Closing 2010

Closing the year in great style with an abundance of love, gratitude and joy!

We used to follow a New Year ritual of greeting the rising sun of the New Year and offer our thanks and prayer coming year. We often brought offerings of plenty. That requires either staying up or waking up early enough,  to travel to beach - Coney Island or Rockaway- and  braving the cold wind and weather to watch the rising sun.  My Honey was even interviewed by the local newpaper in one of those ventures.

We haven't practiced that ritual for the past 3 years. One year we were away and not near a beach. And the following years have been too too difficult to venture with our small son. We are considering  bringing in the New Year in this way again for 2011. 

As for now I am preparing my prayers of gratitude for what 2010 has brought to me and the petition prayers for what I wish 2011 to bring.

Twas the day before...

Twas the day before Christmas

 

 

 

Wishing all the little and big children a day and night of sweet and magical dreams to be awakened, meditated and shared and to make their way to come through as we close the year and begin the next.

Deep Sleep

 

Last night was the first night I slept deeply, in a month. I fell asleep with my son. I had to work hard to open my eyes this morning. Already late for work. Yesterday was my last class, my final project completed and turned in. Chapter one is completed. whew. Pursuing this program, this path, I am expanding myself, my life, my way of seeing but I still feel so doubtful as to why now. Questions such as this and others like is it worth it, keep ringing in my ears. And like the bird in the hand or 2 in the bush I question my choices... I am sacrificing time, the present, with my son among other things. choosing a lot of "don't you want to watch a movie" so I have time to do homework. And my easy irritation because I am not sleeping enough- stealing time after my boy goes to sleep to finish my projects. These are not good things. Are they worth it?


I have not felt like I have been the mother, the partner, the person I want to be in these challenging days. In all that work, school, mothering, worrying, cramming, figuring, pushing, expanding and seeking. Not surprisingly, I have found that I have sacrificed some of my self-care and peaceful practices as well- practices that have proven to help and support me in the past to stay mindful and centered- sober in every sense. I have developed some new practices though, more truncated ones I guess. Yet, I have sustained some moments of peace and sharing peace.

This check-in here, this blog, connecting to this peace, this community, and to others, my dear friends, in my local community. Though posting has been infrequent, it has all been a great reminder and a practice in itself. Making commitment and hearing other commitments to peace, in the day to day. The day to day courage of others. That has sustained me. 

Thank you all.


So I continue to find ways to make peace, give my piece to peace, in each day. And my commitment is to continue through this month of December to be present to myself, my family, my loved ones and to all. Peaceful, present, mindful and loving.

December

 

The last month of the year is here. 

This month has Christmas and all that is intended, given and received for this holiday and it also includes all the difficulties in and around this holiday that exists in ourselves and the world today- and those challenges. 

It also has my birthday which is also both challenging and celebratory. 

but the most challenging of them all is my mothers death day, falling between Christmas and my birthday- that memorial, is on December 17th. 

 It will be 9 years ago this year, that she left this earth and moved to the stars.

Despite all of this, we followed the 4th year of our family tradition and got a tree last night- a fresh tree just come in from Canada this family bring them in every year around the corner from our house. We fully decorated it with my mothers old ornaments which she hadn't used for the last 6 years of her life, and we finally collected them, for the first time, from storage in Pennsylvania earlier this year. What a joyous and fun filled night! What a treat it was for us all! For me just revisiting these ornaments after 15 years. And my son especially loved seeing the cowgirl, the violin, birdcage, nutcracker and all the fun animals and international and antique ornaments my mother had! What a beautiful and simple tree! Little tree, Thank you for sacrificing your life for our celebration of Peace and love in the world.

We are starting our own tradition this year and celebrating Christmas at home with just the 3 of us, instead of traveling to extended family and celebrating together with them. We make this choice, this year, because of our plans to visit our Korean family later, and having gone to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving, with an added treat- a visit from my Grandmother, Aunt and Uncle who live in Santa Fe. My host Aunt and Uncle in PA, had already decorated their house for Christmas expecting our visit- with many trees and years of collected decorations!

My gratitude for all of these things and life as it is now, even with all of its challenges, including my mounds of homework due on 12/14, extends today for all that we have! Thank you to all my personal, worldwide and online friends and family for supporting, loving and sharing with us in our lives and in this journey. We send much the same to you all with love and peace.

Giving Thanks

I take this week, this day, this breath, to give a deep and thoughtful Thanks for everything I have today, 
just exactly as it is.

Thank you for this day that we all can give thanks together- I am especially grateful that my husband, son & I will spend Thanksgiving weekend with my Grandmother, my father, Aunts, Uncles and cousins.

My beloved ancestor

Finally a visual.  

Though not a "pretty" one.

Here is  an odd visual of stick puppet of a "beloved ancestor"- my mother, Marie. I included with her, her deeply loved dogs Sophie and Rosie, the Westie girls. This was my mother at a happy time in her life. She was a bit more stylish than depicted but she was casual gardening in jeans. Hard to make stylish with silly stick puppets. 

I had so much fun making her that I want to make more puppets- of my whole family. My son loves it too and wants me to make one of himself. We can act out with them, play act do emotions and tell stories. This is my next project to do with my son, we'll start tomorrow.

The gravity of creating

I sit here, late, trying to edit and perfect my title picture. Reveal, not reveal. Just like many things, none of it is going to be as I imagine- sometimes better sometime not, yet that all has to do with looking from the outside in rather than looking from my center out. That is where I'd rather be and to view from.

Not being a writer, but a visual artist, it is awkward to be speaking to an audience and tip-toeing around my truth, my identity, my life and yet revealing all the same. Using only words.

A dear friend who has helped me immensely,  one of the most delicious writers  (and visual artists) I have ever met sits on my shoulder and encourages me. She believes in me in ways I don't even see. She supports me with words and books. I owe it to her, and to another inspiring friend in D.C., that I am continuing on this path of blog sharing. Naked without my pictures.

I have journeyed into alot of art making and real creativity this past week. I taught a lot of classes to children which was exciting and refreshing. Plus in the class I am taking, I have a studio practice too. I just finished making a wonderful puppet of a "beloved ancestor". I chose my mother, Marie who lives up in the stars. It gives me a sense of gravity I have forgotten I need to hold me up, just to make things and to be working with the materials. I am loving this gravity!

My baby calls me. It is late, he feels cold and wants the comfort and warmth of his mother. I'll show some visuals soon...

Peace Piece Part 1.2

I haven't posted in so long I, once again, feel awkward and tentative to begin.

I have written in my head so many times, sometimes with pen even, but my fingers have not.

I have been so busy these past weeks. Trying to fit it all in. and Following through with my intensions and actions of presence, focus, healing and practicing my little 'bit here and little bit there'. In all that, writing and sharing with this larger audience has come last. So here I am today, to just give my little bit to report on my October commitment and clarify my November commitment to Peace, briefly.

All in all, October was a challenge but a learning challenge on the path of "being the peace; being the person I want others to be". As I said I have been practicing. Doing a bit here, a bit there and that feels 100% better than trying to do all of this and all of that and finding it impossible. 

I noticed when I didn't practice, things went wrong and I found myself feeling awful. Each time, each day has been a new lesson. I have found how important my awareness and gratitude has been in this process. 

I am so grateful I have been given the opportunity, in October and still in November to find healing, and my process to find and create the space of peace around me.

I yet have a long way to go. My intention, my commitment  to this Peace project is to continue my October commitment to be the person I want others to be and to be the person I believe the universe wants me to be. Thank you for giving me the space to recommit to this  and share in this commitment with others.

Walk the walk.

Be peace.

Be the piece.

Together...let's piece together peace.

 

Things I love number 5

Driving upstate to see
the autumn leaves
and
other treasures.

Fall berries

Maya Lin

A Folded Drawing

That Space

My family

Today I am practicing how to be here, 

not watching where I am 

and not worrying about where I should be. 

A wave over my head

Jamaica Wildlife Refuge

How frightening it feels to start writing again. It has been almost 2 weeks since I posted and 3 weeks since I really opened my fingers.

Tonight the moon is almost full, 25 hours away. and I've been full. Time moving so quickly. I've so busy looking, planning, figuring it all, the future, the whole package- life and everything in and around it. Trying to squeeze it all in and make it all fit and hope all the rest works out the way I want it to.  Don't I know by now, I can't do that. None of that. The best I can do is just keep moving slowly with the waves, not trying to squeeze it in. Staying connected to what is around me, at each moment. Today it broke, a wave over my head perhaps. It caught me, turned me and it reminded me that I have to not just have the right intensions but stay linked to this peace inside me. Until last evening, for the past week or even two, I'd forgotten to be quiet and to stop and to get replenished. 


Last night, I stopped on my way home at this little quiet meditation space right in the middle of the city. And the buildings are tall and surround this place yet it has such a safe and warm feeling (even though it is outdoors). And there I got quiet and re-connected. I didn't feel the fullness of that replenishment until this morning, when I stopped, again, just for a moment to be grateful for all I have.

 

This Moment

[This Moment] the dance

inspired by Soule Mama

This sculpture is at the Metropolitan Museum in NY

transition

I am in an aesthetic transition as I am changing the design of my blog.
I am figuring out how to apply my own design, not using a template as I started out with.
All of this is part of my discovering and getting comfortable in this new environment and community.
I am really enjoying it today, this process, this way of sharing and creating.

I am so grateful that I am seeing new visitors, getting comments and having new "followers". Thank you all for giving me the opportunity to share and have gravity in this world of airwaves.

More about Peace

Here's our nature mobile

made at home from collected finds in Wainscott & Govenors Island

This mobile hangs in our kitchen and you can see our rooftop view. I love this quiet city view, filled with light and no people. This room gives me peace. I have my garden in this room. I just spent yesterday bringing each of my plants to the bathtub and giving them a long shower. I imagine that indoor plants long for the rain of outdoors that they see in the window. When it's a gray and rainy day I try to water my plants, thinking that they are wondering why they are not getting the liquid and feeling thirsty.

Dragonfly wing

I am truly grateful for this home we have. It came as a result of some vision work I began with intention, in 2004. This is the first real home I felt I have ever had- believe me I've lived in hundreds of places, squatted, slept, stayed, been transported. And in my real adult live, I've had few and tried to create a home. This place is the closest I ever come to it. In fact, I knew, shortly after we moved here, from a dark studio apartment we shared and had crammed with creatively stored stuff. I knew this was our home. We painted the walls fun colors and designed how we would place the furniture for optimal view of the city skyline and rooftops we viewed.  

but mostly it is the way the light comes in and the wind blows through. Facing west, we have an incredible sunset each night- almost, but not quite, as enchanted as the New Mexico sunset. The energy moves through this apartment with the breeze. I am sure that it is the way the energy moves through this place that I got pregnant and carried my child for 8 months, until he graced our lives with his flesh in March 2007. 

He too was a vision, I worked hard for years before, to clear my body and my spirit for him. but it was this perfect environment of peace, light and the movement of energy, in this stifling, crowded city that made it possible for him to come to us from the stars. (that is where he says he came from).

A glorious peacock feather on top
found at the
bronx Zoo 
 (you cant see the silvery
and turquios metalic colors in this photo)

Todd Parr has this great book called The Peace book. I love to read it with my son. I love how, in this book, everything wonderful, different, fun, everything loved, or loving is peace. In much the same way I found this piece together peace project on www.threadinglight.com.  On this website, created by 2 women, they are sharing an opportunity to participate with:

a team of peace walkers ...to promote peace in a movement called the 13 Moon Walk 4 Peace. They will be walking through 42 cities to heal the heart of America and transform the way we relate to each other and to Mother Earth.

So they suggest:

At the beginning of every month blog about your intention for being peace. Make a commitment to change some aspect of your life that will bring more peace to you and the beings around you. Think of something you can easily change today.

I made my intention for peace, on Friday Oct 1 and I'll keep you posted throughout the month about my personal peace progress.

My Commitment to Peace

It is Oct 1st, I am making a commitment not only to meditate more often, bringing more peace to my heart but, to really do my best to bring peace to my home, everyday, every minute that I humanly can. 

I have an affirmation taped on my bathroom mirror which is based on Gandhi's brilliant quote "...be the change you want to see". My affirmation, which I read each day, (along with 2 others)  says "I am so grateful for being the person I want others to be..." -to me this is an affirmation of this same commitment, particularly in my home...being that person I want others- expect others- wish others- criticise others for NOT being (others=my husband, my child, my boss, et al).    TO BE THAT PERSON. I am committing to this, which is much bigger than an affirmation and here I voice it out loud to all of you, to the wind, to the world, to the ethers, to the cracks and crevices of my heart and my ears, inner and outer. 

Here is my continual commitment to this great project I am grateful to join in:

piece together peace from Threading Light

http://www.threadinglight.com/2010/09/piece-together-peace.html 

Walk the walk.

Be the piece.

Be peace.

Together... let's Piece together Peace.



This moment

{This moment} of wonder

inspired by Soule Mama

Listening to songs sung by my honey and my son, together.
My son getting his own breakfast.
being together inside in this drizzly, gray and stormy day.


Through this I've seen an amazing invitation

http://www.threadinglight.com/2010/09/piece-together-peace.html#comment-form

Join in this project!

What castle did I build today?

Without new pictures readily available, I am submitting old images of castles we built, with lots of parking spaces. These are of great importance anything built with my son- roads and parking spaces. 

We no longer have this busy and awkward rug in our living room/playroom. This rug served well to appease a cranky downstairs neighbor, who has since moved (whew!). We still try to be conscious, almost too conscientious, of any noise made upon the floor and give too much restriction to full play. How I wish we had a yard, house, no downstairs neighbors.  but that wish is getting boring to discuss.... poop or get off the pot! 

What I am really discussing here is the issue of Parenting- giving attention and conscientiousness to the words, messages, interactions, influences and activities shared with my child. This is a tall, tall, tall order and with such delicacy and trigger points. I have lots of thoughts and feelings about this and much to say as I am practicing everyday how to do a better job of communicating, sharing, loving raising, disciplining and being present for my son and his father too. What castles can we build today?

No time now, I will talk in depth later. 

Just Tryin'

It is infuriating. It is frustrating. Is it the energy of the stars? Is something in retrograde or new or full or  unbalanced?  I feel on the edge today - just trying to be the best mom, person I can-  and every one is complaining and crying and fighting. All in this home environment of tension, immobility and depression. And I am yelling at life, time, my son, my husband. Everything I don't want to do. Everything I don't want to be.

Can I blame someone, something? CAN'T I? Can someone act with responsibility besides me? I'm going now to sell some jewelry today.

nothing breakable in this river

kayaking in the hallway

bouncing peanut

We ventured upriver along the Hudson over the weekend. We drove the curvy Sawmill Parkway. Still the ghosts of last summer's tragedy haunt the exits we pass...and we had a narrow escape as we came around a curve, halting to someone backing up at a missed exit. The pileup was nearly missed.

 Lisa and John's house is so colorful and joyful. It is fully and artfully created. Unusually pieced together with found windows, doors, chandeliers. All are hand picked, fitted with slowly evolving paper walls and decks without railings. Each time we visit, their bedroom is in a different location. In the dusty basement with a dirt floor, or in the upper attic, now stacked with paintings. This time it was in the second apartment, where we once slept in the nook (now office) with an incredible river view.

 Each time I go there, I dream of my house, of the house I've been creating my entire life. Even as a child I dreamt of it. I've collected pieces, like Lisa -only on a much smaller scale- to compose my window or my garden wall.  I saved a piece of green stained glass that came from a window in my grandparents house. That piece was broken when my aunt through a shoe at me when I was 8 or 9. I have a collection of pottery shards I've saved from around the world to be assembled into my sculpted garden wall. 

I never dreamed of having children or a husband or a family, but a house. All that other stuff was there too I guess, but in the background. People floated in and out like at my grandparents house- friends, neighbors, family- all equally important, loved, welcomed, fed and cared for. In my house there are lots of people of all ages. Nothing ever really neat but always comfortable and creative, bright, sunny with a big garden and lots of trees. 

Now I have a child, a husband, a family- the things I didn't dream of until much later in my visions manifest- and I still don't have this house. I know I will, maybe more that one. I do have a wonderful home today, though it is a rented apartment, with no land attached. And I have fears of ever implanting the stained glass or the pottery shards into a single location. I've moved so often, throughout my life especially as a child, that must be why I dreamed of the house. The secure place where I could create all my vistas,  store my china, plant my visions. And over these years I have re-learned the poetry of security, of home, of place and family. Thank you for everything that I have today and the inspiration and love I find in my friends and their home creations.    

Things That I Love Part 3 (or is it 4?)

 

We're going back to Castleton On Hudson, this weekend, to dismantle our work from the exhibition Castleton 12. The show was gratefully written up in this blog http://joannemattera.blogspot.com/. The closing party is Saturday night.

The above photo is my son's contribution to the exhibition. He was gifted a box of these wonderful Hot Wheels band-aids enroute to this riverside town. He spent the entire installation weekend plastering them everywhere- all over his body, walls, doors, corners, windows, floors and columns. Above is one photo of his work, not labeled like the rest of our work in this renewed & reinvented old theatre.

Another capture of arrangement and play

  

"If you could see [him] through my eyes..."

I saw one of my all-time favorite movies, Caberet, for the 10 or 20th time. I first saw it as a child, 8 or 9 years old and I loved it then, though I didn't fully understand it. Last weekend, it was as brilliant as ever- even though it wasn't in color- the songs, the dancing, the filming, cutting, editing, the metaphors, even the sexuality -flowing subtly without PC banality. (It was 1972). I think it was Liza Minnelli's career apex, and I imagine Joel Grey's too. So I can add that film to my list of "Things That I Love...". And of course, most everything about my boy too. Not because he is my boy but simply because he is just evolving and unfolding as a person before my eyes. I am enjoying this witness so much and am so awed by his power, will, love, wonder and joy. It is like magic and I am amazed that I get to be part of the life and life process of this little miracle. 

When I am not in total terror of how I can be even a good parent- give, feed, say, react, express, share, respond and behave in even the remotely right ways- I'm biting my tongue about my husband's parenting. That poor guy has to withstand the so many times I didn't bite my tongue. Actually, the amount of difficulty and criticism I give him is paltry compared to the voices of self-criticism and fear I am only beginning to wean from. Today, I am actively trying to improve every aspect of my parenting, my relational, personal, emotional, spiritual life and the influences those lives have on my family. my life and the environment around me. 

I woke up to this creation

I woke up (not today but another day) and found this creation made by my son, 3 & 1/2 years old.

The day before, this was an 8.5 x 11" paper, this day -transformed into a perfect collage of cut pieces.

This is the discovery of learning to cut paper with scissors, with his father.

He loves to arrange things in a perfect way, his perfect way. Since he was an infant, things had their place and direction, if altered, a discord occured.

visit this blog

Here's a great write up on an exhibition I am showing in...visit this blog:
http://joannemattera.blogspot.com/

This Life (inspired by Deb (& her dreams fulfilled)]

Madonna of Mercy


I've been inspired and terrified. I attended my first class today. The first class in a program I've had a vision to follow. A path I have been dreaming of...but not too grandly or clearly, but vaguely, in the back of my heart. With a sinking and never believable feeling of "I can never do that". Though, I've researched, negotiated, written, applied, suffered and planned this. Plus I've been given unbelievable support & encouragement and still I feel not sure. But like everything else that feels frightening and unknown, unbelievable, undoable in my life (and there seem to be A LOT of them today) I am being, almost forced, to just be in this moment. This day, this exact moment. And here in this moment, it is great. It is happening. It is doing. It is perfect. and. I am grateful.

This vision path has been forming for a long time and I am not sure it has even been forming, but maybe some seeds were planted and now it is forming. It gives me all the parts of who I am, and who I have been, and who I will be a place, a role and more. It has bigger room for who I am becoming as a mother, as a human, as a teacher, as a seeker, as a healer, as an inventor, as an artist of this life, in this life.

Tiny Increments [to Making a Truck]

Other than covering the box with paper, I didn't participate in panting this Truck in progress...

Although, I painted the half circle for the windshield.

and the circles for the headlights.

The truck is still in creation. So as a finale, I show instead this new gifted (Thank you Fran!) double-sided carrying box my 3 year old son Luuuvvveeesss to fill, though, it then, becomes too heavy for him to carry.


A quick note to say how grateful I am to be learning and discovering my purpose in this world, in this life- to be the best Mom I can be. Everyday, I learn to not only be a better person for my self and for my son but to be a better parent for my son- conscious, intentioned, present, positive, joyful, inquisitive and kind.

I don't do any of those thing well or even reasonably well, none-the-less perfectly, far from it, but I'm learning to grow in tiny increments closer every day... There are many setbacks but I see that being open to and recognizing the mistakes I make rather than just living in fear, worry and guilt over them makes me learn from them, acknowledge them and have the ability to change them.

Wonder-Filled Day (Part 2 of Things I Love Series)

Trying to find an easy way to add my photos from my different electronic sources. That perfection comes slowly, with practice and I don't practice (post) often enough yet. So for now no photos.

Today was a wonder-filled day. Actually, now it is "yesterday" as the clock strikes Twelve. But it was wonder-filled all the same.

1. It was my free day.

Free from both work and childcare. Not that I don't love spending time with my child, and I am learning to love my job but, it was my day to be free. I really enjoyed it, I got to spend my day worry-free and exactly as I wanted (with the option to worry if I wanted to do so). I didn't stay home and take care of bills, or hounding paperwork, or unfinished office work, or undone family business, or laundry, or housework, or researching on the computer, or looking and answering email. I just took the day off. I enjoyed the day. I went out. I met friends, I talked on the phone, I walked around, I window shopped without over-spending, deprivation or envy. I got such spiritual and emotional food from this day in sunshine, in the city.

2. Collaborated on the creation of a Family Schedule.

The glorious-ness of the day started by my completing, with my partner, a family schedule. Like a drawing model of the family life we both want. It may take some time to live in to this schedule but it has added bonuses such as one hour a day of 'Sheila time' (even though it is 6-7AM). It has an earlier bedtime for my son (we will work toward this). It includes 'Couple time', a slot for my husband and I to be together alone (even though it may sometimes be spent with each of us on our own electronic devises). And it has family time. This schedule is just a rough draft of the more refined and detailed one to come. Though, it may have taken 3+ years to get to this point -we are here now.

3. It was Day 5 of my boy wearing underpants.

When he woke up on Sunday and out-of-the-blue stated "I want to wear underpants today", I was completely surprised and awed at how these things suddenly work (everyone has said it just happens one day). Previous, it has been huge bribery just to get him to sit on the potty. Not to mention, the emotional ruthlessness my mind has tortured me with calling myself shameful mother-inadequacy names- like "failure", "try-harder", "read more books" and hearing "he's still in diapers" and then the "why didn't I use cloth diapers". Well, we immediately went out and bought 2 new packs of 7 different Action-packed, overly licensed, superhero underpants. Every character imaginable in these packs from Wall-E to Spiderman, Buzz Lightyear to Captain America. A true Jackpot! This is possibly one of the only places where those kind of marketing ploys are truly valuable!

And here we are, still bribing him to sit on the potty, but mildly now. And on Day 3 he not only peed in the potty but pooped in the potty! A minor miracle! Accidents still happen but it is a world different! And as my dear friend Lynda says "It only takes a minute for a miracle to happen!"

All of those things together made my day a positive miracle in the making.