I lie down in the grass, the cloud drifting through kisses my cheek. The lights flash across my face, illuminating the cracked glass shielding me from the rest of the world. Layers upon layers of glass, and then above them nothing. Nothing but sky. Countless stars painted across the sky, speaking to me, asking me to come join them. They close in, beckoning me. Twinkling with their own personalities, they are so intriguing, and I have no choice but to come with them. The music drowns the sound of my breathing, and I leave my body in the glass coffin. My hands sink into my chest, my feet into the ground, and I am lying above the glass, finally with nothing between me and the universe. After the universe has shown me all it wanted to, of its calm, of its beauty, of its oneness, I begin to come back to my body. My feet rise out of the dirt, my hands out of my chest. As a gift for my communion with the stars, I am in ecstasy. I feel bliss radiating from my stomach downwards through my body, and heat up into my arms and chest. My breathing quickens and picks up volume, and I am aware of it once more. I rise out of my glass encasing, and rejoin the rest of the world around me. Hookah anyone?
In the tent, I am resting (communing with the universe is fairly draining) and friends are doing some healing work, going on about chakras, and my eyes slowly shut and I fall asleep for just a few minutes. I wake up to the sound of Travis' voice, but I don't open my eyes. I don't need to: I can see him plain as day. I know where he is from the sound of his voice, and I can feel his energy pulsing around us. I can see his face, and his mouth when he talks. I can see his chest rising and falling with his breathing. I can see Shakti pushing healing energy into my body, see the energy flowing from the universe through her into me. I can't hear Kat though. I can see her, out of arms reach, and she is the brightest light in the room. I couldn't see her with my eyes, I couldn't hear her with my ears, and I couldn't feel her with my hands, but I knew she was there. I went to her, and just felt her face - I wanted to learn when it looked like without the distraction of sight. As I payed attention, I could feel everyone around me. But not the dead things - I have a bruise on my knee to prove that rocks don't have energy.
On August 8th, the universe taught me how to see without my eyes. Not a lesson I will soon forget.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
What a week...
Since i last blogged, a lot of stuff has happened. I will spend a disproportionate time on different events, but this is to be expected, because I simply do not care about everything equally.
The last time we spoke, it was just after Faerieworlds (which shall be called FW from here on out, as faerieworlds is not fun to type), and we spent a few days recovering. Nothing terribly interesting happened that week until Friday. I took a wee bike ride downtown to the Eugene Weekly HQ, because a designer I am walking for in a fashion show next week had be be her model for a photoshoot! I am not a model, not is modeling something I want to do seriously, but Hera keeps giving me these jobs to do, and I figure getting my name and face in the paper cannot possibly be a bad thing. So I wore this really poofy vest, and pants that can only be described as MC Hammer parachute pants meets 1800's ladies long underwear. Needless to say, I didn't know what emotion to really go for, and when I asked for a suggestion from Hera, her response was both awesome and completely unhelpful and was to "think Tim Burton." So, if you see the article in the paper this week, that's what I was going for. That's what the kid who stumbled into modeling and has had no training and has never done a photoshoot before. Not gonna lie, wasn't my best work - the goth look is my safety box (see spring fashion show pictures) and stepping outside of it is something I am still getting used to.
The photoshoot was short, and Jeremy and Lyra got distracted on their way out of town by a garage sale, so they had to go home to drop their haul off, which allowed me to jump in the car with them and go on a road trip to ashland. We were going to ashland because the next morning, an event I shall call the shakesale was going on. The shakesale is where they sell off (for very cheap) all of the costumes that the shakespeare plays had been using for the past 5 years. For those of you who don't know, ashland is shakespeare central. I got a pair of white gloves that got used yesterday for the first time (I'll get to that), and J and Lyra got $150 of clothes which filled up 4 garbage bags of clothes. These bags will largely comprise our costume budget for Kirkos for quite some time I think. We also got to hang out with the Mythmaker crew (people who put on Epic shows with seriously cool costumes and stilts and fire - people I will get along with very well) and just have a jolly ol' time.
But now, for some serious news. We were walking around friday night during the first friday art walk, and we were told that there was a trapeze show. And when I hear about someone doing aerial work when I don't know them, I am so going. So we went, and saw some pretty excellent stuff. One thing I couldn't help noticing was how similar the style was to that of Zuzi (a company I worked for in Tucson). Perhaps this was unavoidable, considering they were the only other aerial dance/modern company I have ever seen since Zuzi, but nevertheless, the similarities were uncanny. As it turns out, the person who runs this company moved to Ashland from Tucson, and used to work with Zuzi, and is friends with the women who trained me! Small world when it comes to circus and dance I suppose. In addition to this, I had the privilege of watching a woman named Emily Abrahams. She performed a piece to "The Ghost of You Lingers" by Spoon, and this is when I perked up. Her movement style was so unique, and so incredibly beautiful, and the more I watched, she is the anti-connor. I tend to do very sweeping, curvy movement, because that is what I feel. She was very angular (note: angular≠sharp, it just means straight line movement) and I've never seen someone make angular movement look so beautiful. You will see her influence in my pieces in the future, to be sure.
Emily then followed that piece with one called "Can't Stand The Rain" set to a song by the same name by The Rescues. This piece was mind-blowing. The dance was mixed so seamlessly with the aerial, and it was so incredibly beautiful. She is such a small person. 110 lbs at absolute most. She is about 5'2" and is small is every way it is possible to be. When she did this piece, she commanded the entire room. She filled it up with her energy, and, as my old martial arts teacher used to say, she "took up space." I was inspired, to say the least, and I am working on a new trapeze piece by the same artist, except to the tune of "Before The Fall," a piece which is still developing it's plot. However, what I have so far, coming from the lyrics and my own life, is loving the past, so that you cannot move on. This past continually trips you up, and you keep falling. However, the piece will not conclude with learning how not to get tripped by your past, or even to accept it, but to learn how, when you are falling, to catch yourself. To learn to live with your past, rather than to move past it. And I know how I am going to portray most of that. So, now I need is a show to put this piece in. I'll find one.
So since then, we've been having Tricky Pixie over to dinner, having a lot of fun, dancing around and generally having a good time!
Yesterday I actually got something done. I decided to take my "rock standing" to the next level, and I went downtown to do it. I was wearing clothes such that not a single inch of my skin was showing (I was wearing a mesh hood to cover my face). As it turns out, there was a big eventy thingy going on downtown, and I did my thing there. I would stand perfectly still on a pole (or crouch) and if someone put money in my hat, I would do a balance trick on my hands on top of the pole. I then donated my earnings to the event (which was a fundraiser). So next week, when I have business cards, I will continue to do this downtown, and use it to publicize our company, Kirkos (see last post).
Yeah, then I went to Voodoo Donuts and got a huge donut, and then went home and listened to The Rescues and then went to sleep. It was a good night indeed.
Adios, bloggosphere, until next time!
The last time we spoke, it was just after Faerieworlds (which shall be called FW from here on out, as faerieworlds is not fun to type), and we spent a few days recovering. Nothing terribly interesting happened that week until Friday. I took a wee bike ride downtown to the Eugene Weekly HQ, because a designer I am walking for in a fashion show next week had be be her model for a photoshoot! I am not a model, not is modeling something I want to do seriously, but Hera keeps giving me these jobs to do, and I figure getting my name and face in the paper cannot possibly be a bad thing. So I wore this really poofy vest, and pants that can only be described as MC Hammer parachute pants meets 1800's ladies long underwear. Needless to say, I didn't know what emotion to really go for, and when I asked for a suggestion from Hera, her response was both awesome and completely unhelpful and was to "think Tim Burton." So, if you see the article in the paper this week, that's what I was going for. That's what the kid who stumbled into modeling and has had no training and has never done a photoshoot before. Not gonna lie, wasn't my best work - the goth look is my safety box (see spring fashion show pictures) and stepping outside of it is something I am still getting used to.
The photoshoot was short, and Jeremy and Lyra got distracted on their way out of town by a garage sale, so they had to go home to drop their haul off, which allowed me to jump in the car with them and go on a road trip to ashland. We were going to ashland because the next morning, an event I shall call the shakesale was going on. The shakesale is where they sell off (for very cheap) all of the costumes that the shakespeare plays had been using for the past 5 years. For those of you who don't know, ashland is shakespeare central. I got a pair of white gloves that got used yesterday for the first time (I'll get to that), and J and Lyra got $150 of clothes which filled up 4 garbage bags of clothes. These bags will largely comprise our costume budget for Kirkos for quite some time I think. We also got to hang out with the Mythmaker crew (people who put on Epic shows with seriously cool costumes and stilts and fire - people I will get along with very well) and just have a jolly ol' time.
But now, for some serious news. We were walking around friday night during the first friday art walk, and we were told that there was a trapeze show. And when I hear about someone doing aerial work when I don't know them, I am so going. So we went, and saw some pretty excellent stuff. One thing I couldn't help noticing was how similar the style was to that of Zuzi (a company I worked for in Tucson). Perhaps this was unavoidable, considering they were the only other aerial dance/modern company I have ever seen since Zuzi, but nevertheless, the similarities were uncanny. As it turns out, the person who runs this company moved to Ashland from Tucson, and used to work with Zuzi, and is friends with the women who trained me! Small world when it comes to circus and dance I suppose. In addition to this, I had the privilege of watching a woman named Emily Abrahams. She performed a piece to "The Ghost of You Lingers" by Spoon, and this is when I perked up. Her movement style was so unique, and so incredibly beautiful, and the more I watched, she is the anti-connor. I tend to do very sweeping, curvy movement, because that is what I feel. She was very angular (note: angular≠sharp, it just means straight line movement) and I've never seen someone make angular movement look so beautiful. You will see her influence in my pieces in the future, to be sure.
Emily then followed that piece with one called "Can't Stand The Rain" set to a song by the same name by The Rescues. This piece was mind-blowing. The dance was mixed so seamlessly with the aerial, and it was so incredibly beautiful. She is such a small person. 110 lbs at absolute most. She is about 5'2" and is small is every way it is possible to be. When she did this piece, she commanded the entire room. She filled it up with her energy, and, as my old martial arts teacher used to say, she "took up space." I was inspired, to say the least, and I am working on a new trapeze piece by the same artist, except to the tune of "Before The Fall," a piece which is still developing it's plot. However, what I have so far, coming from the lyrics and my own life, is loving the past, so that you cannot move on. This past continually trips you up, and you keep falling. However, the piece will not conclude with learning how not to get tripped by your past, or even to accept it, but to learn how, when you are falling, to catch yourself. To learn to live with your past, rather than to move past it. And I know how I am going to portray most of that. So, now I need is a show to put this piece in. I'll find one.
So since then, we've been having Tricky Pixie over to dinner, having a lot of fun, dancing around and generally having a good time!
Yesterday I actually got something done. I decided to take my "rock standing" to the next level, and I went downtown to do it. I was wearing clothes such that not a single inch of my skin was showing (I was wearing a mesh hood to cover my face). As it turns out, there was a big eventy thingy going on downtown, and I did my thing there. I would stand perfectly still on a pole (or crouch) and if someone put money in my hat, I would do a balance trick on my hands on top of the pole. I then donated my earnings to the event (which was a fundraiser). So next week, when I have business cards, I will continue to do this downtown, and use it to publicize our company, Kirkos (see last post).
Yeah, then I went to Voodoo Donuts and got a huge donut, and then went home and listened to The Rescues and then went to sleep. It was a good night indeed.
Adios, bloggosphere, until next time!
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Philadelphia, Faerieworlds, good times
Philadelphia came to a close. Finally. I cannot express how much I was looking forward to coming home, but when the day finally came, I did not want to go through with it. Let me explain why.
In order to get to the airport at 11:00AM, we (Emilie and I) had to lug out luggage a mile and a half to the train station, make a transfer to a bus in 2 minutes (which involved running with out luggage, her suitcase didn't have wheels) and then walk around the philly airport to find the right terminals on foot. Oh yeah, and did I mention the 3 hour layover for the 4.5 hour flight, and then two hour drive back to Eugene? If you do the math on that one and take time changes into consideration, it was roughly 15 hours of travel time. That. SUCKS.
Well, I got home, and now with the beautiful weather, I can appreciate the pages and pages of notes I have from philly. It was an experience that I am glad I had, not just for circus experience, but a cultural one as well. I have never been so scared as I was the first week there. I have never been so severe a minority as I was there. As a result of this, I can say with quite a fair amount of conviction that it was one of the most important experiences in my circus career and my cultural life, and I can also say with equal conviction that it is an experience I fully plan to never repeat as long as I live.
Oh, and just to smirk a bit - my weather widget claims that it is 96 in Tucson, and 63 in Eugene at noon. This makes me happy.
I got two packages this week: 2 new CD's from Carly, which I am listening to right now, and my new 4" contact ball, which is going to hide in the shade until the end of it's days.
Alright, I suppose I should write about Faerieworlds.
Faerieworlds, as Jacob says, is not nearly as gay as it sounds. It is a 3 day gathering to listen to amazing music, dance your legs off, hang out with amazing people, and dress up however you want. We had everything from your classic faeries with wings, so Avatar Chick, to your dark elves. We had lost boys and girls, stilters and demons, people who looked like they just came from ren faire, and many many others. I myself was a forrest nymph, and that was a good look, because it involved shredded shorts and shirts, and since we were in the sun all day at Mt. Pisgah, having ventilation was a good thing.
I was camping with Jeremy and Lyra... and Kat... and Gishe. And we were right next to Isha and Corey and Daniel and Yona and Moksha. It was a very beautiful camping circle.
We got to listen to Delhi 2 Dublin, Tricky Pixie, Brother, Faun, Stellamara, and many others (I chose to list these because these are the guys you should go check out) and dance for 3 days. We also got to do a wee little show. It was choreograhed and prepared in about 6 hours, and executed that night. It was a glow show, about the story (according to peter pan) of imagination and faeries. It came out not nearly as well as I had hoped, but it ended up much better than I could ever have expected. SO! I can now say I choreographed a piece for Faerieworlds. I can also say that I have taken part in the fire ceremony in front of about 5,000 people. This year, it was a duet, between myself and a belly dancer named LuLu. I did some torch spinning and a big fire blast. Oh, and this was after Faun. Yeah, I got to follow Faun and perform in front of about 5,000 people.
In the time when I was not dancing or performing, I was scurrying about the place having fun and talking to people and getting my picture taken for the register guard (newspaper). What was I doing to get myself in the newspaper you ask? Was I doing amazing acrobatics or juggling fire chainsaws? no. I was crouching. Not only that, I was not moving at all. I was crouched on one of the rocks in the stone circle in a somewhat gargoyle pose, and I was not moving. My guess is that over the weekend, about 50 or 60 people took pictures of/with me. And many more just stood there and watched me. I have never had such an easy time attracting people as when I did not move. How weird is that. So there is a picture of me in the sunday register guard of me on a rock. I am going to do this in downtown eugene to advertise our new exploits. Which I will now explain.
In other news, Lyra and I have decided to start a circus/performance arts troupe. It is named Kirkos Performance Arts. Technically it is Κιρκος, but I don't know many people who can read greek, so that looks like kipkoc, which is not right... Kirkos is greek for "ring" or "circle," and also where the word circus comes from, because the original circuses were horse tracks. The original circuses in greek and roman times were highly unique for their times as well. The circus was one of the only social events that both men and women could go to - and the only one where they could sit together. I liked that idea. So our goal is to bring circus and performance arts (including dance, theatre, and anything else we want) to the everyman.
So, using Jeremy's massive Faerieworlds contacts, we managed to get our first gig. We havn't started rehearsals yet, and we hve our first gig. We are starting at the top this time. We are performing on Halloween in Seattle, WA for Strowler Nights. Yeah. That's right. It's gonna be awesome.
I think that is all the updates from the front as of yet, but I will keep you guys posted as more interesting things develop.
In order to get to the airport at 11:00AM, we (Emilie and I) had to lug out luggage a mile and a half to the train station, make a transfer to a bus in 2 minutes (which involved running with out luggage, her suitcase didn't have wheels) and then walk around the philly airport to find the right terminals on foot. Oh yeah, and did I mention the 3 hour layover for the 4.5 hour flight, and then two hour drive back to Eugene? If you do the math on that one and take time changes into consideration, it was roughly 15 hours of travel time. That. SUCKS.
Well, I got home, and now with the beautiful weather, I can appreciate the pages and pages of notes I have from philly. It was an experience that I am glad I had, not just for circus experience, but a cultural one as well. I have never been so scared as I was the first week there. I have never been so severe a minority as I was there. As a result of this, I can say with quite a fair amount of conviction that it was one of the most important experiences in my circus career and my cultural life, and I can also say with equal conviction that it is an experience I fully plan to never repeat as long as I live.
Oh, and just to smirk a bit - my weather widget claims that it is 96 in Tucson, and 63 in Eugene at noon. This makes me happy.
I got two packages this week: 2 new CD's from Carly, which I am listening to right now, and my new 4" contact ball, which is going to hide in the shade until the end of it's days.
Alright, I suppose I should write about Faerieworlds.
Faerieworlds, as Jacob says, is not nearly as gay as it sounds. It is a 3 day gathering to listen to amazing music, dance your legs off, hang out with amazing people, and dress up however you want. We had everything from your classic faeries with wings, so Avatar Chick, to your dark elves. We had lost boys and girls, stilters and demons, people who looked like they just came from ren faire, and many many others. I myself was a forrest nymph, and that was a good look, because it involved shredded shorts and shirts, and since we were in the sun all day at Mt. Pisgah, having ventilation was a good thing.
I was camping with Jeremy and Lyra... and Kat... and Gishe. And we were right next to Isha and Corey and Daniel and Yona and Moksha. It was a very beautiful camping circle.
We got to listen to Delhi 2 Dublin, Tricky Pixie, Brother, Faun, Stellamara, and many others (I chose to list these because these are the guys you should go check out) and dance for 3 days. We also got to do a wee little show. It was choreograhed and prepared in about 6 hours, and executed that night. It was a glow show, about the story (according to peter pan) of imagination and faeries. It came out not nearly as well as I had hoped, but it ended up much better than I could ever have expected. SO! I can now say I choreographed a piece for Faerieworlds. I can also say that I have taken part in the fire ceremony in front of about 5,000 people. This year, it was a duet, between myself and a belly dancer named LuLu. I did some torch spinning and a big fire blast. Oh, and this was after Faun. Yeah, I got to follow Faun and perform in front of about 5,000 people.
In the time when I was not dancing or performing, I was scurrying about the place having fun and talking to people and getting my picture taken for the register guard (newspaper). What was I doing to get myself in the newspaper you ask? Was I doing amazing acrobatics or juggling fire chainsaws? no. I was crouching. Not only that, I was not moving at all. I was crouched on one of the rocks in the stone circle in a somewhat gargoyle pose, and I was not moving. My guess is that over the weekend, about 50 or 60 people took pictures of/with me. And many more just stood there and watched me. I have never had such an easy time attracting people as when I did not move. How weird is that. So there is a picture of me in the sunday register guard of me on a rock. I am going to do this in downtown eugene to advertise our new exploits. Which I will now explain.
In other news, Lyra and I have decided to start a circus/performance arts troupe. It is named Kirkos Performance Arts. Technically it is Κιρκος, but I don't know many people who can read greek, so that looks like kipkoc, which is not right... Kirkos is greek for "ring" or "circle," and also where the word circus comes from, because the original circuses were horse tracks. The original circuses in greek and roman times were highly unique for their times as well. The circus was one of the only social events that both men and women could go to - and the only one where they could sit together. I liked that idea. So our goal is to bring circus and performance arts (including dance, theatre, and anything else we want) to the everyman.
So, using Jeremy's massive Faerieworlds contacts, we managed to get our first gig. We havn't started rehearsals yet, and we hve our first gig. We are starting at the top this time. We are performing on Halloween in Seattle, WA for Strowler Nights. Yeah. That's right. It's gonna be awesome.
I think that is all the updates from the front as of yet, but I will keep you guys posted as more interesting things develop.
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