Le Cirque d'Art Gallery Opening and Performance with music and dance to 2am. This Friday, March 20th at Collective Hardware: 169 Bowery. Art Heals*

Dreamers, Birds, & Lovers of Life,

I am coming together with a most beautiful collective to throw a benefit gathering of heAleRs, aRtists, dAnCers, aErialiSts, fAntastiC ObSERVErs, giggLers, and the SaSSiest of NYC...This Friday, MARCH 20TH from 6:30PM to 9:30PM...with an afterparty until 2am.

Collective Hardware: 169 Bowery @ Delancey, NYC

I am trying to keep my eyes strong and bring more and more art, healing, beauty, life and movement into this world. Feel alive, feel blessed, feel the power of action, know that joy matters: these are the principles we had in mind while putting together this show.

I hope to see you there. Feel free to spread the word and to bring whatever creative force you have into the room. It is an open space. My friends, comrades and I are filling the walls with art and the room with performances. There will be an open mic after the set performances, room to dance, and a place to celebrate being alive through the good, the bad, and the ugly. All you really need to bring is yourself. Starting with just your body; we promise to give you all we got.

Putting the grr back into grassroots.

Bless & Be Blessed.

//layla

**My goal in life is to expose...through everything I do. I work to create images that capture the beauty of the heart and the complex journey to protect 'it' and let 'it' shine. As the collection grows, 'it' turns into a river, bringing the viewer to a place where he or she can clearly see that the beauty of a heart exists in every living being.**

beautiful life*

beautiful life*

When faced with losing my eyesight, I look to heal my mind, body, and everything in-between...

These are images of the back of my retina upon being diagnosed with Multitocal Choraiditis, a rare eye disorder in which inflammation creates lesions on the back of the eye tissue - the most sensitive tissue in the body.

You can see in the images all the white areas of inflammation taking over the back of the eye.

I am working on healing both through natural and Western medicine.

I am also working with some Earth angels to create a benefit so I can make these treatments a reality.

I also want to be overall healthier than ever before so I can bring more art and action to the front lines.

Thanks to all of those involved in the rescue and healing mission. May I act as an Earth angel in your lives as well...

Working through to the grand finale.

//layla

Climbing PoeTree: Hurricane Season: The Hidden Messages in Water — The brightest most beautiful torch

Hurricane Season: The Hidden Messages in Water is imperfectly-perfect:
painful, powerful, visionary. It is one of the most compelling pieces of art I have ever seen.

There is a kind of bliss that comes from ignorance and another that comes from having seen and felt with eyes and heart wide-open...and finding the bliss within the layers.

The foundation of our survival is Mother Earth. Water makes up 70% of the Earth's surface and 70% of our bodies. That is no coincidence.

There are no coincidences here — yes, everything that is happening is happening for a reason.

Climbing PoeTree have spent years calculating the meaning, distilling the purpose, planning the mission. Crafting a siren's call through their art and relentless activism; bringing the same message over and over to thousands of people...

WE ARE ALIVE RIGHT NOW FOR A REASON.

again:

WE ARE ALIVE RIGHT NOW FOR A REASON.

Alixa and Niama have harnessed the power of their combined voices and vision into a compelling road map for issues at hand. They have taken the most pressing issues in this time of golden crisis and woven them, roots with hope into the fabric of solutions. You leave armed to the teeth with tools of your own, local connections, how-to guides, and a spirit ablaze.

THERE IS NO PLACE WHERE LOVE CANNOT FIND YOU.

again:

THERE IS NO PLACE WHERE LOVE CANNOT FIND YOU.

This passion must become our own and Hurricane Season has become a place where one is invited to ignite, add their own light, to join in. This is a place of community, tribe; it is a place where poetry meets action and philosophy meets resolution.

Let me tell you from my own firsthand experience, creating something organic from the grassroots with intention, precision and follow-through is no small feat. It takes the conjuring of miracles, the belief in a higher self and in an urgent purpose.

"We are living in a time of unnatural disasters ya'll." The words come out of both of their mouths simultaneously and it is beautifully propelling.

Their poetry is percussive, it hammers, it bellows, it builds momentum.
It breaks you open and it finds in that openness the precious seeds of life and the power of individual and community spirit.

This performance will take you deep — far beyond being entertained.

If there is one lesson I see so clearly here, it is the fruits, the gifts, the knowledge and the joy that comes from following through. Be ready to jump into the deep end of everyday, see what is happening with a sharp eye, follow through and watch something snow ball. Hurricane Season is growing and at a rapid pace.

When I look back through the catalogue of experiences I have had while traveling the world, my journeys were always based upon documentation, which in turn has grown/solidified into the mission of creating an image bank for revolutionaries. On the tour, Sallome announced that all of my images are there for free usage to those of you working in media, visual arts, and activism — just contact me, and as long as you have a mission that I feel reflects unity, progress and peace, I am happy to share all that I have.

I felt honored and privileged to document this illuminating event in our herstory. Climbing PoeTree's work has been received by sold-out crowds and enthusiasm across this land. In fact, Alixa and Niama received the Common Folk National Award for Community Activism just a few weeks ago in Washington, D.C.

They should be supported, hailed, and inhaled in our light. Support by our action. Make time in your new year to listen to their words, get the album, and see the show when you can!

As one rises, we all rise. As we reach out our hands to each other, there is only more support, more room for letting go, more space to take flight.

I learned and grew endlessly from documenting the work of these women and the amazing group of humans they have brought together to yield a vision:

Hurricane Season: The Hidden Messages in Water

With gratitude and respect.
Bless and be blessed.

love is all over the place — there is nothing wrong with your face...

Late night, working all night again, working all week long. almost finished creating the sales page. ah, finding ways to fund the revolution within from without...and vice versa. half of us are dying from a lack of means while the other half are dying from a lack of meaning...trying to create some sort of win-win - something for us all...here late at night....

i was seeking inspiration or distraction. i drew this card. i liked the message. thought i would share...

a toast to the rebel in us all.

oxox

Osho Zen Tarot : Major Arcana

4. The Rebel

The Rebel
People are afraid, very much afraid of those who know themselves. They have a certain power, a certain aura and a certain magnetism, a charisma that can take out alive, young people from the traditional imprisonment....

The enlightened man cannot be enslaved - that is the difficulty - and he cannot be imprisoned....Every genius who has known something of the inner is bound to be a little difficult to be absorbed; he is going to be an upsetting force. The masses don't want to be disturbed, even though they may be in misery; they are in misery, but they are accustomed to the misery. And anybody who is not miserable looks like a stranger.

The enlightened man is the greatest stranger in the world; he does not seem to belong to anybody. No organization confines him, no community, no society, no nation.

Osho: The Zen Manifesto: Freedom from Oneself: Chapter 9

Commentary:
The powerful and authoritative figure in this card is clearly the master of his own destiny. On his shoulder is an emblem of the sun, and the torch he holds in his right hand symbolizes the light of his own hard-won truth.

Whether he is wealthy or poor, the Rebel is really an emperor because he has broken the chains of society's repressive conditioning and opinions. He has formed himself by embracing all the colors of the rainbow, emerging from the dark and formless roots of his unconscious past and growing wings to fly into the sky. His very way of being is rebellious - not because he is fighting against anybody or anything, but because he has discovered his own true nature and is determined to live in accordance with it. The eagle is his spirit animal, a messenger between earth and sky.

The Rebel challenges us to be courageous enough to take responsibility for who we are and to live our truth.

giving thanks...

And each person is such an infinite mystery, inexhaustible, unfathomable, that it is not possible that ever you can say that "I have known her," or, "I have known him." At the most you can say, "I have tried my best, but the mystery remains a mystery." In fact the more you know, the more mysterious the other becomes.
Then love is a constant adventure....

*I am thankful for love: in my life and all around me.

thank you to every person and every pool of possibility that has been my life.

thank you for the shared heart-ache and struggle, thank you for the laughter and the moments in between all the big moments - all the moments that count seem to be the ones we are not counting.

thank you to all the revolutionaries who have been fighting the good fight with gratitude in their hearts year round. thank you to all of the people not going shopping tomorrow. thank you to all of those finding god before and in themselves without needing the ugly stories of our history books to make this day something special. just a day to give thanks.

I am thankful for my new president: watch this video - it makes me thankful.

I am thankful for family, for community, roots, growth, for everyone I have ever known and have yet to know.

I am thankful for the breath in my lungs and my desire to evolve. I am thankful for morning and for night...and for the light that seeps from us while we are sleeping.

I am thankful that we always can move into what is happening with fresh eyes. I am grateful for the many rebirths I have had in this single lifetime.

Today I pray for all living beings, for Mother Earth and Father Sky, for the best and the worst in us. I pray that the glimpse of global joy that we have recently received continues forward into a world that learns to celebrate together with as much passion and drive as we have learned to fight against each other.

Everything is waiting for us to dream it - everything is waiting for us to dare it. Everything is everything and anything is better than nothing. so be thankful. just be greatful.

I tell myself this daily. And to all those I have hurt - to the friendships in peril - with sunita, ziad and allison - so much healing is needed. time that we don't seem to have or be able to catch-up with. well, the time is coming. I am so grateful. so thankful for what we share...even when we have our differences. even when we are at our worst cause I am in it for the long haul - for better, for worse, in sickness and in health.

I am grateful.

oxox