Lightning in A Bottle

This past weekend, May 26th - May 29th, I attended a festival in Bradley, California called Lightning in a Bottle. LIB is an event with many layers and experiences available to attendees. Everyone that attends the festival camps there and goes to sleep and wakes up surrounded by an atmosphere filled with unity, love, and the desire to share and become better versions of one another. LIB had a musical element to it as well as a Learning Kitchen, a Marketplace, a Family Zone, Immersive Environments, Art & Lightning in a Paintcan, and my two favorite's - The Lucent Temple of Consciousness and The Village.

(Photo I took at LIB during Bomar's Lecture)

The Lucent Temple of Consciousness was a tent in the heart of the festival where you could rest your head and expand your mind listening to renowned visionaries, wisdom keeps, master teachers, healers, activists, performers and musicians. "All Temple offerings are designed to activate your body, expand your mind, and open your heart." One of the speakers that stood out to me on Saturday was Sevan Bomar - a published author and spiritual activist who works in the field of Universal Energy. At LIB, Bomar spoke about the universal language of power and the connections between sounds, shapes, and colors - the fundamental elements of the universe. 

(Scimoscope)

Bomar explained and illustrated these connections using Sciematics - images of shapes made from playing different tones because every sound has a shape and a color and every color has a sound a shape etc. These images are made using a machine called a Scimoscope which helps translate in depth patterns of sounds and shapes. Furthermore, Bomar connects the universal language of these three fundamental elements to just about everything in our world - uniting all things together. You can listen to his full lecture online here.

Sevan Bomar also founded a movement and website called Astral Quest that I recommend you exploring. Quoted from his About Us page: "Neo-Universalism [is] a system of belief conducted around the Mind, Body, and Soul of its adherents which promotes the discovery of commonality between the actual universe and all of its lifeforms. Neo-Universalism produces doctrines from the Planetary Laws, Conjunctions, Geometry, Frequency, and various factual integers." 

(The Village)

The Village at LIB had many interactive micro-environments within it where talks and workshops were given; all focusing on re-integrating humanity into our ecosystem. One of the talks that resonated with me was given by Osiris Indriya where he connected the mystical teaching of Kabbalah to our lives and how we can use Kabbalah to improve them. During our lecture on nanotechnology I brought up how nanotechnology is one of the foundations of Kabbalistic practices and how going back to the basic nano forms found in nature is how we can learn more about ourselves as people and be able to take charge of our lives. Osiris also connected nature to our divine selves and spoke about using nature as a compass to accomplish goals in our lives.

(Nanotechnology & Kabbalah)

I highly recommend attending an event such as Lighting in a Bottle where there is something available for everyone, all ages, on any wavelength and path in life. Below are a few pictures I took while at LIB that I thought related to our class and the combination of all three cultures:

(Me @ Lightning in a Bottle)

Sources:

 "About Us." Astral Quest. Web. 04 June 2016. <http://astralquest.com/about-us/>.

"After the Shift." : THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE OF POWER. Web. 04 June 2016. <http://aftertheshift.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-universal-language-of-power-sevan.html>.

"James Evan Bomar III." Speedy Deletion Wiki. Web. 04 June 2016. <http://speedydeletion.wikia.com/wiki/James_Evan_Bomar_III>.

"Lineup - Lightning in a Bottle." Lightning in a Bottle. Web. 04 June 2016. <http://lightninginabottle.org/lineup/>.

"Living Kabbalah." 10th House Light Center. 2014. Web. 04 June 2016. <http://10thhouse.org/classes/living-kabbalah>. 

Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957

"We do not always create 'works of art,' but rather experiments; it is not our ambition to fill museums: we are fathering experience." - Josef Albers

On May 6th, I visited the Hammer Museum to explore the Leap Before You Look exhibit before it ended.

(Selfie in the entrance of the exhibit at the Hammer Museum)

The first thing that caught my attention was the enormous visual timeline spreading across three walls in the entrance. Dating back to 1933, Black Mountain College in North Carolina was the first "experimental college [that] placed the arts at the center of a liberal arts education in an effort to better educate citizens for participation in democratic society." Black Mountain College gave equal attention and focus on visual arts as well as applied arts and architecture, poetry, dance, and music.

(Black Mountain College)

Similar to SymbioticA, an artistic laboratory in Australia, both were created and founded with the intention of becoming environments where people can expand their horizons and leap outside of their specific areas of study - their comfort zones - and together create things the world has never seen yet.

From everything that I saw, a few primary artists from BMC and pieces really stood out to me.

Above is Josef Albers Sanctuary piece from 1942. Josef and his wife Anni were both pioneers at BMC. As a teacher, writer, painter, and color theorist, Josef is best known for the Homages to the Square that he pained in 1950 and his innovative publication Interaction of Color that he published in 1963.

Next we have Ilya Bolotowsky and his piece titled Upright in Gold and Violet from 1945. Bolotowsky was one of the leaders of abstract art where he aimed to "search for philosophical order through visual expression embraced cubism and geometric abstraction." (The Art Sack)

(Asawa & Buckminster Fuller, 1970)                            (Untitled S.262)

Lastly, we have Ruth Asawa and her Untitled (S. 262) abstract sculpture. Her crochet nine-foot copper wire sculpture really stood out to me as it hung from the ceiling with such poise. One of her most important mentors at BMC was Josef Albers who taught classes on basic design and interactions between different colors.

I highly recommend attending this exhibit the next time it's open and available to you. After all, learning about how the different cultures are to be combined and connected not only for innovation but because that's how it's always meant to be in nature is always something I would recommend.

Sources:

 "Black Mountain College." Black Mountain College. Web. 04 June 2016. <http://archives.ncdcr.gov/Public/Digital-Collections-and-Publications/Resources-By-Subject/Black-Mountain-College>.

"Black Mountain College - Ruth Asawa." Ruth Asawa. Web. 04 June 2016. <http://www.ruthasawa.com/life/black-mountain-college/>.

"In-Gallery Performances." The Hammer Museum. Web. 04 June 2016. <https://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2016/leap-before-you-look-black-mountain-college-1933-1957/>.

"Josef and Anni Albers Foundation." Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. Web. 04 June 2016.

"SymbioticA." : : The University of Western Australia. Web. 04 June 2016. <http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/>.

"Upright in Gold and Violet by Ilya Bolotowsky." My Favorite Arts. Web. 04 June 2016. <https://theartstack.com/artist/ilya-bolotowsky/upright-gold-and-violet>.