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.

Can't Say A Better Day

Many of the inspirations for my songs come from clever, in the moment things that people near me express, which I then write down. One of my latest songs, Rock-n-Roll Thing came from a spontaneous statement of self-knowledge Emilio made at 3 years old. He told me during one of my music appreciation sessions with him. We were probably listening to The Runaways. Joan Je(Which he called The Runways.) "I'm a rock-n-roll guy. I'm a rock-n-roll thing." I was delighted by his confession, and of course, related deeply to it. Later it inspired my newest rock song, which I am currently in the process of recording. Learning how to actually record your music is yet a whole new skill. It's not easy. This is why I love improv.

Last year, Emilio was having a moment of feeling high on life and he came into the house from playing outside singing the hook for a great new song:

"Can't say a better day!" expressing his pure joy and enthusiasm for the present moment.

I immediately got out the guitar and this is what we recorded:

Speaking of kids rocking out, my mom sent me this clip today:

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Fun with Design

I LOVE DESIGN. I started playing with graphic design as a teenager. I made a wood cut print for the poster for the school play. In those days I was too shy and quiet to actually get into the plays--but I still tried. Instead I was cast as the dancer, or in this case the graphic designer!

Over the years have taught myself graphic design and web design, and have since integrated my photography into my designs. More recently I have been teaching myself hand lettering and improving my hand drawing skills. It turns out that you really need a pencil for hand lettering. Up until then I have always been a pen and maker girl--which gives you a lot less control and a lot more permanence. But last year, I fell in love with pencils, which are great for getting your hand drawn designs perfect, thanks to a nifty little thing called an eraser.

I've always thought it would be fun to work in advertizing, and that I would have a knack for both the copy writing (I love catchy slogans) and for creating eye-catching, psychologically resonant design. The only problem is I have become anti-consumerist, and I could never bring myself to actually work in advertising. So, instead I apply my marketing skills to promote what I believe in. Running my own business/organization, Art For Life, and the blog, my music as well as others' projects I believe in--these are wonderful opportunities to use my design skills everyday to promote creativity, the arts, compassion, consciousness & multiplicity.

Here is a sampling of my latest designs:

The photograph for the Mariposa Night poster (below) was taken by my husband, who is a wonderful photographer, and features the cute little face of our Bear. This poster is a great example of our creative collaborative relationship: featuring: photography, hand drawn art, graphic design, light projection & our child.

I also have designed (and am still working on) several websites. Including, of course zoëlab.

ZOË DEARBORN

ART FOR LIFE

BRUCE HERMAN GALLERY

OKRYNA

CUATRO VIENTOS BAJA

After the Rain: a photo essay

Every summer, a bunch of our stuff gets ruined because we leave it outside before the rains come. This may seem shocking to some people. But we are developing a new philosophy that accepts the fact that we own far too much stuff, and that nature sometimes has to do her thing. I could be more careful, but somehow it hasn't happened yet. And it makes such an interesting art project to capture what nature does to culture. (And vice versa).

The artwork was from a series I made in grad school, and the photos were prints I made in the dark room in college. The police car is Emilio's.

Creativity is about creation & destruction.

I think I am going to add some of these to my Culture-n-Nature Gallery.

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Musical Collaboration between Lucas & Emilio

Last year, Lucas and Emilio collaborated on a spontaneous song project. Lucas played guitar while Emilio improvised a song--this was the result:

For further inspiration of parents collaborating with their children creatively, check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxQSEvHdyjQ

And these: 

family drawings.

Latest ZOELAB Album Cover

I haven't posted in a while due to a series of illnesses in the family. Everyone is on the mend, but it has taken me away from zoelabbing. In addition to parenting, I have also been working on some design projects, recording my songs, securing a new office space for myself in Todos Santos, cleaning up our newly sealedbedroom building (¡Nada mas murciélagos y guano!), which is now its finishing stages (we started construction in 2012), as well us helping out with the construction of our new guest house (photos of that process coming soon).

One of my favorite things to do as a designer is make album covers. Garafön, my band with my husband, will be releasing 15 -20 songs over the next months, or years (we'll see how long it takes me to learn how to a producer/recording engineer on top of a songwriter, singer, guitar player), so I will have a chance to make an album cover at least 15-20 times. But in the meantime, I am making album covers for zoëlab.

Here is my latest, and therefore, favorite one:

I took this photo of this moth after I discovered it convulsing half stuck under a cement paver stone in front of our house. It was fluttering its wings in a manic way. I rescued it from under the cement (but not before I took a video--sorry moth, but sometimes art must come first). And laid on the ground. It fluttered a little longer, and then it was still. And then I took this photo.

I must say finding the moth in the state it was in--felt like a message from the universe. A direct mirror of the feeling I've been going through lately. Impatiently trying to flutter my wings and fly, but realizing I am not quite ready yet, and therefore, still need to be on the ground. Once I freed this moth, it wasn't ready to fly yet either, and was still for a long while. I tried the same thing, and it worked. I started resting more. Slowing down. And then I got sick! Ha! My body and my psyche knows what's up. And so does the moth.

Secret Powers, a short conversation with Emilio

A conversation between Lucas and Emilio, who just turned 6 the other day:

Emilio: Your secret power, Dada, is your funniness.

Lucas: Oh, and what's mamma's secret power?

Emilio: Sadness. And laughter.

Lucas: What's your secret power?

Emilio: Fart balloons.

Me: And observation.

self & other

The 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.

But what if we got conscious enough so that we changed society simply by being different—by being more tolerant of difference, by being more compassionate towards ourselves and others?  By being whole within—our society would become whole without. It is the light of consciousness that helps us find the way, and yet, it is the hardest thing to do because it means feeling our darkness. Acknowledging and then reclaiming our shadow is so threatening to the ego because we must face that in us which we have judged as distasteful, unacceptable, shameful. Shadow work requires courage and courage means feeling our feelings--not shrinking, not puffing up--but hanging around with our fear and our uncertainty and our desire.

When we get more comfortable with our feelings we get better at connecting and when we get better at connecting, we feel more comfortable with feeling our feelings around others, which leads to deeper & more meaningful connections. And this is how society changes. One connection at a time. First to the self and then to the other.

What if we used our power and our love and our creativity to change the way are with ourselves, and with each other? What if each of us was committed to caring more? To sharing more? What if it wasn’t something to make fun of or be embarrassed about—caring? What if it were natural to treat each other as family, as if, we truly belonged to the same thing? What if we could truly feel that at the deepest level we were inseparable? And what if, at the same time, we also celebrated how different each of us is? What if we delighted in difference and saw it as a perfect manifestation of diversity? What if we could embrace both at the same time?

Ourselves and each other.

Unity and diversity. In mystery.

Can you picture this?
 

Working with the voices inside

Let's face it. It’s hard being an artist. There’s no one out there encouraging you. Telling you the importance of your work. There’s no one there to validate your soul urge that just won’t go away no matter how hard you to try to talk yourself out of it. The Self Police (one of my trio of inner critics) says things like: “You don’t need to put yourself out there.” “Your poetry is far too personal or abstract to mean anything to anyone else.” “It is so narcissistic to write about yourself.”

But lately, when I work on my songs, there’s a newer voice inside, my inner champion, that says: “I love this song! It’s powerful and raw and catchy. I like the way you play guitar. You’ve got rhythm.” And then the natural instinct of the ego is to respond to that encouragement with: “Oh my god! Maybe I really can be a rock star. Maybe people will love my music. Oh, no! How am I going to deal with that?”

Lately, I have been developing a new method of dealing with that ego inflation. There is yet another, wiser voice that knows how to do reality testing, which comes from somewhere in the middle. The middle place is much more vulnerable than the inflated or deflated ego. This new voice of wisdom says: “You have no idea how people will respond to your songs. Yes, it is fucking terrifying to not know. [Yes, my higher self curses.] To put yourself out there not knowing if people will judge you or not, or how they will judge you." It is the most vulnerable thing I can feel. Not knowing. It feels like having no skin. It feels like ripping out your ribcage and exposing your heart. It feels like burning. But, you know what? You don’t have a choice any more, because no matter how hard you try to run away from your messy, inconveniently emotional, unconventional self, you will always need to express who you are, you will continue to need to express all the thoughts and feelings and dreams inside. And without sharing it with others, the artworks become staid. It’s like becoming pregnant but then not giving birth after the 9 months. What happens to the baby that doesn’t see the light of day? It would become the stuff of nightmares. Artworks are gifts, and gifts are meant to be given (with no strings attached). If the gifts don’t circulate, then their value is lost. Giving the gifts increases their value.

This is what has helped to hear most from this more balanced voice of higher self, or middle self:

“If you can’t put your work out there for yourself, then do it for others. Do it for the other people who are even more afraid than you are to make art, and to share it with others. Do it for the voiceless, disenfranchised people who need to witness others' courageous acts of artistic heroism in order to be drawn out of their shells and spells of disempowerment.”

And so, if you are at the precipice of giving artistic birth, and you are trembling with fear, and you think “I cannot do this.” Remember, this is not just about you, this is about all of us. We all need the arts for the survival of the soul. For the evolution of human imagination.

Please share your comments below. I would love to have a conversation about what sharing your artwork feels like to you. Stories? Dreams? Feelings? Thoughts?

Zoë in a hole

I like this photo. Don't ask me the story. Make up your own!

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.

Combining Poetry & Music Inspired by The Open Reading

This year I inherited a community event--The Open Reading. The woman who ran it for 8 years, Susan, called me in the fall and told me she was done with hosting  and asked me if I would like to take over. I was honored. The Open Reading is an event in Todos Santos that was started twenty years ago by another woman, now in her 80's, as way to bring the English-speaking writers together in the area of Todos Santos. My goal, ultimately, would for it to become a bi-lingual event--as the first Mariposa Night was.

I hosted the last open reading of the season in May at Taverna Dominique--which has since closed.  Even though I had brought my microphone and amp that day, our voices could not be amplified because the electricity was down. Instead, we sat closer together than usual, and read from our seats. It was more intimate than other open readings, and the first women who read asked for feedback--which I had never seen happen before. This prompted everyone to ask for feedback. The discussions and the lack of amplification made the event feel more like a workshop. This felt right to me, as it often feels strange after a reading to not receive feedback. Reading your writing in public is vulnerable, and it is important to get a sense of how people respond to your work.

I read last, as I always do since I became host. I read my piece about Mariposa Night. I wrote it in a more experimental style that I've been trying lately, which is a combination of an essay, a story & a poem. After reading it, I received some very positive feedback. One person told me that it made her want to go to Mariposa Night--which was one of the goals of the piece. One writer, Michael, suggested that I record my voice speaking the piece, and add music. I really liked that idea. I had already been experimenting with this idea in a collaboration with my amazing & talented therapist/musician/artist friend Holly Mae. In our collaboration, I wove two different poems together, thus masking them. You can listen to it here. It's called Open Up The Space.

I have yet to make a recording of the Mariposa Night piece. But instead, I recorded myself reading one of my recent poems that I like, called A Spider's Poem. I read the poem in three different voices and then layered the voices in different ways--even though they overlap, the repetition of the same poem highlights the lines rather than masking them.

Here it is:

Aesthetic responses?

What is the feeling of this piece?

What images does it bring?

Is it hard to grasp because of the layering or does the meaning come through?

Blogging Out of A Block

It happened again. I created a challenge for myself to get myself out of a block, and then got blocked after the deadline came.

In this case, my challenge was creating a blog post with a 15 minute time limit for the month of June. It went off swimmingly. I dared myself to share myself more authentically. I did some writing that thrilled me with its honesty. I got over my perfectionism. I learned how to do more breezy, shorter posts.

But... what happened after June 30th?

A three week block of postlessness that's ending right now.

I am currently in Massachusetts, visiting my parents with Mio. I am off my routine and in the land of easy comfort. Mio is in day camp. And I find myself with some delicious bug-free free time. But then the pressure is on.

Here are some difficult questions I am considering that I thought I'd share as a way to make contact again.

    How do I share here when I am not sure what I have to say?

    How do I convey my story in a way that integrates all my contradicting selves yet communicates what I need to say in a relatively precise way? How do I weave my personal history into a story that people relate to both in its specificity and its universality? How can I use simplicity to express complexity?

    How do I stay connected to my authentic self while being away from my guitar, microphone, studio, husband, classes, therapist?

    How do I reach more people?

    How do I not spend all my money in the land of plenty?

    How do I get feedback about my art? Meaning, how do I know if I am really reaching people with my personal or universal streams of consciousness? And if not, how do I go about getting closer to that connection?

    How do I decide how transparent I am willing to be?

    How do I help my parents accept my choice to live in Mexico?

    A better question: how do I help myself accept their lack of acceptance?

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.

Jardin de Niño Diaries, Part Four

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We break for summer and I decide that when school starts again in August, I am going to start the mural project. This will require planning. This is not my strong point. I have never painted a mural before. Here's my idea: to paint a jardin de niños literally. I want the mural to be a garden of children who are half kids/half trees, cactus, flowers and plants. The wall had been painted again and so I already have a good background for the mural. The first plan is to trace the kids bodies in the form of the plant they want to be. I use a permanent marker. I write their names on each outline.

Then hurricane odile hits Baja. When we check out the school we see that the entire roof and one of the walls to the outside classroom is gone. There are papers and books and garbage everywhere. I look at the other wall. The paint is gone, and so is the permanent marker outline of the kids bodies. Not a big deal to re-do, but it is a bit shocking what wind can do. The building got a power wash.

The hurricane pulls the rug from under us. Everyone is in shock. We continue to live in fear of the next one. Or the rain. Any rain. Slowly the creatures come out of hiding and I want to reach through the isolation. I decide I am going to start hosting the first Mariposa Night. The theme is "Stories of the Storm." I start to ask people to share their stories. Again, reaching beyond my shyness into connection with others. It starts out a bit clumsy. I am unpracticed after being a holed up hermit all summer. I wonder if people are ready to come out of hiding. I want to draw them out. I want to draw myself out.

Lucas suggests I try to raise money for to rebuild the Elias Calles school. Then I think of Vanessa, the teacher—how she could share her story of the hurricane and her experience at the Elias Calles school.  She is shy too, and very young and inexperienced, but she knows it will help raise money.

On Mariposa Night Lucas picks her up on the way to Todos Santos. She is all dolled up, with makeup and her hair down. She looks beautiful and nervous when she arrives. We buy her a margarita that costs more than her weekly salary. Then I wonder if she is old enough to drink. I am nervous too. We tell our stories and Vanessa is last she shares her concern for her “pollitos” little chicks, expressing a deep affection for the kids and the community in Elias Calles. They have taken her in, even though she lives in La Paz. We raise 1800 pesos. About $130.

The money sits in a jar in our house for months. My classes start at Cuatro Vientos, and I don’t have time to even think about the mural. And 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. The week before that Vanessa had asked the parents to come and clean the school yard. It had not been cleaned since the summer weeds grew, turned to grass, nor since the hurricane.

I arrive with Emilio and Lucas. Vanessa is there with her husband and infant son. A few other parents are there. I walk over with Emilio. I bring garbage bags to pick up the garbage that is scattered all over the school yard. The men are carting large amounts of cement rubble and dried weeds by wheelbarrow to a dump pile in the open field behind the school. We sweep, we throw away all the destroyed books. After a few hours of working in the twilight, the yard starts to look decent again.

The next week Vanessa informs the other parents that we will be painting and some of them show up that day. I have bought yellow for the inside of the school. The room is quite narrow, but big enough for this group of 4-10 kids (at any time the amount changes.) It was built to be the bodega of the school but the kids have been using it for their classroom. We paint the outside wall: blue for sky,  green for grass, and brown for earth. The mural will be added in parts over the following weeks.

The following week week I ask the kids to choose if they will paint a flower, cactus or tree. Then I ask them to form the shape of their plant with their body, and I trace an outline in the wall in pencil.

What I have learned from my involvement with the school is how to be flexible. I often don’t know what’s going on, and I have little understanding during the meetings. Vanessa cancels class last minute  when her baby is sick or she has some teacher related meeting she has to attend for her training. I have learned to absorb patience and humor when all else seems out of my hands. One time Vanessa forgot the key to school in her home in La Paz and the kids had to climb through the window for the entire week.

To be continued...

Life as Art Manifesto, First Try

We have faith in love & creativity as the underlying forces of evolution. We are at a crucial moment in time—a crossroads, where humanity is in grave danger. We can allow humanity to self-destruct, allowing the baser aspects of humanity: apathy, greed, violence, addiction, control to win over the elevated parts of humanity: compassion, creativity, passion, connection, joy, kindness or we can make the hard choice to take responsibility for ourselves, as individuals, and see the underlying truth of universal oneness. Within and without. We can start to awaken the truth behind our collectively accepted delusion into the idea that we are separate. From the place of separateness we compete, and create hierarchy and inflict deep suffering on our ourselves and each other.

We have inherited a split and fragmented world that is reflected in a split and fragmented psyche on the individual level. There is a fundamental flaw in the way we approach life, this is learned, and not part of the essence of humanity. The split. We tend to see things as either/or.  We force ourselves to choose, over and over, between self & other, male & female, republican & democrat, east & west, power & love, mind & body. Creating, at every turn, a hierarchy of choice. Instead, we must acknowledge that a balance or overlapping of two opposites is the space where truth resides. The list of splits is infinite in itself. For every truth its oppose is also equally true.  However, true love is whole because it contains everything within it. The opposite of Love is not Hate, but rather, separation. Underlying so much suffering in this world are feelings of fear, loneliness, shame, and inadequacy. This does not have to be so, but it requires great emotional risk to allow ourselves to connect, to belong to each other. This is a process that can  happen only one moment at a time, one relationship at a time.

When 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. We see the two sides of everything, but we do not take sides. We compromise between the two. We balance. We soften our hearts to allow for both. We acknowledge the ego, we can even love the ego, but we do not let it rule. We see it is as the smaller or unique self that plays an important role—it becomes a mirror for the universal spirit. A celebratory expression of god. The unique individual is soul’s expression of spirit, if we can allow its whole truth to shine forth, with out judgment. Judgment, used here, refers to value. Non judgment acknowledges that all experience is subjective, and therefore, no experience is intrinsically more valuable than another. Any experience is fodder for our art, and through art, we create our life. Through our life we create our art. This is the language of the soul that must be included, woven into our culture. We do not choose rationality over emotion, but rather, we allow them to co-exist, honoring their dual greatness and necessity for living. Even hate or violence—if it exists, we acknowledge it—we do not turn away from it—as then it would surely try to make itself known in a far more dangerous way. We learn to express hatred and violence instead symbolically—through storytelling, or games, or any art form or our choosing. This is how it is done in traditional cultures—the shadow is integrated into the rituals and rites, instead of being acting out unconsciously.

Living life as art, we celebrate the all of life through ritual, storytelling, & artmaking of all kinds. We acknowledge both our darkness and our light and locate ourselves at the center. We create space and silence for our creativity. We know ourselves, and make highest use of ourselves. We reach for our destiny through integrating our past. We exalt the beauty of life as it unfolds. We acknowledge our fears and bravely transmit our hearts.

Last Day of Kindergarten

Tadeo, Itzel, Jocelyn, Vanessa (La Maestra), Emilio, Marcito, Haide, Maria Jose, Antonio, Angel y Gralya in front of the mural project I did with the kids all year. Vanessa and I finished the mural the day after and added their names.

Yesterday 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. From the Freudian point of view, he is moving from the Oedipal phase that is marked by intense emotions, especially towards the parents, and a focus on the phallus (Freud was male centric) and into the Latency phase, which is more social, connected to the world of friends and people away from home which lasts until puberty. This new phase is the one I have least experience with as a teacher, a therapist, and a nanny. As with the end of every phase of parenting, I have mixed emotions. At first, when the realization hits me, I have a profound sense of loss where I cry cathartically for an hour, then I quickly recover, and feel a new sense of freedom and excitement about the unknown next phase.

I think for Emilio, who hasn't developed nostalgia yet, the day had less significance. Though he will be participating in a graduation ceremony in a few weeks, which is quite exciting due to its promise of sweet and a performance by the kids. Vanessa, the teacher, had requested that all the kids wear their uniforms the second to last day of school so we could take photos of the kids. The kids were supposed to wear their uniforms everyday. But as the year wore on, us parents stopped bothering to put their uniforms on the kids. Seeing them in their uniforms again, reminded me of the first day of school. Emilio had a great year in Kindergarten, and made great progress with his Spanish. He had extra help from our Peruvian neighbor and friend, Silvia, who is a very animated and fun teacher. She and I also do Spanish & English conversation once a week.

In Mexico, the Jardin de Niños includes both preschool and kindergarten, 3-5. At 6 the kids start primaria. In September, Emilio will be going to the primary school in Elias Calles, which shares the school yard with kindergarten. It is a two room school house--the kids, age 6-12 are split into two classrooms, taught be two teachers.

I started shooting photos of the kids in their uniforms, but then I realized Angel was missing. He is considered the rough kid, but I have a very special place in my heart for him. He has an artist's eye. I found Angel hiding in this tree. He was trying to avoid being in the photo, because he was the only kid with out a uniform. I pleaded with him to join the photo, but he was ashamed. Marcito's grandmother put a white playera on him, while he wiped the tears from his eyes. It was heartbreaking. But he did make into the photo. There he is below: second row, far right. Emilio is far left.

Gralya, first row, far left, didn't want to be in the photo either. But I have no idea why--she is pouting and separate for the photo on the top of this post, but now she is in the photo, but still pouting. She will be graduating along with Emilio.

Marcito and Itzel. Marcito will be graduating, but Itzel has two more years.

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The spirit of Anaïs Nin lives through me

Okay, I know that's a big claim, which is not even possible given the fact that I was three when she died at the age of 70. But, every time I read her diaries or transcriptions of her talks, I feel like her words are flowing out of my own mind and heart.

Here are some of my favorite excerpts from her not very well known (not as well as it should be known) book A Woman Speaks: The Lectures, Seminars and Interviews of Anaïs Nin from 1975.

"Woman has been driven the other way—not to compete and not to win because winning would mean that she was stronger than her children or stronger than her brothers. And often she doesn’t want to overshadow or outdistance her husband—or she doesn’t want to overshadow her boss.

There is always that feeling which keeps her from growing. The feeling that if she grows she is going to impede someone else’ growth and that her concern should be not to take too much space and not expand… So woman carries many, many burdens. One is this going backward instead of forward into self-expansion and also erroneously considering this self-expansion to be aggressiveness. This word has always been used to discourage and disparage women who had a thrust toward growing.

It is made very clear to woman that her first and primary duty is to her personal life—whether it be to the husband, or children, or family, or parents. That is the primary thing. This is supposed to be her role in life. Now if a woman has really accepted that, then if she transgresses she has more guilt than man. …. Yet woman gains something from this great emphasis on the personal life. She gains a very great humanism, which is the consideration of human beings as persons. Man. Woman never lost sight of that personal life, and now something which started as a handicap, today I consider a quality which woman can then carry into her wider interests. But she has to retain this sense of the personal, because from that comes her sense of humanity.

The women who transgressed and managed to overcome these taboos were not really exceptional women at all. They were stubborn. And I can testify to that because I too started with all the handicaps, incapabilities, and helplessness. I was not trying to earn my living, I was afraid of the world, I didn’t talk when I was twenty. I taught myself (I know you won’t believe that): I taught myself to talk by the actual act of writing. I learned to communicate with others, and it was the fact of the diaries coming out which made me able to communicate with you.

…. So I find these lives inspiring, and they’ve always led me on and on to what I can call stubborn sense of adventure against difficulties, to consider difficulties only as a challenge to your wits and to your strength. What I am trying to say is that we are not exceptional in our beginnings, we are only exceptional in our stubbornness, in this thrust towards growth which is almost a natural state. There are obstacles, but our intelligence and our awareness enable us to recognize and confront them.

I’m talking about liberation in inner terms. I’m not talking about this freedom that you can get by going out and challenging the abortion laws. I’m not talking about the things that you can do to protest wars. I’m talking about the necessity for inner change, the necessity of considering that sometimes the obstacle is not necessarily the man but an obstacle in ourselves created by the childhood, sometimes an obstacle created by the family, sometimes by our own lack of faith in ourselves."

 

Lego Photo Essay

Emilio went through a phase (age 4-5) where we was in love with Legos. Especially Star Wars Legos. He would make ever more complex pieces, spending hours making them just to his liking. He would save them for a few days, and then destroy them happily. I am obsessive about photographing life. Sometimes it's a way of making contact with the world. Sometimes it's about accepting what is. And sometimes it's a way of keeping what is so meant to be transitory. I have hundreds of photos of Emilio's wonderful Lego creations, as well as some of mine and Lucas'.

Here is a series from a particularly elaborate creation of Emilio's. I lent him my camera (Canon G12), and he took a few photos himself. I can't seem to find those photos right now, but I will post them here when I find them. The photos below are special because I took them with Lucas' Fuji 100S, which has such a great look.

Egg Confetti Bombs

So here is the project that I referred to in yesterday's blog post. After we made up from our fight, he gave me unhindered access to taking photos. We got from this from a book of 365 projects to do with kids, which is also illustrated by kids.

Ingredients:

1. confetti (I just happened to have a bag of confetti that I had bought at a thrift store in La Paz)
2. eggs
3. push pin of nail scissors
4. crayons or oil pastels

Make a hole in either side of the egg with the pin. Blow the insides of the egg into a bowl. Make the hole larger by circling your push pin. Decorate your egg with your crayon. Fill the larger hole with confetti, and then tape it closed. Wait for your target to show up, and surprise them by smashing the egg on top his head. We made three eggs. In this case, Emilio and I were each others' targets. Emilio saved the third egg for his father who will be returning from a three day trip to the US.

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