As you may or may not know; at the beginning of this summer I moved from a hilltop home that looked over Santa Fe into town along the Santa Fe River. This river seems to be very stimulating for me, feeds me creatively. Here is some writing from this summer; hopefully more to come threw the changing seasons ahead.
June 6th
Look what the dog brought back from the river dear…
Maybe i am my own dog and i wont need to get one. I remember as a kid one of my favorite things to do was to cruze the garbage cans in the allies of my neighborhood. I felt like a pirate out on a treasure hunt. I grew up near Lake Michigan in the Chicago area. One time walking on the beach i found an old metal fireplace mantle. I made my brothers friends come bring it back to my house. Another time it was a giant wave warn stump, must have weighed over 100 pounds. Wonder if that stuff is still sitting in my old yard?
So there is something familiar for me when walking in this Santa Fe River. Today if i could have brought back the porcelain kitchen sink i would have. At one point in junior high i thought i would like to be a garbage person, instead i dated one.
Today was my first walk in the river since moving into my new place. I was just giddy when i found the plump white heart shaped stone. Felt like a good sign. And it felt important to carry the piece of wood on my head on the way back. It forced me to keep my eyes off the ground. For some reason I’m really into the river warn tile pieces, i have collected some of those before when I was on the coast of Mexico. I loved imagining the travel they may have had across the ocean; or were they local?
There is something so right and thrilling for me in being in this environment that is a mixture of nature’s beauty & humans garbage. While I have always loved human garbage, it has been a long time since I have allowed myself to walk in it and feel the old delight it can give me. It feels symbolic of this move from the ridge tops of Santa Fe to this new location on the river. Making peace with my own humanness - faults and mistakes. That somehow it is actually all that that makes us/me a creative alive being. Not a static, still monk or God sitting on top of a hill. But someone curious about life and willing to take risks and make mistakes; able to walk with other humans and actually appreciate their unique faults instead of hiding, running away or shunning them.
I am worried that with the new river clean up they will remove the old beat up cars that make up the sides of this rivers walls. Trees and flowers now grow out of them. They have become a moist oasis for plant life to grow out of, our garbage creating a place of refuge for nature.
As i was walking and contemplating what all this garbage means to me and why i find it so inspiring, i couldn’t help but think of all the oil washing ashore in the Gulf. That too is our garbage, and I don’t feel the same about that mistake! If I could some how see the amount of oil that is in our Santa Fe River i would be outraged. So I do have limits and boundaries to how much garbage feels acceptable. This felt like an important realization about myself. I don’t want people to continue dumping their cars and sinks in the Santa Fe river. In fact when i saw fresh brand new sneakers i felt a combination of sadness and fear. Sadness for the person that lost their great sneaker and fear that their may be a dead body that goes with that sneaker. And, i have swum in rivers in India where they dispose of their dead, along with feces. Culturally it was expectable, so i went along with it and i could feel the holiness of that water. But in general India crosses the line for me, or the lines are too blurred, between sacred and garbage. For example cows walking around with garbage bags stuck hanging out of their anus. “Sacred” cows live on the city streets in India and eat whatever they can fine. They are basically the garbage collectors. Too much for me.
I had the thought while walking that the Santa Fe River is a garbage collector for Santa Fe physically and spiritually. She takes our sins away, or leaves them in the banks to be a reminder of what we have done.
When i thought of the river as purifier, it helped me to understand why i have limits to how much garbage is acceptable. I know when i start feeling too toxic emotionally, physically, psychically, i do something to unload the burden it creates within me and around me.
There is a way that i can find forgiveness for my mistakes and use them as compost or an oasis for new growth in myself. But there are also times when it just becomes too much, all systems become clogged, the river can’t even flow, and then I have to let go, clean out. That’s what moving out of my old home was, a big river clean out.
My friend Ana wrote a blog about forgiveness and our collective consciousness around oil and the spill. It is a good question. How do we collectively and individually forgive and clean out? We probably each have different degrees of tolerance as well, so how can we unite about that then?
Look what the dog brought back today dear… an oil-covered pelican!
Reading other peoples blogs is new for me. I’m finding it interesting to see how we stimulate each other, it feels like it become a collective writing experience. Instead of sitting in smoky filled pubs in Paris having deep philosophical conversations, we now write alone on our computers, but we are still touching each other, maybe even changing each other… And actually in real time i would not be able to respond quick enough to be part of such a conversation, it can take me a few days to digest someone else’s thoughts and to feel what my response it independently from theirs… well now this is getting into a whole other conversation, save that for another day.
The river brought in a lot today. I think I’m going to like living here!
In case your interested here is my friends blogs:
http://jellobrain.com/blog/jellobrain/donald_vidrine
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| my collection for the day |
July 5
River Reveals me
I am loving the sensation of coming home from the river with treasures. It reminds me of long ago, hunting and gathering and coming home to a family that is excited to see what I have brought back from the wild for them. That which will feed, nourish and warm them.
I feel there is a key here to understanding what it is I am looking for in my creative explorations & expressions. I want the sensation of going out, out into the wild chaos of the creative unknown and then a feeling of coming home, home with something to share and that makes sense of the wildness, something those that I love will benefit from.
And this Santa Fe River is giving me so much more than these physical treasures. I am starting to feel her winding sandy bed in my own psychic body. There is a way that she is teaching me about my own creative nature.
She is helping me to gently open, to have faith and respect for the random river of my own creativity. And I am feeling the pull to follow it, float on it, splash a little, play in the mud and what ever else needs to happen in there.
And today, I brought home a piece of rebar. It was all twisted into a shape. I saw in it the curved form of a reclining woman, my muse perhaps.
This evening as I walked, I enjoyed seeing how the recent rains have changed the shape of the riverbed. There are places that used to be full of stone that are now full of sand.
After walking for 40 minutes, I saw what looked like a mirage from a distance. As I got closer all my senses peaked with excitement. Was this man made or flash flood made? Was it a sculpture in the middle of the riverbed? All of a sudden I felt as if I was walking upon someone’s secret romantic beach 4 post bed! It seemed there should be candles it felt so intentional. I looked around half expecting to see two naked lovers present. At the base of each post was a bouquet collection of garbage and twigs, rapped around the post like a clinging lover. One post had what looked like romantic silk fabric tied to it, now floating in the cool evening breeze.
I find it so curious the stories that my eyes see, what would yours have seen?
The obvious randomness of all those pieces coming together in a flash flood, it does feel sensual to me; how they find each other, how they cling to each other, sometimes entangled elaborately other times precariously balancing. They seem to reshape and twist themselves so that they can be connected to one another and not swept away down the river.
Ah, the river, my eyes, they do reveal so much about myself how I see, how I feel, how I create, how I love.
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| my rebar dream muse now floats above my bed |
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| Four post bed |
7-24-10
Walking with dog….
well... i was walking in the river as i do... and coming towards me off a ways was what looked like a red coyote. We were both cautious at first and then at the same moment it was as if we both recognized an old friend. He came up and sniffed me, i noticed he had a thick substantial collar on, i thought of checking his tags but somehow it felt too intimate. He then kept trotting the way i had just come from. I watched and was thinking, "wonder where he's going?" he stopped and looked at me as if to invite me. So i followed. And he continued to stop every so often to be sure i was following. He seemed like he new where he was going and it felt nice to be led somewhere. In fact i even started to tear up a bit, can't really explain why, except that it felt like an old familiar sensation to follow the pack leader.
We were both getting pretty wet in the steady rain and my house was coming up so i started to walk towards it and stopped in front of the gate. He was still up ahead and then stopped and looked at me again. It was a bit of a stare down; i wanted to get in out of the wet but i new he wanted to keep going. I put the big rock down i happened to be caring and caught up to him. As we came to a paved road, he slowed his gait and walk right next to me. We started to approach a busy intersection, as if in a trance he walked right into the busy street! I screeched, “stop!” He was disoriented and luckily the car was able to stop in time. By the time all that happened a woman on the other side of the road had gotten out of the car and was calling to him to come. I was very confused. The car with the lady had been sitting there for a while and had obviously seen us walking towards that busy street. It ended up being her dog! He jumped into her big black Jeep and she waved at me, and yelled across the road that he had run off because of the thunder. The whole thing just felt very strange! How did that dog know she would be there? Why didn’t she stop him from crossing the street sooner? Why did the dog want me to walk with him? Why did I want to walk with him? As I turned away back towards my house I said in my head, “those crazy lesbians and their dogs!” How did I know that was a lesbian? Just wondering, did I save that dogs life?
7-26-10
The river moves me and yet,
i still cling
i am it all...
water, bones and flesh.
it seems curious that my river only flows after a storm or in the spring from the snow melt.
The river was rushing earlier. I entered it when it was a stream and as i traveled down river it turned into a trickle and then only pools.
My intention today entering was to observe impermanence. I saw much of that! But i found when taking pictures... my energy felt as if it was clinging to what i saw. My eyes hurt. I loved taking the photos, but now i feel i must go back and just move with her, dance. Be the energy of the river rather than capturing her. And so perhaps i answer the question i posted earlier today, what it is to be a dancer for me... to be... to be energy in motion. To move with, with my energy or the energy of other.
hmm... i feel full of the rivers energy now so that i can dance. Before i entered i did not feel alive with energy.
So much to learn here!!!
Photos to come later…
