(All images by The Drifter)
“Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me / I’m not sleepy and there is
no place I’m going to.” – Bobby D.
Since the enigmatic being who sometimes calls himself “The Drifter” shall turn 59 years of age in two days from today, and has already had a stroke (FULLY recovered at every level), he wishes to prove that he can still levitate.
The evidence for this amazing fact is included in the photos which come with this column.
If anyone tries to sue him over the reliability of this, the Drifter is prepared to act as his own attorney, call himself as a witness, and testify with his hand upon a stack of Bibles that no AI nor anything like AI was used in the creation of these pictures nor have they been messed with in any way whatsoever.
Many have said that Rembrandt, Vincent, and Frida painted themselves so often because they couldn’t afford models etc. etc. etc.
The Drifter does not believe that for a moment. (Not everything can be explained by money or the lack of it.)
The Drifter believes these great artists painted themselves so often because they believed Jesus when Jesus said: “The kingdom is within you.” And also when he said (joyfully): “Take up your cross and follow me!”
The good life is not waiting somewhere up around the bend; it is not on a billionaire’s yacht; it cannot be found on the “dream coasts” exclusively; and it does not involve material possessions, of any kind, at all.
Jesus really meant what he said.
“The KINGDOM is WITHIN YOU.”
Or: “THE kingdom IS within you.”
You too (if you try to) can (of course) levitate.
In your very own way.
The Drifter
Saragun Springs 
Hi Drifter
Amazing photos! You are off your feet! I like the out of focused blur. Blur photos are interesting. The camera makes the audience search for the photographer’s intentions. You have to study them.
There is something joyful, especially in the second picture. Crazy how the first two look almost alike. That would be hard to do with about the same posture and height off the ground. But after further study you can see they are different, besides the mask.
It’s almost like you have captured different aspects of your spirit. The last one you did with the light and reflection is pretty wild. Excellent creativity and abstractness at work.
What you said about the kingdom is true. Arriving at the shores of some distant place on a billionaire’s yacht sounds awful, almost demonic, when compared to Jesus’ kingdom. Maybe this is what causes so much anxiety and strife? The clawing to get things and status, then finding it’s an empty room.
These grand structures people live in–don’t mean a lot. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. It would be nice to have the kingdom inside you. Some people are like this and they are the shining lights. They might have a mop bucket or be behind the wheel of an Uber. The world likes to label people by their occupation to lift up to some false idolatry, but mostly it wants to tear people down.
People could have this entire glorious kingdom inside them. It would be rare to find this in wealthy people. It’s the trade they make, but the masses of poor people do it too.They reject the kingdom for the rich and alluring currency of sin.
When the rich man asked Jesus what he could do to serve him. He was distressed when Jesus said, give up your riches and follow me.
Great thoughts and pictures!
Christopher.
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CJA
Thanks for such great, and poetic, prose, on both these photos, and these ideas. Such pictures can only be made at certain times, of course. Other times, just as often, I’m in a horrid, down mood and can hardly move. Much less leap upward and manage to capture it with a piece of technology. As stated previously, doing it a lot and then selecting the best of the best is the absolute key to my methodology. I have created dozens of photos of myself “levitating” – only a very, very few are worth sharing with the world. But the physical jumping around is great for improving mood, or for celebrating a good mood!
And of course, these pictures are ILLUSTRATIONS, in the old-fashioned sense of the word. In other words, visual images that are meant to interact with, and enhance, language texts. The first books did not only include words, they included pictures along with the words. Such was also true of William Blake’s poems, as it was true of Charles Dickens’ novels or Mark Twain’s travel books and novels. The internet, in many ways, has not brought us forward, it has brought us back to origins. Like everything else in the world, the internet contains the best of the best AND the worst of the worst.
You are not just an artist, you are, truly, a sage, someone with esoteric spiritual knowledge, someone with deep, religious intuitions, a realistic mystic or a mystical realist. In other words, an uncanny person!
D
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Hello Drifter
Yes, you still have your hops. I’ve been pretty much cemented to the earth since day one, but you still have lift.
Jesus was right, and we have always had everything we need–but some just have to have more. Consciousness is a tremendous thing. We are fooled by the idea that billions of things mean that one is not special. Yet the Universe dies over and over again. And there has yet to be proof that there is anyone but us. That says a lot–but I do not know what it means.
Have a cup of mushroom tea and a jelly or three, you have been busy for the past eight days.
Leila
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Leila
You are absolutely right that there is no proof and right to point out that there is no proof. Sometimes I wonder how everything which is here, got here, if Someone, or Something, didn’t CREATE it. For me it all comes back to literature (scripture is literature) – like a truly great author (like you) creating their own universe, I often see God as the Author of the Universe (and unknowable, like Shakespeare). Scientists say The Big Bang, etc., but then I want to know who set off the Big Bang. Eight billion people, and all with their own personalities, and souls (when you look in their eyes, of course, you can often see the soul), and all the animals, too, plus everything else…it seems like all this must’ve been MADE – not random happenstance. If it is random happenstance, it’s all so wildly gigantic and unbelievably various and huge that it seems to be pantheism. The question of pain is another matter. Maybe God is not all good, or not in the way we think of as “good” (maybe God includes evil, too). I think taking anything for granted is probably more wrong than anything else. The “righteous,” so-called Christian running around pointing fingers is just as ridiculous as the rabid, academic, scientific atheist telling us all it’s utterly meaningless (which doesn’t do anyone any good, and also, cannot be proved)…
But I do surely believe that the number one “sin” of our current society is looking outside yourself for fulfillment. It does not come from “out there,” it comes from “in here.”
I saw a sign the other day, very simple, and everywhere around here: “PLAY SLOTS! WIN BIG!” What a con job it all is!
The D
PS Your writing = “LEVITATION” at the highest levels!
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PS
Leila
Since I brought up the subject of pain (since it was left out of The Drifter’s column for today), I just want to say that, regarding my own pain, every single little bit of it is what has MADE ME WHAT I AM (for good and/or ill). It never feels like it (at the time, while you’re going through it), but later, when I look back, I always see that there was a reason for the pain, and the reason was, and is, making me ME. Writing is the best example. I never did anything harder or more difficult for years; until, suddenly, all that pain, frustration and struggle really started bearing fruit when I was 46 years of age (when I turned into a poet without even meaning to, but suddenly knowing it).
These issues about pain are items upon which no one can speak for anyone else, AT ALL. All we can do is offer our own original perceptions, as if they were our most important experiences, which THEY ARE. For me, it’s not supposed to be easy, and only the hard-earned things, like writing, are worth it. Seems like this society is always telling everyone they’re supposed to be “HAPPY” and that they need to BUY things (property, possessions, vacations, etc.) in order to do that. What a load of crap!
“D”
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Thanks for an uplifting post, Dale. And best birthday wishes. mick
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Thanks, Mick!
Happy to be here when I consider the alternative! (Although I do also have to add that I’m ready to go when they tell me it’s time…)
D
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