I'm starting a series of videos and podcasts for my Wisdom, Vision and Craft Class.
Here is my first test video. A breathing meditation. Any and all feedback is welcome!
http://www.screencast.com/t/ZjZlNDc2
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Lunar Eclipse - Grand Cross
Intense energies tonight and forever. Living on the precipice, we are. How to help?
Breathe.
Remember that we are not the body. We are not the mind. We are not we. I am that. And that makes me "we". Lovely in its simplicity really.
Dave and I walked along the beautiful Hoboken waterfront today - talking about life in the dream. We are all living in the illusion of reality, the dream. Perhaps it is enough, that awareness. Perhaps our duty to humanity, our neighbors is to recognize that it is a dream, and help maneuver the best we can within it. Until, such time as we are dissolved within it. And then, both inside it and outside it.
Then all that would matter would be the breeze.
I like that.
Breathe.
Remember that we are not the body. We are not the mind. We are not we. I am that. And that makes me "we". Lovely in its simplicity really.
Dave and I walked along the beautiful Hoboken waterfront today - talking about life in the dream. We are all living in the illusion of reality, the dream. Perhaps it is enough, that awareness. Perhaps our duty to humanity, our neighbors is to recognize that it is a dream, and help maneuver the best we can within it. Until, such time as we are dissolved within it. And then, both inside it and outside it.
Then all that would matter would be the breeze.
I like that.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Meditation and Visualization Class: Wisdom, Vision and Craft
I am so excited about the Hoboken group starting next week. Artists coming together to meditate and visualize life connecting with heart connecting with spirit connecting with their creativity. Everything comes around to inspiration and manifestation.
I feel inspired.
I've created a google group for the class:
http://groups.google.com/group/wisdom-vision-and-craft
If interested, let me know
I feel inspired.
I've created a google group for the class:
http://groups.google.com/group/wisdom-vision-and-craft
If interested, let me know
Saturday, June 19, 2010
One must make shift with things as they are
After walking downtown from SVA, I wandered through the Housing Works bookstore on Crosby street. One of my favorite used bookstores and cafes. I can never figure out the cafe hours though, and it seems to be always closed when I'm at the bookstore. But, you can sit at the cafe tables anyway, and read, drink the water you have in your bag, and absorb the great vibes of this store. I love those wonderful books and mahogany bookshelves.
I usually buy a $1 book and find some treasure or another that I can then give as a gift to a friend. My latest find is "A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There" by Aldo Leopold, illustrated by Charles W. Schwartz published 1949.
It starts with "there are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot."
It made me think - who am I? Am I one who can or cannot? I am drawn to wild things - and frightened by them. Long to loose myself in the natural world and yet I hide in cities - have my entire life.
He says "conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."
"Land is to be loved and respected because it is an extension of ethics." It is right. Simple. I like him.
I was so moved by this. Perhaps as the world experiences ruin in a continuous death gasp of modernity, our sham recovery and unadvertised depression, we, the creative, the spiritual, the everywoman/man will voluntarily reconnect with inner and natural value. We can develop an ecology of spirit in line with Leopold's observations of 60 years ago. I think. I hope. I'm not sure. I don't like camping. I don't like bugs. But I do love the open sky, and the open ocean. And watching National Geographic.
" ...whatever the truth may be, this much is crystal clear: our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy. The whole world is so greedy for more bathtubs that it has lost the stability necessary to build them, or even to turn off the tap. Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora of material blessings. Perhaps such a shift of values can be achieved by reappraising things unnatural, tame and confined in terms of things natural, wild and free. "
Natural, wild and free. I'm game ( no pun intended). Maybe I can let myself be wild. Perhaps all I need is curiosity, and I don't have to camp. Maybe I can just open my eyes to the natural world, and sit in the silence that is true, and in that complexity and simplicity that is real - make shift with things as they are.
As long as there are no bugs, I think I can do it.
I usually buy a $1 book and find some treasure or another that I can then give as a gift to a friend. My latest find is "A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There" by Aldo Leopold, illustrated by Charles W. Schwartz published 1949.
It starts with "there are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot."
It made me think - who am I? Am I one who can or cannot? I am drawn to wild things - and frightened by them. Long to loose myself in the natural world and yet I hide in cities - have my entire life.
He says "conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."
"Land is to be loved and respected because it is an extension of ethics." It is right. Simple. I like him.
I was so moved by this. Perhaps as the world experiences ruin in a continuous death gasp of modernity, our sham recovery and unadvertised depression, we, the creative, the spiritual, the everywoman/man will voluntarily reconnect with inner and natural value. We can develop an ecology of spirit in line with Leopold's observations of 60 years ago. I think. I hope. I'm not sure. I don't like camping. I don't like bugs. But I do love the open sky, and the open ocean. And watching National Geographic.
" ...whatever the truth may be, this much is crystal clear: our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy. The whole world is so greedy for more bathtubs that it has lost the stability necessary to build them, or even to turn off the tap. Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora of material blessings. Perhaps such a shift of values can be achieved by reappraising things unnatural, tame and confined in terms of things natural, wild and free. "
Natural, wild and free. I'm game ( no pun intended). Maybe I can let myself be wild. Perhaps all I need is curiosity, and I don't have to camp. Maybe I can just open my eyes to the natural world, and sit in the silence that is true, and in that complexity and simplicity that is real - make shift with things as they are.
As long as there are no bugs, I think I can do it.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
I am a C S A advocate
CSF - means community supported farm. We recently joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) group in Hoboken, sponsored by the Catalpa Ridge Farm in NJ. Farmer Rich and Sue have been growing "real" vegies for 15 years as a CSF and I cannot tell you how happy I am to be eating and cooking for my family from their bounty.
In addition, the CSA movement fascinates me. Imagine - a group of families (150) pay Farmer Rich and Sue upfront so they can plant the fields and grow food for us that is not poisened, modified, genetically interferred with, just "is". And as a cook, to eat and touch live food, I have been ecstatically cooking all week. Even Elia ate salad all week, and Dave and I have kvelled over each and every vegie.
There has to be a model here for all of us. As the world turns and changes, and falls apart, how can we as artists also create a CSA (community supported artworks). There must be new models that can be created. We know how beauty soothes the soul, how art is the heart of renaissance in life.
I know if we all 'sit on it, pray on it, think on it" ( thank you Boston Legal) we will intuit a new way of sharing , promoting, making a living as and for the artists in our souls.
With the collapse of '10 underway, it is up to us. No one will save us but our intuition and joining together, somehow in groups that of common purpose, common image, common intent... I don't know yet, don't have the image yet - it is foggy. But it is forming. I can feel it taking hold. I look forward to joining with those whom I resonate with, and those I don't (ah those karmic lessons) so in light and positive practicality we co-create what is needed.
Art is needed. CSA - community supported artwork
Open to suggestions.
In addition, the CSA movement fascinates me. Imagine - a group of families (150) pay Farmer Rich and Sue upfront so they can plant the fields and grow food for us that is not poisened, modified, genetically interferred with, just "is". And as a cook, to eat and touch live food, I have been ecstatically cooking all week. Even Elia ate salad all week, and Dave and I have kvelled over each and every vegie.
There has to be a model here for all of us. As the world turns and changes, and falls apart, how can we as artists also create a CSA (community supported artworks). There must be new models that can be created. We know how beauty soothes the soul, how art is the heart of renaissance in life.
I know if we all 'sit on it, pray on it, think on it" ( thank you Boston Legal) we will intuit a new way of sharing , promoting, making a living as and for the artists in our souls.
With the collapse of '10 underway, it is up to us. No one will save us but our intuition and joining together, somehow in groups that of common purpose, common image, common intent... I don't know yet, don't have the image yet - it is foggy. But it is forming. I can feel it taking hold. I look forward to joining with those whom I resonate with, and those I don't (ah those karmic lessons) so in light and positive practicality we co-create what is needed.
Art is needed. CSA - community supported artwork
Open to suggestions.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Creative Visualization and meditation class for artists staring June 30th
I'm delighted to announce that I will be running "Wisdom, Vision and Craft" a creative visualization and meditation class for artists (and their guests) on Wednesdays from 6:30 - 8:00 pm starting June 30th - July 28th.
I have always believed that spirit, peace within, presence and art making can go hand in hand. As vision makers, we have access to realms others do not see or sense, yet we do not understand them nor know how to bridge the material plane with the artistic plane with the spiritual plane that underpins it all.
This class will try to create bridges for that process so that artists can develop business mind, spirit mind and open heart mind all at the same time. Class will incorporate talks on astrology, trance, vedic philosophy and healing principals to create and maintain balance in life and feed creative input. Visualization topics will include careers and success, managing fear and anxiety, aligning meaning, inspiration and purpose, plus others.
My intention is to create a place for artists and creatives at heart, to come together under one roof, to evolve, discuss matters of the heart and spirit, and use meditation and visualization as a tool for awakening and strategic living that is reasonably priced and of lasting value.
5 classes from 6:30 - 8:00pm. Class will meet at my home at 924 Castle Point Terrace, 2nd Floor, Hoboken, NJ. At times, weather permitting, we will meditate together in the park by the river next to my house. The class fee is $75, or you can come on a class by class basis, stop by if you are free and there is room for $25 per class.
Hope you can make it. Let me know if you would like to reserve a place. Email me at rhonda.schaller@gmail.com
For those out of town, I will be doing this class in the Fall 2010 and Spring 2011 via teleconference and webinar
Friday, May 28, 2010
Wisdom, Vision and Craft
In my advancing years, I've come to understand how little I understand. And that is such a joyous feeling. Sounds strange, but it is so liberating to feel like a frog in a well who has jumped out of the well.
Of course, I jump back in all of the time. To be human is to search for stability, what is known, what can be counted on. I counsel clients on managing fear of the unknown all the time, working with fear has been an element of my work forever.
I love how Dave puts it "all we can be certain of is uncertainty, and our goal is to allow our intentions to reside in consciousness, and all will be as it is, as it should be". It makes me go ahhh.... I love that. Most of my clients don't go "ahhh..." when I tell them that, so clearly I'm not doing that quote justice. I used to teach workshops on letting go of fear of the unknown, I think I will add that to my list of " what I might start teaching in Hoboken this summer".
I've learned, as many have, that the essence of letting go is surrender, and the path always leads to surrender. Letting go of the need to control that which cannot be controlled is freedom, and freedom is wisdom. It seems to me that to cultivate wisdom, we have two natural tools at our disposal. Vision and Craft.
As creative beings our vision sustains us, guides us, connects us to consciousness in meditation and if we are lucky, in the present moment. The intangible essence of our lives.
Craft is our ability, in "human time", to shape our vision in the material world, our actions, and put our work in the world out into the world. The tangible manifestation of our lives.
So putting the three together, Wisdom, Vision and Craft creates a road to balance, evolution and peace within. I like that. Maybe that's what I'll call the first class I teach in Hoboken this summer.
I'll add it to my list.
Of course, I jump back in all of the time. To be human is to search for stability, what is known, what can be counted on. I counsel clients on managing fear of the unknown all the time, working with fear has been an element of my work forever.
I love how Dave puts it "all we can be certain of is uncertainty, and our goal is to allow our intentions to reside in consciousness, and all will be as it is, as it should be". It makes me go ahhh.... I love that. Most of my clients don't go "ahhh..." when I tell them that, so clearly I'm not doing that quote justice. I used to teach workshops on letting go of fear of the unknown, I think I will add that to my list of " what I might start teaching in Hoboken this summer".
I've learned, as many have, that the essence of letting go is surrender, and the path always leads to surrender. Letting go of the need to control that which cannot be controlled is freedom, and freedom is wisdom. It seems to me that to cultivate wisdom, we have two natural tools at our disposal. Vision and Craft.
As creative beings our vision sustains us, guides us, connects us to consciousness in meditation and if we are lucky, in the present moment. The intangible essence of our lives.
Craft is our ability, in "human time", to shape our vision in the material world, our actions, and put our work in the world out into the world. The tangible manifestation of our lives.
So putting the three together, Wisdom, Vision and Craft creates a road to balance, evolution and peace within. I like that. Maybe that's what I'll call the first class I teach in Hoboken this summer.
I'll add it to my list.
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