Adventure
An exciting, unusual, and often risky experience, involving travel, exploration, and personal transformation.
Ceremony
Ceremony combines intention, community, and ritual into one glorious, spiritual, transformative experience.
Community
A collection of misfits that somehow fit. A gaggle of “agree to disagree”, then get on with it over a strong whisky. A human chalice from which we drink the nectar of passion, purpose and poetry.
Insights
When someone looks through us, sees greatness beyond our recognition, and invites us to embody their vision, insight shoots the lights out.
Love
"Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition." - Alexander Smith
Peace
“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” - Albert Einstein.
Philosophy
"Philosophy is the love of wisdom. But the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." - Socrates
Synesthesia
To taste shapes, hear colors, smell the notes of a symphony, this is synesthesia. Not a malady, not an imperfection, but a means to experience the universe in all her vibrance.
About this Poet
My first love was my mom Adele, a remarkable woman that raised her eight kids with kindness, energy and love. She taught me manners and many new skills. As an “oopsie” final child, my siblings teased that I was mom’s favorite. They were right. And the feeling was mutual. I was, indeed, a momma’s boy!
My next loves were sport and mischief. Anything with a ball, and anyone who was game. A professional irritant to my sisters, an obnoxious know-it-all kid, and a persistent eavesdropper, I made Dennis the Menace seem like an angel! It was the perfect training camp for learning the art of storytelling, the skill of being quick-on-my-feet, and the gift of the get-out-of-trouble gab! When I reached university, I was well prepared for life as a petty conman, a trial defense attorney, or a salesperson. Instead, in my first adventure in becoming unrecognizable to myself, I chose to study actuarial science!
So began my love of learning. The exquisite beauty of pure mathematics, the mind-bending strangeness of quantum physics, the life changing elegance of evolutionary theory and the career-defining deep dive into human behavior, psychology, influence science and habits. And finally, the wonderful world of philosophy, ontology and human transformation.
Cerené was created to combine our team’s love of learning and passion for building new skills that make us unrecognizable to ourselves, in all the most interesting ways. Through that work, for the first time in my life, I started to explore the performing arts, and fell in love again, this time with poetry. This book contains expressions of that love, the evolution of a skill from infancy to, well, where you find it today. I hope you enjoy its fruit. Woooooooof!
About this Artist
I’ve always had an overactive imagination and a strong need to know how things work. It drove my mom mad to see my toys stripped bare, sometimes reassembled but more often fused and mingled together into a mechanical manticore made for my amusement, inspired by my imagination.
My mom harnessed my tinkering skills to fix things around the house. I loved solving problems. It felt natural to me and magical to everyone else. Yet my imagination needed an outlet. I tried art but was frustrated when the images in my mind never quite made it onto paper.
Instead, I nurtured my mechanical skills and for two decades worked as an Aircraft Hydraulic Technician, loving every second. When I retired, I earned a photography degree combining my love of imagery and my interest in mechanics: photography is, in essence, troubleshooting! My mechanics’ eye and attention to detail now applied to images and composition. Through the lens of a camera, I was imaginative and creative again and felt reborn.
Then came this book! The task: Create images that capture the emotion of each poem. I soon realized the images in my head would need an army of models, props and locations and faced an unsolvable problem.
Then I discovered Artificial Intelligence. As it evolved, so did my skills. I had finally found a way to create the images in my head, manipulate each one and then create something completely new from multiple pieces. Sound familiar? I had found a solution, and in my quest to solve the problem, I came full circle and became fully realized. Both halves of my brain, now whole.
Credits:
All images and content © Copyright 2024-2025 Ernesto Raul Aguilar/Andrew Sykes