• HOME
• CAST
• COMICS
• ABOUT
MANDALA
MANA
• STORE
• CONTACT
• TOXIC BLOG
|
 |
To understand anything,
Truly understand . . .
you must first understand it's opposite;
One cannot comprehend light without
the embrace of darkness;
One cannot appreciate love without
a correlation of hate;
Happiness is eternally bound by
the ruthless gravity of sadnesss;
And to understand Heaven . . .
Truly understand. . .
You must first walk through Hell.
|
I wrote those words back in 1992, for a flyer I gave out at a Fred Greenberg convention in New York. At the time I was promoting INTRAZONE or as I would later call it, SWEET LUCY. I had no idea what these words meant at the time. Heavy Metal induced prose probably stemming from the aftermath of a failed Bush administration (or as I like to put it, "Strike One"), a failed attack on the World Trade Center, Rodney King, the L.A riots, violence in the Middle East, Bosnia, and reefer fueled slacker attitude.
It seemed at the time (as it still does today) that all that violence and hatred towards each other was (as always) coming from a simple misunderstanding of each others spiritual convictions. . . GOD!
We all have an absolute right to explore whatever path to God we choose. The important thing is the journey to the Moon not the vehicle we arrive in. If it works, If it's deferential, it should be resected. And that's precisely where logic runs off the tracks. We are all so sure that our way is the right way, the only way and that arrogance has throughout history lead to the most viscious confrontations. It seems that the closer we are to a core belief, the bloodier the conflict. The Torah, the Bible and the Qur'an to a degree are all variations of the Old Testament. This illustrates that at some level, at some point, we agree with each other on the broader strokes of our Western faiths.
The bloodiest battles in history have all been fought enforcing the broader strokes of Religion.
Carl Jung believed in the importance of balance between the conscious and unconscious minds. He believed in the wisdom of unconscious truths upon which we place whatever mask or spiritual archetype we choose to embrace in life. In essence, our unconscious is our only real truth. He also believed in the power the Mandala as a psychiatric tool mine the depths of the unconcious mind.
So, what does this have to do with my Mandala? |
 |
 |
 |
Sweet Lucy's Mandala was my attempt at a graphic construct of universal spirituality. A representation of mankind's collective unconscious. Upon first observation and probably most obvious is the Yin-yang (See Figure 1A) springing from a circle of emptiness forever locked in transcendental fusion. This represents the Eastern Doctrines of Mind. Further inspection reveals that the Yin-Yang is subdivided by a unilateral cross (See Figure 1B), splitting the Yin-Yang both horizontally and vertically. This represents the Western schools of Spirit, including Christianity, Judaism and Muslim sects. All of this sits in a Chippewa dream catcher (See Figure 1C) representing the Earth or Shamanistic religions such as the Druids, Native American and Mayan beliefs. If you think about it, every religion on Earth fits somewhere in this Mandala. A holy trinity of the collective unconscious, Mind (Eastern), Spirit (Western) and Earth (Shaman).
Sweet Lucy, a contradiction of crude cybernetics and flesh was to be a distant prophet of this belief. She was to carry one lesson to a ravaged world. One thought to heal a planet. One doctrine to pass on to our children, and that is, in the end. . . we are all the same!
So hear we are, it's 2010 and Atomic Tadpole probably stems from the aftermath of a failed Bush administration (or as I like to put it, "Strike Two") a disastrous attack on the World Trade Center, Al-Qaeda, violence in the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, Somali pirates, the ignorance of the far right and reefer fueled slacker attitude.
Oh well, the more things change . . . |
|
