week eighty two >> "Solstice"

we are compelled to bring back "Solstice"   click to view

tonight we ring in Winter... on this darkest of nights, the Solstice, we celebrate the coming of the light... In leu of anticipating what is coming To us, what we are to 'get,' I am feeling the question: what do I get to GIVE.... the light that is coming is OURS.

astrologer, Divine Harmony, writes about this season's Winter Solstice, click here to read the full entry.

an excerpt:

Symbolically and spiritually the solstices mark our life's journey through the light and the dark.  As we embrace the Winter Solstice it takes us to the depth of the shadow without and within as in the northern hemisphere it is the day of the longest night. As we move deeply into that darkness we emerge into a new cycle of light. This is a beautiful metaphor for the constant dance of energies in our own lives, to truly embrace and honor both our light and shadow.  This is the original meaning of wholeness which comes from holy or holiness: to be holy is to be whole.

and an excerpt from our beloved Northern Exposure, the LIGHT episode:

BON HIVER!

6

week sixty eight >> "transmission"

"transmission"             click to view

back in los angeles for a few days now, decompression underway, transition from a major transmission. my trip, a couple very intense weeks, intensely beautiful, and intensely shifting as I come face to face  -like in every visit for the past few years, this one more than ever-  with the genes, the roots, the core tendencies, and the beauty of myself, my mom, and my Tata, with curious clues to what likely was for her mama and hers and...  reflections abound and choices make their forking roads clear; which threads do I regenerate, and which end now with me?  I am presented with the opportunity to step wide and observe the tight knit patterns in a different way than ever done before, without judgment, releasing shame and blame and regret, all with reverence to the pain, the loss, and the gain, not denying it, facing and feeling it through -as dark as the shadows may get, clearing the bounds, freeing myself to observe my roots and myself clearly, with love instead of animosity, and choose from here,   in this clearing, perhaps the first one vested with the liberty to observe, to choose, and to change.  vested because I choose to receive it, to step into this clearing, this freedom to free myself and my lineage, to choose how to live fully; and it is undoubtedly a golden privilege to do so. this visit comes at a critical current juncture of my life with major awakenings and transformations, and O yes transmissions, taking place through me.  I didn't even know I was pupa for so long. I'm dying now. surrender. and a "gloriously winged creature"* is busting through as we speak.  
ready for take off.

∞ 6 


* Chris Stevens ~ Mosquito Spring episode, season 4: Northern Exposure

week fifty-seven >> "friendship caught on fire"

ZBOOK front inside cover          Click to see pretty & large

Quotes spoken on this spread... "Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins, which of the two has the grander view? - Victor Hugo  and :Love is like friendship caught on fire" - Bruce Lee quoted by Chris in the morning.

My man and my boy are in the vehicle awaiting me to join them to head on our first of the summer weekend to the Houseboat... yeay!  i will be in awe of nature's beauty, absorbing both the macro, as the mountains and the lake provide incredible vistas for the soul, and the micro, as every rock, nook and cranny teams with the veins of pulsing life, we are so enraptured of feeling our synergy with.  Happy St, John's all, let the green of the summer, take you on a journey. Cheers, -Hemphill

week fifty five >> "made daily"

zbook back inside cover

Backing into the past months double double of two week spreads, we take this 'made daily' spread into its second posting week- with the potential that it burst into a triple week, just to keep the salad tossing. 

hook us up!

Inside Covers are huge metaphors... they are the first thing opened to or the last thing viewed before closing.  They are major strength points for the physical structure of a book itself, such as zbook.  In our case, this backside inside cover contains no less than condensations of our story, such as the excerpt depicted above spouting, "youth and early travels, has become something of a legend since", followed by our chronicling of year dates. and our vision for ourselves, with publishing notes, seen at the side,  and the below Northerns quote which speaks so deeply to our beliefs in the process of sharing and expressing our work with and into the world,  "an artist needs obstacles; he needs to contend, to find out what he's made of".

Ruth Ann, Northern  Exposure quote

It's all a journey, every relationship, every experience, every piece of work and play.

Here's to three clicks of all our ruby red slippers to stream the prayers ever closer to home, to the core, to the inner pulsation, to the heartbeat.

Feel my love blast to you, as I feel yours come flooding through.  Be well, -Mamma Jennifer

week forty eight >> "maybe"

"maybe"          click to view

Perhaps you have heard this story.... I have come to experience it shared in various ways by many teachers... the first time however was when I was in college watching recorded re-runs of Northern Exposure, in the episode where Ed gets hit by lightning and is racking his brain to figure out the age old question 

"why me?" Marilyn tells him a story:

Ed: Boy, Marilyn, I’ve been thinking about this lightning thing so much, I’ve gone and given myself a headache.

Marilyn: Maybe you shouldn’t think about it.

Ed: I tried that, too. When I try not thinking about it, the only thing that goes through my head is still It. (pause) Who do you think is right? Is it a nihilistic universe with no meaning, oh, other than survival, or does the enlightenment view prevail? Does the Creator have a master plan, and if so, what is it?

Marilyn:    My uncle once told me about a warrior who had a fine stallion. Everybody said how lucky he was to have such a horse. “Maybe,” he said. 

One day the stallion ran off. The people said the warrior was unlucky. “Maybe,” he said. 

Next day, the stallion returned, leading a string of fine ponies. The people said it was very lucky. “Maybe,” the warrior said. 

Later, the warrior’s son was thrown from one of the ponies and broke his leg. The people said it was unlucky. “Maybe,” the warrior said. 

The next week, the chief led a war party against another tribe. Many young men were killed. But, because of his broken leg, the warrior’s son was left behind, and so was spared.

 ∞ ceci

6

Northern crack ups

So fun to discover yet another quote from our beloved Northern Exposure in Z page this week:

"cohesion" click to view

NE quote click to view

"that's the movies

Ed, try reality"

-Fleischman

"no thanks" -Ed

Speaking of Northerns and this here page "Cohesion" and how it is so much about the collision within cohesion and the cohesion that is collision, this couldn't be more exemplified than by Northern Exposure's Joel Fleischman and Maggie O'Connell, who collided in the moment they met, always an upheaval and battle between them, always the friction of verbal attacks and passive aggressive antagonism storming between them..... and always a tension that begged to be quenched with a surrender to a festering passion. Their dance of query is a fun display of how collision is cohesion in disguise and how resisting cohesion only heats up the friction in collison making the threat of cohesion ever more sweeter.

Case in Point (as Fleischman always says) is this clip of the first moment when Fleischman and O'Connell at last reach a peek of frustration that peeks their cohesion. From the 2nd season, the PSL deemed "epic" episode called "Spring Break" (which hey! I wrote about in my 8/14 post which speaks of the NE quote on Z page "hidden" from this very episode!) when everyone's on edge due to the tension of the last days before the winter's ice finally breaks and releases into spring. Enjoy this cohesion of collision! Northern Style :)



PS(L): I must have seen this literally 200 times and still, that image of Chris dancing in the luau party background CRACKS me UP :)!


∞ ceci
6

swindling into the night air



ceci holding zbook, open to 'howl'

 Dear Loves, Jennifer here,

I am so excited to be here with you tonight!!(or morning, or evening, etc.etc.etc.)! Let me tell you...

A) for One, I’ve had an upheaval of familial and personal schedules in the past weeks, all pieces, settling and jockeying and establishing into position, with major and minor adjustments still to come – auuuuuuuuahhh~!

B), second, I wanted to share my funny entrance into this September, 2010, ‘howl’ post...I prepped the computer space to write, then turned with thrill to envelope and open zbook actual to my right, and who should be rested with paw and ear upon lelibro, but Midnight, the cat. – this is a good story, but not one for this hour.
C), onward....

Here in house, I lay my loved ones down to sleep,

With Hearts on fire, I pray and wish all souls to keep,

If I should die before you wake, at Guard sits wind,

Thy soul to take.
                                                                         -J.G.

This spread be labeled “howl” in tribute to the once again fantabulous quotating of Chris in the morn’, from our favorite, NE. found vertical at the bind... “like Brother Nietche says: ‘Being human is a complicated gig, so give that ol’ dark night of the soul a hug, and howl the eternal yes.”

Often, I have howled, particularly into the night, releasing and inhaling great Breaths of Deep air. If I think on it, I may remember that the Fall and the Wind have often been recipient inspirers of these Calls to the Wild. One particular image of howl intoxication which jumps into mind was a post-highschool deepening of friendship, inside my car, down the street from JBHS; my sense is that there was crying just before the Conjuring of great howling Shout Beats, including bobbing heads and incredible building intensity... and the intention of it was howling, for sure!

"and through my breath I will impregnate you"

Tony, my husband, somehow or other offered me the space to howl in this morning, with fowl language and a vanishing act involved. I was telling Cec earlier today, I felt very peaceful, an eerie peaceful perhaps, a peacefulness nonetheless, afterwards and into the morning, and possibly into the afternoon (though by that time, I certainly couldn’t say if the morning howl,
which was not sex by the way,

 in case you all were thinking that...

anyhow, I could not say all subsequent peace was directly linked to the morning howl for sure).

I can’t put my finger on it, but today really rocked as far as the state I was holding with each group of adolescents I was involved with in various games and movement classes all day – I felt strong... perhaps the 8 hours of sleep the night before helped too, vs. the 4, 5 or 6 I’d been keeping. And, I had done quite a bit of reflection, and did I mention sleeping?, and speaking to others about struggles I engaged in days previous.

A final question and thought...
When you look at the moon, don’t you want to Howl?

Be well loves, Captain Gould

p.s.l. ahh yes, the story of ‘The Blizzard we Knew” continues it chaptering on this page as well...Ceci you devil, how dare you try to swindle me in public sight into revealing this story... uahhh, the shame of it! Hee hee!!!

pieces

Yesterday, Saturday, I travelled to Corona Del Mar, with Hallie in tow to attend Bonnie Hesse's final church services. It was me, and I was also representing a weight of friends who were and would be holding a prayer and an open door for PSL founding-father Doug - Cec and Hutch particularly, no doubt.

pieces from '5:40 a.m.'

I cannot recall the family's words, just their gestures; perhaps Doug will find spaces to share his offering - his thoughts were beautiful and touching and truthful and humble, and funny.  It felt good to hug him and share this moments sorrow, and to see his family, and relate to my own.  From there, Hallie and I traversed back to Canyon Country for her Back to School Party - my nearly nine year old. It was a special opportunity to spend this expansive and delving day together. T. was home with stuffy nosed Jack, hangin' in the garden.

This week, I've been listening to Tori Amos in small spurts - though I can't find the 5:40 image album. Also, I'm in an ingesting period with Northerns (which happens), where I just turn on a disc or vid and let watching come in and out through chores and duties...I also pulled out two Northerns music compilations cd's and had been infused with the moose one in particular, which starts with 'an Ojibway love song, sung to a non-Indian square dance', and ends with one of my personal soundtrack songs (You know, the collection of songs which perhaps define you) - like KCRW's guest DJ project, which is an intriguing idea in action - Melora Harding is a parent in Hallie's class, she's done a session, she told me - movie star!.  Anyways, disappointingly, that album is cracked in half now, and yet I'm keeping the pieces around - strange!

Tonight, I prepare for the coming preparation work week - faculty meetings, CPR, Councils, sweeping, pumping balls and planning blocks, etc., etc., etc.. 
These weeks, I dedicate 15 min. per day to instilling shafts of color into our, Cec and My, newly erupted Sketchbook Project participation - which I have an enticing nomen awareness regarding - Our story book, our S BOOK!  See Cec's 8/26 post for more info!

And finally, from tonights Northerns, a story from Marilyn to Ed, we can all live by:
My uncle told me a story about a warrior who had a fine stallion. One day, the stallion ran off. The people said, it was unlucky. "MAYBE," the Warrior said. Then, the stallion returned with a string of fine horses, and The People said it was very lucky. "Maybe," the Warrior said. The Warriors son went riding on one of the horses and was thrown off and broke his leg. The People said it was very unlucky. "Maybe," the Warrior said. The next week, the Chief led a war party and many young men were lost in battle, but the Warriors son was left behind and so was spared.

"hidden" pattern

I was delighted to re-discover on Z "hidden" page yet another quote from Northern Exposure, this time from our beloved character Ed:

"hidden" click to view

"that's the pattern, it's a random pattern."

-Ed, Ice Breaking episode

"hidden" NE quote from Ed click to view

"O the Northerns, the episodes of Northern Exposure,
this unbeknownst gem of a tv show, so beyond tv itself,
yet perfectly delivered via the genre's format of episodes.
seems like a silly show, and silly so often it is, but so often
too, right when you least expect it, it hits home sO deep
that you grasp your heart and either smile or cry or laugh
or rejoice in reverent silence. and you certainly
can't believe that you are watching tv."

ceci on NE, comment on 5/1/10 post

Ed's quote comes from one of the "epic" Northern Exposure episodes, as I did deem during my intensive study with each episode in 1997, from the my collection of VHS recordings that I captured during the year before as the show was in syndication. The episode is about the breaking of spring in Cicely, Alaska, when the very last days of winter are holding on as the entire town is anxiously in a holding pattern waiting for the ice to break, which would mark the release of the great melt down into the spring days. As the sound of creaking and squeaking of the ice on the big break verge permeates throughout the town, everyone, completely on edge, in their own way has their own "meltdown." It's a pattern of sanctioned madness, but at the very essence of chaos in randomness.

detail of "Portal" acrylic on hoop drum, 2000 click to view

You'll have to see the episode to know of what Ed is referring to in particular here (season 2, ep 5: "spring break") ...but let me just say that these words from our innocent yet astute Ed have always hit home for me. As I tend to express through my artwork, life is a dance between chaos and control. We are certainly in control of every step we take, yet as we are always changing and growing so do our chosen steps, and as we are walking in and responding to a world of unknown circumstance, our controlled chosen steps are truly that of a unique chaos. Trace these movements and you'll indeed get a pattern, a random pattern... which I feel is evident in the very lines we discover in all life's growth or decay, such as... Veins in a leaf, lines of your skin, grains of wood, inside our cells, topography of land, the cracking of concrete, a nebula…whether micro or macro, all things in life tend to share the lines of a unifying random pattern. Each form is a total unique expression, yet there is a universal order that connects everything on every level. Of course this "order," this "pattern," is mostly hidden, especially in the face of our assumptions that chaos has none. What I love about Ed is that he doesn't make any assumptions, and thus matter of factly accepts and proclaims that the randomness itself is a pattern. Such is life and such are we. Beautifully random. Randomly beautiful.

∞ ceci

6

Fleischman & O'Connell

Throughout ZBOOK you will find a number of quotes gleaned from Northern Exposure, a television show from the 1990's (1990-1995) that has 4ever captured our hearts and inspiration ever since we both discovered the show individually just months before meeting in 1996 (thanks PSL). Jennifer first mentioned our adoration for the show in Clicking Away.  Well, amongst the wonderful ensemble of characters are our main flames: Dr. Joel Fleischman, the New York doctor who we follow into Cicely Alaska in his doomed/blessed 5 year obligation as the town's physician, and Maggie O'Connell, Gross Point (Michigan) beauty turned Alaskan bush pilot.  From their first encounter these two are at each other's throats AND ironically also share an intense underlying desire to devour each other, you know, in the best way.  Either way, this friction creates HEAT.

"You're either lovers, or you're wanting to be lovers, or you're trying not to be lovers so you can be friends, anyway you look at it sex is always looming in the picture like a shadow, like an undertow."
Maggie O'Connell (circus comes to Cicely episode)

"What I really want is to lick her naked body from head to foot like a postage stamp."
Joel Fleischman (the 2 Fleischmans episode)

And so,  Z page this week, "hot," is a reveling in friction and tension and anticipation and... sweet release.  The stories written on this page by our own hands feel like quotes from our psyches, from hot moments, from in or out of time?  Like the page says across the very bottom... 

"               a  fantasy               ...........                a  memory               ...........               both               ...........              "

"hot"   click to view Large

∞ ceci

6

identity

Ceci and Jennifer 1996

So you meet a friend that blows your mind and busts wide open your heart because they draw from the same pool of inspiration that you do, thrive from the same stimulus, and dream of such similar possibilities of life and art and adventure.  Feels amazing, feels like home, feels like you were always together even during all those years alone.   Jennifer and I rode O so high on this very experience in the first year of our meeting. We were an unstoppable team, ready for anything, together nothing could hinder us!  We were sure that through our childhood years, growing up as only kids with mostly only ourselves to entertain us and play with us, that we somehow- perhaps metaphysically- must have been together growing up. We thought, maybe we were eachother's imaginary friends, and that at last we had materialized in eachother's lives at the age of 21! 

Our bond was so seamless, and it was exhilarating, until another experience reared its unexpected head, one I can only describe as an identity crisis.  The bond is so seamless that at some point you start to ask, where do you end and I begin, are my thoughts my own, who am I as an individual?  About a year into our manifesting friendship (1996-1997, UCSB) I remember starting to feel conflicting emotions between my great admiration for Jennifer and a surprising rising up of resentment.  I began to feel that I was losing my own definition, I began to fear this divine connection.  The truth was, as I can see it clearly now, that this was something I was going through all on my own in this critical time and age of my life.  Not only was I shifting into adult from child, I had also just been through a traumatic accident that had me piecing myself back together from scratch (which I will share further about later).  While the identity challenges presented by the twin activating powers of Jennifer and Cec were for real,  I now know it was also a reflection of my own inner turmoil of self identification during that time. 

A great partnership is made from two whole individuals.  Jennifer and I have grown to not fear our kinship, knowing that it does not extract anything from our individual selves, it only adds to and enriches our lives and what we create.  We celebrate eachother's choices, we acknowledge eachother's special qualities and offerings.  And we revere all the ways we continue to correlate and connect and correspond, because we Are truly a reflection for each other, but not of what we are not -which comes from fear... we help reflect to one another all that we Are - which comes out of trust. 

click for larger view

A couple months later I was in Guadalajara (1997), recovering from my accident and renewing myself on all levels, including my art.  I came across this image in the newspaper (on the left) of the mirrored figure on stairwell.  I cut it out and pasted it in ZBOOK, feeling Jennifer, feeling our great opportunity to transcend the challenges of sharing such immaculate reflection and with trust allowing it to be a great source in our lives for creating great work, together and individually.  Later other dualistic images emerged on this page, as well as a reflective "mirrored" piece of sticker on the right above the drawing of Fiona (which appears mostly blue in this photo-scan).   Jennifer dropped in the "Calling All Angels" and I love it because for me it reminds us that we are all indeed unique individuals, or angels if you will, And we are ALL called forth to synergize our individual talents to create further growing unique creative experiences.  It is an honor to head this call with you Hemphill.

∞ ceci

6

"Clicking Away..."

In 1994 or 95, when Ceci and I began our sojourn in friendship love, we experienced spans of time when we would just not leave each others abodes. One such campout involved an altered state of viewing of 'The Wizard of Oz': sound turned mute, and Pink Floyd's, "Dark Side of the Moon" tuned in with the roar of the Lion - if properly situated, this is a memorable experience for anyone. For me, this movie I had known so well from childhood was transformed, opened up; and an interest in the juxtaposition of great music with film was turned topsy turvy in expanded possibilities. (I would like to give props to our dear PSL friend Hutch who was also instrumental in the film/music love affair I still revel in, by his introduction of Bernardo Bertolucci to me - muchas gracias!) I cannot help but acknowledge the Wicked Witch of the West, who is melting into the Wasps furious whirlwind of green puzzled buzz at the bottom right of "swell", as a homage to this deepening time in our uniting - and oh my, perhaps Glinda will appear down the road of weeks too.

click for larger view

In this same vein of sleepovers, I do remember the shock of unbelief when "Northerns" first unveiled as a commonality of passion between Cec and I. My memory pictures me heading over to Cec's pad in IV with a quart of OJ to give her some TLC when she was not feeling well. From her nest, she called out to me to make myself at home; that I should help myself to whatever, including this or that movie available to watch, or, "there's a bunch of Northern Exposure episodes on tape in that bottom drawer".
I was stunned by this sudden mention of my recently developed TV show obsession.
I called out, "um, have we ever talked about this before?, because I LOVE Northern Exposure and you just said you have a load of episodes recorded in your collection."
And so, the cat was out of the bag, and now, here it is exposed to ZBOOk blog...
We are aficionados and connoisseurs of the 90's TV masterpiece of story and character and music, etc., etc., called 'Northern Exposure'. Here on the right page of "swell" you can read one of many quotes found in Zbook from said seasons. More on this to come, no doubt!
-off to my own destiny, -J.