Kindling

Imagine, two hummingbirds,
Building a fire together,
Delicately selecting kindling
of straw and spider web
and horse hair, and those
nearly translucent aspen leaves,
creating that base,
attentively adding the logs,
the breath of their wing beats
igniting the flame,
that leaps, alighting, ahead
into ruby-throated blaze.

Slumber awake

Cream curtains draped in light. Its morning. As I look closer, I notice tiny creases and window pane shadows on fabric. The curtain length lingers on the floor, too long to hang completely. I've woken up on a soft leather couch, quieter and warmer than usual, at my friend's house. We had a girl's slumber party, eating salad, cucumber sandwiches, cake, drinking ginger and watermelon elixirs prepared by Sarah, talking until 2am. No one else is awake. I cannot sleep later than 8:30. Not with the energizing sun streaming hello through blank slate curtains, as if saying today is open to possibilities and whims of the imagination, to hiking in the mountain magic of snow and aspens, to reading with tea near a fireplace, to taking some time for journaling, to talking to my sister.

The girls are up now, murmuring in a bedroom. The dogs too, barking playfully in the back yard. Already, so much joy in the day.

I woke up feeling officially settled back in to Santa Fe, a month after moving back. A cohesian of friends and social time, work and creative pursuits. Funny how it takes a while to develop that rhythm that determines the quality of fitting in a place, of belonging.

Fall Folliage (in the Northern Hemisphere)

We hiked to Lake Katherine, by the Santa Fe Ski Basin and Baldy, on Sunday -14 miles total through turning aspen and warm sun. I had never been all the way to the lake before. After a picnic lunch at our destination, a few of us meditated on rocks, but unfortunately had to put up with intruders who did not respect the inherent silence of the space. Still, things were still, for the most part, in my mind and my heart felt awake.

A new friend and fellow hiker lent me the movie "Howl" starring James Franco as Allen Ginsberg. My housemates and I watched the film when I returned from the hike. Really, all I felt like doing after 8 hours of tramping (as New Zealanders say), was watching a movie and passing out. Howl, along with the mountain-climb, however, required me to write this poem before falling asleep:

Fall Foliage

Not to be dulled
But to be polished!
To reflect the gold
Of sunlight intersecting
Autumn aspen, to hold
Palms open, inviting.
To brush dust from
Hearts, brightening.
To notice a leaf,
Part from a tree,
Alight on air, hover,
Settle in front of me.
Not to be muted,
But to live life full-color!

Leaping in Dreams

Last night, I dreamt. I awoke with the dream on my tongue. I was an observer of myself in the dream - as if I were being filmed inadvertently by a video camera. I could see half of my face in profile up close in the screen - like I was standing right beside the filmer. We were both watching the action unfold on a snow-capped peak before us. A spotted, shaggy mountain goat entered the screen and leapt from the cliff's edge! Why? Why? Why? It fell out of range of the camera as a snow leopard entered the shot. The leopard leapt after the goat, but realizing its peril, twisted in the air to land safely back on the ledge again licking its lips. No! I don't want this.

The scene rewound. This time I see the goat running and leaping, but, this time, the goat realized its predicament and twisted in the air to land safely back on the ledge again. The snow leopard leapt full-force after the goat and fell. The camera panned down to follow the leopard where it landed on all fours on a ledge far below, without injury.

The entire dream feels paused in my mind, surreal and realistic. The scene of the mountain definitely derives from the album cover, depicting a mountain, for a band called Painted Palms that will be couch surfing at my house tomorrow night. http://paintedpalms.bandcamp.com/

And, strangely, their ethereal music played in the background of this dream filled with snow leopards, mountains, goats and leaping into the abyss.

AIGA Webinar: Reinventing the Magazine Experience for the Digital Era

With Callie Neylon, Colin Fleming, Lindsay Powell.

My Notes:

Digital Publishing. How does digital change books and the authorship process? From scroll to screen, the book is shedding its corpus. Digital is changing the process - making it more liberating and approachable. The shift to the new medium isn't scary, its just managing the workflow that is probably the biggest challenge.

Pre-artifact: writer + ideas + readers
Artifact: dynamic screens, maybe codex
Post-artifact: social media, global

You can now publish without the middleman - the publisher

Integrating, sharing + content. Not adding interactivity unless it enhances the story on another, more personal level. The new medium allows us to reach new audience members. Publishers really want to be on tablets.
- huge consideration about workflow
- also the opportunity to review how we do things!
- the conversation is now about what else do we add to headline + copy? Bringing the idea of User Experience. What is your communication about navigation of where your content is?
- All of these base design skills of telling the story need to be retained and translated to the new technology.

DPS - Digital Publishing Suite, using InDesign CS5.5 to design the layout. But with a single click, you can add video, movement, a slide show, cross-fades with no programming needed. Building these types of interactions is really easy in InDesign. Using the new DPS tools in InDesign creates beautiful, interactive digital publications! So Exciting!!

- designing a visual language with consistent icons for tapping and navigation, etc. The translation to digital is more tightly related to the horizontal spreads in a magazine. The ability to tell the story through motion as well!

InCopy is a sister application to InDesign, which allows editors to edit copy, but not the layout.

Tools: Image-sequence tool. There is a tool called folio builder in InDesign to build/construct layouts and assemble the files into folios for publishing digitally online. Go to AIGA website and look at resources for posts and writeup to questions from prior webinars to learn more of the tools/technology.

What is right now like?

What is right now like?
The walls are yellow
Like lemon merengue pie.
The house sounds quiet,
Most room mates are camping.
My lips feel dry.
My throat seems scratchy,
as if tickled by grass.
My mom says to imagine
My throat coated by matted
Soft, green, enzyme-giving grass.
So I do, and I wash the image down
With honeyed chai rooibos tea.
Right now is peaceful.
I am right where I would like to be.
Right now is happening to me.

I Won't Find Myself When I'm Looking

I won't find myself
when I'm looking for who I am.
My mind is not the place
from which to understand
what number represents me
on the enneagram.
When I pick my head up
When I become present again,
When I stop the search,
My self will be silently observing,
Lying still on a dock between water and sky,
The pylons locked down into earth for support.
The purple-fringed clouds passing by,
Bringing apple-smell and fall forth,
Soon darkness telling stars to light,
And owl calling some of me to flight,
While part of me is always resting, smiling,
On that dock, planted, between water and sky.