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    <title>Gaia: MFA: Marvelous FREE Art! - MFA FREE Art Spotlights</title>
    <id>tag:gaia.com,2008,:Gaia</id>
    <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/discussions/feeds/board/7425</link>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <ttl>20</ttl>
    <pubDate>Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:38:21 GMT</pubDate>
    <description>Gaia: MFA: Marvelous FREE Art! - MFA FREE Art Spotlights</description>
    <item>
      <title>MFA Spotlight for April '09: Robin Craig Clark</title>
      <author>http://sol.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Sol</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2009:Gaia-427073</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:38:21 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/427073</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      Dear MFAer,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Our spotlighted &lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz" title="MFA" target="_blank"&gt;MFA&lt;/a&gt; artist in April is &lt;a href="http://peliguin.gaia.com/" title="Robin Craig Clark" target="_blank"&gt;Robin Craig Clark&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Born in England with a background as a film assistant and editor for twelve years at Twickenham Film Studios, Robin then travelled across Australia and in 1991 settled down in the Darling Hills of Western Australia to study Homeopathic medicine at the Oceanic Institute of Homeopathic Medicine.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Robin now manages his own company, &lt;a href="http://www.peliguin.com/" title="Peliguin Publications" target="_blank"&gt;Peliguin Publications&lt;/a&gt;: a successful publishing company specialising in &#8220;a new generation of spiritual books.&#8221;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Robin is the author of three spiritually inspiring and challenging books: &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.peliguin.com/childrens_spiritual_book.html" title="Puri: The Coming of Paradise" target="_blank"&gt;Puri: The Coming of Paradise&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Through a child&amp;#39;s compassionate act of charity and kindness there forms a caring and loving friendship between two distant worlds. &lt;em&gt;Puri&lt;/em&gt; will inspire; taking you beyond the limitations of language and culture to a world filled with love and laughter we call paradise.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.peliguin.com/soul_friend_anam_cara.html" title="The Garden: Anam Cara" target="_blank"&gt;The Garden: Anam Cara&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Celtic tradition has a beautiful notion of friendship. A true friend is a soul friend or &#8220;anam cara&#8221;; &lt;em&gt;anam&lt;/em&gt; is the Gaelic word for soul and &lt;em&gt;cara&lt;/em&gt; means friend. The Celtic world believes that a soul friend is the awakening power to the soul within us. &lt;em&gt;The Garden&lt;/em&gt; is a story of this love and friendship. It is the journey of a Dreame &#8230; an everyman, facing the existential journey of his evolving consciousness but at the same time observing humanity from the outside.&lt;em&gt; The Garden&lt;/em&gt; is a blend of fantasy, lyrical description, dialogue, poetry and dazzling illustrations, helping you awaken to your inner awareness&#8211;our own Anam Cara.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.peliguin.com/spiritual_life_meaning_purpose.html" title="Voyager: An Adventure in Higher Consciousness" target="_blank"&gt;Voyager: A Definitive Map to Higher Consciousness&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;Voyager&lt;/em&gt; is a spiritual handbook that teaches all the necessary skills for charting new frontiers of human thought. This is a definitive spiritual book on How Live a Spiritual Life in the 21st Century.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;With an impressive &#8220;star-studded&#8221; cast, &lt;em&gt;Voyager&lt;/em&gt; is a practical book that boldly explores new worlds of higher consciousness. A deeply thought-provoking spiritual journey with many insights into the soul. Using an artistic blend of sepia and colour, the reader is taken on an exciting spiritual voyage that dares to cross the meridian between two worlds of thought. These luxuriantly multi-layered illustrations contain deeper and often elusive messages that encourage the phenomena of an awakening mind and higher consciousness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Freely available for download are: &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.peliguin.com/the-garden_gaia.pdf" title="The Garden" target="_blank"&gt;The Garden Sneak Preview!&lt;/a&gt; 1.24mb&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.peliguin.com/voyager-gaia.pdf" title="Voyager" target="_blank"&gt;Voyager First Chapter&lt;/a&gt; Journey to the Centre of the Earth 2.58mb&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;More information and book previews available at &lt;a href="http://www.peliguin.com/" title="Peliguin Publications" target="_blank"&gt;http://www.peliguin.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold"&gt;STEP INTO THE SPOTLIGHT!&lt;/span&gt; If you&amp;#39;d like to be considered for an MFA FREE Art Spotlight, or wish to nominate one of our peers, just let me know (&lt;strong&gt;in a private letter to my Gaia email&lt;/strong&gt;). You&amp;#39;ll have to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;join&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; MFA first, which is also FREE. I&amp;#39;ll consider any of our members, but can only choose one applicant per month. :-)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In addition to being posted on our community&amp;#39;s featured Discussion Board, each MFA FREE Art Spotlight will be mailed out to the entire membership, currently over 2,700.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Spotlighted artists are required to offer an original FREE art work (or works) of high quality to all members&#8211;at least for the duration of the month in which their work is featured.Let&amp;#39;s change the world with Marvelous FREE Art!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Artfully,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sol&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://sol.gaia.com/"&gt;http://sol.gaia.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

      </description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Re: MFA FREE Art Spotlight for December '08: John Haines</title>
      <author>http://soundspeaceful.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>John</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2009:Gaia-385838</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:23:04 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/379966#385838</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      Leanne,&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#39;m so glad you enjoyed the book. It was my intention to inspire people when I wrote it. And I felt peaceful and content writing it. Mostly that is!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Keep on spreading light and colour into the world.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Blessings,&lt;br /&gt;John &lt;/p&gt;

      </description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Re: MFA FREE Art Spotlight for December '08: John Haines</title>
      <author>http://rainbowrevolution.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Leanne</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2009:Gaia-385794</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:22:53 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/379966#385794</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      I was blessed to have been given John&amp;#39;s book as a gift for Christmas. I have just finished it and I must say I have thoroughly enjoyed every word! I have come away from it feeling inspired, energised and yet at the same time feeling peaceful and content!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

      </description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Re: MFA FREE Art Spotlight for December '08: John Haines</title>
      <author>http://soundspeaceful.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>John</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2009:Gaia-382938</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 01 Jan 2009 10:47:31 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/379966#382938</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      Thank you so much Kathy. You are always incredibly supportive. I&amp;#39;ve got some really interesting interviews I&amp;#39;ll be uploading to the net in the days and weeks&amp;nbsp;ahead. I&amp;#39;m due soon to interview Amanda McBroom right here in our little place in New Zealand&amp;#39;s Far North. I&amp;#39;m sure you already know, but she&amp;#39;s the lady who wrote the modern classic, &lt;em&gt;The Rose. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#39;ve also just created a simple little &lt;a href="http://insearchofsimplicity.com/"&gt;video trailer &lt;/a&gt;for&lt;em&gt; In Search of Simplicity.&lt;/em&gt; I know it&amp;#39;s nothing for a film maker like you, but it gets the point across, I feel.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks again, Kathy, for all the good work that you do.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Love and blessings,&lt;br /&gt;John &lt;/p&gt;

      </description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Re: MFA FREE Art Spotlight for December '08: John Haines</title>
      <author>http://sol.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Sol</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-381170</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 27 Dec 2008 02:14:25 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/379966#381170</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      Thanks for commenting, ~KES! &lt;/p&gt;

      </description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Re: MFA FREE Art Spotlight for December '08: John Haines</title>
      <author>http://kathysmith.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>~KES</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-380699</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:29:20 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/379966#380699</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      Congratulation on all of the hard work John!!! &amp;nbsp;I listened to your pod casts the other day and really want to validate all of the wonderful things you are bringing to his site; and to Sol for spotlighting you. &amp;nbsp;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;We are spotlighting&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/soundtracks/discussions/view/379268" target="_blank"&gt;Heather on Dreams of Artists&amp;nbsp;&lt;/a&gt;so feel free to stop over and check out the comments and see her 5 or so self made galleries. &amp;nbsp;Yes, the artist that promotes like this will 1,000X their business so keep on doing this and the flows just start revving up and happening.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Happy Holidays to all and warm wishes tomorrow...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Much love,&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;Kathy&lt;/div&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

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    </item>
    <item>
      <title>MFA FREE Art Spotlight for December '08: John Haines</title>
      <author>http://sol.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Sol</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-379966</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:43:48 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/379966</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      Dear MFAer,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div align="justify"&gt;Our spotlighted &lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;MFA&lt;/a&gt; artist in December is &lt;a href="http://soundspeaceful.gaia.com/profile"&gt;John Haines&lt;/a&gt;. Originally from Canada, international wanderer John has lived most of his adult life without a computer, cell phone, TV, radio, newspapers, or magazines. This has been an intentional choice in his journey devoted to the discovery of Truth and Simplicity.  &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div align="justify"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; With one homeschooling daughter about to leave the nest (Amira was John&amp;#39;s editor after becoming the youngest ever to complete an editing and proofreading qualification with the New Zealand Institute of Business Studies) and the other daughter, Asha, asserting all of the natural independence of a relatively mature nearly-16-year-old, John has entered the modern world in order to reach out and share some of the lessons he has learned through an unconventional life.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;p align="justify"&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.amazon.com/Search-Simplicity-Story-Changes-Lives/dp/1439207313"&gt;In Search of Simplicity&lt;/a&gt;: A True Story that Changes Lives, &lt;/em&gt;is John&amp;#39;s new book, an exciting and serendipitous journey through the wilds of Papua New Guinea, the Himalayas, around the planet and into the heart of life guaranteed to change the way you see the world and so-called coincidences.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p align="justify"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23684111-In-Search-of-Simplicity-Audio-Trailer"&gt;Click here to listen&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;to an audio trailer&amp;nbsp;as John speaks for just under 3 minutes on his adventures in&lt;em&gt; In Search of Simplicity.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p align="justify"&gt;The book is an autobiographical travel adventure story that reads like a novel. Over the years, when John told some of the stories of coincidences that are now contained in the book, listeners began to have (or at least to notice) magical happenings in their own lives. The timely themes woven through the easy-to-read narrative include the power of coincidence; ecological, social and economic responsibility; and personal awakening.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align="justify"&gt;To find out more about the book and to read sample chapters, go to &lt;a href="http://www.insearchofsimplicity.com/"&gt;http://www.insearchofsimplicity.com/&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p align="justify"&gt;John presents a popular weekly radio interview program of his own called &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.odeo.com/channels/2118802-Voices-From-the-North"&gt;Voices from the North&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; that is simultaneously carried on local cable television in the beautiful subtropical far north of New Zealand where he lives. He has recently begun to upload archived shows to odeo.com. To see all that are currently available for your listening enjoyment, &lt;a href="http://www.odeo.com/channels/2118802-Voices-From-the-North"&gt;click here&lt;/a&gt;. Or you can read some of his blogs about particularly inspiring interviews on his &lt;a href="http://soundspeaceful.gaia.com/blog"&gt;Gaia blog&lt;/a&gt;. &lt;br /&gt; &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p style="text-align: justify" align="justify"&gt;John is also a singer/songwriter. He offers freely to MFA members this demo-quality peace song, &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.imeem.com/people/PZHPpSG/music/6knV8ClU/john_haines_can_you_hear_the_messagemp3/"&gt;Can You Hear the Message&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, recorded in 2003 while he was living in the Netherlands. Also freely available this month for listening and download are two inspiring stories John has recorded exclusively for your enjoyment, &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.imeem.com/people/PZHPpSG/music/pBgMHuqH/john_haines_the_peace_candlemp3/"&gt;The Peace Candle&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.imeem.com/people/PZHPpSG/music/N6yRywFl/john_haines_keep_on_singingmp3/"&gt;Keep on Singing&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.zaadz.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.potentiation.net/MFA.png" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="text-align: justify" align="justify"&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold"&gt;STEP INTO THE SPOTLIGHT!&lt;/span&gt; If you&amp;#39;d like to be considered for an MFA FREE Art Spotlight, or wish to nominate one of our peers, just let me know (&lt;strong&gt;in a private letter to my Gaia email&lt;/strong&gt;). You&amp;#39;ll have to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;join&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; MFA first, which is also FREE. I&amp;#39;ll consider any of our members, but can only choose one applicant per month. :-)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In addition to being posted on our community&amp;#39;s featured Discussion Board, each MFA FREE Art Spotlight will be mailed out to the entire membership, currently over 2,700.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Spotlighted artists are required to offer an original FREE art work (or works) of high quality to all members&amp;ndash;at least for the duration of the month in which their work is featured.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="text-align: justify" align="justify"&gt;Let&amp;#39;s change the world with Marvelous FREE Art!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Artfully,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sol&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://sol.gaia.com/"&gt;http://sol.gaia.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

      </description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Re: MFA FREE Art Spotlight for October '08: The Abstract Sound</title>
      <author>http://leigh.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Leigh</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-348502</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:22:52 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/347807#348502</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      &lt;div align="justify"&gt;Thanks for the CD, Jay! Sol and I have both enjoyed it immensely. Excellent work and professional quality all the way!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

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    </item>
    <item>
      <title>MFA FREE Art Spotlight for October '08: The Abstract Sound</title>
      <author>http://sol.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Sol</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-347807</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:31:30 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/347807</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      &lt;div style="text-align: center"&gt;&lt;img id="lightboxImage" src="http://aura.gaia.com/photos/44/434676/Album_Cover_Small.jpg" alt="" width="213" height="192" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dear MFAer,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: justify"&gt;MFA on Zaadz member &lt;a href="http://abstractsound.gaia.com/"&gt;The Abstract Sound&lt;/a&gt; is finally releasing the yoga album Jay has promised us for months! A Gaia member since February 2007, The Abstract Sound spent the past several years focusing on Jay&amp;#39;s desire to create an album for yoga and meditation that moves with the breath and responds to the natural ebb and flow of yoga without distracting from the practice itself. For the month of October, The Abstract Sound will offer over twenty minutes of FREE music to MFA on Zaadz members!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From the ambient ringing of suspended oxygen tanks and the traditional rhythms of Indian tabla to the warm washes of electric guitars and analog keyboards, The Abstract Sound&lt;em&gt; &lt;/em&gt;creates a truly unique musical experience for the yoga practitioner and listener alike. The new album, &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.theabstractsound.com/store.html"&gt;Music for Space Travel&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/em&gt; is an organic combination of improvisation, composition, rhythmic loops and sonic effects created with live acoustic and electric instruments.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Many of you may be familiar with The Abstract Sound&amp;#39;s &lt;a href="http://abstractsound.gaia.com/blog"&gt;blogs&lt;/a&gt; regarding music, spirituality, and life in general. On several occasions Jay discussed his goal to create an album that energizes yoga practice without distraction and yet provides the deep listener with repeated moments of discovery through its hidden structures and motifs that float in and out of the sonic ether. We are thrilled to see that The Abstract Sound has achieved this goal.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p style="text-align: justify"&gt;At every stage of the creative process The Abstract Sound&lt;em&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/em&gt;included yoga instructors and practitioners from across the country, seeking their input on the timing, tempo, and mood of the album. During the editing and mixing process &lt;em&gt;Music for Space Travel&lt;/em&gt; was tested in both Hatha and Kripalu yoga classes. The organic and continuous flow of &lt;em&gt;Music for Space Travel &lt;/em&gt;is the result of this collaboration and experimentation.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="text-align: justify"&gt;For the month of October, The Abstract Sound offers &lt;span style="font-weight: bold"&gt;3 free tracks of over 20 minutes of music&lt;/span&gt; for Gaia members through &lt;a href="http://abstractsound.gaia.com/"&gt;The Abstract Sound&amp;#39;s Gaia page&lt;/a&gt; and at their website,&lt;a href="http://www.theabstractsound.com/store.html"&gt; theabstractsound.com&lt;/a&gt;. Simply select the tracks marked &amp;ldquo;Free&amp;rdquo; and follow the instructions. The first track, &amp;ldquo;Incoming Signals,&amp;rdquo; was selected to give listeners a taste of the funkier, energetic side of the album. The second track is the conclusion of &lt;em&gt;Music for Space Travel&lt;/em&gt;. This track, entitled &amp;ldquo;Deep Space,&amp;rdquo; is 8 minutes of gentle ambient guitar and warm washes that take the listener from the heat of the album to a relaxed state.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="text-align: justify"&gt;In addition to the full-length &lt;em&gt;Music for Space Travel&lt;/em&gt;, The Abstract Sound is releasing &lt;em&gt;Deep Space&lt;/em&gt;, a 40-minute journey that can be added to &lt;em&gt;Music for Space Travel&lt;/em&gt; for an extended sonic experience or enjoyed on its own as it places the listener in a vast, contemplative space. The third free track comes from this exclusive download. Entitled &amp;ldquo;A Gently Falling Rise,&amp;rdquo; this free track is 10 minutes of gentle sonic washes, Tibetan singing bowls and voices.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="text-align: justify"&gt;These free tracks can be downloaded along with additional material from &lt;a href="http://www.theabstractsound.com/store.html"&gt;theabstractsound.com&lt;/a&gt;. Be sure to check out the free samples of the rest of the album while you are there and please send a link to any friends you think might be interested in this unique and experimental album.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="text-align: justify"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Yoga Instructors&lt;/strong&gt;: If &lt;em&gt;Music for Space Travel &lt;/em&gt;sounds like something you might like to use in class, please contact The Abstract Sound directly about receiving a complementary copy of the album as well as music download cards for your students. The Abstract Sound will need your name, address and the school at which you teach.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.zaadz.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.potentiation.net/MFA.png" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="text-align: justify"&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold"&gt;STEP INTO THE SPOTLIGHT!&lt;/span&gt; If you&amp;#39;d like to be considered for an MFA FREE Art Spotlight, or wish to nominate one of our peers, just let me know (&lt;strong&gt;in a private letter to my Gaia email&lt;/strong&gt;). You&amp;#39;ll have to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;join&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; MFA on Zaadz first, which is also FREE. I&amp;#39;ll consider any of our members, but can only choose one applicant per month. :-)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In addition to being posted on our community&amp;#39;s featured Discussion Board, each MFA FREE Art Spotlight will be mailed out to the entire membership, currently over 2,700.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Spotlighted artists are required to offer an original FREE art work (or works) of high quality to all members&amp;ndash;at least for the duration of the month in which their work is featured.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="text-align: justify"&gt;Let&amp;#39;s change the world with Marvelous FREE Art!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Artfully,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sol&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://sol.gaia.com/"&gt;http://sol.gaia.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

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    </item>
    <item>
      <title>MFA FREE Art Spotlight for June '08: Soulmandala</title>
      <author>http://sol.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Sol</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-298684</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:21:56 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/298684</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      &lt;div align="justify"&gt; &lt;div style="text-align: center"&gt; &lt;div style="text-align: center"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.crowrising.com/"&gt;&lt;span style="text-decoration: underline"&gt;&lt;img src="http://potentiation.net///zBanner620.jpg" alt="" width="489" height="107" /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;  &lt;/div&gt; &lt;br /&gt; Dear MFAer,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;MFA on Zaadz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; member D. Kristen Herrington (&lt;a style="font-weight: bold" href="http://soulmandala.gaia.com/"&gt;http://soulmandala.gaia.com&lt;/a&gt;) is an artist, writer and Reiki master/teacher from Round Rock, Texas. After a career in advertising, marketing and sales, she left the corporate world to begin working closer to her spirit.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;She has developed a unique technique for creating mandalas. Kristen says, &amp;ldquo;While there are some excellent computer programs available to generate geometric mandalas, they couldn&amp;#39;t express what I wanted to relate. I instead place each and every stroke myself, then duplicate, flip&amp;ndash;do whatever I need to do to create what I&amp;#39;m feeling. The result is an absolutely original creation each time!&amp;rdquo;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Kristen also uses her background in Reiki to create Personal Soul Mandalas. Using her Reiki training, she accesses the soul energy of her clients and allows that energy to direct her creative process. Some of the resulting soul portraits may be viewed on her &lt;a style="font-weight: bold" href="http://soulmandala.gaia.com/"&gt;Gaia profile&lt;/a&gt;. Just click on the Photos tab and enjoy!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Kristen has created three mandala computer wallpapers (each in four sizes to match your monitor size) specifically for the Gaia community as June&amp;#39;s MFA FREE Art Spotlight.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To &lt;span style="font-weight: bold"&gt;request your own free mandala wallpapers&lt;/span&gt;, please &lt;strong&gt;email&lt;/strong&gt; Kristen at &lt;strong&gt;soulmandala@gmail.com&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Mandala giclee prints on canvas and spiritual greeting cards by Kristen are available at: &lt;a style="font-weight: bold" href="http://www.pathfindertohealth.com/greetingcards"&gt;http://www.pathfindertohealth.com/greetingcards&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Unique Personal Soul Mandalas are available by commission. Please contact Kristen via Gaia email for commission order details. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For more information about Kristen&amp;rsquo;s work process for her Personal Soul Mandalas, please go to: &lt;a style="font-weight: bold" href="http://www.723.com/lifelites"&gt;http://www.723.com/lifelites&lt;/a&gt;.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you&amp;#39;d like to be considered for an MFA FREE Art Spotlight, or wish to nominate one of our peers, just let me know (&lt;strong&gt;in a private letter to my Gaia email&lt;/strong&gt;). You&amp;#39;ll have to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;join&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; MFA on Zaadz first, which is also FREE. I&amp;#39;ll consider any of our members, but can only choose one applicant per month. :-)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In addition to being posted on our community&amp;#39;s featured Discussion Board, each MFA FREE Art Spotlight will be mailed out to the entire membership, currently approaching 2,700.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Spotlighted artists are required to offer an original FREE art work (or works) of high quality to all members&amp;ndash;at least for the duration of the month in which their work is featured.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, &lt;strong&gt;please help grow MFA on Zaadz by copying and pasting the following linked banner on your Gaia profile and blogs:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;a href="http://pods.zaadz.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.potentiation.net/MFA.png" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;br /&gt;Let&amp;#39;s change the world with Marvelous FREE Art!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Artfully,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sol&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://sol.gaia.com/"&gt;http://sol.gaia.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

      </description>
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    <item>
      <title>MFA FREE Art Spotlight for May '08: BluestoneJones</title>
      <author>http://sol.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Sol</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-286320</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 14 May 2008 02:09:22 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/286320</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      &lt;div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;div align="justify"&gt;Dear MFAer,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;MFA on Zaadz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; member &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://bluestonejones.gaia.com/" target="_blank" title="Gaia Profile"&gt;BluestoneJones&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;is a gifted electronic musician integrating the spontaneous improvisational feel from jazz, with the production, beats and feel of electronic music. &lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt; BluestoneJones has been an active member of the live electronic band &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.signalpath.org/" title="signal path"&gt;Signal Path&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, as well as heading his own jazz and funk group. His music reflects an awareness of the connections that all things have in common. &amp;nbsp; &lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt; You can experience BluestoneJones&amp;#39; music by &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="itpc://feeds.feedburner.com/bluestonejones" title="iTunes subscription"&gt;subscribing&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; to his podcast for free in iTunes or visiting this &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.bluestonejones.org/" target="_blank" title="bluestonejones"&gt;website&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and downloading the music directly.&amp;nbsp; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;d like to be considered for an MFA FREE Art Spotlight, or wish to nominate one of our peers, just let me know (&lt;strong&gt;in a private letter to my Gaia email&lt;/strong&gt;). You&amp;#39;ll have to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;join&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; MFA on Zaadz first, which is also FREE. I&amp;#39;ll consider any of our members, but can only choose one applicant per month. :-)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In addition to being posted on our community&amp;#39;s featured Discussion Board, each MFA FREE Art Spotlight will be mailed out to the entire membership, currently approaching 2,700.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Spotlighted artists are required to offer an original FREE art work (or works) of high quality to all members&amp;ndash;at least for the duration of the month in which their work is featured.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, &lt;strong&gt;please help grow MFA on Zaadz by copying and pasting the following linked banner on your Gaia profile and blogs:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;a href="http://pods.zaadz.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.potentiation.net/MFA.png" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;div align="justify"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let&amp;rsquo;s change the world with Marvelous FREE Art!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Artfully,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sol&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://sol.zaadz.com/profile"&gt;http://sol.gaia.com/profile&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

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    <item>
      <title>MFA FREE Art Spotlight for April '08: Michael Garfield</title>
      <author>http://sol.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Sol</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-272200</guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:36:25 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/272200</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      &lt;div style="text-align: justify; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"&gt;                        Dear MFAer,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#39;s my pleasure and honor to introduce &lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;MFA on Zaadz&lt;/a&gt;&amp;#39;s featured artist for April: Michael Garfield of Boulder, Colorado.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Michael holds degrees in Evolutionary Biology and Integral Theory and works as a songwriter (on guitar, ukulele, and Chapman Stick), live painter, essayist, sound man, and scientific illustrator&amp;ndash;as well as community organizer for Zaadz Visionary Music.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;His art and music are both contemplative cartographies&amp;ndash;landmarks and legends of mystical experience&amp;ndash;and field guides to the strange and beautiful life we encounter along the way. Bringing a biologist&amp;#39;s sensibility to art, Michael&amp;#39;s work in any medium is grown according to the rules of a unique mental genome&amp;ndash;out of the rich ecology of the imagination&amp;ndash;as an invitation to explore our infinite depths.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;You can find streaming concert footage and links to free downloads of Michael&amp;#39;s albums &lt;em&gt;Get Used To Being Everything&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Rare Bird on Common Ground&lt;/em&gt; here &amp;hellip;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://myspace.com/michaelgarfield"&gt;http://myspace.com/michaelgarfield&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&amp;hellip; as well as exclusive live tracks and &amp;ldquo;Sonnet A,&amp;rdquo; composed for Paul Lonely&amp;#39;s &lt;em&gt;Illuminated Suicide Dictionary&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;a href="http://sdiexperience.com/"&gt;sdiexperience.com&lt;/a&gt;), the world&amp;#39;s first integral multimedia sacred art collaboration, which can be downloaded for free from the myspace player itself.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Photographs of Michael&amp;#39;s live paintings and various other doodles can be found in his portfolio online here:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://s147.photobucket.com/albums/r290/michaelgarfield"&gt;http://s147.photobucket.com/albums/r290/michaelgarfield&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;All of Michael&amp;#39;s essays on art, science and spirituality (usually all three at once)&amp;ndash;as well as info about his Visionary Music community&amp;ndash;are available at &amp;hellip;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://michaelgarfield.gaia.com/"&gt;http://michaelgarfield.gaia.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;And if people want to put an ever-updated slideshow of Michael&amp;#39;s paintings on their page for free, here&amp;#39;s the html:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &amp;lt;div&amp;gt;&amp;lt;embed src=&amp;rdquo;&lt;a href="http://widget-0d.slide.com/widgets/slideticker.swf"&gt;http://widget-0d.slide.com/widgets/slideticker.swf&lt;/a&gt;&amp;rdquo; type=&amp;rdquo;application/x-shockwave-flash&amp;rdquo; quality=&amp;rdquo;high&amp;rdquo; scale=&amp;rdquo;noscale&amp;rdquo; salign=&amp;rdquo;l&amp;rdquo; wmode=&amp;rdquo;transparent&amp;rdquo; flashvars=&amp;rdquo;cy=un&amp;amp;il=1&amp;amp;channel=1873497444992162317&amp;amp;site=&lt;a href="http://widget-0d.slide.com/"&gt;widget-0d.slide.com&lt;/a&gt;&amp;rdquo; style=&amp;rdquo;width:426px;height:320px&amp;rdquo; name=&amp;rdquo;flashticker&amp;rdquo; align=&amp;rdquo;middle&amp;rdquo;&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/embed&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/div&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;         &amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href=&amp;rdquo;&lt;a href="http://myspace.com/michaelgarfield"&gt;http://myspace.com/michaelgarfield&lt;/a&gt;&amp;ldquo;&amp;gt;The Visionary Art of Michael Garfield&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All of Michael&amp;#39;s music is under creative commons license. If people want to remix it, they just need to let Michael know. (He might be able to give them the original masters). Michael also have an extensive loop library people are welcome to experiment with if they just email him on Gaia/Zaadz and ask.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Enjoy Michael&amp;#39;s copious collection of free goodies! If you&amp;#39;d like to pursue your own MFA FREE Art Spotlight, please read the guidelines &lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/discussions/board/7425"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. And as always, I invite you to consider spreading the good word about MFA by posting the linked banner below on your profiles, blog and/or website.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center; font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.zaadz.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.potentiation.net/MFA.png" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Artfully yours,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sol&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://sol.zaadz.com/"&gt;http://sol.gaia.com&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

      </description>
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    <item>
      <title>Re: MFA FREE Art Spotlight for March '08: THE TOY BUDDHA</title>
      <author>http://sol.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Sol</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-262948</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:12:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/259782#262948</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      &lt;p align="justify"&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;font size="3" style="font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"&gt;THE TOY BUDDHA: An Enriching Sequel to BEGINNER&amp;#39;S LUKE&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div align="justify"&gt;&lt;font size="2"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Janet Pearson, Apex Reviews, www.apexreviews.net&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic"&gt;The Toy Buddha&lt;/span&gt;, Book II of the &lt;span style="font-style: italic"&gt;Beginner&amp;#39;s Luke&lt;/span&gt; Series, picks up where its predecessor left off: with the fearless Luke Soloman continuing his trek down the Experience Trail. In this compelling set of adventures, though, Luke&amp;#39;s journey is as much physical as it is metaphysical.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"&gt;At a festive Halloween party hosted by his imaginary friend, Billy, Soloman trips out on acid. At the height of his delirium, Soloman witnesses a glowing Buddha statue passing nearby, but its significance seems, well, insignificant, and Soloman writes off the experience as per the typical side effects of a bad acid trip. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"&gt;Time goes on, and Soloman&amp;#39;s inward quest for self-discovery takes a few quirky turns: he mysteriously grows six inches overnight, begins playing basketball regularly, and, inevitably has his heart broken by both his heart&amp;#39;s one true desire, Vanessa, and his trusted imaginary friend. In the midst of his emotional grief, he witnesses the Buddha once again only this time the statue actually speaks to him, offering only the following terse axiom:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"&gt;&amp;ldquo;You can&amp;#39;t travel the path &amp;#39;til you&amp;#39;ve become the path.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"&gt;Before he has a chance to delve the depths of the statement, Soloman suffers a near fatal accident After he awakens from a dream-filled stupor, he reconciles with his friend and beloved, begins to mend, and eventually enjoys the pleasures he has heretofore only imagined with the lovely Vanessa. Unable to deny the significance of the Buddha&amp;#39;s recurrence in his life, though, Soloman soon ventures off again, on a continued search for even deeper meaning&amp;ndash;if there is any at all.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br style="font-style: italic" /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic"&gt;The Toy Buddha&lt;/span&gt; is an enriching sequel to &lt;span style="font-style: italic"&gt;Beginner&amp;#39;s Luke&lt;/span&gt;, helping to further define the original tome, as well as make its mission that much more clear. Luckman&amp;#39;s writing continues to be emboldened by his charged plunges into the abstract, and his playful, yet sincere, treatment of the ethereal continues to make for an enlightening read. If Book III of this engaging six-part series is anything like its progenitors, Luckman&amp;#39;s cadre of devoted readers is destined to only grow.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center"&gt;&lt;font&gt;&lt;font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.beginnersluke.com/page7.html"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.potentiation.net/ToyBuddha.jpg" alt="" width="215" height="318" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Adventure of an imaginary lifetime began with &lt;em&gt;Beginner&amp;#39;s Luke&lt;/em&gt;. Now Luke is back and better than ever in this stand-alone, mock-epic, enlightening spoof of all things held sacred in American culture. &lt;strong&gt;WARNING:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;em&gt;The Toy Buddha&lt;/em&gt; may cause vertigo, euphoria, lunatic laughter. May fundamentally alter you so the old rules no longer apply, so it&amp;#39;s okay if clothes become optional, okay to make love not war, okay to set fire to your country club, dig up your neighborhood golf course, plant an organic garden and build your new community one puff at a time &amp;hellip;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Download your FREE copies of &lt;em&gt;Beginner&amp;#39;s Luke&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;The Toy Buddha&lt;/em&gt; today at &amp;hellip;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.beginnersluke.com/page7.html"&gt;http://www.beginnersluke.com/page7.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

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    </item>
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      <title>MFA FREE Art Spotlight for March '08: THE TOY BUDDHA</title>
      <author>http://sol.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Sol</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-259782</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:12:27 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/259782</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      &lt;div align="justify"&gt;Dear MFAer,&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;br /&gt; Recently, we&amp;rsquo;ve had a lot of turnover as well as a lot of growth in our pod, so if this your first time receiving (or reading) our monthly MFA FREE Art Spotlight announcement, please be aware that:&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;br /&gt;  1) Our three previous spotlighted artists, novelist C.G. Walters (&lt;em&gt;Sacred Vow&lt;/em&gt;) and spiritually oriented rock musicians Artist X and Echo Root, went over extremely well. I personally received numerous emails of thanks for spreading the word about their FREE art offerings, and heard from two out of three of the artists that the announcement had increased interest in their work.&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;br /&gt;  2) All of our community members are eligible for an MFA FREE Art Spotlight by applying to me directly via my Gaia email at &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://sol.gaia.com/profile"&gt;http://sol.gaia.com/profile&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;. Before contacting me, please mindfully review the submission criteria by &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/discussions/view/224993"&gt;clicking here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;br /&gt; 3) I&amp;rsquo;ve spent the past couple weeks attempting to secure March&amp;rsquo;s featured artist, and in the process have lined up some excellent offerings for April, May, and June. Nothing having materialized for March, however, I&amp;rsquo;ve decided to offer my FREE novel, &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.beginnersluke.com/page7.html"&gt;THE TOY BUDDHA: Book II of the BEGINNER&amp;rsquo;S LUKE Series&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;, for your perusal and, perhaps, delectation.&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;br /&gt; Dr. Niama Williams, a literary scholar and host of the Internet radio show &amp;ldquo;Poetry &amp;amp; Prose &amp;amp; Anything Goes,&amp;rdquo; had this to say about Book I of the six-volume series chronicling the imaginary life of my eponymous hero: &amp;ldquo;BEGINNER&amp;#39;S LUKE is truly an experience that cannot adequately be described except to say that it is extraordinary and grabs one from the first word of the first chapter and never lets one go. Definitely a spiritual journey that you do not want to put down.&amp;rdquo;&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;br /&gt; While Luke&amp;rsquo;s irreverent antics may not appeal to all readers, I suggest that his journey of discovery with respect to the primacy of the imagination is timely and, potentially, enlightening in a way that only such material delivered with humor could be.&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;br /&gt; Book II, THE TOY BUDDHA, provides a particularly wild ride to the edge of spiritual illumination, achieved through Luke&amp;rsquo;s unflinchingly picaresque devotion to Experience. Writes one reviewer, Alyce Mooreland of Los Angeles, THE TOY BUDDHA &amp;ldquo;serves up a trenchant critique of the alarming tendency most people have to look outside themselves for meaning, be it spiritual or political&amp;ndash;whether they&amp;rsquo;re giving away their power to a religion, a guru, an elected official, a savior, or the Buddha himself now back on the loose in these unprecedented pages.&amp;rdquo;&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;br /&gt;  For a short time only, you can download both Book I and Book II of the BEGINNER&amp;rsquo;S LUKE Series FREE at &lt;a href="http://www.beginnersluke.com/page7.html"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;http://www.beginnersluke.com/page7.html&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;br /&gt;  To the Adventure!&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;br /&gt;  Artfully yours,&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;br /&gt;  Sol&lt;br /&gt;  &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://sol.gaia.com/"&gt;http://sol.gaia.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

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      <title>Re: MFA FREE Art Spotlight for February '08: Echo Root</title>
      <author>http://fragrantsoul.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>fragrantsoul</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-244660</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:52:08 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/244634#244660</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      I love your music. So, glad I found you and the Gaia community! &lt;/p&gt;

      </description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Re: MFA FREE Art Spotlight for February '08: Echo Root</title>
      <author>http://echoroot.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Echo Root</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-244646</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:08:24 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/244634#244646</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      Thanks, it&amp;#39;s an honor to share my music with all of you. :) &lt;/p&gt;

      </description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>MFA FREE Art Spotlight for February '08: Echo Root</title>
      <author>http://sol.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Sol</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-244634</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:30:45 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/244634</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      &lt;div align="justify"&gt;Dear Friend,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;MFA on Zaadz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; member &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://echoroot.gaia.com/"&gt;Echo Root&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;is a prolific experimental rock composer who likes to refer to his songs as &amp;ldquo;music for B movies.&amp;rdquo; Echo Root places the continual exercise of creative intelligence as mankind&amp;#39;s highest calling, so that we may be the conscious architects of our own &amp;ldquo;becoming.&amp;rdquo;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All of Echo Root&amp;#39;s music can be streamed for FREE, and eleven of his songs are currently available for FREE download through the audio player on his site. In addition, all of Echo Root&amp;#39;s music is covered under a Creative Commons license that allows sampling, remixes or re-distribution for non-commercial purposes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You may &lt;strong&gt;preview&lt;/strong&gt; the collection of FREE tracks using the ultra-cool Fuzz mixtape at &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://echoroot.fuzz.com/mixtapes/b930872d962938a4"&gt;http://echoroot.fuzz.com/mixtapes/b930872d962938a4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To &lt;strong&gt;download&lt;/strong&gt; the FREE tracks, listen to other great songs, or just learn more about the artist, go to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://echoroot.fuzz.com/"&gt;http://echoroot.fuzz.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;d like to be considered for an MFA FREE Art Spotlight, or wish to nominate one of our peers, just let me know (&lt;strong&gt;in a private letter to my Gaia email&lt;/strong&gt;). You&amp;#39;ll have to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;join&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; MFA on Zaadz first, which is also FREE. I&amp;#39;ll consider any of our members, but can only choose one applicant per month. :-)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In addition to being posted on our community&amp;#39;s featured Discussion Board, each MFA FREE Art Spotlight will be mailed out to the entire membership, currently around 2,600.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Spotlighted artists are required to offer an original FREE art work (or works) of high quality to all members&amp;ndash;at least for the duration of the month in which their work is featured.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, &lt;strong&gt;please help grow MFA on Zaadz by copying and pasting the following linked banner on your Gaia profile and blogs:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;a href="http://pods.zaadz.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.potentiation.net/MFA.png" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/a&gt;  &lt;div align="justify"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let&amp;rsquo;s change the world with Marvelous FREE Art!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Artfully,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sol&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://sol.zaadz.com/profile"&gt;http://sol.gaia.com/profile&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

      </description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>MFA FREE Art Spotlight for January '08: Artist X</title>
      <author>http://sol.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Sol</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-225299</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2008 23:06:52 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/225299</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      &lt;div align="justify"&gt;Dear MFAer,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We are coming to the season where we traditionally start looking ahead to the new year and making new goals and resolutions. Fellow MFAer &lt;a href="http://artistx.zaadz.com/"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Artist X&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/a&gt; is a musician who writes rock and folk music with spiritual and philosophical themes. Central to the message of Artist X&amp;#39;s music is the idea of moving forward and making our world and lives better&amp;ndash;one moment at at time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In honor of the new year, Artist X&amp;nbsp;is motivated to offer anyone interested a &lt;strong&gt;FREE three-song sampler&lt;/strong&gt; of his spiritually oriented rock music. This special sampler features two tracks from Artist X&amp;#39;s debut CD, &lt;em&gt;Light&lt;/em&gt;, as well as a brand-new track called &amp;ldquo;Hero&amp;#39;s Journey&amp;rdquo;&amp;nbsp;from his forthcoming CD, &lt;em&gt;Wave&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Request your complimentary Artist X three-song sampler here:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.artistxmusic.com/"&gt;http://www.artistxmusic.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Learn more about&amp;nbsp;Artist X&amp;#39;s music here:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.myspace.com/artistxsongs"&gt;http://www.myspace.com/artistxsongs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;d like to be considered for an MFA FREE Art Spotlight, or wish to nominate one of our peers, just let me know (&lt;strong&gt;in a private letter to my Zaadz email&lt;/strong&gt;). I&amp;#39;ll consider any of our members, but can only choose one applicant per month&amp;ndash;so please don&amp;#39;t be offended if your work doesn&amp;#39;t get featured. :-)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In addition to being posted on the pod, each MFA FREE Art Spotlight will be mailed out to the entire membership, currently over 2,600.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Spotlighted artists are required to offer an original FREE art work (or works) of high quality to all members&amp;ndash;at least for the duration of the month in which their work is featured.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, &lt;strong&gt;please help grow MFA on Zaadz by copying and pasting the following linked banner on your Zaadz profile and blogs:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.zaadz.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.potentiation.net/MFA.png" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let&amp;rsquo;s change the world with Marvelous FREE Art!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Artfully,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sol&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://sol.zaadz.com/profile"&gt;http://sol.zaadz.com/profile&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;br /&gt; &lt;font style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px"&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.beginnersluke.com/page7.html" target="_top"&gt; &lt;/a&gt;&lt;p style="font-weight: bold; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif" align="center"&gt;&lt;a href="http://sol.zaadz.com/"&gt;&lt;span style="text-decoration: underline"&gt;&lt;img src="http://potentiation.net///zBanner620.jpg" alt="" width="467" height="103" /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/font&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

      </description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Your Own MFA FREE Art Spotlight!</title>
      <author>http://sol.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>Sol</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2008:Gaia-224993</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2008 03:06:22 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/224993</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      &lt;div align="justify"&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;div style="text-align: center"&gt; &lt;div style="text-align: center"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.crowrising.com/"&gt;&lt;span style="text-decoration: underline"&gt;&lt;img src="http://potentiation.net///zBanner620.jpg" alt="" width="489" height="107" /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;  &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dear MFAer,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;d like to be considered for an MFA FREE Art Spotlight, or wish to nominate one of our peers, just let me know (&lt;strong&gt;in a private letter to my Zaadz email, not here&lt;/strong&gt;). I&amp;#39;ll consider any of our members, but can only choose one applicant per month--so please don&amp;#39;t be offended if your work doesn&amp;#39;t get featured. :-)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In addition to being posted on this Discussion Board, each MFA FREE Art Spotlight will be mailed out to the entire membership, currently approaching 2,700.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Spotlighted artists are required to offer an original FREE art work (or works) of high quality to all members--at least for the duration of the month in which their work is featured.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let&amp;rsquo;s change the world with Marvelous FREE Art!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Artfully,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sol&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://sol.gaia.com"&gt;http://sol.gaia.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;div align="center"&gt;&lt;a href="http://pods.zaadz.com/mfa_on_zaadz"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.potentiation.net/MFA.png" alt="" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

      </description>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Re: FREE Art Spotlight for November 2007: SACRED VOW</title>
      <author>http://dragonsbeard.gaia.com</author>
      <dc:creator>C.G.</dc:creator>
      <guid>tag:gaia.com,2007:Gaia-203042</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:28:10 GMT</pubDate>
      <link>http://groups.gaia.com/mfa_on_zaadz/conversations/view/202562#203042</link>
      <description>


&lt;p&gt;      Greetings everyone!&lt;br /&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Due to the volume of emails received by Sol&amp;#39;s post,&amp;nbsp; I have set up this link&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;http://www.dragonsbeard.com/FreeSacredVow.pdf &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;You can save&amp;nbsp;the full length eBook of Sacred Vow&amp;nbsp;from here.&lt;br /&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a name="_MailAutoSig" title="_MailAutoSig"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;CG Walters&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;author of &lt;a href="http://sacredvow.dragonsbeard.com/"&gt;Sacred Vow&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;a href="http://sacredvow.dragonsbeard.com/"&gt;http://sacredvow.dragonsbeard.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://dragonsbeard.zaadz.com/http://www.cgwalters.com/"&gt;http://dragonsbeard.zaadz.com/&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a href="http://dragonsbeard.zaadz.com/http://www.cgwalters.com/"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.cgwalters.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Welcome to the ever-progressing horizon, where truth &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; is&amp;nbsp;but a&amp;nbsp; resting place until the next revelation.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

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