The Third Act

Beltane eve...

Must be that energy...it makes me want to sing and dance and create.  To connect, to be fearless and joyful, to allow all the potential within me to flow and flourish. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

365@55 check in...

I've passed the 100 day mark on my 365 pinhole self portrait project for this year.  Kudos to me for carrying through the back and forth to the east coast, during the major event of closing a deal on a house, still maintaining my daily pinholes.  Given it was only a short trip (10 days) and that all my processing paraphernalia, scanner etc. are still readily accessible, it wasn't a big deal. 

My next trick will be to continue to record the self portraits every day and keep track of the rolls when I'm actually making my move.  I anticipate accumulating quite a bit of film while my belongings (including tanks, reels, etc. etc.) are transported and unpacked.  At least I'll have incentive for getting my traditional photography set up organized.  Wish me luck! 

Until then...here are a few of the latest batch (the set can been seen in its entirety so far here ).

 

 

 

 

Instax from today...

The roses are blooming...as are the apple and crabapple trees.  I'm gathering small rosebuds from a couple of the plants to dry and take with me across country. 

I'm finding it incredibly difficult to start the actual and for real packing process, for actual and for real moving to a new home.  This is a couple years in the making, this major shift.  In my deepest most earnest heartfelt wishes, I aim for true bi-coastalship...for embracing the new life, and allowing for what remains of the old (because there is a lot of love and goodness in the old).  It's not easy...none of it.  I worry for myself...I worry for him...I just want it all to be ok.

 

Back and forth...

...across the country.  In the bay area once again.  Now I must pack...and pack...and figure out transportation methods.  It's a little strange to be here, after getting some momentum going in the new place.  Eventually, I'd like to be able to embrace being in both places, whenever I happen to be, whenever I happen to be...

 

 

 

Baba Yaga's house is coming together...

It will be another month or two before all my things are transported out and the house is reasonably furnished (I have to admit to enjoying some empty space in a home).  That being said, I've placed my symbolic treasures and the place is feeling uncannily familiar and comfortable. 

Can someone's heart be in two places at once?  It's a very strange experience  and I find it necessary to pull myself into my body and the moment to avoid allowing anxiety to tweak my psychic space. I wish I could more adequately articulate what I'm trying to express...

I'm blessed and I'm grateful, in many ways, this I know. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frontyard/backyard

I had a walk through of my new house with my agent yesterday.  Everything is as I expected...no surprises really.  It's amazing the power of pictures...the pictures my agent sent me of the place, the pictures on Google street view.  Having actually been around the area helped flesh out my perceptions as well.  Today we close the deal...and I get the keys.  I'm excited, frightened, inspired and sad...often simultaneously.

Below are a couple panorama images of the front yard and back yard of the house.  In my head, I have many plans...secret gardens, health giving gardens, spiritually inspiring places of retreat.  The thing for me to remember is that it's going to be a long term project, not something I get done in a season.  I don't know...homes and gardens...to me they're lifelong labors of love.  Sometimes a move is necessary, but the home and vision of what is expressed through that large or small space, is carried in the heart.

Step one...find a place to live

Actually, I already did that...sight unseen.  Well, that's not exactly true since I had seen pictures...many, many pictures.  And there were the hours on Google street view I spent roaming the neighborhood as well as numerous visits to the area over the past several years.  I trusted my agent...and here I am.  Not here as in this picture on the left...that was from last night on the way to the airport.

Yes, I started my journey last night.  Took a red eye to Detroit, then a morning flight from Detroit to Richmond.  Let me tell you, if you ever have a layover in Detroit, make sure you have plenty of time between flights.  This was the second time I walked what felt to be about three quarters of a mile from one gate to the next.  Today, it wasn't a big deal because I had over two hours between flights.  Last time, I had maybe ten minutes!  Fortunately they held the plane for me (small plane...I guess it's possible in that case), as I boarded heart pounding and about ready to pass out.  But I digress.

I'm in Richmond now...waiting at my friend Rhonda's for my agent to come get me.  We're going to do a walk through at my new home.  We'll make sure everything is as we expect.  Then tomorrow we close and I hand the sellers a big fat Cashier's check and they hand me the keys.  It's rather mind boggling.  While I've ruminated on the possibilities of where life might land me, with this being one of the top ones, it's still strange to feel it all coming together.  This isn't something I asked for, not outright anyway...it isn't something I wanted, or at least would have ever thought I wanted.  But what it is, is an opportunity and an amazing way for me to dig deep into myself and find the treasures that will allow me to thrive in a new life.

Find included here some pictures of my transit across the nation.  I can't write anymore...too tired from no sleep and quite frankly, I really didn't feel like writing in the first place (but I wanted to get these thoughts down and start some public documentation).  Stay tuned for more in the saga of establishing Baba Yaga's House of Eclectic and Arcane Arts (yes, this is to what/whom my new home will be dedicated!!).

 

 

 

When I'm resettled...

...and living in Viriginia, I want to develop a series of images like this one.  Now, I realize we have the redwoods here in northern CA, and of course there are all the wonderful live oaks, but there's someting about the deciduous woods of the east that really inspire me.  The trees are all SO tall, even in residential neighborhoods.  In fact, my lot has quite a few tall trees on it (which freaks me out just a *tad*!).  In the winter, their skeletal forms reveal almost human personalities. It's such a wonderful feeling to lean against a tree and feel the earth's energy rise up against me...

 

 

Old School...

...kinda sorta in a way.  I used to take lots of pictures like this when I first got my little Nikon Coolpix, way back when.  That must've been, oh, about ten years ago...about the time I first joined Flickr.  Over the years I've used my digital less and less, and opted for more creative uses of film with toy, pinhole and Polaroid cameras. 

The past few years have found me in a very stressful situation.  Sadly the energy to be artistically creative with my photography has seriously diminished.  I'm doing what I can to keep working on photographic art with my 365@55 series, but I have to say I'm just not feeling it.  So every once in a while, I try to tap into the enthusiasm and wonder I felt in those early years, of simply playing with photography.  I'll just let myself be immersed in what I call my old school practice.  When the light is right and the energy of the plants is bursting forth, it's always a winning combination.

Within the next month or so I'll be on an interesting journey with a change in environment that I hope will prime the pump of my photographic enthusiasm.  Stay tuned!