I'm enjoying Mercoledi Creativo at Via Vecchia winery - aka, Creative Wednesday. Never know how many people will show up, sometimes more, sometimes a handful, even so I enjoy being in a time and space that's dedicated to artists.
There's something about sharing the energy with other artists who are not in my discipline that makes me appreciate what it means to make art your life.
Last Wednesday I hung out with my friend Sue, who's a visual artist, and watched Anna Sullivan practice climbing silks hung from a central beam, and talked with Jason the photographer about an upcoming article, and read poetry to Coco.
And, of course, there's Paolo's most excellent wine, which he sells half price on Wednesday. Paolo rolls in at 1am on those nights, totally stoked by seeing one of his dreams come true - to be able to support artists and performers with his space.
Here's a poem inspired by Lee and Coco practicing a phrase Lee choreographed for Independents Day.
Lee and Coco Dancing
I.
We take this bright drop of silver
and wish, work, grow
roll our hips around
swirl our throats around
our painted voice
our dancing song.
II.
Long throat
straight chin
iron torso
small breasts, tight to the body.
All of her belongs to her.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
The Colors of All Souls
Why is autumn the season of orange and black? The translucent brilliance of fall leaves? or the orange flesh of pumpkins? The ripe yellow squash and red gourds?
The colors of Halloween, of All Souls, represent two distinct concepts, and both have to do with creativity.
In the Earth cycle, autumn isn't recognized as creative. Instead, it's a time of fruition and shedding, of making provision for the cold months ahead. But the colors orange and black, and the symbol of the pumpkin, point to a different concept at work.
Orange contains the red energy of the earth, the blood of physical beings. Yellow is the light of the sun, the solar power to make us grow. When red and yellow mingle to conceive orange, they give birth to a creative glow.
In the pumpkins we see the shape of the womb. It's grown in the sun for months, fattening. In the center, seeds grow large, full of potential, protein, and nutrients. The center of the pumpkin, like the center of the womb, is black and warm, the home for nascent life.
"Hallowed" means sacred, as in "Hallowed be Thy name." The black of Hallowe'en - All Hallows Eve - isn't about evil, or death. It's about untapped potential, teeming with life. It's about formless energy.
Black is life waiting to become. This space of potential is a sacred space.
For people who are afraid of negative energy or see black as a negative color in an energetic sense, challenge yourself to a re-frame; these are places not touched by love. Touch these places with Love, and you will see the potential that had been sleeping in "negative" energy transform, and blossom into brilliant, positive fruit.
What about the Hallowe'en of ghosts? Ancient tradition has it that Hallowe'en, All Souls, is a thin time, when this world and the next become closer. Life goes on, this tradition says. We're still here; let that comfort you. Death is not the opposite of life. It's the opposite of birth.
All around us our landscape prepares for sleep, a sleep rich with life and potential ready to shoot up in the spring. In that richness we have dreams: ephemeral, non-physical, intangible, the shadow-selves of the forms we are about to create.
Which is why, after the riot of summer's fruition, we need autumn's shedding. As the trees shed, so do we. Our emotions intensify. Little crises force resolutions. You choose to stay or leave, to keep or to give away. We clean, we get rid of, we change over our bedding, our lightbulbs, our clothes. We cleanse.
All this sweeping, emptying, and choosing clears paths for the dreaming to take place. New goals, visions, friends, and foods arrive over winter along the pathways we swept clear, perhaps unconsciously, in autumn.
Creativity at work inside us, whether we realize it, or not.
Celebrate the colors of this season. The creative, joyful orange, and the teeming potential of night-sky black, strewn with stars and a bright moon, to light your winter's path.
The colors of Halloween, of All Souls, represent two distinct concepts, and both have to do with creativity.
In the Earth cycle, autumn isn't recognized as creative. Instead, it's a time of fruition and shedding, of making provision for the cold months ahead. But the colors orange and black, and the symbol of the pumpkin, point to a different concept at work.
Orange contains the red energy of the earth, the blood of physical beings. Yellow is the light of the sun, the solar power to make us grow. When red and yellow mingle to conceive orange, they give birth to a creative glow.
In the pumpkins we see the shape of the womb. It's grown in the sun for months, fattening. In the center, seeds grow large, full of potential, protein, and nutrients. The center of the pumpkin, like the center of the womb, is black and warm, the home for nascent life.
"Hallowed" means sacred, as in "Hallowed be Thy name." The black of Hallowe'en - All Hallows Eve - isn't about evil, or death. It's about untapped potential, teeming with life. It's about formless energy.
Black is life waiting to become. This space of potential is a sacred space.
For people who are afraid of negative energy or see black as a negative color in an energetic sense, challenge yourself to a re-frame; these are places not touched by love. Touch these places with Love, and you will see the potential that had been sleeping in "negative" energy transform, and blossom into brilliant, positive fruit.
What about the Hallowe'en of ghosts? Ancient tradition has it that Hallowe'en, All Souls, is a thin time, when this world and the next become closer. Life goes on, this tradition says. We're still here; let that comfort you. Death is not the opposite of life. It's the opposite of birth.
All around us our landscape prepares for sleep, a sleep rich with life and potential ready to shoot up in the spring. In that richness we have dreams: ephemeral, non-physical, intangible, the shadow-selves of the forms we are about to create.
Which is why, after the riot of summer's fruition, we need autumn's shedding. As the trees shed, so do we. Our emotions intensify. Little crises force resolutions. You choose to stay or leave, to keep or to give away. We clean, we get rid of, we change over our bedding, our lightbulbs, our clothes. We cleanse.
All this sweeping, emptying, and choosing clears paths for the dreaming to take place. New goals, visions, friends, and foods arrive over winter along the pathways we swept clear, perhaps unconsciously, in autumn.
Creativity at work inside us, whether we realize it, or not.
Celebrate the colors of this season. The creative, joyful orange, and the teeming potential of night-sky black, strewn with stars and a bright moon, to light your winter's path.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
The Panegyric
Last night I had one of those 4am moments. You might be able to recognize it: waking up, staring at the red digital numbers displayed on our ceiling by a Batman-esque alarm clock, wondering if I had made a difference in the world, wondering if I would ever again move into writing professionally, writing for my living as I did when I lived in England.
Four in the a.m. is a kind of witching hour. I'm confused, in a fugue state, particles of my dreams swirling, dressed up like reality.
I thought of those people who'd decided to leave the planet early because they couldn't take the pain they'd carried: Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe. For some reason, my mind chose two people who could have been as much pushed into Beyond, as gone open-armed to it. They stood in front of me, so much good in their lives, but also that gnawing pain.
This morning I remembered this passage from Robert Louis Stevenson: "We must all be ready somehow to toil, to suffer, to die. And yours is not the less noble because no drum beats before you when you go out into your daily battlefields, and no crowds shout about your coming when you return from your daily victory or defeat."
Uncomfortable words for us modern-day, post-The Secret, positive thinkers. Toil, suffer, die. Yuck! I like the words: ease, choose a higher path, and cross over.
But I also really love the word sacrifice. It means "to make holy." Every time we choose that path of integration over the path of escape, it's toil. Turning the other cheek when someone spits on you is not an easy path. Transforming stinky energy instead of attaching to it is not an easy path. Going back into the past and healing old wounds instead of blaming the actors in the play is not an easy path. That is my definition of TOIL.
Washing those wounds to make them holy - that's pretty much suffering. Feeling that pain all over again while I heal it, that's not ease or fun. But the strength, the integration, the sheer ecstatic bliss when the work is done - that's ease. That's the higher path.
Yesterday when I came across the word 'panegyric' on my GRE review, I looked it up. I had the sense it was an elegy of some kind, but no idea it defined the times when we receive public praise. How many mothers out there put in a day of wiping bottoms and cleaning up dishes and wish for their panegyric? How many dads go to a job they don't enjoy and come home wishing for their panegyric? These are blunt examples, but we all have times when we wish for that moment that someone will eulogize our hard work.
We have our panegyrics: an acknowledgment at a wedding, or a graduation. A hug. They come at unexpected moments. Take photographs. Indulge in those memories.
We have many more days of going out into daily battlefields, when profound ambivalence, silence, or ignorance, keeps those around us from noticing the daily victories and defeats. That's when we have to create our own panegyric, and give it to ourselves.
I'm working with two practices at the moment. The first is out-loud gratitude. I say "thank you" to the Divine whenever I receive a blessing. Any blessing, no matter how tiny.
The second is to ask the Divine to align me with my purpose as a soul on this planet, and to align me with Divine Will, and show me a day that's in alignment with that Higher vision.
Talk about ease - every day I do this second step, I have a day of complete ease. Everything gets done, within the amount of energy that I possess, on time, and unhurried.
These two practices have become energy-generators for me. In a sense, they perform the function of daily panegyrics. They don't keep me from seeing my fears displayed at 4am, they don't stop me from having challenges, but through these practices I feel rooted and centered and peaceful.
Four in the a.m. is a kind of witching hour. I'm confused, in a fugue state, particles of my dreams swirling, dressed up like reality.
I thought of those people who'd decided to leave the planet early because they couldn't take the pain they'd carried: Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe. For some reason, my mind chose two people who could have been as much pushed into Beyond, as gone open-armed to it. They stood in front of me, so much good in their lives, but also that gnawing pain.
This morning I remembered this passage from Robert Louis Stevenson: "We must all be ready somehow to toil, to suffer, to die. And yours is not the less noble because no drum beats before you when you go out into your daily battlefields, and no crowds shout about your coming when you return from your daily victory or defeat."
Uncomfortable words for us modern-day, post-The Secret, positive thinkers. Toil, suffer, die. Yuck! I like the words: ease, choose a higher path, and cross over.
But I also really love the word sacrifice. It means "to make holy." Every time we choose that path of integration over the path of escape, it's toil. Turning the other cheek when someone spits on you is not an easy path. Transforming stinky energy instead of attaching to it is not an easy path. Going back into the past and healing old wounds instead of blaming the actors in the play is not an easy path. That is my definition of TOIL.
Washing those wounds to make them holy - that's pretty much suffering. Feeling that pain all over again while I heal it, that's not ease or fun. But the strength, the integration, the sheer ecstatic bliss when the work is done - that's ease. That's the higher path.
Yesterday when I came across the word 'panegyric' on my GRE review, I looked it up. I had the sense it was an elegy of some kind, but no idea it defined the times when we receive public praise. How many mothers out there put in a day of wiping bottoms and cleaning up dishes and wish for their panegyric? How many dads go to a job they don't enjoy and come home wishing for their panegyric? These are blunt examples, but we all have times when we wish for that moment that someone will eulogize our hard work.
We have our panegyrics: an acknowledgment at a wedding, or a graduation. A hug. They come at unexpected moments. Take photographs. Indulge in those memories.
We have many more days of going out into daily battlefields, when profound ambivalence, silence, or ignorance, keeps those around us from noticing the daily victories and defeats. That's when we have to create our own panegyric, and give it to ourselves.
I'm working with two practices at the moment. The first is out-loud gratitude. I say "thank you" to the Divine whenever I receive a blessing. Any blessing, no matter how tiny.
The second is to ask the Divine to align me with my purpose as a soul on this planet, and to align me with Divine Will, and show me a day that's in alignment with that Higher vision.
Talk about ease - every day I do this second step, I have a day of complete ease. Everything gets done, within the amount of energy that I possess, on time, and unhurried.
These two practices have become energy-generators for me. In a sense, they perform the function of daily panegyrics. They don't keep me from seeing my fears displayed at 4am, they don't stop me from having challenges, but through these practices I feel rooted and centered and peaceful.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Princess Di
Thirteen years ago, my daughter was born in England on the day of the biggest funeral the world had seen since they laid John F Kennedy to rest.
Every television featured only one show: mourning for Princess Diana.
As the funeral cortege processed, so did my labor. The midwives disappeared frequently from our room to watch the Princes walking to the cathedral behind their mother.
My daughter came into the world, a beautiful light for our lives, while that meteoric life that Princess Diana had led, went out.
Scouring the shops, trying to find a bouquet for his wife, my husband could find only a few wilted chrysanthemums, the only bunch of posies left.
I distinctly remember three things about that day: out the window of the delivery room, the sky appeared to be fuchsia to me, although when I focused, it turned back to turquoise. As soon as my daughter was lifted up, she opened her eyes so wide, as if to take in all the world, and the first person she saw was her father. And that night the clouds formed themselves into giant heads, as if people had come to look down on the precious events of the day, and look in at the new lives in the hospital too. It thundered, and rained, and cleared up, and the giant heads in the sky drifted over it all.
We don't get a Princess Diana very often in this world. Some people will internally say to that "Thank God." Before she died she took flack from every pundit with a soapbox; the day after she died they recanted, or had to keep their opinions to themselves.
Only during the flood of national mourning could we all see that Diana had become what she had wanted to be - the Queen of Hearts. As cheesy as that title was, as close a reference as it was to 'tarts', she opened up the heart of a nation known for its curmudgeons.
Every television featured only one show: mourning for Princess Diana.
As the funeral cortege processed, so did my labor. The midwives disappeared frequently from our room to watch the Princes walking to the cathedral behind their mother.
My daughter came into the world, a beautiful light for our lives, while that meteoric life that Princess Diana had led, went out.
Scouring the shops, trying to find a bouquet for his wife, my husband could find only a few wilted chrysanthemums, the only bunch of posies left.
I distinctly remember three things about that day: out the window of the delivery room, the sky appeared to be fuchsia to me, although when I focused, it turned back to turquoise. As soon as my daughter was lifted up, she opened her eyes so wide, as if to take in all the world, and the first person she saw was her father. And that night the clouds formed themselves into giant heads, as if people had come to look down on the precious events of the day, and look in at the new lives in the hospital too. It thundered, and rained, and cleared up, and the giant heads in the sky drifted over it all.
We don't get a Princess Diana very often in this world. Some people will internally say to that "Thank God." Before she died she took flack from every pundit with a soapbox; the day after she died they recanted, or had to keep their opinions to themselves.
Only during the flood of national mourning could we all see that Diana had become what she had wanted to be - the Queen of Hearts. As cheesy as that title was, as close a reference as it was to 'tarts', she opened up the heart of a nation known for its curmudgeons.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Empower yourself!
Self-healing is a fundamental right that we have as human beings. Costs and bureaucracy surrounding the medical profession, plus the constant barrage of advertisements for drugs, contribute to our forgetfulness of that fact. When you learn to connect to the free, unlimited inflow of Divine healing, you empower yourself, and reclaim your right to heal.
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