Michael Rastovich

I want to speak to your imagination. Please close your eyes, and open your I Am.

Find the center. Find your root. Find the root that was once a seed. Sit with the full weight of your tree, upon this seed, and listen.

Listen to the words, as they splash against your understanding, and ripple out, to the next word, lapping at your shores.

Listen to this story. A tale of a tree, that lives on an island, in the vast empty sea.

The island had risen to meet the tree, and the tree held the island fast above the waves.

The sea loves the island. The sea loves the tree.

The tree has lived with island for a thousand years. But alas, tree’s life is at end.

The tree, with its very last light, brought forth to its branches a thousand seeds. Then tree and island, slipped back into the sea. Leaving only the seeds, in the shape of a tree, now spreading away on the breeze.

The sea loves the breeze. The sea loves the seeds.

So the sea made itself, quiet and still, until its surface became as untoubled as a mirror.

The seeds now see their own light, reflected by the sea, and see, that they are seen, and see that they are loved.

The seeds come to know the what that is needed, and wake to the dream of their true desire. They speak the dream into the deep, and they are grateful.

The sea heard their wishes and prepares for them a place. A place to touch down. A place to take hold.

And the sea is grateful.

As we feel the sun upon our faces Does the sun also, feel our faces

When we feel the wind upon our cheeks
Does the wind also, feel our cheeks

When we hear the waves a crashing
Do the waves know, that we are listening

Do the stars sense our wonder

Does the storm see us trembling

I suspect that it is so.

Do not make believe
Make it be real
Draw what you desire
A picture is worth
A thousand prayers

We will never run out of weather.

Some people think of me, as a lazy slob.

I think of me, as effortless.

Life is like a picture, of travelers on a track, standing in a sunny spot within their present travail. With crevasse and spans so vast, the weather forms, and far beyond the storms, as far as one can see, a mountain shines. Lit by one same sun. The That which they are moving towards.

And so my friends, it’s plain to see, if you keep to the sunny spot within your every travail, and always remember, the That which you are moving towards, your life will always be, as pretty as a picture.

I have found to truly know a place, one must spend enough time there, to take a nap, or make a painting.

Time enough for the creatures there to call you Brother. Time enough that distance dissappears.

I have often pondered the purpose of producing art. The paint, the process, or the picture? I thought perhaps if I could perceive, which of these was most important to the perfection of a painting, it might help in my pursuit of improvement.

I found the question to be persistently perplexing and had given up asking when it occurred to me that there must be something more.

The paint, the process and the picture, are all important parts, but there is something more that makes it art. And that is play and presence.

Thank you for your patience and if you please I offer this, Art can not be made at all. Art is the result of something else altogether.

I now proclaim and present myself to be, artist en plien presence.

Artist in full presence.

Yours in Play,

Michael Rastovich

Some things, some of the very best things, can not be manifested at all. These things, these special moments, will be a surprise, a very pleasant surprise. and we will be so filled by it, that we will not think to name it. These nows to come, will not exist to even be remembered. We will tumble out laughing, and not remember why. How do we honor such things, that we can not even wish for? For these, I offer this –

And so it is soon.

I was watching, the other day, a documentary about a group of primative native people living in isolation in a very remote jungle. And of course everyone was running around naked.

Did you know, that there are native tribes that all have blurry wieners?