the electrical pole ignited yesterday and my power was out yet again. edison workers came late at night to repair the problem. i was walking home from downtown downey and spoke to one of the workers: you know, the problem with living in a digital age is that without electricity, theres no porn. he replied: we will be working all night to get you back up.  o and he did!  i love a man dedicated to his task.

May 2015

Greetings!

April was the cruelest month.  Let May Day begin a time of peace!

The amplified feng shui astrology released a myriad of blessings and curses, curses and blessings.  This new month will have its challenges – both socially and personally – but let us walk through them with grace.

Remember:  I have written here and spoken in workshops that the dominant energy for this year is conflict.  Find peace in yourself, in your home and family, and share it with the world.

If you have not looked at my website in awhile, you may have forgotten there are free posters for peace and equal rights.  Sometimes an image can say what we are unable to find words for.  Post these handbills to make a stand for humanity, to remind yourself and others of your own humanity.

My book, (PEACE) WORDS, discusses these peace images and my work as an outsider artist/activist.  It is time for everyone to take a stand for peace.  Order your copy here and now.

The blessthebody.com Spiritual Remedy that promotes harmony is Green Light.  Let this remedy bring harmony to your body, mind, and soul.  Combine with blessthebody.com Love Light to transcend all imbalances.

May grace and peace and joy reign on Earth.

poet laureate los angeles

notes on the laureate reading:

the venue is fantastic.

despite being sold out, not well attended.  young brown girls and older brown women.  a few men, less white people.  a few black.

the open mic was mostly poor.  one idiot should have gotten the hook.

the featured poets were great.  moving and inspiring.  especially the asian.

the laureate of la, a latino, kept saying (to an audience of latinos) that we need the native voice.  how out of touch could he be?  i wrote about this thirty years ago, that you could only get a reading if you were latino or lesbian…  the first two laureates of la prove my point and make me a prophet.

the hostess was delightful.  and kept everything moving.  but time ran out – it would have been nice if the asian and la latino could have read one or two more.  there should have been no useless workshop, no open mic.

the workshop part of the event was useless.  did I say that above?

maybe a cute boy but not much to distract…

a few people seemed familiar but I only knew the hostess.

a nice night but not memorable.

notes on my  theory of our relationship to the universe

 the universe is expanding.  so are we.

(the objects and the ruler expand at the same rate as the universe… thus, expansion is happening unnoticed.  and we are immense –compared to yesterday.)

we are the edge of the universe.

(the video screen is the edge of the game.  “behind” the player is a trick of the visual.  there is nothing behind us, there is no behind.)

our perspective of the world/universe seems to be “face-forward”, looking out from ourselves.  but this is an elaborate illusion.  we are looking in.

as the universe expands, so does the depth of our visual into the universe.  we ourselves are the expanding edge of the universe looking inward, looking into the universe that is ourselves.

it is an interesting thought: facebook friends i have never met have offered emotional support -- in both positive and negative circumstances -- over the years and part of me has always thought it was (to a certain degree) benign kindness, politeness. until the tables were turned. a facebook friend i know only by what is posted posted about a difficult situation recently and my heart gushed. this is a superficial digital connection (remember, this is facebook -- it is mostly pictures of cats and dinners) that suggests intimacy. conversely, friends i have known personally, some for many years, have suddenly, in many cases inexplicably, turned hostile in the same digital environment... or worse, have had no understanding, sympathy, compassion, or kindness whatsoever. i am not a people person, i know this, and i am a challenge to most people's sensibilities... so it always surprises me when someone cares to spend real or digital time with me. but when the world of my facebook becomes a more human experience than real life, one has to reconsider the boundaries of the conversation of love.

facebook post

if you have watched my posts for more than a minute, you know i believe that religion is an absurd hoax. that anyone could follow a monotheistic god-in-the-image-of-man religion is an intellectual disconnect from reality. especially with the hoops that kind of god expects you to jump through... the hindus are more entertaining at least with their multitudes of gods... but honestly, taoism is the only sustainable spiritual philosophy. and it, like buddhism, is atheistic.christians, muslims, and jews who so control the god-world do nothing but create separation and conflict.

on the other hand, i have also always believed that atheism is a vocabulary problem. mostly, atheists are people who have come to the obvious conclusion that the god of the christians, muslims, and jews is a farce. and so they deny the existence of god entirely. it is a short-sighted conclusion. it is also contains the theoretical problem of allowing that which you deny define the parameters of the discourse.

if, on the other hand, you remove the ridiculousness of the idea of THE ONE TRUE GOD (especially the idea of separation from god) from the discourse and focus instead on the actuality of god... you will come to the conclusion that everything is god. everything. i am god. (most especially me, of course!) the chair you are sitting on is god. my fucking computer which refuses to behave correctly is god. the sunset is god. the act of abortion is itself god. jesus is god just as much as i am (see how generous i am!) and john his lover and their lovemaking is god. hitler is god (think kali) and yes, even george bush. (or, if you are on the idiot side of intelligence, even obama!)

next time you slam your car door, remember, you are disrespecting god (and thus, yourself!)

you can go and find a blog i wrote about this sometime ago, if you look.

or if you want more information, get my book, eating God.

art and poetry and music

saturday, january 10th.

as i was leaving town for a new years eve trip, the lax terminal was exhibiting a piece of digital art that was a ripoff of my short film, test patterns. the day before i left, i sent an internet link for that short film to rex bruce of the los angeles center for digital art. coincidence? the universe was telling me something in that airport terminal! when i returned home, i found emails from rex saying he wanted to show my short film, i am the president, in his next exhibit... with posters already listing my name! i am the president is a short film with digital manipulation of every piece of american currency from colonial times to the present, my voiceover reciting a deconstructed poem about the current state of america, and saxophone improvisations by alexander vogel. the opening is saturday, january 10, from 6 to 9 pm.

before that opening, there is another: downey museum of art is launching an important exhibit, vic joachim smith ~ early work. he was a california contemporary of pollack, rothko, kline, dekooning and exhibited with them around the world. during the opening, the other theater company will premier the short play, off kilter, by barry slater. it is a fiery conversation about modern art. i was asked to design the set piece for the play, an abstract sculpture that is the subject of the conversation. this will be the debut of that artwork.

also during this opening, isaac takeuchi will perform bach and original compositions for the cello.

south gate museum and art galleries will host this downey museum of art exhibit. the opening is saturday, january 10, 1 to 5 pm.

come see my work and the great work of others, past and present.

for more information:

roytube.com (art and poetry films)

lacda ~ los angeles center for digital art (facebook)

royanthonyshabla.com (books of poetry)

alexander vogel (facebook)

dmoa ~ downey museum of art (facebook)

the other theater company (facebook)

barry slater (facebook)

galleRoy.com (large abstract art)

isaac takeuchi (facebook)

thank you for your love and support. happy new year.

roy anthony shabla, director of collections, downey museum of art

ps: on tuesday, january 13th at 7 pm, i will speak at the epic lounge before the downey arts coalition about the green salon, a monthly gathering of poets, artists, musicians, and other creative people. located in downey, the green salon is open to everyone.

for more information:

epic lounge (facebook)

downey arts coalition (facebook)

the green salon (facebook)

rough draft / gun monologue

target

yes, i hit him over the head with a skillet.  he was walking down the aisle with a machine gun hanging from each shoulder like someone in a bang-bang movie and when he passed, i picked up a skillet from the shelf and smacked him on the head, knocking him out cold.  one good smack is all it takes, i know that.  then i yelled for someone to call the police. 

i cannot believe it, i just cannot believe it, my heart is still pumping like a locomotive.  isnt that a funny word?  loco motive.  well, anyone with a soul would have done the same thing, im sure of that.  im no hero, im just an american citizen.  i could see things were going to go bad, real bad every which way, when i saw him with those guns.  i didnt think about it at all, i just saw the opportunity to stop a disaster and i grabbed that skillet and i didnt take any time to be scared.  i wonder why no one else could see what was coming?

oh, im not afraid of death, its a friend i get closer to every day.  im not rushing breakneck toward it either like some self-absorbed ninny, im telling you that, but im not fearing it.  of course, i would like to finish a few things before i go, the quilt for my granddaughter, a book by checkov im reading, a watercolor painting for the art club; and petunias didnt get planted along the edges of all the beds, the nursery did not have enough of the purple ones and wont have more until next week.  it would be a shame to die without those purple hearts lining the walk to my door.  and, of course, clean the refrigerator.  the first thing people do when you die is look in the refrigerator and the laundry basket.  they want to see if youve been lax in your daily duties.  then they look for jewelry and silverware but thats another story.   when my sister died, her daughter tore the house from heaven to hell looking for a pearl broach that belonged to our grandmother.  i hadnt seen it in years but was accused of stealing it.  everyone was.  that poor girl, her mother dead and that one thing is what she thought was important.  its funny what we concentrate on, what we think is important.  she lived her life wanting that pearl broach and now she still wants it.  but without family.  somehow, the principle of it was more important to her, that it was her right to have it, and nobody else mattered.

there were children there.  there were old people too, older than me, but there were children.  you have to look after children, thats what jesus did.  you take care of the children, even if they arent your own; keep them safe, teach them to be good people, let them know how wonderful they are.  i couldnt let something bad happen with all those children there.  i wouldnt have been a christian if i let something happen to those children.  they shouldnt even see that man, it would scare them for life.

he was a terrorist, im sure of it.  you cannot be walking down the aisles of target with machine guns on your shoulders just shopping for fourth of july picnic supplies.  he has to have had bad intentions.  he was there to terrorize people.  and i wasnt going to let him do that.  im an american citizen and i have rights in my own country, rights to peace and security and well-being, the constitution says so.  my husband was in the big war and my son, god rest his soul, was lost in a non-war.  ill be damned if im going to let some punk kid dressed in a soldier costume start a bang-bang war in my country.  if i can do anything about it, i will.  and i did.  america is still a place where everyday citizens participate in the welfare of the country.

then things got crazy like i was alice in wonderland.  after i smacked him on the head with the skillet and knocked him out cold, someone started yelling “open carry, open carry” so i thought people wanted to celebrate.  it seemed a little soon for that to me but then im not from here, yes, people here do seem quite celebratory.  where i come from, we cant open carry, alcohol must be in a sealed container.  but here, i know, you just drive up to a drive through convenience store but its not a convenience store, its more of a bar.  a drive-thru margarita bar.   a nice young man comes up to your car window and you tell him what different alcohols and flavors you want and he brings you a huge sweet slushy drink.  and you drive away, drinking it.  where i come from, you cant even buy alcohol on sunday.  they put hazard tape across the beer aisle in the supermarket.  now, that is the silliest thing, you know that?  sunday is the day jesus drank!  and hazard?  it is only a hazard if you do too much of it, just like anything else.  but there are always some people doing too much of things, i know that for sure.  i will admit though, i do like a little taste of wine on sunday, just like jesus.  so i thought they wanted to go to one of those drive through margarita bars to celebrate stopping a disaster and i said i thought we should wait for the police, you know, to make sure everything was safe and right.

but then, the store clerks began telling me that open carry means you have the right to carry guns like that out in public, anywhere.  private citizens with big automatic guns for bang-bang war.  i was having a hard time understanding this.  i still cannot understand this, you can drive through the bar and get a daquari with an ouzi on the seat next to you.  it doesnt seem right, i thought they were having a joke at my expense.  this all seems like a joke at my expense.

so i asked: it is normal for people to walk around with a big gun like those doing their errands?  if you need stamps and stop at the post office, you carry your machine gun?  no, you cant take a gun into the post office, they said.  you cant take a gun into the courthouse or any federal building or bank.  so i said, you mean to tell me it is not safe for a judge surrounded by police officers to have someone carry a gun inside the courtroom but it is safe for me and the children and everyone else in target to let that man with machine guns walk the aisles?

it just doesnt make sense.  it just doesnt make sense.  what did he want to shoot anyway?  what was his target?   has no one read checkov?

end of summer in a year of war

August 2014

Greetings!

The Chinese Year of the Horse is galloping along at full speed and we are halfway through the race!  Make use of the speed instead of fearing it!

During the Annual Astrological Feng Shui Workshops, I predicted this would be a year of war.  While there is always war somewhere on the planet, this year is particularly bad.  The war horse is gaining strength.  And next year will be worse.

What can an individual person do to contribute to peace?  Find peace within yourself.  Speak out in favor of peace whenever you can.  Be an example of peace within your own home.

My book, (PEACE) WORDS, will give you a place to begin.  My book, RADIANT IN ALL REALMS, will help you manifest balance and peace within yourself (it is newly expanded with a section on forgiveness). And my line of clothing and novelties, PEACE SHIRTS, will help you put the energy out into the world.  Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me and you.

Spiritual Remedies

The blessthebody.com Spiritual Remedies are, once again, finding a new audience through miraculous effects.  If you have not been using blessthebody.com Radiation Cleanse, First Aid, Chakra Tonic, you are depriving yourself of deep healing.  The offering is there, you just need to accept it.

blessthebody.com Green Light stimulates general peace, healing, and abundance.  Who doesn’t need those now?

Trance

My natural, hand-crafted, unisex perfume has been transforming the psyche of everyone using it.  Those around you will be enchanted by its aura of spiritual peace.  For more information about this amazing aroma, go to:  royanthonyshabla.com/trance_perfume.html

Thank you for your love and support.  Have a wonderful end of Summer!

RoyAnthonyShabla.com

the blessing of this may not be evident today 
but some day it will become clear
and each day after become clearer
until your gratitude fills the universe
like star dust

i sent a few paragraphs to a couple people for editing. three actually. of each (people and paragraphs)... the first person picked out this and that to hate, hate with such abandon the words should be burned, the ashes eaten, then pooped from an airplane covering the planet with the shame of such writing... the next person picked the same this and that to love, hoping the words could be written in neon, written in that same sky the first person saw as shame... the third person thought it was all perfect. 

im sure each is wrong.

i wrote this quickly

another fresh and easy story: pumpkin pie and i went to shop for groceries for the green salon. i found a couple decent bottles of wine while we were getting things... and at self-check, the helper girl came to verify my id to buy alcohol... obviously im old and there was no problem. then she wanted to verify pumpkin pies id. he carries his wallet in his messenger bag because he rides his bike to work, saving the environment. and he didnt have his messenger bag/wallet with him... AND SHE WOULDNT SELL ME WINE BECAUSE HE DIDNT HAVE ID. she kept asking him my address --do any of you know my address??? and why would knowing it make you old enough to buy wine? i was in crazy-world. we called the manager and he treated us like shit, saying pumpkin pie -- who is 24 (but does look very young) -- was obviously underaged and i couldnt buy him alcohol. pumpkin pie doesnt drink, not a drop... i tried to explain that two bottles of wine was the bare minimum i needed for myself just to put up with this bullshit... then i left my cart of food and will never shop there again. behind me, a woman with a baby in her cart also had wine but nobody asked for the babys id.

The eighteenth and nineteenth century tradition of bovine portraits came to America with English and Germanic settlers and remained in both fine and folk artwork through the twentieth century.  The immortalization of an award-winning bull or cow through a painted portrait was a way to show pride in the abundance of your personal property  –cattle grew strong because of the richness of your land.

Andy Warhol commented on this tradition, transforming the bovine portrait into a wallpaper pattern, acknowledging that society had changed from killing the fatted calf for a special feast to a hamburger shop on every corner, meat for every meal.

However, the bull or cow as a symbol of the “fat of the land” has changed.  It is the raising of cattle that caused the great forests at the heart of America to be razed, the reason the rain forests of Brazil are today being burned.

Meat consumption is a greater component of global warming than automobiles.

It takes ten times more land to sustain a meat-based diet than it does to sustain a vegetable-based diet.   Additionally, a majority of the beef produced in modern, commercial farms is unfit for human consumption.  As a global society, we are finding new and varied ways to poison ourselves and the planet.

One entire pencil was used on this painting  –akin to one tree cut down or burned down for the raising of cattle–  the graphite/charcoal (carbon) of a pencil referencing the American barbeque as well as the carbon footprint produced by the raising/consumption of meat.   Ironically, all life is carbon-based and the production of carbon  –the carbon footprint–  will be the end of all life on this planet.

The image is a milk cow  –a female kept pregnant so she produces milk–  alluding to our actions regarding Mother Earth herself:  a disrespectful, small-minded attitude of self-service and commercialism.

Roy Anthony Shabla

Untitled Painting for Earth Day

2014

6’ x 5’

Paint, Pastel, Pencil, on Canvas

$4000

blesstheworld.com glossary

Zen ~ the aspect of Buddhism focusing on silent meditation and liberation. There are several schools of Zen, some of which de-emphasize the connection to the religion of Buddhism. See eating God and nevertheless art.

blesstheworld.com glossary

Yoga ~ the yoking of the physical life to the spiritual life. While “yoga” usually refers to physical exercise, it also pertains to meditation, diet, volunteer/charity work, and inter-personal relationships, et cetera. There are various schools of yoga, especially different forms of physical exercise. See (PEACE) WORDS.

graffiti info

black & white ~  rainbow  ~  blue  ~  coffee

return to peace shirts

This is the first and most resonant image in the (PEACE) WORDS series. It speaks deeply to people over and over.

"Great minds think alike and fools seldom differ" is attributed to the great Anonymous but the word "dream" alludes to the collective unconscious in which we all participate and its substitution into the shortened phrase brings peace into the inherent being of all.

As a t-shirt, the rainbow version of GREAT MINDS on a black field is the most significant, describing the commonality of the human race in the great void of existence. A rainbow is not meant to depict diversity, not meant to show how different we humans are; a rainbow is meant to symbolize the bridge between differences ~ it denotes harmony. Coupled with the peace symbol and the words, "dream alike", that particular t-shirt resonates to the core of the issue. It stimulates the emergence of the deep-seated quest for peace within us all and lights that quest with honor.

Wearing a GREAT MINDS t-shirt on a plane always provokes a positive response. Sometimes I sport a wild appearance ~ maybe people are relieved I’m not a terrorist! Revolutionary, yes. Terrorist, no. One man told me "great minds think alike…" were his grandmother’s dying words only a couple weeks earlier ~ they would always be special to him. Most people just smile and nod approvingly. Sometimes they ask as to where they too can get a t-shirt.

As graffiti, GREAT MINDS DREAM ALIKE has been seen in large and small formats for years. I have had a banner on the front of my house long enough to be the "crazy guy in the neighborhood" but one neighbor told me he instructs his daughter to read it every morning on her way to high school. I have left GREAT MINDS up for years with the thought that it may be the only reading she does all day.

The original idea for GREAT MINDS was to write a book of short biographies (two to three pages each) of the recipients of the Nobel Prize for Peace. That would be a powerful and inspiring collection to compose. Hopefully, it will manifest soon.

In my mind, whenever I see this image, I picture Einstein. But it could as easily be Buddha or Gandhi or Martin Luther King. Or (insert your favorite peace revolutionary here)!

I’m not sure if I would have continued the (PEACE) WORDS series if GREAT MINDS hadn’t affected me so deeply. It continues to affect me after all these years.

blesstheworld.com glossary

Yin and Yang ~ Usually thought of as opposites, yin and yang are merely opposite poles of the same discreet whole and describe an exchange of energy (chi) within that whole.

Consider wind blowing from one end of a hallway to the other. The hall itself is the discreet whole; the end of the hall where the wind begins is yang, dynamic, masculine; the end of the hall where the wind arrives is yin, receptive, feminine. Yin and yang merely describe the flow of energy in the hall; they are not features of the hall itself. The door or window where the wind enters the hall is yang in relation to the hall but yin in relation to the outside ~ it receives the wind into the hall (yin) but is also the dynamic force that originates the wind in the hall (yang). It is a matter of perspective. The flow of energy can also change under other conditions. Understanding the principles of yin and yang are the basis of martial arts and all Eastern philosophy.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that yang energy is more powerful than yin. The I Ching, the Book of Changes which proposes the foundation of yin and yang, feng shui, and all relationships states clearly that the yin triumphs over the yang by merely allowing the yang to exhaust and defeat itself. (Do not confuse this with yin feng shui which pertains to graveyards. The principles of yin feng shui are not pertinent to houses of the living.) Yin-energy treatments have less potential for creating karma than yang-energy treatments. However, in many instances, only yang treatments will be effective. See Feng Shui Every Day.

blesstheworld.com glossary

Yang Treatment ~ Examples of yin and yang feng shui treatments are as follows:

Yin metal ~ six coins

Yang metal ~ windchime

Yin water ~ a bowl of water

Yang water ~ a fountain

An active treatment is yang; a passive treatment is yin. Deciding between yin and yang treatments requires a master and even masters differ on such matters. The properties of yin and yang depend upon perspective See Yin and Yang.  

blesstheworld.com glossary

Wellness ~ an active process of becoming aware of and making choices toward a more successful existence. Wellness is a movement in healthcare whereby physical and emotional issues are addressed before they become acute. See Alternative Healing. 

blesstheworld.com glossary

Vibrational Medicine / Vibrational Healing ~ according to Richard Gerber: "Vibrational medicine is a diagnostic and healing approach to illness using energy in various forms and frequencies. As a therapy, vibrational medicine is the application of different types of energy for healing, including approaches as traditional as X-ray and radiation therapy for cancer, the use of electrical nerve stimulation for treating pain, and electromagnetic field stimulators for accelerating the healing of fractured bones. Even full spectrum light is used for treating seasonal affective disorders or the ‘winter blues’. However, vibrational medicine also covers the more subtle forms of treatment such as acupuncture, homeopathy, flower essences, therapeutic touch, and that sort of genre. The latter involve using subtle life-force medicine, but they are energetic therapies nonetheless. This is the spectrum from the more traditional to a range of therapies that stress treatment of the whole person, sometimes referred to as "complementary’ medicine". See Mantra.