Tag Archives: sparklinglotusink

20 Rectification

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What force, what power, might be ushered in to rectify the damage of old limiting beliefs?*

At first I thought: movement, dynamism, light. Wheels and lightening.

But this is what came and it interests me more than the elemental first take. Here I find: mentorship, a path laid out by others, ritual. We see the moment BEFORE flight. A controlled relationship with a wild and fierce creature of the sky is depicted. There is wonder and delight. Mystery.

I am the student and the teacher. I am the raptor and the tether-holder. I am the arms and the wings uplifted as well as the stones lying flat, secured by grass roots and gravel.

Perhaps even the tether and raptor hood (not shown) are part of becoming free? If used in service of flight? In service of relationship to that which is wild?

Who is the hooded figure in the lower left and what’s with that ball of light? What did the boy do to invite it in? (It’s the sun setting over Assisi, double exposed, but still… )

I take my collage to mean getting unstuck and banishing my lack of faith with support, with tried and true tools, by putting one foot after another on a traveled path.

Writing a novel is like going out to sea, alone. I think Natalie Goldberg said that.

So the idea of walking a well-tended path, where help shows up now and then is revolutionary.

Below are a few digital responses. My printer isn’t cooperating, so they may not make it to glue and page.

I just turned off Jay Sekulow. There is only so much I can take (hood?)

Prompt #20 in full:

Let’s suppose a thought held by many has been powerful enough to jettison The Occupant once and for all. Why stop there? Why not just assume that for the duration of responding to this prompt you’re Empress of Everything.

What will you usher in to begin to rectify the damage incurred by the agent of destruction you’ve banished?

*

Acey’s Collage Month.

See also my Flickr album. SoulCollage and the tags here on the blog

Symbol versus talisman

Still in bed. Feel like I’ve taken on some of K’s jet lag. But my cold is gone.

Speaking of cold, yesterday I opened up the bedroom after cleaning, like I do. Turned the heat off. Put the fan in the window and switched it and the air purifier on. Meant to set a timer for 40 minutes and forgot.

Ooooh whee. It was 15 degrees here yesterday. Our mattress froze.

It was fine.

We’d just seen the movie about Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, Just Mercy. I cried more than once and, I don’t cry.

After the shortest possible jog (because of the cold), we ate at Bernard’s — a Chinese place that used to be in the mall and now sits on an access road the developers dubbed, “The Street” (what can I say? It’s Chestnut Hill?). After I blurted out that K had been to China 55 times (it’s really 52), our waiter became very attentive. I drank at least sixty ounces of water, for as soon as my glass neared empty, there came Quan with a refill. Smiling.

Anyway: after reading Grace’s post, I realized my response to Acey’s “Find a talisman or protector” prompt needs a redo.

That hooded guy is a symbol and a powerful one but he doesn’t feel like mine, in a way. He doesn’t even feel INTERESTED in me. That’s part of the point of him, in fact. His eyes his view his witnessing go to much bigger things. Or smaller. But not personal.

PS I discovered while cutting out another outline, that by clipping the hood and shortening one arm so that the figure appears to be facing forward with her arms extended (in a gesture of MERCY, in fact), the figure goes from male to female.

Yes, once the female arrived, it was clear that the other is male.

Draw a line

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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