Three Truths of Art

The Three Truths of Art

You need to get past the mistaken idea

that the measure of success

with your art is money.

The point of all art is to nurture

your own soul and the souls of others

and to improve upon

the beauty of the world.

The purpose of creation, my friend,

is to create.

Art is a beginning,

middle, and end all by itself.

You are creating art for your own well being

and for the nurturing of others.

If your art nourishes your own soul

and the soul of just one other,

that is enough.

All the better if you can make

a little bit while doing it.

There are only three levels

of proficiency in any art;

Insufficient, sufficient,

and OMG! Wow!

If you are an artist, dancer,

writer, or musician

and you've been practicing your work

for four years or longer,

you can take heart in the knowledge

that you passed beyond insufficient

some time back.

Remember you will always be

your own worst critic

and even when you think

your work is half-assed,

others who see it will think

it's great and like it just fine.

When you begin to show

your work around to others,

you'll soon discover that

for every nine people

you show your work to,

three will be completely

indifferent to it,

three won't like it much at all,

and three will think it's wonderful.

Always remember, the only person

you absolutely have to please

is yourself.

Dewey Dirks

Illusions

Illusions

I sat at the table earlier tonight

looking out the open sliding glass door.

A light outside lined up with the door frame

so that when I leaned a certain way,

it appeared to shine on both sides of the frame.

They call this an optical illusion because

the perception of two lights

when there is really only one depends upon

the way your brain-box processes the information

it receives from your two eyes.

Yet, to you the light appears to split into two beams.

For the same reason they say

rainbows are optical illusions because

they aren't really there and you see them only because

your brain-box processes the refraction of light

off of raindrops in a certain way so there appears

to be a beautiful curve of colors off in the distant sky.

The secret my friends is that everything you see around you

all day long every day, are a series of illusions.

Cars and trucks appear to you to be what they are only because

your brain-box perceives them

to have a certain function and do certain things.

Houses appear to be what they are only because we all have

a certain perception that those rectangular enclosures

exist to shelter us and we all agree upon the illusion

that we owe the bank a great deal of money that we must pay

in order to use the house where we live and we each participate

in the further of illusion of pretending the house is ours.

Our physics teaches us that all matter and energy obey

a strange set of laws they call 'quantum mechanics'

and our perception of these quantum events

as well as the perceptions of our measuring instruments

depend on the interaction between the objects being observed

and the brain-boxes of the folks doing the observing.

So, the entirety of the world around us that we inadvertently

think of as 'real' depends on our perceptions in the same way

as the illusions of rainbows

and two beams shining when there is only one light.

Rainbows, lights shining outside your back door,

your car, the mortgage on your house, and everything else

that seems real to your brain-box

are all daydreams we each idly dream

deep within an great illusion,

floating gently in a grand enigma.

Dewey Dirks

Peace

Peace

Most of the people

I've met over the years

have been peace loving humans

who had no desire to kill anyone

but many of them were also children

of their society and the sad truth

of it is that America is a country

that has been militarized

for over seventy years now.

We've long been immersed

in a cultural fog of fear, and wars

small and big, overt or undeclared.

You gotta know countries around the world

can't bomb themselves into peace

and the citizens of many countries

find themselves in the impossible

position of being for wars

and for peace at the same time.

Wake up! Wake up people!

Peace doesn't mean you're going to be

peaceful only until the next time

the talking heads on the wide screen TV

tell you it's time to go exploit, bomb and shoot

the next bunch of people into the ground.

You know exactly what peace means.

Peace is just that; The absence of war.

The distance between

where we are right now

and a peaceful Earth

is not as far as you might think.

Peace, my friends, lays

in the laps of two groups of people.

It resides with a few hundred leaders

around the world who steer the decisions

of the big corporations and countries.

Some leader some time is going to

have to stand up an say that the slaughter

stops with them and extend the hand of peace

to one and all around the world

because war only leads to more war

history has shown us all that.

It also resides with the world public

who refuse to show up

when they open the next war

for the business of killing.

Dewey Dirks

Pictures

My mother passed away in 2010. Her birthday is this month. Two of her favorite things in life were playing music on her electric organ and photography. She loved to take pictures of flowers and landscapes and she was very good at it. It brought her much joy :) In her memory, today I'm going to post two photos she took. 

Singing Silence

Singing Silence

All the world and its thousands

upon thousands of parts

is interconnected far beyond

the human capacity

to perceive or understand it.

I drive to coffee everyday looking

around me in utter amazement

and then I sit quietly drinking my cups

of coffee struck speechless as I marvel

at how finely and beautifully the fabric is woven.

The richly patterned cloth extending

through you, all around you

and as far into the distance

as your minds eye can see, hums softly

a beautiful and gentle song; A singing silence

that you can hear when you still the train

of ideas and thoughts streaming through your head.

Dewey Dirks

Publishing Announcement

Hi folks :) I have some big news to tell you. After careful consideration, I've decided not to bring “Fifteen Sides” into publication as my next novel. Instead, I'm going to first publish a pair of poetry books, “Lullabies and Legends,” and “Journey.” I'll be crowd-funding both of them over the next few months. Stay tuned for more information....

Here are the current candidates for the covers of both books--- 

The Returning

The Returning

There is a place deep inside of you

that is as vast as all world outside.

A place where knowledge

becomes no-knowledge,

where opinion, knowing and wisdom

become not-knowing.

A place where stillness permeates movement

and movement permeates stillness.

A place where time goes

now a little faster, now a little slower,

and has little meaning.

A place where everything that before

seemed dead and devoid of feeling

becomes alive and infused

with emotion, compassion and empathy.

It is from there you began,

and to there you must travel.

To there you must return

again and again .

There you meet yourself,

and become once more,

the child you have always been.

Dewey Dirks

Ideas

Ideas

Ideas come and ideas go.

They're memes cooking with fire.

Ideas appear out of nowhere

too roll all around inside our heads.

They paint the world we see

from white noise nothingness into

the elegant colors of the morning dawn,

into dark storm clouds, or clear blue sky,

into forest covered green hills

and brilliant shining sun,

into busy big city streets,

or rainy summer afternoon rainbows.

Ideas come and ideas go.

They're memes cooking with fire.

Born of the dance between

the blue electric light of our spirits

and the flowing world outside,

they allow us to engage the world

and play out our parts

on the wide stages of life.

It's true that depending

on the ideas you happen to use

life can be a living hell

or an adventure through paradise.

Ideas come and ideas go.

They're memes cooking with fire.

Our favorite ideas

feel like old, well worn tools

for us to pick up and put down.

We use them daily

to adapt to changes as time flows by

or to preserve as best we can

the imaginary equilibrium

of the status quo.

Other ideas are rough and craggy chunks

of unworked stone for us to struggle with

or sculpt into a finer form, and thereby learn.

Ideas come and ideas go.

They're memes cooking with fire.

Our toolboxes are as deep as creativity

and as varied and vividly colored

as imagination.

Some ideas are memories.

Some ideas are art.

Some ideas are for getting things done,

some ideas are for throwing away.

Some are for laughing,

some are for flying,

some are for fun,

and some are for improving upon

the beauty of the world.

Some ideas are very special

and blossom and unfold like eternal flowers

as they return home to the mists of our spirits

and become part of our living souls

Dewey Dirks

Beauty Everywhere

Beauty Everywhere

There is so much

beauty in the world

it's far beyond

the conveyance

of mere words.

I have no idea

how I came

to be able to see it,

but now, wherever

I happen to look

and have the presence

of mind to notice,

beauty is there.

Yes, it's true

there is pain

in the world

and sadness too,

but like a vast star field

hidden behind the blue

wash of daylight,

or life giving sunlight

hidden behind

passing storm clouds

beauty is there too.

Dewey Dirks

Peace Among Mankind

Today President Obama made a speech before the UN in which he said that no God would condone the actions of the group ISIL and he made the case for nations around the globe to come together to co-operate in the fight against ISIL, the ebola outbreak, and combating climate change. He also said that nations should all strive together for greater global health security. While the Presidents aspirations for greater co-operation among the nations of Earth is very commendable, I have to tell you, Mr. President and other leaders around the world, you can't exploit, bomb, and kill your way to global peace and co-operation. Just as no God would be pleased with the behavior of ISIL, I'm sure no God would be happy with the long history of exploitation and killing of people around the globe by rich nations such the U.S. and those in the European Union. Mr. President and other world leaders, if you really desire to improve the behavior between nations and people around the globe, I suggest you all put your money where your mouths are and come together to spend five or ten trillion dollars on weaning our civilization from its self-destructive addiction to petroleum. Such an effort would also go a considerable distance in the global effort to lesson climate change, and it would improve enormously the health of people around the planet, so you'd all get three chickens in the pot for the price of one. 'Can't argue with that.

Standing Up For The Environment

Hi folks. I know the mainstream media hasn't reported on it much (of course) but over 310,000 people showed up for yesterdays march in New York City to protest against climate change policy. It's good to hear that more and more people are taking an interest in protecting our environment and coming out against our cultures insane dependance on petroleum. I hear today that they've gathered at Wall Street to protest the contribution of corporations to greenhouse gasses. Once again, it's good that people are standing up to corporate and governmental idiocy. It really is up to us to straighten out the behavior of our civilization before it runs itself into the ground. It just goes to show that the general population has a better conception of how our culture should behave than the ruling classes do...Keep it up people! Remember folks, it's not about one country verses another, democrat verses republican, or one religion verses another. It's all about humanity verses corporate shortsightedness and greed.

Dancing The Abyss

Dancing the Abyss

Rich, poor, no matter.

Creeds, convictions, colors,

compassions, no matter.

Every path through life,

and everyone, everywhere

dances a few times along the abyss

and passes through

terrible typhoons and tornadoes.

If it's not of one sort, it's another.

Everyone breaks in a place or two

and wear a few deep scars for it.

We all find out sooner or later

what this old world can do.

Some fall and don't get up.

These have to wait for another lifetime

to move through the pain.

Others regrow, patch and repair.

To some they appear haggard,

torn and tattered, but where their scars are,

a light now shines and they are stronger.

Dewey Dirks

Roads Inward

Roads Inward

There are many ways to start your journey inward.

Truth be known, I think that sooner or later

pretty much every road leads inward

at some point along the line.

Some open the doors inward through

spirituality, mysticism, or philosophy

and a soul searching longing

to know how life is put together.

Some people begin out of necessity

when they suffer from life changing

events that give them shell shock

and they find the only way to see it through

is to travel the roads deep, deep inside.

Others begin after a very close brush with death

that opens their mind and spreads bare their soul.

Some begin their journey inward through science

when they become interested in anthropology,

sociology, psychology, biology, or even physics.

Most every path in science leads to introspection

if you are honest enough in your objectivity

and you travel far enough down the line.

My journeys begin as a teenager

when a couple of very gifted teachers

introduced me to the world of philosophy,

and to the notion that the knowledge and wisdom

of Man is not confined to one single worldview,

but the roads of truth are broad and many.

Not long after, when I was nineteen

I decided two very important things---

First, I decided that what I most wanted to do in life

was learn as many things as I could no matter where

it might lead me and so I let my natural curiosity

begin to point the way in my life.

Second, I began to call into question

virtually everything I had ever been taught.

As time passed, I realized I'd become a collector

of ideas and differing points of view.

As the years quickly rolled on,

although I didn't realize it at the time,

through happenstance and circumstance,

life was very kind to offer up

just the sort to lessons I needed to learn.
Soon, I discovered that the farther

out into the world that you explore,

the more deeply you also look within

because all human perceptions about

the world around us are viewed through the filters

of the ideas floating around in our heads.

Along the way, after I had a couple very close

brushes with death by wrecking on motorcycles,

my eyes were opened to the notion

that every day is to be cherished, because no one knows

how long they've got on this Earth,

and I learned that it wasn't enough

to merely know lots of things, that knowledge

is never complete until it's been shared with others,

so, I began to write about some of the things I'd learned.

Many years have now gone by and much water

has passed beneath all the bridges I've crossed.

Each day, I still learn a new thing or two,

and I spend much of my time writing about

what I've learned over the long years behind.

I think perhaps among the most important things

I've learned is that you gotta believe in love

before you can believe in most anything else at all.

Dewey Dirks

Patrick Tomby

Patrick Tomby

I was twenty-four when I met him

I was full of spit and vinegar

Had lots of false bravado

Secretly, I was oh so confused

Didn't know left from right

Couldn't tell which way was up

And which way was down

Patrick Tomby was old and gray, north of seventy

Wore a blue baseball cap, carried a cane

He had a limp, drank gallons of black coffee

Ate peanuts by the pound

We sat around down at Sambo's

Every Saturday night

During the summer of nineteen seventy-nine

He told me tales of climbing mountains and crossing deserts

Did a stint as a merchant seaman

Was traveling trader a time or two

Served in an army, raced cars for a little while

Talked to Buddhist monks in Tibet

Saw the red square and Tiananmen

Said he was always looking

For what he did not know

Along towards the the end of July, I confessed to him

'Said, “Patrick, I'm lost and I wander

I always have a longing

A hollow and empty ache inside

I don't know what to do or where to go”

He said, “Well, I know that son.

So I'll tell you that one day I was walking

South of a little village in Uzbekistan

The grass swayed gently by the roadside

A sparrow sang from a bush nearby

And I realized that whatever it was

I'd been seeking all my life

Was already in my heart and mind, with me all the while

And the only reason I didn't understand

Was because I'd never bothered to look at myself

And take an adventure deep inside”

If you don't know what life is all about

If you are a seeker, always longing to know

Then look far within yourself

Find the paths to the bright center inside

You might be surprised at what you see

When you come out on the other side

Dewey Dirks

From “The Questioning Way”

Three Faces

Three Faces

We each are of three minds.

Each person, a tree with three faces.

The first mind is propelled by fear

and feeds on anger and ignorance.

It seeks to control everything

and tries always to avoid change.

You should listen to this mind

only one time in every twenty.

The second mind is propelled by glowing passion.

It thrives on high hopes and sky reaching dreams.

It gives us each the will,

intelligence and energy to strive in life.

You should listen to this mind

nineteen times in every twenty.

The third mind is your soul and is propelled by love.

It's the part of us that is closest to the Universe

and precedes all that you have ever been or will ever be.

It gives us each the ability to see the grace

and the redemption hidden in everything.

It is very old and enormously wise

even in young children.

Through its eyes you can see and feel

the quiet melody that nudges and twirls us all.

Every day, bring yourself to sway to its music.

You should listen to this mind

every time you hear its lilting song.

It is often harder for a person

to become aware of the love in their soul

than it is for them to see

their shortcomings and their fears.

To open your eyes to the nature of the world,

to be a complete and whole person,

you must learn to live

embracing all three minds.

The first face gives you propriety, caution

and energy to grow your roots very deep.

The second face gives you purpose,

strength and fiber to grow your branches

broad and high reaching for the sky.

The third face gives you your life force.

It carries with it the power of miracles,

and can keep alive dying men.

It can turn mere truth into wisdom,

binds all three minds together as one,

and it has the strength to overcome

any obstacle you might ever happen across.

Dewey Dirks

The Longest Journey

The Longest Journey

They say the longest journey

is the one you take into yourself.

I promised myself at nineteen

that I would take

the long way home

not knowing at the time

exactly what that might mean.

So, I've traveled

over the last fifty years.

the winding roads inward

many times over

and I've discovered

new things to know

every single time.

One of the things I've learned

is 'as without, so within,

likewise, as within so without.'

and I've learned that living

can be divided into two parts---

Times to pick up

what you believe, and act

and times to put down

what you believe and learn.

Whenever I hear someone say,

“I know myself pretty well,”

I can kinda figure

what they really mean to say is,

“I know just enough about myself,

to feel comfortable with how I imagine

myself to be.”

...and I can tell there are probably

quite a few forests

they have not yet wandered wondering,

and quite a few mountains high

they have yet to cross over.

Good to know, inside we each

are as simple as a single

second of silence

yet at the same time

as vast as all the sea of stars at night

and just as full of mystery.

If you don't spend

a fair amount of time,

in a state of wonder,

like a young child

you've likely got a ways

yet to wander.

Put down your preconceptions

and set your sails as high as you can.

Grand and uncharted

the sea awaits you, my friend.

Dewey Dirks

Silence Shared

Silence Shared

My roommate and I

are like two old mountain men.

Days after day

goes by with both of us

in the same room

where hardly three sentences

are spoken between us

and in our silence shared

we are connected.

Dewey Dirks

Possibility

Possibility

Forget about what is probable.

Concentrate instead upon possibility.

The simple fact that you are alive

reading and comprehending these lines

in a Universe as vast

and varied as Mother Nature

is already an astronomically

improbable accomplishment.

You can be whatever is within

the realm of possibility

and that includes virtually

anything because the realm

of possibility is as large

as the imagination

of all Mother Nature.

You are a sentient part of Nature

and above all, she is your

friend and advocate.

The only trick is to be

as good of a friend

and advocate to yourself

as Mother Nature is.

Dewey Dirks

Money

Money

Money, money

everybody's gotta use some

everybody's gotta gotta get some.

After it's gone, you gotta gotta

get some more.

It acts a lot like a drug,

get a little at first,

and you're happy for awhile

until you discover you want a lot more.

The more you get,

the more you tend to want

The more you get

the more you tend to use.

When you run out, you go into withdraw

and get all worried and crabby

until you figure out how to get some more.

Money, money,

has its good side, it's true.

It provides incentive for great numbers of people

to work together to make all sorts of things

and as the world grows closer together economically

the harder it is for countries

to be fighting with each other.

Most of the really powerful nations have so many

of their fingers in each others money pie,

they really can't afford

to go to war with each other anymore.

The trouble is that

at the basis of money's incentive, is greed,

and greed is irrational

and often drives people to shit on each other

in their scramble to get as much as they can.

I've seen money drive a wedge

between sisters and brothers,

between a father and his daughters

and more than once, I've seen it tear

whole families apart.

Personally, virtually all the times

I've been truly done wrong in this life,

money was the driving force.

Money, money you gotta to get a clue about it.

It's best to have an easy come, easy go

attitude about it.

You gotta not get all caught up

in the debt racket or you'll find yourself

working as an indentured servant

to the bank for the rest of your life.

When comes the time to make a decision

about money, you gotta learn to ask yourself,

'Am I making this decision in favor of people

or in favor of money' because the defense

against greed boils down to the decisions

you make when money is at hand.

In my experience, most of the people

who can keep their heads when it comes

to money, have all been poor in dollars

and rich in heart.

Money, money, the catch is that

the more you tend to get, the more of your time

it takes up and the more you tend to want to spend.

A lot of people think getting a big load of money

would solves all their problems

but having money is its own line to tow

and having a big bunch can multiply your troubles.

Don't fall for the idea that having more money

makes you a better person.

The ideal situation about it

is to have so little, or so much money,

it really doesn't matter anymore.

If you get a bunch,, the trick is to

not fall into the trap of spending more and more

until you're all out of it again.

To have a bunch only means

that you have more than you care to spend.

I've known people who only had a little pile,

but because they didn't care

to buy a lot of things, they had enough

that it didn't matter anymore.

The poorest people I've ever known

all had great big piles of money,

but only tiny amounts of love and fulfillment

because they had turned away from their own

heart and soul in name of money.

Dewey Dirks

Enculturation

Enculturation

The other day I was talking

to a young woman, bright eyed

and intelligent as she explained to me that

when she sold something

on Craigslist, she made sure

to arrange to meet potential

buyers in a public place in order

to guard against serial killers.

She didn't realize, of course,

that the country

is as safe from violent crime

as it was forty years ago

when people didn't lock their

doors at night and that her chances

of being shot by a cop were

much, much higher than being killed

by a serial killer.

Not long afterwords, I was having

a conversation about climate change

with a man in his fifties, intelligent,

full of experience and informed, as he mouthed

the corporate media's misinformation explaining

to me that even though climate change

might be real, it couldn't possibly

have been brought about by the

actions of Man not realizing that the link

between global carbon-dioxide levels

and the behavior of mankind since

the beginning of the industrial

revolution are a certain as the fact

that the ice-caps are melting.

A few days later, I was talking to another

man in his forties, liberal, and well informed

who mouthed the media's liturgy in some detail

about how America has to guard

against more terrorists attacks

not thinking about the fact that

American soil hasn't seen a terrorist

attack in almost thirteen years.

As you leave the fog

that is the mass-media enculturation

of American society,

You begin to see how pervasive

and often misleading the institutions

of our culture have become.

The more you become aware of

the actual state of the world, three things

become resoundingly apparent---

First, virtually all of our mass-media

marches in lockstep with the desires

and goals of American

corporations, military and government.

They want you scared, obedient, and feeling

as though you're dependent on them.

Second, our culture has trained millions

upon millions of people to be afraid

of everything from the cause

of their own daily aches and pains,

to the beliefs and goals of people

in other countries, to the motivations

and personalities of their own

next door neighbors.

And finally, you become

more and more conscious

of how unimpaired by fear your

journey through life can be.

After awhile, you discover you don't even

need to be afraid of the institutions,

that are trying to control us,

because when you lie as much as

they do to as many people as they do,

you become increasingly incapable

of recognizing what's real

and acting in your own best interests

until the day the truth walks up to you

and smacks you upside the head,

which explains our ruling classes

inept responses so far

to global warming, doesn't it...

Dewey Dirks