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/

 

Ironic Butterfly Takes Flight

This blog is a bit like whispering into space for me. I rarely write, and creativity has been scraping an empty barrel lately. That said, I found it a bit ironic that my last post in November had a butterfly winging its way to freedom as part of the found freedom in the anniversary of the destruction of the Berlin wall. The irony, of course, was that my first creative jaunt back was to decorate a butterfly. Decorating with the 13 layer collage technique is addictive to me, as it starts with a tabula rasa of gesso. Then, that layer gets textured in any way that is pleasing to the hands and eye. Then we add in colors, as many or as little as needed; like a recipe, they are chosen to our taste. The colors soon start to disappear with image addition, then that all starts to blur as we stamp with found objects in ink and paint and then do the same with stamps. Will all those additions to image and texture, we add blur; blending in edges with tissue or textured paper or fluffing them out with white paint. Then, time for the fluid acrylics. They are like a pepper or pungent spice that make or break the whole piece. Using them almost stops my heart, and I stand at the ready with a wet rag to mop up destruction. At some level, though, the fluid is the part that forces us to let go...of expectations, and plans, of areas of beauty, and even of parts destroyed; to let go and trust that the process will carry us on. Once the fluids are down, it is time for a hint of transfer in gold or copper or opalescence. Then perhaps, writing goes down or else assemblage. Finally the edge is done all around, in a boundary color like Payne's Gray.  The technique is acquired and refined over time.

I am so very glad I learned it, simply to take a writing class with Nick Bantock in 2009.  He, quite correctly, used to make the writers do art and the artists write. Clever to engage the quiescent brain, as it has so much to say. The process is the heart of the art. It draws you in, and time flows effortlessly without any notice of its passing. The process is an enraptured state; watching for what is beautiful and harmonious and noting what keeps emerging. The emergence of the horses in this piece was profound for me and unconsidered until the piece was done. I suddenly found myself contemplating the losses of two other horses in 2012 and 2014, which broke my heart. Here suddenly are spirit horses...out of nowhere, out of somewhere. Their arrival startled me as did the odd image of a young horse head starting to emerge at the base of the right wing horse's neck. That was not an image at all, but rather a creation that came out of some juncture of inking and stamping and texturing all on its own. It came out of the intersection of the I-Thou relationship, which is necessarily out of spirit. Art comes up at you, just like that.

So, I will now watch for a young horse, perhaps one is growing older as we speak, just for me. I notice how much Lost Shoe cabin came in- literally in bits and pieces from its grounds and in content with the horses who would have drawn the logs up the mountain and the single boot that predated the one that was lost in the cabin's construction. Lost Shoe was the colors and a whisper of the West in this piece. The word California was found in the ripped shreds pile, along with a notation about water resources, just as we ration and go through our worst drought. Spirit, ever present, ever mysterious. So, here to the right is White Horses at Lost Shoe, my mixed media collage donated to the Butterfly Effect, an art for social change organization that drops the butterfly in a public scavenger hunt and then gifts the finder's favorite charity with $250 dollars. The process unfolds down the pane as it did across time spurts over a few weeks. A process of joy and gratitude and expanding blessings.
For more on the butterfly project, see: www.butterflyeffectbethechange.com

Walls Around Hearts, Waiting to Be Torn Down

It's been 25 years. 1 death zone. Divided people. Misery for the better part of 28 years. The 2 concrete barriers, dividing sides, with the infinity of an 8 turned upwards toward one sky; imploring faith to step in and end the divide. It kept people away from their brethren and kin, entrenched in a place without many choices, on both sides of the walls. The walls kept hearts apart, with the empty zone between; leaving a rent in the fabric of one people. And so it was, for 28 years, until one person misspoke and spoke; stating everyone could pass through the wall. Just after that statement, many did. It took just one sentence to end the divide in a moment of confusion; becoming a new clarity of reunion. And the walls came down. In chunks, slices, fragments, blocks; falling away from the hearts of so many people. Spaciousness entered and expanded. It is expanding STILL.  

To find that clarity of expansion is to feel the beat of our hearts in movement and to know the barriers we create around its chambers. It is to sense the rhythmic surge of our own life force and to spend moments feeling the blocks we hold within each of our hearts. To let the blocks loosen into the pulsing rhythm so they can support that rhythm to its fullest potential is every person's task. Take a moment to feel the clarity of your heartbeat. Take another moment to sense a block of your own prejudice. Let the beat carry the block within and feel the newness of that relationship. This new sense of moving is the foundation of compassion. This new feel of support is the rhythm of PEACE.

Celebrating the way barriers, break apart to open hearts to new ways of being. An iconic fragment of the Berlin Wall in Simi Valley, CA-outside the Reagan Library. The butterfly soars towards the above of sky.  Take a moment to break down your walls, open your heart, and BREATHE.

See the speech writer's intention, developed at: http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2007/summer/berlin.html

In The Time Of Starry NIghts and Phrensied Days-Collected Births Emerge

The dog days of summer are upon us until approximately August 24th. In the large dog constellation, Sirius-the dog star rises, and to all of us befall "burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies;" according to the Clavis Calendaria of 1813. So bright is the starlight, we become somewhat mad per ancient lore. Our gentle souls awaken and flare bright like the Perseid meteor shower in the night sky. We glow hot, and then cool with the shorter days. The heat of this time seems magnified in our current Western drought for the soil is parched. Everything is dry. It seems an unlikely time to plant and grow a project, yet I am planting one anyway, in community, with a hope of growth. 

I have begun an anthology project, suggested by a fellow author, on the process of how we become human. For some of us, it is at the time of our births. For others, it is the time of our near deaths or other moments of intense soul awakenings.  This project sprung out of the serial, nonfiction project called En Utero: Stories of the Womb, which won first prize for nonfiction work in March on the writing platform jukepop.com. I gave an update on this work for the 6 word memoir project hosted at SheWrites.com, stating I was: Birthing poetic womb stories, serial style. That statement birthed a request to do an anthology, so now there are 12 of us, along with a developing infant; working on themes of birth, conception, misconception, labor, delivery, partum and postpartum, adoption, miscarriage, gestation, birthdays, rebirth, transformations and other concepts. The sky's the limit here, so consider the topic possibilities as endless. 

Please join us in this work-whether you create in word, image, song, or even dance. If you're interested drop me a line in the comments section below, and I will share specifics about the project. You choose whether to opt in or opt out. The work will be shared among us and then perhaps, go public. You can opt out at any time along the way. 
Collected Births: An anthology of how we become human awaits You! Join in. You may like what you learn about yourself on your journey. The dog days of summer filled with phrensies is a great time to start.  

You can read and find En Utero:Stories of the Womb here: http://jukepop.com/home/read/1993.
In the meantime, you can see its amazing graphic cover design by Linnea Mielcarek and Leonardo da Vinci in the viewing pane on the right. 

Voice Emerging - Still Submerging

Years ago, I had a light and laughing voice. Then shame hit and blasted me into some state of petrified mortification. When my voice returned, it returned obsessively; reciting words repetitively late into the night, while my hand copied them over a page across hours.  Even snails could write faster.   My rhythm had been altered. I had lost the movement of my original expression after being shamed by a teacher. Years later, my voice emerged, abruptly with the coaxing of a master hypnotherapist and storyteller in a crowd of others. Its emergence shocked me to the core, so it took another few years before it came out again. Now it is almost impossible to stop.  Words come in floods and phrasing in snippets. It just keeps coming.

This is the true rhythm of birth, a surging flood of expansion and contraction with a great deal of breathing and tremendous push. This is how stories come into being and how they evolve a word at a time into books.  Creation is a labor of love and an act of faith-most necessarily in the self, the author of the work that is struggling to become.  Given this struggle, imagine my delight when I found a shareware tool that takes words from passages and turns them into textual images with a few taps on icons. Creation made simple in the form of a tagxedo.  I don't know whether I like the donate model or the actual product more-Donate to keep tagxedo free-the site says. So, I donated and made a tagxedo called The Bluebird of Happiness to put in a book project I am birthing.

I chose to tagxedo a poem called Soul Birth since the birth of my voice is the awakening of my soul. I wrote soul birth for doulas to chant aloud. May mothers, fathers, doctors, healers, family, and doulas all say some combination of these words to bless babies as they come into the world; heralding and inviting the arrival of the next generation of being.

Sending wild applause out to the creator/s of Tagxedo for giving us such delightful word salads.
Make your own creation here at: http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html

Moving Out of Stuck

Sometimes, we get stuck. In relationships with ourselves, with others, and with life. It reminds me of the sticky quality of biscuit dough, when it keeps gluing our fingers together, even after we wash them well. It takes a lot of scrubbing movement to free ourselves from the goo. In my case, the goo is a blend of my authentic experience coupled with some historical shame that has limited the use of my creativity.  So, I have begun the scrubbing movement of launching a creative project called Resume Box, which is a collaged box made from a recycled paper box and images that contains my original voice in resume form. I posted the box to show its current state, where it has been stuck for about 3 years. The intention was to place 3 of my original writings in the box, then put it out into community for others to add their written voices. It was planned as a collective work of healing and mastery. I was unsure of how to track its progress.  I could not guarantee that it would succeed or fail in attracting the participation or even the interest of others. I could not guarantee that any of the offerings would be read or relevant or even kept safe from plagiarism, theft, or inappropriate inclusions.  So, I decided that taking a risk is the better part of life, and I posted the start of the project here. 

My resume offerings will reflect some personal life experiences that include both a blessing and a curse from my childhood as well as a new beginning that expresses my voiced desire to seek a career in the ephemeral creative.  My hope is that others will place their creative writings as "resumes" in the box, that express in some way their desires to seek new ventures in their life. I would like the box to be passed hand to hand to encourage still others to drop their "resumes" in or simply read and consider, "Who it is" that we readers all truly want to be. I seek to invite original, creative writings that express hopes and desires in an authentic and safe way. I want the writings to be freely shared, original, honest, friendly, and considerate to reflect the heart's desires. I hope to launch the box soon and blog about its progress as a collective, community verse of hope and desire for meaningful lives. Just consider for a moment, if you will, Who it is that you really want to be!

Shouting Out: To Kat Kirby for fantastic teaching of a 13 layer collage process.
See her work at: http://2katstudios.com/

Tis Better to Give Than Receive or Not?

Life comes up at you sometimes, just like art. And it can have the shadowed side in ascendancy.  From an unexpected death to a fatal accident then on to life changing illnesses and finally towards one eternal surrender; lives changed in my speck of the universe as 2012 fell off life's tree, one curled leaf at a time. Frost crystals in the dew on empty branches reflected the emergence of 2013, and in the stillness of that shimmering, lives kept changing.  As fall turned into winter, it seemed best to give rather than to receive, for life's gifts were harsh in their cold dryness, offering little pleasure or comfort in their emergence.  The early spring brought some baby birds birthed high in the trees, but no owls, just more illnesses requiring a tending that has led to daily heartbreak and tears.  The owl parents flew away to hunt and live despite the lack of tiny shrieks that always heralds the next generation. 

So, the spring has been quieter and in that space I took time to consider- Is it better to give rather than to receive? If we only give pleasure and receive hardships, how do we learn to receive pleasure? It is certain that we often give hardships in ways both knowing and unknowing; despite our best intentions never to do so.  In that questioning spirit, I chose to receive and found the receiving so hard, it made me furious at my helplessness. Was it better to receive? It did not seem to be. And then, in a moment of receiving, I was asked about MY hopes and dreams. Did I still dream I wondered? Lately, dreams seemed lost in a landscape of ever-changing nightmares.  And then, my hopes and dreams came up at me, just like that, just like art. You will find them under Hopes and Dreams to the right of life's truths.

I wonder now, What are your hopes and dreams?
Can you tell me as I tell you?

Connecting as One

There is something magical in the starlight that I see...

I see the Universe inside of me!

This was the most Astounding Fact about the Universe, shared by astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson with the publication Time in 2011.  It somehow seemed fitting to start 2013 with the knowledge that my atoms and your atoms, and indeed, the atoms around us all-came from exploding stars!

 

If 2012 started with a blog on the Whirlpool galaxy and its birthing of stars, then 2013 starts with an acknowledgement of shattered pieces from unstable stars, populating our planet and becoming one with us.

In One there is Peace and in Pieces there is One. Watch for this theme in a coming collaborative art project entitled Peaceful One.

 

Shaken...not stirred.

In these last days of fall, it seems like the world has turned upside down. Random accidents, fatal illnesses, global strife, and strange politics are in the surround; causing so many of us to feel shaken up, just a bit, as we wait to see what happens next.  In the trauma healing world, it is less about what has happened, and more about what can happen next that is different from our past losses. In the healing, it is about our integrity in the moment rather than the depth of our grief or despair. It is about where the momentum can take us. Healing takes courage. It requires us to shake our own individual worlds up and move on towards health and well being. We may need to take our healing into our own hands and turn our experience upside down towards the enlivened, spiritual, or creative in order to thrive again. In this spirit of bringing my own creative back into my awareness, I decided to make a glitter globe; showing the topsy-turvy of everyday life with its possibility of a brilliant restoration. 

Drue and the Sea in her glittering globe of clarity is my most spiritual friend in her beach chair with her beloved dolphins; feeling the sun's golden glint on her back. It is about the best of life that can change in an instant and restore to beauty again with a slight shake. Life may never be the same again, and yet often is just one shake away from meaningful change if we follow our impulse to renew. In a cascade of noticing shimmering possibility, perhaps we develop the momentum to move on to the next glorious day. My harvest blessing is a wish: May we all find peace in the new that comes from the old, as we cycle into winter. Time to dwell and to restore with family and friends in all ways that are meaningful. Time to rest. Time to heal.

September 11 2012

A good friend once described trauma as "the gift that keeps on giving." She has had a long and traumatic history and still finds time to write poetry, make art, and keep her friends inspired. Sometimes, it is nearly impossible to see the gift for the sorrows. Sometimes, the gifts are not until the next generation. Sometimes, no one looks for the gifts, leaving the incomprehensible...just that, or perhaps immortalizing the loss in verse, song, art, or story telling. 

When 9/11 happens every year, I sometimes think of my father who died just before he could witness the miracle of his life - aeronautics and aerospace - create such tragedy at the hands of mankind. I am grateful for his death before 9/11, a gift of spared sorrow.  I also sometimes think of the living. The innocent ones who lost somebody or some part of their lives that had been special up until that day. This year, I am thinking of all the ones who lost freedom in the pursuit of freedom because of the Patriot Act. They flee from genocide and warfare to seek asylum in the United States, and learn that their quest often begins in detention unless they have a sponsor. Jailed on the path to freedom, they frequently speak of the irony. Some speak in hushed tones, others in laughter, and still others in disbelief or tears. Barbed Freedom is a collage I made to reflect the consequences to those who took flight from atrocities in their country with hopes of gaining safety and freedom. The bird is trapped on an illusion of rolled wire, sensing the freedom just beyond the ticket to fly. What If speaks to the possibility of freedom for all if we just start within...

SPAM Horse Silly Wisdom Creates Wonder Ahhh

What do 95, 023 individuals know that the rest of us do not? Horse ebook spam on Twitter!  A collection of profound accidents and silly random word generations. The very best of such singular verse that I had to honor it here. Compare the profound wisdom of August 15th to the silly generation of August 10th:

Experience of Always May be Usually Rarely remembering present present but rare but not.

ORANGE ORANGE ORANGE LEMON LEMON LEMON EACH DECEIVE CHERRY CHERRT CHERRT

To feel really inspired, follow the Kickstarter link below to look at poet Erin Watson's chapbook project inspired by the glorious profanity of Horse ebooks twittering spam. Her video is worth a look, and her poetry so great that I had to help sponsor her chapbook. If you want to read her chapbook, email me in October and I will send it to the first email responder to share and spread excellent verse across community. Better yet, sponsor her project yourself and get your own chapbook to share!

In the spirit of entropic energy or as Horse ebooks has said...Vegetables, acknowledged.

Horse ebooks on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Horse_ebooks
Erin Watson's project on Kickstarter:  http://kck.st/NmhoYg

Circle Games

The universe seems to be spiraling in when circles begin to appear everywhere in my everyday. It started sometime this week with a fortune from a Chinese fortune cookie that said, "Prepare for the Unexpected." In cryptic fashion, it left me wondering: "If you try to imagine the unexpected, can it truly be unexpected, and what exactly is the content of an unknown thought?"  Circular forms then began to emerge everywhere. I saw the circling galaxies, trains, and poetics in my work. I saw circles on the necks, lapel, head, and ears of several women, all wearing circular forms of accessories. At times, I drove in circles.

As I drove home tonight, I hear Ai Weiwei speaking on the power of the collective in expression for human rights. I then imagine a mass of individuals, relinquishing their individuality for the greater good of freedom, as he does now, in a battle of life and death. The humility in his actions creates a profound realization that if we all voluntarily gave up our individual desires for a collective good, we would necessarily effect global peace in cooperation.

In a coming together into one, I think of the energy involved to create that unity, and see a galaxy compressing to birth anew. It motivates me to create the collective project Peace of Prose that I have been envisioning for over a year. I have the text entitled Peaceful One, and see the "peace" circulating; hand to hand among individuals. I see Peaceful One expanding in the collective with the addition of artful words and images by those motivated to create more "peace." The profound awareness of Ai Weiwei brightens my soul. It helps me complete the challenge of the fortune. From a Chinese fortune cookie all the way back to China and into the world, we need peace, a lot more peace to expand our possibilities. We need to expand into the awareness of One.

Circling in on Creative Wisdom

As January comes to an end, the year sees its first thirty-one days left as etchings in our minds. The memories hint at a body of experience yet to come, serving as a skeletal platform of what we now know. In this manner, this month's offering is a skeleton of words, proposing a life experience between birth and death. A mere 20 words including the title, it had to circle in both directions, becoming an organic flow of circular poetic verse. It was inspired by leaves, which began as cells underground then grew to tilt towards the sky, neither buried nor carried on the wind, but living somewhere in between two planes, mimicking our own existence. Read it forward then backward or see if there are other combinations. As in life, let curiosity be your guide.
  branching out-                                 out branching-                      
   strung between poles,                    in the creative
   my childhood infirmity                    wisdom
   that holds                                          now
   the truth                                            reflecting
   in beauty,                                          in beauty,
   reflecting                                          the truth
   now                                                    that holds
   wisdom                                             my childhood infirmity
   in the creative-                               strung between poles-
A circle with a simple twist becomes infinity-the shape of eternity.

This Train is Bound for Glory

Closing out 2011, Ticket Book, a singular verse project, was sent to the local Alzheimer's Association to fulfill a fundraising request for art palettes to auction. Check it out in the viewing pane on the right. It's a two part work that integrates a model train layout collage on an artist's palette with a singular verse bound in a ticket jacket. The layout is called "A Life Laid Out" and honors my father who lived with Alzheimer's Disease for over a decade. The verse entitled "An Impression of Alzheimer's" describes his disease process of hoarding gone wild, a neurological exaggeration of his thrifty saving. Even in his disease, he was a singular man, who I miss very much. When I was contemplating what to do with the palette, I thought of collaging a brain since the palette shape was similar. So, I started in the realm of pink paint as part of the 10 layer collage process. While the piece was developing, I took a trip to Sedona and hoped the pink landscape would provide additional inspiration. Looking at the terrain, I found my pink. Then, a train went by, a very, very long train, and I thanked my dad for his gift of divine encouragement. He was an avid train enthusiast, so the deconstructed map reveals locations important to him in his life journey. From Key West to Cambridge, Cincinnati to San Diego, and points in between, my dad worked as a chief engineer in the aerospace program, earning a commendation from NASA while working at a small engineering firm. As the train runs around the track with the ghost of my dad in the engineer's seat, my mother sits in a boxcar with Denver a mile high above her as a hurricane touches down in the Southeast. My brother, my dog, and I all wait on a distant shore, as we did as children listening for the whistle of the train that would carry us West. Alzheimer's is a disease of memory loss. Perhaps in the process of recalling the very best times of our lives, we finally transcend our losses.
https://sanalz.ejoinme.org/MyEvents/MIMArtAuction2012/tabid/299638/Default.aspx

Whirlpool Galaxy and a Peaceful Intersection

I have been so fascinated by the Whirlpool Galaxy some 31 million light years away from us in the Hunting Dogs constellation. It may be because I love dogs, and hunt for my dogs in my dreams. It may be because I love the spiral, a symbol of breath, the pulsing swirl of the spirit, and life force. It may be because this galaxy is birthing stars, and who does not love the sense of that creation. We see its individual offspring as distant lights of a starry night in our Milky Way. Whatever the reason, it is the interaction of two galaxies intersecting that creates a force strong enough to compress the spiral and birth a star. For me, the potential in the intersection is magic. There has been so much opposition in the world today, whether for conflict and supremacy or for fairness and justice. Conflict is conflict, whether it is armed engagement or violent protest. If grandma's rules are correct, then you catch more bees with honey, so how do we lessen conflict and opposition? It seems to me the answer is in the heavens. We propose instead of oppose, and bring into a peaceful intersection the new with the old to regenerate. In short, we birth...new ideas, new projects, new creations, new individuals, new communities, and renewed selves. We birth to instill the perpetuity of life in our galaxy and perhaps beyond. Welcoming the end of the year and the birth of the next one, as 2011 draws to a close.

Tour the galaxy at: http://hubblesite.org/gallery/tours/tour-m51/

Dancing by the Light of the Moon

As the moon swells, it seems like the best time to dance by its light, and sing the song of the Buffalo gals from 1844.....revived in 1944 as the tune Dance with the Dolly.

Buffalo gals, won't you come out tonight?

Come out tonight, Come out tonight?

Buffalo gals, won't you come out tonight,

And dance by the light of the moon.

adapted by John Hodges, 1844, minstrel/blackface, known as 'Cool White'

It's been hard to blog this summer as the creative voice silenced and the hands moved instead, clearing out the old to make room for the new. Revisiting the 1980s in a pile of unopened boxes revealed photos of bad haircuts, worse clothes, and some really sad color combinations. Recently, a young friend asked me, "What was with you people in the 80's?" and I had little I could say to that exclamation. Big hair, bad bow ties and Pee Wee Herman....oh, well.  So it's time now to dance into fall, and be a Buffalo gal.

I think of the sacred bison and feel my second fetish start dancing in my soul. It is carved in turquoise by Zuni artist Stewart Quandelacy of the talented Quandelacy family. I love the strength and wisdom of this animal, known as Ta Tanka in Lakota. The bison always is with me when I go to sacred spaces and sits in my left hand balancing his cousin Bear in my right. Lakota and Zuni, together, these spirits bring prayer and introspection, strength and healing, abundant journeys and protection.

So I find myself going outside now to be a buffalo gal and dance in the light of the moon, ushering in the season of fall.
For beautiful fetishes check out this gallery: http://www.keshi.com/categories/fetishes

Divine Inspiration: Just Show Up and things and things will happen

The blogging spirit has been silent for awhile. So today, while I was looking for something else, I stumbled across the inspirational quote below, which had been sent to me awhile ago by a friend. In trying to find out who said it, I found another quote which is listed in the title of this post: "Just Show Up and things and things will happen."
Those words reminded me to return to the blog for June, although it may be a little while before I have another creative offering to share.

So, I am showing up today, and sharing both quotes from their author, Mother Theresa.  Read them and share them with others. Show Up and see what happens next.

"May today be peace within. May you trust your highest power that you are exactly where you are meant to be... May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you... May you be content knowing you are a child of God... Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love. It is there for each and every one of you."  Mother Theresa

Supporting Inspiration: Our Animal Companions

A new month means a new singular offering, so here are two more icons, honoring two animals who across their lives inspired their owners. Emanuel was born with a twisted neck and the decision had been made to let him go. Enter an extraordinary veterinarian, who felt his spirit move her to adopt him. She undid the muscle deformity with her healing hands over time, and Emanuel lived strong and proud across the 12 years of his life, always by her side, inspiring compassion in all who heard his story. He was a singular dog, who helped his human companion bring the miracle of healing to animals and owners everywhere.

Popokeh started his life as a first kitten for a little girl. When the girl had a baby brother, he was put outside to be raised by the dog, as the family, who had little cat experience, feared he might scratch the new baby.  His intelligent, curious nature took him places the brave would not travel, so he ended up ill and fierce on my back fence. Believing him to be old and dying, we sheltered him as best we could, using holistic treatments until he stopped coughing, hissing, and biting. Eventually, his curiosity brought him inside our house, where we all fell profoundly in love with him. He was called Scarlett for his fiery temperament, and later just came to be known as Boo.  He inspired poetry and song, while he did things like admire art for hours which made us laugh. He died twice while we had him and ended up in his final passing, teaching me the power of grace. I miss him beyond the beyond. He has become my eternal source of inspiration.

The animals who are our companions give us their hearts and souls and do so without expectation of love. To return the favor and gift an animal sanctuary is the least we can do. The link below lists sanctuaries across the United States from California with 106 to Wyoming with 3, the sanctuaries struggle to help all the animals.
Find your state and make a donation if you care:
http://www.dmoz.org/Society/Organizations/Animal_Welfare/Rescues_and_Shelters/Regional/North_America/United_States

Inspiration: Creating Beauty using Nature, Dedication, & Wisdom

Blogging about creativity, I find myself really considering the process of inspiration. For me, inspiration is fully engaging with something beautiful outside the self, bringing that beauty in, and then putting it back out in a unique way. It is a focusing on something in the natural world. It is a dedicated attention to seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, moving, or sensing beauty. It is a wise integration of the experience. It is a sharing. The creative form, when placed outside the self, is a future source of inspiration.

Creativity is a process of renewal. 
Creativity is doing the Hokey Pokey:

You put your whole self in, you put your whole self out, you put your whole self in then you shake it all about, you do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around, that's what it's all about!

So, today I am sharing a view from the Hubble telescope which I find inspirational. It shows the birth of thousands of stars in a galaxy. I love this image for its archetypal form. I see it as the symbol of movement found in so many cultures from the nautilus to the native to our now. Spiraling in and out, up and down, a coming and going. For me the image is a fluid process where two sides meet in movement. I share it as the image I will use as the start of a future Singular offering, which I am entitling Peace of Prose.  The vision for this project is a collaborative artwork to inspire Peace by words and images. The artwork will be passed hand to hand for people to see and share then possibly extend in image and word, if they are so inspired.

In the meantime, here's a link with beautiful imagery, celebrating the Hubble telescope's 21st birthday. We see the universe through the mighty eye of the Hubble.  Notice the connection and interaction of two galaxies, which is perhaps the best outcome when stars collide.

http://www.batangastoday.com/hubble-space-telescope-stunning-image-of-arp-273-by-space-telescope-science-institute-released-to-celebrate-21st-birthday/12011/