More Details on this Mugwort Business.

Sometimes people give you really odd looks when you start spouting off about herbs above your bed making you reassess your life.  I know it sounds all New-Agey, hoo-hawey, but it makes a ton of sense to me.  Kinda like the Head and the Heart album being the soundtrack to my springtime, that with all the songs about friends moving away and such.  My life has a providence to it, and I used to get into arguments back in college with my art buddies about it.   They thought I took it a little too seriously.   I ended up in Bend because Bela Fleck and the Flecktones were playing here the night we pulled into town, for example.  How's that for tea leaves?

So this mugwort thing:  I hung it above my bed in order to be able to "remember my dreams."  I thought it would be literal, like I would remember what I did to piss off my friend and co-worker Bernie so much when he showed up at Diabetic Camp that was also an early 90's Real World Episode.  Maybe I made him a cappuccino with sour milk.   I have no clue; it would break my heart if Bernie was really mad at me, he's such a kind fellow, and that dream started mid-scene.

The mugwort didn't work that way, anyway.

First off, some real characters walked into my life.  When I was awake.  A Ghost-of-Christmas-Future, gangly-toothed, tweaked out woman gave me a long lecture about Kelty as we walked downtown (well, I walked with Kelt, and she followed me).  She was obviously high as a kite, but she was dead on about my relationship with my dog.  She was also kind of prophetic, which makes me more than a little protective of my beastie bestie.  Then there was the guy who started talking to me about the sadness of the world while I was making his mocha.  He was perfectly normal, talking in a calm, clear voice, but was obviously relaying some kind of cosmic message.  And I listened to him, despite my skepticism, the memory of my art buddies as they took me by the elbow and steered me away from a wide-eyed conversation with a street performer back in New York City.

"So if you don't know what to make of this, than we will not relate..." (Head and the Heart)




Surreal happenstances continued, short statements from my sister who was visiting, weird coincidences with random accidents in the studio, finding a porcupine quill on my patio (see the piece Cant Give Up Acting Tough) until Tuesday night.  It was then, when listening to Laurie Gerber, that I realized- oh this Mugwort isn't calling out my dreams, it's calling out my DREAMS.  Oh, Okay.

Again, cynical friends, you may scoff.

When I talked to my friend Casey today, the provider of the mugwort, it took him a minute to get what I was talking about, but when he realized what I meant it made total sense to him.  He's on his own rant about permaculture and doin' what your 'sposed too, which for him involves Speaking Engagements.  Being passionate about things is scary. But what is more nightmarish than not being on the path you are supposed to be on?  And in all honesty, the last two months, I've been questioning what my path was/is.   Granted, I said goodbye to some very aesthetically inspirational friends this spring; and they helped fuel my process.  Without them, did I still have a process? Did I still have fuel?

There is a mourning when people part ways.  But for me to question the fact, and I mean FACT, that my dream (capital D) is to create beautiful pictures and stories that inspire thought, wonder, and feeling- to create things- with my hands, with my mind, with my voice, with my example-  and in turn strive to inspire Life (in it's messy, weird, serendipitous, lovely gloriousness-)?  For me to question that- I needed something to inspire a nightmare.  I needed some toothless lady to tell me to watch out.  I needed Crazy Mocha Guy to give me permission. I needed my studio table toppling over.  I needed the Head and the Heart, and the Fleet Foxes, and Kat Seltzer asking "What are you feeling right now?"  And if a small bundle of a really lovely smelling plant can help me figure this out again- then so. be. it.