solstice

holly & ivy

two fallen-down cedar trees

baby bantam chickens

I am parched for some good Asheville fun. Knoxville is drowning me. Oh, the 'villes.

Solstice is coming up and I think I will be celebrating it mostly solo, as usual. A meal with the fam, of course, but no real celebration-of-light. I wish you all could be here for those days, at some point. What I really wish is that more people would understand my aversion to Christmas as well as my simultaneous love of wintertime festivities. Maybe one day when my farm is a hippie commune we can all celebrate the longest day of the year together.

the feeling of connectedness explained visually

little robot understands as well, what I was trying to explain in the last post.

warm sky, in sweet novembers

It's a shame this one didn't survive. Caterpillars, coccoons and these delicate winged things have been bursting forth from the milkweed stems. Green-pronged leaves have been feasted upon, leaving only brittle bones and tomorrow's leaves waiting in soft pricks of yellow green. I watched a cocoon split open, and a new monarch with gilded orange wings crawl out. Then I noticed this one (in the photograph above) which was sitting on a low branch near the ground. The other butterfly's wings gave tentative flicks and finally became firm wings, but this one's wings never seemed to find that state.

It was still there in the evening, though it had valiently crawled a few feet away to a different plant. Now it's thanksgiving, and we're about to go feast and celebrate and smile, and I'm second-guessing the importance of explaining to you two about the brief existence of this small creature.

I'm writing this after reading what vyn has written about grad school and staying aware of the overall goal and purpose of her life. I have many emotions about the decisions and mindsets which I am constantly allowed to choose for myself. I've been talking a lot with my younger brother lately, who feels he's been putting his life on fast-forward since he was younger and now can't figure out how to start living in the present again.

Watching this butterfly is important to me because it is a simple act of experiencing and responding to the world. It's wings are beautiful, and a lot of effort and circumstances took place to allow this butterfly to exist. I feel connected to it- calm, delighted- alive.

Ultimately, in spite of all the confusion, bitterness and sorrow we find in this world, we are still just creatures on the planet, trying to survive and sharing the world with the forces of life and nature around us. The butterfly- it is enough.

Wonderful news of Cage and Savannah...
I miss you both, and crave the comforts of being near people who take time to find and create beauty, and live compassionately. But being reminded that you two are out there in the world, doing and sharing and experiencing brings a smile to my face and ease to my soul. :)

The water of life renews every spirit; but thou are the water of the water of life.

Frustration...quiet...allowance

Hirundo miniscula avis corpore,
sed egregie pio sublimis affectu,
indiga rerum omnium,
preciosiores auros nidos,
quia sapienter nidificat.
Nidus enim sapientie preciosior est auro.

The swallow is a tiny bird
but of an eminently pious nature;
lacking in everything
it constructs nests which are more valuable than gold
because it builds them wisely.
For the nest of wisdom
is more precious than gold.

Lately the frustrations with grad school have grown more severe. I find myself continuously trying to remember what it is that's actually important to me, where my soul really lies. Is it in the red clay of East Tennessee? Is it in the human capacity for thought and design? Is it in human delight in non-human denizens of our world (such as the air we breathe and the algae that cleans our water)? Is it in my family, my friends, my unseen, unknown soul mate?

I keep checking, looking down at my feet and considering the direction in which they're headed. Do I want to go that way? Just what is it that's behind me again? If I turn to look, will I be able to get back on this forward course?

I miss the two of you dearly and I hope you know that it means the world to have companions to help me experience all of this.

My little brother Cage proposed to Savanna, by the way, and she said yes.

this image
contains
dozens of stories
i have no words
for.

Sylvilagus floridanus, also known as 'opal'

After thousands of years of trying to represent the human body, we come to this. Could their be any more appropriate way to give us the gift of the heart, the brain? These soft little pieces of artistic revelry sum up so much about us: as animals, and as being also uniquely human.

(original cabbage patch kid?)

Jane your picture reminded me of this type of image--vegetables that say 'fertility' held in front of a woman's womb. This image uses cabbage but I think the turnips are pretty nice, too. I can envision a complete anatomical drawing of the inside of our body, all our internal organs, being represented by various fruits and vegetables. I suppose the intestines would have to be long English cucumbers, or possible limp asparagus. What's strange about this drawing is that there her baby's umbilical cord is attached to the cabbage.

a thousand winged apologies

I feel like such a disappointment to everyone. So I offer this polaroid (yes, I splurged on polaroid film to cheer myself up) of these amazing seabirds we found by the sea..

Thank goodness for the sea-- it is always there, offering such solace with its sweet smelling air that fills the soul.

Oh, I miss you two. Love, love, love, from the land of flowers.

first turnip harvest. early july...
practically archaic.
i love to you, ladies.

Were it not for calamity,
How would the sun of Thy patience shine,
O Light of the worlds?

...as Ortega y Gasset, Merleau-Ponty, and the existentialists and phenomenologists of this century have pointed out, just being a man or woman and alive is enough to guarantee the world's meaningfulness, and we need not fear. On to any moment of perception–instantly, inevitably, and without bidding–the perspective of an entire cultural and biological heritage is brought to bear.

Our uprightness is in every tree,
rocks divide themselves
between the throwable and the not,
the future is always ahead.

The aluminum poles are cold, the cat warm, the plate clean. Really? Yes. These human facts reverberate with meanings that run deep into our personal yet common histories.

Speaking of Inuit art...here are some beauties, full of life and character and poise.

words become visible.

Climbing hands

happy hands

sanna annuka

I have harboured an ancient fascination with the magic, playfulness and aesthetic curiosity of finnish folk art. So of course I was delighted to discover

Sanna Annukka.

She is half Finnish, half English,
and is heavily inspired by her dreamy childhood in Finland,
in which she explored the forests of Paltaniemi,
and loved to swim and fish in Oulujarvi.

She has even wandered the wild, Arctic lands of Lapland!
Recently, she illustrated the Kalevala,
which is a magical collection of Finnish songs of folklore.
I love the bold colors and lines in her craftily stylized collection of icons.

I have lately been shying away from bold colors,
but hopefully she will help me overcome my shyness and indulge such vibrant strokes! :)

Critter-friendly County Commissioner

Yay for Mark Campden--here's a Knox county commissoner who refuses to mow his yard!

.wate.com&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&clipFormat=flv&rnd=24657763http://www.wate.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?clipId1=2678961&at1=News&vt1=v&h1=County+commissioner+getting+complaints+about+overgrown+yard&d1=138333&redirUrl=www

vulgar, vulgaris—"of the people"

Let us procure a style that reeks of populism.

That meshes the masses. That is borne on the back of "bad taste."

Last night,
I dreamt that
every poor thing
I had ever said
about my step mother
returned to her.

April show me grace...

Sea Port

Last weekend,
I was reconnected with a part of myself long since unrecognized.

It was only as I approached the open water that I realized how long it had been since I visited the ocean. It spoke to me and I was enamored, enchanted. I wanted to be consumed and to float, free and weightless.

And yet, my worldly limits kept me timid. The enormous waves were choked with young teenage boys anxious to make the courageous fight. They swam out as far as they could make it and dove, head first, into the menacing waves just as they reached their largest form. They wore neon green and blue, tattoos and braids. They were proud of their dexterity.

Women and young children stayed on the shore, laughing, toppling, and yelping as the crests broke and foam washed over them. Noses were plugged and swimsuit wedgies swiftly picked after each crash. Laughter was everywhere. They wore ribbons and magenta, hoop earrings and smiles, children's bikinis and hair bobbles.

I felt suddenly young and awkward in my own form. I wondered at my hesitation. My friends lay on the beach soaking up the sun. I smiled in the crowd, wading and floating, lifting my toes and letting the salt water wash over my head, but never breaking the man barrier.

I thought of my trip to Utah the weeks preceding. I envisioned the aerial view I'd soaked in (not only of nyc harbor, but of the entire country) and saw myself now as a point in that enormous sky born landscape. Past the kelp, I knew the city buildings waited. I pictured the storms brewing out in the vast blue, manifesting itself here on shore. The sky was grey, the temperatures mild, the ocean energized, brimming full.

Driving home, I enjoyed the sun kissed, salty, windswept feeling forgotten from childhood vacations. My hair was wild with curls and my skin felt fresh. I kept the window down and enjoyed the smells, watching the landscape change, until finally we stepped out of the car on 42nd street in midtown manhattan.

The next day, I put on my adult shoes and attended two work events of almost diametrically opposed purposes: the Fancy Food Show, and the New Amsterdam Market. These experiences are more than I can write about. Every detail of my life and the lives of those around me percolated all week, trying to find its way to this space: subway experiences and neighbors, gardens and sewing, fresh flowers and new offices. But I couldn't listen and quiet the voices. Here I am now, evening approaching the day after Independence Day festivities.

Tomorrow I will be preparing cherry-ginger pie and bringing it to an afternoon house party at my dear friend's out in Bed-Stuy. They are special women who make craft and art out of each day. They weave life with thick threads of love, bits of trial, pieces of anger, confusion. And it is beauty. Meanwhile, I work each day to remember the grace and power of a smile.

I heard someone say,

"I want to take April as my personal savior."

art-craft

Seeing how my last post was so unforgivably wordy, I thought I'd give some examples of this kind of "art-craft" that I have mentioned. Art-craft can be found almost anywhere. Indeed, as anyone who has done even the most rudimentary investigating into the philosophy of art and aesthetics goes, there are "cultures who don't even have a word for art." Straight up. This, I can dig. Why not do everything as art? Why not see your own life as a piece of ongoing art - one's ultimate work of art?

Anyway back to the tangible.

First, a video of a fiddle solo by a member of one of my very most cherished bands, Frigg. The ease and the grace with which this man plays his instrument is really, really inspiring to me. Having tried to play the fiddle, I know how difficult it is to simply draw the bow across the strings without making demonic screeches that run shivers down your spine. But this guy moves his bow across the strings like a fish through water, like a calligraphy brush on the page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpSmyS7javw

Secondly, another music-type craft. Along with Sami joiking and Balinese gamelan orchestra, I think Tuvan throat singing is one of the world's most interesting musical traditions. I think it's incredibly exciting the way that they have differentiated between the five types of singing, and how they've described them in terms of their resemblance to an ecological phenomenon.

http://www.alashensemble.com/about_tts.htm

Just people doing what they do — really, really well.

color and pigment and albino fawns

pardon the fragmented thoughts. i'm caught up amidst a day that is cut up into tiny little peices by a pair tiny time scissors that i've asked kindly to hunt jobs for me.

See at left a fawn, albino. How curious that the pigment is missing, but where follicles are concerned the absence of pigment creates a gentle snowy white (or rather, in the case of the fawn it is gentle and snowy).

I realize that follicles are composed of some sort of lines of proteins or some kind of particles that appear white, but it is strange to think of something lacking pigment and being white, when those of the art/science persuasion tend to point out that the absence of color creates a void of darkness.

i guess i'm merely pointing out the difference between a pigment which is a material that fills a plane or material, and a color, which refers to the way our eyes perceive, with pixel and rod, the frequency of light in an object. i just think that the idea of color and the way we perceive and talk about it is so wild.

Hello friendly computer. Let's talk to the world.

Four weeks of graduate architectural studies has left me all but incapable of producing meaningful speech, so I'll just talk with this picture. These red cords of fabric are pieces being prepared for a braided rug. This project, which I started last winter, is both the most functional and the most time-intensive art-work I have ever had the pleasure of practicing.

Somehow we distinguish art from craft. I can never quite get my head around all the arguments that promote this differentiation. The artists say one thing, the anthropologists say another, and the consumers another.

One thing is for certain, however: architecture school has given me a completely different understanding of the intersection of function and beauty. Art, as I understand it, is not demoted by functionality but rather made somehow more real, more connected—to humans and human life. And on the basis of need, which all organisms share, it is connected to the rest of our fellow Earthlings, both animal and vegetable. Spending hours agonizing over cantilevered barns and Shaker architecture may have something to do with this newfound emphasis on art-craft. But I think perhaps it has always been there inside me, especially considering the lifelong trail of craftiness I have traversed (i.e. braided rugs).

Doing something tedious and doing it well is, I think, truly admirable. Thus I make a wish and a hope that this conceptual place and all else be an illustration of care and concern for each tiny human step and its rightness and goodness. Let all our actions be art-craft. Let all our thoughts be delicately directed.

Arc to Arcturus, then speed on to Spica

Ah, such beauty and wonder is found in the experience and sensation of doing. Jane- of course you've found a delightful name under which our freshest ideas and discoveries may be shared. It is a name most perfectly befitting, and inspiring, given our current reality of living miles and miles apart.

So why not let our combined brilliance mimic that of the stars? Since we cannot always inhabit a local community as we once did, why not expand the feeling of proximity to that of the Local Interstellar Cloud? (Which, I'll have you know, is referred to by casual astronomers as "the local fluff".)

At the moment I find myself at the dizzying brink of what feels to be yet another new season of my life. In less than a week I will begin the year of my life that will be marked twenty-three years old. Virginia Woolf has just renewed my obsession with finding a satisfying way of explaining the boundaries that exist naturally and are created in various ways between ourselves and our selves. I have ambitious plans to begin creating things (handsewn creatures and characters, books, stationary, small fragments of beauty to adorn necks and ears) and attempt to sell them on etsy. Money, always my enemy, is a practical necessity at this time of floating aimlessly amidst student loans and my desire to be able to support myself.

Well, rather than slip further into a rambling, bramble of worries, I will head off back into my day, and try to ward off the borishness and failure that has characterised my recent job searching. Happily, my mind has been inspired into action by these perfect words..

to act quickly, on instinct.
to let go of the fastidiousness and obsession.
to be and to do.

memorandum

he sits in the other room talking on speaker phone.
i jot 'to-do' lists and sip water, coffee, water coffee, preparing to tackle a big project.
it came to me quite suddenly.
and this post, this first post, is a memorandum to myself:

to act quickly, on instinct.
to let go of the fastidiousness and obsession.
to be and to do.

so here it is.
it will get better over time.
you will add to it, i hope.

if you are not familiar already with arcturus, i hope you will look it up.
had i given it more thought, perhaps our name would be more fitting and meaningful.
but, the beauty is, this too can change! growth, evolution!

woven, interconnected--a meeting point outside space and time.
safe, strong, resilient but deeply sensitive and aware, open.
this space, for us.