Pitchfork Hugs

In my last post I mentioned falling into obscurity, not meaning to sound negative, but there is the obvious lack of work and dramatic months-long pauses between posts. I have vocalized not finding our people in Omaha, accidentally blaming Omaha, but it's really been going on since we left our little home in the national forest surrounded by California desert to live a life on the road (that only lasted three months before we were taking care of grandma in Saint Diego). In all reality, neither of us have worked with any photographers or models but each other since about 2001, as a family, on family adventures, because that's all that really matters. 

These two beautiful souls are our life. We have gone out of our way to not only make sure that they are safe and happy, but that they have the charmed and magical childhood that we didn't get. They have experienced more in their first decade than a lot of people experience in their entire lives. They have been raised with love and absolute emotional care. I am fully aware that the average person might look at our artistic lives and nomadic, gypsy hearts as something detrimental, but I can assure you that we are in all of this for them. In fact, I have written that the only reason we're even in Omaha is because they wanted to have a public school experience, which we couldn't do in California because ... well I'll just leave that one alone. Of all the places and options we had for public school, Omaha looked the best. I can also assure you that because of this public school system, we have been forced to have some pretty uncomfortable conversations with our girls about things they heard at school and at friends' houses because we have done such a good job of sheltering them from so many things.

That wasn't a hit on this public school system, or even remotely about the particular school our girls have attended, at which everyone has been absolutely amazing.  It is a basic understanding of public schools in general, and the way this society is conditioned, which is why we went to significant lengths to avoid it. The girls wanted this experience, so we are doing the best we can to navigate that minefield, and both of them are thriving in their own ways, so we keep navigating (secretly hoping that they will get tired of the silly drama and want to just travel the world with us, homeschooling themselves).

To get to the point, Omaha has finally discovered our creative life, and it is being presented in a less than favorable light amongst few, whilst also being accepted and celebrated by others..... more the latter. Upside is that we no longer feel like we need to tiptoe around who we are and what we're about. Downside is that we have at least one sharpened pitchfork aimed right at us, and we are standing strong, as a family, with open arms, because we know that such attacks are always driven by fear and pain and suffering and trauma, and we are not about that.

We are about love and understanding and tackling the pain and suffering head on. I have spent years serving a medicine that helps souls dig to the root of traumas and purge them, and my partner works amazingly with special education kids , which is a job I always knew she would thrive at because I know her beautiful soul, and I know that she speaks their language because of her own pain and suffering. 

We are about raising our girls, in a world that objectifies women, with natural, non-sexualized, body positivity, while also teaching them to respect their bodies and have healthy boundaries, and to love themselves and be powerful goddesses, without being dependent on others opinions. There is a basic rule that goes along with being our kind of naturist: if you don't want to see someone naked, don't look at them; if you don't want to be naked, don't take off your clothes. We have at times been given fear driven slack for taking our girls to nude beaches (where they are free to be naked or not. no one cares), but I can tell you that the people we've met in those environments have been some of the most beautiful and genuinely kind souls we've ever met. I can tell you with 100% confidence that they are safer with us at the beach than they would be in most churches, and I have no problem saying that, even in Omaha. 
I think it's time we all start looking deeper into different windows, until we start to finally see the beautiful reflection of ourself.

I would also like to add that the only reason I post photos of the girls on this blog is because that's what it's become... our family. The people who still read my ramblings have been following us for years and have watched these girls grow up here, because that's who we are. 

This is us.

... and also, the Bible was written by gypsies, wandering through the desert, living in tents, and teaching that the world doesn't have to be how everyone else told you it's supposed to be.

Let's go shoot something, Omaha. I'm tired of pretending I don't exist.

Spooky Action At a Distance

"The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics assumes that the phases of these waves are such that once an observer perceives an event, it cancels out waves from the event that continue later in time and also cancels those parts of the wave that come before the event emits the wave. Thus, the only thing left that is detectable in time is the wave between the time the event emitted it and the time the observer received it.

As it happens, that exactly corresponds with what we observe physically." ~ P. 118

The summer is over. I feel like the year is almost over. Not much has happened on the creative front. Everything is work and the girls. That sentence looks a lot more fun than the reality of it all. Most of the time it feels like I'm running from work to school stuff or vice versa. V is in middle school now, which starts earlier, so I drop her off at school with her best friend on my way to work in the morning. The summer was packed with activities, topped off with another trip to Indiana to visit the fam there, which was amazing. They are such good people. 

On the drive there and back we stopped in some cool spots, including a brief visit to the infamous Gary, Indiana, which has been on my bucket list for a while. We drove around and saw some of the epic abandoned spots, but only shot in the Hollywood Famous Methodist Church. I could've spent weeks in Gary, but this was the last leg to Amish, Indiana, so we only spent hours in this crumbling maze of 20th century hate and fear, disguised as good will. I'll simply sum up that whole story by saying that as the pigment challenged (white) parishioners got old and died, the church had to fold, and remains today as a funded garden.

I really wish I had the time and resources to back a dump truck up to that church and clean it out. I'm a little shocked that no has done that yet, especially with close to a million dollars granted to clean up projects by the city. It is fair to assume that it had been significantly cleaned up, but was vandalized in a way by negligent projects and residentially challenged, which is always a shame. The Garden aspect of it doesn't look even remotely cultivated. It looks like any other building that has been reclaimed by nature.

So, on top of the money that was invested for clean up, I also wonder what happened to the money that was invested by the city to make it an established "garden."... and why am I not applying for such grants when the work is obviously so minimal? I feel like I've gone on a little too long about one spot in this post, but I'm sure anyone reading this understands our obsession with abandoned places like this. I do also have to thank my goddess partner for forcing some of these stops to happen on this drive, because my creative inspiration has been sputtering, especially since we moved to Omaha.

We keep talking about how we need to do more creatively, but every day existing seems to take up all of our time and energy. Even when we do find little places and time to shoot, little to none of it actually makes it to this public platform, primarily because my lack of inspiration leaves me with nothing to write about. Maybe I'm reading the wrong books right now, when I do get a little time to read? Maybe we are just juggling one too many balls in this leg of life, and lose too much time picking up the balls we've dropped?

The opening quote was the first thing in my current reading that popped out at me, and the title is an Einstein quote describing the phenomenon, neither of which really relate to this post. I should've been writing about the abundance that I'm calling in and making opportunities like this an immediate part of my reality, which is also happening if we step back and really see it. Life remains beautiful, no matter where we are and what we're doing. While I often feel overwhelmed by the mundane, and at a loss of inspiration, our map of pinned places is filling up pretty quick, and is swiftly spreading across the states. I am grateful for that, and for this beautiful little family who enjoys exploring these places with me... and for days off from work because my daughter is sick so I can actually take a deep breath from the constant barrage of movement and activity to wrap my head around little posts like this.

Invierno Numero Uno

 "The true horror of existence is not the fear of death, but the fear of life. It is the fear of waking up each day to face the same struggles, the same disappointments, the same pain. It is the fear that nothing will ever change, that you are trapped in a cycle of suffering that you cannot escape. And in that fear, there is a desperation, a longing for something, anything, to break the monotony, to bring meaning to the endless repetition of days."

- Albert Camus, The Fall

I think we can officially say that we have survived our first Omaha winter, and it really wasn't that bad, though just about everyone agrees that the winters here have not been as intense as they once were. The worst of this winter was bearable, even with a job that had me on the streets. There was an ice storm in December that was pretty shady, but for the most part, it was so cold when it snowed that it was like piled dust that you could clear away with a leaf blower.  We did accidentally miss this last storm, though, because we happened to be on an exotic spring-break vacation in Kansas City. We continue living the dream.

The Love That Will Not Die

"On the journey of the warrior-bodhisattva, the path goes down, not up, as if the mountain pointed toward the earth instead of the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward turbulence and doubt however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. 

With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is our heart- our wounded, softened heart. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die. This love is bodhichitta. It is gentle and warm; it is clear and sharp; it is open and spacious. The awakened heart of bodhichitta is the basic goodness of all beings." ~ Pema Chödrön

The recent video we did about how we met got me thinking about the book that I happened to have with me when we found ourselves in Wonder Valley, Comfortable With Uncertainty. I decided it might be time to revisit this beautiful little book of 108 easily digestible meditations, which isn't even on the list of notable books published by Pema on Gampo Abbey's website. I should probably expand my Pema library, but this is the work that found me in that moment, for reasons and from places that I can’t possibly remember, during a time in my life when I was going through beautiful books like toilet paper.

I needed the books, and I needed to translate everything on that blog every day to process all that information. That is something that has slowly disappeared from my life, and I miss it, but I also don’t. I am ready for the next movement of my life to find me and flow, but I still have no idea what that looks like; I am still sitting in how everything is supposed to be and waiting for that synaptic explosion of our collective evolution into everything and nothing.

That makes sense, right? *upside-down smiley face*

I should probably mention that while I am dabbling with Pema’s little rays of sunshine, I am also still trying to process Dispenza’s Becoming Supernatural, so the one who is watching me have this human experience is wondering why the human me experiencing this is watching the one and all who is watching wonder why the human me is reading Pema again while struggling to be the human me watching the witness witnessing this.

……….. I know.

Just….. bear with me for a little bit.

Color in Dreams

I dreamt the other night that all my ceremonial whites were stained by color bleeding from the washer, but it wasn’t my ceremonial whites, it was my regular clothes that were stained different colors and patterns, and I had to bleach all my clothes to get them white again. That could mean anything from feeling like I’ve lost that “ceremonial white” attitude, to dealing with the institutional mourning of my medicine family.

In that same sequence of dreams, there was also one where I took all the color stickers off a Rubik’s cube and polished it so that it would be more cool and unique for the girls, only to realize that I could no longer solve the cube with no colors to guide me. The base cube was, of course, black… and useless without color, which I had previously removed from my whites.

I’m getting mixed messages here, unconscious.

The River

This is my advice to foreigners:   

 call it simply—the river;

 never say old muddy

 or even Missouri,

 and except when it is necessary   

 ignore the fact that it moves.   

 

It is the river, a singular,

 stationary figure of division.

Do not allow the pre-Socratic   

to enter your mind except

when thinking of clear water trout   

streams in north central Wyoming.   

The river is a variety of land,   

a kind of dark sea or great bay,   

sea of greater ocean.

At times I find it good discipline   

to think of it as a tree

rooted in the delta,

a snake on its topmost western branch.   

These hills are not containers;   

they give no vantage but that   

looking out is an act of transit.   

We are not confused,

we do not lose our place.

~ Michael Anania

Nine of Art; Six of Heart

erodes the line between being and place becomes the place of being time and so the house turns in the snow is why a ghost always has the architecture of a storm The architect tore down room after room until the sound stopped. A ghost is one among the ages at the edge of a cliff empty sails on the bay even when a ship or the house moves off in fog asks you out loud to let the stranger in ~ Cole Swensen