102% One hundred percent

Having cleared the fund raising goal in my quest to reach Japan, I owe my backers my sincerest gratitude!  Their efforts and patronage will extend for years in my own life and I hope to be able to act as a magnifying glass, exponentially distributing their contribution through this project.  My expectations of funding this project have been exceeded through a long three months.  I am trying not to have any expectations for the end result and hope that it leads to new roads and avenues of learning.  I have had a fair share of dissenters an naysayers concerning my intentions but it is to be expected. 
Its interesting how unwanted conflict can create beneficial results.

Within symptoms of disease and sickness silver linings may be found and exploited.  As a result of the myriad mines laid out during the Vietnam War, tracts of land have become re-forested and species near extinction are thriving.  It is a game of loaded dice: countless human limbs and lives lost, genetic traits wiped out and new ones formed, and the animals filling in the niche pried open by killing do so on a razors edge.  Philanthropic organizations have sprouted to deal with the ordinances still killing after a third of a century, their goals are to plant trees where mines are removed, but as they do so they may disturb agent orange and other herbicides that destroy foliage and poison the population once again.  I am not against a tree being planted nor am I for armed conflict, I aim to only illustrate that our actions have weight and we can only do the best we can and learn from past decisions.

Ideas don't always bring what we think they will bring and there is always the danger of them being turned back onto themselves in ways we can't imagine.   In educating myself about view points of place and landscape I've started to read about Heidegger and topology.  Its a task I didn't see myself in  at the start of my project with Japan.  His view points on being and place can lead to an overblown sense of nationalism; the Nazi Party used it as rationalization to dehumanize Romani, "Gypsy",  and other nomadic people viewing them as less than human as they saw them with no physical place to create an identity. 

http://www.gypsyloresociety.org/

 We must be aware that what we do has outcomes we can't predict.  I believe that Heidegger's philosophy on place and being can be beneficial in creating a localized/familial identity that strengthens and shares within a larger world community.  I believe that through a philosophy of place and being we can bring together ideas peacefully that would otherwise only be exchanged through conflict as Macedonia or The Huns exemplified in our pasts.   I believe that our myths, legends, and folklore are our entry ways into a more understanding future.  It all may end up being wrong, but not as wrong as before.  Its still a process.  I'm looking forward to investigating; I thank you backers for helping me reach this critical step in achieving my goal.

On a different note, If you are in Philadelphia b/n this posting and August 28th, please visit Rodger LaPelle Galleries as a few of my pieces are on the walls.