Finding Ourselves in Others and Others in Ourselves

Life has been so elusive lately, shrouded in ends with not many beginnings. Today I decided it was time to connect. I found a new blogger online whom I met by butting into her group's conversation at Barnes & Noble. I liked her and her group, who enthusiastically proposed she blog. Their support was notable, as these people were strangers who became friends, simply by talking. I know. How archaic, how untech-like, how magical is that! So, I reconnected with her via her blog and hope to see her and her compadres in virtual and real space soon. Life is short and connection is why we are here, in part. The other part is up to each of us; the What and the How and the When and the Where. Quite simply, our tasks and who we choose to do them with. Over time, gradually, I have been choosing solitude for writing and creativity for connection. Of the two, I prefer connected creativity. The rhetoric has been so hostile, the unity has been fragmenting, and so it is time to place beauty and connection back into life. My connection theme lately has been a project I am calling-Taking Flight. It is a creative focus on how all of us who live in the United States, came from somewhere else. In short, we are all refugees here. At some moment in our ancestry and heritage, someone took flight. They came from there to here with a leap of faith and a dream. I am interested in what propels people in their lives to seize that moment, like my new-found blogger friend Laura. What propelled her and her group to start a discussion and take flight into friendship? What propelled her to write in a public way and take flight into being heard? What gives us lift, and makes us soar? If we know how it was done in our families, through transgenerational wisdom, we can learn how to do it in ourselves. The truth is, we all have taken flight too, from somewhere bad to somewhere better, and I am so interested in that momentum, which is healing.

The side bar has pictures of feathers, that are the start of Taking Flight, which was launched at the annual Refugee Summit in my state. The work will be to help people contemplate what gave them strength to make needed changes in their lives, what is their ancestral story of immigration, and what is their familial source of resilience through risk to empowerment? If we can answer the questions, we can soar. Taking Flight involves creation of paper feathers that hold words, phrases, sentences or even paragraphs to remind us of our unique sources of empowerment. The feathers will be created and hung on an Indra's web to bring the creators into unity. The web will showcase the feathers at the juncture of vertical and horizontal threads, while a log will capture the stories. I hope the project will travel around the nation to inspire our original strengths of unity, diversity, and innovation in the sharing of the heritage of many, among us all. I hope the project turns a pat rhetoric of hate into a spirit of create.
Take a look at the photos and see if you are inspired to join in. There is no wrong way to create a feather except to not create one. A website on this project will be coming soon.

Terra Mar for Terra Cultura

Make America Great. A mindless campaign slogan, simply because America already is great. However, in the last two years, we have lost the stateliness of Unity. We seem to have lost a sense of We and gained a sense of US versus them. It makes me contemplative. It also makes me very aware that if we find a true sense of We, then we must offer immediate praise, participate in the We, and celebrate the We that is found. 

I was so grateful recently, to have a small troupe of dedicated and intentional activists for community contact me to ask if I had something to donate to their cause. Their cause is a true sense of We. They are creating Terra Cultura-a hub for teaching about sustainable living through community, housing, agriculture and the arts among other passions that they bring to the farm table. Great!! 
I knew I needed to find something to donate.

Since sustainable often means "to keep in existence," I ran to a thrift store to see what I could find to keep in existence. At the African Alliance, I found a white girl. A Greek to be specific. Her head to be exact. Maybe she was Athena or maybe even Helen of Troy. She was chalky white. She reminded me of a goddess and an oracle. I painted her in terracotta to honor the Greek polychrome tradition. I christened her Terra Mar to honor Terra Cultura and to bring in the sea, the keeper of ancient beginnings.  Her spirit was given a Kōan I had written to invite contemplation of beginnings, struggles, and results. The invitation was to contemplate the Kōan: "The pearl forms, in a struggle, with the sand." It actually also forms in a struggle with a parasite, but that's another story and an appropriate coincidence for our current times. Terra Mar became an oracle, when her Kōan was written on a tag. Soon, other tags followed with random words for meditation, practices for inspiration, and questions for contemplation. The tags were placed in a shell, which fits behind her head for seekers to find and use. She became a Book Arts project.

I could never quite photograph her, as she seemed to elude my camera. If you, her owner, reads this, please post a picture of her in the comments. Otherwise, readers will find her in chalky white, under construction, in the sidebar, and her final state is left to our shared imaginations. In the end, she had a crown of shells, sea glass, and pebbles; carrying the earth and sea together along with our detritus of glass.  She auctioned off in a bidding war, which made me smile. I knew she would find her owner. She claimed him before he even knew he had been found. Such is the way with oracles. May we all now reclaim our sense of the community of We. May we support non-profits like Terra Cultura to carry the sense of unity inside. May they continue strong.

To read more about Terra Cultura, which is coming soon to a real and virtual landscape near you, please follow this link: https://terracultura.org/