In Remembrance: Hugh Steers.

Breathing 1987

Breathing

Oil on Paper

11 x 15 in

1987 Hugh Steers

Provenance: Estate of Hugh Steers

Signature 1991

Signature

Oil on Canvas

66 x 56 in

1991 Hugh Steers

Provenance: Estate of Hugh Steers

Sick Room Hugh Steers 1990

Sick Room

Oil on Canvas

38.12 x 40

1990 Hugh Steers

Provenance: Estate of Hugh Steers

Hugh Steers Self Portrait 1987

Self-Portrait 

Charcoal and Watercolour on Paper

30 x 22 in

1987 Hugh Steers

Provenance: Estate of Hugh Steers.

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I have always loved the works of this young American Brahmin artist who was felled by AIDS – far too soon.  He was, of course, related by marriage to two of the most iconic Americans – at least for me – of the 20th Century: Gore Vidal (whose Michael Overleaves are to be found on the Michael Overleaves Appendix page) and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis – both of whom were king souls.

I remember… this World Aids Day, 2015

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© 2013-2023 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

Penetrating the Astral Veil.

maasai

The dream occurred, on Thursday, September 12, 1996, whilst the Moon transited both Virgo and my fourth house.

Definitely this dream, without a doubt, was set on the astral plane.  Whilst in a large house, Harella and Pandora were there.  It was night time out.  Pandora was aggressively trying to have a current lover marry her.  It struck me, in fact, as being a bit desperate.

I took my leave from the house going outside.  There, I squatted on a rock and then threw my right leg behind me.  The look and feel was very à la Martha Graham.

The rock was quite large.  In what seemed to be a park, lots of beautiful tall trees towered all around me.  Lots of large rocks were beautifully placed about the rambling grounds.

Whilst in the partially-open, Martha Graham fourth position, I did lyrical port de bras with the right leg extended in the rear.  Lunging forwards, as though I were rubber-backed, I then reached backwards with my head almost resting on the rear leg.

In the front, the rock sloped down before me.  As a result, this did not give my front leg much purchase.  Once, whilst in the midst of another port de bras en dehors, I had lost my footing and began slipping forward down the rock.

For feeling as elevated of spirit as I was, I simply pushed off the rock and took my lyricism to its higher octave.  I was flying!  Knowing full well that I was on the astral plane, there could have been no better celebration than this.

Though low-level flight, it was still the same sweet languorous movement as when enjoying the port de bras.  On swooping down out of the air, I flew mere inches off the verdant zingy grass.

Reaching upwards, I brought my arms up in an opening fifth position which then splayed outwards to second position.  This swept my body upwards as my arms were stretched out, much like wings, with the wrists splayed back a bit to the rear.

This, of course, created greater aerodynamic ease as well as exquisite aesthetics.  Legs together, feet perfectly pointed, I moved through the air like some glorious dragonfly in flight.

More than that, I had a sense of being an exotic bird of paradise with a long tail.  Immediately, this brought back images of my first flying dream set in that Amazon aviary in October 1966 – whilst I effortlessly fell from imaginings into lucid dreaming when ensconced in the favourite forking branch of the genip tree, my familiar, in Crab Hill, Sandy Point, St. Kitts.

Whilst staying in that position, I was able to effortlessly fly.  From time to time, I flapped my arms much like a crane’s majestic wings.  Swooping around to the left, I flew in an arc, returning to where I had taken off.

Considerably higher in the air, at this point, I could see the rock way below.  The rock was beautiful with an intense vibration.  The trees below formed a grid of vibrant, powerful negative-ioned energies.

I could readily discern the wind currents based, in fact, on the way the crowns of the trees were being swept about.  The majestic trees lyrically swayed with abandon.

Swooping further down, I flew down into the valley beyond the rock.  By simply arching my back, I was able to soar back up into the air.

My head I arched upwards and back to the right, in a flying port de bras, which took me higher and to the right.  This was the most gloriously liberating experience imaginable.

To help with the lift, I raised the left arm a bit.  This further took the body, up and around, in a sweeping arch.  Greatly inspired, I droned, besotted by the magic I creatively weaved,

“This is so abso-fucking-god-damn-assed-lutely beautiful…”

With that, I roared with laughter enjoying the abandon of spirit that I felt.  Though not as if in slow-motion, my flight was rather slow.  My movements were birdlike and possessed of a gracefulness that was truly rare.

Unlike that initial flying dream, set in the Amazon aviary in October 1966, there were no birds about to have inspired my splendid unfoldment of spirit – but it sure was sublime.

The trees looked not unlike American elm trees rather than evergreens local to the Canadian West Coast.  There were, in fact, no evergreens anywhere to be seen.

Flying away, I swooped up again.  Now I was soaring even higher.  At that, I then dove down, with swift precision that took me below the crowns of the trees.  Now I was about forty feet off the ground.

At this level, I went flying into the thick cover of the stand of trees that stood closest to the rock on which it had all started.  Most of the treetops were higher than I was at this point.

Whilst I flew, I simultaneously became aware of both my sleeping body and my further expanded, awakened consciousness.  At this point, extrasensory perception ascended to a higher octave and extended the limits of the already expansive experience. 

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fpDream one.  Simultaneously, I was lying in the house with Harella and Pandora.  We were on the bed in the girls’ bedroom in the Crab Hill, Sandy Point, St. Kitts house.

Again, as I lay there, I was immediately reminded of the experiences on Boxing Day, 1972.  Once more, I felt as dissociative as when having the OBE: out-of-body experience, into the massive greenhouse of my genip tree familiar.

As I laid there on the bed, it seemed as if my feet were placed higher than my head.  I was, however, not overly concerned.  Pandora, much as she had on Boxing Day ’72, entered the room walking past me.

She looked at me because I laid there loudly snoring which, in the dreamtime, was strange.  I decided against awakening as I did not want to have to interrupt my parallel dreaming wherein I was blissing out whilst in flight.

I had no intentions of focussing on my snoring for it just might have awakened me.  I assured myself that it was okay to be snoring; it did not mean that I was in any danger.

At that point, I knew that I was definitely astral projecting.  When I became refocussed in the snoring body, I then recalled my astral self.  It was a true joy to feel my body fidget as my astral self resettled into its familiar berth.

Feeling confident and cocky, I decided to have another stab at astral projecting.  I wanted to fly… to soar again.  Being liberated was much too wonderful to have not further explored.

Keenly focussed, I again began astral projecting.  This time, as I began the cicada-like process of leaving the shell of my sleeping, still snoring body, I looked down at my body.

To my amazement I saw the astral self’s cord.  It looked as if an illumined string of dental floss.  However, this was a bit thicker.  It was actually a series of beads that were as if strung together by an intense, though soft, white light – a most luminously nacreous string of tiny, light-emanating pearls.

The cord was attached to the body between the belly button and the solar plexus chakras.  That part of my body felt expanded and wide-open.  On both bodies, the cord was attached at the same points.

I chose not to focus overlong on the deeply somnambulant body below me on the bed.

Dream onex.  Tumbling over on myself, I was now flying on my back.  Slowly flying through the house, I was – for astral projecting – able to know what was coming up ahead.

Here, in this expansive state, my spatial awareness was much enhanced.  I moved headfirst and not feet-first.  Moving through the house, I headed towards the kitchen knowing that Harella was there cooking.

On entering, Harella turned around and looked up at me as I slowly flew through the room over her head.  Surprised at the sight of me she said in a thick Nevisian accent,

“Buh aryu looka trouble ya t’nite.  Boyh ah weh y’ar go so?”

I paid her no mind and pretended to be asleep – I was after all lying on my back.  The sink was by a large window that was framed by natural, exposed wooden beams.

Harella, however, was not standing by the sink.  There were a few flowers on the windowsill.  On moving towards the pane of glass, I told myself not to worry about striking it.

With that I began increasing my vibration such that my projected astral self became a body of intense white light.  Effortlessly, at the same rate of slow flight, I travelled through the thick pane of glass.

Thrilled at my accomplishment, I devilishly laughed enjoying myself.  This was just as thrilling as that sublime dream encounter with Merlin, when he passed me the Sunday New York Times whilst at a café, where we had sat at a deuce having brunch on a glorious, sunny Sunday morning.

*That particular dream was had, on Wednesday, December 1, 1993.  END.

With that, I was outside in the dark whilst still in flight.  The window looked out to a ravine way below.  The drop below was considerable, with me in flight, high above the valley way below.

Adjusting, I tumbled over onto my stomach in order that I might meet the demands of flight at such heights.

Using sweeping motions of the arms, again much like a bird, I began flying.  Such utter abandon it was, too.  I was so pleased that I had decided to leave my body and have another round of astral projection.

I flew as if a bird of prey and the feeling was positively delightful.  After awhile, I returned indoors but soon enough decided to again go outdoors.  All I wanted to do, once more, was to pass through the thick pane of glass in the kitchen.

Again, I upped my vibrational frequency and allowed my body to effortlessly move through the thick pane of glass.  It was as though I were passing through the Chinese glass-beaded curtain, that Merlin so loved, which hung in the door to our 20 Amelia Street, Cabbagetown Toronto home’s bedroom.  Once again, I was flying facedown above the ravine.

With great speeds, I began flying; this time swooping down lower into the depths of the ravine, I further explored whilst in flight.  The thrill of speeding past the vibration of the treetops below me was exhilarating.

*It had much the same effect as, when joining Merlin on that magic carpet-like transport, in the august dreams of July 9, 1993.  END.

Soon, I arrived at a village which seemed as if somewhere in Africa.  Since I knew that I definitely was on the astral plane, I sought to explore the environs by alighting in the middle of a narrow street.

Straight away, I kept up a leisurely pace when moving through the village and drinking in everything about me.  There was a lot of lush vegetation, all around, wherever you looked.

As I came on a bend in the earthen street, it was nighttime here.  There I saw some of the villagers in the most colourful African costumes imaginable.  These were the most exquisitely dark-skinned Blacks that I had ever seen.

Yet, there was something about these Blacks that was different to their waking-state human counterparts.  They were so very exciting to be around that they simply radiated life and light energies itself.

I was thrilled to have encountered them.  They were playing the music which so richly informed my childhood.  This was the music of ‘Sports’ and foreday morning at Christmas time whilst growing up in Sandy Point, St. Kitts.

One of the instruments that they played was heavy-looking brass cymbals.  They banged them with great gusto.  As well, there were myriad drums on which they beat a frenzy that was truly admirable.

This was truly the most frig-all glorious music heard in too long.  There was no other way to have responded to this music than to have danced.  Here I moved as if truly possessed.

As though alighting into my body to vicariously experience the joy of being ensouled in a body anew, I truly felt that I was being channelled by a host of spirits.

Indeed, my very soul itself was moving in on the cicada-like shell of my projected astral self.  I threw my head back and howled with delight at being so richly empowered.

For the most part, these regal Blacks seemed to be troubadours who were part of a travelling circus.  There were jugglers and acrobats.  The cymbal players were low to the ground and in back of them were the drummers, on a float, where they were some four levels high.

They were quite a sight to see.  Yet, I still couldn’t quite fathom what it was about them that proved somewhat slightly different.  Then when one of the cymbal players took off his instrument, I noticed that their arms were differently proportioned to humans’.

Basically, there were less than three inches between their elbows and their wrists.  The distance from the elbows to the shoulders was the same as for a human from wrist to shoulder.  Indeed, we were clearly not in Kansas anymore…

This was a very energetic, high-frequencied race of Blacks.  Though small in stature, they were not pygmies.  However, goodness, this race of Blacks had such incredible presence to them.

Theirs were the most beautiful smiling eyes imaginable.  The closest one could think of is the beauty of the eyes of Blacks from Fiji – whom racially obsessed foreigners would like to believe are not Black.  Absurd!

For not having been enslaved and subjected to the prevailing Western, absurdist, racially predatory animus, Fijians are a people whose spirits were not broken.  These astral beings were a wonderful people whose spirit had not similarly been broken.

These astral plane Blacks were a people possessed of the most beautiful-sounding laughter.  It simply tickled the soul to hear these people laugh.  These people were very serious about their music; it was on the order of high spiritual contemplation.

At one point, they arrived at a spot where they set up what looked like a drum that was made from metal.  Cone-shaped, it looked like an oversized toy top with four layers of circular steel which were separated by two or three inches.

Naturally, the smallest circle of steel was at the narrow bottom of the instrument.  Once set up, they began directing energy from the other drums which conversely caused the large metallic drum to spin.

As the top-like drum spun, the winds passing through it created a sound that was akin to an engine with a high-pitched whir.  As the sound progressed, the pitch kept on rising higher and higher whilst soaring to stratospheric octaves.

I was about to take my leave of them, on discovering their outré-proportioned bodies, when the sound of the set-up drum pierced through me.  So, with that, I turned around and headed back to investigate their ritual.

There, on the street, I saw the halved corpse of a White male.  Dark-haired and square-jawed, he was not remotely familiar.  I then noticed that, as he lay there, there were tiny lights along his jaw line.

So right away, I realised that he was an automaton and not someone who had been killed in a freakish accident.  I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on here.  I thought, perhaps, that this was some sort of strange, astral plane voodoo doll.

Of course, it more than likely wasn’t.  Obviously, they were engaged in some form of channelling and these accoutrements were what they used.  Thus they were able to affect communication with other planes and dimensions.

Now the musicians came off their float and formed a circle about the whirring, rotating metallic drum.  There, they beat a frenzy like there was no tomorrow.  Still, their playing could not drown out the high-pitched whir of the massive drum-like instrument.

It seemed as though their playing aided it to soar to even high planes of intensity than before.  I couldn’t believe that such sounds were possible.  However, its intense pitch was clearly able to affect the manifestation of something or other.

At this point, the rest of the villagers began flocking to the centre of the village.  They gathered about the circle of drummers as they ecstatically performed.  In a bid to get a good view of things, as events unfolded in their village, they were excitedly rushing in.

They struck me as being on the verge of expecting something momentous.  They were familiar with this ritual; it would seem that this had something to do with death.  This process revealed who had recently died or, more to the point, who was about to die.

Many of the villagers, who had rushed in, were villagers from Crab Hill, Sandy Point, St. Kitts.  Among them, I saw Maudie Hazel and several others from my childhood who looked much as they did then.

I figured too that most of these persons had already passed on in the waking state and, therefore, were currently astral plane habitués.  As someone from Sandy Point was about to die, this ritual was being carried out.

Here on the astral plane, this was how the announcement of an arrival was made.  Thus the predeceased would rush in, as it were, to find out who was about to crossover.

Too, they were there to serve as a welcome committee and help the newly returned habitués become adjusted.  Obviously, for some, there needed to be some getting used to being dead and returned to the astral plane.  The mood here was incredibly celebratory.

The new habitué was thrown an energetic party where the music was that of the most glorious time in the village – Jouvé morning.  Many were quite eager to meet old friends and get them oriented to their new realm of beingness.  It was all great fun.

What was a big item here was that the predeceased villagers were always eager to let the newcomers know who had killed whom, in some unsolved and highly-suspect, mysterious death or murder.

It was so akin to the richness of emotionality which village life in Crab Hill had been during my childhood.  It was great to be here.

Maudie Hazel was a real noisy, gossiping firebrand.  She wore a soiled white frock; it looked as if it had been her favourite, for years on end, when she was alive.

Looking as though she hadn’t done anything as momentous as died and left Crab Hill, her head was tied up in a kerchief.  She stood to my immediate left.

To have looked across to her strong warrior-spirited face caused me to well up with loving pride and laughter.  This woman was so lived-in and soulful that it nourished the very soul to have seen her – again.

Eventually, the steel drum came to a rousing climax.  At that, one heard a voice that sounded like a recording.  It was the voice of someone on their deathbed, giving their last words as they bade farewell to the world, before shutting down a life.

However, this was a recording that the person had made knowing that they were going to die soon.  To my way of thinking, it was clearly a suicide.  There was no mistaking the fact that it was David Templeman.

His voice was not unlike that of Pericles da Braga’s.  A very articulate and erudite register it was.  At the end of his speech, there was a succession of long, weary-sounding breaths which was customary of someone taking their last breaths before dying.

For all gathered, this was the most beautiful sound; they hung on to it and drew on heavy breaths themselves.  They were just as celebratory as if they were persons attending a birth – which, in essence, it was.  A rebirth it was, too, back to being an astral plane habitué.

By their pleasurable expressions, they were validating that it was death.  The return to the astral plane was a labour of sorts; it was being facilitated by others who had headed out on the journey earlier.

This, indeed, was quite the revolutionary discovery.  Needless to say, this left me wondering what exactly I was doing there.  There were no doubts in my mind that I had stumbled onto the astral plane.

These villagers were distinctly African in nature, even those who were familiar to me as being born in both St. Kitts and Nevis and whom I knew when growing up in Crab Hill.

Some were exceptionally long-limbed but possessed that unusual arrangement to their limbs that was decidedly not earthly human.  Long-legged too, they were all long-torsoed.  Their torsos were so long that they seemed as if possessed of more vertebrae than humans.

These people could dance with an electrifying magic that could, any day of the week, dance circles around Michael Jackson.  It was quite something to see this group of Blacks in another dimension.  Theirs was a very vibrant culture.

More than that, I was really keen to learn exactly how David Templeman had died or how he was going to die.  Either way, this ritual presaged his arrival onto the astral plane as arrivée, astral plane habitué.

The halved corpse that lay on the ground, which was clearly an automaton, was the channel that brought through the voice of David Templeman as he passed on.

There was a bit of chatter as a few astral plane habitués, who had lived in Crab Hill, were discussing exactly who David Templeman was.  It seemed that someone had not remembered who David was as the astral plane habitué had moved to America decades earlier.

Many of these Sandy Pointers, I did not myself recognise.  This I think was due to the fact that they had died when I was a child or long before I had even moved to St. Kitts from Nevis.

I must say that it was really good to have been around them.  It was all very interesting and made me feel as though I was in St. Kitts.  A thoroughly pleasurable interlude this was for me.

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Photo: Shamanic Maasai warrior.

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© 2013-2023 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.