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Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Gratitude vs the rest of it all







What do you choose to do with the seeds in you that are not serving a space of gratitude? Are you watering and nurturing seeds of: blame, anger, sadness, envy, loneliness, self pity, bitterness, avoidance, ego, ignorance and all those damaging things that go on and on and on? Why? Why water and nourish these thoughts and feelings and unhealthy behavior patterns if they are not serving you? We are creatures of habitual behavior, that is why. We are set a lot of the time to default or auto pilot. Learned behaviors from family, society, influence of friends, desire to speak our truth and insecurity, all these repetitive patterns are enacted with a sort of waking mindlessness. We think we are aware of our actions and thoughts, often times we can be, but when it matters most, when we are not having a good moment, then our destructive patterns return and we return to our auto pilot, mindless self talk, mindless whining, nurturing the weeds of our consciousness allowing the flowers of gratitude to be choked out.
Recently, I attended a Kundalini workshop, I am forever wanting to open and learn about this practice of yoga in all its forms and while Kundalini may not take a primary role in my practice, accessing and purifying the chakras in this way is one way to find balance.  At one point we were asked to hold anger and move from this space, breathe from this space. I realized that after this daily discipline of gratitude I was finding this incredibly challenging. I release anger. I have been releasing anger as a discipline daily. So when we were asked to use it as a motivator, as a focus I struggled, but it was just that that inspired this post.
What am I grateful for? I make a mental or even at times a physical list each day. If I am in gratitude I cannot be in anger, blame, etc these states of mind cannot  co exist. Being aware of where your thoughts are drifting, maybe allowing yourself an indulgent whine or lament for a moment but quickly finding the awareness to come back to your state of grace.. acceptance. Acceptance allows for the space needed to cultivate gratitude.
Many a classic quote is conjured up for me, across all philosophies it rings true:




“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only  
creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
-Lao Tzu

“The moment that judgment stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace.”
-Eckhart Tolle

“Non-judgment quiets the internal dialogue, and this opens once again the doorway to creativity.”
-Deepak Chopra



Make a mindful commitment to challenge your own beliefs, to deeply look within at the ways in which you speak, think, act and if they are serving you, if you are in the flow state of acceptance, able to experience gratitude. 
If not, one moment at a time, question and ask why?
Nurture seeds of : gratitude, self reliance, strength, hope, wisdom, patience, mindfulness




What we are listening to:
Sat Nam ( I AM ) playlist

Monday, November 4, 2019

Present moment, nourish the body, bend the mind




It's been 5 months I may finally be adjusting to my new home, transitions are a hard place for many of us and moving rocks your very roots, this makes three moves in 6 years.  I have been given a gift that I had not anticipated and my constant practice of staying present has opened my eyes to it, the seasons.  The clock turned back I wake up now with the rising sun and an 8th grade daughter, a flurry in the kitchen and she's off to school. I have taken this golden time to bundle up, I live across from a natural preserve, latch a leash on my dog and set out to learn from mother nature. The seasons in a forest have had such an impact on me, daily walks in the early morning have been such a gift.  Just a few short weeks ago the trees were lush and full, a canopy of green I would walk through bathing in the forest light of early sun, soft warm amber pine needles just beginning to cover the forest floor, loamy sand, it was vibrant bursting with fruits and berries, juicy with scents undertones of sea and wheatgrass. Dew covered the grass and on the occasional morning as it approached cooler nights I would catch the mist burning off the expanses of the golfing greens nearby. I would think how amazing each step was, from the floor of the forest to the skies and how nothing stayed the same, it was a constant cycle of birth, death and rebirth from the microcosm to the macrocosm. Each organism has it's purpose in this cycle of impermanence.

I am aware of my attachments and think about how to cut them loose to allow for new life.




As days pass the leaves turned into a blaze of color painting the sky like licks of flames against a sunrise of warm ambers and apricot echoing the color of the now more dense cover of pine needles on the forest floor. I am surrounded by warm tones as the winds pick up and rains soften the sandy ground beneath me.
Hastened closer to the house while the rains take down more leaves and soak the forest when I return the path has become filled with scents of decay and fertility, heavy, wet and pungent. The trees now stripped almost bare extend skyward from the potpurri of decay at their roots like arthritic fingers. And I know mushrooms will abound. Deer cross my path, dreamlike there are 6 or 7 and they are walking majestically not more than 5 feet from where I stand. 

Everything is interdependent, a beautiful balance, an orchestra of unfolding.

We try to compartmentalize in our daily lives, job and activity over here, and family over there, things to do and places to be, ideas of on time, or late. I'm not there yet. I don't have a poetic perfectly articulated philosophy to share other than, watch nature, observe, witness.
Quietly exist in your breath with no demands or criticisms of yourself. This is the beginning. Notice what is around you and how nothing is bad or good, right or wrong it is just what it is. Lose thoughts of want and don't want, this constant push and pull of desires and disdains is what Buddhists say is the root of suffering.  Breathe in and breathe out. Pay attention to the quality of everything, your breath, your posture, your diet, your words because all things are interdependent and all is written, or at least this is where I am in thoughts these days.

"It is not what you do, but how you do, not who you are but how you are"

I say this practice is a daily one because it is a discipline to work against beliefs that have been ingrained by family, society, advertising and the melange of external forces unable to see the simplicity our existence has and how it is complicated by ego, fear, attachments and avoidances.
I would say these concepts are more mainstream now and not as foreign but pay attention to how your practices of meditation or mindfulness manifest, are they sincere? One need not attend a yoga class to find the opportunities to practice mindfulness or even meditation. This is where I am, a walk in the woods, seeding a pomegranate, making a bed are all ways in which this discipline of awareness and inner peace happen.


Nourish the Body
Leaving summer behind the fruits  and veggies of fall call my name, apples, pomegranate and celery root.

Heated Fall  Pomegranate, Cayenne Honeycrisp, Celery Root Salad





1/2 of a red onion chopped fine
2 tbsp yuzu rice vinegar
1 tsp sugar
pinch cayenne
Himalayan pink salt

julienned celery root 1/2 a bulb soak in water to keep color
1 finely sliced honeycrisp apple
 1/2 jar Tonino brand tuna filets in olive oil
handful chopped cilantro
 1/4 cup goat cheese
toasted pecans
1cup raw quinoa cooked and set aside to cool
1 cup pomegranate

lime zest, cayenne, paprika

mix the yuzu, sugar cayenne and salt together in a small bowl to dissolve, add finely chopped onion set aside 30 min

add all other ingredients and to taste add lime zest, olive oil, Himalayan pink salt, pepper, cayenne and paprika.


Spotify cooking and writing

 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2lZtMvwBsbY1dXStjLOMNa

Monday, July 22, 2019

The Gold of I Am




Dance though you're broken open, move the body to move the mind. I have always felt that movement worked through the most stuck places in the body to free the thoughts from suffering. That if I danced or  practiced yoga I could move past the conscious binds that held me to familial beliefs or social standards, if I literally expressed in my body I would crack open and all that didn't serve me would just pour out. I could witness all that was not me, all that was imposed thought upon me, all that I empathically drew into me and assumed was mine.
I move imagining myself as if shattering to the floor, emptying, resting, and then repairing and filling back up with me.
There is a practice of this exact interpretation, it is called  Kitsungi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery, with gold.
This practice of reparation looks at the newly created pottery as being more beautiful than the perfect piece that it had been before the break. Kitsungi, part of the larger Japanese aesthetic called Wabi Sabi sees beauty in the juxtaposition of perfection to imperfection and transience. In Wabi Sabi, a perfect zen garden must have a few leaves sprinkled haphazardly across an immaculately created rake design to be more beautiful. A face with imperfect features or carved lines of age show beauty through wisdom through contrast. Our notions of beauty are relative, in the west through marketing and social conditioning we are guided to be more sympathetic towards symmetry, perfection, shiny, new whole. This is not the case in the eastern aesthetic system of Wabi sabi, taken ultimately from the buddhist and zen philosophies of impermanence and emptiness.


Our wounds, our hurts, all these chips and cracks have the potential of being sealed together, repaired with the beauty of our growth, if we let them. I could leave all that was not my true nature, all that was on the floor and seal myself back up with the gold of my own energy, the gold of  I am, not what should be or what should not be.


What am I listening to:
Gold of I am playlist


Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Alchemy



Alchemy A/W 2019
Alchemical elements
 The Symbol for Alchemy is the Ouroboros, the snake eating it's own tail. Alchemy is defined as taking something ordinary and making it become extraordinary, sometimes in a way that cannot be explained.  
Each morning, no matter what the previous day has held, I wake to the possibility of magic, alchemy, in any given moment. To do this, one has to be awake, open and receptive, neither looking forward nor tarrying to the past. The potential for each moment to be viewed as ordinary or extraordinary lies within our seeing, I make pieces to help manifest this way of seeing. We have been bombarded in mainstream media with ideas of mindfulness, yoga and meditation, it is within each of us to take these and other tools to our ultimate understanding of the self and the self in relation to the world.
What if by our own discipline and study we could turn both our suffering and joy into serenity. If we could create a balance between both extremes that lands us in awareness, we would see each as one in the same and practice a detachment to both.




The pieces in this collection of reimagined antiques have been inspired by these thoughts. This collection as each of our collections can be used as talismans to hold intention, to define or focus thought.
I want to create mindfully, re-using existing pieces in combination with additions of small scale sculptures utilizing local craftsman and local foundries, creating a minimal carbon footprint.
I want to tell the stories of these objects and their juxtapositions to the new additions, creating a context for the collector.


love me twice (repurposed altered 14k gold antique wedding band)

Air Element (Antique wand, yellow resin, gold filled disc air element engraving)








Our winters are deep and cold, the warmth created by fires, book reading and Serge Gainsbourg and his ilk keep the heat going. The physical practice of yoga and meditation calm the mind and soften the body into opening. Mornings bring wild violet orange sunrises streaked  across an urban roofline.  And my mind's eye takes a forest walk covered in a canopy of emerald green hues. 

Our Music ..... 

Itunes list below

emerald hues in fairydust bands


Pleiadian pendant

Champleve Enamel has been used to create the deep blue night sky of the Pleiadian constellation.



"The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper"
- W.B. Yeats






Tuesday, January 1, 2019

The Anatomy of human interaction

Justin Marx and Marisa Incelli






Why do we behave the way that we do in interaction with others, with ourselves? If a movement could represent a way in which we interact with others, what would it look like? If it could show the many veils we wear, the many filters we use to mask our authentic selves what would these movements look like? And if we could remove these filters, these veils of fear, attachment, avoidance, ego and ignorance could the other feel our authentic self more immediately?  Would we see ourselves more clearly as well? Someone once said to me, "if you like your life, don't do yoga" I thought it was such a strange and offensive statement until I began studying Svādhyāya,  the Sanskrit word for self study. This awakening of the self led to voracious consumption of all I could read on yogic philosophy and further into Buddhist tenets. The practice of yoga is not only the postures the physical body takes on but the stilling of the mind that happens through the physical action of the body.
 And this is yet only one aspect of the full practice of yoga. 
This performance uses this facet of yoga and flow to explore these filters of attachment, avoidance, ego, ignorance and fear in human interaction. Each piece is spontaneous not choreographed but rather the energy of the room felt and translated into movement, the energy of ourselves in that given moment. Done in tandem through movement,  shamanic drumming and playing of the heart chakra crystal bowl. What is the conversation? How authentic is the connection, when is it shrouded and what is it shrouded by? Can you connect to the energy of the space? Drop into your breath and be a witness without judgement? How does it feel? 
This work asks questions to the viewer if the viewer is receptive to receive.

Join us for a a journey into the Anatomy of human interaction
This First Friday @
Friday January 4th 
6:30- 8:30

We are super excited to be there with Elements of Aura
as well!!