WORKSHOP ART
Birthday Celebration for a Friend Breath moving through me–inhale expands through my being, |
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For me, creating collages is an experience of allowing breath to move me through my body, which include emotions, thoughts, and spirit. I always begin by physically sensing breath movement so that I am in a state of oneness. Without plans or concepts I approach images, tear from magazines, compose, and paste the pieces together into a whole collage. Images choose me—even jump out at me—that conform to my sense of my lower space (below my navel to the tips of my toes), which are often volcanic in nature, earthy, animal-like. There are some that conform to my middle space, (navel to sternum, including lower ribs) where breath transforms from a gross power to one of Self, a strong but softer power, which bring up pearls as essence, nests that hold it, persons, etc. Other images support the upper space (sternum to top of head, including upper ribs, neck) where breath transforms from Self into heart, spirit, with birds, feathers, flight, sun, moon, sky, ethereal. |
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I am usually surprised when I am finished. Things are not what they seem. Opposites attract. Some support me to make shifts in my relationships. Things are different from what I first saw. New images emerge, and keep emerging, meaning different things to different viewers. They are often like seeing things in caves or deep in the earth or occasionally light—the spores of different pollens in the natural world. Since my breath is mirroring the laws of nature, my collages are organic, natural, both personal and universal. Yes, I create from sensing breath through my body that I allow to move through me. |
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Radiant Radiation The receptionist didn’t look up when I gave her my name. Instead she slid a photo ID card under the glass partition and told me to scan my arrival and proceed to the changing room. I was now a bar code. It was my “simulation” day: A dry-run for the 35 radiation treatments I was facing in a war that cancer was winning.The table was cold, my head and legs immobilized, and a rubber device placed in my hands to keep them from moving. I was so panicked at my own panic that I could hardly breathe. “Stay perfectly still” the technician warned, as “mapping points” were tattooed on my skin. Tears slid down the side of my face and pooled in my ears. I felt so alone and vulnerable… I could not protect myself anymore. I was deserting my own body. I had tried hypnotherapy, an alternative healer, calming herbal remedies, massage and healing spiritual work in a desperate attempt to help control my radiation terror. Nothing could touch the deep fear and hopelessness that I felt. |
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At dawn the next morning I took a walk, passing through a eucalyptus grove that announces itself with that distinctive eucalyptus scent that follows you home on the soles of your shoes. I stopped and ran my hand along the smooth, raw bark of one of those stoic giants, and I thought about its roots, so deeply anchored in the earth. Then I lifted my head and looked up, and what I saw took my breath away.
Tens of thousands of tiny leaves were trembling with such force, each one vibrating wildly in their individual dance with the wind. It was something so beautiful and powerful that it made my heart ache. The enormous energy was palpable and it swept me up until my stomach fluttered along with the leaves. Suddenly I had this thought: Radiation is nothing more than energy! I closed my eyes and allowed my spirit to be held in the intense energy vibration of all those leaves. I felt intimately and completely connected to everything. This was exactly what I had been searching for. Each day when I went into the radiation room I asked that the music be turned off and the lights dimmed. As the whir of the machine started up around me, I visualized that canopy of millions of tiny vibrating leaves working together with the radiation beams to re-balance my body. Re-balance me. My fear was completely gone. |
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Childhood Dreams |
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