the times my name doesn't fill your mouth

"I am haunted by the things I miss and the times my name doesn't fill your mouth. I need a word for the way that feels, for all the letters don't seem to say it properly." - Tyler Knott Gregson

snapshot - my scribbles on a paper table cover 

big questions without apology

"This is your time. Your time to say what you have kept silent. Your time to ask your big questions without apology. Your time to shine like a blazing comet, whether they like it or not. Your time to believe what your heart tells you: that this world could be very different. Your time to live by your rhythms, and teach them to the world. Your time to nurture your village back to health. Your time to show the world what it has been missing. Your time to show the world the other side of itself." - T.S.Mohr

awareness

"Love springs from awareness.

It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she REALLY is here and now and not how they are in your memory or your DESIRE or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them, otherwise it is not the person that you love but the IDEA that you have formed of this person, or this person as the OBJECT of your DESIRE not as he or she is in themselves.

Therefore the first act of love is to see this person or this object, this reality as it truly is.  And this involves ENORMOUS DISCIPLINE of DROPPING your DESIRES, your PREJUDICES, your MEMORIES, your PROJECTIONS, your selective way of looking, a discipline so great that most people would rather plunge headlong into good actions and service than to SUBMIT to the BURNING FIRE of this ASCETICISM.

When you set out to serve someone whom you have not taken the trouble to see, are you meeting that person's need or your own? So the first ingredient of love is to really see the other.

The second ingredient is equally important to see yourself, to RUTHLESSLY flash the LIGHT of AWARENESS on your motives, your emotions, your needs, your dishonesty, your self-seeking, your TENDENCY to CONTROL and MANIPULATE.  This means calling things by their name, no matter how painful the discovery and the consequences.  If you achieve this kind of awareness of the other and yourself, you will know what love is. For you will have attained a mind and a heart that is alert, vigilant, clear, sensitive, a clarity of perception, a sensitivity that will draw out of you an accurate, appropriate response to every situation at every moment.

Sometimes you will be irresistibly impelled into action, at others you will be held back and restrained. You will sometimes be made to ignore others and sometimes give them the attention they seek. At times you will be gentle and yielding, at others hard, uncompromising, assertive, even violent. For the love that is BORN of SENSITIVITY takes many unexpected forms and it responds not to prefabricated guidelines and principles but to present, concrete reality. When you first experience this kind of sensitivity you are likely to experience TERROR. For all your defenses will be torn down, your dishonesty exposed, the protected wall around you burned.

...If it is love that you truly desire then set out at once on the task of seeing, take it seriously and look at someone you DISLIKE and really see your PREJUDICE. Look at someone you CLING TO or something you cling to and really see the SUFFERING, the FUTILITY, the UNFREEDOM of CLINGING and look long and lovingly at human faces and human behavior..."

- Anthony De Mello

from my early morning meditation

gnawing hunger

A corner of my home...a mountain of books, endless pearls, healing crystals, a stone carving found at a flea market decades ago...and the prototype of one of my first books in print...

My home is my studio. 

My home is my temple.

"From as far back as I can remember, I was obsessed by a gnawing hunger for rituals of spirit." 

- Gabrielle Roth

a gnawing hunger...

what do you hunger for?

he did not dare approach her

“To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.” 

“Le parecía tan bella, tan seductora, tan distinta de la gente común, que no entendía por qué nadie se trastornaba como él con las castañuelas de sus tacones en los adoquines de la calle, ni se le desordenaba el corazón con el aire de los suspiros de sus volantes, ni se volvía loco de amor todo el mundo con los vientos de su trenza, el vuelo de sus manos, el oro de su risa. No había perdido un gesto suyo, ni un indicio de su carácter, pero no se atrevía a acercársele por el temor de malograr el encanto."

- Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014)

snapshot - an unintentional selfie of my shoulder...

drifting away slipping away

"I'm wide open

But don't I please you anymore?

You're slipping away from me

You're drifting away from me...

Slow me down

It's getting away from me...

I'm wide open

But I couldn't see it anymore

You're drifting away from me

You're slipping away from me...

One day just gonna see me

Look back and forth from the ceiling

Some day love's gonna hurt me

Turn back and soon I'll believe it..."

- The Chemical Brothers featuring Beck

snapshot - ideas on my desk

hunting and wandering

"You wander from room to room

hunting for the diamond necklace
that is already around your neck!"

- RUMI

audacity, courage, vanity, sentimentality

"What I like best about myself...is my audacity, my courage. The ways I have found to be true to myself without causing too much pain or damage...
What I hate so much is my vanity, my need to shine, my need of applause and my sentimentality. I would like to be harder. I cannot make a joke, make fun of anyone, without feeling regrets."

- Anaïs Nin (1903-1977)

I love the artist me who dares with such security...

I don't use the word "hate" - but I do dislike my need to please others...my need to be loved by all...although the older I get, the less I seem to care...which is a good thing, I hope...

What do you like best about yourself ?

What do you dislike about yourself ?

originally published in 2008

the first full moon - the wolf moon

under a white blanket of snow, I contemplate the blessings blooming in my life...under the full moon I pray, giving thanks and asking for continued guidance...

"Characteristics and behaviors that no longer serve your spiritual purpose are being culled from your consciousness. Make cooperation a priority over competition. Valuable insights, ideas, and new teachings are coming your way, so pay close attention. It's important to maintain your self-esteem and integrity and deeply trust in your inner knowing, even when you feel misunderstood or misaligned. You're being spiritually and pscychically protected at all times, so there's really no need to fear."

- Dr. Steven Farmer

"Women and wolves are relational by nature, inquiring, possessed of great endurance and strength. They are deeply intuitive, intensely concerned with their young, their mate and their pack..."

- Dr. C.P. Estes

snapshot from my playful prayer altar celebrating the year's first full moon, known as the wolf moon...

healed into the present

"Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is a woman.

A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.

Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.

Imagine a woman who trusts and respects herself.

A woman who listens to her needs and desires.

Who meets them with tenderness and grace.

Imagine a woman who acknowledges the past's influence on the present.

A woman who has walked through her past.

Who has healed into the present.

Imagine a woman who authors her own life.

A woman who exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf.

Who refuses to surrender except to her truest self and wisest voice.

Imagine a woman who names her own gods.

A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness.

Who designs a personal spirituality to inform her daily life.

Imagine a woman in love with her own body.

A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.

Who celebrates its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.

Imagine a woman who honors the body of the 

Goddess in her changing body.

A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom.

Who refuses to use her life-energy disguising the changes in her body and life.

Imagine a woman who values the women in her life.

A woman who sits in circles of women.

Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.

Imagine yourself as this woman."

“Imagine a Woman” © Patricia Lynn Reilly, 1995

surrendering and trusting

"The soul, in its longing to grow, will push us towards crisis points, bringing about a situation that will force us to leave behind the old toys and the worn-out ways of operating. Our soul brings us these crises to remind us that we don't have to remain stuck in the land of the hunters and the hunted. We are called to draw ourselves up to our full height and confidence, even when terrified at the prospect of the unknown." - Alberto Villoldo

surrendering to the soul's journey...

trusting the mystery of the divine...

hurricane of experience

happy enough is not enough for me, not anymore...

my beloved RUMI whispers wisdom:

"I was happy enough to stay still

inside the pearl inside the shell,

but the hurricane of experience 

lashed me out of hiding and made me

a wave moving into shore, saying loudly 

the ocean's secret as I went, and then

spent there, I slept like fog against

the cliff, another stillness."

- RUMI

mixed media on paper

exploring the full range of my body's rhythms

"The first layer of consciousness is inertia. It is a level of non-movement: it is a level in which your energy, whether on the dance floor or in your psyche, is simply stuck.

Everybody experiences inertia. It is the groggy, barely conscious state when you first wake up in the morning. Or when you return to work from vacation. Or when you are in momentary insecurity about something or other. It is the state of despairing inaction when you've locked into the same routine day after day. The drugged passivity of TV watching. The stoned immobility of drug-taking, drinking. The moral and intellectual laziness of just getting by.

The only question is whether you choose to live in inertia or pass through it in the flow of your life - day to day, year to year, cycle to cycle. Inertia is seductive. It has characteristics of the ecstasy we're seeking and knew in the womb. It's natural, effortless, totally accommodating. But we're made to move, to become, to grow, to change, to create, and the true paradise of ecstasy lies not in inaction but in action that is so totally absorbing it seems like no work at all. Quickly the false ecstasy of lazing around, indulgence, and passivity takes its toll in the self-destructive effects of imploded energy...

...As a temporary resistance to the demands of life, inertia is simply a place from which to start. As you recognize its grip on you, you can confront it with movement and vitalize your being with the energy of change. You can summon the dancer within, the part of you that instinctively knows how to explore the full range of the body's rhythms. It is natural for the body to move, and the simplest way out of inertia is to start moving it. Stretch, lean, shuffle, swirl, with or without music, alone or with others. The easiest way is just to ease into flowing movements that will gradually seduce the body into the other rhythms. Dance is always available no matter where you are and is a ready catalyst to get your energy moving.

If you live in inertia - "waking sleep," Gurdjieff called it - as your basic energy level, as most of us do, your reality is comprised of a structure of unquestioned beliefs and frozen attitudes that are a bulwark against change. Movement and change are feared as painful and disruptive. The status quo seems to offer a haven of security. Truthfully, you are a wallflower at the dance of life, refusing every offer to move, out of fear of the unknown or of making a fool of yourself; you don't make the effort. But this holding back - hanging on tight to everything, especially your body, which becomes the repository of all your repressed feelings, thoughts, and action - used up all your physical, emotional, and mental energy. And you have nothing to show for this use of energy but the same old patterns and a deteriorating body and spirit. Because you don't dare to breathe life in and let it out, you live on a very restricted energy supply.

At bottom, inertia is the level of being unconscious, the home of the victim, the place where life just happens to you and you're unaware of your responsibility to create your own reality. It's the level of the pregnant woman who obviously chainsmokes, the macho laborer who stupefies himself every night with a six-pack, the high-powered executive who's married to his job and measures everything and everyone, including himself, by company standards, or the actor who has nothing to say without a script.

In inertia we want our life and friends to be stable, predictable, homogenized. It's so much easier to be in control when things around us don't change and we have the security of the known. We stay in an unhappy marriage or job or situation for years and years rather than risk the uncertainty, the adventure, the pain of venturing forth. In fact, all our "adventure" is planned and prepackaged, innocuous and ultimately dissatisfying - we buy the hype of cruises, cars, beer, movies, to sate our frustrated desire for true novelty and authentic experience. 

Often we turn around and watch even our children lock themselves into routines and perspectives that suffocate them, choke their growth and spontaneity, and snuff out the sparks we saw burning in them when they first entered the world. It hurts as we watch them lock into the vicious spiral of victimization, resentment, isolation. Or of flattery, melancholy, and self-importance. We know all the dances all too well. We taught them the steps. We reinforce these patterns rather than acknowledging our children's pain and guiding them to face the challenges that will nurture their growth. Because we are not bold, not warriors, we don't empower our children - to their lifelong detriment. Seeing their weakness, cowardice, and compromising is to watch parts of ourselves die, the parts that are young and fresh and full of promise.

Listen to the voices of inertia: Don't rock the boat. You're making a big mistake. Don't act impulsively. You've got to plan ahead. Be careful. Be prepared. But think of your family. Think of your friends. But if you do that... Don't burn your bridges. You'll regret it. You'll be sorry."

- Gabrielle Roth

so, my dear I invite you to step onto the dance floor with me...it is time to seduce the body into other rhythms...

a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love

"If you want to be important - wonderful. If you want to be recognized - wonderful. If you want to be great - wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness...it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

(January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)

cardinal medicine and monogamy

"Native American tradition holds the spiritual belief that spirits, or souls, inhabit the universe and each of its natural elements. The belief that all birds and other animals, known as power or medicine animals, are messengers from the Great Spirit has long been an element of shamanism. Cardinal medicine symbolizes relationships, courtship and monogamy in Native American lore.

Cardinals are monogamous birds whose relationships with their spouses are harmonious, romantic and musical. The male and female sing duets, calling similar songs to each other. Native American lore says if a cardinal crosses your path or attracts your attention, and you're single, there may be a romantic relationship in your near future. If you're already in a relationship, you may experience renewed romance and courtship...monogamy is the cardinal's message."

- Karen Mihaylo

snapshots from this afternoon...flocks of glorious cardinals greeted us under the first snowflakes of the season...

their bad advice

"One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you  
kept shouting 
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations -
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life that you could save."
- Mary Oliver

snapshot - a recent selfie 

fearless

"Do you really want to look back on your life and see how wonderful it could have been had you not been afraid to live it?"

- Caroline Myss

we used to be closer than this, is it something you miss?

"...It's hard to say.  

Separate or combine, I ask you one last time:

Did I hold you too tight?

Did I not let enough light in?

If a feeling appears, if your mind should sway,

It's not a secret you should keep,

I won't let you slip away.

We used to be closer than this...

We used to be closer than this...

Is it something you miss?

Winged or chained,

I ask you,

Would you have stayed?" - XX

only because I love

"Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love." - Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

courage

"To create one's world in any of the arts takes courage."

- Georgia O'Keeffe (1887 – 1986)

Are you living a life of courage?

Are you living a life you are creating?

originally posted in 2008, snapshot detail of a silk created in 2004/2005

you almost broke it

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. 

I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it..."
- Jane Austen

by sharing we connect and define ourselves

"We revisit our own stories as our children's stories are written. Sharing our favorite books and memories with them connects us to our past, present, and future. Our shared family history and culture are valuable pieces of identity for our children, and we give them a context and structure in which to expand their own identity.

Our children are likely to make up "make-believe" stories, and we can also encourage them to tell autobiographical stories, even if it's just relating a funny incident from their school day. The point is to encourage their storytelling, and we do this first by promoting them, and then by listening...

...Storytelling is like a trip backward in time. Since the first humans sat around the fire, stories have been shared among people. Stories are passed on from one generation to the next, the thread of ancestry that connects us to our past and our future. Children love to hear stories from their parents' childhood, or stories of their grandparents' or great-grandparents' adventures...

...By sharing, we connect. By sharing, we define ourselves. Telling a story, we claim ownership over it. Encouraging others to do the same, we encourage their growth and independence as they name themselves and their experience...

...Story time can double as lesson time. Your characters can live and learn, just as your listening children can also learn. Often, our children have stories to tell, as well. Our job is simply to listen as our children continue the story that began long before us."

-Julia Cameron

snapshot of my beloved, creative child a few years ago when he was only two years old...

I adore being a mother...it is a privilege and a blessing to practice the art of motherhood...

I am a storyteller. I married a storyteller. I gave birth to a storyteller. The time has come to share our stories within the pages of published books...

new moon new year new beginnings

"The soul, like the moon,
is new, and always new again."
- Lalleshwari (14th century)

this new moon is ushering in new ideas, new insights and new beginnings...

wish upon the new dark moon tonight...

still making love in my secret life

"I saw you this morning.
You were moving so fast.
Can’t seem to loosen my grip -
on the past.

And I miss you so much.
There’s no one in sight.

And we’re still making love
In My Secret Life.

I smile when I’m angry.
I cheat and I lie.

I do what I have to do to get by.

But I know what is wrong,
And I know what is right.

And I’d die for the truth
In My Secret Life...

...I bite my lip.

I buy what I’m told:

from the latest hit,

to the wisdom of old.

But I’m always alone.

And my heart is like ice.

And it’s crowded and cold.

In My Secret Life." - Leonard Cohen

do you have a secret life?
an imaginary, secret life?
I believe we all do, whether we realize it or not...

mixed media on paper from a series

la chancha

"Para qué nací bonita, mejor me hubiera quedado como las chachas de mi pueblo."

- Maria Felix, La Doña

her body became thick

her eyes condensed into tiny specks

her head grew larger and larger

her legs shrank shorter and shorter

a small curly tail sprouted

a strong snout emerged

LA CHANCHA still felt beautiful, however

she knew the witch’s spell could not last

she knew the magic gems would save her

LA CHANCHA snorted with laughter and continued to dance...

excerpt from short story about women’s obsession with appearances

mixed media on paper, 2007

wild wolf medicine

la loba dentro de mi...

"Women and wolves are relational by nature, inquiring, possessed of great endurance and strength. They are deeply intuitive, intensely concerned with their young, their mate and their pack. Yet both have been hounded, harassed and falsely imputed to be devouring and devious, overly aggressive, of less value than those who are their detractors."

- Dr. C. Pinkola Estes

mixed media inspired from a dream

in a sacred manner and in celebration

"Where are you living? 
What are you doing? 
What are your relationships? 
Are you in right relation? 
Where is your water? 
Know our garden. 
It is time to speak your Truth. 
Create your community. 
Be good to each other. 
And do not look outside yourself for the leader. 

This could be a good time! 

There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel like they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly. 

Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off toward the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water. 

See who is there with you and celebrate. 

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves! For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt. 

The time of the lonely wolf is over. Gather yourselves! 

Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary. 

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. 

We are the ones we have been waiting for."

The Elders, 
Oraibi, Arizona 
Hopi Nation

snapshot of a black leather bustier I wore once upon a time...

I feel myself dying in you, overtaken by expanding spaces, which feed on me like hungry butterflies

"Me siento morir en ti, atravesado de espacios que crecen, que me comen igual que mariposas hambrientas.

Cierro los ojos y estoy tendido en tu memoria, apenas vivo, con los abiertos labios donde remonta el río del olvido.

Y tu, con delicadas pinzas de paciencia me arrancas los dientes, las pestañas, me desnudas el trébol de la voz, la sombra del deseo, vas abriendo en mi nombre ventanas al espacio y agujeros azules en mi pecho por donde los veranos huyen lamentándose.

Transparente, aguzado, entretejido de aire floto en la duermevela, y todavía digo tu nombre y te despierto acongojada.

Pero te esfuerzas y me olvidas, yo soy apenas la burbuja que te refleja, que destruirás con sólo un parpadeo."

- Julio Cortázar 

   ~~~

"I feel myself dying in you, overtaken by expanding spaces, which feed on me like hungry butterflies. 

I close my eyes and I'm laid out in your memory, barely alive, with my mouth wide open and the river of oblivion rising. 

And you, patiently, with needle-nosed pliers, pull out my teeth, my eyelashes, you strip the clover from my voice, the shade from my desire, you open up windows of space in my name and blue holes in my chest through which the summers rush out in mourning.

Transparent, sharpened, interwoven with air I float in a drowse, and still I say your name and wake you, anguished. 

But you force yourself to forget me, and I'm barely a bubble reflecting you, which you'll burst with the blink of an eye." 

- Julio Cortázar translated by Stephen Kessler 

you pushed me away so I offered space

"In the days and months in future present moments when I remember you, I would like to remember that you were always lost to me.

I would like to see that you showed me a view through a window that was opened, but we never climbed outside to play in the tall grass...

...And then you left and our two lives unraveled: I went this way and you went that way, our dreams no longer entwined.

And I kept my horses reined in, and they did not mind, for they share my proud spirit, and they feel sure that some day soon I shall let them run.

But even without our dreams I would like to remember your hair and eyes and stripes and the golden things that we did together. And most of all your kind command. I would like to see you revolving a world even if it is not mine.

And it was one of our only evenings: seven, eight...not more than eleven or fourteen or fifteen in all. I would like to recall how I was tired, walking across the bridge over the roaring white river in the night...

...You mined my depths, and you found space many fathoms deep, and you kept drilling, and you hit bedrock, but you wanted oil...

...I was sleepy with good hot tea and you and I sitting on the worn Persian rug and in those moments I lost you. Any breeze can take an entire future away from any one of us...

...we will enjoy many succinct times where friendship gilds daily life.

This is our dance.

I reached out, sweetly, with confidence

You assented, with a shy smile

I stepped forward again, straightforward 

You invited me in

We fell in to step with one another, a coming together.

Then you slowed me down and pushed me away and I stepped back.

And then you called to me, not to leave 

I listened and stepped forward 

and then you pushed me away and called to me simultaneously so I offered space.

And then you stopped me from leaving and came to me

And I returned to your fold and we came together, again

And then you pushed me away a fifth time,

And I was done, and you were offended at my displeasure,

And I let you drop."

- Waylon H. Lewis

snapshots of my son enjoying the Freer Gallery of Art on the last day before it closes for renovations through 2017

liberated from fear

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

- Marianne Williamson

This quote sits on my altar and is also tucked within the pages of my journals...

a gift

"I’m a princess cut from marble, smoother than a storm.

And the scars that mark my body, they’re silver and gold.

My blood is a flood of rubies, precious stones.

It keeps my veins hot, the fire's found a home in me.

I move through town, I’m quiet like a fight.

And my necklace is of rope, I tie it and untie.

And now people talk to me, but nothing ever hits home.

People talk to me, and all the voices just burn holes.

I’m done with it.

This is the start of how it all ends.

They used to shout my name, now they whisper it.

I’m speeding up and this is the red, orange, yellow flicker beat sparking up my heart.

We're at the start, the colors disappear.

I never watch the stars, there’s so much down here.

So I just try to keep up with the red, orange, yellow flicker beat sparking up my heart.

I dream all year, but they’re not the sweet kinds.

And the shivers move down my shoulder blades in double time.

And now people talk to me, I’m slipping out of reach now.

People talk to me, and all their faces blur.

But I got my fingers laced together and I made a little prison, and I’m locking up everyone who ever laid a finger on me.

I’m done with it." - LORDE

an insightful and blessed beginning to 2016...actions speak louder than words...it is all a gift...