During the last bound shift, I was in a castle, surrounded by women in recovery. Every year, one of my oldest friends (going on three decades now!) plans a retreat for women in the NA community. It’s a weekend focused on giving them each a moment to relax, connect, and get pampered, with massages, divination, astrological consults (that’s my role), and so much more. It’s extremely enriching. Over the years I have seen the attendees who return again and again blossoming into new levels of their being.
While I was sequestered in the castle complex, I brought my beads with me and began a project related to the Leaps + Bounds lab I’m leading at CAELi. Small beads, in secondary colors (avocado, teal, clementine, magenta…) proportionally laying out the bounds of the tropical zodiac. I got as far as mid-Taurus.
So my hands are busy, making art again. Zodiacal art that will have function when it’s finished (more on that another day).
Thread, needle, sometimes a poke in the finger, a burst of fire to singe the knots when the current thread runs out and I need to keep going, some math and color-coded graph paper keeping me on track for the design, and slowly but surely, row by row, the project that started as an idea is expanding, taking on form, becoming itself. Hundreds of tiny pieces of glass, some round, some with facets, joining in a beautiful community.
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When I sat down to write this bound report, the image of silica/silicon would not let me go. Element 14; the 8th most common element in the universe.
As dust, silica creates corrosion; as chips, silicon allows our thoughts to flow like blood. We’ve got silicon valleys and forests driving global change for decades now (cue the McLuhans), creating omnipresent connection . . . and, still, inflamations. Skeletons of diatoms becoming the conduits of commerce.
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Take what’s common (seed beads, in my case) and weave them into something unique. Summon the fabulous out of the ubiquitous. With a sprinkle of geek dust. That’s the task.
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See you again on May 12 at 4:41M PDT.