Start From Where You Are For Blogging and Art Journaling

It's the best advice I can give anyone looking to explore their creativity, find truth, or get started on a project that feels daunting.  For this advice, I am thinking of the bloggers and art journalers who have joined me on this month-long challenge to blog or art journal every day. I am thinking of my commitment to this practice, and the inspiration that I want to offer people.

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That which is all of you

Let’s assume for a moment that you do have gifts. That you possess something so unique and so beautiful that no one can touch it. No one can reproduce it or steal it. It belongs only to you and will be with you through this lifetime and possibly into the next.

And if you trusted and had faith in your gifts, you would know how to nurture and protect them as if they were your children.

And then what?

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Art Journal Lab: Soul Searching

The basic idea of the book, which has radically altered how I see my life and my relationship to its events, is: each person has a unique soul, which is invisible to us for most of our life, but as we pay more attention to our life and its history, we start to see signs, symbols, memories that point the way to our soul's code which expresses who we were meant to be. The soul is an acorn--containing all of our unique potentialities from before the beginning of life.

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when i grow up

I have found that rock-n-roll is an expression that suits me, as it is about rebellion and carving out one's place in the world that didn’t exist before. True rockers are pioneers—wrestling with opposites: masculine and feminine, love and power, despair and celebration, creating space in the world with force, with a sound that is at once familiar and brand new. Rock-n-roll may not be for everyone, but it’s most definitely for me.

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Last night was like coming out.

Last night, at La Esquina, I sang & played 19 of my original songs and 2 Bob Dylan covers, in two sets. The first set with an acoustic guitar (plugged in) and the second with an electric guitar (really plugged in.) With his hands, Lucas played the bass, and with his foot, played the bass drum. Or in the second set, he played the drums with his right hand, and bass lines on the synthesizer with his left hand. 2 for 4. Dos por Cuatro. Four instruments for two people.  If you count voice as an instrument.

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Time to Rock!

These photos were taken when I was pregnant with Mio, seven years ago, six months after we moved to Baja. We were camping out in Elias Calles, and one day we got a little dolled up and drove into Todos Santos to watch the Oscars at Buena Vida (my favorite pizza place that is now closed.) I put my camera on the dashboard for this series. We will be making this same drive in a few weeks to perform our first gig at La Esquina, my favorite venue! This is a moment I have been dreaming about for a long time.

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The Story of Inside/Outside Ping Continues

Ping used to be a city dog, and so was I. He went on regular walks on hard side walks—sniffing the other dogs’ messages. He was cooped up all day in our apartment, and tried to escape every chance he got, and succeeded several times, creating heart-pounding adventures for us, and for him. Once, he was able to sneak into our upstairs’ neighbor’s apartment and finish their left over chocolate birthday cake, another time he ran across the street, a main highway in Oakland with very fast cars and ended up in trapped in someone’s backyard.

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