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Are you one of the thousand who will support water development fine art?

Neil April 18th, 2011

I am Seeking 1000 supporters willing to give $6 for water development issues around the world!

Mind As Water – is an ancient saying passed from teacher to student in far eastern cultures for generations to show the lessons illustrated in nature.

I had heard of such instruction – but never practiced it. Until I was confronted with the exit of my lover and the mother of my children from my life, in an unwanted divorce after 11 years of relationship. I felt more pain than I knew was possible. Pain that stopped me from functioning, burned down my personality, and stole my will to live. So I had to find a way out, and that way was a way in — a practice that allowed me to experience the pain. In opening up to that experience, I could allow healing to flow in like warm water. The separation from my children, and life change from a stay at home dad whose life was filled by caring for his children — to single father was an unnatural pain that left a raw, gaping hole. As soon as I was willing to stare the pain in the face, God was there to fill and heal my heart with the warmth and gentleness of water.

Naturally, I tried to make pictures about ‘it’…

…here we are over a year later, and I have shared this experience with over 100 subjects.

I believe that warmth and gentleness instilled in me, is changing the world around me though this project – and I wish to focus that change. Your support of my project will kick-start my imagery for showing in a large scale exhibit. The gallery event is designed as a fundraiser event for water awareness and development organizations to use to further their cause by engaging the public in a face to face experience with water. Right now I have over 33,000 images of humans experiencing water. My imagery has been created across the US with as many cultural groups and age groups as I have been able to gain access. I will continue producing imagery until I get a solid cross section of the global population, however I think the time is right to make the show available for events. (will you support water development now with $6?)

The goal in presentation of the show is to display a COMPOSITE PORTRAIT. To achieve this visual effect on the gallery walls I wish to mount the show prints edge to edge. My choice of presentation method contrasts to the gallery standard of framing images individually. The wall will become the image from floor to ceiling, and show the individual images in a comparative sense as they tie individual experiences into the whole. For this reason, there are a lot of prints to be made. Each print costs $32 from the lab, and I estimate the average gallery space will need between 160-220prints. I am seeking 1000 people to invest $6 raising $6,000 to print, mount and package the show so that I can begin to offer it as a fine art event to water development organizations. (will you support water development now with $6?)

Mind As Water shows my personal commitment to pouring out my own healing into positive change in the world. To date I have not taken a cent for the images or sessions while I have personally invested $2000 into the Ugandan economy on behalf of water development. I will treat your dollars with the same high regard for the sacrifice you have made to obtain them. I believe your dollars will see a generous return as your kick-start inspires others to give to water development in the future. Please donate a minimum of $6 and receive my mailings to stay up to date on my project. If you are not able to donate $6, please suggest my project to someone you know who would be impacted by this imagery and intent. Please become a subject! Young or old (especially old) contact me to schedule your shoot when I am in your city. I am especially looking to connect with aged subjects, 60+ years old. If you know of an agency, editor or other creatives working in Uganda or with water topics, interested in a book project – please make an introduction for me – as I am seeking a creative partner/editor for possible. (will you support water development now with $6?)

Kickstarter Project for water development through fine art

Become Like Children

Neil November 26th, 2010

‘The Way to Love’ by Anthony de Mello

If you allow yourself to really feel the pains of this hell on earth, the utter emptiness it brings, you might experience within you a revolt,

a disgust so powerful that it will shatter the chains of dependence

and the deceit that have been forged around your soul and you will break loose into the kingdom of innocence where mystics and children dwell.

(that is why I say ‘hear the shadows’)

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Hear the Shadows , Mind Like Water , Quotes , spirituality

Fast water

Neil September 19th, 2010

Fast water

for the love of ballads

Neil September 7th, 2010

Josh Garrells – Zion & Babylon

Oh great mammon of form and function
Careless consumerist consumption
Dangerous dysfunction
Described as expensive taste
I’m a people disgraced
By what I claim I need
And what I want to waste
I take no account for nothing
If it’s not mine
It’s a misappropriation of funds
Protect my ninety percent with my guns
Whose side am I on?
Well who’s winning?
My kingdom’s built with the blood of slaves
Orphans, widows, and homeless graves
I sold their souls just to build my private mansion

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Inspiration , spirituality , Video

Mind

Neil August 25th, 2010

The Way bears sensation,
Sensation bears memory,
Sensation and memory bear abstraction,
And abstraction bears all the world;
Each thing in the world bears feeling and doing,
And, imbued with mind, harmony with the Way.

As others have taught, so do I teach,
“Who loses harmony opposes nature”;
This is the root of my teaching.

Tao Te Ching.org – #42

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Mind Like Water , Philosophy , Quotes , spirituality , Tao

Job 22 – the ancient light

Neil April 20th, 2010

Job 22 – New International Version – BibleGateway.com

²⁶ Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty
and will lift up your face to God.

²⁷ You will pray to him, and he will hear you,
and you will fulfill your vows.

²⁸ What you decide on will be done,
and light will shine on your ways.

²⁹ When men are brought low and you say, ‘Lift them up!’
then he will save the downcast.

The Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible is considered the oldest book of the bible. A very complex literary work dealing with the problem of evil.

I am being taught that light shines on the good way!

What are you defending?

Neil November 1st, 2009

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What are you defending?

An illusory identity, an image in your mind, a fictitious entity.

By making this pattern conscious, by witnessing it, you dis-identify from it.

In the light of your conscious, the unconscious pattern will quickly dissolve. This is the end of all arguments and power games which are so corrosive to relationships. Power over others is weakness disguised as strength. True power is within, and is available to you NOW.

_________________________

So anyone who is identified with their mind, and therefore disconnected from their true power their deeper self rooted in being will have fear as their constant companion. The number of people who have gone beyond mind is as yet extremely small, so you can assume that virtually everyone you meet or know lives in a state of fear. Only the intensity of it varies. It fluctuates between anxiety and dread at one end of the scale and a vague unease and distant sense of threat at the other. Most people only become conscious of it when it takes on one of it’s more acute forms. Another aspect of the emotional pain that is an intrinsic part of the egoic mind is a deep seeded sense of lack, or incompleteness – of not being whole. In some people this is conscious, in others unconscious. If it is conscious, it manifests as the unsettling and constant feeling of not being worthy or good enough. …..often enter into a compulsive pursuit of ego gratification and things to identify with, in order to fill this hole they feel within. And so they strive after possessions, money, success, power, recognition, or a special relationship. Basically so they can feel better about themselves, feel more complete. But even when they attain all these things, they find that the hole is still there. That it is bottomless, then they are really in trouble – because they cannot elude themselves anymore……

The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle – Audio book version