last week, i went out to the garden of the lovely new house i just moved into and pulled out a few seasons' worth of weeds and blackberry vines—and underneath it all found beautiful vegetables and herbs: kale, carrots, tiny beets, parsley, thyme, dandelion, and the most gorgeous shallots i've ever seen. this always seems to happen whenever i go and tend the land and gardens: nature, in all her endless generosity, gives me so much in return that i wasn't at all expecting. it's mystical to me, this reciprocity with the earth and things that grow from soil (kept misspelling that as "soul" trying to type on my janky old phone). there is a wild intelligence at work here, and sometimes we only need to go a few feet outside our doors and listen to/look at/touch a few plants to tune into its language, engage in conversation that's so much deeper than the intellect, and receive bounty far beyond what we thought was there. hallelujah garden goodness and the ceaseless magic of this wondrous earth ✨🌿🥕🍅🌿✨
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#garden #vegetables #herbs #herbalist #hiddenabundance #iloveweeding #wildmagic #wildintelligence #earthmagic #delicious #dinner
"attend to the skin as a subtle boundary
containing vastness.
enter that pulsing vastness
and know there is no other but you."
🔥
just after dawn, snow on everything, no one else awake in the house. for the past many years, this book has drawn me in, sharing its medicine in doses—now i'm finally sitting down with the whole thing, and chai, diving into these landscapes, surrendering (over and over) to body wisdom, returning to the inner cosmos which is always always there, waiting, vast, ready, no matter how long i've spent attempting to ignore or escape it. today marks a homecoming, a renewal of embodiment, a tender exquisite reunion with this inner temple. yes. one breath at a time 🌷
january blossoms, lanterns in the forest, sinuous structures 🌲 i love mt. tabor any time of year, but especially in the winter when the fog creeps between the trees and everything is quiet, lush, mysterious, and the air is thick and cool and clear and smelling of cedar and slightly, slightly of the sea... so special to have a place like this in the midst of the city where i can feel timeless, alive, animal, magical, wild. yes 🌿🌲⛰🌸🌳
though i didn't see the eclipse last night (was busy scheming magic by candlelight) i did see this holly berry in the forest yesterday, brilliant scarlet amidst soft decay and slumbering earth 🍁so much has been dissolving and composting and i'm doing my best to allow it to happen as gracefully as possible while staying focused on the beauty, love, generosity, inspiration, and communion that is so bright and real in my life lately 🍒feeling very held right now, kind of like this berry 🍂 love love love and thank you ❤️
Four days ago I left the coast after a season of living by the sea to return to my loves and art-doings in the city. On my way out, I stopped at the cove to be with the ocean for a few minutes, and the waves were huge and grey and crashing and almost up to the road, complete elemental power, impossible to adequately capture with my little phone camera. Today I came back for Christmas, and the sun set a few minutes ago and the sky turned fiery pink, tangerine, lavender, azure behind the silhouetted trees. These contrasts are part of why I love it here so fiercely... this has been a year of such contrasts, and I have grown and stretched and expanded beyond what I thought possible to hold it all, feel it all, be transformed by it all—turned inside out and torn apart in order to put myself back together again from scratch (feel like the year was like that for many of us). And here I am again, home, one of many homes, having lived to tell the always-changing tale, always changing like the sea, like the sky. And yet, amidst the changing and contrasts, there remains something constant, still and calm at the center, familiar, a flame of awareness, watching it all unfold. Whatever you celebrate this time of year, no matter what's unfolding around you, may you know this sweet unchanging peace, even for a moment. Loving you all from the rainforest by the sea ✨🕯🌊
sipping skullcap infusion and delighted to finally share this year's midwinter mix ✨ happy solstice, midwinter, and nearly-new-year... here are some wild and lovely tunes to move you from old to new 🖤 today whilst listening to it i cleared piles of clutter and danced out old junk, then danced some more, then stretched and finally sat, feeling a candle flame of peace in me, a soft inner sunrise (link in profile) 🕯
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🔥 M I D W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 🔮
a solstice portal blending of midwinter + new year rituals from some lands where my ancestors lived, featuring music from all over the place
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begins with clanging + raucous ruckus to drive out old + nefarious energies + release the past year then moves ever so gradually into bonfire conviviality + sweet gentle welcoming of new light
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contains irish flute, drum + bass, fugees, much love for brasil, cinematic orchestra, electric hurdy-gurdy, + then some
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nothing fancy, just good tunes + crossfades
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good for listening any time, especially between december 21—january 12
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also works for southern hemisphere summer solstice: moves from yang joy + action of summer into quieter calmer seasons of going inwards + resting
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love to everyone ✨
last night my friend and i went to a very odd party and the first thing we did was sit on the floor for an hour to collaborate on making this most stunning puppet, his excellency the ambassador, which is the reincarnation of a puppet we made out of a barf bag fourteen years ago on a flight from france to connecticut. the puppet alone made the price of admission worth it (as did getting into the speakeasy without having to say the password, because as the speakeasy guards said, "you guys look totally fly, go on in there and fuck with some squares," to which i replied "i aim to do that every day" - once inside the speakeasy we sat there for two minutes to bask in our flyness then left to go show the ambassador around). now the ambassador is perched atop my friend and his housemate's christmas tree, where he shall ambassadate in full glory, overseeing all the land! (apologies for the slightly blurry final pic, i was very excited when i took it.) moral of the story = so grateful for friends with whom i can have fun no matter what, for hilarious hinjinks, and for the never-ceasing wonder (and oracular wisdom) of puppets 💫
whoooa it's wild to be sharing these... been realizing lately how much of my artistic life—which is the same as actual life—i've been keeping under wraps these past many many years, enacting it alone in basements and rented rooms and campers and on mountainsides and in deserts, making and unmaking and arranging and creating so many things, taking so many photos of what comes through (sculptures installations costumes conglomerations etc.), then packing it all up and moving onto the next place... quite a backlog of photos, writings, sound recordings, recipes, videos, etc. built up, and for a while i was focusing on purging a lot of it, sharing it, redistributing that pent-up creative energy back out into the collective aether... even as i've continued letting newness through, behind the scenes (as it were). and it's feeling really good to start sharing that newness more regularly... so part of my ongoing practice these past few years has involved costume + movement + often sound, all intuitive and improvised, to experience and transform ancestral energies and other states of being that have lodged in the body (including places, land, etc.) sometimes these transformations want, need, to be shared, whether in person or virtually—something about collective witnessing, and transmission, and possible inspiration, shared creative liberation—anyway had an astonishingly fun time doing a rather impromptu, intensely cathartic photo shoot (with phone timer) last night, and today feel like something that was deep in me has now flown free. sharing is part of that, even though it feels a bit scary, so here are a few for now... full set to come. thanks for seeing what you see ✨👁✨
