or people of fair talent. Sedona is a nice place to see or visit, one always watching ones back near fireplaces where certain fiery hands may reach forth, tap one on the shoulder or fringe ones wallet from an out of pocket experience.

One Preacher in rage on a street corner...

On a journey to Sedona one needs to have one book..Needless to say a Bible, if no one has one...get one if you come to Sedona...a classic place for Black Sabbaths to continually suck one under, reference to  cosmic dusts encouraging one for the moon lit nights, creatures of the believable screaming forth from the invisible to the visible...

No...

It was not long indeed before I was thrust into the exact situation from where I left here, the heart-stabbing empty void in a land that drives one mad, even through the mountains and terrain say this is a beautiful place...beware! 

By the beginning of March I was tired and worn out. The place where I was staying did not allow for me to put up my studio or place my keyboard and gear. I had the best of best equipment but without the proper studio I would find myself not being able to do my artwork or paintings, or continue my piano. These are facts, terrible and suppressive as one could imagine. I was thankful for a small place to park my goods, but not being able to use my talents, nor practice became again a mental burden in the creative impetus of an artist that had produced art for many years and was "not allowed" to practice his craft--absolutely. 

Although I looked around, and people knew my task in life I didn’t have any offer to utilize a studio so I could have the space, freedom or liberty to work...at best, the one time I did, it was dramatic a distressed episode of people wanting me to play for them, but not allowing me private space to grow, practice or create visual images...even continue with the work I had started in Houston...a positive.."No Go"

What is going on? God! God only knows...but surely I was connected, and I realized I wasn’t the only one alone in this! There were others. I thought at first it was only me, but surely they came to me, crying on my shoulders to release their frustrations, somehow out of the blue. I thought I was alone..but sit, doing ones sketchbook and then they see what you do, and then come the tears and frustrations as well as the actions of suppression that I have seen for my own eyes in others. There was the noted photographer from Chicago that was principle photographer for legends. There was the Swiss fellow, tired and worn out, who couldn’t speak well between the lines of what he has seen, a material scientists with much skill under his belt. Of others, there was the French artist, the German artist whos face was worn, his only mainstay being simple welding to see through a giant portfolio of many fine constructions, and commissions laid out for some future time. And then the stories came in of one scientist working on "Special Projects" (Had no doubt of his qualifications in this instance) who was gnawed by exploitation and found himself totally homeless with his dog after never having seen this in his life, moreover police actions of an objectionable variety being part of it...unbelievable as it may seem witnessed by a Christian friend who was crying at the sight of this. For him it was 10X the drama he had ever seen, a mild mannered 60's fellow with a gentle kindness and demeanor that I had known for over a year caught up in a matrix of deceit upon him in a spectacular that could have been written in some German World War II novel of suppression.

Crying on ones shoulders...and this, all of this more of a capacity of what is happening now, than could be written in a book about me!

My projects were like winds of sand. I would wait hours for clients to come through, go and visit their businesses while something would happen, and they would dissapear often with no word, but the luck aptly not paying 1/10th of the fee I was asking..this was part of the suppression. As I thought it was only my problem I found too many others in this billiard pocket. 

What is happening?

I listened to you-tube documents, videos and read the papers. Each day I would answer the 40 or so letters pounced on me by hopeful projects to save the world...when we can really only save ourselves, if we can in this energy. Call out for help? Lets face it, not one friend comes forward when one really needs them here except for a very small 3%...if that..I being often being put into the condition of trying (at least trying) to see things somehow better for my friends, giving them food if hungry and giving them solice in pain...having to remain steady in my own nature, and making some plan for tomorrow...and with the energy forth, something better tomorrow than was in the past! Oh beware of those who say they will help and drop out! Too many!

Some luck did come forth!

A job of sorts, a few hours a week...not much when I totally ran out of funds again! Some help came forward, and it was slower than molasses in January after application and application went out, each to be measured with an epitaph of silence (here) or there with unanswered pleas, or direct application, or a blanket wispy and squirrely letter of thank you for applying!

The job required time..just time and motor energy, about 1 percent of what I was capable of doing, spending hours...not on my art at all, but to make that stuff called money. How one gets here one can only guess...My life in Sedona was not going up..up...up, but self maintenence became an almost military aspect. 

I had questions, too many to ask as to why!

I thought of giving up my art and music in entirety!

What a loss and what a sin to the culture that supresses our abilities when others slip by.  It felt at a point that I was committing a sin for being my creative self instead of a robot suffering just to have a roof over ones head, food and pocket change, when in reality one should not feel punished by the society of repression that puts this on top of us...and surpresses the best in us! But I was not alone, and many find this an abomnible tactic by the " average " crowd that never ceases to be just a slurry of effect as "average" and suggesting this to others as the high motive from which all is done. No wonder were losing this all to third world nations that are more creative, have more thunder in their step and more creativity in their ecclectic sense to shower us with good that our lazy selves, demand of our lazy civilization, mediocraty as being the overstepped standard-average! 

Well it seems somewhat ridiculous of all my travels and experiences, education and talents to see this all fall apart, the nation itself, falling apart as though a tire shreading at 80 miles an hour gives a new sense to the permanent ditch that others have built for us...

I had considered giving it all up! Others? 

The answer was still no!

I had seen this country from sea to sea across the land and what has happened, moreover having seen what it seems to have become!

Europe back in 2006 seemed far away, the only mistake I felt I did make is not holding my position in Central Europe for the cause there...I was making more money there, in Italy too! Positively nothing has come thus far into my life to fulfill my needs...this is totally wrong! People have no idea, concept, or are willing to listen. But this is the perspective of the common man...I have done, not just "said I did, and didnt do" (some mockery out there has contest with anyone that actually does...by not doing, it seems to be that common word average that is the sum of bottom line, the highest aspect of silence that many who have said they have done...and didnt do) I came into the aspect of how to tell this to students, or infer the fact that someone should'nt really do, but act as though doing, which is the lie that they are trying to encourage...I have learned by doing, personal training...Those Books--manifolds in which I and my art exist I re-read, my biographical inclusion, statements made, all firm "truths" regardless of self-centered interpretation which the reader may regard, or disregard--Truth about my past, encounters too--some poetic, but at least holding their own importance in the underlaying fabric of absolute testament! I would, if asked sign my signature to all forms God in testament of so much that I have seen, beheld, experienced and done!

Too much ignorance for those who cant possibly understand, comprehend or have jist, feeling, sympathy for the notion of one surviving, and experienced individual---lost seems the human race in its mysterious contentions of having it their way---Once and continuing the art, production of beauty, magesty of "God Almighty" in reference to the things I have done, while other have taunted only to collect on their own sense of self-worth. Pot and them colored black, people in glass houses, do not know but can only cast a weak testement of doubt as to what is real and what is the apparent nose on ones face..being real. But what game am I playing in this disaster of trying to call "Truth" in a game of parlor magic about me..What leg does "Truth" have to offer...the more one calls truth, the more one invites suspicion, envy, greed, the notions of the darkest entities, and potentials of the hoof-step clan which can punish one more for telling "Truth" than staying silent and playing as dumb as one could possibly be! Truth can get one more in trouble than being bold faced, this is evident in our politicians faces shifted to one side, unanswerable, and incognito as to perspectives of actualities~

So does one allow the "suppression" to account for something real, or slip it aside and call it a day, a life, a region of testimony which is interpretable in the dim regions of human minds eye or allow this to be put in ones pocket, disenvowed in their pocket, calling "Actual Truth" relevant to "Actual" and "Truth"? I can not go into suppository games....Truth Lives and it lives on dispite ignorance or even innocence in translation. Keeping the Bold Truth in ones pocket is Valor it was once said!

However

My Spirit has been raptured by this energy that I have seen...as wrong as wrong could be, and as Unfortunately there is little care out there, and pleanty of that word "Ignorance" out there in the shadows making positive, profitable and lurky struts forward with only the skill of lips to serve them! Oh it sounds so egotistic! But once again, if asked as a gamble of all the things I have done, with a legal signature to God in all elements and names, Yahweh, etc (the wrath of such being loss of citizenship,  life, and a gamble on the vow of the human race itself as to truth in my background testament listed in my CV--But to face the dumb--poo poo, calling the kettle black in glass houses- I would, bound and signature on such a gamble! (I love the romanticly poetic on a 19th century character by Goethe-The Struggles of Werther)...but to consider the ignorance I see out there, blatent, pork like...there is no such fear as to what I have seen happening in the void between the sharks of sensitivities, lack luster, and other wise demonic way-snatchers...

Unfortunate it is- the times. Very tragic for the future of what is to happen!

No...the art prevails! One day, one time, out of the Repression of Sensitivities, Suppression of Thoughts and ideals, notions of Art are...

No pearls will be sent out

The artist will continue...not because of bold tenacity, but in the figure of "Justice being served" and right being self evident!

No...Two hundred years of a legacy dosent go down short, even though the times are too short for existence of this kind of energy to become anything but for the trash can, now and forever...Art does prevail, one time, one day...this too becomes a legacy, wanted or not for the future generations to say, possibly that one did exist when, and have honor and integrity in their pocket for doing so!

Deliverance from Ignorance!

In this return to Sedona Arizona, having spent three years now, there is not very much I can say except, everyday is a hopeful planned exit. Anticlimax is the word in the worn journals from this point forward, less thinking that things would pan out and watching through myself as well as others the many people who have found utter disatisfaction living in this burg of vortex, New Age and the Mesmer factor which seems to give a good Haunt of a David Lynch film to a perfectly classed crew of perpetrators of the elements of wicca. (Perfect setting for a David Lynch film on ectoplasm...I think I have noted this a million times)

Figuring the future goals..what I have dreams and abilities of doing is not being fairly matched--Tired of the mix-me-up of psudo life, with a half-life response to any creative endevor here I make furthur plans away from Sedona--How this is done is anyones guess. Supression. Suppression is the only word I can find which acknowledges the energy of the concept or play of the town, villiage. Not that I can't work: In the time I have had here, gainful work has been kept at a long-hand away from me, and petty work, that which requires a grade 8 intelligence pretty much has it in the way of making each day...not a pleasure but a very difficult process of trying to live, make rent, and eat. 

It has been two months since I have returned now from Texas, and there has been very little prospect for anything of gain, natural life or living conditions proposed to me without a journey along a metaphoric precipice. For many here, it is idle life, a casual journey hands tight to the prospects of thier own, a selfish journey. But I have seen this well in the dim-lights of others eyes as well, a venue of life that is held like a apple on a pole for some hope, well distanced from the hungry laid apple,dangled at liberty in front of thier noses. Oh among them there are tales, and truths, half-truths but not lies. When a person comes crying to me in "want" of food, there is a truth to them, their parched lips, that podium from which only a small fraction of our news gets told, and a long story down there. We should be furious! Most are content, the bypasser, journeyman of that supressed variety which could make one sad, and disturbed to a point..and then neutral because this exists here, beyond the Grey Poupon of the 35 dollar dinner to the absolute joke of near starvation which some have to suck up to. Yes its a social issue, and an issue of tommorrow only in massive quantities of problems. But its passed by with the po po of everyday life. Its passed by by the wealthy over there that sit idle and complain vehamately about those people...not knowing them because of their class. 

What about the problems of history which are going to come knocking at our door? No one wants to talk, make active community circles, become clients of change, positive change which will progress into tomorrows solutions. And yes, there is a definite problem in that work of suppression as told by many generations. It was the problem in France one time. This same problem prodded Europe and Germany into change, unwilling change to balance out the systems and make progressive partnerships between people assuring a balance of society, not just a nobility, regents, royalty or corporate plutocracy, but a United Union that provides rights and privilege to all and not just to some. In a microcosm this is the case here, but people are not pushed into complaint because it simply does not do any good. The empowerment of the person is the community and if the community sit idle and bypasses the concern of just a few it seems problematic that at one point or another point that it will become a security town-ship, state beyond dreams that our grandparents would shudder at. This exists in a microcosm here, an unfolding of differentials, potentials. 

Of course there are those who have values. Unfortunately they are few and far between and sadly enough they are lesser represented than the torque of the "me", or "I"...[profiteer, man in charge, regional superman who controls the head of "what is allowed" doing less than doing more for the supposed lesser citizens in their eyes. 

It is the metaphor of the spread of fuel and someone who is smoking a cigarette. Of course, try and try again to activate a petition, even a voice and people are too scared or feel intimidated by systems (invisible hierarchies) and would feel better not talking about the social system that breaths the invisible chains, causing suppression, oppression, and fear based servitude because there is a control point that is---here, invisible but actual. That this should free up, a very important issue. One cannot propose to city-hall, this is under the long arm, short arm and invisible system. 

Of course it remains that there are values between people, and thank goodness! Thank goodness that these values exist in one-to one correspondence or I fear the immediate reaction would not be so good at all. Of course I am speaking politics...No one could believe what I am writing because they haven’t seen this in its elemental areas of full-view or correspondence. They are objecting to truth de-facto, and would rather talk about other things all together..the wind, golf-course, how great the country club is, or how much their estates are worth...unfortunately these conversations are roughly that 1%, what is left is 99% real, and quite volcanic if it is the same other places as it is here. What we need is a revived value in humanity, good, right, justice and positively not fear when it comes to our life’s well-being, living conditions or dreams, or even the possibility of dreams, any dream being repressed...unfortunately this is reality, and part with what it may, a recollection of what I have seen among many, parting with the 1% which have the ebb of the Hapsburg as a style in a generation coming to the centennial year of a drastic change form right, to left and far far left...saying the difference between right an wrong never had to happen in the first place if people were more aware instead of ignorant, cooperated in full response to the issues and responded as a community representing a democracy in full form...then we would come to the Revolutionary point of "Center" as Joseph Capek viewed in the early 20th century..the point of change being justice with optimal transitions built into that word of change.

Now I search high and mightily as to a way out of this particular situation, doing what I may do in response to crisis which has become me in a viral effect by other who I see are having a difficult time, and knowing well I am an American and that my parents-parents came to this free land, to be free. 

Spending a great deal of Time Sending out CV's

   This is begins a log...

Where does one go with this? Obviously the climate for the arts in America in general is still and not breathing. I could consider in the metaphor of a human, the arts to have simply passed out...had some kind of cerebral hemorrhage, heart failure or possibly the entire situation...have died.

That Art, or the arts are dead...simply dead, not even showing signs of a breath on a metaphor of a mirror is not beyond realization. It has been a time that I have seen some decent activity other than my own work in my own studio to breed the creation. I look out from that studio and I can see nothing worth while...simply little to nothing, except the kind of blue skinned art that I fear could be a tell-tale sign of the death of this species called art, or for that sake, artist...since in reality there are so few out there...now really rare in their studios. When I say rare, it seems to be I mean this. Of course the society, if one will say, (perhaps culture) says there are millions of artists out there, then so it be! I cannot argue. But look at the product really. For a long time I have seen a degeneration of the product by and large for a long period through the 90's--

The Cosmic, Comic and Burdensome...

Finding it recently as of late March 2012 to April, assuming some feel of positive here. Oh it is the economy, but not, rather the inner economy of the people here who never cease to broaden the ranges of black, dark colors and spiritualist vortex...

It is not home nor has been during my years hear, everything escaping into a bizarre territory of many issues that would be politically incorrect to mention and noxious to represent, again and again.

Housing...

It has been very difficult to make anything in regards to money here, totally rigged from many ends to a poisoned variety of basic as it is assumed on can live on...Maslows heirachy is controlled here...Needs not met except for the very basic.

And then there are the conditions of a sense of vile construct that I see every week. Yes this construct is removed from my journals as I see and feel encumbered by the life here as one would entertain a possible visit to Buchenwald or Belson, laying similar reaction to conditions that I have personally seen. Its happening folks, somewhat dire circumstances, one might feasably have normal control over in better rested conditions...

One may lead into the visual of living at this point with a New Age Christian who is beside her self most of the day with conspiracy theories and playing Youtube videos until the wee hours of the morning in repentance, laying sin to recoil and prance the room in deliverance of vile words strewn around me in conditions unmentionable...as no human being should be laid under the suppression of words, actions or deeds at this point.

I have not been able to catch a wink for the past two days because of the drama, incidents of curse words being strewn across the room and disregard for a human sense of average life, except for some spiritual sense which leaves me away from my dwelling place for the day....a New Age Christian, who yells obsenities and spurts the worst of the dynamics across the room, and an alchoholic who makes problems in early morning with a glass full of Burbon to sprout wings and a sense of violence written in the bellowing underneath. Who can live this way? I have no choice, but I do..to leave these conditions. On April 2nd these conditions lead to drama between the two roomates, I making an early exit through the back door because of the drama, all my clothes worn layer after layer, my computer...my only record keeper and normal consul being strapped to my back.

Art? Where did it represent itself in the past months...this situation has become gross...even camping is better, even in this cold climate of 30 odd degrees! No person should endure this...but I have a small job which seems to creep back again as money is tight, and the organization is quite cheap in the passing of funds for my work...15 dollars last night, and just a little more over the course of a day. Lets face it, one can give up their work here...the art left to seed in Sedona. I have not a place to work or play my keyboard at this point...Sedona being the pit upon pits of creative demise, and maybe an exit because I am furiously tired and worn by this detritus that is here...and I am desperately in need of rest, now not considering myself a citizen of this place, these ideas or the landmark of anti-spirituality which seems to ghost around the premisis..everything seems to have a hidden agenda. For myself I seek an exit! It is far to hellish to assume too much more time here!

April 2nd, 2012

The journal dosent read well from this frame of reference

Tired and weary ever since my return to Sedona, I rest

Its only for an hour or so, but my head is resting on a box of CD-DVD-Film and a box of Newpaper articals

Feeling somewhat low, and ill defined here, I crank up the CD player and go through the box of recordings- Some irony here- They are not my fathers recording, but my own, as well as DVD Videos all stacked up constituting several metal boxes and about 70 CDs of music done over the years- It starts out in the early 1980's with Chopin Etudes, all the set of book  1 and 2, each recorded at various times during 1980-about 1984, they wernt dated, and I was impressed, and depressed simultaneously- Then there were recordings of numbers of pieces that I had played, Bagatells of Tcherepnine, and Liszt Op 1 etudes- There was Schuman piano sonata, and a few partial Beethoven Sonatas in the Set, Two whole- Then reaching furthur there were more recordings of Music Minus One that I had done over the years, Haydn Piano Concerto, A Grieg A Minor (not very good with 2 pianos) and then about 6/7 other piano concertos done with orchestral background and in two piano form---Etudes of Scriabin followed that---several Liszt pieces, Hungarian Rapsodies, A Shostokovitch Sonata, 12 preludes of Shostokovitch---Some live concert recordings etc etc---my head turned round and round!!! And then there were the periodicals and new articles which took up a box and the other print of fabulous times and events which I remembered clear back to the early-mid  1980's and then the little advertisement in the New York Times where my name appeared as well as the new yorker---Then stuff from Europe, Czech, Italy and other places---wild times reading through the material about what I had done, gainfully! 

But it only made me extremely mad about the current conditions!! I closed the boxes and laid them flat---That what I have seen now shouldnt be happening in an episode from some Russian Author during the height of those regimes, but it was---here and now!! Horrible, and inconceivable I thought to myself as I pressurized my head in accordance to the conditions I had seen in the last two years-Then I found originals of transcripts and my diplomas! There was the BFA and my MSc (Masters of Science), My MFA written and signed by the govenor of the state, as well as the dissertation from Prague signed by a lawyer validifying my term for my doctorate- Another box with awards and plaques and fine letters appeared- And then I had to close this! The only words I could possibly manifest is that Sedona in its gad and gall had brought me to a point where never a civilized condition could be met, something of an inhuman place and I made my apologies to God for the conditions, hoping that he would return a fine note, any kindness in this condition, but as we should soon realize even God cant work where there is for all potential (In Sedona) only Talisman, rocks and Tarot to breath life from, in other words, I dont believe that even the real God can do his work here, partially because the inhabitants of this sacred geometry dont care in the least for either art of God, the other spiritualism is the Divine Encounter they seek, but I can only speak for myself--That Sedona is not a place for Jesus is one thing, that it is a place for Pagan rites another, obviously even my parchment and letters of being a minister come under the veil here, and that ministry for which I was to serve, from a Mennonite congregation- 

I said my prayers for this valley and these people, now roughly 3 years since my arrival---Then I got some sleep in the van feeling more rested than last night , but resting carelessly in between a giant Kurtzweil, a seeming ton of other equipment, paintings and boxes upon boxes of recordings of some of the greatest pianistic and musical giants of 20th century America, all which were laid in my hands once, with no interest given from the small burg, or silent, tongue tied people---

I prayed once more for some help! One must realize that "Help" in this condition is very rare, people here are guideless, and dont have a clue, positively, but one must pray for them also--for deliverance!

I turned to a "friend", but friends here are almost as remote as the true spirituality, I got an ear for precisely 10 minutes, and form there was cut off as usual, never to mention that people are care-less with friends as well, but this is an all too common occurance, what most friends in Sedona really want is not friendship or an ear, but a dollar for each word they have to hear- Unsympathetic and unempathetic they can be, well lets just say "Fair weather friends they are when one wins the lottery", blank statements for many in other reserves- Surreal place altogether, bowing down to the conciousness of Self-Pride, Ego and the ends of all ends, resources of money as their God here---I take reservations here-

Some crazy element in me wants to destroy everything just to have the cargo space free--This would be denying God--and I would fall into the caulderon because, if anything, this is what many I persume are set to do in such an eventuality---destroy everything (What a tragic loss of American history, so weak, I seem to have in entirety one side of this cultural history when it was strong) Somehow I have to weigh this cultural abyss-Leviathan of Sedona and hope for a far better place, where people are at least a little more human in many respects-

I am caught here--almost feeling abducted for 3 years-

I need to leave, but no reprieve...in need of a deliverance! Oh the body knows, the soul knows what it had taken, but here, only here one has to seemingly give up ones purpose to "so called" Divine emmenations. But what are these spirits, vaccuous voids, taunting soldiers of inperceptable way-not makers, who gouge every thought, sink every idea and cast every spell. Oh needed is deliverance! I said this too many times again to repeat this! Now I have a little to work on, not in judgement, for the gavel has to drop one day upon Sodoma, But who needs to cast out? I realize only my own thoughts are workable here. Indeed it is my own thoughts that pretain, my balance towards others, accepting or neglecting them. Oh I try to give as much as possible, but this is only possible if one has anything to give, and I have only a little, very little. I once again went over to the cargo space, the van was filled..the cargo trailer receiving wind and water damage. Now its my fault, grant you, that Im responsible for that, and that there is my own valued work in there so many of histories fine recordings...that I have kept intact...for whatever reason, and perhaps only my own entertainment at this time. I certainly thought they would have "safety" now, or provided such in some manner. The top of the trailer has pitted and ripped because of the winds..the top vent leaking and open now. I certainly thought that someone would have provided safe- haven for the cargo, but sadly this is not the case. Im afraid some of the contents are down for good on this site. Yes, after all of this, coming and going, having the promises from Texas to do something excellent-getting this to safety...no there was no money for the sponsors, thinking that great place in Texas might gives some reprieve, safety for the contents was a dream.. and a pipe dream. Now what to do, I meander into thoughts of burying the recordings in a box, burying them like sad soldiers from the past: Mr Hoffman, Mr Horowitz, Mr Cortot, and the list reaches on to Mr. Franz Liszt, Chopin and many others...I cannot make a single person understand my dillema, and am somewhat saturated by the stupidity of others actually helping in this case...when I know the citizen of Sedona is more likely to help if there is some profit to be made and certainly not for the lost souls of Classical Music which, even though blankets cover the contents of this Historical Treasure chest, I find mocking this lonely desert town for its lost space, time and courtesy for future generations to know the legacy of the great masters that will most perhaps be buried here...right in Sedona, and now in their tracks. Unfortunately these tapes may never see another playing nor pressing making a motherload executed in the name of Modern Culture, another American Story laid out to rest on the timeline of the shrinking hand of what we are growing to be about, here during this time as the culture collapses and the economy too.

Yikes-

April 17 today--

A little reprieve, but not much at all! Figure that one could make some income, just basic..just basic all of it...trading objects for cash, little things that dont provide much at all, barely enough...and now a van that does not start! Huh..I have to say prayers, its going to be more than a hundred to replace the battery (again) as I have noted---again after the trip to Houston, and that long involved, yet anticlimactic journey...expensive! Now figuring for what? 

The Reason...

I cannot give up the reason I was put on this planet...an artist. Two days ago I was in a figure drawing class to do the session. It felt good. Great, savory and whatever synonyms could be assembled to describe this drawing session from a live model...It had been 4 years now on the nose since I had attended such a session, well a little longer, I had to use models from actual life in a cafe environment to draw such figures...but again it was a superlative feeling---knowing I was back at it again, having knowledge of a good 45 years at the subject. 

After the class I went to work. Yes, work like the most, the populace. My job only lasted an hour...barely enough for a return on anything that really is needed--the very basics and necessities I can barter for, food, shelter, and clothes still in good quantities to provide for myself. I figure Im lucky in ways that I can make a few scheckles. Ha, few scheckles...thats all! Full time positions, not available...nor part time. I must admit I am 'not qualified' to be much here, most being service positions at best, trying, attempting to string myself along at hoping, wishing, being, attempting the internet..sending my CV out for any possible possitions teaching, and finding that aspect, the aspect of teaching very very rare...

I dont know "how come". These positions are fixed rather, held for insiders, apply as one may, one has a small chance for the smaller teaching jobs or even substitute. Ye God Almighty...We need education more than we need wars and gasoline. Density is between too many ears, the news, propaganda willing the stories of "All is well" or  "fear", 50%-50%, half of a dozen of the other. Education..lacking, always trying to reinform people, to a lesser ability, as they seem delighted with the information that they get from media, and this is enough. Enough with trying to inform, pull out the teacher from within myself, to give to the public, or others. 

Im learning some very valuable things about survival though as each and every day I count my blessings.

There are no pat answers, although there are some who work on these in ones head. The German made grace in the issue somewhat demanded that there must be some position open to make the money, income etc. Yes, and No...Reading this exactly as it is...Not much per hour, deim to cover anything! Now this is surprising? No..it shouldnt be? Pride themselves some do with the jobs or property they rent out, wealth they make...to impress, or make to feel guilty about the conditions that are...now.

Yes, I have a roof..for a time...

Yes, I have food/water..for a time..

Walking money to pay for internet...a struggle still

Working for a time..as many hours as possible to cover the least. 

Watching the world at large, priding the "They Say" and facilitating the pat answer systems of "Your in America" there for your not starving, nor poor and have something! There are people who dont have anything...stiff upper lips are the new saying. Though shall not want seeming a national past-time, guessing at what is next on the smorgasborg of Sedona.

But I think of my talents and abilities surpassing many, but reasonably only 1% utilized...at best, formost 1% of abilities allowed, as I wait, try to make the best of the day and not prostitute the issue of my talents or abilities for the least-common denominator as so many are doing just to keep busy. With the so-called wages working full-time one can do a little math and find out one will be working to consume time, pay off a few bills, laid in for the next bunch and go home with less than walking money. Of course there are the monarchs that live here and control the group. One would never think of monarchy in America, but if there is such, this is one of their seats...Principalities of Sedona...the knighthood of invisibles which leave one to worry about walking around in the night. 

I hear stories. I am not the only one. 

Stiff upper lip is the saying in this dreadfully poor minded place that could be developed except for its extremely backward mindset of the 1950's road side stand.

I have heard stories. Likely I am a story, here in Ducal Luxury of a western town filled with mental abandonment trying to make things work still...having little if any choice...many times feeling like Im in "The Villiage" of the television series "The Prisoner" and realizing that in many cases this is a place like this...a prison without bars. I weep for a place where I have enough money to live decently, live respectively, feel human and a citizen. Of course Im asking allot...or shouldnt be asking at all for these issues because this is my country, the United States of America. What prisoners do we have now? Political Prisoners without bars, rather economic prisoners who are granted but little...very little in some communities that have their own sense of good, with often disturbing yieldings.

Today I do a little work. I have degrees which say I should be making more, living life and existing on a far better level, experience which towers above others...so, ladies and gentlemen, at times it feels like some kind of abuse to have so very little that one artist, is considered a less-than citizen by the fact he is an artist...a less than citizen because he has done allot, more than some...but is anxious to live, persue happiness, common unity, moral life, structure and work.

This mostly has been denied to me, even considering Im a citizen. Funny how one feels being subject to oppression, suppression in his own country and having to exist...just exist..not because of spritual causes, because there is no freedom to do otherwise.

 Of course there are people around, in this elitest union, among the elevated nose crew, and not just some, who get humor in seeing another person suffering, getting a kick out of it, and such is plain sick, beyond human capacity. They enjoy rich, unbound freedom, these nose quirkers, and wince at another person in trouble, using their status to bestow the fashion statement, leaving others in strange situations one might never see in a modern country where there might be assistance, watching and governing this land "elite" to any encroachers, expecially of the culture bearing variety. Such I have seen. 

I still wait after 3 years to exit this land of Sedona forever and never return, for there are many many days of sheer existence here...making it by on little if anything...feeling my citizenship encroached upon, enough so that I would jet away in a second to any place that was offered that would give me a sense of kind and plausable.

I spend many days in silence. Waiting now, waiting for an email or proposition for something gainful, giving opportunity, a feeling of progress, freedom and cultural elevation. It dosent happen even though hours of writing are done, calls placed out over the internet...nothing coming to fruition. There has been only a very very few who have come to any assistance for me here.

Spoken forward:

God only Helps a Person Who Helps Themselves!

My God! Jesus in Principle!

So what does this mean in a Pagan-Agnostic Environment

One is on their own!

It is embarrassing that we have communities that are closed to our own citizenship, set in a confounding sense of Zenophobia for their own citizens, set in their mindset for only the rich to be allowed partake of and poor to struggle...and I mean struggle. I am embarrassed for Sedona and embarrassed for this viewpoint of savage selfish elitism which is covering our system of rudimentary rights to live (decently), an not be punished by psychologically abridged senses of impoverishment..What the hell is anyone working to support this measure of economy where a person is merely able to live, and that is that..nothing more...to have a life, gainful position in society and not be thrust into the garrison of non-citizens in hope for work, in hope for pay,food, and some kind of living conditions that are decent, acceptable...right now I am living in my van. I’m sorry but this is unacceptable, but reasons will put others tongues upon mine and subject some cause...effectual relationship in this quandary of life that I see which will bring up the old standards...find a job, when I’ve applied to 1000 positions and not found but a small one...for basicly walking money for coffee in the morning. So I have bowed out on many hopes here. 

The Estranged American 

Living in his own land...

Sad thoughtless and Embarrassing...

The words of a traveler whom I met along the road....

Now the rules have changed again in Sedona. One has to have a business license to act as a teacher or independent contractor if one suits themselves to make private business here, regardless of what one is selling! The action is selling goods, licences proposed, and law protects the agencies who have the access to documents...one penny at a time.

The Story of Germain

Jermaine

The story of Jermaine is about a little more than common person, subjectively poised, most presumably one that we could meet any day and place among the passers by on the street carrying a briefcase. He was a fellow traveler on this planet, forced by fate to make his life under a common guise with an extra twist of economic times and restriction...he was thrown by fate to this existence by the actions of the economy in a present day situation.

I met Jermaine in passing. It was a warm day in Sedona, in the early spring. It was a casual meeting but I didn’t forget his story because of the energy with which it was told to me, by him.

It was in front of ByBees, the local supermarket, one of the few in Sedona specializing in natural foods. Now, by reason of integrity I will not describe this person too much, but say, in a manner of speaking that he seemed totally out of place wearing a three piece suit, and selling crystals and rocks. His collection grabbed me with its stunning assortment, quite literally gems of sorts. I stopped, looked at his variety showcase, spread on a velvet cloth and noticed a large piece of blue stone that was quite admirable. Asking how much he wanted for it, he shrugged and placed a value of a hundred on the near perfect spheroid which took my attention.

It looked like sapphire...as I turned the sphere on its axis, the light hitting it from certain angles. I rummaged through my own case that I carried with me to find a piece of the gem that I always carried with me, a piece of sapphire given to me, and attune to a “certain frequency” (what ever did I pick that one out for, God only knows, but it was given to me...and as gifts are I usually accept, and make acknowledgment, and return the favor) “Sapphire?” I asked, waiting for a response, and lightly twisting my smile. “Yes, Sapphire! “ He responded, “Part of my own collection..” he shrugged,”A lot of worth now...” he bided, “I go ninety on it...”

I couldn’t make the purchase but thought it might make a nice gift somewhere along the line. I placed it back on the cloth and then we began to talk.

He told me his life story somewhat casually.

Jermaine was from California, and the Bay Area of San Francisco. As usual, I expected the next sentence almost casually. That he drifted down to Sedona for healing after...

Well after, the same story goes on and on...

He lost his house, wife in this recession, indicating the whole lot.

Jermaine got animated about it and seemed quite distressed at one point, but told me the entire story.

“A beautiful house overlooking the ocean...” was his first description.

That he had worked in Silicon Valley pertained to another part of the candor.

This fellow was educated. An engineer in computers.

What brought him to Sedona was another part of the story as it always is. That he had been here for three months and was attempting residence, yet another story which I well know.

“There’s not one thing out there!” he panted, the fifty odd year old man almost tearing at one time, holding his hand to his chin, as he spoke about finding work.

As misery loves company, we just jawed a bit about this issue which is pertinent to the province of Sedona.

“That the uneducated laborers seem to grab up the jobs, even from Mexico, illegal as one can be...” is one analysis, his own. That they were doing so in California too was no surprise. The issues were not misplaced with complaints. That under the current conditions one has to “Grab ones ankles and bend over...” was another analogy, a little stressed for the calling, but perfect as it pertains to the current circumstance.

Jermaine seemed a little worn, if not by the conditions, by the sun. He had the luck as with many here to be staying with a friend.

He was anxious to move on as we all sort of feel, especially after a few months of getting the “Sedona Treatment” that is known throughout the vicinity and only offers luck and reprieves of fate as a promise that life might exist for tomorrow.

“Oh its not easy” Jermaine bewildered face spoke in less than a riddle of crystal clarity, “They just turn their nose up at this stuff!..”

Yes, we know of the attempts for anyone coming to the spiritual valley, its temptations and opulence as well as often the waste.

We exchanged emails. His personal card still read from the corporate industry where he had printed 'Engineer' Software Resources.

We spoke of the placement, as why we were here. For both of us it sounded like incomplete sense. Our talk went on for an hour or so as our friendship continued over a cup of coffee and sporadic interjections of 'the times' whatever they were, and how they were effective.

It was meetings with fellow travelers such as these that made me know that it was not only me that was affected by the anagactic winds of the times.

Oh my God, that we should be allowed to work, is not a right but an entanglement in legal issues as well. Later I ran in to Jermaine just on that note in complaint of his selling objects. This was one story among many here.

Normal jobs had their restrictions, and it was perfectly clear in the most part, that normal jobs were highly vetted, and few provided making it a mistake to come to Sedona for a position of work, but rather retirement.

The artists too has to have a license form the city to sell his wares...new statutes and laws to make bigger corporations and weaker profit, if any here. So embarrassing...so embarrassing...but I can do what I may, utilizing my own resources as a free person..still

Hearing some commotion at the restaurant:

*Now the last intelligent people that lived here would opt to sell their houses, get rid of their belongings, whatever they may be and leave this place on the first notion.

A case in point...

“Another Life Entirely it take to propose Life Here!”

Its not like this entire project of living and breathing have not been complicated enough extending my stay in Sedona. This hall of Hope, Faith so-called enlightenment is of interest to the spiritualists and the sooth Sayers to the great beyond, but the ability to make enough money to live is constantly a difficult process. I refuse to become unethical, yet the projection of this in many things that I see is at hand, a arboretum of spacial distance into what is a very “thick” minded space...is hardly a place for an artist (of any media) to live and prosper well.

Sometimes I kick myself into the thought of leaving, not returning, burning the bridges behind me for indeed I have seen too much to be practical, or in any such way, pull ahead in a spiritual way and not be caught up in the 'drain' dynamic that pulls one here. Some call it magnetism, others that swimming vortex, but in any case, some days I awake and feel the kick from within to want to get things going here...or make headway to the middle of the Gobi which may be more entertaining from some perspectives.

A joke in passing:

Sedona and Tibet have allot in common?

They don’t, they never have!

One starts at 20,000 feet, the other in a wind swept ravine entrapped by red rocks...yet both are enchanting;

Air in both places one has to contend with.

The air in Sedona, filled with that red-rust dust and auto, diesel and other things that blow around...Roundup, insecticides, building treatments

(Now there is air)

In Tibet one has to breath Oxygen!

In Sedona one speaks English...they better speak English (If they know whats good for them!)

In Tibet they speak Chinese!

In Sedona however they order out for Chinese, as well as Indian, and Mexican-

Complaints by a hyper allergic passer by, again for the dust, and pollutants, make one wonder if this is one up on a Gobi desert dust storm at times...

He wore a dust mask--

Yes, my days of exploration here are numbered. I would just like to get up and go! Unfortunately there are problems, technical problems which tend to grow here upon there own...finance being one.

Sent out again today for another packet of 10 or 11 openings in the vicinity and received 'again' those fully formed patten letters, Faust as faux could be, and as phoney as a 3 dollar bill (now in this place there might be an exception)...that this is common, I guess in this energy...blank letters back with a so sorry, or a “under-qualified” letter? (Geez whiz, I do believe this is another measure of suppression---one thing I know is that I’m over, not under-qualified, but in Sedona you get the 'treatment', and this treatment is diabolical---assumed from men, by men—the Sedona treatment makes one want to run! But it is a pretty place and this has become a mission once more, but a costly one at that! Again I had a passer by tell me his same experience.

Five letters I sent out into the oblivion. The message is they are too big for their short pants...Those five letters, each with the same blanket form letter eau d cologne! How do I know? My application was at 5 am in the morning. No one is awake at 5am or in the office at any measure, yet I receive letters that say “I’m under-qualified”, even for the most basic of conditions...barely livable—A racket? Yes, we know this racket! I don’t think I will be pressing to work for any of these people any time soon, better waste my time applying and sending the forms into thin air. “Let them eat cake!” may be a more focused potential.

As prospects grow far away from this mess, I don’t feel like I’m going to miss it.

Wasting of time, playing the monkey or apt worker is not what I should be doing no matter what...pull myself out of this cacophony...the best bet! Lead no one astray by leading them here, a firm 20/20 activity, an doing so with experience of the kismet of this place for the last 3 years of a barren cycle of life and the artificially produced arts pretense, both alive and dead as Schrodinger Cat principle.

I spend the rest of the day with contacts of a much, much higher level reading what I may into the scope of reality instead of Sedona delusion.

Watching the lack of growth, is a metaphor of a rose trying to take root in a desert, it just dosent happen...