///LIFE///

"As human beings we play follow the leader, but there's no leader. We're all pretending that we know what life is all about, where life is going, where this country's going, & where the war is going. We all wanna pretend that we know this is a great candidate, or this is a great direction for our country. But the reality is we know so little it's shocking, about everything, about our past, about what life is. I mean, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? We're just going through it & no one wants to stop & say, "What is this? I feel untethered but still connected to everything all the time. I'm driving this fuckin' metal box with rubber wheels over these mountains" & don't even think about the fact that this fuckin' planet is just flying around the sun, & then sometimes those things collide. There's the theory of Earth 1 & Earth 2. The Earth 1 is that that's how the moon was created--we were hit with another fucking PLANET?! Like woahhh, a fuckin' PLANET's comin' at you. That's real, that's real shit."

"So what do you think's gonna happen in 2012?"

"We're building toward some sort of an event. Whatever it is, I don't know. Whether it's a conscious event, whether it's a physical event, like the actual planet's gonna go through an event, or whether or not those things are all connected. I mean, that's a very real possibility too, the idea of the Earth is this living organism just like we're living organisms. The Earth is one too, & it's aware of all this & any changes & maybe it's intelligent & it's evolving its intelligence. Maybe it's evolving just as we're evolving technology. Maybe the Earth is evolving its consciousness. Maybe it's a constant process for everything, not just human beings but for maybe the planet itself. It's very possible. I mean, who's to say it's not? Just because it can't express itself in English language or through something that we can stick into a DVD player, that doesn't mean it's not conscious."

"I heard about you from this radio thing you did about DMT experiences.."

"At one point in time during the trip, my brain went to a bad place, I started thinkin' negative. Like maybe I was worried about this being dangerous & maybe I'm gonna die. There was a moment where everything went dark. It got real weird, & all the patterns changed to this dark black & dark green color. It was like a warning. & then I realized.. that I just said to myself: 'no, this is all bullshit, just relax, relax, you're just creating negativity for no reason, just relax' & when I thought that & when I gave up & when I gave into it.. *boooogh* everything exploded in beauty again, insane beauty all around me, instantly. & I was like OH MY GOD, that's the answer, that's literally LIFE. Literally, negative thinking & positive thinking defined to me, explained to me in this beautiful show. It changed me forever, & I'll never look at anything the same way again. I know there's tangible proof, to me at least from my experience, that energy is real.. that postitive & negative energy & that love is real, that the connection that all human beings have is real. It's a real thing. We just can't quite feel it all the time. We can't write it down on paper & quantify it. We can't put it in a package & you open it & there it is, but it's still real. There's some sort of crazy connection."

- Joe Rogan.

///WISH///

golden rose the color of the dream i had

not too long ago

misty blue & the lilac too

a never to grow old

there you were under the tree of song

sleeping so peacefully

in your hand a flower played

a waiting there for me

i had never laid eyes on you

a never before this timeless day

but you woke & you smiled my name

you stole my heart away

...

the sky was filled with a thousand stars

while the sun kissed the mountains blue

& eleven moons played across the rainbows

above me & you

Nebulae by NASA & flower by me.

"did anyone else see that sound?"

///TINY///

blue jean baby, L.A. lady

seamstress for the band

pretty eyed, pirate smile

you'll marry a music man

ballerina, you musta' seen her

dancin' in the sand

& now she's in me

always with me

tiny dancer in my hand

...

lookin' on, she sings the song

the words she knows

the tune she hums

...

but oh how it feels so real

lyin' here with no one near

only you & you can hear me

when i say softly, slowly

hold me closer tiny dancer

Photographs by various persons including Cameron Clark, Niassa MacKnight, Ixchel Lara, Jaime Luna, Imani Waddy.

///BIOPHILIA///

"Welcome to Biophilia: the love for Nature in all her manifestations, from the tiniest organism to the greatest red giant floating in the farthest realm of the Universe. With biophilia comes a restless curiosity, an urge to investigate & discover the elusive places where we meet nature, where she plays on our senses with colors & forms, perfumes & smells. The taste & touch of salty wind on the tongue. But much of nature is hidden from us, that we can neither see nor touch, such as the one phenomena that can be said to move us more than any other in our daily lives--Sound. Sound harnessed by human beings delivered with generosity & emotion is what we call Music. & just as we use music to express parts of us that would otherwise be hidden, so too can we use technology to make visible much of nature's invisible world. In biophilia, you will experience how the three come together: nature, music, technology. Listen, Learn, & Create. Travel the cosmos lying at your fingertips, touch the galaxies & move through their three dimensions. Discover the different song apps as they are introduced into the constellations & explore their extra features. & should you feel lost in space, you can always use the musical compass icon to take you home. Now, forget the size of the human body, remember that you are a gateway between the universal & the microscopic. The unseen forces that stare the depths of your innermost being, & nature who embraces you & all there is. We are on the brink of a revolution that will reunite humans with nature through new technological innovations. Until we get there.. prepare, explore, Biophilia."

- Björk.

Hilther Hills, NY Sunrise 6:52am
Eric Cahan

All photographs & drawings by me (except the one captioned above) & all subjects by nature.

..there was this reality of biophilia I experienced this past trip to the Philippines,

presented ever so clearly.

You can see it in my eyes as I feel it in my heart:

this new life, this new love, this new light*

///EMO///

A bit of 4 a.m. free writing (rambling about I, I, I) on being inherently emo:

circa 2006? at the hippie hotel, on & in ecstasy, with a roomful of familiar strangers

Even after all those trips to the mountains then to the valleys, up to the sky then down to earth, even after plateauing into a mixed state of sober moderation & abstinence, & by doing so ridding of the extreme lows that so scared me, I still find that the emotion of sadness resonates with me most, & I believe it likely always will. This is not to be confused with something emo & pitiful but rather merely how it is. I feel as if the array of human emotions is comparable to drugs, & different people have their own personal preferences. Drug-wise, sure I did uppers, but I found downers, dissociatives, opiates, & psychedelics were more suited to my own persona. I could never feel comfortable while high on uppers, there was always this vague plaguing thought of paranoia, of disgust, this feeling of dirtiness, & a definite feeling of fakeness. It was never pleasant for me to feel too distant from who I was. I was never a loud, hyper, extroverted type, so to do drugs that promoted that wasn’t exactly fitting. I’d rather kick back, observe, listen. Adverse effects are what I experienced on uppers: instead of feeling like a superhero as others did, I felt small & insecure, awkward to a fault, & dreading the next hit. Everything besides uppers made me feel most at home: carefree, content, in love, in lust, & anticipating the next hit. Emotion-wise, sure I experience happiness & sure I can get pretty fucking angered at times but I find that sadness in particular is something characteristically me. Being happy is just not something I’ve become fully accustomed to feeling yet, though of course I don’t mind it, & being angry is something very fleetingly liberating then immediately tends to evoke feelings of guilt, remorse, & weakness. Books, films, & songs that make me want to cry torrentially or contemplate suicide are books, films, & songs I am drawn to & remember forever, they make me feel alive, that I’m not alone. When I used to get depressed really often, I could write for days & days & days, & every single piece would be of profound importance & an unparallelled skill. It’s not the same being happy & recording all the happy things I did in a day, it all seems so surface-based, & I'm used to digging deeper. I used to believe happiness was an effort to achieve & to be sad was our natural state. Now, looking back, I understand that it was much more difficult dealing with a seemingly helpless depression & being happy is so much easier. Or maybe I’m saying that sadness is easy to attain but hard to deal with, while happiness is hard to attain but easy to deal with.