New Year's Eve Day

Simplicity and Repetition. Repeat. Simplicity and Repetition. – Zen Guitar Dojo

Late Morning:
Tired. Headachey. Less pain than yesterday. Tea, socks, emails and surfs. New Year’s Eve plans of lovely firepit in the garden and veggie dinner delight with Dave.

Afternoon:
Feeling better as the sun crosses the sky. Winter stew in the new very cool Solstice earthenware crockpot.

Zazen and on to practice. Tea a-plenty. Dave at Vollyball. Kitties napping.

Winter Stew:
Butternut
Squash
Parsnips
Carrots
Mushrooms
Applewood Chicken Sausage
Thyme
Marjoram
Veggie Bouillon broth
half & half
pepper
olive oil
onion powder

cut sausage in slices, brown in olive oil, thyme, marjoram and onion powder. add sausage & veggies to crockpot, add some veggie bouillon broth and pour some half & half over stew. stir. crock on low for several hours.

On to quiet New Year’s Eve.

Her Eminence: The Creatrix

Before figuring out what was going on physiologically, a woman’s Moontime was considered tremendously Powerful. Females are the only beings that can bleed for 7 days continually and not die. The roots of the separation of the sexes during Cycle Time was grounded in this honor for Power. Women gathered together to celebrate their Power, take a much needed break from community life and child-rearing, and reconnect with themselves and each other.

For many, many years I have honored this time as a reminder of my unique femaleness and my ability to create new life- whether literally or figuratively. I have enjoyed the bittersweet feeling of my hormones changing, and surging, and my body ovulating. The pain of the undulations of my uterus is a reminder of the Creative Force present in all life of which my body enjoys a fleeting spark. In the weeks preceding my quite (always been) irregular Moontime, I tend to get increasingly focused, very productive, and wonderfully creative. As usual during this time, I’ve been experiencing that intensity in my continued practice schedule, organizing my studio space, creating a gift set, as well as my own set of Oblique Strategies, the amount of journaling I’ve been doing (including transforming this blog into its own daily practice), and finally adding a long overdue Sitting practice to my life.

A woman’s Blood is her connection to all other women who she shares her life with and who have come before her and who will carry on after her. Her Moontime connects her to to the Spirit of Creation: The Creatrix. Celebrate your Power and swear your Moon Blood on sacred objects. Mark your cycles in your Blood on parchment, or fine decorative papers. Find a beautiful cloth, consecrate it, and allow your Blood to flow upon it during meditation or quiet sitting time. Find a calm, private place outside in your backyard perhaps, and allow your blood to run on the Earth. These are Powerful, Powerful acts. These are acts of respect for yourself, your body, your innate creative nature, respect for women who have given birth, for women who have died in childbirth, for women who have chosen not to birth children but Mother a creative or professional life, for women how have adopted children; respect for your sisters, friends, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, both alive and great-great-great, respect for all women everywhere, ever. Your Moontime is what you share with every woman who has ever lived. It is the essence of what makes you physically female. It is your Birthright to draw on this Power from the Great Mystery of the Cycle of Life.

Slow down, relax, let go, allow, accept, nurture and love yourself. Let the field be fallow…make space for new growth. I think, for me today, this actually means napping and coach potato-ing.

..................................................................................

Morning:
Early morning, feed furries, Meowzie happily out on the prowl, tea in Solstice Cat Cup, beginning of a long 24-48 hours of painful cramps: a reminder to slow, take a break, nurture, and love myself, more journaling, and online contemporary role research.

I had put away Amour viens aider ma faiblesse for maybe a month? Yesterday with Roger it was totally rockin’ (if such things rock- well, they rock for me!) - never,

never underestimate the power of taking a break

Evening:

Day spent slothing about. Very painful and achey and nauseous. Difficult. Vertical movement not optional. Kitty hotpad welcome.

Managed a very brief practice time.

Her Imminence

Morning:
Golden Yunnan in the Solstice Cat Cup. Emails, surfings, fiddling with my blog template. Feeling like that is a pointless waste of time. Mooncycle imminent, a hint today. Finally. Sluggish, uncomfortable. Workouts suspended until Mooncycle comes and goes, too painful. Working Jammies on.

Afternoon:
Oblique Strategy random pick: ‘Not building a wall. Making a brick’. Love it! On display in practice space.
Second long steeping of Golden Yunnan during Zazen, then on to warm-up and Afternoon Practice.

Making some good headway on the Rossini cadenzas. There is actually light at the end of the tunnel! It is amazing what happens when I cease to be afraid or intimidated by something and simply take it on in manageable increments.

3:30pm - Cat to the vet, chin skin condition returning, not bad, but I feel like I must keep on top of it. She said to keep an eye on it, but no treatment at this moment. Good news. Chlorhex is suspected to have caused the bad skin reaction that led to the infection and the hair loss. Beware the Chlorhex scrub cat parents! Vet recommends a couple of drops of Rescue Remedy in kitty water bowl for stress- I think I shall partake of some as well!

Late Afternoon:
Off to coaching with Roger and much singing.
Fantastic coaching today. Gobs of fun singing and learning. Marvelous-ness a-plenty.

Evening:
Wholefoods shop and now on to making homemade tomato-beet-veggie soup. Yum. Achy. Backache. Mooncycle on the morrow. Finally. Am trying Rescue Remedy myself and adding a couple drops to kitty water bowl- we’ll see how that goes.
Evening Sitting.
Break from Evening Practice tonite. Time with Dave, kitties, and the delight of watching an episode of PBS Mystery! Brother Cadfael which I absolutely adore. I have a weak spot for medieval herbalist monks solving crimes. What can I say?

Just watched a video clip of Brad Warner’s punk band ODFX. You’ll find it by going over to the right there and clicking on the Hardcore Zen link. I don’t know what to say about punk except we all could use a good shot of that attitude. I want the music that I write to have that attitude, even if it is much, much more docile sounding, and I want my classical singing to have that attitude as well. It’s the same reason I adore Diamanda Galas. It’s not the music so much that appeals to me, but the Spirit of it that is so real, raw and powerful. Gimme me somma that!

A little wine with dinner...

Craftiness

I've decided to journal everyday with disregard to content, much to my readers’ chagrin, I imagine. But I don’t have a big audience here, so this little enterprise is simply for me. If you stumble in here and find nothing useful, or find it all interminably boring, surf on! I’ve taken to the idea of keeping a Crafty Journal, detailing what I do each day. A noticing practice. So now this blog is morphing into something more along the lines of a Guitar Craft Journal. I am a singer and not a guitarist, nor am I a Crafty and I have not studied with Robert Fripp nor with any of the Crafty Guitarists, but I have long been inspired by the work of Robert Fripp and his musical compatriots as well as his Guitar Craft teachings and philosophies. To learn more about the aims of Journaling, check out the Guitar Craft site (follow the link over there to the left).

Morning:
Arose late. Morning tea in the new Solstice Earthenware Cat Cup. Stellar. Various emails, journaling, surfings etc. Reschedule of coaching session, giving me a welcome extra practice day. Trepidations about approaching New England trip keeping me up at night, made worse by encroaching Moontime. I am a slow goer in the morning, hmmm.

I notice when I release something I have been holding that I did not need, that the Universe steps right in and fills the gap with new and unexpected goodies. Even something as mundane as clearing files and bookmarks from my computer clears space for new energy.

Donning Working Jammies. I at least have to get out of Sleeping Jammies and get into Working Jammies. I cannot stand to be in uncomfortable clothing. I am fine in fabulous, fun Bohemian Diva Garb outside home, but as soon as I walk in the door, it’s tanks and sweats.

Spending working mornings with my husband is always a treat. Since we both work from home (mostly) we are in each other’s company, yet separate and whirring away at our own projects.

For Solstice, my friend Neil gave me a delightful book by Wendy Froud to add to my books of Faeries. It just doesn’t get better than that.

Afternoon:
A long re-steeping of Golden Yunnan during Zazen, then on to practice.
Made my own cool set of Brain Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies. In my practice space today: ‘Fill every beat with something’.
Off to meet for project discussions.

Early Evening:
Fruitful brainstorming session. Dinner of homemade black-eyed peas and brown rice (yum). Dying my hair to rid myself of the Ten Tenacious Greys. Damn them. Emails, 'net research. Peppermint tea making.

Evening:
Dave at volleyball. Zazen. Evening practice. Unexpected phone chat and artsy pep talk with Neil. More practicing.

Process

“The creative process is utterly mysterious.
It is magical, unknowable, indefinable.

The creative process is concrete.
It is know-able, do-able, feel-able, available.

Both these statements are true.
Both these statements are contradictory.

Unless we embrace and hold these two equal truths,
we are not part of a creative process.

That is, we are not part of the creative process.
That is, we are not part of the process of Creating.” – Robert Fripp

Faced with two major recording projects that will flower in 2006 and will provide the score for dance/performance projects, as well as my continued practice schedule, I am continually looking for and often relying on inspiration.

Zone of It

I had an interesting experience of balance the other night at my concert. (And the concert was great. I always worry about things that need no worrying! What needs to be worried about? Nothing! Ha!)

Balance is something in life everyone is telling you to establish- like you could just snap your fingers and have a balanced life. ‘Be emotionally balanced’ is a big one. What is that? Ok, I am getting better at it. I have cultivated circumstances in my life that no longer keep me on an emotional rollercoaster, so I feel more ‘even’, but that took a long time.

I have a lot of concepts of balance running around my head, and it was nice to have a concrete, real experience of it. It occurred to me that balance is a range of possibilities within a zone or framework- like walking on a balance beam, perhaps. A balance beam brings to mind feelings of precariousness (it’s not precarious for a gymnast, it is home. Don’t throw me in the briar patch, B’rer Bear!), but walking was precarious when we started out as babies: I like the image of walking being nothing more than a series of controlled falls forward. And from such an essential, demanding task we flower into movers, runners, dancers, athletes, skaters, snowboarders, skiers (ok, I have the Winter Olympics on my mind, and Sunday OLN skiing leading to Torino!). Walking is the essential springboard. I’m willing to bet, though I am no biomechanics specialist, that walking has all the building blocks for every high level activity we are capable of. I am also intensely inspired by what athletes do and how they train: the conditions they create over long periods of time that lead to excellent performance. I love to ski, and I love to watch pro skiers. I followed the Tour de France and boy, are those guys inspiring!. I had a great pic on my desktop of the peloton swooping around a bend. Whenever someone else is absorbed in training and practice, it inspires my own practice habits.

Singing the other night at the concert gave me the experience of not one place or one thing being right or it, but the Zone of It was a grouping of possibilities in the neighborhood. This created an alive-ness that surprised me. I wasn’t going for some static (dead!), perfect (dead!) place that doesn’t exist, and therefore is unachievable. The Zone of It is an intangible, imperfect, alive, real set of choices and places within a framework. Refreshing!

PS. The Baby Cat's chin is healing nicely from the meds!