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Head Tales

Casting Dark Shadows #2

Grand Providentia United

Chapter 2

~ Wicked Babies ~

Jesus said, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” Luke 23:34

And maybe the Almighty Father did forgive them, but I didn’t. Even as an eight-year-old boy, I was convinced that they knew what they were doing, and they did it anyway. The life story of Jesus Christ that I was taught during those many hours of indoctrination into the Catholic religion, stirred in me an enormous internal conflict. I’m sure the reaction I had to the story is fairly common among children when they learn how Jesus’ life ended. However, when I began to internalize the teachings, I am certain that I was too young to understand that the “they” in Luke’s passage did not equate to ‘we’ in my life story. In a single misstep – a naive misinterpretation – I accepted an overwhelming amount of guilt and a huge burden to make recompense for the unspeakable atrocity we committed in the crucifixion of Christ. I embraced the idea that, ‘We knew exactly what we were doing, and we did it anyway’. Here was this miraculous human being who taught love and forgiveness, healed his brothers and sisters, openly accepted sinners and saints alike, and we decided he should be tortured and killed for daring to be different from the rest of us. I became secretly enraged by all of this. I focused the magnitude of that rage inward. It’s so strange to think that I identified more with the teachings of Jesus than I did with the teachings of my grade-school teachers, and because of that, I nearly destroyed my capacity to identify with either school of thought. This is when I started to wonder about the blackest black.

The troublesome thing about childhood wonder – it can lead you a long way down a path in one direction or another, and due to inexperience, you might arrive at a place of new understanding, a place where you’re no longer wondering about that specific thing, but you find yourself hopelessly lost about every other thing. I’ve learned that the distance between absolute black and the brightest white is relative to the number of gradations on a gray scale your current senses are able to perceive. Everything comes down to life experience. When I first began wondering about the blackest black, and when I started making my plans to challenge the unholiest evil, I was grossly inexperienced. Could I have used the word innocent here, instead of inexperienced? Absolutely not. There exists a similar ‘gray scale’ between innocence and guilt that I’m not ready to explore at this point in the story, and besides, one of the very first lessons I learned in catechism was that we humans are all guilty at birth. Original sin exempts us from innocence. If there is a completely neutral gray, a tone that is precisely centered between the blackest black and the purest white, and we insert the equivalent of that gray on the scale between guilt and innocence, the church teaches that we are already closer to guilt than we are to innocence, even at the moment of birth. It’s a bit of dogma that I’ve never been able to come to terms with. It seems unfair that the human race will never be free from original sin – and furthermore, never be eligible for a complete collective redemption. But I guess that’s where the story of Jesus Christ intersects with the story that I’m telling you now.

Down the Tube

The story of Jesus sparked in me a black/white obsession, but there were many other stories that fueled it into an internal raging inferno. So many stories of heroic avengers doing the right things, following the right paths, and coming out clean and righteous on the other side of their trials and tribulations. From the Holy Bible there was the story of David and Goliath, from contemporary literature there was Frodo Baggins from the Shire, and from Hollywood there was Andy Dufresne from the Shawshank State Penitentiary. I was disappointed in God’s failure to intercede on our behalf and infuriated with the devil for leading us so far astray. I vowed to avenge Jesus of Nazareth and every other human being that had ever been bullied, tortured, maimed or destroyed at the behest of Satan and his horde of demons. I would willfully confront the Prince of Darkness and demand full accountability. A disobedient speck of stardust countering the darkest forces of the Universe.

We all have our stories to tell, and I’m committed to telling you this one. If you appreciate the entertainment, please consider leaving a tip in the jar on the Donate*Contact page. Every small donation will help towards getting me settled into Savannah and ready for classes starting on September 11th. Thank you for your consideration!

Head Tales

Casting Dark Shadows #3

Grand Providentia United

Chapter 3

~ Curiosity Could Kill the Kid ~

When the pendulum swings toward angst, I am in the pit. To ride the pendulum back out of the pit, I must summon forth and exercise heartfelt serenity. When I was a child, I found it almost effortless to initiate, fluctuate, and regulate my spiritual energies, largely because it seemed to occur naturally. I would be completely bummed out in one minute and then entirely elated in the next. I was thrilled when we kids found a long-forgotten railroad bridge in the woods across the street from my house. It had deteriorated to the point that its wooden cross beams were seemingly only held together by the corroded steel girders and rusty tracks the workers had so long ago spiked into them. The trestle over the river had a short span and an even shorter height – its rails were perhaps only twenty feet above the surface of the shallow flow. Although there were some jagged piles of dangerous looking debris down below the span, crossing it was probably not a matter of life and death. But death was certainly not out of the question either. At least that’s the argument my dad would have used to scare me straight if he found out I was crossing that rotted bridge. At the age of seven, with three of my best friends cheering me on, I tiptoed carefully, and deliberately, over the span from the near to the far shore. As I remember it, my friends all chickened out that first time, meaning I had to return to the near shore almost immediately so we could stay together and seek out other brave new worlds and daredevil challenges until darkness fell. While the fear was definitely real in the moments of crossing the bridge, it was the recurring nightmares I had as a result of the crossings that turned out to be the most terrifying part of the experience. As the term recurring suggests, the dream was always the same – a Tyrannosaurus Rex chases me to the rickety hulk of the train trestle – for reasons unclear, the beast’s shadow is always scarier than its blood slathered jowls – I cross the bridge as if in a dream (I was), leaping expertly from tie to tie and avoiding the gaping black holes in its steel-strapped wooden ribcage – when I stick a solid landing on the other side, I look down, and there on the burnt coal ground of the far shore I find a cherry flavored Pixie Stick, unopened – I pick it up and start to pour the sugary contents into my mouth with nary a care about, or memory of, the dinosaur’s monstrous shadow or the fact that I’d even been having a nightmare. I suppose that’s how easily the pendulum swings when you’re just a kid.

Within a few years of that ‘First Great Trestle Crossing’, the local adults figured out how dangerous it was to keep the skeletal remains of that bridge in place. I reckon the Hope Mill property owner recognized the potential financial liability the dilapidated trestle represented, so he made it disappear. We children claimed to be upset about its disappearance, but deep down inside I think we were all relieved to some extent because we knew we would never be dared to cross it again. Before long, we had collectively dragged a few of the old timbers that the demolition crew had left behind to make our own bridge, this one being much closer to the river’s surface. For me, the deeper significance of the bridge crossing was not in the physical danger it posed, but in the spiritual and mental challenge it represented. I remember it as the first time I tempted fate – the first time I challenged the devil to strike me down if that was his big plan. I see now that his plans were significantly bigger than I could have imagined back then. So, the devil laughed openly at my baby steps, and it’s likely God could see that he’d soon have his hands full trying to keep this young fool from wandering too far into the absolute black. In my understanding, God is always smiling though. The Great I Am bears an embarrassment born of the haplessness of our willful ways, and is thoroughly amused by us, just the same.

The Arkwright Bridge (built in 1888) is a couple miles downriver from the trestle in this story. Although it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, it will likely be one of the next disappearing bridges in rural Rhode Island. The bridge was closed to automobiles in 2011 and then closed to foot traffic in 2019, after the death of a local youth who was diving off the bridge with friends. (Wikipedia)

If I could have seen the recklessness of my actions early on, perhaps I might have saved myself a decade of increasingly painful hardship. But as the devil has been purported to say, “Where’s the fun in that?” Besides, if I hadn’t gone searching for the devil’s lair, I wouldn’t have this wonderful story to share with you all. Lucky for you, I am one that needs to learn the hard way. As a child I tended to rise to the challenge again and again, even if it meant sacrificing every last shred of self-preservation and esteem I could muster. I was intent on finding the source of absolute black, and when I did, I would start to beat the demons back down inside of it. When the supreme leaders of both the black and the white forces heard of my plans, all of the Universe enjoyed a great big belly laugh.

Head Tales

Casting Dark Shadows #4

Grand Providentia United

Chapter 4

~ Attracting Ghoul Friends ~

For me, the payoff of a nightmare almost always comes in the moment of waking up. Especially if I wake to birdsong and sunshine. I can usually shake off even the most diabolical of night frights quickly in the light of day. But when it’s too early to get up and I know I’ll be going back down for more of the same, all I can really do is try to appreciate the entertainment value of my frightful nocturnal imaginings. There is a thrilling rush of adrenaline that comes when I awaken from a mind-bending vision of abject horror. When I was young, I gradually became addicted to that rush. Being hooked on fear, I would look forward to the next nightmare, hoping only that it would be more terrifying than the last. I was rarely disappointed. Eventually, my mind created a dream routine that would ease me out of the darkest reaches without the shock of being physically jolted into a sitting position in my real-world bed. The routine soon became my favorite part of every scary dreamscape escape. I offer up another recurring nightmare from early childhood to fill you in on the devilish details of the routine.

I find myself standing next to an antique potbelly woodstove that my mother is trying to light up – it’s a gloomy little room, cold and damp – foggy outside and foggy inside. Is it fog, smoke, or an army of ghosts filling this place? – mom is cursing – the fire won’t start – “Stay here Scott, I’m going to get some firewood.” – the room suddenly feels fragile, like a thin-skinned tent – I follow my mother to the screen door and latch it with an equally fragile hasp – as I’m backing away from the door, it dawns on me that I am no safer inside of this wicked crate than I would be outside of it – I know what’s coming – I’m powerless to stop it – my mom comes screeching back to the door with superhuman speed, crazy sharp claws, cruel looking fangs, and hair sticking straight out in all directions – it isn’t my mother, it’s an apocalyptic lunatic. Her tortured howl is maddening – I know the screen won’t hold for more than a second – I know that a second is all I need – my ritual of escape takes the lead and the relief is immediate – I curl into a ball and fly backwards through the air – spinning around, rolling forward and taking control – flying, rolling, out of the darkness and towards my house – bursting through the back door at full speed – up the narrow stair case and down the hall – in the instant that I land in my bed, I’m awake, and I know that I’m safe. Once again, I had left the shock of the night terror where I thought it belonged, deep down inside. What I failed to realize is that the depths would keep getting deeper to accommodate for the growing horde of monsters I was routinely breeding and feeding with my swiftly accumulating fears.

“Dream Wand”
acrylic on carved wood over cricket cage.

The fight was a mismatch from the very start. These demons were in an entirely different weight class than me. Anyone with a modicum of sense would surely have told me so. But I never told anyone about my plans to confront the blackness, except for the God within me, and I was fairly confident God would always have my back. If not, I thought, ‘How in the hell do I keep making it back to my bed in the morning?’

In the youngest years of my life, the daytime hours were filled with adventure, exploration and wonder. I would spend as many hours as I was allowed to, playing in the tattered woodland areas around town, wading through the rivers and runoffs, digging in the dirt for worms and antique bottles, and crawling through the rainwater drainage pipes beneath both Mill and Main Streets. When mom and dad decided I was old enough to sleep in a tent in our backyard, the adventures often continued well past the witching hour. Slinking through Hope in the darkness was a lot less scary when your friends were there with you, so usually the tent in our backyard was filled with as many friends as the tarpaulin floor could accommodate. As I recall, my older brother and I would argue over who’s turn it was to sleep out in the tent on any given night, but we soon realized that the overflow could always sleep on the ground underneath the stars. At one point we must have had upwards of fifteen wayward boys, and sometimes one wayward girl, marauding through the streets of Hope Village under the dark cloak of night.

Living in Presence

An Abstract Theory of Intentional Time Travel #1

Grand Providentia United

Chapter 1 – Traveling into the past and back home again.

All of our memories about the past, at least the ones that are still available to us, can be recalled audibly and replayed visually within our minds, but only to the extent and accuracy that our minds will allow us to remember them. All of our memories have been colored by our personal perspectives, preferences, and the emotions we were feeling at the time the memory was stored. It seems to me that excessively painful, or exceedingly pleasurable, memories take longer to fade, but they are also more likely to be distorted by the emotions we were feeling when we experienced the actual event. Another person who was present and experienced the same event may have an entirely different recollection of what happened. In my opinion, that is one of the most wonderful things about memories – they are not an objective portrayal of the event, but instead they are mental constructs – reenactments that have been specifically designed to help each of us process our life experiences in the most effective way possible. If we learn to seek insight through the painful memories and then willfully release them, knowing that we have gained all the potential for understanding locked in those memories, we can set ourselves free from the pain of our past and bring ourselves closer to being present in the current moment. On the other hand, we can choose to nurture and hold on to the memories that bring us joy and remind each of us of who we truly are. We can learn to archive and selectively preserve memories that serve us well whether they are painful or pleasurable but grounding ourselves in the present moment is the key to using our memories for intentional time travel.

“An Object in Motion”

This is the first chapter of a three-part series describing An Abstract Theory of Intentional Time Travel. Skeptics, cynics and critics, feel free to speak your minds. These thoughts were brought to you by the collective consciousness of humankind.

Update: I’ve added a second film to my YouTube channel. It’s a promotional film about the “Return to Hope” bronze sculpture that I recently repatined and put up for sale. Here is the link in case you’re interested – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyS4elkdsyg&t=46s

Living in Presence

An Abstract Theory of Intentional Time Travel #2

Grand Providentia United

Chapter 2 – The time is now ~ ad infinitum.

Traditionally, concepts of time travel seem to be centered around movement of a physical form, namely the human body, from one specific moment to another along a timeline. The timeline imagined may include multiple dimensions, but more often than not, the concept is simplified by its adherence to a widely accepted belief that there is only one timeline, the timeline of our shared human history. The most common imaginings of time machines have included dials and switches that allow the time traveler to select a specific time, either in the past or the future, that they would like to move their physical form to within the time-space continuum. Usually, this movement cannot technically be equated to movement at all, considering the fact that the time traveler is consistently imagined as arriving at another point along the timeline in the exact same location as they were when they initiated the travel sequence. At this moment in time, I invite you to imagine a whole new theory of time travel – one that is as simplistic and realistic as it is complicated and extraordinary. Based on the concept of a continuous now, this new theory of time travel is available to every human being who is willing to explore the connection between our conscious awareness and what happens next on the timeline of our individual and collective life experiences.

There was a time in my childhood when I thought this was a magic river. Every time I visited its banks, I would be filled with giddy anticipation as to what color the water would be this time. As I matured, I realized that the colors were waste dyes from the textile mill upstream. I revisited this river when I was shooting scenes for the film “Return to Hope” (see link at the bottom of the page). While shooting this photo, I remember feeling both saddened and hopeful simultaneously. It made me sad to see all of the rubbish thrown in the water over the years, but also hopeful, noticing that nature was reclaiming the river itself – restoring the quality of the water and reviving the abundance of life that inhabited these waters before they were polluted by the irresponsible acts of a few misguided individuals.

In this moment of now, a moment that we are all experiencing simultaneously, yet experiencing it in as many different ways as there are human beings on the planet, there is a constant and undeniable movement of energies. We are each perceiving these constantly moving energies from our own limited perspective and through the limited capabilities of our five senses. If we allow ourselves to be adventurous enough to include a sixth sense, that of our conscious awareness, we immediately broaden our perspective, and we effectively open our third eye to the true nature of the energies in motion during each and every moment of now. When we witness these energies in motion, and we recognize that we are indeed traveling with time itself, then each moment of our lives becomes much more meaningful. If we learn how to read the energies we are experiencing as we move from the past into the future within the moment of now, then we can more accurately predict what is going to happen next on our timeline. As the moments pass, while we are retaining a conscious connection with the energies in motion, and we also remain present and aware, it becomes apparent that we are traveling through time involuntarily, and we always have been. With our new understanding of the abstract theory of time travel embraced, it becomes so much easier to relax and enjoy the ride.

This contemporary philosopher, William MacAskill, penned a decidedly positive prediction about what our collective future has in store for us. I truly enjoyed the book because it was helpful in relieving basic fears about our tendency to destroy more than we preserve.

Update on my own perceptions of the current moment: I’m a bit discouraged and frustrated by my own inability to raise the funds I need to travel from St. Pete, FL back up to Hope, RI during July and August. I’ve been focused on earning money while I’m here at Mike’s studio, but I’ve also been making promotional videos for each of my bronze sculptures in an attempt to make a sale (see headliner photo “Return to Hope” the bronze). So far, my marketing attempts have fallen short of a sale, but I refuse to give up hope. If you would like to support me in my creative journey there are a number of ways you can do just that – there’s the Donate * Contact page on this website – the GoFundMe campaign for the “Florida to Maine Expedition to Gather Film Content” https://gofund.me/9285192b – or you could communicate with me directly through the YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh2eSJsfi9K63NiLp6Tuhxg or Facebook Messenger https://www.facebook.com/scottjoseph.moore/

I am sincerely grateful that you’ve taken the time to read this online journal. Thank you for being here in the moment of now!