In the summer of 2009 my girlfriend and I participated in an ayahuasca ceremony; my second with Maestro Juan Flores, her first. As is common with ayahuasca, the ceremony was one of profound, personal revelation and healing, but my partner reported something in particular that caught my attention simply as an artist. For a brief moment she saw an out-of-context vision that perplexed her. She saw a “jungle boy” crawling up a massive DNA strand. It inspired me to sketch and I thought I’d gift her with the result, but as we began to integrate the totality of the experience into our changing lives that sketch soon collected dust.

Two years later she is no longer my girlfriend. She is my wife and we now live with our two children in a home in which I’ve recently been able to renovate a studio where I can focus on my art and the things that inspire it. A valued source of such inspiration has become the Evolver Intensives web seminars, specifically those hosted by the Swiss anthropologist, Jeremy Narby, author of The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge.

I mention these seminars, because three weeks ago the second installment of Mr. Narby’s series began and as I sat before the screen it struck me; The Cosmic Serpent! I rifled through my portfolio, found the aforementioned sketch and began inking it. Today it’s become the finished piece below which I’ve also entitled The Cosmic Serpent. As I release it with this post I thought it would be apt to also thank Jeremy Narby, Jennifer Palmer, Daniel Pinchbeck, Chris Kaplan and everyone who brings these outstanding Evolver Intensive seminars to fruition. The guests have consistently floored me with their insights and I have gleaned much from my time with them. I appreciate your efforts immensely. Thank you so much!

88BJQQQWWA2U

I’ve become an avid listener of the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast. Great guests continue to join the lineup, but I still find the episodes with comedian Duncan Trussell to be the best, bar none.

Some time ago Duncan was discussing Nikola Tesla on the show and mentioned an episode of Drunk History that featured him summarizing Tesla’s life while pissed drunk, so I searched it out. (John C. Reilly plays Tesla and Crispin Glover plays Thomas Edison.) As hilarious as the clip is (featured below) it also introduced me to Tesla’s achievements and sent me down the rabbit hole to learn more about the guy. What a fucking phenom!

Duncan’s slurred words at the end of the clip sum up Nikola Tesla in a way that first made me laugh and then inspired me to draw the image at right. Click to enlarge.

(And here’s the aforementioned episode of Drunk History…)

“Camalonga showed me a framed portrait of a little girl. It wasn’t a picture, it was a mirror. Awoke to share the morning with my daughter.”

…and today I completed the small illustration I did to honor that vision.

It was a cloudless, sunny day and we were sitting on our blankets in a clearing. At one point I had an impulse to look up into the blue. As I did a Hawk immediately caught my eye and if not for the bird soaring right over my view of it, I would never have noticed the tiny sliver of waxing crescent Moon that was far above us. After being shown this sight of beauty in the midday sky I tried to share it with the others, but – without Hawk to point it out – the sun and bright blue was too hard on the eyes to locate by themselves. Besides, they didn’t seem terribly interested and quickly returned to the conversation I’d interrupted.

It was mine to admire… so I did.

In the dream realm this simple image seemed like a poignant message, but the only clarity that remains in waking life is that the blue in the earth beneath the bird is symbolizing a large body of water.

Paging Doctor Jung.