This blog is pining away

I decided I had to write something here because it's been almost 3 weeks since I posted anything, and if I let too much time go by I'll get all self conscious about it and not want to write, and so forth and so on.
I think of this blog as the journal where mostly I record stuff I do, with photographs. That's so I don't have to write in the mixed media journal in which I mostly drew, painted and glued and did not like to write in, and in which I suddenly stopped doing anything at all.
The last thing I did in that journal was this double spread.

I had watched in rapture as Teesha Moore demonstrated this technique, then ran out and bought more supplies - surprised that there even were any supplies I might still need - made the freaky creatures above, never did all the doodles and writing I had intended to do on the pages, and that was it. It was the beginning of November and I haven't picked up a paint brush or a pair of scissors since. I worry myself sometimes. After that I completed an online altered photo class (or was it two?), threw myself headlong into books and retreats on Christian mystics and yoga philosophy, and now just scribble illegible summaries of my dreams in a notebook, with an occasional line about an important event or emotional state.

My work table with all my expensive tubes of paints, stencil supplies, jars and jars of gel medium, pens, pencils, oil sticks, rubber stamps, and who knows what, sits in the hallway, with what was left of its work surface now hidden by four tall stacks of books that I intend to read. Every time I walk by they whisper to me, "fickle, fickle squanderer of money, you couldn't live without us and now where are we? collecting dust, that's where...".

I could think about the jewelry-making supplies I have that could last several lifetimes, and that live in the same room with an armoire full of yarn, needles, and knitting books, not far from quite a collection of essential oils and aromatherapy books; and I could think about the dried up jars of ceramic glazes in the basement, that keep a cabinet full of silk dyeing supplies company, but I won't. It would just be too disturbing.

I know I am not alone in this. I know there are others out there like me. From their blogs I have glimpsed their world of passions found and forgotten, of stashes gathered and abandoned. Do you feel guilty too?

Since my intention for this on-line journal is that it be a photographic and written record of the stuff I do, this is what I have been up to since the retreat at the San Damiano Center a month ago. Two weekends ago I participated in a three day webcast conference held at The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, N.M, entitled Following the Mystics Through the Narrow Gate, more or less on the lines of the retreat at San Damiano, and last weekend I attended the Yoga Journal Conference here in San Francisco. A little side note here. I don't actually do yoga. I signed up for the conference a few months ago, when I had every intention of "really getting into yoga", but then not being able to because some kind of stuff is going on with the nerves coming from my cervical vertebrae, and maybe carpal tunnel and whatever. Fortunately 5 of the 6 classes I signed up for were mostly lecture and chanting, so I was still able to move at the end of the weekend! In any case, both events were pretty much mind blowing, but I have no photos of either.
I do, however, have a couple of photos of this mellow, sunny Sunday, when the rain finally let up, the skies were blue and the blossoms pink.

Mesmerized by the rain

Click twice on the image, not the play arrow, to watch on Youtube.

It's feast or famine here in San Francisco when it comes to rain. I was really enjoying it until I remembered how hard it is on the homeless and on those who have been putting up sand bags since yesterday.

I think I'm getting somewhere

The words above probably fall in the category of "famous last words", uttered moments before one gets lost in the woods.

I just returned from a silent, contemplative retreat led by Dr. James Finley and hosted by the San Damiano Retreat Center in Danville, California. I actually signed up for it, didn't change my mind about it, didn't cancel it, and didn't get sick. I was present for it, mind, body and spirit, and have returned restored and refreshed in all the parts of me mentioned above. I highly recommend both the center and the speaker.

I also bought more books, right after telling myself that I would stop buying books and just check them out from the library. Now the stacks are growing around me like mushrooms: books from the library as well as new books, perhaps forty at this point, that I want to read, but don't have time to.
Mushrooms.

Who knew Danville was so beautiful, and that the hills around it held a hidden treasure such as the San Damiano Retreat Center? The Franciscans seem to follow in the footsteps of St. Francis even when it comes the natural beauty in which they make their home, as I was lucky enough to discover when I went to Assisi two years ago.

At the retreat we, the retreatants, were silent from after dinner on Friday until lunch today. Silent when we walked around, silent at meals, silent in our rooms. All around us was silent as well. I thought I would have slept even more than I do at home, but instead I found myself awake before dawn and going for walks as soon as it was light out. Heavenly.

Now all I want to do is go live as a part-time hermit with my dogs, reading all my books (hey, maybe that's why I'm hoarding books), meditating, staring into space, going for walks, and coming down from the mountain only occasionally to meet with a few choice friends. And to shop at Ross.

I've got the books; all I need is the mountain.

I leave you with more images of the San Damiano Retreat Center. Click on any photo to enlarge it. 

We are all connected

(watch it on Youtube, at least you will get the entire image!)


A friend sent me a link to this video yesterday and I think I have watched it at 

least five times since then. 

Now I get Fr. Thomas Keating's reference, in a DVD I just listened to of talk he gave this year, to the fact that rather than being made from the slime of the Earth, we are made of "star stuff". Now I also get Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock", where she says "we are stardust". Where have I been, I wonder, that I did not know that physicists have said that all the elements on Earth, including what we are made of came from theheart of an exploding star? 

What I also don't get is why text is never formatted correctly when I
add a video???

OCD or Kundalini?

Sometimes I try to figure myself out, and other times I just let it go. This is one of those times when I am particularly curious about what motivates me. 

For the past year I've been having a great time making mixed media, taking online art classes having to do with collage, spray painting, stenciling and photography, thinking that this time I was going to stick with it, when all of a sudden, a little over a month ago, something reminded me of Fr. Thomas Keating, his books, a workshop of his that I attended in June of 2006, and how I had tried the method of centering prayer he teaches, but was unable to really get into it. As I recounted here, I went to the Contemplative Outreach website, where I found a link to a course that will be taught online by him and others through Sounds True. At the Sounds True site I found a treasure chest of podcasts with teachers from many different paths, and have been listening to them ever since. Not only that, but I have signed up for the online centering prayer course that starts in January, I've signed up for a retreat at the San Damiano Center in Danville with Dr. James Finley, also in January, attended the day-long Vipassana meditation retreat two weeks ago, then last Saturday a meditation and yoga class at Bernal Yoga with Saul David Raye in the morning and a Kirtan and Puja with him and others, including a Vedic priest, in the evening, where I ended up dancing like I did in my hippie days, and today I would be in a two day class entitled The Eight Limbs of Yoga with Mariana Caplan, if it weren't for the fact that I have a beastly cold and couldn't go. Hopefully I will be able to catch the second half tomorrow. 


Now for the OCD and Kundalini part. I just listened to the most recent Sounds True podcast interview with Dr. Lawrence Edwards. You'll have to read about him because there is no way to succinctly describe someone who is on the faculty of a medical college and who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the effects of Kundalini, an "energy" for which he offers a very intriguing description here. 


In any case, what he said during the podcast made me think that perhaps I can stop trying to figure out why I am on this wild goose chase, because rather than just being an example of my obsessive, sometimes driven, nature, it could very well be the sparks of the Kundalini energy awakening in me and propelling me on my search for a transformative spiritual path that will connect me to the divine in me and in all. So there you have it.   

Saint Lucia's Bread

I made this traditional sweet bread for St. Lucia's Day in December of 2006.

It was delicious, and even though I don't think I'll be making it this year I wanted to mention it and post a link to the entry in which I wrote about it back then, just because it makes me happy to look at this photo.

I'm afraid that if I made it, I'd probably eat the whole thing. Do check it out, it's all about Saint Lucia and her bread and it is here.

The Best Raisin I Ever Had

Yesterday I participated in a day-long Insight (Vipassana) retreat at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California.

We left at 7:30 am., crossed the Golden Gate Bridge with hardly any traffic in sight, and drove north on a beautifully clear and sunny fall day with nitid views of rolling golden hills and sleepy towns on fall-colored, tree lined streets.

The primary teacher for the retreat was Jack Kornfield and, since I am a bit guru-phobic, I was very relieved to discover that he is most decidedly un-guruish! A natural man with a great sense of humor who spoke eloquently but in a language that anyone could understand. It was difficult enough for a relatively uninitiated person like me to do five long (20 to 30 min) periods of sitting meditation, one short one, three 20 minute walking meditations and an eating meditation, without also having to listen to talk so abstract you might want to slit your wrists. Jack Kornfield is the opposite: so clear and to the point that I bought his book, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.

Some of us had our lunches on the hillside, some in small groups, others alone, but all in silence. All you could hear were the occasional cawings of the crows and the wind blowing through the laurel trees. The smell was heavenly.

Now for the reason for the title of this post. Before lunch Jack had some volunteers distribute two raisins to each of us, which we were instructed to hold in our hands. When we all had our raisins we were told to carry them slowly to our mouth, to bite down on them and slowly chew with our eyes closed until every last bit of raisin disintegrated and slid down our throats. Let me tell you, that was one explosion of intense flavor and sweet juices. The most delicious raisin ever, like no other!