Do you recall our little wisdom seeker, Orion, who we met a few weeks ago attempting to acquire a bit of personal enlightenment on a busy mountain top? Well, he's back, and this time, he's decided that "SELF KNOWLEDGE" and enlightenment might come through artistic practice.

SELF EXPRESSION!

He's attempted to FIND HIMSELF in his work---but his work is messy and confused and a bit ugly... Rather than think of HIMSELF as messy and confused and a bit ugly, Orion has made a classic blunder and chosen, instead, to believe that ART may be a dead end. (The fool... The poor deluded fool...)

(For a wisdom seeker, he sure can't seem to find much wisdom, mostly because he can't RECOGNIZE it when he finds it. Wisdom rarely looks like we EXPECT it to look.)

Luckily, Orion has managed to attract the attention of a Winged Serpent, who will hopefully be able to PUSH the intrepid internal travel towards a rewarding technique to calm his internal turmoil.

I appreciate Orion's distress. We seem to be living in a potentially EMPTY age, but as with all ages, there are worthwhile thoughts to be thunk (both born in the modern era and those remaining from antiquity) if he can just be persuaded to engage with them. If he'll listen to the Winged One, he may come to understand that the goal he is pursuing isn't an END in and of itself, a magic phrase or chunk of esoteric knowledge that once learned grants the possessor access to some COSMIC SECRET, but is instead a PROCESS---a PERSPECTIVE---which allows the traveler to enjoy the JOURNEY. (Winged Serpents are brilliant---but people tend to ignore wisdom if it doesn't match their expectations, even when those expectations are flawed and incomplete.)

MORAL TO THE STORY: Always listen to the snake, and make art even if it's ugly! You'll be better off in the end...

---Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool---And Fan of the Fang)