Spiraling into the Center

This week I had the delight of 'dancing the wheel' with 14 open minded souls at my Renewal Creativity Salon.
We gathered in a large low lit room around the painted wheel aglow with candle light... darkness symbolizing the inward turn of the winter months. The first half of our time we allow the energy to spiral inward as we explore our creative opportunity for renewal offered at this time of year.
After a short break we create a burning ceremony to release any unwanted aspects of our current experience.
Then we build a wheel as you can see here. Participants mark each of the 36 spots with a stone. Then we sing. It's a wonderful wheel song: "Spiraling into the center, the center of the wheel. Spiraling into the center, the center of the wheel. I am the weaver. I am the woven one. I am the dreamer. I am the dream. I am the weaver. I am the woven one. I am the dreamer. I am the dream." as we dance the pathways of the earth calendar as given to us by Sun Bear.

Happy Year of the Ox

This just in from my pal David and his wife Virginia in Vietnam:














Dear Donna, Tet is the biggest celebration in South East Asia and China, I think. People are on vacation for days if not a month. Even the hospital clears out if you are not too sick. So many people go home for Tet that you can't get a ticket if you're going in the preferred direction.

Last night at about midnight I heard what sounded like drums. It turned out to be fireworks by the river. After that stopped the motorbikes started. Many many people were out riding around for hours. Zoom, Zoom, Zoom. It started trailing off at about 2:30AM. Though the bikes tend to be small by US standards it is impressive when it happens.

A few weeks ago Vietnam played Thailand in soccer. Vietnam won over Thailand for the first time in years. From our house you could hear the cheers as people watched the game. Vietnam made a narrow win, but a win. A little later I started hearing the motorbikes go by. Most of the bikes here are 110 or 125cc motors but the shear numbers make an awesome sight and sound. There were many guys in large groups, one driving, the other rider holding a Vietnamese flag, red with a yellow star and about 4 feet high. It looked like they were trailing fire. The red on the flag is shiny like silk and really catches the light. Very impressive. Anyway there were many people out riding last night and that was impressive too. With the solar New Year there is some celebration but not like the Lunar New Year. Happy New Year Donna.

Saturday in the Studio 2009

Being able to step back and simply observe art coming through the mind of a young one is beyond delightful to me. It's a pure language of universal import and 'no instruction manual' is necessary.
They come into the studio with a bit of reserve, first time...what's expected? First a tour of the vast array of available materials, then a tour of the museum and the current cast glass and steel installations of Gene Koss. His monumental work is displayed inside our beautiful refurbished galleries and and out in the new sculpture gardens. The young artist's (eleven 6-8 year old in the first studio eleven 9-11's in the next) are offered the opportunity to choose a piece of work to share with us and to offer ideas of what they think the piece means. It's fabulous to hear what they have to say! Then back to the studio where the directions are: I'm an artist, you're an artist, let's make art...and they are off. I step aside. If they need any direction or support they simply ask.

A Little Help From Our Friends...

I'm a techno weenie and often my synapses don't fire from one avenue of net space to another with the lightening speed of, say, a 7 year old. Enter my darlin' pal and artist extraordinaire Karin! When she saw this flyer that arrived yesterday she shot off an email and said "You have to blog it!" and my brain flat lined...how to transform a PDF to a jpg to a gadget to a web page. I voiced my conundrum and within minutes my soul sister had started the process and walked me through the steps...thank you!!

So much about this techno world, for me, pertains to taking a deep breath and relaxing...AND allowing help to arrive from whatever direction she chooses to come from. So thank you Karin...ahhhh...looks as though this is a good day for thanks.

Now off I go to hang with those 7 year old artists in the studio at CACV.

A Kind of Summer

"Always maintain a kind of summer even in the middle of winter" Henry David Thoreau

The Winter session of Saturday in the Studio begins tomorrow at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia. These shots are from last summer and they capture where the kids and I invest our time whenever possible. They will have coats on but even tomorrow we may be able to do a bit of exploring...as the sun will be shining and the temp may hit 60 again as it did today.

A lovely morning practice

Dear friends sent along a surprise box of gifts... Copa soaps , incense in a hand stitched silk, a handmade journal, a carved hummingbird and a little wooden box inscribed with love love love. So much sweet beauty that it inspired my morning studio practice ...I took delight in painting a little watercolor Thank You.

A New Day

It feels like a new day...

from the White House Blog:

Yesterday, with Washington and the country eagerly awaiting the Inauguration, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and their families spent the day honoring the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. by serving others. After spending the morning with wounded soldiers at the Walter Reed Medical Center, President Obama traveled to the Sasha Bruce Youthwork shelter for homeless teens in Northeast Washington where he helped renovate "safe space" housing.
After leaving the shelter, the President and Mrs. Obama attended a reception with volunteers at Coolidge Senior High School, where President Obama spoke about the challenges ahead and how every one person can contribute to fighting them.
"Dr. King taught us that we could no longer view our own day-to-day cares and responsibilities as somehow separate from what was happening in the wider world that we read about in the newspaper and saw on TV," the President said at the reception. "Because ultimately, for each of us, our own story and the American story are not separate, they are shared. And they are both strengthened and enriched each time we stand up and answer the call to help meet the challenges of our new century."

The Clearing Creativity Salon

Yesterday I had the complete and tremendous joy of presenting the 'Clearing Creativity Salon' for and with a group of artists and art's educators at a hidden jewel of a center called Alternatives Inc.

On the natural calendar of the Earth Wheel January represents the moon of cleansing and release. Throughout the morning we 'wound the wheel' exploring and considering what it offers each of us in terms of birth gift and birth challenge. After lunch we each went into a three hour period of silent studio time and we closed with a magnificent 'Show n Tell'...each participant bringing us more inspiration to carry home from the day.

Ahhh...a circle of women making deep spiritual art for sheer joy....my favorite kind of day.

My Zany Sibs...

I adore my family and the many interesting ways we move through the world...here are my wonderful big sis and little bro playing in minus 40 degree temps during a dog mush together....you can read all about it on the title link and also enjoy more of Dr.ozda's recent and poetic photos. ...don't miss his first photo of the year...14 of his 18 pups invited indoors during the intense cold.

Fire in the Belly

Yesterday I walked in the marsh land in our glorious First Landing State Park with my artist friend and walkin' buddy, 'Debster'. We made our destination a high forested dune about two miles in from the trailhead. Once there we lay in the warmth of the sunshine enjoying the long views of the sparkle and dazzle of the Lynnhaven River .

In the near distance I listen to the unmistakeable high pitched call of Bald Eagle.

Following our break we wind our way down the steep sandy path and enter into the marshy lowland. Here the landscape is arresting as it is populated with dozens of stately skeletal remains of long ago flooded trees. Picture a forest of smooth (the bark has long since fallen away) and contorted Giacometti-like scuptures standing in the shallow marsh-lake.

In one of the tallest of tree totems we notice movement and stop. Now we are transfixed as we witness a pair of Bald Eagles copulating. When done they vigorously shake their feathers, hop each to their own branch, throw their heads back, beaks pointing toward the sky and in unison laugh long and long. Then they become completely quiet, stately, grand and still.

We are able to move along the path observing them within closer and closer range until, giddy with delight and the magic of the moment we finally turn and beam back along the river path each of us filled with a fire of enthusiasm, joy and love of life burning in the belly.

The Four Immeasurables

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009...I send best wishes and my favorite Tibetan Buddhist prayer:


THE FOUR IMMEASURABLES


May all mother sentient beings,
boundless as the sky,
have happiness and the causes of happiness.

May they be liberated from suffering
And the causes of suffering.

May they never be separated from the
happiness that is free from sorrow.

May they rest in equanimity,
free from attachment and aversion