Author: sarabrown

You know its funny, I woke up today and was making my lists of what to do, what to take care of, what to work on in The Nature Of Refuge, I do this everyday, this work is my life and i am hooked. Brenda was at the top of the list. I’ve got a rhythm now with my women, I interviewed Brenda last week and I like to have the interviews and writing completed and up within a week. Yesterday I had done quite a bit of the editing and with the intention of finishing today and posting and thats exactly what I’m doing, so good on me. Whats funny is that I had no clue it was Martin Luther King Day today – or is that funny? Shouldn’t I know it like I know Christmas Day, that one of our nation’s heroes should be tattooed into my consciousness in the same matter? But, days and dates have always been slippery and especially now in these last few years, my brain just doesn’t prioritize what day it is anymore, western linear time has become alot less important and has less impact on my ambitions and goals the older and more focused I become. So, I woke up today with a understanding that it was the middle of January but not interested on the exact date until i got online to start my own work and saw the reminder that yes, it was Martin Luther King. And this was my goal day to post my interview with Brenda,  and bless her, she is quite open and frank in our interview about her fear of being an African- American woman in today’s political and social environment.

Symmetry, Serendipitous.

I also see a beautiful symmetry in Brenda’s interview in light of the recent public, bigoted comments on people from “shithole” countries such as Haiti, El Salvador, and a wide sweep of African nations, from the man who is currently holding the office of President of the United States.

Brenda’s fears are a natural response to the hatred, violence, and attacks that she experiences and witnesses in our current American life. This upsweep of bigoted based attacks that have accelerated in this past year in our country, the existing deep stain of guilt and fear combining with public permission by the leaders and media in our country, the propaganda that lashing out in violence towards anyone who is not white and male as an actual viable cause of action. The insulting broadcast that that is the “American” way and we as a nation, need to reclaim that.

No thanks, no way.

So Brenda’s is the voice of truth for me today that I share with you at being the recipient of that toxic dump of unwarranted fear and ignorance that racism is.

Brenda Crawford shared more of herself than her fear of the accelerated racism in our country, quite a bit more. Brenda spoke at length about her role as the Director of Exercise Therapy at the Neuro Vitality Center here in Palm Springs that is a refuge for those who have experienced strokes and Parkinson’s Disease. A refuge in which to be taught by Brenda and her coworkers in how to find safety in their bodies again after their physical centers have been fundamentally shifted. That Brenda is a facilitator in this aspect is what drew me to her to begin with, that and the light she emanates upon meeting.

Please watch the full length video of Brenda’s interview here http://vimeo.com/251089424

Brenda is also in my opinion, a Dog-Whisperer. Brenda tells a heartfelt story of her three dogs being her companions and confidants for the past twenty years. Brenda describes herself as action oriented opposed to verbal and that the love and companionship with her animals was profound and helpful in a monumental way.

Brenda also described herself and presented herself as being more guarded in life, but the minute she sat down and started the interview process, she gave me the great gift of her truth and vulnerability and sadness. Brenda also gave the gift of her laughter and resilience and intelligence.

I wish i could say on Martin Luther King Day that we as a nation have come a long way together on this journey of integration with all our rainbow of colors and genders and ideologies. We are still a nation living in deep fear of each other and the tragedy and loss of what we could be as a nation right now is vast, deep.  But I believe in Love and I believe in the endeavor of striving to achieve equality and if we keeping speaking from our compassionate hearts everyday, I believe we shall overcome.

This is how we can take care of each other.

This is the nature of refuge.

Sweet Susan with her Soul Bundles…

I met Susan by following my instinct and reacting to my gut, saying yes when my body was vibrating in vulnerability. I’ve been having many conversations about fear, with myself, with others. Recently, I was talking to a close friend on the phone about fear. We were talking in the language of what I lovingly call ‘Whoo Whoo’, New Age speak that spans millennia, picking and choosing its mystic influences as it goes along. This friend and I were referring to our Throat Chakra and how when it tightened up or our Heart Chakra  when it started thumping away, that was the time in which we compelled ourselves to speak and act. Those fight or flight symptoms were the very signifiers for he and I, to step forward and speak up instead of giving into primal temptation to turn around and run in the other direction.

The Nature Of Refuge is in its heart, a project about fear. I am asking broad brush stroke questions about extreme vulnerability, what do we do when we feel weak? How do we react to others fragility? I was compelled to create this work and go on this epic journey in the exploration of all the different ways women in this country will answer those questions because I had a profound experience with feeling helpless in my fear. I had no alternative but to look my fear square on and surrender to it finally, integrate it somehow, or I wasn’t going to make it. Well, I made it. I am still everyday redefining my relationship with my fear and embarking on this project is an awesome teacher, I am learning to love my interaction with my fears through the practical and mystical mechanizations of this work with these women.

I think we are all scared, to our bones afraid. Its death of course that we were biologically primed to react as the ultimate Boogyman, everyday we dance with this fear. But with our gorgeous imaginations we have also created a myriad of equally gorgeous monsters that we grapple with daily, we are incredible in our insanity, most of all how we collectively pretend that that isn’t what we are doing day in day out. Fighting our fears, always, all the time.

What I am interested in here and really with every motivating force in my existence, is how to I turn the fight into a flow. A graceful interaction with my whole self, one without self recrimination and that doesn’t exhaust me through futile flailing about. So in my learning curve, I am endlessly curious in how others are going about their relationship with fear, this is why I  ask these questions; to create a space where we can teach each other about grace in fear.

Then, we can change the world. Because we are together in this.

When I was  out at Joshua Tree National park a couple weeks ago, I had a time period where my fear felt very strong, quite tangible. The minute I hit the Mojave I was impacted with overwhelming sensation, foundations started trembling immediately.

Each morning I would wake up with breathlessness in all that quiet, deep, stripped down beauty. The bones of the earth are sharply outlined in the desert and there’s not much to cushion to any fall. I was sharply outlined out there as well, I resonate high all the time, always have but especially now in these last few years. I had another friend recently say that this is when you look away and have a shot of whiskey to shut it down, and I replied that I hadn’t hadn’t had  a drink of whiskey in 13  years and I couldn’t help it, I had to stare into the sun. The desert discerned my frequency upon arrival and turned it way up, and though it rattled me, I stayed put and listened.

What does this all have to do with meeting Susan Hough? Well, she was in the campground next to mine in the sweetest camping spot in Joshua Tree National Park, Belle Campground aptly named. I kept on being pulled back to that lovely little pile of outer-space looking rocks and sweet nooks and crannies for setting up camp. I was testing out the other campgrounds but also jumping around so I didn’t have to pay the extra camp fees – I’m a hooligan still to this day – and Belle just is the kindest and most calm area of the park in my opinion. Susan and I first exchanged hellos when she saw my Washington plates on my truck, She grew up in Washington as well so we commiserated on that for a second, then Susan walked on with a smile and a wave. The next time I saw Susan was a some days later through my driver side window as I was leaving the campground for the last time, I passed her by with a wave, nice lady I thought. I looked back again and saw her in my rear view mirror drinking her morning coffee by her RV and she just had a shine around her.

“Stop Sara Brown, and go back and talk to her!”

This is what my Throat Chakra called out and what my Heart Chakra thumped along in time with. It churns up a beautiful anxiety inside me when I walk up to a complete stranger and say, “Hey, how are you? My name is Sara Brown and I’m doing this project called The Nature Of Refuge and I’d love to interview you if you don’t mind…” I’m getting easier with the different ways this is manifesting but I think it will always be a moment of shit or get off the pot, It’s exciting.

I turned around my truck and went back to Susan’s RV. She wasn’t in sight anymore so I called out hello and knocked lightly on her door. Susan opened it with a smile and as I fumbled about with my introduction – I am getting smoother each time which is great – she immediately invited me inside to hear more; gracious, curious, putting me at my ease from the start. Susan’s husband was stretched out of a lovely comfortable looking bed, it was all organized and golden with a sense of spaciousness inside. Beautiful objects along with all the practical RV stuff lay side by side in an elegant flow, Susan and her partner had made a wonderful sanctuary to travel around the country in. Susan asked her husband to have some privacy  and was easily given it, her and I sat down and we began to speak and in five minutes we were recording and in depth into the interview process.

Just like that.

Please enjoy the full length interview with Susan at http://vimeo.com/249124150

Susan is an artist, she makes these self contained alters that she calls Soul Bundles out of felt and found objects, they are as special and unique as their creator. Susan is wise and eloquent and thoughtful in all her words. I love her cadence and the care she puts in expressing herself. Susan is strong and very aware of the power of vulnerability. She is a maverick from the background she came out of, she left the confines of what American culture dictates a woman in her late 60’s to be. Susan grew up expecting herself to fit in with the rigid outlines of wife and mother and objectified femininity and then she abruptly left those expectations behind. Susan is brave and I see her ownership of herself so clearly where Susan let it slip, that she feels like she still has no clue who she is. That’s what I mean about fear and how we are all steeped in it and dance with it or fight it all the time, every day. Susan, so centered in her life adventure, feels her old fears acutely still, they are still her companions.

We are all the same, we all dance and fight with these shadow puppets and we all are trying in our various ways to find the doorway out before we exhaust ourselves.

This is the nature of refuge.

 

Pioneertown, CA is one of those sacred, surreal communities that you find scattered around the American landscape. Pockets of oddity with a sense of humor and a sense of pride in placement.

 

Its proximity to Los Angeles and raison d’etre as a cowboy backdrop for mid 20th century westerns, gives Pioneertown its rich cinematic aesthetic; high desert, wolf howl loneliness and the OK Coral – literally – at one end of Mane Street and old timey wild west structures that make up the business and creator community that lives there today. All this bracketed by the magic of the Mojave, that stripped bare purity of stone, tumbleweed, and starlight.

I came to Pioneertown about a week and a half ago after losing myself to those Mojave stars for a chunk – vibrating on high, feeling translucent, boundaries and body borders between myself and the surrounding Joshua Trees becoming threadbare, it was time to reconnect with civilization again.

I have a dear old friend who lives in Palm Springs and she reminded me of Pioneertown and introduced me to what its become in the last decade. I used to live in LA years ago, late 90’s to mid-Oughts  and I would come to Pioneertown and Joshua Tree regularly to escape the city and thats when I initially fell in love with this area. Pioneertown definitely had its characters back then but the flourishing art and creator community that is in place now, took root while I’ve been gone. As I was doing research on some of the possible local women I could reach out to about my project and hopefully connect with and interview, I came across the  Pioneertown General Store and its owner and creator, Sarah Tubbush. I was reading a blog post of an interview with her and she just leapt off off the screen for me. Thats how this all works really, I see a shine around a woman and I just wanted to meet her and talk to her in the context of this work I’m doing. Its really no more specific then that. I have ideas of different walks of life that it would be fascinating to tell a piece of that story, but I don’t plan more than that, its pure instinct so far coupled with the growing network of recommendations from people sparking on women in their own lives who feel would be interested in this project. Its a great big instinctual daisy chain.

Back to Sarah. I got to Pioneertown close to sundown and I was a bit tired but i’ve got this thing now that especially when I’m feel vulnerable and a bit shy, thats when I need to honor the energy of this project of compassionate communication and reach out. So I got my camping spot in the Corral Campgrounds and walked over to Sarah’s General Store. It was like walking into sanctuary and I knew immediately I was in the right place. beautiful warm wood, rich color everywhere, pretty things and long stylish and obviously comfy couches to curl up in, I think Willie Nelson playing on in the background. I was in my version of Nirvana, surround by vintage and artisan love, I am complete.

The General Store is a hub in the Pioneertown community, people come and congregate collaborate, and share their work and art, its that kind of special place.

And Sarah Tabbush, what a treat from to get go. Immediately I felt like I was meeting one of my sister-friends; bold, open, warm hearted and generous. I felt energized and reconnected right away and the personal enjoyment of meeting a new wonderful woman in the world just made me happy. We chatted, I shared the project and the fact I was there to meet her and Sarah was real and gracious and totally down to participate, what a wonderful exchange. We made a date for the next morning to conduct the interview and we hugged when I left, our connection felt good.

Here is Sarah and a clip for our interview, do yourself a favor and follow the link and watch the full interview, Sarah is funny and articulate and heartfelt and has connected with a community of women, Daughters Of The Desert that are fascinating and inspiring in how they are transcending their their immediate community into one of sanctuary and activation.

please visit vimeo.com/248081694 to enjoy the complete interview with Sarah.

That relationship with community is what Sarah Tabbush and Pioneertown has sparked for me. That sacred circle that women have performed together for millennia, circle up the wagons and create a safe haven in the center of the circle. We will all take our place in the strongest shape in the universe, the circle, the wheel of support and refuge. When you need my help I am already here holding my place in the round and round of reciprocity. When I need help, I will reach out and my community will be in place ready to be activated.

This is how we are strong as women, as humans, its how we both survive and thrive.

This is the nature of refuge.

I met an angel yesterday at a swap meet.

His name is Bob Carr and he is the proprietor of Sky Village Theater Swap Meet in Yucca Valley, CA and he is also the creator of the Crystal Cave.

Bob and the Crystal Cave unexpectedly blew me wide open with the cave’s crystal resonance and Bob’s beautiful eyes and spirit that communicated abundant love and simpatico in an instant. Both left me shaken and near tears the moment I stepped into his shine and is why I have included Bob in The Nature Of Refuge.

When you meet angels and absorb what they have to teach, you do not in return reject and turn away from their mirror, you say, “Thank You” and report back what they had to say.

Bob is not a woman. I had intended many things with the inception process of this project and had come to the conclusion that I wanted to hear what women had to say more than men as it seems to me that they’ve had their turn at the microphone long enough and it was time for the women to take precedence with their voices. And I still feel this way but what Bob and his sweet, white light showed me was that there is an open door everywhere and he opened the specific door to me to include a man’s story of seeking sanctuary when they present their extraordinary selves to me; once in a great while, a magic man appears who’s story is worth my attention in this context.

Bob is one of these men and my gratitude and joy in meeting and sharing our selves and time together is boundless, I’m using all these big expansive words without much story in describing how meeting Bob made me feel, I would like the video and the clips speak for themselves but I can give a little context of my own.

I have my personal experience with seeking sanctuary and achieving refuge on Orcas Island for past two years before I embarked on the road and this project a few months ago. I experienced an abrupt spiritual awakening that felt like it came out of the blue and into my soul and shook all of me to my core those two years ago. It was initially terrifying and it eventually fascinated me and my journey through that transformation and my continual adventure with my now, hyper aware self compelled me to create and execute this project to begin with.

So as I explore with other women in our country their personal experiences with seeking sanctuary and feeling unsafe and how they have traversed that shadow landscape, I am furthering my own spirit education and the abundant opportunity to transcend human connection.

And now, this man, Bob.

For me, meeting and connecting with Bob a few days ago, was connecting with a teacher finally, I have experienced my spiritual transformation without gurus or guides as I am comfortable in teaching myself how to do things. But Bob made it plain, that I was his teacher, that everyday is an opportunity to teach each other to live in love and develop our thought processes towards compassion and joyful connection. To do the joyful learning work together.

Watch Bob and listen, he has much to teach. Bob understands pure joy, its simplicity, its depth. The hard roads we travel to circle back and beat our heads on old walls that never existed to begin with. Bob understands how we fight our selves with blindness and all we need to do is slow down, relax, and open our eyes. We are already here, we are at the banquet and have been our whole lives.

For the full length video of Bob Carr, please visit: http://vimeo.com/246863769

 

We are all safe, there is nothing to fear in reality, but Bob also understands the strength of time and how long it takes for us as community of life force, to go on this journey together. Its taken a long time to get to here and it will take that much longer to return to the beginning, where the simplicity of life joy and all that we could want, resides.

Meet Bob, Today’s Angel, this is his truth, our truth.

This is the nature of refuge.