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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Parenting Breakthrough

Being a parent has its ups and downs, just like everything. Sometimes, I feel amazed by the brilliance of my son. I sit in awe of his exuberance, his strength, or his ability to name his emotions, as I secretly allow myself to a little bit of credit. Other times, I find my son's rowdy energy to be annoying and disrespectful, triggering the hurt little girl inside who felt disrespected and attacked by the group of boys (including my brother, my cousin, and family friends) I spent time with as a child. I recognize that, with parenting, just like everything else, the areas we struggle with the most are opportunities for healing, growth and transformation. In other words, parenting kicks my ass and Emilio is my greatest teacher.

This thought occurred to me yesterday, during a particularly trying day. My husband and I have designated two days a week to be "Mommy Days": days that I stay at home to take care of the house, and spend time with Emilio. These days are also often the days where I am in the flow of my inner life--I am often deeply called to write, to draw or play music. On those days I feel pulled in three directions: between house work, time with Emilio and time spent with my rich inner life. My hope is that blogging will be a way to tie all of them together. But it isn't easy. 

Yesterday I found myself giving up on the overwhelming pile of house work and just pulled just in two directions. What I just noticed is that every single thing that I love to do is just exactly the thing that Emilio has no tolerance for. I am in the house with Emilio, he is deep in imaginative play with a guitar capo that he has turned into a character with a funny voice, and I suddenly have a brilliant thought that I must write down immediately before I forget. Just as I sit down at my computer, Emilio appears before me struggling to climb into my lap, trying to block my keyboard by pressing random buttons. Or Emilio is outside banging a broken piece of cement with a shovel, and then I grab the ukelele and practice my new song, and after a few strums, he is suddenly inside the house, glaring at me with his angry face, saying: "no!" Or later on, when we do a project together involving fun things like blowing out the insides of eggs and decorating them, I get inspired to do a blog post, and start taking rapid fire photos of the process. He blocks the object I am trying to take a photo of, and I get angry and storm off like a little child. We make up, but I realize that he doesn't want to let me do anything that fills me, only what fills him. On some days I have an easier time accepting this reality of parenting, that we are to prioritize the needs of ours child over ours. Not always, but often. But on this day, I feel more resistant to this idea. I am tired and I have ideas that need to be expressed. I want to create. I want to daydream. We are at a standstill. Later, I come up with a compromise. I want to read for 20 minutes, while he plays. After that, I promise I will play with him. I set a timer, and get back into reading Not That Kind of Girl (for the second time). He plays by himself, but very near to me. We are both lying on what we call "the couch" (which is really a narrow cushion from an old camper we no longer own that we keep on the floor.) It's barely big enough for the both of us. When the timer goes off, Emilio is outside playing and he doesn't hear it. I don't say anything and keep reading. Eventually he comes in and I bring up that it's time to play. I don't remember how exactly it happens, but suddenly we are in a live game show and I am speaking in a loud, showy voice with a very bad English accent, and I am announcing Emilio as the contestant that will be sharing his experiments with the live audience. I respond to everything he says or does with an over the top reflection of how amazing he is, repeating his full name and imploring "the audience" to give a rowdy round of applause. It turns out to be a sort of interview--about his work in his laboratory in Elias Calles, and how he is going to share his experiments with world. This process draws him out. He is beaming. He plays along. He starts to take on the same bad English accent. The next trick of the show is him sharing his best Kung Fu moves. "The audience" and I gasp in amazement. This acted out play goes on for a half hour or so, and after a while I start to lose steam. I tell him I need to pee and take a break. He wants it to continue. "Mommy, do that voice." "I need to rest. I'll do some more later."

That voice--that's the actress me. The trained improvisor. The performer. The kid who loves to play. It's also fed by the wounded healer. The part of me that instinctively knows what the soul needs to heal. This isn't his healing, it's mine. My healing needs co-mingling with his immediate needs for play and attention. I am giving my child the very reflection that I so deeply needed as a child. I wanted desperately to be drawn out. This is my gift for others. So it turns out there are some art forms and desires that Emilio will allow me to do, but the trick is not going off into a corner and doing them by myself. The trick is to draw him into the arena with me. To reflect not just him and his shiny self, but to include my own. And in this way, we build relationship. And this is the lesson I am re-learning, ever deepening into. Parenthood is about relationship. Self and Other. This is the model we want to give our children: compromise--by acknowledging both self and others needs. Modeling is one important way that kids learn. The other is play.

Spring Family Drawing

We started doing "family drawings" three years ago. The idea for them started when I was drawing on art cards that Emilio started drawing on with me. There was something about the process of collaborating with Emilio's untrained, organic marks with my somewhat tighter, design-y style that worked for me. It was a revelatory moment. I suddenly felt that anything I drew that had Mio's mark on it was better, more interesting. The contrast between our styles fascinated me. It was also an experience in letting go of ego. Every mark he made that I didn't like, I had to either accept for its own truth & beauty, or find a way to make it more interesting by connecting to it, or by highlighting it. The only rule is you are not allowed to draw on top of what someone else drew with out permission. These little cards soon led to bigger work. And then Lucas started joining us. We would put a large sheet of paper on the dining room table, and each of us sitting in our normal place for meals, we would each draw in one section, working sometimes for a few hours (some of us would take breaks and then return.) Family Drawings have now become one of our trademarks, and I have done this process with my students, other family members or guests who come over for dinner.

The drawing above was done on Easter Sunday. Its resemblance to Easter-y type themes is purely coincidental, or rather, unconsciously synchronistic. It's my favorite one to date.

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Learning to make art is about tuning ourselves to the divine

My therapist once asked me:

"how does the creative spirit work? can you draw a picture of that?"

Above is what I drew, and below is what I wrote a few days later.

We just need to hone and sharpen the instrument through lots and lots of practice, and then get the fuck out of the way. Let the creative spirit pass through. Work in service of the spirit. Have faith that you will be rewarded with its gifts in time, but not according to a pre-designed plan. Enjoy every moment of the service, the labor. Put your full self in. Include the shit. Become a scientist in your devotion to your learning. And also a beginner. Be smart and aware. Don’t take anything for granted.  Let everything count. Take notes. Share what you are doing. And then  keep going. The moment you stop to think about 'the others' is the moment ego comes in and ruins everything. You start projecting yourself into the future, forgetting that the only clue to the future is in the present moment. So get back to work and look inward. Record everything. Ask the hard questions. Don’t rush to answer them. Then get back to work again. If there’s a block, look for another place of flow. Don’t stop, unless you are resting and taking silence or playing or being with others. Don’t stop because the wrong voice inside told you to. Never stop because of that. Stop only because you’ve had enough for the moment. Because you need a break. Have faith  that the creative spirit is always there, inside & outside of you, at anytime. All you need is to drop into the senses. Drop into receptivity. Drop into presence. And you will find all you need. There is never a wrong time to start, or a wrong reason. Just start. If you don’t know what you are doing, fake it. Smile and look in the mirror. Open up the last work you did. Take a walk. Write your future self’s resume and then give yourself the job right now. Don’t think you’re too good or not good enough because whatever you are at this very moment is all you need. Let go of fitting-in and dance in your living room, or look at clouds. This is the best advice you’ll ever get, so you should take it now, take it in slow like it’s the last of your life, and you will remember what you need to remember.

Imagine, for a moment, you believe, to your very core, that who you are, right now, does not need to be improved upon, tweaked, fixed or changed in any way, that you already have and are everything you need.

What would your life be like?

Okay, go ahead and live that life. Fake it till you make it.

Naughty Geckos

Last week was very busy and I spent almost no time at home. And now I feel like I never want to go out again. But I am sure that feeling will change on Monday. I am re-reading Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham. I have lots to say about it, and her, but I am not in the mood right now.

Instead, I will share this photo I took of two geckos I caught doing it (my favorite euphemism for sex, coming straight out of memory from the 4th grade) in the middle of the night. The lovers were on the wall next to my desk and 1970's desk lamp. The next time I hear them laughing, I am going to think of them differently. Sex is so universal even its particulars across categories of sentient beings: even with the smallest creatures, when you catch site of them in the act, there is never any doubt about what they are doing. Sex is always sex. In a way.

Recording "Rock-n-Roll Thing," First Try

Okay, it's time to return to my first blog post of the month, where I listed subjects of blog posts that I would write if I didn't care what people thought. One of the items on that list was sharing my music (and bragging about it.) This is one the most vulnerable of things for me to share, and yet, I know it's time. I have been pouring my creative energy into writing songs, singing, playing guitar and (more recently) ukelele every day for the past two years. I am ready to take the plunge, and share my songs and the process of making music.

This is the summer that we record my newest songs. I have 10-20 songs never recorded and most of them never performed in public. I don't know what you will think of them, but I love them.

Lucas and I have had a living room band, called Garafön for ten years. Lucas is an amazing multi-instrumentalist. For Garafön, he  plays drums, bass and sometimes writes catchy & beautiful unfinished rock/pop songs. He also plays: piano, guitar, accordion & penny whistle. We will be doing the recordings together on Garageband. The last time I recorded (in a real multi-track way) any music was 2003, in NYC, with my all-lady band, Social Service.

I am going to share with you one of my most recent songs, which Lucas and I performed for the first (and only time) at Mariposa Night in February. Mariposa Night is a community multi-arts performance and guerrilla gallery event I launched earlier this year through Art For Life, my community arts organization & business in Southern Baja.

The title for the song was inspired by Emilio, who told me he was a rock-n-roll thing way back when he was 3. He's almost 6 now. His latest favorite song is: Ring of Fire. The kid has taste. We listened to it together this morning in the car.

This was our first recording of Rock-n-Roll Thing. Just a test. A first draft to check the sound. We will be re-recording it very soon and adding more instrumentation. I would like to speed up the tempo, and the vocal performance could be better. I am sharing this with you to show the process of making music.

Here goes:

(inspired by the gift)

The poets of past knew something worth knowing.

To value that which is invisible to the eye and to listen
with the open throats of baby birds.

There are secrets written
That hold truths unwritten
That live already inside.

We have unlearned listening
Because our minds are borrowed by
Our technology.

Free your mind to what is already here,
What you already sense.
The smallest voice
tickling
your smallest ears.

These secrets feel like dead language at first.
Foreign to the point of obsolete. But look again.
Take some time to open slowly,
like a morning flower.
Hold all calls.
Suspend all will.
It will do you no good here.

Let the words revolve around the brain spiral
getting closer and closer
the central heart
that beats in rhythm with the poets and the saints,
the givers of gifts,
that spoke of a kind of knowing.

We think religion is bad.
Religion is not bad
And it’s not good either.

It is time to design your own--
To value nothing is to be ungrateful.
Find your value. Your values. Unearth them from rocks.
Dig them out from ant hills.
Look for them in the sky. Touch them on your skin.

Create them out of the compost of the living.

Use what you have and then go make more.

Give what you have and you will be empty/full.

Knowledge of God does not help you here.

What helps is
what your toes are already touching. Let the floor’s voice speak to you

And in this tiny listening
A revolution will occur
In the part you least expect.

A List of Inspiring Documentaries

Last year I joined a new web platform about the nature of work in our evolving culture called Somewhere that combines what is best about Facebook and Linked In, and leaves out what is worst. What's nice is they offer what they call Provocations or Sparks that ask interesting questions about how you work. Today's question was: "What are some documentaries that have inspired you?". I was excited to share my list, because this is a list I am always working on. In fact, all I ever watch is inspiring documentaries, or Girls, or the new show I just happily discovered: Inside Amy Schumer based on the non-apologetic, raucous and sex-oriented comedy of Amy Schumer.

Each of these films was very inspiring to me in a specific way. They opened my eyes to fresh ideas, awakened my own artistic voice, or showed me a fresh spiritual perspective.

Here is my list of my Inspiring Documentaries:

ABOUT ART

1. Marina Abromovich: The Artist is Present by Matthew Akers & Jeff Dupre
2. Born into Brothels by Zana Briski & Ross Kauffman

3. Mistaken For Strangers by Tom Berninger

4. AiWeiWei: Never Sorry by Alison Klayman

5. Stories We Tell by Sarah Polley

6. Searching For Sugarman by Malik Bendjelloul

7. Rize by David LaChapelle

ABOUT EVOLUTIONARY CONSCIOUSNESS

1. Connected, An Autobiography about Love, Death & Technology by Tiffany Shlain

2. What the Bleep Do We Know? by William Arntz, Besty Chasse, & Mark Vicente

What documentaries have inspired you?

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.

DANCE LAB

I would like to share a little bit more about my class, Dance Lab. It is my newest Art For Life creation and I am very proud of it. It was born in confluence with the most beautiful yoga/movement/arts space in Todos Santos--Cuatro Vientos. This was a true experience of synergy--a lifetime of various experiences culminating in this class, with the perfect space.

I love leading the class, using a headset microphone for the first time--spouting out a spontaneous mix of poetry, guided meditation and movement suggestions. Teaching this class is one of the greatest joys in my life.

Dance Lab is a 75 minute meditation through stillness, movement, pilates and dance. Through all the levels and modes of Dance Lab—we develop our awareness of all the corners of our experience. Being experts and artists of our most authentic expression. Dance Lab is a chance for you to feel safe to move freely, developing your own body intuition and guidance. You will have the opportunity to rest, play, meditate, move, dance, create all in one class. You will leave feeling energized, and fresh—ready to celebrate the evening with friends, family or in sweet reflective repose.

Dance Lab was designed to create an opportunity for an intensive, personal work out of the body, mind and spirit. It was designed to gradually guide you into a deeper experience of yourself and your own creativity—increasing your range of expressiveness. As the music builds and the heat in your body builds, you integration mind, body and emotion, which ultimately leads you to the spiritual plane of unity within and without. As the sun sets, and the energy comes to a peak, you are returned to an upbeat, connected space of connection with both self and other, ready to welcome the evening with newfound energy, authenticity and joy.

Dance Lab is for those who want to develop their range of expressiveness through dance, or to have an authentic experience of movement and self connection and expression. It is also an incredible full body work out: designed to develop your concentration, mind/emotion/body awareness, loosen all the joints, work out and stretch the major muscle groups—with a special emphasis on the core through pilates exercises.

I have so far created 41 unique playlists since I launched this class on January 7th of this year. I have missed only one class due to illness.

Here is the playlist I created for today (I am proud to say it features music by two of my friends):

Ah, Breath Voices         Silvia Nakkach  
Compass           Habit Trail    Compass   
Unison         Björk    Vespertine  
Joga      Björk    Homogenic 
Consequence  The Notwist
Epliohunk      Ratatat               
Fidelity          Regina Spektor  
We Are the Wild        Holly Mae and the Painted Room    Turns of Phrase         
Nocturnes Op.15 No.2 Fis-Dur       Chopin   
Cherry      Ratatat   
Heads Up         Karen O the Kids   
Big Time Sensuality        Björk     Electronica    
Main Offender          The Hives        
Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)        Beyoncé   
Hips Don't Lie         Shakira ft Wyclef Jean   
Quiet And Small         Looper   
Track 05        The Planet Sleeps 

Zumbathon

For the past five months, twice a week, I have been teaching a dance class of my own creation called Dance Lab. It's been one of the most positive & thrilling experiences of my life. And it's gotten me in really good shape. I created the class based on a variety of influences in my life--my extensive training in acting & improvisation, my dabbling in modern, ballet, tap, swing, salsa dance, my grad training in movement & dance therapy, my longtime practice of pilates, yoga & meditation as well as my deep love for making dance playlists and holding dance parties.

Before I created Dance Lab as a class, I did the same practice in my living room. And before that, I occasionally went to a Zumba class taught by an incredibly vibrant woman in her 60's named Jan. Jan is a powerhouse full of love of dance. I hadn't been to Zumba for a long time because I now have my own practice, but my friend Dominique invited me to join her on Friday for a Mexican Zumbathon at the Eijido Building (a community center) in Todos Santos. When we arrived to the giant space, there were 40 Mexican ladies in spandex leggings and neon tops waiting to dance. And then off in the corner was a group of 4 Gringas, including Jan, and her daughter (also a Zumba teacher) in the same type of outfits. In another corner were 3 Mexican men, wearing matching outfits--all in black. Dominique said she felt like the Sharks were about to fight (or have a dance-off with) the Jets. I laughed in recognition. Then we burst out into song "I want to live in America." But we were the outsiders, living in Mexico.

Finally the music started, and one of the Zumba instructors (pictured right with the Don't Walk Dance T-shirt on) began dancing in the front. She had so much dance pizazz, it was amazing to watch. And then every one followed her moves, everyone, that is, except me. Now here's the  point of my story: although I have always been a dancer of some sort, and am often the first one to get the dance party going, I have never been very good at absorbing dance routines. Trying to figure it out puts me in my head and out of my body. I suddenly can't tell my right foot from my left. It's frustrating. And it's no fun. This is why I created Dance Lab, it's a space where you don't have to learn steps, but instead you can create your own (taking inspiration from particular dance forms, but with out having the pressure of being correct.) Zumba is all about learning steps and moves. I want to love Zumba because I love to dance, and I love to dance with others. But instead, I feel like I am spending all my energy trying to follow the moves instead of dancing and expressing myself.

I was reminded of this once again at the Zumbathon. But this time I tried something different. If the moves were easy to follow, I would follow them. But the moment they got too complex for me to follow, I just did my own dance. And through doing my own dance, I felt my body come alive again. It was inspiring to watch the  six different teachers-- Gringas and Méxicanas & Méxicanos do their moves with such confidence and joy. What I loved most about the  experience is just the feeling of being around a lot of people dancing. The energy is infectious. And there I was, in the back row, sometimes dancing with the crowd, sometimes doing my thing. My very own one-lady Dance Lab.

Cowboy Photoshoot

Last week Mio came into the house out of breath.

Mio: Can I have a special present?

Parents: What for? For what occasion?

Mio: Just because I want one.

Lucas: That's not a very good reason. What if I just asked you for a special present?

Mio: Okay, I would give you one. What do you want?

Lucas: (thinks for a moment) What I really would love is for you to put on the black cowboy hat I got for you at the Segunda (thrift store), jeans and cowboy boots and to let me take pictures of you.

Mio: (who usually resists us when we want to take photos of him) Okay. (And he never even asked for something in return.)

Mio promptly got dressed into his cowboy outfit, and posed very cooperatively for Lucas for twenty minutes. I came out with my camera to get another angle on the momentous occasion. Ping, our dog (who was imported, not by us, from Taiwan) was drawn in to the photo shoot as well, but he forgot his cowdog hat.

3 Dead Dragonflies

One of the benefits of living in a tropical desert, is my daily contact with creatures, especially bugs. I have not only made my piece with most insects, but I have come to see them as objects of endless beauty and inspiration for poems, art & songs.

Las Cosas Favoritas De Mio

One day earlier this year Mio had a home work assignment for kindergarten--to write down a list of his favorite things. This is his list. I was starting to learn hand lettering at the time so I decided to hand letter his list.

THE CASE OF THE KALEIDOSCOPE AND THE PLASTIC JEWEL THIEF

Emilio loves to collect what he calls jewels. His jewels are made of different materials, some are plastic, some are glass or stone, but what they all have in common is that they are translucent and brightly colored. One day he noticed that his kaleidoscope contained an enticing assortment of jewels. He then promptly took a hammer and smashed it open so he could steal the jewels. I admit I didn't at all stop him, but watched his quest with amazement and fascination. And then I photographed it on top of our refrigerator (we have a chest fridge. )

Art is there for us to make beauty out of the human experience.

The thing that I have always wanted more than anything, is to be an artist. To make work that is of value to our culture—so that it can show culture what it misses about nature.  I see it as my duty to share the shadow of my particular experience, instinctively knowing that it reflects the experience of others. Maybe not everyone. But at least a few thousand or maybe even millions of others. That is still a very small percentage of people who live on this planet. I can’t move forward through life with out needing to make something out of it—on some mornings I feel anger, and then underneath that, a deep wounding. A feeling of being misunderstood, small, as if I am turning into dust. And then a need to turn that feeling into something beautiful, something that suggests the mystery of its wholeness—its beauty and struggle. A poem, perhaps. A song. On some days I want to propel myself into the spotlight—letting a certain rowdy energy flow through me in the form of song, rock-n-roll abandon. A voice that carries with it the repressed rebellion of my teenage years mixed with rage for growing up female, and almost never feeling seen for all that I really am. Sometimes the scientist shows up, and wants to explain away this feeling—to understand it and put it in its proper context, to measure it. To find a solution. Sometimes I want to track something until it becomes just another aspect of nature’s design.

Sometimes, I want to sit in a deep and fulfilled silence. Opening up to the sensual information that permeates my entire body. I want to let this happen, while images-- me lying face up in the a sea that is filled with the disintegrated words and thoughts in my head. This too, is art. I am coming to see that all experience of humanity is art when we open our eyes just a little bit wider, and we let wonder back in. When we let the child’s eyes, and the woman's instincts, and the man’s power, when we let all of our experience back into our awareness, we are moving into life as art. When we make choices about our awareness—what we want to put our attention on in any given moment, we are living life as art. When we soften into, even just for a moment, the inexpressible longing that emanates from our heart. This too, is art. For when we engage in the soul, as Thomas Moore writes, we are creating ourselves. The transient & elusive material of the soul is unreachable, except by through art. Jung saw this process as alchemy, though he did not think of it as art. I do.

There is anger in me about something. It is the split between art and life. It is the split between artists and non-artists. That art is somehow reserved for the special people in life, and the rest of us, well we just drone through life, asleep. I refuse to accept this piece of culture that we have inherited. I am ready to change culture by magnifying, elevating the beauty of the everyday experience into art. Everything can be art. Who believed this? Andy Warhol. I believe he was very misunderstood.  Many people forgot what a humanist he really was. His message of art was that we are all artists—and that is what he attracted to him—underdog dreamers who wanted their first chance to be elevated. The mistake he made, and they made, was that his ego got in the way, and he didn’t empower his followers. He didn’t tell them that it wasn't his duty to make them a star. It was up to each of them to find the star within themselves. This mistake cost lives, even his own. In religion, it has been the same way, but to a much higher degree of destruction. The greatest artists, just as the greatest spiritual teachers of humanity, knew the secret was in all of us. And yet, our culture cuts us off from seeing that only that special person over there is gifted, and we must worship him in order to be free. That is absolutely incorrect, and I know this with all certainty. The true message of those heroes that we adore, that we feel inclined to worship, was that god is everyone of us. The art that flows out, that is god. The love, that is god. Our essential nature is all the same. The way it looks, and the way we access it, the way we express it—there are a billion ways, a trillion ways. But we are all artists, or can be if we choose, all we have to do is realize that this is so.

Learning about instinct from Björk and Andy Warhol

                     Photo credit unknown

Last night, I watched two documentaries about two fascinating art heroes of mine. Andy Warhol and Björk. They reflect both sides of my artist self— shy, clever, design and dramatic, emotional, performance. Björk is my hero because she is a brilliant artist in everything she does. She is courageous, she is deep, she is alive. She respects her own art intuitively, and she teaches us how this is necessary. She makes use of her own arresting image to talk about her human experience, she does what expressive arts therapy does—she uses the material of her self, her culture, her identity, her experience of humanness, her childlike nature, her masculine & feminine energy to create new territories of culture. She combines, she tears down boundaries, she brings the dream world and the world of reality into an altered third plane that is all her own. To me this what great music does. This is what all great art does—creates something that didn’t quite exist before. It is a feeling of visiting a newly discovered planet, that is also relatable—built out of something recognizable. A planet we have never been to before, except maybe in our dreams.

      Polaroid Self Portrait by Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol did the same thing, in his way. He took a careful, critical, but most importantly, celebratory look at culture, at what culture was in the process of becoming, and created something brand new out of it. He got out ahead. He put up a gigantic mirror. He dared to show us our narcissism, and his own. He made use, too, of his own body, his own wounds, his own childlike nature, his femininity & masculinity, his belief in the beauty of humanity. These are also my goals as an artist, but it seems I am much slower to arrive. Perhaps this is because I am so multi-modal, my development in each form has to be slow. It’s also because I often get stuck in my own self-doubt as an artist. I, too, want to turn everything I do into art. I too, want to make use of my masculinity & femininity & childlike nature. I too, want to break down boundaries—I too want to celebrate humanity. I feel like I haven’t quite stepped fully into my artistic voice & body, but rather than waiting, I am starting to put my voice out there before I am fully ready. This blog is for that purpose—and it is what I believe may be revolutionary about it—to expose my process, the messy process of becoming myself. To highlight my process of transformation (which happens over and over again) in the hopes that I might help illuminate your path for yourself.

I don’t believe I have all the answers, I am just willing to share my questions and my quest. I have some answers, or rather, I am in development with some answers, and those I am also willing to share—particularly in my labs and in my counseling/coaching sessions. We already have so many voices on the internet who tell us that they have the answers, the secret to humanity. (Nearly everyday I listen to inspiring TED talks, or master storytellers.) My intention is to reveal the process of getting there. (As if the process ever ends. I don't believe it does.)  My intention is to expose my failures as exciting lessons. To reveal my emotions, so that it makes it safer for you to feel yours. My goal is to keep myself inspired, and in turn, keep you inspired. I want to inspire you to never give up on your dreams, to never give up on you becoming your whole self.

The word that emerged in both documentaries, but particularly from the one about Björk, was instinct. This word is not a word I use often, but now it has come happily, fully to my attention. There are a few nuanced definitions of the word, but Bjork used it in this sense: “a natural or intuitive way of acting or thinking.” (Oxford) She said that her goal in her art is to return us to our instincts. She uses her own instincts, which are highly developed because since she has been an artist since she was a young child. She has never stopped being an artist. I think this is why her art is so magical, so unreal—she trusts that her instincts will take her where she needs to go. This is the expressive arts ethos as well—we move into a deeper well of our experience in order to express the non-linear, less conscious part of our human experience. Andy Warhol used his very-well developed instincts too—his art reflects the instinctual human response to mass culture, to advanced capitalist culture. What it turns us into.

Lately, I have  a similar way of looking at the purpose of art, but the word I have been using is nature. My goal being: to help human culture be more connected to nature. The nature that is already within us. Both our humanity and our animality. I am now seeing that instincts are the function of our human experience that allows us to connect to our nature. What I am also seeing now, for myself, is that it’s not enough just to have instincts, its about trusting those instincts. It’s about not doubting ourselves.  The only way we can do this is to stop being self-conscious, which is to stop wondering what other people will think. To not let our projections of others' perceptions be a factor in how we move our raw material into the art space. How we shape our personal response to our unique experience. This is, by far, the greatest thing that holds me back as an artist, and I know that I am not alone. But how do we do this? How do we let go of our fear of judgment by others? How do we stop worrying about how our art will be received?

There is no simple solution, or rather, there are many solutions, and this is the question that guides how I set up my classroom laboratories: how do I create a context that helps people be free to open up to their vast creativity? One thing comes to mind: it’s about where we put our attention. If we put our attention on our experience, we are self-aware. When we put our attention on others' experience of us, we are self-conscious. If we stay focused on what we are doing, and what we are trying to express, then we won’t be thinking as much about how it will be received. Getting deeply into the work is what evaporates self-consciousness. It isn’t easy to do. I struggle with it every day. But I also work on solutions. Quitting Facebook was one of my solutions. So is writing this blog everyday. Meditating is another.

What are some of your solutions?

Another way that a storm is like a dinner party

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
    translation by Coleman Barks

It turns out that the storm was not destructive, nothing like Odile. Also, we were more ready than we've ever been. We cleaned the entire house and yard, but with less fear and urgency than usual. Believe it or not, we are starting to get used to hurricanes. And we need to get used to them, as hurricane season has arrived two months early this year. As we prepared for the day, both Lucas and I had the same thought, independently--that getting ready for the storm was like getting ready for a dinner party. It forces you to clean up. All the same things had to be done. When you are off the grid--there's quite a lot to be done. Treating the storm in this way, with acceptance, and respect, almost an invitation, felt right. And it reminded me of one of my favorite Rumi poems that I return to over and over. As, this attitude towards life, not only towards storms, but to our own emotions, helps us to soften in the face of difficulty. We are more prepared, more ready to take on the challenge. We become heroes, facing the impending tumult with strength, but also welcoming.