3 Gigs in One Day

But only one makeup job. :) And yes, that necklace is painted on. It makes hooping so much easier and I had to hoop at all 3 gigs.

I.D.E.A.

My good friend Jason has lots of I.D.E.A.s he shares through his work at the Institute for the Development of Evolutionary Awareness. He has been a tremendous gift in my world and helped me acquire many of the distinctions fundamental to both my work and my lifestyle. Todays headline is for him and his IDEAS -- may they spread far and wide to serve the greater good.

Is it really over?

When people saw decompress on my head, they mistakenly thought it was in relation to Burning Man, which I did not attend this year. Subsequently, they asked, "How can you be decompressing from an event you didn't even attend?" I thought that was funny. And, while I didn't go, up until a week before, I was planning to so I had much of the months of preparation and stress associated with that without any of the upside of the experience.

In this case, it was because I was finally done with all the major editing of the footage from the DVD. The rest, which took weeks, was final proofing and DVD production stuff. I was ready to decompress from a summer of putting my heart, soul, time and energy into creating the Temple of Poi 2006 Fire Dancing Expo DVD and I was grateful to get a respite from editing. No doubt about it -- iMovie is a great tool. That said, I'm sure, in retrospect, Final Cut Pro would have made the job much easier.

We Need Something... Different

On this the 5 year anniversary of 9/11, I still believe we fundamentally need something different in terms of how we as humans interact if we are to survive and thrive as a race. I recently re-read this article about the war in Iraq by Ken Wilber and really resonate with his vision of how we could grow in the future. I hope it comes in my lifetime... though I think that would be optimistic.

Oh yeah, the lettering is in purple for Lexi... in honor of the theme of her trip: different. :)

Bindis Galore!

I was so happy to receive the really awesome bindis Vladlen got for me when he was away in India. In addition to those, I met a beautiful woman who was here from Bombay. She traded me some of these bindis for some poi lessons, so between the two new stashes I received, I was inspired to do less painting and more bindi decorations.

Gig Day

Done with that particular incarnation of a mohawk experiment, I was reinspired by the first day I had shaved my head. Unfortunately, I forgot to take the photo before the Gig, so this is the aftermath of sweat and performing and lost gems and decorations.

Painted Ram Hawks, Part II

Let the Shavings Begin

This was the inspiration for the November shaving... heehee...

Animal? Vegetable?

We thought this looked a bit like a peacock on one side of the face, and an ivy branch on the other...

This One is For you Stephanie (and Jet)

I finally managed to get down to Redwood City to visit with Stephanie and Jet, her and Gadget's(not so) newborn son. I think it took us six months before I actually saw him. Unfortunately for me, it was not until I arrived and she told me I had put the "J" on my head backward -- I had not taken a picture before I left -- that I realized my headline didn't really make sense. Really, I need an automated spell checker.


I was grateful to have just had such a long visit with my nieces. It really prepared me for being in the dynamic of adult and child relating. It was actually interesting how different hanging out with a newborn compared to teens is. I was pretty floored by it, actually. It was interesting how, when I held him and cradled him in my arms, he reached for my breast -- I can only assume he thought I had milk too.

I had a really great time crawling around with him on the floor and an even more fabulous time reconnecting with Stephanie. We had one of the best, deepest, most authentic and intimate conversations we've had in years and I was incredibly moved by the experience. She sent me these photos which arrived the day before my 10 day silent retreat in an effort to inspire me to update my blog. Well, it worked girlfriend -- here I am updating my blog on the 10th day of silence and the last day of my master cleanse filling in all the back entries from August until now (November 25). This one is for you!

Purple (is the color of God)

My dear friend Jon (and one of the many great loves of my life) said to me many years ago, "Purple is the color of God." He then proceeded to cite how purple is a color reserved for high holy days in the Catholic tradition, how the 7th Chakra is represented visually by God and spoke of the purple haze/aura people see when they "meet" God in several references (books, movie, personal accounts). The very first crane mobile I made was for him and it was purple cranes in honor of the God within Him and the divine way in which we met over the years. Unfortunately the mobile burned down when there was a fire in his home some years ago but I was reminded of the whole thing by Lexi's love of purple.

Sunset on the Beach

In retrospect, I suppose it would have made more sense to put this word of the day on my head the day we were making the hoops. Alas, that did not happen.

Lexi had her new hairdo going on with the awesome dye job Matthew and his assistant did for her -- To be honest, when she said she wanted purple hair, I had thought of Steve Freed's crazy mohawks when we lived together at the Poof all those years ago and the manic panic brightness of color you see at Burning Man all the time. I was surprised at how subtle and beautiful the purple looked and was quite impressed.

Anyway, this being the girls last day in town, we went out to the beach and got a great sunset just before the fog rolled in. It was actually great timing and since we hadn't had the weather during the week at sunset previously, I was grateful to give the girls an opportunity to touch the other ocean that bounded this continent. I hadn't touched both oceans until I was well into my 20's so I was glad to facilitate it for them at a younger age.


It was, in typical San Francisco summer style, not warm on the beach, so I was grateful for my cat hoodie (thanks Josie!) because my bald head was cold.

We collected shells, coral, rocks and of course beach glass, played around in the surf, enjoyed the sun going down, played with the camera and finally piled back into the car just as the sun faded over the horizon and the fog covered what might have remained of it. A really fun last evening and I was glad the whole trip had ended on such a positive note.

At the time, I was quite exhausted from the whole trip. Because I am so accustomed to relating with adults, I had no idea how to build rapport with Courtney and Lexi and I consistently wondered if they were actually having a good time or not. I remembered thinking, "How do parents do this?" And I thought of my own parents having five children and was more clear than ever my purpose on this planet is not to be a parent. With time and space having passed from their visit (I write this November 25, 2006), I have a much more keen appreciation of the experience and I would absolutely do it again. Of course, it would be much easier next time since I know them a bit more now and I have a better idea what to expect. I hope when they think back on the trip they will remember it with some fondness, as I do.

Fearlessness

Since I've explored NLP, it seemed to me the word "fearless" was not nearly as powerful as courage. I'm not sure what inspired the word in particular today -- perhaps it was because we were going to see the sharks at the aquarium.

Of course, they weren't nearly as entertaining as the penguin feeding was. It was very interesting to hear their talk on the penguins and I discovered that Jim has always had a love of penguins. Who knew? This emerald green snake is probably my second favorite picture of all of the ones we got on the trip. The color on the snake is so vibrant -- it is truly amazing.


I wish you could actually see more in the penguin tank. Most of the pictures from the aquarium were not that visible -- I guess it has something to do with the lighting and water and basic physics... go figure. :)

Clearly I'm Not Made to Busk in front of Boudin's

One of my favorite bumper stickers ever read: "Visualize Whirled Peas" which resonated with me as much for the pun as for the image and the subsequent conversations it created. I actually took an informal survey when I first saw it, asking people if their peas were whole or mashed or what. What do you peas look like? After primping up my head, we all got on muni and headed downtown to the Powell Street turn around for the cable cars. Despite living in San Francisco for 10 years, I somehow managed to never get on the cable car. I thought it was exhilarating, though Lexi thought, as with just about everything else over the course of the week, it was different. I think that was actually the theme of the week. We took the cable car to Fisherman's Wharf. I was surprised to see the buskers out on the street standing on their boxes doing... nothing. I thought it was an interesting gimmick to get passers by to interact with them -- when you give them money they will do something for you. Most of them simply were not that entertaining when you got them to do something. In deference to their work, I declined to whip out my poi when a drummer was doing some amazing drumming nearby, not wanting to be misperceived as a busker myself, nor wanting to intrude on their income in any way. I was, however, tempted to do so. We walked about by the wharf for a while and then went to the museum at Boudin Bakery while we were waiting to be seated for lunch. I particularly found the information about different traditions that originated in San Francisco interesting, like fortune cookies.

Don't Make the Dew Angry

I love living in a city. Just a few blocks from my home -- which is in a residential neighborhood -- this sign resides on the side of the building where I get my nails done. It's a rotating billboard actually and I'm not quite sure why the girls took pictures of it, but it completely makes sense to me that they would take this picture of Courtney. She loves red and this bush framing her looks so awesome. It is definitely one of my favorite photos from the trip out here. That day I had a gig in the South Bay -- thank you Sean for being my fire safety -- during the day of all times. One of my students Stephanie arranged the gig and I got to spin fire at a luau during the day. The unfortunate part of spinning during the day is that you end up not being able to see the fire as well so it doesn't have nearly the impact. Unfortunately. When I got home, we sat around and answered questions from the Book of Questions for a while. And I was completely exhausted from my outing that day.