tHe PoweR of raNdomiSing sTories - coLLaboraTive coLLage poEtry (short version)

This is a trial in collaborative collage poem making that Janieke and I did one night. 

We are creatives with an interest in healing. For the longer blog version which discusses the overlap of creativity and healing go here

The Creating:

The aim of the collage poem process was to create poems that combined content from both of our thoughts and experiences.

We chose a couple of themes:

1. Travel - Janieke's recent trip and any travel memories I had that came to mind
2. any internal condition/questions we had been going through recently

Step 1:

We wrote mini poems/thoughts on pieces of paper - as many as were required. It was great combining both a concrete experience (travel) and introspective thoughts.

 
Once these were written, we read them to each other in their original form, and handed them over to the other person who then cut chosen words/phrases out and placed them in one of four jars.

Once this process was complete, we both chose two jars and two backgrounds each and proceeded to empty a jar and order the words contained into a poem combination of our own choosing.

The Results:

These are the completed four pieces of writing...

1.

I am in habit so steep
The magnitude collecting in a bucket
How am I Mt Agog - telling a hole in it
A voyeur in Basil - rows, paper, incense on corners

How to place the middle of nowhere
It was the papers
the same air

You need not fall forwards - crow
I watch an eclipse
Kindness, swipe me

2.

 
Scared to travel - Lap it up

Under construction the long way
Peoples' homes view it
petals, rice, sand on an airport

Wayan around, as if above such bad news
And when questioned says,
Oh wait, I don't pocket them
Colour, children, strangers

I put everything for a moment
Through the turnstile
 
3.

 Being in a Place

This place I travel through might
I gather, install
Point A, Point B

One day I was at myself
I was water, matter
But don't mind me
Point me to the General Electric

So my driver takes me, shoes off, of his affairs
No knowing my movement
Have I really mechanisms of control?

Why give him one step in front
To inhabit my world
Everyone lap it up
Be in the same

Thank you is here

4. 

 
Placed with Doorways

Collect this bit
Rest your body differently each time

Tiny island street
A minute of drink, new food
Wondered how I got there?

Make my offerings
Take the next day with feet in the freedom

I kid
I leave a home and return different


The Presentation

We placed the four collage poems up on a mirror wall (of all things) and surrounded them with the remainder of photos and words - in mural fashion. It is at once a finishing, and the beginning of a second iteration...

 
 

tHe PoweR of raNdomiSing sTories - coLLaboraTive coLLage poEtry

what can you do to convey an old life event/story in a way that alters it in the telling and alters you in the telling?

don't we sometimes get caught up in telling an old memory/story in a constantly predictable way - with all the emphases in the right place...the characters/events re-told in the same tone...so that we no longer have a unique perspective or any chance of transformation?

and yet - the story wants to be told....and the transformation wants to happen....

what happens when you combine a creativity that is both deliberate and random to the story-telling process - and combine with other peoples' stories as well?

Janieke is a homeopath, nurse who loves to facilitate healing and who identifies creativity as an additional means toward this. I am a musician, teacher with a personal interest in mechanisms of healing. 

The creative and healing processes have some facets in common:

1. The unpacking of layers to discover/convey a core of 'truth'. The sifting of information/feedback to arrive at the nugget or essential aspect of a thing.

2. The messiness of arriving at an essential aspect of creation or healing. Often times, the process is one of increasing chaos, indecision and lack of clarity before a breakthrough of sorts.

3. The need to trust this process and rely on instinct when all is not necessarily logical or coming about in a logical way.

4. The value of interacting with others for a greater/different perspective - whilst needing to feel a sense of control or self-determination and contribution.

5. The effectiveness of removing intense gaze 'at a problem' to a broader bird's eye view at times - the effectiveness of play in allowing the subconscious 'problem-solving' brain to be activated. Greater discoveries are made at times when one is relaxed and one's eye is not so keenly on the ball.

Janieke and I wanted to gather people together for the purposes of creating and explore opportunities for healing at the same time. We wanted to develop a toolkit of processes that would allow this to happen.

We decided to try these processes on ourselves first to see what would eventuate.

My belief is that the power of the creative process comes in combining a number of factors and allowing them to cross-pollinate in their own way.

The Background:

For our self-imposed experiment, Janieke and I chose an event/pocket of time that was common to us both - her 5 day trip to Australia. This period of time was to be our 'resource-gathering' time - and a time where we could become attuned to any particular thoughts/experiences. 

We agreed that we would take note during this time - Janieke collected images - taking numerous photographs during her time away. At times she would send me the photos and I would add text to them.


This part of the process may not be a necessary step to the creating which happened two weeks after Janieke returned, but it served to focus our attention to any themes, interests.

An interesting event happened during Janieke's trip...on the night we went to the airport to drop her off, there was a massive amount of rain - so much so, that there was flooding on the Kapiti Coast. We were fortunate to have gotten into town because shortly after we left at 3am, a slip happened on the Coastal Highway, which is pretty much the main access route from the Coast to Wellington. Hours later, as Janieke was arriving in Sydney, I was at a school in Whitby scrolling through news photos to see what was happening back in my local area when I saw the following pic...

Photo courtesy of The Kapiti Observer / www.stuff.co.nz

This is Janieke's house! Later when I got back to check, all seemed good until I noticed this inside....

For me, this was in an odd way, a joiner between Janieke's and my experience - a strange collision of realities - Janieke's house is leaking while she is overseas and I am someone on the ground to tend to it.

The Creating:

The aim of the collage poem process was to create poems that combined content from both of our thoughts and experiences.

We chose a couple of themes:

1. Travel - Janieke's recent trip and any travel memories I had that came to mind
2. any internal condition/questions we had been going through recently

Step 1:

We wrote mini poems/thoughts on pieces of paper - as many as were required. It was great combining both a concrete experience (travel) and introspective thoughts.

 
Once these were written, we read them to each other in their original form, and handed them over to the other person who then cut chosen words/phrases out and placed them in one of four jars.

Once this process was complete, we both chose two jars and two backgrounds each and proceeded to empty a jar and order the words contained into a poem combination of our own choosing.

The Results:

These are the completed four pieces of writing...

1.

I am in habit so steep
The magnitude collecting in a bucket
How am I Mt Agog - telling a hole in it
A voyeur in Basil - rows, paper, incense on corners

How to place the middle of nowhere
It was the papers
the same air

You need not fall forwards - crow
I watch an eclipse
Kindness, swipe me

2.

 
Scared to travel - Lap it up

Under construction the long way
Peoples' homes view it
petals, rice, sand on an airport

Wayan around, as if above such bad news
And when questioned says,
Oh wait, I don't pocket them
Colour, children, strangers

I put everything for a moment
Through the turnstile
 
3.

 Being in a Place

This place I travel through might
I gather, install
Point A, Point B

One day I was at myself
I was water, matter
But don't mind me
Point me to the General Electric

So my driver takes me, shoes off, of his affairs
No knowing my movement
Have I really mechanisms of control?

Why give him one step in front
To inhabit my world
Everyone lap it up
Be in the same

Thank you is here

4. 

 
Placed with Doorways

Collect this bit
Rest your body differently each time

Tiny island street
A minute of drink, new food
Wondered how I got there?

Make my offerings
Take the next day with feet in the freedom

I kid
I leave a home and return different


The Presentation

We placed the four collage poems up on a mirror wall (of all things) and surrounded them with the remainder of photos and words - in mural fashion. It is at once a finishing, and the beginning of a second iteration...

 
 

rAw....the relevance of iTchy skiN in a sOund blOg

so for the second time in the last 7 years, i've had a major outbreak of eczema - major because it has been both sudden and widespread. i had eczema as a kid and patches of it in adult life (nothing i wasn't used to) but 6 years ago, after working myself to the ground and contracting a virus, the eczema appeared and spread right over my body - after trying to treat naturally, i ended up in hospital with skin wraps and potassium baths, and emerged like i'd been in a beauty parlour.

this time, the occurence was quick and fairly widespread, and, although i've had ten days of the steroid prednizone, i'm more determined and, i think, more able to succesfully treat it naturally.

this time, i'm reminded that this may not be a one-off scenario, but something i need to pay attention to - my health is now more precious to me and something i want to proactively nurture. 

eczema for me is more than itchy skin - as Hinemoana's friend Kate said 'there is nobility in rising above pain, but not much nobility in rising above itching'...but, having this severity a second time around, i'm aware of all that it is - a chronic feeling of unwellness, soreness, low energy, cold, vulnerability to weather and temperature - at the moment i function best between 10am and 8pm...sleeplessness (my partner is currently sleeping in the next room to escape the night scratches (and dreaming about running off with David Bowie so i really do need to get a handle on the eczema fast!)


but now i also want to see the eczema as a gift - and particularly this time around, it seems that every inclination i've had towards healing has been intuited and then confirmed by my readings/learnings. i am grateful to the people who have documented their journeys and learnings and so feel it is my time to do the same - to be more open about my goings on.


this blog was intended as a sound blog and it will continue to be one, but it will incorporate other areas of interest that have remained hidden for fear that i may be a hippie-new-age freak. 


the first learnings when i entered the new zealand school of music to study sonic art was the reminder that sound is vibration - pretty much at the same time i started this study i was interoduced to the teachings of the law of attraction mainly through abraham-hicks. this teaching starts with the premise that we are vibrational beings.


at music school, i became enamoured with the contact mic - a device that amplifies vibration and converts to sound. i have just purchased 2 contact mics and a hydrophone from jez riley french. yahoody.


and of course, eastern thinking identifies the beginiings of dis-ease on a vibrational level - so raw food/raw sound fits in my book.

here is an abraham clip - not the one i was looking for but along the lines...

and yes...i can identify quite a few months of conflicted, out of alignment, negative vibrational thinking that brought me here...


so now the healing begins - in this sense the eczema is a gift - to show where i was vibrationally out of whack and out of alignment with myself. 


one of the areas i was out of alignment was in the area of eating - and when the eczema hit, it was the first thing that my attention came to for change - firstly because i largely lost my appetite straight away...


around about this time, i found these guys...matthew armstrong and victoria whitehead and their 100 day juice feast...

i stumbled on these guys because i was interested in the james arthur ray trial and was googling all over town - they happened to include a post where they commented on the trial - i followed them every day after. so i found them on day 23 of their feast - they are now on day 94...i spent the next 2 weeks predominantly juicing - this worked because my appetite was largely gone anyway - my body's way of telling me that i was detoxifying and needed to help my body do this.

i decided pretty quickly i needed to go off gluten and dairy. 


my first readings led me to consider the alkaline diet - overly acidic foods lead to an acidic pH and the need for rebalancing...alkaline foods are predominantly leafy green vegetables so my juices became greener and more bitter - i also added wheat-grass powder.

around the same time, hinemoana's cousin anahera, leant me the following book....

this book looks at the eastern view of dis-ease. according to this view eczema is caused by the stagnation or over-toxicity of the liver and with it's inability to detox, the skin steps in and becomes a huge detoxifying agent...this condition is also referred to as the heating of the system and so recommends cooling foods - again, the primary ones being leafy green veges and raw food...

in the middle of this, my eczema got worse and one morning i woke with skin that made me feel like i was a burns victim and was weeping - i was also mentally and emotionally feeling more despondent and vulnerable and was concerned about infection (which happened the first time) - so i took myself to a doctor...the result - a one week course of prednizone followed by 7 days of decreasing dose for weaning off...i felt immediate relief and the skin cleared but after the first three days could still feel the eczema in the system - i knew it was being suppressed and would reappear once the course ended - still i was grateful for the relief and, in a way hoped that it would be sufficient to knock it back for good. this wasn't to be and i continued in my research.


i researched other sites of people who have healed from eczema, and overwhelmingly, the sites i found talked about slow, systematic healing and strengthening of the digestive system throug the eating of raw food.


so after much thought, i have decided to go raw...


one thing about this choice is that i want it to be more about moving toward health rather than deprivation - so my intention is to be raw as much as possible but not to slam myself if i deviate...this is a lifestyle change i want to make long-term so even if eventually i am 70-30% that will be better than what i was - for now though i want to give my liver and system a chance to rebalance.


gluten and dairy are definitely off though and i have noticed massive differences particularly in now having clear sinuses.


hinemoana and marian have been supportive and are enjoying (or not) some new recipes...i have to say raw food isn't what it sounds like - there are some amazing flavour combinations...it is taking some rethinking re: shopping and preparation but i will get there...will post some of the good recipes here...


if i was in new york i'd definitely be visitn the restaurant pure food and wine


so that is me - it's all about vibration and energy at the end of the day...raw food/raw sound.


it's not been a great skin day today, but with contact mics and recipes in hand i'll keep you posted.