Bread (and Taxes?) and a Little Bach

You know I've been thinking about where to journey next.

Ever since I spent a year outdoors each day, I've embraced the idea of focusing on something for 12 months. Not in a rigid way. But in a manner that promises growth and surprises.

After the year outdoors, I embarked on an Art Pilgrimage. Along the way, I decided I might spend four whole years with the arts: Visual, Dance, Music, Theater.

When July came around this year, though, I wondered if I might skip Music. I don't know why. I just did.

Until today.

Listening to cultural icon Lady Gaga, I was struck by the complexity of her music. She seems like fluff, and her lyrics are over-the-top and sometimes naughty, but she is linked to the past through sound. I wanted to be able to tell my daughter what these links to the past were. I could sense them, but I couldn't place them— everything from Rock, to spirituals, to classical, to 80's pop seemed woven in and around Gaga's sounds.

That's when I made my decision. I will go with Music this year. As always, I don't know where this will take me. But I can hear, almost like a song, the possibilities.

Beyond sound, there'll be bread, for the girls and I. Last year we focused on Tea and learned so much about it, including how it influenced international economic policy in Britain. We all agreed that bread would be equally enchanting and historical, even biblical.

So the year is before us: Bread (and taxes?), a little Bach and the roots of music like Gaga's. I'm already tapping my feet (and the edge of my plate :).

Crossing Tea and Beads

Sunday mornings I have been wanting to stay home. I cannot explain this, except to say that it feels somehow illuminated by these words from Luci Shaw...

"If our lives are centered in God's reality, we can risk working out from that center in new directions."

The direction I've specifically felt is this sense of wanting deeper communion with my children, around our faith, in ways that feel artful and concrete. Church, for whatever reason, seems to take us away from each other rather than join us in memorable ways.

So yesterday we stayed home. We sat on the side porch and drank red tea from roses china cups. In a book called Tea: The Drink that Changed the World, we read about how Japanese monks developed tea rituals in the 1400's and how these rituals are still practiced "with grace."

Then Sara and I took turns reading from a tiny book called The Rosary: A Journey to the Beloved. We learned that "rosary" comes from "rosarium," which means "rose garden." We learned that the rosary was made popular in the 1400's.



As soon as I closed the book, Sonia declared, "I want to make a rosary!" Sara agreed, and so the beads were brought out.



Over the next hour, beads were joined to beads. Little hands worked to string together the "decades" of the life of Christ— the joyful, the sorrowful, the glorious, and the luminous. Sonia, who often speaks as she works, suddenly said, "Connecting the cross."



I had just picked up Breath for the Bones and encountered this sentence: "There is another calling for the artist, and that is one of linking earth to heaven, pointing the human to the divine, finding the connections."

And I wondered if that is what I've been longing for in my experience of church: the earth side of spiritual life, whether tea rituals practiced with grace or beads that tell the Grace story— and me and my girls actively connecting the cross... from earth to heaven, and back again.




Red, Gold & Garnet Rosary by Sonia. Anchor and LIfesaver Rosary by Sara.

____

Over at The High Calling, we're "connecting the cross," discussing Luci Shaw's Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination and Spirit: A Reflection on Creativity and Faith. Want to join us?

The Balance Between Discipline and Freedom

Last year around this time, I made two decisions—one to continue with my art pilgrimage and focus on dance, the other to begin a tea pilgrimage with my girls.

As the year comes to a close, I know that I lost a little heart for dance once I had to stop taking ballet. I've done some reading, of course, including paging through Dance Magazine. I bought a book on visualizing, which was very helpful. It asked me to pretend I was a fountain or a light or a volcano or whatever, while I tried to live into a certain dance sequence.

This morning, doing some stretching, I remembered another bit of advice from that book: to imagine the direction and angle one is going in, at least a split second before making the move. It provides a surprising ease for the body, as it prepares the body for the actual moment. The opposite I'm sure you have felt. Maybe you go to reach for something on your bedside table, just as a reflection bounces off the mirror on the other side of the room. Your attention moves to the mirror, while your body reaches to the table. Ouch, now your neck has a sudden feeling of minor implosion. You need a little massage.

So it is good to stick with your direction, at least for a while.

The question is, do you want your whole life to be about reaching towards the bedside table? Maybe that is what you need for a while. A small movement in a small space, towards a familiar circle of scented lotions and hair bands, the picture of your daughter (or son), the lamp with the dangly pink crystals.

But maybe it is not.

Maybe you need your cotton pillow and the way it gives to the weight of your head and neck. Maybe you need the soft threads of your ivory sheets, and the shadows they make when you pull them over your shoulders and up over your hair. Or maybe you need something altogether different. The yard is calling from outside the door and down the red oak stairs.

It is good to stick with your direction, at least for a while. It provides an ease of emotional movement and makes you more effective in whatever you're reaching towards. Still, all it takes is a new moment of deciding... this, this is where I'm going now. Song instead of silence, the rosary instead of breath prayer, a journey into art instead of sitting with chickadees.

I am not sure where I will reach now that our tea pilgrimage and my year of dance is coming to a close. Maybe I will just pull my sheet up for a little while and dream before I move.

The Fitting Dance

I've been reading The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. And it is opening something in me. Last night I read about a drummer who was thought to be non-musical by his teachers. A mathematician who was deemed unpromising in math. And others who couldn't quite find their niche through the framework and direction of guides. I haven't read about any dancers who were thought to be non-dancing material.

But I think that person might be me.

The author was talking about how dancers use "muscle memory," and I thought about how I cannot copy someone else's choreography, nor even remember my own. It's like my brain is absolutely stumped. If stupid has a feeling, I've experienced it deeply when it comes to trying to memorize moves and reproduce them in some kind of predetermined sequence. My muscles, if they have memory, can't seem to remember in a conventional way.

Yet I have feelings deep inside that respond instinctively to music, that understand how to give shape to sound.

This morning I was going to exercise, and instead got caught up listening to some newly discovered music by Vassilis Tsabropoulos. Before I knew it, I'd closed the shades and begun dancing in front of the mirror. My hands became birds, then a kind of tailor pulling thread from wrists, knees, and my open mouth. It made me feel like both laughing and crying at once. I felt I could do this forever.

But I would never remember how to do it again. Not just this way. It would always be new.

Is there such a thing as an improv dancer? If so, maybe I am one. I don't know how I would grow in this. Perhaps just by shutting the door and the shades, and letting my spirit dance free.

Two (Dance) Steps Back

It must happen on all pilgrimages. People start walking, then something stands in their way.

Last June, as part of my ongoing art pilgrimage, I began taking ballet. I wasn't great at it, but I was making progress. I was strong and flexible and having fun. It even amused me to think about someone at my age aspiring to tutu-hood. :)

Then in the Fall I became very ill and was completely immobile for three weeks, then barely mobile for another three. I figured that when it was over, I'd go back to business as usual. So I returned to the ballet barre sometime in the late Fall.

By Christmas, I began to get discouraged. I hadn't realized what a setback I'd suffered from immobility, and had tried to keep on as if nothing had happened.

It had.

I was no longer strong and flexible, and I started to injure myself. I couldn't even sit cross legged on the floor anymore. Well, I may not be a spring chicken as they say, but I've always been able to sit any which way I like. When you can't sit according to your whims anymore, something's got to give.

So I've stopped dancing.




Well, at least I've stopped ballet.

There is some sadness in this, and I'm not sure I'll go back. I've also realized just what a non-dancer brain I possess. It's not about grace in movement, it's about the way I can't seem to speak back with my body when I see the teacher speak with hers. I think it might be a proximity/visual thing, because I sure enjoy mirror-dancing with my Littlest (boy do we have fun).

Anyway, right now I'm contenting myself with reading books about ballet. Yesterday I read one about Martha Graham's Appalachian Spring. Somewhere in it, they noted that Graham said the body always tells the truth, and that's what she was aiming for in her dances. I'm aiming for that too. And I don't want my truth to be injury.




We'll see where this new road goes. If nothing else, I have an after-dinner dance date with my Littlest a few nights a week. That girl can twirl. And I'm happy to lend her a steadying hand.


Photos of the book In the Wings: Behind the Scenes at the New York City Ballet.

The Seeing Prayer

I open Ann's book.

"You will want to see this."

I had just closed Juliet Benner's book Contemplative Vision, where I'd marked, "From its beginnings Christianity has been a religion of seeing."

Stand by and see the salvation of the LORD
Behold the beauty of the LORD
O taste and see

Ann's husband is the seeing-guide, pulling her away from dishes, carrot peels, prayers weary.

"He leads me the impossible distance of a whole two steps to the windowsill. I'm transfixed."

And within moments he releases Ann to the night, to the fields, to the moon. I think on this. To be the one who releases others into seeing. Is this not a holy thing? I think on this. Who in my life opens me to sight? I think on this. Do I believe that prayer is sometimes as simple as the lived-prayer of go-see and come-see and I-see?

As a child of El Roi (God-who-sees), I think on this.


Quotes from Chapter 6 of the beautiful book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. Scriptures in order of appearance: Exodus 14:13, Psalm 27:4, Psalm 34:8.

Talking Back: Playing Towards God

As you know, I'm going through God in the Yard. This week I finished Chapter One.

The author said I could pick an idea that was new to me, and blog about it. I chose the idea of playing towards God.

Too often, I think we work towards God— try to orchestrate every last thing, try to be productive, make a "profit," prove the business of our souls.

Playing feels different. It is a trusting thing which says, "Let's see what comes." It is (perhaps) more prone to rhythms, shifts, songs, images.

For me, the rosary is going to be a new way to play towards God this year. I don't know what I'll find along the beads, but this week I found my pastels again, after many, many months...

The Rosary

The mysteries—the subjects of contemplation that one moves through as one prays each subdivision of beads—are related aspects of Christ's life: five glad events, five sad events, five teaching events, and five glorious events.

— p.xiii, The Rosary by Garry Wills.

One Year Later

I checked the date of my very first Art Pilgrimage post. Tomorrow marks one year.

One year since I began in spite of feeling like an impostor. One year since I bought pastels. Can you believe it?

I hardly can.

And I am not ready to end the journey.

This coming year will be different. The visual arts will still be with me, but I am moving on to the art of dance. It seems fitting that today I went to the library and found books on ballet (and a spicy looking memoir on tango). I also picked up two films, one on Jerome Robbins and one on Martha Graham.

Can I tell you I never foresaw where this Pilgrimage would take me?

I'm in it for at least another year. And who knows where it will take me still...

Dancing with the General

Some people can change a whole room by their presence.

That's what she did yesterday.

My regular new acquaintances weren't at ballet. But she was.

I had never met her before, and as I took my place at the barre I felt uncomfortable, like I had no business sharing this space with her.

Was it the way she literally looked down her nose when she talked to the teacher? Or maybe it was the way she strutted like a General across the floor, shoulders back, each sway of the hip a declaration or a dare.

I felt tears rise. How could it be that I wanted to cry like a little child and run out of the room? I purposed to ignore her, but it was work. I accomplished less in her presence. I thought maybe I should salute her and say, "Yes, General Noriega."

It was a reminder to me of how fragile beginnings can be. And how we must not let things get in our way. And how we must try not to get in the way of others who are beginning things that long ago became second nature to us.

Tomorrow, if The General is there, I think I will pretend I'm a child picking daisies and offering them to the air.

Dancing on Spec

What does it take to dance?

Maybe the same things it takes to write.

Julia Cameron says she writes on spec. In other words, she doesn't need a guarantee that her writing will "go anywhere." She gives herself permission to simply write for the joy of it. When counseling a writing friend who is afraid of looking foolish, she reminds, "All we need is the courage to do the next right thing."

I have been thinking about this before Julia said it. I have been thinking about what it takes to play piano, study French, dance ballet. All these things have required permission from me. Permission to do one thing at a time. One more scale under my fingers, one more foreign phrase, and now one more pointed toe.

To the fearful writer friend, Julia also says, "Don't worry about being new. Worry about being human."

Translation...

Don't worry about being Chopin, worry about feeling the notes. Don't worry about working as a translator, worry about the way French caresses the heart. Don't worry about being Nutcracker material (slim, graceful, strong), just worry about embracing the surprise of movement.

Go ahead, I hear Julia say. Play, speak, dance on spec. The delight is yours.

After The Dressing Room

Yesterday I was happy with my body.

Today, not so much.

Shopping for ballet leggings can do that to a person. Suddenly the shape of my legs was made real by black cotton, running from ankle to thigh and onward, hugging all the way.

Tomorrow I am going to try to be happy with my body again. Or maybe even this afternoon, if I find it in me. I think it will come to this: remembering there is art in this body, art that wants to reach through my fingertips, touch the ceiling.

I should have known that an art pilgrimage would go all the way. Ask me to love everything about me, on my way to loving the world.

Let me begin with my feet then. I like the way they curve when I point my toes. I won't try to love more than this for today. Just my feet. And the way they curve.

The Art of Moving

It was a snap decision. I looked up the details on their website, dialed a number, left a message for Connie.

When I told a friend about my intentions, I said I had just decided "yes" last night, after Connie called me back.

But maybe I had been wanting this for a long time. I've been on an Art Pilgrimage and the thought has crossed my mind that sometime this art might need to move to my body. Maybe I would need to learn what it is to be a dancer.

Reading The Artist's Way, I remembered (as Julia asked me to) what I had always wanted to do as a child. I remembered that if life had been different I could have continued the ballet class my grandmother paid for (and I went to only for a short time). I remembered that I have always wanted to feel the air with my fingertips and toes, in just this way.

So I called Connie. And she said, "Come."

I did. Today.

First position. Second. Third. I remembered these. I watched. I tried. For long moments I was completely lost. I know some French, but not the ballet teacher's words that tell me what to do. At some point it occurred to me that, yes, there is a sequence. Everything to the front, now to the side, then to the back. I found little ways in, even as I got lost along the way.

"Move like a queen," she said. "Majestic."

Okay. I will never be a dancer among dancers. But I can pretend, just for a while, to be a queen.

A Date Long Due

Yesterday I was alone.

I considered feeling lonely.

Then I decided I had better things to do.

I went on a date.

With myself.

First I tried to find a park I'd heard about. I couldn't find it. I ended up in a nursing home parking lot, overlooking the river. I parked in the sun. It was too hot, but I put my seat back and I took a nap. When I woke, I pulled out of the drive and noticed these seeds. Of course I had to get out of the car and take time to explore them.




Not to be defeated in my search for the elusive park, I eventually sort of found it. Except I couldn't find my way by road. So I left the car in a strange empty lot near the highway, and I walked. I found this tunnel. It was sweet to listen to the echo of two voices at the other end— friends hiding from the sun, maybe hiding in each other on this warm afternoon.




At the end of the tunnel, I saw wild roses. I love the way light infuses petals.




The park was smaller than I'd hoped, and crowded. I moved on to another park. As it turned out, it was crowded too. People with people with people. I went alone to a shady hill and listened to all their sounds. I listened to the birds. Closed my eyes, napped again, sat and dreamed, wrote. I pointed my camera towards the river, then towards the sky and enjoyed my time with them, with me.



Sunday photos by L.L. Barkat.

Just for the Fun of It

When I started this Art Pilgrimage, I didn't have any rationale I understood. It was just for the fun of it.

And that is why I am reading things like this enormous book on Art History. I can't give you a single good reason for it. I have no plans to be a curator, an art historian, an art history teacher.

When do we stop doing things just for the fun of it? When do we begin doing everything in life for "a reason"?

I don't know. But I'm done with that. I really am.

But here's the strange thing. There have been "outcomes" connected to my pilgrimage. Ones I didn't foresee. Ones that go past amorphous (and wonderful) happenings like personal satisfaction and spiritual awakening.

In a convoluted path that would take too much room to explain, the Pilgrimage led to a poetry book. Then someone wanted to buy one of the art pieces I posted here (I gave it away... why not? :) And, most recently, another piece was chosen for an art show in Germany. Um, what?

I am not saying all this to try to impress you (we have a different kind of relationship than that, I hope). I am saying all this to give you a nudge. Are there things you've been wanting to do "just because"? Do they seem frivolous, out-of-place, hard to justify or explain?

All the better. These are deep places. Why not... jump in.

Together in the Woods

Remember when I said I am not alone on this journey?

It's true.

This past week I found new companions, Amanda and Julie (daughter and mom poets).



And I received comfort from someone I've known on-line. Oh, but wasn't it great to see, to put our hands together, Kathleen?



Who knows where we'll keep traveling together after meeting at a conference, in the woods of California. Who knows...


Redwoods and Hands photos, by L.L. Barkat.

Going Bookless

All right. I did it. I went bookless for the week.

Cameron wanted me to do it. She said I would probably balk. She was right.

What was I supposed to do in lieu of reading? She suggested knitting (I used to do that; I find it tedious now), gardening, playing an instrument, and other things I can't remember. She promised I would find something important. I'm not sure about that. Though sometimes it takes a while to discover what has just happened in our soul unawares.

I did find two fire poems which I have been looking for a really long time (one still stashed away, waiting for the collaborative touch of Kelly Langner Sauer.) I found my guitar (again... I seem to lose track of it over and over, but I wanted something to put my voice to, so I found my guitar). I played piano, cleaned (a lot, a lot and can't believe how much I could still do if I were so inclined; if you are reading this, RM, know that I am terribly jealous of your clean, peaceful house :)

Mostly I found permission.

Reading is something I often feel compelled to do. It's even part of my job (I did read a little here and there on-line, but I curbed it as much as possible). It felt freeing to know I wasn't allowed to read, as much as it bugged me too (how many times did I reach for a book, then just sit down on my bed and do nothing, while I tried to re-envision who I am through what I do?)

I didn't much like going bookless. Yet I did find those things I may not have otherwise found. So I'm thinking I might do this again sometime.

Right after I read a few good books.

Whimsy at My Feet

Did I tell you about my purple toe nails?

I painted them dark pearly purple.

When I kick off my slippers at night, I swing my feet at the edge of the bed. And I look at my whimsical purple nails.

Cameron says that when we go through The Artist's Way, we'll see changes in ourselves. We might clean out our closets (hey, I did that already! How did she know?) Still, she forgot to tell me about the nail polish. I am SO not a nail polish kind of girl. But this seemed right. A private indulgence. An odd beauty, like keeping irises in the closet and not caring that no one can see them.

Is this why God made iridescent sea creatures that creep around the ocean floor, making the dark beautiful to no one in particular? If God were a girl like me, sitting at the edge of the bed, would God choose a lick of purple polish too?


Candles at 56 Irving Place photo by L.L. Barkat.

5th Date

I travel to New York City to attend IAM's Encounter conference.



Where should I stay?

Any other time, I might choose a rectangular room, indoor-outdoor carpeted grey, with faux flowers on the desk (these rooms always have a desk, ask you to work while you are away).



But I decide that maybe I can find an Artist's Date in where I stay.

So instead of a hotel, I choose The Inn at 56 Irving Place.

When I walk in after dark and am greeted by a friendly host named Scott, when I smell the fresh flowers and see white orchids cascading in a peaceful bouquet, when I see the dark wood and high ceilings and antique furniture I know this was the right choice.



It is a place I can read poetry (and I do). It is a place where I can sleep deeper than I have in a while (and I do). It is a place that revives me. Leads me to write poetry...


56 Irving Place, Gramercy Park

for Sarah Haliwell and Neruda

I love your poems. I held them in a dark room, gardenia scented,
lit only by a candle bulb peering over an aged bed. The headboard
and the footboard were dark too, and carved. Sheets white and soft.
There were sirens outside, muted by plaster, old oak, a mirrored
wardrobe in the corner, tall and gently imposing. I took a picture
of me in slate blue nightwear that looked almost Japanese, loose
as the garb that strong men wear for taekwondo, but shirred like
a lily at the short sleeves. Before I took your words to bed,
before I dreamed.



In the morning I sit by myself in the breakfast room. Vivaldi's Spring, or something like that, plays while I eat whole-wheat artisan bread, cheese, raspberries, blackberries. I use a whole pat of butter on my toast. Jasmine green tea warms my mouth, opens me with sweet fragrance.



And I feel oddly alone and whole at the same time. The way Sarah's poetry simultaneously retreats and surges...

how I long for a heartland
root-bound and simple
tideless
surefooted
but then again oh

I do so love the deep


Inn at 56 Irving Place photos by L.L. Barkat. Excerpt from Sarah Haliwell's poem "watermark", used with permission.

4th Date

This kind of day asks you to come along. How can you resist? It is the easiest date. You needn't plan a thing.

The boundaries between you-as-adult and you-as-child become a blur. You walk into white and laugh. How can it be? How can the world really look like this?

You climb the small hill. Trees creak, branches threaten to break under weight of snow. The child in you doesn't care.

So you take a chance and, like Alice, you fall through a hole, into another world...









Snow photos by L.L. Barkat. For PhotoPlay, at HighCallingBlogs.

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3rd Date

This past week... was like one long Artist's Date. Airports and snow at one end of the date... airports and sun-going-down at the other end.

New York, Pittsburgh. Beaver Falls.

A chapel with 1300(?) students, listening (and not :) to my thoughts on Ash Wednesday. An inn with a golden, long-haired dog named Roo (and me with too much black wool clothing to keep hair-free).

Doors, paths, walkways. Rooms, tables, dishes. Lamps, fireplaces, gatherings. Poems, lots of poems. And poets. More than you would think.

It will take time to trace and retrace, to understand. For now, I am simply, beautifully overwhelmed with the gifts. And excited by the unwrapping to come.


Geneva College Library Door photo, by L.L. Barkat.