Editing Day

This is what I'm doing today. (I sadly do not own this mug, but probably should.)

I have a deadline tomorrow evening. And it's a deadline that nobody other than me would even know about if I did not say, "I have a deadline," because in the grand scheme of things, it affects no one other than me. I either submit the thing or I do not. After dancing around this for several days, I think I will submit the thing.

But the thing I have decided to submit is not at all the thing I thought I was going to submit in the first place. This is largely because of the aforementioned figurative dancing, wondering whether or not I was actually going to submit the thing. So now it's a different thing. It's a different thing to submit to the same place.

The fact that I am writing this blog entry about the thing rather than working on the thing should not be seen as destructive as I, in fact, needed a palate-cleanser before going from the first thing into the second thing. Like a cup of tea. Tea or something similar in a mug that I own, but does not resemble the mug in the photograph, except perhaps in use. I am done now with my palate-cleansing. As you were.

It's a wonder I get anything done at all.

planting (dream) seeds

Dream Seed

I have a number of friends traveling this week: one headed to Costa Rica, a second headed to Spain, and three dear ladies in Paris. I am sitting on my ass on a meditation cushion in Manhattan as my passport gathers dust. Don’t feel sorry for me. Okay, maybe feel sorry for me a bit. Saying no to “Is there no chance in hell you could come to Paris Feb. 4 - 8?” when I have frequent flier miles was kinda hard to do. 

If I’ve been focusing on budgets and such lately, it is not without reason. Things have been a little tight over here. If you’re a creative person with any intention at all of putting the fruits of your creativity out into the world, there are some start-up costs to be had. And if you’ve been pursuing the arts for a while, chances are you’ve managed to accrue some semblance of debt. So what I’ve been doing is paying myself forward…and finally, responsibly, paying myself backwards. And looking backwards at my finances is not unlike looking at a small town after it has been decimated by a tornado. The long and short of it: clean-up has begun, and there hasn’t been a lot of extra money in the budget for fun, much less travel, so apologies if anyone’s wondering where the heck I’ve been. 

In the interest of not becoming a complete shut-in, I’ve recently reinstituted the weekly practice of an artist’s date. If you’re familiar with The Artists’ Way and the work of Julia Cameron, the idea will be familiar to you. In a nutshell, what you do is you take yourself - just you, no friends, no significant others, just you and your happy self - for a small adventure. The goal is to treat yourself and your interests as if these things are a priority...because, you know, they should be.

The “date” can be simple or grandiose, expensive or free. Maybe you take yourself to the library and check out a book on ancient Mesopotamia, just for fun. You could go to the museum to see the dinosaurs, or drop into a knitting class for beginners, or go to a movie that you really want to see by yourself, or pick up an adult coloring book and some colored pencils, or check out a gallery reception and enjoy some free wine and cheese with your outsider art. It’s about making time for yourself. It’s about filling the well. 

My buddy Lisa - one of the aforementioned ladies in Paris - reached out to me before hopping on a plane bound for CDG this week, and asked if I’d like her ticket to an event at a yoga studio on 13th Street. I hate to see a ticket for any cultural event go to waste, so I said yes. This is how I found myself flat on my back, getting saged-and-feathered, at a shamanic sound-bath experience at The Integral Yoga Institute. 

The ritual in question was performed by Dream Seed of the Golden Drum community based in Brooklyn. Dream Seed is a loosely-formed band of students and musicians studying with an elder of the Taino tradition across the bridge - who knew. In a spoken introduction beforehand, one of the students performing made the point that, very often, people use music as an escape. He invited the participants to work with the music internally, as certain sounds and vibrations might stir up or activate some latent energy within us. At any rate, after 90-or-so minutes of experiencing wave after wave of live musical improvisation on instruments from all over the world, I stumbled out onto the sidewalk and into the night, relaxed and reeking of incense.

You can check out some sound samples of Dream Seed’s work here. My recommendation: close the bedroom door, light a candle or fire-up some incense, kill the lights, cue up some sounds, and treat yourself to a 20-minute savasana. It may not quite be Paris, but you can still tell yourself you’re at a hookah bar in Montparnasse.