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What I did on Summer Vacation, or, Down the Rabbit Hole
July 14 I wrote in my journal...
So this is my report on my time at Omega Institute in the Visionary Art Intensive with Alex and Allyson Grey. It has been
..... I'm wordless... probably because I am sleep-deprived. I'll just say that for me, it will profoundly impact my art and
life. I had been looking for a container for the need to use my art as service, and I have found it, and much more.
It will take a few days, I think, to become solid again, I have been so opened up. Especially the third eye.... Yes, Virginia,
there really is a third eye.
| workshoop panorama |
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above: workshop panorama
below: my workspace
| my workspace |
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below: the space..
July 18 ......excerpts from my journal during the intensive and shortly after....
7/8- ..listening to a wood thrush.. the tweedle-dee bird..o how I love that song!
7/9- someone playing a flute nearby..thunder in the distance..food's been good..the workshop is great..visionary exercises,
drawing/painting, visionary art history slide show, Alex has a great sense of humor! It's fun, just painting, no agenda, nice
people- about 80 participants. Took a yoga class @ 7am, helped to stretch out before sitting all day.
7/10- Quickly before the battery in the flashlight goes- drumming! Dancing! Yoga! swimming, crazy painting! it's after
midnight!
above: "Green Being", from a meditation on our connectedness and dependency on the vegetation on earth, water-soluble
crayon and ink
below: "Swan Swirl", water-soluble crayon, colored pencil, and ink.. my "vision', a symbol of the inner muse
or third eye, I think...from a group meditation
above: participants at work
below: Lenna and I chatting
above: Zito looks through blinky glasses that someone made
below: Alex looks through kaleidoscope binoculars at a light wand. So many creative people!!!
above: Participant spinning a creation..
below: Alex and Allyson are fascinated with the creation in progress...
7/11- am Well.. I didn't get my act together early enough to get to yoga......so far this has been a great experience. So
many cool people here - such energy... Alex & Allyson meet with people individually, I havn't yet. Allyson gave a talkyesterday
entitled, 'get your shit together' - Basically paint paint paint & get it out there! O- Caleb- website up for him.. piks
of him and the surfboard prayer circle for him.. it really touched me & I've been so worried about him. One of the piks
I did yesterday was a healing one for him. There was drumming in the space where we paint last night, so lots of sweaty bodies
undulating & stomping- I danced some, painted some.
7/11 pm about 10:30.. Heavy downpour this afternoon...figure drawing a la chakras.. I forgot how much I love life drawing!
a dream of mating wasps now a painting... such a journey..a trip.. to be here! Very aware of ego stuff.. insecurities coming
up.. body image..Hmmmm...Good slide show Alex put on about his life work.
above: my drawing, the last of a series of life drawings depicting the chakras. Felt-tip pen.
below: A drawing I did of Alex while he gave a talk about the use, pros and cons of entheogens (mind-altering substances).
Oops I spelled it wrong.. I later gave this to Alex and Allyson.
above: "Prayer for Caleb" colored pencil.. a childhood friend of my son who shattered his facial bones, go to calebpotter.blogspot.com
...
above: "Wasps" sumi-e ink and water-soluble crayom
above: art show of peoples' life drawings
below: my favorite that I did... the poses were to gesture relationship.. I call this "Kwan Yin Drawing".. 'kwan
yin' means 'hearer of the cries'
above: one of the participants and his amazing painting!
7/12 late... 1am.. more ego stuff.. did a painting of the wounded ego party, may as well invite them into my awareness and
embrace them. Couple figure drawing today showing relationship stories.. very cool. Delicious food again. Showed Alex my work,
got some feedback, esp w/ the ego one.. he felt it was my strong point & to pursue inner work art.. Hmmmmm.. Made it to
yoga this am but most likely NOT tomorrow!
Even with the uncomfortable ego stuff it has been a blessed, wonderful, mind-blowing, transformative week!.. It's like
the cutting edge of the transformative, visionary society - what an honor to a part of it! Some people put on a 5 minutes
of fame show of their art- WOW> singing, dancing, freaking, performance, slide shows, computer art.. earlier a man gave
an interesting talk/slideshow about his mathmatical discoveries about the Golded Mean/ Sacred geometry..math made visual!
below: "Giving a Party for the Wounded Ego", sumi-e ink and felt tip pen... a working-out of negative ego stuff
that opened up.. the only way to heal is to embrace our totality...
below:
My little art show.. one of them I didn't get a good picture of, have to re-do it... it is a vision of belly totems from
a guided meditation
7/13 packing the tent @6 am, not much sleep. Glimpses of a deeper reality.. the veil is thinned.. rather open to it- visions,
emotionall open and grateful.. a LARGE meaning of art. of soul. seeing. not wanting the gap to close up.
(later. written 7/18, about the morning of 7/13) :
Last Friday Allyson and Alex led a long meditation this morning connecting us to the spectrum of the universe.."we
are connected. we are one." with Peter Gabriel's Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack.. was powerful - I had my sacred
objects laid out before me.. I was overcome emotionally in joy and gratitude. a release.. We were to wait for a vision of
unity; I got a whole movie! I remember parts.. then I received a more sustained vision of a glyph.. a sort of backward "L"...
I've had the same glyph appear in dreams since then.
above: final circle meditation with a bee-utiful floral arrangement!
below: Our Group Portrait.
Above: My new friend Rani, who knows who she is! This is after the cosmic guided meditation.
7/14:
Currently sitting in a diner, needing to eat and REALLY needing to sleep!
where to begin..
There was a COSM fire dance/drum thing @ the Center for Symbolic Studies last night, near New Paltz. I went with my new
friends Rani and Ian. I have no words for how amazing it was! Imani, shaman woman, led.. Many people from all over.. I really
liked the self-ornamentation and celebratory dress of many there.. There was an incredible fire performance.. with wonderful
dancers, a story with spider web motif, the dark and the light, war, death, renewal... fire blowers, twirlers; web, cosm symbol
& infinity symbol structures lit on fire.. Later the fire with drumming all night, music, dancing, singing, poetry....I
was so honored to be there to participate/witness! Again, some holding back of total spontataeity, but much softer and I honored
IT, too.
The message, or intent, of the fire circle- LOVE, NOT FEAR. We are ONE and it is our sacred duty to use our talents to
save humanity from self-destruction. HEALING. from individual to planetary. Being the healers. I feel I have found the matrix
for what I want for my art and life. I need to create something to transport me into this space I'm in now and not lose access.
For me the challenge will be to return to 'life' and esp. my relationships & maintain this opening and sense of purpose.
above: One of the wonderful beings at the COSM fire, creating a totem
below: Part of the fire dance event, amazing dancers, story and costumes!
above: the spiderweb structure on fire
above: the COSM symbol on fire
below: the next morning, after all night singing, dancing and being, an offering of prayer: setting the painted canvas
pyramid onto the fire
above: the offering was accepted!
below: Me, Rani and Ian later that morning, me going on two sleepless nights! Would I do it again? Yup!!!
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