I'm really excited about this event at this charter school here in the Bronx called Casita Maria.... This is a topic I have been dying to tackle, so when a good sister who is in charge of this series and I spoke about her having me come out to do one of the sessions, I was honored.

Hip Hop and the Politics of Indentity and Representation

​Saturday, January 16, 2016 from 5 PM - 7 PM

The Elements of Culture Performance Lecture Series is designed to provide the audience with a powerful and positive delivery of performative storytelling, socio-political perspective, and a value-based lecture, one that is True to Hip-Hop, Afrikan, Indigenous to Culture. 

Developed in the 1960s as a sub-genre of Performance Art, the Lecture Performance has returned within the field of contemporary art during the last decade. In 1964, the American artist Robert Morris life-synchronized 21 minutes video documentation of a lecture by the famous art historian Erwin Panofsky in front of a New York audience. Morris used the purely reflexive format of the lecture, arguably for the first time as an artistic medium, toquestion the established conceptions of the artwork and of the mechanisms of the art context during his performance. 

Throughout the following decades, artists like Dan Graham (Performer/Audience/Mirror, 1975), Joseph Beuys (Jeder Mensch ein Künstler – Auf dem Weg zur Freiheitsgestalt des sozialen Organismus/Each Person an Artist – on the Way to the Freedom Figure of the Social Organism, 1978) and Andrea Fraser (Museum Highlights, 1989) encouraged this development. While Morris thematized language/how to speak about art, Graham focused on the viewer, and Fraser reflected the institutional surrounding. With the new crop of Lecture Performance, the format has expanded to include a range of issues that fall outside the previous focus on the specificity/critique of art. The use of the format in contemporary art can be explored initially based on two aspects: the rising value of conversation as medium to produce knowledge within a hyper communicative world and the role of contemporary (theoretically leaning) artists within education.

The Elements of Culture Performance Lecture Series is a platform for those who understand the relationship between art and knowledge, art and research, art and socio-political justice, and don so via a Hip-Hop Cultural lense. This Series will operate as a space in potential, one in which art, life and society is deconstructed, recontructed as well as created via an intimate, honest and open conversation between the artist and the audience.

- The Symbol
- All is Love

This Advent has been a really weird and different one for me... In many ways very difficult.  Christ is calling me to a deeper reality.  No matter what may come, and who is around or is not around my commitment is to you first and foremost Lord.  I love you.... Please receive all of me this Christmas.

- The Symbol
- All is Love

Despite what may come, may we not lose the focus and determination to continue on in the mission that we were given.  Lyric video of my song "Situations".  I enjoyed creating each frame individually to express through simple animation some grief I have been facing.  I pray that you are able to connect with the words as they mean a lot personally to me to express.  As always, each reflection I release through art is an invitation into my personal life and prayers.

Download this song for free at: https://soundcloud.com/bethesymbol/situations

Also, I would also like to attach with this video this image and prayer given to me by a good friend studying to be a Deacon to the Prayer to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots....

- The Symbol
- All is Love

Anyone who knows me, knows this is what I speak about quite often.... I have never been given the full opportunity to break the whole thing down in a public way, but I have been leaving hints along the way.  Here is how google answers the question of the definition of culture.

I will comment upon this later... Stay TOONED.

- The Symbol
- All is Love

- The Symbol
​- All is Love

I've been wanting to write about this for about a week and I just haven't gotten around to it but I have understood that it was an experience necessary to share....

​Last Friday December 11th was the night before the Catholic feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and I really encountered Christ through her in a beautifully new way.  As some of you know, these past months have been difficult(especially as it accounts to my dealings in being a single father).  Friday the 11th was a day that I can honestly say was working to be my breaking point. Coming from a very disappointing experience I was walking up Webster ave. here in the Bronx towards Fordham Road to get on the bus headed home.

As I reached into my pocket to pull out headphones and my iPhone to turn on music that would bask in my sorrows, I heard in the distance the sound of many horns and drums in a South American style of music.  I thought perhaps there was some kind of party going on and so I continued to put on my headphones.  Approaching closer it got louder and louder and I started to see a large crowd in the street.  I took off the headphones and realized a big statue of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe being carried in the street.  It wasn't until then that I remembered that the following day was her feast day.

I immediately grabbed my phone again and began to take video for Instagram.  It was then while recording that I bumped into my good friend Luis Lugo who is now the Director of Religious Education over at St. Phillip Neri's Parish here in the Bronx. My entire mood began to change more and more and as I looked back at the image now walking ahead of me, I felt the impression that I needed to join on this walk through the backstreets of what would be called "the hood" here in the Bronx.

I walked, and I prayed, and watched as this celebration caught the attention of people looking from the windows of their apartment buildings and coming out of the "Bodegas".  Some took pictures and some stared in amazement; while still others joked and laughed about the celebration.  I have been to other Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrations organized by Mexican communities and have seen how much this feast was an important one for their culture overall but this time it took new significance.  I couldn't help but think, what does this mean to our modern American culture.

The end of the walk would take us to the front of St. Phillip Neri's where cultural dancing and more cultural music in honor of the Blessed Mother would take place.  I couldn't help to notice however that no one was assigned in the street to explain to the onlookers what was going on and teach. What struck me even more was how dis-engaged the young population (which seemed to be primarily Mexican) was in this festivity.  This went for the teenagers especially, but even for the young kids who were trained to do some of the dances.  Then I looked and noticed how all of these teens began to pull out their iPhones and put on headphones... And I continued to notice as the majority of them had Jordan, Kobe, or Lebron sneakers and snapback caps with different teams on them.... Then I noticed the parents where the ones dressed in traditional Mexican attire.

Then the question hit me.... How do we make these beautiful celebrations of faith relevant in modern society.  Although they hold deep spiritual relevance it seems that our modern times do not have a way to connect into this power in a way relatable to them.  Now don't get me wrong, I personally thought the festivities were beautiful and it was exactly what I needed when I encountered them but this was not the case for others in my age category and below.

I proceeded in for a mass celebrated in Spanish with a big Mecican band playing music and I was grateful to be there.... Another thought hit about some conversations and difficulties I have personally been facing within the church and Hip Hop culture which has been automatically deemed by many "irreverent" or "not true" to the faith.  The mass ended with 2 things for me.... One as I gazed yet again upon the image of our Lady, I felt the impression that God through our Blessed mother was saying "What this image has done for that culture, I need you to create in a way for this culture in order that all may come closer to me." And when those words finished I happened to look over seeing a small statue of St. Joseph who was exactly who I have needed so much in my current trials as a Father.

Heavenly Father; Fernando Rielo used to speak of St. Joseph in relation to Jesus as having "Mystical Paternity" over him, and he referred to all of those who we as men teach and guide in the same way.  You have given me father a very difficult task in modern times. I have been placed even in my young age in a position to teach and guide thousands of young people across the country in many situations.  You have given me a mystical paternity over people in classrooms and on stages as well as through extended personal relationships. I want to take this time to offer my students, God child, and those who I've been their confirmation sponsor to you now.  Not only mystical paternity, but you have blessed me to have a direct paternity over my son Christian.  Please, like Mary may I be used to create miracles in this culture to teach and to guide and to bring to you.  And through the intercession of St. Joseph may I have the strength to lead, protect, and provide for all who you have given to me for whatever reason it is that you intend for them.  I am not perfect Lord, but may I never give up on seeking your perfection in my life.  I pray this all in the name of Jesus Christ your son and our Lord. Amen.

- The Symbol
- All is Love

This music video is a visual reflection of my life and work. Watch and take a journey through my development of life as an artist and as a person working to be a living message of hope, and love.

Download the song for FREE at: https://soundcloud.com/bethesymbol/long-time

- The Symbol
- All is Love

Those who follow on social media, and know me personally should have already heard about The Encounter NYC presented by the Idente Missionaries.  It is a once a month event we have at St. Dominic's Church here in the Bronx on the 3rd Friday.  Those who know even deeper know that it is a particular apostolate that was given to me to help organize and arrange and started this past March.

We are still learning and growing, but it is a beautifully intimate way each month to Encounter Christ in at least one of these three ways...
1) Through the Sacraments
2) Through the Arts
3) Through one another

If you would like to learn more about the Encounter, or perhaps even you or someone you know has something they would like to offer, visit my contact page and send me a personal email or send an email directly to [email protected]

Also be sure to visit our website still under construction at: www.theencounternyc.org

Its time for another video blog.... This time about continuous prayer, and how to be in communion with God always.  Here are some practical points on how to bring Christ into your daily dealings.  These are all things I learn and put into practice from the spirituality of Fernando Rielo, and the Idente Missionaries.

- The Symbol
- All is Love

If you can... Definitely join us at the Cathedral on Friday night. Perhaps you should come with a special intention or miracle you need in your life and ask for Fernando's intercession.  It might just be you who receives the grace so that the process can open up for the canonization of the man who has probably been the most influential saint in my life.

- The Symbol
​- All is Love

I love my boy... The situations of course are not the most ideal. But I wouldn't change Fatherhood for the world.  Last week was a breath of fresh air and a sense of comfort and love in contrast with the past few months.  There are still a lot of battles to come, but I trust in you Lord. I know somehow this will have some sort of redemptive power as I work to cooperate with your grace.

The pictures were just us playing around with effects in the Photo Booth on the laptop. lol. #TheJoysOfFatherhood

​- The Symbol
- All is Love

This is simple... I love my family.  I needed this time.  I have chosen lately not to send you the polished professionally shot pictures on this blog but instead only cell phone ones because I'm a real every day person.  Being The Symbol is inviting you into my every day reality.  Not as someone above, but as someone on the same level.

God is not a solitude but a family.  If it wasn't for my family around me, I couldn't even start to be The Symbol for you all. Real Talk... Thank you God for my family.

- The Symbol
 - All is Love