Link for this Post:Obama Anatomy of a World Leader — the making of a portrait by psychedelic artist extraordinaire
Alex Grey
My long-time friend Will Penna sent me a link to a portion of artist Alex Grey’s site which is both about Grey’s personal feelings and insights about our new “World Leader” and an illustrated and fascinating description of the process that the paining depicted above was formed.
I have the pleasure of having met and corresponded with Alex Grey during those times back in the Nineties when I spent so much time developing Island Foundation. I am proud to say that he is a member of Island Foundation and among a small group of consciousness luminaries which also included Alan Ginsbeg, Timothy Leary, Tom Robbins, Albert Hofmann, Ram Dass and Albert Hofmann.
Here is an excerpt from Grey’s comments (quoted):
”After hearing Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin, and noting the degree of excitement and hope that he generated throughout many countries besides the US, I started to see him as one of the first true “world leaders.” This may be partly because of his extraordinary childhood and political life that has bridged many cultures. Obama’s restraint and intelligence, exhibited as foes were bating him throughout the campaign, his heartful clarity coming through in his talks are all qualities of a highly evolved person.”
“We need to consider our planetary citizenship, because solving the world’s ecological and economic problems, and creating a culture of peace and reconciliation will require the co-operation of all nations.”
“Perhaps you can use this symbol of Barack Obama to send him a prayer of support, to send all the loving hopeful healing and creative energy that we can focus on him so that he can perform the task of leadership in the most effective and powerful way for the greatest good, for the greatest number.” (end of quote)
I’ve been on the planet a bit more than six decades and I cannot remember so much hope since Kennedy was elected back in 1960. (As a kid, I loved politics and remember staying home from school at age 13 so I could see his famous Berlin speech on TV.).
If the five generational cycle theory described in the book Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics which I posted about in Millennials: Tipping the Scales Toward Change on Future Blogger turns out to be accurate, Obama may be more in the mold of Franklin Delano Roosevelt than John Kennedy. Like Roosevelt, he faces the twin dragons of economic crisis and a world filled with war. If he turns out to the the great communicator (Roosevelt not Reagan was the real Great Communicator) that we believe he will be, then the next decade may be the most exciting of our lives.
Barrack Obama of the Council on Foreign Relations? I can’t say I’ve the slightest expectation he’s anything but the usual tool of the elites. In John Pilger’s article, In the Great Tradition Obama is a Hawk, he writes:
“Obama went further than Bush. He said the United States had “lost Latin America”. He described the democratically elected governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua as a “vacuum” to be filled. He raised the nonsense of Iranian influence in Latin America, and he endorsed Colombia’s “right to strike terrorists who seek safe-havens across its borders”. Translated, this means the “right” of a regime, whose president and leading politicians are linked to death squads, to invade its neighbours on behalf of Washington. He also endorsed the so-called Merida Initiative, which Amnesty International and others have condemned as the US bringing the “Colombian solution” to Mexico. He did not stop there. “We must press further south as well,” he said. Not even Bush has said that.
It is time the wishful-thinkers grew up politically and debated the world of great power as it is, not as they hope it will be. Like all serious presidential candidates, past and present, Obama is a hawk and an expansionist.”
I think people need to do a lot of waking up and reading up. In the words of Bill Hicks:
“I’ll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. ‘I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.’ ‘I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.’ ‘Hey, wait a minute, there’s one guy holding out both puppets!’ ”
I admire Alex Gray’s work, but I think that in this case he’s projecting his psychedelic vision onto the wrong canvass. I don’t know how many psychedelic luminaries would be in favor of dropping bombs in Pakistan.
Lately, Obama has been surrounding himself with a right of center male guard, which may include a the appointment of Ramstad as drug czar: http://politicalblogs.startribune.com/bigquestionblog/?p=1241
Obama is throwing the so called progressives under the bus and yet the adoration continues…
I agree, I was thinking the same thing. I love Alex’s work but don’t think Obama deserves to be portrayed as a symbol of enlightenment or anything. I don’t think he should be supporting this man by choosing him as a subject in one of his awesome paintings.