Beyond

"We are men and our lot in life is to learn and to be hurled into inconceivable new worlds."

         -Carlos Castaneda, 'A Separate Reality'

"We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye."
         -Carlos Castaneda

A few days ago, I spoke with another photographer, Brandon Thibodeaux, who reminded me of Carlos Casteneda.

In the seventies, I read all of Carlos Castaneda's books as they were published. They were quite controversial in their day partly due to the ceremonial use of hallucinogenics but more so for Don Juan Matus' radical definition of reality as documented by Carlos Castaneda. But, unfortunately, I was far too young, both mentally and egoically, to practice with the content at sixteen. So today, I believe I spent the first 25 years of my life building and defining an ego, marching full-speed ahead into the inevitable wall that would commence the abrogation process; teaching the lesson that self-will for dominion and personal conquest will always fail and often injure others.

Now, back to my conversation with Brandon and photography. This image, "Beyond," symbolizes my self-constructed, self-imposed grid of reality and truth. It reminds me that what I see is not what is there, if it exists at all, but what I am consciously & unconsciously ascribing to it.

In these days of fake and real NEWS -    this and that  -  right and wrong  -  good and bad  -  evil and righteous  -  I struggle to pause long enough to question.