Aschew your View

Who wants to out post brilliance? (See post from Cec: 9.9.10)  Not I said the fly!

reflection - click for larger view

So, short and sweet.  I love having Zbook in my posession after such a long semi-separation.   I say semi because whenever Cec and I come together for work and play these days, we transport zbook and xbook into our realms of presence.  And occasionally we tote in wbook as well and now, sbook, hooray!

These past two weeks, I have been immersed in facultyhood as the school season re-opens full blast and children and families pour in.  Sleep deprivation is a truth right now, one I need to be very cautious of.  It's so funny, when I look upon my desk files loaded deep with papers, I feel overwhelmed in aggravating annoyance at the layers of unorganization.. and yet, when I think of what I am holding and taking care of daily, I feel incredibly proud of my responsibility and managing actions... it's like flip sides of a mirror - like this 'reflection' page of zbook - there are flip perspectives to all things in the end - so let's all look aschewed once in a while!

Blessings, -J.

X BOOK !

today with added sticker from Cartagena

first page touched in XBOOK, birthed 2004

It's high time that we share with you X BOOK! Our dear 2nd book in circulation birthed in 2004... birthed at the moment that we began to bring conscious closure to ZBOOK, which was 8 years alive at that time... which still took the next 6 years to truly "wrap up."  I was still living in northern California then and so our book swapping was still active via the post and hand to hand when I'd travel to los angeles.

click these images
for large view

Only now we exchanged one for the other; one with the transitioning ZBOOK, and the other with the dawning xBOOK.   This exchange continued with more frequency after I moved to los angeles in 2006 and still today... with the added element that for the first time in 10 years Jennifer and I began to work in zBOOK side by side during our creative sessions together, in high honor of attuning to the closure of Z pages.  All the while also exchanging xBOOK. 

Today xBOOK is traveling with me, here in Cartagena!  And ZBOOK is at home with Jennifer.  During this trip I came across some rad stickers (peeled off of a internet cafe wall), sparkly and, not surprisingly since this is Colombia, catholic.  The scenes are lovely as I choose to remove the dogma from them and receive from them their simple expressions of prayer, reverence, and gratitude. Plus they're shinny and glittery :)!  Here are the X pages on which these stickers now live... keep in mind that these pages are fully in progress as xBOOK swims in full circulating current between Jennifer and myself. 

Look for more shares of X pages to see how these grow.

"reflection"  in ZBOOK

So super that these newly gleaned stickers come to XBOOK the week that Z page here, "reflection," also has two stickers of deities, the metallic buddha on left, the Morcheeba sticker that we got at their concert in let's see 1998 which also birthed this page, and the metallic virgin mary on right peeled off a candle in Guadalajara in 1999. RAD.

∞ ceci

6

 

Oracle

click image to go to ORACLE

As Jennifer mentioned in her 8/17 post, I have begun a weekly Oracle page on the website of Lucent Dossier, the performance art collective with whom I perform, sing, and serve as Oracle.  Every week, the Oracle pulls a stone -stones created with sparks from the Runes and Tarot- and conducts a reading for all to reflect with.  In addition to the readings are quotes, videos, and /or links of interwoven inspiration.  

In the spirit of this week's "reflection" and last week's "fortune," I would like to share this weekly Oracle with you...   Click here or the image at right-------->

This week's stone the collective reading reflects our fortune of Abundance….

Z pages:
"fortune" and "reflection"
click these to view

∞ ceci

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week twenty one>> "reflection"

"reflection"          click to view

Being here in Cartagena with my family certainly does offer me many opportunities for reflection.  Although I am not shaped by this coastal Colombian culture, although I have spent most of my days over 2,000 miles apart from the customs and sensibilities of Cartagena Colombia, and apart  from the lot of my family living here,  it is fascinating to observe behaviors and qualities in my family that seem to be deeply embedded in my makeup… seeing these clearly in them helps me be aware of my own tendencies… and this glimpse into myself, and the constructive or destructive potentials of these tendencies, gives me the opportunity to choose my own adventure… to decide which tendencies serve my higher purpose to grow, create and thrive in peace… and which do not.  We often think that our karmas are written, and that our genes are especially encoded in stone.  I feel that through the power of nonjudgmental observation we can re-direct our "destiny" -even our genes- with our birth right of choice.   So even when a behavior or trait seems to be an innate force within us, if we can step back and observe it with equanimity, then we always have the opportunity to choose whether it serves us and/or if we want to propagate it in ourselves and in our lives, or not.  In my visits here to Cartagena in the past few years, including twice this year of 2010,  I am discovering a symphony of my tendencies, that feel quite rooted in my blood, that I do indeed celebrate and choose to allow to grow in me… such as passion, laughter, sensuality, generosity, music & rhythm, spontaneity, and unabashed expression.  Other tendencies, that through experiencing them in my family and then recognizing them rear their heads from the depths of myself, I have decided to release, thanks to this reflection… such as being so focused to the point of narrow-mindedness, taking the world personally, creating and investing in drama around the smallest of things or stories that are not my own, and impatience. 
It would be easy for me to get down on myself when I allow these destructive impulses to take charge, which is how my ego deals with my ego, literally impatient with my impatience.  And of course I have and do.  But I am learning that the key is to free myself (and anyone else) from judgement and simply choose what does and does not support my ultimate intention for life: peace, harmony, joy… and thus abundant creativity.  In the name of my life and that of my future children, Today I choose to love all of me, and all of my family's intricacies, even when it's not pretty, and then I am free to be precisely who I choose to be. 


∞ ceci
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