ArtOutside

I'm on my way out the door traveling today to Austin TX... excited to be a Live painter at this year's ArtOutside!

"Art Outside is a unique “boutique” art festival that uses the lush central Texas woods as a canvas for a multi-sensory exploration of all things artistic.

... a unique three day festival combining visual and interactive art, performance, film, as well as a wide range of music bridging genres, from bluegrass to experimental, hip-hop to dance music. Art Outside started with the idea to bring art out of the galleries and into a unique setting where different forms of art can connect and be enjoyed by all."

click the poster to discover more ------>

"listen"      click to view

I'm excited to find out what I'm going to be painting, what stories will come through, and what the shape of my expression is currently.  I'm going to be a witness to this right along with my viewers.  In a sense, I'll be listening.  To my own process, and especially to all the amazing art being conducted all weekend long by artists from around the world.  This listening is a harvest, and I am grateful for the bounty of ripe awareness and learning.

in love & gratitude
∞ ceci
6

week twenty seven >> "listen"

Stepping into this week we couldn't quite bid adieu to Z page from last week, and so "listen" stays anchored for another week in Z bay of our contemplation and intrigue.  This is certainly one of our fave pages, always standing out as if silently shouting out its own cultivated discoveries and prophecies about the roots of life on earth and beyond.  

Faces within faces appear to tell us tales of our own origins... for me as I sit with this page and truly listen, taking it in with all my senses, I feel the idea of origins as a hologram that truly has no actual beginning, as we go beyond ancient humanity, beyond our cells, atoms, and amoebas, beyond this planet into the unknown universe... which is possibly the very destination of this whole hay ride, also without end.

"listen"    click to view large

Life -of earth, of human, of cosmos- is the ultimate artist, and we living beings are the extensions of creation, inherently creative in every action and thought... inside our bodies alone, with out moving a muscle, we are in a constant state of creation.  Yes, this makes us all artists, and when we recognize this and we put it into intentional action, then O yes, then it is revealed and great creative enterprise is born. Through our stories and creative expressions, personally and collectively, we each gain access to our own personal drives, inspirations, and passions.  If we listen, with all senses, we may un-tap the wealth of our own potential harnessing within us... if we do this collectively.... then what is possible?

∞ceci

6

listen

You know, even though we have had ZBOOK as our companion for over 14 years, even though it lives as an intimate part of our lives, we are continually discovering it all the time. In many ways that's what we are doing here in Zblog; each look at each page is a fresh transmission with more layers rising up to the surface of our awareness all the time. Although I had a hand in creating these pages, I often feel quite outside of them. I don't mean separation here, I mean like sanding outside a house that you built and designed, yet without a blueprint... ZBOOK is not really mine or ours, it is its own entity that we now go inside to visit and step out again to reflect upon. It is a field of expression that streamed through us as we surrendered to each moment of offering markings and stories and pieces of life we found along our paths that carry their own stories... a place where we allowed these elements to dance and blend into a music we could never premeditate, story layered songs that we ourselves get to hear fresh,

click to view large

over and over, each time like another first, inducing current personal reflection and ripe inspiration. Jennifer and I were talking today about this, this LIVE essence of ZBOOK and our work together (as also explored in our other books and projects), how the process of how we create these pages is truly a stream of call and response that we simultaneously swim in and surrender in its current flow. It is what makes our work possible. It's called play, something I feel to be the avenue for the greatest work to be done, through which all possibility and potential can flourish, through which discovery becomes innovation. Z pages have their own stories to tell, even to us, as their summations are new arrivals, even as they carry the gestation of a thousand seasoned layers. The layers we may know personally, but the whole fruit grown from these elements, now ripe and beckoning harvest, is completely fresh food for our thought. When I experience art in the world, and if it speaks to me, a piece will evoke ideas, connections, and emotions in me helping me experience myself and where I stand in that moment in time, creatively and personally. The wild thing is to be experiencing this caliber of reflection via my own art. To feel both inside and outside the work, inside the elements, outside the entity each page has become thus enabling me to view them with great intrigue and illumination. And it continues here in Zblog as we compose these expressions of writing, like right now, allowing this expression to take form before my eyes and speak my heart for all to hear... including myself.

"listen"

 click to view large

∞ ceci
6

week twenty six >> "listen"

Listen up Rumourville, Hear me, Hear me...

Do not touch my heart of gold with your scratching glasses.

I Will stand, in gratitude and humblehood and speak my truthful love.

Let me stand in strong embrace with freshful face toward unions plenty.

Let me see with eyes clear and blinding what pictures wait beside my bedside table.

And let me know that Loves great gift will lift my bountiful sharing toward lights uplifting.

Here, on this page, prophetic soundings wail forth from fortified groundings.

Here, on this page, airs sweet breath lasts in top clearings camp of divided colors.

Love to this page for earths lined structure and form.

Love to this page for faces forlorn and reborn.

Shelter this page, in messages sung from begun.

Shelter this page, in ancients stone soul taking form.

Guide me, this page from fear, repercussion, sleepless dawns.

Guide me, this page with shimmer and color and squirm.

Fly me strengths flights towards sharing, embracing, deepening sights.

With prayers soaring mind, peace and calm may you descend in ascent of thirty-three in Chile. Our troubles are but minor woes - Love and light blast through! blessings to all -J.G.

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

week twenty five >> "cohesion"

Ok, I am going to be present with this torrent, as I metaphorize from this page to shed light on my own turbulent dialogue...

This spread, ‘cohesion’ is a tornado of forces colliding and swirling and intersecting.

cohesion




Dwelling on the current swell of breakdowns in communication in my household,

I sat on the porch this evening to breath in the calm and cold air.

When I dive into the spread of ‘cohesion’, I actually feel bounced all around,

like several large and energized weather organizms are occupying the space,

contending as to which will ingest me into their shadows the deepest.

In a way, I must love this experience,

as I thrive in the bounce of the seas crisp shipboard sprays.



There is power in this circulation.

When the title for this page came into existence, it was conscious...

we knew this spread was not really communicating together – in the same language...

and so, there grew an intervention of searched for ‘cohesion’.

Color, Form and Collaboration were immediately inscribed

as uniting entities.

And though there was suddenly a definite strike of – “this spread needs ‘this’ kind of jolt” -

 Wherever I put down color, I sense that I held the truth of the separateness of the worlds – like flips, opposites, complimentors, but not overlappers of each distinct pages whole.

Their conversation is loud and pointed in places, and it floats in pockets as well.

For me, the weathervane in this page is the axis - access;

The copper beast allows my eyes and thoughts to spin.



weathervane -copper beast

I imagine riding the crest of the arrow through a thunderstorms winds –

Seeing the crash of striking white heat

and hearing the drumming of music expounding in the atmosphere.

 Perhaps if I take this stance, on the arrows spin, and allow the clouds of relationships strife to rainfall their darkness... perhaps I can release attachment to each drops wetness.

The challenge of course lies in the experience, that I am represented by a form as well...

and that I am the releaser of the pour, as well as a deflector...so many eyes to see from – and yet, I am one, and so I choose to ride the rooftop pointer. AMEN. -J.





Lucent Oracle

"oracle"     click to view

I shared with you about this in my 9/7 post, and from time to time I will continue to share with you the Oracle Page I conduct on the Lucent Dossier website... what better timing than when Z page "Oracle" graces our week. 

 This week the Oracle pulls the stone of Compassion, please click the photo for the reading.

[if you go to the Oracle page after this week, scroll down to find Compassion (week of 9/27/10) and enjoy the other readings along the way!]


∞ ceci
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week twenty four >> "oracle"

Today, the sky upheld the confirmation of this season. Through this heat we have been drooping in, here in LA, experiencing what some call an Indian Summer, through this, a thunder storm. As I rolled into Altadena this afternoon, returning the last vestiges of the volleyball team I coach, the rolling drum of lightning sounds dropped down from the surrounding mountains. Arriving home, the fall light of sunsetting through layered clouds and rains revealed the brightest rainbow. It produced a neighborhood corner gathering for a few moments of shared upliftment, until the strikes of Zeus began to flash close enough overhead to send all inside to observe from safety.

Today, at the Waldorf school I teach at, the 2nd grade and the 6th grade led the school in an annual celebration of Michaelmas as they presented the story of Nkosnati and the Dragon. Following, during the school wide games period, I was overseeing ‘the Dragons Sea’, through which the children were instructed to traverse a low wooden balance beam. In my creative simplicity, as I mulled how to make each grades challenge developmentally appropriate, I settled into a shared experience of a dark sea, where the travellers were to walk the narrow path with eyes closed. It was a stirringly beautiful observation vantage I then became witness to as each child approached with varying levels of confidence, and then embarked on this unsettling and brief task. The teetering balance between concentration, serenity and fear lit up in the closed eye faces. And I knew that this ‘game’ I hosted, upheld the Michaelmas sword... Courage to face dragons.

click for larger view

Today, as I look into zbook, entranced by the oracle image, seduced by the dragons at left, I am holding a deep gratitude for this season. As fall takes hold in its many faceted embrace, I am reminded by this zbook spread that the veil between worlds begins to thin in this time. In my readings and understandings of the Michaelmas festival, we humans are encouraged to take up our swords of Courage as we begin to enter the darkness of winter. Into this season, our Courage can lead the light of our soul to stand in truth before our own personal dragons and those which are reflected to us in the worlds vast seas. We are fortified with strengthening iron, running boosted in our blood and spreading, falling into our earths atmosphere from meteoric sources. The coverage of clouds across the sky with lightning striking is a visual of this picture, of forces converging, constricting to enhance power.

Today, as I continue to celebrate the birth and life of sweet Hallie, chronicled within the oracle, I wish great courage to swell in her heart. Nineness has taken hold, including an opening awareness to the outer world. In my parenting, I am faced with helping her, and myself, to overcome fear and doubt which has suddenly shadowed its presence with stronghold into our daily life. My child, who has been a breath of daring and outgoingness is facing the grip of an uncertain world. As she was sharing her choke today, she turned it around for herself, bursting into song of ‘slaying the dragon, St. Michael’. Blessings to you darling Libra, and may your many wisdomed guardians offer lights into the cave for you. Looking at you today, walking straight and confident, with eyes blinded from the sea, I was amazed to see your relations shining in your maturing face and stance. And, I pray for me to help see and acknowledge the emerging you which continues to crack through layers of childhoods protective shell. Dear Oracle, I am open to guidance and wisdom from all sources in this quest, feed me well to strengthen my courage! -J.

getting in touch

"touch" click to view

On the other side of Z page "Touch" is the story who a girl who invited a story. As I have shared before (visit 4/28 post) there was a time in 1999 that I taught art at an elementary school in Guadalajara, Mexico. After a wonderful visit from Jennifer I had ZBOOK with me in Guad and brought it with me to school everyday. One day when sharing ZBOOK with 2nd grader Paloma, she began asking me about my friend who does ZBOOK with me. "What is she like?" I told her that she is fun, loves to play, and loves postcards. "I want to write her," Paloma said. So I opened up ZBOOK to a blank page and offered it to her with my blue pen. On the upper left of the page you will see the words:

click to view

click to view

from Paloma.... Hi....what is your name?..... Are you a friend of Ms Ceci?..... Write me over here----->

She followed her words with a column of horizontal lines. "She can write me back here," Paloma told me. Jennifer did write back (in purple pen) later that year, unfortunately by that time I no longer lived in Guad and had already bid farewell to those lovely children.

click to view

Many years later appeared this neuron atop this correspondence, which I would normally assume came from me, but this one has such the watery feel of Jennifer, the very veins I know so well from her hand... hmmmmm. Do you remember, Hemphill? It does seem evident that it was the last element to grace Z page since its body of veins extends perfectly into the space created by the leaf and correspondence auras. Right in the same spot... the birth, with Paloma's writing, and the close, with the hovering neuron.... full circle of life. Fitting for the season we are in, of autumn, fall, harvest. Perhaps that is why the leaf found its way here to this page spread. Fell right in.






∞ ceci
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week twenty three >> "touch"

"touch" click to view

In Jennifer's last post she comments on how she feels a struggle between the tittle of Z page this week "veins" and another which seems to stand out as the more authentic expression of Z page "touch." I thought to myself, wow! I though it was just me. Because for a few weeks now as I would gaze upon this page I was not quite at ease with the titled we had agreed on, I mean I am All about veins and it would be odd for me not to jump at the chance to revere them but even still it wasn't quite settling in.

click to view

Turns out Jennifer was feeling this odds as well! Thank you Hemphill for voicing the unease so frankly to disburse any assumptions! I spoke with Jennifer after her post and it was like we had agreed on "Touch" all along, not knowing how it was that "Veins" had made it to our notebooks. After all, the beauty of this page the ability to Touch the very veins of this beautiful leaf from Richmond Virginia. Speaks to all the other tactile moments in ZBOOK, one of it's most wonderful traits. I hope that you all will be able to experience it in person one day.


Please do leave you comments and email us, we want to connect with you! Be in Touch.

∞ ceci
6

Touch

touch to enlarge

There is a conflict in this spread – a battle between titles. ‘Veins’ has won round one, though ‘touch’ is shouting its glories. As I sit to write, in near depletion, having allowed myself to pour from my own sacred cup, rather than to give of my overflow, I feel a tiredness like none I have felt in a long time. The overloads of the last week, culminating in an event I’m managing tomorrow, remind me of the expenditures of energy Cec and I and many others engage in when we are working toward a show of our artwork. While my aim is not in finishing the touches of two dimensional artworks at this time, but in the final preparations for a big Hoe Down, I am pulling collected ounces of chi from all sources to fuel my continued steps. I’m calling in fact on my veins which pulse in and out with breath and blood and life for the body. I’m calling on my sleep guardians and angels to renew my juices. And I’m thankful for the sweet touch of my husband, as he comes to my aid in this state of exhaustion, to uncrease some knots and light soothing candles. And zbook, thank you for being hear in front of me to rest my head upon your comforting pages, you are a fuel for my soul life and I am so grateful for your replentitude. Blessings and rest, and wind find my window –J.

week twenty three >> "veins"

"veins" click to view

Welcome Fall, welcome harvest, welcome ripeness and fulfillment and the falling away of all out-moded developments to clear the way for the next season of growth and unfoldment.

We celebrate the Autumn Equinox this week with Z page: "Veins"

words from Autumn in Richmond

It was upon reading the words atop the right, "leaves fall like organic glitter... all around, all around me... puddles of leaves up to my knees" that I remembered that this leaf came from the Church Hill streets of Richmond Virginia, where I lived for some 4 months once upon a time in 1999. It was my first east coast Fall and I lavished in the succulent colors of the season that had always shaken me to my core with renewal and utter aliveness. Perhaps because I was born around this time, at the gateway of the harvest season, when cycles complete into fruitful plenitude of life's abundance... and begin again. For me the Autumn has always been my spring; I am invigorated, ready for action, ripe, prime, and most alive.

leaf from Richmond 1999 click to view

So imagine me in Richmond where my bedroom became succulent orange from the sun lighting up the tree outside my window, or walking down my street sailing through piles of yellow and crimson. Crisp air and even crisper sunlight, like experiencing life through a crystal. I could hardly contain myself. This leaf used to be deep orange, picked up from the walkway in front of the porch of the turn of the 20th century Victorian house I shared with friends, notably our dear friend, and PSL founding father, Hutch. I feel it was Jennifer who gave it the blood red aura that now sets it off. Perhaps with her scented ink?

Beautiful Equinox to you all... happy Fall.



∞ ceci
6

Ginsberg's HOWL

"howl"        click to view

Gotta love it.  In this very week of ZBOOK's "howl" came my way in divine randomness the renowned 1955 poem  HOWL by Allen Ginsberg.  It was written as a performance piece of course, Ginsberg being one of the founding fathers of the Beat Movement our of San Francisco in the 1950's.  HOWL found me this week via videos online unearthed as I was exploring poets on youtube.  Listening to Mr. Ginsberg's menagerie of words and phrases carving out a kaleidoscope of colors and images and stories within stories evoking visions in me of worlds I am getting a peephole to while simultaneously triggering mine own world... I started to feel ZBOOK in a big way... the visual poetry and holographic story it is... the infinite visual howl, that continues to reveal to Jennifer and myself the very ether of our beings.

Please enjoy listening to Allen Ginsberg's HOWL....

"howl" while holding ZBOOK        click to view

∞ 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!!!

week twenty two >> "howl"

Week 22 finds me back in los angeles after two blessed weeks visiting my Grandma Tata in Cartagena... plus 3 wonderful days in south florida on way back to visit a slew of cousins, aunts and uncles that all moved there from Cartagena as of 10 years now for most of them.  It was so great to reconnect with my family so many of whom I haven't seen for years.  My primos and I grew up playing together during my Cartagena summers and now we are all grown up stepping into being the adults of the family. Wowzers.  Even after all these years, even through all of our changes since we were kids, it is so beautiful the love that we share and has even grown deeper now.

"hidden"

click these for large view

"love bomb

"howl"

 Z page for this week, "Howl," first took shape in in response to the bleed through from Z page before it, "love bomb."  Just as Z page "hidden" was initiated via the bleed trough from "love bomb" on the other side.  As if impregnated by the breathe seeped through from the other page, "howl" speaks in bellows and plumes, the straight lines of it's "genes" fast becoming swollen and mailable into wafts of color and space.  ...I remember Jennifer telling me a story once that led to words written on this page... 

and through my breath I will impregnate you

perhaps you will recount this story in a post this week dear Hemphill... I would love would that so... 
...please tell me a story :)




∞ ceci
6

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

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