I see through my pictures

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Harlan's studio at Payne Hollow

When I am painting, or have painting in my mind, 

I see more, observe more carefully, am more sensitive... 

I see through my pictures.

I see everything as a painting. I see so much more.

Seeing things as a painter, seeing pictures.  

This is a great happiness.

It brings everything into balance and harmony.

Painting can only be done in some state of exaltation.  

It is a force that breaks through the routine of life, 

that transcends life itself.

It is exciting with boundless possibilities.

I am always painting in my mind.

Just a little solid, creative painting and the day is good.  

It brings us closer to the earth, 

makes the present moment exhilarating, 

the future hopeful.

It is a strange life when I consider it, 

how I endeavor to attain strength and clarity, 

to mold these base materials into forms which will express me, 

and my attitude, my joy and thankfulness.  

I work alone, 

who cares whether I produce anything or not, 

or who appreciates it?  

Yet I believe a good thing will not perish.

~ Harlan Hubbard

from "Harlan Hubbard and the River - A Visionary Life"

by Don Wallis

their graciousness is an invitation

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 a bell is placed across the river for visitors to ring, 

their graciousness is an invitation

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"There is a fascination about the distant tones of the bell sounding across the river.  

Who is there, with what news?  

Is it a dear friend long unseen, 

or a stranger whose coming will change the course of our lives?"

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~ Harlan Hubbard

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that secret from the river

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"Have you also learned that secret from the river; 

that there is no such thing as time?"

That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at

the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the

ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only

exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the

future.

~ Herman Hesse

from "Siddhartha"

I will be watered to my roots

A pale sun burning through the mist, 

the soft clouds barely visible in the gray, blue sky... 

Looking up the river I saw a bolt of lightning, 

an arrow from the sky that pierced the earth.

A soft rain comes down from the gray sky, 

and sullen thunder rolls into the distance.  

My spirit drinks in the rain like the plants do.  

I will be watered to my roots.

It is suddenly full summer.  

We look out from leafy trees.

The fragrance of wild grape and honeysuckle 

flowers drifts through the air.  

You enter and leave currents of it as you go along the paths.

In the leafy woods there is such contrast to the sunlight

 that the shade is like twilight, 

like going down into a deep ravine.  

The pale green of the jewel weed is ghostly... 

Then to hear the thrush singing on the hill above...

I think I saw the first green heron.  

Yes.

~ Harlan Hubbard 

from his journals, taken here from

"Harlan Hubbard and the River - A Visionary Life"

by Don Wallis

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Michelangelo spoke of his work as releasing 
"Prisoners in Stone"

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and we too, 
captured in invisible "stone"
wait for our Michelangelo to free us.  
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can you find your true identity?

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How arbitrary, the ways in which we identify ourselves.

This fan chart used in genealogy helps demonstrate this fact.

10 generations here, taking us back only to the mid-1600's, 

and in that 10th generation, 512 equal contributors to 

my genetic inheritance.  I derive my identity, and even think of myself

as being related to maybe 2 of those.

That's about 2 tenths of one percent of the total genetic influence.

511 other surnames that could equally well apply.

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How seriously we sometimes take ourselves.

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Prayers for the Earth

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For once on the face of the earth let's not speak in any language

Let's stop for one second and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines.

We would all be together in a sudden strangeness.

Fisherman in the cold sea would not harm whales

...And the man gathering salt would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire,

Victory with no survivors

Would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused with total inactivity,

Life is what it is about.

I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single minded about keeping our lives moving,

And for once could do nothing,

Perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves

And of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive.

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~ Pablo Neruda

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snug harbor

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To achieve more perfect

harmony with the river

and at the same time 

live close to the earth

... I became a shantyboater

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~ Harlan Hubbard

from Harlan Hubbard and the River - A Visionary Life

by Don Wallis

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a man and a horse

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There is a story in Zen circles about a man and a horse. 
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The horse is galloping quickly, and it appears that the man on the horse is going somewhere important. Another man, standing alongside the road, shouts, 'Where are you going?" and the first man replies, I don't know! Ask the horse!" This is also our story. We are riding a horse, we don't know where we are going, and we can't stop. The horse is our habit energy pulling us along, and we are powerless. 
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We are always running, and it has become a habit. 
We struggle all the time, even during our sleep. 
We are at war within ourselves, and we can easily start a war with others.

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~ Thich Nhat Hanh

from "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching"

art: "Summer" by Harlan Hubbard 

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longing for your giant self

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In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: 

and that longing is in all of you.

But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, 

carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest.

And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends 

and lingers before it reaches the shore.

But let not him who longs much say to him who longs little, 

"Wherefore are you slow and halting?"

For the truly good ask not the naked, 

"Where is your garment?" 

nor the houseless, 

"What has befallen your house?" 

~ Kahlil Gibran

from "The Prophet"

art: "Shantyboats at Sunrise"

by Harlan Hubbard

the art

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When I paint a landscape,

I try to paint heaven,

and my joy at being there.

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There is no artist,

living or dead,

whose work would satisfy me

as an expression of my life.

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Nothing was ever painted 

that I would like to have done.

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No one ever expressed me.

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My painting could not have been done by anyone else,

nor in the past.

It is growing more and more unique and personal.

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The beauty of the snow, 

the pleasure of seeing it

and being out in it.

To express that is the end of art.

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I would like my paintings to be as real as the rain and stones,

yet transcend reality into sublimity.

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My pictures follow their own course.

I draw the geographic form, but as the painting goes on,

there springs up a design which is unpredictable,

unconscious, and as perfect as my sense of harmony makes it.

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~ Harlan Hubbard

from his journals, taken here from

"Harlan Hubbard and the River - A Visionary Life"

by Don Wallis
art: "Crossing the River"
 by Harland Hubbard
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seeing reality? true ideas?

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There's no state in which one is seeing reality. 

WHO is seeing WHAT? 

You can only BE real. 

(And that you are always.) 

The problem exists only in thinking.

Let all false ideas go, 

that's all. 

There's no need for true ideas. 

(Since there are none.)

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 Nisargadatta Maharaj

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a more direct revelation

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Much as I admire the Christian principles and teaching, 
and the people ... who follow them,

...for myself I require a more direct revelation, 

not one that must come through so many minds before it reaches mine.  

I must have a faith that I can see and hear, 

one that I can feel without thinking or even trying to put it into words.  

It is not for anyone else, it is a personal faith.

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~ Harlan Hubbard

.from his journal, 1959


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Go deeper

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Go deeper than love, for the soul has greater depths,

love is like the grass, but the heart is deep wild rock

molten, yet dense and permanent.

Go down to your deep old heart, and lose sight of yourself.

And lose sight of me, the me whom you turbulently loved.

Let us lose sight of ourselves, and break the mirrors.

For the fierce curve of our lives is moving again to the depths

out of sight, in the deep living heart.

D.H. Lawrence
photo: Kilauea lava lake

After Anna's death

He was not lonely because he had no desire to return to the past: 

"I am not one of those who enjoy thinking of their past life.  

For me, it is gone, and I have no desire to resurrect it even in thought."  

He saw the pain and imperfection of the past, and he did not want it back. 

The present was enough; it was all he asked.  

And the present provided him sufficient company.  

He was newly and generously mindful of the creatures who lived with him in Payne Hollow:  

"This hillside is common ground for me and the little wild animals who live here."  

He was attentive as perhaps never before to the presence of possum and chipmunk, 

cricket and katydid, bullfrog and dove.  

When he woke long before dawn, the night song of the katydids 

would be dwindling toward silence: 

"Each squawk you think is the last; but no, some diehard starts afresh.  

Sometimes I lie awake listening.  

Surely now the night is over, but no, not yet.

~ Wendell Berry

quoting Harlan Hubbard in

Harlan Hubbard - Life and Work

art by Harlan Hubbard

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