Lightness of Being

Mammoth Tusk Feathers

Feathers.  They seem to have invaded my consciousness and are coming out as jewelry. Suddenly I have several styles of earrings and some big bold pendants. They make me happy and tickle nostalgia.

My long time friend, Sindona, once found pelican feathers on a Mexican beach. She brought me one that I put on my alter until the Bali bugs eventually ate it. I had to throw away it's nearly naked quill. Sindona knew that Pelicans are an important personal symbol because they'd ushered in my lifelong desire to know Truth.

I was sixteen and sitting at my favorite spot on a breezy Bolinas, California cliff top over looking the crashing surf and beach below. I often came here to think. On this particular day there was a flock of pelicans floating in the calm beyond the waves.

Lightness of Being

Suddenly, as though a signal had been given, one bird rose up, silently inviting the others to join. They swirled through the air, circling, each on their own course until one dove straight down, wings flattened back against his body and disappeared under the surface. Another dove, and another, then more than I could count, each pelican surfacing with a fish in its bill.

The sky was a circus of acrobats rising up, circling, diving, rising up, circling, diving, and in that moment time cracked and shattered into an infinite moment of wonder. My heart burst with bliss, tears streamed down my face, and the landscape of my life changed forever.  I'd experienced the lightness of being and I wanted more.

Whenever I see these birds, even now, my heart quickens.  They're a connection to and a symbol of that infinite moment, that after years of seeking and meditation, I now know is always there in the background when feelings and thoughts are feather swept away. 

Yes!

Creativity is a way of life for me.  I really don't care what form it takes as long as it's fully operational. So art, jewelry design and cooking have been riding in the back seat lately while I drive to completion the second edit of my book:        

           'Piece by Piece' - Bali Dreams, Love and the Land of Alzheimer's

I adore the writing process and working with my delightful editor, Vicki Hannah Lein, is a dream. Vicki is a  writer, singer, songwriter, artist, and fantastic all around person, who happens to be blind. (http://www.outrageousvisions.com)

Last night she performed her 'one woman show' for a group of ten of us with the theme of saying, "Yes," to what ever comes our way. That doesn't mean you don't work to change things but your initial response is YES! no matter how hard the situation - even going blind.

I met Vicki when she was performing last year at Bar Luna, here in Ubud. We hit it off immediately and became close friends - the kind of friends who feel they've always known each other.

The insights she's given me through her editing become jumping off points that say, "Yes! This will make the book better and clearer".  I understand where she's guiding me. 

I started writing 'Piece by Piece' in 2009 after returning from my first real respite trip after nine years of taking care of my husband, Bob, who has Alzheimer's disease. That trip didn't go as planned and I ended up grieving the great loss of Bob through most it. When I got home I thought to write about that grief in support of others experiencing the same thing.

What started as an article is now three and a half years and two edits later, a book. Soon I'll have to begin the process of getting published one way or another. Since the book seemed to 'fall' out of my quickly typing fingers into a Word document, I assume the publishing process will present itself too when I'm ready and begin the research.  Originally I thought I only wanted to go the traditional publishing route but now I'm saying, "Yes' to whatever possibilities show up to get it out there.

For stories about care-giving and Alzheimer's see my blog:

   www.alzworld-susantereba.blogspot.com

You can hear Vicki sing and talk about being Vicki at her 60th birthday party here:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln7JqdZNePk

Wakeful Nights

Something's going on internally and I don't know what. I wake way too early with my jaw hurting from clenching.  I spend the day in a fog that doesn't clear until mid afternoon often feeling like I'm in another room distant from reality. 

One 4:30 am 'wakeup' I decide to change my attitude and see this as an opportunity instead of bemoaning the lack of sleep and the effects it'll have on my day.  As I lay there waves of euphoria wash over me and I feel so lucky to live the life I live.

I figure since I'm awake anyway I may as well meditate, even though it's challenging to do so lying down. I don't want to risk getting up in case that illusive sleep state returns to envelope me....in case.

An hour of meditation passes. Darkness, slowly melting, reveals the outline of trees and plants outside my window.  And then accompanying the emerging light, new ideas expose themselves. 

Bodhi Leaf with Dangles

I 'see' a double helix in the form of a dragons with a Kuan Yin emerging out of them. I tap out the idea on my bedside iPod.  About fifteen minutes later I see our Bodhi leaf earrings now with dangling beads inside. Again the iPod receives the idea.

Maybe staying awake isn't so bad after all!  Maybe the attitude change freed up some energy, formerly held hostage by resistance, to allow creativity to spring forth.

A few days later, with the use of Photoshop and my office manager,  I quickly get the new design ready for our carvers. I can't wait to make a pair for myself!

Moments

While I was in California, I stayed over night with my friends, Judy and Jerry.  I had an unusually deep restful sleep on the upper floor of their art filled house in country. The   delightful room was filled with their six year old grand daughter's, Sophia's, toys.  I was especially intrigued with a carousel of scissors, that each cut a different pattern such as scallops, jagged spikes, or waves. I thought, "What a lucky child," knowing how adored she is as well as having creative tools at her disposal.

The next night Sophia stayed the night and slept in her room in the bed I'd slept in.  

Ever since she could express herself, Sophia has said she wants to be a dentist. In the morning Judy, by chance, asked her if she still wanted to be a dentist but she said, "No, I want to be a carver and an artist!"

No one in the house thinks Sophia knows what I do for a living - that I'm an artist and that I design carvings to put into my jewelry.  How did this happen?  Is she psychic? Are young children connected to a form of communication we've lost as adults?  

Whatever the answer, these magical life moments thrill me and I sense are connected to the conduit of creativity and staying present.

Thank you, Sophia.

There's Magic A Brewing

I haven’t written for a few months. Life got a hold of me and off we jetted to my annual exhibitions at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, the largest trade show of it’s kind in the world. There are over forty venues all happening at once in this hopping University town. 

"Lightness of Being"

Crazily I do two shows concurrently and it is only with the help of dear friends that it’s possible. Kirsten Long, former ballerina with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet Company, is my ace sales woman. Alan Spence, our chief engineer, charms clients into buying when he isn’t fixing something or couriering carvings between shows. Our happy customers tell me what lovely people I have working the booths. 

Tucson is exhausting and exhilarating all at once. I resupply as well as sell my existing work and take orders. It’s a two-week thrill of hard work punctuated with kudos for our quality and creativity that lets me know I’m on the right path and motivates me to continue pushing the creative limits. 

In this international circus I buy mammoth tusk and jet from Russian traders, beads from Indians, Chinese, Afghanis, American’s and Pakistanis.  I sell my pieces to people from all those places in addition to England, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Japan, and Europe. 

When I’m not in the booth, I’m hunting for new components to add to our line, like Gary Wilson’s small half geodes, just right to bead or embellish with carved mammoth components. I’d discovered them in 2012 and strung an amethyst geode with flat lavender pearls and sterling silver disks. After wearing it a few times before the show I grew quite attached to it, but it sold the first day. I regretted it immediately. 

"Lavender Lush"

When I went to Gary’s booth for more geodes I inquired if there were any similar to the one I’d sold. After a look through the trays it seemed a lost cause. I picked out several others to be held until the next day. 

Gary was available when I arrived the last day of the show. “I bought an amethyst piece last year that I loved. Do you have any others?” Gary searched but also came up empty handed and I figured if the owner of the booth can’t find it, it must not exist. 

I pawed through his booth looking for new ideas when his sales woman said, “Oh here are some trays that haven’t been put out yet,” and there catching the light was the other half of the piece I’d purchased the year before.

“I can’t believe it’s here!” I exclaimed, tickled to have found it, “I’m keeping this one for me!” It felt like magic was a brewing just as I’d surrendered to letting this amethyst beauty go.  

If you want to check out Gary's work:  

http://www.garywilsonstones.com

Would some one out there please post a comment? I need to check that the comments section works.

Confluence of Ideas

I’ve just returned from a trip to Luang Prabang, Laos where the peace is palpable, the food delicious, and the scenery lush and exotic with the mighty Mekong River merging with the smaller Nam Khan at the end of the peninsula. This was my fourth trip to this World Heritage town.

Temple Door Decoration

As always I photograph ideas where ever I go finding earring designs in temple decorations, necklace ideas in store fronts, and painting visions in my dreams.  Other artists creations get my juices flowing and idea sketches flavor the pages of my notebook.  

Ken, an American, who has lived in Luang Prabang for over five years, was a novice in a monastery for a year. Now he makes spirit houses out of found and created objects.  These have a life of their own, or taksu as we say in Indonesian.

I brought one of his creations back to Bali, carefully packed in a handmade paper box. I call it ‘The House of Smiling Spirits’ because it makes me smile whenever I gaze at it.

Ken Yarbro's Spirit House

Creativity is where ever you find it - in the swirl of a glazed ceramic tile, a plaster bas relief decoration over a doorway, a cloud cluster, a reflection. 

As the composer Richard Wagner said, "I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Thought vibrating the ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired."   

These vibrations are loud and strong in Luang Prabang, Laos.  

Second Endings

I wrote at the end of April that I’d finished the memoir I’d been working on about my husband’s and my life in Bali and traveling the land of Alzheimer’s. I felt empty and really missed the writing challenge and wondered what would come next.

Well, it turned out not to be finished! I met an extraordinary woman, Vicki Lein, a vivacious writer of songs and books who volunteered to read ‘Piece by Piece’. She had brilliant ideas of what needed to be cut and what needed to be expanded on. And I was thrilled to do the work as she stoked the fire of creativity.

Now I’ve finished the third draft and instead of feeling empty as I did in the Spring, I am excited to have time to pursue other writing avenues, including my new blog called 'Alz World' (www.alzworld-susantereba.blogspot.com). These are stories and discoveries along the Alzheimer trail that I hope will inspire other caregivers of loved ones with this terrible disease.

If you want to be inspired by Vicki, check out her web site:

    http://www.outrageousvisions.com

And as always, the creative process includes new designs for “World on a String’ and gearing up for the shows in Tucson the first two weeks of February. Life is ever full and abundant and I feel such gratitude for that. 

What do you feel grateful for?