Four word 30. It is always a half. Two more points reflect 6, 9 and back to a hidden 3 again. The clock hands do not hold the numbers. The zero is an egg without pressure or surface. Four words drift by. Pleasure, pain, value and waste. A cross, a star, an intersection, a direction. The world arduously spins a square into a diamond. You, me and us. Skin wrapped tight together and then loose again. Two spheres merge a chime into a flower. A room with rounded corners. An elevator opening each floor to each ceiling. An elemental spine, Damballa and Ayida. Evening and day. One tile with a pressed line between. A folded roof. A house under the waves of a patient moon. We are wake with weightless vision.
A symbol is a corpse with autoscopy. A phantom over lay. A double accompanied with hallucinatory meaning. Vowels steer consonants on a quest to remember what was said. What part of something, what place of something. The face of the hero and fool is a map. An omnivoyant icon. Stare into their eyes to recover your own indispensable quality. Follow the ocular path to the source that informs us. Let the light and gravity pull you inward. Convergent and divergent beams. Perhaps some music while refraction bends cylinders of power into design. Level after level. Into the interior body of the archetype, watch without judgement the tissue of god age and grow younger. The sapient rays of Loa, Sentences turning air pressure into surface and form. A ledge, a crossbar on a door but knowledge a threshold to the cross roads. Two points with a tail. Nodding Vertical and wagging horizontal, Only a cube for an overlapping moment as a brilliant veve blooms a code to retain shape’s motion and growth. A neuro branch imagining one direction and wilts, curving to remember where it was from. Yes all those full lines fade among the countless vanishing points of pure space. Time as all ways from two radiant parallel lines. From eyes as light fountains, as eyes as vacant.
In Milo Rigaud’s Secrets of Voodoo he describes the les lois ‘the laws’ as intermediaries between human beings and the cosmic source. These unseen constitutional agents are waves known as Loas who superintend the pattern of the world. During ritual and geometric drumming initiates tune into a loa and a transmission ‘mounts’ a recipient, known as ‘cheval’ which means horse. From the outside the person is possessed or entranced-from the word entrance. Similar to an artist being a cheval ridden by inspiration (in spirit).The psychic transit arrives, stays and expires while vertical lines are cross bounded by horizontal lines producing a square (or diamond) that channels (even generates) cosmic awareness into a personal experience.
The psychic map contained within the veve’s is a cross road of any place, it is also at the same time a quantum world of everywhere. I do not practice Voodoo or any religion in a traditional process. What I notice about active practitioners in Voodoo is trance states and a deep relationship with inspiration.
Excessive emphasis on power points and direction makes space magical and useful. Realistically on a mundane level, lines retain power in structure, a sentence of words or even numbers counting paced events on a clock. The Veves in voodoo reflect such effects as points and lines being the living representation of a spirit who is a geometric being. This is not unlike other cosmograms using geometry, including the Sri Yantra, Kolams and Navajo sand painting to mention a few.
Health, abundance, growth and love are all recognized universally as good and beneficial directions for the best outcomes. Positive end results, efficiency, a management of temporal lobe quakes and a thriving neural network are in accordance to the patterns of Loas. It cannot be argued maintaining this pattern is essential to balance and living well. Magic’s best purpose is healing and restoring the incomplete.
Points and lines (or particles and waves) will appear serpentine. The serpent is an expression of a time tense, a movement of a day and night in space. Only a focusing meditating point can open an omnivoyant eye in the center square (or center diamond). Veve’s along with the crafted tiles made by Islamic artisans have fixed these particles and waves in a suspended state for us to study the hidden qualities of an interior state. In my limited personal experience spirits look more like unfolding flowers without interruption, then they look like replicas of people.
I intentionally borrow from authentic beliefs. I mimetically blend ideas together. My intention is not to marginalize the value of traditional Voodoo
The Ancient Egyptian Ka is an expression of vital essence, a force rising from a place that can not be explained. I haven’t found any strict definition of Ka but it is similar to the word soul. Many sources explain that the hieroglyph that display two arms are symbolic of molding pottery on a potters wheel.
The Ka
My first impression of Ka is energy. Another translation, based partly on the educated guesses of Julian Jaynes in his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind mentions qualities of conscious related to autoscopy. This idea of Ka as a double isn’t significantly supported when cross examined but there are some credible details to consider temporarily.
The autoscopic narrative suggests reflection is a kind of illusionary duplication, a way of putting one’s self into an object For example the Tutankhamun sarcophagus is a vivid copy of the pharaoh’s Ka or soul. To me it seems valid to consider Ka a universal signature that represents a forms presence fully. That sense of residence and memory survives the limits of the original. In this case and many others, the forgery is a decoy that influences our subconscious more powerfully than the original source.
Norval Morrisseau from Norval Morrisseau: Shaman Artist.National Gallery of Canada; First Edition (January 1, 2006)
Ojibway artist, Norval Morrisseau talked about The House of Invention. He never explained what the House was dogmatically. The meaning I found in what Morrisseau was talking about was the House was a flash of instantaneous possibilities.
Rarely we receive a glimpse of light from The House of Invention unless it’s in our dreams. My personal experience was an astral dream where my future self (Visual Spatial perspective) was touring the House of Invention. All the art was holographic and animated in a sequence of a fluid loops. It was comparable to the graphics interchange format but without any tics, fully three dimensional while suspended in space.
Plato also mentions a House of Invention he called hyperuranion, a place were all the forms live.
Jupiter in Vedic astrology is Guru, otherwise known as an auspicious teacher of light or in old fashion terms, simply- lord of light. This the embodiment of the silhouette ventriloquized by light in the painting. How we talk to ourselves influences our smallest self at an atomic level. The effects of Jupiter widens, extends and liberates space between lines. The planet’s influence causes us to to see things clearly without mistake. Jupiter is benevolent, helpful and fatherly. It has everything and doesn’t need anything. With it’s massive weight it moves obstacles effortlessly. Jupiter rules the 9th house of theurgy, learning, spirituality and awareness of reality.
Dino D’ Taos is an outsider artist who lived in Taos, New Mexico from 1998 to 2006. Dino’s enchantment with the Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali motivated him to become a self taught artist and Dali Disciple. Dino believed Salvador Dali’s method of objectifying the psychic forces of the unconsciousness offered viewers a new scripture to understanding reality. The foundation of Dino’s work relied on continuing Dali’s message to help expand a new art testament in a post Dalian world. In company with the cosmic themes deposited in Dali’s book 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship, Dino’s paintings resume Dali’s inquiry into occult subjects like alchemy, astrology and Pythagorean narratives.
From a personal perspective I get a powerful impression from his paintings that somehow part of Dino’s memory retained insights from the Elysian Mysteries in some former life. With Dino’s paintings there is a resurrection of an earlier bicameral state that explores space with lines, geometric shapes and paronomasia. This seems to fuse the hemispheres of the mind for a moment as Dali alludes to and calls “Pythagorean instantaneousness” which can be found in his painting, The Sacrament of the Last Supper.
Dali taught Dino that perspective played a key role in the surrealistic method. This magic was practiced by putting the viewer into an optical trance that was intended to trigger neural pathways. I’ll mention it briefly that Dino experienced auditory visitations. This mediumship included a reception from the Dutch post-impressionist painter, Vincent van Gogh, which he openly talked about with my wife and me. Reference to Dino’s encounter with Van Gogh was channeled in a 48inx72in painting that can be found here on Vanessa Valencia’s page, a patroness and collector of Dino’s work.
I moved to Taos, New Mexico in 1997 a year before Dino. It wasn’t until 2000 I met Dino at the Cafe Tazza, a cool coffee house on Kit Carson Rd, which unfortunately no longer exists.
We both enjoyed strong coffee and became fast friends easily. Since we were both artists we had a lot to talk about. It wasn’t less than a few months the owner at Tazza provided a room where we hung our work. We both ended up selling work. Along the way Dino introduced me to my wife and from there the three of us would get together, have dinner, drink wine and smoked lots of flower.
The three of us would talk about art for hours and read each other’s tarot cards. There was always a steady flow of jazz in the background. It was a great time. A time without a computer overlooking our memories. These days bohemian and hippie are hashtags but back then we were organically experimenting with a bohemian and hippie lifestyle. I look back now on those carefree days as playing an integral part in my own development as an outsider artist.
Dino painted with acrylic on wood board he cut himself. He also made prints of his work. He had this cool trike with a little seahorse flag that he peddled around with. In the carrier he put his paintings and easel. You could find him comfortably painting in the Taos Historic District of the Taos Plaza. People would watch him paint and buy art from him.
Dino D’Taos was born on December 25 which made him a Capricorn who preferred the solitary life to an extroverted life. He was religiously dedicated to his work. He had some background experience in galleries but favored showing work at coffee house’s because he believed everyone buys a cup of coffee. In retrospect Dino and I shared the similar belief that coffee culture was a more authentic and less institutionalized avenue for showing art.
My wife and I own a few paintings. We also have some of Dino’s writings which remind me of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. I have no idea where Dino is now or how he is. I treasured the friendship dearly and regard Dino as a guide that helped mature the bond I have with my creative self. Even though I’m on my own path I regularly employ the methods of surrealism to enter the subconscious
Painting is a séance with one’s self, it’s a mediumship that dowses for pathways in the collective unconsciousness. All my writing is speculation, observational study and a visualization exercise in words.
Sefkhet-Abwy is Djehuty’s counterpart. Djehuty being commonly referred to by the Greek name Thoth, the ibis headed or beaker moon god. It is unclear how Sefkhet-Abwy fits in the triangularly with Ma’at, who is Djehuty’s actual wife but this is how it is recorded c. 3150 – c. 2613 BCE. Regardless both Djehuty and Sefkhet-Abwy were responsible for weight and measure. It is paramount to notice a woman as an accountant for the passing days. The proof being menstruation is based on a cycle.
Merkhet an astronomical timekeeping instrument
I found Sefkhet-Abwy was also called the Mistress of the House of Architects. This would be noteworthy to understand and explore metaphorically. Symbolically Sefkhet-Abwy’s use of a cord functioned umbilically to connect sacred alignments while surveying land. This cord was knotted to create a measuring rope used in the Stretching the Cord ceremony. Part of the ceremony was finding a square in space.
Stretching the Cord ceremony
There is so much to write about the meaning of the Stretching the Cord ceremony but I’ll reserve it. I recommend the reader look more into these things. The compass rose, geometry and even ornithomancy as flight patterns become more meaningful.
A Surveying Groma. A tool used to find a square in space
The name Sefkhet-Abwy which means either seven-horned or Safekh-Aubi she who wears horns, horns being plural without specific number. Relying on the reliefs, there are seven horns and a long horn creating eight. There is also an arch U-shaped indentation that encases the bone star design
The bovine horn (antler) theme and the bow can easily flow into the crescent moon symbol, both for agriculture and hunting purposes. There is also a leopard skin worn by Sefkhet-Abwy that represents the universal sky with the spots being points. If we travel 3,057 miles east from Egypt (on land) we can find the Hindu deity, Shiva who also has a moon crescent on his forehead and leopard skin. Shiva hangs out with cattle too
Star of Lakshmi and eight moon phases. The number Seven can escort us into all sorts of associative meanings. One being a version of the menorah whose limit at the time would stop at Saturn and the seven seas. Another being the period of seven days.
Maybe the gravity of the moon and earth help influence the framework of collagen and calcium phosphate. My impression of the horns led me to believe the ossification of cattle horns may have had some kind of relationship with the eight phases of the moon.
Master of Reflections From my series The Hidden Folk, 12inx15in mixed media. Investigates suggestibility and sympathetic magic.
The Master has a forehead of mirrors that captures the on looker. Whatever the master says changes the shape of the viewers reflection. The warden of petals regulates and enhances scent and can influence specific moods of an entire group. The Prophet of mu is the last representative of mu. a close encounter with the medium has made people become more conducive to psychic waves.
The Poet Guillaume Apollinaire described a hidden world as Surreal. Although Surrealism became popular in the 1920’s there has always been an omnipresent clue among all cultures of a hidden world. The Icelandic phrase, huldufólk is a substitution for a name what would otherwise disrupt the hidden world and cause an encounter with it. While most of us are usually not suggestively affected by taboos there is a unique percentage of people in Iceland who do believe the hidden world is possible.
This is not far from asking someone if they believe in people from another space.
The Surrealist’s methods of accessing the subconscious were not new. Many of the techniques of surrealism rely on animism, pareidolia and apophenia.
These three special effects of our consciousness influence our beliefs and attitudes subconsciously. Animism is our oldest built in belief system. Under the suggestibility of the animistic brain every person. place or thing has spirit. This would also include power and expression as an ability to change events in an environment. As simple as sanctifying a successful hunt/crop by painting a picture of the future in the present. As animism believes that everything is an agent of expression or spirit, pareidolina impacts how one perceives this channel.
There is a symbiotic relationship between the faerie realm and what we would consider inanimate or motionless objects. Like seeing a face in a tree. Apophenia impresses upon how we organize what we perceive during pareidolina. Where as an abnormal encounter with a face in the tree that could be nothing at all, apophenia insists, sometimes obsessively, that this experience, seeing a face in the tree, means something more than it does. Apophenia places most people at risk because it can be dogmatic and unquenchable under a false conclusion.
Mitchell Pluto 