Musings on Massage

It is with trepidation that I recently turned to massage therapy to help resolve some knee and back issues. Until recently, I had not had good experiences with these practices but I am now becoming a convert. I have finally found someone who knows what he is about and is passionate about his work. Massage sessions both this past Sunday and the Sunday before resulted in such a combination of euphoria and fatigue that I felt compelled to write about the experience.


Lying face down on a table under a sheet.
Drifting under light sail, not yet exposed to the elemental forces to come.

Lightly at first, his hands like a breeze rustle the gossamer cloth, probing the aging rigging, creating ripples on the stillness of my skin.

His hands strengthen like the trade wind before a storm. I feel him following the routes of my past lives. I’m looking outwards from within as he finds the ragged moorings that are reluctant to yield to the brewing storm’s force. A life time of protections revealed as tight muscles and fascia holding on to their well worn truths.

Fibers shout out in resistance. I feel their anguish as they are invited to yield to a new reality. My body strains at its moorings, the relentless wind searches to free the vessel.
For a brief time the age long patterns of past realities yield to this new liberating wind
.

Lying in the hold of my own vessel, I weathered the storm, wind swept, adrift from past realities, in a bliss of disconnection. My body, tired and battered tastes a new reality.

“I disent” Update

…keep the flame alive

two sculptures as tributes to Ruth Bader Ginsberg. They include a representation of her "I disent" collar, the supreme court and a flame holder

I have now completed two tributes to Ruth Bader Ginsberg. In these troubling times the Supreme Court appears to be moving in a direction where once again, men make decisions about women’s bodies without regard for their own culpability or the health, financial security, and safety of the women and families involved. Why is our society so hypocritically set on denying citizenship to DACA recipients, young people who are ready or already have entered the labor force to be productive, contributing citizens while forcing women to carry a pregnancy to term where the child faces an uncertain future. How we are missing the sage judgement of RBG.
The piece on the left, is at D&R Art Gallery and Studio – until Oct 9 (5350 E Broadway Blvd, Suite 156, Tucson, AZ) and the piece on the right is at On the Edge Contemporary Gallery, (19 Tubac Road, Suite 300, Tubac, AZ)

Contemplation

…The reality of diverse timelines

I continue to capture moments suspended in time on my morning walks. This time, a man and his dog stop for a breather. The little dog was acutely aware of his surroundings and his endearing peek at me from behind his human’s legs was irresistible. The man seemed transported by the morning to another place.

Our time lines synchronized as I drew level and we exchanged “good mornings”.

Noises in the night…

I’m starting to realize that haiku is a way I capture the feel of fleeting events. Mostly I’m attentive to my world when I’m outside and walking. I’ll grab my phone camera and snap a shot, and then spend the walk home mulling over or reveling in what I’ve seen. However, sometimes memorable events happen at odd times….

Digital drawing of a thrasher in the moonlight with haiku

The first birds to start the dawn chorus here in the desert of southern Arizona are the thrashers. They are a sleek blue/grey bird with yellow eyes, long tail and a large curved bill. They are great mimics and once they get started their range of calls is quite remarkable. First thing in the morning, as warm up perhaps, their calls are less melodic and more squawk like. What I don’t here is thrashers calling in the depths of the night, but two nights ago I was awoken by the loud cries of what I believed to have been a thrasher… Too dozy to get up and investigate but awake enough for my imagination to wander.

This image is another of my early explorations of Procreate, a digital drawing/painting platform on my ipad. It may seem strange, but I import a preliminary pencil sketch onto the digital platform and then, using that as a base, start to explore Procreate’s capabilities. I’m feeling like I’m in a bit of a no-man’s land on the one hand trying to stay in the bounds of my watercolor expertise and on the other, letting the wonders of procreate take over…Definitely a work in progress.