Art Will Save Us: How Will It Save Us?

February 2003, from the pink journal, drawing at work when i should have been working?

yolk sister; daisy lover

July 2007, from my sketchbook after a night of doodling. she has a story and a twin who has not yet appeared to me. perhaps we will see her this summer...

One more thing before the flinging begins: THEY ARE IN SCHOOL!

A big thanks to Blogs of Note from Blogger and Sail World. I read an article about Abby Sunderland a while back and was just floored by the people's feeling that she and other young people like her are better off in K-12. "If you got the gumption, I second that emotion..."

So much for having the living room THIS time!

That's right. I'm rearranging it again...

I love my bed and my bed loves me! My bedroom is a sea of joy.

Fun With Digital Baby!!

so my brother sent me this fun little bugger!! he kinda collects all kinds of stuff 'n stuff; he's a tinkerer and a mechanic who likes to play with and disassemble and put together stuff 'n stuff. a while back i was lamenting my non-sufficient fundage for the purchase of a digital camera and this little zinger showed up in the mail one day. i don't know if he realizes just what kind of phenomenally fan-frickin-tastic fun this little booger is going to bring into my world (and yours)!!! thank you thank you thank you!!

so many projects i've wanted to pursue are now deliciously within reach, namely the 365 project, which is a self portrait a day. and all the random stuff i'd love to show you around my apartment that often inspires me to write and draw and play!!! now this photo blog is gonna get back to the photo part. i'll be scanning in some older work too. yee haa sucka's!! by the way, if a piece of work is created in 2000 and marinates for a while (by 'a while' i mean anywhere from several hours to many years), what is it's 'completion' date? when a painter paints a painting, when a lithographer finishes a run, the work is signed. when a photographer captures an image on film, say in 1994, but does not show or print it until 2010 what is the date it should bear?

how. much. fun.

Workshop

Each of us can contribute to the healing of our community by addressing and inviting what is torn and broken in ourselves to heal. Using the penetrating power of yoga, meditation, and literature, we will invite in healing for ourselves, for our individually diverse communities, and for our collective community.

This workshop will combine gently active yoga practice to satisfy the body and focus the mind; restorative yoga practice to deepen the breath and allow the inner gaze to broaden; poetry and the words of others to promote a deep connection to our emotional and energetic selves; reflective journaling (Svadhyaya, self-reflection- optional) to create words of healing for ourselves; and Yoga Nidra, a form of deep guided meditation (sometimes referred to as Yogic Sleep) to allow this work to go beyond our body and mind and help us touch into our illimitable selves, where the resources for deep healing exist.

You do not have to be a writer, a yoga practitioner or a journaller to attend this workshop. It is a beautiful practice designed for all levels of students!

Please bring: your favorite blanket, a notebook or journal and pen/pencil, and a favorite poem, song, or chant.

March 21, 2010, 1:00-4:00 p.m.

This workshop is being offered in the spirit of generosity.

As we offer this workshop our intent is to spark individual resources within each of you that will work toward healing of our individual and collective communities. You may donate whatever amount you would like to, but no one will be turned away for inability to donate or pay.

Pleae visit Embodied Health for more info. Thanks Lucinda for writing this awesome post and for so clearly stating our ideas.

Albert & EdFred

I never know how much to say about the images I post here... Do you ever wish you knew more about them? What would you like to know?

Albert is a man I met several years ago while I was working at the now defunct Sweetski's Cafe. The circumstances of our introduction and his warm demeanor have never left me. He invited me to visit with him and this summer I hope to find him in northern Minnesota. I feel very strongly that I must go see him, and soon.

EdFred is the name I gave to the Mountain Ash tree that up until a month ago was living in the ground in front of my apartment. I came home from work one evening, it was late after a very long, very stressful week when I noticed that he was gone. The next morning, with sun shining on the new snow I saw the dust of his wood sprayed all over the snow. EdFred is gone, gone, gone... I was heartbroken for a moment (I was aware that the building manager would have to remove the tree). I was neither ready to give up on what could be salvaged, nor ready to accept that this wonderful tree had met the end of its life, let alone so suddenly. I do not feel entirely free of responsibility in this death. I feel that my lack of self confidence contributed to a series of events that led to this moment. I choose to see EdFred as a guide, a marker of a time when I realize(d) that inaction is just as powerful a force as action; each bears its own consequence.

This sketch came out of thinking of the two of them... I would like to tell you more about Albert but I do not have the 'go ahead' from my guts. They are part of my education, they have enriched my experience of life.

In the Grove: The Poet at Ten

by Jane Kenyon

She lay on her back in the timothy
and gazed past the doddering
auburn heads of sumac.

A cloud- huge, calm,
and dignified- covered the sun
but did not, could not, put it out.

The light surged back again.

Nothing could rouse her then
from that joy so violent
it was hard to distinguish from pain.

Letting Go As Precursor

The Woman With The Smile In Her Voice

My Home Is My Art: Meditations On The Second House

My coffin dress was witness to the smiling winter wind. -Curio by Sessah

"What you must surrender is nothing less than the summer house of your first personality, the world view that you began forming in the expansive growing season of adolescence and that carried you through your first adulthood. This is the house you have been carefully building, furnishing, and accessorizing at least since puberty. Now, just as you are getting ready to enjoy the completed house, you hear a knock and the front door swings open. There stand three angels, as D.H. Lawrence called them, motioning to you, informing you it's time to leave - forever. You begin to protest but you know it's useless; it's time to go.

This knock on the door, the call to adventure, comes as soon as you have done enough work on your first personality that it is fully inhabitable. The greatest value to be derived from building that first house comes from the building of it - not from the living in it." -Soulcraft by Bill Plotkin

'dutton' by Sessah

Continued Thoughts On The Tree Of Life...

When I was about eight or nine my mom and I were traveling east. She was driving a blue car through the mountains in Tennessee; all of our stuff was piled into the back seat and trunk. I was tired from the long drive so she said I should crawl up onto the pile of stuff and take a nap. I was just shorter than the width of the car and the stuff shifted to support me so that I was about as comfortable as I ever recall feeling in my entire life. Before I fell asleep I lay looking at the dappled, shaded canopy of the forest basking in a warm fall afternoon. I could almost feel the hum of my mothers thoughts as she drove. Knowing what I know now about that time, my involvement in this memory only deepens as I navigate my own life. I feel this was one of the clearest moments of absolute peace I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing.