The three most sacred bodies of water in India are the Ganga, the Yamuna, and the Saraswati rivers. In fact, one of India’s holiest pilgrimage festivals, the Kumbha Mela, which occurs only once every twelve years, is held at the confluence of these three rivers. The Ganga and the Yamuna still run today, however the Saraswati River had a different destiny. Saraswati is translated as the “One Who Flows”, and that she did –flowing through the Indus region, nourishing the lands for many, many years. Yet the time came when the quality of her Being transmuted from the state of form to formless, and she left the smaller realm of bringing fertile life to the river valleys and the peoples who lived there, to hold the space as the Goddess of the broader fertility; to inspire human beings to bring forth their most creative expression.

Saraswati is called the mother of the Vedas and the keeper of Brahma’s creative intelligence.

For most Indian artists, all art and all new art traditions originate with Saraswati. Lord Brahma, in order to create the world and the human race, made a Goddess out of himself. One half was woman, and the other half was man. Brahma called the woman Saraswati. Creative energy is her siddhi and for this reason she is worshipped by every Indian artist.

The transformation of the mystical Saraswati River.

And her life-giving waters were no longer intended to bring forth sustenance and nourishment on the physical level. Yet, Saraswati’s ability to bring forth life did not diminish! It continued on and remains today, as a lifeforce energy that comes from beyond form to feed all human beings who ask for her help.

Saraswati Devi now nourishes her people from the unseen realms.

She helps to bring into form that which has not yet been made manifest: a thought, an imagining, a dream, a series of musical notes, a passion– she is the goddess of music, art, and wisdom– and acts much like a muse to inspire and reveal one’s inner landscape of pre-creation such that it becomes an outward expression of beauty in the world.

Nourishment flows from the unseen that is Saraswati.

Through the individual such that from nothing, something is cultivated into being. She is the holder of wisdom. Not the knowing in and of itself as if she is the wise One, but she is the inspirator. She invokes a flow of fertile energy, as the artist or contemplator becomes an open vessel to allow the creative lifeforce to flow through and spark insight, free expression, and deeply passionate inspiration; and new life as artistic expression is born.

Etymologically, Sara means Essence, and Swa is Self.

The Goddess Saraswati, associated with the 2nd chakra of nourishment to self and others, is truly the One Who Flows, the one who brings flow to your deepest Essence and most authentic gifts, such that they flow through you to seed the world in exactly the way the world needs.

May Saraswati’s energy rain down upon you.

And nourish you in the form of radical, passionate inspiration and expression in order to create beauty that is truly in service to humanity. All beauty is service.

Her Mantra: Om Aim Saraswataye Namaha

Saraswati's Water Dance

Face Knocker

“No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt”

― Hunter S. Thompson

Artwork Credit: Portrait of a Dead Man by Damien Mammoliti

Dead Man

“. When the plague struck Chicago, the townspeople here erected the gargoyles, and nary a soul was lost to the Black Death.”
“The bubonic plague predates Chicago by about five hundred years.”
He lowered himself to the bench. “I know. I was very disappointed when I found out. Almost as bad as when I learned there were no fairies. The world is much more interesting with goblins and plagues.”
“Unless you catch the plague.”

― Kelley Armstrong, Omens

Gargoyle

"Put a glide in your stride, a dip in yo' hip and come on up to the mothership"

— George Clinton

Mothership

"I surrendered my beliefs
and found myself at the tree of life
injecting my story into the veins of leaves
only to find that stories like forests
are subject to seasons"

— Saul Williams (, said the shotgun to the head.)

Shotgun Shells (Instrumental)

"Have you ever lost yourself in a kiss? I mean pure psychedelic inebriation. Not just lustful petting but transcendental metamorphosis when you became aware that the greatness of this being was breathing into you. Licking the sides and corners of your mouth, like sealing a thousand fleshy envelopes filled with the essence of your passionate being and then opened by the same mouth and delivered back to you, over and over again - the first kiss of the rest of your life. A kiss that confirms that the universe is aligned, that the world's greatest resource is love, and maybe even that God is a woman. With or without a belief in God, all kisses are metaphors decipherable by allocations of time, circumstance, and understanding"

— Saul Williams (, said the shotgun to the head.)

The Ummah

"One early terracotta statuette from Catal Huyuk in Anatolia depicts an enthroned female in the act of giving birth, supported by two cat-like animals that form her seat (Plate 1). This figure has been identified as a 'birth goddess' and it is this type of early image that has led a number of feminist scholars to posit a 'reign of the goddess' in ancient Near Eastern prehistory. Maria Gimbutas, for whom such images are proof of a perfect matriarchal society in 'Old Europe' , presents an ideal vision in which a socially egalitarian matriarchal culture was overthrown by a destructive patriarchy (Gimbutas 1991). Gerda Lerner has argued for a similar situation in the ancient Near East; however, she does not discuss nude figurines at any length (Lerner 1986a: 147). More recently, critiques of the matriarchal model of prehistory have pointed out the flaws in this methodology (e.g. Conkey and Tringham 1995; Meskell 1995; Goodison and Morris 1998). In all these critiques the identification of such figures as goddesses is rejected as a modern myth. There is no archaeological evidence that these ancient communities were in fact matriarchal, nor is there any evidence that female deities were worshipped exclusively. Male gods may have worshipped simultaneously with the 'mother goddesses' if such images are indeed representations of deities. Nor do such female figures glorify or show admiration for the female body; rather they essentialise it, reducing it to nothing more nor less than a reproductive vessel. The reduction of the head and the diminution of the extremities seem to stress the female form as potentially reproductive, but to what extent this condition was seen as sexual, erotic or matriarchal is unclear.
....Despite the correct rejection of the 'Mother Goddess' and utopian matriarchy myths by recent scholarship, we should not loose track of the overwhelming evidence that the image of female nudity was indeed one of power in ancient Mesopotamia. The goddess Ishtar/Inanna was but one of several goddesses whose erotic allure was represented as a powerful attribute in the literature of the ancient Near East. In contact to the naked male body which was the focus of a variety of meanings in the visual arts, female nudity was always associated with sexuality, and in particular with powerful sexual attraction, Akkadian *kuzbu*. This sexuality was not limited to Ishtar and her cult. As a literary topos, sensuousness is a defining quality for both mortal women and goddesses. In representational art, the nude woman is portrayed in a provocative pose, as the essence of the feminine. For femininity, sexual allure, *kuzbu*, the ideal of the feminine, was thus expressed as nudity in both visual and verbal imagery. While several iconographic types of unclothed females appear in Mesopotamian representations of the historical period - nursing mothers, women in acts of sexual intercourse, entertainers such as dancers and musicians, and isolated frontally represented nudes with or without other attributes - and while these nude female images may have different iconographic functions, the ideal of femininity and female sexuality portrayed in them is similar.

-Zainab Bahrani, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia"

Innana

“Marijuana is quite possibly the finest of intoxicants. It has been scientifically proven, for decades, to be much less harmful to the body than alcohol when used on a regular basis (Google “Science”).”

― Nick Offerman, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living

Medicinal

The inspiration for the Joker's appearance was the character of Gwynplaine in The Man Who Laughs, a 1928 silent film directed by German filmmaker Paul Leni and based on the 1869 novel of the same name by Victor Hugo (best known for writing Les Miserables).

In the romantic drama, Gwynplaine, played by Conrad Veidt, is disfigured with a permanent grin on his face so that he will "laugh forever at his fool of a father," Lord Clancharlie (also played by Veidt), an enemy of King James II who is sentenced to death. Gwynplaine is given to a group of comprachicos, or child-sellers, who give the boy his ubiquitous look.

Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson, who created the Joker, all agreed the villain's permanent horrifying grin was inspired by Veidt's Gwyplaine in The Man Who Laughs, according to Hollywood Reporter. The Joker's swept-back hair in early Batman comic books may have also been inspired by the silent film character.

-from Newsweek magazine

Joker

Some people, well, most people just seem to show up on your life with no clear purpose. Have you noticed that? They're like dust mites. You know they're there, you just don't know what to do about them.

-Polly Horvath

The Itch

THE JOURNEY OF THE MAGIC BUS (FURTHER)

Ken Kesey had huge ambitions. His book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was an instant success upon its release in 1962.

He was already a star in 1963 and traveled from California to New York to see the Broadway opening for the play for his book. In 1964 another journey to New York was to follow – this time for a big party on the occasion of having him published his second book – Sometimes a Great Notion.

But remember the saying it’s not the destination that matters, it’s the journey? This was true in Kesey’s case.

As the author was preparing for his second trip to New York, he came up with a better idea. It was triggered by Jack Kerouac’s classic On the Road. Kesey suggested traveling from California to New York by bus. He also invited some of his friends to participate in this once-in-a-lifetime journey.

There were so many Pranksters who signed up for the mad magical journey ahead, that Kesey’s large and comfy state wagon he owned would not accommodate everyone. This was one of the greatest “happenings” he had ever organized. As the group grew in number, it was now a necessity for him to purchase the retired yellow school bus. It was a good deal as he purchased it for 1,250 bucks.

When Kesey purchased the Further, it already had some features that could accommodate a family of 12. It looked very normal. It had a kitchen, and a bathroom as well.

And about the Pranksters – this was a group of people who formed around Kesey the same year. They were known as Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, and they lived communally at the author’s homes in California and Oregon. The adventure they embarked on with the Further was wild and psychedelic. Tie-dyed, in red-white-blue clothing and with very odd behavior, this group represented the heart of the counterculture movement. They were everything that the Establishment wasn’t. This was their conscious attempt to oppose the elite and the authorities.

Kesey and the Merry Pranksters added a couple of more items on the Further. They applied a generator and a powerful sound system to it. There was also a seating platform on the top of the bus. And it wasn’t yellow anymore. The artists painted the bus in psychedelic colors and designs, hence the Further became one of the most recognizable symbols of the Hippie movement.

It did not have any Day-Glo paints as those were introduced after 1964, but the primary colors were dominant, plus the word “Sunshine” was written in blue. The peace symbols were also absent for the time being. Nevertheless, that’s how the bus got from the West coast to the East coast.

It picked its name from artist Roy Sebern, who first painted the word “Furthur” instead of “Further”. The word was placed on the destination placard and aimed to represent a one-word poem that will keep the group going even if the bus broke down.The misspelled name, though corrected, was still more fashionable.

Certainly, it was an epic journey to New York and a promise for more upcoming adventures with the Further in the following years. The Further also traveled to the Woodstock festival in 1969, which was, in fact, its final journey.

Here is another Ken Kesey story from us: Ken Kesey was part of psychedelic drugs experiments before he wrote “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” 

After that, it was parked in the swamp on Kesey’s farm in Oregon (his second home) where it decayed over the passing years. However, the memory still lives on.

From The Vintage News - Dec 23, 2016 Stefan Andrews

Funk_Illumin@ti

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