giving thanks for my mother, inspired cooking, and the arts

mom's cute webcam pic for her FB page

Tues., Jan. 10:  I give thanks for my mother.  She conceived me (with some help of course) and carried me in her womb, labored for 36 hours, and bears a scar where they finally decided to cut her open and remove me from her body.  Though I did not grow up with her (I was raised by my father from birth) we have always had a great relationship, one that has only grown deeper with time.  Those of you who know me well know the full story here - perhaps I will write it some time.  She is one of my best friends, one of the wisest women I know, and always a voice of reason in my life.

Wed., Jan. 11:  I give thanks for spontaneous inspiration in the kitchen.  Growing up, I think my dad may have cooked for us a total of 10 times, or maybe a few more, but I think at least half of those meals were hot dog sandwiches or franks and beans.  We ate out a lot of the time.  Sometimes, Eileen, my half-brother's mom who lived under us in the first-floor apartment of the house I grew up in, would cook dinner for me, but I didn't usually witness the process.

I did not grow up around anyone preparing meals.  The only memories I can really think of where I witnessed some major cooking was at my aunt's and granddad's on holidays, and that was some major cooking that went on for hours and hours, resulting in quite a feast, where you eat on and off all day.  Now, I'm a wife, and a mother of three, and there has definitely been a bit of a learning curve here.  I discovered in my adult years that I'm a pretty good 'intuitive' cook, meaning I keep healthy ingredients around and can usually hook up a good meal by throwing some of those ingredients together.  

However, cooking for yourself or one other person is one thing.  And, I've done alot of eating out in my adult years for sure, esp. since so many were spent leading a hustle 'n' bustle kinda life.  Now, I'm responsible for providing 3 meals a day for 3 other people (baby Din is still pretty exclusively on my milk) and myself.  This is no small feat.  Honestly, I'm usually wingin' it.  I'm not a recipe kinda gal.  Meal planning sounds nice, but it's not very realistic for me, given that I'm the type of person who often has difficulty planning beyond the next hour, except for really important things of course.  My main strategy is simply to keep good, healthy, yummy food around, and then see what comes together when it's time to eat.  (We don't have set meal times either.)

So what led to this post was a bit of spontaneous genius in the kitchen on Wednesday night.  At shortly after 7 pm, I thought, hmmm, what should we have for dinner?  I thawed some chicken in the nuker (in the basement - I resort to its' use in emergencies only ;), scrambled two eggs in coconut oil, added some frozen veggie fried rice to that, a few squirts of Bragg's Liquid Aminos, and threw the chicken in a separate pan with olive oil, drizzled with raw cider vinegar, added some Celtic sea salt and other spices, and then some fresh garlic.  Sounds good, but kinda a typical meal around here, and Atom and I have both been getting a bit 'bored' with food, so... I decided to put the rice on a corn tortilla, topped with the chicken, and then topped with a slice of cheese.  Popped into the toaster oven to melt the cheese, and voila!  Delicious.  Yummy yum.


Thurs., Jan. 12:  I give thanks for the arts, all kinds, for they have the ability to give voice to the heart, mind, and spirit, and release, inspire, feel understood, bring joy, and heal.  There has been a lot of grieving, reflecting, spontaneous weeping, and ruminating going on of late, off & on over the past few months.  (See a past post here and the FB page of a friend who left this world a few weeks ago here.)  It is making my thyroid ache.  As I said in that previous post, so much of the weeping and sorrow is not for my own grief, but for others' suffering.  I am an empath, and I think part of my purpose is to help transmute those very difficult emotions.  I just have to be careful not to let them get stuck in my body.

One of the things that helps me with that is listening to good music, and especially music that makes me want to sing.  So, yesterday I was listening to this really awesome album, 'Be OK' by Ingrid Michaelson.  Over and over.  It felt so good.  In fact, I think I'm gonna put it on repeat again, right now.  It's so awesome how sometimes just the right music comes on at just the right time, speaking to your life.  In this case, I felt like it was speaking more to my dear friend (who has just gone through the most difficult time of her life) than it was to me, but it helped, and I sang and sang, and sent her love all the while.

(As a sidenote, if you're suffering, or have ever felt suicidal:  Just don't get caught up listening to some sad music over and over while drinking copious amounts of alcohol when you're depressed.  That's a bad idea.  Switch it up.  Feel the misery, for a little while.  Then find something that gives you some shred of hope and happiness.  If you can't force yourself to stop wallowing, find a kid, yours or someone else's and hug them, play with them for 5 minutes.  That will make you feel better, at least for a little while.  Most kids have this great intuitive sense that tells them when you need a really good hug or a laugh.)

We hosted our co-op/tribe at our house yesterday.  I gave a lesson with a brief overview of the history of art from cave painting to the present, looking at the trends and styles that evolved over time, and the factors that influenced those trends.  And then, we painted.  Anything we wanted.  And it felt so good.  Here are ours.  The pics aren't great - I just took them on the webcam, but I'll share anyway.  

Phoe's painting: acrylic on cardboard.

Adobe's painting - her variation of Genevra DaBenci: acrylic on canvas

my painting - in progress still: acrylic on masonite

 My thanks for the arts is so infinite that I could write a whole book on it.  There will be more to come on the matter, I'm sure, but this post has been long enough already.  Visual and performing arts have pervaded my life for as long as I can remember.  My given name, Artis Mooney, aptly translates to 'wealth of art'.  Artis - Latin - 'of art'; Mooney - Gaelic - 'wealth'.

XO

an awesome illustration of changing education paradigms

Absolutely one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.  This is a combo hand/computer animation made from a compilation of the main points made by Sir Ken Robinson in another recent talk about Changing Education Paradigms.  This video really does a great job of illustrating the history and crux of the issue.  I could watch this over and over (and in fact have already seen it about 7 or 8 times and see something new each time).  It's incredible that this 11-minute video accompanies the audio of spliced-together main ideas from a 55-minute talk, and it's pretty darn seamless.  You would never guess that this wasn't one from one continuous delivery, other than the fact that it does end rather abruptly.  Definitely leaves me wanting for more.  Enjoy!



What do you think?

what we need is a revolution in education

This is another fabulous TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson, an advocate for creativity, recognition of multiple intelligences, and education reform.  (Thanks, Mana, for turning me on to this one.)  This certainly touches on one of many reasons I live the way I do, and do my best to inspire others, in one way or another, to follow their passion.  Some of you are lucky enough to teach, or have your children enrolled in, schools that are at least attempting to participate in the revolution.  It is great that there are those gems out there who are able to step outside the status quo and truly inspire unique individuals to discover and love who they are, and encourage them to find their path, to follow their hearts' desire.  If, however, you are feeling skeptical about how the system is functioning, about the education your children are receiving, make some waves.  Share your thoughts and concerns, with their teachers, administrators, and county officials.  Offer some ideas, research, point to some alternative sources (such as this video), ask questions.  Or, if your lifestyle permits, opt out, forge your own path, do things your own way, jump into freedom, discover your tribe in your area and build a collective; find a way for you and your child(ren) to pursue your passions together. 

We all have a path, and sometimes we start down the road without even knowing where we're going.  Many happy discoveries and adventures can be found along the way.  Follow your instincts.  Below are some highlights from this talk.... I hope you watch and enjoy.

"Education, in a way, dislocates many people from their natural talents.... Reform is of no use anymore, because that's simply improving a broken model.... What we need...is not evolution, but a revolution in education.....This has to be transformed into something else.... Many of our ideas have been formed, not to meet the circumstances of this century, but to cope with the circumstances of previous centuries.  But our minds are still hypnotized by them, and we have to disenthrall ourselves, of some of them.  Now, doing this is easier said than done.  It's very hard to know, by the way, what you take for granted.  And the reason is, that you take it for granted.... Life is not linear, it's organic.  We create our lives, symbiotically, as we explore our talents, in relation to the circumstances they helped to create for us.  But you know, we have become obsessed with this linear narrative.  And, probably the pinnacle for education is getting you to college.... Human communities depend upon our diversity of talent, not a singular conception of ability.  At the heart of our challenge is to reconstitute our sense of ability, and of intelligence.... When I arrived in LA about 9 years ago, I came across a policy statement, very well-intended, that said 'College begins in kindergarten.'  No it doesn't - it doesn't.... Kindergarten begins in kindergarten.... There's such competition now to get into kindergarten, to get into the right kindergarten, that people are being interviewed for it, at 3 - kids sitting in front of unimpressed panels with their resumes, flicking through saying, 'What, this is it?!  You've been around for 36 months, and this is it?!  You've achieved nothing!'....
     The other big issue is conformity.  We have built our education system on the model of fast food.... We have sold ourselves into a fast-food model of education, and it's impoverishing our spirits and our energies as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies.... It's about passion.  Often people are good at things they don't really care for.  It's about passion, and what excites our spirit and our energy, and if you're doing the thing that you love to do, that you're good at, time takes a different course entirely.... You know this.  If you're doing something you love, an hour feels like 5 minutes.  If you are doing something that doesn't resonate with your spirit, 5 minutes feels like an hour.  And the reason so many people are opting out of education is because it doesn't feed their spirit, it doesn't feed their energy or their passion.... We have to change from an industrial model to an agricultural model.  We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process, it's an organic process.  And you cannot predict the outcome of human development.  All you can do is, like a farmer, create the conditions under which they will flourish.... It's not about scaling a new solution; it's about creating a movement in education in which people develop their own solutions, but with external support based on a personalized curriculum...."
     (Closing with a quote from W.B. Yeats:) "'Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, and wrought with gold and silver light, of blue and the dim and the dark cloths, of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet.  But I, being poor, have only my dreams.  I have spread my dreams under your feet.  Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.'  And every day, every where, our children spread their dreams  beneath our feet, and we should tread softly."

And we should dream too.  I'm a big fan of what I call 'active daydreaming' - something along the lines of the Law of Attraction.  Dream big, and dream well, rather than not allowing yourself to dream for fear your dreams won't come true.


I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences....

the child-driven education: Sugata Mitra on TED.com

This is a phenomenal experiment.  The results are not at all surprising really, and speak volumes to the potential in children, and the potential of the internet to (further) revolutionize the globe.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

geocaching, a bed of nails, the sun, and land art

Last week was another fun one - the title about sums up the variety...
I'm not going to recap the whole week in detail, just some highlights.

This post will be more pictorial - excuse all the scrolling but ... enjoy. :)

As some of you may or may not know, we've started a small collective where we gather with a few other families every Tuesday & Thursday, and often other days as well.  We mulled over what to call it, and I suppose we'll be calling it the Boundless Kids Tribe.  I also have affectionately referred to it in passing as the Free to Be Me Collective, but I think the vote is for the former.  And I guess it makes sense to go with the whole Boundless thing...

Some highlights from last week:
Last Tuesday, the older kids started the new session of the Homeschool Drama Club.  Melanie, Kazha, Phoenix and I picked up some goodies from the fabulous Lebanese Taverna & had a picnic outside on the grass where the older kids joined us when class was over.  Then we all went over to Hayes Park & the kids played for a couple hours.  My little daredevil Phoenix climbed up a chain link fence til his feet were almost as high as my head.  One of the older boys was spotting him.  Then he climbed back down.  All by himself.  Pretty impressive for a 2-year-old.

On Wednesday we went to the Maryland Science Center at Baltimore's Inner Harbor.  If you're in this area and haven't taken your kids there, go!  Super awesome!  We met our friends Kristen, Lucca, Marcella, & Kozhin there to check out their exhibit on geocaching & had fun checking out other stuff as well.

 As you can see, there are no strings on this harp - it has light beams!  And you could change the sounds that it made.  Fun.

Phoenix & Marcella were having a little face-off.  :)  They love each other, but as they are both used to being the youngest alot of the time, neither of them likes the other to tell them what to do.

If you don't know what geocaching is, go to geocaching.com for info - but in short, you use your handheld GPS device to discover hidden treasures near or far, whatever you wish!  Sounds really fun for family adventure.  The exhibit - eh.  That's how Kristen & I both felt about it.  It was very informative, but a bit dry for kids, too much reading, not enough hands-on.  I guess the idea is that you check out the exhibit about what it is & how you do it, then you could go on a geocaching adventure in the harbor area, but we didn't know that & didn't plan for it, so.... The kids had fun anyway.

 This is when we still had their attention, at the beginning, before they all went running off thru the maze to break the codes and find caches and figure this all out.

Phoenix got mad at me at one point & ran off.  He was laying on the floor pouting, until Marcella found him and broke that hard shell.

I'm looking at them through a fabric mesh, that's why these two images look strange.  Don't expect professional photo work here from me people.  The lighting conditions in this place were difficult to work with.

From there, on to some other parts of the Center:

Okay, this was definitely one of our favorite parts of the whole place!  There was a sheet of plexi that you first laid down on, with all the holes drilled in it for the nails to pass through.  Then, once you've laid down, the woman pressed a button and the plexi receded, leaving you on the bed of nails.  I tried it out too.  Totally comfortable!  Here is Lucca.

And Adobe...

 Kozhin...

Little Phoe...

  The next thing was pretty cool too.  Did you know that to your brain, cold + warm = hot?  There were metal bars, cold from one side, warm from the other.  When you put your hand in the middle, where you could feel both simultaneously, it felt hot!  Ooooh, trippy!

Optical illusion.... hypnotized!  One down...

And another one bites the dust...

Here are our cuties!

And next - ah yes, payphones!  Remember those?  Also known as Dial-a-Germ.

Phoenix's cave man side shows itself a little...

And this thing simulated your digestive tract.  If you could move that ball through the mesh tube, it made the gurgling sounds that your guts make!  Yeah!  (Sorry for the excessive use of exclamation points throughout the post; I'm just a bit excited...)

Next, of course Phoenix had to get on the Dial-a-Germ.  I had daddy in mind here; I knew he would 'love' this as he's pretty grossed out by germs in public places.

Not sure what he was listening to here, but he looks so darn cute!

Oh lordy, okay, I know it's alot of pictures, but wait, there's more!  I just wish blogger would let me format this differently so I could do a gallery with captions or something.  Wordpress can do that, but alas, I didn't like the interface!  So.... in the future, I'll try to whip up quick slideshows instead.

That's it for Wednesday's adventures.  We left, and the kids came with me to Oxon Hill where I teach tap on Wednesday nights.  Long day.

On Thursday, our little tribe met up at Alcova Heights Park.  The kids played, meandered in the creek, snacked; the moms talked, about all manner of things.

Alcova Heights, aka 'the Creek playground' is one of my favorite spots.  I've been taking Adobe there since before she could walk.

I suggested that today might be a good day to discuss Daylight Saving Time and the Spring Equinox, since one just happened, and one was about to happen.  (Yay Spring!)  What is Daylight Saving?  Why does it happen?  Who 'invented' it?  What exactly is the Spring Equinox?  What are some cultures whose New Year corresponds? etc... We discussed all this over a picnic lunch, and then we made some 'land art' together, inspired by the fabulous Andy Goldsworthy, who Melanie & I both love.  We collected sticks, branches, and leaves to make a sun, in honor of the longer daylight hours bestowed upon us by the Equinox, & Daylight Saving (sort of - well at least it's light later in the day...)

Yes, that's Phoenix sitting in the middle of the sun - Adobe put his hair in piggy tails, and everyone was calling him a 'she' all day.

Skyler is approving the work.

 Beautiful momma Melanie...

Sweet Amman at this point then asks if he can sing a song, which turns out to be, "You Are My Sunshine..." Awesome!  And everyone joins in as they continue working. 

Kazha says 'hmmmm, what else does it need?'....

Placing the final touches... momma Stephanie, and the girls.

At this point, I video'd everyone holding hands and singing the song again - so cute!  Don't have a way to share that here, and haven't uploaded it anywhere...

Here is Melanie in fetal position inside our sun.

That was fun!

Friday, we handled some business at home and then met the tribe and other folks at the park.  Phoenix was so beat that he fell asleep around 6:30ish and slept straight through til the next morning.  Saturday, first day of spring! - it was nice & warm.  We busted out the kiddie pool, the kids played, we did yard work, picked up mulch, I trimmed the rose bushes, and stuff like that.  Sunday, more work outside, making the front and side of the house look all nice.  I rescued our violet tree (or whatever it is) that was being suffocated by ivy - pulled it all off, which was quite a job, and Atom took out two thorny bushes on the side of the house (huge job), and we did a bunch more stuff.  Hard labor.  Fun.  No, seriously, I like it.  I know it's not as fun for Atom since he does hard labor at work all week.  But it's different when it's your home.  Therapeutic.  More pictures to come.

And if you've stuck around til the end, guess I'm not doing too bad, cuz I know this was a long one.  Thanks! 

why do it?

Why do I make art?  Why do I love photography so much?  What inspires me? 

This is a re-post on Inspiration from my photo site & blog that I wanted to share here...

My love affair with photography began when I was a child... with taking pictures of things that captured my eye or caught my breath - a ray of light, a shadow, an abandoned man-made object in a state of deterioration, anything in the process of decay, patterns in nature, textures, symbols of our mortality, metaphors for the passage of time, beautiful representations of life's wonder, and so on... When taking pictures of people, I always appreciated the beauty of the moment and enjoyed catching them just be-ing, doing whatever they were doing. I'd always cringe inside when I went to take a picture of someone and they'd stop, pose, & smile for the camera. It is the essence, not the facade, that interests me.

As an artist, my work deals loosely with the cycles of birth, life and death, which encompass human perceptions of time and space, ‘life story’, imagination, and consciousness of the world around us and the people with whom we interact. Every person lives a journey - some story that takes them from being born some time, some place, to dying some time, some place. In a sense, my work is an ongoing ingestion and digestion of everyday realities, of my experiences & memories - both recent & distant. It is the human experience and the wonder of the natural world that feeds my work more than anything else. As a fine artist, I express stories through visual metaphor. As a documentarian, it is the the moment, or collection of moments - seemingly frozen in time - which speaks volumes. It is my role to bear witness and express what I see through these eyes, in the form of beautiful photographic art.

I am all about bringing back keepsakes and family heirlooms. Especially in this digital age, when everyone has a point-&-shoot or a camera phone, I think printed photographs are really important. We all (myself included) have hundreds or even thousands of pictures that live in our computers, and we rarely see them other than as a flash on the screen from time to time. There is something to be said for an image that is tangible, right there in front of you, that you can linger upon, hold, & touch. I read recently that looking at photographs of loved ones can be a healing experience, especially if they are far away or no longer with you. No surprise there - how could a rush of love not be healing, even if it's mingled with pain? And even if it's someone you see every day - people change, all of us, and there is something really special about being able to remember someone just as they were at a certain moment in time. You see a photograph, and memories come flooding back.

As an artist, I share with you a bit of my story & the beauty I find in life. As a photographer, I help you tell your story. The way I see it, I don't capture the moment, I set it free, so that it can live on, for a lifetime, or more...

What makes you tick?  What inspires you?  What do you love about what you do?