Twas the Day After Christmas . . .

Twas the day after Christmas and to my surprise

was one of the best since I opened my eyes,

and looked at the folly surrounding this day,

and said, “No more! I refuse to play!”

I refuse to buy into more presents is good,

and treating this day like a holy mom should.

If you’re not a Christian or here to consume

then what, may I ask, can Christmas presume?

The 25th of December’s already a feature

in the U.S of A--deal with the creature!

The day’s set aside by every and all

why not feast, and have fun, and stay out of the mall?

My little gaggle of kids I call kin

came over to eat, play a game and drink gin.

We had each drawn a name and on limited cash

replaced the mountainous under-tree stash.

With only one person this day to consider

the gifting creative, and much reduced litter.

All and all it was merry with so little stress,

and this morning I woke up, and guess what? No mess!

I now look at Christmas with differing eyes,

like Thanksgiving, I love it! what a surprise.

Instead of anticipating drudgery, and shopping

next Christmas I’ll smile while hanging the stockings!

A Christmas Story--NOT Currier & Ives

One little slip. If it’s just the right little slip, that’s all it takes to bring your world crashing down around you. It could be that little package from a friend filled with peppermint bark that you put under your Andy Warholesque Christmas tree. Looks cute, harmless, a meager attempt to inject some ‘normality’ into anything but a normal end to an extraordinarily abnormal year. Take the Christmas tree for example.

I just couldn’t do it this year. I couldn’t pull out the tree, put it all together while remembering tramping through the woods with excited children in tow to pick out just the right tree, the one that was always at the very end of the acreage . . . It’s like the ripe fruit at the very end of the limb that I usually find myself going for in all corners of life. Added to that, it was always raining. By the time we found the tree, we were soaked and chilled--that was part of the adventure. With frozen cold fingers we sawed it down, hauled it back to our old air-cooled VW van and hoped that just this one time, real heat would come out of the vents. Once home it had to be fit into the stand and screwed in just right, and lights went on and then the ornaments. In between the fighting and screaming about who got to hung the sacred birds we’d have cookies and hot chocolate. Before this sounds so homey and sweet we’d better go to the birds.

Some relative of mine sent us a pack of artificially colored feathered birds when the kids were tiny small. For some unknown reason these birds took on a larger than life proportion and it was a sacred ritual to ‘hang’ them on the tree. Eager hands tore into the box of ornaments digging around for them. The birds were cherry red, brown & white, yellow-gold, and something that looked like a big white chicken--I think it was supposed to be a dove. It didn’t take many years before eyeballs fell off or drifted down the feathers as they went on and off the tree with regularity over the weeks they were out of their box to come alive for the season. They were always the favorite and just getting them on the tree without major battles and scratching and screaming took a lot of finessing with cookies on my part.

The tree took at least one whole day. Now, many years later, I succumbed to a tree in a box. I miss the smell and I don’t miss the tramping through the mud, or do I? It made sense then, and it doesn’t now. I texted my kids not long ago and said, “I’ll put the tree up if one or all come over and help.” It’s the 23rd and no takers-they’re all busy with their grown-up lives. What to do? I’ve had such a nakedly interesting year that doing without a tree felt like one more act of violence on my already shaken core . . . And, doing the tree felt completely incongruous--who was I kidding? Clearly another alternative was in order. It was then that I thought of ‘her.’

I haven’t actually given ‘her’ a name, but she has a personality. She is a wire frame curvy female form coatrack from IKEA. I got her years ago when I opened my art studio and over the years she has taken on a life of her own much in the same way as those singular birds. I have clothed her in many varying styles. At one point she resembled Charlie Chaplin with a black bowler hat, bow-tie, and a length of elegantly draped sheer black fabric. One summer she wore the tiniest bikini known to man with sunglasses hanging precariously on the wooden knob atop her wire neck that serves as her head. Recently, she wore the combination of black feather boa and a long string of plastic white pearls tossed over and around her feathers. I think she’s my alter ego who goes about wearing outrageous, scanty feathers without embarrassment. I never used her as a coatrack.

The idea dawned effortlessly like one of those helium balloons that get away from the bouquet you’re picking up at the grocery store for your friends surprise birthday party and floats on into the clear blue sky . . . Why couldn’t she be my Christmas tree? This was brilliant, perfect as a matter of fact! This I could get excited about and did. I had so much fun draping her in brightly colored lights in and between red and black netting with the signature feather boa and those marvelous white plastic pearls. She has the old Santa hat on her head that is in the same condition as the birds, and a plastic pink flamingo body without legs perched on her shoulder. I wound an unruly coil of rope lights around her base looking like a model of a hydrogen molecule. They give off an unearthly cool light that gives the impression she might just jet out of the room at any moment. She is awesome. Not only is she the perfect Christmas tree this year, she is my goddess divine! To this goddess I have made some offerings . . . one being a sweetly wrapped little package from my friend.

This is where our story began . . . that one little slip-remember? It was a box of peppermint bark . . . homemade, chocolate peppermint bark my friend had given me. It was actually a ticking bomb in disguise, all wrapped up in pretty paper. I was gone last evening to an event at my almost former studio. The soon to be new tenants were giving a presentation on the new vision for the space. I admit that I felt a bit awkward, even though I heartily support the vision of turning this large old warehouse loft into an urban longhouse. I sat and listened to the speculative future while remembering all the ways in which I have grown and developed as an artist in the many years that I have had my studio in the back corner among the old growth timbers and high ceilings of this 100 year old building. Many dreams and memories floated through the room like ghostly visitations coming to honor the past and usher in a time of change . . . Odd sensations and another chance to inhabit being at peace with, and in the face of the transience of life.

I was a bit solemn and tired when I got home and my dog was anything but that. I normally get an energized greeting from her when I’ve been away any longer than 15 minutes and this was exceptional. She simply wouldn’t calm down . . . what was up? Under the goddess divine that sweet little package chock full of chocolate lay torn apart and empty. Time to act.

The following hours involved emergency dog care. Chocolate can be poisonous to dogs with a range from mild discomfort to death, it’s doggie Russian roulette. I wasn’t taking any chances. I called the emergency vet and dosed her with hydrogen peroxide until she vomited and then with activated charcoal to absorb anything that didn’t come out when she hurled. I have to just say that I’ve never seen the full contents of a dog’s stomach and was amazed at the sheer quantity and the smell . . . lovely sweet peppermint and chocolate. Bizarre. After all the dosing and cleaning up the brown swamp on the floor and drops of liquid charcoal with the nasty similarity to India ink that she flung all around the room we were both exhausted. While this is to be expected in me, it’s an unusual state for a border collie on any day or occasion. The good news--this morning she’s back to her perky self. I’m relieved, and grateful, although not as perky, and noticing something else . . .

When I saw the empty package on the floor under my Christmas goddess I felt something rising in me like the resurrection of an ancient warrioress queen. It was like I morphed into giant sized proportion and looked 09 in the face . . . “This is NOT going to happen, get that? You are not getting her! You’ve had your way with me this year and gobbled up my livelihood, my savings, my studio, my friend, my Scottie, my partnership, my website, my ability to produce my calendar . . . You’ve broken my bones and did all you could to break me, and hear this--You are NOT gobbling up this dog!” It may sound crazy, but in that moment I felt that I was in a face-off with a year of loss, and I was going to win this round.

I haven’t felt this kind of energy but a few times in my life . . . Once when a doctor gave me an unacceptable diagnosis for one of my children . . . Another when I challenged my entire family by refusing to attend the funeral of my father . . . And another still when I stood up for my life feeling trapped in a relationship where I had all but resigned myself to death. In each of these cases I’ll never know what was truly at stake and what shifted the outcome. The daughter who was never going to walk runs like a gazelle. The hands of the one that threatened to strike me and keep me under control are now crippled up and withering while mine are strong and able. The life I almost surrendered in depression and despair has known healing and connection to my true self. What shifted the balance? Was it the inevitability of fate? Did I make a difference? I don’t know.

I do know that all along, every day there are moments when the road splits in front of me and I make choices. Often the options are confusing and frequently aren’t easy . . . And there are exceptional moments, when all the choices of the past seem to come along and gather round like eager spectators waiting to see what she’ll do . . . Will she learn from all that has gone by? Will she fall into old patterns? Will she be courageous or cowardly? I have felt these spectators breathing down my neck, and perhaps they do so to breath into me the energy willing me into the next step. Perhaps they come and stand with me, before the tide of loss after loss, and urge me forward to take up whatever strength I have left and scream, “ENOUGH!”

Last night it was enough. It was enough time, enough care, enough inherent health, and enough good fortune to reverse the potential damage by one little slip, one momentary lapse of consciousness. That’s all I really know this morning as my sweet little pal lies pressed up against my legs all furry and expectant of a good long walk ahead . . . That, and a new respect for myself. At this very moment I’m looking at my Christmas goddess divine and oddly enough . . . I see my own reflection . . .

That’s what this artist is thinking about today . . .

The Solstice & New Beginnings

Yesterday was the winter solstice. At 9:30 AM I stood on the bank of the north fork of the Nooksack River and threw Kip’s ashes into the raging waters. The river was high, water catapulting over logs and boulders like rockets launched into space--wild, raw, powerful energy. She's been gone for three years. It was time for me to release her, and this was a perfect place for her last remains. She was a high-spirited dog with a wild, raw, powerful energy . . . Kip and the river, a match. There was a match for me as well, releasing behavioral patterning and unworthiness that has invited a life-long struggle with dominance and aggression.

I held the cold, silty, sandy, gray ash that once was her. I let her go into the river, and washed the powdery residue from my skin in the icy waters. I watched as the ash swirled, clouded the water and then became absorbed and unrecognizable. It is finished, over. Standing there in the cold moist air I was aware of more than just her ashes drifting away. I have been feeling this thing moving away, dissolving inside me, and now, gone . . . Gone like the ashes are gone from the container which held them, absorbed into the greater field of life.

I have worn something like an internal body suit since I was so very small. This was a suit of unworthiness with no spine, built to absorb the shocks and blows driven into me by magnetic elements sewn into the fabric serving like a siren for aggression and dominance. This magnetic absorber suit was contained in me where it became toxic to my system as the ashes funneled into one small space on this earth would poison the soil. It was time for release, time for letting go.

The section of the river I call the clear channel was anything but clear yesterday as might be expected. It was murky, turbulent and most certainly NOT calm . . . It’s the season for heavy flow in the river. I threw the coins of the IChing at the time of the solstice, 9:47 AM. It is my habit to throw them at the winter and summer solstice, and for the first time in years I didn’t throw a changing hexagram. I threw only one, #3 Difficult Beginnings (as recorded in R.L. Wings, The IChing Workbook). It’s the season for churning turbulence in the river and the same for me.

Difficult Beginnings. This had to be written for me, and I find it oddly comforting. It’s like the arms of the river, trees and wildlife were all wrapping themselves around me in an embrace of kinship, speaking peace to my heart . . . “We understand, we weather it all too . . . Sometimes we crack and break and grew new limbs . . . Sometimes we flood and form new channels . . . Sometimes we go hungry and lose our dens . . . And, sometimes we thrive, grow, bloom and bring new life all around. We weather it all too.”

Standing on the banks of that river I felt a part of it all . . . a part of the entire forest. I was one with the seasonal swelling and turbulence, one with the cycling, one with the constancy of nature . . . Just another creature crawling around on the surface. I am the river, the tree, the beetle under the wet leaves and the stones on the bank . . . and they are me.

Now? Difficult Beginnings. This is the way of it. No Disney story here with a sunset and a kiss. No, this is a different film, more like a documentary on a surgical procedure. The tumor is gone . . . now, jump off the operating table and dance a jig? I don’t think so. We slowly come out of the anesthesia, and our bodies slowly heal the wound and knit back together after surgery. Sometimes we need to learn to move differently, eat differently and in any case . . . It takes time. It takes a step by step development into new growth and new habits and behaviors.

I’m in a time very much like post-op and there is a new life ahead. The time of gathering darkness has passed and day by day we will be moving to more light in the sky. It doesn’t happen all at once, it happens a little at a time, minute by minute. I will be gathering a little more light in my life day by day. A new life, not a magical instant fix, a new life with a new me, a conscious moving forward step by step, into an unknown future with a little more light with every passing day.

That’s what this artist is thinking about today . . .

Lingering on the Bridge

I just returned home from a walk on a trail that runs along the edge of a deep glacial lake in the mountainous evergreen forest region of the Pacific NW. I frequent this trail most mornings of the week, arriving just as enough light is filtering through the typical gray cloud covered sky that all north-westerners are intimately familiar with . . . If you love those pallid skies you’re in paradise, and if not, consider moving. Gray skies are a feature of our lives here for many months in the year, gray skies and cold, clear water. I happen to love both.

Along the trail there are several waterfalls and creeks that empty out into the lake at various points and inlets. Every one is a fascination for me, every one stirs my soul. I have come to depend on contact with the falling water as much as I depend on restful sleep to see me through the day. It is as if the water tumbling down over rock and burbling it’s way through well-worn channels of stone is kin to the very blood in my veins making it’s way from my heart, nourishing my vitality. Going to the water’s edge amidst the moist air and babbling rhythms I am fed, comforted, aligned . . . Fit for the day ahead.

This morning I paused for an unusually long time on a little bridge that spans a creek whose banks are broad and impassible in December. As the year rolls into August the creek becomes a small trickle and makes the bridge unnecessary, but not so now. I normally slow down a bit and watch my steps on this bridge with it’s slimy surface. Many days rolling into months of rain in our temperate coastal weather turn this aging structure into the perfect breeding ground for the tenacious and slippery green algae clinging to wood and stone underfoot. I slowed, as is my habit . . . and today, I stopped. I rested my elbows on the edge of the railing and fell into something like a voluntary hypnosis, delightfully transfixed on what lay before me.

The water was tumbling down a rock face where large flows of ice from our recent arctic blast hung erratically like the enormous snow-white dreadlocks of an ancient sea god risen abruptly from his slumbering reverie. The morning’s rain was racing over and around the ice flows with tremendous speed enhanced by the imposition of the ice channels forcing the water into a tighter route down the hillside. It plummeted thunderously into a pool at the base of the rocky ravine and from there, slowed it’s course to make it’s way into the lake.

I stayed on the bridge, looking up to the falls, watching as the water approached me. Then I turned and moved to the other side to see it wind away. Looking back toward the hillside the water was rushing and ahead toward the lake it slowed, completing this leg of the journey. The bridge was in the middle of this little drama. The bridge, the ice, the rocky bluff, the creek, and lake took on a metaphorical presence. There in the cool early hours of the day all these thing became the pieces of my journey.

Looking back to the source of the flow, I was looking into my past. I saw the early years, and various phases of my life’s evolution roll out in the water. At one point it flowed exuberantly and confidently as in moments of my life’s history when I could see the plan ahead. It was then I had an abundance of energy to chart my course and see it though with high spirits, boisterous tumbling and energetic fury racing to an end. Then just as quickly, the water went under the ice and out of sight. I know this place as well, when disappointed hopes, love gone stale, or death’s final departure have brought an oppressive gravity, depression and confusion to my doorstop . . . Those days of dry despair having only enough energy to slip away to a cold place, hidden from view.

Along the banks in the shadows of the exuberance and diminished energies were swirling eddy’s, trickles in between stones and small pools dammed up by leaves, twigs and logs . . . the less remarkable, and no less fascinating. These smaller marvels like the mortar in between the bricks of everyday existence where wonder is available with attention given and the eyes to see. I might even suppose that in the more ordinary stuff of life lies the foundation for true enjoyment and engagement with the more extraordinary things that are so easily seen with voices that speak so loudly. Perhaps without attention paid to the smaller things, we fall prey to a pervasive dissatisfaction, shallowly expecting grander and greater pleasures to appease the aching despair in the hollows where the commonplace lies unnoticed . . . The simple joys of a cup of morning tea, the brush of a fresh breeze on your face, the smile of a friend, the squeal of a delighted child, the soft radiance of the moon’s light . . . all the ordinary in between mortar staying the bricks that support the more obvious structure.

Where am I in this winter drama? I am standing in the middle, on a bridge, at a particular junction of my existence in time and space. I am here, in the middle of a moment, a tiny slice of life where I am transitioning from all that lies behind to all that lies ahead. I am in the only piece I have access to on this journey--the present. I can remember, heal, and learn from the past, conjured up through the veils of memory and colored by personal story. I can speculate and dream a future without any real assurance of constancy in the parts and pieces of my hypothetical musings. It is profoundly true that this very moment is the only reality I have, and for me, it’s a bit slippery underfoot.

I am in a space of life transition where moving ahead means taking care with my steps. I am treading wisely, and giving myself the gift of taking time to pause and reflect instead of succumbing to the voices of urgency to have answers, the plan, the strategy, and own it! I hear those voices and they are quieting in the rhythmic pounding and bubbling water underneath . . . I need to linger on this bridge, inhabit the space in between. At some point I will breath life into dreams of what I can create with whatever time and energy is left to me until that unknown moment when the waters of my life flow into the deep glacial reservoir beyond. Now . . . I linger.

Being with transition . . . What this artist is thinking about today . . .

Lessons in Letting Go, Non-Fiction

It’s Monday, and today is my Sunday, meaning--I’m taking a day off, a day to rest. Yesterday I literally dropped onto a couch with a beer, pizza, and chocolate ice cream and watched a couple of movies. It had been a long hard week. By yesterday evening I had nothing left to be anything other than a carb ingesting, movie watching couch blob. I had met my goal, the deed was done, and I was spent. I had packed up and moved everything out of my studio other than the paintings on the walls--they can stay up for the moment. All my supplies, easels, bricks, bird sculptures, papers, office stuff, tables, chairs, lights, tools, plants, and so on, and on, and on . . . are now crammed into the garage and any space that made sense for it in the house.

About a month ago I got the news that changes were in the air for the large lovely loft space in which I have had my studio for the past 5 years. A week ago I received the final word . . . the changes required re-allocation of space and I needed be out by the first of the new year. I looked at the calendar and decided I didn’t want to wait and be packing up in-between the Solstice, Christmas and the New Year. I’d never want to leave, and a week or so wasn’t going to alter that reality. So, I pushed hard in the last week and with the threat of snow yesterday, pushed harder still, and this morning--I’m done moving everything but the paintings . . .

How do I feel about it? I don’t feel much of anything right at the moment except fatigue. Although no studio space is perfect, this came close. I have enjoyed several years of painting, and hanging my work on the walls of this marvelous old warehouse with big timbers and extraordinarily high ceilings. I’ve had years of working there and sharing this space with others. Now this chapter is over and it doesn’t seem ironic at all that it’s coming at the end of this year . . . Only one more thing falling out of my hands, one more change in an incredibly long list of changes that have come to pass in the past 12 months.

This year has been like a book in my life titled, Lessons in Letting Go, non-fiction, a major work of great magnitude. The cover is an explosive crack on the ice that shattered my wrist, and the back cover is a giant-sized gong announcing the end of my connection to my studio/gallery space . . . the end of an era. All the chapters in between are stories of the friends, the work, partnerships, dreams, opportunities, and pets that have gone away . . . variations on a theme. All year long the same story of releasing that which I held close--over and over, same story in differing tones and shades of color.

At the end of this year I stand like a scarecrow in a field in late autumn. The field has yielded and the harvesters have come, and after them, the gleaners. Now the winds are howling, dry grasses are rustling and scavengers are eagerly gathering up whatever seeds they can find. Mice and rats below, birds from above pecking at what little sustenance is left. A scraggly crow is perched on my shoulder and even the straw inside my shirt is letting loose into the cold, bracing winds heralding the season of dormancy. Winter is setting in.

I know that deep in the heart of winter lie the seeds of new growth. I know all the seasons have purpose, and work together in harmony for a high-functioning eco-system. I know all these things and am confident that at some point in the days to come I will enter spring and new shoots will sprout from the dormant, hard, unyielding earth. I know all this, and at this very moment I am hanging limp on my frame, black button eyes staring into the back cover of my very real book now closed. Circling my straw-stuffed head the wind is bringing the resounding gong reverberating through the air, flipping the pages of my book . . . The finalities of so many things I held dear. The year began with a break and it’s ending it with one as well. 2010 lies waiting on the shelf, completely unknown and blank.

Letting go . . . What this artist has been learning in 2009 . . .

Wild One

There is a wild one inside me, a wild spirited woman . . .

I am the horse in cantor, continually moving over the internal landscape . . . ready to run a full gallop to the edge of the cliff, halt in the blink of an eye, or break away from the edge unfurling strong wings to take to the currents.

I am the hovering hummingbird, dynamically static in the air, keenly aware and fiercely protective of the territorial domains.

I am the clever crow, the knower of secrets, the impish sage of the sky who follows the unswerving destination into the void and back again . . . The single mouth with many voices.

I am the loyal, genuine-hearted dog who lays down her life for her pack, nurtures and cares for her young, tends the den . . . The scientist of the air who sniffs the way before and keeps an enthusiastic wag in her tail.

I am the wild goose with courageous and strong heart staying the impossible course, flying by the call, navigating by moon and stars with equipment deep inside . . . The partner who remains when the wing of the loved one lies limp on the ground.

I am one of the little ones all furry and scurry . . . The light-footed phantoms stealing their way through spaces and dark places unnoticed . . . Wedging themselves into cracks and in-between places to take up an ancestral vigil in the stillness.

I am the wind silently invisible and powerfully noticed when stirred to tempestuous proportion . . . I refresh and enliven when I breath into a life.

I am the sun in my soul, I am the waters in my veins, and the earth in my bones.

I am a wild one . . .

Prescience & the Artistic Process

Prescience--that’s what’s toggling around in my brain this morning. Real life example . . . Yesterday I came in contact with an awareness that started like a feeling. I was feeling like I didn’t want to go to therapy with my husband today. That really didn’t make sense. I said I would go 2 weeks ago when we made the appointment. We have been going to a wonderful therapist, master therapist for several years off and on. Right now we’re ‘on’ and dealing with critical issues that will impact the rest of our lives . . . and I didn’t ‘feel’ like going?

If you knew me, you’d know that I’m not a flake--I don’t flit from impulse to impulse like a butterfly on a hot sunny day in August. I’m the kind of person who stays a course, so much so in fact, that I often OVERSTAY a course. “If I’m guilty of anything your Honor, I’m guilty of excessive tenacity gone steroidal.” That’s me. So what is this ‘feeling?’ More about the real life example . . .

From yesterday’s feeling to this morning’s reality, an interesting event transpired. It just so happened that an, “It’s impossible to get,” 3 hour appointment my husband was pursuing that WASN’T going to happen, effortlessly opened up. Suddenly, it made sense for him to go to therapy and beyond by himself. Was the feeling of not wanting to go, which preceded the reality that it was best I didn’t go, a coincidence? Perhaps. If so, I have a LOT of these coincidences.

I can site countless examples of perceiving something that doesn’t make any cognitive sense in the moment. With astonishing reliability the logic of the whole thing rolls out somewhere along the timeline after the perception. For me, the channel for the perception lies in my emotions. As a general rule our society doesn’t lend credibility to human capacities outside of the standard accepted norms. Prescience, clairvoyance, and other psychic powers are considered para-normal, suspect at best.

Like anything else, including acceptable scientific research, mathematics, and philosophy--psychic capacities thrive when governed by consciousness.

As an artist I am continually listening, paying attention to the subtleties in shifts of energy that make their way into my consciousness through the portals of the land of the emotions, the senses, intuition. I am a student of that which I find most walk by. I receive a lot of information in a small muscle movement across someone’s face, a thin wisp of cloud vanishing before my eyes, a drop of water hanging from the end of a leaf, the wind rustling in the dry leaves . . . or, a feeling that shows up seemingly out of context. Over my lifetime I have developed a trusting relationship with this information cast into a moment like the fine line a hopeful fly fisherman casts into the river seeking that which is yet to bite.

I understand how living my life this way can look from the outside--a little flighty, a little crazy, a little unreliable . . . Standing in my own truth has at times felt like holding back the tide. I’ve found that it’s an illusion that it’s somehow easier to please, to maintain some level of accepted credibility by following all the ‘rules.’ I’ve tried that, and it’s never worked for me. I found myself bereft of life energy. Truthfully, I do care what other’s think of me and always will. I see the puzzled looks on their faces when I change course for what appears to be no good reason at all . . . However, I care more what I think of myself. I care more that I live from the core of my integrity. Engaging in art has required deep trust of my process. My work is raw, nakedly me. I wouldn’t have it any other way . . .

That’s what this artist is thinking about today . . .