Last week I was honored and thrilled to introduce my Spirituality, Science, and the Creative Process students to two stellar visual artists from Los Angeles, CA: Victor Raphael and Clayton Spada.

Generously donating their time, Victor and Clayton came to class to show and discuss their ongoing collaborative series, "From Zero to Infinity". All these artworks juxtapose spiritual and scientific images in a beautiful, resonant way. To me, they’re poetic interconnections rendered visually.

I’m an unabashed fan.

My students were also excited by the series, encouraging me to introduce you to "From Zero to Infinity". Here are a few of the artworks:

 

This piece is called Genesis. The scripture is from the first chapter of the Torah, detailing God’s creation of the physical world. The lines and swirls interlaced with the Hebrew text are bubble chamber tracks: images of elementary particles being created in high-speed collisions. To me, the artwork is a meditation on creation at its most fundamental, unitive level.

 

This piece is called Odyssey. It layers images of ancient cave paintings with equations handwritten by Albert Einstein, commenting on the evolving ways humans have communicated their conceptions about the nature of their world throughout the ages.

 

Finally, this piece is called Emanations. It features the Japanese Goddess Quanwon, whose energy field is thought to bring health and happiness to her worshippers. Juxtaposed is an artistic depiction of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation—the sea of energy pervading our universe, left over from the Big Bang.

"From Zero to Infinity" was on display at USC’s Doheny Memorial Library this past fall. To see more prints from the series, please visit Victor’s website and/or the USC Libraries webpage for the exhibit.

And if these artworks enchant you as they’ve enchanted me, please spread the word about them! Forward this blog post to anyone you know who might be equally captivated.

My sincere thanks to Victor Raphael and Clayton Spada for their time, their art, and their vision.

Comments, of course, welcome…

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A reminder… My first full-length course exploring spirituality/science begins tomorrow! Spirituality, Science, and the Creative Process will be presented by the Continuing Education program at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, CA, and enrollment is still open to the public.

Here’s a course description:

Great ideas inspire enduring art. This course explores the grand themes shared by spiritual philosophy and cutting-edge science, using them as source material for artistic creativity. Examining energy, duality, infinity, chaos, evolution, and actualization, students write reflective journals each week about how these and other spiritual and scientific themes can be applied to their creative process, inspiring resonant artwork in any medium. Special presentations by artist Marcie Kaufman highlight the work of visual artists inspired by both spirituality and science, and a hands-on workshop mid-course guides students in enacting and illustrating some of the grand themes discussed in class.

The course runs 10 weeks, Saturday mornings, starting tomorrow, and will include and expand upon all your favorite poetic interconnections between spirituality and science. And Marcie Kaufman, my co-conspirator for the term, is brilliant and engaging, and her mid-course workshop is sure to be deep, enlightening fun.

Here’s a link to enroll in the class:

http://www.otis.edu/ce,course.php?crs=539&sem=25

Looking forward to seeing you there!

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I’m thrilled to share with you that starting in January 2010, I’ll be teaching a course in Los Angeles, CA called Spirituality, Science, and the Creative Process. The course will be presented by the Continuing Education program at Otis College of Art and Design, and enrollment is open to the public!

Here’s a description of the course:

Great ideas inspire enduring art. This course explores the grand themes shared by spiritual philosophy and cutting-edge science, using them as source material for artistic creativity. Examining energy, duality, infinity, chaos, evolution, and actualization, students write reflective journals each week about how these and other spiritual and scientific themes can be applied to their creative process, inspiring resonant artwork in any medium. Special presentations by artist Marcie Kaufman highlight the work of visual artists inspired by both spirituality and science, and a hands-on workshop mid-course guides students in enacting and illustrating some of the grand themes discussed in class.

The course runs 10 weeks, Saturday mornings, and will include and expand upon all your favorite poetic interconnections between spirituality and science. And Marcie Kaufman, my co-conspirator for the term, is brilliant and engaging, and her mid-course workshop is sure to be deep, enlightening fun.

Here’s a link to enroll in the class:

http://www.otis.edu/ce,course.php?crs=539&sem=25

Looking forward to seeing you there!

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Back in July I was asked to contribute a review blurb to an upcoming book called Death & Sex. The request came from Dorion Sagan, one of the book’s authors—an amazing writer and a friend of this blog. I immediately said yes. I was sent an advance copy of the text and spent the next few evenings unable to put it down, rapt.

The book is a hybrid: two essays by different authors bound into a single work. Tyler Volk’s Death examines how our passing feeds the greater cycle of life, our bodies breaking down into food and energy for other animals and plants. Our greatest personal fear is thus recast as an ecological act of self-sacrificial love. It’s a deeply spiritual view of dying.

Dorion Sagan’s Sex suggests that our procreating has cosmic implications. We reproduce to continue life. And viewed from the perspective of thermodynamics, life on Earth actually exists to help spread the concentrated energy of our sun into surrounding space. Nature likes its energies evenly distributed, and we ease an inequity: we take in localized sunlight and disperse it into space as heat.

Simply by living we’re doing God’s work, spreading the good solar news.

Death & Sex is out now, and my review blurb is printed inside. This blog post is to thank Dorion Sagan and Chelsea Green Publishing for the honor and pleasure, and to turn you on to a fine, fascinating read.

If you pick it up, let me know… Comments always welcome.

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This weekend I drove up to San Rafael, CA to present my research, “Religion, Science, and Education: A Curriculum in Perennial Philosophy” at the first ever Science and Nonduality Conference. I was thrilled to join colleagues and confederates from all over the world in sharing our work, and immersing ourselves in spiritual and scientific philosophy. I had a wonderful experience.

Some fellow attendees were gracious enough to snap a couple photographs… All of them are clickable, if you’d like to see them bigger. First is a close-up of my poster presentation:

Next is a photo of me just before my presentation began:



And last is a pic of me with Matt Silverstein, a friend and colleague from Antioch University Los Angeles. Matt referred me to the conference, and I can’t thank him enough.



I’d also like to thank Aschleigh Jensen-Eldridge for connecting me with Matt, and for her ongoing friendship and coolness; Abi Behar-Montefiore for her generous assistance; and all the people I met at the conference who’ve become new subscribers to this blog… Welcome!

More essays exploring poetic interconnections between spirituality and science are coming soon…

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What do Jewish mysticism and the physics of Albert Einstein have in common?

Kabbalah teaches that sparks of God’s light are hidden deep within us and every other created thing. Einstein’s seminal equation E=mc² says every seemingly solid particle in our universe is actually pure energy. The correspondence is unexpected and intriguing… This lecture by Adam Daniel Stulberg explores God, soul, and science, inviting students to recognize the infinite creative potential inherent in themselves, and in everything.

Saturday September 26, 2009, 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM
The Enlightened Path Center
74-140 El Paseo, Suite 1
Palm Desert, CA 92260
Admission: $20.00

More information is posted at this blog’s Events page.

Hope to see you there!

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A workshop about worldviews, and bringing religion and science closer together.

Saturday January 31, 2009 from 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM

Antioch University Los Angeles
400 Corporate Pointe
Culver City, CA 90230
(310) 578-1080
www.antiochla.edu

*Room B1060 (outside, by the bookstore)

Please RSVP via the Contact page… Looking forward to seeing you there!

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