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Love is my Nectar. Love is my identity.
Love is a simple word that suggests an infinite unfolding of cosmic gestures.
Love is my OM.
When you love someone nothing has to happen. It is. It will. Love acts through you.
YAMAS and NIYAMAS
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This image "Personal Journal Entry May 2007". Elena Ray Copyright 2008.
Working. Answering. Watching: the enormous blossoms on my ancient Yuccas opening. I bought a piece of art...People I've known have died. Never take for granted even one moments connection to another. Out of the 6.6 billion people in the world, how many will you actually have the opportunity to share a moment with? Everybody we meet is a living message; break the seal.
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This Image "Wabi Sabi Collage" Elena Ray Copyright 2008. 11" x 17" Lensbaby photograph of Ikebana arrangement. Pigment ink print on Ink Aid prepped Asian paper with Asian paper collage elements.
I play with my blog entries after I post them. I enjoy how my on going thought process refines the raw material of the morning.
It happens anyway, whether I write it down or not...
Writing is the art of turning inner sky into signs.
The letter is the hole in the ground; sound.
Language as a metaphoric chemical.
Alchemy.
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This Image "Unfinished Work Hanging In My Studio". Elena Ray Copyright 2008. Lensbaby Photograph. Art hanging on the wall is acrylic and pigment ink photographs on paper collage.
"Three thousand years ago yoga started with one meditative pose, Easy Lotus. The word asana originally meant "meditative posture". Then the masters introduced Cobra Pose to keep the spine flexible. In their quest for physical health they developed the eight most important poses to insure the health of the body and the glands. From there it grew. Even today dozens of new poses are created each year by true yogis all over the world. There are many different schools, each with their own variations, but basically all yoga comes from the same set of classic asanas. In the 35 years I have been teaching I have developed many poses, but in yoga no one puts his or her name on a pose because in reality I didn't do anything. I am just a body through which intuition has passed. "
Dharma Mittra
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This Image "Yoga Compass Pose Variation" Elena Ray Copyright 2008. Corie Angel in yoga posture variation of Compass or Parivrtta Surya Yantrasana. Scan of alternative photography print : Pigment Ink on Ink Aid coated acrylic treated watercolor paper.
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It seems strange to think that by opening the body one opens the mind. With asana practice you're playing at your edge, both physically, and psychologically. I think that is one of the reasons yoga is so exciting to me. You use your body as a medium to grapple physically with your brain, your thoughts, your entropy, your fear. You don't always have to think things through. Your story is all there contained in your tissues. It's so close, so intimate...and then you begin to open up, and lighten up. The stories are released from the fibers of your being, literally. And it makes a difference. You feel alive. Clean fresh energy flows through you flushing out petrifying conditions you may have thought were you.
He gave himself beautiful unique gifts he could share.
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This Image "Prayer Dreamer" Elena Ray Copyright 2008. I called her the Prayer Dreamer. He said she was dreaming all the world's prayers. A Madonna surrounded by a string of tattered Tibetan prayer flags, wrapped in a cocoon of silk, resting on a desert sand dune. The yin feminine, absorbing, creating...
"In the desert of wait ting/ting ~
no/one gets anything ~
i beg you to give me leave ~
do not bury me even as your kingdom ~
goes temple to journey ~
leave no space ~
in your little boat ~
to pass from life to life and life ~
be content w/ this letter ~
and a handful of feathers ~
do not rescue me ~
i crave another destiny ~
the ghosts of our love ~
are drying ~
or dying ~
or worse" ~
Patti Smith
"Babel"
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This Image "Seeker of the Mirage". Elena Ray Copyright 2008. Or journey of the lost soul...I guess every day is a failure. I fail to live up to my own life. But I will die trying! I'm ready to make a leap of consciousness. The old struggles are no longer interesting. They do not engage my mind. My energy passes through them-they are mirages. I once sought big monuments of proof that I existed-no more. For me going deeper is better. Deeper insight is all that I seek...and a beautiful cup to drink from.
"What you are, the world is. And without your transformation there can be no transformation of the world."
J. Krishnamurti
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This image "Lotus Mind". Elena Ray Copyright 2008. Acrylic on paper 8.5" x 11". The calligraphy practice is informing my painting. I feel confident to attempt unfamiliar shapes...my brain/hand is slowly being trained to Be lines. The idea for this composition was borrowed from another artist's work. I used two of her elements, the head and the lotus, and added a third from my own life: the breath, pranayama. I am a beginning painter. I never learned to draw. I originally began painting on photographs. The head was the most difficult aspect of this image. Her head was far more primordial...I was unable to successfully create a head like that-it was too subtle...so I ended up creating a more detailed profiled head, and then added the breath lines to that.
