Theme & Variations from UDPPBook

Poetry in the morning. How sweet it is.

© 2015 Tiffany Vakilian

Thinking about my Goddard peeps and the poetry that they inspired in me.

I've heard it said

A great many things about

Dynamic duos

Complimentary opposites

The dance and not the battle

Heard that last week

In and out

Red and blue

Blue and grey

Yin and yang

Yanantin and masintin

Partners in a samba

Can they dance alone?

Can I?

On the dance floor called corpus callosum

The moonlight and shadow

One orb

The storyteller and the administrative assistant

Breathing

Both directions are necessary

For life

Body

Hands feet

Left side right side

Seen unseen

Wolf wife

That’s for Clarissa

Who started this whole conversation

Without even knowing I existed

Or perhaps

It was Tannen

She said it is communication

That can destruct meaning

Goffman's impressions

Given and given off

Gilligan’s pleasure

Relationship for relationships

And all the stories in between

And around

And throughout

Can they dance alone?

Can I?

Thanks Anne

For your friend Kitty

Imaginary and real

Realized

Shange's choreo-poem

Embodiment?

The dance of communication

Or beauty

Or therapy

A mushroom, Alice

Eat it

One side makes you bigger

And the other...

Otherizing

Let's bring in Pme and Qme

Honne and Tatamae

There I am

In the conversation

Of duality

Recognizing and engaging

Via dual-expression

Write it

Then say it

No

Say it

THEN write it

One feeds the other better in this way

This way that way

Light shadow

Felt sense felt senses

Hearing with ears

Our words

Our woman-self words

Can they dance alone?

Can I?

Front self Pme

Meta-self Qme

Winding a winding road

To knowing

To gnowing

Knowing and gnowing

Oracle and Architect

Archetypes

Popular culture

Myth story

Can they dance alone?

Can I?

With words, song & prayer,

TiMo

Pme & Qme

In honor of Seddy Bear Day, and because I couldn't send birthday flowers...

Shout in the cafeteria
All eyes on me
All I knew to be
Pme
In spotlight
Brighter
Than that shining on me
Painful even
She didn't see me
I was too busy
Being on display

Then Qme
A new me
Came up to the fore
Never before
And she found me
Refreshingly
Genuine
As did I
Authenticated through art
My self expression
Helped her express
Hi my name is
Let's befriend

And then the adventures
Academic and rebellious
God in the face of thesis
Linguistic
And inappropriate
God in the midst of trauma
Holding hearts
Lifting hands
My sister girl
My hashtag
Chocolate don't play
Today is her day

Don't think I'd be me
Had God not seen
To match our residencies
Many words past and present
Future poetry
Our friendship
Strong like oak
Meek like palm
And I celebrate on
Honored by her virtual presence
Let alone her in truth

Dartmouth, Burlington, Seven Mile, Arlington, Virginia, Plainfield - I've seen states (and states) with my friend Sarah. All I can do today is celebrate her honesty, her perseverance, her spirit, her comedy, her boldness, her bravery, her heart, her taste in food, in cars, in friends... It takes a strong woman to admit to being afraid, and wrong, and unafraid, and right. I've seen her do these things - and dance with random dudes at the karaoke bar in Burlington. I've defended her, been corrected by her, ran from what she faced boldly, and held the full weight of her praise. This one is a beautiful soul, and she calls me friend. Thank you God, for blessing me with such a diamond as her.

With words, song & prayer, TiMo

‪#‎UDPPbook‬ ‪#‎booklaunchparty‬ ‪#‎workthatwork‬ ‪#‎HVP‬ ‪#‎AWordWithYouPress‬
Book Launch Press Release - http://t.co/183kOoLHe2

Water Dream III

***Another dream of water***

I was at home with Biscuit, my dachshund. We lived on beachfront property in California, which afforded us spectacular views I assume. The light outside the house told me it was about 4ish, so I figure I was winding down my day, waiting for my husband to come home. I was writing and playing with the dog when the day became oddly darker.

I went to the back of the house, which faced the beach. Beautiful latte colored clouds were outside, casting an ethereal grey-gold tint to the sky and water. I became aware that the beach was strange somehow. Not empty of people, but still odd and and quiet. I thought to myself, Okay Lord, is it today? But God was silent, and the sea and sky would not answer. I just stared out, afraid to look, and afraid to stop. The tides were off. I didn't go into our small cement back yard, but I noticed that the water came up to the sand at the bottom of the wall before receding. In my dream mind, I considered the movie Deep Impact where the girl and her father stood on the beach waiting for the wave to take them. 

God didn't have to say a word. 

I knew it was coming, I just didn't know if I had seconds or minutes before it arrived. I went to the front of the house for some reason, when a chill ran through me, and I dashed back see what was happening on the beach. Darkness walked towards the coast from the horizon, and I was about to turn and call Tony when I noticed there was no water on the beach, only a shadowy wall that I knew to be a tidal wave.

It hit, and then receded. My windows didn't crack or break, and Biscuit was cool as he always is. The water was slate and salt and I knew the house was submerged because there were no bubbles. I didn't think about it at the time, but the windows in my house must have all been closed. I ran to the front of the house, waiting for the impending wall of water to claim me and all that was in the house. But the waters receded. I turned to face the rear windows, and the resting water was just at the top of my backyard mini-wall. I tried to escape via the front of the house at that point (silly child) and getting Biscuit past our metal fence was enough of a challenge that I picked him up. I knew another wave was coming and we didn't have much time, so I went back into the house.

Once again, the tidal wave exploded against us. Once again, the water was over the home. And once again the waters receded and I was safe. Shortly after this, mountains of garbage came towards our broken levy of a coast. People were outside looking and commenting on the state of our ocean. I wanted to laugh, and I wanted to scream at them for being stupid and unsafe, but I wasn't about to open my windows. The tidal wave of trash is what knocked my home off of it's foundation and pushed it through the city. We rocked in our house-sized crib all the way downtown...

The dream jumped to the next scene, where I was with my husband in his work-building. There were no windows. His supervisor wanted him to explain why we were going a certain way, but this really heavyset guy with ashy blond curls turning into dreads stood there in sandals, socks, cargo shorts and a tie-dye rainbow t-shirt interrupting him, letting him know that he knew we were saved and wanted to take us to get some water.

That's when I woke up.

*** *** ***

Subliminal response to my life or prophetic dream warning... what do you think?

With words, song & prayer, TiMo

2011 Remindering

Inspired by Miri G, and dedicated to her, because sometimes you just have to take a moment and play hide and seek with the words inside you.

Miri is one of the many brilliantes I met at my Goddard Spring Residency in 2011. She is part of the group of people in my life that, like me, share a love of letter writing. This art is something that is falling away, in light of the ease and speed of the digital communication all around us. Miri is one who writes longhand cursive with clipped curves, and excited punctuation. I truly enjoy not only what she writes, but the physical expression of her mind on paper. Each curve and line is a hug (she also doodles in the corners, so I get the fun aspect of her art imagery and art text). It is a long slow process, and I love it. Found this in my archives and thought I'd remind her... 

For Dearie Miri

As if a wind blew softly

and a leaf on the wind landed 

dancing

on the still water surface of my heart

I guess I heard the ping in you

I see you know this

The gentle ripple of love in my “good morning' to your story

to your poetry

to your words

to your own internal phoenix fire

resting patiently under the still water surface

of you

How quiet it is

how expectant

pregnant with a destiny that is

on the surface

unknown

but underneath,

fully engaged

With words, song and prayer,
TiMo

Chrysalis-Transformative Language Arts Journal

A Brief Review by Tiffany Monique

Chrysalis: The Journal of Transformative Language Arts

Transformative Language Arts is using spoken, written, sung or embodied words art to facilitate social change. And now, after years of bearing fruit with the Goddard TLA Program, there is a new Transformative Language Arts journal online.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg founded TLA after “years of working with people to develop something that encompassed the written and spoken word, social change and personal transformation” (I interviewed her in 2010 when I first began my studies at Goddard College). The first article in Chrysalis is her story of founding, entitled To Make a Prairie.

I'm in there too, having written a review about Dani Shapiro's creative memoir, Still Writing, and I'm still glad to engage my own transformation due to my TLA graduate students in Pme, Qme dual expression and the spectrum of authenticity. I am actively developing my "art, activism, studies, and livelihood.” Studying Transformative Language Arts has encouraged me to begin some of my best creative work. Once I found my way to engage my own story, it became my Transformative Language Arts mission to help others (mainly women) see within themselves their own spark of inspiration.

It's a wonderful rite of passage for TLA, and Editor Amber Ellis is on top of keeping the flowing nature of Chrysalis in top form. This is a maiden voyage, a first run, and according to Ellis, "The articles, essays, poems and reflection pieces collected within the inaugural issue of Chrysalis mirror this period of transition, this struggle, to become something greater, something whole." In addition to my Masters in Transformative Language Arts, I have been accepted into the Transformative Language Arts certificate program. 

"The certification provides participants with a thorough orientation to TLA, some avenues for developing a TLA practice and connecting with others involved in TLA, and encouragement to be part of the TLA community, help grow that community, and further define and develop TLA in the world. The Goddard program is a much more intensive immersion into TLA" 

Work with people. Love what you do. Spread the word. Change the world. “Simply write”. For whatever your artistic talent, this is wonderfully simple advice to hear. Artistically do what is in you to do, “anywhere and anytime”. It will take years. It will take collaboration. It will take education. Now that certification is possible for TLA Practitioners, there is yet more opportunity to engage and share what is transformative within an artist, and have that artist be a more powerful force for change within a local community. And of course, I've signed up. Care to join me?

With words, song and prayer,
TiMo
Here's where you can read me
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Tell Your Story

Excellence to you and yours! Here's your Saturday Post!

I come from storytellers.

Our history is such that our mundane happenings become performances in sharing with others.

Last night, my brother reminded us of how he wrapped his desktop computer in a pink woven blanket, wrapped it with duct tape (for handles) and took it on a plane to England, just to have it  fry due to a faulty converter on his first plug in. The memory always made me smile, but last night's remindering lit my laugh muscles on fire for about five minutes. I'm still smoldering with hahaha's.

And so, for him (and some other people) -  here is a reminder to tell your stories.

I wrote this for a group of ladies at Goddard College, and now redirect the point to all storytellers, griots, cantadoras and the like.

Find your chairs, your trees, your stages and platforms. Your audience is already listening, whether you see them or not. The sun is going down, and it is time.

With words, song and prayer
TiMo

Here's where you can read me:
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Educational?

Welcome back! Here is this Saturday's post!

2011 - Montpelier, Vermont

I am finding myself reaching out to my Goddardites... in thought, letter and verse.

I find it a good thing. One of my most harrowing rites of passage and "best platforms from which to jump beyond myself..." is singing silly memories to me.

Or maybe I just saw that student loan letter.

Hmmmm.

With words, song & prayer,

TiMo
Here's where you can read me:
www.alwaysalreadyalright.blogspot.com 
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Nostalgia3

Nostalgic Moments from the archives (originally posted 7.6.11) -

Those of you who have received my homemade stationary have seen this kind of stuff.

Inspired by Miri G, and dedicated to her, because sometimes you just have to take a moment and play hide and seek with the words inside you. Whether professionally or personally, it is necessary at times to simply stop and hear your own internal ripples to inspire the unfinished written works inside you to move closer to the “done” den.

I am sitting in the office in Arlington, preparing photos for a restaurant review that will be published later today. At this moment, I am listening to Proust and the Squid – The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf, narrated by Kristen Potter. Listening to this audio book and jumping about mentally I am, within a ten second loop, considering the restaurant review formation (mixing the images and text in a mental storyboard), the progress review for school (which is the main reason for listening to the Wolf audio book), the bible verses I listened to this morning, the bills that I must fill out for clientele, and my reply to my good friend Miri.

Miri is one of the many brilliantes I met at my Goddard Spring Residency. She is part of the group of people in my life that, like me, share a love of letter writing. This art is something that is falling away it seems, in light of the ease and speed of the digital communication technology all around us. I am one who appreciates being forced to slow down and take the time to taste each word in my head as I hear it, in my mouth as I imagine saying it to the letter recipient, and in my hands as I write it out. It is a long slow process, and I love it. Miri is one who writes longhand cursive with clipped curves, and excited punctuation. I truly enjoy not only what she writes, but the physical expression of her mind on paper. Each curve and line is a hug (she also doodles in the corners, so I get the fun aspect of her art imagery and art text).

“Dearie Miri” sent me a video the other day, but told me I couldn’t watch it until I received her letter, which was an accompaniment. It was an exercise in patience, and rewarded with a beautiful poem and awesome written art.

As I was writing her reply letter I began to write prose as well. The words made me feel beautiful and peaceful. Miri inspired me to inspire myself. Now I am off to write my restaurant review. 

From the last Restaurant Review for FW&D that I wrote. Isn't that smile DARLING?

But I leave you with a snippet of what I wrote to Miri:

I should be writing a Restaurant Review, but I feel stilled by the words in my heart.

As if a wind blew softly, and a leaf on the wind landed dancingly on the still water surface of my heart.

Ahhh, I heard the click in you. I see you know this image.

The gentle ripple of words in my “good morning love’ to your story…

to your poetry…

to your own internal phoenix fire resting patiently under the still water surface.

How quiet it is…

how expectant…

pregnant with a destiny that is on the surface unknown,

but underneath,


fully understood.

With words, song & prayer,
TiMo
Here's where you can read me:
www.alwaysalreadyalright.blogspot.com 
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Yours Truly, Summer 2011
© Tiffany Monique

Thanks... giving 11.28.13

The following post came from the Monday Morning Memo for 11/25/13. I thought I'd share it with you for Thanksgiving.

Of course, I've Tiffanyzed the turkey out of it.

mondaymorningmemo.com/page/beaglethanksgiving2013

Here's your assignment, if you're willing:

Write down at least 5 things for which you are thankful. And you cannot list "Family," "Friends" or "Health," because frankly, these go without saying. To be thankful for broad categories like these is lazy, bordering on the unspeakably cliché. So be specific in your thanks. And don't just name the thing, explain it.

Here are five things for which I am thankful:
1.  I have a relationship with God that has been tested (by others & myself).

I know that some people don't like Christians as a rule, and for a while I was one of those people, but then I learned to forgive (including myself), and it has made loving God, others and myself (Jesus' ONLY TWO RULES) much simpler. I am not perfect. But I am on a journey and I will run that race to win.

2. I sing.

I don't know how I would've gotten through any part of my life (good, bad, ugly, pretty) had I not been able to sing, publicly or privately. I've been told my voice is beautiful and keep singing, and I've been told I'm distracting and asked to stop. But even if I do it for no one but me, I love singing. The 2nd to last time I sang in public, I got such an adrenaline rush that I cured my own sinus congestion.

3. I've lived on both sides of the continental United States. 

It has affected my understanding of people, and place as a construct. It has opened my mind to people (and strangely, made me close-minded in some ways I own - happily). It has also made me want to explore areas of the world that I've never seen, and that Tiffanyzed wanderlust has netted me some awesome covenant friends that I'm far enough away from to extravagantly love, and be extravagantly loved by in return.

4. I've learned to give my flowers now.
I have some people who were very close to me in high school, college, the band, other areas in my life, and now are no longer a "part of my world". I've also lost friends to death. I'd like to think that I've learned how to make sure that when someone is in my life, for however long, they are aware of how much I love them, and that no matter how our relationship ends (hey, it happens), they have memories of me which included expressions of love - even when it didn't "serve" me.

5. A Word with You Press via the Anti-Social Writers and Creative Misfits writing group

I graduated with my Masters in February of 2013, but I admit, I was still not that good at writing academically. My hybrid arts-based thesis project was able to give me a platform to write creatively, but after all the thesis submissions and edits and re-edits and re-submissions, I was burnt. As a self-dare, I joined the Anti-Social Writers and Creative Misfits writing group (held at the now closed Oceanside AWwYP location), and not only did I get awesome critiques about how to improve my writing, I very quickly found myself inspired to just write! AWwYP's Wingnuts contest introduced me to Peggy Dobbs only months before she left this earthly plane. Had it not been for Peggy, Thorn, Billy, Ed, Ronnie, Russ, Kyle, The Tall Poet Guy and others (you know who you are), I would have not made it through the transition of graduating from Graduate School and putting my feet back on my own artistic ground.

I consider myself most blessed. Thank you for your part in it.

With words, song & prayer,

TiMo
Here's where you can read me:
www.alwaysalreadyalright.blogspot.com 
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Ripple, still, ripple...

In the last few weeks, I've remembered how much I love singing, and how much I haven't been doing so. I'm the one to blame for my own silence. I am the one that has to do the work to restrengthen the muscles I let get lazy. I am NOT looking forward to this work. But even yesterday as I was messing around, I remembered how much strength I draw from doing that very thing that I love.

I am feeling this way about writing as well. Been thinking about writing. Been doing a lot of post-it note poetry. I was scared by imperfection, which is the case with many artists. I apologize to myself.

Perhaps it is in this imperfection that I find my honesty. A perfect mimic is still a mimic.

I don't want to sing because I don't sound like the record. I do want to sing because I sound. Re-sound.

re·sound

 verb \ri-ˈzau̇nd also -ˈsau̇nd\

Definition of RESOUND

intransitive verb

1

: to become filled with sound : reverberate

2

a : to sound loudly <the gunshot resounded>

b : to produce a sonorous or echoing sound

3

: to become renowned

transitive verb

1

: to extol loudly or widely : celebrate

2

: echo, reverberate

3

: to sound or utter in full resonant tones

I don't like sometimes that I bring so much noise to wherever I go. But then I realized I am made to do so. I sing. I speak. I write. I make ripples.

I wrote that for myself during the first residency at graduate school (to be opened after graduation). It may be self-centered, but I didn't know when I wrote it that I would need to read it when I did. God must have.

Ripple. Still. Ripple.

2012 in review - ish

I blame Mary A. for this blog post... but not in a bad way.

2012 was a writing year... mostly my practicum plan, portfolio, and thesis. I did write other pieces. But other things happened as well. Thankfully, I saw many man California sunsets that slowed me down, and some even took my breath.

I also took lots of short road trips to one of my favorite places on Earth (hint, it rhymes with BALBOA PARK). Brengle Terrace Park, Oceanside Pier, Santa Barbara, Julian, Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Vermont (in both Winter and late Summer), Ohio (which is the longest road trip that I've ever had with a friend... so far).

No sicknesses that completely impeded me, save a nasty cold in early Jan. But that didn't stop me from keeping on the move.

March was when I left my job working in Heartland Village (where I learned quite a bit about myself and my "family") to start a new one as the Registrar and Office Manager at a Charter School. This allowed me to finish school and afford to move to my new place some time in May.

Yes, that is my private Wonderland... and I try and write every day, though you may or may not read it.

The weather changed, season to season. Beautiful flowers in spring turned to hot flashes from the sun, which caused power outages in So Cal. From here our blistering summer turned cool and beautiful, but not cold. It turned cold in December. It was kinda freezing (nothing like East Coast... I mean SoCal freezing, which in reality is more like SUCK-IT-UP-and COVER-YOUR-MIDRIFF-or-worse-PUT-ON-A-COAT freezing).

I did sing once for a graduation event in June, but that was the only real "gig" outside of church worship (which is highly personal) for the year. I don't do karaoke, because I don't want to go to bars. I turned 35 this year in September, and I decided I'm just "too old" to play around with half measures of God, man, and knowledge, so I do much less.

My friend Keke and her husband David moved to Texas in October, leaving a gaping hole in my heart and in our Bible Study conversation. I had it all dialed in too. Saturday mornings were always accounted for learning and celebrating a growing relationship with God.

I spent October 31 volunteering at Life Christian Church for their Harvest Festival. Thanksgiving I spent with my Mom for lunch and boyfriend's mom for dinner. Christmas again, between houses. John had a wondrous victory in an appeal, and because of that we were able to bless my family with toys and gifts a-plenty. It really was a beautiful holiday season.

My brother left for Costa Rica to begin his missionary journey there. My nephews turned, 18, 7, 2, and 1 respectively. My boyfriend and I celebrated our first anniversary of dating. We also attended his eldest daughter's marriage. Lots of furniture moving and knick knack buying, cleaning, cleaning out, packing and unpacking, concealing and revealing, blah blah blah...

So... I was highly blessed, and also highly battled in 2012. I am still here. And I will keep going and growing.

Giving Thanks 2012

Just wanted to thank every one of you who said for me to keep writing. 

I Thank You © Tiffany Monique

There will be more writing and imagining in future. I'm regrouping. 37,000 or so words later I can say that I am SOOOO glad that I love writing otherwise, I think that my thesis would have killed me (literally). Here below is the last drafted abstract of my thesis (I think it's pretty complete, but at least here I can show you a glimpse of what's been running around and around in my brain these past two years):

This creative thesis project is a collection of my personal dual-expression spoken word recordings and writings, showing how I used dual-expression to engage the self-conscious roles of my woman-self which I termed Pme and Qme. This is explained in chronological detail as I theorized and shared my personal findings of what dual-expression is and how it has played (and continues to play) a part in my personal transformation through use of spoken and written word (one of the basic tenets of Transformative Language Arts). In addition to my own submissions, I shared my dual-expression theory and method with women that live in my local community when I facilitated a TLA practicum in the form of a free community workshop. The women who attended have all shown an appreciation for dual-expression as a positive creative outlet, allowing some of their dual-expressions to be included in my process paper as a chronological experience of what they shared and witnessed of my theories of TLA, dual-expression, Pme, Qme, and the spectrum of authenticity through the engagement of the dual-expression method. The following creative submission is my personal engagement and theorizing of my dual-expression workshop which are all a part of my Transformative Language Arts praxis and methodology. 

What a mouthful. And I still think it can be said better, but if I don't stop editing it, I'll never be done. I want to be done. 

For those of you who've stood by me through this work, I am most grateful. I am humbled by your diligence and loyalty. I thank you all.

The best moment of your life and the worst moment of your life are just moments.
Keep going

P.S. -- I want to thank ©Bing for the following image (a beautiful & well-timed image of what I would call complementary duality). It is a beautiful summation of what I've been studying, and it is also the wallpaper I was staring at as I turned in the latest (pretty much final) draft of my Master's Thesis. 

Image Credit - Lightning strike, Cape Canaveral, Florida (© Geo Rittenmyer/Corbis)(Bing United States)

The Agony and the Ecstasy... Tiffanized of course

"No longer the meek shepherd, David is shown at the moment of his decision to fight..."

From the Film, The Agony and the Ecstasy, starring Rex Harrison and Charlton Heston

I have much to write and speak about. I have no excuses -- but I'm not really apologizing. I'm simply stating for the case that I know I am supposed to be writing more.

My reason for not writing was... well... I was writing.

I was writing my master's thesis. And I just turned it in last night. Who know's what the committee is going to say about it. But I am taking this moment to just be thankful that I made the decision to complete that task. I am so glad that I finished that stretch of road. IT SUCKED! But now, there is a moment of euphoria (like I've just gone to the bathroom after holding it for six months!).

This actually links to the image above. Here's how:

I've never really paid attention to the face of the David statue. I admit it, I was enthralled by his stone booty. I was aware of his front netherparts (I was a crass little kid when I first saw it, and he was naked, and Goonies had that scene about "that's my mom's favorite part!"), and all that, but mostly I remember being enthralled by his butt. I looked like a really really white butt!

I digress.

The other day I was watching The Agony and the Ecstasy, and in the beginning of the movie they give a brief history of Michelangelo's life and art, and at that point, there is a slow pan around the statue. I got a chance to look at his face -- at what Michelangelo captured -- such concentration, a little terror, and yet determination. At least that's what I saw.

It made me think about my thesis. I wonder if the face that was on the statue of David was the face I made when I started typing. Now, I don't think I slayed a giant. But I do feel like I took one on when I began. And now that it's turned in, all that's left are the final revisions. I honestly don't care how many there are. I completed this part.

Sarah - keep going. What you are saying is important.
Kao - I'm proud of you finishing this, in your "artistic gramma" way. I am so glad I had the experience of your love and "sing it girl"!
Scott - Wow. Just wow. Doing what I've done makes me THAT much more proud of what you are doing.

There are more, but these three needed to be called out.

The best moment of your life and the worst moment of your life are just moments.
Keep going.

You'd think I hadn't been writing...

Hello there to those of you reading,

I just want you to know that I still exist, such as the case may be. There are as always shifts, cycles, and changes taking place. I am in the midst of some graduate school writing that is FINALLY starting to feel like it is mine, and not something some annoying teacher-megalomaniac told me to say. I've also been upheaved on many levels.

The more things change, the more I find I am settling into a "me" that is unlike anyone I've known me to be (and therefore, I'm overtaking and getting rid of some BAD habits, and starting newer, better ones). Dare I say I'm becoming more authentic?

I've started having some pretty awesome (and terrible) conversations with God. He's told me some things about myself that are bigger than I'm ready to deal with, and some things that I need to stop think-speak-do-being. And then there are all the people around me who are telling me wonderful things about who they see me to be, and how I affect them, which lines up with what God has been telling me my whole life (but of course, we can only imagine how I listened... but that was before...)

'Si Malakas at Si Maganda" by Rejeena Victoriana
~saw both it and the artist at an artwalk  5/6/12 in San Marcos
(this image does it no justice)

In the midst of this, life is happening... and art as well- in me, around me, etc. Sometimes it hits me immediately, and sometimes it takes a few days, but tends to be more powerful when it does. The above picture is what I will call a delayed ping (think active sonar, but for the artist's soul). Without meaning to, Rejeena inspired some of my graduate work. Si Malakas at Si Maganda is the Philipino creation myth, which fits in my Pme/Qme-Authenticity Spectrum pretty well (you have to read my papers to better understand that, and I don't want to post them here... this is where I wax Tiffanitious...lol). Suffice it to say that the split, strength, and beauty are pinging me to work on grad work. Right now I am exploring my subjective definition of authenticity and how that plays out in other definitions. It's beautiful, boring, aggravating, strengthening stuff.

By A. Aviles while a passenger in my Red Blessedmobile

But then, that is what is my life right now. Some of it is unclear, some of it is crystal clear, some of it is stone solid, and some of it is flower fading. I just wanted to spend some time sharing that God is working in/on/through me, and "I am loving every moment, even the strain" (India Arie, Good Morning).

I also have a story coming about a painting someone did of me that took seven years to get to me. More coming soon...

Imagine, plan, prepare, execute

And you will know them by their fruit

Be Brave Enough to Break Your Own Heart

Attending residencies at my Graduate School in Vermont is a lesson in saying goodbye, and yet, a reawakening of the welcome I have been saying to myself for quite some time. This blog post is a witness of myself. Right now. At this most powerful moment. And also remembering someone, who just graduated from Goddard, as she witnessed me to me in May of 2011.

I'm writing you from nags head north Carolina on top of a bright as
grass green thermarest and sleeping bag and I totally hear ya tiff.
This may not be helpful but I feel like that feeling never goes away.
And why should it? "The world don't owe me flowers even though I
planted seeds." I didn't get my second wind until the WEEKEND before
the thesis draft was due at packet 3. And there's still an absence in
my mind and I have created the least orthodox of masters thesis here.
I'm taking an extension now to do the bike thing, which felt urgent
and necessary on a conscious level I cant explain. Most of my work has
come out of unexplainable feelings. I also don't think that the path
there has any indication as to the integrity of your work (so long as
you don't disrespect others in the process.) Months went by where I
felt completely dazed from my work and legitimized in that somehow
because the work was so so so ridiculously personal to me. To my body.
A lot of people would probably say or thnk its stupid to throw
yourself into a headwind like that but I think its not only important;
its the only way in some senses.  This is your life and although Karen
Campbell says, not your lifes work, its the here and now.  All I can
suggest is SAVOR every second. Even if it sucks. Especially if it
sucks. Do what terrifies you. Don't be afraid to stray. Be brave
enough to break your own heart. Keep going. Don't dismiss silence as
counterintuitive to your work. Something is incubating in there. Wait.
But not impatiently or with expectations.  Fall off the bike ten times
and still pick yourself up even if you have no idea where to go next.
Keep standing. And if you can't stand, do what I do and run.  Find
ways to learn outside of your brain and trust yourself.  You have what
it takes. This feeling is evidence. We do and will all witness it.

There is so much going on in this place that I have to thank God that He pointed me to it. I just wrote an annotation for Freeing the Natural Voice by Kristin Linklater talked about trusting the uncomfortable. My friend told me to trust this place almost a year before I truly to understand the brilliance of her statement.

“If you can learn to accept dizziness when it occurs, you will not be sick” (33).
I feel this is a strong symbol of attempting something that is new and outside
the realm of comfortably strange. “Though you may feel it, you will not fall down; 
you may feel you are about to fall but you will find you can embrace the state 
as a useful disorientation out of which you can explore a new use of yourself” (33).

This is my life right now. It's my faith in God breaking me open like a planted seed to begin to root and bear fruit. It's my poetry crying out of me like a hawk flying in the air calling freedom. It's my new job. It's my TLA practice becoming a living thing. It's my faith in people being testing beyond where I know to breathe. It's losing friends to their most wonderful destinies and having to stand on my own. I knew a lady that was writing a book in 1999, that had the working title, This Life is a Test. There is a "great conjunction" taking place (like I am a Gelfling, lol- yeah nerdle yourself and find that reference). I have to trust, "and stop leaning on my knowledge of things" Proverbs 3:5

© Consuelo Gamboa – all rights reserved

I'm all over the place, but it's coming together as it is needing to. I am realizing that I am not breathing right now. I am realizing that I am in deep, and I am not breathing, but I am not drowning. I was born for this, made wonderfully for this, and I had to let go of my own definition of myself and trust the new.

I understand now, that I am brave enough to break my own heart. I am not breaking it to kill it. I am breaking it so that it can finally be alive.