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art
November 2009 
Halasana
Posted on Dec 29th, 2008
by 
Doug
Doug
Halasana
Halasana 29 3/4" X 35 1/2 " Bee's wax and pigment on wood braced canvas 2005
Surrender, neck bent
ass in the air
nothing
watching my feet on the mat
although I'm just remembering
from something
before
feeling a heartbeat,
mine
and in that moment
it doesn't matter
who loves me
or
not
like all flowers are striped
to the bare
stem
of a single heartbeat
and maybe this is the last
day
to notice
my nails need to be cut
my right arm
refuses to release
it's somehow in a plot
with my left leg
I think they alone
saw to it
that I would never
be able to endure
sitting in some zazen intensive
Because they know
something about me
that even I refuse
to release to
It's me
and a me that is somehow
not just this body
bent like a pretzel
neck bent
ass in the air vulnerable
How come I can feel you here
where I can barely breath
and I love you so much more
on that day
I think it might
all end?
Access: Public
oh wow - the painting is amazing!
…the poem…
(what I see anyway) moves from an almost a desperate ‘what is there?’ to ‘this is all there is - aha!’ and ends on the note: ‘I need this head space (awareness)!’
The precipice we face when looking into the bleak ‘what is there?’ followed by ‘this is all there is - aha!’ where we take flight… leap into the void - and how we love this space!
Did I gettit?
Thank you Hummy! Yes, you always get it. In a way it’s just about halasana or how it feels for me. It’s such a reflective pose, inverted, introverted and I’m more likely to hear what my body wants to tell my head when I’m in that posture. The body knows and the head only thinks it knows.
nice insight ;)
And adobe wall in the middle of the desert embedded with a precious vein of pure, blue water, all for the salvation of a near to death wanderer of said desert…
I always ‘see’ something in your paintings like the Rorschach inkblot tests… maybe I’m channeling the need to build an adobe house and the wish that I could flush the toilet at any hour of the day without The Landlady hovering about counting the flushes… water is very precious at my house.
Smiles Sir Douglass!
Hi Pearly, I’m just drifting in from trying to find that precious vein of pure blue water, reworking a painting of blue that didn’t work and got set aside and it might just go back aside!
My grandparents used to own a home on a lake in northern New Jersey at a place called Culver lake. It was truly a summer home. No heat except for a coal burning stove, one ply walls, a retaining wall out back holding back the back yard from flowing into the back door during the next thunder storm, a couple of logs leaned against the retaining wall to keep it from crashing down and an outhouse that I swear had spiders lurking under the toilet lid waiting for the foolish to plop their Lilly white butt on the seat. Yeah, well not me! No sir I’d squat until my thighs screamed! There was an inside toilet but it was only for number one business, and we could only flush once per day! That was part of the morning ritual, flush the toilet, fire up the pot belly stove, go fishing. And you’d better like to swim too cuz the lake was the bath tub.
See, someday you’ll have fond memories of not flushing the toilet! Lol!
Hugs((()))
Gorgeous painting. So happy I found you here. Thank you for lighting my way. Blessings in the New Year. :)
Di
…. now on her way to check out your photos
Beautiful painting—what I see in it is depth, texture, animus in this moment, waters of life, surrender/desperate energy/forgiveness=growth. That much said, I honor the poem, also. It reminds me of a quote I once read that was attributed to a channeled spiritual being. The Being commented that souls who had (are) experienced many times (lives) on the planet get way into the drama of it all, fall in love with it all—and why not? I felt sad when I read it, and wanted to hug you the way somebody’s mother hugs a child she hasn’t met yet, but who she finds crying with a skinned knee. It’s all good, I guess. Love your expression, your passion, your sweetness.
Hi Di and Thank you dearest! Hugs((()))!
Martha dear friend, Thank You! Wow, for someone who doesn’t do poetry you sure do it well! Truth is for someone who does do poetry you do it well. How well you see into the heart.
Last year I was in a group show and I spoke to another artist about her photograph of Buddhist travelers. It was a image of these small stone sculptures in Japan, hundreds of them. She told me they were travelers, humans who loved this world so much that they had decided to return time and time again instead of transcending into bliss. They returned to this world to help others achieve enlightenment but where content to remain in the mud and cold of this world because they loved this world so much. When she told me the story I thought that I would like to be a traveler too, when I grow up.
I already have fond memories of this place because the blog I write about it will be very entertaining for me to write, I’m sure! You know, I’ve never been one to hover over the seat… I’m the foolish one with the spider bite on my lily white butt! ~grin~
“How come I can feel you here
where I can barely breath
and I love you so much more
on that day
I think it might
all end?”
how come indeed.
your poetry is divine sir.
Beautiful words, beautiful image. Thank you for it sir!
Yes, to being here, even in the cold,cramped, painful, hardly able to breathe…it’s well worth it…all of it. Dougie, u are a phenomenal inspirational piece or pieces…how many 8? 12? 42? Enuf said. Always a pleasure!
Ah Pearly, no spiders tonight K?
Thank you Dawn! That’s so sweet!
Hi Albert, nice to see you and thank you so much!
Kimster! Your words are so nice and warm on this rainy day Monday or any day! Thank you!