Man...it is impossible, I mean im-possible to escape a conversation about real estate in this city. I am absolutely sick of people's obsession with this topic. It reflects the immaturity of the city as a whole when every cafe, water-cooler discussion is about the 'ridiculous' price of homes these days. Those who own a place and bought before the 'upswing/bubble/hot market' are almost masturbatory about their new-found equity and wonder what to do with it all - "...a place in the burbs?" "...sell and rent?" Those outside the bubble looking in are awaiting the inevitable 'pop'. At which time they will swoop in and scoop up homes at bargain basement prices. They also await the interest rate rise, where those who are maxed-out will be driven to the poor house, unable to carry their own debt load....blah,blah,blah. Owners and renters alike scouring realty porn web sites nightly. Building starts statistics, property tax increase statistics...Is there nothing more important going on in this town besides buying houses and preparing for Olympic games?

And then there's the realtors. If I get one more pad of paper/recipe postcard/pen/metric conversion fridge magnet with a head shot of some bloated salesmachine on it, I'm gonna.....I....I....I'm going out back to do some rock balancing.


BTW- We just bought a new house! I'm so excited.

"Water is the Great Mother's blood, just as stones are the tears of the ancestors." (From One River, by Wade Davis, as he discusses the beliefs of the Kogi and Ika people of the Amazon.

My friend recently described to me his visit to some of the stone castles and inns of southern England, and the multitude of stories of supernatural events that have taken place in these locales. People who've lived ther long enough take it for granted that the stone has memory - a resonance that lasts, an energy.

Mass = energy. So much more is going on than I can associate with my day-to-day paradigms. The combination of focus and relaxation hints at a different perspective on all mass.

Managed to get out back for a while yesterday and chill on some 'stack'. Here's one from a few angles. The black stone is so porous it can just hang there once you find the centre.

These are two sets I put together this incredible Saturday afternoon. I've added some close-ups of some particularly tricky sets.






Well I'm starting to realize that the only way to get four high with this set of rocks is to compromise somewhat with the difficulty of the balancing at the bottom. So I've just rested the 2nd rock on the base, as opposed to trying to balance on a point, then the third and fourth rocks can have a bit more stability during the process of finding their centres.

Then my son Jacob, 7, came out and immediately wanted to try his own. He creates some awesome 'castles' and 'families.'

I was reading about the Kogi people of the Amazon ("One River' by Wade Davis) and was struck by the fact that the same word means 'vagina' and 'dawn' in their language. Not that the same word has two meanings...the same meaning is applied to both ideas.
This association presented such an intense connection with "all that is" to me -in contrast to how I pass most of my days using terms and working within paradigms that isolate and disconnnect. I rarely consider life as beginning prior to the actual birth of the child - while this assocciation between ideas takes the birth process back to initial conception, the point at which light has been present and a sliver of star, the giver of all life, appears on the horizon - the universe conspires to create. If I try to embed this association into my perception, it provides a remarkably different, more intense and beautiful, view of all women.

I've been out in the yard every sunny day when possible to work with these rocks. It's nothing like a dry riverbed, but it's still pretty entrancing to play around with this same set. I've been trying to get to four high, but it's proving difficult. I did manage a much larger third rock on this one. Here are a few angles of it.

Given the recent trend to seek out corporate sponsorship from major construction projects, it seems only a matter of time before we rename the province according to the wishes of the corporate benefactors that will swoop down and save us all from recession when the rights to all of our natural resources have long been squandered. If it works for large sports facilities and other public buildings, why not the whole damn province?
Public-private partnerships (P3s) really need to go the next level - think outside the building.
• "Disney North" comes to mind immediately (perhaps they could throw a "Pirates of the Caribbean" attraction into the Disney Line a.k.a.Canada Line tunnel before they cover it up)
• "Telus World at Telusopia" seems wordy in the beginning, but we'd get used to it if they just ignored us. Plus it makes for an easy acronym to work with.
• major US automakers are out of the picture due to impending financial ruin, but we could look to Asia. There is already a Toyota City, so, again, the next step seems natural - Toyota Spirit Park? Kia Land?

It's bound to happen sooner or later. I say we make the change now! But not in the form of corporate branding. 'British Columbia' is a sorry reference to a sorry past that does not in the least reflect the present make-up of our population or our place in world. Why?
Firstly, the 'British' part. It links us to a once-mighty imperialist island nation that travelled the seas sucking up all the natural resources it could for consumption back home, colonizing indigenous cultures, spreading the joys of 'proper' and 'civilized'. You just don't hear people throwing open their shutters and screaming "God save the Queen" anymore (Okay, maybe after a few pints down at the Legion).
Secondly, the 'Columbia' part. Columbia, Colombus, Colombass. The first (arguable) of many explorers to the 'New' world to lay claim to a land that wasn't theirs to claim. Colombus, to whom we owe the misnomer 'Indians.' These explorers brought disease and destruction to entire populations of indigenous cultures. We are still at the beginning stages of cleaning up the mindset and the mess that was introduced in the late fifteenth century.

We are named after an empire with which we share nothing but history and a misguided megalomaniac, with which we share nothing but blame: British Columbia... Ottoman Cortezia... American Bushland...It's time for a change.

As an artist (paint,music,whatever) and imbiber of hallucinagenics, I am interested in understanding and experiencing alternate perceptions of the space we inhabit - both physical and metaphysical. We are all captives of our perception. Our conscious mind must make links and associations with what is known and what is expected. How many of these paradigms are mental constructions from when we were children, and only considered the reality presented to us by those around us? Imagine the constructs present in the minds of those raised under completely different paradigms. So much of how we perceive the world is based upon our expectations. Imagine expecting something completely different. What if it is true, as "What the Bleepers," some Quantum physicists, and a host of others propose, that thought creates reality. If your mind is open to this possibility, it presents some fascinating imaginings for alternate futures / realities. ( What does this have to do with rocks balancing? everything...and nothing)

Recently completed riverbed scupltures near Whistler, BC