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Photo Captured: 2002 by Geoff Newton in Tampa Bay, FL
A new symbolic take in tribute to the memories that feel so distant and almost like a dream around the concept of "Touching Grass" that I pulled from the original "Junk Planet" album art & press photos...
Artist: Dutchmassive Album: Junk Planet Recorded: 1997-2002 Released: July 13, 2004 CD & 2xLP (double vinyl) Label: Atomik / Freshchest Records / Caroline Distribution
Backstory:
With the 20th Anniversary of my debut solo album as Dutchmassive titled "Junk Planet" right around the corner (July 13th 2024) I wanted to world build with proof of legacy around one of the most important personal topics and themes that is so close to my heart. "Touching Grass"
If you pay attention you will notice that common theme spread across nearly my entire 30 year plus artistic legacy. That theme is rooted in the intrinsic and instinctive feeling and belief that the most important aspect of being gifted with sentience is being grateful for the grand architecture & magical force of intelligent design... I.E. The Universe that exists and will exist absent of the existence, influence or actions of human experience. I.E. "Mother Nature"
Perfect Harmony, Heaven on Earth / in Universe already exists.
My earliest vivid memories and emotions are all tied to the tranquility of how my mind, body and spirit reacted to being in nature in such a profound way. Like before I was able to speak or express I was blessed to grasp and recognise how lucky I was to be alive and in tune with the natural environment. It's not a mistake that for humans to remain in existence & "Healthy" we all require the same key conditions, Oxygen, Sunlight and Water. These same conditions extend to "most" living organic life.
The Universe is perfected Chaos, but the sentient human experience seems to be the glitch or exception to that reality. "Ignorance is Bliss" + "Your Reality is what you make it" These phrases are daunting to anyone who was born highly sensitive to energy with heightened awareness.
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things"
The most precious things on this earth are Mother Nature and Childlike Wonder... Pure Innocence.
To become an Adult by these standards means to desensitise your spirit and compromise your instinct and intuition to adapt & survive and ignore all the imperfect, unnatural, unbalanced and unfair realities created by other humans.
The title of my first solo album references the mourning of losing utopia & being conscious and aware of what the centuries of humans that existed before me chose to do to create the societal "reality" we are all encouraged and pretty much forced to accept as the reality for the magical experience of being a sentient being.
But we are all Human, We have to adapt to survive right, to not blindly accept and follow societal norms as truth and accept that reality is just immature adolescence. "Your daydreaming is child like, Time to Grow up"
Over the years as I aged and matured and did my best to navigate through a man made world, I never seemed to be able to desensitise myself enough to bury that initial intrinsic intuition I had before I even had a chance to be shaped or influenced by human expectations... Heaven exists on earth already and somehow the majority of humans have been conditioned to no longer recognize it.
So this theme of touching grass and returning to nature kept growing stronger which reflected in the art I created.
🔗The Tree That Fell In The Forest🔗
🔗The Reluctant Clap (Daily Rambles) 🔗
All themed, inspired by and/or created by or in Nature or rejecting the societal man made side of the human experience.
Fast forward to the present... Natural & Organic experiences even virtually have been stripped away. Hardly anyone who experienced life before algorithms is having a more healthy and fulfilling experience, yet no one is listening and this world is being reshaped for maximum extraction at all costs and my spirit can't stop rejecting it with all the fight it has left (which is close none)
The most common reply to someone being vocal about how unhealthy and detrimental the virtual world has become is....
"Go Touch Grass"
If they only knew the context and reality of the human they were passively giving that cliche advice to.
Once Upon A Time...
