New Vision forming

I'm starting to dream again. About art, about artists, how we can create something innovative and soulfully satisfying. Am starting to feel a curatorial pull...

A show about beauty, the human spirit in all its forms and conjugations. Elegant. Lyrical. Perhaps it will ultimately be a show about decay. Or birds.

Perhaps I will curate it and have it hosted in my backyard, and then film it for Youtube, in sequences.  That appeals to me. As the work falls to the weather and changes, the dynamic of interaction and the ultimate witness. Is that the artist, is that the viewer, the birds?

Ah, the birds again. Must rent the video. I date myself, I mean the DVD.

Lately, feeling like we can create dynamic awareness through conversation that is indirect.  By that I mean, lets take the time to read each others blogs, and react. Start a chain reaction, your idea kindles my idea kindles another idea. Do we need to talk to eachother? I dont' think so. But is that not really the relationship we should aim for? I'm not sure. I liken it to a fireplace - lets put another log on, and see the colors burn.  And then what is born within? Ash?

I guess I have a yearning growing for transformation. I want to see it, feel it, taste it, curate it.

Strange musings for an early evening in late January. Time to make dinner.

Don't ask, I really do ponder these ideas. A Pisces moon is a strange creature.

The Beauty of Community

I think a lot about the state of things..art, spirit, love, family, vision, cats.... and community.

I've been talking to Dave for years now about the need to invite in and enhance our community.  We can be a bit isolationist, happily so but perhaps not dharmically correct. With the coming collapse of the world as we know it, the pressing importance of building, sustaining, enlivening ones community is calling our name.  All of us, not just the personal us. The way forward is presence and inclusiveness, not exclusiveness. I am, you are - the same. All together.

I always come back to the rightness of the universe as it is. Not a platitude that is easily swallowed.

I'm trying to learn as much as I can about the trends that are unfolding around me, and the ways I can be most helpful to those around me. My clients, my students, my loved ones. Those I don't know and will never know. I don't think it matters really. Community is really anyone we turn to and say "i'm here for you". Maybe we are all strangers to each other, and yet, 'I'm here for you". Something totally beautiful about that.

Talked today at the lecture about community, about integrity and authenticity. Business mind bridging to creative mind. I believe all that I say, funny. I do. Lovely crowd today, honest creative beings - who will do important work as they are ready. Sometimes I think that all we need is to be re-inspired to live in our truth, motivated to enact what is real from within - and then all will be ok.

The creative spirit. Naturally forming community. Leading us - as within as is needed. The collective artistic vision will be an interesting manifestation of our times. I look forward to being its witness.

2010

I truly believe we are in for a very difficult passage this year. But such is life on the earth plane. If we incarnated during this time,  then we are karmically and dharmically right for this time. We face the rebalancing with an open heart, and a deep breathe as we let go of our attachment to the "known".  I toast my loved ones with uncertainty, and meditate on the Law. All is as it will be , should be, is was and will be.

Join me in a glass of red wine if you will, and play a video game. What the heck. Human conscious living should be fun if it is anything as we learn to let go and deepen.

So , when my sister sent this chain letter to me - I thought - wonderful. This too shall pass as wisdom, and why not?

I happily share it:

HANDBOOK 2010

   Health:
   1.       Drink plenty of water.
   2.       Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
   3.       Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants...
   4.       Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy.
   5.       Make time to reflect.
   6.       Play more games.
   7.       Read more books than you did in 2009.
   8.       Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
   9.       Sleep for 7 hours.
   10.      Take a 10-30 minutes walk daily. And while you walk, smile.

   Personality:
   11.    Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
   12     Don't have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
   13.    Don't over do. Keep your limits.
   14.    Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
   15.    Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
   16.    Dream more while you are awake.
   17.    Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
   18.    Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with His/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
   19.    Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.. Don't hate others.
   20.    Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
   21.    No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
   22.    Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn.  Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
   23.    Smile and laugh more.
   24.    You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree....

   Society:
   25.    Call your family often.
   26.    Each day give something good to others.
   27.    Forgive everyone for everything.
   28.    Spend time w/ people over the age of 70 & under the age of  6.
   29.    Try to make at least three people smile each day.
   30.    What other people think of you is none of your business. 
   31.    Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

   Life:
   32.    Do the right thing!
   33.    Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful. 
   34.    However good or bad a situation is, it will change..
   35.    No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up..
   36.    The best is yet to come.
   37.    When you awake alive in the morning, be thankful.
   38.    Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.

   Last but not the least:
   39.    Please Forward this to everyone you care about, I just did.

Positive Outcomes are Always Possible

As 2009 comes to an end, and we all prepare for 2010 there is so much to share. The world around us and our sense of self within it is in such a major transition.

I am a half filled glass type of person. I believe in the creativity of the human spirit and integrity based heart felt balance. I also see hardship and discord and suffering. How to do we reconcile living in the rightness of the universe as it is without hiding our heads in the sand?

It comes down to a few basic ideas I think, at least it does for me on this snowy new years eve morning.
The first is integrity.  To do the right thing. If with every action I take, I put integrity first and try to get out of my ego's need to .. the need to be right, the need to be first, the need to be best, the need to be better than you, the need to be separate from you and on and on and on..

The second is to be calm and peaceful within. Centered and at home with the realization that I am more than my personality, that I am here on planet earth to be conscious and universal and live the truth of my being as it unfolds.

The third is to be kind. In kindness we are true to our generous heart and fair. It does not mean be soft, it does not mean be blind. It means live in the realization that the inherent reality of our lives can be rooted in a kind ground that is strong, flexible, and fair. In kindness lies a poignant beauty.

And last, make art - live art that is beautiful. Live beauty, make beauty, honor beauty.  A good conversation is beauty, an open heart with a sad friend is beauty.  Not surface beauty, nip and tuck botox got to be thin beauty, but the beauty that moves you to tears. A dance, a symphony, a painting, a story. True Beauty. It is one of the values of the human spirit, the resonance with beauty that connects us and makes the world evolve in an everlasting essential sigh.

I hope to live in 2010 with a deep breathe, integrity, inner peace and calm, kindness, and create the beauty that inspires the spirit to new heights. I wish you the same.

Thankful for life

Holiday times are funny - presents and family. I love the spiritedness though of folks around me.  I am so very thankful for my life, for the light that runs through my being - all of my existence seems to simply imply a steadfastness of being. If I can simply continue to be an open hearted soul, sharing my vision, my energy, my love of being with those I come in contact with - then there is meaning in my life.

I don't really care if I can buy anything, or sell anything. I am my art , I am my spirit, I am the love that I aspire to transcend and realize.

Life is good.  I wish all a bountiful inner awareness that all is as it should be, as it is - and we are enough.

Seeing things Knowing things

Seeing things, knowing things  10" x 15" (c) Rhonda Schaller  oil on unstretched canvas Collection of the artist

It is so important to let go of unwanted ideas, past assumptions and what we think we know. I told a class I taught last week, that I hoped I died having unlearned all the things I think I know.  The seeds we plant in ourselves blossom and burst forth. I love my changing consciousness. I feel as if I grow simpler over time.

I change the titles of my paintings often, especially the ones I still own. It seems quite fitting to me that the one above should shift its perception of reality as I have.  A new awareness rising from my heart reflected back from the canvas.

Have been reflecting a lot on the conversations I have with the students and alumni I mentor at SVA. I am so fortunate to be able to give to them the truth of me. I get so much back in return. A beautiful soul, a masters program student told me in a session that my inspiration to others has become my artwork, a living breathng work in progress. Such a beautiful sentiment, a great gift to me. I have much to be thankful for as I unlearn my life.

I have been spending some time looking at the work from the last year or two. They teach me so much each time I look them. This one is "Manifest/Unmanifest". It reminds me of the primordial sea. There are times I try to make sense of the universe, as if simply being present isn't enough. Then that order, that control or grasping for it - finds its way into a landscape. As if I can imagine the world of absolute energy having a foreground and background, rather than a total expanse. And we float - and rise - and transform within our own realizations of life. Awareness is like that - if I am depicted as a rising container which I am within and without simultaneously - then I am both my personality and the spirit expanding beyond it.