The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

Paul Gauguin.  

Adam and Eve. 1902. 

Oil on canvas. Art Museum Ordrupgard, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Paul Gauguin

Parau na te varua ino (Words of the devil) 1892. 

Oil on canvas. The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA.

Paul Gauguin.

 Matamoe (Landscape with Peacocks). 1892. 

Oil on canvas. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia.

The Letter

Dear Eve,

You must understand.  The Maserati means everything to me and nothing at the same time.  I've thought about this again and again, but until today I've not been able to put it into words.  I know that words mean everything to you and I do not say this with contempt, but with awe and deep admiration for the force that drives you to take life apart and analyze each fragment.  There are men here who do the same thing just as passionately as you though the subject matter of their thoughts lies in a different realm.  Notice, I did not say a higher realm.

This has come as a relief to me, has helped me to see you from a new perspective.  But … it does not change the way I feel about my own life, and it does not lessen my need to isolate myself from the world of flesh. It was a beautiful world.  I took from it what I had to take and I gave to it what I had to give in order to become what I have become, what I am now in this moment.  For you see, Eve, there is nothing but this moment, the rest is hearsay, the rest is gossip.

 So, my darling, Eve, this is why I say the Maserati means everything to me and nothing at the same time.  You were my Maserati.  I knew it the minute I laid eyes on you.  So sleek, so graceful, so fast.  I wanted to climb inside of you and soar to the ends of the Earth.  And I did.  I did.  I am in you now as I sit here writing this.

Can you feel me?

With undying love,

Your $!*# to remember

Adam

p.s.

The keys are in my red flannel shirt

on the back of the closet door.

Woman With Goose by the Water by Paul Gauguin
Completion Date: 1888
Place of Creation:Pont-aven, France

 

Biography & Complete Works

Goosebone

My Goosebone tells me

what I want to hear.

It is my Goosebone

my goose paid the price

with it's head

with it's feathers.

There were no golden eggs

and so the roast was scheduled.

I didn't try to stop it.

It was high time

the inevitable hour

no skin off my back.

I remained detached

as the ax came down.

The children shrieked.

The blood splattered.

It was only a goose

for Christ's sake

with Christmas around the corner.

And yes, I've got it on tape

(it isn't everyday you get

to document an execution).

And yes, I thought

it was funny when

the butcher and his sidekick

hammed it up for the camera

dangling goose guts in the air

above their open mouths

rubbing their bellies

rolling their eyes in ecstacy.

A dash of humor

to enhance the sacrifice.

And yes, I was the cook

cooking my goose to perfection

with oranges and apricots

wild rice on the side.

Everyone smacked their lips.

Everyone licked their fingers.

Leocadia

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. Michelangelo

" I like an empty wall because I can imagine what I like on it."

Georgia O'Keeffe

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
George Orwell

"…as I could not make reflection with my understanding I contrived to picture Christ within me."

Teresa of Avila

"I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them."
Pablo Picasso

"Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life."
Simone Weil

"Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything."
Henry Miller

"Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?"
Frida Kahlo

"It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block."

Paul Gauguin

"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake."
 Henry David Thoreau

"Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes."
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 

"People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind."
William Butler Yeats

"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact."
 William Shakespeare

"Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere."

 Albert Einstein

 "There is a space betwen man's imagination and man's attainment that may only be traversed by his longing."

Kahlil Gibran

 

Shot of Love

I’ve had this stone heart for a long, long time and I keep it on the table next to my bed. It was found along Route 6 near the Wyalusing Prayer Rocks in Northern Pennsylvania. Once, many years ago, it fell to the floor and broke into several pieces. This upset me greatly, not only because I love it, but because I’m very much into symbolism and was afraid it might be a portent of things to come. My little son was in the room when it went crashing to the floor. When he saw how sad I had become he quickly picked up the pieces and said reassuringly, "Don’t worry, Mommy. I can fix it."

 Full of confidence, he left the room with my broken heart in his little hands. A short time later he returned with my heart all put together and almost good as new. In fact, it was better than new, the cracks gave it added dimension and I loved it even more because the symbolism had now been elevated to a higher, more positive level. The entire experience was beginning to feel holy. "How did you do that?" I asked."

"Crazy glue," he said, as if I had asked a silly question, and then he ran off to play. I was incredulous; stunned by his beauty and his innocence, seeing him in a whole new light.

I was shot by love. It was a real happening. A revelation.

My child had become my guru.

One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying. If I am not in the state of grace, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.

We declare that you are fallen again into your former errors and under the sentence of excommunication which you originally incurred we decree that you are a relapsed heretic; and by this sentence which we deliver in writing and pronounce from this tribunal, we denounce you as a rotten member, which, so that you shall not infect the other members of Christ, must be cast out of the unity of the Church, cut off from her body, and given over to the secular power: we cast you off, separate and abandon you, praying this same secular power on this side of death and the mutilation of your limbs, to moderate its judgment towards you, and if true signs of repentance appear in you to permit the sacrament of penance to be administered to you.

A portion of the final sentence pronounced to Joan in public after her trial

Long Ass Note From Joan

To whom it may concern:

Just wanted you to know

I enjoyed my informal visit

to the nut house on the strip.

Everything was cozy and clean.

The belligerent being however,

who manned the manure moat

and lowered the bridge

for the special privileged,

was not very nice to me.

Even though I had tons of I.D.

he insisted I wade through

like all the other losers.

I wish I had listened to Mother

and packed my hip boots.

Nonetheless, the atmosphere

was jaunty and the regulars,

once they got to know me,

were full of goodwill and advice

which they offered freely

most of the time and charged

for the remainder.

All in all it was an experience

I shall always forget

and even now as I pen this

note of gratitude and degradation

I can hardly remember

your solicitous smile

or the particular name of your monkey.

Please don’t think me cynical,

hoity-toity or sarcastic.

I’ve shed those three demons

thanks to you and your

hilarious crash course.

Now instead I’m wearing

light weight armor to protect

my delicate new skin

until I’m on my feet again

and no longer flinch

when I brush up against reality

or get knocked off my pony

in a jousting match.

Sirs and Madams,

you have been incredibly kind;

you saved my ass,

opened my eyes

rearranged my innards,

directed my feet,

purged my heart,

and sent me home

on a bus full of bozos

and bawling babies.

Not in a basket.

Not in a casket.

How could I be anything but

Respectfully Yours,

Joan

©Leocadia

The All-Seeing Eye

Robotic Electro Magnetic Dream

I am going to sing a song for Bob in the moonlight and I am very excited and hope that I do a good job and hit all the right notes. At first, I am outside in a dark beautiful land, there is a blueish tint to everything. I am looking up at the sky at the stars and the bright full moon, and then suddenly, I am in my bedroom, alone in my bed with traces of the song, music and words, being filtered into my head by some kind of memory and magnetic energy. In the dream itself, I am in that state of mind, on the borderland of consciousness, half awake and half asleep. (Actually, I am experiencing the first good REM sleep I have had in a long time which is responsible for producing this dream. So I am dreaming that I am dreaming.) At this point I notice a strange device of some kind, an electronic device, on my night table across the room. The device goes on, flashing a light that is like a beam, and my night table is now on wheels and moving automatically closer to my bed. I realize that the device is a music player of some kind and it is going to play the music to accompany me as I sing. I listen carefully, hoping I recognize the music and that it's the right music for my song. As it starts to play I can hear the music in the background, but there is a voice-over, a man’s voice is broadcasting a news alert about the death of President Kennedy. There is a knock on my bedroom door. I am annoyed by the intrusion and it shows in my voice when I say, “Come in.” At the same time, the night table moves to the door. It’s electric eye scans the door and opens it. Outside the door is my daughter, her husband and their two young children. They are smiling beautiful and amazed smiles as they watch the night table rapidly moving past them and down the hallway, with the all seeing eye of its magical device projecting a beam of light which shines up and down the walls like a laser. It’s like watching a light show and we are in awe.

Hosanna to the Son of David

Jesus Wept (Jésus pleura)

James Jacques Joseph Tissot

 (15 October 1836 - 8 August 1902)

 Luke 13: 31-35

The same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him, Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod will kill thee. And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.  Nevertheless I must walk today, and tomorrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem. 

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!  Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord

 The Procession in the Streets of Jerusalem (Le cortège dans les rues de Jérusalem)

 James Jacques Joseph Tissot

John 12:12-19
On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.

And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's colt. These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him.

The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record. For this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him.

Luke 19:29-40
And it came to pass, when he was come nigh to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount called the mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, Saying, Go ye into the village over against you; in the which at your entering ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him hither.  And if any man ask you, Why do ye loose him? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord hath need of him.

 And they that were sent went their way, and found even as he had said unto them.   And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt?  And they said, The Lord hath need of him.  And they brought him to Jesus: and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon.

And as he went, they spread their clothes in the way.   And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen; Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.

And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.   

And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.

And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

James_Tissot