It's Raining!!
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Daily Eruptions

 

It's finally RAINING!  Real rain, not just a teasing drizzle, but big, fat, drenching drops that run off roof tops and soak the clay and accumulate in dehydrated streams and lakes and reservoirs.  It has been months since we've seen real rain and there is so much celebration going on.  The governor yesterday asked all North Carolinians to cut their water consumption in half.  This rain will not solve our severe drought, but it will help our trees and flowers.

Having grown up in Michigan, I have always appreciated a good dramatic storm (provided I didn't have to drive in it!), but I have never wanted rain as much as I have this summer.

Transformation Update
Mood:  d'oh
Now Playing: Ludwig Van Beethoven: Sonaten Opp. 27/1-27/2, 28--Maurizio Pollini
Topic: Daily Eruptions

I always imagine that there is one little tweak that will get me where I need to be, something like letting go of the rope I'm clinging to with both hands or simply changing one thought pattern.  I have, as Tad will attest, thought for years that it was "discipline" and the perfect schedule that was going to get me there.  I'm starting to let go of that idea, because even though discipline and the perfect schedule worked to help me 4.0 my last two years at Michigan, I've never been able to sustain that level of focused craziness in my life since.

The Big Ride suggested to me that it was simply the act of meditation that would get me there.  Letting go of ego and social comparisons and shoulds and coulds and just engaging in the moment.  This was AMAZING, but I cannot say I was productive by any means, and I could not find a way to bring the Big Ride home.

Which seems to be my real problem.  My last two years of college and the Big Ride were environments in which I was completely focused on one task--finishing a degree or finishing an 80-mile day.  My "real life" is not so narrowly focused, nor am I willing to make it so.  If memory serves, Diane Wakoski in the poem "Rings of Saturn" talks about the things she's had to give up to make a creative life as a poet, and the jealousy she feels that not all successful artists have had to do the same.  If I were to be a successful writer, I would probably have to give up quite a bit, too, and so far I have been unwilling.  I keep thinking I can arrange my life so that writing can be my ONE path, the one door I walk through to see the whole world, but I never seem to be able to arrange my life to make that happen.   I keep putting more into my life without letting anything go and the one thing that doesn't get put in is the writing.

In terms of the things I'm currently trying to change, I am slowly organizing my physical space (again), I'm working out more (walking, running, weights, yoga, pilates), and I'm eating food that I prepare myself (yes, Taco Bell may see a major dip in its fourth quarter earnings as a result).  The problem is, all of these things take more time out of my day as well as more energy.  If I stick with it long enough to see a truly organized house and office, to lose enough weight that I see a spike in my energy level, and to make meal preparation a no-brainer, maybe my time and energy will benefit.  But for now, I'm exhausted and my energy is unfocused and I can't squeeze another thing in.  In fact, I'm going to have to start giving up another 60 to 90 minutes of my daily life so that I can get enough sleep.  I've been trying to operate on six hours a day and it's not working.  So things have to start going out of the schedule now and that's frustrating.

So I can't tell if I am transforming and just feeling the effects of "it's going to get worse before it gets better" or if I'm not really transforming, just shuffling pieces slightly differently than before and still banging my head against the same walls.  All I do know is that I draw the death card in my daily tarot readings at least twice a week these days....

 

Note to Self about Happiness
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: Books

I had a long chat with Tad last night during which he reminded me that I need to read Anna Karenina (and then told me how it ends!  I promised him I would forget by today, but, unfortunately, I still remember...) and Proust.  As always, our conversation was mostly about happiness and best selves and true selves and mindfulness and right work.  Tad said that Proust believed in segmentation of the self, that the person who found happiness was not the same person who had sought that particular happiness and so couldn't truly enjoy it (I think...any misrepresentations of Proust--or of Tad--are completely my own). 

My current feeling is that I'm about an inch away from getting all the things I've outlined for myself as my true objectives, but in order for me to move that one inch, I am going to have to completely transform myself.  If I can't, then I will remain here, an inch away from my true work, spinning in circles and throwing energy out into the universe in every direction but not moving.  And when I say completely transform, I really mean completely transform.  Basically, I need to gain organization of my physical space, figure out how to motivate myself to do the daily work that moves big projects--aside from creating a crisis situation that I have to manage, and live in cooperation with my body rather than neglecting or punishing it.  It's only three things.  Shouldn't be that hard, right? ;)

Assaulting the Trees?
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: "Animals" by Nickelback
Topic: Daily Eruptions
When I came to work this morning, I left my window open as I drove up the long drive after I entered the code at the gate.  I was listening to Linkin Park's "Bleed It Out"  loud on the radio.  The lyrics are weird and dark, but the energy of the music and the reference to "make it a dirt dance floor again" makes me think it's okay that I get amped listening to it.  I knew no one was at the house except the dogs, so I thought a little volume wouldn't hurt.  As I sat and listened to the end of the song, though, I noticed the trees through the open window and wondered what their response was.  I don't know how old the trees here are, fifty, seventy, eighty?  I am fairly certain they are not old growth trees that survived human expansion without cutting.  Still, I don't think they've heard loud music often, certainly not the likes of Linkin Park.  If the trees' energy responded to the music, was it a negative response or a positive one?  I'm guessing negative because the chorus is all screaming.  Unlike my aging self, trees probably don't understand the joyful aspects of screaming.

Why For Art Thou?
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: Daily Eruptions

After years of being consistently drawn to nature writing and consistently avoiding reading nature writing, I have now decided to study it rigorously.  I've just finished reading Chapter 3 of Frank Stewart's A Natural History of Nature Writing and now I know why I have so strongly avoided reading the work of others who have written what I was sure it was my calling to write:

Because Thoreau lived and wrote, there is no need of my existence! 

Thoreau has said everything, studied everything, searched for all the things I would search for.  I am glad to have come, finally, to this place where I have my own feelings about one's participation in nature and art and science and how the three intersect, but it is a little unnerving to learn that I have come ultimately, though independently, to many of the same conclusions as a man who lived 100 years before me. 

If I were even a year younger, if I had not had the experience of teaching the afterschool creativity classes, if I had not worked with so many children at the zoo this summer or finally been able to teach my first, tentative class on exploring art through nature, I would stop reading.  I would not have the confidence in my own thought processes or my own experience to think I had anything to add to the field of nature writing.  But, finally, it seems I do have confidence in my own voice and in my own journey, circuitous as it has seemed to virtually all who know me, and I am excited to continue reading, with the hopes that eventually I might be able to have a conversation with this long dead man who had the vision to put forth new ideas of how a person might experience the world of which she is a part.  How amazing to find so much familiarity - that I knew would be there and yet still resisted - with someone whom I've never met.  Mary Jo McCabe sent an email to my work inbox today that included these statements, listed as Quotes from the Guides:  "Your spirit is renewed when you connect with a soul that you feel to be a part of you," and "Move slowly through your spiritual development; only then does it last."

Passion
Mood:  cool
Topic: Mindfulness

This morning I found my way to a blog about blogging, http://lorelle.wordpress.com.  I don’t know how I got there, but I deemed it a site worth bookmarking.  Apparently, Lorelle’s goal is to help the rest of us be better bloggers.  One of the ways she attempts this is by posting weekly challenges.  This week’s challenge is to define our passion.

 

Luckily, I spent two months this summer rediscovering, reaffirming, and further exploring the boundaries of my passion.  I am passionate about Life.  I am constantly amazed at the simplicity, the complexity, the ingenuity, and the variety of Life that surrounds us.  My purpose seems to be to find a way to communicate the beauty I experience in an attempt to inspire wonder, passion, and hope in others.  My worry is that I don’t have the genius or the skills to fulfill my purpose.

 

This summer I was privileged to spend a few hours with a small number of children (and one big kid) and several minutes with thousands of other kids and parents.  I learned a lot about what kids find fun (apparently kids find me fun!  who knew?) and how to engage kids in thought while they are playing.  I also had a tremendous freedom to try new things, to PLAY!, and to repeat the same art activity dozens of times and realize that I could have new thoughts and experiences each time.  I learned that I am a reasonably good catalyst, that I set things in motion and empower kids to find their own answers and their own art.  This may be an art in itself, and now that I find myself writing it down, it certainly sounds like it’s a “right” art for me and my purpose.

 

My inclination over and over throughout the summer, however, was to learn “real art,” so I could look like a real artist and teach the more sophisticated art techniques real artists use.  My art still looks much like the art I created in elementary school, at best like the art I created as a twelve or thirteen year old.  I am CRAZY about glitter paint, and I still love the color pink.  Especially combined with purple.  And aqua blue.  On one hand, this may have contributed to my success over the summer—the kids saw me as a peer rather than an authority figure.  (I know, though, that this isn’t really the case.  I may be encouraging, open, and easy to talk to, but I am sure the kids never really forgot I was an “adult.”)  On the other hand, I felt the need to be seen as an “artist” by the parents and adults who were either formally or informally evaluating me and my work with the kids.  In that area, I’m sure I failed to some extent.  I am sure it was obvious to anyone with any visual art training that I have never had any formal training, and this knowledge caused me discomfort.

 

All summer long I felt like a beginner.  Perfect, if my goal is to maintain a state of Beginner’s Mind!  But when I try to console myself with this, I hear a voice inside my head say, “Yes, but the TRUE goal is to become a Master with a Beginner’s Mind,” and I am far from being a Master of anything.

 

Being a beginner, though, was a true asset this summer because it completely freed me to try things I’d never tried before—including several things I probably won’t try again.  I learned what things kids respond to, how to organize an activity so that thinking was part of play, how long things take, what kinds of dexterity kids of various ages have.  I had no preconceived notions and so got to be delighted every time a child stopped to write a poem with me, said, “This is fun!” or told me the project I was asking them to contribute to was “neat” or “cool.”  So maybe when working with kids it’s good to be a beginner.

 

The summer also really opened me to the experience of beauty.  Several times in the last two months I’ve caught my breath at the sight of a sunset or the waxing moon or the twinkling of dozens of lightning bugs as they lifted off the grass below a stand of pines at dusk.  I’ve been stopped by the shadows cast on my living room wall by the four-foot-tall liatris blossoms outside my window as they moved in the wind; by the patterns of light cast through the leaves of a sugar maple as they moved across an expanse of vinyl siding.  I spent twenty minutes standing at the island in my kitchen trying to capture with a pen the patterns of light reflected through the French doors onto the kitchen wall as the sun sank into the western sky behind the trees at the back of my house.  The sketch is filled with words, written directions for the triptych watercolor painting I would create if I knew how to paint with watercolors.

 

This evening, my eye was arrested by the light playing through the trees as just the top branches moved gently in the 100+ degree heat, then by chunky, irregular, flat, red bark of one of the pines, then by the silvery weathered wood of the dead tree that still stands pointing skyward with two giant arms at the very edge of the woods.  I wanted to capture this beauty and the peace of the light patterns and the motion of the branches and leaves, the wonderful contrast between the outer shells of the trees, and I wondered how to do it.  Visually seems to make the most sense, capturing it in photographs or on film, as Jon Turtletaub did in Phenomenon with the swaying of the trees, symbolically rocking John Travolta’s dying character in their limbs, or Sam Mendes did in American Beauty with the plastic bag dancing in the wind.  But, I am not really a photographer or filmmaker.  I could try to paint the scenes, at least the bark and skeleton tree, but, again, I probably do not have the expertise to convey what I really want.  So that leaves me with words, a narrative description or a poem, but even then I worry I don’t have the skill to conjure the power of those simple images.  What if I’m never really able to express the beauty I experience all around me?  Would I be satisfied with pointing and hoping another person has the openness and the skill to experience the beauty for themselves, in whatever way they understand beauty?

 

Which brings me again to the Master vs. Beginner, Artist vs. Player with Art Tools dilemma.  If I am trying to express the beauty I see, it behooves me to study formally and to practice—to attempt to achieve mastery.  If I am trying to share an experience of beauty with you, and perhaps expand your capacity to experience it and respond to it creatively, spontaneously, and authentically, I better serve you (and my own goal) by practicing beginner’s mind and interpreting the experience only enough to facilitate your awareness of your surroundings.  If I employ too many techniques or too much “artistry,” if I paint the picture so clearly from my perspective that your ability to experience the moment independently is limited, I have failed.

 

So maybe the key is to practice toward mastery but always be experimenting and learning as a novice, and to learn when each skill or state of mind is more appropriate.  And, especially, to fight against the urge to display mastery as a means of gaining status, respect, or safety.  Any time I use mastery to “show off,” rather than to further my experiments, I’m robbing myself of an opportunity to learn something new.

 

The second half of Lorelle’s challenge is to describe how I’m living my passion and working it into my life.  That, I’m afraid, will have to wait for another time.

Seeking the Calm at the Center of the Storm

Rob Brezsny's free will astrology for my sign for the week of July 18 directed me to this wonderful poem by Dara Weir called "A Modern Version of the Way the Rosary was Once Said Throughout Western Europe in the Late Middle Ages."  It's lovely!  Read it out loud at least twice, taking time to contemplate the twists in meaning afforded by line breaks.

The poem is also absolutely appropriate for my life through the end of July.  I am swamped and exhausted.  Work is intense, especially since I'm on a reduced work schedule and we're trying to get a new book from the graphic designer to the printer, overhauling the current website, and adding a new children's site. 

Plus, I have my last seven days at the zoo coming up and I am trying to wrap up the River of Words poem we spent more than a week on.  It's a piece of paper about twenty feet long and three feet tall on which I wrote all the words the kids gave me about water, beginning with the word Mountain and ending with the word Ocean.  Then, I spent more than fifteen hours cutting out the words with an art knife.  I smooshed the words together at weird angles so that when the spaces were cut away, the words would still link together.  Then, I had kids paint the words.  Now, I need to go back and outline the words with contrasting paint so viewers can see which letters go together (several words are made up of letters painted different colors, and if you have a couple of those words next to each other, all you see is smush of nonsensical letters), and laminate it by hand.  I'm dragging my feet because the lamination is going to be a bear.  Each of the letters has the tendency to bend under or curl and getting it perfectly flat is going to be tough.  Once that's done, I have to figure out some way to attach it to a blue background.  What I think I'm going to do, though, is attach the blue background to the fence where I want the shape poem to hang using grommets and wire, and then hang the laminated poem on top of it using separate grommets and wire.  I would like to have this all done by Sunday so I can take it to the zoo and have it hung by the time the kidZone reopens after a temporary closing on Thursday.  In addition, I have two other major projects this week.  On Wednesday, I'm going to stitch leaves together using pine needles into the shapes of animals and then float them on the African lake.  The plan is to do African animals and North American animals and float them next to each other so they can be seen from the bridge into the African exhibits to reinforce the idea that all animals are united by the common need for water.  Beginning on Thursday, I will be constructing the wire portions of the giant raincloud mobile I want to make, and asking kids to write WATER acrostic poems on raindrop-shaped paper to hang from the mobile.  If I can get that project finished by the time I wrap up my time at the zoo on the 29th, I will be so happy.  Plus, we still have to get a videotaped version of me leading the Walter the Water Drop story/adventure.  I'm in new territory everywhere with these projects which is both exciting and a little bit exhausting.

The cherry on top is that Portrait Homes, the lovely builder of the community in which I live, is again attempting to wrangle adding those two additional buildings (twelve total new units) on the green spaces on either end of my building.  When I thought the homeowners had won a victory a few months back and convinced the big, bad, money-grubbing Chicago-owned development company that Green Space is necessary to our community's wellbeing, what actually had happened is that the developer had been told that they did not actually own the land on which they want to build.  The homeowners own it.  Portrait has purchased more land on the other side of my neighborhood and is building 98 more units, which will bring our total up near 500.  Several residents were upset that Portrait was not building a second pool to help alleviate the pressure of these additional units, so now Portrait is blackmailing us.  They want to "give us" a second pool, in exchange for us conveying the two green spaces back to them so they can build twelve additional units.  If this were the only issue we as homeowners were having with Portrait, I might be inclined to agree to the trade.  But the truth is, there is a long history of neglect by Portrait in our community--though other Portrait developed communities in the area seem to be flourishing--and I absolutely feel this is a bad deal.  So I joined eleven neighbors last night for an impromptu meeting, reaffirmed my willingness to chair a committee, and will be gearing up for a vote on whether or not to make the trade at a meeting on Wednesday night.  It is really more than I want to deal with right now, but the timetable is obviously out of my hands and I feel an obligation to participate.  The thing I find exciting about the whole process is that I'm getting to know my neighbors as a result, and the ones I'm meeting are proving to be caring, articulate, intelligent people who share my sense of justice.  I'm trying not to hold too tightly to the outcome of the vote on Wednesday night and just concentrating on the fact that there are improvements to be made in the community and I can be a part of those.

So, even though Dara Weir's poem says she's not doing any of these things, I am on some level trying to keep wolves at bay and I think it would be SO LOVELY to walk through a rainstorm into a cypress grove.  In fact, I think I can smell the cypress now....

Crabfest
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: Daily Eruptions

I don't know what happened to me, but I am grouchy today!!  I think it's because the bulk of my communication with other people has been in writing, and I'm interpreting messages as hostile.  Plus, I had to type up a letter for my boss in which she was firing someone, and that negative energy totally invaded my space.  It has been my experience that everyone eventually disappoints my boss and every time I type one of these letters, I'm anticipating receiving one from her one day.  Yuck!  Maybe the funk will pass quickly and I can come back and write happy thoughts about all the great things that have been happening to me lately....

Love.  Really.

Live Earth Day Three
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Environment

I managed to stop crying and watched more than twelve hours of Live Earth Concert coverage on Saturday.  I moved the love seat out of the living room and replaced it with the dining room table so I could work on my River of Words project I'm creating with kids at the zoo, and Hans and I spent the whole day flipping back and forth between Sundance and Bravo, both of whom did all day coverage, and then NBC later in the evening.  (I don't know the name of the female co-host on the Bravo broadcast, but she scares me!  She is pregnant, which means soon she is going to be shaping a small mind, and when she was asked what she was going to do to help stop global warming, she said she was going to drink more bottled water so she could recycle the plastic bottles!!!!  If this is the brightest person Bravo could find to help bring an environmental message to Americans, we are doomed.  Seriously doomed.) 

It was fun because I heard a lot of bands and artists I hadn't heard before.  I fell in love with Keith Urban's "Stupid Boy" and Joss Stone's "Right to be Wrong."  And, of course, I LOVED Nunatak!!

This morning I taught my first Nature and Art class (fun, cool group of kids!), and this afternoon I signed a pledge to be a Carbon Conscious Consumer on the New American Dream website.   Check it out and sign on, too!

Live Earth Day One

I thought I was going to be up to watching this concert all day.  In fact, I thought it was going to be exciting.  Instead, I find myself sitting on the couch crying.  Kaija, my American Hairless Terrier, who is accustomed to having a mom with crazy mood swings and usually watches me from a safe distance, crawled into my lap and started licking my eyes.  I managed to stop crying for a few minutes and cuddle with her. Then Hans came downstairs and said, in a serious tone, "What's this a concert for again?" and I lost it.  If he lives with me (and has been asked repeatedly over the past few days to go to a Live Earth Concert party with me tonight, because, yes, I still ascribe to a policy of asking a question over and over until I get the answer I want) and doesn't know the answer to that, then who does?  Do the people in all those stadiums really intend to take and uphold the Live Earth Pledge, or are they just there to see a cool concert? (And what about all the CO₂ that was emitted getting all those people to the venues? (Some of the artists, like KT Tunstall, did find carbon neutral ways to offset their travel!) And what about the eco-policies of the venues themselves? Are they at the very least recycling the thousands of water and beer bottles and plastic cups from their concessions? Using solar panels? Using reclaimed water in their toilets?)

I have to use my day preparing for Monday morning's start of my children's class, "Exploring Nature Through Art," and getting ready for a week of nature and art projects at the zoo.  This is some consolation.  It isn't much, but it is a hopeful way to use my time.  I just have to turn off the waterworks so I can safely use an art knife!  More posts to come on how I am upholding my Live Earth Pledge.

Love, peace, compassion to all life today and every day.

Let's figure this out, people. I want your kids to inherit a liveable planet.