Original Sin

My must suggested the subject, and I made the shot and developed it

Original Sin

In a sunny corner of remote earth
the bite of it all
challenged orthodoxy.
This was in Nature’s plan.
Green-gold it moved.
This conducted harmony
operating on discords –
not a packaged plan,
neither from the stars.
It brought in cities beyond the universe.

We bask in its revelry –
a riot of God
on lone isles of trust.
Wonderful it wore shoes.
Naked impulse did not light its lamp.
A renegade,
it brought all to bear on noontide.
Light held its room.

Yes, we sing in darkness’ lair.
We deliver anthems
without knowing on which we rest.
It came to us unclothed,
and we saw naught but sin.
What distance orthodoxy
from all that abounds in this place.


This poem came complete via the inner voice while I was sitting and waiting for a room darshan on Mother’s birthday at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 2015. It was originally posted in the old blog of Douglas and I, The Chipmunk Press. It bears mentioning that I went to the Samadhi the next day after writing the poem and inwardly asked where I should put the poem, and I heard my muse answer:

To the question in Sri Aurobindo's room:
are you there?"

A Soul-dialogue Between a Poet and the leader of Islamic State

(What ISIS has let rear its head, what’s in the pit of humanity)

Believe me you need some introduction to what you’re about to watch. The dialogue, in the form of a poetry video (at bottom), is probably the most gory-graphic video using real-life footage you have ever seen, more graphic than ISIS videos themselves because it uses many clips from their videos, most often the worst parts. Why in the world would I make something like this? Why would you want to watch it? I’d say both are needs, and it’ll take some explaining as to why.

They pride themselves on their videos, act as though they’re creating art, mistaking commercials for art just like most everyone else does, and one of their major past times is reciting and writing poetry, as if they are cultured people, we the barbarians with our electronic escapist past times, our porn, but from what I’ve seen of their stuff, they have even less of an idea of what poetry is than mainstream contemporary English poetry, which seems to me to have only the faintest idea.

It would bear mentioning that the poem you’re about to listen to is a complete break from the poetry of today, and, though it embraces the spirit of the poetry of the past, that of it that it looks deeper or beyond the world, it’s a break from the past too – a new and genuine style. I can’t tell you it’s poetry in the sense of the word, but I can say I’ve created something uniquely different in poetry and claim it’s a style. I should also mention that it’s a style that requires multiple readings, or viewings as is the case here, and that’s an element of its style, and there’s no way to convince you it’s worth that much attention other than to say you probably won’t understand much of it the first time you see it, or maybe even the second, but when you begin to, you’ll be in a position to see something’s coming in from beyond the world. That’s a big payoff.

I don’t know if and how you feel the world, but I feel it like it’s me, identify with it, and this is because of a long process of development that came about as a result of healing myself of wrongdoing, and so it’s no saint’s boast. It’s the degree we feel others like unto ourselves that determines the harm we cause others, and all of us cause harm because none of us yet have a ‘world consciousness’, where the identification is so complete you do no harm at all in thought, word, or deed, but we can be on the way to one. I’ve opened to the world and feel it acutely, and right now on it at the places ISIS is, the harm is reaching holocaust-pain, points of it here and there, and I feel it.

So, since I make videos too and aim for art, and I write poetry and aim for the word, I decided to write this poem and make this video and show ISIS themselves and at the same time what art and poetry is, a very tall order to fill, but I don’t write poetry and make videos like most do. I bring down verse from overhead, inner regions directly above us, and I listen to my soul. All of the poem (music too, another element) and much of the video is inspired. It came from within, inner voice and vision, the kind that takes trance or sleep to get to because you have to get past the waking thinking mind. I can only tell you that I did my best as a listener and seer, and what I chose to keep, and what I chose to throw away, and what I chose to focus on, were what my muse wanted, what I call my inspiration. My thinking mind was held mostly at bay. Whether or not my muse has created art and poetry, that I’m at a place of artistic and poetic maturity where it can, at this point I really can’t say. That will be for time to tell.

I also want to show what’s going on, so you can feel it. We are desensitized to violence we see so much of it virtually, or so it’s said. It’s my view that if we really saw it, saw in the seeing what it does to everyone involved, victims and victimizers alike, and in that seeing identified with that harm, then being shown violence would help and not hurt because we’d feel it, and we don’t like those feelings, and we’d go about to put an end to what causes them or at least give strong moral support and goodwill towards such an end. My attempt here is to show violence in that way, so that it will heal and not harm, and I’m speaking of harm harm, not being offended over a graphic video.

I don’t like those feelings either, do not enjoy watching gore, and making this video was a task I did not relish nor even want to complete. I was in and out of the hospital throughout, experiencing intense physical pain (in the solar plexus, where we field what comes to us from the world), and so I can tell you that I feel it, and if you don’t, don’t feel the horror of some of the moments in those parts of the world especially ISIS and those like them are occupying, then you need to watch the video because you need to see this, even if you don’t want to. Why should art always make you comfortable and relaxed?

It’s what I call an electronic graffiti poem, which is slightly different than street graffiti because in e-graffiti you always aim for art and because your art isn’t defacing whatever wall or property. It aims to compliment whatever painting, photo, video, webpage, what have you, to fit so well it appears inevitable. It’s working for a higher culture free from all that harms us, has that in its eyes: the healing power of the soul, in this instance that power is directed towards Islamic State, especially al Baghdadi, its leader, and it takes the form of poetic seer-vision which includes past, present, and future. The future, however, is pretty hit and miss in seer-vision, but even if the predicted future is wrong, there’s some soul-story being told that bears listening to and interpreting. In this video poem the future is not engraved in stone. A lot like street graffiti, the video’s warning people about something, that if they don’t open their eyes, change, something terrible will happen to them. It’s warning Islamic State.

E-graffiti also, by it’s very action, is calling for change in the copyright laws just as it’s calling for social change, and when there’s significant change in the former away from a self-centered sharing towards sharing for the betterment of humanity, they’re be change walking swiftly towards social revolution . It’ll be art, as I see it, that will change the world, not politics, science, or even religion – because it can do at the drop of hat what religion can rarely do: reach your soul. Art from the soul is a collective endeavor as this video poem is. I created it mostly myself, but I recorded the music in a studio, and I had the help of my household taking some of the photos and videos and the help of an artist friend to film the guitar playing and perfect ending, and I have to say, using all the different artwork I did, it felt like I was carried on the shoulders of many an artist, carried in the arms of many a soul.

It’s obvious ISIS needs to be stopped, and that will take military action (It has to be said it was the wrong use of that that helped cause ISIS in the first place.) That’s the way we deal with human evil: destroy it and get retribution. We stop evil. We don’t heal it. ISIS will be stopped, but will it be healed? By that I mean the root causes in a particular incident of evil are exposed and uprooted so that everyone involved and alive is healed of the situation, victimizers and victims alike, and if such healing were to happen in any particular situation it would insure eventually and inevitably such barbarity in the name of religion no longer happens, anywhere. Only the soul has the power to do that. But soul healing is very different from how society heals if society even tries to heal a situation. The soul uses compassion and understanding as opposed to hatred. And it not only allows for mistakes, they are an integral part of the process.

How can it do that and at the same time address evil head on so to both stop it and heal it? By the power of the soul. This video is an example of that. It’s also an example of how to deal with the evil of other people: you point the finger at your evil at the same time, and you speak as directly to them as possible, or try to, so to be a friend, but one that will except nothing less than their friend’s best. In fact, if the need to address someone’s evil out there in the world does indeed come from the soul, the match will be perfect, and you will be trying more to save them than destroy them. You’re on their side too, not only on the side that’s trying to stop it. Your goodness goes full circle; you’re not only good to the good but to the bad too. We haven’t learned this yet, but it’s the only way to stop human evil once and for all.

You might imagine it will take us a thousand more years to realize that. I do hope not, but it seems human society in general, not just ISIS, is flirting with barbarism, that old evil we been trying to eradicate since day one, the beast in us, with the advent of the internet and the bringing to light of all our dirt that entails. But what we don’t understand is that self-righteous, another old evil but not recognized as one, causes as much harm as evil itself, if not sometimes more. Isn’t ISIS operating from self-righteousness? They don’t think they’re evil; they think everyone else is. In that they are just like all the rest of us.

At any rate, I hope you understand this example I provide. I’m providing it because my own personal change from a bad man to a better one has reached the point where my healing and the world’s healing conjoin. I’d rather not post this if you really want to know, since I’m a sitting duck, and it has the potential to destroy my home and family. It’s not ISIS I’m concerned about harming me though; it’s all good people good only to the good, maybe even you. I should hope not, but if push does come to shove this is self-sacrifice. When it is genuine, people eventually validate your sacrifice and except it, not everyone, but those in touch with their humanity and with their soul. I would ask for compassion and understanding. Will you give it to me? Give it to ISIS too, even if you’re a soldier required to kill its members. There’s a way to do that from the soul, their soul, your soul, and the world soul. Coming from the soul, you don’t soil yourself, and you meet the soul need of the person you must fight. But you can’t come from the soul until you find it, and it’s the most hidden part of us. Only slightly hidden in the poem video is how to do that, find the soul.