Stay Close to the Cosmos

Make a Wish, paper collage, 2022

You would never love anything if you didn’t have an imagination.

If you want to know who you really are, look at how you treat animals. That’s the best method of self-examination I know.

The consensus of experts frequently displaces common sense.

The greatest lie we’re ever made to believe is that we are born lacking something. This sense of deficiency makes us dependent, makes us addicted, and makes us operate from a place of deep self-distrust. In reality, the only thing we are lacking is a knowledge of our instincts and an ability to trust them.

We are the cruelest and most remarkable creatures on the planet.

Visit outer space. Frequently.

You shouldn’t live a directionless life. But, please, be directionless when you have the chance.

I don’t have faith in humanity. I have faith in the possibility of humanity.

We need art because art reminds us that other ways of being are possible. Outside of the current time-space, outside the bounds of a sick and spiritually impoverished reality, there is the possibility of another way of being. Artists translate that sense of possibility into images, poets into language. It is our moral responsibility to search for a sense of possibility whenever and wherever we find suffering.

It is your moral responsibility to share your art with the world.

Time spent learning about other creatures is never wasted.

Birds remind me that another way of being is possible.

A walk in the woods can be a deeply spiritual experience.

Control your habits, or your habits will control you.

Over the years, I’ve discovered that the majority of my anxieties stem from what I am not doing. From responsibilities or obligations I’m not fulfilling, from changes I am refusing to make, from times, places, ideas, and people I will not let go of. I have come to think of anxiety as my brain’s way of letting me know it’s time to take action. Time to let go, time to move more freely with the tide of life.

One of the most rewarding aspects of collage, for me, is taking images I love and placing them in the context of eternity.

You will never regret the decision to learn how to see poetically.

Old paper has soul.

Stay close to the cosmos.