week thirty three >> "transmute"

"the opening" of Indulge celebrated on right    click to view

Back in May, in a post called "trust," I told the story about the first "official" collaboration that Jennifer and I did, a show called Indulge at UCSB. The left side of Z page~spread this week "Transmute" is the other side to a page (we have yet to present here in ZBOOK4ever) with shiny colorful stickers of champagne and cheer in celebration of "the opening" of our show on december 10th, 1996... turn the page and find this muted and rather dark page which mutters "the cleanup," the burnt colors bleeding unto it's preceding page, revealing the other side of the proverbial coin of "the opening." The experience that our show had offered included the indulgence of food for the senses, a lot of food, including a floor covered in powdered sugar for the shoeless to sink their toes in.  Well, we flirted with indulgence and indulgence toyed with us in return taunting, you want to play, okay, I'll overindulge you then... and all the indulgent amounts of yum soon verged on yuck... as the powdered sugar floor turned into a sticky mess. A sticky mess that was not forgiving in the least.  Powdered sugar, it looks sweet, but it is not to be underestimated; it is horribly stubborn in fact... as dear Jennifer found out the next day after our show. I had not anticipated the need for such an elongated "de-stall" time and had made plans for which I honored, simultaneously dishonoring the reality of the closure of our show's cleanup and Jennifer who was left to deal with the unruly bully who wouldn't budge from the gallery floor.  

"transmute"           click to view

One day soon after I opened ZBOOK to this burnt page with muttered words "the cleanup" and at once held my breath... until I hurt in my chest, until finally all I could choose to do was breathe again and with that breath came deep gratitude... for the immense cleanup that Jennifer took for the team... and for the friendship that made it possible for trust to allow the experience to transmute itself into a philosopher's stone of experience of surrender, forgiveness and love.  The aqua-blue spheres came through Jennifer's hand as well, I believe, and when they appeared on the right page the next year, I felt that the burnt terrain was being renewed with cleansing waters for a fresh new face of one doosey of a first collaboration.  The word Transmute blossomed onto the spread... now a reverence to the space, of time, trust, love, and breath that restores life experiences into a renewed form, stronger and mature and free to transmute again.  Thank you Hemphill for your earnestness in seeing our show All the way through and for loving me All the way through too.

∞ ceci

6

grateful still

"still"    click to view

click to view large

During the thanksgiving of 1996, I traveled to Sedona Arizona with my mom and PSL brother Hutch.  ZBOOK was barely a month old.  This was two weeks before our first collaboration show Indulge, for which much of the first writing in ZBOOK was brainstormed with.  On thanksgiving day my mama, Hutch, and I packed up a thanksgiving feast and hiked up the river bed up to Cathedral Rock at sunset.  It was stunning.  The watercolor sky seeping into the richest, deepest electric blue of twilight.  We got up close to the base, created a space for feasting, made a fire, and beheld both vistas... of the Cathedral formations to the west, illuminated by the last lingering light, and the expanded valley of stony wilderness below to the east, with the diamond moon rising over the arrival of night's sky embedded with it's blanket of stars.  We were quiet and still.... breathing and grateful.  At fireside, feeling Jennifer very much, I began to speak to her in the wind... so I pulled out ZBOOK and let the words fall on Z page... this one that ultimately became "still."           [click image on right]

sketch of Cathedral Rock from where we sat

Happy thanksgiving Hemphill, my dear friend, my sister in soul and partner in muse.  It is a delight to be in correspondence with you, flowing and circulating Still, 4ever. 

 

∞ ceci

6

week thirty two >> "still"

Where did we meet? In stillness, at one another's feet? Or was it in sleep?
Wherever , Whenever , our tendrils whirl in beat to strings in golden sheath, from time wherein.
-J.G.
11/24/10 Bbk, CA

There are so many stories to share in ones lifetime, yours, mine, ours and others... let's hear and speak them, honor the existence of each voices tales. I am so thankful for the many moments in colorful places shared and alone; times when holy spirit has flown through pulsing veins, interweaving life and friendship and understanding.
The title of this weeks, spread, 'still' comes from center page at right... - underlined, a piece of sentence from Cec's sharing of a Thanksgiving trip to Sedona, AZ :,
" its power swallows me still"


Happy Thanksgiving near and far - Peace and Goodwill to all,
-Jennifer

the launch

Our speaking engagement yesterday at UC Santa Barbara was a threshold for us and our work beyond measure.  We shared stories about our friendship, our collaboration, ZBOOK, our other books, and our new postcard project that we launched right then and there with the students: Z.POSTCARDS.  Because our engagement was to speak to the Personal Narrative class, we had the opportuntiy to delve into the performance aspect of the presentation.  In between power point segments, Jennifer performed a personal storytelling with words, movement, and the cutting of oranges... which she then 'passed out' to the students as I continued on into my sharing of history.  Also, for the duration of our "talk," we painted and created Live with watercolors and collage... as a way of sharing an experience of our cultivated modality of art making, versus an explanation.

The surface of our live painting was a "canvas" made of tiled blank postcards.  At the close of our talk we invited students to gather 'round to view the whole postcard piece and then select a card.  This was the launch of Z.POSTCARDS... our new project in which we initiate a newly crafted postcard, mail to anyone who wants to play, and when you receive yours you are invited to add your own mark of art, design, words, and expression to the postcard and mail it on, inviting others to continue the collaboration.  An invitation to play, create freely, let go, and discover the joys and possibilities through collaboration.  Each card is numbered and who knows, maybe someday some of them reunite and share the story of their journey, much like a balloon that's flown around the world.  The students from yesterday have the first cards of the project, and with that the opportuntiy to collaborate with us, plus to (re)discover the joys of the post! (as in the mail, something that seems to be quite forgotten these days)

The feedback from the class was wonderful and we had several stimulating exchanges with students after wards.  Most were sure that we knew about a website called PostSecret.  We said, what is that? Please tell us! Turns out to be so popular that you out there probably know of it already!  The students pointed out that the site is almost entirely geared to the college student market, as the creator of this project tours with his speaking engagements to all college campuses.  They thought maybe this is why we didn't know about it yet.  But upon visiting the PostSecret Facebook page I found a handful of my friends who already "like" it and many are far beyond college age, so how have we not come across it already? Crazy!  But SUPER glad to know of it now... so rad to learn something new from the students :) ~thanks so much!

PostSecret is an art project that invites us to mail in our secrets anonymously on postcards.  The postcards, the secrets, are then posted on the site.  That's it. And it is awesome.  The power of releasing secrets and reading other's has proven to be tremendous, capturing the attention of millions.  And the postcards themselves, the pieces of art people make of them to express beyond the words, are hugely compelling.  In the past 5 years, creator Frank Warren has published four PostSecret books of crafted and mailed in postcards of secrets.  Frank Warren also tours college campuses throughout north america with his speaking events called PostSecrect Live where he shares his story, yet to be shared secrets from a fist full of postcards not yet posted or published, the stories behind the secrets, and an open mic for students in the audience to voice their secrets.

Through our expereince in speaking about our work and performing our stories at UCSB yesterday, it became crystal clear that the power of the work we do is best conveyed face to face, in a live experience where we can tell our stories, share our passion, and speak on the teachings that have revealed through our work: the power of play, innovation, trust, and collaboration.  This is the start of something great, something that feels like it's been waiting for us to wake up to it, and yesterday was the launching point.  Thanks to our former professor Kip Fulbeck for inviting us to speak at his class, presenting us with the match with which to light this fire.   

It's funny, all this year I have been paying attention to "talks" and speakers themselves with adamant interest.  Primarily via TED talks and thru noticing how all the great teachers and innovators that I am inspired by are all active speakers and their speaking engagements are a major part of their careers.  Artists, scientists, authors, visionaries, and innovators such as Seth Godin, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Ken Robinson, Eve Ensler, Jill Bolte, Howard Rheingold, Michael Bernard Beckwith, and Jonathan Harris to name a few.  PostSecrect's Frank Warren, as I mentioned above, is yet another example.  And yet another is our 'SB prof. Kip Fulbeck, artist and university professor, 4 times published, who is continually invited to speak about his work and perform his poetry at schools, museums, and other events year round. 

We feel the noble charge to step up into the role of speaker.  As we now distill (thanks for the great word Kip!) and fine tune our direction and prime audience, we are choosing to begin with young women ages 12-22.

"all and everything"      click to view

One of these girls is shown on Z page this week "All and Everything" as we see Alice jump into the vast unknown... or launch, if you will.  And whether you be girl or boy, we all can relate to these moments that arise throughout our lives... when you are presented with the opportuntiy to step through to a new you, grab the ring, go for it, and jump... this is the launch that takes our work deep and wide, directly to eyes and ears and hearts everywhere.  We accept this noble charge with great honor.


∞ ceci
6

Jump!

postcards a flurry click to view

Today is an exciting day for ZBOOK! Today we speak at UC Santa Barbara, accepting the invitation from our former Professor Kip Fulbeck to speak at his Personal Narrative class, which we took 14 years ago, the same year that both our friendship and ZBOOK was birthed. In preparation for our presentation/performance I have been going through our mass collection of postcards which we've sent each other since that year of 1996. All of our stories could be told just with these postcards alone, they are rich with history gleaned from the date, place of origin, destination address, particular stamps, adorning details such as stickers and drawings, image on card itself, and of course the words written therein.

alice postacard -C to J- 6 July 1999

I came across this Alice postcard and smiled, as Jennifer brought the Alice from Z page this week, "All and Everything," to light in her last post. It's fascinating to re-discover a postcard you've written... it's as if seeing it for the first time! For truly we write 'em and mail 'em and only the recipient gets to truly become familiar with 'em. This postcard was written on July 6, 1998 from Boulder, Colorado by me to Jennifer who was living her summer in Santa Cruz and received my postcards via our PSL buddies Hutch, Coach, and Millar's house in the Redwood Estates mountains of Los Gatos, CA. Vinh and I were on a road trip at the time which what brought us passing through Boulder. The words speak of how Vinh and I had slept in our "capsule" van parked at a public park which we hucked disc at by moonlight the night before and how we were now waking up to a crowd of people just outside our tinted windows going to the near by church on sunday morning. And to that I wrote, "Many a night, especially when we don't have an exact place to sleep, I think about you & your travels. I think about you sleeping in the sand," referring to stories from Jennifer's travels around the globe after her grad from UCSB the year before.

"All and Everything" click to view

Travel, the unknown splendor of it all. Travel is the never ending rabbit hole. As is life. So fun to be a couple of Alices together in our creative mayhem Hemphill. Today... we jump!

∞ ceci

6

week thirty-one >> "all and everything"

Blood is pumping through my soul, excitement pulsing in my fingers. We are shedding another layer of manifestation this week as we and zbook head to Santa Barbara to share our personal and collaborative narratives. Using the healing gift of story and the image exploding opportunity of power point, Cec and I are climbing up the rabbit hole to lay down some funky right brain / left brain tonic into the atmosphere of studio 1340 on the UCSB campus this Wednesday, 11/17/10 – power twin intention... activate!

The metaphor of the rabbit hole arises this week as Alice appears in pink; falling, tumbling, slipping down our red gelatinous drawing toward the web of childhood playground. I myself fell down a rabbit hole once in India. I was minding my own business, absorbing the spicey coast of Goa, India, when a young English woman named Jane showed up one afternoon saying she wasn’t sure why she had left where she had just come from. Being the incredibly helpful and insightful travelor that I am, and was, I responded, “why, you came to find me and take me back to that place from whence you came.” And so it was, that Jane and I boarded a crickety, stickity, old bus and bounced for thirteen hours across the country to Pune, India. After such a journey, we emerged into light once more, dropped at the doorstep, at the gate actually, of the OSHO Commune International. To gain entrance into this community, which I desired, I submitted to an AIDS test, negative, and soon after began a six week meditative exploration in a buddha field.

One of the guides who emerged in that time space for me, was a beautiful, round, bubbly Indian woman named Nirmala. Each night, to prepare for the evening gathering meditation, all attendees bathed and donned white robes, dresses, gowns, anything free flowing, just white. Nirmala invited herself into my shower and captured my attention with her stories. She was having an affair with a smitten Englishman and her Greek husband was aware and troubled. I believe she had been to the Ashram several times, in her youth, when the master, Bagwan Osho, was alive, and now she was back for a stay again, along with her husband, though they kept separate apartments in town. My own apartment finder had been linked to me through Jane, who had been conned into bed by the swindler on her first visit (before returning with me). He was always trying to seduce me it seemed, though I was quite guarded with my sexual energy at the time still. Nonetheless, I was very grateful to him for helping me find a little nook to call home in Puna during my stay. There was a communal hole for a toilet, and there were a few other temporary dwellers in a couple of surrounding rooms, but the main occupant of the apartment was a sweet woman who always had a smile for me and helped me feel safe and welcomed. I didn’t spend much time there, nights occasionally, it was mostly a place I could keep my belongings dry and secure.

Nirmala’s apartment, which I had the pleasure to overnight in a couple of times, was a glass-walled, wood-floored, book-laden, zen-haven. Her space overlooked the rushing river running along the town.

One morning, after a night of debauchery with some young Italian boys we had commandered, I awoke in the dawn hour, feeling very light and energized. I sat facing the river with my sketchbook and pens in hand and proceeded to engage my own deep meditation with a colored spiral drawing. After some time, Nirmala joined me by the window and our speaking commune was so entwined, that we both felt elevated into a different rhythm. Nirmala, who had a very active third eye, told me later that she could see me like a buddha. For me, it was my most enlightened moment thus far experienced in this life. Afterwards, as we joined the Italians for breakfast and then ventured to a lake retreat for the day, I felt so connected and clear headed, everything felt joyous and light, and I felt that I could see through any bullshit... it was a turning point in life for me.

During my stay at the commune, I participated in many aspects of community life, and engaged in most of the daily meditations and a couple of the special, intensified offerings. At lunch everyday, after eating, I could sit along one of the exterior corridors, and listen to a taped recording of Osho speaking. Some of the most memorable teachings came from those lunch hour sessions. Often, he would speak about people, those wise and otherwise as well. More than once, I recollect Osho referring to a man called Gurdjieff, and always he spoke with respect for his teachings. Thus, when I came across the writings of G.I Gurdjieff when I was back in LA, perousing the Bodhi tree bookstore, I took home the books and entered the worlds of “All and Everything”.

All and Everything is a three part series. The first massive part, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, is purportedly an avenue for dispelling the myths which the ego has enshrouded humanity in. I have not yet had the fortitude to withstand that full path. I have however, crossed the river into the second book of the series, Meetings with Remarkable Men. This series of autobiographical stories of people with whom Gurdjieff engaged in through his search of mystery knowledge across Asia, Africa and Europe is incredible and image rich. I’ve read through this part II of the series several times, and could learn from it for ever and ever no doubt. In fact, with this weeks zbook spread approaching, I picked it up from my bookshelves and entered it into my bathroom book keeper. Having re-read the introduction while enthroned, I knew I must move it into my backpack to have on my person through the coming weeks.

To end this post, I wanted to share a recent gleaning from All and Everything, 2nd series. It is said that a human must strive to keep intact both the lamb and the wolf, to be in truth with herself.

Gurdjieff shares this challenge: How can one get across the river and keep whole the wolf, the goat and the cabbage, if only one can be ferried across at a time?


The answer lies in making an extra trip!


This week, I look from the vantage of the Hawk for guidance- in awe of Earth and Sky. Please share your thoughts, experiences, flow... we’d love to hear from you!


Be well and Blessings, -Hemphill

11/11/10 - parallels

It seems only appropriate that we are running this 'Run in Parallel' spread as we cross the date of 11/11.  Ceci left a phone message for me earlier, suggesting that today held great potential as a gateway date.  I have been holding our recent conversations to my heart and actions; expressing my excitement with zbook to my colleagues and family. We are in final countdown/preparation mode for a presentation of our collaborative zbook work at our "origin" point of UCSB.  Before faculty and students, we will be sharing story and images and creating an experience of our personal and collaborative narratives, spreading the inspirational impulses of zbook.  It's a seed pod bursting opportunity we've been taking steps toward for some time now.  In many ways, it feels like a jumping board, like a springing platform into a pool of something still as yet unknown.  We both agree that the manifestation of this symposium opportunity in the fall is completely in line with our mutual electricity in this season of wind and shift from light outside to light inside.  Looking at the image of "parallel", this emerging internal light is reflected magically in the luminoscity of this spread...it is infused with some serious incandescence.  What's amazing to me is how this spread transformed from something quiet and flowing to something pulsing and rushing.  As we were entering zbook in the last couple of years to bring closure and breadth of crystallization, we most often played in watercolor to cohese each spread.  On this spread however, our brushes stroked into life with these shimmery acrylic paints we both have had on hand in our painting quests, and the outcome shocked this piece with dynamite.  We should search our archives to see if we have an image of this spread pre white and purple and bronze, to view it in its quiet, browner stage, when it was mostly running words.

As I look closer at this spread, I see homage paid to a few striking moments in time.  In the following image, there is a note of the PSL family in the LA House.   The picture which arises for me in relation to that note is an oscillating scene, like a sticker with two images which flash through movement of  hand or head... one is a golden glowing room with a long table and a bronze lighted chandelier around which a dozen feasters are holding hands as a gray haired uncle offers prayers of Thanksgiving for the communion of family and friends; the shifted image is a blue black hue with jacuzzi drifters and moonlight sifters, overlooking a twinkling valley of lights.

I simply love how words and color wrap around each other.  The quote enveloped in pearlescent copper at right here looks like my lettering, though I have no recollection of its utterance context... most likely, it came from the jacuzzi!... "GUARANTEED"

On another note, it sure is strange how children bring challenges to streams of working time; they are so invested in every moment of the present, they cannot often be deferred to a future time when all other work is complete...isn't that an amazing gift to all of humankind, continuously renewed in each birth ... little bundles of the here and now - see me - help me - love me - leave me to myself - a constant cycle of learning and letting go for a parent.

So, I take my advice, post script to "Run in Parallel'..."walk in tennis shoes"!  Good advice!

-Be well and take care, -J. G.

week thirty >> "run in parallel"

"Portal" acrylic on hoop drum, 2000 click to view large

It was the spring of 2000. Vinh and I were spending the season up in the Sierras, housesitting for my mom's husband Mike's property (affectionately called "the Pocket") in Meadow Valley, right outside Quincy, California. Vinh was studying for his Medical Boards exam and I was working on my latest commission that year called "Portal," a hoop drum I was painting both sides of to create a piece that would eventually be installed with adjustable inner lighting in a home in Orinda, Ca (as seen in my 11/4/10 post). Each day Vinh and I worked hard and steady on our respective focuses in our own spaces of the house. One evening I was getting a bit crazed in the intensity of living inside of the piece I was painting and in turn it was affecting the process of the piece itself... but even so, I was so committed to my work that I couldn't think to pull away from it. Then I looked over and siting there was ZBOOK... and suddenly I was pulled to it, like the hand of a good friend, and I began to do what was definitely not on the "agenda" for the day: Play. A total departure from the regiment I had built into my process with the commission, I allowed myself to do flow on the whims of the moment, those that Z pages beckoned for and surrendered to spontaneous markings without premeditation.

But suddenly I began to feel guilty for not being "on task" with my "official" and "important" work. But that was the thing, my creative work was feeling like work and not so creative and the absence of feeling creative was what was making me crazy and I looked down to find ZBOOK in my hands, this salvation, this gift of creative outlet, this place to give my self permission to create without "task." And then it hit me, this play, this art made from live moments of pure creativity, this book that collected all the bubbling expression that percolated out of Jennifer and myself, THIS was IMPORTANT work too! ZBOOK was going on 3 years by now and for the first time I looked and it with whole new eyes, eyes that saw this book as not just a journal, but as a journal that was also our ART... our IMPORTANT work. My feeling on this soared out directly to Jennifer in my head and in my heart. And in that moment I stopped right where I was in ZBOOK and wrote this:

I am honored to work with you. Our work in very important to me. Tonight, in what I can only describe as flow, I put the drum aside and found myself in here. It seems the other piece I want to work on, I choose to work on is this very one. Our work is very important to me.

"run in parallel" click to view

It was a moment I'll never forget.


To be continued...








∞ ceci

6

parallel moments

"run in parallel" click to view

Continued... from my last post ....reflecting on the words in orange I one day wrote on Z page this week: "run in parallel"

I actually remember the exhale that released from me when I finish the last sentence. It was a waking up of sorts, like realizing you're dreaming and embarking on a lucid journey within the dream. It was breaking merely just the first layer out of a thick tundra of built up belief that my art would have to fit within some "art world" paradigm ignored to be valid and received. I would go on to be quite frozen in my art making in the years to come still allowing such a belief to stifle me.. yet always taking refuge in ZBOOK and thank GOODness for the gift of freedom and play that it always was and is for my creative sanity... which IS my sanity. I did draw here and there through out the next years, but it wasn't until 7 years later that I reengaged fully into my visual art... other than ZBOOK which was my main source for my expression and development during these more dormant years. 7 years later I was now living Los Angeles, a move I made to at last take myself serious as a singer... only to discover that ALL of me would come alive, musically and artistically. I felt very much that at the age of 33 I was only just starting out in life, finally embarking on the development of my arts, let alone the output of them.

In 2008, Jennifer and I took part in an art festival at the Waldorf school where she teaches and had a lovely exhibition of photographs from ZBOOK, of a selection of pages -where they stood at that time. We spent the day showing these photos, working in ZBOOK live, and sharing our story with people - for the fist time. The response was overwhelming. Even beyond the images, the people seemed to be quite impacted by our story of this pulse of creation alive for, then, 12 years. Children and adults alike shared with us how inspired they were. We were inspired by them!

The next day my mom's husband Mike, who had been present at the exhibition, pulled me aside to share his gleaming impression of the show and ZBOOK with me... and asked me the simple question: have you thought about publishing? Whoa, I thought, no I hadn't, it had never occurred to me, I mean the casual one day exhibition alone was this significant outing for ZBOOK and we were still decompressing from that. But suddenly I realized, that here I was, just "starting out" in my life, feeling so much like a new born babe with all my vital work ahead of me, but wait, here in my hand is ZBOOK... IMPORTANT work that I and Jennifer have been doing for 12 (at that time) years!
In this very moment a rush of the moment from 8 years before flooded my awareness... the moment that the words in orange poured onto Z page, the first moment I had any perspective that ZBOOK was in fact important and serious work despite the Play and unregulated creative freedom it sanctioned. That moment back in 2000 up in the Sierras seemed to speak, seemed to sing, directly to this very moment in 2008 as Mike expressed his voice, and what he concluded was also the voice of the masses, that ZBOOK is vital work and needs to be released to the world. (Thank you Mike!) This idea of publishing, along with the response we received from everyone at the show, helped me see ZBOOK as not just a gem in our lives but a potential one for others in the world.... we indeed have a story to share that may very well serve to inspire the creative freedom in people, inspire people to collaborate and experience what is possible through trust and play, and celebrate the power of friendship.

In the last 2 years since then, creating the last layers and definitive closure to ZBOOK, we have decided that we would like to publish and have pondered continuously the many possible forms in which we could output ZBOOK... coffee table book, journal type mag, picture book with inspired verse, memoirs, or ZBOOK as is???? It has been something that bewildered us long enough to not have submitted for publication just yet. We have ben sure of one thing though, that we want to share our story. The story of Jennifer and Ceci and how friendship led to collaboration led to play led to trust led to freedom led to discovery led to our ART..... which produced ZBOOK. This year it occured to us that we could begin to do this right now, out putting our story and ZBOOK out to people immediately... with a blog! And thus zbook4ever.com was birthed.

Now that you dear readers have a taste of ZBOOK (for going on 30 weeks now, today!), what are YOUR thoughts on how we could publish it and our story? We'd love to hear from you and any possiblities you feel for outputting ZBOOK.... please leave a comment below! YOU out there have become a dazling source of inspiration for us in here... we would be honored to hear about your ideas and reflections, please click here or below to leave an comment!

in love & gratitude
∞ ceci
6

Filling In Skeleton

vampire skeleton cake

As I polished off a slice of cherry cake tonight, I couldn't help but think about this weeks spread "external" and the postings which Ceci has been sending out. My son, Jack, has been daily intoning me with the repeated question, "Mommy, when can we make a skeleton cake?" Actually, the description changed through the past two weeks, from Halloween cake to skeleton to pirate to vampire and back to skeleton cake. As it turned out, I was not the direct aider to his cake making fulfillment, Daddy engaged the mixing and frosting brigade with Jack today, as Hallie and I took some girl time together. I had to include my pics from their success with this weeks spread, as it is incredibly reminiscent (to me at least), of the Dia De los Muertos skulls Ceci posted earlier in the week, and echoed in the face of "external".

As the title to this post suggests, my intent here, is to simply fill in a few lines. I personally get a chuckle from this cartoonish left side of the page, in the toes I filled into the candy wrapper spaces, as part of my Dino body expression. Cec and I actually lifted the yellow crinkly paper recently to check in on the drawing, to see if it went beyond what's visible, and in fact, it doesn't, it is truly a filled in space - awesome!

In her last post, Cec posed a question to me about the book from which the attached sentence on external comes from and its original reference to me. The book is, Meetings with Remarkable Men, the 3rd book in the All and Everything series of G.I. Gurdjieff, who I was turned onto via Osho when I was visiting Puna, India in October 2007, an incredible and mind boggling set of stories, which I apparently read out of order, having made attempts at the first book in the series several times and failed to penetrate it beyond pg.200. - even this past summer, I made another hopeful pass, and was successful reading aloud into the three hundreds, but not yet beyond; this round was completely different I must say, perhaps I'm beyond some levels of delusion - or perhaps, I'm swimming in them! Whatever the case, I am here, and my story is here, where I am. Where are you? -J.

existential silliness

"external" click to view

Deady Eddy click to view

Z page this week "external" was birthed in Guadalajara during the restoration time I shared about in my 6/9/10 post. And as I shared before, it was when I began to paint these faces made of shapes and the lines of negative space in between. Some landed in ZBOOK including this one, created not with paint but instead with white sticker pieces. These pieces made up the borders and framing off an old sheet of stamps which was by this time stampless with only the sticker peripheries remaining. Let no sticker be unrecognized nor unused! As I've proclaimed before, there are stickers all around us in our lives, far beyond the packaged sheets sold at the craft store. The skeleton body came later...
O my goodness it just hit me that this body was drawn in Guadalajara also, but 2 years later when I was living their for 6 months and teaching art an an elementary school. My partner at the time Vinh was going to medical school there (which is why Guadalajara was a frequent spot for me during and after college) and it was a skeleton doll we got during our travels around mexico, in either Guanojuato or San Miguel De Allende, which inspired the drawing that gave the sticker face a body in ZBOOK. O man, what was that skeleton's name?! O yeah! Deady Eddy! ((sigh)) Dead Ed. We loved that that little dead dude. And I didn't even connect that early this week when connecting this page to Dia de los Muertos!

click these to view

ALSO from Guadalajara are these wrappers on the left, that I picked up from the playground at the elementary school I worked at. The top one is for some kind of candy kids eat by scooping out with a little plastic flat spoon. The one below is the top of a sticker package, folded open, you can see the hole in both sides for hanging the package in in the store display. It was Jennifer who later came in and added the middle section that gave a body to the face in the candy wrapper. And after that the dino's body line was extended into the stickers wrapper to excentuate the mirror opposite image in the wrapper, to which I apparently wrote on the side in orange pen " a kind of ying yang" Okay Cec, I suppose :) I'm now teasing myself. And now I'd like to tease myself for teasing myself. O man I did it again. Wait, the date says March 1999 also in orange which would be when I collaged the sticker wrapper in... so Jennifer's dino body came after... so how beautifully did she match up the body line with the "ying yang" line... simple things like this make my day. That is so much of what ZBOOK is about... the magic in simple gestures that meet in perfect timing in the presence of trust and play and availability and receptivity for it all to be revealed and discovered.


So we have bones which are internal yet external in terms of being the matter of the physical... and wrappers that are external and made for for disposal but kept to live on in the internal realm of ZBOOK (look for many other candy wrappers through out ZBOOK too) and on both sides of Z page are the glows of external light of which appear to be auras around these skeleton and dino bodies, also indicating an expression of something internal... or eternal. It tickles me how this page, which is so silly fun to me, also speaks to me of existential awareness. The element that probably set the latter tone, and certainly appeared on the page before the auras did is the cut out quote collaged over Dead Ed:

Cut out from a book that Jennifer sent me color copies of... of the cover and some inside pages, a beautiful book, O man I forgot the name of it again... Hemphill please refresh my memory... and if you feel like, I'd love to hear about how this book came into your hands and how it came to be copied and sent to me... that was late 2000 or early 2001 when Vinh and I were living in New York. And other images and words from those copies of that book appear in other places of ZBOOK. ZBOOK is indeed the search of understanding the mysteries of life... which can never be fully understood of course... thank goodness.


∞ ceci
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week twenty nine >> "external"

Feliz Dia del Los Muertos... we expereinced Hallos-eve, and now we enjoy the celebration of LIFE through recognizing the dead... for that is life, the hologramic cycle of the birthing and the dying of everything which in itself has no begin or end because it's fundamentally energy.... ever present and alive... energy that mutates, transforms, changes form... each change appears as an end of that particular form... and then the new form emerges and "begins." From the chapters in our lives to our relationships to our sense of self to our very lives, we experience many deaths and rebirths along the way until we finally do die... yet we go on... our bodies change form and decay back into dust of the earth and our spirit, our energy, transmutes and lives on beyond this particular life. We often look on death and endings and change as frightening; we often resist change and fear death. But change and endings are the stuff of LIFE. And end is not about an ending at all it is about RENEWAL, marks a beginning, births new LIFE. It is hanging on to the same unchanged state of stasis that is a true death or end because with out change and circulation and transformation there is no living, movement, breathing, rhythm, LIFE.

In this season of harvest, autumn, scorpio, and day of the dead, the time is ripe to recognize what is outmoded in ourselves, in our lives, in our world...what needs to die out is is rotting away already done for... so we can consciously let it go.... so that we can discover all that is seeking to emerge through us. Not just the "bad" stuff, there is "good" stuff too in us and our lives -ways of being and thinking, identities, habits- that truly isn't us any more and holding onto it stagnates us, blocks us from unearthed possibilities, hinders our potential. In the spirit of the Day of the Dead, we recognize the dead in order to celebrate what is alive and wants to live. This day is also known All Souls Day. Once we slough away our excesses we attune to how our internal (soul, energy, light, awareness) gives life to the external (body/world/ideas/forms). Important to begin this weeding and harvesting in own selves and then together collectively. Interesting that our country's major election is set around this time every year. It's a prime time to recognize and choose changes.

"external" click to view

get down to the bones

in touch with your guts

in tune with your tones

releasing the muck

weeds from the internal

steam out now external

new breath fills new senses

new eyes see past fences

step into fortune & out of luck

revere what's done for it begun

the life that now thrives without it

& rejoice!

now that you've allowed it

∞ ceci

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