Ping used to be a city dog, and so was I. He went on regular walks on hard side walks—sniffing the other dogs’ messages. He was cooped up all day in our apartment, and tried to escape every chance he got, and succeeded several times, creating heart-pounding adventures for us, and for him. Once, he was able to sneak into our upstairs’ neighbor’s apartment and finish their left over chocolate birthday cake, another time he ran across the street, a main highway in Oakland with very fast cars and ended up in trapped in someone’s backyard.
Read MoreIt has never felt right to use traditional or singular words to describe myself: musician, artist, therapist, teacher, writer, coach. I can be all those things, but it's not just any one those things that I am trying to be in the world, but really a combination, a synthesis. An integration. I believe this is the new way to be in the world. I think specialization is becoming antiquated, and so are traditional career paths. The leaders and trailblazers of the new earth are pioneers, warriors, multi-passionates, transparent and vulnerable sharing their message through owning their personal story.
Read MoreA conversation between Lucas and Emilio, who just turned 6 the other day:
Read MoreThe paradox of humanity is that we want to be ourselves and yet we want to connect with others. We are taught to believe we cannot have both. We come to feel that in order to be ourselves we might risk losing the other because the other is afraid of our otherness. And if we connect, then we must say goodbye to that which makes us totally unique--our point of view. Connection & Separation. And so it is a dance between the two as we evolve.
Read MoreI’ve been going through a thing. I don’t want to call it a block because it’s not a block, exactly. Block implies to me that you are blank, with no ideas or nowhere to go. What I am experiencing is just a different phase of the creative process. As Lena Dunham’s character Hannah, in Girls says in her unapologetic, yet defensive way, when she is struggling in grad school : “I’m more in a pre-writing phase.”
Read MoreLet’s change the world through our uncertain/heart-based faith in love and creativity. Together, let’s live in presence, imagining a future that lives up to our human potential as unique individuals and our interconnectedness humans living in a natural world. Let’s revive the dying living room arts of friendship, conversation, storytelling, letter writing. Let’s restore the arts to their proper place in culture—woven into the fabric of our everyday lives.
Read MoreAnd then one day Vanessa asks me—maybe we can use the money to buy paint for the school? Of course. Why did I not think of that? I buy paint for the background, for the mural and for the classroom.
Read MoreWhen living Life As Art, we are not prescribing any dogma or adhering to any hierarchy. The one universal truth is is the universe itself. The totality. In this way, we acknowledge the source of our longing and the object of our longing is the same. We are simultaneously subject and object of our experience.
Read MoreYesterday was Emilio's last day of Kindergarten. Surely a day of mixed feelings for me. This day marks the end of early childhood, and the beginning of middle childhood.
Read MoreI recognize that, with parenting, just like everything else, the areas we struggle with the most are opportunities for healing, growth and transformation. In other words, parenting kicks my ass and Emilio is my greatest teacher.
Read MoreI am ready to take the plunge, and share the process of making music.
Read MoreZumba is all about learning steps and moves. I want to love Zumba because I love to dance, and I love to dance with others. But instead, I feel like I am spending all my energy trying to follow the moves instead of dancing and expressing myself.
Read MoreMio promptly got dressed into his cowboy outfit, and posed very cooperatively for Lucas for twenty minutes.
Read MoreEmilio loves to collect what he calls jewels. His jewels are made of different materials, some are plastic, some are glass or stone, but what they all have in common is that they are translucent and brightly colored.
Read MoreThere is anger in me about something. It is the split between art and life. It is the split between artists and non-artists. That art is somehow reserved for the special people in life, and the rest of us, well we just drone through life, asleep. I refuse to accept this piece of culture that we have inherited. I am ready to change culture by magnifying, elevating the beauty of the everyday experience into art.
Read MoreShe said that her goal in her art is to return us to our instincts. She uses her own instincts, which are highly developed because since she has been an artist since she was a young child. She has never stopped being an artist. I think this is why her art is so magical, so unreal—she trusts that her instincts will take her where she needs to go.
Read More"Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who think we’re supposed to be, and embracing who we actually are."
Read MoreFacebook is a place where we re-confirm what The Culture says is acceptable about us, and where we continue to hide our shadow, which grows bigger and bigger, underground.
Read MoreFor me, blogging is foremost about honesty--it's about revealing the little details of the clunky, messy, exuberant process of life. It is about developing a point of view, strengthening it daily, which includes sharing my point of view even when it is uncertain or has changed.
Read More
I find myself imprisoned by the critic inside that just can’t tolerate anything I write that seems self-absorbed, braggy, unresearched or confessional.
Read More