Create with Spirit

Article in San Francisco Medicine Journal

I am very happy to say that I have a short article in the November issue of San Francisco Medicine: Journal of the San Francisco Medicine Society. This month's theme is "Art, Design, and Medicine." It's an excellent issue, full of great articles. 

In my article I highlight the amazing projects we showcase on the Arts & Healing Network, where I have worked for the past two years.

Download the PDF and enjoy! And please note the this PDF is a download of the WHOLE issue, which is worth reading, as it is chock-full of articles about art and healing in the health care industry.

Jo Carson's Spider Speculations

I just had the wonderful opportunity to read Jo Carson's book Spider Speculations: A Physics & Biophysics of Storytelling to review for the Arts & Healing Network.

This is a book about many things including synchronicity and interestingly, before I received this book (or knew anything about it) I had a dream in which someone (some part of myself) had just published a book called Loving You: The Physics of Loving Yourself & Others. This dream has lead me on a whole new journey of learning how to truly love myself, and Jo Carson's book weaves beautifully into that path. What we feel has a big impact on our energy and this can heal even the deepest and most brutal of hurts.

When I worked with all the "bad" things in my life and asked, What is the root of this problem? I always came back to a lack of love and respect for myself. So my prayer became simple - How do I love myself?, which has already transformed my life in astonishing ways. It is impossible to describe in words, but in a nutshell, I have a new attitude about myself and my life. When I make choices with love for myself, I make the best, most healing choice, for me and for others.

Contrary to what our American culture teaches, making choices out of authentic love and respect for ourselves in not selfish, because there is no way to authentically love ourselves without loving others as well. It's impossible not to, because when it comes to love there are no boundaries. I am you and you are me.

Love also inspires imagination and creativity and those are two of the greatest healing forces in the world.

I also include humor in that list. From the book: Comedy is about survival. Find some way to laugh, or die.

Humor has always been essential in my life and has gotten me through some of the darkest periods of my life. It's all about reframing - which is also what this book is about.

It's written by a storyteller so at times it is a bit choppy and hard to read - stream of consciousness-style. But the subject matter is thrilling and once I read a few chapters, I really sunk into it and could get lost in the story.

Pay attention to the synchronicities in your life and follow up on them - you will be amazed what will shift in your life.

Moon Time

I've been thinking a lot about the Moon lately.  Perhaps because of the upcoming Total Lunar Eclipse happening tomorrow (during the full moon no less!). Perhaps because my husband and I are very focused on getting pregnant and I am tracking my moon (menstruation) cycle very carefully.

I've always been fascinated by how we as women sync up with the cycles of the moon.  I just ordered (belatedly) Nancy Passmore's Lunar Calendar for 2008. I love how this calendar honors the spiral movement of the days (not the square graph of regular calendars). I plan to record my moon time on the calendar and see if there are any patterns with the moon and its cycles.

As I have been reading about the moon and menstruation and pregnancy, I've discovered the Lunar Fertility concept.  I have no idea if there is any merit to it at all, but I find it interesting, nonetheless. It motivated me to find out where the moon was when I was born (Capricorn waxing at 93% full).  According to the Lunar Fertility idea, no matter where I am in my cycle, I am also fertile when the moon is waxing at 93% (about three days before full moon) - it apparently doesn't matter if it is in Capricorn or not.  My husband and I are being so scientific about my cycle right now, I find it really hard to believe that I was also fertile a few days ago, as I have only just finished my cycle...but who knows?  Perhaps believing is part of it!

And all this talk of menstruation(!) reminds me of my friend and fellow John F. Kennedy University Arts & Consciousness graduate Leah Libow's wonderful blog: hyster-y. She has some really fascinating entries of late, discussing her most recent solo exhibition which explored "the Feminine psyche rediscovering itself through reconnection to the womb."

In reading her blog entries, I especially enjoyed her description of trying to define art to a patron. It's so wonderful, I am going to reprint here:

On the last day of my exhibition I was standing around the corner from the entrance of the gallery where my full frontal with menstrual blood was hanging. I overheard a woman (who was standing in front of this photo) say "You call that art?!" in a very sarcastic tone. As she rounded the corner, I faced her and said "Yes, I'm the artist." She asked which artist, and I told her "the one exhibiting in the hallway." "You mean the one showing photos of women having their period?!" "YES."

I'll refrain from boring you with the rest of the dialogue. Mostly it was me trying to pick up the pieces of my ego and defend my work. I did not do a good job of it because I was coming from a place of fear, anger and defensiveness instead of power and strength.  And I soon realized that I was speaking to an audience (she was its representative) whose opinion of art most likely included the impressionists and perhaps a few abstract painters as well, but did not include the 70's feminist artists or any conceptual or performance art. And then, after I took a few breaths and calmed down, I recalled that I had taken an entire course in graduate school which focused on the question "What is Art?"... and that even a bunch of art school grad students had trouble answering that one.

I appreciate Leah's truthfulness and transparency in her life as an artist.  Such an inspiration! I highly recommend hopping over and checking out her fabulous scene.

Collaborative Crafting

I just saw this amazing photograph taken by Donna Garde at Lake Tawakoni State Park in Wills Point, Texas (via Boing Boing).

This 200-foot long web was woven by a variety of spider families that normally would eat each other, rather than collaborate.

No one is completely clear as to how this happened, but they do know that the web has been torn down by wind and rain at least three times and these spider families have come together again and re-built it.

My husband pointed out that this image could be a little scary for some people - but I think it is beautiful! 

It also gives me hope for the other collaborations happening in our world between the human families.  Instead of "eating" each other, if we could come together and collaborate - sharing our styles of creation, inspiring each other, sharing ideas with one another - just imagine what could be possible to create!

That's one of the many reasons I am enjoying facilitating the Dream Art Group. It is full of amazing, dynamic women who are sharing their creations every week and being inspired by each other, trying out new materials and mediums, and looking at their art and process of making art in a new way. 

I also think all this dreamwork I've been doing has also helped me see things like this giant web as symbolic of what is hopeful and magic about our world.

Rubbish Vortex

Just came across this really cool blog that is actually totally blowing my mind - GooseFlesh. It is created by Helle Jorgensen, a horticulturalist and former research geneticist in Sydney, Australia. Among many gifts, she is an expert in knitting with plastic bags.

She is collaborating in a bigger project at The Institute for Figuring called the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, which they define as:

...a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.

This Reef has been inspired by the principles of hyperbolic crochet originally developed by mathematician Dr. Daina Taimina.

In 1997 Dr. Taimina discovered how to make models of the geometry known as hyperbolic space using the art of crochet. Until that time most mathematicians had believed it was impossible to construct physical models of hyperbolic forms, yet nature has been doing just that for hundreds of millions of years. Isn't it interesting that the so-called "feminine arts" (and therefore "less than" and certainly not scientific) are what brought this complicated structure into form?

It turns out that many marine organisms embody hyperbolic geometry - like kelps, corals, and sponges.

The whole project is genius and Jorgensen's part in the project is totally amazing. She calls it The Rubbish Vortex.  She is basically crafting these amazing sea creatures out of the recycled plastic bag "yarn." Her pieces are staggeringly gorgeous and her blog is really fun to read. She really shows you the whole process - what inspired her originally, the path she takes to learn how to make what she saw, and then her amazing explorations and improvements to that original idea.  Very crafty and so inspiring!

Again, this is what is all about for me - creating with spirit.  This artist is paying attention to all the trash and garbage in the world and is transforming what she comes into contact with into breathtaking pieces of beauty that have a greater message about our oceans and the lives that depend on them.

Helle’s blog also contains a comprehensive tutorial in how to make plastic-bag yarn. So you can make your own wild creations!

The full Crochet Reef will be exhibited in Los Angeles in 2008 and I am seriously thinking about traveling down there to see it.

Also, FYI, Helle is eager to collect plastic bags from around the world to incorporate into her project – especially colored bags (most plastic shopping bags are white and she’d like her Rubbish Vortex to have flashes of color.) Email her to find out where to send the bags.