Too Small
“SPLASH”, 1981, 5′ x 5′, pigment on wool flannel
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POEM
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You must learn one thing:
The world was made to be free in.
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Give up all the other worlds
Except the one to which you belong.
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Sometimes it takes the darkness and the sweet
Confinement of your aloneness
To learn
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Anything or anyone
That does not bring you alive
Is too small for you.
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-David Whyte
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This was a hard lesson learned for me, the thing he speaks of here.
I am gregarious by nature and have always cast my net with a wide sweep.
I like to connect with people and it comes fairly naturally to me.
For a long time it has been the ACT of connecting that fed me.
It made me feel somehow less alone.
But my discriminatory edge was dulled by what I call ’slimy goodies’.
By that I mean that I saw myself going through all the motions that were supposed to produce a happy and fulfilled citizen in our culture’s eyes.
And in that effort I lost the girl in here who I very nearly forgot altogether.
No one would mourn her loss as few have seen or heard her.
Her voice, posture, sensitivity and desires are not the same as the grown woman.
Somehow, as I continue my swim in authentic waters, she slowly surfaces.
Still timid at the brightness as she rises close to the surface.
But now trusting of the tide and giving herself over to the current.
Tree
“BARK”, 1999, 5′ x 24′, M/M
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THAT TREE
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Generously you
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Shared your bend and sway secrets
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So I could move on.
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.CA 2010
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How to Pray
ceramic, steel, 1997, 28″ x 4″
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HOW TO PRAY
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First, get out of the way.
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Stay low to the ground and take
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No thing for granted.
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CA 2010
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The Journey
untitled, 1992, 30″ x 22″, monoprint
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I surprise myself sometimes that I still have the core of faith at my center.
I still love this precious life.
And most of the time I want to stick around.
I probably would not be so keen if the whole theater of the thing wasn’t still entertaining.
These days though, I watch from my witness perch and it is too often dark out there.
Out in the world, sure, but closer to home as well.
But is this bad?
I sense it is all part of the plan and my job is to stand for what I stand for, make a good life and handle my own inner violence.
Flip flop..flip flop.. change happens so how shall we hold it?
It embarrasses me that my inner terrain is not more even.
The GREAT DAY of yesterday has slipped into another costume as days are wont to do..
Often, when sense is out of reach, I go here, to Mary Oliver’s work:
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The Journey- by Mary Oliver
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One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Desert
untitled objects, 2000, 7″ x 1″, ceramic
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LAUNDRY
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The heat in a life
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Wrung me out and I’m hanging
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Formless and watching.
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-CA
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My Home
textile design, 1990, pigment on wool flannel
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HOME
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What is that lovely thing
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Meeting us at the threshold?
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All of me in colors.
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.CA 2010
The Practice
“TEMPLE”, 1994, 60″ x 40″, m/m
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Getting healthy is a practice.
I’ve made it my spiritual practice as it seems fitting and that’s usually what I do with conundrums I can find no reason or rhyme for.
Here’s how it goes in the densest of times:
I had a beer last night.
Because I FELT GOOD and it is SPRING and the evening air was soft and intoxicating.
So… I took it further and imbibed.
And then I had another because it was so fun.
And today I cannot walk.
I already know the results that come from alcohol and sugar in general but does it seem to matter that I have already learned these things?
They say the definition of INSANITY is knowing the outcome of a situation but going back in expecting a different result.
It is easy and familiar for me to let the BIG FAT JUDGE out of his room at times like these.
But at this point on my road FORGIVENESS is the thing.
TENDERNESS and FORGIVENESS.
And onward we go..
A good poem:
“The Practice” by Kim Rosen
Not the high mountain monastery I had hoped for
The real face of my spiritual practice is this…
The sweat that pearls on my cheek when I tell you the truth.
My silent shriek in the night when I think I’m alone
The trembling in my own hand as I reach out,
through the years of overcoming,
to touch what I hoped I would never need again.
Voice
“PERCEPTION”, 40″ x 60″, 1992,m/m
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THE COYOTE
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A coyote howled.
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My chihuahua growled in sleep.
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I want that rawness.
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CA 2010
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Smallest Movement
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CALLING
I heard that bird call.
It dissolved the Winter’s grate.
Ennui long gone.
-CA 2010 Spring
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The Return
"PUSH", 2007, 14' X 14' x 12", ceramic, wood, steel
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HAIKU FOR SPRING
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The scent of good dirt
Lifted by the red tulip
Intoxicates me.
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–CA 2010