Question: What is CircleoftheEarthTM?

Answer: We present a visionary, positive, mystical, total, utopian, spirit-derived revolution for modern human beings, and the societies which have so much control in regulating their lives.

Central to this new society will be a new understanding of art and artists: how they are defined both socially and psychologically, and the cultural roles they will play. It will involve universal acceptance of a new earth calendar, and world-wide observance of its celebrations: global participation in spiritual, transcendent pan-events.

We know that we are "utopian." But our times measure up to this. And we know the deepest urge within every plant or animal is to continue its kind. So I don't know how "utopian" we will prove to be. We could be the "future" if some big holes are eventually filled-in to make a deeper human intelligence. Right now, I would say that CircleoftheEarthTM is a group of "special people" preparing for what is coming–and what their possible roles can and will be as it comes.

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Question: Why do you call CircleoftheEarthTM "the World-Wide Mind/Spirit Web for New Artists?"

Answer: It is our desire and goal to change how this species lives on this planet. Although it does appear that human culture is constantly changing, and more rapidly than ever now, this is change that is no change. We all know this, and if we do not, we should. We live with the same lack of harmony that we always have. And now our awareness of this is leading us to deep cynicism.

A better way to live here must come from the Spiritual: the highest, most intelligent part of ourselves. Many of us can understand this need and so we engage in some spiritual practice. And yet, we experience this deep split and lack of fulfillment. However much we do to improve as individuals, we are immersed in a culture that is antithetical, hostile even, to what is most healing for us. For this reason, not only must individuals raise their consciousness but, as importantly, our social structure must support and encourage this. It must totally change. This new order would have two aspects which can be reduced down to one: It would embrace spirituality and it would be in harmony with our planet, the Earth. That is, it would express the desire contained in our "Collective Species Consciousness"–and what is that? It's the spiritual "knowing" in all persons–that part of each of us that makes us all the same. Thus, underneath our individual differences, we all possess the same structural features that define "human": the same brain and the same anatomic/proprioceptive/sensory orientation to our environment, our planet. Thus, it is the universal spiritual experience that the human mind is capable of.

Carrying out the task of creating this new social environment, we feel, should be the task of artists, for two reasons: First, until the post-modern era, western artists were regarded as those persons who spoke spiritually for societies-at-large. "Welcome, 0 life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race," as James Joyce told us in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It was the artist's task to create physical representations, called art objects, of the spiritual in the material plane of time. From da Vinci to Dylan Thomas, artists have shown us the feelings that we know to be of Goddess, God and the Universe. This is especially true for Eastern and Primitive artists as well. Secondly, although our existing religions are also spiritual, they are all burdened by a lot of historical baggage. They are multitudinous and differ in their beliefs, leading to divisiveness. While these religions may continue to be a part of our future, what is needed here is unity and harmony. We need to go beyond individual religions and their separate and often argument-invoking texts, prophets, masters and lineages, to the Collective Species Consciousness–"the uncreated conscience of my race"--our unity that is beyond all this.

But. . . for this to work, we also need to redefine "artist." They must become New Artists. We must overcome the split between "artist" (the person) and "art object" (the work). The best model for an artist who overcomes this split, as well as SEEING Earth as a part of spirit, were, and are, shamans of indigenous cultures. The shaman, or medicine or holy man or woman, was also the first artist–who's art was not "object" but a direct expression of his/her consciousness.

So here is our plan. Right now CircleoftheEarthTM will begin as a society of New Artists. We teach the shamanic (artistic) techniques which allow gifted individuals to enter a "Religious Feeling State." Those who accomplish this may then create media which stimulate this "State" in the public at large. When enough New Artists are up and functioning–when CircleoftheEarthTM is large enough–we will begin the manifestation. We will manifest a circle of energy around our planet on the new moon before the Winter Solstice and renew this circle at each succeeding new moon. This is the meaning of "A World-Wide Mind/Spirit Web for New Artists." I explain all of this in fine detail in my two books: The New Artist and The Circle of the Earth Book.

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Question: SEEING the Earth. What do you mean?

Answer: Well, all you need to do is to be able to SEE "Earth Time." That is, I like to think of it as two different time zones: Human Time and Earth Time. All of us live and exist in Human Time and almost all of us are unaware that Earth Time even exists. That's because, in order to experience, be in, Earth Time, you have to go into an altered state of consciousness–a trance state. Also, it is very difficult to contact Earth Time when you are living where almost everyone now lives: in urban areas. Because the energy is greatly diminished.

But, if you are able to see, enter, Earth Time, you wil understand that our now almost total disconnection from it has isolated us which has made our understanding of Human Time neurotic and unwholesome.

But let's forget trance states for now and focus on some easier ways of altering our consciousnesses. There are some places that you can go to on this planet, in deserts, at mountains, etc. and it is very easy to "stop time" and SEE. Why? Because the energy, the Time is already there. That is, you can sit there and you can SEE that you are sitting in a place--and you can SEE that place for what it is: where you are sitting will shift and you will be looking at it 25,000, 50,000 or 100,000 years ago. That you have gone into a different time. You can see that energy. Such places are called "power spots." And you are IN Earth Time.

Now, if you SEE this, you can then shift in your mind back and forth from Human Time to Earth Time, Human Time to Earth Time, and you will feel the difference and narrowness of our human time perspective.

Let's say this another way. Although understanding isn't exactly the same as SEEING: The Earth is 4.6 billion years old (about). Now, if we imagine that 4.6 billion years to be one year of 365 days, then the human species does not appear until the last half of the 365th day. And all of our eight thousand year recorded history, everything, that rush of events from the settling of the Tigris-Euphrates valley to yesterday's freeway jam in the L.A. morning--all that's etched in our human consciousness identity--occupies the final 32 seconds.

Now, keep that thought in your mind and imagine you are the Earth. And, while doing so, focus upon your body–feeling the emotions and feelings this thought stimulates in you. Then, shift back to Human Time and again focus on your body and it's connected emotions and tone. Contrast the differences in these two realities. Can you experience the Reality that the human species exists in and the Reality that the Earth exists in? Do you feel and understand why we are often in conflict? Which Reality is the most meaningful to you? In which do you feel the wholest? The happiest?

Question: How would you describe Circle of the EarthTM as a religion?

Answer: We believe that all human beings are capable of knowing the divine through their own direct experience. We call this experience a "Religious Feeling State" and teach people how to enter it. Because the experience is internal, and a complex "feeling" rather than "thought," it is wordless. How then can it be communicated? The best one can do is to go into this State and allow it to evoke words that describe what one experiences. (Which is sort of what poetry is.) These words, phrases, sentences, then become religious ideals. And can then be chanted, or sung or spoken, in spiritual practices by each of us to induce and intensify the experience of the Religious Feeling State. These are things we feel all humans are capable of knowing:

1. That the universe has a reason, a purpose, a design, and that this purpose is good, beneficent, love.
2. That WE ARE ALL ONE. There is a unity beyond our differences.
3. That the earth emanates an energy. Again, although the experience of this energy is beyond words, it evokes religious ideals. Here are some of them:

One Life One Mother All
or:
This Earth, this Life, Is All Sex, All Desire
and, conversely:
This Earth, this Life, Is All Death, All Dying

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Question: What do you think about science as a vision for the future?

Answer: Science is great. Along with humor and music, the ability to understand all that we do about the physical world is one of our three most extraordinary creations. Humor of course helps us deal with what science finds out, whatever that is. And music places in our brains some vital information that science can never know. I am not a scientist and cannot talk as one. But, still, I have three perhaps scientific questions. First, I've asked a number of physical scientists this: "From your years of personally working in science and your experience of being a scientist, what have you come to feel about it in this respect? Do you feel that, someday, we will completely understand everything that's out there? That there will no longer be any mysteries to solve about whatever this physical reality is, in which we are now? Or, to put it another way, that we will reach a time when there is no more need for science?" None of the scientists I questioned, at least, felt that science would ever know it all for certain. Think it's good to remember: science continues because of what we don't know, rather than what we know.

Second, personally, this is what I would like to know: Did physical reality–the universe(s), all of it–come from somewhere? If so, from where and why? Why does it exist? A purpose to it? If so, what? Is it, like many religions teach, a test or a punishment? If so, why? Why weren't we all just put in Heaven or Nirvana? And, since we're probably just one intelligent species of millions in this, how does that purpose relate to us?

Finally, we also use science to find cures for our sicknesses. If we had seen the earth as a sacred place all along, we wouldn't have many of the diseases, mental, physical, environmental, that we have now. The future of the species is not just in our heads. It's in seeing what is real, here, the place where we live. Really making contact with the Earth's energy. Understanding that we inhabit a spiritual locale–all of it and every person. We recognize this declaration as the 11th (the Lost) Commandment:

"The Earth and all things of it are sacred. As its most intelligent creatures, you are its guardians. Thus, you shall deal with it in all ways with sensitivity and awareness."

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Question: So, what do you think we should be doing right now?

Answer: The specific actions that one takes come out of specific events. Those can be anticipated, intuited even, in a general way, but what we would have to do only can be known clearly as the moment to moment detail of events unfolds.

But there is one thing we can do. We can get together, organize, into a group. Those of us, the Special Ones, the one's who can SEE. We can get together and prepare ourselves as best we can. That is important. For whatever hope there is for bringing a New Reality--and we may not succeed--we've got to give it the best shot we can!

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