teepee

may

last year around this time i wrote about my favorite tree. a tree that signals the start of spring and the bursting forth of life.
this year an angel hovered under the white blossoms at sunset.

what my friend Roberto said.

"what's going on at this farm, what we are doing here, is going to amaze us because the earth, too, feels alone. the earth feels the separation from us as keenly as we feel loneliness."
-Roberto Luna

and now we are all, Jerry, Andy, roberto and i, along with the white family, we are all making a conscious concerted effort to return our full attention here and already it feels different.

we are returning to her. more deeply even than raising animals and farming. we are all talking with her and sending blessings every day. we have built a medicine wheel and made offerings and are listening to her... a give and take...

and as a result, there is a kind of opening.
a kind of conversation back and forth, you can hear the whispers under the leaves rustling. little flashes of light here and there in the woods as if the woods are revealing their dreaming
it is a love affair...


and after all my resisting i begin to understand that somehow i belong here. i was born only 15 miles from here and my ancestors farmed only twenty miles from here over a hundred years ago. so although i grew up in the south and consider that slow warm place my roots perhaps there are roots here i had never considered.
have i found my way home?
how mysterious.

as i wrote these words a red tailed hawk flew close to the window.

how fitting to contemplate on a blustery easter sunday.
a new beginning.


te amos te amos most intriguing life.

xx

Dreaming summer and The Book of Dreams

THE Book of Dreams is my artist statement for this pinhole portfolio, many of the images are here in my blog so it seems appropriate to post. i'm also putting it here today for Andy. he will understand why i think... certainly the land speaks to him often and more intricately than it speaks to me because he spends his life working with it, growing beautiful things...
so keep dreaming Andy. You are awesome and amazing!!
xx
iva

The Book of Dreams
Artist Statement
I live on a farm in a remote pocket of New York’s Hudson valley. I wander the fields for hours and often for as many hours there is no human conversation. At first, I believed myself to be alone. I believed myself to be lonely. In fact I often used to find myself shouting out to the Drowned Land Swamp.

“I am lonely. I am lonely.”

And much to my surprise the swamp had a reply.

“ Stop. Look. Listen. Learn the summer. Learn the winter. Underneath the silence you will hear the land humming quietly. We are dreaming here under the snow. Under the saw grass and cattails. We are dreaming here. Come back to these places over and over again and we will teach you to dream with us.”

And so this is what I do. I dream this place. There are moments of great joy. Great beauty and then, inexplicably, there will be a sudden rush of overwhelming fear. It is not rational. It is not an intellectual exercise. It is a dreaming between the beating of my heart and the sudden flight of the heron loping overhead. It is a dreaming with some unfathomable creatures. Wearing wings. Wearing masks and befriending crows. They whisper to me and I am a child again. Unfettered and free.

I set up my camera. Literally a large format wooden box with a pinhole for a lens. I slip in a sheet of film and begin to dance the dreams. The dreams of a place. Light falls onto the film. The film drinks the light and images form and the pictures are made. I am never entirely sure what pictures will come. I print the images and the dance continues. When another person views the images they become part of the dream . Their own dream in their own place.
1500 years ago in Mexico the Toltec people talked of dreaming heaven on earth. It was the human job to realign our hearts with God by dreaming heaven here. An anonymous Aztec poet later wrote
"These Toltec’s were very wise,
It was their custom to converse with their own hearts….
They created a whole system,
The book of dreams…"

This work is my Book of Dreams.





today it is cold and there is snow. it is april but winter is holding on tight. it takes a fierce determination on my part, to keep listening and working with a place when it snows in april, but i learned with my heart in peru that even if we cannot see the sun, it is always there, in the heavens and in our hearts because we are of it. we are of the earth and of the sun and of the cosmos, the great mystery, we are it... and so now while the snow is still coming down, and i live in this place on earth in my human body, i am dreaming summer... this dreaming began two days ago when the sun actually came out from behind the gray and brought with it a hint of warmth. a taste of things to come. the birds burst into a delirium of song. I stayed outside as long as i could, i hauled my camera out with me. and i am learning, i am learning, slowly but still learning, to live with a place, no matter what...

and soon my beloved crab apple tree will be bursting with raucous blooms. in the meantime, my angel and i are dreaming dreaming dreaming summer....


xx

learning from the Apus and Pachamama

i don't have many words just yet.   something happened up there in the andes and i'm not really sure what it was.   i know that the Apus are real.   (Apus -  light being that exists within special mountains.  these spirits live in both the middle and upper worlds and can intercede for humanity.   they are also referred to as Apukunas- Jorge Louis Delgado,  Andean Awakening) 

i know that my perception has utterly shifted.   the Apus are great masters and great teachers. and so is our mother, the earth,  the Mamapacha and her cosmic counterpart Pachamama.   

i know that the little boy i quoted back in feb in my blog post from hawaii talking about everything being a great and tremendous mystery was more correct than i can even begin to imagine.   and after this i know nothing...  except i feel that 

i love Peru.   i love Peru.   my heart felt completely at home.   i could fly.   i could hear the earth sing.   now the task is to bring this home.  to feel everything living everywhere.   to choose light over dark by understanding the dark and walking firmly into the light... living from the center that is only light... instead of dancing on the periphery of life as Jorge says.   

in the meantime here are the photos.  the color image is from the beach in lima taken with the surfing angels.  

te amo te amo  peru.    

muchos gracias!!!

xxx

Wild Angels

lately Martin Sexton's music is what i can't get enough of.  i have been listening to him over and over.  searching for something perhaps or maybe just living in his voice and words and then there it was.  the song wild angels.  "we are wild Angels and we are free, " he sang and i thought.  yes!! that's it. 

this is why the Angels have come to me.   Wild Angels explains it all. Martin Sexton is singing my photos.   he is singing my heart.   and that's the magic of music.   

  so here are more from hawaii and underneath the photos i have posted the lyrics to the  song.  i wish i could put his incredible voice.   the music.  the music is what it's about but i don't know how to do this here.   i hope that  anyone who reads this and is inspired will seek it out for themselves.  

in the meantime.  here are the dreams...   the first one is my dearest Marena.   for whom i have total and complete love.   the te amo kind.  

xxx

Wild Angels

Sayulita Dreaming