On the Road Again

Claudette Gamache, pastel painter, shares some her techniques with us during the MFA Weekend Seminar at Heartwood College of Art.
Photo by Bonnie Faulkner

It's amazing to see a pastel painting from the beginning (note red/orange base layer in previous photo) to the near finished creation. What a transformation!
Above: Pastel Landscape by Claudette Gamache.

Photo by Bonnie Faulkner

Back in Lubec in my own studio, I have begun encaustic painting on the surface of my "chakra pods". This six-part sculpture is far from done....Check back later on for the finished work!

While packing sake sets for a gallery, Bouli thought it might good idea to pack herself in a box.

New gallery, IRONBOUND, located at 37 Bayview Street, Camden, will be carrying my pottery work. It's an amazing two-floor space and I am excited to be on board! (due to open Spring 2012)

IRONBOUND owner, Joy Armbrust, shows off her enthusiasm for power tools and the remodeling process in her new Camden gallery. I think you can tell from this picture that she exudes much optimism, gratitude and "joy" for this new adventure.


ANNOUNCEMENT
Lubec Arts Alive
A short film by noted filmmaker Jon Wing Lum
depicting a community-inspired week of art

Mural painted during Lubec Arts Alive 2009 under the direction of Natasha Mayers, located at the Lubec Historical Society. Funded in part by a grant from the Maine Humanities Council and the Maine Arts Commission. Photo by Goodman/Van Riper Photography.

Featuring
Union of Maine Visual Artists and the People of Lubec

Tune in to watch it on ABC TV
Sunday, March 25th, 3:00 PM
Airing on WVII out of Bangor
Warner Brothers Channel 8, Dish or Satellite Channel 7
Viewing area Rockport to E. Millinocket / Oakland to Machias

This 36 minute film documents the one week residency of thirteen artists in Lubec, Maine to "art-up" the town. Artists including Robert Shetterly, Natasha Mayers, and Kenny Cole, Rose Marasco, and Richard Brown Lethem joined Lubec community members to create a history mural and installation art for businesses. Over thirty portraits of local personalities were created and oral histories documented.

"Lum's film is a poignant portrayal of artists, art making, and sense of place in a small town during the summer of 2009."

I missed a week of blogging and am now "on the road again" trying to sneak in an hour or so to get my thoughts down on paper. Well, not paper. Keyboard and screen more like it. The past two weeks have flown by with lots of excitement but at the same time, have offered me some peaceful and relaxing moments. I am attempting to bring more non-work time into my life. It is a challenge, but am learning that pacing the self will work best in the end. The rabbit and the hare, right?

This weekend I am enjoying two nights at the Samoset Resort in Rockland. Things are hopping here with the annual Fisherman's Forum. I am not here for the forum, but the lively energy is all around us. Last night Chris and I peeked our heads into the ballroom where an auction was in progress. Not the typical auction, mind you. Rain gear and lobster traps were the coveted items, complete with an auctioneer who boasted a thick downeast Maine accent!

This morning I delivered work to a new gallery that is opening later this spring. IRONBOUND, housed in a gorgeous brick building in downtown Camden, will be a primarily sculpture space. The owner, Joy Armbrust, is a real pleasure to work with. It is evident that she is passionate about art and her journey has been an interesting one for sure. I look forward to this new adventure and partnership.

Last weekend I was in Kennebunk for our MFA weekend seminar at Heartwood College of Art. These weekend residencies fill the soul. I am fortunate to move along in a pod with a group of other women artists/teachers who are passionate about art and the art process. The roundtable conversations are deep and inspiring, the food filling, and the hands-on workshops offer up lots of great techniques that can be transferred to both the studio and the classroom. I feel so incredibly honored to be in the midst of such strong and focused women.

This semester we had the privilege of learning under pastel painter Claudette Gamache. Her talent with pastels and her patient, nurturing, and intuitive teaching style made for a wonderful first-pastel experience for me. I love to draw and am quite comfortable with oil pastel, charcoal, pencil, and conte, but the color and soft powdery, lush, sticks of pigment were a new experience and I feel a bit more comfortable with the material than I did before the workshop. There is much more to the process than one would expect - but those steps that I had never seen demonstrated before made handling of the material a much more confident experience.

The next three months will go by quickly as I juggle a myriad of projects. I am in production for the spring season and preparing to have my pottery at three or four new venues this summer. Teaching at school gets wild in the spring, too. Projects' Night is just over two months away and there is lots to be accomplished in the classroom before the big student art show goes up. A new website is in the works, too, and requires a hefty amount of rewriting and photo shoots.

I am in the process of researching the factory industry in Lubec and find myself enthralled by all the old photos and the images of huge buildings and a bustling downtown. These factories, for the most part, do not exist anymore. Barely any evidence other than remnant foundations or photos. I am creating an installation sculpture based on the factories, planned to show in June 2012. It will be months of work for about three weeks of display, but I am excited since this will be my first installation-type piece. I have been thinking about it for the past few months and the physical part of the project is just beginning. I have easily a couple hundred hours of work ahead of me and know the clock is ticking. I still am trying to get my head around the "how-to". There is some compromise between what I would like to do and what is feasible. But, this is a beginning, and in every new process, I learn a bit more to take to the next project. I have always had some sort of connection to buildings and feel incredibly sad when I see a building heading toward its demise. I am in a way sensing the pain and loss of our community for these buildings that once existed. Not only was a means of employment and stability lost, but also a sense of identity. My installation sculpture will touch on just one tiny detail in a two-hundred year history.

Tonight we wine and dine Mom amidst birthday cheer. I am not even sure how old she is. We kind of lose track of the numbers as we get older. I am expecting lots of laughter tonight and some majorly satisfied salivary glands. Soon Chris and I trek back to Lubec to sequester ourselves into our respective creative spaces. The cats will no doubt be bent out of shape over our two night disappearance. Hopefully some tuna and catnip will remedy the situation in a timely manner.

Comfort in Repetition

Greenware stacking up:
items on slab roller get "trimmed and handled" later this morning.

Tea bowls trimmed, chopped and drying for the next bisque fire later this week.

Kiln loaded to the brim.

Working out ideas with paper and pen trying to problem-solve technicalities. Back to the sketching again today with an updated plan. I think need a carpenter on board. No. I KNOW I need a carpenter on board!!!! Volunteers? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

"Most inner-oriented artists share a common characteristic, a certain quality of obsession."
(Kenneth Coutts-Smith)

Yesterday I began a deep-clean in the downstairs of the house. The floor hasn't looked so good in a long time, waxed and shiny. This kind of spur-of-the-moment, labor-intensive cleaning activity is pretty much ritual when my mind is overloaded and trying to work through ideas for a new project.

I am dragging my feet on a sculpture. This is not to say that it has not been on my mind most every waking moment, most every day, for the past few weeks. Even when I am potting or puttering around with other activities, this project looms in a distant room in my mind. I keep asking "how am I going to make this work?" The concept seems simple enough, the sketches are simple, too, but....there are the hidden technicalities that no one else sees or thinks of that need to be tended to.

I have a back-up plan. I should maybe just go with that. And I might. But, I am still toggling back and forth to find common ground between what is my most ideal scenario (which includes immense amounts of time, expensive resources, and no doubt a multitude of frustrating glitches) versus what would be completely acceptable, still get the idea across, and look great. I mean, no one else would lament the loss of the original idea if only seeing the second, right? No one but me, anyway.

So, even though hours have been spent in the intellectual realm, rather than the physical, lots has been accomplished. Yet, nothing has manifested in the form of the tangible. This is a bit disconcerting since I am working against a deadline. I am trying to remain calm. Traditionally, once I settle on a plan, the physical part of the project starts to roll at a good pace. This project, though, includes well over...well...I don't even want to speculate the number of hours. I know that once the building of it begins, I am in deep, and there is no such thing as "end of the work day". Somehow, things get accomplished, albeit leaving the artist a wee bit bedraggled, insane, and in need of vacation in some far-off exotic and remote location.

This project, like many other sculptures and tapestries that I have created the past few years, will include lots of repetition.

I have been thinking about this repetition. Maybe it comes, in part, from the pottery background. When the ware shelves are empty, I sometimes feel a bit tense, worried about what needs to be done. But when the greenware starts to roll off the wheel and stack up into patterns of bowls, cups, or (in the case of my sculptural work) grenades, I feel a sense of calm. I love seeing multiples line the shelves, tables, floors. I think I have before likened it to the squirrel who stores nuts for winter. There is a calm in knowing that there is some form of security. I guess for some people, they get that feeling with stocks and bonds. Me....it's mounds of aesthetically formed clumps of gooey dirt. To each his own, I suppose.

In the past four weeks, I have created 212 of these formed clumps of gooey dirt called pots with a few handbuilt sculptural pieces tossed into that equation. The more I see stack-up, the more I more calm I feel, and the more I want to do. I guess artists (me anyway!) have just enough obsessive/compulsive behavior to keep the ideas and projects flowing.

Art is addictive. Crazy as that sounds, it is true. There are times I go without creating, but when that craving hits, and you get into that zone, it is hard to pull away from the temptations of the clay, fiber, or paint, or whichever alluring substance is sifting through your fingers at that moment.

Today, the clay is calling. The cave is warming up at this moment. I am trying to pace myself so that I can fit several activities into one day (rather than just ten hours of say, only mugs!!!). I will attach handles to 18 items and call it good, then jump back into sketching. I had a glimpse upon waking this morning, in mind's eye, a possible solution to the the sculpture issues, so after lunch, it's back to the drawing board for me, literally.

Lots of excitement is unfolding. Tune in next week....

Bass my Laughing Buddha?

Woke this morning to a snow-covered back yard with Moon nestling-in behind the old walnut tree.

While Moon was drifting off in the west, east was presenting daybreak on a clouded pink palette.

Yes, indeed. More sake bottles.

Yesterday's cup meditation.

This morning while I was swimming on a bridge filled with a fast current of water, a largemouth bass came up alongside me. I was scared at first, but the scaly brute of a carp kept nudging at me with its huge mouth, seemingly laughing. I repeatedly pushed the fish away but it would return to me as though frolicking in a game of tag. Had Buddha come to me in this dream in the form of a big-bellied, playfully aggressive, giggling fish?

I don't recall ever seeing a largemouth bass in "real life" and before assigning identification to this new friend, I did an online image search, first for sturgeon, then for big mouth bass. Indeed, there he was: a massive, swoop-bellied, open-mouthed water dweller. I often dream of animals, but this one was a wee bit out of the ordinary.

I have tried to pull symbolism from the dream. Largemouth Bass is not an entry in my Animal Speaks book, so I thought maybe I would give this an intuitive best guess. From what I can remember, the water-filled bridge had three lanes. In the middle was a heavily-polluted path. I did my best to veer to the side "lane". When I found a clear path within the fast moving current that pulled me more than allowed me to swim, the bass came at me. At first sight, I was fearful of being bit. I soon noticed that there were no teeth and that the fish was, sort of, laughing? We began a game of tag.

In my waking life, I have been preparing myself for the upcoming "fast lane". Yesterday I spent time mapping out commitments for the next few months. It is easy to become overwhelmed or get stuck in that muddled "middle lane" while fast currents swoop by on either side. I had to remind myself to stay calm and deal with each event as it occurs. Normally I would be feeling a heavy stress and obsessing far too much, but at the moment, I feel content to be moving along as fate directs, accepting and appreciating the gifts and flirting with ideas that I have not dared to mingle with in the past. Change can be scary. We often fight it to the bitter end, but when it occurs, there is an opportunity for new growth. Sometimes if we just give into it, we can ride the currents and discover the unexpected. Perhaps the new "current of change" will be a more natural and graceful travel.

About three or four weeks ago I had an out-of-the-blue feeling of joy and excitement overcome me. It was one of those moments when your belly does a little flip and a smile so big surfaces that you think that your lips are going to eat your ears. I know that life is a mix of bitter and sweet, and I don't assume that all will be easy sailing, but I just had this feeling that I am on the right path and that all will fall into place as it should.

After waking from this morning's dream, I sauntered downstairs to discover a most beautiful winterscape. Dawn just starting to break, snow snuggled the earth as the moon began her descent behind the old walnut limbs to the west. Then I walked to the front side of the house, overlooking field, to find morning presenting her smattering of grey clouds and pink burstings over the bay. Snowshoe hare had been through already, pathing her long-pawed prints around the barn.

These are things that I have come to expect - powerful moons, intensely colored skies, and critters that seem to have found safe haven living amongst us two-leggeds.

Despite the strict production and sculpture schedule that has been set of late, I found time to play with friends this past week. I feel fortunate to have met so many incredible beings in my years here in Lubec. In this geographically-remarkable, faraway plot on the map, there are equally remarkable souls who have found their way here. For their friendship I am grateful.

At this moment, all feels right and good.

Sake, Sushi, and Curious Kitty

A clay form inspired by "saffron". While studying the spice I discovered that it takes 150 crocus plants to get one ounce of dried saffron. Gathering of the saffron threads is a meticulous task. No wonder it is the world's most expensive spice!!!

Below is a photo shoot sequence of one of my stoneware sake sets. Bouli decided that this set, in the Northern Lights glaze motif, was her favorite.
(This set has already sold and shipped to the west coast, but if interested, I have at least one more set available in this glaze motif.)

"I wonder what's behind this flap."

"Hey! Look! A breakable object!"

"Is that Sake? All I need now is a plate of sushi."

"Guess I'll take a load off while I wait for my server."

"What?! No sushi today? I'm outta here!"

Greenware sake bottles, thrown yesterday.

Below:
This is NOT what winter looks like this year.

Last year at this time I was aching from all the shoveling, one storm bringing nearly two feet of snow in less than 24 hours time. I have to admit, while the lack of plowing has been light on the wallet, I am missing the while stuff. It is February 7th, and it looks and feels like spring is about to bust wide open.

It was a fairly uneventful week for me here in Lubec. A few days of bed rest last week while I recouped from what was, in my best estimation, a flu of some sort, set me a bit behind and left me feeling quite lethargic. My mind wanted to go about all the usual routines but my body denied any such occurrence. It's been quite a while since I have had anything flu-like and it took me off guard. I'm not used to sleeping thirteen hours in one stretch! I'm lucky, on a normal night, to eek out six or seven hours of shut-eye.

Needless to say, I was quite happy to have regained most of my energy by early weekend, just in time to drive nearly three hours to Bangor to pick Chris up from the airport. (Lubec doesn't have traffic lights or chain-stores, let alone an official airport.) Chris's flight had been delayed 24 hours due to "mechanical malfunction" (yikes!). That extra 24 hours was a blessing in disguise, for me anyway, giving me an extra day to recoup. For Chris, it was another story, perhaps. We were all happy by weekend's end though, having enjoyed a brief visit with my aunt and some very yummy sushi at Green Tea.

We are all settled-in back in Lubec. The cats are happy to have their play-buddy home and routines resumed. I am full steam ahead on studio and MFA work and Chris has his writing and teaching schedule rolling along. Mid week I pretty much devote my energy to teaching (this week I will spend extra hours working on next year's supply order) and of course, it is tax season. A lot of prep work has been done for our appointment later this week. It's always good to get that out of the way. Numbers. Too many numbers boggle the mind!

The pottery cave is starting to look like it was never cleaned at the turn of the year. I thought for sure that this time it would stay nice and neat. No such luck. Once projects take off, it's a whirlwind of (messy) activity. I've been playing around with some simple mold-making techniques and each time I turn around I see potential for another form. I should exercise some restraint so that I can begin work on an in-depth project that needs to be completed this spring for a show in Lubec. I'm incorporating local history and have been engrossed in vintage Lubec photos on the Maine Memory Network. It's an amazing site that has all sorts of history about Maine towns/cities.

The calendar has been filling steadily with business and pleasure appointments. Chris and I were reminiscing that when we first moved to Lubec in 2001, we had lots of time on our hands. Things sure have changed! Partly due to the town's revitalization and a myriad of cultural offerings - partly due to the fact that we know more people and are more involved with community. The expansion of my pottery business has demanded extra attention, too. Life in Lubec isn't dull, that's for sure!

I'm looking forward to the coming weekend in the studio and meetings with friends. For the time being, though, there is paperwork to be done.

I best sharpen my pencil and get to it.

Sake Sets for Your favorite Valentine

Sake Sets
by Shanna Wheelock of Cobscook Pottery

Just in time for Valentine's Day!
Give your sweetie a unique gift this year:
A handmade stoneware sake set by the easternmost potter in the United States! Better yet, include a bottle of Sake and a gift certificate to his or her favorite Japanese restaurant.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/cobscookpottery

Sake Set in Mossy Forest glaze
$65

Sake Set in Northern Lights Glaze: CAT NOT INCLUDED

She's just our over-zealous, extremely curious, feline product model
$65

Sake Set in Barley glaze
$65

Sake Set in Seafoam glaze
$65

Full Swing in the Cave

Sculpture in progress

Production work has begun after a six week hiatus.

Bouli is my sidekick when I am working in the pottery cave.

When not asleep in the pottery cave, Bouli is a handful on the main floor: climbing, jumping, exploring, and breaking things!!! This past week I had to tape all the kitchen cupboards shut.

Things are humming along here. It's a good thing, too. I might have gotten used to that leisurely pace of only teaching and MFA work to contend with. I went back into the "cave" for pottery production a couple days ago and am starting to ready for the season ahead. I have some fairly hefty goals and want to be prepared so that I don't feel the usual "running around like a chicken with my head cut off" for opening of the shop.

The house is kind of upside-down right now. There is a slew of paperwork strewn atop the tables as I analyze previous business decisions and set intentions for the next year or so. The "cave", which was cleaned better than it had been in two years, is now splattered with slip muck and tools while mounds of plaster-infused clay that had been used for mold-making covets nearly every inch of workspace. Greenware pots are lining the shelves and sculpture is scattered here or there drying and waiting for the next step.

The living room has been turned into weaving central with skeins of lushly-dyed yarn calling to the warp. A tapestry in the beginning stages is tempting me away from some of my other chores. I know that I should first take care of the most urgently deadlined work, but on a winter's day it is hard to say no to the warmth of a nearby stove and view of swirling snow outside the window.

January and February used to be my "down time". Living in Lubec in winter the first seven or eight years could been likened to hibernation of an entire town. Everything was shut-down by 6:00 and nary a soul was to be found on the streets. The town has been experiencing a renaissance the past couple years and now there is always something happening between music, theater, and the arts in general. The new restaurants have bravely kept their doors open for winter folk, and for that the town is appreciative. It astounds me that I now have to, here in little Lubec, Maine, set aside specific time (as I did last weekend) to cut myself off from the hubbub. I think most artists understand me when I say that time alone, with your own thoughts, is crucial to manifesting artistic ideas.

Winter, the kind with snow, finally began here on Friday. It was short-lived though. I shoveled steps, decks, ramps, and pathways blanketed by six inches of heavy white stuff until my arm muscles turned wobbly. My mittens were stuck frozen to the shovel, and despite the frigid temps, my head under hat was laden with sweat. I felt like I had just finished an exhaustive hour-long gym workout. But like I said, the gorgeous winter snow was short-lived. Rain soon swept in and reduced the mass to about an inch or so of undulating ice. I have yet to try the car on the long downhill rink we call the driveway. A walk to the mailbox yesterday revealed coyote tracks, emerging from the woods into our drive and across the road. Bello, my feline walking companion, curiously sniffed the tracks, looking about with caution. I suspect that the coyote had walked as we did only a short time previous.

I love Sundays. I love how the world slows down just a bit, for just a while. I am going to step away from the computer and the chores and head into the cave, which has become the warmest space in the house since the new insulation was installed. Bouli will no doubt rest nearby, my guardian cat. Bello will occasionally saunter in, mewing and asking to go outside, perhaps to explore, but most likely to take respite from Bouli, who can't seem to leave him be for long.

I am grateful for my life. Grateful to be an artist. Grateful to view the world through artist eyes.

Unplugged....sort of

Clay form ready to be molded with plaster

Plaster poured into clay forms:
1) will be a hump mold
2) plaster will be the finished sculpture
3) will be a slump-type mold for clay or wax

Clay removed and voila! A hump mold, slump mold, and relief sculpture.

This morning I had breakfast with Buddha. Well, not in the literal sense. I mean, I woke up and laid in bed for eight hours reading the book "Breakfast with Buddha" by Roland Merullo. The timing was quite poignant. See, this past week I decided to take some time to "unplug" from the world: No news, TV, phone calls, email, facebook, etc. Just time to "be". My friend Diane does this sort of homestyle retreat at least once a year for several days. I feel consistently envious. My self-induced hectic life always has a to-do list a mile long with looming deadlines. Though a lover of reading, most of what I read is research oriented to learn something specific. Pleasure reading, like a really good fiction novel, falls low on the priority list. Sad, I know.

So I decided that I would do a 36-hour retreat. I would turn off the phone, talk to no one, read/watch no news (which always gets me riled up), set aside work issues, as well as things that I feel "need" to be done. I started to map out my two precious days of "just me" time. Then it dawned on me that if I were to actually make a plan with time slots for each thing I were to do, then that would be just like any other day. I decided to do something different. I decided to have no plan. I would do, merely, what I felt like doing, when I felt like doing it.

So, today I woke at 6:00 a.m. and reached for "Breakfast with Buddha." While reading, I had breakfast. And tea. And snack. And lunch. I laid in bed the entire time with Bouli and Bello devotedly at my feet, occasionally on my chest, purring loudly to let me know that they liked this new pace and the extra attention. We didn't leave the comforts of the warm silent space (except for food and bathroom) until I finished reading the entire book.

I loved this book. Not only because it was humorous, but because I could relate to the main character. I wish I could say it was Volya Rinpoche that I related to, an enlightened sort, rather, it was Otto, the skeptic who had much to learn.

The book made me ask myself questions like "Why do I find it so hard to meditate?" or "how much money does a person need?" or "when does a person consider themselves rich - materially or spiritually?" and "how much of our lives do we control versus what is fated for us?" "What are the most important things, and how would I live my life if I had no barriers?" All questions I've asked myself before, but since I had all these hours of "unplugged" time, I thought I might as well ponder the answers.

I have tried formal meditation many times, but never felt successful. My mind does not slow down. The most peaceful I get is when I am at the potter's wheel or weaving. I think back to one experience a few years ago when I was at a weekend retreat. I had chosen to attend an afternoon session facilitated by a man that was much like the character Volya Rinpoche. As a non -meditater, I was not prepared for what I was about to partake. It turned out that in this afternoon session we were to sit in silence and not move until we felt moved by something beyond our own thoughts....by something metaphysical, or spiritual; to be like a leaf, that has fallen on the ground. It does not move until a wind comes along and moves it.

Uh oh. Not my idea of fun.

For two hours I sat silent, cross-legged Indian style, not moving one bit, focused on a single nail in the wall. I never did feel moved by spirit to jump up and dance or perform some sort of "be a palm-tree" choreography, as a few others did. (and honestly, I thought they were bullshitting to look cool) Instead, I experienced my entire body falling asleep, except for my mind. My mind was just as active as ever, but when we were to each take a turn at describing our experience, I found that the words did not come out so easy. This was not because I could not think of anything - but instead, it was because even my lips and tongue had fallen asleep. My words came out, to my embarrassing surprise, slurred and nearly inaudible. Hell, what do I mean by nearly? I'm positive that no one understood what I said. I felt like a fool.

It was indeed a strange sensation, and an interesting experience. But I would be lying if I didn't say that I was happy to have the two hour "workshop" behind me. Kudos to those who practice formal meditation. It is harder than it looks!

That memory sparked another. I can say that once in my life I felt that my mind had emptied. It was the most incredible sensation. At another weekend healing arts retreat, I participated in a firewalking workshop. I had done this a few years previous, too, and still, met the current challenge with a certain level of anxiety. Preparation consists of hours of sharing feelings with a group, building a trust, and releasing negative thoughts and anger. To enter the coals with a less than pure heart could mean burnt feet. We were encouraged to think about our intentions and what we hoped to experience or learn. Knowing that my mind always felt cluttered, I focused on one request to the powers that be....that I experience a clear mind, to know what it feels to have no worries.

Despite hours of mental preparation and having walked coals before, I still felt my nerves rise a bit. But it was a magical late summer evening. As we began our walk, flames giving way to glowing orange coals, the lake came to life with the cries of loons. I walked the coals once. Silently. Reverently. Each person took their turn, some more than once. When all were done, silence was broken and those who shared the experience felt a new kinship with one another. Coals were raked until danger of fire subsided and everyone parted to return to their cabins for sleep.

I walked back to my cabin alone, down a tree-lined, heavily rooted path. As I walked, moonlight beaming the way, I felt a lightness - and an emptiness - that is impossible to fully describe. It was like I was walking consciously and knew my way, but my mind was clear. Everything around me became more intense: the moonlight was brighter, the trees greener, taller, the sounds of crickets louder. I could see, feel, hear, sense everything more intensely. I felt no thoughts in my mind except an awareness that I felt empty, peaceful, but incredibly sensitive to the life around me. It was an amazing feeling, floating above ground, like the huge burden of everyday mental ping pong had been lifted. I'll always remember that feeling because of its rareness.

After reading this morning's book, and recalling such intense experiences these two times in my life, I feel an urge to try to recapture these two sensations - one of my mind being alert and detached from my body, and the other sensation of sensing all fully with a mind that is completely cleared. And what of the two could be bridged somehow - would that be the total mind/body experience to the fullest extent?

I am now a mere thirteen hours into my thirty-six hours of unplugged retreat, and well, I kinda feel done with the silence for now. I know it sounds strange, but this taking it slow and easy kinda day has worn me out! After reading, I spent three hours in the cave sculpting and listening to music. I'm kinda missing talking to my husband. The cats look at me when I talk to them, but there is no reciprocation other than a blink or a yawn or a stretch for affection. I have (obviously) given in to the computer and broken my vow of temporary symbolic silence by writing this long blog which will then be posted and the link emailed. Other than that little break in the "plan" to have no plan and be unplugged, all feels good. It's supper time and I look forward to waking tomorrow to do...???? It's the great unknown. I will see what moves me.....like that leaf waiting for the wind to blow.