Category Archives: online learning

A way to go

In the past, the chakra work I’ve done was in-person and not just in-person, but in-person with people I knew and trusted over a span of many years.

We called it Sacred Meditation, as devised by Richard Moss. It both started and ended with the heart center.

A very different enterprise! I wasn’t quite prepared for how an unbounded exercise working from the root up would go. And even more, I wasn’t sure how much to share about what was arising. This is a public forum, after all.

Meanwhile, out in the world, a new confederacy was forming and the number of bodies falling from Covid kept escalating. Both staggered the mind.

I’ve emailed Acey. Let her know. Also suggested that my overwhelm was a testament to her intuitive power and how she communicates.

Would it make a difference if there weren’t absolutely catastrophic news stories unfolding like tidal waves? Perhaps.

After some more thought, however, I realized that I am brave and curious enough to keep doing these exercises.

Hear that? I’m pretty brave.

What I’m not prepared to do with any amount of ease or elegance right now is talk about any of it. So what? I’ll dip in and out and share the pictures. See how that goes.

Orange equals overwhelm

Today, I should say. Today, orange equals overwhelm.

A little background. My tech skills need updated. I need to learn how to transfer photos to my new laptop so that I can then delete 1,000’s (and I mean 1,000’s) of pix from my phone. Talk about too much!

Then, I need to figure out why blogger won’t let me leave comments (and there, I speak of too little. Too little interaction with some beloved blogs because *#%*£#).

Finally and most immediately, I need to update my blog-reading app. I thought I was keeping up with a chakra exploration led by Acey and come to find out, I’m way behind. Way behind.

Which is actually a terrific place to begin: with that ancient and enduring sense that I am not enough. Perhaps this sense dwells in the lower midsection. A second chakra phenomenon.

Is looking backward an indulgence? Is it at some times and not others, for some people and not others?

Wondering about that.

I scanned Acey’s posts and took a few pix before and during the morning’s dog walk and then pulled out my SoulCollage cards (so much orange!) and went down to my studio (so much MORE orange!)

There was no prayer, music, or movement involved. Just a burning punk and curiosity. I will let most of the photos sit while I let an approach appear.

But to start: a corner of orange fabric sticking out of a desk that once belonged to my mother caught my eye this morning.

It’s a piece of high-end linen given to me by a local upholsterer with a scavenged piece of paper stitched on top. I don’t remember when I made it, but it’s years ago. The design looks map-like and therefore holds excitement, but the grubby aspect makes it also seem forlorn and wrecked. As I go through the chakra exercise, I will add to this little wrecked, forlorn, exciting map-like shape and see what comes.

I was already thinking about yellow and how key it is to orange, when on our walk (our very COLD walk), I came across a plastic gate in a neighbor’s yard.

Look! In that space between panels, is where orange vibrates.

If I was to pick an emotion that would be moderately difficult to explore right now, it would be MISSING. Missing, as in tender longing, not as in regret or obstruction. I suspect I spend a fair amount of time avoiding how much I miss certain aspects of earlier phases of my life, including (MOSTLY) but not limited to my sons.

More soon after more reading, exploring!

Check it out: Acey’s chakra exercises.

Words mostly elsewhere by

Sitting down right now at the laptop with a boiled egg, coffee, and commitment that might be described as fierce. Got to get through the next chunk of manuscript where very severe cuts will be required. Hurm hurm (Harley sound effect).

Many other words could be called upon to describe this day, this cold and blustery Earth Day, this Day 42 of Containment, but I must conserve. Besides, I don’t want to make you crazy with all my robe-making changes of mind. So here is a story of the morning in pictures.

PS Acey I haven’t forgotten that I promised you a copy of that picture of Prince!

PPS I’ve gained 15 pounds since making my card stock body model in a class of Jude’s some time ago, but that should only impact boob-sizing and with a loose robe, even that isn’t critical.

Gorgeous print of Harriet Tubman painting by South Carolinian artist Natalie Daise aka @gullahmama on Instagram. Her work is gorgeous and her prices really, really reasonable.

Alright, so I lied. I am busy procrastinating in full-throated style! But before I go, some thanks are in order.

First, I want to thank Nancy for so sweetly gathering up her threads and shipping them to me from California. The package is decontaminating in the garage and right now all I really care about is that she gets well!

Also, thank you Joanne. There is something about the steadiness of her day by day reporting that I find so reassuring right now. It doesn’t hurt that she talks about food even more than I do! Tonight, based on something mentioned there, I’ll be making chili. Thank you Joanne.

Lastly, to all who weighed in on the backyard — thank you. To be continued!

Draw a line

Prompt for Day 8 from Acey (see footer below) was draw a line then collage. I don’t like this result but I’m grateful for the direction because I was feeling constrained from making marks on the pages and very much wanted to.

I think “see further” might be a good refrain for what’s emerging here though. The binocular view finder a heavy handed but apt symbol.

Below are a few digital collages of other pages. I turned the big-hatted model into a tree just as I did James Franco.

Of the women collaged yesterday, she was the figure who held the most allure. She is on display for sure, but blocks her breasts with her arms and shields much of her expression under a huge hat. Being half naked but hiding herself is a posture not just of mystery but of control. What if it is SHE who is shaping her image and access and not the designer or the photographer?

Below, find the lines depicting worldwide food consumption trends (also from yesterday’s collages) paired with a solitary figure and, if you look closely behind the orange stripes, a monster.

Here is the book’s first moveable flap.

This cretin with his thumbs up was selected at the direction of picking something “other.” To see a crass salesman next to the pronoun referring to our middle eastern woman pokes at the contrast between Iraqis/Iranians and us.

For info on this collage project see Acey’s blog sparklinglotusink

For more SoulCollage cards of mine, go to Flickr on sidebar and open the SoulCollage album. Or, track the SoulCollage tag here

I’m not really kidding

moon-and-katy-poster-edge

Back in the years when I sat in a transpersonal meditation circle on a regular basis, Gurdjieff was quoted now and then to address the problem of difficult personality. We were reminded that a disruptive, unlikable person was as “yeast to the bread”.

Walking Finn just now, I wondered with a kind of Irish gallows humor, “What happens to the dough when there is more yeast than flour?”

And more to the point of today, tomorrow, and next week, “Is there anything I can let go of here, in an act of sanity-preserving desperation?” At some point, it is sheer masochism to continue with these patterns.

A sensei I once practiced Aikido with gave his students this idea: “Form your purest intention as you step onto the mat, but don’t for a second think you can practice without your personal history. Everybody brings their shit onto the mat.”

With that in mind, it seems I might work at owning my shit and letting the rest go (right Michelle?) Phew! I hope it isn’t too much to ask that said work produce some relief? Not just more slogging through? I’m going to read Gurdjieff today after writing class. That is my consecration.

Oh, and one more piece of dark humor: dealing with difficult stubborn people (with a pronounced bent on making me wrong) does in fact have a silver lining. It makes my stubborn nasty side look pretty benign.

That image is a picture of a partial picture of a quilt, collaged with paper ephemera to make a card.