KRIST AND DARBURY NOVOSELIĆ OF NIRVANA

◊💘💐 In following from the previous section about how compatible Krist and Darbury are in marriage and how much this has inspired me, I'd like to tell the sweet story of how I first reached out to Krist. I had not yet discovered Darbury's instagram but had seen photos of her, and I found their marriage beautiful. So, I decided to include Darbury in my first direct communication with Krist about UNITY LIFE Mystery School and the content within which discusses NIRVANA — in the form of a Valentine. 

◊🖤💘 As a very involved member of the Marilyn Manson fandom, I saw that it had become quite a fan clique to always treat Manson and his wife Lindsay fairly equally throughout their posts and musings, as well as constantly gush over their romance. Naturally, just being the partner of a musician from a band certainly does not put one into the same leadership or accountability role as the said musical artist. However, this approach in the fandom alerted me to the fact that on the other hand, it's also important not to underestimate someone like that. They might have huge contributions they can offer, or simply provide added inspiration to support enjoyment of the music culture in addition. 

◊💕💕 From that perspective, I didn't think it seemed inappropriate for me to send the Valentine. Any worries that it might seem schmultzy or overly gratuitous about Krist's personal life seemed washed away in larger fandom context. As a feminist, I was more drawn to the idea that including Darbury rather than leaving her out was being inclusive and respectful than to worrying that Darbury may somehow symbolize an off-limits way to interact just by being his wife. I was used to these types of adorable sentiments and I assumed they wouldn't mind. They sure didn't mind — they adored it and sent response. I'll get to that later. 

It was a tiny Valentine card which was scratch and sniff, and smelled like donuts. The donut picture on the front was designed as a cute reference to the band Hole with Courtney Love. It had some cute stickers, a picture of my face added in, a Mapacho medicine tobacco cigarette, and a short message. The message informed him of the artumentary about Kurt Cobain and briefly explained that I had had a hugely life-changing experience with Ayahuasca which turned my life upsidown and led me straight into NIRVANA. It was obvious that it meant a lot to me, but was in no way a formal style of introduction. 

The choice was up to me how much I would try to impress Krist at that point, so it's interesting why I did choose such a small little gesture. Frankly, I was very concerned about the controversy surrounding the topics I was covering in my work, which at that point I feel was nowhere near as well fielded as it is today. It's not so much that I was shy, or worried that he wouldn't like it — but I felt awkward about the many intense pressures and extremes that this information represents. In many ways I was hyper-conscious of burdens that Krist must carry. 

The fact was, all those factors combined were enough to deter me from even feeling ready to promote myself in a bigger way to Krist. I was reluctant to say anything at all in a way, but on the other hand it felt wrong not to at least be formal and respectful and let him know what was going on.

I actually felt a duty of obligation to him, just out of respect, considering what I knew to be the importance and — actually, extreme relevance of my work to his life. Knowing this could matter so much to him, it seemed potentially just rude to leave him uninformed and leave him open to possibly finding out about it some other way without having been directly greeted. That's why I chose to theme it as loving, so that he knew I meant it with my whole heart and wasn't holding out on him here. And that was the truth. 

A sadly much lesser known fact about Krist is that he is barely involved with social media. He does have an official band account for Giants in the Trees (a band which is no longer active) and 3rd Secret (his new band) but he himself does not have an instagram. There is an official NIRVANA page on Facebook, but nothing individual for Krist anywhere.

Funny thing is, there are impersonator accounts on instagram claiming and giving off the impression to be him, which have well over 10,000 or more followers. I've seen major players from classy magazines, popular podcasts and much more fall for these scams. It's tragic just how little critical thinking the average person actually has about what looks real and what looks fake. I could always see that, and these accts were later exposed.

Interestingly enough, that's a major theme of the artumentary about Kurt Cobain, FACET 1(73) ◊ CREATOR. It's focused on misinformation paradigms and dynamics. So I find it especially striking that impersonators have been as successful as they have in his name — which is in contrast with other stars. That, I feel, is a fitting public lesson. 

Instead, Krist blogs on his website and has made his fan mail address available, promoting it at awards speeches and widely throughout the fandom. Perhaps you might call him old fashioned this way to deny digital online connection in favour of mail, but it is a very down to Earth and grassroots feel which goes beautifully with his aesthetic.  

I'm not sure if Krist and Darbury did have a chance to watch my videos at the time which I told them about. Perhaps so. But regardless, I was lucky to get my small card in to them at a time when Krist was preparing a promotional wave about his upcoming new album with 3rd Secret — as it had been mandated to respond to fan mail with promotions. I think since mine was really sweet, I got lucky and received an autograph. I took it as a trade, autographed photo for autographed photo, as I did send him one of myself. I was so happy because I had forgotten to print a photo and request an autograph and so it was perfect that had made up postcards already. 

I later wrote back and thanked him with a brief thank you card, and received a promotional flyer for 3rd Secret in response. It was so surprising to get another response, and I cherish both items. 

Also, it seems only fair to mention that I had an experience of connection with Darbury after that Valentine arrived to her. It took a couple weeks or so, but spontaneously one day I just felt a big loving postiive energy from Darbury, giving me the impression that she appreciated the card and she likes me. This vibe from her felt decisive about it, and I knew then that I would always feel positively connected to her. 

Then, shortly after that occurred, I just so happened to randomly stumble across her instagram, which I had no idea existed. I was amazed to discover it at that moment, right when I had been thinking of her. Perhaps she had viewed my instagram and this caused the algorithm to suggest her as someone to follow. I was most pleased to find it, and not only is her art fully exhibited there, but also many rare and amazing behind the scenes photos of Krist !! It was so exciting. 

There are patterns which can be found in everything. Pattern language is a way of understanding how recurring forms, relationships, and behaviors are behind the natural organization of complex systems. It describes how separate elements don’t exist in isolation, but gain meaning by how they express hidden interconnection through their placement within a living network of interactions — whether cultural, social or psychological (such as symbolism), technological, natural or ecological. 

I was familiarized with the term through my advanced education in ecology. The reason I use an ecological term to speak of the media is because the wisdom of nature is best applied to all things. It was popularized by Christopher Alexander in his book A Pattern Language. While that work focused on architecture and urban design, ecologists quickly recognized that the idea mapped perfectly onto living systems. Instead of asking “What are the parts?”, ecological pattern language asks “What relationships keep repeating, and what do they make possible?”.

Diamonds 2 UNITY LIFE or #diamonds2unitylife is essentially an enormously high volume pattern language study that I have been working on since 2018 in secret. The degree of secrecy has varied at times but it has mostly been locked up. It is foundationally based on the study of geometry and colors of a certain kind found visually in the media — but only from a very specifically branch of the mass media that I follow the most. I call this 'The UNITY LIFE Branch" and the explanation of what it is can be found at this UNITY LIFE Archive : THE UNITY LIFE BRANCH ◊ AN ECOLOGY WITHIN THE MASS MEDIA. The exact geometries and colors and their meanings will be explained in later sections. 

In honour of the fact that ecological pattern language represents communication between life forms, I made it a layer of study to imaginatively explore what the personal message might be to me directly from #diamonds2unitylife examples in the media.

In ecology, pattern language functions as a form of communication without words. Rather than using learned language, it signals through, for example, repeated shapes, timing, cycles of disturbance and recovery or relationships. Other life responds by recognizing those patterns. These patterns carry information, showing things like where energy is found or where danger and opportunity lie. With that in mind, I explored these types of qualities and what they are speaking to me.

Ecological communication is not command-based (“do this”), but recognition-based (“this condition exists”). From this angle, I was free to creatively explore the personal and artistic resonance of these pattern languages to myself and UNITY LIFE Mystery School.

Remarkably, this communication happens across all species in nature, with no boundaries. For example, a flowering pattern communicates pollination timing — a forest edge communicates biodiversity opportunity — and a seasonal rhythm communicates when to migrate, bloom, or rest. And just as soil composition documents past vegetation and tree rings tell stories of past climate cycles, huge wealths of information are conveyed through pattern alone.

This naturally extends beyond ecology without a word needing to be spoken. The concept migrates so easily into culture, media, art, symbolism and social systems. Anywhere meaning emerges without a single speaker, pattern language is doing the talking. This is one of so many ways that the media can be termed as a form of ecology itself. As much as the term ‘ecology’ typically refers to nature, it is by definition not limited to that container.

#diamonds2unitylife is normally said to have always been secret. But to be perfectly accurate, it was not initially secret at all but was not very popular or interesting to people because of the extremely dense way that I was offering it on instagram — so it was largely ignored. It's an unbelievably dense study I've been working on which any tiny little part of it would require a full, comprehensive UNITY LIFE Archive to unpack, in order to make it digestible. I simply can't tell you enough how high volume this study body has been.

At one point, Lindsay Warner (the wife of Marilyn Manson) surprised me one day by being almost the only person with any interest in #diamonds2unitylife on instagram. In my very first experience being contacted by her, long before she later resumed the connection, she expressed concern about a study I had not explained. For this one I had only posed the hashtag with some pictures. However, she showed me that she had read the other explanations in other posts of the meanings of the study and applied it to these images.

She felt that one study I had posted was a surprisingly negative story that seems not yet ready for public view, unless it one day evolves in context to the study subjects. I didn't feel it was an issue, since no one was paying much attention to the studies — but since she was, I decided to secretize the entire study body. I then coined it as an underground conspiracy theory and credited her with how this makes it seem more cool as a result. 

Early on when the study was first forming, an initial thesis was developed : That this particular branch of the media is — deliberately, intuitively or unknowingly (depending on the case) — exhibiting geometries and colors in such a way which tends to voice a meaningful pattern. That pattern is described by a symbolic, transformational journey from alternating black and white squares such as found in the game of chess specifically, through many types of geometric and color changes into eventually the final result — Fibonacci Golden Ratio proportioned (or rhombous shaped) diamonds like this (( ◊ )) with positive color symbolism. These diamonds are of special significance to UNITY LIFE resources precisely. 

It seems that I have happened upon a pattern in the media which was already in existence when I created The 64 CARDS ◊ Ecological Strategies For All Ages & Abilities — which at the time of the study's beginnings was the only diamond shaped resource provided by UNITY LIFE. The following similarly shaped resources were designed to expand from the meaning of The 64 CARDS, thus effectively diversifying the study.

Color wise, the 64 CARDS was designed in greyscale on white to enhance learning abilities with this educational set. By avoiding high contrast black and white or other contrasts, it creates a peaceful atmosphere similar to the mediated, kinetic and layered shade within forests. Geometrically, the Fibonacci Golden Ratio is a mathematical pattern found throughout some of the most beautiful examples of ecology such as snail shells and roses. But even just as a visual shape of a diamond, the angles are less restrictive and containing than a square, allowing better psychological exploration.

On the other hand, the high contrast alternating square pattern found in chess (among other things with that pattern) is very detracting from focus and seems to lend to dissociation. It creates optical illusions and the eyes tend to try to escape it. Chess itself has many negative connotations, especially when put into comparison with The 64 CARDS. Therefore the transformational process from these types of patterns into diamonds resembling UNITY LIFE resources (especially The 64 CARDS) represents a healing process. This healing journey is what I consider to be the positive transformation of society and therefore the world as a result. I propose that to heal and positively transform is inherently natural to existence, and this is the foundation of the study. 

To repeat from the last section "The high contrast alternating square pattern found in chess (among other things with that pattern) is very detracting from focus and seems to lend to dissociation. It creates optical illusions and the eyes tend to try to escape it. Chess itself has many negative connotations, especially when put into comparison with The 64 CARDS." 

To put it simply, chess is a game of war, therefore entirely negative. No matter how useful strategy may be, it is all put to waste when applied to the failure-based strategy of conflict itself. Checkers certainly emphasizes this flaw in chess. It's the simplified version of chess which emphasizes separation and opposition in conflict. 

It just so happens to fit nicely, then, that most other cases in which these kinds of alternating black and white squares occur like chess also have negative connotations. For example, a racing flag is designed to be flashed only quickly as a way to use the visual disorientation caused by this pattern in order to cause a jump — and this gains attention for a tense and even terrifying race.

As well, these alternating patterns in floor tiling have quite a bit of negative history to them regarding division between the priveleged and the poor. This floor pattern began in scenarios in which the poor were slaves who cleaned these tiles, while the rich — such as monarchs — were the cruel rulers over these poor slaves. 

Kurt Cobain did wear a greyscale Fibonacci diamond sweater as was thoroughly documented in Jesse Frohman's "The Last Session" which depicts Kurt Cobain's final photoshoot for NIRVANA. And a handful of other #diamonds2unitylife study subjects were found throughout NIRVANA materials. But aside from NIRVANA's own examples, these sometimes come up in cases in which Kurt Cobain is referenced to directly. For example, it has become popular to wear the specific "Jackie O" or "cat eye" glasses that Kurt Cobain made so famous, and this is sometimes intended very specifically in reference. 

These particular examples have been considered much more important than others to the study. This is because — although this is often not obvious — all the UNITY LIFE resources revolve around FACET 1(73) ◊ ORIGINAL (the NIRVANA ◊ Kurt Cobain artumentary found at 27(72) on the navigation panel and within The 72 FACETS (IN 144) gallery). The 64 CARDS may seem at first glance to have nothing to do with NIRVANA but in fact it does. That connection is fully explained within FACET 1(73). 

Color symbolism is explored in #diamonds2unitylife not as arbitrary but as universal. Colors themselves represent a wonderful pattern language study of the world — rooted, as all things are, in ecology. This type of pattern language study of color renders a wealth of diverse color meanings for each which must be contextualized to an example in order to be refined to a singular, basic meaning (such as a decidedly positive or negative one). It is fair to debate if perhaps color should be considered arbitrary and the meaning only in the eye of the beholder, but this is not often necessary in #diamonds2unitylife — unless studying the intentions of the artist who produced the material and whether they may have intended it in a somewhat arbitrary way.

A great starting point for exploring the symbolism of color is to do this exercise : For each, write out all the emojis that exist in your keyset of a certain color, and explore the meanings of them all. See if you can find any patterns within it. ◊❤️ For example, red is a color of alert. It causes an instinctual psychological response 🚨 to see red, as it is the color of fresh blood 🥩🩸 which might indicate danger 🍄👹👺. That's why berries 🍓🍒 are colored red — to grab attention and draw interest to them. Plants want to share their berries with birds to spread their seeds. The mind is made more alert 🚨 by the color, and so it sticks out 📌⛳️⁉️. This you can see well exemplfiied in the red emojis available. 

Just like red, all colors have positive and negative potential meanings. Even black and white are the same exact way — but as we know, traditionally black has been culturally associated with negative and white with positive. While black is associated with night time or void, it represents a lack. However, it is ironically the opposite when it comes to the pigment of human skin, where black skin contains more melanin than white, similar to how black paint pigments absorb more light. Therefore, #diamonds2unitylife is primarily based on the notion of chess pattern black and white contrast as the symbol of negativity, but allows for positive and negative explorations of both black and white when it is outside of contrast focus, thematically. 

Sometimes in #diamonds2unitylife there are objects specifically portrayed inside the geometries or in those geometric shapes. For example, Krist and Darbury Novoselić created their #diamonds2unitylife dress shirt with diamond shaped flowers, especially red poppies in the shape of diamonds. Poppies are a flower which is common to NIRVANA's artwork and the symbolism is typically assumed to be about opiates.

However, there is added symbolism to the plant which has been offered within FACET 1(73), in which it explains how NIRVANA's lyrics include a manifesto against reductionism such as the extraction of opiate drugs from the whole poppy plant. In fact, a little known fact is that poppies and the Iboga tree (the plant medicine which cures opiate addiction) are actually both descended from the same plant genus. In this case, since Krist and Darbury had both avidly read FACET 1(73) and created the shirt in response to it, we know that the UNITY LIFE symbolism of this flower is what they intended.