First Outdoor Class on Mt. Tabor

I guess it was the wind and cold. Oh well, Adam showed up so we practiced some push-hands and I did much better than usual against him because I practiced standing and establishing my root before he arrived.

Then as we walked down the mountain we talked about our permaculture ideas. Last night We went to a lecture at the Pacific Crest School just north of Burnside over by the Whole Foods at se 28th by an Austrian permaculture genius named Sepp Holzer. By working with nature rather than treating her as an enemy he's been able to grow fruit trees including citrus as part of a thriving and diverse oasis on the slopes of the Austrian Alps.

A couple of years ago Adam told me he wanted to be a kung fu farmer. At the time I thought- well that's cool for you, but how would I have time for my art? The more I learn about permaculture the more I want to be a kung fu farmer when I grow up.

With this kind of farming you don't have to work nearly as hard because you relate to nature as a partner rather than abusing her like a slave. Treat her kindly and she will reward you immensely. See, there's no need to water or weed or any of that because the diverse community of plants support each other. When you plant one thing over acres of land it takes all the same nutrients out of the soil as its neighbors. With a plant community like the 3 sisters known to the Native Americans of beans, corn and squash each plant trades nutrients with the others. Pests are controlled by the plant community's greater intelligence created by a diversity of organisms.

While I'm still in the idea stage of this process for the most part (I have a little pot of herbs I'm taking care of in my room and so far they have survived the winter) I'm on fire with inspiration to carry it to manifestation. A Dharma practitioner Adam met in a cafe asked him if he wanted to transform his lawn into a permaculture garden. We've talked about making it a business. I don't know how to pull it off yet, but I could see myself doing that sort of thing for my living and eventually run my own urban small permaculture farm right here in the city...and teach others how to do it themselves.

See, our present way of feeding ourselves is horribly wasteful. Global warming owes much to all the trucks that haul chemical fertilizers and feed for animals to farms and then they haul the harvest to packing plants and then more trucks haul it to the grocery store where people drive it home in their cars. If everyone in the city had at least a small herb garden we'd really be doing something to combat global warming. We'd also have much healthier food with more vitality and flavor than the half dead stuff we get trucked or shipped half way across the world to the grocery store. Evolve or die, human.

Grok this:

No Soup

Soup & Comedy Cancelled
Ally's sick. Sorry guys.
We'll try again next week.

What you are doing at noon on Friday February 20th, 2009

This Friday (February 20th, 2009) at noon, Camille and Rozzell will be combining their proverbial forces to bring the Portland area a magical interlude the likes of which it has either:

a) never seen before

b) been missing

c) been dreaming of for quite some time now, perhaps in the shower.

The place: the amphitheater staircase that leads down to the regular docking place of the Portland Spirit boat in the Willamette River. This is right by the fountain area where kids and grownup kids alike tend to play on warmer summer days when the air is just so. This is north of the Hawthorne Bridge on the west side of the river. Some call this place Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Others call it nothing at all. Others call it home. Some know this place so well they just call it Tom.

The thing: Camille is hosting another one of her fabulously magnanimous tea parties. Who knows what wonders await those who indulge in such delights? Rozzell is giving people stamped postcards that he made to be written upon then and there. Bring an address or two. Someone you miss? Someone to whom you owe an apology? Someone you have never ever met? Barack Obama? In exchange for the stamp and the postcard, you will allow Rozzell to interview you for a (maga)zine that he will soon be making.

Please come, dear friends. Tell your buddies. Tell strangers. Tell Oscar the Freaking Grouch!

Love & Learning,

R & C

Soup & Comedy

Soup & Comedy Night
Hosted by Ally & Crystal
This Thursday Night
8 pm
Ally's Apartment
(see detailed email for address)

The First Day of Sol in Pisces Visions

Clicky the linky to viddy me pics of skyscraper hopping. Enjoy.
See you on the mountain? Stars pretty.

astronomology mt tabor this saturday 7pm

Weather permitting I'm doing a cross between astrology and astronomy class on the top of Mt. Tabor this Saturday evening. Meet around 7pm at the tree with 4 trunks on the north end of the top of the mountain, opposite the creepy scowly dude in bronze who looms over the south end. If the sky is cloudy but not raining class will still happen, but then we can tell stories, do some Tai Ji, come up with something else. If the sky is clear the sparkly region around Orion will be overhead with bright Venus to the west.

Forwarded from Ana

Lets Get Connected

Hello all, I am going to try this again. The new date for the outing is Saturday February 21st at 1pm in Front of Free Geek. Hopefully it doesn't rain, but if it does, the outing will be canceled and I will reschedule again! Hopefully we can try out this photo class before the term is over.

Yeticave Visit Improv

This weekend I broke my usual habit of hiding in my cave and responded to a roomate's request for me to hang out with them and some visiting friends downstairs. They had some dub spinning on the turntables so I decided to come down and dance instead of just being irritated by the thumpy boom-boom up in my room where the only audible frequencies are nauseating bass. I danced for awhile and then went out to the front porch to cool off and view beautiful Luna rising in the east. A friendly black cat came to greet me and when I sat cross legged up on a big square part of the porch railing he jumped in my lap and let me pet him for awhile. Then a girl who was visiting came out and the cat fell asleep in my lap. We chatted for awhile and then she got a phone call and went into cell phone land which normally I would find irritating in the middle of a conversation. But then I noticed the cat blissfully ignoring everything and snoozing away. I decided to follow the cat's example and just looked at Luna, flinging some yucky Qi off my hands to the ground.

Later I went back inside and tried to dance some more, but I felt pretty ungrounded. I went upstairs to get my kung fu stick, a twisty willow staff that I've had since around 1994 that I've recently begun to use to strengthen and open my wrist joints. I danced to the dub for a good long while, letting the weight and wood of the stick to guide my motions and show me which way gravity goes, using it as resistance to work out tension in my hands and arms. I remembered the chillin' black cat in my lap and also my old training as an operator in esoteric rituals with Ordo Templi Orientis where I learned how to focus my mind to hold sacred space for a group.

It worked! The heart Qi in the room exploded and everyone thanked me for my dance. Then one of my 3 roomates called for a group hug and I found myself surrounded by about 10 people all hugging me and each other.

Then last night girl came back with a friend who she carried all the way from NE on her bike. I went downstairs to ask that they keep the thumpy speakers off for awhile cause I was working on remastering Bardo. She asked if she could come up and join me. I agreed. Later she brought up her other friend cause my roomates had become absorbed in their computers and he was all alone on the porch.

So I got to share Bardo with 2 relative strangers who tripped out on my art and music. They both loved the music. She kept asking, "is that you?" to which I replied, "yeah it's all me except a little bit of my mom and my niece at the beginning". It was a nice ego stroke to say the least, but most of all I'm glad my music is strong enough to speak for itself. It's something I've been cultivating for over 20 years. This album itself has been gestating since early '08. Since I play all the parts at separate times and construct it as I go I'm as surprised as anyone at the end result. I don't plan things when I compose. I play one part at a time as it comes to me so it's as if the music already exists on another level of reality and it uses me to construct itself.

Anyway, there you go. I've had a hard time all my life opening up to social experience which is a big part of why I chose to follow this class more than once. This weekend was a giant leap for me partly thanks to a little black cat on friday the 13th. Bad luck? Well just consider that the culture who decided that black cats and the number 13 were evil also thought that earth, women, dark skinned people and enjoying yourself were evil. Black cats and the number 13 are only made evil by fear which the little black cat helped to teach me how to transcend.

My # is 503 819 8485. If you'd like to hear Bardo in its native environment and/or see my artfully constructed living space give me a call and set up a time. If you bring a laptop or a portable hard drive that can communicate with my iMac I'll give you the remastered version of Bardo plus the PDF of the artwork. If you bring a CD I'll burn it for you, but I'd really prefer reusable media than the little plastic frisbees.

Water Feature

that ball weighs 2000 pounds!

Kindy V-Day, short and sweet!

The kindergarten Valentine's Day party was the envy of all who passed by the door. Much to the glee of the kindergartners, older kids frequently poked their heads in to glimpse and wish outloud that they too could partake of the three different kinds of cookies, capri punch pouches, and mail boxes overflowing with Valentines. (Everyone must bring one for everyone!) My favorite part of the day was when we first arrived at school; all the kids were instructed to go around each table and put a Valentine into each kid's mailbox. First everyone assembled their Tinkerbell, Power Ranger, Transformers, and Barbie Princesses Valentines they had laboriously scrawled their names upon the night before. Next was the dispersement. Some kids quickly accomplished this task, while others were like ping-pong balls, bouncing from table to table, chatting with other meanderers. Oh yes, spiderman, well what I have got here is spongebob. Some kids suffice to just stick a handful here and there, and call it good. Others merely wander until their plastic baggy is empty. I counted atleast three from my son in one little boy's haul. Through out the day we continue to discover Valentine stashes that have yet to be doled out, wondering why it hadn't dawned on the owners that while this delivery process occurred they were milling around with nothing. Then upon opening thier cards, although just beginning to learn to read, the sentiment is not lost in the phrase "You are the coolest, Valentine." Or, "Have no fear, Batman is here, Valentine." One little girl went over to another and said how thoughtful her Valentine had been and they hugged. We also were all given Valentine friendship books in which you approach someone and ask if they will be your Valentine or friend and then they write their name in your book. The teacher gave me one, too, and surprisingly I ended up with quite a few pint-sized Valentines of my own! With the sugar nearly bursting each of their little hearts, the class party ended with a lovely rendition of Skid-a-ma-rink-a-dink-a-doo (if you want to learn, I can teach you) and then we discovered one more vilgilante stash of Valentine heart lollipops with cards that we inserted into their backpacks as they headed for the school bus. Unfortunately, I can not post pictures of my days at Kindergarten, as other people's kids' faces can not be displayed on the internet due to reasons of safety. But once the post office is up and running I can post pics of that.

GATHERING/EXHIBITION

I wanted to invite you all to this event happening at my house. If anyone is interested in exhibiting any of their work (objects or otherwise) or enacting any sort of group projects with those present, please let me know. There will be many great folks with few pretesions. We live about eleven miles north of downtown, so carpooling is always a good option.
Thanks, Nolan
nolan.calisch@gmail.com

Coincidence or Communication?

Today as I walked from Muddy Waters Café to Laurelhurst park I greeted a scruffy old crow who I think might have been the group elder balancing on a wire and keeping watch for her peoples. A block further just as I was about to cross the street and enter the main west entrance to Laurelhurst Park a crow landed in a tree right over my head and dropped something into the decaying leaves right in front of me. I picked it up and it was a peanut, raw and unsalted just like the ones out of which I made Legba's veve as a gift to the crow folk. Crows are smart birds, among the smartest. I don't think it was an accident. For all I know it might have been one of the peanuts I left for them in the Arboretum. It's a short flight from there to Laurelhurst as the crow flies so it could have been. That was wyrd. I guess I got a Valentine from the crows.

x-posted to UrBlog.

Nostalgia 3, socializing with the Random Gaming Club

Getting out of our classroom and getting out of our heads.

It's Wednesday afternoon. We head over to PSU Smith Memorial Center White Gallery to take in the (beautiful) documentation by MFA students in the Social Practice program;

(I remember) black and white photos of a neighborhood and it's people printed into a surround of text that propels you into the photo. For a moment, you're standing right next to... And a visual sea shelled-colored record of appreciation and wonderment for the life of a pet snail--a brilliant mixture of biology and interspecies love. www.manandmollusc.net/game_files/snail_draw.hmtl

(use this web address & learn to draw a snail; maybe you'll find snail love too)

We mill around and stare.

Then, Krystal gets us all down on the ground right there in the gallery to teach us how to do the Pigeon , a yoga posture to open the hips.

(so sorry I didn't get pictures of this but check out www.fitsugar.com/1615325 for a pic of the posture)

Next we wander upstairs to the 3rd floor in Smith. Someone notices flashing lights and some interesting sound effects coming out of a room on the north side of the hallway. It's the Random Select Gaming Club's afternoon of gaming. I mean, wow. We can't resist. The Club welcomes us in and shows us around. Some of us sit and game, some of us watch and dream, and then there are those who dance and sing and dance some more. This I got pictures of.

check out the Gamers and the club @

http://randomselect.groups.pdx.edu

Nostalgia 2, taking breaks

Our colleague Tasha took on the challenge to facilitate a body-centered break activity:  

Okay, take a deep breath and run as fast & far as you can while yelling on the top of your lungs. 

How to win? Yell the longest and run the fastest to get the furthest.  

Some ran so fast they were nothing but a blur.

There were those of us who didn't make it very far. But effort counts. (ah-hum, I took pics the whole time). .

And others whose determination was evident from the get-go.

And what about that yell? With everyone

cheering him on, Eric began and ended

loud and proud.   I was inspired.

                               

Nostalgia 1, where we started

 Do you remember these collaborators, these brave & willing teachers, our first (hesitant?) venture into the wild and woolly world of Social Practice art making?  

 

Tad, named after an All My Childen soap opera character. True story. He had gizmos in his pocket to play and make games on:  some more legal than others. A wizard. 

 

 The memory guy (I can't remember his name, yikes).  We threw out 10 words and with his memory-images in mind, he tagged each word to an image and presto! The guy was good.  Camille got it down first try.

And frisbee golf. He taught us about the best (drive) throw and where to get it done. Who knew Portland had courses all over the place.  Turns out Flossie is a golfer too.

This teacher knew his stuff:  all about sustainability and water and evaporation. Drawings and a calm manner.  He deserved a teachers evaluation form. 

And last but definitely not least. The flute player. He played a sweet tune and then stuck around to learn from others, from us and even put in his 2-cents during our 'class' discussion. 

Pleasant Thoughts of You

Sweet Nothings


Join in on some righteous Valentine’s Day card making
The old fashioned way, glitter, glue and love….
Don’t have a valentine? We will give it to an unsuspecting stranger.

Meet Fireside at the Native American Student and Community Center
Corner of SW Broadway and Jackson Street

Thursday, February 12, 2009
1 P.M.

Ghost of Duchamp Invades Portland

Snapped in motion without stopping cause I thought I was late to class. The context makes it public sculpture. Really it's a pretty elegant shape so why not? Porcelain is pretty high tech if you consider it in the context of human history. The pigeon in duct tape (?) adds a punk rock vibe. You can see this masterpiece (if it hasn't been removed yet) somewhere between 48th and 20th ave on Lincoln street.

Reschedule of BE CONNECTED

Sorry everyone but I had to reschedule the Be Connected photo outing because the news predicts it's going to rain and snow. I changed it to this Thursday (2/12) same time at 11am. I have the flyer hangin' on the Free Geek thrift store board...at least the flyer will get more exposure!

Bardo

Go here:

http://public.me.com/wandering_yeti

username is "Public"
password is eyed!sko



Bardo is done and stuffed into the Bardo in WAV folder. Download at will. I'll bring a few CD's to class tomorrow but I don't have many. Click the entry title to see the cover. I forgot how to layer multiple images in photoshop so it's only in iWeb for now. Happy fool moon eclipse.