Wow. I ain't got nothing.

Luckily, Black Elk does.

Black Elk had a shaman curse. He foretold and then lived what he saw would happen to his people. And his book - or what he spoke that was later turned into Joseph Neihardt’s book - has helped me along my path to keep the hoop ever-center in my life. And because of that I have been able to do good work that I feel contributes to our society through my natural gifts.

I know I have been absent from this, dear reader, but it is only because I have been busy building my absurdist comedic fantasia FAILED STATE. Yes, we made a feature length film on our phones. And we are so close to the finish line. We even have a poster thanks to Marc Fishman. But it has required a singleness of purpose to drive the train while building the track. (Especially when you are also learning how to do drive it and build it as you do both!!)

But the contributions from my paid subscribers have literally helped me gas up the tank or fill the fridge, or give a coffee to one of collaborators who are working for way past their hourly wage. I promise you will be the first among everyone to be able to watch.

But it isn’t just that which has made me silent here. I have been gathering. Because of the obvious. The unsaid. The things we feel. The cascading illusions and shattering, et al.

In some ways, I have been prepared for this time my whole life. For some reason I have been drawn to absurdity during oppression in the literary and cinematic arts. I have been steeped in Russian abstraction, early twentieth century and beyond, all the good stuff navigates around oppression in elegant turns of fancy. We will need our absurdists more and more these days. And I for one am glad I now know why I have stayed true to the cause like a Jedi clown in exile from what is trendy all these years.

But I promised you a poem prayer by Black Elk. If you can’t add color to what it feels like to be squeezed between two colliding narratives - in other words now - then us artsy-fartsy folks should lean heavy on the visions of our other shaman.

So I’ll leave you with these words from Black Elk spoken in 1930 and get back to work.

Hey! Learn to hear my feeble voice.
At the center of the sacred hoop
You have said that I should make the tree to bloom.

With tears running, O Great Spirit, my Grandfather,
With running eyes I must say
The tree has never bloomed.

Here I stand, and the tree is withered.
Again, I recall the great vision you gave me.

It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives.
Nourish it then
That it may leaf
And bloom
And fill with singing birds!

Hear me, that the people may once again
Find the good road
And the shielding tree.

- Black Elk

My partner in crime, Mikey Philbrick and I right before the first screening of FAILED STATE. Looking like the cinema pirates that we are.

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