SEEDS Journal: Dave Jacke Workshop 7/16

Niche analysis

 Spirituality vs Ecological Design

Dave Jacke's workshop was one of the most inspiring and insightful experiences I have participated in. The morning began with a meditation. Dave led the group to imagine ourselves as trees, roots reaching in to the ground and trunk growing upward towards the sun's energy. We imagined the processes in our tree bodies as we were simultaneously grounded and growing. Yet another life goal. We then compared spirituality and ecology, considering similarities as practices and focus on connections. And, who are the real designers? Us? Can't dogs train their owners?

The rest of the morning was spent outside, observing and interacting with the garden. Elise and I played around with a large plant she informed me was Mullen. It's very tall and very "male." Dave prompted us to use all of our senses to know the plant and imagine it sensing us. Our humility grew. We weren't just looking at a tall green thing as food or decoration, but something at a particular life stage, with kinetic and textural qualities. It had a unique distribution of weight, a particular scent and an ambitious size and growth rate. It had insect friends and enemies. We followed this with a "niche analysis" of different plants, by reaching what each needed and discovering how we could embody those plants to understand their needs and products in relation to other plants. For example, the pear trees stood tall, providing shade for the ground cover people, laying beneath us. Dave used this activity to teach us about stress and harmony, guilds, and the 2 principles of Ecological design, which are multiple functions and functional interconnection.

We spent the afternoon inside doing our own niche analysis of ourselves. We drew a representation of self surrounded by our needs, allies, enemies and products. This was surprisingly hard. Through all the worrying we endure on a daily basis, writing what we need and want and make should be easy, right? Wrong. I think this proves why we are stressed. We aren't in tune with what we truly need, who/what our real allies are, and what we are producing and the effect of this. We shared this with each other.

Dave completed the day with a lecture. Regurgitating my thoughts and notes on this lecture is extremely difficult because there is so much! The lecture focused on the following topics:
Every place is an ecosystem, even a parking lot. 
Regenerative decent- how do we make a graceful and ethical decent from our energy peak?
How do we avoide preaching to the chorus?
Our bodies have evolved from hunched, to upright, to hunched. Are we "technomonkeys"?
What is culture?
The connections between resources, social and economic structures, technology. 
"Psychosocial" is key. Are we undeveloped with room to grow?
Functional disconnection vs functional interconnection
One action has multiple implications
and much more.

And my favorite: the key phrase "design with nature" is widely used. It is hipocritical! We ARE nature. Everything we have created has been made with something found on earth, starting with simple elements and molecules and forms of energy. With this view, EVERYTHING is "organic." Dave's honesty and enthusiasm allowed him to inspire everyone in the room so much that we couldn't turn away from his words. I am still struggling with how I can bring this experience back to Baltimore, to my friends and school work. What I have taken from this workshop is inspiration to look at everything as a whole system, meditation is a powerful tool, and there is nothing wrong with doing what is less stressful and best fits your purpose. Dave used the example of an shrub cut in to and elephant shape. While it is aesthetically pleasing and innovative, the shrub is under stress! It is more stressful to be something other than yourself, so what do it? Certain stress is unneeded. Shrub cutters, put your energy elsewhere.

It's really hard for me to sum this all up, so maybe I'll edit later. In conclusion, Dave used examples of issues in different places, rural and urban and different gardens including forest gardens, to prove how interconnection can be functional or dysfunctional and how acknowledgment of systems is key to evolving into a healthier way of living in relationship with our planet. Both spirituality and ecological design involve properties, principles, patterns and processes geared towards self-renewal and functional connections.

Dave Jacke wrote a book called Edible Forest Gardens and is working on Eden Arising, a book about spirituality and ecological design.

SEEDS Journal: KJ Holmes Workshop 7/15

Last workshop with KJ. Our last activity took us outside to groups. We took turns elevating a person, floating them from one spot to another. Before lift off they ask a question. When put down they may have an answer. The support of the group helps float us from one moment to the next and share energy.


How do I perform in a way that nourishes me? - Cindy
How do I feel this good in New York? - Anne
Where do I put my inhibitions?- me

While being carried I looked up in to a tree. A view I personally love, I have before seen while moving. A moment we don't often feel is being let down on to the earth. It is so solid.

Philosophy for meeting resistance, a metaphor for change:
KJ noted an interesting perspective on spirals. When sitting with both legs bent making triangles, one behind you and one in front, it is a spiral. Turning against the front legs meets resistance. The more you try, the harder it gets. Turning the other direction is easy and comfortable. Trying to change from what's comfortable gets you more and more disoriented. To turn in the direction giving you resistance you must change your position entirely. Switch legs. Then the resisting side is now accessible.

Afternoon & Evening:
Terre, Nyx, Elise, Kiori and I tried our scores at the river! We filmed them and viewed them after dinner. A wonderful afternoon of swimming, floating over very mini rapids and trusting the gentle current to carry us into calm, clear pools. This was a great lesson in how to edit scores and prepare for documentation, and knowing how much time it takes to set up the equipment to document. As soon as we began my score I realized what I would have added and taken out, and mentioned to the group to guide the experience towards the intention. Conclusion: I love writing scores. It's a combination of creativity and structure that is as simple or complex as you make it, and is action oriented, not just talk or photographs of action. This group of women I have grown closest too this week are inspiring and give equal energy to our little research project. It feels amazing to work on something each group member is equally confident and excited about.

SEEDS Journal: KJ Holmes Workshop 7/13

Diagonal room,
wave of three
body is vibration, peaks are knees
valleys are joints and fabric.

Morning:
Today KJ talked much abut vibrations. Vibrations nourish and calm. Vibration is motion... motion allows hearing. Motion allows communication. What is my vibration, my rhythm? KJ prompts us to notice- what is our body's weather today? what is it's rhythm? My weather today is partially cloudy. My rhythm is steady and calm, with little dips and moderate peaks. We do an exercise by lying on the floor and putting one hand in to the other, like a plug in to a socket, and rock. Vibration in a loose jaw and body. Going back idea of container, we question, what is our circumfrance? Can breath determine our periphery? KJ uses a cell membrane as an example of a container, one that allows things to flow into and out of the cell. The membrane is a space of varying size, depending on the cell. This can be a space of decision making. We question how we relate to what's outside of us, depending on the size (width) of the cell membrane.
Afternoon:
My own research
Outside, reading Moving towards Life by Anna Halprin
As I take notes from Halprin's book I sit on a warm rock at the trail's entrance, near my tent, my little home. I look up to the clearing of space between trees and see grey clouds holding rain. They whisper down to the trees, a smooth considerate warning of water to enter their space. The ferns chat in vibration response to the whisper, and relax in anticipation of their regular donation of water.

In Halprin's book I read about Scores. Scores are used as a structure from which to improvise. Some are open, others are closed, meaning they are more specific or complex. This book is so valuable to my growing interest in performance. Halprin said "once performed, a perspective is gained...and change and growth can occur" (p 49). In addition, scores can "externalize hidden feelings, attitudes and blocks," and "be used to bring the resources ('unconcious or hidden feelings') to the surface and put them into some kind of context." (p 49). This inspires me to write a score for my performance, one that project a new perspective on living in a healthier, sustainable lifestyle. Scores are like science experiments. They are art experiments.
Scores consist of these elements:
An overall theme, an intention, people, place, time, resources, activities, and assessment of the results, called "valuation." Some elements are fixed; the activities which performers must carry out, the length of time, location people involved. Other elements are variable; the resources from which performers may choose from to fuel or inspire their performance. Post-trial, the score can be edited, simplified or recycled to a new version that better fits the intention or produces the out come most intended.

RSVP cycles designed by Anna Halprin
R: collect resources (solidify theme, collect images physical or mental, emotions, stories, actions,        written recources, props, location, footage, sound, etc)
S: write score (put together all elements collected and decided upon, try it out)
P: perform
V: valuact (did it work or not?)

Evening:
After a trip to the river today, a group of 5 women decide to write scores.
Nyx, Elise, Kiori and I sat down with Terre, who has studied for years with Anna Halprin. Tonight we learned to write scores! An introductory lesson, but a great one. Each women wrote their first score for the river. We compiled a long list of resources we gathered from the river: video footage, images, sound, movement we discovered earlier in the day, perspectives and emotions.

My first score:    (to be edited!)
them:       intersection of body + water
intention: what lies at the intersection of human + water? document through image and sound
people:     5 women
place:       calm pool in river surrounded by rocks
time:        12 minutes
activities: appear/disappear, skin on rock, skin on skin, voice on water, into/out of water.
resources: image of body aligned with curves in rock, appear/disappear from camera view, sound of body on rocks, water

Best of all were the little connections made today. As we sat in the small library upstairs we noticed a painting against the wall, deep blue with a body floating in a fetal position. It matched our experience at the river exactly, our bodies floating in this position in the current. After learning about scores, we realized today is Anna Halprin's 90th birthday. Reading her book, and learning to write scores...what better way to celebrate?

Albert Einstein:
"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure."

SEEDS Journal: KJ Holmes Workshop 7/14

rain
green, black
heavy bones on moist floor
I am rich, dark chocolate, coffee flow
sing in veins of deep red oxygen
water is outside
today I drank coffee,
dark chocolate crepe
solid apple
less hair,
heavy heart
patience.

Morning:
I enjoyed the heavy rain. Last night I cut my hair, setting free the excess and cutting off the dreadlocks tightly bound over the past year, containers of the year's tension. More talk today about transitional spaces. We can move in and not just through. A new concept to me: our patterns of yielding/pushing help us to establish ourselves and build a place to reach out from. There is a space between fight and flight. We improvised on KJ's instructions about yielding and pushing. I made the discovery that I can leave finger prints on my own skin. Simple, yet new to me. We do affect ourselves most. KJ prompted thought about our bodies as content vs a container. Organs are content, bones a container. Blood contributes to sense of gravity, nerves and spinal fluid our sense of levity. We also talked about social relationships, the meeting of two beings. Meetings are not on a map. We may have a plan, but the real content of life isn't on the map. And this is what changes your life.

Water:
Water changes density and form through the body's passageways. It is inhaled and exhaled, drank and excreted. Water becomes part of blood and other fluids. And funny enough, water is an inorganic molecule, yet we are made of it, and need so much! We talked about how elements compose a whole. We can look at separate parts of something to see it as a whole. I made a drawing representing this, representing a lifespan. Each stroke of a colored pencil makes many tiny dots. These are separate elements of a lifetime. We start of with a narrow area of dots, not many elements to influence us or keep track of. As we age, more dots appear. A darkly shaded area is a time of so many dots (elements) that life feels dense and overwhelming, difficult to walk through as we try to manage too much.



Afternoon:
Watched my rain video footage recorded on morning of 7/10. It's 27min 18 sec long. Watching full screen makes me shake. I tried to meditate on it for it's full duration. 3:33 into it I'm bored. Noticing details is valuable though. So much activity in a puddle. Resources to work with:
time
rhthym
monotony
clear, white, grey
intersection of people and water (sounds of people in kitchen are in background. was recorded in doorway)
When are you nourished vs dry
bounce, fall, ripple, splash
adhesive and cohesive

Facts: 70% of earth is H2O, 97% is undrinkable water, 2% of all H2O is frozen in polar ice caps, leaving 1% for human use. .5% of that is not polluted. (book)

My first rain score
theme:      human water use
intention:  to acknowledge the movement of modern water use, using movement and rain footage and document this action
time:         four minutes
people:     me
place:       studio at Earthdance
activities: drink, swallow, pour, spill, shiver
resources: rainwater collected in a bottle outside my tent, thirst, water facts, spilling my cup of water today down the stairs, coming in from the rain, change in temperature

A narrative      
Come inside from rain, wipe wet shoes, take off shoes. Remove hood, take off jacket. Walk, shiver. Turn on sink, fill cup, drink. Turn on hot shower, wash, dry. Boil water in teapot. Boil water for noodles. Wash clothes, dry. Water plant, brush teeth, pee, wash hands. Get in bed, read book, cry. Drink water, sleep.

SEEDS Journal: KJ Holmes workshop 7/12

KJ:
"try not to add value to it"
"confusion...means you're learning something new"
"when something is growing, no one and nothing looks at it and says 'don't grow'"

7/12
KJ brought a bird's nest the flew down from a tree outside her apartment in Brooklyn. It's a kind of container.

Outside:
Walking through the container of outdoor space, with eyes closed. Am I invisible. KJ prompts us to question whether we are visible or invisible, appearing or disappearing within the environment. Does my body communicate in action, to nature? I lay down beneath a tree, under twigs, to embody the ground. Am I now invisible? By participating in nature, do we become invisible because we are part of it? It seems that participation & invisibility and non-participation & visibility coincide.
Inside:
Prompted to think about respiration. How can I breath with other parts of my body, like my feet? My hands, my eyes? How does my physical perception extend beyond the man-made structure of this studio? The group is told to stand in a tight clump in the center of the quiet room. We are all quiet, yet the sound of swallowing and breathing is so loud and powerful. I've never heard nothing but the sound of swallowing like this. I may use this in my project.

KJ:
over the next few days, observe the patterns (of your body, your judgement) and break them. And, if a pattern forms, use it or see it as a tool.

Evening:
Watched Vanishing of the Bees. The fragility of all life is ever present, but today so many people are in denial of this. Millions of bees are essential to the survival of food several creatures, yet our pesticides are killing them. The U.S. government only funds certain research, and many holes in research result. We may never find all of the reasons that bees have been disappearing. It's not just our actions that need to change, but our mindset towards the action.

Albert Einstein:
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

SEEDS Journal: Benoit Workshop 7/9-7/11

This giant post, and the following, include snippets of journal entries from each day I spent at the SEEDS festival at Earthdance.

7/9
First night at SEEDS. Drove 7 hours by myself today! Sang a lot and took pictures. Did not run out of gas. Worked up courage to say hello to new people and engage in conversation. There's a hump you have to get over, and after that we are all the same, at least enough to be comforting. I'm happy I already talked to a woman about ecological pieces within the first 2 hours I was here. Her focus? Water! She's been doing making this type of work for 20+ years. It's inspiring to know this focus has existed for so long. It is all new to me. Why is there not more work like this? I want to figure how to complete dance research. And I want to perform as an artist any way that feels right to me, the she has done. Fun moment- met Greg while looking up and being amazed by the stars. I can finally see so many! I feel a bit safer because he is sleeping in a hammock near the other campers- and smells more like food than we do from working in the kitchen. Hopefully the bear won't be interested in me, or him.

Even better, is that here, I am amongst the kind of peers I want to be around most and work with. Here I will exercise embodiement of myself, as simple as that sounds. I am growing more comfortable in the fact that I often differ in sense of humor and outlook. Why not cherish it? It feels so good to be 22 and free.

7/10
10pm and I hate to admit I'm tired enough to not feel like writing right now. There's a lot to say about the feelings and emotions I went through today, and the new levels of perception I reached, as well as comfort. I still have so much work to do, with my own struggle. I have so much perception in (what I call) the second conciousness, the one beneath our actions. The one we use to judge ourselves. I'd rather be staying up late right now, but what I need most is sleep. And, to not think twice, in the way I have been. About anything. Immediacy, patience, learning and a solid self are key.

7/11
Morning:
Release from the release! This is a new concept for me and is applicable to this time of my life more than others, as I seek to release my habitual fears that contribute to insecurities. I think the problem I've run into in college is finding opportunities in which to grow out of fears, release creativity and release my true self in to the world, but I can't get past the jumping point. I get to the edge, look a lot, speak in to the valley, but never jump. (How else can I walk to the other side? Humans flying is lying). So, if I release my fears of taking opportunities and then release in to the valley, I will evolve. The second, deep inhale is necessary to enabling the experience to exist.
Afternoon:
Some exercises: all pieces are fluid, undo the tension inside the body. Relax throat and tongue and set pelvis back to loosen space inside and space around asophogus. Reaching, put arm on someone or object and notice energy between the two things almost touching, encourage this feeling. Experiment with small sits bone movement and connection to jaw. Smaller movements generate greatest results.
Duet with a fly:
During the extended exercise of reaching for, touching, releasing into, and releasing further, I encountered a fly. First, I played with a wall to notice how it feels to release my wait on to it, and how I could form a grip depending on the way I released on to a surface. My mind went on a tangent about rock climbing and holds. Then as I moved to the floor I notice a tiny fly, about 1/4 the size of a finger nail. I put him on my finger to take him outside, but he did not release his grip. I joined some people dancing outside my new insect friend stayed on my finger for 20 minutes! This simple creature new better than I how to release his weight onto another object, and form a connection strong enough to last as my hand moved upside down and sideways. My favorite moment was one I paused to look at his body, and he moved his head so his bright yellow-spotted eyes faced mine. I almost ran over to Karl, who is working a project documenting physical interactions with animals of all kinds. Today I danced a duet with a fly.
Moving about the stream:
Turned off camera mind. Multiple duets, conversations with rock, leaf and water. Discovery of sound. What did my foot just do to the pebbles in the water? Dance with mosquitos in shallow pools. Water cools human. Drink water. Branch in hand. Water ripples. Questions. How/why can do we research by moving? Think with the body. I looked at truth in rock, green, clear water. The hard, the clear, the pure in color truth, and acted upon this. What is. Further rotations of the mind are unnecessary.

I learned, today, that I need to exercise patience. A transformation is happening. But, transformation cannot take place unless eased into with full body. I am new. I am a beginner. I have doubts. I have fears, and insecurities. I am myself, and I am not these things. They are specks of dust floating in my broth.