comfort

I think I am on the other side of the most substantial bout of inspiration I have ever experienced in my life. I fear that what has just passed will also serve to be the biggest bout of inspiration I shall ever receive; that what I worked through in my 25th year, and the conclusions that I landed on will in fact be the very most pivotal moments of my life. period. There is no way to hide that I have turned my life on its head within the past 12 months. I devised a way to change careers, I met a loving partner, I started taking classes again, I started teaching a whole different type of class....

Through all of this change, though it was completely necessary, I worry I will have nothing left to rewrite in the year ahead. I have simply changed everything about the way I conduct my life in the past 12 months, so much so, that I am concerned there is nothing left to change.

I also worry that I am too comfortable with change. Change is my comfort zone. What happens if the changes I have made this year don't stick? How will I continue to evolve and incorporate my new life into the equation? My fears are not that of change, but of stagnation.

meet in the middle

In the white-washed world of western yoga (you see, I can't just simply say, "in yoga" because this experience can't possibly be yoga's purest form), there is a lot of talk about the present. I think this obsession with the present while we are on our mats is a simple overreaction to the times we live in: they are fast-paced, future-focused, and tell us to fuck our past. While I understand the importance of being present, it is equally imperative to make peace with our past and acknowledge the present moment is truly all we have as we work for the future. We must know and respect that our past has in some way informed our present, and our present will in some way inform our future.

These thoughts come to me with the start of a new year--a jarring time where one foot is in the past, reflecting on the highs and lows of another year passed, and one foot is in the future, creating plans that will never see the light of day. We forget that with one foot behind us, counting every embarrassing thing we said in 2017, and one foot out ahead of us, agonizing over every goal we've set out to achieve, we a little bit even out--we find ourselves in the center of our mat, the present. Regardless of whether we are still going to the gym five months from now, I think the biggest achievement is that we have taken a second to let our previous experience and future expectations jolt us into acting in the moment. 

In some abstract way this balance of past+future=present mimics my feelings when looking at a Rorschach painting. Perfectly symmetrical, sending identical information to both eyes and both sides of the brain, but creating an entirely new picture had both halves been separate. Some kind of absolute lies in the middle of these famous works; the left has informed the right, and the right the left, leaving no longer two halves but one complete picture and a sense of ordered chaos.

certain nights

there are these certain nights, where I've put in the whole of the work for the day. and all day it felt like the grind, and I was maybe reluctant to do the day, but then the night happens. all the work is over, and I never set out to 'achieve' this feeling, but I am hit, slammed, overcome by gratitude. funny too that this feeling of fortune doesn't have much at all to do with the work, but rather with the people in my life who I cherish. 

reminder

in a world of so many opinions, I'll let these impromptu self portraits serve as a reminder that the loudest voice in my world should be my own

agitate

a few months ago, I was talking to a new acquaintance and told him that I work at a contemporary art center. our conversation wandered to other subjects, but came back to the subject of art. he was honest and overtly curious when he said something along the lines of how he never got much out of artistic experiences. he gave an example of a piece he read an article about. this piece he described was highly conceptual, so much so that it bothered him. because of this discomfort he felt toward the piece, and really throughout his journey with the arts as a whole, he said he didn't get art. I was piecing it together and finding that he assumed all art is designed to make you feel good. my response was simple: art is suppose to agitate you. 

art takes something familiar, so familiar that we've almost forgot about it. and then it picks it up, turns it around and sets it back down in a way that we never considered it before. artists do this for us; they help provide the tools for us to open our minds, to expand our knowledge on a subject. and that feeling of letting go of the familiar, can most certainly be agitating. 

but, I think we need to stop associating agitation with the negative. ironically, when you process film, you have to agitate the negatives every few minutes to ensure the developer processes evenly. 

this act of agitation (in both art and film developing) is meant to stir something up and let it settle in a different way.

for many of us, this isn't an easy concept to accept. we want to cling to what we've always known, as opposed to being humble enough to allow our minds to change. why is it so difficult to understand that your opinions are evolving maybe because you've learned something new? do some people associate learning with fear, by way of the unfamiliar? why can't we accept that we are consistently learning?

given the way the world operates today, i'd say many people are fearful of intelligence. more specifically, fearful of others' intelligence. simply because they didn't think of an idea first, they feel slighted. when they should celebrate these other people's creative ways of thought, instead of responding with jealousy. 

this celebration is where collaboration begins. where interdisciplinary thought is achieved and true strides are made to change the habitual thought process of entire societies. 

body + language

my first choice in communicating is rarely ever verbal. i default to listening or thinking, and find comfort in not finding the right words to say. we all experience the world differently, and words land with us uniquely, while photos and art allow for deviation in interpretation, space for varying impressions, in their nature. i enjoy leaving questions unanswered in conversation; photography allows me to communicate without giving everything away.

recently, however, i have found a new love for spoken language. i am once again intimidated and inspired by the power of words through a new endeavor that completely relies on verbalizing physical feeling and emotion thought. 

the space between vertebrae

the points on the spine where one type of vertebra ends and another type of vertebra begins are the weakest parts of the back. i find this to be an illuminating metaphor for the transitions of life. for those moments where we recognize there is opportunity for both risk and transformation, when we are between one thing and the next and leave space for vulnerability. i am one to both welcome and dread these moments.

the power and pain of introspection

self portraits taken home alone on a friday night. the only thing to make these past few weeks any better has been this and other creative outlets. finding therapy in the creative process and in very few other places.