The Bees Knees

 I have a lot of creative irons in the fire.

The newest, direct animation, is so much fun! I started letterpress printing on film leader, and have two very short clips below. One is bees and butterflies, the other is a font of type set in the press before distribution. It makes a crazy sound, like a cello! This is the ink printed over the sound file on the edge of the film. I love it! (You might turn your sound down a tad, it's a little loud.)

 

 

I'm having a great time with all the different processes I've been engaging, but find it hard to switch gears. This weekend I am off to do a bunch of video work on beautiful Bainbridge Island!

Newari New Year

Saturday was a wonderful day of celebrating Newari New Year and Deepawaly, festivals of Nepal. We are exceptionally lucky to have Shweta and Pratistha so close to us and so inviting to share their festival time. Here they are with Shannon, a close friend of Pam's who was able to celebrate with us.

This is our second time to celebrate Newari New Year with Pratistha, and our first time with Shweta. This is a very festive time in Nepal, celebrated over many days, but we generally just celebrate on one day, though this year we started cooking the night before.

The party was held at Pam Didi's house in Seattle. Pam is my friend who has water development projects in Nepal through The Living Earth Institute (LEI). She was in the Peace Corps in Nepal and it is because if her that I know Pratistha and her family. Lucky Bill and I.

In Nepal, in Newari culture, each family has their own mandala design, or sometimes maybe the same design, but a different way of placing things in the mandala for prayers.

Two of our designs are traditional and specific, one for Shweta and one for Pratistha. They were drawn by Bill from photos their family's sent from Nepal and then cut out into a stencil. Bill used our geometry skills and tools to cut them out, very precisely.

Ground limestone is used in Nepal, but here we use ground rice dyed with tumeric, or last year we used powdered sugar.

Pratistha's mandala after stenciling.

We had a third design for us westerners, using the orbiting pattern of Venus as seen from Earth. It was appropriate to our geometry studies of late, so we thought it would be fun to put it in there.

Because this day is also for prayers to Lakshmi, Goddess of good fortune, it is the eldest woman of the house who does the prayers and blessing for all of us, mandalas God/Goddesses included. This falls to Pam, and a good thing, because she is so well versed in Nepali tradition and language and does a beautiful honoring of everyone.

Shweta was an elegant and beautiful overseer of the evening. Not only did she supervise much of the food, she helped make sure the prayers went as smoothly and properly as possible for a bunch of non-Nepalis. She also translated Pam's Nepali prayers into English so we all could follow along.



The food was amazing, and everyone had a really good time. Thank you everyone for your contributions of food, prayers, and presence.

We wish you all a very happy Newari New Year! Bill and I always feel so very fortunate to cross cultures and meet new friends. Thank you Pam for hosting this beautiful event!

Exotica Botanica

Last Saturday we went to Seattle again for Saturday University at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. The talk was called "Circling the Center: Pilgrimage in the Tibetan Cultural World." We took with us Pratistha and Shweta, friends from Kathmandu. Pratistha and Shweta are both Buddhist and the day was also Pratistha's birthday. Our friend Pam joined us as well. We all learned so much at the lecture and then went back to the house of P and S to have amazing Nepali food and do puja for Pratistha's birthday.

We enjoyed the talk tremendously. And plan to go again tomorrow (Saturday). The museum is in the same park as the Conservatory, so we couldn't resist going in and getting a tropical blast of warmth and flowers.

Living Well/Giving Well or East and West Part 2

My mother's father died the year before I was born, so I never met him. My Mom has whacky stories about him, like he always called every girl Susie. My Mom's Uncle Raymond, who was my grandfather's brother-in-law, told me he was the kind of person who would give you the shirt off his back. I doubt anyone will ever say that about me. They will, however, say it about my friend Pam.

Synchronistically, Pam was in the Peace Corps in Nepal the same year I was there for the first time (1985). Pam is a water engineer and lives in Seattle now. We didn't meet until 1988 after she had come back from Nepal to the Pacific Northwest.

Pam has such a big heart and strong desire to make change on a global level that she began a non-profit to do water development projects in Nepal in some of the poorest villages. This non-profit is called Living Earth Institute (LEI). LEI focuses on water supply and sanitation through self sustaining development projects.

LEI works to improve water quality with better wells, new wells, and new composting toilets.

Many of these villages have never had a toilet before. Pam is passionate about water sanitation. Lots of education goes into every project about water, health, and self-sustainability.

Pam and LEI have also tied all this in to the education of women and girls through women's development projects. By adding education, training, and micro-lending the entire village has an opportunity for a better quality of life at every level.

LEI also helps the lowest caste children with uniforms and supplies so they can attend school.

What Pam has done and joined with others to do is amazing. And Pam does this as a volunteer. She pours all donations into the water projects and never pays herself. It's hard to believe, but true.

If you want to learn more about LEI, there are great pictures and more information at Pam's website http://living-earth.org/

We all make a difference in the world. Sometimes its easier to see with other people than with ourselves. Pam has sure been an inspiration to me, although my way is different from hers. When I think about making things, making art, it is with the desire to say thank you, to show gratitude and appreciation for everything in life that surrounds me, feeds me, shows me what love is. I feel totally inadequate at expressing it through art and other efforts, but I keep trying.

Pam with her daughter in the middle, and two young women she has sponsored to attend college in the US, one from Burma and one from Nepal.

You've heard the expression, I am sure: "Living well is the best revenge." I think living well is the best way to show love, appreciation, and gratitude for being alive. Forget revenge. Acts of love and generosity (to yourself as well) are what its all about. A kind of re-gifting, if you think about it.

Namaste and thank you, Pam!

East and West Part I

When I think of books I would like to make, I think about Nepal. Nepal has been a country of beauty, love, and sadness for me. But mostly love. How to capture all of this has always been elusive, but grows even more so as time goes on and so does the story....

Here's Narayan at the top of Mt. Everest!

I met Narayan (as mentioned in a previous post) in Tibet. Narayan had just climbed the north face of Mt. Everest with a Spanish expedition (1985). In Lhasa, Tibet, my friend Connie and I had begun arranging to rent a bus and driver to take us to the border of Nepal. We learned from other travellers to do this and to sell seats to other travellers to fill the bus and cover the high cost. Narayan says he fell in love with my name when he saw the notice at his guesthouse. Though I went by Catherine, he started telling everyone he was in love with "Cathy." And when he met me I was "Cathy" all the time and his crush grew stronger. He was hard to resist.

In Kathmandu, Narayan lived in a building with many people. The owners "house mother and father" and their family lived upstairs. Downstairs Narayan shared a small room (maybe 7' x 7') with another climber/trekking guide. In the next slightly larger room down the hall lived a family of three. In the matching tiny room across the hall lived Hom, Lalita (my Nepali sister) and their two children. Down the hall from them was someone else I don't remember anymore.
These are most of the building residents, including house mother and father to my right, 1985.

Here's Hom, generously cooking a meal to include me. Lalita was pregnant with the twins at this time. May 1987.

None of these renters had a stove other than a one burner camping style, and no refrigeration. So shopping and cooking happened everyday. With only one burner it took quite some time to cook rice, dal, and any vegetable as a separate dish. A single person just couldn't manage this and have a job. By the time I met Narayan, he was an adopted part of the family of Hom and Lalita. They cooked for him and in return he helped them out. It was the only reasonable way to live. When Narayan brought me home, I was adopted as well. This is how Lalita became my sister, and her family began to become so important to me.

I always called Lalita "didi" never Lalita. "Didi" means older sister and was the only respectful way to address her. It just wasn't very common back then to call women by their first name. Everyone was referred to by relationship. So there are separate words for an older or younger sister, older or younger brother, a brother's wife, your mother's sister and your father's sister, etc. Because I was a foreigner, I was also called "didi," though really I was about a year younger than Lalita, and therefore she should have called me "bahini" (younger sister), but the rules change for foreigners. I was called by them all - "Didi" in combination with Cathy. So my name was "Cathy Didi."


In Nepali there is no "th" sound like we would say in "Cathy." The "h" is softer and separated from the "t." So really my name sounded more like Cat-he. Unfortunately, this sounds like the Nepali word for "girl." Being "Cathy Didi" meant I was called something that translated into "girl-older sister." When I learned this, I found it hysterically and ironically funny. Ironic because I was so appalled initially at being so anonymous -- at the women having no names, but always being referred to by their relationship to you or someone else (men usually). It offended my feminist American identity laden ego. Hysterically funny for the same reasons, I can laugh at myself, and being called "girl sister" was pretty funny! Later, when I became so much more attached to them and cared so deeply about their lives, I was honored to be older sister, aunt, grandmother, brother's wife, all the names I have held. It meant I had become a part of their real lives, and not just a tourist visitor.

I was beautified each visit, Nepali style. This included a bindi on my brow, nail polishing, lots of bangles, and Nepali dress. I often felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz where she gets polished up to be presented to the Great Oz. They would always tell me how I looked just a like a Nepali girl. One visit I arrived with an earring post in my nose - ok, it was really held in by a magnet, but it was a great joke.

Over the years I have been back to Nepal 3 more times to visit my family. I have also introduced them to many friends who have carried gifts back and forth, and their lives have become woven in as well. Sadly, Narayan died back in 1988, and just a few years ago my Nepali sister Lalita died from a brain aneurysm. I miss them both.


For me, the smell of marigolds conjures up Nepal and Kathmandu. It was an association I didn't know I had until I planted a few dozen in the garden in 1999. Now I can't resist growing the more original marigolds from South America, they are tall and striking (and slug magnets).

They inspired my first subscription piece.

I have a lot of ideas for artist's books about Nepal. They are not so much about my life there, as the lives of the Nepalese whose country has changed so much in one generation. To make them I think I would have to go back to Kathmandu and stay for a while. Oh it is so noisy and crazy there now, I don't know if I can. . . .

Small Decisions That Changed Everything

Each New Year's Day I can't help but think of Florence. Her and her family brought so much into my life, and into the lives of many. These flowers were scattered new year's day into the Gulf of Mexico in the same place Florence and her husband's ashes were tossed. It's a ritual her daughters and son-in-laws, and once myself, perform each year about this time. I feel so honored to have been included.

For 25 years, along with whatever else I was doing, I did end-of-life care for over 30 people in Seattle and on Vashon Island. Florence was my last hospice client. I almost didn't take the job. It seemed very short term and not many hours. At least at first. I ended up caring for Florence for 7 1/2 years. And she took care of me, too. She showered me with love. You never know when you take on a job what it will bring, and this job was one of those that at the beginning I could have had no idea what gifts would be opened up. And they keep opening.

Every day of ours lives is like that. Last night at a friend's for New Year's Eve, Kevin asked each one of us to share a decision we had made in the last year and what that decision meant for us. It was amazing to hear what people shared. And today as the new year begins I have been reflecting on some of the smallest decisions I have made and what results they have brought. They are like Russian dolls, but beginning with the smallest, the result of the decision gets bigger and bigger as the ramifications unfold.

Of course one of them was the decision to go to a Peruvian mysticism community outreach meeting on a day when I was sick and and at a time when I didn't travel off Vashon Island very much. That was where I met Bill. Two months later I realized I was in love, and three months after that we were married. As cliche as it sounds, the day we married was the happiest day of my life to date, though truly, I have had so many days with Bill that have been nearly as equal. This was three and a half years ago, and I think of it as the beginning of my life.

This reminds of a day in January in 1984, I was 23 years old. A friend asked me to take a tai chi class with her so she wouldn't have to go alone. I didn't know anything about tai chi, but decided I would go and try it. The teacher talked about her recent trip to China as part of a group tour. At the end of the first class I turned to my friend and told her I was going to China. To put this in perspective, I had never travelled outside the country, I didn't have a passport, and I didn't know China was "closed," though it opened to individual traveller's that year. I just felt compelled, like a force beyond myself was guiding me, and I had no choice at that point. A year and half later, I was there. I loved it! I spent 3 months travelling around with a woman friend, Connie, who asked to join me just before I was to leave.

We went to lots of wonderful places in China.

Saw amazing things.

We met wonderful people everywhere.

We were invited in for tea, a meal, a party, an english lesson. Rarely did anyone speak english, and we knew no Chinese.

We ate great food, all the time.

And we stayed in some charming places.

Because of Connie, we went to Tibet, and again, because of Connie (more adventurous than I) we went to Nepal. But there in Tibet I met Narayan, a Nepali mountain climber who would also change my life. Once in Kathmandu, he took charge of my sightseeing and even took me trekking.

Narayan died just a few years later in an avalanche on Mt. Everest. His death brought me closer to these good friends of his who would become family, bringing so much love and joy into my life.

My Nepali "sister" Lalita holding her son Bijay, me with their daughter Rashmi in front, and Lalita's husband Hom in 1985. They would go on to have two more children, twin boys.

Rashmi is grown and married with a little girl of her own, Aleya.

Her brother Bijay is married as well, and they have a son, Arush.

I would return to Asia soon to live in Japan, but that is another story for another time.

Only as I write these two "small decision events" right now am I realizing they both have a spiritual beginning.

And that leads me to one last realization about a small decision. It was the decision to take an astrology class that inspired me to finally sit down and read Julia Brayshaw's beautiful book: "Medicine of Place." I realized then that Julia, who was joining my astrology class, was an avid sacred geometer, as am I. We got together for soup and sharing and our Sacred Geometry Study Group was soon born, and grew fast! This has been such a gift for me. As well as pushing me to deepen my spiritual studies through geometry, it has brought me into circle with some of the most wonderful people in Olympia. They have become important friends that feed my heart.

The marriage of five and six. Inspired by John Michell's book: "How the World is Made: The Story of Creation According to Geometry.

I wonder what I am doing now, or have done recently, that will be one of these great unfoldings of wonder. I can tell you I called an old friend, Kim, from high school the other day. We don't talk or see each other often, sometimes years go by. Late in the conversation I told Kim I was reading the "Bagavad Gita" and really getting so much out of it. She told me she tried to take a class in that when we were freshmen in college, but it was too hard. She told be she was reading "Autobiography of a Yogi." Bill had traded for that book last summer and I have been wanting to read it. But there is always so much to read. Kim said she was a little bogged down in the book and I suggested I read it too so we could talk about it and help each other along. Well, in three days I am over half way through book. And I am already wondering, is this "small" decision to read this book going to change my life?

(One of Bill's drawings from a group geometry night.)