Myself, my mom and my sister  are usually eating when we see each other. Food plays a very central role in Filipino social gatherings, especially with family. Actually one of the first things a mother would say in a Filipino household upon seeing you for the first time during the day is “have you eaten?”. So, I salute all moms, and especially my mom today for being a mom. I turned out fine and my life is great – and I wouldn’t have made it without you, so thank you!

Here are some new designs I have recently created for various projects. Enjoy!

I stopped by to get some coffee with Gustavo at Caribou this morning and I came across this cute ad for Love.  We are so obsessed with love, especially this month because of Valentine’s Day.  I was wearing a rose quartz bracelet last night and my friend asked me who it was for (rose quartz symbolizes love – it is associated with the heart chakra) – and I told her I was wearing it for me.  There are two really great quotes from Werner Erhard – “Love is granting another the space to be the way they are and the way they are not” and “You don’t have to go looking for love when it’s where you come from”.

Love

Here’s an excerpt about Love from Dr. David Hawkins’ book “Power vs. Force“:

Energy Level 500: Love

Love as depicted in the mass media is not what this level is about.  What the world generally refers to as love is what an intense  emotional condition, combining physical attraction, possessiveness, control , addiction, eroticism, and novelty.  It’s usually fragile and fluctuating, waxing and waning with varying conditions.  When frustrated, this emotion often reveals an underlying anger and dependency that it had masked.  That love can turn to hate is a common perception, but here, an addictive sentimentality is likely what’s being spoken about, rather than Love; there probably never was actual love in such a relationship, for Hate stems from Pride, not Love.

The 500 level is characterized by the development of a Love that is unconditional, unchanging, and permanent.  It doesn’t fluctuate – it’s source isn’t dependent on external factors.  Loving is a state of being.  It’s a forgiving, nurturing, and supportive way of relating to the world.  Love emanates from the heart.  It has the capacity to lift others and accomplish great feats because of its purity of motive.

As this level of development, the capacity to discern essence becomes predominant; the core of an issue becomes the center of focus.  As reason is bypassed, there arises the capacity for instantaneous recognition of the totality of a problem and a major expansion of context, especially regarding time and process.  Reason deals only with particulars, whereas Love deals with entireties.  This ability, often ascribed to intuition, is the capacity for instantaneous understanding without resorting to sequential symbol processing.  This apparently abstract phenomenon is, in fact, quite concrete; it’s accompanied by a measurable release of endorphins in the brain.

Love takes no position, and thus is global, rising above separation.  It’s then possible to be “one with another”, for there are no longer any barriers.  Love is therefore inclusive and expands the sense of self progressively.  Love focuses on the goodness of life in all its expressions and augments that which is positive – it dissolves negativity by recontextualizing it, rather than by attacking it.

This is a level of true happiness, but although the world is fascinated with the subject Love, and all viable religions calibrate at 500 or over, it’s interesting to note that only 0.4 percent of the world’s population ever reaches this level of evolution of consciousness.

This really demystifies Love and takes the fantasy and romanticism out of it.

Here are a couple of song album covers I designed for my band, Heshvan.  I had fun working on these.  They all had their own little story.  There is the cover for “Young Roads”, the very first single I ever wrote with Mary Eckman.  David (Manakin), the other half of Heshvan suggested I use the photo of myself as batman when I was a little boy.  So I used it and put some narly Hawiian surf font on the cover.  The second one is  “Sindustry”, which was inspired by the “Lost Boys” and “Sin City”.   And last, but not least is the image for “Deliverance”, which was designed around the time the Pope made a public statement against homosexuality, and I thought I’d include Jesus on the cover since he preached “love thy neighbor as yourself”.  I was always so fascinated by the crown of thorns so I played around with the texture of it in the background.   Enjoy!

I went to bed at 4am yesterday. I got an unexpected call for a last minute gig today. I ended up doing one of my most favorite things on the first day of 2012, which is play music and make people happy.