THE SOUL OF THE FOOT

My preferred method of walking is barefoot. For much of my early life I travelled that way whenever I could. In the early 80s I found my first syringe near my home in East Fremantle and decided it was time to put on some shoes, at least in the city. Aids was rife and as I was already busy adjusting my social behaviour to accommodate the new threat the last thing I needed was to step on a contaminated needle. It was the beginning of the end of my feral innocence - until recently.

Injuring my foot last year prompted me to think more deeply about feet in general. During my recovery I could not stand wearing shoes. I had to wear thongs everywhere, I can't say I like them, but they are the closest thing to bare feet I can get away with. Over one year later I am still not able to wear shoes. I have also realised that I just don't like them. My real recovery began when I started walking barefoot again. My feet needed, demanded, to stand firm, adjust and align bones and sinews in response to the ground. I rediscovered the joy of connecting with the soul of the earth through the sole of my feet - such a fundamentally simple act, but so significant.

As a result of my new commitment to let my feet be themselves I went looking for flat sandals without arch supports or sculpted insoles. I couldn't find any. There is a conspiracy that says we now need to support our feet with synthetic materials. How can that be when arches are designed to withstand walking and running? If you leave them to it feet know what is best. The structure of feet needs to be maintained, if we support them they will get lazy. I said as much to the assistant in the shoe shop and she was aghast that I had uncovered the conspiracy. This theory can be tested quite easily - just look at the feet of teenage boys at the beach, you know, the ones who wear those overbuilt sports shoes, with air-cushioned soles and arch supports. You will see many who's arches have collapsed so that they now walk on the insides of their feet.

I have 'taught' my partner to walk barefoot. He grew up in Singapore and the prevalence of hookworm meant going without shoes was not an option. He went to a private school in Australia where he was not allowed to go barefoot. Comparing his to my own splayed toes I used to tease him about his uptight 'pommy' feet (even though he is Scottish). To his credit and in his 50s he took up the challenge. With a bit of coaching from me ie you have to relax around the little stones and irregularities, he now walks the dogs with me, in bare feet. He is very proud that his toes have started to splay like mine.

Feet are the first point of contact with the earth. You walk differently without shoes. You can't stride and slam your heel down hard, it hurts. So you take smaller steps, walk slower, feel every small nuance of surface texture, change of temperature - in the process you notice what is going on around you. One of my Noongar friends said that she always walks slowly and that her non-Aboriginal friends tease her about it. Since then I have watched other Aboriginal people to see if they also walk slowly, and I think they do. I think I may have only started walking more quickly myself when I began wearing shoes, though as a child I could run very fast without them. It makes sense that Aboriginal people walk slowly because they see no need to hurry. Why are we all in such a damn hurry anyway? I say to my partner: where are they all going in such a hurry, to die? That's the end game after all.

Many years ago I attended a Druid retreat. I was a member of O.B.O.D., a Druid order based in England. The arch Druid came to Australia for the retreat, a likeable man who looked nothing like a Druid and reminded me more of Leo Sayer. One of the exercises we undertook was to walk the land of the bush block alone, to feel it and listen to what it was saying. I chose to do this barefoot, even though the rough gravel made it a bit more challenging. We didn't discuss this, we dispersed alone and when we returned to the group, every single person had heard the same words: we are walking on the bones of the ancestors.

Maybe the phrase was sent to us telepathically, or maybe this was just the spirit of an ancient land speaking to wadjelas who were used to listening. Thousands and thousands of years of people, living, walking the land, weaving their soul energy into the songlines, dying and being reborn. Walking barefoot, or in the case of cold climates, with soft-soled shoes, is a primal thing, it connects us to the earth. We have lost the will and the skill and like so many other aspects of our lives, we are the poorer for it.

HAITI KIDS

Apparently these are some of the kids I am helping with my monthly UNICEF donations. Awesome!

NO IMAGE

Today I was writing the last section of my thesis. This doesn't mean I am nearly finished because there are large chunks I still have to sort out, even though I know what I am going to say and I have the references. This stuff is basically 'artspeak', it feels like second nature so I tend not to focus on it enough. Providing the cross-disciplinary and now cross-cultural background has demanded more effort and time.

My research to date has reached a conclusion and I need to get my thoughts down. Not having to back up what I am saying with quotes from other people allowed the words to flow - at last I can give my opinion freely, because I have done all of the groundwork. These words have been threatening to cascade out of me over a period of years now but I have been holding them back because I needed to get on with the main body of the text.

I am not sure how much of what I wrote today will be suitable for inclusion in my findings because I may have gone beyond my initial research objectives. But it felt good anyway, and it will appear somewhere, even if it's just in my blog. The entire document has blown out again to 48,000 words, and I may have to cull heavily.

I realised today that for the past 6 years I have been on an amazing journey. The practical part of it has been the process of researching and writing a thesis. But the thesis is also about another journey that ran parallel, one of self discovery, deeper psychological insights and spiritual epiphanies. It has been massive - life changing. For me this is the essence of art practice as research. Life and art, life and knowledge, knowledge and art are not separate.

I am constantly aware of this massive thing in my life, more so lately as I near the finish line. It is still possible that something may prevent me from finally submitting it and I would be devastated. Regardless, the journey has done it's work and I have landed somewhere beyond the image. But that may take another thesis to fully articulate. This is an extract from the earlier part of the thesis.

Working with imagery and the imagination alters perception and changes consciousness. Laszlo says that 'when consciousness is in an altered state, the brain seems to function in a mode in which information that does not fit the commonsense conception of the world is not repressed'. He adds that in contrast, 'ordinary waking consciousness is a strict censor'. (Laszlo, 2004: 99) I work with images[1] because they offer me a way to circumvent the censor. As a consequence they have had a significant role in the development of my own consciousness. They have allowed me to explore new ideas and alternative realities beyond the barriers imposed by the physical body, consensual reality or the rationalist, logical thinking that still dominates the way in which Western culture approaches knowledge in the twenty-first century.

[1] Images are a visual phenomena that allow us to perceive and interpret the world but are also ideas that we explore through imaginative thought.

MOMENTUM

Sometimes when you set something in motion it can gather momentum on its own until it no longer belongs to you any more. Creative projects are often like that. The image above is a drawing of a dream I had, where all of my paintings floated away, out of my control. Having my drawings used for the Curtin Uni. on-line course was a bit like that dream.

This week a German publishing company asked to review my thesis, with a view to publication if suitable. I guess thay had seen this description of my thesis on the Curtin website and expected it to be finished.

Michelle Frantom: Doctor Creative Arts (Art)

Thesis Title: ‘Her Beauty & Her Terror’: Portrait of an Archetypal Landscape

Proposed Completion Date: 2012

Description of Research: If the image is central to both visual art and the unconscious realm of the mind, then our relationship to place may be pre-determined by an archetypal structure that exists in the collective human psyche. My visual research is based at the Gap, a spectacular wild-site on the south coast, where I record my responses to the interaction between the elemental motifs of ‘rock’ and ‘water’. My thesis examines how these motifs are expressed in both traditional and contemporary landscape painting, their repeated emergence in culture and their correlation to archetypes within the human psyche. Through art practice I am exploring the image as a way of providing insight into our relationship with place supported by the theories of Archetypal and Imaginal Psychology.

On the advice of my supervisor I checked out LAP Publishing and there is no cost to the author. They pay a small royalty but probably take the lion's share of profits. I contacted them to explain that I intended to submit next year but that I was interested in publishing. They still want to hear from me when it is finished. No pressure then!

My work at the prison is a bit stressful at the moment, mainly because of the strict protocols I have to deal with to do simple things like take in DVDs to show my students, and art materials for painting exercises. I am also taking a much more hands-on approach to my teaching in Graphics and Media and it is actually quite fun. Trouble is, although I only actually work a 0.5 job, at the moment I feel quite overwhelmed. I hope this feeling passes soon.

KALI YUGA 2

It doesn't matter how many times I try and convince people that systems decay as well as flourish most look at me vacantly in disbelief. It's simply a law of the universe, I didn't make the law but I know down to my core that it is so. Today I was reading an article by Richard Stein's article Jung's Relationship to Indian Yoga and I came across this:

Unlike our modern notion of progress, the ancients imagined a decline through four stages of culture. The holy order of the universe decays from the golden age of truth to the Kali yuga, which precedes the end of time, the pralaya, or great destruction.

He goes on to quote Zimmer who offers indicators as to what this might look like, or perhaps what we should be looking for:

The seemingly holy brahmin is no better than the fool. Old people, destitute of the true wisdom of old age, try to behave like the young, and the young lack the candor of youth....The will to rise to supreme heights has failed; the bonds of sympathy and love have dissolved; narrow egotism rules....and the universe is ripe for dissolution.

If we go by those indicators, I'd say Western culture was absolutely in a Kali yuga.

In 1894 Madame Blavatsky wrote:

....we are in Kali Yuga. The characteristics of the present time show it clearly enough, for while physical civilization is high the spiritual side of it is low and dark, and selfishness is the prevailing order.

We've had plenty of warning, but of course, this is just how it is, and must be. Anything we might have tried on an external level would simply have had no impact anyway.

But according to Mme Blavatsky, it's not all bad.

The beginning of this Age and the time of its ending are dark to us; but....We can also get great comfort from the theory given out at various times, that in Kali Yuga a small effort goes farther for results than the same when made in a better Age. In the other Ages the rates of all things are slower than in this; hence, evil now seems quick; but in the same way good is also much quicker in effect and reach....

For a couple of reasons, and particluarly for those who have spent little or no time contemplating the 'meaning of life', now might be a good time to get cracking! Again, as so often, I feel vindicated in my urgent impulse to evolve my own consciousness. I can't say it will make my transition any easier but at least I can say I have tried.

For an earlier blog post of Kali Yuga click on the link.

Blavatsky, Path, November, 1894, http://www.blavatsky.net/theosophy/judge/articles/kali- yuga.htm Stein, Snapshots from the Void: Reflections on Jung's Relationship to Indian Yoga.

THE TROUBLE WITH PARADISE

I guess many would say that at worst, I don't have the right to think I can live in 'paradise' when the world is anything but; at best I am just naive. I'll accept both. It was pretty naive of me to think I could find peace and quiet in a coastal tourist town.

One of the tenets of spiritual philosophy says something like: in the spirit world, like attracts like; in the material world opposites attract. That's why trying to live in paradise just doesn't work. Beauty attracts ugliness, peace attracts noise, calm attracts frantic. Stressed, busy people descend on beautiful places to unwind, reconnect with/destroy nature etc. The problem is they bring their shit with them - their alcohol fuelled stress-relieving activities, loud doof-doof music, lack of awareness, money, greed - it goes on and on. In their frantic and selfish need to gain as much from the experience as they feel is necessary they completely miss the point. In the end, en masse, their behaviour destroys what their souls came for.

This past week, after hearing raucous drunken laughter for 3 nights, over the TV from the deck of a house 3 properties up, we left a note to the effect that: we hoped they were having a good holiday but did they think they could take the party inside later in the evening, because this was actually our home. This sort of thing happens regularly, along with lack of food at the local IGA and the occasional resident feral neighbour just to make it more interesting.

Modern life with its lazy approach to anything that resembles 'manual' labour, the pressure to constantly control, order and improve - do the rest. Whoever invented the leaf blower should have one shoved up their arse! What was wrong with the good old-fashioned rake? It is actually a good workout for the core muscles. Oh that's right - that takes effort. I can actually hear my neighbour using a leaf-blower as I write. I feel like strangling him, and he is a nice man.

Suburbia in any form is complete madness. I have decided I just don't want neighbours I can see or hear. We are making plans to leave 'paradise'. I am nearing the completion of my docorate, I have 4 x 2.4 m paintings to accomodate, some to finish, we can't afford to move and our financial options are limited. We will have to leave a great house we purpose built for ourselves. My partner doesn't want to go, which has caused a fair bit of tension in the relationship. We are looking for a few acres in a rural zoning. It is probably not going to be as beautiful as where we are right now, but I am thinking - fuck 'paradise' (which explains why I chose the image)

THE POISONED CHALICE

Numerologically, I am in a year 7, which, according to my Wise Old Rosicrucian Friend is a 'transitional' year. Barely 2 weeks in (if you follow the Chinese calendar as I do) it sure is shaping up that way.

My Aboriginal Art program has been canned because nobody has enrolled - yet. I have tried to explain about 'Noongar time' and that my students won't even think about the course until the week it starts, which is next week. Yesterday, with my boss on the phone panicking about numbers, accountants and auditors breathing down her neck, I made the snap decision to shut it down. I have warned my students on many, many occasions that if they don't 'play the game' with me we all end up without what we want. My next question to my boss - 'what are my options?' I knew exactly what she was going to say: 'well there's still the prison. The guy who was taking the job has changed his mind'. I wonder why. No, I don't actually.

I went out to the prison several times last year to do some assessing because the lecturer had been escorted abruptly from the premises. I can't go into details but it didn't take me too long to figure out what the dynamics were. This is a job, and I need a job, but I think of it as a poisoned chalice. It is probably going to be almost impossible to situate myself comfortably between the inmates and the guards. Even though I have very strong humanitarian values, any hint that I am on the 'side' of the prisoners will be seen as a betrayal - this is difficult politics.

I think I might be able to manage it, but I will have to watch my back from both parties, for different reasons. My colleagues have said to me that I can handle it, that I am tough. I'm not really that tough at all. I liked a lot of the guys out there, I am under no illusions - it is a maximum security prison. In some ways I would prefer not to know why they are there, however the guards do kindly let some things slip and I am not grateful for the knowledge. The inmates are as keen as mustard, their lives are very restricted and they are hungry for life, creative pursuits. My view of them is no different to the free population: if they can find some meaningful way to express themselves creatively, all the better for them and everyone else.

The environment is like another I used to work in - the 1900 psychiatric hospital on the hill, the one with the huge locked doors and equally large bunches of keys - its occupants making animal sounds, so profoundly retarded and disfigured they would not be allowed to be born today. I left that job because I was on the side of the inmates, the staff thought me disloyal and without support, it was just too difficult.

The paradox hasn't escaped me though. After having been so far down into the darkness last year, the Unconscious and all its psychological ramifications, I have been reaching for the light. Now my ability to face more of the darkness, that of humanity itself, will be thoroughly tested.