Welcome to my blog.  I am glad you found me.  You might be new here, as I have been in the process of deleting facebook and I have offered this blog space as a way to keep in touch with me, to visit virtually.

I am chest-deep in this process of leaving facebook.  It is messy, like a super nova event.  Like the birth of a star, or the particles that are birthed from a black hole.  I understand why it is so hard to leave facebook, as I have been in this boat that is so pointed and sure for awhile now, yet even in all my clarity around this decision, there have been so many moments when I want to put my oar in and do a hard about turn.

It is much harder to leave than I had imagined, yet I do have faith that there is an end in sight.  After I unfriend or 2104 people unfriend me, after I meticulously delete all of my posts and pages and untag myself.  Yes, there were easier ways.  Yet what surprised me the most about this process is that I have so many friends on facebook that are dead.

As in, not alive.  They died, and either did not have their fb wishes known, or they died and did want a memorial page.  I realized that if I just leave, my name and connection to people on facebook through our "friending" will withstand the tests of time, it will remain until either I or the other person actually clicks "unfriend". It was hard to see all the people I had lost in the last 11 years.  To click unfriend, to let them go.  It was hard to see their faces again, to be reminded of the loss, again. 

It is hard to click unfriend to people who did not reach out to give me their address in my overflowing and well-loved "back to the 80's" address book.  I have had to come to peace with letting people go, without any clear way of reaching them.

A peace.  A resolve.  A hope, that at the end of this process, I will know it was the right thing to do, with absolute clarity.  I do strongly feel that this is the right thing to do, not just for me, but for others who know me, who are connected with me. 

As I am writing this, I have a stack of 200 blank postcards and 200 ready to go stamps.  I have about 200 addresses in my address book, a lot lot more than I had "way back in the 80's", when I was a young girl filled with all the hopes and dreams.


these are the days

when one takes a stand

as others watch her fire burning strong

all alit

all  in the center of the sun, swimming

swimming

sun swimming

these are the moments

where one listens to the nudges of spirit and dreams of Ancestors wrapped around

as a blanket

one is obedient, clear and steady

the place where the hard becomes soft again

these are the days


I am looking forward to the moments where I share with you, in person.  Perhaps performing, maybe it is a phone call.  Maybe I am reading poetry or dancing, or we see eachother in a convention hall or at a restaurant.  Maybe it is when you get your postcard in the mail, and your heart smiles big.  And that big smile moves towards me, like the ocean moves towards the edge.   Yes.  Thank you for you caring about me and my work, my visions and thoughts and dreams.  I feel you, and I keep the fire burning.   Thank you for sending me energy hugs and love balls that stick to the .undersides of my feet.  Thank you for throwing protective elements around my home, around my loved ones and my doggie.  I feel it, I know this love.  This love of connection and friendship, two stars beaming next to one another in the sky.  Thank you.

I have been making hard changes in my life lately, switching myself into a higher spiritual gear, making commitments to my health and spiritual growth and keeping them.  One of my internal resolutions has been to wake up and meditate for at least 10 minutes a day.

It is funny how a habit begins to form, how the cellular memory starts kicks in, and through a simple decision to "keep at it", the body finds its way to support and kicks in the practice when the mind might want to do other things.

This is what happened to me this morning.  When I awoke, I started to play on my phone, a habit I am soon to break.  Yet after I read news from the "good news" site and checked my decaying social media presences, I sat up in bed, needing to go to the bathroom.

Yet, the moment that I sat up, my body clicked in to "meditation mode", because I was sitting upright on the place where I meditate each morning.  I held my bladder and immediately went into my meditation practice, remembering to set a timer for 10 minutes.   I listened to my body, and I took the time, resisting my bodily needs for a moment.

After the 10 minutes were up, I went for another 5 minutes.  By then, my doggie was starting to whine a bit, reminding me that he has bodily needs also.  As quickly as I could, I began the series of motions and sang a "good morning" song in the process, getting myself ready to take the dog on one of his two long walks of the day.

We found ourselves at our dog park, where the day before, I had found a place in the trees, away from the main trails.  A place where green spongy moss is surrounded by trees.  Yesterday, I had sat on the super spongy moss  and meditated for 15 minutes, as a continuation of my bedside morning breathing and letting go.  Yesterday, my butt got wet, as my doggie darted back and forth, waiting for me to be done sitting still.  

Today, I thought to bring my rain poncho, so my butt wouldn't get wet as I sat.  With my  "good morning" song still resonating in my brain, I began to meditate again, this time for 15 minutes, as my doggie darted back and forth, pulling a root up from underneath the moss nearby, chewing it off into a stick to play with.  At the end of my time on the moss, I played tug of war with the stick my dog had  fashioned for himself, until it broke in two.

These are the songs of new habits forming, taking hold, like new ice that forms on a small pond.   Sikutchiaq.  

I am that new ice, forming as part of the cycle of the seasons.  As I let go of what no longer serves me (like social media), I discover new spaces, and new ways to sit to give my spirit what it needs.

Tavra.  (that's all)

Above is a photo of me and Paula Larke, an artist of whom I deeply respect and admire.  As part of the training, I was honored to witness her perform not once, but twice.  Her work, her presence and her love for her audiences impacted me and my artistic processes in ways that which I do not yet have the words. 

I was recently blessed with the opportunity to be a part of the 2019 cohort of the Art Equity National Facilitator Training, which was held over two sessions in Atlanta, Georgia.  I recently got back from the second and final session, and now I am considered to be an Art Equity Alumni, which connects me to a larger network of previous cohorts.  Before too much time passes after my experience, I wanted to share a few brief reflections on my overall experience of being part of the training.

​To give some context, as an artist, when I think about approaching a new piece of work, I start from the end feeling, the feeling that I want my audience to walk out of the door with when they are leaving the venue.  Everything for me in my process begins with this feeling at the end, and from this understanding, I work my way from the beginning towards that feeling.

I wanted to share the above, because the end result of my deep participation in the Art Equity National Facilitation was one of the most transformational of my life.  I went through a journey that engaged me to my core and challenged me to dig much deeper into my healing process. 

At the end, I felt a sense of connection and community, of the promise of more connection and more conversations that push towards growth.   I do have to admit at one point I had to make a personal choice.  To either look into the mirror and see myself exactly where I was at and make hard and necessary healing changes, or to not.  It was not easy, and I am still learning from the entire experience, still healing, making adjustments and growing.  I am very grateful for the entire Art Equity National Facilitator experience, all of the uncomfortable moments that pushed and challenged me, and all of the new friendships and new pathways in my mind that were opened up from the experience.

Thank you to the facilitators that held space for our 2019 cohort.  And thank you to my fellow cohort members.  We did it! 

Quyanaqpak.  (thank you very big)

 I have made a dramatic decision in my life recently.   I have decided to unplug, delete, withdrawal from all of my social media accounts, with the end date of November 25, 2019.    This decision came to me over about a year in time of thinking, doing research and personal reflection.  This is a big experiment in my life, one that I intend to keep for at least two years.  After two years of absence, I may re-evaluate.  I am keeping a relationship with you tube, but in that relationship I will vow not to look at the comments of any of the videos that I watch and I will monitor how I access videos on youTube.  It is a process.  

Right now, I am reaching out on facebook, snapchat and instagram, giving people a "heads up" of my departure.  I am also deliberately keeping an old fashioned address book,  methodically writing down the physical addresses, emails, phone numbers and sometimes birthdays of those that I want to keep in touch with, or those who want to keep in touch with me.  One idea I have around keeping physical addresses is picking a few people from the book and sending them a postcard from one of my travels.  Another is to craft an end-of-the-year letter, or perhaps a beginning-of-the-year letter to all the folks in my address book.  Also, when I have my next show opening or performance, one idea is to send notice through snail mail and perhaps email, depending on the individuals in my network.

I am also committed to post more here, on my blog, where you are reading right now.  I feel that on my blog, I can give more context to my thoughts, ideas, movements, reflections.  It will be my own way of keeping people who are interested in what I am doing "in the loop" of my personal and artistic journeys.  A one-stop place for audio, video, photos and writing.  

My biggest internal resistance so far is letting go of twitter.  I have built a strong relationship to the medium, having developed a way of communicating there that is unique and authentic to me and my voice, by creating twitter poems.   Because of my biggest relationship to twitter and my reluctance to leave, I will give myself until December 24th, 2019 to extract myself from that social medium.   I need to slowly extract all of my poems, document them and find ways to point my followers to this blog medium.

I am so excited about this transition.  I am looking forward to keeping a more regular blog, as a way to share who I am and who I am becoming.  Thank you for coming along with me for this journey.