Lavish Praise

Final Post

2009-11-09T17:24:00.000-08:00

It is still quite warm here even as the nights are getting cooler the days require only a light jacket. There will be weeks of heavy labor in the garden but then I plan on doing my best to imitate the bear in hibernating. I look forward to going to bed early, knitting next to the heater and sipping warm almond milk once the fury of effort is over and the rains come in torrents. This seems to me the perfect time to finish my foray into the blogging having accomplished a little over a year of entries. I've always enjoyed keeping a diary and this public medium gave me a chance to share the details of my life both photographically and in writing. Thank you.

fireside

2009-10-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

I’m transmitting to you fireside, outside, black kitties slink around me.

The garden in punctuated by bold shapes, plants and trees well defined. The Iris fans out jagged, Giant Ferns graceful serration unlike the sword ferns who stand at stiff attention, and there, the dramatic exaggerations of the aloe, all face. Pumpkins sit quietly turning orange. Hot apple cider. I’ve been working in the garden for hours, clearing and pruning and turning compost. In the daytime the space is rough and barren, large patches of dirt ready. I am overwhelmed by the openness, usually preferring a lush, plant dominated space, ordered chaos is my favorite environment. In the night, however, the landscape softens and the barren turns into negative space, showing the structure of the garden; large plants are displayed by the space around them, sculptural. The Sweetie Garden is now showing a circle of elegant ladies; Redbud, Red Current, Lime, Lemon and an amazing tall, gangly plant with leaves like the oak and a stiff, orange, pointy pedaled flower, I don't recall the name. All of these anchor the space with complimentary size and shape, encouraging the eye to move around the circle just in the same way a well painted painting encourages the eye to interact dynamically with the image presented.

The Vitex, another pointy leaved plant, expresses herself elegantly nearby, a visual conversation without the headiness of words. At night, this fall garden encourages me to be awake and look around with curiosity, which is why the fall is the time for setting in the next wave of production in planting. I can see clearly what needs to be worked on and what is working perfectly. Everyday is filled with a need to take advantage of this special time. The fire has been comforting these last few weeks, a party after working hard, looking around and seeing how the big picture shows up in the firelight. Contemplation is in the air, smoking out the demons systematically and replacing them with visions of seedlings and a sleepy winter. This winter will be for sleeping fitfully, prioritized and looked forward to.

Fireside. I love it here. Bugs on the screen. Neighbors coming home, lights on inside, shadows friendly. Find a way, always a lingering thought. Last night's fire was talkative and fireworks, burning away last years seed catalogs but this night's fire is quiet and diligent, burning through wood electric. Gardening is soulful and forgiving, fortifying. I am sure it's been said before but saying it is to associate with something undeniably transforming if only for a late afternoon. This has to be one of the great human experiences, I think to myself while planting succulents. I haven't really felt this way in a long time but today I turned the soil. I've been prunning heavily for weeks creating a more graphic enviroment, cutting away excess and making room. I am upsetting progress to turn the direction of things, soon to introduce new players. Broccoli Rob is on the list and parsnips too.

Everything new and again, old and new again.

2009-10-06T21:39:00.000-07:00

This season change's mantra has to do with, now, after a day just on the edge of anger, the exercise of changing my enviroment, in tandum with the season is simply about making solutions of the problems left over from the last season change in exchange for this new season's problems. I cleared this space which feels great, I think to myself, but then look over there, what do I do with the bookcase? Everything new and again, old and new again, so goes this life. I've taken out winter coats and put halter tops away, the heavy curtians are up. Another blanket for the bed, I got cold last night. Even at 5pm the air began to smell like a winter night. I've finished another hat. Photographs of the dead have emerged, I look forward to the coming celebration, this year, I wonder, dance?

Fall Muse

2009-09-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

Fall is blowing in steady despite these warm last days of summer. I have come to expect these brown and black spiders in substantially increased numbers in early fall, spinning elaborate webs and preying upon our unsuspecting bees and bugs. This phenomena signals our fall season change even more to me than the final turning of the pumpkins from green to orange. These spiders come in droves and work diligently, building their webs in heavily traveled zones and I have to brace myself every time I find myself tangled up in the web strands, tearing straight through the handiwork. The spider, I am sure, quite shocked to find herself on the head of a terrified human! It is a creepy feeling no matter how much I tell myself that spiders are my friends

Among My Relatives

2009-09-13T22:32:00.000-07:00

Today our first real fall rain. I’ve been meaning to write about last week’s weather, which lately, seems to be an important subject to me. I took the fan out for one of the 3 hot days of summer. It takes a lot for someone living in the bay area to take out a fan and, as it happens, I was home in the afternoon with the final pages of an amazing novel. I put the book down on my chest and drifted into a memory of my childhood at my grandmother’s house in South Dakota, the fan osculating.

Always, in the summers, a square fan, stuck there, marooned out in the middle of the room or crammed into bedroom windows. Square, white and awkward even if, heroic. For sleeping, the fan was absolutely necessary; we stuck our naked feet to the end of the bed, breeze ready. Chasing around the living room, passing through the path of the fan gave me a sense of moving through another dimension, my cousins trailing behind me, the air blasted my face and lifted my hair as I escaped, just barely out of reach, I dreaded getting caught, my knees carpet burned.

My grandmother’s house was a free place where the adults were occupied with each other while we kids operated just outside of the usual laws regarding containment. Having my grandmother to myself, staying the night and sleeping with her made an impression on me, a lasting sense of my grandmother’s essential nature. Just being in her bedroom made me feel that I had entered a sanctuary, and not because it was fancy but because it was so much her place. The rest of the house was ours, the family’s, as we took it over; all of us lounging about and generally occupying the space, bare legs swung over the couch arms, hot. It was her bedroom that seemed always to offer a cool and easy getaway where we were quiet. So this was the deep summer, the time of fans, when I woke, among my relatives, the noise of the fan so familiar and comforting, I belonged.

MAGNIFICENT

2009-09-08T09:35:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Momma!!

2009-09-02T09:24:00.000-07:00

Found a wonderful inspiration in this image by Don Blanding. For more details go to my Needle Worship showroom to the right.

Filoli

2009-08-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

I was introduced to Filoli (www.filoli.org) by a friend some years back, a Mother’s Day excursion. I missed having my own mother with me that day but it really was a delight to share this place with my friend, her mother and grandmother. The formality of the garden encourages a sense of elevation and the sheer labor and dedication of the gardeners is obvious in the highly organized and manicured grounds, an inspiration. I think that the best way to come to this place is through introduction so let me know so I can introduce you! LET’S GO!!

Of the 654- acre estate, 16 acres are formal or edible gardens as well as lawns, a lap pool, lovely brick out buildings and a grand house. Originally the estate was established in 1917, changed hands in 1937 and then donated to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1975. I mention these details mainly because it amazes me to see a garden so well maintained over this duration of time. I have only been gardening on my little rental plot for 5 years and it amazes me how much has changed here and what a brilliant feeling of love I have for the space after tending it diligently over time. I know the labor that is required to maintain even this little, and by comparison, wild piece of land so seeing these formal grounds fills me with respect for the hard work the gardeners put into maintaining this formal garden. It is quite a sight, and especially, I think, here in America where formal gardens are not common and, I believe, not particularly admired.

It is difficult to represent these gardens in photographs, the grandeur impossible to express. I only know a little bit about the philosophy of space and the how-to of creating, for instance, a sense of expansion or length in space. Both are very prominent experiences at Filoli and I enjoy, upon leaving, the feeling that I have really been somewhere and been a witness to something grand.

This Elm thrilled me especially, it’s canopy overreaching, giving me a grateful feeling, a sense of protection and appreciation. What a marvel of a tree!

Filoli Attractions

2009-08-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

These Espaliered apple and pear trees span the length of 2 or 3 city blocks. I have a terrible time determining things like that but I will say that the stand seems to go on forever. Judging by the size of the trunks these trees must have been planted early in the development of the landscape. I have been fascinated by this technique for a number of years and have only recently noticed it around the bay area. To me it seems so smart to train a tree to grow in such a way that saves space and makes it easy to pick fruit. I often watch new gardeners pretend that they are not imposing their will on plants and space, romanticizing their relationship to nature, but I learned early on that gardening is an act of imposing yourself on the lives of plants, actually manipulating them and teaching them to do as you wish. Of course, in reverse, a garden will have it’s own way to a degree and best to take your place in the course of things as the gardener. The process really reminds me of meditation where the principle has something to do with the notion of letting go and, at the same time, remaining alert and active. Gardening demands a complex relationship that is impossible to articulate in the deepest way. It is through the process that you learn that you are the master and the student at the exact same moment.

Birthday!

2009-08-13T21:26:00.000-07:00

My birthday was bent on accomplishing several simple things;
1. Planting a small ceramic toad with Succluents for Jared's house.
2. Hang out with Jared at my house so he realizes that I live somewhere specific instead of his thinking that once leaving him after our day together, I simply disappeared into nowhere. In effect, I gave myself a geographic location.

3. Eating a fine meal in a fine place with someone I love and adore. As it turns out, Diane, Jared's mom made my wish come true on all counts.

This is one clever kid. He has decided that if I take a piture of him then he gets to take a picture of me. The age of fairness, I like this much better than the age of unreasonable, which just past, in this case. So we took our pictures and I don't think he did a half bad job capturing me at fourty four. Do you see how one eye is a bit more squinty? I bet this is really how I look to him. Half cocked, old squinty eye. I should have a pipe in my mouth.

Great day.

Fourty-four

2009-08-10T22:50:00.000-07:00

I've been working with this image for about 5 years. First it was a soft pastel drawing.

Then I made it into a woodcut, cutting another woodcut, mirroring exactly the first one so they can be printed together.

This is the paper print from the first woodcut.

This is the actual woodcut.

Then I made the paper print into a screenprint and printed that on raw, blue silk and am embroidering it. The colors stupify me every time I work on it, the electricity of the colors and the strong motion in the woodcut sytle of the piece get my brain going the way lemon electrifies the mouth. Wide awake, the image stays fresh and new and I don't think I will tire of it.

Being an aritist does seem to be about re-working and re-thinking, knowing, certianly, that originality is an illusion. It is exilerating to be free of inventing the world and relaxing into re-inventing.

My birthday is in a few days, a celebration I like to enjoy for many days before and after the actual date. Fourty -four. It already feels good. No more riddles, equations impossible to solve. Fourty-four is a trickster year. The number is fun to say, not concerned, letting the tears fly and the belly ache from good humor in everything important.

Speaking of Comforts

2009-08-09T23:06:00.000-07:00

Brown Blankets in blue rooms.

Even unwelcome change provides the relief of a new perspective. The rug pulled out from under you can be unusually exilerating. I am adhereing to a new schedule and traveling familiar but not recently padded paths. Structure and momentum are the pedulum and the cross for me. It may sound unpleasant but its not. Peaches are ripe now, the sun is heating our corner of the world much more diligently these last few days.

I am listening to the Pandora Station, Leadbelly. At the moment a man whose name was Pink Anderson is singing Greasy Greens; a song about a love affair this man is having with greens. Anderson is clearly the Southern grand-pappy of our present day raw vegans, equally as obsessed with greens. Especially Dino Kale is revered these days, modernizing the old school Collards. Both are delightfully prehistoric in appearance, other worldly and promising.

It may not be the right time of year to be thinking so much about blankets. Still, this is the thought that has webbed me, awake to the feeling of savoring, a candy turning in the mouth of a beautiful woman. Fabric, in general, has captured my attention these days, bedding, especially. My home, a stage for stray things that have made themselves useful in an essential way, emotionally animated in meaning. Blankets, the goodness of them, provide.

Heart Grow Fonder

2009-08-03T22:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I felt passionate while eating garlic, a sense of being enlivened and elevated. I was here by myself, earrings dangling, elegance in the air despite dirt under my nails. I shall not ever make myself a monk as I cannot give up the possibility for passion in this way. This morning I picked all of the red tomatoes in the garden before going to my urban farmer job and coming home to these babies couldn't have been more spectacular. I worked in my own garden until it was too dark to go on before coming in to make dinner. Here is what I noticed in the kitchen tonight:

It is important to de-skin tomatoes. I like to heat water to a boil and dip pierced tomatoes in for a short time which makes the skin easy to remove.

Cutting kernels off the cob is significantly more successful when using a very sharp knife. I just had mine sharpened and using it gives me a sense of admiration, partnership and gratitude.

I love to cook with well heated and fine olive oil. Tonight I heated up my olive oil to glowing, it was no longer heavy or thick when I put in roughly chopped tomatoes. Salt lightly, adding Parm later will increase the taste of salt and with more sophistication than straight salt. Add butter after a couple of minutes, adding corn after the butter has just melted. Browned butter is usually what recipes call for but I prefer, for this dish, a light flavor, allowing the corn and tomatoes to take center stage. Turn off heat immediately after corn, add in one large, pressed clove of garlic. The garlic never touches strong heat and will not loose essence. Garlic is often overcooked, which is when it bites with bitterness. It is not usual for me to add my pasta into sauce but this is the best way with this recipe so add cooked pasta and toss. Garnish with fresh basil, cracked pepper and hard Parm. Cayenne optional. Food, our treasure, is simple and deserves that we not fuss too much but rather elevate each ingredient by leaving room in the recipe for the palate to distinguish subtlety. Method is only a foundation on which we stack these elemental flavors.

By luck I was drawn out into the garden this morning and found, laying on the ground beneath the pear tree a newly fallen pear. Usually I don't see them on the ground until it is too late and they are not good for eating anymore. Tonight I ate it with Meyer lemon, in a hot bath, my feet throbbing. My feet have been hurting for 2 weeks now, mostly from standing too long on concrete floors and pounding the pavement, urban ambition style. The pear and the throbbing feet made me laugh somehow, knowing that everything is working out perfectly. The pear has made my heart grow fonder, absence made princely by a show of spring flowers. Last year at this time I was just starting this blog, excited then to be starting something new and excited now with the same sense of expansion, eating pears. I feel like a little fish slipping through the hands of destiny.

July on Julia Street

2009-07-30T01:14:00.000-07:00

I have always loved this photo of my brother, father and I; our proud trio. This is my brother's birthday month so he is on my mind extra. My brother signifies a gentle strength. He is a big man with a broad chest, his standing out in the world in this way has required that he cultivate his image into something greater than physical strength. He has always exhibited grace and I have enjoyed knowing him from the first days of his life. I always tell the story; I try to tell it every year around his birthday; I waited for eternity, as a six year old suffers, in the waiting room of our small town hospital, my eyes wincing at the gleam of very waxed floors, while my mother was in labor with my brother. As luck would have it, the gum ball machine was broken,giving out gum balls freely, requiring no change. I turned that knob over and over, gum balls bulging my pockets, cheeks swollen, watching my father speak to the doctor. At a distance, the men stood talking, backlit. I was chewing all the sugar out of the gum balls as fast as I could, knowing that it was only a matter of time until everything changed. I watched my father's face contort as he listened to the doctor. The image is in my mind now, clearly, the floors bright and shadowed. Something monumental was happening, I knew it, chewing and not taking my eyes off of my father. When the men finished talking my father came to me, not noticing my good fortune, he smiled completely and seemed not to be bothered by anything at all. I know now that he must have been relieved in the spent and gleeful way a new father is after his baby is born. I could feel his mood as electricity throughout my body, sugar surging, I nearly peed when we snuck around the side of the building to peek at my mother and brother through the hospital room window. Always in my mind; epic and mysterious, an aura of triumph everywhere. I was not an only child ever again.

This is the first year that I have come to realize that making jam is easy. I've always made it into a big ordeal and there is no need to be that way about it. I foraged these plums this week and look, in less than an hour they have been made into jam! The lemons took only a few minutes to juice and freeze. I love homesteading!!

July on Julia Street

2009-07-30T01:09:00.000-07:00

H is for Hannah

2009-07-23T12:08:00.001-07:00

Yeah, for another epic journey in embroidery! To find out more about this piece go to the Needle Worship link to the right.

Zapata Graffiti

2009-07-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

Jared, my 4 year old friend and I spend Wednesdays together often walking past this graffiti on Capp Street near his house in the Mission. Both of his parents speak Spanish fluently so he is up to speed on the language already. He is usually the one teaching me the right pronunciation and I love how he picks up words so readily. When we get close to the location of this graffiti he starts chanting ZA-PA-TA in an exaggerated tone and it always make me laugh.

Jared's obsession with learning is stunning to me even though I know he is in a normal developmental stage. When he finds out information it becomes a repetitive topic of conversation for weeks. Somebody in his life tuned him into graffiti and for weeks he would point out "gravy"/graffiti everywhere we went. He loves to reel off "scientific" data on everything from the reason the Bart goes so fast to why marbles go fast down the slide at Dolores Park. His interpretation of things is factual in his mind and it has become very important to him to be right. Mostly he is impressed by speed but lately he speaks very seriously about the "bad guys" that permeate the children's cartoon world, which his parents have taught him is make believe and not real life. Nonetheless, these characters fascinate him beyond anything else and it strikes me how deeply influenced children are by this multi-media make believe that I have no relation to at all. This is kid's culture and it shocks me how easy it is to shape the minds of these little humans, occupying their thoughts and desires, creating a very real experience for these kids. It points to the vulnerability in human nature, the easily manipulated mind, driven to candy and cheap thrills. I realize that it really is up to adults to protect kids from the "bad guys" everywhere, bent on creating loyal customers of products and ideas that stroke the least useful part of the human psyche. Sure, I sound paranoid and I much prefer it to being overwhelmed, passive and ignorant. Jared, has to be taught to protect himself and each time I see his eyes glaze over in complete robot submission to the desire for yet another candy Transformer doll, I recognize that he does not know how to want anything else. He was born into the habit and it is up to the adults in his life to help him create a new direction. We all have to learn to make our lives a practice in deep awareness. It is by no accident that we as adults suffer the ramifications of over consumption in everything from food to hair products, our lives and our society dominated by choices that have nothing to do with sustainability. Am I ranting?

I know that the imagination is a wonderful thing and the Transformer stories have a special place for today's kids but why did Jared learn about the Transformers before he learned about Zapata? Are these real life stories too complicated for kids? They seem to be too complicated even for adults!

Blooming on Julia Street

2009-07-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

Song of Corn and Flowers

2009-07-12T23:12:00.000-07:00

Here is another example of my mother's gorgeous script. Doesn't it make you swoon?

And this? This really makes me swoon; my latest embroidery project. Emiliano Zapata speaks to me of essentials. I am warm beside his fire which, they say, still burns. It is said that this fire burns in his grave, making the ground warm. Travelers go there to stay warm on especially cold nights. And those without the love of another, and those who have lost, to war, one who was their blood and bone. They go there and lay on a blanket near to the site, knowing of something other than life or death.

I found this poster Zapata image on a telephone pole and added the flowers and replaced the bullet belt with corn. We all know that this man took to arms but let's be reminded, this time, of his insight into the basic human need for self-determination. Michael Pollen writes extensively of corn and it's wise way of teaching humans to cultivate it widely, throughout the world. This is an important plant to many cultures and especially for those great peoples of the Americas, it is revered, representing an ancient and complex relationship between plant and human.

In American Indian Thought: Philosophical Essays Laurie Anne Whitt speaks to our modern day problems in the quest for self-determination. In her essay, Biocolonialism and the Commodification of Knowledge, she lays out the sorrowful implications of our modern day version of colonization in the form of total edible and herbal plant control by companies like Monsanto who sold, for example, vulnerable people in India a "green revolution" that produced a land broken, too predictably, and a faceless corporation far out of the realm of accountability. Now that they have Vandana Shiva on their ass, look out, I think they are seeking a new victim in 21st Century colonization.

This quote by Victoria Tauli-Corpus recounts a shock:

"We have witnessed how indigenous seed varieties and medicinal plants which our women and healers have preserved and developed, were appropriated by international and national research institutes and transnational corporations...without our knowing, these seeds and medicinal plants were altered in laboratories and now we are told that the companies have intellectual property rights over these genetic plant materials because they have improved on them. This logic is beyond us...we, indigenous peoples...have developed and preserved these plants for thousands of years."

Corn is one of the plants being engineered into submission, genetically contained and controlled. It makes me think of a theater set on which the ghost of Zapata enters a biotech lab, his hat just the right size and not too large for him, liberating the last ear of free corn left on earth, delivering it to a barren Zuni woman deep in the desert hills of a remote village in the Southwest for safe keeping. The green corn maiden is born the next year to the younger sister of the safe keeper, who teaches the young maiden the ancient song history of the corn clan. God damn, broadway, here I come!! How could I get Michael Pollen to narrate? I want to play Zapata!

Emiliano Zapata was deeply invested in the notion that human beings should have fair access to the resource of land for self-determination. To his mind, this was a basic right that he learned by watching his people suffer the violence that greed inflicted on the peasantry of his time. Whitt quotes Christopher Lind, "wealth (in the global information economy of today following the industrial economy of yesterday) is created not primarily from the manufacture of industrial goods, but from the generation of ideas and information. As existing pools of capital seek to capture the new sources of wealth, debates about intellectual property are moving to center stage." If you think about it, this was the way of land; fenced, it became property, which was an idea made into rule, an imaginary and violent infringement on the real life survival of plants, animals and indigenous humans. And so it is with the saving of seeds; never before have our collective gifts been so threatened by the greed of the few and at the expense of the many. The first song of the green corn maidien would have to be, No One Owns Corn, Fucker.

I don't know what this fabric is made of but it has a slightly stiff feeling yet, lighter even than silk, raw and intently strong. Embroidery goes much better if the work is done on something easy to pierce and this is, and still I do not worry for it's strength. I have found here something respectable.

Free Books

2009-07-05T21:55:00.000-07:00

On July 4th I came upon this amazing oddity, a place to pick up free books. It wasn't just a bin of books but rather rows, all lined up in carefully laid out collections, including 'New Arrivals'. I am a bit of a Pollyanna when it comes to books in that I believe that libraries should be our treasure. If we are to manicure the lawns and guild the domes of any public building it should be our libraries, our stronghold for freedom, baring none the empowerment of common knowledge. I notice too that the homeless use libraries as a place to be free of the elements. Many poor people use the internet in libraries for free and lonely people who don't drink coffee go to the library instead of the coffee shop. It is truly a democratic environment, teeming with the business of learning, in a relatively quiet place. Libraries are one of the very last places on earth where using a cell phone is considered rude, making the library almost FREE of this common public nuisance. I walk around in there, nearly unable to recognize my fellow human beings without the posture of holding a phone to the ear.

These are the books I brought home with me. It was late in the afternoon, sun shining bright, firecrackers shooting now and the, to the left or right. I took a hot bath and jumped in bed with my new books. I perused, really, going through, page by page, captivated for hours by the old graphics. The pages of the handy man book are pulpy and thick while the pages of the other two are paper of the paper thin variety. Yes, they do have that old book smell, that musty trapped smell, withering. I don't mind.

Sacred Text Of The Handyman

2009-07-05T21:50:00.000-07:00

Finding this book felt like coming upon an ancient text on manhood But it is probably not what you may think because this book is handsome, calm, practical and graceful. What handyman do you know builds a valance?

It drives me mad to imagine myself coming home to a mended tea kettle. DIY original granddaddy.

Even though the book gives confidant instruction on how to build small buildings to basic geometric formulas, there is ample room given to the how-to on repairing broken things. There are instructions on the basics of working with wood and metal, how to work with electricity, painting, plumbing, heating systems, how to build a ladder, even upholstery. How to use a saw and masonry. How to prevent a squeaky door or a leaky roof. Plumb Line, Spirit Level, Rivet Set. A secret language.

Eel River Summer

2009-06-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

There is nothing quite like a wide, open river like this one to encourage a sense of endless possibility and this is just the feeling that came over me as soon as we came through the trees and onto this scene. Converging and confluence are what the Eel river does best. It enters the Pacific in central Humboldt County, approximately 15 miles south of Eureka which is right about where I caught that summer feeling this year. This area is the home of the California redwood forest with over 100 miles of stunning Northern California coast and inland, luscious, sexy farmland where, this time of year, the heat of the day demands languid afternoon naps and the nights cold enough for long johns.

River Dames.

We came upon miniature Burros and right away I knew I was in a perfect little heaven. This one was just a baby, born in the spring but the parents were not much bigger.

Stinging Nettle grow wild here, a plant that has taken on a romantic, witchy mythology in my mind. I have finally been initiated into it's witchy way having been stung, just once, on this trip. I felt a kind of proud suffering, a girl into a woman feeling that reminds me how the summer time is meant for initiations. In the country or wilderness the intense, internal, private epiphanies are surrounded by the heady bonds with new and old friends. It happens on dry paths, by the fire, in the tall grass, picking fruit, at the waterhole or riverside, in the kitchen, on the porch and often with dogs around. The connections that form in summer are the alchemy of outdoor elements and the actual length of days which seem to go on for eternity, the sun sinking into the night with quiet resignation.

Fruits and Berries

2009-06-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

People seem to soften in the summer, aware that these days are fleeting and immediate, and precious. What drives me is the sense that this is the time to know the sun. Harnessing the life force of the sun by cultivating plants and trees for food gives me a sense of being in the right place at the right time. There is a grace in learning to work hard, through experience and curiosity, actually learning how to work with the earth, water and sun for a rich, bountiful life. Summer is the time to make your mark on the course of things, knowing in the oldest part of yourself that it is up to you to notice and choose the opportunity for rest, for labor, for being with and for harvest. The summer is for bold moves and wise calculations as much as for hours spent watching big fish in quiet little river holes.

I grew up on 40 acres of orchards and open spaces so it feels natural to me that summer should be about getting on ladders and picking fruit. This is a cherry picking ladder and seeing it gives me an amazing sense of childhood nostalgia; our ladders were wood and very heavy to move around but we did it dutifully, always encouraged to take pride in our ability to do our job even if, like most kids, we hated every minute of it.

I forgot how much I love the look of cherry tree bark which always looked exotic and rich to me compared to the the rough bark of oak and the nondescript bark of apple trees.

We also had many overgrown areas on our property that provided the much anticipated blackberry harvest, a fruit that represented anarchy and precious, abundant pleasure, even if it required outsmarting the thorns. I always had the sense that I had to outsmart the bushes to gain the treasure of the fruit.

The Big Picture

2009-06-30T08:59:00.001-07:00

This Is What We Know

2009-06-25T23:56:00.001-07:00

People are getting shot out there, in the public eye, about things related to their work and/or their ideals. Nothing new and yet still quite disturbing. I am thinking most immediately to the man who was killed while working as a security guard, Stephen T. Johns, at the Holocaust Museum and also the Abortionist, George Tiller. Who would a Pantheist shoot?, I wonder, tonight, in the candlelight of my lair. Religious fanatics seem to abound in the Christian and Muslim sects but who would farmer’s and gardeners take out, in cold blood? I immediately think of Monsanto, it’s headless form; arms spread out across the globe, tearing out wildflowers in the meadows of the world, big, doughy hands bruising delicate pedals.

Yesterday, I was listening, comfortably, to NPR when a report of Monsanto’s losses came up; DOWN, they said, and my heart skipped a beat. Recently I was looking on line for a debate between the ever-confident head of Monsanto, Hugh Grant and one of my favorites, Michael Pollen. I remember feeling surprised by the cocky and sensible character of Grant, who seemed to give the intelligent yet dumbfound Michael Pollen a case of the frazzles. Then, months later, I heard a Monsanto sponsor ad on NPR that was slipped in between Fresh Air and Talk of the Nation. It was read just like all the other business ads; capable, intelligent, scientific and hopeful. My ears were ringing. I felt a sudden wave of infiltration.

This spring I was thumbing through the New Yorker (when was the last time I finished one, anyway?) and came across this ad;

Monsanto advertising to the truly frightened among us. 9 Billion, huh? Boy, that is a whole lot of people to worry about and wouldn’t we just love to nip that problem in the bud with good quality Monsanto products? Smart people with smart solutions for smart listeners. Got it.

I came across this blog posting by Rene Woodring on NPR accepting sponsorship from Monsanto:

http://socalocavore.com/998/monsanto-supports-my-public-radio/

She lays it out pretty straight right here and there is no need for me to wax on about my own disappointment in the ever-encroaching and insidious nature of this companies bald faced, thinly veiled, propaganda.

As Woodring puts it: Here is what we know….

1. Monsanto engineer’s seeds for productivity, not nutritional value, which has contributed to the vast overproduction of inexpensive but poor quality corn and soy, in turn leading to our national decline in heath and rise in obesity.

2. Monsanto has developed seeds that are resistant to pesticides and herbicides (which the company just happens to also produce), which perpetuates the widespread use of chemicals in industrial farming.

3. Monsanto has developed seeds with “terminator genes” that effectively disable a plants ability to reproduce, thus forcing farmers to buy new seed every season, and risking the welfare of all plants. If the terminator gene managed to make its way into non-GMO plants through accidental cross-pollination (by the wind or animals), it could potentially cause all plant matter to die after one growing season. No viable seeds = death of the plant. The unintended consequences could be catastrophic.

4. Monsanto does not consider itself responsible for public welfare. In an October 25, 1998 article of the New York Times, Phil Angell, then Director of Corporate Communication at Monsanto was quoted as saying, “Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food, our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”

Update for Willow

2009-06-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

Today's Harvest!

The dearest, most dear.

Today's Winner.

Ol' Crooked Beak getting yet another pecking order.

The question of the day: What the hell is wrong with this picture? I took out all the chard leaves that had this condition and I have seen it around town but don't know what causes it. Is it from watering the leaves or a pest? Does it spread? I gave the damaged leaves to the chickens. Does that work?

Happy Anniversary!

2009-06-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

Married June 7, 1984, just days after our high school graduation. It is not possible to fathom the extreme difference between what we, on that day, were thinking we would become and what we have actually become today, as individuals and also to each other. Aging has a way of showing that fate is, at once, our lead and our follow.

I took this photo of Steve while we were on our honeymoon. It truly represents who I married; an innocent beyond my capacity now to grasp ever having been so close to. I cherish my privilege, as it was my education, my early eye witness to a sensitive, thoughtful and philosophical soul that made me see, eventually, the wisdom of vulnerability, which, at the time, was a completely foreign concept to me.

I am deeply satisfied, looking back, realizing that, at the young age of 18, I had so little idea of what could become. I simply could not have imagined the turns and twists of our lives. Of course, this is an understatement. Now, I live inside a proud admiration at what we have come up with in the simple, perfect affection we share after all of these years. I could not have dreamed up the depth of love we have come to together which has far outlasted the vows of marriage and instead has enlivened us to trust in hand with love, in hand with trust, in hand with love. Somehow those early days of releasing our marriage actually forced a trust that demanded more of us than our familiarity. It burned into me a willingness to bare the unknown, to give up on the judgement of outcomes as soon as possible in order to get on with the business of transformation. We have known each other since 5th grade and nothing could have prepared us for the shock of our loss but there is no denying the gain in learning to bow down to the force of change. The storm of it did rock our boat!!! I must have swallowed the whole ocean in that storm, not knowing, when we would reach our shore.

Steve came for a visit recently and helped me prune and repot an olive tree in the garden. Our familiarity is something different from family and I don't know what to call it. It is really something very different from friendship too. I don't know what it could be called but this not knowing the name points to loss of expression in defining the varied and meaningful relationships that we humans create for ourselves. To recognize and name these loves may give us models beyond our careful constructions of marriage and family which cannot represent the astounding array of intimate possibilities that deserve, at the very least, an equal elevation in status. We may call ourselves divorced but how could it ever describe what I have written of here?

Thank you for everything Steve. Till death do us part.

Apple Project Complete

2009-06-04T14:35:00.001-07:00

Earlier this year I posted on the progress of this apple pillowcase which, now finished, is a gift to Meryl, who has taken personally to showing me kindness and generosity in great measure. Thank you for your good grace, Meryl.

Please go to my Needle Worship showroom, listed to your right, to find out more details about this project.

Try it, you'll like it!

2009-05-25T23:09:00.000-07:00

I hesitate to post on my first adventure in fermentation arts because, although the photos show the lovely pink and the charming label, the kraut itself is not up to my standard. I must practice and practice to master this because there is nothing more divine that almond butter, kraut, and hot sauce all wrapped up in a collard leave. NO! Do not turn your nose up! If the french can eat snails and get away with it, I think that the vegans have come up with a rival in oddity!

Thanks to Vinicio and Claudia for their swift chopping, patient willingness and good education. Mucho Amor!!

A Visitor to Julia Street

2009-05-15T18:26:00.000-07:00

Violence Among The Violets

2009-05-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

I have been very ill, a Wuthering Heights type ill, hand to feverish forehead, isolated from the normal goings on of everyone else, earths population, deeply immersed in the ordinary. I am empty and yet full, an experience most akin to, in my experience, the hours coming down after taking psychedelic drugs. It is the sense of being body ravaged and mind transformed. It is, knowing vulnerability, without the shield of meaningful common industry that creates a façade of power in everyday life. Wise, perhaps, this façade keeps us safe from knowing how close to dependence, failure, shame; all ego death, we are naked as a new born. Any stronghold fades in the shadow of illness.

A memory; our dog, Brit, wretched from birthing, barely able to lift her head to acknowledge our entrance. Domesticated, our opinion of her mattered and she wagged her stub tail, hearing our voices in pleasure, she had no idea what our human utterances of praise meant. For her part, she was finished, for the moment, her brush with a death in birth over, babies nursing.

Slow moving, I went out yesterday and felt raw, seeing everything; colors, people, plants, things, as if for the first time. I could barely contain the heaving of sorrow when confronted with, mostly men, begging for change on the street. The Berkeley usuals and what seemed to me like throngs of nervous, beaten down, utterly failing individuals, their faces red from the effects of natural elements, nails untrim, hands stiff and swollen to claws. In a Dickens novel, I would have fallen down, my skirts in the mud, weeping. Instead, I thrust forth dollar bills.

Mostly, I am like everyone else, busied into blindness, incapable, impotent, at an utter loss to witness what I cannot make sense of in my own wealth. I know that there are ways to transend a sense of responsibility. Social workers, Buddhist Monks and those serving soup seem to have developed a thin veil of industry, detachment while engaging in service. Walking around in the humid spring air, I had no protective coating either from the very beautiful or the very destroyed. I could not find a way to protect myself from the sheering awareness in the retina of my third eye.

But, I remind myself, it is not what I witness that is at the heart of my grief but rather the close proximity of identification that I feel when confronted with this deep, very costly human suffering. I feel the breath between us, wings of breath, so frail and fragile, taking us, day after day, into a mindset of not knowing what will become of us, economies collapsing, and the strain of it tearing apart the thin fabric of our human relationships. Formal we hold together, untouchable.

Have you ever noticed how many very, very poor people are so polite in everyday life? On the bus, for instance, the most rude ghetto raised teenagers thank the driver for his service as if he were their very own chauffer. A sweet formality replaces the thoughtless lurching of the opening doors. My heart, winged in upward flight, I hear their young, demure voices as tinkling bells even as, just moments before, I could have strangled them for their overtly loud shouting to each other meaningless dribble of teenager angst. Clearly untaught in ways of etiquette while sharing public space, I think annoyed and exhausted. I mean that I had, just moments before, wanted to STRANGLE THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS out of these children as if their very existence represented the falling down of civilized society. I wish these thoughts would stop plaguing me.

Industry on Julia

2009-04-27T15:53:00.001-07:00

Our very own new bee tenants just moved in! A gift of epic proportions from TIM, THE BEE CHARMER!!! Tim does bee removal and consultation with flair and expertise. 510 541 6746

Industry on Julia

2009-04-27T15:45:00.001-07:00

Eric's hands represent the combination of labor and gratitude, so distinct in his commitment to doing well whatever he does, daily.

Industry on Julia

2009-04-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to this work of genius. I wish I could produce something as fine in a single night!

Industry on Julia

2009-04-27T15:24:00.000-07:00

We have seen more Lillies here on Julia this year than ever! Usually they are absolutely perfect in every way but this one came out perfectly odd. Isn't it divine?

Industry on Julia

2009-04-27T15:22:00.001-07:00

Remember the post I made a few weeks ago on starting Hannah's initial? Progress!

Easter

2009-04-12T22:33:00.001-07:00

Aya brought home an egg from The BE LOVE Farm. She said that she plucked it out from under a chicken's butt. I ate it first thing this morning.

Here she is on crew picking out her favorite bees for The Farm.

Easter day Sound Track: Wish You Were Here, PInk Floyd

These next few posts represent my day, aware that many common people have interrupted their regular schedules to rest, the air was alive with industry at my place. I aired out reams of vintage fabric in storage; curtains and blankets, butter soft cotton sheets from the 50's, tiny flowers printed in bright red and pink. Wild in preciousness.

2009-04-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

Monica paints too

2009-04-12T22:22:00.000-07:00

Monica gave me this painting for my 39th birthday, the first year of our friendship. It happens to be one of my best treasures.

http://monicarareearth.blogspot.com/

jon marro

2009-04-12T22:14:00.000-07:00

This is a 1/of a few screen prints by jon marro, the famous and fabulous of http://blendapparel.com/

2009-04-12T22:05:00.002-07:00

Kris of http://inkimage.net/ designed this initial for Hannah and I asked her if I could embroider it. Here goes.

This is Hannah's Business Card, she is a very fine printmaker. I like to brag about her to the young printers in studio, "She was once a printer at CROWN POINT PRESS."

Unfurl

2009-04-11T23:33:00.000-07:00

Leonard Cohen ‘s Chelsea Hotel No. 2 by Rufus Wainwright as I settle down after disassembling my entire house for Spring cleaning. I am turning inside out with inspiration, looking closely, witness to a great unfurling in Spring, I mimic, a Pantheist compulsively, a bee following the queens scent. I feel much more like a bee than a bird right now; this work is not nesting but the building of the empire of a queen.

I give thanks for the Alabaster, the oil paint, the lithography, the iron, wood and cotton in this blue bedroom.

Today I went to an Easter Egg Hunt at Maurice’s place where the kids stunned me motionless with their chaotic abandon. I forgot how important this event really is to kids, especially the little ones four and under. This is the time that you, the adult, can really take advantage of the vast innocence of a 2 year old. Almost anything you make a big deal about they can be enlisted to go wild for (except nap time).

The adult version of the Easter Egg Hunt has to be to Suspend Disbelief during job hunts, the honeymoon phase and early mornings.

Infidel

2009-04-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

The flowers made from bulbs and tubers such as tulips, daffodils, iris, are all in full blossom right now. I love the Bearded Iris the most because it is the first flower that I remember smelling. I was a tiny girl and the scent of Iris made a deep impression on me, so much so that I always stop and smell them, even when I am in a hurry. It is a pact that this flower and I have to rub noses. There is a grouping of them now blooming in front of the Zen Center on Russell in Berkeley. They are dark, dark purple, a royal cloak, velvet in darkness. Iris, the scent of falling deep.

Speaking of hurry, I finished Infidel in a frenzy of inspiration. The author writes in poetic observation tempered by a passionate pragmatism. She is exactly the temperament I long to emulate in body and soul. Despite extreme external circumstances she appears to have maintained an astounding sense of direction in personal integrity even as obstacles mounted consistently. If you want to read about someone who took full responsibility for answering the profound and fundamental questions of identity, calling and God, then this is the book for you!

And again, speaking of integrity. Are you feeling the primal urge to pro-create? If not then please force yourself out into the natural world because there you may find, as I have, an energy so wildly effecting that you are bound to want to create something of some kind. Join in; it is the time to love lavishly in the life of your own making.

Fox Gloves

2009-03-21T22:29:00.000-07:00

Words get stuck in my head. I will use one, daily, more often than I should. It has to be this way in order to know the secret, hidden meaning so wanting to be known to me through repetition.

I am rabid with spring, clawing the earth, dirty under my fingernails. I think almost anything is meant to be a delight right now. Today I went to a Plant Exchange in Oakland. I have been doing it for 2 years, twice a year, picking up a car load of plants and today I got a Radio Flyer Red push mower for the chopping down of our crabgrass and wild Arugalla lawn. Sure, it makes me feel good to get the exercise but the very best thing about it is that we are not part of the Industrial Garden Tool Complex anymore. This is all human power right here and no more noise pollution, my friends. And Free! Speaking of Paradigms, this plant exchange loosens those shackles of Capitalistic confines that cage in the mind. Plants are something to share, as is food, as is space, as is dirt. Why can’t I remember that, THE POINT IS: share.

The word for this last 24 hours has been ENJOY. I looked it up, it is based on the Latin word for REJOICE.
Welcome Spring.

I planted Foxglove today, one of my favorite flowers. They love to grow in shade. My mother grew them in a shady place next to a dark, natural wood wall, in a cool, dark spot that felt like the forest floor, just where a fox would like to lay. I still have the image in my mind, a little orange fox wearing white gloves, sleeping, deeply.

Dear Papyrus Girls

2009-03-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

Here is the Echium that I mentioned today!

Second Year/blooms and dies:

First Year:

Root of Evil

2009-03-19T10:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I experienced a mind altering interaction. I looked into the face of a homeless woman, about my mother’s age. She was maybe 20 years older than I am now. She had lost her female prowess. The bags under her eyes resembled rain clouds. 16th and Mission Bart station, at the ticket machines, she begged me to give her $5 for a $10 Bart ticket. I had the bill in my hand. I had $1 dollar in my wallet and nothing in my bank account except the money waiting to be extracted by my landlord. Dry goods in my cupboard at home. Dwindling dignity. I told her my facts, silver rings on my fingers. She bullied me, toothlessly. I grew impatient. Why was I rushing to slide the bill into the machine instead of giving it to her for the $10 ticket? We could both win, right? Win-Win, as they say in therapy. She was telling me, right to my face, that she was hungry. She used the exact word for a physical condition that I was experiencing myself on a regular basis, if only for relatively short spans of time. Why was I resisting her, knowing simply by looking at her, that she was a human being in desperate need of food? Why would I not even look at the ticket that she was thrusting at me, the bags under her eyes giggling like Jell-O?

My question could easily be, who have I become? This would imply that I had ever been someone with any sort of capacity to participate in such an exchange. I realized, as I walked through the turn style, grasping my $5 dollar ticket, having made a decision that had demanded a willfulness in separation from this human being in need, I was not truly in choice, but rather in an illusion of social order that makes more sense to me than trading up MY flimsy $5 bill for HER $10 travel ticket. Even for my own benefit. Even for my own benefit, I could not help another human being in a simple exchange of resources.

Spring Is In The Air

2009-03-15T19:52:00.000-07:00

I am alone, in the lair of home. 7:23 pm, kind light.

A lawn mower nearby has cut off. Wafting through the air are memories of times long past. Last night I drank Spanish wine with a friend of 20 or so years and, the night before that, water and fish, with an even older friend. In both cases, the treasure of our hours, faceted, in all shades of love.

Mysteriously, I am reminded of how good my newest friends are, by being, these short hours, with my old friends. I have chosen, from all of the humans around me, these people who satisfy me, as a collector to a very fine painting. I mean, of course, the painting to the fine collector. I am filled with satisfaction tonight, as the air is filled with the spring grass smell. I pull the knit of my lifetimes around me, as a sweet, comfortable sweater, sitting with ease, in a beautiful chair.

Light in a darkening time has always been my favorite time of day.

Enjoy.

More soon.

An Ant Bearing A Crumb

2009-02-26T08:38:00.000-08:00

Under a glass, I peer at everything magnified. Every person and every object, the sky of stars, under a glass. I take a light with me when I go out at night so that I can peer into the green of grass, by the blade.

It is a time of trimming excess, not complaining. A time of endearments, formality, upholding common decency. Loving walking in the rain. Making space around yourself and shaking hands. Or, better, bowing as the Japanese do. Also bumping fists, kissing on both cheeks, or offering your cheek as a gift or patting the bottom. Don’t you agree? A time of not asking too much but not denying too much and a time of not offering too much and a time of giving.

I know that when everyone else talks about what an exciting time it is, historically, I mean, a little release is happening in me and escaping from me over and over. A breeze flowing through an open window and out the door of a house, shuttering the curtains. The thoughts that I think over and over is, how does this action further me to my goal? And, is this goal furthering me to a death worthy of my life?

Emilio Zapata said, I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.

I am so mixed up in loss right now that I think about myself in a dance with life and death, being whipped around inside the handbag of a beautiful lady in green, who is being lead around an elegant ballroom, by a skeleton wearing a big Zapata mustache. I am neither the lady or the skeleton but an ant, lost, bearing a crumb, wishing only to be winged.

Drenched

2009-02-15T14:50:00.000-08:00

Sunday Afternoon, Chicken roasting.
Torrents outside.
Thanks be.

Daphne

2009-02-13T16:55:00.000-08:00

So many of you ohhhed and ahhhhed over the blooms I posted last week that I want to wow! you with one more of my favorites here on Julia Street: Daphne. This little woody bush blooms in February, as in now. The tiny little flowers are about as big as the end of your pinky finger but the scent is a field of Gardenias plus one, add a touch of citrus. I planted this one two years ago thinking of Chandra because her birthday is in February and I wanted her to walk down our front path smelling the sweet scent on her birthday.

Come by Julia Street now for a whiff of something divine or go to Cafe Gratitude in Berkeley! I planted one there last year, I think it will bloom in a couple weeks.

Amor Fati for Chandra and Sallie

2009-02-09T00:21:00.000-08:00

Canto I

Let it be said
With bells
On

Amor Fati

Let it be resounding
In tonight’s slumber.

Amor Fati

Nietzsche said,
Someday I wish to be
Only a Yes-sayer.

Julia's Blooms

2009-02-08T18:58:00.000-08:00

What's Blooming on Julia Street?

2009-02-07T20:23:00.000-08:00

More blooms on Julia Street

2009-02-07T20:15:00.001-08:00

2009-02-01T01:35:00.000-08:00

I got this in an email tonight:

Did I give you my new # 609-9000 (I know you don't have phone right now- which is kind of cool)

See you,

-ian

As he was sending it, I was thinking to myself:

living without a cell phone for a few weeks now is starting to feel really good. What if….I decided to.. live without one?

Forbidden thoughts are not the same thing as tying a lawn chair to a fired up hot air balloon. I remind you of this before you starting reading the next bit of writing. Just a foray into the mind of a middle-ager and, according to NPR, the latest quandary to be bill boarded onto public buses in Spain, much to the chagrin of Catholics on afternoon strolls.

An Insomniac Considers Atheism

It may be one of the most dangerous things I’ve ever put my mind to. Far more dangerous than coming out of any closet I’ve been able to squeeze myself into, which have mostly been a bride’s blush compared to this one little thought.

This thought is much more terrifying than joining the Industrial Pharmaceutical Complex. Incomparable to Europe on $180 and a one-way ticket. Hitchhiking, protesting, and sex without a condom; not in the least bit hair curling compared to considering Atheism. Studies show that just considering atheism cuts years off your life and makes those years living, significantly more depressive.

Ruby was assigned to our church by none other than God himself; a small woman of years, blessed with, what seemed to me then, a booming voice. You know the story, don’t you? A split personality of sorts, a feisty grandmotherly type every day of the week but Sunday, and then filled with the word, straight from the almighty himself. She did not speak in the garbled language of catching the spirit but with clear enunciation; the uplifting, the damning, the faith provoking, word of our Father.

I fainted in choir, just like all the girls. I spoke in tongues and wept at the bloody feet of Jesus. The fact of it, still with me today; a little movie in my mind. Just as real as finding the nest with blue robin’s eggs.

In 8th grade I still believed in hell and met, after class, with my favorite teacher, sweating with fear and shame, I confessed my certain doom. Surely she could show me the way; the mossy, cool path leading to a secret place? Miss Douglas smiled a winning, even if crooked teeth smile, instantly soothing me so that I suddenly woke to the ridiculousness of it all. I let her speak reassuringly because I could see that she had not even registered her own big, shy smile. She rushed back to the gravity of my situation, reeling herself in, seriously, she held my gaze.

Repent, she said, in so many words and with all certainty. In her low voice I heard her say, repent.

After dabbling in Intellectualism, Paganism, a bit of Santeria, an enlightening (I mean, of course, MIND BLOWING) class in world religion. These were all wonderful distractions from depression, hopelessness, poverty, but I settled on Lesbianism. Just kidding. I mean I settled on fixing my third eye on The Mystery which felt to me like a reprieve from the hard work of producing an experience even remotely dramatic as a childhood steeped in casting out devils, becoming drunk with the spirit and bawling my eyes out begging for redemption.

Once my sister, while cooking me up some pancakes, became so incensed by my reluctance to take the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savoir (AGAIN?, I asked myself, rolling my inner third eye, secretly), ridiculed me, spit spuing from her mouth, reducing me to a nature lover who (probably) worshiped by Orgy. I didn’t admit it then but I had witnessed two people having sex at the foot of a May Pole just before taking Mushrooms with about 50 other on-lookers and then wandering all over a beautiful Oregon landscape. It was a lot of fun, even if I did break down at one point near the end to find out that I was freezing my ass off. I still had all my clothes on and simply needed some wool. So much for orgyies. I, personally, did not have sex with anyone during that High Holiday, a celebration of coming spring. It’s great to know odd details. I liked the idea of building my co(s)mic ethos out of a ritual dedicated to fertility.

I am much too young to consider atheism. I’ve lightened up on my load of immortality but still wild horses at heart. Middle age is an exercise in getting right with the facts while party dresses still stand in the closet.

I want to die at 80, medical establishment willing, knowing, for certain, that I was completely conscious of never getting rich or powerful. Let it be worth it to have been obsessed with dignity.

When I am ancient, let me behold the nature of my human condition, not reducing myself to illusions of gods and heavens or justice in the belly of a separate hell.

Fishes into loaves never appealed to me. I preferred to eat my meals in real time, organic and not from a God above but rather from a sensible farmer who didn’t wait for society to agree with the right to a full belly. There was, back then, I repeat 100x a day, this woman that actually gave away garden veggies for free because she wanted to see, someday, vegetables outside the confines of monetary exchange. (See City Slicker Farms in Oakland, Ca.)

Human Nature, not God, gets you from birth to death. That is something entirely separate from God and in the body of our soul. Fevered squirrels, digging in nuts. Now that is something to awe at. The order of things. Diane not knowing how to following the winding road with her father to his death.
It is as it should be;
not knowing.

Diane Ackerman writes in her book, The Alchemy of the Mind, that the human mind will seek an answer to a mystery, as even the most domesticated cat will chase a slow moving fly, inside of a warm house in August. It is as it should be.
Answers don’t have to be truth., they just have to be reasonable to a mind needing to find and to keep as a raven to shiny thing after shiny thing.

To be humble, I remind myself of the vulnerability of death and the lifetime in relationship to it. So much speculation and no one to confirm answers of any kind. It seems that humans must have mummies and tunnels of light in these ancient and dark mental wanderings. I enjoy the mythologies, the blasphemy, dramatic twists of faith.

This is a mental rock to hammer: imagine greater, bigger and grander things.
Forge a canyon between what I know and what I don’t know.
Put a raging river of possibilities there,
my mind calms
the deafness of nothing.
Not knowing,
I must name God, Oh, God.
Facing the fears of generations, of every ancient people, of all human kind.
Fear into imagination
overcoming
something out of nothing.

In Memory of Chuck Collins

ALCHEMY

2009-01-28T13:06:00.000-08:00

I have been re-reading MFK Fisher. In her books, I remind myself of a standard of excellence in resilience, fine writing and invention. As a contemporary of Julia Child and James Beard I cannot say that she invented food writing but she did further the genre considerably into what it is today, and remains, to my mind, unmatched in her endeavor. She was; most certainly, informed by the chef/writers in France who wrote in times as early as The Medieval, and did not limit themselves to recipes but went on to speak, however haughtily, about the emotion and manners of cooking and eating.

Fisher, who has had ample review of her life and books, had a way of personalizing the most ordinary tasks in cooking and eating, relating these necessities to the philosophy of meaning and development of character. It isn’t that she took food and put a frame around it, separating it and objectifying it but rather, she put attention on it. Just as a priest prays and a monk meditates. She wrote with a wooden spoon, her writing as much a common task as eating. She never lived in wealth and her development in writing was as much a necessity as it was a love and it appears to me that her devotion to her craft(s) came both from passion melded with need.

My favorite vision of Fisher is of her serving plain tomato soup and toast to an interviewer at her stucco “shack” in The Valley of the Moon, Northern California. Of course, the interviewer points out the rustic fare in the simplicity of MFK’s home and manner. By this time she was elderly and knew herself to be in last days. The interviewer, delighted and yet surprised, annoyed me. Fisher never betrayed, even with a belly full of the finest, richest French meal, the accessible nature of both food and writing. As my favorite chef Chandra Gilbert puts it, “a carrot is a carrot is a carrot.” No matter how you serve it, fresh or fancy, it is the essence of itself, a life to admire, neither above nor below those who eat it. Fisher had a way of looking squarely at life and it was her honesty that made her writing great. Serving plain tomato soup was as much a part of her character as was a pen in her hand.

“It seems to me,” she wrote, “that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it ... and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied ... and it is all one.” --MFK Fisher

My musings continue in regard to what it is to make, as an artist. I mean, the job and the life of it. Now, we have a whole genre of writing that straddles the shelves between fiction and non-fiction, between story and recipe, really fleshed out in the writing of MFK Fisher and carried on by our modern food writers. What really sets Fisher apart is that she was an innovator in her time, forging ahead something mostly unimagined. As an artist this innovative nature, driven by a desire to be, to actually BE ALCHEMY.

The only recording of MFK Fisher reading her work can be found below. The story is well worth your time.

http://www.prx.org/pieces/30949-mfk-fisher-i-was-really-very-hungry

Watchman's Cap

2009-01-27T09:57:00.000-08:00

I am making a reproduction of the classic beanie/gangster/longshoreman’s/Watchman's cap knit hat in Egyptian cotton rather than in the old standard nylon polyester. It was, of course, originally made of wool. When I spoke with the shopkeeper at Artical Pract in Oakland about what I was after in the knitting project, showing her my standard issue from the Ben Davis Store down on San Pablo and University she reminded me that this was a machine made hat but told me the basic elements in making a reproduction. This involved choosing the right kind of needle size as well as yarn size.

How to impersonate a machine made product and a man made material? What were the elements that made this hat what it was? In discussing this with her I made sure that she knew that while I wanted to use a natural fiber, I didn’t want it to look like a fancy version of something that clearly represented simplicity and working class. These were the elements that I wanted to keep in the look of the hat. This hat represented utilitarianism while still falling into the ecological realm. Reducing the hat down to these distinctive features made me think a lot about the symbolism and the choices we make in how we represent ourselves. I knew what side of the camp I wanted to fall on and I wanted my work to offer the same values as the original hat while at the same time abandoning the materials that worked in opposition to said values.

Remember some weeks back when I wrote about the artist who said that what she got out of art school was the ability to talk about her work as it related to society? I take this to mean that without the proper forum and language, I am simply some lady knitting a hat. If I want my action to have meaning larger than this I must have a forum to insert my experience into that would impact my world in some way that would have meaning other than simply in making a hat. And what is it that makes these seemingly benign actions have meaning?

POD Find

2009-01-26T22:05:00.000-08:00

On my way to the grocery or over to LACIS, my refuge from a world too coarse for my senses, I pass through a place between MLK and Adeline where there is the scent of a flower I didn't know existed outside of my version of heaven. It took me a long time to really seek and find the source of this call to live; a delight, uncommon and unexpected, suggesting.

Once I figured it out I took, guess who? Monica, by the hand and walked beside her, in the swell, falling forward with each step. I do believe that we came out plumper as we exited, walking step by step into the smell of smoking oil, nearing Adeline.

This is the POD from our mystery tree, thought to be in the Magnolia family.

Discipline, God and High-Heels

2009-01-14T03:04:00.000-08:00

My mother always was someone to look up words in the dictionary, leaving me with a beautiful specimen; a giant, too big to avoid, and yet, only a small insight into knowledge sort of book. An apple of seeds.

I looked up “discipline”, thinking to revive my creative spirit but find that the meaning is two fold; a practice of training people to obey rules as well as a punishment. Of course, it is all in how you read it but I know this is not for me. If you ask the serious artists they say it rather bluntly, there has to come a time of discipline.

But then I came upon the word devotion. "Surely, it is how we come to our work that produces the well sought after joy of making", I quote myself, the artist. This is, the secret drawer in the artist’s desk.

The word devotion has to do with love as well as prayer. This reminds me that I have been thinking about the concept of God more than usual, almost in the same way I have been thinking about really giving up high-heeled shoes. At some point, what use are these concepts of representation? But, a prayer of creativity? Now that usurps discipline’s driving force, God’s hold on creation and should be done in comfortable shoes. I learned that last one the hard way.

I was walking in Berkeley, enjoying the emptiness of the streets, which were dramatized by the leaflessness of the trees. I was on my way to the grocery with money in my pocket, produced by my work. I was on top of the world after surviving a time too long without the flow of cash, a riverbed, bone dry. My spirit was released from the foothold of anxiety as I pulled my old lady cart to the market.

I stopped at the light; the street, which had been recently paved, seemed wider, as I crossed, standing briefly in the middle, I watched as it narrowed, an illusion of distance. My view was completely unobstructed. I felt alone. It occurred to me that this was the feeling of my job as an artist here in America. I don’t know what it is like in other parts of the world. My highs and lows, my hunger, my passion, my little victories, my cycles of confusion and ah-ha completely undocumented, my perspective an illusion of childish pursuit, unattached to the real world of making money and piling up the favors of status. A sidecar universe, attached to a world without breaks and a compulsion to go fast.

Once I asked a successful artist whether or not she felt like what she learned in art school had anything to do with her financial/external success as an artist. She said that she felt that what she learned in art school was how to talk about her work. She learned to frame her work in relation to a larger society. This is, of course, the packaging of a product, which is all part of participating in the marketing of the creative impulse, the growing up of the artist. It has to do with placing yourself in a group by adhering to the guidelines of the art world and to the standards of production that prove excellence. The discipline.

Roots and Greens

2009-01-10T18:31:00.000-08:00

After two solid years I finally dug up one of the first plants I planted in the garden; horseradish. A bit woody but spicy just the way I like it. Bloody Mary anyone?

For New Years day I followed the tradition of having black eyed peas with rice and greens. The greens are from our garden, brave little leaves popped up in the bare and cold earth. In the mornings the dew sits on the leaves like jewels.

I also fried this celery root in butter and enjoyed the subtle taste with toasted celery seeds. I love these roots that are almost frightening on the grocery shelves, looking less like a food than a monster part.

New Years With The Style Master

2009-01-10T18:29:00.000-08:00

I was lucky enough to borrow Shannon's beautiful vintage sewing machine for my New Years ambition. I like the idea of having a New Years Ambition rather than a New Years Resolution which feels overburdened with expectations and judgement. I never did catch onto sewing as a girl even though I did take Home Economics. Looking at this machine fills me with trepidation from those early days of making a mess of bobbins and thread. Nonetheless, if I am to associate with any sewing machine I think this is the one; a looker, eh?

Holiday Bliss

2009-01-10T18:27:00.001-08:00

My last days of 2008 were were a celebration of Roses and Pasta. I take my time getting to The Phoenix Pastificio tucked away in Berkeley overlooking Strawberry Creek Park. I got the following review on the web and couldn't have said it better myself:

This review is for the Kalamata Olive bread:

I love you Kalamata Olive bread
Oh yes I do
I love you Kalamata Olive bread
you are so good
When you're not in belly
I want you in my belly
Oh Kalamata Olive bread I love you.

This is not bread with olives in it, it is olives with bread around them.

The pasta that I chose this time was Porcini mushrooms which made for a rich and simple meal. But it isn't just the food, it really is the whole experience of going and standing at their kitchen door and making your order with the kindest, most down to earth people who make that place run around the clock. The hometown feeling fills me to the brim and my admiration for the owners authentic commitment to their mission is big.

Pass It On

2008-12-16T22:29:00.000-08:00

Today I walked all the way from my house to downtown Berkeley. It was colder than I have ever remembered that it could be. Brisk, I believe. And windy enough to knock Aya's mailbox off of the porch. As I reached the entrance to my destination I looked down at my feet and saw, among the leaves there, a bill; the darkness of the green in perfect combination with the carmel brown of the Sycamore leaves. I bent down quickly to pick it up, accepting my good fortune without a moments hesitation. No matter the number, it was a miracle.

But do you want to know,
it was a 20.

Pass it on.

Here is another of the subvert images I posted months ago. This one is 100x bigger than the others I have seen. Off of Shattuk in downtown Berkeley. Go a couple streets over from the library toward Oakland. I forget now the exact street name but you are an adventurer with a thrill for treasure hunting, right? This image is in the color scheme that I am drawn to right now.

Scarflett Finished!

2008-12-15T19:45:00.000-08:00

Eva was so kind to model the Sondra's finished scarflett. I am sending it off to New York tomorrow, where Sondra is living for the month. I think it will be perfect for the terrain and stylish too!

I lined the scarflett with a lovely silk scrap that I have had around for years. I usually try to use scrap or re-purposed fabric for linings. It reminds me of the old times of quilting when women paid close attention to reusing or re-purposing fabric. The buttons are mother of pearl from my collection of most loved.

Sondra's Scarflett in Progress

2008-12-11T14:56:00.000-08:00

Riddling Math

2008-12-10T21:27:00.000-08:00

I've had the memory of this story a few times over the years of my adult life. I was in grade school, when we lived in Sodaville,Oregon, land of pine trees, wearing a poly knit dress in Peptobismal pink and lime green geometric pattern, sitting completely still, immersed in a boredom so numbing I would leave my body and return to find myself startled into a darkening room and a pencil in my hand.

My father had a dark beard, beneath a pair of equally distinct eyebrows. I had written, I haTe MATH! ! !, on my homework, now, he was responding,

You will never get a job with that attitude!

Without really knowing what he meant I shook my head slowly in disbelief, the numbers jumbling up on the paper. I just knew it didn't matter, erasing what I had written. I really don't remember what happened after that but these little bits flash before me in the spaces between time.

When I found this Math book at the flea I didn't know it would pair with a book I got earlier this week in the mail. Together they depict, for me, the personal mythology that guides my life. I love these books separately but together they make each it's own. I cherish the memory of my original self-knowing. I knew there was another half to math. And it wasn't spelling.

And then tonight, in my archeology homework, I came across a history on the Gauls or Celtic, as they are called among the "dirt worshiping tree lovers". As you know, I am sure, these people had their own stylized way of drawing and were very fierce fighters, holding out against the Romans a long while, then eventually assimilating into the colonizing Roman culture. We are in modern day France, I believe. This is all news to me. Most important to my story however, is that the Gauls demanded wit of their royalty, an attribute holy and revered among the Celtic commoners. They were a brutal people whose gods demanded of them blood rites, sacrifices sanctioned, of animal and human alike. A serious people in serious need of some humor.

Besides the books, I have been knitting, by some strange stroke of luck, with the very pink and green of that dress. The colors together causing a seizing sliver of time, a memory of being me.

A Walk In The Neighborhood

2008-12-07T19:20:00.001-08:00

In about an hour I experienced the following just by walking out my front gate. I have started to take late afternoon walks with my camera, usually to the yarn shop or the post office or for a tea and pastry at the local bakeries. The air is fresh and I am ripe for the common profound all around. For me, well versed in the depressive, it is not something that can be forced. If it were not for my depressive nature I don't believe that I could see the essence of things so well as I do. Depression acts as an eraser, leaving a void that is very difficult to explain. Coming out of that state of mind can open one up, as if for the first time, to the world and its intricacies.

A Walk In The Neighborhood

2008-12-07T19:16:00.000-08:00

This here is Tommy. An absolute icon, all his own. Look at this man. An old fashioned friendly, a smile that goes on for days and striking bluish gray eyes. Settled down to a natural ease and learned into a grace that he says that his sisters taught him. If hard times look good this man can prove it!

Tommy says that he learned a long time ago that women can actually be attracted to a car and not to the man driving it. I have to admit, when I saw that car, from blocks away, my step quickened. I have to admit, I was attracted to that car. What kind of person would drive that around, I thought to myself?

He says he tinkers around with his cars. Has a house, made a home for his kids. Made a nice Japanese style garden out front for the kids to enjoy. These look to be the best years of his life.

A Walk in the Neighborhood

2008-12-07T19:14:00.000-08:00

Historical is right! This is a crane that looks a bit like a giant Tonka Toy.

The wheels are about up to my chest, friends. Very commanding vehicle made to work.

A Walk In The Neighborhood

2008-12-07T19:10:00.000-08:00

I am afraid this little Tulip Magnolia is confused here in California. It is December, I said in a low voice but very politely.

Thank you, Mr. Obama. Now let's see what we can do.

Raw Materials

2008-12-07T12:58:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've been wanting to find a way to talk about knitting that reflects the nature of the work to other people and this is as good a place as any to develop that articulation.

These are the raw materials that I will use to make a Scarflett for my friend Sondra's birthday. She wants black to match her winter coat but she loves color and has picked a brilliant blue that she has seen me use in other pieces but not shown here.

I've chosen this deep, serious black from a company in Uruguay who Kettle dyes Merino wool to perfection. The spin texture is uneven, going from thick to thinner throughout the skein.

I've shown here another dark yarn that is also Merino wool but variegated with dark green/brown and gray. And yet another light color of Peruvian wool and alpaca. These yarns will be used for an entirely different project but I bought them all at the same time because they seemed to go together so beautifully.

Ultimately, knitting, for me, is about choice and not skill or even product. Even with my very limited skill or knowledge of the hundreds of stitches possible I am still provided limitless choices on any one product. I can choose the size of needles or choose a combination of sizes. It is possible for me to create many patterns while only knowing the 2 basic stitches; knit and purl. Color and texture, and type of yarn all play a role in the outcome of the project. The interplay between all of these factors produces a sense of interacting with the medium in a way that feels very relationship oriented between me and my choices and the medium. It may sound a bit esoteric but this is the nature of describing something that is so personal as creativity and its brilliant effect on the artist.

The yarn itself, the way that it looks, smells and feels is very important to me. I have just now begun to think about the spinners and their role in my life. These activities of spinning and knitting have an ancient history that is close to animals and the cycles of seasons. I am sure I might be a bit disappointed to see where this yarn comes from as these companies are big enough that the process that produces this yarn is probably not quite as romantic as the yarn feels to me. Nonetheless, there are small spinning operations that I have yet to connect with and through which I will develop a new level of knowledge and subtle relationship.

What I once thought of as a task that would provide me a distraction while waiting for the train has become a true love that gives me an exciting exploration and connection to a task as old as Eve covering her nakedness. As old as fishing. As ancient as the generosity of motherhood. And still there is something incredibly innovative happening for me every time I chose.

More later.

Monica's Magic

2008-12-04T14:23:00.000-08:00

These are all works by MY FRIEND, Monica Long. I have feature her here a couple of other times and will many more times as I am completely in awe of her creative genius! She is a member at The Berkeley Potter's Guild, a Berkeley institution really. Sales all through December are as follows:

731 Jones at 4th in Berkeley
10am through 5pm
December 6-7
December 13-14
December 20 - 24

www.berkeleypotters.com

Oh, How I Wish I Was A Mushroom!

2008-12-03T12:46:00.000-08:00

Orange Is My Favorite Color

2008-12-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

THANKS BE!

2008-11-28T18:20:00.000-08:00

Fall Spider

2008-11-25T09:47:00.000-08:00

In the fall, usually October, the spiders come out and show off their skills. The sight spurs me in my own preparation for winter, compelled, really, to re-make home and focus on tasks related to comfort. I have been knitting with a fervor that must relate to birds building nests and squirrels planting their acorns.

In Ancient Peru spiders represented a sign of human progress and prosperity. In November of last year, a new archeological site was discovered there and named, "Collud, The Spider God Temple". Hearing this has encouraged me to, once again, to remember the wisdom of spiders and the relationship that I have with them as allies instead of pests.

The Miracle of Grey Water

2008-11-20T18:30:00.001-08:00

Why we decided to use our grey water from our washer to water our gardens?

In the United States it is estimated that the average person uses 75 to 150 gallons of water per day. In the United Kingdom it’s about 40 gallons/person/day, in most African countries its below 20.

So, we four tenants here on Julia Street and our landlord decided to do the easy and sensible thing and use our wash water to water our garden. It saves money and gives us a sense of using our common sense. Our partnership with each other on this project represents cooperation and shared values. In addition, we got to partner with the Tondre and the Dig Collective for an even greater experience of working together in an extended network of smart people; ready and willing to get dirty and get it done. Power to the people!!!

Our Hero

2008-11-20T18:28:00.000-08:00

Our Pick For Instillation:
www.dig.coop

Tondre is an expert at setting up Grey water systems, comprehensive or small, like our system. He has a professional, accessible manner and is just straight out, A SUPER NICE GUY! Check out his bio on the Dig website, he appears to be an eco-warrior, my friends!

Instructions

2008-11-20T18:27:00.000-08:00

Grey Water Tank

2008-11-20T18:21:00.000-08:00

You might ask, "why photos of a plastic tank"? Because, to me, this is a fantastic sign of progress, a small step toward the greater goal of a sustainable lifestyle. Plastic or not, it's working!

Evas Home

2008-11-16T22:12:00.000-08:00

Reunion

2008-11-10T09:42:00.000-08:00

I love synchronicity so I couldn't have been more delighted to reconnect with my friend Traci. I've had these photos hidden away for a few years and had not looked at them until last week, only a few days later she called! It feels good to be in the cycle of things, the comings and goings, always opportunity! Don't we look just like sisters?

Apple King

2008-11-07T12:44:00.000-08:00

Early this year I started working on this project. I didn't expect it to turn into what it has become. Most of my embroidery projects have been simple line drawings that could be accomplished in a couple months, at the most, depending on how much time I dedicated to the work. I have wanted to mature in my skills for some time and finally took the step this time. I chose linen which is a traditional fabric used in embroidery and changed my usual silk floss to pearled cotton which provides a sheen similar to silk but is much easier to work with.

At the time that I was making my decisions on this project I was reading Michael Pollens, Botany of Desire, a book Chronicling the history of four highly adaptive plants that have a special place in the lives of humans. One of the plants chronicled in the book is apples and I found myself mesmerized by Michael's descriptions of varieties of apples that I had never imagined.

My goal is to finish this piece by the end of the year, make it into a simple, standard pillow case for Mr. Pollen who, a hero of our time, has advanced the national, essentially political discussion of food to new levels of awareness without over intellectualizing or laden with judgmental overtones.

New Day

2008-11-05T12:57:00.000-08:00

Last night felt like New Years Eve and today, an ambition stirs in me comparable to these new seedlings in our garden. In California the fall season offers similar possibilities for growth as spring does for most of the country. Zuriel put in lots of Kale and Carrots and I got in some parsnips and cover crops; crimson clover and vetch. These sprouts are full of zeal, encouraged by our recent rains. I cannot deny how deeply relieved I feel in the change of leadership in the United States. All over the world people are celebrating, not just Americans, a new day. May we mend our terrible betrayals in war, in race and economic injustice. The possibilities multiply.

Yesterday, I heard a young man say on the radio that "Martin Luther walked so that Obama could run" and it reconnected me to the gratitude that I feel for our world leaders who have taken the highest road they could find for the good of all. Personally, I have only found one holy path to walk and that is in the garden. It is still deeply personal, a narrow little walkway that can connect itself slightly to the greater good, if only in taking myself out of the industrial food complex and recommitting to the earth, the cycles and our insect allies. It is just a simple direction to walk, hopefully with many others, inspired by the creative work of peace.

COMPOST READY.

Peace Is President!!!!!!

2008-11-04T23:22:00.000-08:00

Even now I hear firecrackers going off on Ashby near Martin Luther King School. Aya, my neighbor exclaims, "Our boyfriend is president!" Walking on Shattuck toward Oakland, a woman caught my attention, her voice resounding, "Peace is President!" easily drowning out the car horns speeding by and people across the street chanting, "OBAMA!OBABMA!OBAMA! Car alarms, police horns, fast bike riding. My heart pounding. My cheeks hurt. No rain and no wait, but I got everything else I wanted!

Inside calm, outside Torrents

2008-11-03T16:32:00.000-08:00

Dedicated to Stephen.

I am so lucky and I know it more today than ever as the torrent torrents outside and I sit here in my cozy home drinking hot chocolate, candles burning. It feels just how it sounds; extravagant, rich and blissful. There is nothing better to do or be. Satisfaction is nothing more than this.

I am looking forward to voting tomorrow. I hope it rains and I have to stand in line for an hour, at least. I’ve had 3 separate volunteers call me to make sure I have a ride to the polls if I need one or offering to help me vote early if I want to. It surprises me how touched I felt getting those phone calls. I don’t think we can underestimate the power of that kind of support in creating an engaged, voting society. And these people are VOLUNTEERING. Imagine if we required our government to provide this kind of non-partisan support just for the purpose of engaging citizens. In some countries it is a requirement to vote but we could encourage the value of voting by choice as a celebration and a form of pride. If we felt that we had a reason to be prideful. Well, no, I am not the first to imagine such a world but these days, it feels like it.

I do believe that our last election ended up being a farce that eroded our collective, civic pride (if it could be more eroded after that first term). I heard a radio story yesterday on Hunter S. Thompson's complicated and antagonistic relationship to Nixon. He ended up writing an obituary upon Nixon's death that claimed that Nixon had "broken the heart of the American dream". To mend is a powerful thing and I see our nation at that same crossroads again as we face our task to end this unjust war, to RE-create an economy overcome by greed mascarading as what brokers like to call free market capitalism. Here we are again, let's hire someone new to defeat those that have outright destroyed our civil liberties. If you don't feel it then it is a sure sign that your heart has truly been broken. I remind myself, FEEL IT.

Original Fire

2008-10-27T20:51:00.001-07:00

I am taking an archeology course meant to fulfill a requirement for my degree in Anthropology. Right now we are learning about human origins; looking at website images of proposed early humans. All this knowledge comes from digging around for bones to determine more about the lives of our ancestors. An open mind and a good imagination are required for the job.

Fire Vessel

2008-10-27T20:48:00.001-07:00

I think more about my family this time of year, naturally. And about my personal past and about my old friends, either in or out of my life now. I participate in longing and sad songs. I check off my regrets and find a soft place for the changes that have taken place among us, all of us, living and dead. And in my mind and body. Was I ever without malice? Without and completely willing?

In The Heart Of

2008-10-27T20:46:00.001-07:00

Precious time of fire, a place of surrender, a tithe pot in a large unattended temple. Go there and give everything you have, say some. The fire will reach the ceiling, my friend, burning the whole place down. This is the time to get back to the original God and worship with every ounce of compassion we can muster, forgiving all, anew.

In The Belly Of

2008-10-27T20:43:00.001-07:00

You might ask, how many pictures of fire can a person look at, huh? You can look at a few more I say.

Fire Lateral

2008-10-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

Our time of rest is coming. I planted carrots and parsnips, enriched with our compost. It was dark by the time I finished, which is only a few shades from the days light.

I wake up early, instantly aware that I am connecting with my ancient puritan, rising with a resolution usually reserved for the most steadfast, knowing the value of daylight. There is an end and it is nigh, these early mornings sound.

Alter 2008

2008-10-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

Integrated into my Fall Change is the preparation for The Day of the Dead/Hallowmas celebrations that I have come to think of as an important a ritual time, much more so than say, our American Christmas. Of course, these are the distinctions that we make in adulthood; embracing our chosen holidays and making them our own.

To honor our dead in this time is to honor our own life, creating a depth of respect necessary to the contemplation of our most profound human quandaries into meaning. The strength to face my own death is inherently laced with the process of a lifetime of grieving the death of my closest allies and family members. These truly are the people who have showed me the full cycle; how it is done.

Grandma Sharp with Janine and Lassie

2008-10-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

Grandpa Teal with his Parents

2008-10-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

Self-portraits

2008-10-27T11:57:00.001-07:00

Grandma Wilma and Grandma Mudds

2008-10-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

Day of the Dead 2008

2008-10-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

I think of Georgia O'Keefe as part of my family of artists and feel so grateful for her model as a life well lived in self-inquiry of the most complex kind.

Fall Change 2008 Scrap

2008-10-26T23:44:00.000-07:00

This is a scrap that I found in the dustpan after sweeping up today. I felt like a hero saving it from the garbage!

Fall Change 2008

2008-10-26T23:18:00.000-07:00

Twice a year, in the fall and the spring, I have a ritual cleaning; organizing and redecorating of my apartment. It is an exciting time of year with lots of chaos and looming winter deadlines but eventually it all comes together and I feel a wonderful sense of completion for the year.

I bring out my winter clothes and put away my summer wear, replace the curtains, wall decoration and any little thing I can think of to create a sense of change in my winter burrow. By now, after doing it so many times it is part of the natural order of things. I put away and get rid and bring in. It is a process that continues to amaze me. Chaos to order. Order in chaos.

In the process of moving things around, dusting and cleaning, things come together in new places and create new perspectives of their own accord and not really of my conscious making. My little collections disband and then come together with other things from other rooms as if by magic, unintended, they light up with BELONGING. I leave them together until spring.

Fall Change 2008

2008-10-26T23:14:00.000-07:00