"Death of Yaweh" © 2008 by Richard Welker (This pre-2009 geometric watercolor, one of my earliest attempts to paint what I was feeling, foretells the transformation of my own image of God)There are nights when I awaken at 3:00 am full of anxiety and concern about what is happening to us. Can we even survive the ordeal we are engaged in and what we should do?A few nights ago, after lying in bed wide awake and barely breathing, I felt a strong urge to get up and do a personal journey to ...
I Am Another Yourself
Path To The HeartThese days I wake up in the dark, nightmares of people gone mad, throwing dogs and cats into bonfires, proclaiming murder the will of God. When I was a kid I played a game:“The Mormons are coming, the Mormons are coming!”My sisters screamed in terror, fled the room.I wasn’t kidding. When the Taliban blew up Buddhascarved into the sides of mountains,we said they were barbarians. What about fracking pads in Chaco Canyon? The ancient forests ...
The Great Awakening
I’ve been making phone calls lately, encouraging people here in New Mexico, USA to vote, especially for candidates who support policies on public lands that encourage the growth of renewable energy and who understand that climate change is the existential crisis of our time or any time.I’ve also been struck by how all over the world, youth are coming forward to challenge and even sue governments for violating their right to having a future at all. I refer of course to the now ...
Real News
Like so many Americans who witnessed Christine Blasey Ford give testimony of her abuse, I found myself mesmerized and triggered by the proceedings. I was horrified at the way that the highest function of advice and consent has degenerated into a self-serving spectacle of tyrannical power and gang-rape mentality, determined to confirm an alleged sexual offender, a probable perjurer, maybe an alcoholic and certainly an extreme ideologue, to the highest court in the land. I became ...
Collective Spiritual Emergency
I turned 72 this summer, my wife turned 74. She’s a writer and I’m an artist. Together we are elders. We have reached the last phase of our lives.In July we went to Australia for a six-week visit with our daughter and her husband. They live on Green Goddess Farm, a five-acre organic farm located in the Northern Rivers part of New South Wales, two hours drive inland from the east coast city of Byron Bay.Rhys and Sasha grow food, lots of it. They have tropical apples, peaches, figs, ...
Refugee
There are now more than 65 million displaced people in the world – the largest number in recorded history. In Syria, more than 13 million are refugees either within or without the country – half the prewar population! Why? Because we continue to fall for the lie our governments tell, that the enemy is "out there" trying to get us and that war, weapons and violence will protect us from the rage, terror, grief, and shame that live within our collective hearts. ...
Weinstein the Monster
I saw Frontlinelast night on PBS: Weinstein, the abuser; Weinstein, the rapist; Weinstein, the terrorist; Weinstein, the monster.I wondered, what made him a monster? Was he born that way, predatory I mean, or was he made that way or was it a bit of both. And how did he run wild for so long?Could it be that what made Weinstein the monster is what made Trump the monster, Hitler the monster, Stalin the monster? Is there a place in us where the shame, helplessness and rage that ...
Rage, Terror and Grief in America
As I read the news reports filled with rage, terror and grief, of corruption and violence, I am tempted to fall into a kind of hopelessness.When I see how many people are hurt, crying out in pain, who are invalidated, mocked and attacked for asking for a right to be heard, a right to thrive, I want to despair.I witness our institutions in a state of collapse, how the way our economic system is at war with our own constitution, how cruelty, torture, war, and the crushing of dreams has ...
The New Great Story
It’s been extremely difficult if not frightening to try to paint lately, during this incredibly potent , magical and nightmarish time. Like so many others, it is overwhelming to be witness to a time in history when the barbarians are not only at the gate, they are in the gate.The psychiatrist and visionary John Weir Perry, among others, has noted that during times of great upheaval, when the entire edifice of our shared collective belief system is threatening to crash at any moment, that is ...
The Importance of Visionary Experience
Throughout the history of mankind, shamans, mystics, artists & visionaries have recorded spontaneous encounters with the divine or the demonic. They have spoken of visions, visitations by gods, angels, supernatural beings,journeys to heavens and underworlds and ecstatic union with God. These experiences, luminescent as they are, resulted in the activation of archetypal forces so powerful that they transformed not only the individuals who had them but in some cases the entire cultural ...