Feed and Plant and an Angel

Sparrows and juncos, all hungry
they too are planters of trees, spreading seeds
of favorites among fences.  On the earth
closed to us as a book we cannot

yet read, the seeds, the bulbs, the eggs
of the fervid green year await release
Over them on February's cold table I spread
a feast.  Wings rustle like summer leaves.

Marge Piercy, "Available Light"

I've been having tantrums lately, about feeling isolated and alienated and unsure of where to go or what to do.  I share these feelings, with an increased intensity and frequency, with many others these days.  The river is running very fast now.  The river is running like a torrent now.

I also tend to feel that tantrums, as long as they don't hurt anyone or become collectively a war or a riot.............can be very useful.  Children have tantrums;  eventually they exhaust themselves, and sometimes the tantrum's end is about learning new boundaries and maturity.  Tantrums for grownups can also not only vent, but reveal.  We spend so much time in our heads, in the "should be, used to be, would be, could be" realm of experience, which seems real at the time but usually isn't even mildly useful to the what is...... and meanwhile, as a wise angel who briefly turned up recently to set me straight said - "There's the NOW, patiently watching, saying 'well, are you done yet?"

Change is the only certainty.  The NOW is. 

So I had something happen magically, that was profound for me.  Sometimes when these things happen, it's easy to say to yourself, "well, that's silly", but as that Angel ("Angelos", from the Greek, originally meant "messenger") reminded me, "you listen, so you noticed."

I was facing a three day weekend at the Renfair in Los Angeles, selling my masks alone now, and early in the morning went to my car to open the door and hit the freeway, costume and lunch in hand.  Tucked into the handle of the door was a piece of dirty white paper.   When I pulled it out, I saw that it was folded into one of those paper airplanes that children make.  And when I unfolded it, I saw that it had two words, block printed in pencil in a childish hand, one on each side of the paper.  On one side it said "FEED", on the other "PLANT".

"Wow, that's really strange" I thought, and tossed it aside.  Why would some kid put it there?  And on I went to the Faire.

As I was setting up in the blissful quiet before the stampede of merrymakers,  a participant, dressed in a nobleman's costume, with a great burgundy  hat against and a white head of hair, came by and we had one of those brief conversations that can seem divinely channelled.  He affirmed the value of my work,  and the continuity we participate in as creators, whether we remember that or not.   All the people who interact with my masks, all the people who now make masks and wear them.   I needed to hear that.  And   he also reminded me of the inevitability of change, the suffering that comes from not accepting the "what is" of the moment.  Tantrums we can have, or very real grief - but we still have to get up, open up, learn,  grow, and deal.


I have a wrapped quartz crystal - on the first day I gave an extra mask to a man who didn't have much money and wanted one for his partner.  He came back later and presented me with the crystal, which he had mined himself in Arkansas. What a splendid gift!  My angelic friend (I don't know his name) immediately noticed my crystal, and said it was to help me.  So the conversation led into the morning's synchronicity, my little "paper airplane".  I think, had I not encountered this person, I would have completely forgotten about it.

He commented that it was "Written in the hand of a child learning his or her letters, in pencil.  Basic.  Not like the abstractions we "adults" make.  Like the work of real farmers is basic, the ground that supports us.  Without their labor, without the alchemy and generosity of the land and the farmers, none of this" (he made an expansive gesture indicating the vast urban complex called Los Angeles we were standing more or less in the center of) "none of this would exist.  The farmers and land sustain it all.  All the "higher" sophistication of our civilization falls apart when the land fails to care for us, and the true farmers, not those chemical factories, but true farmers..........aren't understood."

I might add that I thought it was Earth Day, and I'd somehow forgotten. I was wrong, but I think that gives further weight to his observation. "Feed and Plant is a profound message for all of us.  Especially now."  And then we shook hands, wished each other a great day, and parted ways.  My energy had completely changed, and I stood there with my mouth open.

"FEED" and "PLANT".   All of my  alienation, loneliness, lack of purpose, all those grand complexities...... if Angels deliver the occasional message in the form of  grubby paper planes, and then send an occasional human representative just to make sure attention is paid - well. that's otherwise called Grace.   I may not be a farmer, but we can all be farmers, literally by planting and growing even if it's a window box, getting our hands in the Earth, connecting with the alchemy and gift of the Earth.  As a universal message, it should be Earth Day everyday.

We all can, and do, "plant".  As an artist, I can plant beauty, inspiration, I can encourage others to do the same.  I can recognize the "trees" I'm planting, and have planted,  in my life.  Feed yourself and others with what sustains and nourishes.  Plant seeds that will feed the future, plant seeds that will grow into trees.  It doesn't need to be complicated at all.  Even sparrows do it.

Dutch Wind Sculptor Creates New Form of Life!

I have to thank my friend Charlie Spillar for this BBC Video about the Dutch sculptor Theo Jansen and his "Strandbeests". 

The man is pure genius, and I'm in awe of his vision!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSKyHmjyrkA

Mything Links

Kathleen Jenks MYTHING LINKS

I'd like to introduce Kathleen Jenks wonderful Mything Links site, and I'm touched that she chose to open her Spring Equinox page with one of my favorite poems, based upon the Celtic Goddess the Morrigan, warrior Goddess, bringer of Justice, and also the one who  remembers those who have fallen, bearing the brave away to the Summer Land.

http://www.mythinglinks.org/springequinox2000~Sapling.html 

 I think, re-imagining that poem, that true justice has to be circular and gestalt: founded on the empathy that arises from experiencing "both sides now".

Loneliness in America?

Americans' circle of close confidants has shrunk dramatically in the past two decades and the number of people who say they have no one with whom to discuss important matters has more than doubled, according to a new study by sociologists at the University of Arizona. "The evidence shows that Americans have fewer confidants" said Lynn Smith-Lovin, one of the study's authors. "This change indicates something that's not good for our society. Ties with a close network of people create a safety net. These ties also lead to civic engagement and local political action."

The study compared data from 1985 and 2004 and found that the number of people with whom Americans can discuss matters important to them dropped by nearly one-third, from 2.94 people in 1985 to 2.08 in 2004. Researchers also found that the number of people who said they had no one with whom to discuss such matters more than doubled, to nearly 25 percent. The survey found that both family and non-family connections dropped, with the greatest loss in non-family connections.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Loneliness-Is-Getting-Rampant-in-America-27518.shtml 

The problem with an art and spiritual blog, which I guess this is, is that I feel reluctant to write about anything "personal", even though I'm a believer in the notion that the "personal is political". And spiritual.  I think, for this post, I'll step outside of my own taboo.

Yesterday I saw something that happens everyday, but it stayed with me.

I'm staying near the Renfair in Los Angeles, working at the show. It's not like the old days, when we were an "encampment" that lived and worked together for months.........this show people turn up, or their employees turn up, do the weekend show, and go home. .

I was looking for a post office, which I found.  There was a long line, and a nice looking gentleman, with a badge that said "Allesandro" was the "maitre'd" of the operation.  In the section between the postal tellers and the long  line was an older woman in a wheelchair.......I could see that she often came to the post office because she knew everyone's names, and in that unfortunate and busy place, she was trying to engage the tellers and Allesandro with conversation by asking a lot of questions about mailing options, asking where the bathroom was, and making some personal comments in the hope of response.  The people in line were annoyed because she was taking up time, and space, and the tellers smirked.  Finally she apologized, and told everyone she was "under the influence of legal drugs", meaning I assume painkillers, and away she rolled, looking embarrassed, down the street.

I didn't think she seemed like a crazy person............on the contrary, she had an intelligent face and a pleasant voice.  She was just desperately lonely, and here was a place with people who were "familiar", and where the hum of  activity was going on.  She was like a stray dog, hoping for a scrap of affection or attention in a place where she surely wasn't going to get it.

Did I do anything?  No, but I sympathized.   I have a better social mask than her, and I have legs and a car, so I'm better off.  I can go look at stuff and talk to myself (quietly) at the library, or a mall, or at the beach if I so choose.    I'm here for a month, and well stocked with books.  I am resigned to the idea that other than on the phone, I'll pretty much not talk to anyone.   And because everyone I know is so busy, I'm reluctant to call anyone anyway.  No one has time anymore, do they?

Besides talking to customers, and telephones, I won't lose my vocal cords, however.  There will be a thousand ritualistic interactions with tellers that will go, as regular as clockwork: 

"How are you?  Find everything you were looking for?  Have a great day!"

and I will answer in the same ritualistic ways "Fine!  Yes!  Thankyou!".  

Once or twice, being ornery and  infantile, I've responded with things like "no, I was looking for enlightenment" or, "well, actually I have been having an out of body experience" .... but all that does is throw an uncomfortable cog into the machine which pisses them off.  O brave new world.

Out of the same kind of lapsed memory the poor woman in the post office has (I bet she once lived in a small town where everyone knew the postmaster)......I still go to coffee shops, and sit there with a cappuchino looking for a receptive face.  But I think that avenue to conversation closed long ago, with the advent of wifi.  I'm used to being invisible, which isn't such a bad thing at times.  Should I be embarrassed to even be sharing these thoughts?  Probably.  I'm a mask maker.  I should know better.

So how do you meet anyone in America?  Well, I guess most people do it through family and work.  People like the Post Office lady have fallen through the cracks, and are very difficult to see - am I the only one who saw her?

I don't think people still have cocktail parties or dinner parties or bars where you can hear each other over the pa system, but I could be wrong about that.   My work puts me on the road often, or in a studio alone.  Although I meet lots of people on my travels, it's rare to find people with time to engage in social ways, and when I'm in a situation like my LA show, I don't try anymore.  Yesterday I met to give some money I owed to a nice lady who lives here, has worked for me for 4 years, and it would never in a million years occur to her to invite me to her family's home for dinner.  Her daughter, who also worked for me, came with her, and in the course of our meeting she was texting somebody, which left no doubt in my mind about how uninteresting I was to her.    My former apprentice has had a mask business, thanks to me, for 7 years, and she's never found time to have a visit with me for longer than an hour, although she comes to Arizona every year.   I just lent some masks to a former colleague for a ritual event up north - she found time to write me an email thank you.  Would she find time to call me personally?  Nope, and I wouldn't expect it.   

I don't blame people, they don't have the lens that I have. I think if you asked the people I mention above what they think of me, at least two of them would say they love me.   They don't feel themselves becoming invisible, perhaps, not yet.   I wonder if I'm the only person who feels this way, sometimes?  Is it a failure on my part?  Probably. 


I once had a Facebook account, but I closed it.  The idea of having 500 "friends" I couldn't talk to or touch in any personal way, with whom I could only have the most trivial exchanges of superficial information..............got to me.  There were people there I once slept with, or gave birth to, or ate meals with, or they stayed in my house, or they own art I made.  Now our exchanges are limited to 6 words, with an "LOL" on the end.  We've already done away with the use of paragraphs (except, thankfully, in the eloquent world of blogs!).

And I still don't know what "LOL" means anyway.  I'm a complete anachronism.   I'm probably one of only maybe 5 people in the entire world who think Facebook is scary.  For some it's spiders, for me, Facebook.

 I know, I know, this is indulgent.  I should meditate, workout, take a long walk,  look up "meetup.com". You're a Lightworker, Lauren, buck up here, think Positive and Manifest, etc.

Meanwhile,  sometimes, the mask slips off, and I wonder.  Am I really any different than that lady in the Post Office? We're all in this together.        

I should have asked her  to have lunch with me.  But, I suspect, if I had, she would have looked at me with something akin to terror or suspician, and refused. Maybe I should have tried anyway.

Environmental Arts in Iran & Afghanistan

"As if to help us change our perspective on war, discoveries within quantum physics suggest that the belief that we can achieve a position of dominance in relation to nature, life or each other is, ultimately, an illusion. Each of us is an expression of a vast sea or field of creative consciousness - invisible, and as yet barely recognised by us. We are all connected to each other through our participation in a great living web of life. It would seem that we are, literally, "our brother's keeper".

Anne Baring, "The Web of Life"

I went to high school in Kabul, and although I have never been back to Afghanistan  or Iran, where I also spent time,  that part of the world is in my heart, and I try to keep informed. (AISK had a class reunion in 2003 - that would have been an experience!)

I felt like sharing some images about contemporary environmental art, and remembered a post in 2009. While surfing for "environmental art"  I found the above photograph created by participants in an environmental arts festival in Iran, in 2007 (Iranian Radio)  The story and images are also to be found at the Green Museum. I found the images so striking I wanted to share them again -  I take the liberty of re-copying here.**  And below, a show of  contemporary environmental arts in 2010 at the University of Kabul.  Amazingly, all participants are women, a stunning show of courage and creativity on their part. 

Color, Leaf, and Kavir:
Environmental Art Festival of Kerman

Nov 16, 2007

"The festival began in Vahdat Hall at Shahid Bahonar University in Kerman, with speeches and discussions on the concept of environmental arts.


On the third day of the festival artists gathered in Shahdad Kavir and presented their works in a kavir (desert) background. This area is one of the most attractive outlooks of Kavir because of its statue-like walls.  200 young artists and art teachers of Kerman Province joined the festival."

 

"The participants were mainly from Kerman province coming from various universities. The initiative was taken by the scientific association of the painting course of the Saba Arts and Architecture School of Shahid Bahonar University. Environmental art festivals have been held during the last few years in various parts of the country. The Pardiss international center has created seven festivals. " (www.iranianradio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=380)

 

Women and Modern Art in Afghanistan 

By MUJIB MASHAL

 

 

“Area Pollution,” by Arezo Waseq,  Center for Contemporary Arts, Kabul University.

August 6, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — For one week in June two auditoriums at Kabul University hosted a large exhibition on the themes of pollution and the environment.  The exhibition had two remarkable qualities: All 18 participating artists were women, and the genre was modern art, a rarity in Afghanistan. Even today Kabul and Herat are the only Afghan provinces — out of 34 — to have a faculty of fine arts in their universities.

 

A collaborative piece titled “Fall in Spring,” 

by Arefa Honryar, Zarghona Hotak, Sodaba Mehrayan, Sara Nabil and Arezo Waseq

In the 1990s came the Taliban. Music was banned, and art was limited to calligraphy and the drawing of immortal shapes........"When the Taliban left in 2001, we had seven professors and eight students in our department,” Professor Farhad said. "But in the past three years, the art scene has changed in terms of inclusiveness and creativity.  Today, I have 700 students  and close to 20 percent of them are girls. Quite often, I have to turn down students because we don’t have enough space for them,” Professor Farhad said, his eyes gleaming in triumph."

 

“Health and Fission,” by Manizha Ahwad

"In the first couple of years of President Hamid Karzai’s government, the appearance of women on television was frowned upon. Television channels broadcast only male singers and artists.  Gradually, the presence of women increased, but it cost the lives of several young women in the media to get there.  Zakia Zaki, Sanga Amach and Shaima Rezayee are among the many female artists and presenters who were killed for the crime of appearing on television and trying to widen the role of women. Some female artists continue to battle the stigma, while others have turned to single-sex art centers that are more socially acceptable.  The Center for Contemporary Arts — Afghanistan is one of these centers. Founded in 2004, it welcomed both male and female artists, but Mr. Omarzad soon realized that it was women who were most in need of a safe environment in which to work. For Environment Day, auditoriums at Kabul University were turned into galleries dedicated to the theme."

 

‘Scream’, by Marzia Nazary

** some other environmental arts sites :

ecologicalart.org (http://www.ecologicalart.org/)

ecoartspace blog
Environmental arts (Orion Magazine) http://arts.envirolink.org/
Art + Environment
CSPA Connect
Deep Craft
Ear to the Earth
Earth Artists NetworkSEEDS
The Art of Engagement

Dalai Lama's Quote

"The world will be saved by the Western woman" said the Dalai Lama during the September 2009 Vancouver Peace Summit.  Since then, many have been pondering what His Holiness meant by that statement, which also represents a "call" to women to take action.  For many, his comment highlighted the truth that women are emerging as leaders of the global change movement.

The "Return of the Goddess" indeed, which to me means, among many other things, Restoring the Balance to our divided collective human psyche.  

In a previous post, I also pondered  the term "Crone", and possible other ways of expressing the idea of a wise older woman as we emerge into the largest, most educated, and most long-lived, older population the world has ever known.  One of my favorites was "Saga", "she who speaks", the teller of a long story.  Discussing both the Dalai Lama's words, and reflecting on the meanings of "crone" as well, I found a great blog by  Canadian  writer and ecologist  Nina Munteanu,  and take the liberty here of quoting from her, since she says it much better than I could.

"Marianne Hughes, executive director of the Interaction Institute for Social Change (IISC), pondered the idea of the aging women as hag (originally a representation of feminine power) and how it relates to the Dalai Lama's statement on her blog.

“I'm not entirely sure what [the Dalai Lama] meant,” said Hughes, “But I am wondering if when he travels across the globe and sees so many of our sisters impoverished and repressed he sees western women of all ages in a position to speak out for justice and to take on the responsibilities of “the hag”... to take loving care of the planet and its people.”

The original meaning of the word “hag” in Gaelic referred to a saint with great powers who was responsible for the land, the waters and the people. The term had since been distorted through patriarchal propaganda; “the Hag” is currently being redefined as a strong, beautiful and ageless woman and has its similarities with “the Crone”, the third stage of a woman’s life and evolution from maiden to mother to crone."........"By the year 2008, postmenopausal women will comprise the largest demographic group in America. With our increased lifespan, the ancient tripartite divisions of Maiden, Mother, and Crone are more meaningful in women’s lives as the Crone stage occupies one third of our lifespan. Moreover, our current Crone generation (those born in the forties and fifties) is the first in the history of humankind that can claim (and HAS already claimed) economic autonomy and power."**

 

**Nina  Munteanu,  sfgirl-thealiennextdoor.blogspot.com

"The Transformative Mask" - Mask Making

The TRANSFORMATIVE  MASK

Working with Masks and  Myth

"Our work was not to re-enact the ancient myths, but to take those myths to their next level of evolutionary unfolding. Artists are the myth makers."

 Katherine Josten,  Founder,  THE GLOBAL ART PROJECT

Every mask is the beginning of a story, because each mask is inhabited by a being waiting to reveal itself, whether a universally recognizable archetype, or an eccentric,  very personal inner persona that can communicate in surprising ways.  Masks can heal by speaking with a voice that we can't, and masks can provide an opportunity for transpersonal experience as well, when we engage with sacred and universal archetypes.   In traditional cultures, such as Bali, sacred masks were viewed as a means for the divine - the gods, goddesses, ancestors and animal powers - to bless the living through ritual theatre.

Making a mask is a process, but it's only part of the process - those who will use the mask complete the journey.  And because the "spirits of the masks" come from the Mythic Realm, there is really no end to the journey at all.  Just a circle of new telling.

In my workshops, we learn to sculpt a theatrical mask from our faces, explore personally significant stories and symbols, and learn approaches to storytelling with masks, with discussion about community performance and ritual theatre.  I've found it's best to "invite the spirit of the mask" by beginning with a shared "Shrine".  Participants  bring objects that are personally  sacred and meaningful.  Our "Invocation" is sometimes a creative visualization exercise.    After we've created a "Circle" to work in, we "get plastered" in pairs as we take casts of our faces with plaster impregnated bandages. These will become plaster positives on which more durable leather masks can be then modelled.  

Plaster  casts can also be used to create masks and sculpture from clay and other media.  See below for a few examples from other students.

Preparing materials

Taking Face cast

Ready to remove

Casts of class members, Kripalu Institute

Modelling and shaping mask with Leather

  

Embellishing
(Courtesy Nancy Solomon)

Finished Wearable Leather Mask
(courtesy Barbara Gregson)

Casting Mask in Clay

Cast in Clay made into Personal Icon
(courtesy Lorraine LeConte)

Leather sculpture with Torso cast

 With gratitude to Nancy Solomon for the kind use of her photographs (copyright N.Solomon 2010)