intention and witness

yesterday i made an agreement with my friend and colleague, jenn, to create a collage and enter it in witness and share with her what came up. we're both in the place of wanting to become professionals at this transformative arts thing--to prove to ourselves--no, not prove--experience ourselves as transformative arts professionals and this intention and witness practice, best elucidated by the woman who thought it up, pat b. allen, my mentor and author of the books art is a way of knowing and art is a spiritual practice--well, this process is a foundation of finding our professional natures--exorcising our professional demons and having some practice to observe, sustain and enter into our tranformative arts professional life.

that's a long paragraph to say, we're sharing our angst and our experience, strength and hope with one another in an effort to more fully enter the world in the way in which we want to work in it--as artists, paid for being artists and creating art in community with others. anyway, this pursuit seems linked to the project--as intention and witness is the methodology we want to use to encounter our stuff--and move through it. here's what i sent to jenn:

okay--collage and witness writing. witness writing first:

i sat down this morning, and made this intention:

my intention is to collage til 9:45am--to notice the process and anything that comes up for me about my current job/financial/art making/family situation and then to witness at 10:45 after the remote reiki which i will experience in the bath --10-10:45. (the woman we met who sold albie's stuff on e-bay called me to tell me she's now a medium, invited me over, gave me chocolates and fruit and tea and told me what my dead relatives have to say. she then offered me reiki--for which i paid her. her number is 11. her fee for mediuming is $110. her fee for remote reiki is $65. we visited with the clear understanding that there was no money--just tea and conversation--but i felt to honor the gift i needed to offer a clean exchange. she is all tied up in my moneymaking some how--or helping to get me out of my own way, somehow--sharing stories and insights and experiences--seems a pure heart offering a clear story. told me my spirit guide was named suriah--she's the main one--a kind of philosopher--anyway--this is all background--but something i wanted to tell you about because it's happening in the middle of stuff that's starting to happen and shift around money. she was making good money with found value--selling other people's things on e-bay. now, her guides tell her she's a medium. they helped her write her myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/mariahaswell).

okay--now--to witness what i made.
make an intention: i intend to enter the collage piece and write what comes to me to write til 2pm.

okay--now--to witness what i did as soon as i wrote that intention: i heard something upstairs--andi went and closed all the windows i had opened when i said to the spirits in the house "thank you for coming. i know you came to protect. now, if you are not here for my highest good, and that of my family, of my husband and children, i thank you for coming and invite you to leave." i moved through each room in the house saying more or less the same thing and inviting every energy that was not in my highest good to go--to leave--reminding it as maria instructed, that it was welcome back at any time when it was coming for my highest good. my intention, as i moved throughout the house, was to ask the energy that is in it that is causing? inspiring? me to want to leave and feel unworthy of it to exit. and to re-state, as i moved through this house, my intention to stay with my husband and in this house if that was in accordance with our highest good.

it felt good--compelling--as i moved through the house--when i was inviting things to leave.

when i sat down to write my intention, though, i heard something fall or move upstairs and i wanted to close the windows in protection? in keeping my energy in? in keeping what i fear out? in keeping...protecting...something.

anyway, then i realized i was hungry and made a little lunch. i looked at the piles of laundry and the messy kids rooms and thought about doing laundry. i went around the house to close what could be closed, comfortably, and i noticed the mess i was leaving in each and every room. i felt guilty for not going to the studio as i imagined i might with this day. and then i nearly lost the intention to witness. when the microwave warmed the food, i came back to this computer--perhaps, witness writing is best recorded by hand?

it's 1:39. i'm going to write by hand what i see and then record it and send it off to you--
it's 1:42--i had to eat my chicken and read the e-mail and syllabus i just got from john fox--for this weekend's course--
okay, 1:43--i start writing now--

1:44--i enter the witness--the book? the tripod? the clear cover covering everything--taping it all together--the pieces fashioned and torn from something else--5 purple index cards arranged as backbone/ground--with a 6th--and intention recorded & taped as flap. why is the "back" not the "front"? i notice feet layid out in the sand, 4 plane windows looking down from the clouds, thee purple substances juxtaposed against a woman's back, a man riding atop an african elephant with long ivory tusks, the phrases cut from an ad for jets--shared ownership of a plane--ripped out of the Robb Report--a luxury magazine for lifestyle subscribers--(hey? am i a copywriter?). i lift up and see the crystal trees/vases fashioned from molten sand--blown into opulence--collected by the rich--here are the words aside from mine--in a blue ribbon across the top--a headline above my MAKE AN INTENTION: SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO GO TO THE EDGE OF THE EARTH TO FIND YOUR CENTER--and then there, across the bottom: it's a choice. a choice to speed up your life. a choice to slow it down. three phrases torn in fluffy cloud shapes and pinned as anchor for the bottom of this page. i travel to the cover--the sentient great leap forward with a green agean sea resort town showing as heaven above the empty clarity that bridges the blue ocean and the rainbow promise connecting to a sandy shoreline:

A NEW LIFESTYLE BEGINS

inside the flap, it's about the trip you want to take...not the plane you have to buy--arranged over an inside view of the gears of time. revolutionary reds with my brown sharpie recording the rays of radiant energy covering--recovering--extending--reconnecting onto the center panel. (i hear the owl who hooting--and i want to go and look. it stops and starts again--teasing me back to notice the time: 1:55).

i look again--the twilight of pink sky, mauve ocean--the art of selection--my own handwriting FORGIVE, LET GO, MOVE ON--the spikes of grass--connecting stitches between it's real...and it's spectacular and new york is a personal experience. STAY DIFFERENT. CONTRAINTS DEFY TIME. a compass--a line drawing of the compass tool--and the words "implements for drawing a circle" and the seal LOVE AFFAIRS aren't just between two people--the drawing on plexi or clear glass--of the architect? the engineer? the artist? creating a new car--the WHERE FAMILIES GATHER over the blue--the you merely take care of it for the next generation emphasized with my drawing of a dot inside a coffin inside a box inside the ground--the art of passion. WEALTH, FAMILY AND PHILANTHROPY as anchor to this side of the center panel.

it's 2:00. i recommit. i make an intention to continue writing to 2:10.

i move my attention to the target i drew with the sharpie--the image ANYWARE sound. vision. soul. the dots in the triangles under the cow--the domestic cow--bos taurus--with horns. (me?) i see the phrase "you never actually own" i see my writing 505 bourne lane over the torn out: ONE LEGENDARY ADDRESS. TWO OPPORTUNITIES TO MAKE IT YOURS. i see the trio of spirals the four lines ))((. the bigger spiral at the base of the love affairs oval. i see TAKE TIME WITH YOU under six of my spirals and undulating lines waving back over to bridge back to you never actually own. i see innovator (n. one who begins something new). i see Do you have the time in script leading me up to another of my handmade sharpie spirals. i check the time on the computer. 2:05. i see too fast too soon on a white background leading back to constraints defy time--words i rearranged to suit the sentence fragment and sentiment i wanted--i see LIFESTYLE and begin your own tradition and VISIONARIES align here. i see UNITED benson udom/elizabeth over a torn tsa sticker and a knowing what counts. i see there were no breakdowns linked to the living environment--a sentiment i crafted from fragments. i see my spiral--4 lines--then ART, a butterfly torn from my sister's return address label, the stamp she used to get her card all the way to me and (i stop to count them) 68 hearts. i return my gaze to above the butterfly and read FINE SENSE OF BALANCE the art--15 ways to make a great choice.

i check the time: 2:10

i make a new intention to stay in the writing 5 more minutes

i see the grid pattern along the inside seam of the left side of the center panel. i notice wht i almost forgot to record: now daily nonstop to beijing & shanghai china--visit united.com/chinatravel to book today. united. untited airlines, inc. all right reserved. finding holiday peace with the family.

i move my attention to the third panel with three watches, a love letter from president eisenhower handwritten on allied force headquarters office of the commander in chief stationery. i read the quite they pulled out that inspired me to tear it from the magazine and float it on the page:

"i want--always to do my duty to the extreme limit of my ability"

i flip the pane lover--the sum of the parts of time--the tiny record of each piece in one of the exquisite watches--separated from the whole and recorded as individual pieces--each with the space around it its size requires while still allowing a collective of others to share its line. there are, as there always are, fewer big things at the top--lots of little things at the bottom--my script; all we can ever have forever? time and each other for as long as we make time...to have each other.

witness finished recording: 2:18

my intention: to type in this witness and send it off to jenn by 2:40--when i will get in the car to pick up zoey (on time).

time sent: 2:40.