Elijah Levy, Ph.D.
University Professor, Author, Trainer and Consultant to Mental Health Programs
Email:
(562) 230-3334
Welcome and thank you for expressing an interest in my work.
If you spend time here, you will satiate your ongoing pursuit of knowledge, wisdom and cultural literacy for personal and professional development. Learning is not confined to an academic classroom, but through exposure to intellectually stimulating material anytime in your lifespan. So if you’re motivated to initiate this inquisitive pursuit of knowledge, this site contains material on a wide breadth of subjects such as creative aging, cultural pluralism, comparative religion, health and wellness, cultural literacy, career development and much more. By ingesting our material you'll discover endless opportunities to enrich your life through this immersion process. I'd encourage you to dive deep, learn and integrate.
On my Lifelong learning page, you will see biographies and videos of great writers, philosophers and theologians in addition to famous lives who have impacted the course of history. There are free booklets for you to download on the Booklets to Download page and they include titles such as comparative religion, cultural pluralism, health and wellness, a guide to writing your memoir and how to write an ethical will. If you are a student there is a page titled Academia where you can review curriculum I have written for classes I teach at Long Beach City College, Pasadena City College, University of Redlands and Southern California University of Health Sciences. There is educational material on mental illness on the page titled Literature on Mental Illness and you can watch a 40 minute documentary filmed at Founders House of Hope, a 97 bed residential care facility I work at in Artesia, CA If you are interested in reading an anthology of poetry written by residents living with Schizophrenia Spectrum and other psychotic disorders please review these books on the page titled Founders House of Hope. Undoubtedly, you will be impressed with the program accomplishments the residents at Founders House of Hope have achieved in the last several years.
It's Time to Dive Deep, Learn and Integrate
The fundamental principle we operate with is that delaying action or the self-initiated learning process will diminish the quality of your life. Research has demonstrated that ongoing learning beyond the traditional classroom, especially in later adulthood generates meaning and purpose in life, which increases our quality of life. So, now that you've decided to activate this learning process, you are initiating a process of self-discovery that will reveal desires and interests left dormant in you for years. Exposure to the greatest writers and poets of the world or strategies to lead more healthy and purpose driven lives will result in added fulfillment and discovery of new leisure interests.
Art and Poetry of Dayne Hammond
Poetry by Dayne
Observations
The eddy of the well swirls within.
The spider, tied to its web is haunting the threshold.
The alligator, a deep, scaly green catches his prey, spewing rubies into the air.
The Chinese merchant stows away change for his daughters allowance.
The pitiful drunk pisses on a stoop near a hotel lobby.
Oil sizzles and bubbles as frozen fries enter the cauldron.
A mystical sage, atop his hilltop cave bares his body to the moon at night.
A death row inmate sheds a tear as he approaches the electric chair.
A baby is born into the arms of a woman who barely loves herself.
A book is burned for telling a story too true.
My mother kisses my forehead in between sips of her wine.
Music plays in the glowing room of two teenage lovers.
The scent of engine smoke is smelled by diners on the canal.
A women’s red heel gets caught in a crack on a Grecian veranda.
A leaf grows heavy under the weight of thunderous rain drops.
A swan tucks her head into white feathers as she grows tired.
The Latin family gather around in a small room crowded with candles as their matriarch slips away.
God kisses the cheek of Jesus in their Heavenly home as night falls over North America.
Morning light dances upon the ridges of Tibet as the red-sheathed monks eat breakfast.
Life ends,
never for a second to the eyes of the great observers.
A Green River
A green river is a place to rest your head beside and dream of endless skies covering the plains and plantations and dense, scattered trees of a nearby town who clings to life on the dirty fingers of men fastening things together and tearing things apart.
A green river runs under the covered bridge where children play and throw pennies from, wishing that their neighbors son would fall deeply in love with them or dreaming of a baseball caught in Yankee stadium followed by their crowd’s tremendous roars. Children who one day look at their reflections and see a child, only stretched and broadened with the hurried static of someone who is wanted somewhere far beyond the town and have nearly forgotten of their penny-bridge dreams.
A green river watches the people of this town and bends near it at times to be close the moments when humans hold each other, keep their promises, or tell the truth, even when it hurts. However, sometimes the river slinks away when the voices of these creatures are used against one another and cause their human eyes to shed river of their own.
See, rivers have eyes too, when little toes are dipped in its waters for the first time or a penny full of wishes hits its surface, the river sees.
A green river is a friend to people and never sleeps, only slows in parts.
A green river touches us as we touch it, and carries our lives into the sea.
I have been painting all my life and have discovered that my work reflects my discerning, unique view of humankind in all of it's diversity and forms. I believe that my pieces reveal elements of cultural and social truths, including the irony of life. I strive to create thought provoking work that invites the viewer to reflect and question how their conditioned, and perhaps counterproductive ideas sustain their biased views of reality. I would describe my artistic style as a blend of surrealism and abstract expressionism.
The existential theme that pervades my art and poetry is that human beings are condemned to freedom and choice; and the anguish and anxiety that emerges from this realization. Thus, powerful, vivid emotions are evident in my work. My poetic style is free verse, narrative and magical realism. It speaks to the mind of a person who feels and perceives in my art images depicting anguished, facial expressions and confusion. These images portray the suffering of individuals living with incurable, inescapable symptoms of mental illness and addiction. My work is inspired by the painter Jean Michel Basquiat and writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
I have been painting since the age of seven and began writing in elementary school. A poem I wrote about 911 was published in a book when I was in fifth grade. I took three private painting lessons with a retired art teacher who taught me the basics of color theory.
