For 14 years two friends shared an art journal together, and called it Z BOOK...
Now we want to share it with you. Z pages... and more...
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Z page of the week: 1/1 and 1/9 2012

Z page of the week: 1/1 and 1/9 2012
"gesture"
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10 September 2010

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.

09 September 2010

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

 

07 September 2010

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
6

06 September 2010

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
6

04 September 2010

out on a limb

"fortune"      click to view

I'm here in Cartagena, gazing at Z page this week "fortune" and triggered in me is a dream I had as a kid, tucked away in my memory banks, dwelling there as a feeling, like so many others, and now is recollecting a few images to the surface.  This dream's feeling connects with the image at right of Z page of the swirly figure on a platform on high.  In the dream, which I had around 5 years old (hey in my last post I was around 5 too!), it was dark as night, and there was an knowing in me that there existed no day, and so I translated it as being in "space."  Funny to experience being in "outer space" during a subconscious experience that is truly that of inner space.  But maybe there really is no linear separation, and maybe that was one of the communications from the dream.

So, I am my same age in the dream, around 5 (not that I really had any concept of being little though), and I am... after a whole adventure in this space station like building, with large windows for walls looking out into the great darkness peppered with city ... the adventure being some kind of strategic mission to escape from some regulated system appearing as a game that all the people were fervently engaged... me knowing that I had to get out and proceeded to slip away through corridors and in between levels, up and down and all around the building until at last I find my way outside... via a small capsule that flies me away, but not too far before dropping me on this small platform that seems to be floating in space, I can't tell if something is supporting it from underneath or not...  I have made it to the outside, but now I am alone, isolated in vastness, and hanging in the balance on this small diameter of a surface... as other capsules wisp on by...¦ still I know that I rather be out here surrounded by dense nothingness than captive inside the structure where they play the system or rather the system plays them.  I figure that my way is the lone way.


A few months later my dad took me to see the 2nd Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back, and I was triggered suddenly back into this very dream by the scene at the end of the movie when Luke, after fighting his dark side dad all through out the cloud city structure, ends up stranded and balancing for his life on this pole in the middle of space.  I was stunned!  The feeling I got from this moment in the movie was so much like my dream, one I couldn't even yet put into words.  Undoubtedly seeing Star Wars the year before ( my 1st movie!) influenced any idea I had of outer space and most likely helped shape my projections of space in my dreams.  But then to see this particular scenario coming at me from the great big screen felt so... intimate, as if life was sending me a message.  ...Luke's buddies thankfully end up locating him and picking him up from his isolated precarious limbo.  Luke had been on a solo pilgrimage for most of this chapter, facing the truth of his gifts -or light, and the truth his origins -or darkness, both proving to be very powerful.  I remember feeling a joyful peace, understanding that although he could only forge his journey on his own, that he also had a team of earnest buddies that had his back.  I didn't know who mine were yet, but at once I felt accompanied, supported in my universe.  I remember proudly confirming to myself that I wasn't afraid to go out on a limb on my own.



∞ ceci
6

02 September 2010

Tata

Today my grandma Tata is 99 years alive.....................................!!

Tata


When I was a super little cec I called her Tata, because I couldn't quite mouth "abuelita" which is of course "grandma" in spanish.  That became her name, even for my younger cousins.  As with all my family, Tata is from Colombia and she has lived in either Cartagena or Bogota all her life.  She was present for my birth in Mountain View, California in 1974 (the day after Tata's Bday in fact!) and stayed for a while then.... and when my parents split a couple years later she came to back to stay with me and my mom when I was 2 to 3 three years old.  My mom was working a lot and so it was me and Tata, discovering the world together; she was unfamiliar with the U.S. and I was unfamiliar with any place and so it was new and wild to us both.  Tata didn't speak engligh and I didn't speak spanish but we formed our own unspoken communication.  We gained an understanding and a intutive closeness.  A couple years later, when I was 5, I was sent to Cartagena for the summer, all on my own, to both sides of my family.  They were my family but I hardly knew a few of them, and most none at all.  But Tata was my anchor.  Not only did we have an established connection, she was the only one who was truly present with me, spoke and listened to me like a person, had a special sensibility to my needs, and understood that I was already quite independent by this age and so didn't treat me like baby.  I hadn't grown up with any Colombian culture, food, or speaking spanish so it was challenging for me... and my family who expected me to be the Colombian of my blood, but I was so very much "gringa."  I did learn spanish in those 3 months and I returned to Cartagena every summer of my youth.  Every time Tata was my bedrock.  Summers away from my parents were tough, but it was great to get to know my family and this city... and I thank god for every day with my Tata... and how amazing is it that at 36 years old (which I turn tomorrow) that I get to continue to enjoy her company!  I didn't get to grow up with her close by, but the days we get together continue to add up and I am so grateful.  Thanks to Tata who has taken such good care of herself, and thanks to her radiant health.  At 99 she has no imbalances in mind or body, not even arthritis.  Only her walking and hearing has dimmed somewhat, but she actually remains incredibly strong and agile.  Her mind and awareness are so sharp, so keen, it's mind blowing.  And she just told me that the glasses she wears don't actually help much her to see or read, she just like to wear them because she thinks they help her look nice... so her eyesight rocks too!  Tata loves to stay up late, most nights till past midnight.  Just last night as I was fading at our late night dinner table out on the town, Tata was all riled up, totally outlasting me!  Well she has outlasted most, born in 1911 ...it's fascinating to think about how the world has transformed in unimaginable ways all around her during these 99 years.

"fortune"       click to view
Last night we took a "paseo" around "El Centro" the old colonial city center of Cartagena and visited all the houses she grew up in 'till she was 30 years old.  Story after story after story flowed from her as we walked (her in a sleek transport chair we just got for her).  It was awesome.  It was just Tata and my mom and I, the 3 of us generations of daughters.  I am so grateful to both these women for the risks they took and dreams they worked so hard to realize, making it possible for me to live a life of choice and creative freedom.  Being with them both this week, listening to my abuelita's stories, receiving her wisdom, receiving my own great blessings, and being so ever grateful for my life... this is my great fortune.


happy new year Tata!  Te quiero con todo mi alma. 
∞ ceci
6

30 August 2010

week twenty>> "fortune"

"fortune" click to view
Hello from Cartagena Colombia! I am here visiting my grandma Tata and celebrating her birthday of 99 years alive, and how grateful I am for how alive she is...! Her robust health has made it possible for us to enjoy more days of life together, during our precious visits to each other in my lifetime, as I was born and raised in California and she was born and lives in Cartagena. At 99 and counting she is in radiant health sustaining her sharp and sound mind. Her body had slowed some, but her vitality, reflexes, and strength endure. She was born in 1911 before automobiles, refrigeration, or even the phone. Now look at our world. Whoa. Tata's perseverance throughout this last crazy century is breathtaking.


Z page this week, "Fortune" is a showcase of portraits, females of different ages, each gleaming their particular flare. Jennifer mentioned that the one black and white portrait on the lower left reminds her of my grandma Tata, which is interesting as there is a black and white portrait of Tata in her youth here in her home that could very well be from the same era. ...I myself feel an affinity with this page... for ever since I drew the swirly figure on the right I have identified with it, first of all because of the swirls, as the spiral gesture has become a sort of signature for me, as an expression of my curls, my favorite number 6, and all the "C"s in my name... and then because the swirly one stands on this stage like platform, also in spiral form, and her wafts of expression could very well be song, just as I do sing and love the stage. The woman in black and white seems to be gazing up at swirly cec. It's true that I have had the great fortune to receive the avid support of my Tata in all my creative adventures, in the name of her wanting nothing less than my happiness... and I do not take this lightly since she was born in a world operating from a mindset of 2 centuries ago and she could have easily placed oppressive expectations on how I should live, the ones she grew up with and did even place on her own daughter, my mom. I am so grateful for her putting my happiness first in her heart and being a witness to my life experience.. and thus to what is possible for a woman to live.


ceci
6

28 August 2010

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.


26 August 2010

Z sketchbook project


We have embarked on something very exciting: The Sketchbook Project

The Sketchbook Project: 2011

Thousands of sketchbooks will be exhibited at galleries and museums as they make their way on tour across the country.
After the tour, all sketchbooks will enter into the permanent collection of The Brooklyn Art Library, where they will be barcoded and available for the public to view. 
All books will be included in an exhibition that tours the following cities:

When you sign up you are mailed a sketchbook in which to create a piece of book art with, and as it says above, the book will show in a nation wide tour and then live and be available for viewing at the Brooklyn Art Library, NYC.  We're excited to be a part of this amazing touring group show, and that we get to do it via what is dear to our he(art): making a book! Creating a story of our story of so many stories... ZBOOK and beyond!  Out of the choices offered, we selected a theme for Z sketchbook: Trading Forever.  How rad is that?  There it is right there, ZBOOK 4EVER.  It's that "trading forever" spirit that fuels our books, our postcards, and ultimately our ever electric creative synergy. And of course our dear friendship.

We are receiving this opportunity to step up our game, take what we do best and innovate into deeper levels of story telling.  We have our high intentions set, our initial actions in motion, and also the opening to experience and allow what it wants to become.  
written during week 19 "5:40 am"
Z story is going world wide..........................................................!

∞ ceci
6

ps(l):  Thank you to our friend Andrew Hoeveler who turned us on to this awesome project.  And also to Dani Vinokurov, amazing artist and our friend, who is also participating in The Sketchbook Project, for her undying support and inspiration.

25 August 2010

enter here

"5:40 am"        click to view

Who knows where it all began, this page of word flurry.  It's fun to compare our passing of ZBOOK back and forth with each other over the years with the playful fun of girls passing notes between each other in class... and here is a page that is literally packed with actual notes to each other and other verses to the cosmos.  Jennifer and I, as this page reveals itself this week, enjoy how these morsels of expression bring us directly inside of a moment, dipping inside of our own stories, of which we may not know the date, but can recognize the FEEL, triggering our memories, like remembering bits of dreams... 

I don't know what day this journal entry turned verse is from (below), but I can picture the scenario perfectly ...a day in the life of Hemphill and cec roaming the streets of Isla Vista (IV), our potent lil' student town extending from our UCSB campus.
Hucking disc at dawn, 5:40am to be exact.  :)  Synergizing visions, getting into each other's heads like dancing synapes.  Discovering great little gems of spots all over IV and campus to commune in through drawing, tarot card reading, and other spontaneous rituals in honor of the magic of the moment.  The disc I speak of is of the frisbee variety, and huck it we O so love to do.  Back then we would aimFully stroll down the beachy streets of IV, Jennifer on one side, I on the other and we'd huck as we walked, back and forth, with one foot after the other in a full forward current, hardly missing a beat.  Of course there were cars parked at the street sides and so it became clear we were not only hucking disc, but also "saving cars" ...from their imminent risk of disc attack. For the joy of disc in not only in the huck but also in the thrill of the catch.  We became known as "car savers" as did our IV disc walking expeditions.  The only way to travel.
 


These (at right) are lyrics I wrote for a song I made with my band when I lived in
New York in 2001.  
 


These words (at left) I wrote the year after my accident during my last and best year at USCB (97-98). Ironically this was the year that all my PSLers, including Hemphill, were gone and graduated, but after my recoup time away, this last year was indeed my best personal year at SB.



"noticias"       click to view

This word flurry page reminds me of Z page "Noticias," however that one is more report and "5:40 am" is more rapport.  Baring no dates, the words of "5:40 am" are partial glimpses into stories, offering morsels of experiences.  (Just as I was last week with the word web in "Mapa," I am again reminded of Johnathan Harris' work)  It is fun to identify these lil' clues of our moments in time, each one holding a place from which we can enter the narrative of our lives.


∞ ceci
6



24 August 2010

week nineteen>> "5:40 a.m"

5:40 a.m. translates into pieces of the moment.
Here I am, at 7:59 a.m., on a Tuesday – about to explode the day into movement and action and joy – preparing for the days and weeks, and months, as they are knocking at my door. I love to write and read. If I could spend more hours, every so often in the week for writing and reading, I would sit and do it –



Oh my, hey wow, look here, I’m doing it!!! Thank you ZBOOK, I love you,
And thank you dear Ceci for collaborating so amazingly... you are a dynamite
Collaborator – keep it up!! Whoo hooo,
Man I sound like a Coach (shout out!)... and Oh my, goodness sakes,
Here Iam!!!

"5:40 am"    click to view
sliced in Tori      click to view
This beautiful spew spread of words and words, 5:40 am, is possibly the epitome of journaling – of what a journal is to so many people. As I strain to read it, because I have a desire to engulf these pages as we enter them and explore them... it seems to me that much of it is from Ceci, much of the breadth – and I find myself in there too – more like a punch in the arm or a hough of wind. I could relate that experience to this blog for me too – thus far, our discipline has been settling with it – like a yoga or stretching discipline settles in.
I think another title for this spread could be ‘naked’ or ‘naked lighting’. When I sliced in Tori Amos’ back at the piano to this page, it was directly from the white cover cd. Somewhere else in zbook is a spliced in set of lyrics from that same album...it’s a good one – I think I’ll search it out this week and listen! Truth for me says that that image, only comes to inflated speed with the energy of the naked female light bulb moment; and I have no memory for who added that one ... Bueller, Bueller...?? And then, doesn’t the word PLUSH just SING~ ~ ~!!!
This page is like that picture, topsy turvy and playing and searching in naked moments of time. I love the blue waves – Ceci says they are nipples ~~~and, she’s right, look at those mammaries – GORGEOUS!

 
So, when I came to this post, I wanted to share a moment of time from this morning ... After my morning mini-walk and airy stretch, I attempted to walk a three-fold walk –
a spacially dynamic charged practice. So, I did a few steps of just the feet walk, to connect with the streams, then turned to add arms, and I went blank. So, I then turned to move a side bend pose, a movement with similarity to yoga stretches, but different! Nothing – So, I decided I was very thankful I took a good page of notes this past Friday when I worked with my Spacial Dynamics mentor – and I ended my morning movement with half a sun salutation – and a push up eploration!


A last thought image – one I shared with Ceci last Thursday when we met to make opening marks on our new sketchbook project....!
I’m reading EAT, PRAY, LOVE, it’s my bathroom and late night book; a hand me down from my Grandma’s friend, Hearty, to my Grandma and now to me.   An old Balinese medicine-man shares a picture he woke from a dream to draw – it’s an image of a body rooted to the ground on four legs, with torso uplifted and ferns sprouting from the shoulders...this is one of my meditations this week / month, and it’s reflecting in so many places already!

Now to kids and house and in a way, my last day of summer freedom – with adult obligations and commitments – oh to be a kid – without those time boundaries, don’t we all wish that for our youngins in the summer (and more of course!)
Be well and see you soon per chance!
-Jennifer

21 August 2010

papa pájaro

I want to share with you a small piece I did for my dad Javier... I call it pájaro.

"pajaro" Aug 2010 acrylic & watercolor on panel, 10"X8"   click to view
My dad's birthday was yesterday and we are celebrating his 60 years alive.  He's a young dad to me, an older dad to my lil' bro Xman, a great dad to a us both.  In 1987, when I was about 12 yrs old, the age Xman is now, I made a painting of a ruby throated humming bird for my dad on his 37th Bday.  It was my last oil painting I ever did.  I grew up painting with oils... my mom hooked me up at 7 years old with a slew of brushes, canvases, oil mediums, turpentine, and tubes of paint... and I painted with them until I dropped painting during middle school (asterisk)... years later in college when I picked up a brush again I took the safe route with acrylics.

ruby throated hummingbird, Aug 1987, oil on panel, 10"X8"
hanging in my dad's "museum" wall     click to view









My dad loves birds.  He loves to watch them, study them, and talk to them.  Which is why I chose a bird as a subject that summer of 1987 to paint for him.  This year when making something for his Bday, it came back to me the memory of that painting from years ago and I knew that a bird was coming through for this piece.  Unlike last time though, when I sourced the hummingbird from a bird book, this time I simply allowed an imagined creature to come through my fingertips to create a unique bird species from more of a dream world ...since my dad also has always had a strong affection for dreaming.

My dad likes to think of himself as an old bird ...silly dad, what you are is beautifully alive like a bird in flight, soaring always to greater heights, loving to observe all of life, loving all of humanity.  Your noble heart has infused my own. Thank you dad, I celebrate you and I love you!

click to view

written during
week 18 "mapa"

∞ ceci
6

19 August 2010

mapa de momentos

A story is like a map. Life is like a story of stories, maps within maps, like a fractal you can always go in further, deeper right down to the territory that each moment holds. Our expressions, our pieces of work, are sign posts along the way, and surely ZBOOK is a major one for us, telling the story of and mapping out 14 years of our living, being, and synergizing. A story of stories it is. A 4D map of our growth as artists and as friends, of our young lives.

But this map is not to be figured out. Life is too wonderfully messy for that. And truth is always changing based on perspective ...there are certainly an infinite number of perspectives from a multitude of moments that shaped ZBOOK ...and infinitely more to experience ZBOOK with. This page started out with words, phrases that mutated into other phrases that with continued added words mutated into other phrases and on and on until it became a fishbowl of expressions, all specific phrases linked so closely that they seem like a school of individual fishes. Reminds me of Johnathan Harris' work, which I shared about in my "Collecting Stories" post a few weeks back. These phrases are all "partial glimpses" into our mind, a mental or emotional map if you will (from 1998 mostly). Our stories are the map to our lives, the destination being the map itself.


"Mapa" offers another mapping point, this photograph from summer of 2002, of Jennifer's husband Tony, her daughter at 1 1/2 yr old, and Vinh, my partner at the time, of whom I've mentioned in prior posts... for it is impossible to reflect on the last 14 years with out thinking of Vinh... as we were together since high school and all through my 20's. I am so profoundly blessed that he and I today share a friendship, this is a gift in my life... for Vinh is an amazing man that I am proud to know and honored to call family. Vinh is my oldest, dearest friend.

"mapa"
click to view
















∞ ceci
6

17 August 2010

week eighteen >> "mapa"

"mapa"  click to view

When I hear this word, 'mapa', I see lands and crossings and adventure in my minds eye.
The picture from the “mapa” spread comes from the summer of July, 2002 at Lake Barryessa.
Tony, Hallie and Vinh have sinced been tribaled out by Ceci’s silver tipped experimentation.
 She apparently thought I was the tattoo / piercing culprit; however, I believe my observation stands here, as I mentioned to her, I probably wouldn't have gone all out on Tony's navel - because I know him too well!
This spread is obviously enhanced by intense shocks of color - blue saturated water colors, and fluorescent pen designs highlight the poignant masked angel beings who appear to be observing the goings on, participating?!  These Venetian robed figures hover as if on a threshhold of mirrored waters.  Through which, the words of life are swirling. 
I can't help but connecting this to the meditation on the Prologue to the Gospel of St. John:
                                                        In the Beginning
                                                        Was the Word
                                                        And the Word
                                                        Was with God
                                                        And the Word
                                                        Was God.
                                                        He was in the Beginning
                                                        With God.
As a studier of Rudolf Steiner, I came across the above 'Incarnation' in an issue of the Anthroposophical Society of LA's monthly newsletter some time ago.  I cut it out to keep and use because the intro said something about RS not being one to give guarantees, however, regarding this prologue, he is said to have said, "If you meditate on the Prologue to the Gospel of St. John, the first five verses (1 and 2 are above), for one year, every day, the whole course of your life will be changed."  That's a pretty powerful statement, so i cut it out.

On another note...
 Here is a short story to take you into the land of lake shores and rocky hillsides:
Our family travels every summer, through the hot plains of California’s fruit basket, into the foothills of the Western Sierras, via Dinuba and the Tivy Valley. As we turn the final curves of Sunnyslope into the domain of Pine Flats Lake, I am always relaxed into dreamy breath as my senses fill with the scenery. Our August trip, to celebrate Tony’s 42nd, was enlivened by his dear cousin's family floating along too. After a weekend overflowing with refreshment, we prepared our intentions and steered our course for Rattlesnake Island... to pay our final respects to Old Grandpa Snake.

We killed Old Grandpa last summer, another story in itself. This summer, a year later, we returned his head to the shores where we first crossed paths. Preserved in a hummus container, soaked in rock salt, OG’s diamond shaped cranium still held poison. We were cautious; my own touch, the only handling of the head and its container with gloves.
Tony and the four kids dug a hole.
I carried and opened the container and unloaded the contents.
Amazingly still well in tact after a year in salt, the head was large and commanded our reverance.
We admired the eyes and the scales and respected the fangs tucked away.
We prayed, then we buried and marked the snakes grave with a split walking stick, secured by rocks.
While the group swam in the warm cove, I climbed to the opposite side of the high water island, where the current is stronger, to rinse the bowls and jump into a cooler area.  I remembered swimming there, along the rocks with Hallie and Jack and cousin Jimmy the previous year,
the weekend we took home the snake.
For Christmas last, Tony tanned the skin and created five wearable pieces from it's length.  I received a baked skin bead on a red stone necklace he strung; Hallie was proud of her rattling bracelet and Tony's cowboy hat band catches any honky tonks eye. 
angels watching
Tonight, Tony and I pulled a powerful spread of cards to commemorate his birthday transition. So much of the weekends great lessons were mirrored in the pulls as we asked guidance from the Shaman Wisdom Cards and connected to the power of Zen utilizing the Osho Zen Tarot. So much power and affirmative wisdom poured through our devoted space; I am incredibly grateful and respondent to the gifts showered down. Tony acknowledges so graciously the truth of a 7 year cycle coming to close, and the next opening. In Steiner speak, he will come into a period once again of a double shot of will development. I will be elaborating on our spread for Tony, if anyone is interested in channeling universal guidance, feel free to ask. And also, go to Ceci’s newly manifested Oracle link – I’m sure she’ll extrapolate and invite expanded participation soon.

Please also feel free to share a comment with inspired vision ... we are on a path of visioning,
and oh my the waters are refreshing.
Blessings and Be well,
-Jennifer

14 August 2010

"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
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