HEART = New Paltz→Lake Awosting→Emma Kunz→Albert Einstein

Coccyx = Stony Point/Peekskill

Solar Plexus = Newburgh/Beacon

Heart = New Paltz/Poughkeepsie

Throat = Kingston/Rhinebeck

Middle Eye= Catskill/Hudson

Crown = Albany/Troy

Where is the rock to be found, which will unite knowledge, art, and human community as one entity, so that from this root may grow truth, beauty, and goodness? In the Middle Ages...they called it 'The Philosopher's Stone'...and it was to turn base metals into gold--not the gold of this world, but a spiritual gold, incorruptible, imperishable.
m.c. richards, Opening Our Moral Eye, 1996

Told by several of my elder neighbors, of a Native American saying, when I first moved to the Shawangunk Mountains in the Hudson Valley in 1987:

"The moment you lay eyes on this mountain, you will never leave."

Lake Awosting, Shawangunk Mountains, New Paltz, NY

And so it is here, at the top the mountain, above Lake Awosting, that I plant my copper and iron acupuncture needle into the earth. New Paltz represents the heart chakra on the east side of the Hudson River in my mapping of 12 earth acupuncture points, corresponding to the Main Central Vertical Flow in Jin Shin Jyutsu.   

New Paltz Copper
41º 42' 31" N, 74º 0' 17" W

Shawangunk Quartz Conglomerate

The Shawangunk mountains, often referred to as "the Gunks," contains a 350 million year old vein of quartz crystal rock called shawangunk conglomerate. A natural spa-like environment exists at the top of Lake Awosting, with a quartz-crystal laden rock beach to lie on and a lake high in minerals to swim in. From years of hiking and swimming in this place, I have amassed a sizable collection of crystals found along the trails.

Selection of quartz crystals found in the Shawangunk Mountains

If the theory of rock crystal healing, which says, certain stones like crystal can convert energy by cleaning or changing it to a more positive form, is true; then can this rock change and heal a persons' energy?

This question leads me to the ideas of Emma Kunz, a Swiss healer and artist, who in the 1940's cured polio in a young man, by treating him with earth from a Roman quarry in Würenlos. Kunz, who owned a microscope and Geiger counter, discovered the medicinal pulsing properties of the white quarry rock. She turned the rock into powder and gave it the name AION A which is still available in Swiss pharmacies today, known as 'Würenlos Healing Stone.' Her choice of the name AION for her rock healing powder comes from the Greek and means "without limitation."

Emma Kunz also created drawings as tools for healing. She would place her drawings on the floor between herself and her patient to diagnose the problem and suggest a cure.  Her inventory of geometric patterns functions like a reference chart for the limitless energetic states of mind and body. 

I think it is at this juncture, where one must take a leap of belief, hope, faith...and wonder if all that we think we see and know is all there is. What we feel and think has physical and measurable content and affect.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.

Albert Einstein

HEART = Poughkeepsie → Samuel Morse → Billy Name

Coccyx = Stony Point/Peekskill

Solar Plexus = Newburgh/Beacon

Heart = New Paltz/Poughkeepsie

Throat = Kingston/Rhinebeck

Middle Eye= Catskill/Hudson

Crown = Albany/Troy

Thoughts being forces, every mind is a creative center from which rhythms of energy are going out in all directions. By their impact upon corresponding chords in other minds, these are swept into active vibration...So every soul is the seat of a great centrifugal current generated and set free in the process of thinking...Every thinker is a battery of positive forces even though he utter never a word.
John Keely, Universal Laws Never Before Revealed: Keely's Secrets, 1895

Inserting copper needles along the Hudson River in an earth acupuncture project called Main Central Vertical: Hudson River, drove me to the historic Poughkeepsie home of Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph. Poughkeepsie represents the heart chakra in my Jin Shin Jyutsu treatment of the river.

The heart with its continual circulation of blood to the body correlates to the telegraph's transmission of information over long distances and creates an accidental metaphor infusing this location with meaning.

The heart is the brain of the body and needs nothing outside of itself to work; it is auto-rhythmic, the source of the beat is within the heart itself rather than coming from some other area of the body.

To make the telegraph work, Samuel Morse had to find a reliable source of electrical current, and then build two instruments; one to send an electric pulse, and the other to receive it.

Samuel Morse Telegraph

Morse created a code of electric pulses, a dictionary representing words, and developed an instrument that captured the electric pulses on an electromagnet with a pencil attached, that recorded the mark of the electric current on a sheet of paper.

The gardens surrounding this historic site led me to what immediately felt like the right place to insert my copper needle into the earth. This kind of knowingness begins with not-knowing, a practice known as wu-wei, a Taoist philosophy of waiting, of not working against the grain of things, of not forcing anything, of waiting for the right moment.

Locust Grove, Poughkeepsie

As I stepped inside this 'garden room', I knew instantly this was the place I must hammer my copper and iron needle into the earth.  Two benches made from tree branches face one another inside this alcove for an intimate and private moment.

Poughkeepsie Copper
41° 40' 25" N, 73° 55' 44" W

Look for the round brass tag at the center bottom of this photo to see the exposed top of the copper needle.

From here I continued on my way to Main Street, Poughkeepsie to say goodbye to a space, a place, an idea, that Poughkeepsie was not ready for. A Dada/Fluxus art center, based on the original Zurich Cabaret Voltaire, organized by Turkish artist Sükran Aziz, was having its 'Final Curtain' closing.

Poughkeepsie Cabaret Voltaire

Artist Billy Name, a native of Poughkeepsie, known for his film work and photography with Andy Warhol, chatted with me about his theory of the invention of both the airplane and electricity in the 20th century. And in keeping with the way of wu-wei, I captured the filmmaker on film discussing the end/beginning of a Venus cycle.

THROAT = Kingston → Dolmen → Plato's Cave

Coccyx = Stony Point/Peekskill

Solar Plexus = Newburgh/Beacon

Heart = New Paltz/Poughkeepsie

Throat = Kingston/Rhinebeck

Middle Eye= Catskill/Hudson

Crown = Albany/Troy

My seventh earth acupuncture/needle insertion takes place in Kingston, NY, on the west side of the Hudson River, representing the throat energy point in the body. I am inserting into the earth, copper spikes wrapped in iron wire, in twelve locations along the Hudson River. The locations represent acupuncture meridian points corresponding to the human spine. I am giving the river and valley a Jin Shin Jyutsu energy-healing treatment called Main Central Vertical Flow (see first post).

The choice of the specific site to insert my needles has created some kind of pull or magnetic force, that draws me to each location that can only be explained as feeling right.

The most powerful ancient sites and monuments throughout the world have one thing in common: the presence of earth energies. Underground water, curry lines, ley-line power centers have the power to alter and uplift human consciousness. Ley lines, found at most ancient and sacred places, are part of the earth's energy system.

Upon reading Crisipin Kott's description of  a an "ancient man-made energy vortex" or "magnetic hotspot" in Kingston formed by a megalithic rock formation, I knew immediately this was the place to insert my copper needle in my on-going Main Central Vertical project along the Hudson River.

My search for the site of Kingston's 'Stonehenge' turned me into a kind of dowser, searching without physical instruments for this rock formation. Its location was described as next to a business parking lot in Kingston Business Park and was deemed historic enough to keep intact prior to the development of two industrial buildings. I imagined it to be, at the very least, a destination marked by a path and sign and easy enough to find.

I was mistaken. It took me three visits and hours of searching through the woods until I decided upon the below formation which looked like it could have been placed and arranged.

Kingston "Stonehenge"

 Described in Kott's essay as a man-made structure found while walking through the woods..."It struck me that it was something that was out of place. It's not a natural feature. It's clearly some type of placement that's occurred there...It's clear to me that it's a man-made structure," according to naturalist David Yarrow.

Kingston Copper
41º 55' 50" N, 73º 58' 40" W

A dolmen is described as the feminine gate-womb entrance to the underworld, associated with the phallic pillar, symbolizing the beyond and rebirth.

In my search for Kingston's "Stonehenge," I found two caves which I later discovered were the Kingston Caves.  A now defunct 19th-century mine which produced a high grade of limestone cement known as the Rosendale deposit used to build several American monuments including the Brooklyn Bridge, the Washington Monument and the Statue of Liberty.

Kingston Caves

 

I'm reminded of Plato's allegory of the cave, where prisoners are chained in a cave unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave with a fire burning behind them. Puppeteers behind them hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave and the prisoners mistake the appearance of shadows as reality. This 'theory of forms' asserts that non-material forms or ideas possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality and not the material world known to us through sensation.

Image from University of Sydney Theory and Practice blog

"How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?"

--Plato

THROAT = Rhinebeck → Linda Weintraub → Eco-Art → M.C.Richards

Coccyx = Stony Point/Peekskill

Solar Plexus = Newburgh/Beacon

Heart = New Paltz/Poughkeepsie

Throat = Kingston/Rhinebeck

Middle Eye= Catskill/Hudson

Crown = Albany/Troy

"It is possible to deal with the entire environment as a work of art."
--Marshall McLuhan

My eighth earth acupuncture/needle insertion takes place in Rhinebeck, NY, on the east side of the Hudson River, representing the throat energy point in the body. I am inserting into the earth, copper spikes wrapped in iron wire, in twelve locations along the Hudson River. The locations represent acupuncture meridian points corresponding to the human spine. I am giving the river and valley a Jin Shin Jyutsu energy-healing treatment called Main Central Vertical Flow.

Invited by curator Linda Weintraub to submit a proposal for her Dear Mother Nature exhibition at the Dorsky Museum at SUNY, New Paltz gave me the perfect opportunity to realize my idea of applying Jin Shin Jyutsu techniques to the earth.

Choosing Linda Weintraub's  Rhinebeck property, representing the throat energy point in my project, was the most obvious of choices in deciding on where to insert my copper and iron needles. The throat chakra is associated with the ears, listening and speaking; the communication center.

Linda is one of our greatest communicators on Eco Art and her home and life is a realization of her environmental philosophy of creating productive eco-systems. Her latest book, To Life! Art in Pursuit of a Sustainable Planet, documents the Eco Art movement from the 1970's into the 21st-century.

Linda Weintraub's home in Rhinebeck

K. Anderson placing Copper/Iron Earth Acupuncture Needle

Rhinebeck Copper
41º 57' 29" N, 73º 49' 43" W

Numerous performances curated by Weintraub take place on her Rhinebeck property throughout several of her handmade outdoor amphitheatres.

In 2004, I presented an outdoor performance on the same site I now have placed my copper needle. Two performers in translucent metallic silk robes lit with 160 led's sewn on the inside, explore movement to the sound of a didjeridu played by Thomas Workman. 

Alongside a pond, the reflections in the water create a sensation of floating in space.

"If the source of our design sense is our bio-psychic identity, this makes design-insight a part of ecology. It is important for us to develop our intuition for design ecology: for living inner forms...and the health of the whole."
--M.C. Richards

MIDDLE EYE = Catskill → Thomas Cole → Hudson River School

Coccyx = Stony Point/Peekskill

Solar Plexus = Newburgh/Beacon

Heart = New Paltz/Poughkeepsie

Throat = Kingston/Rhinebeck

Middle Eye= Catskill/Hudson

Crown = Albany/Troy

"As above, so below."
--Hermes Trismegistus

My ninth earth acupuncture/needle insertion takes place in Catskill NY, on the west side of the Hudson River, representing the middle eye energy point in the body. I am inserting into the earth, copper spikes wrapped in iron wire, in twelve locations along the Hudson River. The locations represent acupuncture meridian points corresponding to the human spine. I am giving the river and valley a Jin Shin Jyutsu energy-healing treatment called Main Central Vertical Flow.

The Hudson River, a tidal estuary, where salt water meets fresh water, is a river that flows two ways in 24 hours in two high and two low tides. The tidal pulse from the ocean is felt from the NYC harbor all the way to Troy, 153 miles away. Originally named Mahicantuck for the "great waters in constant motion."

The Hudson River School of landscape painting, known for its compositions of luminous light and details of nature began with Thomas Cole, a writer, poet, philosopher, observer and painter. Cole wrote his ideas down and referred to his writings when he painted in his studio.

Sunrise in the Catskill Mountains, 1826, Thomas Cole

the mists were resting on the vale of the Hudson like drifted snow

tops of distant mountains in the east were visible-things of another world

the sun rose from bars of pearly hue

above there were clouds light and warm and the clear sky was of a cool grayish hint

the mist below the mountain began first to be lighted up

and the trees on the tops of the lower hills cast their shadows over the misty surface

--innumerable streaks

a line of light on the extreme horizon was very beautiful

seen through the breaking mists the fields were exquisitely fresh and green

though dark, the mountainside was sparkling

and the Hudson where it was uncovered to the sight

slept in deep shadow.

And so it is seemed apt to insert my copper needle at Cedar Grove, the studio of the father of American landscape painting and founder of the Hudson River School of art.

Cedar Grove, Thomas Cole Studio

Catskill Copper
42º 13' 31" N, 73º 51' 41" W

Cedar Grove, Thomas Cole Studio

Landscape composition is defined by the horizon line, where earth meets sky. Robert Smithson says if we were to walk to the horizon line, we would never get there:

"The Horizon, in this line where light meets earth, objects cease to exist...One is always crossing the horizon, yet it always remains distant. The horizon line is something other than what it appears; it is closedness in openess, it is an enchanted region where down is up."

M.C. Richards writes about the crossing point, the place inside a plant where the division or decision to grow down into the soil or up into the sunlight takes place. A pull between ascending and descending energy.

"The crossing point is archetypal...is the name given to the layer of cells out of which the root and the shoot of a plant begin to sprout...a crossing point between earth and sun.  The plant grows in opposite directions simultaneously, down into the earth and up into the light and air. A continuum of opposites."

--M.C. Richards

Humans do not have to decide which way we will be for we are both.

MIDDLE EYE = Hudson → Frederick Edwin Church → Walter De Maria

Coccyx = Stony Point/Peekskill

Solar Plexus = Newburgh/Beacon

Heart = New Paltz/Poughkeepsie

Throat = Kingston/Rhinebeck

Middle Eye= Catskill/Hudson

Crown = Albany/Troy

PAINTING TO SEE THE ROOM

"Drill a small, almost invisible, hole

in the center of the canvas

and see the room through it."

-Yoko Ono

Hudson River view from Olana, Hudson, NY

My earth mapping project, Main Central Vertical Flow (see first post) consists of  inserting copper poles wrapped in iron wire along several chosen locations along the Hudson River, corresponding to acupuncture points on the human spine. I am giving the river a Jin Shin Jyutsu treatment, an energy healing flow. This is the tenth earth needle insertion, on the west side of the river, representing the middle eye, which has brought me to Olana, Frederic Edwin Church's landscape of the "contemplative sublime" in Hudson, NY.  

What is it that draws us to any one particular place in the landscape...and how to direct attention or mindful intention to this location. The Hudson River school of luminous landscape paintings were masters of detail and observation  and Church was considered one of the best landscape painters of his time. Driven by the transcendental philosophy of that time, writers and painters believed an individual's knowledge and experience could go beyond the self and visible world to gain a closer understanding of the spiritual, which could be found in nature.

How does one define what it feels and looks to be, in nature, on the landscape, in one's body, with more than seeing with the eyes? How does one expand seeing and feeling a place in the kind of close-up looking and intimate touching, the kind that occurs between lovers or parents and infants?

Deleuze and Guattari have named this experience as smooth space, "the space of the smallest deviation...a space of contact of small tactile or manual actions of contact." We are intimately linked to the earth; bodies inhabit places and places are lived through and by our bodies. Earth retains memory of the past invisible to us. When body and place are intermeshed with intention, the result is mapping in a powerful way.

My engagement with earth acupuncture is to create an invisible map through material substance. Utilizing a holistic perception of the forces in these substances; copper, iron, placement, intention, I arrange the copper needles/poles in particular patterns according to the philosophy of Jin Shin Jyutsu energy balancing patterns. 

Hudson Copper
42° 12' 47" N,  73°52' 25" W

My ideas force me to think about the artist, Walter De Maria and his intention with his sublime 1976 project, The Vertical Earth Kilometer. A one-kilometer long brass rod, two inches in diameter, was inserted one kilometer straight into the earth through six geological layers with only the 2" diameter top lying flush to the surface. The artwork is almost entirely hidden from view.

Vertical Earth Kilometer, 1977,  Walter De Maria

The construction and drilling work of De Maria's The Vertical Earth Kilometer, in Kassel Germany, took 79 days and cost $750,000. 

Cards, 2007 - Ian Whittlesea

Ink on card

Unlimited edition, free to take away

Void Room, 1961, Yves Klein
An empty room filled with "immaterial pictorial sensibility"

"For the first time, the seeing that I am is for me really visible; for the first time I appear to myself completely turned inside out under my own eyes."

-Merleau-Ponty, The Visible & the Invisible

CROWN = Troy → Materials Science → Alchemy→ Spiritual Technology

Coccyx = Stony Point/Peekskill

Solar Plexus = Newburgh/Beacon

Heart = New Paltz/Poughkeepsie

Throat = Kingston/Rhinebeck

Middle Eye= Catskill/Hudson

Crown = Albany/Troy

"Alchemy is not merely an art or science to teach metallic transmutation, so much as a true and solid science that teaches how to know the center of all things, which in the divine language is called the Spirit of Life."

Pierre-Jean Fabre, Les Secrets chymiques,  1636

Hermetic philosophy teaches seven principles that define the functions of the universe and the self:

1. Mentalism: all is mind.

2. Correspondence: as above so below.

3. Vibration: nothing rests, everything moves.

4. Polarity: everything has its pair of opposites.

5. Rhythm: everything flows, out and in.

6. Cause and effect: everything happens according to Law.

7. Gender: everything has its masculine and feminine principle

My translation of these principles defines all things, people and actions as being interconnected in non-material form; energy, spirit, intuition, God...it goes by many names. Our bodies act as major antenna systems with the chakras and acupuncture points acting as an advanced radar system.

The purpose of this interconnectedness or evolutionary energy, is a transmutation into a higher inner-being or consciousness, in order to forward the evolution of the human species and with it, the planet. William Tiller, one of the world's leading scientiests on the structure of matter, furthers the idea in his book, Science and Human Transformation, stating, "Thought energy is one important category of subliminal energy capable of triggering the cosmic computer system, which, when properly focused is quite capable of altering the vibration of water into that of wine or triggering even more impressive phenomena that currently fit into the category of miracles."

With this in mind, I continue my project of inserting conductive copper and iron rods into the earth, with the metaphysical idea of creating a network of, if you will, earth acupuncture points along the east and west sides of the Hudson River, based on a Jin Shin Jyutsu energy healing pattern, the Main Central Vertical flow. Forwarding the idea of material matter in a place and settling on a location/site to insert each needle, becomes the intersection between mind and place, or spirit and matter.

The location begins large, as in the city of Troy, and then narrows down to a singular point, in this case, the Materials Engineering building at RPI, a place of intense and focussed study of meta-materials.

Materials Engineering at RPI

I become a dowser of sorts, the place to insert the needle takes on a life of its own and draws me in.  A somewhere that becomes irrationally captured and viewed for its metaphoric significance. The location vibrates largely because I allow myself to wander into it. "You must travel at random...you risk getting lost in the thickets, but that is the only way to make art," according to Robert Smithson.

Troy copper
42º 43' 43"N, 73º 40' 53 W

The needles act as anonymous radionic detectors picking out waves in the atmosphere enhancing subtle energy levels, like an invocation.