signposts and metaphors

Dear reader, self and sympathetic universe,

What a week this has been?! Countless self-discoveries, great boons and gifts balanced with difficulties and challenges. I am still far ahead in the balance of the positive so I am not one to complain. Life is still beautiful and one day I hope that someone else will walk under my window and greet me with a warm "bon giorno,m principesa!"

Until then, I will list some blessings:
new friends
new opportunities
more chances to concertize
new successes
valuable failures
renewed connections
travel to expand awareness and abilities
forged art practices
new growth in the garden
continual personal and practical weeding

And now on to the Signs and Metaphors...
The back story is that for a period of a decade now I have been in an active process of personal discernment. I feel that this is coming to fruition in this turning over from my twentieth decade to my thirtieth and ushering in a new wave of dedication, energy and artistic pursuit. I want to -- have wanted to honor this in some way for a time. Some kind of cultural ornamentation came to mind -- but whether a piercing, scar or tatoo...I was on the fence for over 10 years now. Until a month ago --

The tatoo found me. I was drawn to the bearer as well but there was a message in the tatoo. Unfortunately, the symbol only spoke Greek so I was S.O.L. for over a month trying to decipher the message. The symbol also was sneaky, so by the time I translated the message, it took another week to recognize that the message was an inversion. I was further perplexed as I misinterpreted the reference point of the tatoo. The original, symbol says, literally "brothers" whereas the message to me was the compliment -- sisters. But then that started me thinking about my sister and my friend "sisters" and other frames of reference. It was only today that it dawned on me that the universe wanted me to remember my forgotten sisterhood -- a group of women joined in intention, path, and artistry. In my isolation from the fraternity, I had forgotten so much. I had forgotten beautiful ceremonies, idea-clad women, and songs of idealistic triumph and unity. I had forgotten, in my loneliness and trials, that I am not alone -- that others share my convictions and drive for beauty and truth. And then I knew what I had to get -- my symbol speaks greek as well -- to keep these sisters closer to me and more present in my awareness. What better to mark my thirtieth year than a symbol to remind me of my sisterhood, etched into my brain, more or less.

In my life, I never thought to scar my pristine skin with any kind of permanent mark -- heck! earrings even give me trouble on occasion. However, other things and people have taken great liberty in leaving permanent marks burned into my psche. This is a mark of my choosing. That act for me is powerfully symbolic, liberating and healing. How poetically ironic -- using a scar to heal. I don't want to forget any part of my story. But I see this as stamping a chapter closed and sealing within its pages a load of pain, hurt and injustice. This book can go up on the shelf because I'm writing the next chapter now and I want to physicalize my moving on through this permanent sign. The permanence reminds me that while I cannot erase parts of my story, no matter how painful, I can absorb them and I have taken these into the fabric of my being...and I am still beautiful, still whole, and simply more complex.
And so on Friday, I will go and make my mark, or rather, bear theirs, to signify that I am part of a greater chain. There will be a place I can physically touch -- a visual touchstone -- when I am lonely, afraid, faltering, or ashamed and from it will flow the strength and courage of women over a thousand strong: my sisters. It will bear our colors and our sign. I have never felt more sure of something in my life...and never more excited to bust out a true confession at the next family holiday gathering!

Mary Mary...

So here is the gist of it. I walked around my yard today ... and cried. Not the bawling, face splattering kind of tear-struck emotional outpouring, but a gentle welling up of the soul via tear ducts. You see, this yard project sprung up out of a time of great pain, personal sacrifice, and loss. In the design and planting of it, I knew that my yard's blooming would also mark the period of time that I took to heal, regroup, and redirect my life. Seeing the tangible fruition of my labors took my breath away. There is still much to be grown, for both of us -- my yard and me -- but what I see already is so beautiful. It is not that the outward beauty has reached its zenith, but more the visual proof and showing that everything has found its place. I have 100% success with my transplants, all of which are sporting new sprouts, first flowers, and new shoots. The birds and bees are humming and squirrels are making merry. One variety of hostas all came back in my shade garden! I thought between my efforts to pull them out and the rabbits ravenous eating habits that they were all but done for and yet, I stand surprised and gape-mouthed at the six survivors. There are roses, azaleas, laurels, spider lilies, bridal wreaths, jasmine and berries.

Most importantly, pink abounds. Pink, the symbol of everything I have considered weak, vulnerable and therefore "less-than" has triumphed in my yard. Slowly and steadily, she has claimed her stake and in so doing taught me a lesson about myself. Pink has re-gifted me my vulnerability in this new package that I can marvel in and cherish. Pink is the color of our insides, our guts. It is what makes us go, yet I spent years eradicating this color of health and vitality from my life. It seems so silly now, as if the very flowers are laughing at me and saying "I told you so."

Stemming with gratitude today,
Yours,
MB Disco

A new ID

Dear Fans,

There is a moral to this story. To save you the time of reading the story and me the trouble of typing it, here goes: If you are going to run and get back into the "best shape of your life" do not think that keeping your Drivers License and Debit Card in the back pocket of jeans that used to fit super tightly is a "safe place." However, if your current ID represents and encompasses a certain period of life that you no longer IDentify with, perhaps this is the smartest idea ever. You end up with an official police report, a nice policeman's card with your case number in case you are pulled over prior to the DMV reopening and a new start -- a new ID.

Lessons abound in the universe. You also learn who will walk with you willingly when things get sticky.

All for the affordable price of $10.

Zenfully yours,
MB Disco

Hot! Hot! Hot!

I am flabbergasted at the workings of the powers that be in the universe. My powers that be now have a special way of communicating with me via our magic calling card. But first...the story.

At my last grad school residency at Fort Warden, my hallmate Cara and I had an almost nightly ritual of burning the duraflame log in the old fireplace in my bedroom. My bedroom also happened to be on the second story, lit by chandelier and overlooking the amazing Juan de Fuca strait, rimmed by the Olympic Mountain range and crowned at its mouth by Mt. Baker. No complaints here. Perhaps working with Student Council racked up some extra karma points along the way...but I digress.

Anyhow, Cara and I would sit up, chat, collaborate, decompress and trade dance and singing techniques all while the duraflame log blazed and burned down to tiny coals and ash by morning. I fell asleep to the fire flames dancing and softly crackling in the night. It was my safe haven....and my new karmic calling card to return to that place of light, rest, comfort and safety.

Last night was the first "re-siting" of the logs. After a day that began at 6am, but prefigures the Easter And Passion Week to come, I was still starved, exhausted and foodless at home. After my fourth "job" of the day, I was cruising the aisles of the Downtown Harris Teeter; me, teetering on the edge of harried -- when I saw it -- the logs! Right when I needed a jolt back to that lovely retreat. The duraflame logs were there, winking out at me from behind a display of matches and trash bags. My little eyes lit up and I felt the early bubbling of a giggle. Press...Release.

I made it home, unpacked groceries and eventually fell into bed. I do not recall showering, which is not to say it did not occur, but I was past the point of caring. I'll just wash the sheets more often this week.

Then today. The alarm sounding 6am far too soon. Not that I do not love Bill Frisell serenading me as I wake, but honestly! 6am? Come on Bill! Hit the snooze! ...I did..twice. Rolling out of bed, I poured a bowl of cereal and started in to work. Again, a long multi-job, many-houred day. And I love what I do, but this week annually is the most exhausting of my life.

I had a small margin of time (it's a long story, isn't it?!) to run to Wal-Mart on my "free period" , grab the paints I needed for a trash can project for the city I'm doing with the kids, and bolt back to school to set up. Poor Frank had the speed of Socrates deliberating his trail in Athens. I felt my hand clutching for my phone/watch in my pants pocket. My fingers hastily pressing the home key and watching the minutes speed by -- still not done! Almost ready to snap at Frank the laid back associate, who had taken time to strike up an idle conversation with a Wal-Mart regular -- I spied them. Logs! Log upon Log upon Log. Stacked duraflame high to the sky and rising from behind a multi-tiered display. I thought to myself -- the Gods must be smiling...and laughing...and dizzy with glee watching me get all worked up and tizzied just to drop flaming logs on my pity party parade and rain it out.

So what did I do? I took my phone out, looked at the time. Laughed, at the prospect of getting in trouble...then snapped 2 pictures of my lucky totems. I'm commissioning a picture of them. To hang in my house....in every room.


Flamingly Yours,
MB Disco

PS ..and my special message/phrase from the universe?
it's obvious, isnt' it?
Lighten Up

What are we fighting for?

So two weeks into rehearsals for Trailer Park and I still am amazed at the difficulties of being a human being -- our bodies and souls are such precious cargo and we fight tooth and nail to protect ourselves from outside hurts. All of us put up such walls to keep others out, but we just end up lonely and tired and tense on the inside -- all that effort, and what gain?

Of course this is all tongue in cheek, foot in mouth, humble pie on plate because I feel these very challenges so acutely. Shoot, I have trouble painting a true feeling word each day in my journal. The hesitation between picking up my brush, dipping it in ink and then hovering -- poised over the page -- illustrates my very disconnection from myself. I keep hoping for greater flow. I've started wetting the paper before applying ink so that I can let things drip and run down the page. I've used hairdryers, gravity, my breath, agitation -- anything to move the ink around and try to shake up the things inside me that hold tight instead of letting go. All of this played out on the page, in the hopes that the journal art-making will prove to be an efficacious process.

I used this movement technique at rehearsal last night:

Kept em agitated, moving -- ceaseless running around and gyrating and unadulterated grooving to shake the true voice out of folks. Know what? It worked. Always does. It amazes me how gratifying movement and vocal release feel as opposed to the typical sit still, remain stiff, closed jaw stance that most of us assume 99% of the time.

I have always wondered what it would be like to walk around with a personal masseuse for a week; That every time you started accumulating tension, someone was there to correct you. I shared the cellular yielding exercises with the cast last night. I hope they take the time to read and ponder -- but just in case they don't, I'm using a bit of the technique with them coupled with the "masseuse for a day" idea. A little lying on the ground, head release, cranial sacral, toes kneading the shoulders, hands jostling upper chest and neck tension goes a long way. I remember thinking when I first got the Dove Sono that if I could convince "Bob" to do that for me that the progress would have been infinitely simpler and quicker. It's nice to be able to "gift" that to others.

Just letting someone hold your head. It is so peaceful -- so perfectly heavenly but yet such an act of trust. It is a true gift they give you but one not easily won. I'm going to continue meeting with folks and doing the "headwork" required to loosen up the body and free "the voce".


____________________________________


Meanwhile...I need to find my "Slovenka." Sometimes I wonder if by releasing others of tension that you begin storing it in yourself. I need to find a way to process that out. Maybe some big "found object canvases" outside would do the trick. Some full bodied, "em bodied" painting and musical expression may be in order next week. Some Passionate Art to celebrate Passion Week at work. Hmmmmmm.......

No day but

It is difficult to wake up in the early mornings after beginning night work again...but this time in a slightly older body. Luckily, I am working around college age students and so I plan to draft off of their ceaseless energy and verve. We shall see how that pans out...

Yesterday a happy accident spawned a new performance/art practice. I have not been able to continue on my storytelling project -- the folk oratorio -- since I returned from residency. Not having my weekly rhythm of curling up, bundled under layers of coats, sweaters and scarves in the basement of the Avery is throwing me for a loop. I did not realize the pervasive calm that place infuses in my artistic soul. Alas... I digress as always.

So...the point of this post is storytelling. I had the small children after lunch duty yesterday -- atypical as I usually walk laps around the bustling cafeteria talking with the older kids and sometimes cutting up like one, within the acceptable limits for a teacher. However, fate took a turn and after all the little ones were settled in a fairly quiet mob in the second grade classroom, we made the discovery that the TV was non-functioning. Gasp! 50 kiddies and no movie? What to do? I started talking...then I started telling stories, morphing into a small little leprechaun and weaving stories out of thin air, with my new favorite flowered scarf as my only prop and costume. My interactive leprechaun tale led into my own personal retelling of Rumplestitlskin.

It was a hit. Shining eyes, smiling faces, laughter -- a symphony of joy. I'm doing it again today. And every Wednesday and Thursday that I teach or as often as the administration permits. What I learned from the telling, or rather what it reminded me of is the level of comfort and intimacy you must have with a story to pass it on to others. You must come as close to living it as you can. In other words, I have lots more listening to do at the Avery -- and interviewing and visiting the actual place and listening to the stories in the trees, and the sweetgrass...I'm glad I've been too busy. It was all part of the process...Trust the process.

Art is like taking a ...(you fill in the blank)

MB Disco

Process Notes

Dear Reader,

(party of 1?)

I, as executor, publisher, and creative disc jockey of this blog have elected to use this as a virtual documentation of my artistic creative process, in the hopes that when it comes time to unleash my manifesto on the world, I will have plenty of text and evidence to draw from my blogged toils, trials, tribulations, and triumphs.

Interested, you are? On the edge of your seat? Is it because you have to pee? Well then go!

Okay, now you're back. So it's time to start the revelations.

Step 1: Despite a life of living out my perfectionist tendencies, my yard has taught me that I make zillions of mistakes all the time. My healthy art process in fact revolves around this very fact that I have made beauty and capitalized on the genius of my mistakes throughout my entire existence. Every slip of a finger leads to something wonderful...every clunker note and voice crack expands into new growth and territory. How have I been so stubborn in accepting myself all these long years? Alas, the time vanishes in the "Aha!" of the transcendental moment.

Step 2: I work well with others, so long as I am allowed plenty of time to myself. However, my struggle with co-dependence in friendships and relationships must be wrestled with and settled if I am to avoid the see-saw of emotions and social acceptance that are also a struggle. I cannot make art for others without first being true to myself. The art comes from that place of somatic self which I then share with others. In the truthful representation and sharing of my experience, I unearth commonalities of that process in others. The personal details are not the focus, but rather the process. Hence, the need to clear up the workings of my own process.

Step 3: I do not need the validation and love of my fellow artists -- particularly those of the opposite sex -- in order to feel personal achievement and a sense of meaningful purpose in an artistic existence. In fact, this leads to pleasing others before being true to self. Back to Step 2!

Step 4: I do not have to do anything. I choose to do things. Money may be a motivator, but it is no longer my personal artistic scapegoat for making poor and/or fearful decisions.

Step 5: I must must MUST leave Charleston or wherever "home" is for personal, artistic, and world perspective. Cultural identity cannot be escaped so much as expanded. Stamp that passport sister!

Step 6: I am my greatest enemy. If I do not treat myself with great love, understanding and compassion, I will not mirror those traits to the world.

Step 7: How I live is my art. We are all artists. I can learn as much from my garbage man as the next Van Gogh or John Cage. (see Plato and Heraclitus if you don't believe me)

Step 8: I like transcendentalism, metaphor, and existentialism. You don't have to like them too.

Step 9: Having fun is essential to making art.

Step 10: Sleep. Get enough.

Step 11: Because nobody stops at 11 -- so why not!? And that's the last step. Nobody, Nothing stops. Even silence is a continuation. Mountain pose is the opposite of stillness. Do not be deceived: all pauses, all waiting, all stillness, all silence -- it is active and motive.

Over and ...Over,

MB Disco