"Imagination is intelligence having fun."
- anonymous

Wonder Walk #425, 781

In a dark funk, I went for a Wonder Walk with my man yesterday. Expect amazement, beauty, and interesting things -- you'll undoubtedly find them. Our wonders:

1. Rubber bats flying above a doorway. The bat man joined us in admiring the big bellied spiders and their webs, so common this time of year. One spider was wrapping up bug bundles, making lunches for the week. A guy wire ten feet above the web anchored it in place from a high tree branch. Bat medicine and Spider Medicine = spiritual rebirth and creativity.

2. A tall tree stump carved with buffalo, bear, eagle, snake to honor native ways. The eagle's broken beak => challenge in grasping what is nourishing.

3. I retrieve a small plastic skull for the family who's dropped it from their porch above while stringing ghoulish lights. Returning awareness of death/dark as part of life/light.

4. Spying a few stenciled koi on the sidewalk. They are life-like with individual orange, white, and black markings. They turn the sidewalk into the surface of the pond. We recognize them as escapees from the school of stenciled koi in our neighborhood.

5. The silver 4" disco wedgies, Marc Jacobs wellingtons, and full array of baby shoes, sneakers, and boots now used as planters for succulents and perennials. They are lined up around one side of the restroom pavilion in the park. What shoes to fill, and with new life.

6. The soul-streaming golden light at the top of the park. Occasional squeaks from the toy that a standard poodle pounced on. The cool breeze that made us turn for home.

What wonders can you see with fresh eyes?

falling in with kindred spirits

Tonight I was drumming with two other people for a group of shamanic journeyers. It's a simple, rapid, steady beat. Anyone can do it, as long as you listen and resist the urge to speed up. I've drummed many times with Greg, but only once with Anna, yet the three of us fell in together so seamlessly.

I experienced the wonder of being One - with the drumbeat, with each other. I wasn't doing the drumming, the beat itself was carrying me and moving my hand.

I invite you to notice when you synchronize with others. Going on a hike, playing pingpong, cooking and doing that kitchen island dance. Two pendulum clocks in the same room will over time synchronize to move together. Wordlessly working or playing together, we sometimes have the divine experience of communion with each other.

There may be oxytocin and dopamine flowing as we are unconsciously bonding and feeling the pleasure of being with kindred spirits. There may be heart beats and the breath slowing and deepening together. All I know is that it is happy-making.

Ancestors and the Creative Fire

In this detail from a recent collage, a kimono-clad woman bows to a circle of people. She reminds me that my work is a ceremony, an offering of just the right Medicine. The words around her: Inspiring Life's Journey and Respectful Exchange. She is close to the earth, grounded. She is ready to serve.

Perhaps she is an Ancestor called home by my creative fire, the sparks I'm fanning into flame.

In o-bon, the Japanese Ancestor ceremony, it is bonfires that guide the Ancestors home. Family clans gather in mid-late summer to clean up graves, give thanks to the Ancestors, feast, sing and dance. After a good long visit, people float lit candles on the water to send the Ancestors back until the next year. Both the quick and the dead are renewed.

I remember as a young girl stringing leis with my grandmother in Hawaii, preparing for an aunt and uncle arriving late for o-bon. We walked in the dark, following the sounds of celebration to the neighbor's luau, bearing long white strands of starry blossoms. We kids called it the 'bone dance' and watched the old ladies make their careful steps with sweeping arms and moon fans. They wore their light summer robes and sandals. I remember fire and night.

I haven't celebrated o-bon in many many years. But every time I write or make art, it seems as if the creative fire itself invites the Ancestors in. They help me and I hope that I help them in carrying forward this spark of life.

The Veil

The ancient Egyptians intimately connected life and death, with their mummification and preparing the dead for the next life. I made this collage in the spring. Rediscovering it now, fiddling with it in Photoshop, adding the sands of time, I see it freshly.

You see, an important stranger recently died, someone I'd sat with in healing ceremonies a few times.

In the week between his accident and his death, I felt inexplicably happy for him. Several others and I just kept seeing his smiling face that whole week he was in a coma. I felt no worry, knew he was somehow fine, despite the medical prognosis. I knew he was preparing for some next big thing and was already free.

I can only hope that he did not suffer, that he was in essence gone at the time of the accident. Perhaps he was just patiently waiting for his loved ones to get used to the idea of losing him. I like this idea, for he was a truly generous person.

These are the mysteries. We don't know. Years ago a close friend, trying to prepare me for the loss of him, told me that the relationship continues. Over the years, having him as an Ancestor, feeling his continued care, I really get how the love continues in a different way.

For many people around the world, this is not news. Still, we are pitiful humans and we get attached to that smile, the enfolding arms, the smell of each others' hair. Even though we can't have them back, we can choose to carry on with the love.

We can serve our Ancestors by living our lives well and heeding their teachings. My husband and I are keeping a spirit plate for our important stranger's year of transition to Ancestor land. We give food offerings to fuel his journey.

And we can look to them for support in the myriad of invisible, palpable ways they are here to back us up. I feel their love and blessing in all that I do. I choose a connected world.

lost and found

My husband learned one great thing in all his years of architecture school: finish that sketch.
So no matter how bad things seem to be going as you are creating, it's good to complete this one pass. Perfectionism kills. You might glean that one essential bit you would've missed had you crumpled and tossed too early.

So I'm catching up with this old post to see what comes...

The flash of blue caught my eye. Unnatural in the plum tree's burgundy branches. A sparrow had a blue faux feather in his beak, turning his head this way and that so I wouldn't miss it. A welcome pause in writing or doing yoga or whatever had me parked in the studio. He looked like he was eating cotton candy at a state fair, it was that blue.

I must tell you, this was just after GLBT Pride weekend here in the Castro at the end of June. A bit of boa lost in the fun, repurposed to feather a nest.

I imagine him weaving in this neon blue fluff, perhaps among the glitters and spangles already gathered. Perhaps the sparrow was going to trade it for more practical twigs with a raven? Or maybe it's just what we all do, take in something new, see if it can work with what we've got.
And we mix and match and create.

And what would the mama sparrow say? If she's sensible, she accepts the warmth, the softness, how familiar. Woven into the inner part of the nest, to avoid drawing undue attention to her vulnerable young, it just might work. If she's got a gleam in her eye, as taken by beauty as I was seeing her mate, then she might just chirp: Fabulous!

Failing to Imagine, Learning to See

In Visionary summer, I wanted to take a fresh look at my work/art/life plan. For some strange reason I couldn't see anything with my mind's eye. Who do I want to collaborate with, what do I want to create, what do I want to experience? My attempts to dream life into being went nowhere.

How mortifying that Wild Imagination should have failure of imagination!

But it's hard to dream big when we are feeling small. If we are unable to see anything ahead, it's time to see what's right here. I had to look at my anxiety and fears about no money, no support. I had to name my limiting beliefs. I had to face what in me felt hopeless, helpless. I had to be compassionate with these parts in me and agree to coexist peacefully. Maybe you know what I'm talking about.

I also had to let things be. In taking a pause, I got to fill up on reading about, of all things, the genius in each of us that relentlessly shapes our lives. I also had a most profound nature experience: the swift river flowing over immovable me. I understood how I am sculpted beautifully over time by life, like the granite boulders in the wild river's current. I felt grounded, joyful, satisfied. No pressure to do, just the bliss of being present and awake to incredible simple beauty. A day like that just fills my soul.

And now I have to pay attention to unexpected opportunities and support coming along - the days away at the river, a trip to see family and friends, a teaching gig, an inquiry about commissioned art, a new service project. These things pop up most often when I'm at my lowest, as if the Universe is saying: don't give up, keep going.

So that is what I'm doing.