Category: Refuge

I woke up this morning and the first thing I did after brushing my teeth and making tea, was watch the full interview with Carly Valentine. This is a woman who has exquisite grace in movement and and execution. Carly is a person in which ritual and placement has been integrated in daily relationship with her life. She is a skilled emotional dancer in this and is a pleasure to experience, as grace in any form is something I admire.

Please watch Carly Valentine’s full length video here http://vimeo.com/257023665

In watching the footage of Carly and reflecting on the emotion of our conversation, what stands out it is the extraordinary thread of strength in women and their communities. This is how we as women have survived millennia of subjugation and persecution by the patriarchy, our response  has always been to rally together and turn to each other for safety and support. To call on our intense resilience and our integral knowledge that it does indeed take a village to survive. We gravitate toward circles more often than not, understanding that ancient strength and it can take shape in a sewing circle in a church basement or a pagan ritual circle under the full moon. Its still an understanding of the power of coming together in unity and establishing balance in the circular form of protection.

Carly has come from a heritage of a strong matriarch lineage and a tangible connection between the generations in her family. Her connection to her strong creative self and expression of that through her photography and personal aesthetic, Carly directly attributes to the love and connection to her mother and grandmother, she honors them through her work and sense of self.

It comes as no surprise to me then that Carly is the initial architect of the community of 400 plus women in the Mojave Desert area named Daughters Of The Desert and now holds the title as President of the organization but has co-created a system of support with a vice-president, treasurer, etc. Carly has spearheaded the project, www.daughtersofthedesert.com  in which through her photography and portraits of the incredible women in her desert community, she has opened the door for these women to band together to promote and support each others creative and professional lives. This group of women are also are in the midst of creating an actual sanctuary for women to go to when they are in the need of safety, retreat, education, creative space, and resources. These women have organized themselves politically, promoting social justice, women’s rights, and shifting their local communities tolerance and silence when it comes to abuse of women. These women, powerhouses each in their own right, have come together and created an even more powerful sanctuary and refuge for one another and I for one am completely inspired by the work that they are doing together and the commitment to each other.

This is how you get it done. Together stronger than alone.

This past year with all the challenges and struggles thrown up and into the harsh light of the reality of American culture and its dark relationship with gender, race, class, and immigration has been deeply disturbing for all Americans wherever you land with your ideology. We are in the midst of uncovering real, ugly social truths about one another and simultaneously attempting to radically change how we go about navigating them. Its intense to say the least and we’ve barely scratched the surface, We have a long way to go and it takes all of as a nation with all our dissenting opinions and voices to somehow, create harmony, or at least carry a tune together. Otherwise this great ideal, this great possibility that is our country, is lost.

So in this corner of the country, these women in Daughters Of The Desert have come together in in a short period of time and have established themselves as a force to be reckoned with. Women when they run out of silence, are quick to take care of business and the evidence in that with the last year with women rising up politically, radically shifting our national conversation about abuse towards women and challenging generational attitudes toward sexual and physical abuse. It is in evidence in Daughters Of The Desert and other women communities forming around the country. Circles of women coming together in solidarity and sparking progressive action while maintaining momentum.

Carly Valentine speaks softly and with authority. Eloquent and elegant. Her personal strength is reveals itself with grace as you speak to her, she has all the time and her own time, its a beautiful way to move through the world. Carly has the ability to bring people together and inspire, she draws power from her own vulnerability and understands that in sharing her fragilities she will instigate solidarity and therefor strength in others. Carly is a leader and knows the timing of stepping back, letting the work unfold and  catch its own momentum.

This is the power in women.

This is the nature of refuge.

 

This is Christina Wolcott. Christina was born in Illinois, lived in Humbolt County for thirty years and is now living in Palm Springs. She lives at the abrupt edge of one of the mountains that rings Palm Springs; mountain base, parking lot, Von’s grocery store. There is a white half wall that delineates nothing that I can discern except where Christina has built her refuge that consists of a bed, two baby strollers, and piles and piles of exactly arranged rocks in mysterious formation.

I first saw Christina a couple of weeks ago when I was hiking up the same mountain  that she lives at the base of. The way that Palm Springs crowds right up to the very edge of the mountains that flank the city on one side is somewhat weird when there is so much empty desert space as far as you can see, but then not weird as the mountain provides shelter and the water and oasis created at its base, is severely limited. Huddled together out of necessity, Palm Springs with its airs of privilege actually can only exist practically because of the benevolent mountain. The mountain that Christina lives at the base of and communes with through the rocks

When I walked by Christina she was speaking to herself in a rapid rat-a-tat manner and walking in an agitated lines that led to the mountain and through the stones littered all around. She was dressed in a cool, funky, flair that caught my eye immediately and she waved to me in a relaxed way when I passed her by even though she was so intent on the rocks and the landscape.  I was intrigued and knew I’d be back to see if I could interview her.

I came back the next week and at first Christina was gone but then she came walking and talking around the corner carrying plastic containers full of rocks and i just liked her, I liked watching her come towards me in her strange world and cool outfit, I wanted to sit down and talk to her and listen to what she had to say. I introduced myself and Christina graciously invited me to sit down on her bed with her, without hesitation or fear, Christiana invited me in. I sat I asked if I could video and photograph our conversation and away we went together. Christina speaks in a low growly voice that may be due to her diagnosis of throat cancer that she told me about, the rocks that she is obsessed with for Christina, and the doctors and magicians she’s consulted with, have too much radiation in them and might be the reason it hurts when she swallows. Christina speaks erratically and non-stop, but listen closely to what she is saying and there is quite a bit of coherence, there’s a through line in all her lines and connectivity and dragons and eyes opening and blinking in the rocks that absorb her entire focus.

I caught bits and pieces of her story as she threw the words out, she was telling me something, a real truth, and it was my job to decipher through her patterns. There was talk of her Angel Babies and then a tangent of her son that she was able to hold onto for twenty-three years and then lost – the reason there were baby strollers and a creepy doll strapped to one? The heartbreak was real whatever the linear events were, Christina’s eyes so huge and devastated in contrast to jaunty red suspenders and pearl necklace she wore. But the rocks, the rocks are everything to Christina. She spends all day, everyday, collecting, piling, speaking to, receiving transmission from, experiencing  God through, animals appearing in. Christina will tell you about types of rocks, Cameos are one classification she is especially fond of. It sounds like she has had some conversations of cultural appropriation with Native Americans in her spiritual handling of the rocks and whether she’s paying enough respect or should even be doing it at all, totally fascinating. Christina prays and believes in the power of Love and the universal connectivity of God, people, dragons, eagles, and the rocks who act like a cellphone. Why not?

Please watch Christina’s full length interview here http://vimeo.com/252626037

In my mind, Christina is a mystic that has been driven mad by personal tragedy and the overwhelming magic of the desert. Its a classic combo, its the paths of most mystics and prophets. The power of the desert is real and pain breaks us open over and over, sometimes a person just can’t come back together again and stays in the raw egg vulnerability, ending up just heading out into the light instead of tethering again in the common world. When I looked into Christina’s eyes and her madness, I was looking into myself. The thinnest of lines separate her from me, she has looked into the sun and will never turn away, she stays transfixed. I look into the sun from time to time and feel the radiant blindness of universal connectivity and its seduction of truth, but then i look down to the ground and root with my connection to being just human and all that entails.

At one point, Christina looked me fully in the face and stared at me with such exhaustion and sadness. She said,

“I’m just so tired, I wish I could have time to hang out with my friends.”

It was that moment I knew we were sisters on a quest, that we are both being driven to outline where love and connection and divinity all meet and intertwine. Christina is so far out over the edge but I could easily be right there with her if I let go. But I want to be able to communicate all of this with you, I am the storyteller and gatherer, so I must keep a foot planted here and over there. Since Christina can’t get her message across to very many people, I will carry it for her, whatever the content is.

I will be a witness in Christina’s extreme resilience and fragility.

This is the nature of refuge.

Strange Palm Springs..

I come here in a small tornado of self. This project is my refuge, my rocket, my obsession. I have been out in the desert perhaps a little too long as the veil between me and everything has grown quite transparent, perhaps its time to come inside for a little while and build up the safety in opacity. I can go whenever I want, and will be going back out on road fairly soon. I’m here to learn and execute broadcasting, fundraising, getting the word out to a wider audience. My initial trajectory is quite strong in this work, lets take it higher. Lets shake the rattle of financial anxiety out of the beat, lets learn how to appreciate all the bounty available and waiting, lets get fully tangible. Or at least, immerse a little deeper, its ok girl, the water is fine.

I am given the gift of refuge for however long i need it, how fantastic is that. Strange Palm Springs opens it manicured, privileged arms to me and I walk in, tired. All around me is brilliant green and chlorine blue and the endless terra cotta strip malls that delineate the wide smooth, black roadways from the true landscape of dust desert mountain sun that is the Coachella Valley. it takes me a few weeks to see whats really happening here in this refuge for senior citizens and gay men who have an abundance of time. There is always more than meets the eye and the veneer of conformity is always a mask for the abundance of madness and variation that is the human psyche.

The doorway opens from the patio and swimming pool that my room is adjacent to. I step out each day to the growing understanding that this quiet little city in the middle of the vast and ringed by mountains, is like a washed up ships of fools – just like any other community – but magnified by the silence of nowhere. Its light at sunset and then twilight is what clues me into the beat of this heart; how the light reflects off the water in the swimming pool and the sounds of airplanes landing and taking off nearby. The light is so soft then in contrast of the daily harsh glare that is the endless norm in this environment, it illuminates so gently, with great tenderness, the angles and planes of the mountains, the tract desert houses, the silly palm trees.

The doorway widens in the mornings as I tend to this swimming pool, using a net to scoop patterns off the surface, scrub down the sides and bottom. The air initially is soft here too but quickly becomes tight and hot, its winter in the desert now but this valley collects sunlight and holds it close. I have three dusty little dogs who follow me everywhere and their personalities reveal themselves to me as the mornings progress, dear funny little things with their own intelligence and wonderful indulgence of sleeping and snacking each day in the cool tiled shade of this house.

Palm Springs is sad.

The people move in quiet sadness and self absorption, always on a journey of looking inwards or resting. This is not a bad thing, the sadness is not a maelstrom, its just deep and permeates.

There are beautiful, tall, Amazons who walk with elephants around their ankles who move and sleep in slow melancholy.

There is the congregation of the dog park where community and fellowship is played out everyday; the dogs the cover to come together and connect, to be less lonely, to be each other’s daily touchstone and friend.

There are the lost that ping pong themselves between identities driving themselves mad with the inability to feel themselves in the moment so they drown themselves in champagne and hormone therapy.

There are the ones who came to take care of their aging parents and when their parents passed, these ones have stayed to clear through the detritus of grief and integrate the universal passage of being released from childhood.

There are as many stories as there are closed doors; all the quiet drama played out in the individual refuges created here as nothing seems to be played out on the street, The streets belong to facade and the cars.

I fold myself into this place, creating my own rhythm of rest and activation. I reflect myself in relation to others and continue my work and stare at the big mountain the anchors the horizon.

This strange, dusty, little town in the middle of nowhere with its gleaming sharp edges and soft evening light has offered this traveler safety and a place to be for the time being. Its generosity is also part of its infrastructure and makes for an interesting dance partner.

This is the nature of refuge.

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.

The thing is, I have no idea what I’m doing.

Everyday I wake up, I see all the gypsy patterns of my bedding in the back of my truck house and half way remember,

“Something’s outside.”

Something different and strange which sounds exciting, and is, but do I really always want exciting first thing in the morning before tea and brushing my teeth?

I guess I do otherwise I’d be waking up like most people and stumbling to the familiar bathroom for a pee and a yawn. Instead I wake up like this morning, bleary bolt upright in the windy rain night, the wind is pushing taut against my plastic tarp protector at the tailgate of my truck house and the Velcro is slowly unzipping with the pressure. The sound of the ocean sounds alarmingly closer than it did the previous nights and I peek outside the window and see that the promised storm is indeed pouring down and my choice to still park at the edge of the world so I could look out on the morning sea first thing, proves to be a precarious choice. Also, a big white truck similar to my own has parked close to my own and puts me on the defensive immediately as there is a whole big empty muddy parking lot at this ramshackally marina I’ve chosen as my refuge for the last couple days.

Why so close!

Are they going to try and get me, have the owners finally come to chase me away, is the vague threat of rape on the road finally going to try and manifest – where is my mace?

None of these things, just a fisherman doing his thing at 5am, and look there’s a bunch of other trucks pulling in, this is a working marina and the day has begun.

I’m up now though, more due to the insistent wind pushing its way in and the encroaching sloshing water sounds conspiring to make going back to sleep a distant reality. Boots on, hoodie up, go out and squat for a pee and thank the gods that my period has subsided to the point that I’m not waking up to my period panties overflowing and having to deal with that mess with the nearest proper bathroom nowhere in the vicinity. Now in cab of the truck house, turn the heat on, plug the phone in, and turn on the trusty Google Lady and type in “nearest Starbucks.” Starbucks is a great place to pee and have a morning poop and brush your teeth, wash face, charge up phone, get some online work done and get endless buckets on strong green tea all in the same generic, corporate, dependable environment. I am a shameless Starbucks Succubus on the road and I don’t care who knows it, the place is invaluable in offering a refuge on a daily basis as needed.

But no Starbucks nearby as I am at the beach in a gorgeous, lonely location and have sought out my other on the road refuge fave, marinas to bed down and chill at. Marinas are boat life which is like island life, slow and easy and you don’t have to watch your back or your stuff because its pretty much guaranteed that you are going to be left to your own devices and at the same time enjoying the smiles and hellos that everyone gives to each other because that’s good boat/island manners and I like it.

No Starbucks in miles though and its still 5amish and dark and stormy so I ask Google Lady to take me back to Santa Rosa as I’m hoping to conduct an interview tomorrow here with a lovely woman and I want to work all day in a coffee shop and go to a movie later on this rainy day.

That’s the plan and its warm now in my truck house and I’ve got cool music playing on my Spotify playlist and I take off into the windy road dark. I still don’t know what I’m doing but I trust the Google Lady and I’m starting to get a little familiar with this little patch of California as I’ve been going back and forth a few times now in the past week or so between Santa Rosa, the East Bay, and Bodega Bay and though without the Lady I’d be hopelessly lost, I’m alright with that at the moment.

I didn’t know what I was doing when I left Orcas Island 2 months ago, but here I am doing the work of my project, connecting and speaking with women in their vulnerability, photographing and interviewing and writing about all of it. I’m navigating driving and sleeping, and peeing, and changing my clothes all from my truck and I just got my very first driver’s license over a year ago and this truck and solo road trip are both my first and here I am doing it. Two years ago I had a complete and abrupt reimagining of my total sense of self and here I am integrated and fascinated by my new perspective after quite a journey with the face of fear, and here I am, doing it.

I don’t know what I’m doing and that’s just fine. I keep on getting up each morning to a strange landscape outside my truck house and saying, fascinated,

“Something’s outside.’

This is my life right now.

This is the nature of refuge.

To view the complete interview with Ivy , please go to www.vimeo.com/242006462

This is how I reach Ivy –

I have an idea and I begin to engage with it. It begins to grow shape and then morph, picking up speed and expanding in all directions. It dictates all actions and decisions as it gets larger than myself as I previously identified as myself, I’m growing with it is all the ways I cannot predict, this is creation and this is my definition of work.

I make lists and I plot and begin to hatch. A mega storm of connecting thoughts and actions somehow link and often sync, and then this shape begins to actually take shape and momentum is achieved.

This is a foundation and its time to build the visible structure, here I go!

The Nature Of Refuge is my aero plane, my sweet flight, I’ve begun, I’m on the road and I’m catching the wind in my teeth.

I am now on my quest to find the women who will connect with me and tell me their stories of refuge and search for safety. I have yet to conduct my first interview and I am ready to begin.

Reno, Nevada. Little weird town. It made me laugh in delight from the first moment I drove in while being guided to my friend’s house through the Google Lady and she took me into downtown where Circus! Circus! was all lit up in gaudy splendor against all the other shabby spangle that is Reno’s gambling mecca.

I am here to go to church, that is my plan.

In my idea structure, I’ve seen myself initially meeting the women that I interview in church that I will engage in this project; reaching across the aisle so to speak and shaking hands,

“Hey Human, how are you?”

I see myself meeting women in all kinds of environments but this is a door I could see opening and walking through first, so that’s what I had in mind for Reno.

But of course life and work and that creative spark always presents itself much more immediately than an idea and the trick is to recognize the moment and jump through the hoop of opportunity, flexible and landing in the middle of juicy interaction.

And that’s exactly what happened.

I met Ivy Antonowitsch at the end of an evening touring artist studios in this cool, big old building with a dear friend who was introducing me to new friends. We were having fun exploring different creative environments and then to a little punk rock show in the gallery on the ground floor where the only one who was dancing was this fabulous gentleman who had levitated himself out of his wheelchair and was seriously getting down.

I had seen a sign earlier in the evening advertising glitter tattoos on the 4^th floor and though the evening had wound down I really wanted one, so we went to investigate. Elevator door opens, hook to the right, an amazing pink scooter covered in pinup girl decoupage, bumpy brightly colored art pieces hung on all the wall space leading to a door, a sign for glitter tattoos – yes! New friend and I knock on the door that says “Ivy and Henry”, we try various knocking styles that we hope to entice the Glitter Tattoo lady back out for the evening, the third one works, the door opens and there stands Ivy, she just woke up but she invites us in.

Gracious and welcoming for the start, Ivy leads us through her fantastical landscape of her home, she is a multi-media artist and her home is her canvas, an environmental artist consecrating her chosen sanctuary. As Ivy is giving me the most beautiful rainbow hued mermaid glitter tattoo, she is telling me an extraordinary story of spontaneous violence that erupted in her and her partner Henry’s life the year previous and the subsequent suffering that their life had been consumed by since. Heartbreaking, intense, extreme vulnerability, epic storytelling from the get go, Ivy spoke her heart all the while continuing to paint the sparkly mermaid on my arm.

Another new friend calls out across the room,

“Sara, you should interview Ivy!”

I hadn’t been thinking along those lines because of my preconceived idea-notions, but in a flash, my idea-structure shifted, adapted to the scenario presenting itself and this woman sitting next to me in her fabulous pin striped gown painting glitter on my arm, and I said,

“Yes, that’s a great idea, Ivy what do you think?”

Ivy thinks it’s a great idea too, she again is so gracious and open, agrees to an interview and portrait the next afternoon and being my first voice in my project, I’m excited!

I arrive the next day and the connection and conversation and photography is all I could have hoped for, golden and rich and true. I’d like for the video of our conversation to speak for itself, but I also would like to write my impression of Ivy here because she commands my attention with all that she is.

Ivy is: eloquent, strong, alone, brave, scared, tired, wise, direct, independent, in love.

To view the complete video with Ivy, please go to vimeo.com/242006462

Here is a woman who had known pain and the truth that is waiting to be gleaned from those brave enough to exist in the fire and open their eyes and see the truth that surrounds us all. Pain being the most direct teacher, the brightest illumination.

This is Ivy Antonowitsch, she is from Reno, Nevada and she is a multi-media artist. Ivy is a brave, resilient American woman and I thank her here from sharing a piece of her amazing story.

This is the nature of refuge.

 

 

Refuge is partially defined in our dictionary as, “…a condition of being safe.”

Being in search of refuge means that you are unsafe and feel afraid. You are living in fear for your survival. You have reached the point in fear and/or in circumstance that you can no longer take care of yourself alone and create an environment of safety, you are driven to ask for help and rely on the reaction of kindness and compassion from the people around you. Not only do you have to ask for help, your situation in life demands it.

I once needed help so I asked for it and received it. Now I can offer help and give it. But I would not have reached this place of centeredness without help.

The words sanctuary and refuge are so important to me that I am compelled to explore these ideas and stories with other women across our country in my current project, The Nature Of Refuge. I have purchased and created a truck house to facilitate a open-ended, cross-country road trip across the United States where I am documenting the stories of our country through the eyes of the women who live in it. 

The United States has historically been held as the ideal of sanctuary in our global community, I will be documenting that ideal in juxtaposition to the working reality of achieving safety and community in this country. I will do this through interviews, writing, and photography and will focus on humanizing individual American women’s stories. I want to have conversations with women across all political, social, color, religious, or orientation lines; every spectrum in our social rainbow. I want to sit on these women’s front porches or stoops and have a conversation with one another where we really listen to each other. I want to speak in this manner with women who have or are currently, surviving the crisis of displacement that we are experiencing in our country due to climate change. I want to explore how these life experiences dovetail and influence each other.

I will reflect these stories of fear and vulnerability in the endeavor to expand our compassion for one another, to contribute to the path of proactive communication in a nation of dissenting social voices. I believe we are in the midst of a massive social overhauling and upheaval that is much needed, but I also believe there are aspects of our idealistic foundation that are worth preserving. I would have never been able to reach this point of knowledge and integration without help when I was at my most vulnerable. We as a nation are at our most vulnerable at this time in history.

We need to extend safety to one another when we are uncovering our collective deepest fears of one another, of ourselves.

This is where we are at as a nation currently so deeply divided.

This is the nature of refuge.