Summer has been very full and I am pulled in many directions regarding what to write about here. This will be a bit of a hodgepodge, an olio (that's a favorite crossword puzzle word--a miscellaneous collection), so I can share some of what's on my mind.  

I've felt frustrated that I haven't found a great deal of time or energy for studio work of late, but it's clear that this is a period of gestation (more about that below) and some kind of as-yet-unclear transition. It's important to say, too, that I realize my art really is made up of all of it--sharings on this blog, the workshops I develop, my photography, my writing, my hospice work, etc. It's all part of my creative expression, all of a piece, and the energy moves from one to another.

I am feeling quite charged up about some of my upcoming workshops.  The theme of the SoulCollage experience I am facilitating next week, for example, is "Finding Home." The intention is that we explore our inner-most sense of home. I hadn't realized it when the theme came to me, but it echoes my post of 1/2/19 when I wrote about the "Centering Home" song by my friend Molly Scott, and the idea of always coming back to the path and following it home to the center. I'm also beginning to be excited about the Nature Spirits workshop I am teaching at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts (Mineral Point, Wis.) in August. Participants will make their own embodied totemic figures with natural materials. Yesterday, in beginning to prepare the workshop, I had new ideas about construction techniques for my own figural sculpture. Definitely itching to experiment...

All the details haven't quite coalesced or come into focus yet, but I am also planning an art event this fall that will hopefully be an offering both to the community and to myself, since I know I will learn a great deal from it. On September 15, I will share a selection of my art pieces and after demonstrating the way they can channel deep-seated messages (see last blog post), I will invite others to "listen" and speak from them too.  We may effectively create a kind of community oracle. The event will also involve a give-away and love-offering exchanges of some of the pieces that are ready for new homes; if someone feels called to one of them, that will be really perfect.

That whole weekend will be an art adventure. September 15 is a Sunday, but on Saturday, September 14, I will be one of the artists featured at the Earth Dance environmental art installation at the Farley Center [for Peace, Justice and Sustainability, Verona, Wis.]. Artists have been invited to find a site in the Nature Path Sanctuary (a natural burial ground, mostly in the woods), and using land-based, degradable materials, to create a piece that will be out there for several months. There is a reception/ tour on the 14th, featuring a walkabout through the woods. As the group walks up to each artwork, the artist talks about it. I've participated in three previous environmental art happenings in the sanctuary, and the walkabout has been consistently magical. For details, see farleycenter.org/earth-dance/

Since it's still a work in progress, I can't share anything yet about the piece I will contribute this year, but here are some images from "Hanging In," the one I created for the last Farley event in 2017. It was made with hog gut, mohair, raffia, mica rings, glass rings, and wooden twigs.

As indicated above, I've been sensing that I am in some sort of gestating phase right now--that there is something brewing. I am often feeling a little irritable, that not-here-nor-there quality. Some of the things that felt completely comfortable or home-like to me before seem much more bland or unsatisfying now. I'm impatient. I don't really like the restlessness, but I certainly understand that it's a natural phase we go through, perhaps even a necessary phase. The chrysalis time can't be easy. The typical image for the transformation or chyrsalis phase is the way the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, of course, but I've been much more focused on dragonflies, or more accurately, damselflies.  They are an integral part of my kayak time on the lake, and I've just so often marveled at that incredibly light touch as they land on my skin. Here's a musing about that:

      
                              The Light Damsel
 
The damselfly touches down, lands for a moment, and
I feel lightness, the whisper of wind and delicate form
 
Gossamer creatures, flying over the marsh,
hooking up and darting away, about-facing in the air, or
placing their tiny feet on my arm, the kayak lip, or the moving paddle.

Whatever they feel, in their elongated bodies,
they seem the epitome of living light
flitting off, air elementals, sky people.

Not always. The story starts before. 
Most of their lives they have no wings,
do not soar, sky dive and play with breezes.
No traversing the sky,
no wings.
Named nymphs, but not shimmery fairy folk
they move in density, weighted with water, crawling, breathing
through gills, slower, deliberate
and molting, they molt, over and over, maybe for years,
then crawl to land where
slowly, they change.
 
The gossamer grows, the sheath slips off, and yes yes--
two pairs of wings emerge, open,
and wait to dry.
Ready to rise, shimmer, take to the air,
zoom across the pond, four shimmering wings,
embodying light.

That lightness on my skin
hard-won, well-earned, finally,
rising to the sun, gleaming,
the light of freedom, the freedom of lightness,
the light damsel
that carries me away.
-------------

Rising to the sun, lightness--that's part of this longing, the yearning, what I hope is part of what's gestating. Keep molting, but hold the image of the light above. I've written about light language before too, and I long for more understanding-- not just to "speak" that, but to understand what it says.
Here, more offerings about the  the light inside everything, infusing everything, the beauty, and the longing; and the sense of reaching up, rising to the sun, seeking light. Some of this has to be visual, to see and feel the inner light. I offer some of my [altered] photographs. (Click on the images for full views and captions--explanations of what they are.)

         And finally, one last poem, written in May:


   Light Language Inscription
 
Indelible mark of the light,
the language inscribed in indigo ink
deep into the chest,
etching it ineffably, its
curving codes and frequencies
here now, in the center,
as particles dance and gleam all round.
 
Yes, you are marked, bound
into the family
those who wear the sign
and know boundlessness
even within the chains.

As regular readers may know, my art process is intuitive and usually without a preconceived idea about what will emerge. I do not set about to make representations of particular things or ideas; rather, I start with materials (e.g. bones, bark or other detritus; intriguing papers or fabric; or compelling pre-printed images), and see what "wants" to go with what (to be combined into something new)--what wants to emerge. I typically have a general form in mind--I would know I am working on a figural sculpture, for example, or a mask, or a piece that is part of a series relating to boats and crossings--vessels that take us from one place to another. Any given piece reveals itself in the process, however, and I m always having to I discover what feels right and where and how it should go.

Since the process is fluid, I am often unsure what the piece may be "about" until it is finished.  I have learned from the SoulCollage(R) process to let it speak to me --I ask it to tell me about itself, in its own voice. (In SoulCollage, we ask the finished collage to speak in the first person, to tell it who and what it is and what it wants us to know.) In the last five years or so I have begun to use this kind of inquiry with almost everything I make. It's a form of channeling.

The messages that emerge often repeat over and over, with persistent themes. They reflect back to me what I am dealing with or picking up on--sometimes my own issues, but even more what is going on in the broader energetic field in which we live. Last year I chronicled the way my own SoulCollage cards were tracking the return of the divine feminine. I had started making images about patriarchy and how it was oppressing both women and men, but realized that over time, the images showed that the divine feminine was getting stronger, even edging into a kind of gender-blending. (Now I am seeing this in the culture at large, with the whole non-binary gender phenomenon seeming to intensify by the day).  I documented much of this progression in my blog post of October 10, 2018, so please scroll down through the archives to review that if you are interested.

The same process seems to happen with all the things I make, whether it's two dimensional collage or three dimensional assemblage, or poetry, and it even extends to this blog itself, for my posts follow what feels like it "wants" to be shared at any given time.  It's fascinating to see how this all plays out.

I'll share a few examples today, and (especially if I get any positive feedback) will continue with some different themes in future posts. 

One of the themes that has been showing up for years now is the idea that there are emerging energetic changes that are changing our reality--even beyond the shifting balance away from patriarchy, we are moving into a very different consciousness.  Many of the images come forward with witnessing figures, who watch the changes; other figures serve as guardians who hold the space. Related images show something emerging, or new energies rising up. This kind of imagery may have first appeared in collage form, but it comes through in three dimensional guardians as well. I'll start with some of the collages (this is just a sampling--it's hard to know where to stop!) and share what they "said" about themselves. To get the message and the full photo, click on the image and look at the caption.

Poems that express this same idea have come through too, and again, it wasn't until after the fact that I realized how aligned these are with the images and their messages. (Remember, these appear over a many-year period). Two recent examples:

       The Waiting Ones
They watch closely, these figures,
at the ready, alert,
waiting for the signal, the gate to lower
and the knowing to rush in.
They are your familiars
attuned to the future
and the moment of release.
 
 
          Witnesses
They stand here, still,
awake and waiting.
They know what’s going on.
Holding presence, holding space,
solidifying energy and making it visible,
amplifiers, directing the sound
lining up the structures and
singing silently to the rising notes
of love.
 

Here are some examples of the guardians and witnesses that have emerged
in the three dimensional work.

I do hope readers will share their impressions and responses to this post--to individual pieces and to the whole concept of channeling the energetic field through this kind of art. It seems fairly unique. How does it make you feel? What elements matter most?Where else can I share this body of work (who is supposed to receive it)? What questions do you have? Please let me know. Thank you!

Here's the scene: morning on the lanai, still cool, birds and breezes. Even the hanging Spanish moss sways gently, and wide-awake ginger leaves reach upward, so green. Lula, the little avocado tree I am helping to come back from the brink, is bravely putting out new leaves to catch the early sun. The ceiling fan is spinning gently overhead (this one silent, unlike the creaky one in the next room), adding to the sense of aliveness.
 
Birds sing out raucously at dawn and settle down later as the day moves on, but I see now how this is so for the plants as well; an alertness, loud presence, which will soften into absorption or even forbearance as the heat rises. Looking too at an anole—a small lizard—perched on the woody stem of the ti plant, its red-throated mating movement (it's a dewlap that protrudes in and out) announcing territory and readiness. Silent, to me, but speaking its own language at full volume. These are brown anoles that come in many color variations, and can apparently change their color to some degree. They are often spotted. They rush up  tree trunks quickly, like squirrels, and as squirrels leap across branches, these little ones leap from leaf to leaf. They are part of the everyday scenery here, and the everyday drama. I found two locked together in my outdoor shower, so poignant, and yesterday I opened the mailbox to find not letters, but an anole with a truncated tail, resting. I’ve watched an egret grab one and run on its long legs, lizard tail dangling from its mouth.  (Anoles can separate from their tails as a form of protection, and it's a strange sensation to pick one up that way and almost instantaneously be left with a disconnected tail  in one's fingers.) I see one climbing the screen, legs akimbo, underbelly open to view.

So much more: the legions of spiders, especially visible on the horizontal webs they spin among the spikes of the snake plants—sometimes even in vertical layers, creating a kind of apartment building—or smaller ones on the dewy morning grass. So much feeding going on, a reminder of how much insect life there actually must be here, largely unseen. Or in my studio, a separate building out back that seems to have its own ecology, the tiny creatures—pinprick small—that speed over surfaces astonishingly fast, like the whirling legs of the plovers and sandpipers on the sand that pump faster than our eyes can track. Glad to share the environment with all of them, though admittedly I’ve been furious at the rabbits that have chewed my baby plants down to the ground, leaving little moringa trees nothing but stems, or stripping the tart leaves off the cranberry hibiscus, even the new ones planted as replacements for what had been ravaged. Chasing the rabbits off is pointless, and I've tried sprays and spikes to little effect.  I’ve found myself rooting for a predator (maybe one of those owls I hear calling in the night?), although it’s clear I have to make friends and find ways to share. (But bunny, there’s so much else to eat besides my nurselings….) The rabbits don’t seem to come out in the early morning, though perhaps I just don’t see.
 
Not visible from where I sit now or at this time of day, there’s the slow turtle that suns itself by the canal. Going out to the driveway to get the morning paper, I see ducks paddling the pond or rooting in the drainage ditch—just females, leaving me to wonder about the males and the gender dynamics. Some days there's a night heron, an egret, or even a wood stork, looking for fish, or a group of ibis pecking the ground with those long rosy orange beaks, their heads perpetually bent down. I am intrigued by the black ibis I see sometimes, but they have never come here. Do ibis have separate trees to roost in at night? I haven’t spotted them among the crowds at the nearby rookery, where herons, egrets and anhinga tussle for space, or at the pelican or spoonbill rookeries down the bay. Ibis do flock at evening, though; I used to watch a man feed them nightly at a pocket lake near a house I was staying in, and I followed the white waves of birds flying in. The sight was somehow always reassuring.
 
I’ve wandered  in my musings from morning to night, it seems. Evening and night leave strong impressions too. Just days ago on the beach there was the huge full moon rising behind the dunes, across from the setting sun, as well as heat lightning firing up a huge cloud bank somewhere down the coast. I love the way people wave goodbye to the sun as it disappears into the water (those not stationed behind their phone cameras, anyway), though the best show is often afterwards, in the lingering pink/orange light. Nighttime, right out here behind the house, is sometimes punctuated by bursts of frog songs and call-and-response hoot owls, or occasionally the scream of some unknown animal trying not to be prey.

It’s still morning now, and I have somewhere to be, so it’s time to move on from this perch among the flowered cushions. Good to write it down, pulling the reverie even more into solidity, however fleeting. Thanks for sharing it with me.

 (LATER-- FURTHER OFFERINGS.
I feel rich with the many wonderful things I come to know here every day--even though it's been years now, I am still delighting in the great sense of discovery about what grows, or about the sights and sounds around me in this Gulf coast environment.  I'm so filled with it right now that can't seem to stop the sharing. Thus, in addition to this mornings' musings, I offer more photos that (hopefully) capture some of my delights. Check out the captions and the full views in the gallery below)  (click on the image itself and it will open larger, with the caption), for I do explain what you're looking at. And look for surprises!

Sea hibiscus flower in its red stage (these start out yellow when they first come out!)

I've been traveling and quite busy of late, so it's been quite some time since I have shared here. Settling in quietly now I've been wondering which way to go--post more about some recent artwork, about the tropical garden discoveries, or so much more that's bubbling around me. But today what is rising to the surface is poetry, the words that capture the heightened state (previously, I've called it saturation) where everything seems extra charged. I always like to include illustrations too, so I offer a few here, to add to the richness and sense of fullness.

First, the joy of landing in that heightened state, just by infusing a dry leaf with color:

Next, some recent poems:


1. COMMUNION
 
The salt taste of the sea--
surprising intensity--
and my body holds it also,
that salinity, pulsing
through with each heartbeat.
 
And speaking of heart,
I dug out the palm stump
for the pale food within
whose name--“heart of palm”--
rings like a prayer.
 
Cook with ginger for this communion.
Add salt to flavor
Tasting sea, and tree
Touching into the holy being
we are part of.



2. ENTRAINMENT 
 
The surf, tumbling over itself
like tumbleweed
The sea foam, leaping quickly
across the sand
The wind, setting this in motion.
It is thrilling
the water jumping
the ions bouncing
my bones drumming
this insistent pulse.
 


3.  TO BE KNOWN                
 
Oh the beauty of red leaves on green moss
of day-glow orange leaves on granite rock,
wet with rain, of daffodils waving on their stalks
and sunflower fields reaching the horizon, their
golden yellow rings framing brown and
claiming eternity

Your one and precious life isn’t yours you know,
its astonishing is-ness always a taste of
the enormous, fabulous whole,
yes, a fable, a tale of such bigness,
color contrast, to call you alive, to call
every telomere to quiver in
recognition, in resonance, these purple
sunsets, the red spots on blackbird wings,
the opalescence of oysters, abalone, sheets
of mica among brown leaf litter, creamy white blossoms
punctuating dark green magnolias,
scenting the south. Small blue bird eggs, delicate,
and blue forget-me-nots, each little petal
a symphony of shades. Jacaranda blooms, and
poinciana shower trees, red and golden, the glory
glory of emergence and oh yes it is presence, to be
known and to cause trembling, of recognition
and receiving, of this boundless love.
 
                                               

Still on the theme of cultivating wonder...knowing that so many really remarkable things are going on all the time; the moments go by in a flash.  I've decided to stop time in a sense by listing some of my recent ones. I want to share some of those aha-how-wonderful moments so we can all sit back and savor the amazing parts of everyday.

So, some everyday wonders from my life by the Gulf. Savor them with me.

***smelling and chewing the fresh leaves of the root beer kava plant, which evokes something unidentified that seems to be long gone by
 
***the tiny bubbles bouncing off the surface of the hot tub, dancing in the sunlight with joyous momentum

***discovering plantain growing in my yard, just when I need the leaves to soothe a bite on my leg
 
***connecting online with my we-consciousness community and feeling the deep love that has no boundaries

***the patterns beneath my feet in the parking lot, mapping the path to everywhere

***opening a “dollar bag” of quick-sale eggplants from the vegetable market to reveal a big-nosed character

 I am increasingly concerned with cultivating wonder -- with becoming aware of the everyday magic we are surrounded by in every moment, and connecting in with it.  I have been developing workshops about this topic (a pretty wonder-full activity in itself), and in order to help others catch the magic, I am learning to articulate the elements that help us cultivate that awareness and way of life.   (Do contact me if you are interested in a cultivating wonder workshop, for I welcome all opportunities to share the ideas...).  In one of his well-known poems, Lawrence Ferlinghetti said he was "waiting for a rebirth of wonder." I say: let's not wait, let's step into that way of being.

One of the first elements or principles in the cultivation is to pay close attention to what is really there. The great poet Mary Oliver (who sadly just passed away, but we are all so much richer because of what she passed on) phrased it this way:

        Instructions for living a life:
            Pay attention.
            Be astonished.
            Tell about it.

So that's what I want to do now. One of the things I have been paying attention to in recent months is the sheer abundance that exists in all aspects of the material plane. It's astonishing, and I want to tell about it. Perhaps the most familiar sense of abundance comes from looking up and considering the stars; many of us have had the experience of contemplating the vastness--but beyond contemplating it, feeling it in an embodied way. (If I just use my mind in this kind of contemplation, I get  headache; it is literally too much for my brain to take in. But I can feel it in my spirit, or allow it as a felt sense rather than an idea.) But there is vastness much closer than the heavens--even our bodies hold astonishing abundance. 

Abundance is often expressed in terms of numbers. Even though there is "an unbelievably large number" of stars in the heavens, according to science writer David Blatner, about the same number of molecules can be found "in just ten drops of water." (Really?!!!!)  Our bodies, of course, are largely made of water--about 75% in an infant, and 60%in an adult. And what if we look at other body components? An adult human has somewhere around  37 trillion cells, and ten times as many microbes. The estimate for the micro-biome is about 100 trillion cells. (Again, it's not possible for me to think about this--the headache comes on again, for the number is too big to actually understand-- but it is certainly possible to be amazed.)

There are an amazing number of sand grains, too, each one ground down from a once-solid rock, shell or mineral of much greater size. Some estimate about 5 million grains of sand in one cup (depending of course on the fineness of the sand). Expand that to a child's beach pail or sand castle, or to one small beach, and then think of all the beaches.  

But just as we have to keep looking deeper at our bodies--from the organ level to the cell level to the microbe level--we can go deeper into (or around) the sand grains, too. There is a whole world of creatures (meiofauna) that live between the wet sand grains on a beach!  How amazing is this! It's a separate, distinct microscopic universe, made up of tiny organisms about 30 to 50 micrometers (bigger than bacteria, but less than a millimeter long). I first learned about the meiofauna in Michael Welland's book, Sand: The Never-Ending Story, and it is fair to say I was totally blown away--another whole world of life I knew nothing about, another level of life on the beach.  Just think how many of these beings would be underfoot on a 3 mile walk along the beach! Just think how many would be under a single footstep!
This drawing is what first captured my imagination.

This wasn't meant to be a science lesson, but I get so very excited about what is literally filling our world that I just want to keep putting out the amazing facts. Abundance everywhere. In our bodies, in our environments, often invisible, but our sight is expanding! With the wonderful tools we have available now (powerful microscopes, telescopes, space probes, data pattern generation etc.) we can literally see much what we have never seen before. 


Let me share something else I discovered in my environment recently that has brought me into a state of wonder. This was not literally hidden or invisible, but it was so well camouflaged that it might as well have been--that is, it was hidden until I started paying close attention. Last month I was wandering among some scrappy dunes near the (southwest Florida) intercoastal waterway, in a place where waste was once dumped after the bay was dredged to make the navigable canal. The area is now part of a nature preserve, and because there are no trails in this particular section, it's little visited and remains relatively undisturbed. I had been walking around those dunes for about 20 minutes, and suddenly noticed that there in the sand was a flower or star-shaped form that looked a great deal like one I had found in the forest of northern Wisconsin--in a very wet environment, among the hardwoods. I had been amazed at that form, and was able to identify it as an earthstar fungus (Astraeus hygrometricus, family Diplocystaceae). Young specimens look like puffballs, but when they mature and it is moist (one of their nicknames is "barometer earthstar"), the mushrooms open out into an earthstar shape, (the outer layer of the fruit body tissue splits open in a star-like manner). This was piece was sitting in the sand, and there were no large deciduous trees nearby. Could it really be the same thing? My husband, who was with me, wasn't even convinced it was a fungus; he insisted it had to be a flower.

Two things really delighted me. One was the great surprise of finding this same form in such a different environment (though there is one type known as a "false earthstar" that is often found in sandy environments, and perhaps this is an example). The other delight was that once I spotted one earthstar, I saw dozens of them, each so hidden that I was surprised anew. Ah, the point is: start looking!


There are a number of fun facts about this type of fungus, including: the German Mycological Society chose this species as the "Mushroom of the Year" in 2005;  earthstars are regularly eaten in Asia; they have been used in traditional Chinese medicine to help stop bleeding and reduce chilblains!; and people of the Blackfoot tribe called them "fallen stars," and considered them to have fallen to  earth during supernatural events. 

The first level of play is just the processing--seeing how they respond when wet and dry, experimenting with their behavior. The ones I collected from the sand were soon dried up and curled back in themselves, but when I re-hydrated them they became dimensional flowers once again. Could I press them when damp and convince them to maintain their flattened star shape? (The image of the weighted book--a dictionary!--shows how I attempted to do this.) It worked to a point, but unless there's lots of moisture in the air, they always want to curl. (Another factoid that once again shows the brilliance of nature: dry fruit bodies with the rays curled up may be readily blown about by the wind, allowing them to scatter spores from the pore as they roll.)

I hope you can enjoy some of this earthstar play with me in the photos below.

I don't have any new collage or assemblage that incorporate these new friends, although I hope that will be coming now that I have a good supply. What I can offer is the delight of the star/flower form, mixed with a variety of color and texture, as seen in these altered photos. Wonder-full!

Remember: pay attention, be amazed, be astonished, play with it, and love what is hidden all around us.

 
I’d like to share the story of my beach walk yesterday.  It was a lovely day, in the mid-70s and not windy, and even before I checked the weather, I had a feeling I should go to the beach in the afternoon. There was no particular agenda, but I always bring a collecting bag and like to take a long walk, well past the folks who have settled near the beach entrance. (I am blessed to live by the Gulf of Mexico in southwest Florida, near a sandy key (cay) where one can walk unimpeded for about 20 miles. My end of the key is generally quiet, and not too crowded. There are a few county-run access places with free parking lots, bathrooms, and picnic tables, but even past the park boundaries there are only private homes back beyond the dunes; happily, there are no high rises, restaurants or resort hotels anywhere nearby.)
 
As I set out walking south, I reminded myself to stay open to surprises, to try to pick up on synchronicities and see what gifts were offered, both in tangible form and as metaphor or inspiration. This is a practice that some people refer to as following everyday oracles. Dreamwork leader and shaman Robert Moss invented the world "kairomancy" to describe the practice of navigating by synchronicity, or meaningful coincidence. I love playing with this kind of navigation and find it can be quite profound.  
 
The first thing I encountered was a fisherman engaged in a mighty battle with something on the end of his line. It was obviously a powerful creature, as he had to grip very tightly and stand his ground with great force. There were about five other men gathered around, and one woman. Even as he was pulling, the men were going on about different kinds of fishing exploits. I asked the man with the rod what it was he was trying to land, and he said it was a sting ray. I watched as the creature thrashed about, pulling itself further out even as he worked mightily to pull it in.  I was uncomfortable and began to walk away, but found I couldn’t; I needed to see the animal that was so forcefully resisting him. It was exquisite—more than two feet across, noble-looking, though wounded, with gaping red spots in several places. The line was hooked into its belly (actually it looked to be under its mouth), and I literally winced, sensing the pain of the tugging line. One of the onlookers identified it as a cownose ray, which, as I learned when I looked it up later, can live in these waters for as many as 18 years. These rays eat crustaceans, and have few predators, other than humans.
The video that shows them in action underlines their grace and beauty.

The men had been talking about landing “him” (the ray), how “he” was so strong, and what a feat it was to get “him” to shore.  I kept feeling this might actually be a female. Despite any kind of gender consciousness-raising in the culture at large, that male pronoun is still what English-speakers use to describe wild animals. It's still the way we think. It further sets up the battle, of course: one “he” vs. another “he,” fighting for the position of alpha male. The men cut the line to send the ray back, acting quickly so it wouldn’t be out of the water for long, but I still felt angry and distressed. Fishing for food is one thing –I eat fish myself—but this kind of tug-of-war was literally war, or better put, literally torture for the ray; it served no purpose other than for the man on the beach to proclaim his power.  Had he (and all the other men) no sense of the fact that this animal with a sharp hook pulling in its flesh was hurting?  I did speak up about it, but I knew they wouldn’t listen; the man with the rod was the victor, enjoying the fact that he had won at his sport, and he believed he was humane in that he didn’t “waste” the fish. I moved off, leaving them to their sense of satisfaction as the ray was returned to the sea.

Was this my sign or gift? The sight of that beautiful animal, glistening in the sun, its eyes wide and its “wings” flapping? Or was it the awareness that these men, like all of us, are, as those who follow the Course in Miracles would say, children of God? In one of the Sufi dances I love we greet each person as “the face of God,” and say, “I hold you in my heart; you are a part of me.” I grumbled a bit, but kept sending that out to the fishermen, and told myself: “no exceptions. They are a part of me too, we are one.” I sent out the love I could to the wounded animal and to the people of the fishing party, praying that everyone would wake up to the pain of others to the point where they couldn’t continue to inflict it.

I was not too happy with that gift, although I accepted it as an important reminder—both of the fact that we still have not arrived at a time when the divine feminine principle/consciousness is shared by all (i.e., that I must be patient), and that I don’t only get to pick feel-good gifts. But as I kept walking, I realized there was an unusual accumulation of well-smoothed stones on the beach. Some were the expected (for this beach) black fossil bones, but others appeared to be made of a range of other minerals. I rarely see stones there, and quickly accepted them as messengers too. There were many small fossilized shark’s teeth scattered among them (that’s the “treasure” that so many hunt for on this beach), so I realized part of the message was, “just pay attention. It will be given.” But it went beyond that. I thought back to my musings on rock consciousness that I posted last month, and to my ongoing hyper-awareness of stones. These stones I was encountering are ancient; the fossilized ones date back to the Ice Age, maybe 50 million years ago.  All of them have old, old, old awareness.  The message came through: “Take the long view. Be patient. Consciousness is shifting.” 

Still further down the beach, in addition to the abundant piles of shells (the usual clams, whelk, scallops, pen shells, jingle shells, and more), I spotted something I had never seen before that reminded me of an angel’s wing. It was vaguely shell-like, but looked more like a plant pod than animal material, and when I found an example that was falling apart, I felt this hypothesis reinforced, since it seemed to have vegetal fibers and pattern growth. Some of the pods had clearly traveled the Gulf waters for some time, however, for they had barnacles attached.  There was no tree nearby with pods like these, so they had probably been swept up (in) from somewhere else. I kept spotting more. I will try to determine what they are,*** but since my first reaction was “angel wing,” I knew to recognize the sign: "there are angels present, or phrased differently, there are helpful spirits here." There are so many gifts, when you start to receive.  I looked up just then and saw angel wing formations in the clouds as well. There were many different types of clouds, actually: the etheric-looking angel wings; some well-formed cumulus puffs that looked like they belonged in a Grant Wood painting; some low-lying cloud blankets; and some wispy, fast-moving ones in another part of the sky.  The message was not too subtle: "abundance, so many different forms and manifestations, and everything always changing."
****UPDATE (June 2019): I learned from a helpful visitor to my studio that this wing-shaped bit of detritus is in fact a part of a mollusk, it is not a shell, per se. This is a like the protective covering of a whelk's "foot." It is separate hard, horny plate, called an operculum, which acts like a trap door when the living animal withdraws into the shell. It is sometimes called a “shoe.”

I gathered the angel wings to take home, identify, and perhaps incorporate in my art. I also gathered my share of other things—a few shark’s teeth, some of the little Sputnik-like burrs that come from Australian pines, some crab shells and well-aged fish bones, and some large clam shells that I am using to delineate garden bed borders. My collecting bag got very heavy. I lugged it home, shifting it from shoulder to shoulder, and smiling at the people I passed stretched out on their lounge chairs and blankets.  When I arrived in my garage, I took everything out of the bag so I could sort, clean, and marvel. This is part of the after-beach ritual: wash your findings off to remove sand, dirt and living matter, arrange the pieces with the others like them, and eventually put them in the studio, organized well enough so they can be easily retrieved.

Yes, a day in the blessed life. There were the always-present other gifts, too: the flock of terns gathered together and taking off in a cloud of white; the line of pelicans gliding overhead; the lapping of the soft waves and the sun creating diamonds on the water as far as the eye could see. No dolphins appeared, but I knew they were out there somewhere, just as I knew there were more rays and so much other life. I am gifted, gifted, and I appreciate, and I am watching the signs so I can learn to be more appreciative, more in wonder, more in harmony.  I thank this amazing mother planet and all that lives on it, including, yes including, those parts that create pain and disharmony from a lack of awareness of our interbeing. May we all rise to be counted as part of the one, to know our oneness and to claim it.

  Sometimes we find ourselves singing a song or humming a tune, and when we pay attention and focus in on it, we realize it's a kind of subconscious message--the lyrics express a not-fully-realized emotion, for example, or an unarticulated hope. It can be a powerful tool of self understanding.  I call this becoming aware of the "hummer." One of the songs that repeatedly comes up in my hummer is "Centering Home," written many years ago by Molly Scott.  The "centering home" phrase that repeats over and over refers to the idea of always coming back to the path, and following it home to the center. The idea of the center is of course a long-familiar spiritual principle. There are myriad treatises written about the center itself, and about moving to and from it. There are myriad ways of representing it. The mandala is one manifestation. In Hindu and Buddhist symbolism, the circular mandala, emanating in a geometrically regular pattern from a central point, represents the universe. We see this ad infinitum in nature, in the geometric formulae that repeat on every scale, and in what we are now easily able to see in infinitely fascinating fractals. In Eastern traditions, mandalas were (are) used as meditation tools that help bring the practitioner into balance and harmony. In Western psychology and dream analysis, mandalas are similarly said to represent an individual's search for completeness, wholeness, and integration.

What I offer here are photos I've taken in widely diverse places and contexts that capture this sense of mandala, moving (often spiraling) in (or out) to (and from) a center. Many of the images are unsurprising--there are umpteen plants and animals (or parts of animals) that grow from a central point. In our image-heavy media, we're familiar with these, and we've even become used to astonishing photos of space and galaxies that remarkably reflect photos of small forms like seashells--images of macro/micro resonance (a concept I was playing with 50 years ago, I joyfully add!).

On one level this collection of mine might thus feel a bit trite, but I still find the images newly-compelling, and we can always stand to be brought back again to center. When we witness this primal form and centering journey in so many different manifestations, it reinforces our understanding of the underlying unity of this planet. I intermix photos of natural forms with photos of human-made objects that reflect the same idea, further reminding us that we are inexorably a part of nature and the natural world, and we manifest its inherent impulses. And finally, since these are my own photographs (I shot almost all of them, and a few are even taken from my own art; the few images taken by others are ones that I have previously used in my professional work and have become very intimate with), they are my personal offering; they are my shout-out to the universe and to remembering and returning to the center. If you click on an individual image you will often find a caption explaining what it is. I included explanations where I thought the photo might not be self-evident, or where the element of surprise might add to the delight.

 We've all heard the phrase that "the eyes are the window to the soul," and in the last few months I've been looking at art with a particular focus on the eyes,  considering the way we might really glimpse the soul the artist was seeing. It's an interesting exercise, one that could be used as a productive writing prompt.

I came to realize that perhaps the most distancing (and sometimes disturbing) aspect of masks is those empty eyes--it's more than the fact that a particular identity is hidden. The blankness is fundamentally disturbing, even though we may be able to feel the character or emotion inscribed by a good mask maker, and even though the blank eyes allow us to project something archetypal.
Here are a few examples of empty eyes (remember to click on the images for a fuller view):

Masks or sculpted faces that keep the blankness but fill in the holes seem melancholy, but are more relatable.

It's the eyeballs, literally, that enliven the face, and we feel most kinship with those that include the spark of light. I know I'm getting a little carried away here with this many images, but I find them so fascinating that it's hard to edit many out. Let your eyes wander over these eyes, and see which grab you and why.

Finally, I couldn't resist: the light shining through the eyes of some real folks--the artist, other than the camera, is the divine spark of creation itself. Whether the eyes are open wide or crinkled in a smile, the soul window is clearly present.

I really enjoy exploring cemeteries, especially those created in the 19th century with park-like landscapes. I have so much to say about this--the meaning of the Indian effigy mounds in my nearby Forest Hill cemetery, and how they were made to keep a kind of cosmological balance; the flock of robins I encountered there recently (yes, they do flock together and roost in trees in cold weather); and so much more. (As enticement for some future post, here's one image showing part of one of these mound).

The subject of the post, though, is about stone--rock-- which is a central part of the cemetery experience. It is of course all around; gravestones are ubiquitous, from identical plain veteran's gravestones placed in neat rows to towering obelisks erected to proclaim that powerful men will take up a great deal of space, even in death. There are even solid marble gazing balls that must have taken enormous skill to carve. Stone, everywhere. Solid, appearing in a range of different colors. Stone, with dignity and staying power.

But stone still feels permanent, solid, and even small pebbles remain hard and strong. That brings me to the central focus of my discussion: the small stones that are left on larger stones as signs of long-lasting remembrance. This is an old Jewish custom, still practiced around the world. (The images I post here are all from my local place, Forest Hill). I am always drawn to these memorials, and sometimes even leave a stone of my own. I have the sense that the stones too want to be witnessed. Stones gathered together, stone upon stone. Remembering rocks.

For those unfamiliar with the custom, it is a simple concept. When a visitor comes to a gravesite, he or she leaves a small stone to essentially say, "I was here, and I remember you." The stones are typically pebble-size, but this does vary, and as my images show, sometimes other materials supplement or replace the stones now--pretty pieces of glass, shells, even beads. They accumulate over time, and clearly, if one encounters a memorial marker covered with a large collection of small stones, it indicates how much the deceased was loved and appreciated. One description I read of walking in the military cemetery of Jerusalem, mentions "heaps of stones, like small fortresses" on the graves of fallen soldiers.

Stones may not be eternal, but they last longer than flowers, and do not fade. They give a sense of solidity and allude to the permanence of memory. The origin of leaving these stones is not completely clear, although there are many stories. One I like --although it may well be apocryphal-- is that flowers were originally left at graves to cover up the smell of a decaying body, but because Jews were traditionally buried within 24 hours, the flowers were not needed. Stones were, again, a longer lasting offering. A related idea is that living people like the smell of flowers, but the deceased are beyond that--they are one with God and no longer need such temporary pleasures. There are also stories about stones helping to keep the soul of the deceased from wandering, about laying down arms in death (symbolized by laying down the rocks), and shepherds tracking their sheep by representing each with a pebble. One particularly poetic explanation is that a headstone symbolizes the soul of the deceased (remember, there were not always headstones--just piles of stones that might keep a wild animal away from a recently buried body), and when a visitor leaves a stone, it symbolizes their own soul and the way all is "tethered together in mitzvah [good deed, blessing] and metaphor."

It's interesting to note that the tradition of leaving rocks is not limited to Jewish graves any more; others are increasingly finding it a meaningful tradition. And parenthetically, there is a growing practice of leaving coins on (non-Jewish American) military gravestones. There is a code of meaning, with each coin symbolizing a particular relationship with the deceased. A nickel would be left by someone who was in boot camp with the fallen soldier, while a quarter would indicate the visitor was present when the person was killed.

Other than remarking on an interesting practice, I am impelled to write about these memory stones because I've been feeling the energy of rocks so strongly. It's hard to write about; it's a feeling, an intimation about something. It is not a concept.  I tried to capture some of it with my poems and images of the rocks on Mt. Shasta (August, 2018), and it has to do with the rocks holding the holographic imprint, holding memory, but maybe a much longer, deeper memory than we even know. Not exactly really permanent, but so long-lived by our standards that it comes close. Discussions of the Jewish custom of leaving rocks keep referring back to the Bible and the rocky landscape that was part of Jewish history. The stone on which Abraham was to have sacrificed Isaac is referred to as hashityah, the foundation stone of the world. A pile of stones could be a sacred place, a place of prayer. Moses sat on "the Rock," and carved the tablets from it. Jacob's Ladder rose from a stone.  On the darker side, people were stoned to death, and "stony" implies unyielding, cold, and without empathy.

I was very moved recently in driving through the Atlas mountains in Morocco. This is a dramatic region, all about rock and stones. The terrain consists of stones for miles and miles and miles, sometimes pebble-sized, sometimes big boulders. Houses are built of stone. Stone tumbles into rivers. Sheep and goats climb over high stony peaks. I kept sensing the stone memory, the consciousness held in all that rock, but I couldn't really access or translate it. I felt stone-ness, but there are no words or concepts to say what it was I felt.  At one point one of my traveling companions remarked that she wouldn't want any of that "real estate"--it was too much relentless rock, too hard to deal with, too unfriendly. Rocky terrain=trouble. I reacted almost viscerally; yes that's true, I thought, but you aren't asking what the stones know, you aren't feeling into the stone or the stone space. Maybe those who live here live deep in the stone, know what the stone knows, hold stone memory. Maybe the rock remembers them. Maybe they have another, silent experience that you can't even imagine.

Maybe.  Right now, today, I will hold some stones and breathe with them: round smooth ones tossed by Lake Michigan, and sparkly ones from riverbeds in the high Andes (another oh-so-rocky landscape). I will even touch the very fine sand I brought back from the Sahara--sand that was stone, ground down to the consistency of fairy dust. Maybe I will breathe them in, absorb their stone wisdom. Maybe I will be taken into the secrets of stone.