Breaking The Rules + The Routine

I am a daily practice pusher. A creative crusader, challenger.

But... sometimes you need to break from the routine. Sometimes you need to break the rules and play hooky from your daily practices. Sometimes you need to “be bad” in order to find out the edges of your personality. Sometimes you have to try something different or just take the day off. 

Today has been that kind of day.

Instead of meditating, taking my mountain walk, writing and eating papaya (including the seeds). Instead of sticking to my no-wheat, no sugar, no red meat, (mostly) no dairy diet, I drove to Cabo and went to my favorite bakery to eat their chickpea pesto panini after six weeks with out bread. It was crunchy delicious. Then I wandered around the mall feeling like a tourist in a slick jungle.  When you live in the desert the mall feels you feel like a strange, dirty animal.

And then I decided it was time to change things up a bit with this Museletter. My original intention with this letter back in June was to motivate me to keep in touch with you and to hold myself accountable to communicate once a week. And when I first started, I wasn’t sure if I had anything to say, so I thought I could still stay in touch by sharing links to things to read, listen to and look at.

On the one hand, I have always loved the idea of being a tastemaker, a person who enthusiastically shares art forms that inspire me. I secretly believe I have excellent taste, and have worked for many years to cultivate my taste, so I thought why not? Why not me? I had once sent such a letter last year with links to the creative things my friends and family were doing. And I had so enjoyed it.

But now, I see how how that decision was fueled by an unconscious desire to hide my writing and hide from my writing. The links was my back up plan. I thought: "if I have nothing to say, I can just share some links." But I discovered, week after week, (it’s been 14 weeks to be exact) that I actually had a lot to say. And it seems that perhaps my readers are more interested in what I have been writing about more than what music I've been listening to (especially since I tend to hear about things a little later.)  

Also, I have been looking at the way I spend my time. Because I am a Mom and have so many projects I am currently working on, I realize that I need to be more efficient with how I choose to conduct these projects. I’ve spent many hours every week designing these emails. I realize it would be more efficient and more useful to put my recommendations on my blog with tags so that anyone can find them. My goal with my website has always been to make it a space for creative resources. The blog already is somewhat that way. But there is a lot more to add! 

From now on, I will still be sending you a weekly letter, with a few links at time, but not with the whole fancy sidebar thing. Eventually, these kinds of recommendations, things to read, listen to and look at, will make it up on the blog. If you have an opinion on this shift in format, I would love to hear it! 

Do hold yourself to rules or routines that sometimes need re-assessing or occasional breaking? Do you like to break your own rules just to know how it feels?

I would like to end this email with a poem I wrote last summer in response to my own assignment for the writing class I taught called breaking the rules. I wrote the poem on the back of a print out of an ee cummings poem. 

I said break the rules but what did I really mean?

Holding onto myself.

No more.

Being a good girl.

Fuck that.

Saying No

when I mean YESSSSSS inside.

Letting the exclamation points

pile up until they look like pick up sticks.

Letting the handwriting be as erratic as it needs to be.

Rhyming sometimes.

And then 

not.

Not practicing what I teach.

Like honesty, badness, goodness and not holding back.

Here’s another way we can do it.

Write on top of the holy words

of your favorite poet.

Get odd when it’s time to play doubles.

Brag about your high score and don't let someone shame your points.

Don't forget to be a social climber,

and a bad one too,

who drinks too much and doesn’t introduce herself.

This can be about anything

as long as you don’t follow my instructions.

Get wise when you feel the boldness coming.
Etch it out in clear plastic,

ink it out,

your story 

that used to rhyme.

Forgive your sentences for being sincere and seductive.

Forgive your boss for laying you off.

Don’t tell her off.

Tell her on—thank her

for pushing you towards destiny.

She might thank you some day too.

For igniting her last moment of history.

The rule breaking 

goes on and on.

Way beyond pen to paper. 

Pencil habits.

Backwards
Words back 

Back Woods

Dirt Circles

I know it’s okay to write beside you com ings.

Come in.

Into me. You 

taught me

how

to love the in-betweens

And the rules

 that are so beautiful 

when turned upside down.

That’s what we are doing with our pen hearts

our holdovers our chicken scratched fingers.

Don’t have the poem hate the poet

who wants to alter you and marry and divorce you

until you are no longer who you used to be.

Until you are wholefingers 

growing out 

of your childhood gloves. 

Those don’t fit me anymore, you say,

and I believe you.

I believe your worthiness.
Your soul rise.

I’m a late bloomer too.

Born in the 70’s.It took me a while to

shine my sun on.

It too me a while to 

Rise on.

It took me a while to hear the true story

that was covered in dust.

It took me a while to reach conclusions.

wisdomwaiting

wholehearing

death becoming

random showing

old gloating

rhythm floating

Georgian Poet + Storyteller 

approaching

just when you thought you knew how to teach 

unteaching.

Never. Never. Never.

Say Never.

Unless you believe death has a say

in how your soul speaks.

Meta Lab: Definition

ZOELAB DAY 106

Date of Original Post: December 15, 2012

I’ve been working hard, staying up way too late, working on the new additions to the ZOELAB website experience. I’ve been excited about it, excited to share it. Just now, I hit publish. It’s uploading as I type this. Part of what I want to add to the new website is the ABOUT page. It’s really held me up because I’ve found it so difficult to describe what this project is because it’s so many things all at once.  Since the day I conceived this project, I have kept a giant and growing list of all the different titles and descriptions for what ZOELAB is. I couldn’t possibly fit everything into one title or description. My solution was to call it ZOELAB (Lucas’ idea) and then having a running list of alternate descriptions on the upper left hand corner of the masthead. However, I want to have something a little more descriptive on the ABOUT page. 

Inspired by yesterday’s post about both/and I have created a one sentence description of ZOELAB that includes pretty much everything that it needs to include.

I am considering swapping out what’s written on the about page for this. Or perhaps, I will just link to this page on the ABOUT page. I imagine this sentence will continue to be adjusted:

Does that about sum it up, or did I miss something? Let me know what you think.

That Which Hinders Your Task Is Your Task

ZOELAB DAY 101

Original Date of Post: December 10, 2012

Sometimes life is about forgetting and remembering. I forget daily what it is that mattered to me most last time I felt inspired.

Do you ever have the feeling that you’re doing something no one’s ever done before? It’s a frightening feeling, even though it's the mind thinks it’s impossible. It’s the feeling of falling. But it’s also a fast and low feeling, like driving a motor boat or a car. A feeling that splits open the ego and lets the heart shine. I have that feeling now. And then suddenly, it’s gone. I waver somewhere between velocity and fear.

Have you ever dreamed of living an enchanted life? Filled with joy, heartache and mystery. My kind of enchantment includes mess, and acceptance too. Which brings me down to the ground. Which is often where I most need to be.

Stating where I am changes it inevitably. A block is only a block until I become aware of it, and then it is something to write about. Making art is sometimes about working through your anxiety. About showing up, about putting images and thoughts in the bank to be connected later.

Just now I received an email from my dad. This is what he wrote:

I see you're 'blocked' as you report. But don't forget I find your three spray bottles a targeted commentary on modern life: we have so much, so many choices it's necessary to wall them off and give each its own function.  This bottle is for cleaning, this bottle is for cleaning delicate vegetables, and this bottle is for cleaning babies' bottoms.  Whatever.  It's a remarkable image: three folks facing each other in a stand off.  It, along with your various "museums," is fun and revealing to explore.  Isn't it great to have a reservoir of images to fall back on when the well seems a bit dry?! If you end up missing a few days here and there it only shows you're human like the rest of us. Lighten up and fly right.

And in another email, coincidentally, I received this quote: 

“Knowing nothing need be done is where we begin to move from.”

I let go and I am able to move forward. I feel taken care of.

A Letter from ZOELAB Headquarters

ZOELAB DAY 92

Date of Original Post: Saturday, December 1, 2012

 

Dear Reader:

Welcome to a new month of ZOELAB! (Please note that if you subscribe to the RSS feed, you have to resubscribe by clicking on the RSS button every month.)

I sincerely hope you have been having as much fun reading and looking at ZOELAB as I have had creating and sharing it. I have been working hard on it, harder and more consistently than I have ever worked on a single project. (But really this is not a single project, but more an amalgamation of many projects.) 92 days in a row, so far (give or take some days of falling behind and catching up). We have reached the first quarter of the year, and every day I feel more and more inspired. I feel like I climbing slowly into the creative flow that I always dreamed of, but never had the discipline to make happen. That is why I made myself accountable for posting for 365 days in a row--I knew instinctively that it was the way for me to become the artist/person I have always wanted to be.

I have many goals and dreams for the next three quarters of ZOELAB, including: to enhance the website experience (with theme pages and an about page), to complete and report on projects, to promote ZOELAB to increase readership, to find ways to create a more interactive experience (research how), to write a book proposal based on themes from ZOELAB, to create a manifesto, to submit ZOELAB content to other websites, blogs, and magazines.

Right now I have a very specific goal for ZOELAB. I would like to have a reader whom I have never met. I would be very excited to know that someone I don’t know is enjoying ZOELAB. If you are out there, please give me a sign (in the form of an email.) I would love to hear from you. 

Also, if you are a happy reader, please spread the word by emailing the link to people you know who might enjoy it.

For those of you who have written to me: thank you for your comments, encouragement, and stories. Hearing from you makes my day. I want you to know that I am not only doing this happiness project for me, but I am also doing it for you. My aim is not only to keep myself inspired and creative, it is also to entertain, inspire, connect and communicate with you. This is an act of love and of revolution. I am risking my ego, my anonymity and my normalcy to open my heart and make this virtual connection. This experience so far has expanded my enchantment with every day living. I truly hope, it is, in some way doing the same for you. Thank you for experiencing this with me. It means the world to me that you are out there. 

Heart out,
Zoë

what I learned from posting words and images (almost) every day for a year

I am sharing here, in honor of completing the 31 Day Art Journaling/Blogging Challenge, my second to last post from my first blog, ZOELAB 365, where I blogged every day for a year. This is the learning and meaning I made from that intense year, which catapulted me out of postpartum depression and into a highly-charged creative inner life that has informed me, and my professional work, ever since. 

THE WRITING PROCESS

I love to write. But writing is very taxing on the mind. I need to be alert, awake, I need to feel clear. I need few distractions. Also, writing takes time. No wonder writers always seem to be writing. Writing is the most time consuming art for me. Of course there are times when writing is quick—sometimes a poem just flows out of me, or sometimes I do free writing from the unconscious that is uneditable. But, for a lot of the writing I do on here—autobiography, essays, story-telling and even poetry has become a labor I work at and edit. 

Writing cannot be rushed. It takes as long as it takes. Feeling rushed is no good for writing. No good at all. Yet, structure is very good for writing. Therefore, I like to give myself regular periods to write. I like writing every day for about an hour, but not to let time determine when I am done with a particular piece. Having watched the emotional damage an unrealistic writing deadline did for Hannah in Season Two of Girls, I am convinced that kind of writing deadline is no good for no one. 

There is nothing good or bad about this discovery—it just is. But it does lead me to want to change the parameters of my next project. Writing every day is great. Publishing every day is a challenge I am not up for again, at least not this next go round. It is too taxing on my brain. 

Writing in the mornings is ideal. Writing in the afternoons with a cup of coffee is great too—but if I drink coffee in the afternoons then I can’t sleep at night, so therefore it is not ideal.

Insomniac writing can be very good for me--way healthier than lying bed with thoughts circling.

PROCESS

I like to have different stations already set-up around the house with pens, pencils, markers paper or notebooks, recording devices, books.

THE LONG VIEW

One of the lessons I have learned over and over this year is basically a cliché—when we hear something said the same way enough times we no longer pay attention, but here it is: nothing great is easy. It’s true. It just is. Going for our dreams, building a life that mirrors our values, living life that is less governed by practicality than it is fun, going for happiness—all of these sound great, but all require enormous amounts of sacrifice and hard work, which isn’t always fun. And time. Building a dream takes enormous amounts of time. It’s hard to be patient with long-term goals, but if you are like me and Lucas, and have a low income, you must make up for lack of funds with creativity, time spent and acceptance of a lower standard of polish--with the understanding that it is all in process. This is something I never understood before I moved to Baja, or even before I met Lucas. He reminds me over and over again when I start to become despondent about the state of our house or the vermin factor that we are working on it—it’s improving a little bit every day. Be patient. Take some time for relaxation or fun. It would be awfully hard for me to stay balanced if it weren’t for Lucas holding up the other side of life.

It’s all about priorities. Every day I make little and big choices based on these priorities sometimes I find myself doing something that does not align with one value, but it aligns with another, but in that moment—I must prioritize one value over another. And what I have discovered in motherhood—is that more and more often—I choose what’s good for me in the moment because I believe I am a better mother when I take care of my own needs first. This is not to say I neglect Emilio when he truly needs something. This is to say that I let him watch a video if I really need a break and he is particularly demanding of my attention. This is to say that I eat a snack before playing with him to avoid getting grumpy and hungry later. This is to say I go out dancing with my friends and risk being tired the next day so that I can release some energy and have fun and grown up time. 

AESTHETIC

I have honed my aesthetic which is fueled by different combinations of reality: dirt, simplicity, naiveté, freedom, and expression over perfection of skill. 

ORGANIZATION

Organization seems to be the bane of many creative people’s existence. I have come to believe disorganization is really an unwillingness to spend time organizing when that time can be used writing, thinking, reading, painting, lying on the couch, chatting with a friend, almost anything else seems more fun/valuable/less daunting. However, if I find a way to feel creative about organizing, and when I realize how useful it is for creativity, to be organized, organizing takes on a whole new meaning. The problem is organizing is quite time-consuming and overwhelming, it is best to take it one step at a time. Conquer one area of the house, or one aspect of my work at a time.

Being organized makes my creative time more efficient, fun and smooth. I think of creativity as a constantly flowing river that runs through us and through everything in the world. Our job is to continually work on letting that water flow, lest it become stagnant and disease-ridden mosquitoes hatch their eggs in it.

MEANING

I make meaning by paying attention and by making connection between things. I spin those connections into art.  

A YEAR

Is not nearly enough time to build something. Especially not a blog or a relationship or a business or anything at all. A lot can happen in a year, and yet, building something is a slow process. Especially if you are doing it all by yourself. But I have learned that I don’t want to build it all by myself. I am ready to have more collaborations/co-creations. 

I view creative collaborations as a game that two people agree to make up rules for as they go along.

PROCESS

As an artist, I have always been interested in revealing the process of art. Of artifice. As a way to burn through the ego and get to something more authentic, more spontaneous, more honest, more alive. I believe the truly revolutionary thing I am trying to do here is to study and reveal process. Process is our mess--it’s what happens on the way to what we show to the world. But I think process is what’s most interesting and valuable because it is how we learn, and how we learn is a big part of who we are. 

PERFORMANCE

One of the essential truths about me is that I am a performer. Now, I am not sure if a performer is the same thing as an extrovert, but certainly the two are related. However, I think the essential difference is that performance has around it an air of make-believe. Even if the performer is being him/herself to a certain degree, there is an assumed set of imaginary rules, an invisible (or sometimes visible) stage, frame or context that heightens what is being performed. A performer is creating, ideally, with a certain degree of spontaneity. Another aspect of performance that differentiates it from say, drawing, or writing, is physicality. The body. This is not to say that the body is not involved in drawing or writing, but usually not consciously--not for me anyway. The body is not usually a part of the creative process (except in the case of performance art, or artists who use their body as part of the work.) In performance—music, dance, acting—the body is the mode of communication in a more conscious way. I have really missed that. Performance is also about being seen. Making a more direct connection with the viewer. The viewer becomes the audience—it is more reciprocal. This kind of reciprocity is what I long for. There were moments of performance in zoelab 365, but it certainly was not the main focus, and the kind of blogging I did did not inspire performance. Performance is also a very vulnerable thing—the spontaneity lends itself to that kind of vulnerability which is both an attraction and a fear for me. I am not sure if I was fully ready to embark on that kind of journey—as putting myself out the public in the way that I have was already a new and risky thing. By now, after doing it every day (or nearly every day) I have gotten used to it.

HAPPINESS

What I learned is happiness is not a final destination, but a goal that is in the background of every choice I make. It is a pursuit. Perhaps satisfaction is really the state I am heading towards, and satisfaction is certainly not an outwardly-measured state. Satisfaction has everything to do with the meaning I make and the point of view I take.

PHOTOGRAPHY

When it comes to color, composition and style I have a very good eye as a photographer, however, I possess a certain laziness when it comes to technical skill. After being a photographer for twenty five years, I still basically don’t know how to use a flash, and therefore, almost never use one (except when shooting grass or trees or bugs—which looks awesome with a flash). The camera I use for most of my photos, except for my earlier work which was shot with a Nikon 35 mm film camera, is a Canon G12. It’s a great camera—but it is not at all a professional-level camera. It’s perfect for my everyday uses. I have mixed feelings about creating images that are “magazine style” – one of the key ingredients for this kind of imagery is using an SLR (single lens reflex) that creates short depth of field. This makes all photos look more professional, even when shot by an amateur. I have mixed feelings because an aspect, not only of my aesthetic, but of my art ethic is what as known in the music world as a “punk rock ethic,” or a “do it yourself” ethic. I have always been interested in exploring the high art/low art crossover, and the everyday ness of certain kind of art forms. I like the work to be accessible that gives people a feeling of “I can do that too!” And yet, at the same time, I do want my images to look as good as possible—I may be able to express even more creativity through having a camera that is that much sharper.  That being said,  one of my new goals is to explore using a higher quality camera--using Lucas’ 40D or even his new Mark 2 to get better, cleaner, sharper shots.

EVERY DAY

It was nearly impossible to recover/make up for a missed post. There were weeks where I tried for a while, but I’d get too behind, and then I had to put a little hole so that I could keep up with the current day I was blogging about. 

I love having something creative I do every day, but having to share it everyday created more drama in my life than I would like.

LONELINESS

I would say loneliness was a big part of why I decide to do this project. The interesting thing is my loneliness does not have a self pity feeling to it--I recognize that I could live a less lonely existence if I wanted, but I recognize some part of me needs loneliness. That perhaps loneliness is a an important part of my creative process. As is collaboration. This blog did not so much assuage my loneliness as much as clarify it. I think an artist needs both loneliness and connection. Again, it comes down to balance.

BALANCE

Perfection is the enemy of balance. Or rather, if the goal is to live a balanced life—accepting that no one thing is bad, as long is it is in balance with its opposite--then there is no room for perfection.

THOROUGHNESS

Sometimes it is my thoroughness, my desire to adhere to truth, my compulsion to do what I said I was going to do, that offers a certain kind of dizzy craziness. My oppressiveness in standards. It was the kind of effort that kept me up past midnight many times per week, or allowed me to let the house get filthy, or to let Emilio watch more videos than I think is good for him. It put a lot of my relationship with Lucas on hold, and made it so I had less time for other activities. It put me out of balance, as most of the work I did here was very Left Brain. I developed my mind and my work ethic more than anything, but I miss the more emotional, sensual parts of creative experience.

I cannot say exactly, but I estimate, that on average, it took 2.5 hours to make a post— after 350 days (I missed 15), that adds up to 875 hours of work, divided by 52 weeks, which is about seventeen hours a week. That is more time than I spend doing anything else other than sleeping—cleaning, cooking, exercising, working, reading, etc. It was a big commitment, but it was so worth it. Though I must be honest, I am so glad it’s about to be over.

A List of Future Blog Posts and Essay Topics

I have an opportunity to start blogging for a major website, yet I have hesitated to publish there. It's not fear exactly, that has kept me from taking that leap, but maybe a need for clarity, before I feel ready to put my voice out there in a bigger way.

Here is my list of blog post ideas (as well as longer essay pieces that I will eventually publish) that I have been mulling over.

• What is creativity?

• What is art journaling?

• How I lifted myself out of postpartum depression through art journaling, blogging and dancing

• How to use technology selectively

• How to be authentic on social media

• Phases of Creativity

• Is Our Obssession with Yoga is Killing Our Creativity?

• Art Advice in Opposites

• How to discover your soul’s code

• How to deal with the inner critic

• On being both an introvert and an extrovert

• What I love about living in Baja

• Narcissism, how to cure it and how it’s the last taboo

• How to be all your selves

• On death and the afterlife

• How you can bring more singing, dancing, writing, drawing & acting into your life

• Why I think Buddhism is sexist

• Why it’s important to be in love with yourself

• Love is the antidote for shame

• I am not an expat, I am an immigrant

• Creative Motherhood

• My philosophy: Living Life as Art

• A personal history of spirituality

• On Being In-Between: Androgyny, bisexuality, bilingualism, biculturalism and multi-identity

• How to create a class from a place of complete selfishness

• The paradox of parenthood and childhood

• How to slow down

• How to live your dreams after 40

• How to be a bad off-the-gridder, but an off-the-gridder all the same

• Why I want to be the voice of my (very small) generation

I am curious to hear what you think, which ones resonate with you or spark your curiosity? 

Who am I and what am I doing here?

How do you describe who you are or what you do to someone who doesn’t know you or to someone who thinks they know you?

This is one of the hardest things to do, especially if you aren’t sure, or if you know that in your most authentic version of yourself you defy traditional categories, or if you feel you are a complex and ever-changing combination of contradictory patterns, ideas, feelings, thoughts and experiences, or if you are in the process of manifesting something new in the world that belongs to your destiny that is continuously unfolding before you.

I am always practicing to clarify what I do (or who I am) in words, so that the next time someone asks me at a cocktail party (I don’t get invited to lots of those, but the next time I do, maybe I'll be ready), I can tell them what I do in a brief paragraph that captures their imagination, with out having their eyes glaze over in confusion or boredom. It 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. This is my unfolding path, and I believe this to be true for many others all over the world.

The other day I had a glimpse into a possible bio to put on the front page of this blog for someone who doesn’t know me personally, and has never visited before. If my goal is bring more strangers into my web of inspiration, which it very much is, it feels important to create a quicker way for people to understand who I am and what this blog is about.

What I wrote is not that brief, but it is as brief as I can possibly make it at this moment in time. It's not perfect, but I think it will do, for now.

Zoë is a rock-n-roll poet, heart & soul revivalist, integrative philosopher, champion for the inside arts, student & teacher of the Self, art healer, child of the 70’s and mom in the process of reinventing motherhood. Her mission is to create an enchanted life of meaning, synchronistic with the manifestation of her unique soul and to inspire others to follow their own extraordinary journey.

Zoë's greatest loves, besides friends & family, people in general, especially children & even certain dogs, include:  passionate & clever indie rock, dance of all varieties, comedy, improvisation, social practice art, fashion & graphic design, true deep stories, sad songs, mythology & Jungian psychology, children’s books, Fisher Price toys, tarot, embracing duality, inspiring documentaries, the open sky, wildflowers, hugs, creative collaborations and elegant theories that connect everything in the universe.

Brooklyn born and bred, she and her California redwoods born husband have transplanted to a stunning piece of raw desert in the foothills of the Sierra de Laguna Mountains, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, on the Southern Baja peninsula of Mexico, where they are pioneering both a homestead & careers that suit and engage their idiosyncrasies, while raising their wild & kind-hearted Mexican-born son. Eschewing the needs for comfort, ease and certainty, in order to embrace a do-it-yourself life in the desert, with lots of tools (digital & analogue), inspiration and bugs. They are continuously in the process of building & growing a life from scratch, that is freer & messier, slower & simpler and yet, more complex.

This website is a testament to the love & creativity, truth & beauty that continuously flows out when we are present and engaged with everyday life, when we are listening both to our inner world of intuition & heart, as well open to the feedback that our environment provides. It is also a record of the creative byproducts of life fully lived. It emphasizes process over perfection. Compassion over judgment. And love over fear. It is a celebration of nature & culture, and their fascinating exchange. It is a form of integration of Zoë's many selves, including especially, the more vulnerable shadow—giving space for expression of both darkness and light, the deepest longings and breakings of the heart.

Zoë is here to live out her soul’s code--Creative Magician of Self—and to share the inspiring tools that will help you awaken yours.

It is never too late to be who you already are.

Flow on Faith

I’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.”

I am doing research for my story that I am writing. It’s my attempt to make sense of my life up until this point in a way that might teach something about what I have learned about the the path of human development, the spiritual path, the path of the artist. I have written different versions of this story. It was an 8 part blog post. It was a self-revelatory performance art piece in grad school. It’s in the lyrics of my songs, my poetry. It was countless starts of essays and monologues. It was the start of a feature-length script. But none of these quite got at the live wire inside me that needs to be plugged in.

What is the story about? Simple. It’s the story of how I learned to do the things I thought I could not do.

Including, most especially, how to tell my story.

Last month I saw a psychic for the first time. Her name was Althea. She told me that I needed to focus on this writing project, (which will include my songs and will end up as a performance as well as a book or some other art form that hasn’t been invented yet) and that it would be done in two years, and then after that, everything would easily flow out of me. In two years I will be 43. I can wait that long to be plugged into myself. But it will be hard because I tend to be very impatient with the creative process. This is why I teach the creative process—to help me to slow down. To help everyone to slow down. Althea told me what I already knew but absolutely needed to be confirmed by someone who wasn’t me, who didn’t know me, but is gifted in the other kind of knowing. She was. She also said I lived in paradise and that I had finally found peace after many years of suffering. Also true.

And so I see that this is my moment to weave my webs, make my connections, bare my soul. It will be hard. It will be painful. It will challenge me on every level of experience. But I see no choice in the matter. It must be done.

And in the meantime, I am fretting about here, my blog. This space I have created to share my process. To make contact. To check in. To record. To reflect.

I keep wondering how can I keep this up during these times that my words aren’t quite ready to come?  When I don’t have my own words to share. And then I remembered: I can share the words of others. I have been reading & listening voraciously and I love sharing other people’s words when my words are still cooking.

Here is what I have been reading and listening to:

How Should A Person Be? A novel by Sheila Heti
The Art of Asking An audiobook memoir by the artist/musician Amanda Palmer
The Hero Within A Jungian self help book about archetypes and human development by Carol S. Pearson
Handling the Truth a book on writing memoir by Beth Kephart that my dad lent me.
The Life Changing Art of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. A surprisingly inspiring audiobook by a Japanese woman who has made being tidy an art form and has given me new hope for putting my life in order.

Not exactly on purpose, but sort of, I am reading only women writers.

It’s all research. Research for the many ways we can tell our story. Eventually, and possibly quite soon, I will be teaching this to others. This storytelling thing. It’s not a decision. It’s a way of life that I am growing up into. It’s, as Tara Mohr refers to callings, an inner assignment.

Everything I read turns me into a kind of chameleon of voices. I try on different voices which leads me deeper into my own point of view. It is a process of discovering one’s own voice through trying on other's voices. This is what many singers do. There is a whole book about this process called Steal like an Artist by Austin Kleon. I will post quotes from it soon, even if the writer is a man.

What I just learned about chameleons in the terrarium/aquarium basement of the Pittsfield museum where I went last week with my mom and son, is that they are falsely believed to change color in order to hide. But it is not really the reason. They change colors in order to reflect their social intentions or responses to temperature change, in their own reptilian limitations: to express themselves. Trying on others’ voices is my way of figuring out where I stand. It’s the process that happens whether I want it to or not. I am newly embracing my particular processes lately. That is the joy of being an artist—embracing your way of doing things, using instincts to get you where you need to go, and above all, trusting the process.

Something in changed in me about this process of writing recently. I realized that what was missing was my faith. But I had no idea how to get it back. I find faith to be the most important ingredient to art. I lose it and find it constantly. What brought be back to faith this time was a conversation with my husband who, with out training, is a great art coach. I learn a lot from him, rather than the other way around. We decided together that coaching can only be as good as how well you know the other person. Coaching, like therapy, and teaching, and parenting, is a relationship above all else and it must acknowledge the special and unique truths of the individual’s (coachee’s) needs, goals, limitations and gifts.

I started this post thinking I had nothing at all to write. And where do I find myself now? Having written something true about where I am really at. And I will leave you with a quote, as I promised I would deliver one:

This is from A Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, which I read last summer as primary research for storytelling. I started a few blog posts about it, but never published them. This book is mind-blowingly important for the survival of humanity. I will revisit it over and over. I will share.

“Man in the world of action loses his centering in the principle of eternity if he is anxious for the outcome of his deeds, but resting them and their fruits on the knees of the Living God he is released by them, as a sacrifice, from the bondages of the sea of death. 'Do without attachment the work you have to do… Surrendering all action to Me, with mind intent on the Self, freeing yourself form longing and selfishness, fight—unperturbed by grief.'"

Here, on this blog, I lay the byproducts & fruits of my alchemical experiments, the labor of my gifts, at your knees.

Take them or leave them, either way, destiny is within & without.

What is Zoëlab?

I have been trying to write an About Page for this site that encapsulates and describes what I am doing here and why. It's one of the hardest things I've ever had to write because it means so much to me, and it is so hard to describe complexity.

Here is my second attempt. My first attempt is on the first version of ZOELAB 365. I have also been working on the My Story page, which is an internal biography. Its not quite there yet, but it's getting there. I welcome constructive feedback from you, my beloved readers.

Part of my intention with this blog is sharing how I learn and how I teach. How to be an artist, how to develop one’s voice, how to be more honest, more compassionate with self and other, how to be more balanced, how to be integrated, how to be a parent, how to have harmonious relationships, how to improvise, how to create the life of your dreams, how to create meaning, how to sing, how to meditate, how to create useful & beautiful things, how to heal the split, how to understand one’s self, how to mirror, how to heal narcissism, how to integrate male and female, how to stand up for what you believe, how to be authentic, how to be vulnerable, how to be human, how to draw, how to create regular practices, how to achieve major dreams, how to listen to intuition, how to share one’s soul, how to incorporate disparate parts of self.

Here, I share what seemed unsharable to my previous self. Here, I track my process of stepping courageously out into the world with uncertainty, and faith. Faith in love and creativity. Faith in the human spirit to elevate us into our evolutionary destiny. Faith in human potential. Here, I share the uncertain & revelatory process of spiritual awakening, while integrating what I have learned from my failures, successes, studies & self-taught adventures in: performance, improvisation, dance, theater, film, photography, drawing, poetry, comedy, meditation, graphic design, hair design, clothes design, expressive arts therapy, psychology, spiritual philosophy, songwriting, singing, playing music, creating a life off the grid, pioneering, confronting death, integrating parts of self, working with the unconscious, true storytelling, daydreaming, travel, desert living, Baja, DIY projects, how to learn, rock-n-roll, cultural criticism, holistic health.

I am in love with learning, transformation, truth & beauty. I am in need of healing and I am in need of connection. A mysterious path unfolds before me. It’s like a giant puzzle, and in short intense spurts the pieces of that puzzle appear before me, and I place them in their context. My destiny is not completely clear, but I know it has to do with this blog, public speaking, travel, creating an artist residency/retreat center, performing storytelling and music, being a champion for the everyday arts as well as the shadow of our Culture: namely: the feminine principle, shit, garbage, emotions-especially fear & shame, the heart, imagination, shame, play, children, the spirit realm. My destiny also includes: videos, children, social practice art, being a voice of inspiration and revolution, rock-n-roll, poetry, bringing the teachings of Jung & the expressive arts to the mainstream, being an aesthetic bridge between new age spirituality and artists/intellectuals, writing about philosophy, inventing new forms of art and ways of being, synthesizing the arts, psychology, education & spirituality. I know it's a lot. But I see no choice in the matter.

As I chronicle the process of building a life off the grid, in Mexico, motherhood and its stages, developing my career, I also work on larger projects. Much of what I share is the material for larger projects: videos, books, albums, live storytelling & talks. Each project emerges out of my synthesis of my ideas and needs for healing and growth. As I learn of a new calling or aspect of my callings, I learn how to grow myself up for the task required. This has already happened several times in my life. How I went from being a shy, quiet girl who was rejected as a child actress—to a trained performer and teacher. How I went from being someone who couldn’t sing to someone who could. How I discovered and developed my ability to write songs. How I went from a person who hid out of fear of criticism to someone who transparently shares my failures and vulnerabilities and struggles as equally as I share my dreams and gifts.

And it is here that I chronicle my everyday challenges & learning, as I also share and manifest my dreams. It’s a space of integration of all parts of self, and all parts of the human experience. A space of non-judgmental awareness, humor, fun, play & emotional expression. I invite you to bring your whole self here to meet me. Share your comments, questions, wonderings. Email me. Dare yourself to be vulnerable and authentic. Let’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. Using art for its true purpose: to celebrate & elevate humanity. To give voice to soul. To create soul. To connect. To return to individual & universal wholeness. Let’s acknowledge and celebrate the larger truth that unites us in aliveness.

What can happen in 15 minutes?

When I was in grad school and had a day to myself to get something other than school work done, I spent most of that time in a panic state of indecision and fear. I didn't know then how to work in increments. And now, after experimenting with this for a while, I am able to transform myself (which is to say my experience) in fifteen minute increments. Writing the heart into its next dimension. Getting the soul on paper. Remembering the thousand ideas that I have forgotten and will forget again. Sometimes I expect miracles, and sometimes what I get is just the uprooting of weeds in the brain. Clearing out isn't always sexy or productive. Sometimes it's just clearing out. But it makes space for the next plant to grow. Other times a revelation can happen.

Last summer, after a lot of careful reflection, I decided what elements in my self-care are non-negotiable, things that need to happen every day for me to feel balanced and alive. I came up with these: Music, Exercise, Writing & Sitting (meditation). The letters made a very appropriate acronym: MEWS. I knew that my mind, body, spirit & soul would be fed by these activities--and that even if I spent only fifteen minutes a day with each, I could feel balanced. I don't get to all four every day. But I usually get to at least 3 out of the 4. What have I noticed from this practice? That fifteen minutes is enough time on the productivity side for me to create something valuable, and on the being side, it is enough to transform me from the state of sleepy avoidance to the state of inspired awakening.

I teach this idea to my students in Art Journal Lab, in the form of timed writing or art exercises. Using quickness in this way can have the beneficial effect of outwitting the inner critic. We get our work done before the critic has time to notice what's going on to swoop in and comment. We get to the truth of how we really feel because we are circumventing the conscious mind.

Here is a list of things that could happen in fifteen minutes:

1. I could watch most of a sit com, but not the whole thing. I wouldn't know the moral if it's a sitcom from the 80's or the funny joke that ties it all together if it's a more recent sit com.
2. I could discover the structure of my own ambivalence.
3. I could make breakfast or eat breakfast. Maybe both.
4. I could climb to the top of the mountain near my house.
5. I could read my son 2 books.
6. I could call an old friend.
7. I could dance my ass off or my heart out.
8. I could discover my true feelings on most subjects.
9. I could take a shower, including heating up the water on my stove and mixing it with the cold water that comes out of my shower head in a large bowl and dumping it over my head. I could probably shave my armpits but probably not my legs too.
10. I could write a poem.
11. I could send you an email to an old friend letting her know that I still care about her and that I think about her when I discover small unexpected creatures in the sand.
12. I could charge my phone so it's not completely dead.
13. I could take a walk, discovering the missing link to my thoughts on my journaling class.
14. A revolution could be born.
15. I could sing 3-5 original songs.
16. I could sit quietly, breathing in and out, settling down into the emptiness of home.
17. I could read a chapter of a book, and then remember the book I need to write.
18. I could write a page of that book.
19. I could drive to a town where I could find the best coffee in Baja, a place where I can float with out light or sound & a beach with whales showing off.
20. I could clean up the random garbage scattered around my property.
21. I could play deeply with my son, unencumbered by my practical thoughts, or personal needs. 
22. I could feel the energy in your body--as my hand holds yours.
23. In fifteen minutes I could make a new friend or end an old friendship.
24. In fifteen minutes I could make our house look habitable--from hurricane to possible.
25. In fifteen minutes I could write a blog post that says something about time and our use of it and how it doesn't take long to have an experience of transformation, if we allow ourselves to be fully present in that time frame.

There are no mediocre blog posts

Okay, so here is a little window into my process.

I started this blog post last weekend, I was inspired, and excited to write for the first time in a while. But then I didn't finish it, and then I started to avoid it, and then I felt really blocked.

My frustration with this block is actually what inspired me to start this blogging daily for a month thing, and to give myself a time limit, and to challenge myself to risk bringing more of myself here. 

This post is really what inspired the two previous posts. Tonight, I decided to share the abandoned post with you. I spent an hour waiting for the slow internet to upload my website, and then I copied and pasted my unfinished blog post here, with a only touch of editing.

[T]he speed with which an idea in your head reaches thousands of other people’s eyes has another deflating effect, this time in reverse: It ensures that you will occasionally blurt out things that are offensive, dumb, brilliant, or in tune with the way people actually think and speak in private. That means bloggers put themselves out there in far more ballsy fashion than many officially sanctioned pundits do, and they make fools of themselves more often, too. The only way to correct your mistakes or foolishness is in public, on the blog, in front of your readers. You are far more naked than when clothed in the protective garments of a media entity.

        But, somehow, you’re liberated as well as nude: blogging as a media form of streaking. I notice this when I write my blog, as opposed to when I write for the old media. I take less time, worry less about polish, and care less about the consequences on my blog. That makes for more honest writing. It may not be “serious” in the way, say, a 12-page review of 14th-century Bulgarian poetry in the New Republic is serious. But it’s serious inasmuch as it conveys real ideas and feelings in as unvarnished and honest a form as possible. I think journalism could do with more of that kind of seriousness. It’s democratic in the best sense of the word. It helps expose the wizard behind the media curtain.

Last night I was feeling down about my blogging, because of my continuing struggle to reconnect to that delicious creative flow that I had felt my first year of blogging, which was everyday.  I had written a post that felt a little rushed, and I was concerned that it was mediocre.  Whenever I struggle with these types of problems, or really, any problem, I turn to my husband who is the wisest person I know, even wiser than I’d like to think I am. He deserves a vicarious honorary degree from my every experience of learning since we've been together. (This July it will be 12 years.) His ability to know and understand and reflect me is magic. He mirrors me and reminds me what I already know, but forgot, because I can get lost within certain aspects of my personality. When I struggle with feeling whole, he helps reflect the parts of me that I have forgotten.  

“There are no mediocre blog posts.” he said. And then explained why this is true. And he was right.  He helped me remember that a blog is a log.  “A log is an official record of events during the voyage of a ship or aircraft.” (New Oxford American Dictionary).  A log is a record of life, as you experience it. Preferably daily. To me a blog is both science and art. The art is pushing oneself into new forms of expression. The science is the tracking of life.

When I brought up my feelings of disappointment about not offering more polished or thought-out writing, he reminded me this time what a blog actually is and what it's for. It's for sharing a process. For his example--he referred to one of his favorite internet reads: Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Dish, which disseminated, in February of this year, after over ten years of a wide readership. Sullivan has decided to leave it up as an archive to access.
 
This morning, I woke up ready to approach my blog in a new light—I checked The Dish and found the quote above--which Andrew Sullivan had written 13 years ago. I was so inspired, I immediately came here to share with you what I am starting to understand.

For 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.

For most of my life I have been a grand risk-taker. I have traveled far and wide. Immigrated to the desert. Lived in a tent through out most of my pregnancy. I have tried most of the things I am terrified of. I have challenged myself to take on seemingly impossible tasks. And yet, one of the risks that I have consistently stayed away from is sharing my opinion. Underneath this avoidance are three main fears:  a) offending people,  b) being called out on my ignorance or c) being seen as narcissistic or self-absorbed. This style of being has kept me apolitical, super nice and falsely modest. It has kept me quiet and safe, in the area of the mind and the world. I have stuck to subjects that I care deeply about and know: the arts, spirituality, psychology, education. I stay away from arguments, debates and certain kinds of personal truths. I am terrified to let people know how narcissistic I am, or how differently organized. I hide the truth of my metaphysical perspective. I have been afraid to share my failures and my pettiness. I have been afraid to reveal the messes in my mind and my life. I have been afraid to challenge others to think in new ways about their place in the world.

I realize that it is not my duty to reveal my thoughts and insecurities. Especially not on the internet. No one is asking me to be more honest or vulnerable or risky.  And yet, it feels as if there is some force pushing me towards sharing more of myself with the world. If I think about it, there has always been this force daring me to do things I am afraid to. It’s an inner voice of challenge, it feels almost spiritual in nature, as if I am being pushed into my destiny.  

When I hide my point of view, I feel like I am letting myself down. I feel a magnetic pull towards revealing myself.  Not revealing myself in the ways I used to: through emotional vulnerability, sexuality, or insecurity, but now it is about sharing my truth, my point of view. This is about taking myself seriously enough to think I have something to say that is worth listening to. This is the hardest thing for me, and I know I am not alone in this. This is hard, most especially for women—to value our voice and our message enough to unapologetically offer it to the public. The unapologetic part is the hardest part for me. I have been trained by our culture to apologize for myself so much, that it becomes the feeling of apologizing for my very existence. This is not just about narcissism, about being seen, this is about engaging in conversation. This is about making use of my mind for good in the world. The potential good that I see is in sharing my mind are my insights into The Culture and how it it is eating away at our humanity. Sharing my opinion feels terrifying, because it means acknowledging to others that I value my own thoughts, ideas and beliefs. My life long dream has been to be a voice to & for others. This is what I wrote about in my college essay, which was, itself, quoted from a journal entry, which was written in response to watching Christian Slater nakedly & anonymously announce his truth on the radio in Pump Up the Volume. Here is a little piece of the Christian Slater-inspired journal entry/college essay:

    "And now I know everyone needs a voice, each person has her own but she needs another to feed on. Another to accept hers and expand its possibilities, to go beyond what is expected. I know that no one at high school is that voice. Alexander [my older brother] is that voice. And even though I have discovered his voice is not always perfect, not always consistent, it is alive. It is there. Not everyone has, or knows they have, or knows they need a voice. A voice of love, of understanding, of influence. I know my own voice follows love; love of the abstract, the personal, the unique… I need a reason to be voice. It has to be person, someone to speak to me… a voice that speaks to mine… My dream is to be a voice. Maybe it is a voice that quivers or that is shy, sensitive, or silly, but it is a voice that communicates."

I am remembering now that what I had with zoelab 365, which I have been grieving over for the past few years, is that openness of mind. It was the first time in my life where I shared my point of view. The risk and thrill of it were palpable. It was like an extra source of high-energy food that I was living off of. Perhaps the kind of breathlessness that blogging every day (often writing designing or editing for up to four hours every night) required is unsustainable, and the year had to come to an end. But I am ready now to take on a new journey with this new blog. I am ready to challenge myself, yet again, to reveal more truth. To push my own boundaries to discover my own opinions. I want to invite readers to challenge me as well. To respectfully educate me when I am ignorant. To cry with me when I am sad. To laugh with me at my own narcissism or pettiness. To recognize your own narcissism and pettiness in mine. After all, the point of the blog is the connection between the blogger and the reader. This is the thrill of it. I am looking for conversations. I am looking to impact the world through challenging all of us to be more compassionate, creative, connected and honest. I am looking to risk my ego to share the larger truth of my humanity, including my flaws, vulnerability and criticism.

A list of things I would blog about if I wasn't so scared of what people would think

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Here is a list of things I would blog about if I wasn't so scared of what people think:

1) Shit

2) Shame

3) Narcissism

4) My relationship to messiness, Dirt & Disorganization

5) My music

6) How much I love my husband

7) The thing I most want to help people with, and the thing I most struggle with myself, which is: being oneself.

8) Confessions of Parental Hypocrisy

9) How proud I am of my music and how much I want to share it with the world

10) Cultural criticism

11) The benefits of marijuana for anxiety, disassociation & insomnia

12) How watching Pump Up the Volume with Christian Slater when I was 17 helped me see my future self

13) Full descriptions of my grandiose ambitions and dreams

14) How my experience of Facebook is anti-creative & anti-social & anti-authenticity

15) I would use a lot more fucking curses

16) I am giving myself full permission to add more to this list as it occurs to me...

Start from where you are, again

I started zoëlab 365 as a blog, as a way to track my personal happiness project. As a way to get back to my inner life after motherhood. As a commitment and challenge to my faith in creativity. But then zoëlab blossomed into something much bigger, more complex and longer lasting than just a blog, it became, simply put: a process. A process I fell in love with. A process in which I could share my most intimate enthusiasm for artmaking and in-love-with-ness of life and a place where I could be honest about my darkness, revealing of my heart, and a place where I could develop my point of view. It became a place where I could catalogue, and at the same time discover patterns in my past artistic explorations and musings. Starting with my early childhood—I unwound an improvised, non-chronological autobiography, or artography. I saw that the person I was trying to become was the same person I was as a child. I was self-revealing, but I was veiled, too. It was satisfying to experience the tension between exposing myself to a potential public, while at the same time feeling so hidden, unseen. Living on a raw piece of desert, building a life from scratch, and trying to find myself, as a woman, as an artist, and as a mom. I saw how not only was my role as mom was a creation, just as our family—was a creation. My dedication to my philosophy of life as art--taught me that everything in our life, if we approach it with love, humor, and creativity is art. We could decide how we wanted to create our life in a way that best suits all of us. Living in this way takes lots of compromises, and things are quite, yet deliciously, imperfect. We live a life that skids on the edges of camping and homemade comfort. Garbage and art. Off the grid, yet plugged in. We live a life in between—in between two cultures, in between two languages, in between two worlds—first and third. We live a life that is exciting and feels right even when it goes wrong, which it does often, because we are living from a desire to grow and develop and learn everything we can, everything we are fascinated by and enamored with.  Everything that will help us become better human beings. 

This new process brought me to a new place in life—or rather returned me to something that had been dormant but present since I was a little girl. For the first time, I truly believed in myself. Not in the sense of Rocky or Spiderman—well a little bit in that sense—but also in the sense of my self being something that was always changing, ever creative. It wasn’t the small self, the ego self, it was the larger SELF that I had encountered. This SELF is not a thing in itself, but rather, a potential (a potential that we all share as humans) and that all I needed to do was face my fears, laugh them in the face and then keep going, keep making, keep digging down deep enough to find compassion and humor and courage to live a little larger than I was used to. The self  that emerged was bigger than I could hold in any one picture in my mind. And thus a blog is a perfect place to collect such a kaleidoscope.

This process is, in itself, a testament to process, itself. It is a celebration, investigation and navigation of process—of what it means to be in-between the polished products of life, of how we make meaning of our life, how we develop into our destinies, while at the same time empowering ourselves to act upon the life that flows out of us. It is a study in how we reclaim the parts of ourselves that we have not wanted to see.  It is an explanation of how we get crazy loving and curious and childlike and grow ourselves up enough to be responsible for our choices and yet, irresponsibly committed to the magic of life—sometimes putting it above strict bedtimes or careful expressions or logical spending or any expectations the outside world may have on us. I am learning how to question unconscious values while at the same time upholding the often unmirrored values that I have held (until recently) secretly, inside my heart. Values like kindness, compassion, creativity, tolerance, expressiveness, generosity, forgiveness, honesty, grit, upholding the feminine principle, kick-assedness, embracing opposites, beauty, and grace. 

I trained myself to be more disciplined, I challenged myself to be more alive. I awoke myself to the mysteries of natural life. I dared myself to share what was shameful. I flirted with exposing parts of myself to the public eye. I got curious about what it was like to take my art more seriously and myself less seriously. And, most of all—I let myself be. Anything was okay to share if I wanted to share it. I gave myself permission to be or express or share whatever/whoever I was in the moment. The combination of that freedom with the daily commitment was a magical potion. It worked for me in a way that no other project had ever worked for me before because it provided continuity and visibility--two aspects of my life that have been particularly lacking.

And ever since it ended I have wanted to get back to it. But somehow, I didn’t know how. And then I figured it out: 358 days later—all I have to do is get back into the process. I had lost sight of what it really was, and what had made it so magical for me. This is the raison d’être of the blog—why it was invented—as a way to track a process, and yet to be able to return to it over and over in an easily searchable fashion. The only problem was that my last blog was missing a search feature--as well as a tag feature. This fact frustrated me to no end. And then I realized I would have to start over and do a new blog on a new platform with new parameters. I would have to learn a new interface and new design skills. I would have to get better internet at home. I would have to get a computer that actually worked. I would have to get our electricity hooked up. I would have to quit my job. I would have to return to music. (Well that was just something I needed to regardless.) I would have to get organized. I would have to build up the courage again. And now I have done all those things, a year has gone by. And I still felt blocked/blogged. I didn’t know how to start. Or re-start. I couldn’t just press unpause. Or could I?

At various times thought out year this past year of bloglessness a voice inside me told me this: “After a whole year has gone by, you need to catch up your readers (if you still, or ever, had any) to the latest events in your life.” “You have to transfer all 360 posts to the new platform. This could take months, maybe longer.” “You should create a clever graphic recap time line of the past year.” “You have to make a video compilation of all the posts of 365.”

And then I consulted the Tarot Cards—which I only just started studying a week ago, (after having just received my first professional reading.) I am always looking for signs from the kind and playful universe. And the tarot cards told me this—a message which I gleaned from several different readings over a few days: even if you can’t publish everyday, go back to your commitment to be in the zoelab process everyday. Find your way back to the work by going back into the work. You are a the second stage of completion and you are about to embark on a new journey. September will be a month of success for you. And then another sign, this time from the-universe-via Lucas: he showed me a piece of video he had downloaded earlier of Ron Sexsmith and friends singing the Elvis Costello song: “Everyday I write the book.” 

As poet/astrologer/musician/pronoaic prophet Rob Brezsny (whose book has been inspiring/affirming me lately) would say, with welcome "rowdy blessings" from the universe, I am re-committing myself to The Process that this blog started two years ago to this day. 

Stay tuned....

p.s. I have transferred all the posts for the first month of ZOELAB 365, and will continue to transfer the rest of the 11 months of posts here.

Blocks

It's been almost a year of no blogging. I am not sure how much longer I can go. I miss you. I miss this process. The longer I wait, the more I have to say. The more I have to say, the harder it is to say it. What will it take for me to feel like being "out there" again?

Deregulated, then Supported

ZOELAB DAY 65

My brother has come from Amsterdam for a visit! I am very happy about it.

The past few weeks, I got a little knocked off my routine due to work. My work is fun, and enlivening, but it brings me away from the inner world. It is a saving grace to have ZOELAB to bring me back to that other, emotional and subtle world of experience and expression. Normally, getting knocked off my routine would result in feeling lost, but thanks to this built in structure, I cannot get lost for very long.  This is something I like to teach in my workshops: structure or routine is very useful for our creative productivity.

I was feeling uninspired and exhausted and was considering giving in to the temptation of losing myself even more into someone else’s world in a movie rather than engaging in a ZOELAB process. I decided to check my email, and had received a birthday note from a dear artist friend and loyal reader who sent me some very inspiring words of encouragement about my new paintings, (and play dough) which lifted me up. It was just enough to give me the ignition to dig down through the tiredness, and produce another painting about the experience of deregulation and then support. I also had a wonderful phone conversation with another dear artist friend earlier today, which helped put into focus how important it is to support art-making--our own and each other’s. 

It’s a wonderful reminder to all who risk existing in the precarious and vulnerable territory of being an artist. I give a lot of thought to what it means to be an artist and how difficult it is and how strong one has to be. We live in a culture where the arts are not as supported as they should be. Not only on a governmental, financial level, but on an unconscious cultural level. We all carry around with us mostly unconscious assumptions about what it is to be an artist. There is a voice in us that supports those assumptions, the voice can be subtle, so it is not always easy to catch it. I have spoken with many self-professed and closeted artists about the discouraging voice they carry with them, and how often it keeps them doing what they need to do. It takes real strength and courage to keep creating, despite this voice, which I call the inner critic. The more aware we are of our inner critic and the familiar phrases it tells us, the more likely we are to defeat him/her. If we are not aware of the presence of the inner critic, we unconsciously project him/her onto others around us, or the general public, rather than seeing that our biggest detractor is most often inside us already. I know the inner critic to say such things as “no one cares about your art, it’s too personal. It’s not really art. It’s selfish to be an artist. Your writing is too serious, not enough humor. No one cares about abstract art. People feel alienated when you talk about spirituality.” Etc., etc. etc. I don’t mean to say that the inner critic doesn’t have some use, but too often it comes in too early or too strongly, before we are ready to put our work under the discerning and sometimes distorted eye of the inner critic.

I find that the antidote to the spell that the critic puts us under is reminding ourselves that it is not up to us to judge the work we make, we make art out of human and spiritual necessity. It is the need to express, communicate to ourselves and to others. To find different forms of language within the realm of imagination, dreams, emotion, the body. To use our creativity to find new ways of experiencing and describing that experience. We share our art with others so that we can make a full circle of connection. Not to judge or be judged. We all need to support ourselves and each other, so that we keep finding the courage to create.

Thank you to all of you that have encouraged and supported me in this project. Your encouragement inspires me to keep encouraging others.

Checking In

ZOELAB DAY 63

It’s a new month, (my favorite) and the beginning of a new season. The busy-ness is upon me. Weddings and such. I wish I had more time to commune, relax, create, share on here. But in the spirit of keeping up, and not letting perfection get in my way, here is a list that sums up last month for me:

discovered new (for me) art form : 

illustrations using watercolor or gauche and fine pen!

discovered other new art form:

(photographic chronological autobiography)

got through summer and am enjoying early fall weather

Didn’t get any sewing done

Got to re-connect with old friends through internet

Discovered some amazing blogs

Found new ways to bring new readers to this blog

(through my grad school)

Received encouraging comments

Gave up sugar

Got sick and recovered twice

Experiencing the full circle contagion of inspiration

Is this daily project of ZOELAB increasing my happiness and creativity and connection to self and others?

YES

Is it creating a challenge with my relationship

with my family and housework?

YES

Is it worth it?

YES

Instead of Television

ZOELAB DAY 51

For almost two weeks, I have been suffering from a lower intestinal infection of some variety of bacteria or protozoa. Don’t worry, I won’t give the intimate details, but the point is I haven’t been feeling well. I have been powering through it, trying to keep on living as always. The last few days I have tried to changing my eating habits (eating only simple foods and absolutely no sugar) hoping not to encourage the beasts inside, which has alleviated the pain and urgency, but has brought on a different sensation that I am not fond of: hunger. I don’t do well with hunger, I become testy, unfunny, and spacey. It is very hard to write, let alone think, in such conditions.

Through much of this I have been trying to write this seemingly endless manifesto on my relationship with television, which I am taking a break from for a moment, but plan to continue later today. I was unable to write last night (and every day I am catching up on the post from the day before.) Yes, I recognize that in the big picture, if I break my commitment to make a post one day there will be no real consequences. I have a very small readership, and most of my readers don’t read every day. But still, I am a woman of my word. And if I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it. However, my health is adversely affecting my ability to keep up with ZOELAB at the level that I would like. Additionally, the organization of the household, my job, my parenting, my physical self-care—all are faltering. In other words, I feel pressured and overwhelmed. And the worst part is, the pressure is self-generated, so I can’t blame anyone but myself.

This morning I wanted to spend some quality time with Emilio before Lucas whisked him off for the day so that I can spend some time catching up and unwinding myself. I told Emilio we could do anything he wanted (except watch a show, which was the thing he most wanted). He chose to make watercolors together. After we got our paper out, he asked, as he often does, what I was going to paint.

[I was just interrupted by our neighbor who wanted to find out if we knew of anyone interested in buying the land he has for sale. See post in reference to this land. He told me if someone is interested, he will knock 15,000 pesos off the price. About $1,200 dollars]

I told him I didn’t know. Usually my desire is to paint something abstract, with no plan at all. But pressured myself into painting something figurative so I painted a picture of a woman with my hairstyle. It was flat and lifeless. Then I let myself paint the painting I really wanted to make. This is improvisational painting, when I get to have fun with paint, experimenting with different layers of translucency and colors and forms. I layered and layered and layered and then I looked at my painting and I knew what I had painted. It was an image of the infestation of single celled organisms living in my intestine. This is a great example of accidental expressive arts therapy. My unconscious gave me this image as a reminder to go easy on myself, to not push myself beyond what I can reasonably do. To write this post instead of pushing ahead with what I woke up at 6:30 to write this morning about--The Office. Instead of writing last night, I fell asleep while doing “research” (watching episodes of The Office). Once again, I am reminded: Start from where you are. That which hinders your task is your task.

This reminds me of what was more present with me last month, if you are a parent, and want to be creatively productive and happy, organization is key. I find that I sometimes get ahead of myself, wanting to “do” before I am ready, before I am organized. I often find myself struggling in the balance between organization and creation. Creation is usually the messy, expressive side of the duality. Organization is the mental, linear part. Both are necessary if you are trying to achieve something difficult. I have so many things I want to do, and sometimes I jump into them before I am ready. During those times what I really need is to take a breath first, and actually plan and organize first. Hence, I become a listmaker. But a list is not always enough. Because the lists pile up and then the lists need to be categorized, prioritized. Then the list becomes creation in itself, and I get lost. It becomes a vicious cycle. Listmaking can sometimes increase the overwhelming feelings, and the only way to feel better is to take a deep breath, and just start doing something. Anything. What helps to ward off the overwhelm is to stay present in the doing. If I’m washing dishes, for example, I focus my attention to the senses: the feeling of the water and soap on my hands, the view out the window. And try to ignore the grumbling monologue in my head “I hate washing dishes. I just washed all the dishes yesterday. It’s endless. Just endless. I can never get ahead. I can never get ahead with everything. Really what I need to be doing right now is make that phone call for work. But I don’t have the phone number…” That monologue is always there, but we don’t always have to give it attention. We can put our attention in the physical realm, the realm of the senses. This is a way of focusing my attention. Another way of saying it is, presence. Being in the present moment. Slowing down enough to feel the floor under my feet and the breeze on my skin. This creates space in me and around me. So the task before today is to breathe, slow down, and focus on one thing at a time. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Meta Lab

ZOELAB DAY 48

We survived the hurricane. It didn’t really hit us directly, it was a spin off storm that hit us. That’s what Part Two of that poem was about (in case it wasn’t clear). My desk and all my books had to be moved, and are still in disarray so I have became a bit disoriented, ungrounded. We had no internet, no cell service for a few days as well.

So, now what?

Well, I’ve been working on the back end of the creative organization of this site. It takes time, and I hope it will be done by the end of the month. Also, I’ve been working on bring new readers here. I am discovering, when you put yourself out there, in whatever capacity, when you don’t get a positive response or any response at all, it is far more pleasant and encouraging, to think of the lack of response not as rejection, but that you just haven’t found your people yet. Don’t worry, I tell myself. They’re out there. If you build it, they will come. The truth is, with the exception of a few friends and family who have written to me, I have no idea who is reading this. It is a wildly risky feeling.

That being said, I did receive some encouraging and heartwarming comments recently that I would like to share. I am going to start creating comment pages in response to particular posts. Because this blog is independent, I don’t have the automatic comment buttons that blogs created from blog sites have. Everything I build I build from scratch. Well, virtual scratch. Also, I don’t want to send out group emails or lean on advertising, so the only way to spread the word is individual by individual. It is time-consuming, but it is also deeply rewarding, as I am opening connections with people, and hoping to engage in dialogues about the creative process, parenting, inspiration, happiness, or anything else that feels mutually important.

I feel deeply heartened, as well, because a dear friend of mine sent me his novel, which I have started to read with great enthusiasm. I was so honored and felt, maybe, in some tiny way, that what I am doing here had given him the en(courage)ment to send it to me. Another reader had written about risking failure, and his participation in a music contest. Another reader wrote how the post about empowerment affected her posture that day. These comments will be added soon. And I welcome more comments, and more readers. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and I do believe it takes a community to make an artist.

The Happiness Project

ZOELAB DAY 3

The impetus to do this project came a month ago while I was riding the Peter Pan bus from the Berkshires to New York City. I had just had a visit with my family, and my brother had lent me his copy of The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (which I’m not planning on returning to him). He had told me about the book a few months ago on the phone (we both secretly love reading self help books). He told me it was a self-help memoir about a woman who decides to dedicate a year of her life trying to be happier. She writes about her experience of applying the principals of happiness based on her extensive happiness research and also on self-reflection. She writes about the process of trying to be happier, and the effect it has on those around her, especially her husband and children. She is transparent in the book revealing her own flaws and struggles and difficulties in keeping her resolutions. My brother said the book made him think of me, and then he suggested that the self-help book on creativity that I’d been planning on writing also be a memoir. I had already been half-heartedly writing about our life in Baja. The suggestion lit a spark in me: a book that integrates my own experiences as a mom creating a life and home from scratch, off the grid, in Mexico, while I build my organization “Art for Life”, while at the same time also experimenting with the ideas and exercises for unleashing and increasing creativity on myself. 

Later, while riding on the bus, (Gretchen comes up with her idea to do the Happiness Project while riding on a city bus) I read the chapter in The Happiness Project on Aiming Higher, where Gretchen starts a blog. It occurred to me: this is what I need to do! I had started a blog on wordpress three years back while I was pregnant and camping on our land. It was about our life in Baja, and I enjoyed writing it, but it was too difficult for me to keep it up due to limited electricity and internet access, and then the baby came. And then it was too difficult for me to do much of anything. Now, our son is three years old, and we are living in our house and I have more time and energy to contemplate, build a business, stay organized, and create art. The perfect format occurred to me: one entry a day, for 365 days. The only stipulation is that I do at least one entry a day, of words and image, for one year. The entries can be on anything I want. Whatever I am struggling with, inspired by, interested in. Past, present and future.

ZOELAB is my Happiness Project. It is my attempt to remain positive and proactive and productive, and at the same time to stay honest with my feelings, accept the reality of limitations, and make time for relaxation and rest. It is about trying to make contact with myself, and anyone else who is interested. It is about being my true artist self and living a bohemian life that reflects that, and it is about trying to achieve my life’s purpose. It is also a gauge to keep me in balance--the balance of health and growth for the mind, body and spirit. ZOELAB is the organizing/integrating principle around all the seemingly disparate elements in my life. It is about sharing the process of art and life simultaneously, while trying to striving to live my potential. Some entries will be about planting our garden, or ideas about how to bring more creativity into parenting. Some entries will be about trying to keep up with a resolution (for the day, week or month), some entries will be about sharing my art and design work (music, writing, drawing, photography, video, fashion design, graphic design, etc.). I imagine the project will change and grow as the year progresses--unexpected discoveries, patterns and shapes will emerge. Within the web that I am building daily, there will be stories on a theme, or whole books. My plan is to create theme pages as a way to organize posts by themes, so that a particular theme can be searched and read each as its own separate piece. The other unknown aspect is the reader/viewer. As people read and respond to my posts, this will change the course of the project. This is my hope. The openness of possibility is very exciting.

As Gretchen does in her Happiness Project, I plan to include my versions of resolutions and secrets of adulthood (which is her term for rules or guidelines for living.) I have been collecting them and will create a page of them soon. It will be a growing list. For now I am going to share one that I have come up with recently. Always have a book I’m very into reading. I may not read everyday, but I never want to finish a book before I know what book I’m going to read next. Reading books brings me a lot of happiness. It’s inspiring to read another’s ideas, or to live inside someone else’s story. While I am in the middle of a book, I tend to adapt the narrator or writer’s voice in my head--s/he starts to narrate my inner life, adding a new perspective. Plus, reading almost always inspires me to write. And not only do I want to write, I tend to write better. Also, if I am in a bad mood, reading a book almost always lifts my mood. Forgetting myself can be the most positive thing I can do. That being said, I broke my own rule because after finishing The Happiness Project (about 2 weeks ago) I didn’t immediately start a new book. But the book I plan on starting is My Ear at His Heart: My Father, a memoir written by Hanif Kureishi about his reading an unpublished memoir by his father about his childhood. I recently took this book off of the bookshelf of my father (who is also a writer).

One of the parts of The Happiness Project that most struck me is the idea that the pursuit of my own happiness is worthwhile, even if it can sometimes be perceived as selfish. Ultimately, and the studies Gretchen quotes support this, happiness is not selfish because its infectious and cyclical. “One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; one of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.” - Rubin. Because I am a mother, and often the emotional and organizing center of the family, I find it’s especially important to be happy. My happiness has a direct impact on my husband and son. And then that happiness comes back to me--my family’s happiness brings me more happiness. The happiness doesn’t just stay within the immediate family, it extends to the larger web of family, friends and community. Gretchen’s project book proves this to be true--I am already happier (more inspired, more self-aware, more productive) as a result of reading her book and embarking on my own project. And her book is NY Times Bestseller--she has sparked many others to start their own happiness projects. 

I will be returning to this subject in future posts. This is just to whet the appetite.

I want to add a note about the photograph/collage in this post. It’s called “I took photographs today to help me feel okay.” I made it in 2007 for a photography show in Oakland called “Don’t Fail me Now: a photographic tribute to what carries you through the day.” It’s a collection of digital photos that I took at various times at moments when I was feeling lost or invisible as a way to feel connected to myself, to the moment, to my surroundings. I’d like to do a few more of these tile pieces as I have many more images that fit into this subject. I borrowed the title, (which I slightly changed) from a lyric to a song I had written. Here are the full lyrics. Someday I’ll post the song when I make a satisfactory recording of it.

Don't Tell me how

To be alone

To be a friend

To me again.

And where were walking

It is snowing.

Where were walking 

It was stolen.

I’ll draw pictures of your face

Capturing your grace

So it won’t be a waste

And I’ll take photographs today

In my close-up way

To make the pain okay

Don’t tell me why

I’m afraid

To be inside

Of you again

And where were walking

It is raining

Where were walking

It was frozen

I’ll write letters to your face

Capturing your ways

So I can know this place

And I took photographs today

So I could run away

From all of the display

Don’t tell me who

I can be

In my mind

To see again.

Where we’re sitting

It is sleeping

Where were sitting

It was broken.

I’ll take photographs today

You teach me how to play

To make the pain okay

I’ll make jokes about your face

So I will know the taste of

Your skin and your embrace