Immolation
("Night on Bald Mountain")

Note: After a few weeks the waking dream began to implode under the weight of an old human habit-- commenting to oneself about whatever is happening-- especially in terms of "good versus evil;" which has been engrained throughout western civilization. (Indeed programmed into our hides.) That did me in when I started dividing dream imagery into "forces" of one or t'other. This verbal dichotomy departs so drastically from the natural reality being seen that I soon crashed into apocalyptic confusion.

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The Forked Tree of Good & Evil
(On rim ridge trail between the mountains)

Note: This image represents a Cheyenne riddle (from Storm, SEVEN ARROWS) resolving the "serpent's deception" which we palefaces have swallowed. In nature good and evil are part of the same "forked tree." We have tried to split it with words setting goodor evil apart as "separate things." Evil has been distorted completely out of proportion as a big bugaboo; especially to weak-minded fundamentalists. This overloaded word is even extended to the skeletal appearance of world scenery surrounding us. Thus I have had some trouble selling paintings to Americans spooked by something supposedly "evil" about the grotesquely "totemic" imagery in them. This signifies profound alienation from nature.

Jack London's Grave (Valley of the Moon)