(the early morning sky outside Union Station train station in Washington, DC)
Transformations. I have always loved the time of sunrise and sunset partly because of the way the sky gets transformed. It may be colors, or perhaps with clouds or just that the light seems unique and special. I am thinking about transformations in this moment for several reasons. One is that I called in a kitchen designer to help me transform my kitchen. It isn't as though this just came to me. As with most of my decisions I think about them and hold them in my head, hands and heart until some inner voice says "go".The final deciding factor about the kitchen was that the dish washer stopped working a year ago and 3 of my 4 stove tops stopping working too. Kind of a fun challenge to have dinner parties and figure out the menu and cooking order with just a working oven and one stove cooker.
(Clay pots formed but not finished at the Indians at Acoma, NM)
The second thing that has me focusing on transformations is my work. At the end of the school year our director announced that everyone would be moving to a new classroom. I started thinking of what I could get rid of just as one does in any move. I thought about what might I would want to do to the new space, change it, alter it and/or add to it. I even began sitting in the new space to get the feeling of it in my bones. Now it seems we may not move at all. We may just stay in the same classroom however I have all this great moving energy created and I don't want to waste it. So today I started moving that energy and eye back on my regular classroom asking the same questions that I asked about the new classroom. What would make being in the classroom better for others (the students and parents)? What would make being in the classroom better for my assistant and I?
(Two finished clay pieces from the Indians of Acoma, NM that I purchased)
The third thing that has me thinking about transformations is death. Seven years ago on Tuesday my good friend Lisa Kapin died at the age of 42 of cancer. My friend Sue Fendrick's brother Alan Fendrick just died of cancer at the age of 48. Sue has been writing of her experience of going on without her brother. As I read the her posts I reflect on my own experiences with death, of my father, of my cousin and of my friends. I think about my reactions to those deaths and what happened to me as a result. When I studied Jewish chant with Rabbi Shefa Gold she would tell us to notice how a chant had changed us. She would say to ask yourself this question in the silence after the chant, to ask yourself what
has changed from how you were before you began the chant and how has the chant changed you. It is good to ask yourself that question I think. Transformations.
