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| "You must become a servant of the people. When you do, you can demand their commitment in return. --Cesar Chavez" |
It has been an undeniable privilege to spend the past seven months living underneath the watchful gazes of Daniel Jaime's Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King Jr, and Nelson Mandela paintings. We know about these three icons so, instead, I will turn my lens to the relationships that we haven't heard of, yet.
Allow me to begin with Dan. I met him a few years back at a Claire de Lune (that infamous cafe on University Avenue, in North Park) anniversary party in the Sunset Temple (which is in the back of the building and has an unmistakable design of movie theatre-like seating surrounding the four corners of a dance floor. This is where I first started actively holding community space). That night, and per his usual, Dan was standing in front of his art; it decorated the hallway's walls on the way into to party. Of course, I had noticed the prolific work that included every pop star I could think of off the top of my head and, truth be told, I wasn't an immediate fan of the work. Even when, during conversation that night, I learned that Dan is a fairly new painter and re-creates most of these images with pointillism (or tiny, little dots. "Pixellated," as he might say).
A year and a half later, I walk into the front lobby of an old North Park hotel where Jon Block was holding his second "Here & Now" Convention, and I am sweetly caught off guard. My breath is taken. "Ah!" I gasp and I wander over to where Dan was standing in front of these three paintings. There, in the dark belly of a San Diego icon, boldly sitting upright on easels, three portraits proclaiming an inalienable right to occupy this here & now, to loudly proclaim - without asking for permission - that we will not go quietly into the night. With burning love and a bursting wide-open heart-chakra we will work toward what is equal, just and true.
"I have a place now!" I eagerly announce to Dan. "Can we hang this work there?" I am foaming at the mouth. The following week, last June, Cesar, Martin & Nelson came to keep me company. On many occasions, looking up and into Cesar's all-knowing eyes filled me with an immediate shot of LIGHT - a beam that punctured my ordinary, and very human, BS, sending an immediate electro-current of love, a shock!, to my heart. YES!
When Dan came to hang these paintings, he shared with me how it was, actually, Jon who had asked him to dig a little deeper, beyond just the superficial of popular culture and into the realm of world history. Then, later, while hanging these paintings in the Hive, Dan shared how Jon was the event promoter who really helped him to land within the local San Diego arts scene. "He's a catalyst," he said.
cat·a·lyst
[kat-l-ist]
lnoun
1. Chemistry. a substance that causes or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected.
2. something that causes activity between two or more persons or forces without itself being affected.
3. a person or thing that precipitates an event or change: His imprisonment by the government served as the catalyst that helped transform social unrest into revolution.
4. a person whose talk, enthusiasm, or energy causes others to be more friendly, enthusiastic, orenergetic.
And, I guess, like these men are all illustrating, it would appear that how we touch each other's lives and affect one another seems to be a human responsibility as well as an endeavor worth taking. Perhaps, the spools upon which fairy tales of gold are spun unfurl from these intersections of human interaction. Whenever I feel down or am being a little too hard on myself, I reflect on the ways that I have positively affected and sweetly touched the lives of others. And, I realize, "Hey! I'm not so bad!" ; )
In this here and now, the job is not to berate ourselves or experience envy about how others are currently showing up in the world.
Rather, it is time to look at our own selves and ask,
"How can I bee a catalyst today?"
And, it's so simple!
Smile at a stranger!
Say "hello" to someone you haven't met before.
Stop for the person with the flat tire on the side of the road.
Offer your assistance for no reason at all - just the other day, while strolling through the Gaslamp, a transient man's cane fell to the sidewalk. Walking by him, I bent down, picked it up and put it back in his hand, and all in one swift, deft motion. "It's okay," he wanted to let me know that he didn't need my help. But I wasn't doing it to help him personally - I did it because it made the most energetic sense.
You show US how you're bee-ing affects the world around YOU!
(We're counting on you.)
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| "Envisioning a Culturally Vibrant & Sustainably Just SD," a potluck merry making Mixer in the Hive, Sept. '11 |
