Push It

Click To Play

The ongoing artist-contemplative dilemma -

Flip-flopping like a netted fish over whether Rules are the thing needed to help break boundaries or whether they are keeping one from doing so.

Frida's Birch

Click To Play

Almost three weeks ago, our cat Frida disappeared. Maybe she ran off and joined the bunnies - or the bears- or the wild turkeys - or the trio of deer. She's vision questing, or bird calling, or pilgrimaging to her birth place. She's crossing the Tappan Zee now.

Or she stayed - like I want to, long into the night, looking - right up the hill from the house - and looked up between the birches and saw two eyes looking back, and her mercurial energy is now fueling a young brood of fishercats, her bones mulch for red maple saplings. I can't help looking for her.

Perspective

Click To Play

"When one of us gets lost, is not here, he must be inside us.
There's no place like that anywhere in the world."

- Jelaluddin Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

if you can

Click To Play

Friday I drove down into Mystic to look for presents for the dancers in my piece at the Dragon's Egg Solstice Event - Marya, Ara, and Martha, and Felix who helped with the music. At the Emporium I found flexible beaded sparkly rings - red, violet, orange, blue and green - for toes or fingers, or just to place on pillows. I bought them, folded them in a loose loop of tissue paper, and walked out. Later when I went to wrap them, the green one was missing - a fifth extra, to keep - I dropped it, or it slipped away from me - on the sidewalk, on the way to the car, or maybe even inside the door of the store.

Martha's Red Doors

Click To Play

In New York City at the Henry Street Settlement, on the top floor, are two beautiful little studios I have been rehearsing in with Nick Leichter. I think - I hope - they are the same spaces that my ancestors in dance toiled in - Anna Sokolow was a student, Martha Graham was a teacher, along with many others - but these are the ones that stick in my imagination when I'm in the space. Martha liked to come through a different door than her students, so I imagine these red doors were her imperious entryway. They are only red on the stairwell-side, and are Orbis Push Doors, patented June 14, 1910.

Thresholds are important spaces - every single part of them - doors, hinges, cracks and keyholes. It is also a grace to be in the presence of a piano tuning.

Cut Grass

Click To Play

Reflection is one of the keys - a big secret - as is the inevitable destiny to burn up. The burning heart is the ultimate reflector, but there are countless others: the moon, prisms, mirrors, cameras, and even freshly cut sunlit June grass.

Something tells me - the night sky - "You must become much more wild." How?

The longer I stay. The longer I look - at the moon, the silhouette of tree, the night sounds, the ember of fire. This indicates wildness.