Spirit orbs in Oakland
My studio in Oakland was a hot spot for hauntings. I would often sense when spirits would drop in. This is a photo (2010) of one my ghostly visitors.
There were poems inside this
Old hand-bound journals I made using repurposed fabric, found paper and ribbon.
What has carried me (an ever-expanding list)
What has carried me from birth until now has been this: love, the openness of the world, wild overgrown yards, imagining I am a princess warrior, digging for dinosaur bones, calling out for god in the dark, what prayer is, wishes, the sky at night, that one star brighter than the rest, my grandfather communicating from the dead, love, the dimensions of dreams, coincidences — no — synchronicities, magic spells that work, love, being alone but not feeling alone, love that grows claws, my mother in my throat chakra, art as a choice, stretching past my shame, a wide open sky, walking in nature, aliens, the believers, love, a murmuration of birds, love, falling down on my knees, getting back up, a warm bed, nostalgia, oh my god, so much nostalgia, animals as familiars, freedom, every beautiful thing, this incessant flowering of time and life — each day, I open my heart up for the looting.
High school wisdom
Here are scanned pages from my high school notebook where I collected what I considered to be sage advice and quotes.
A lot of these quotes, which now seem banal, really helped me survive the discomfort of high school and bullies and a broken heart.
Here are the quotes that still resonate with me twenty years later:
“Be tough in the way a blade of grass is: rooted, willing to lean, and at peace with what is around it.” — Natalie Goldberg
"Do you imagine the universe is agitated? Go into the desert at night and look at the stars. This practice should answer the question. The superior person settles her mind as the universe settles the stars in the sky. By connecting her mind with the subtle origin, she calms it. Once calmed, it naturally expands, and ultimately her mind becomes as vast and immeasurable as the night sky.” — Lao Tzu (apparently refuted)
“The greatest unexplored territory is the space between our ears.” — unknown (to me)