On the rocks where four corners meet

There is a stone that doubles as a seat,

Where thinkers go to sit and think

Where a cactus grows without a drink

Where people flee when pushed to the brink

Where sand grinds the stone flat as it sinks.

Planted seeds grow beneath bare feet

So with the flowers we plant grain and wheat,

Our harvest sweet we glean with who we meet

As nature changes season without defeat,

We are blessed to live lives of significant soil

To have this ground to sacrifice our lives in toil,

To grow as roses blossom in planted gardens

The light shines from a heart that never hardens.

The inch worm crawls for his new home,

The caterpillar builds a chrysalis dome,

But the butterfly flies over top of it all

Never remembering when it was so small

Or that there was a branch before the fall

Now surrenders its will to natures call.

Jesus Christ is way better
Than the simple words of this letter.
So thank you Lord for hope for the future
That the love you share will end the torture
Of every human soul trapped in bondage—
In the storms of life let there be no shortage
Of your grace we can never take for granted,
As we remember the salvation we’ve been handed
In suffering and pain when seeds are planted,
This is the faith and comfort God demanded
When angels sent to watch over us
Become the love we now discuss.
So we must rise above worldly turmoil
To remember we grow from sacred soil,
And though some will say they own the land
We pray good Lord and reach up our hands
That you watch over the dust and all the sands
That blow through time to help us understand
That we are simple children of the light
So please good Lord let us rest tonight.
And when we wake up in the morning
Let us rise with the strength to fight,
As the battle may come without warning
But still we wish to do what is right.
So we offer up this prayer for peace
That someday soon all wars will cease,
And the prisoners will be released
As we remember the brave deceased,
Who died for love let their pain be eased
For their sacrifice good Lord be pleased
That the hope you give us gives us the power to dream
To live in the current of this running stream,
Where your love saves us from being dragged down
Beneath earthly waters where so many drown—
Lift up our spirits with the faith to believe
The unrest of the world your love will relieve
The pain in the hearts of those still yet to find peace
Who will rise to the task and wheels will grease
The locomotive of life bent down on our knees
So we may live in peace like the trees in the breeze.

Standing by the water
The future seems a distant vision
Now that we are not overcome by emotion.
Lost in laughter
We are connected to the beauty
Like thick moss clings to the trees
On the rocks, water washes over our feet
Alive in the cool stream
The sun is warm on our fair skin,
Your son oohs and ahs to get
Over that log or into that dress,
This is for love without regret
Your hair is a mess,
That’s how it looks best
While you’re holding his hand
Your body moves without rest,
So we are blessed to share this land
This earth this breath, the heartbeat
Eternal here in this moment our chests
Pressed together without retreat—
The flow of energy grows
Between us here in this gorge
Where boulders stacked centuries ago
Hold the agua where our souls merge,
Me of many races mixing
Here with Italiano and Mexicano,
The stream brings our hearts racing
Through the sound flowing bravo
As our love learns to swim,
The young one falls in and screams
But you pick him up and laugh with him
Naked laughing in the light of dreams;
He grins from ear to ear
Showing his new teeth
Excited by feelings of fear
Safe in your arms of belief,
He explores the new world’s order
Understanding the depths of relief
We experience in the cool brook
Rushing past our feet as we exchange a look.

The home page has been made easier for visitors who don’t already have Silverlight, and the Photo Book announced last month has a new page with ordering info.

– Bill

There is a 21 page photo book at Shutterfly.  Take a look and comment on it.

http://community.shutterfly.com/gallery/post/start.sfly?postId=/gallery/1/post/GMGDJgybtGjNq4cgQPAnSO

– Bill

Love has found me.  Now the world is clear to see, I feel the intensity of its heartbeat beating in my own chest.  Two together as one, we breath the same air.  Loving moving bodies sqeeze each other tight.  There is something more between us.  There is the will to wait.  To listen and hear the sounds that leap from our mouths in the heat of passion.  To become a care giver with the utmost concern for your lovers well being.  You are turned on by the compassion you see in your lovers eyes.  The future melts into an unkown mystery now filled with new possibilities.  Where what we search for is what we find, there is a spirit that comes over us.  We move as one.  There are subtle signs.  There is the will of a creator watching over our heads.  The feeling is unstoppable as a freight train with no brakes.  But I am not overwhelmed.  Instead I feel free.  Like there is the chance that anything could happen now, and all my dreams and desires can be fulfilled.  I am unafraid to walk out into the world and sing out.  This glorious song of love and freedom.  The freedom of lovers to give.  Love born in the heart, mouth, and mind, that grows into new things every time we arise.  This is my world now.

The city is filled with pollution.  Corporate logos and advertisements beneath a barcode sky—people walk the streets with skeleton faces.  It is a time of great strife.  This time of great strife is overcome by the civil rights movement.  The civil rights movement leads to the tree of life, the tree of many faces, and unimaginable prosperity.  It is a time of plenty leading to scientific advancement and achievement.  The discovery of the atom bomb, the moon landing, Dolly and Polly (the sheep that were cloned), DNA, and the building blocks of life, lead us into the age of computers.  With computerization people stop learning from books and each other, sitting in cubicles, staring at computer screens, isolated from the rest of the world.  People become separated.  This compartmentalization leads to alienation.  Our children staring into television screens isolated even from themselves, watching themselves melt into the couch.  This alienation leads to the carving of the world with roads, the destruction of nature, and Mother Nature reaching out for help.

This painting is a reminder that we are care takers of the earth.  It is a warning that we must examine the excess and wealth we have gained.  We must be brave like the people who marched us into prosperity, or we are in danger of destroying the world.  We are in danger of reverting back to the burning city.  Sublimnalities is a prophesy of our uncertain future.  It shows us where we’ve been and where we’re going.  It gives us the ability to put our everyday lives in perspective of the history that brought us here.  If humanity is to succeed and survive, we must stop the waste, the pollution, the alienation, and realize that our computers and scientific achievements are only good if we use them as tools of progress, to bring people together with nature, and preserve our heritage by caring for our planet and each other.

Techtonic Shift, and Meteor Over the Indian Ocean are both part of a story of global disasters.  I have been watching the TV shows The Universe and Mega Disasters and it makes me look at the world from a different perspective.  We are such small creatures when seen in relation to the vastness of the universe, and this planet we live on spinning around the sun is so susceptible to drastic change from a massive volcanic explosion or asteroid impact.  Ultimately we have little control over the fate of our planet, so we must live our best possible lives every moment, because we never know how long we really have.  So for me these paintings are not just beautiful because they look like natural phenomena, but they remind me to live in the moment taking nothing for granted.  It is in this irony of a beautiful disaster that I find the meaning of life.  The thought of a future death compels me to create because someday I will not be able to create anything. 

Meteor Over the Indian Ocean is one of my favorite paintings.  It is one of the most successful pieces of Gravitational Art.  The dark lines in the sky, the movement in the waves, the blending of the colors in the meteor and in its tail, and the large cracks betweeen the water and the sky, make it an exemplary piece. 

The new look on the Home page uses technology called DeepZoom, which is part of the new Siverlight 2 beta release from Microsoft. Please try this out and leave me comments with your feedback.

Since Silverlight 2 is not officially released, the documentation is sketchy so I had more than the usual problems trying to find out how things work.  I owe a great deal to the other professionals who shared their knowledge and helped me out.  Following their example, I’m making the source for this page available for download at: http://erikwhite.com/source/GravartIndex.zip 

Feel free to use whatever is helpful. The source does not include the deepzoom data, which is a separate topic you can find at: http://silverlight.net/.

update posted 10/30/2008

Since I originally posted this, Silverlight 2 has been released and the web site has been updated to the release version so I’m posting that source too, which you can download at: http://erikwhite.com/source/GravartIndex3.zip