Timeless Rhythms

M-m-m....

2009-06-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

I just had to post this recording of just one of my favorite musical divas_ just for father's day_ just for us full-time, single moms!!

Happy Father's Day all of us full-time, single moms who have done the work well!

***The irony of the song itself is its own coincidence_ art and life/life and art are like that. That's the sweetness and the grace after all.

Support for a local Art Event!

2009-06-17T12:23:00.000-07:00

From: "Chris Tymoshuk"
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 9:40 AM
Subject: springdale school shows

The last Springdale school weekend may turn out to be the beginning of a regular monthly art sale.
If you are interested in showing, please contact me via e-mail Tymoshuk@xprt.net
This e-mail is checked daily.

The next sale will be Aug. 8th, 10-5pm. The cost is $25.00 + 5% donation to the Save the Springdale fund.

This fee covers advertising, but it is your job to send off e-cards to your network of friends/family.

You must have your own canopy, and hanging system, tables etc...You must be set-up by 10am and you must stay till 5pm. You also must be present to show your work, unless you have made special arrangements with me ahead of time.

I will be printing up cards again, if you would like to be featured on the card send me pics asap. I would like to have them printed up in July.

The Key to this being a success is getting the word out. If you can help me do that, your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Also, if you are in some shows and would like the network to get the word out send your show cards and I will send it out to this network.

Attached are some show cards, please come visit me if you can. (I have emailed her to send me some images, as they weren't actually attached. Busy lady!)

Thank you,
Chris Tymoshuk

Any questions about this event or how to contact Chris, contact me here and I will forward all inquiries on, as appropriate.

WOO! HOO!! You are the first 5000!!

2009-06-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

Thank-you! Thank-you! Thank-you first-time & returning blog visitors & supporters!! In a little over two years since it's inception, Timeless Rhythms Studio online journal has logged in it's first 5000 views!!

I have taught myself a lot setting up my first blog. This adventure has been my way of staying active in one of the most significant areas of my life, as I transition from what was to what will be!

Watching my world become more connected to the whole wide world is terrifyingly wonderful!! Very powerful and very empowering!

I am most grateful for everyone who continues to silently come by to keep tabs on my path, even when my fields of productivity appear to lie fallow for a time. Even in silent times, the under-surface is ever renewing, gathering up energy to begin again.

Sacred Under the Sky, after EC, Prisma Color

Quietly Transitioning

2009-05-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

I am living quietly these days. Listening to the rhythm of transition that is marking my life now. Noticing how noisy the mind has become, noticing fatigue, surrendering.
I am struck by the quality of local women farmers' produce. I am listening to teachers who trust human beings deeply as a spiritual path...
Occasionally, I scribble a little here and there, but mostly I am listening, observing.
Someone recently asked me if I had plans for the week-end? I said that in this state of transition everything is simple pleasure. She just looked at me.

My Latest Housing Search is Over at Last!

2009-03-29T10:19:00.000-07:00

Celebrate! Celebrate! Dance to the Music!!

I am incredibly happy about having found my own place to live yesterday!! This finally comes after two years of transition from small town living to try life in the nearest big city and on some significant fronts, failing badly in the effort!

Funny how sometimes you can leave home seeking fame and fortune in the wider world, only to return to find it was all here the whole time! I have learned a lot and I look forward to just exhaling for awhile. Then, gently putting into action what I am learning still. I know this process of re-defining my life isn't over. Just for now, it is in some revision of better planning as well as greater internal clarity, for as long as that takes!

Below are a couple of "before" pics of the inside of my new abode!

My OWN place in which to grow, to soak in what internally has been germinating as well as on hold, for a very long time. My own place from which to learn how to bring my inner purpose into clarity with greater effectiveness out in the world!! I'm 'cited with anticipation and wisdom!!

Professionalism Mirrored Back

2009-03-24T12:33:00.000-07:00

Hi!!

I am so-o-o very pleased, proud, and very excited to write and share with you all my newest, professional affiliation with a collaborative project debuting during Women's History month in Washington DC, this month!

If you click on the link "gallery," on their website you can find one of my paintings at the bottom of that page. If you scroll through the menu bar to the side of the page, click on "WAWH Biographies" and again scroll to the bottom of the page to find my very simple bio statement.

I cannot begin to tell you what this affiliation means to me!! Yet, I will start by saying that it represents my first alliance after sixteen to twenty-one years of working in isolation on the healing of my FOO needed in me; developing the creative process in tandem every step of the way. (The time difference represents my parenting and painting paths.)
A healing process that leads to one’s own ability to express a new voice of autonomous value; a voice that no one can ever take away again; a voice, an inner identity to consciously choose to pass on. A creatively intelligent voice in solidity and clarity of personal courage; becoming the embodiment of work one empowers oneself to bring into this world in order to share for the benefit for everyone attracted specifically to what I do in art, somatic psychology and alternative nutrition, for their own benefit; raising my daughter as first beneficiary. At this brief moment of transition, I consider my daughter is this fleeting vitality merging into her own sense of self.

It is my wish to open this new door to Woman Artists/ Women Healing with you, as I begin this part of my journey and professional life, in order to share what my whole life has been about with greater clarity: to come to an inner place in this world where I belong as I am_ an artist, a woman, a daughter healing family inheritance that took hold in me in the womb; an inheritance of abuse and abandonment in their universality that have always deserved an appropriate liberation process within everyone who seeks it for their own unique healing processes.

I cannot begin to put into words right now, the feelings I am still skyin' over, when I read the first email response to my contact with the Women Artists/ Women Healing facilitators! I suddenly felt my professional self mirrored back to me in very powerful feelings that continue to buoy me; my gratitude for this experience of peer recognition is boundless.

Emily, Oil, 36"x 48"

Clear Voices of Women Artists/Women Healer-Allies, at Long Last

2009-03-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

First, I must thank another blogger whose posts I am following here_ I am most grateful for your dedication to the arts and especially to women in the arts. Thank-you!

Welcome

February 4, 2009 by ironcuttermedia

Women Artists/Women Healing: Multicultural Artistic Narratives of Trauma and Survival is a five-part narrative series featuring literary readings, performances, exhibitions and facilitated discussions.

Gathering women artists, healers, veterans, and survivors from across cultures and disciplines, the series showcases the resiliency and expression of the human spirit, seen through the lens of female artists and speakers.

Join us every Tuesday evening in March from 6-9pm at CentroNía in Washington, D.C. as we explore the connective tissue of humanistic themes that entwines us all.

Interact with the artists, performers and panelists to learn how lives are transformed through artistic, creative and personal expressions. Listen to voices of survival, be it the ravages of war and strife, or crime, poverty, and oppression and find out how faith, healing and empathy are entry points for promoting justice and healing from within and beyond one’s own personal experience.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, each program begins at 6pm with a light reception, art exhibit and performance, followed by a facilitated panel discussion at 6:45pm. Audience interaction is encouraged.

Women Artists/Women Healing is produced by Elizabeth Bruce, author of ‘And Silence Left the Place,’ stage actor, playwright of ‘Sheila’s Iron,’ and educator. The series is associate produced by Alivia Tagliaferri, author and documentary film-maker of Ironcutter Media, and Timothea Howard, political activist, visual artist and program manager of CentroNía’s Community Schools Program.

Women Artists/Women Healing is funded in part by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, and hosted by CentroNía (1420 Columbia Road, NW, Washington, DC 20009). The series is also funded in part by the Readings & Workshops Program of Poets & Writers, Inc.

How Did I Enjoy Them_ Should You Ask? And You Have!

2009-02-26T09:52:00.000-08:00

I went to the opening performances of this year's PDX Jazz Fest 2009, on an auspicious Friday, February 13th, as a winner of our local NPR station_ KLCC's ticket give-away. I was thrilled to go and hear the music, and also because this year was a particularly top-flight jazz event!! I really wanted to go because PDX was host to one of only three WORLD-WIDE performances of the seventieth anniversary of Blue Note Records, who wisely chose to showcase their jazz artists in traveling/performing diplomacy of American music and culture. It feels good to support independent artists and those organizations whose roots are independent in their support of the variety of arts movement in our world.
For those who don't know, Blue Note Record's historical inception came out of a personal passion for jazz starting in Germany! (Check out the link.)
Gonzalo Rubalcaba's musical family background comes directly out of the height of Cuban Mambo/Jazz that really caught fire in this country during the 1940's! Some of Cuba's musical legends were regular guests in the family home where Gonzalo Rubalcaba grew up.
After hearing this concert, it is clear to my ears that he is a musician with jazz flowing in his veins; a solid performer in his own right and truly a noble opener for what was to come later that night!
I like to call the jazz performed by the humble Mr. Rubalcaba and his band, 'impressionistic abstraction.' For me, it is a musical encounter that allows the mind to soar on layers of color while the body rests in a rocking rhythmic understructure. Gonzalo Rubalcaba's piano virtuosity is playful in a thinking manner. Touching down on solid earth as it leaps freely back off again into an acrobatic, grooving, gliding air dance of color impressions! WOW! I will be looking for more of his solo and en groupe musical tracks and performances after this heady night of my very first exposure to jazz with Cuban roots, Rubalcaba-style!
After the performance, I chose to take home their CD titled, Avatar. I refer to Gonzalo Rubalcaba as humble because meeting him in the autograph line after his show, I found his demeanor very much the diplomat. I am still enjoying savoring the night's performance all the more, each time I turn my copy of Avatar on to listen again and again!

More commentary on the performance of Terence Blanchard and his band and the accompaniment of the Portland Jazz Symphony to come, as well as, my separate musical encounter with world renowned performer Evelyn Glennie, (not a BlueNote musician)... stay tuned!

Next week, it's this astonishing performer!

2009-02-13T11:03:00.000-08:00

Eugene Symphony: Drum Roll Symphony

Thursday, February 19 at 8:00 pm

Presented by Eugene Symphony

Composer Jennifer Higdon returns with a West Coast premiere and her colorful Percussion Concerto played by magnetic audience favorite, Dame Evelyn Glennie.

PDX Jazz Festival starts tonight and I have an extra ticket!

2009-02-13T09:29:00.000-08:00

The opening performances for this year's winter Portland Jazz Festival are, Gonzalo Rubalcaba performing Cuban Jazz piano:

AND

Terence Blanchard, performing his Requiem for Katrina! Here is an excerpt:

Mid-week, I won two tickets to see this performance. I will arrive a little past the start time as I work earlier tonight. Yet this represents the beginning of a new life for me so, I am going no matter what! And, I would love to have a second person join me in this top flight experience this evening.

Seriously if you can attend and would like to join me with my extra ticket tonight, make contact here. QUICK!

Alright, ALL you artists_ SHAKE IT UP!!!

2009-02-09T12:19:00.000-08:00

Today, I thought I was going to write about being so incredibly isolated by ignorance and resistance to know the truth about one's self and the world we each live in. About being the daughter of a parent who has always been mentally ill and never had the where-with-all to investigate this fact for and about her own self!
I thought I was going to bemoan living in a house of people, so resistant to knowing the broader world around them and to more openly sharing any differences at all that over time, sharing living space has begun to feel to me like being entombed alive! Yet instead, right now, what I believe I am recognizing is a greater call for me to outwardly express the compassion that is within me with a lot less fear. Even so, it isn't any easier to write than it is to put into action! I am shaking as I write this recognition.
Even in the recent past, I can attest to being totally uncoordinated about how to go about addressing this inner recognition_ but today is the first step to doing, being with and in life all differently. Differently, I do dare say for all of us human beings really!
I am an artist and I know that out of chaos comes creativity. As a human being I know I can come across as not being friendly-like in the soft and fuzzy ways of say, the mainstream mothering female archetype. My own daughter grew up saying, "I am the only one who knows how nice a person you are!" Call it the successful conditioning of fear. I am still a social geek even after all the years of therapy. Twenty years ago, I needed what crazily turned into too much social isolation, to start this big work in my own life in order to feel safe within from the former terrors that were childhood_ he-e-e-y!
To this day my sibs seem to only remain emotional enemies; resistant to mutually clearing up mis-defined family "reality" that only continues sadly instead, to be fierce. Pride dies hard, hard, hard.
Yet, even as I have hooked your curiosity to the universal commonality in my story_ I turn instead, because it is more important, to walk out onto this US socio-economic landscape to testify. I believe that in the bigger picture of life, my social return to community is timed right! My child is doing a fine job in the world even though there were many time that I was treated as though kids raise themselves! You know, grow up in a vacuum for crying outloud! Afford your own sense of recognition is really where we are going...

The real point in writing today then is about:

I - M - A - G - I - N - A - T - I - O - N!

I know my fair share about imagination and how to continuously use it well, as my life has been nothing short of endurance (like the races) without the support of commonality from family and friends for over twenty years now! As a result, I offer a sensitivity that allows me to see how soft many folks have become; how much the mind/intellect has been allowed to run rough-shod over "reality." Reality, you do know this one too when you let yourself! It's the stuff that shows up at the front door of your life without an appointment. Life, not appointment calendars filling up the years of living. No! No! This is not a cliché! In the big picture, I am pointing to TRUSTING your own self to be good enough to be loved, that you are already loving and that we each really are loveable.

In this economic fallout right here in the good old U.S of A., love really is the heart of the matter now! So, I am talking to everyone like the artist. Don't walk away, don't even steal this idea. Let your vanity retire from believing it is in charge. Really, now is the time to self-examine_ not to be targeted but to truly, undeniably hear our own individual and collective truths.

One truth being: we have more in common with one another than not! One of the great truths that has been run over and left for dead on our community and national social highways. MORE in common WITH one another, THAN NOT!
For example, we all really do have more of our basic humanity in common with the mentally ill, the socially ignorant_ plainly, plainly, plainly then, there is more to learn from one another. MORE to observe, taking sentimentality out of observing as much as possible_ only, as much as possible. Sometimes it is simply not possible_ this is part of what makes us human. We are connected... we are connected. We are all connected. No one is left out. No one. Can you really hear this yet?
Artists of all stripes, are you hearing me?! Right this minute I am saying: speak to your truth. Stand naked in this world! Lift everyone up by your commitments to truth, love and freedom. Make art that does not only sell, but rather art that also openly risks telling us again what our collective truths are, about love and freedom! We are a country of human beings who have the greatest opportunities to advance, to evolve in many, many spontaneous, subtle, nuanced, empowered ways! Speak to these truths_ NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE, OR WHAT YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES_ speak to your own capacity to speak in trust of your best possible self_ using the medium that you love best!
Weave our differences together now in new harmonies, in new color combinations, in more poetry, theatre, dance, sculpture, paintings, movies, books of risk! Do what the great predecessors of our industry left to us_ to show others what they resist doing for themselves: to see! To hear! To taste! Touch and be touched in self-respect and safety. Speak and be spoken to, in self-respect and safety! We all flourish like the flowers_ with enough sun, clean soil and flowing water. Dig deep within all you artists and show us this! In this land of the free we have been very free to whine and fight like the spoiled brats this nation has allowed itself to be portrayed by_ long enough!
The mentally ill have dignity. The socially ignorant have dignity_ there is human dignity in all; great capacity for polish, for development_ to embody our own possibility. Reread, "The Agony and the Ecstasy!" Remember Martha Graham’s great quote, about each doing one's own work in this world while we are each alive here?!

What does it take for us to be brave enough to know we are alive while we are here? Many will talk a blue streak about being alive but are nonetheless still asleep for one reason or another. Wake them gently. Ask, what does it take to reach each human being where they are? Put the ego to the side to navigate this set of creative considerations. Then who is actually left out of the call to consider how to respond? Artists show everyone how. Then each one can look inward and collaborate, to creatively speak to what human challenges are at hand in her and his own best ways_ together!

This is the time of artists of all stripes, all mediums and all considerations.

So, we believe that we do not have money in the same ways we are conditioned to believe in currencies of exchange_ create new conditions for transaction! Create new community currencies! New inter-community currencies! New national currencies!! Come on now, all you artists! Shake this up! Examine value! Examine self-value! Make people happy! Make the environment around you friendly. Lift families to feel safe. Let the children tell us what we are missing; what we are not paying enough attention to! All is NOT doom and gloom_ ask what are you agreeing to?!!! Choose! Choose! Choose! You are free to choose! You are free to slow down! Eat more homemade! Make more homemade! Share! Potluck! Visit! Consciously notice!
Ask yourself, ask each other what (you) are really doing? Really listen now. THIS IS truly more a time to relax_ to reconsider. This is a great time to back up and re-access what is working and what collectively and individually we can afford to shed now.
All of our young people need time and space. They are missing that and many do not even know this! Let them make mistakes in order to learn and develop their own creativity!! Let them have their own creative time and space to grow and develop! Remember having this kind of wealth?! Space and time.
No more isolation for anyone!! Shake it up! Mix it up! Talk! Dance! Make music! Move your body! Write! Tell us poems! Show us theatre! Show us movies! Be openly, self-respecting every step of the way! Reveal new ways of being non-reactively courageous in this life!! OF MOVING BEYOND REACTION CONSCIOUSLY.
For the truth in all this economic downturn is: there is a new paradigm of creativity in seeing, in thinking and in doing in this world that is upon us all.
YA-ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!

Kennedy Center Launches Initiative to Help Struggling Arts Groups

2009-02-04T15:31:00.000-08:00

The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., has announced a new initiative designed to help nonprofit arts organizations that are struggling to stay afloat during the current recession, the Washington Post reports.

The program, Arts in Crisis: A Kennedy Center Initiative, is a high-tech support service through which arts administrators can have confidential discussions with the center's executive staff about issues such as shrinking income sources, fundraising, budgeting, marketing, the use of technology, and other areas pertinent to maintaining a vital performing arts organization in a troubled economy. Any nonprofit arts group may sign up to receive assistance, which will be provided via e-mail, phone, Web chats, and/or site visits. Arts in Crisis has received $500,000 in seed funding, mainly from board member Helen Lee Henderson and Miami businesswoman and philanthropist Adrienne Arsht.

Over the past eight years, the Kennedy Center has amassed a reservoir of information about how groups have managed both successes and failures, and the need for a central place to share this type of knowledge has been building. Indeed, organizations from almost every part of the country have reported belt-tightening measures or worse. The Baltimore Opera Company, for example, recently filed for bankruptcy, while the Seattle Repertory Theatre asked its staff to take two weeks of unpaid leave and the Orlando Ballet cut live music for its holiday performance of The Nutcracker.

"Organizations that have endowments have seen them cut by one-third," said Kennedy Center president Michael M. Kaiser, author of The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations. "In cities like Detroit that are so dependent on the auto industry, the money is gone. Foundations are forced to cut back, and individuals have seen their wealth reduced."

“To Provide Planning Assistance From Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser and Executive Staff.” Kennedy Center Press Release 2/03/09.

Trescott, Jacqueline. “Kennedy Center to Help Arts Programs in Economic Trouble.” Washington Post 2/03/09.

the Arts and Economic Stimulus

2009-02-04T14:48:00.000-08:00

Information Regarding the Arts and Economic Stimulus

Contact:
Victoria Hutter
202.682.5692
hutterv@arts.gov

January 29, 2009

There has been much public conversation recently regarding the role of the arts and culture industry in economic stimulus. Following is information that seeks to clarify this issue through two key points: that the arts and culture industry is a sector of the economy just like any other with workers who pay taxes, mortgages, rent and contribute in other ways to the economy; and that the National Endowment for the Arts is uniquely positioned to assist in job stimulation for that industry.

A statement on January 22 from then NEA Chairman Dana Gioia noted, "Arts organizations have been hit enormously hard by the current recession. They've seen their support drop from corporations, foundations, and municipalities. This infusion of funds will help sustain them, their staffs, and the artists they employ. We are hopeful that Congress and the new administration will support this important investment."

The arts and culture sector

A recent study released by the National Governors Association titled Arts & the Economy: Using Arts and Culture to Stimulate State Economic Development states, "Arts and culture are important to state economies. Arts and culture-related industries, also known as 'creative industries,' provide direct economic benefits to states and communities: They create jobs, attract investments, generate tax revenues, and stimulate local economies through tourism and consumer purchases."

As noted in the NEA study Artists in the Workforce (June 2008), there are two million trained, entrepreneurial working artists across the country who are assets to their communities. Representing 1.4 percent of the U.S. labor force, artists constitute a sizeable class of workers -- only slightly smaller than the total number of active-duty and reserve personnel in the U.S. military (2.2 million).

In addition to artists, there are many more arts administrators who manage arts institutions including office staff such as accountants and booking agents, production staff such as stage managers, and artistic staff such as ballet masters and artist managers.

According to research by Americans for the Arts, nonprofit arts organizations and their audiences generate $166.2 billion in economic activity every year, support 5.7 million jobs, and return nearly $30 billion in government revenue every year. Every $1 billion in spending by nonprofit arts and culture organizations and their audiences results in almost 70,000 full time jobs.

The National Endowment for the Arts

The NEA has in place processes to distribute federal funds quickly and effectively to organizations large and small in every Congressional district. The NEA's grant-making process of applications, panels, and grants distributes money to arts and culture organizations in six to nine months both through state governments and directly to the organizations themselves.

A review of NEA grants for FY 2008 revealed that for every $10,000 of grant money, 162 artists benefited. This number does not include the arts administrators involved in these projects as mentioned above.

Of the 884 grants approved in the NEA's October 2008 National Council on the Arts meeting, project costs totaled $403.8 million of which 22 percent was designated for salaries. Of the $53 million requested in those 884 grants, the NEA was able to fund more than $20 million or 38 percent.

The NEA has strong relationships with grantees and other institutions in the nonprofit arts field that can facilitate funds distribution. And finally, the projects the NEA supports aren't subject to hearings or studies at the front end that might delay the start of a project and don't put entitlements in place after a project is completed.

Examples from the arts and culture sector

Nonprofit arts organizations have been struck particularly hard in this economic downturn due to their reliance on both private and public, earned and donated monies to support their activities. Some examples of the impact of the economic crisis on arts organizations follow.

* The Los Angeles Opera said today that it had laid off 17 employees, or approximately 17% of its staff. It has also mandated a pay cut for all employees, averaging 6% but with higher-paid staffers taking an 8% cut. (source: Los Angeles Times, 1/27/09)
* The Milwaukee Shakespeare Theater Company, a high profile regional nonprofit theater closed down operations in October. (source: report from the field)
* The Seattle Art Museum has cut back five percent of its staff and is facing a $3.8 million annual shortfall if it can't find a new tenant for the space Washington Mutual had been leasing from it. (source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1/25/09)

Reports referred to above are available online:

Artists in the Workforce

Arts & the Economy: Using Arts and Culture to Stimulate State Economic Development (pdf)

Is it Shame_ Really?

2009-01-31T12:46:00.001-08:00

After decades-lost to family ties, in my organically intuitive search to know love in this world_ I have finally reached a significant moment of liberation. Now comes the plea to that family left behind. A family I hope will not just continue to be at risk_ of remaining in chosen ignorance.

All past socially geeky, explosive expression aside_ I am breaking the codes of family silence. I am breaking the codes of family shame. I am walking away from the hold that terror has held in a lifelong mysterious domination on my life, because I have finally learned its name. I am relieved in the belief that I have very carefully finally learned, what you have always seemed to not want to know. I am relieved after doing much of the work to know that has always belonged to you to do_ for your own healing; for your own empowerment.

Consider: how might your life be from here?

That it is entirely likely that you are mentally ill and have always been, my whole life! Can you please stop hiding from this historically unnamed and possible truth now, and go explore it in open mindedness? In open "heartedness?"
In those experiences that are found in the empowerment of knowing_ wouldn't you want to get well? Explore to know!

Many years ago when I was in high school, the possibility of you being mentally ill was suggested by family members. I remember at that time, you more or less reactively asked for my validation that such a suggestion was ridiculous. As a daughter desperately wanting to be accepted by my mother at almost all costs, I agreed. Yet even at that time, my teenage gut held a twinge the possibility could have been otherwise. This twinge I recognize was my inner signal for the unnamed and terrorizing domination. Just as paradoxically it is that domination that has intuitively guided my entire life. Intuitively guided me to leave in order to survive. After decades now, slowly learning to finally name this mystery, I am at peace. I know I have finally learned, it is your mental illness that is and always was the reality we all tried to survive then, the best we each knew how. The not knowing years was a time in all our lives that was "every man for himself."

Now, the only veil between you and exploration of this potential, is the shame about being mentally ill and the habitualized support called family love that in its best intention, may actually prevent you from looking into this further for your own self. That shame is only ignorance! Ignorance that labels illness as shame!!! Ignorance does not know any better.
Mental illness CAN be cured. Check out this website, because mental illness is an illness! It is NOT shame!! It is an illness that is curable.

I am wishing you wellness because it is very possible for you. The explorative impact alone is also very beneficial for our family as a whole. Without an informed exploration, the continuing habits of reacting, labeling and negatively judging_ are only that.

I am also wishing you deep inner peace because I have always wanted to know who you really are. I am wishing that deep healing in you will be a reality for us to experience together in this lifetime, because nothing else can ever be otherwise between us.
This, albeit estranged lifelong searching, devoted to understanding what it would take to name a family member's illness and thus, begin to point to a family member's wellness_ is also what love really is. I truly feel I now know a significant piece in the "something is wrong here" that I feel strongly always has been... can you begin to explore letting this identity of not wanting to know_ go now? Can you find the strength and courage it will take, to know better?

I have no shame in you. Right now, I just cannot ever live near you as you are. I would however, be proud for you to know this very likely truth for your own self.

A New Day! An Incredible Epiphany!

2009-01-23T08:47:00.000-08:00

TRUST! Trust in me!! It is with this profound insight, revisited that I start this day!! Trust is my teacher in life right now. I know that I really want to consciously know this relationship within more deeply, and eventually to share this growing part of me with everyone! There is much to listen to in my inner being; this deeper truth of who I am... What I am wishing you is great, deep trust in yourself everyday!

Mental Illness Impact On Families

2009-01-16T11:31:00.000-08:00

This video is part of a theme on Mental Illness for which I have very recently discovered a voracious interest. The theme: "Mental Illness Impact on Families," is part of a series of resources with different focuses I am posting on all my blogs, for the empowerment of everyone who needs to hear this information and may want to tap into it! For example, check out this website for a wealth of knowledge and information!
I won't just focus on the impact on families_ I will also include resources (such as this video: "In Our Own Voices") for the individuals in our families and our communities who may be internally trapped by mental illness in one way or another.

I am doing this because I know that I am a family member impacted by a family member with mental illness, and I know how long it has taken me to uncover this deeply denied truth. A truth denied out of ignorance. A truth denied both by people once in charge who did not want to know and by those well-meaning care takers now in charge within the family who perhaps in the beginning unwittingly by virtue of historic patterns, nevertheless, still choose not to know. A truth denied out of a huge lack of socially accessible educational resources that belong more commonly available in all of our communities, throughout this entire country! Education that already does but still has room to inform many more Americans, about acceptance of the truth that mental illness is a disease that can be managed as so many diseases. We all need to learn more through education about, training in and contact to resources for this truth who's time is WAY overdue!

A SmARTist Telesummit 2008- Alum testimony

2009-01-11T11:43:00.000-08:00

Pssst! It is going on now!!

I could not say it better...

2008-12-23T08:21:00.000-08:00

'We all create change from our conversations, our commitments, our intentions and our creations. When we 'consciously and responsibly dismiss what insults our soul,' (paraphrased from_ Walt Whitman), when we stop to ask the young what their visions are, when we start to ask not how can we be the best in the world, but the best FOR the world, then we begin to piece it together, guided by what we want to be ours.' paraphrased from_ Jan Phillips

May this year end consciously, honoring the faith and traditions that are sustaining for your soul. I wish you a wonderful celebration of peace and love, in the freedom of your choices.

Happiest of Holidays

A warm invitation to women the world over

2008-11-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

Hello!

Today, I have posted a new link to my blog. It is an invitation for you to join me on Skype, in a world-wide chat on Women in the World.
This forum is not limited in topics that we women might want to discuss, and to help open this broad door of possibilities, I am framing it as sacred space; of mutual respect and safety for women the world over, in order to come together and talk about what is on our minds.
For example: can we end war world-wide now: city-by-city, country-by-country until we have abolished war all over this planet? That's a big topic! Do we feel worthy to take this one on?
How about something a little more manageable like, how do we feel about ourselves out in the world of work? Competitive? With whom? Why? Is this a choice we are freely making? Does it fit? Do we want this idea dominating or framing the way work is pursued or accomplished in the world?
Since I am an artist hosting this chat, I invite women in the arts to come forward with the areas that are important to you. What is it like to be a woman artist out in the world in the 21st century? Do you find adequate support to develop your work? If so, what does that look and feel like? If not, how would that support look and feel for you?
Join me there won't you?! Scroll down on the right until you discover the link for yourself. I invite you warmly for this world-wide chat on all topics, between us girls.

Hint: look for this image on the chat link, as you scroll down!

My daughter is turning twenty-one today!

2008-11-14T00:07:00.001-08:00

This is some classy kid, having her twenty-first birthday in Florence Italy today! I wish I were there.
Happy Birthday My Love! Your my angel! I am very proud of you.

Rough Transition to Transformation

2008-11-09T22:17:00.000-08:00

My life is so incredibly blessed right now because I am recognizing that more deeply everyday!
In the most ordinary of ways, I am having one transforming experience after the other. It is hard to articulate much more than that tonight as this past week has been one of major accomplishment through hard physical work_ in the most ordinary of ways. I am tired, well deservingly.

What is different is that I am showing up with no preconceptions, or rules, or conditions in my head for how things have to be ahead of time. In my experiences with circumstances as they are occurring, I am not chewing on reactions in my mind, until I have chewed them flat.

I am solidly skilled and I am negotiating with life with success in small, significant ways!

This is my path as I am building it now, moving away from the interior life to a life transitioning back out into the material world and the world of relationships with other adults. This is what I bring to the table of the world after many years of family history healing, working with personal insight and cultivating a conscious relationship to silence; to the eternal stillness that dwells within. I bring that mountain solid sense of self that Thich Naht Hahn teaches on so much in the work of Loving Kindness.

Life! I came back to express my eternal love for life, in all of her inexorable ecstasy! I dedicate the remainder of my life in humble ways at the beginning, moving into guiding and teaching others, what I know and understand in order to empower the voices of impact. Those female lives marked by addiction, abandonment and the violence in those whose job it was to protect us a long time ago. Through self-expression, yoga-centered somatic psychology and alternative nutrition, I dedicate my life to guiding and teaching others to heal themselves, standing up to violence and saying, "NO. This must end now."

It is a humble statement of intention. Fuzzy in the beginning, yet in time and experience, my students will also be my teachers

Gosh!

2008-10-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

The folks back home are looking at me!! I started a new job with folks who are all over the country and I can't believe the numbers that are comin' in from the deep South! Dang! Hey ya'll!! It's only been since 1979, shoot! Just yesterday, huh?!

Really the new job I have is online, and I think it is going to be the bomb! So, one step forward surely, surely. That is how I am traveling to my home, still; healing is happening within where I am needing it right now.
Also, my daughter is overseas in the home of the Renaissance, studying music. She and I are peeking through the door of possibility that I will come over for Christmas to be with her even for a few days, and then fly back together!

My treatment of this blog is becoming more and more personal in tone, as I traverse these steps in transition, ever as the artist! I know myself becoming more connected to the larger human family now. See! There is love in the world, if you know where to find it!

For example, it's a full moon tonight! Where have you sat and allowed the effulgent moon to whisper in your heart? These are among the important things to do in one's life. I bid you many nights howling at the moon, consciously.

Namasté_ wildly!

You know you're an artist when...

2008-09-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

You know you're an artist when, after the boxes have all been unloaded following the big move, the studio gets set up before your bedroom! Granted I set my bed up first thing, but I have my priorities! As long as I can find clean clothes to put on each day that choice seems appropriate, and I can turn on a lamp to read my exhausted self to sleep... no real help needed there! Then, all is right in the preliminary weeks of resettling!
Today, I can say that my studio is up and ready to rock and roll! I just need a paying free lance job so I can buy all the ink cartridges for the big 8-color printer, among other things, to do some real damage in the world of visual communication! Please presume the last part of that statement also includes the constructive! Use imagination! Hey, it's in there even in the deconstructing... ha!

Now, I am not going into the gory details of the past two homeless months right now! It is mid-morning, I am starving and in less than an hour I get taken to lunch, so I am going to stretch my bones and sinew!

Someone else's healing visual imagery! Hold the vision with me...

I'm BACK!!

2008-09-26T15:19:00.000-07:00

Whew! Stay tuned! I am back on my own computer living among the "housed" again, since this past Monday. Just got my computer online today!! News from the edge to follow!

New Life Experiences

2008-08-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

For a few years now, I have been looking at my life and all its possibilities as brand new all over again. This view only seems to be increasing with every new development in it as I recognize myself as more often alert and attentive! I can see more clearly in how many ways I am truly blessed then; to have retreated from society for so long in order to turn significant areas in my life around for the better, healthier_ more functionally balanced! The work is paying off naturally! It is to have more youth; a new view on all of life and myself_ to be new at entering the world-at-large with life experience!
Daily it seems, I consciously notice there are gifts that cross my path in many forms and expression(s); invitations to wake up more deeply and see through fresh perspectives what is possible within and outside my sense of self.
As the artist in life, I am trusting my way through this portion of the life-painting metaphorically_ tapping inner vision to see what details may work best in every peaceful step from here and beyond the healing life-path I have crafted for myself and my daughter, in a small Pacific Northwest town.
She has launched really well, yet I am in a rough crossing now and yet, allies, new friends are showing up almost daily saying directly to me, "Here, take my hand_ we can help each other."

For these experiences and awarenesses, I am deeply grateful.

Please hold the visualization with me, of my becoming very well employed, most especially in the face of all seeming economic odds. My ultimate goal is healing work in this world: the artist with life.

*I will also add an image to this post when I am accessing a more user-friendly computer!

Eh voila! Here it is: