Pictured is a detail from “White Tara” by Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo,a  silk applique thangkas she completed in 2001. His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave his blessings to Leslie’s work and encouraged her to make images that speak to the spiritual aspirations of people across religions and cultures.

If you live in Southern California, you can see Leslie and her beautiful fabric art in her open studio most First Fridays at Bell Arts Factory 432 N. Ventura Avenue, Ventura 93001.

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“It’s also helpful to realize that this very body that we have, that’s sitting right here now…with its aches and pleasures…is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive.” –Pema Chodron

Last month, my back went out.

In the early part of the month, it was responding to too much time hunched over on the couch, sitting and reading texts for my classes in Community, Liberation and Ecopsychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. My body was also sending me messages–messages about how distasteful the reading was on Freud, about how unhealthy it was to try to read so much in such a short time…and more since where it was bugging me was directly related to too much time with the mouse, the computer mouse. It was uncomfortable and distracting and it got better after about 10 days and by doing some exercises my yoga teacher Bryan Legere showed me to do.

Then, when reading Freud again and preparing for the next round of classes, it really went out.  I couldn’t lift anything. I couldn’t bend down. Normal typical movements were shockingly painful. I started questioning my body and what I could and couldn’t do with it anymore as I near the landmark age of 50. I didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand the lessons my body was trying to teach me–except the lesson to take care, slow down. Which the injury required me to do since it hurt too much to do anything else but take care and slow down!

I was afraid about the next round of graduate classes–about getting the reading done, about sitting all day for three days. But somehow my body came through it.

One big difference is I started paying more attention to my dreams, writing some of them down, asking them what they were trying to tell me. In one dream, Jung came to me–along with the 12 corpses from a key dream of his. They were tree trunks –and they scared me so much I shrieked myself and my family awake. Later I dreamt my son and I escaped a prison like enclosure, dashed across a road, and dove over a wire fence into the bushes in the mud. Later in the dream, we found some of his and my children’s books, then children joined us to look at them. The children led us to a large assembly room where I discovered I had a voice and the people there wanted to hear what I had to say.

In another dream, I was teaching a class in a beautiful wood paneled seminar room. I was trying to feed my students–students from my graduate classes as well as from the community college classes I teach. I offered them hamburgers and asked them to show with their hands in their air how many they wanted. That day at school we had hamburgers! And I joined a meeting of the EcoDreamers Club who were sitting around a seminar table in a wood paneled room…

We are surrounded by the lessons we need to learn…we just have to pay attention to them. I am trying to figure out my dharma, to travel on the path. Too often it is too noisy to hear. Sometimes our bodies and our dreams must lead the way.

Featured Art “Saraswati” by Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo, one of the only westerners trained in the rare Buddhist art of silk applique thangkas. His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave his blessings to Leslie’s work and encouraged her to make images that speak to the spiritual aspirations of people across religions and cultures.

You don’t have to build nirvana.

You just have to knock out something that’s in the way of the natural enlightenment waiting to happen.

–Shinzen Young at the 2011 Buddhist Geeks Conference

So how do you know something out of the way? How about practicing SAUCA and APARIGRAHA?

Over the next  week, totally get into Sauca. Clean and organize your home, car, office or work space.  Also complete your taxes, pay any back taxes or make arrangements to do so. Also payoff or settle any outstanding debts.

That’s part of my homework in my yoga philosophy class at the Ventura Yoga Studio with Bryan Legere. Easier said than done if you ask me.

However, my husband and I spent Sunday cleaning the house then I worked on the yard while he cleaned out our van. I’ve been in the process of reorganizing my office and all of my books since I inherited my mom’s desk, books and other furniture in September. My day today will include a run to the credit union to pay off my credit card and to make a phone call to another credit card that continues to make the same mistake (charging me a late fee when I haven’t used the card!) A big goal for November is getting our 2010 taxes done and the 2011 paperwork in order–but that certainly isn’t going to happen this week.

I definitely see a connection between sauca (cleanliness, purity, inside and out) and how chaos, mess, grunge and “stuff” gets in the way of following our dharma. You might even extend it to the food we eat and the ways we cover and move in our bodies. Practicing sauca is a form of taking care of business so that you are free to move in all directions–especially in the direction you are being guided.

I can also see where this is related to last week’s homework, to reflect on aparigraha, a sanskrit word which translates as not-stealing or coveting or hoarding that can also be interpretted as not letting go. If you have worked through this yama, it is much easier to practice Sauca!

In fact, practicing the yamas (all of them, not just sauca and aparigraha) offers us some direction on how to get “stuff” out of the way to find our path.

Pictured above is a detail of a fabric thangka created by Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo, one of the few westerners trained in this rare Buddhist art.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama gave his blessings to Leslie’s work and encouraged her to make images that speak to the spiritual aspirations of people across religions and cultures. Leslie’s fascinating story is the subject of the acclaimed documentary film, Creating Buddhas: the Making and Meaning of Fabric Thangkas.

Click here to order a custom print of the thangka from Leslie.

–Oscar Wilde

Dharma.

Indifference.

I have been working on creating myself and being my own poem for a long time but especially all summer, and more so since August 2011 when I didn’t go back to the college where I usually teach.

Instead, I worked as a nanny at Burning Man, then I started a Yogic Philosphy class at the Ventura Yoga Studio with Bryan Legere, then I started a PhD in Depth Psychology at the Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara.

As part of my homework for my yoga philosphy class, we are to write down and read and review our dharma every day. And I tell you life has given me many opportunities since February 2010 to ponder it.

We also have to practice a different emotional state each day. Today it’s “indifference” which my teacher also expressed as non-judgement.

Today as I was driving my son to art class at the studio where Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo has a studio to work in a sacred Tibetan tradition of making her fabric thangkas, I saw a woman wearing shorts and prosthetic ankles and feet and I understood a bit more about indifference.

It’s not that I need to be indifferent to what it is like for her to live (and run or walk or dance) with prosthetics. It’s that when I see her, I don’t let it deter me from my path, from my dharma. That I can care and be empathetic, but not be swayed by emotions or feelings and distracted from hearing my own truth or following my path.

I understood this because seeing her overwhelmed me with feelings about how close my husband came to losing his life in February of 2010, of how if he lived, he should be in a wheelchair. Only 5% live when they break their C2, and of those who do, only 3% have mobility–and those folks have fused necks which reduces their mobility in their neck by 75%.

My husband is fully recovered. He’s alive and just celebrated his 50th birthday. He’s not in a wheelchair. He didn’t have to have his cervical vertabrae fused. (If you’re interested, you can read more about it on my Art Predator blog.)

It is easy for me to get lost in the pain, the anxiety, the grief that is part and parcel of my attachments to people and place. One of my most important lessons is to be one who hears the cries of the world, one who observes, appreciates, feels vividly and fully but who is not overwhelmed by either the pleasures or the pains because then you cannot act and you cannot hear the still small voice from within that is there to guide us on our path.

I am still not sure what my dharma is. But at least I am on the path to knowing what it might be.

You can order a custom print of the thangka and message from the artist Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo, a contemporary American textile artist working in a sacred Tibetan tradition. Her fabric thangkas render inspiring Buddhist images in vivid mosaics of silk.

This fall for me has been a time of decisions, contemplating my dharma, reflecting on my past, setting new directions. I’m taking a yogic philosophy class at the Ventura Yoga Studio. I went back to grad school, this time for a PhD in Community, Liberation, and Ecopsychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

We also emptied my grandparent’s house to rent it; unfortunately not to me. This piece of art by James Audubon reminds me of my connection to my grandfather–his love of birds, wine, nature…I thought he had this print framed but if didn’t turn up; my brother and his wife got the prints of grapes from the kitchen. Hard not to be attached, not to be felled by loss.

How’s your fall harvest going? What are you planting? What will come up in spring?

Source of the art. More info on the art:

Creator Name: Audubon, John James
Creator Qualifier: after
Creator Nationality: North American; American
Creator Dates/Places: 1780 – 1851
Creator Birth Place: Les Cayes, Saint-Dominique (now Haiti)
Creator Death Place: New York, N.Y. City
Creator Name-CRT: after John James Audubon
Title: Pileated Woodpecker
View: Full View
Creation Start Date: 1860
Creation End Date: 1860
Creation Date: 1860
Creation Place: United States
Object Type: Prints
Creator Name: Lithograph
Materials and Techniques: color lithograph
Dimensions: 96.5 x 63 cm (image); 100.4 x 67.5 cm (sheet)
Contributor: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Owner Location: San Francisco, California, USA
ID Number: 1994.36
Credit Line: Gift of Peter Carleton
Copyright: Personal and educational non-commercial uses are permitted and encouraged.
Rights: http://www.thinker.org/fam/about/imagebase/subpage.asp?subpagekey=75
ID: FASF.19905
Library Year: 1998

You are here to
enrich the world
and you impoverish yourself
if you forget the errand.

–Woodrow Wilson

 Order a custom print of the thangka “White Tara” by Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo featured above. Visit www.LeslieRW.com to see and learn more.

Sonnet for September 11

thursday i listen to radiohead
in a new purple polka dot sundress
& i am trying to feel so modern
i search for more warmth for this sunny day
in my air conditioned office & heart
i want to wear my purple rain jacket
i want to ward off rain & fear & dark
i want to keep off terror & attack
i want to make tears & fog slip away
i want to live in a world where i can
wear my old purple rain jacket over
my new purple polka dot summer dress
& with this keep all the bad news away
& with this to find this big world okay

By Gwendolyn Alley (aka The Compassionate Rebel)
dated Thursday, Sept. 13, 2001
published in ArtLife Limited Editions October 2001
learn more about Sonnet for Sept. 11 here

See more responses to 9/11 by Ventura County artists in this 9/9/11 VC Star article by Karen Lindell.

Read more about author Gwendolyn Alley in this August 2011 VC Reporter article by Michel Cicero.

Today, Saturday September 10th from 4-10pm is the Mid-Autumn Festival at the An Lac Mission 901 S. Saticoy Ave. in Ventura.

The event offers entertainment, activities and presents for children, and delicious traditional Vietnamese vegetarian food and drinks. All are invited to attend this free event.

Tomorrow is September 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Let’s all try to do more than simply be good, tomorrow and every day.

Pictured is a detail from a fabric thangka titled Medicine Buddha by Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo, a contemporary American textile artist working in a sacred Tibetan tradition. Visit www.LeslieRW.com to see and learn more and order prints.

Barry Evans, “Less is More”
Tricycle Winter 2007

Talk about off road adventures–we’re back from 2011 Burning Man “Rites of Passage”…Read more about our adventures at Burning Man on my Art Predator blog.

Mark your calendars: Saturday September 10th from 4-10pm is the Mid-Autumn Festival at the An Lac Mission 901 S. Saticoy Ave. in Ventura.

The event offers entertainment, activities and presents for children, and delicious traditional Vietnamese vegetarian food and drinks. All are invited to attend this free event.

Pictured above is a detail from a fabric thangka titled Saraswati by Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo, a contemporary American textile artist working in a sacred Tibetan tradition. Visit www.LeslieRW.com to see and learn more. Click here to order a custom print of the thangka.