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