This morning we danced around kitchen, sang made up songs, and drank coffee together over a close—if slightly overly-serious—conversation. At church, a man stood in front of the pulpit speaking of the equilibrium between desire and acceptance, between the striving, and the stillness of gratitude. I kept thinking about the abstraction of language, of the context of the conversations. Over brunch we all talked about being being in the world versus talking about being in the world.

Afterwards, as I was outside digging in the ground, my mind kept drifting to that dichotomy, to why my mind thinks it's a dichotomy—being in the world and thinking about being in the world. Action or thought. We live in a culture, don't we, that creates that conceptual rift. A philosopher is one whose head is in the clouds and can't see his feet on the ground. In a film about Derrida I watched recently, he refers to the joke of the philosopher who falls in the well while looking at the stars. It's a nearly unchallenged assumption. The thinkers can't be concrete, the doers can't really stop and think.

Why do we split these ways of being so divisively? Or is it just me? When immersed in thinking, doing seems a threat. The inverse is also true; immersed in doing, thinking too deeply seems to threaten the action.

But I think we can have both. I think we can be in the world and think deeply about how we choose to do so. So I try—at least for today. Today I spent my afternoon digging in the dirt, a piece of my early evening philosophizing about it, and next we will go join hands in solidarity, to literally, physically, stand on the side of love. Because, for me, the doing of it matters. I can send my heart out any day of the week, and I do, but sometimes, sometimes I've got to use my body.

Mid-May Reflections on Love

It's a sunny spring day, the perfect middle of May day—the kind you imagine when you think of the promise of summer just around the corner—a little breezy, bright and blue, just shy of 70 degrees. And I'm spending my afternoon writing—well, clearly I'm writing, but I'm taking a break from Capital W Writing to write this here.

Intermingled with my day of sunshine and Writing about Art, is a little bit of sweet nostalgia. A year ago tomorrow, I met a pretty terrific guy. Am I really blogging about my boyfriend? Why yes, yes I am. Because, truth be told, he's become a pretty important part of my life.

My mind is not all art and politics. Turns out, I've got a whole lot of space in there for love. As a matter of fact, most of my thoughts about art and politics revolve around love, around relationality, culture, community, the ways we share this space with each other...

But I digress.

I will spare you all the details of how and why I love him. Suffice to say, I do, and I'm grateful for all he's brought to my life—a great amount of joy and a great amount of growth; I'm grateful for his gentle and patient ways, for his wisdom, his thoughtfulness, his amazing heart, and, I'll admit it, for his ridiculous handsomeness.

An Ode to Me?

I'm home sick today—not to be mistaken for homesick, which is a different beast altogether, no, I am home sick, in bed, runny nose, sore throat, feverish, et. al.—which, for me, means trawling the internet... and, via a long circuitous track of poking around, I happened upon the blog of an old boyfriend's new girlfriend. Now, that's hardly fair, as we were only together for one hot minute years ago, and they've been together since... as in, exactly since. But either way, it's been a long time and I only felt fond feelings upon seeing her face. We were friends once upon a time, after all. But then I read her blog and felt a little jump and a ping upon finding myself featured in it. She was polite enough to have changed my name, but it was strange to hear her story of one of my first dates with this man.

She even included a photo of her "general memory of what [I] was like, though perhaps a little less pink & blue and more maroon & navy blue. With pearls. And an apron":


First: Uh, no... just, no.

Second: I'm not sure if I should be flattered or offended, or maybe just plain weirded out.

Let me assure you that I do not (nor have I ever) resemble(d) either of the ladies pictured above. I did, briefly, have a pair of white kitten heels I was rather fond of, but that's about as far as one could go.

It is strange on all sorts of levels to be featured—as the antagonist, nonetheless—in someone else's love story. I was the force that needed to be overcome, the obstacle laid out at the beginning of the story, just so the reader knows what they're in for.

That's right reader. I'm what you're in for.

It turned out, though, that it was almost fun, if wholly disconcerting, to read another angle of a story of my life, be reminded that the stories of my life are the stories of others' lives too. As a matter of fact, maybe it felt good precisely because of that disconcertion. Sometimes it's good to feel humbled. Sometimes it's nice to be reminded that you're somebody's 'other', the supporting role—sometimes even the character the audience isn't supposed to like—in somebody else's play.

And, you know, I'm pretty happy it turned out the way it did. They sound happy. I know I'm happy, and I'm feeling generally pleased and pretty damn lucky in regard to matters of the heart these days.

So hey, thanks for the shout out, lady. I wish you only the best.

On Bolivia, Mother Earth, and Religious Tolerance

I have just engaged in a long thread of facebook comments about this article. Bolivia is set to enact a law granting rights to mother earth. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

And it's really got me thinking, not particularly about the article itself, or even the issue therein (though—and let me interject my own political agenda here—good job, Bolivia!) but instead about belief and about respect.

It just so happens that this particular article was posted on someone's page who comes from a very conservative religious background. Fine. Here's my chance to put my money where my mouth is, walk my talk, (insert any further preferred figure of speech here): Be positive, check; assert my beliefs while being transparent that they are my beliefs and therefor subjective, check. But what followed was painful.

The tone that struck me, the one that always wrenches me, was the one of dismissal of others' beliefs, the One True God mentality. Casual comments like "Welcome back pantheism!" and the utterance, as if it were the one and only true truth that "God created ALL the world... [and]modern man [is] now trying to personify 'Mother Earth,'" felt like violence, though I know they were not intended to be. I know that those speaking were defending what they believe to be true, but there is something deeply upsetting to me about mocking what others' hold dear. Now, I am not a Pantheist, nor am I a Pagan, but I have a right to be, should I so choose—as I have a right to be Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Agnostic, or Atheist.

I, personally, do not see a personified Mother Earth as any stranger of a notion than a personified Father God. As a matter of fact, recent research points to the fact that human's first deities were female rather than male, that the creative force was seen as female. Makes sense—as life emerges, literally, from the body of a woman... but I digress. Because these beliefs are mine; they are personal and they are intimate, and I don't need you, dear reader, to believe them. What I do need, is for you to respect them, for you to respect my right to have them.

The truth is, most of us think we're right. Whether we access our Truth through logic, ancient texts, science, or via our own hearts, most of us think we are right. My particular truth tells me that we can't know the provenance of the divine, that we can't know what happens after we die, because, well, none of us here have done it yet. I don't believe in a gendered or personified God—because when I have tried to imagine such a God, it seemed arrogant to me to assume that the greatest power out there looks like us (I mean, why not a bird, a tree, an elephant?)—but I do believe in powers far greater than me. I also believe that we, ourselves, have more power than we often allow ourself to believe, and that inherent in that power, in that privilege, is a responsibility. I believe in an Interconnectedness that transcends what we can see. To quote Carl Sagan: "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." I believe that we are all made of energy, that energy goes on eternally, and that our being unable to know in what form it does so, doesn't make it any less beautiful. And with all of this, I know that if I allow myself to remain open, if I continue to turn toward that which I do not know, turn toward it with an open heart, my beliefs will evolve as I do. For me, that's an important part of it. These are the things that I hold dear; this is the structure of my belief.

And so it is that we all think our perspective has particular and unique merits. I am not exempt from that, but if we are to make peace in this world together, if we are to find a path to consensus, we have to learn to be increasingly open to one another, ever-more-respectful. It is a challenge I am still facing, a challenge I imagine I will likely face more and more deeply as I learn to allow my voice come forward. Because I think we need to talk about this, and I'll admit it's hard, but I don't want to feel diminished, and I don't want to allow others to feel that way either. In a political and cultural climate that is feeling increasingly more polarized and less and less tolerant, I believe it is more important than ever to find common ground, to make room for each other.

All I can do is try to balance integrity and peace, learn to speak more honestly with more love and compassion, and to temper any disagreements and differences in viewpoint with a deep and abiding respect.

Learning to See, Learning Not to Shut Up

Daytime is for writing; my alarm is set; the evening hours pass quickly, and I dawdle, and soon (now) I reach the wee hours of the morning. I know this will affect my day, but I can't seem to turn off my brain, or turn it fully on, either. I am beset by insecurity; I feel dislocated, nearly dizzy, yet somehow eerily still, unmoving. She says there is still something missing. And she's right. But isn't that how I always feel, how it always is—as if there is something still missing? I am perpetually one revelation away from figuring it all out.

But what to do about that? I am full of revelatory moments, full of paying attention, full of learning to let life roll over me, roll through me. I know these things. I live them. In this, at least, I walk my talk. I am the living breathing unknowing. But how many times must I bite my own tongue just to remember the iron taste of my own blood? When will it be enough? At what point may I open my mouth and speak instead?

I think art changes people, changes people's hearts. That's what art is; that's how I'd define it now, anyway—at this hour, on this day. That's what it's done for me; art has changed my heart. But what about beauty? It is not always lovely, what I have to say, what I have to hear. It is not always even palatable. And yet. And yet. There are these things that need saying, these things that desperately need saying.

I know, and have known for a while now, that I can't shut up. Not to say that I haven't, because often I have, but that I mustn't. I'm pretty sure, too, that that's something of the job description of an artist: learning not to shut up, even if you can hardly breathe, even if there are tears streaming down your face, even if you are saying things no-one wants to hear.

Yes, I need to learn not to shut up. And it's harder than I thought it would be, especially for a girl who everybody thought would be a lawyer for her incessant arguing. But that's not me, not really, because I can't bend the truth, and I can't make a point for a point's sake. I am always seeking the truth. Concealing is not my profession; it is revelation. Sometimes I am pulled to call it epiphany, but it is less like something landing from above, and more like learning to see.

It's painful though. That's the part no-one tells you. Learning to see is painful. Because it takes a willingness to be ever-vulnerable, be always proven wrong. And when, if just for a moment, I let the defense clap shut, the fall is sharp, the waking stark.

Instability and Hope

Sunday, March 13th, 2011. I’m sitting down to begin writing my portfolio. The intention is to write a call to consciousness, a manifesto of sorts. I want to, in lyrical prose, shake us awake. And as I try to direct my mind into abstraction, into the tunnels and passageways of language, I keep returning to the flickering images of the tsunami sweeping across Japan, of a white sheet waving from the upper floor window of a home engulfed in water, waving in the wind as the helicopter capturing the image zooms in close, then moves on and away; my mind is flooded with the image of flames mushrooming from a natural gas processing plant, with images of cars swirling through rushing water, images of vast expanses of splintered wood, rushing cascading waters on fire. This devastation is so new that we don’t know how to place it yet. We don’t know what it will mean, what it will become, and as nuclear reactors teeter on the edge of meltdown, we collectively hold our breath, waiting to see the magnitude of this disaster. Will this be one for the record books, or will this change life as we know it?

It is in these places that my artistic self begins to flail. How do I understand the making of things to have relevance, significance, in the face of events of this magnitude? How can I begin to understand scale? Shouldn’t I just have become a doctor, a philanthropist with a fleet of helicopters, a nuclear physicist? Where is the contribution I can make that will have impact? This, then, must be the place to begin.

I think of the safety net—a project I completed just under a year ago—and of places of repair. I am not a nuclear physicist. I cannot prevent meltdown. What I can do, is offer some small scraps of solace, of hope. After all, if we are to effect any kind of change, we must believe that there is hope. A couple of weeks ago, I saw Vandana Shiva speak at the Arlene Schnitzer concert hall in Portland. The title of her lecture was Soil Not Oil, and one of the first things she spoke of was how she didn’t talk about global warming, because the terminology wasn’t accurate; it painted a pretty picture of nicer weather, a more pleasant climate—you know, more bikini days at the beach. No, climate change isn’t primarily about global warming, it’s about climate instability.

And that instability is seminal.

In times of such great cultural, environmental, political, and fundamental instability, we must build structures of hope. Small as they may be, I can only keep interweaving these threads of hope, only slowly keep working away in my attempts at repair.

I'm having a line up the ducks sort of day. (Frustrating) school financing correspondence, planning nuts and bolts of the rapidly-approaching term, sorting (and actually washing) the laundry, organizing both things and thoughts in a logical fashion.

Yes, a line up those ducks into a neat little row kind of a day.

This morning over coffee we were discussing rhetorical systems and belief, the relationship between belief and experience. I met a woman recently who told me she didn't really have beliefs, only experiences. Beliefs just get in the way, she told me. If I believe it, it's up here, she pointed at her head. If I experience it, I don't need to believe it.

Belief is extraneous.

What a revolutionary thought. Come to think of it though, that's a belief too, isn't it? And back into the fold we fall.

And this is how my mind has been tumbling lately. Over coffee we parsed out the differentiation between two kinds of belief structures, one in constant dialog with experience, and one built up and defended in spite it.

I've been thinking a lot about conservativism, trying to understand it (and if you're a conservative reading this, I could use your help). Today I'm thinking about it in relation to those two systems of belief structuring. Science, for example, could easily be classified as a belief system not unlike religion, but science is in constant dialog with experience, and is therefor self-regulating. If an experience conflicts with a belief, the belief changes; it evolves to encompass the new experience. There is fluidity in this kind of belief structure. The other kind of belief is the kind that confuses me—fundamentalist, if you will: This is what I believe, and no amount of contradictory evidence will make me consider reassessing my beliefs—think of creationists, or the so-called birthers.

So how do we dialog with that structure of belief? How do we create fluidity and movement within—breathe life into—a closed system?

This system is how one can so tightly cling to opposing beliefs, or rather, beliefs in clearly contradictory policies. Take, for example, the proposed cuts to all government funding for family planning organizations. The folks behind these cuts are the same folks who are so adamantly anti-abortion. Fine, your religious beliefs make you against abortion... but here's where I get confused: you want to take affordable reproductive health care and access to birth control away from our nation's poorest women. This does not serve your cause; this does not reduce the number of abortions, in fact, it does quite the opposite.

So far the logic is lost on me. Is there logic. Am I missing it?