"Broken Bowl"
There's this set of bowls.
They were in this house when I arrived.
Perfect size and shape, for a huge cup of java... not quite fitting the hand... But they gave me a design idea for a set... a coffee-tea... tea pot set... Perfect shape... Perfect proportions... a memory.
I've been studying the zen of shapes for a couple years. How a tea pot can reflect a memory of what we love beyond loving.
Found it all reflected through the Teapot and bowl and cup collection at the Cantor Museum on Stanford campus, in 2000.
It took a little searching, but the tea pot I had envisioned, dreamed could be created, was actually made in the 3rd century b.c.
Sits in a glass case, one of many... Some carved from blocks of jade, pure quartz...Not all for tea, but close to the size and shapes I had cherished...Yet this one, ... This one was fired clay... Seemed plain and simple, I noticed to most people...They shuffled past me and favored the sparkly fancy colors of the others...This one was simple, plain, utility combined with beauty, perfect... It's proportions, at least to me, reflected that "golden rectangle" type of equation the Mason's and renaissance masters secretly guarded for centuries... It was like that, except it was the Taoists, and the Confucian style of equation, probably right down to the formulation of the clay...It's essence was light and beauty, but invisibly formed inside of shape for purpose.
"Yeah this is the on, I thought to myself"... And I began to draw it right there, I knew I didn't have to "re-invent the wheel... Someone else before me left the evidence and the validation and the formula for the style I could re-form as my centerpiece for a set.... Well, how do I describe it for you? ... It's not edges...It's the same sort of perfection of shapes we see around us, but closer to the shape of breast... a reminder of goddess, something we can all relate to... Those of us who were born of women.
I don't want to sound too cryptic... But the world seems to be run by folks that forgot the divine mother... So maybe it would be a good way to remind a person subliminally over a cup of tea.
Anyway. I never saw such proportions reflected in modern designs...Until I saw the bowls I have been drinking coffee and tea from in this mountain house, in 2006.
It will be a design I carry in my heart and head... as I get ready to leave for the unknown.
There is a certain type of hand-hold on the side that I know I will have to invent... One that only I know about. It's something I get to build because of the way I have had to hold these "too large bowls" that I use as coffee mugs...It'll be my vision alone, what I bring to the equation...The one I am definitely going to perfect... And maybe, maybe, maybe this will be one of those designs that carries forward for a few centuries.... Built out of need, and left for those who follow...
An easier way to drink a big cup of brew, easier than a modern day mug handle. If you can imagine that.
A month ago, as I squeezed myself around my painting table, one of the bowls fell.
... Crack!... In a zillion pieces.
I got grateful for a couple of reasons...
First, I can never forget those bowls now...
Second, it gave me a project, gluing it back together.... And through that, a chance to explore it's perfection.
I have this theory about broken bowls and tea cups... And anything ceramic...
"Glue it back together, and you get to do the meditation about it's significance while you do so".
I have many re-glued... And many stories for each one...They have merged with my traveling paint kit... My traveling editing office...
A few years ago, a friend offered me his driveway to use as an outdoor studio... Summertime in California, I was at first offended.
But I was living in my truck, and it became a landing place for hours of the day.
No more searching for an empty place on a hill in a park to paint. No more parking in the industrial zone and watching sh*t go down each night, and moreso on weekends...
I got sort of locked into a neighborhood by that driveway offer.
Now, I got to pray and paint under the shade of slow moving trees, all day long, with a relative quite and serenity.
I felt more in place than out of place. By default, folks stopped leering at me with suspicion.
One day, I had to tell him the truth about the down side in relation to his offer... I felt offended watching him lock his door every day as he left for work... I'd be out there early and with 8 hours ahead of me, I'd have to find a bush out back for a restroom... He'd wake up and get ready to leave...a nd for all the serenity, I felt as if he just had no trust...So why was I there on his property, if this was all he could see in my presence...Was it pity, was that the reason for his offer? I asked him if it ever occurred to him to make me a cup of tea, every once in awhile... He seemed to love to come and find time to visit while I painted... Getting free art lessons, and he'd come out and question techniques he saw me use, then show me what he had created with those techniques... I would have been respected or complimented in another setting, But I saw him use my presence as a certain kind of badge, and even tell people how great a teacher I was... But then locking his house as if I was a potential thief. I was smart enough to be honest about all that. Needless to say he never really enjoyed that feedback... Always with a fresh brew...But only one, never a cup of tea for me... Or an offer to use his bathroom...
There was a day when he sort of got heated about it... Because I was getting ready to leave... And I let him see how that looked to me... Almost as if I was in a position of unworthiness... I would rather exit and go back to the hillside in the park.
inadvertently, completely by accident, the tea cup he was drinking out of, broke ... He lost grip of it...And it broke.
He stood there, we each measured the silence, then he looked at me... He said "that was my Tai Chi masters' gift... I can never replace it... I loved that cup... it's lost forever, now"
He swept it up, tossed it in the garbage and left... Without a word.
By the time he came back that evening... Before I left for my parking spot, he found the cup glued back together, sitting on his doorstep.
He asked me...
"what am I supposed to do with this???"
My answer was simple...
"I have all these cups and saucers and bowls I have re-glued and each holds a memory now...Though it may never again hold tea"
...And then, I showed him a few... Brush holders now, storage places for small items, paper clips and such... Part of my art supplies as important "as a sable brush, to me"... "it's how I find things"... "They help keep my studio in order, and each holds a story"
"each has a story".
I went through a couple of them, and told the stories..What was learned, or what times were frozen in that moment of "breakage"... How each one reflected a gift of time, space and heart, momentum, dreams or future challenge.
..................
I haven't seen or talked to Rick in a couple years. That was late in 2003. I painted a huge painting which, among other items, holds a collage of leaves and branches swept up from his driveway...Painted as if they were/are "Monet waterlillies".
That painting is still hanging over his in door office. It was a canvas he had found on the garbage of a vacant high tech start up gone bust...One he gave to me that I painted over.
.....................
IN the next couple of days, I am going to upload some footage of a friend of both he and I... Somebody he introduced me to, while I painted in that back yard driveway. I overheard their dreams and plans to create a new kind of creative school. That person has since passed away.
He was a great musician who gave his life to present music of Jazz and blues and unity beyond race...In the name of art and music... In honor of his sister in law who is African-American... Because, growing up, he had seen the agony his brother and she would have to go through as a mixed race couple in rural Indiana. He wanted to help create a better world than that... So he did...With his life ...Through music, and acting, and voice-over acting...
I get to finally make sure that footage I edited of him, for the memorial service, presents the legacy of that man...; this time world wide via YOUtube...
Such will be a "great thing" that I get to do, simply because I can...But nothing can replace the look of joy filled eyes his sister in law and her daughter both gave me along with a hug at his funeral... They each hugged me, smiled and dropped a tear and thanked me for putting the footage together in a way that they could see what "Uncle Timothy" had done with his life in California, since leaving Indiana 30 years ago.
Rick had introduced me to Timothy... While I painted in that back yard.
But I didn't really know Timothy until I met his sister in law, and also saw all the brilliant world class musicians who came and jammed freely with each other at his memorial service, or until I had seen his many characters created in the video I edited after he died. He was as Belushi, or Akroyd or Chevy Chase... But he lived on the level he was born to live on...Never left the people he walked among. I saw the truth of his talent, I know whether as a musician, or a song writer or as a comedy character actor...He was always a kid from Indiana who just wanted to bring folks to unity through music... I saw it was true, All races and creeds... all sparkly eyed playing their favorite Timothy songs... Each had a story about how Timothy helped them get bookings or shared gigs.
I think , this past week... While I thought about the broken bowl I just glued... That meeting Timothy and getting a favor from Rick (the backyard open aired studio) was a certain pact made, that I could now finally get to fulfill. Nobody's gonna pay me for it...It's not gonna get a grammy or an Oscar... Few will even know I did it...But I am going to upload some Timothy footage, anyway.
And, while gluing the bowl that broke... I had to think of that tea cup... Rick's tea cup... That I had glued in that back yard... And I had to remember the look of suspicion, of mistrust, on Timothy's face when we first met...And the sense of purpose I got from helping memorialize the work of Timothy. Getting closer to him after he had died than ever being able to share a coffee with him or even play a song together... He had paid his dues... But he had weathered so many storms, he didn't know me Well enough to tell me his need to get some credit for being "Santa Claus". You see, beyond all those voice-overs and concerts and movie background parts and everything else he did, one way Timothy fed his family and also served was as Santa Claus for over 30 years. If he had auditioned as a Santa Claus for a major movie he could have beat any other competitor. He had a twinkle...He had mastered the roll...He had the deep soothing voice...And the heart to match...But the main reason he was Santa each year, was to help kids formulate their wishes and dreams.
Thank you Rick. For encouraging me about doing those edits. And letting me glue the tea cup... And for hearing me out... And for introducing me to the life of Timothy.
....................
A room full of people laughing joyful tears watching their friend do voice-overs and appear in Hollywood movies as a blurry background side-kick...Then play all those festivals and music events all around California with his friends...
Lives on ... Now as a YOUtube segment...
Nobody is paying me...
But I get to explore the meaning of the glued tea cup... And notice that I made it past some big storms...In theory.
It's the kind of thing, that if I do not do it... Nobody else will.
And we - each and every one of us, all have to see some work in front of us, around us, shared or alone...That maybe nobody else can see...And we need to do it, just because we can... as our offering, just because we can.
For me, it's re-gluing the tea cup...Sort of a duty that I have, just for being here... a way to make something out of something that seems forgotten or lose or broken...Something bigger. It's magic, bigger than I could even know... And there won't be a parade... But that's ok.
It's proof, if nothing else, ...That I learned something from YOU.
And for me...It's all about how I use the next 500 breaths... The next 3 hours of my life.
Do I glue it back together, in honor to the ones that were around when it sort of shattered?
Or do I leave it in pieces?
There's a sh*t load of metaphors here.
You can sink you teeth in them... Have at it.
Let me just say, Timothy and I never spent any quality time. Not back then.
But we can , now...
He'd put 25 years into Indy media and music, but I never knew why or anything about how amazing that all was, until I saw the footage...Just recognize that this is true for each of us...It's true for you...The only thing is that we may not have a record of it...Yet that record still exists etched into the hearts you shared it with...And it's more really real than YOUtube or MTV or VH1 could ever make it be. Sometimes, I actually thin k, that only the truly lost get to pretend they had a real life in a movie, you know, the truth such as Swatzenegger never saved or rescued anyone, nor did he ever even shoot anything but a plastic bs gun and pretend to care enough to risk his life for something. His own words, if you search, you will find..is that he loves "people worshiping him". Think about it, I am not making this up... That's all ego...What would happen if people started getting content about making a difference in each other's lives...Famous or not? There's no other hope for this planet. It's not a movie. I swear it's not fame.
Well, I tried to be a friend to Timothy while he was alive. He walked away. He told other folks he felt disrespected by people, because nobody understood that he was the master he was... Whatever. That's the reality of our modern times. All I know is that I saw a lot of beauty in Timothy and I kept offering...a nd I never really understood why he had gotten suspicious about such offers...Until I saw the range of his talent after he died, in the footage and concerts he had ALREADY done for 20+ years. Then I understood. Recognition never came...At least the kind he expected or needed. But, in truth, I saw in the footage that he could have been bigger than Swartzenegger, but instead chose to serve the folks he cared about, not an invisible audience of strangers. He wasn't hooked by his own ego or need for fame or power...He made the choice to be real, instead.
He died, sort of overnight.. a surprise to everybody.
The biggest reflector I ever saw of how real Timothy lived his life, was in the hearts of his many, many friends and the depth of glow of appreciation in his sister-in-law's (and her daughter's) eyes...And in the free laughter in that room at his memorial... all brought about, brought forward, by me sort of putting together pieces of his vast catalogue of footage spanning 25-30 years.
Just by showcasing a tiny portion of that value via edited footage.. Shared music... all over a tragic loss...Yet more than anything; bigger and fuller by the fact of what it indicated...What was real beyond video...
We lose something when the bowl breaks.
But we can gain something from the memory of it's meaning, if we take the time to use it as a meditation- gluing it all back together..
..................
I'm going to design a few bowls and teapots in my life. Yes I am... And they will someday be broken.... as all things someday have to be... On their way to dust.
It makes me think it was all worth it... If I dream about somebody gluing one or two together again... In memory of whatever they see around them that they have that day...To hold a few brushes...Or pencils or dreams.
......................
Last night... I had a dream vision. I was in a room, and it was after filming (or playing music) at a gig.
Everyone else was filtering out of the room. There was an echo of laughter and cheer... Fading to silence.
A younger woman who was hanging back, slowly came over, and I couldn't believe she was coming over to talk or visit me.
She asked to sit across from me...Somehow she had seen enough about me, or watched me enough there, that she had a reason to do so... She sat on a ledge right next to me, sparklng her eyes... Made a simple sincere joke about me not realizing she really wanted to be there...Then she leaned over ...And kissed me.
And then...Just so I would know and understand that she meant to do it, that there was no agenda than a shared kiss... She reached into my heart with a few more words, this time soothing... I felt that caress and the honor that came with it, ...And then she leaned over ...And kissed me again. And this time I savored it.
I could never have picked her out of the crowd... I could never have predicted it... I was only able to do one thing... Hold still and let it be.
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They were in this house when I arrived.
Perfect size and shape, for a huge cup of java... not quite fitting the hand... But they gave me a design idea for a set... a coffee-tea... tea pot set... Perfect shape... Perfect proportions... a memory.
I've been studying the zen of shapes for a couple years. How a tea pot can reflect a memory of what we love beyond loving.
Found it all reflected through the Teapot and bowl and cup collection at the Cantor Museum on Stanford campus, in 2000.
It took a little searching, but the tea pot I had envisioned, dreamed could be created, was actually made in the 3rd century b.c.
Sits in a glass case, one of many... Some carved from blocks of jade, pure quartz...Not all for tea, but close to the size and shapes I had cherished...Yet this one, ... This one was fired clay... Seemed plain and simple, I noticed to most people...They shuffled past me and favored the sparkly fancy colors of the others...This one was simple, plain, utility combined with beauty, perfect... It's proportions, at least to me, reflected that "golden rectangle" type of equation the Mason's and renaissance masters secretly guarded for centuries... It was like that, except it was the Taoists, and the Confucian style of equation, probably right down to the formulation of the clay...It's essence was light and beauty, but invisibly formed inside of shape for purpose.
"Yeah this is the on, I thought to myself"... And I began to draw it right there, I knew I didn't have to "re-invent the wheel... Someone else before me left the evidence and the validation and the formula for the style I could re-form as my centerpiece for a set.... Well, how do I describe it for you? ... It's not edges...It's the same sort of perfection of shapes we see around us, but closer to the shape of breast... a reminder of goddess, something we can all relate to... Those of us who were born of women.
I don't want to sound too cryptic... But the world seems to be run by folks that forgot the divine mother... So maybe it would be a good way to remind a person subliminally over a cup of tea.
Anyway. I never saw such proportions reflected in modern designs...Until I saw the bowls I have been drinking coffee and tea from in this mountain house, in 2006.
It will be a design I carry in my heart and head... as I get ready to leave for the unknown.
There is a certain type of hand-hold on the side that I know I will have to invent... One that only I know about. It's something I get to build because of the way I have had to hold these "too large bowls" that I use as coffee mugs...It'll be my vision alone, what I bring to the equation...The one I am definitely going to perfect... And maybe, maybe, maybe this will be one of those designs that carries forward for a few centuries.... Built out of need, and left for those who follow...
An easier way to drink a big cup of brew, easier than a modern day mug handle. If you can imagine that.
A month ago, as I squeezed myself around my painting table, one of the bowls fell.
... Crack!... In a zillion pieces.
I got grateful for a couple of reasons...
First, I can never forget those bowls now...
Second, it gave me a project, gluing it back together.... And through that, a chance to explore it's perfection.
I have this theory about broken bowls and tea cups... And anything ceramic...
"Glue it back together, and you get to do the meditation about it's significance while you do so".
I have many re-glued... And many stories for each one...They have merged with my traveling paint kit... My traveling editing office...
A few years ago, a friend offered me his driveway to use as an outdoor studio... Summertime in California, I was at first offended.
But I was living in my truck, and it became a landing place for hours of the day.
No more searching for an empty place on a hill in a park to paint. No more parking in the industrial zone and watching sh*t go down each night, and moreso on weekends...
I got sort of locked into a neighborhood by that driveway offer.
Now, I got to pray and paint under the shade of slow moving trees, all day long, with a relative quite and serenity.
I felt more in place than out of place. By default, folks stopped leering at me with suspicion.
One day, I had to tell him the truth about the down side in relation to his offer... I felt offended watching him lock his door every day as he left for work... I'd be out there early and with 8 hours ahead of me, I'd have to find a bush out back for a restroom... He'd wake up and get ready to leave...a nd for all the serenity, I felt as if he just had no trust...So why was I there on his property, if this was all he could see in my presence...Was it pity, was that the reason for his offer? I asked him if it ever occurred to him to make me a cup of tea, every once in awhile... He seemed to love to come and find time to visit while I painted... Getting free art lessons, and he'd come out and question techniques he saw me use, then show me what he had created with those techniques... I would have been respected or complimented in another setting, But I saw him use my presence as a certain kind of badge, and even tell people how great a teacher I was... But then locking his house as if I was a potential thief. I was smart enough to be honest about all that. Needless to say he never really enjoyed that feedback... Always with a fresh brew...But only one, never a cup of tea for me... Or an offer to use his bathroom...
There was a day when he sort of got heated about it... Because I was getting ready to leave... And I let him see how that looked to me... Almost as if I was in a position of unworthiness... I would rather exit and go back to the hillside in the park.
inadvertently, completely by accident, the tea cup he was drinking out of, broke ... He lost grip of it...And it broke.
He stood there, we each measured the silence, then he looked at me... He said "that was my Tai Chi masters' gift... I can never replace it... I loved that cup... it's lost forever, now"
He swept it up, tossed it in the garbage and left... Without a word.
By the time he came back that evening... Before I left for my parking spot, he found the cup glued back together, sitting on his doorstep.
He asked me...
"what am I supposed to do with this???"
My answer was simple...
"I have all these cups and saucers and bowls I have re-glued and each holds a memory now...Though it may never again hold tea"
...And then, I showed him a few... Brush holders now, storage places for small items, paper clips and such... Part of my art supplies as important "as a sable brush, to me"... "it's how I find things"... "They help keep my studio in order, and each holds a story"
"each has a story".
I went through a couple of them, and told the stories..What was learned, or what times were frozen in that moment of "breakage"... How each one reflected a gift of time, space and heart, momentum, dreams or future challenge.
..................
I haven't seen or talked to Rick in a couple years. That was late in 2003. I painted a huge painting which, among other items, holds a collage of leaves and branches swept up from his driveway...Painted as if they were/are "Monet waterlillies".
That painting is still hanging over his in door office. It was a canvas he had found on the garbage of a vacant high tech start up gone bust...One he gave to me that I painted over.
.....................
IN the next couple of days, I am going to upload some footage of a friend of both he and I... Somebody he introduced me to, while I painted in that back yard driveway. I overheard their dreams and plans to create a new kind of creative school. That person has since passed away.
He was a great musician who gave his life to present music of Jazz and blues and unity beyond race...In the name of art and music... In honor of his sister in law who is African-American... Because, growing up, he had seen the agony his brother and she would have to go through as a mixed race couple in rural Indiana. He wanted to help create a better world than that... So he did...With his life ...Through music, and acting, and voice-over acting...
I get to finally make sure that footage I edited of him, for the memorial service, presents the legacy of that man...; this time world wide via YOUtube...
Such will be a "great thing" that I get to do, simply because I can...But nothing can replace the look of joy filled eyes his sister in law and her daughter both gave me along with a hug at his funeral... They each hugged me, smiled and dropped a tear and thanked me for putting the footage together in a way that they could see what "Uncle Timothy" had done with his life in California, since leaving Indiana 30 years ago.
Rick had introduced me to Timothy... While I painted in that back yard.
But I didn't really know Timothy until I met his sister in law, and also saw all the brilliant world class musicians who came and jammed freely with each other at his memorial service, or until I had seen his many characters created in the video I edited after he died. He was as Belushi, or Akroyd or Chevy Chase... But he lived on the level he was born to live on...Never left the people he walked among. I saw the truth of his talent, I know whether as a musician, or a song writer or as a comedy character actor...He was always a kid from Indiana who just wanted to bring folks to unity through music... I saw it was true, All races and creeds... all sparkly eyed playing their favorite Timothy songs... Each had a story about how Timothy helped them get bookings or shared gigs.
I think , this past week... While I thought about the broken bowl I just glued... That meeting Timothy and getting a favor from Rick (the backyard open aired studio) was a certain pact made, that I could now finally get to fulfill. Nobody's gonna pay me for it...It's not gonna get a grammy or an Oscar... Few will even know I did it...But I am going to upload some Timothy footage, anyway.
And, while gluing the bowl that broke... I had to think of that tea cup... Rick's tea cup... That I had glued in that back yard... And I had to remember the look of suspicion, of mistrust, on Timothy's face when we first met...And the sense of purpose I got from helping memorialize the work of Timothy. Getting closer to him after he had died than ever being able to share a coffee with him or even play a song together... He had paid his dues... But he had weathered so many storms, he didn't know me Well enough to tell me his need to get some credit for being "Santa Claus". You see, beyond all those voice-overs and concerts and movie background parts and everything else he did, one way Timothy fed his family and also served was as Santa Claus for over 30 years. If he had auditioned as a Santa Claus for a major movie he could have beat any other competitor. He had a twinkle...He had mastered the roll...He had the deep soothing voice...And the heart to match...But the main reason he was Santa each year, was to help kids formulate their wishes and dreams.
Thank you Rick. For encouraging me about doing those edits. And letting me glue the tea cup... And for hearing me out... And for introducing me to the life of Timothy.
....................
A room full of people laughing joyful tears watching their friend do voice-overs and appear in Hollywood movies as a blurry background side-kick...Then play all those festivals and music events all around California with his friends...
Lives on ... Now as a YOUtube segment...
Nobody is paying me...
But I get to explore the meaning of the glued tea cup... And notice that I made it past some big storms...In theory.
It's the kind of thing, that if I do not do it... Nobody else will.
And we - each and every one of us, all have to see some work in front of us, around us, shared or alone...That maybe nobody else can see...And we need to do it, just because we can... as our offering, just because we can.
For me, it's re-gluing the tea cup...Sort of a duty that I have, just for being here... a way to make something out of something that seems forgotten or lose or broken...Something bigger. It's magic, bigger than I could even know... And there won't be a parade... But that's ok.
It's proof, if nothing else, ...That I learned something from YOU.
And for me...It's all about how I use the next 500 breaths... The next 3 hours of my life.
Do I glue it back together, in honor to the ones that were around when it sort of shattered?
Or do I leave it in pieces?
There's a sh*t load of metaphors here.
You can sink you teeth in them... Have at it.
Let me just say, Timothy and I never spent any quality time. Not back then.
But we can , now...
He'd put 25 years into Indy media and music, but I never knew why or anything about how amazing that all was, until I saw the footage...Just recognize that this is true for each of us...It's true for you...The only thing is that we may not have a record of it...Yet that record still exists etched into the hearts you shared it with...And it's more really real than YOUtube or MTV or VH1 could ever make it be. Sometimes, I actually thin k, that only the truly lost get to pretend they had a real life in a movie, you know, the truth such as Swatzenegger never saved or rescued anyone, nor did he ever even shoot anything but a plastic bs gun and pretend to care enough to risk his life for something. His own words, if you search, you will find..is that he loves "people worshiping him". Think about it, I am not making this up... That's all ego...What would happen if people started getting content about making a difference in each other's lives...Famous or not? There's no other hope for this planet. It's not a movie. I swear it's not fame.
Well, I tried to be a friend to Timothy while he was alive. He walked away. He told other folks he felt disrespected by people, because nobody understood that he was the master he was... Whatever. That's the reality of our modern times. All I know is that I saw a lot of beauty in Timothy and I kept offering...a nd I never really understood why he had gotten suspicious about such offers...Until I saw the range of his talent after he died, in the footage and concerts he had ALREADY done for 20+ years. Then I understood. Recognition never came...At least the kind he expected or needed. But, in truth, I saw in the footage that he could have been bigger than Swartzenegger, but instead chose to serve the folks he cared about, not an invisible audience of strangers. He wasn't hooked by his own ego or need for fame or power...He made the choice to be real, instead.
He died, sort of overnight.. a surprise to everybody.
The biggest reflector I ever saw of how real Timothy lived his life, was in the hearts of his many, many friends and the depth of glow of appreciation in his sister-in-law's (and her daughter's) eyes...And in the free laughter in that room at his memorial... all brought about, brought forward, by me sort of putting together pieces of his vast catalogue of footage spanning 25-30 years.
Just by showcasing a tiny portion of that value via edited footage.. Shared music... all over a tragic loss...Yet more than anything; bigger and fuller by the fact of what it indicated...What was real beyond video...
We lose something when the bowl breaks.
But we can gain something from the memory of it's meaning, if we take the time to use it as a meditation- gluing it all back together..
..................
I'm going to design a few bowls and teapots in my life. Yes I am... And they will someday be broken.... as all things someday have to be... On their way to dust.
It makes me think it was all worth it... If I dream about somebody gluing one or two together again... In memory of whatever they see around them that they have that day...To hold a few brushes...Or pencils or dreams.
......................
Last night... I had a dream vision. I was in a room, and it was after filming (or playing music) at a gig.
Everyone else was filtering out of the room. There was an echo of laughter and cheer... Fading to silence.
A younger woman who was hanging back, slowly came over, and I couldn't believe she was coming over to talk or visit me.
She asked to sit across from me...Somehow she had seen enough about me, or watched me enough there, that she had a reason to do so... She sat on a ledge right next to me, sparklng her eyes... Made a simple sincere joke about me not realizing she really wanted to be there...Then she leaned over ...And kissed me.
And then...Just so I would know and understand that she meant to do it, that there was no agenda than a shared kiss... She reached into my heart with a few more words, this time soothing... I felt that caress and the honor that came with it, ...And then she leaned over ...And kissed me again. And this time I savored it.
I could never have picked her out of the crowd... I could never have predicted it... I was only able to do one thing... Hold still and let it be.
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posted by Toe Knee at 3:00 PM
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