Oil on Canvas 8' X 4' 1997-2011
The Adventures of Little 'T'
King of the Canyon!
And
And
THE SAYINGS
OF
'T'
THE ADVENTURES:
In V Parts- (Prequels and sequels possible...)
In V Parts- (Prequels and sequels possible...)
I.
Saugus
Gypsies along the wash- making furniture from the willows.
Bercause Grocery Store with oiled wood floors- turned my bare feet black in a tiny country town along the railroad above the wash
Before a ‘y’ in the road and an intersection beyond the post office and grammar school.
Little cafe run by people named Rolls, nice people with counter service and booths along the window views of Thatcher Glass Factory, Depot and Rails
Next to a barbershop with ‘secret’ poker games in back room
The Rib eatery ‘round the bend, off the fork; run by mother and daughter, father does dishes at night- Reads all day.
They gave me a huge black polo horse with his full bridle and minimum English saddle that I ran young at night
along the wash
harvesting moonlight, wind, wild clattering of hooves and cottonwoods in groves... Sacred, I think
God is hiding in your closet. Much as you think you might like to open the closet door- One hesitates.
What if God is afraid of us? He can’t do evil. We can.
He can sacrifice himself
We can destroy Him (Her if you prefer...)
Because He tied Himself to us in the language of the Son
(Semantics don’t change the blessing- maybe ‘daughter’ is just harder to say...)
Still, he offered himself to his own Creation.
We can destroy creation’s beatific union
At least the part we depend on-
Probably the whole thing if we set our minds...
Had one really great run across huge athletic lawn in high school. Even Coach commented on it- ... like the wild black pony I loved beneath moon and leaves-
sandy gravel flying back behind
Along the river’s wash.
Here, now, by the sea
Drops so small as not to be seen, veil
heat and glare to
A soft fall of grace before this long allowance
of love...
Mystery pulls us uninvited through broken glass gauntlets
Disappears and returns in soft rays of convalescent
canyon runs to the sea.
A delightful dementia!
7.27.14
II.
Out in the Country North of L.A., 1949 ff
We started in a 15' trailer, out in the country north of L.A., 1949-
under a giant wild cherry tree
with Jimson Weed threatening fierce geisha beauty through earthbound gourd vines spread on the hot
sand
but I learned my first five years bare foot in the gravel and stickers, wild fragrance summer and spring-
what not to step on.... What to avoid- what to jump down the hill. I knew not to fall into the yuccas- just a knack I guess. To avoid Rattlesnakes and Black Widows like the Holy Terrors they are… couldn’t.
There were 5 of us. My older brothers slept outside in an Army Surplus bunk bed.
It doubled as a playpen for me by enclosing the bottom bunk in chicken wire.
Coyotes couldn't drag me off, like they did the free range chickens and turkeys.
There was a redwood water tank about 5 feet tall and ten feet in diameter filled to black, green and shards of sky.
It smelled of wet verdant ecology in that brittle, spare, sage, sand and chaparral place, where we almost ‘made it’... Nothing grew in the refreshment of that upright pond, ‘cause of the tannins in the redwood- I know now. Ecologies are so complicated!
Dad played ball- and chain for our sake. Mother wore those full summer dresses,
and was too beautiful.
Her heart almost like that place, and she walked her own way..
Sunsets pure and clean before smog, an heroic stage for our small dramas...
I was with her when she died 50 years later in a similar place. The others all gone before-
Now that I’ve sucked in the wind that whipped our iris garden down
year after year...
Steve Frost- May, 2011
(DOB 5.25.'49)
III.
Kick the Hornet’s Nest
Run, jump, slide down hill
No danger to die or kill
Slide beneath branches
Jump the brush of tiny ranches
Run wild wind and down to fill
A spread of time
Between womb
and tomb.
A child
Off course that day,
Didn’t kick the paper nest nor
Even see it in time
Off the line
Of sight as
It was
Nearly naked
I was.
Joy of being that young
Free of economies
And election
I was free to knock that nest off its branch. Didn’t look
Didn’t know they were there
If they cook
Or care.
Nor did they care for me
Until I was gone
Not so far
14 miles to that old doctor.
Old red truck, Model T
Stings,
Red Sings of lumps
Bumps
The size of half dollars
Dozens of stings on my little body still
Ripe with baby fat.
Fight a big sting
But then was well.
Nice to be young
No heaven or hell
That people dream
Then try to sell…
Old now
Rocking
fall
And smile
Asleep.
10.28.’10
CALIFORNIA
III.
(Love Poem 1)
Pasture, fields
We were green incisions
breaking rocky sand after huge, hill slipping rains
Then the blue hills on long stalks, and golden orange sweeping to a climbing sky
sweet horse-breath tough muzzles
long hair, pulling lips and yanking teeth, naked and bareback we rode over cliffs into a peaceful ocean…
Wolf purple and Indians brush the slopes with salt skin sweat enough to lubricate a long soccer run across high school into
College, friends forms shapes
Color that keeps to itself to inspire only in love
Love that leaves and comes back and leaves again
So, there is only God- but God doesn’t want ‘only God’ or he wouldn’t have made us.
2007
IV.
(Love Poem #6.)
All I see is those long stalks and feel the sticky sap that seeps and weeps when we picked their great blue bells—
much more variegated in its person than a name can tell.
Now it’s a knife of a thousand revelations that I was a lucky kid in our hiding place and willing to pay the wind for its bite and the long walk up those rocky hills to know its love,
Once I lay on its side writhing that migraine out, so that old school bus driver got out on his way home and climbed up to take care of me, though I was a quarter mile off the road and up the side of our hill that dad built on—all gone now. More of what I learned to do as they were brawny and bold with those big flags of stone-- More of light glinting across my ball, the eye to my soul, and sent now to save
or kill.
2007
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As mentioned above, more 'infancy narratives' are in the mosh...
__________________________________
105. Rainbird in Long Grass
(Aka: 'Muladhara' or 'Root Chakra' -source of creative invention,
just above one's perineum according to mystical physiology,
from 'primal pounding stone' to electronic composition, 'pantheon of deity' to 'divine love'... ART.
See also: THAUMATURGE.)
Pencil on Paper ... 2001
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SAYINGS
OF
'T'
9. Sure Path
Turpentine Washes and Oil Pastel on Paper 32" x 24" 1974
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‘The Purpose of Meditation is to draw together God and the World, to unite Oneself with the Divine.
God being who God is, both parties have to agree.
Yoga is to ‘yoke’ oneself
To God.’
There are five major schools or branches of yoga—all are about prayer.’
________________________
“In religion, as in art, too much is as bad as too little.”
_______________
“Purity is a lie.” Though, one can have a clean heart- and be free…
_______________
‘Freedom is so that we can do what is right.’ (RP) (Love and do what you will… St. Augustine)
_______________-
“Better to read the gospel, than sing it, best to inculcate its spirit.”
_______________
“Let’s not kill the future with the past…” (Though, “Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.” - Winston Churchill and a few others.)
________________
“As each instant slips into the past, we form memories of that instant, spontaneously creating a form of historical fiction. Poetry and mythic operatives distill essential elements from that vast array of memories--personal, genetic, environmental--to form culture and personhood. These are the play of spirit and matter engaged here.”
_________________
“Life has spirit and matter, consciousness and persons. A person might be considered a nexus of relationships, time and non-time. Indeed, such might be the Animist’s sacred stone, tree or wind. This might be animal, plant, deity and human being—self-reflection, moments of ineffable insight, mechanics and psyche in the context of self, environment and spiritual origin. Consciousness is untouchable and non-temporal, a divine participation in the universe. Identity is of primary importance: Nairatmyavada.”
__________________
“Paranormal phenomenon is not taken very seriously in most critical commentary on mysticism. However, examples are usually included in the gospels of the world. ... As well, any treatment of Shamanism must include sorcery, though it is often a small aspect of larger traditions. PRAYERS OF PETITION --i.e. seeking some change in the world from a spiritual agency--are universal, even among ‘unbelievers’ under duress, and bear a striking similarity to the rituals and spells of sorcery.”
_______________
“Abstract Expressionist painting combines artist training from the Renaissance with artistic intentions stretching back at least 30,000 years. Art is etymologically a religious function, and Abstract Expressionist method ‘outs’ the unconscious.”
_________________
“A reconsideration of both religion and science is called for now. But in religion, this cannot be just a list of the old gods, i.e. a sterile litany of sociological qualities. Nor can a modern mind and personality just imitate or observe the venerable traditions. This reconsideration must evoke the archetypes that the God(s) name—an evolution of perception and the experience. The major obstacle in our time is that we no longer commonly cultivate the states of consciousness through which God(s) speak. This student needed to know what the Name of God evokes in the human heart, what role it fulfills among the Elohim.”
__________________
“Ritual: A fundamental means by which spiritual, psychic, or non-material consciousness may be accessed. This might be as primal as what is implied in a shaman's bag of fetish objects, or as elaborate as a Tibetan Mandala within the context of their own world views; Christian liturgy, as well as the Gospel itself also provide artificial contexts by which a like 'integration of knowledge' may take place. The 'worlds' are drawn together and 'the world' is saved/destroyed.“
Metaphysical practices such as pilgrimage or meditation also help describe the parameters of our discussion --the corral from which the wild black horses of our topics strain for release. And soon... “
__________________
“Velum dulce obliviositas.” Ah, the sweet veil of forgetfulness.
_________________
Revelation: Who’s Ttee?
(See below.)
And The Ttee's Three Favorite Sayings.
Study for the head of the Third Adam Mural below painted for Sonoma State University Newman Center.
This work no longer exists except for this photo.
(The Second Adam is Jesus Christ...)
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What you don’t understand in ‘Sayings and Poems,’ might just be the parts, like the paintings, that create a mood, or touch sensibilities beyond words-- let it flow over and through like a clean, cool stream just deep enough on a fierce summer day. Drink what you can and sit in their shade.
“Purity is a lie, except for God and the things of God-- and some rare art.” Though, one can have a clean heart- and be free… Velum dulce obliviositas.”
“Abstract Expressionist painting combines artist training from the Renaissance with artistic intentions stretching back at least 30,000 years. Art is etymologically a religious function, and Abstract Expressionist method ‘outs’ the unconscious.”
“As each instant slips into the past, we form memories of that instant, spontaneously creating a form of historical fiction. Poetry and mythic operatives distill essential elements from that vast array of memories--personal, genetic, environmental--to form culture and personhood. These are the play of spirit and matter engaged here.”
This student needed to know what the Name of God evokes in the human heart, what role it fulfills among the Elohim.
94. A New Innocence: The Third Adam (Detail)
Christian Identity in the New Age.
8’ X 4’ 2007-2011
Originally, Ttee or TeeTee was an infant’s nick name because until he went to school, he could not say the ‘s’ of his name ‘Steve.’ So, his brothers teased him and then it became a term of endearment in the family until 1st or 2nd Grade. But, he grew up as you see above, outlived everybody, and against every expectation became the trustee of the family trust. On many of those official documents, the trustee’s signature is followed strangely by the
abbreviation of ‘Trustee’ = Ttee.
Above all else a priest must be trustworthy.
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All Rights Reserved ©2011 By The Reverend Stephen Frost Ph.D. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the author. Revelation: Who’s 'T' 2011© Black Horse Arts P.O. Box 270
Abiquiu, New Mexico 87510
