[-photography, science-]

Heart Chakra

Originally uploaded by Solitaire Miles.

This image gets to me, leaving me a little bit breathless. I’m not sure why. I have a nursing background so it has nothing to do with seeing someone’s insides. It has more to do with making something visible that we almost never see and therefore, often don’t think about.

The artist, Solitaire Miles is using the scans and medical procedures that she’s had to undergo as art– with beautiful results.

The image is striking. I’m struck by how close the heart is to the brain. I’m struck by how strong the arteries look. I’m interested in the fact that there’s symmetry but there’s also asymmetry within. And it fascinates me that the heart is clearly visible but the brain isn’t.

The image stimulates both my mind and my heart.

Art is about making the internal, the secret, the little understood, the inexpressible, the unarticulated, the unknown–visible.

Thanks Solitaire for the ultimate in personal art.

See more of Solitaire’s art at her flickr site.
Consider joining the Practically Creative flickr group

See my essay on my inconsistent bloggedness here.
Here’s another post and work of art - by arlee - based on the heart

[-essay, music-]

This article reminds us about the importance of listening for those spaces, not only in music but in our lives.

by guest contributor, Edward Weiss

While most students want to know when to play certain notes and chords, it’s equally important to know when not to play. For example, I had a student who knew how to improvise and play in the New Age style. What he didn’t know how to do was to allow for breathing space. I tried to teach him that you don’t have to play note upon note but allow for some pauses.

Eventually he got it. He learned how not to rush and that the pauses between notes are as important as the notes themselves - especially in the New Age style of piano playing. Listen to pioneer New Age piano player Steven Halpern to get an excellent idea of this. Steven literally defined “breathing space” for music. His music floats in the air. It is pure improvisation and, if you listen to him play, you’ll find that it’s one of the easiest styles to play in.

He let’s the spaces in between the notes work for him. There’s definitely no rushing here. It’s very trance inducing and calming. To play in this way, you need to be very much IN THE PRESENT and listen for what’s to come. There’s no planning or forethought here except maybe to choose a Key or Mode to play in. Then you just improvise.

The spaces between the music are as important as the music itself. In fact, without the spaces, you wouldn’t have this style. The spaces define the style of music. A lot of New Age pianists emulated Halpern and you can’t do better to learn how to master the art of silence than by listening to him. Also, check out the author’s online piano lesson “Oriental Sunrise” to get another good example of “breathing space.”

© 2005 - 2007 Edward Weiss

Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster of Quiescence Music’s online piano lessons. He has been helping students learn how to play piano in the New Age style for over 14 years and now teaches an online class. Stop by for a FREE piano lesson! Article Source: ezinearticles.com

Published by the permission of the author in the July 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: space and spaces

[-gardening article-]

Planting a garden is work full of hope and joyful expectation. If it’s time to plant seedlings where you are, this article will inspire you and help you to enjoy the fruits of your labours.

by guest contributor, Sherry D. Ramsey

As gardeners, we all share some of the joys that growing things can bring: the thrill when that speck of green pokes up, signaling an awakened seed; that heady raw earth smell when the soil is turned for the first time in spring; the burgeoning splashes of color as the garden fulfills its springtime promise. Walking the garden, reveling in our successes, and fetching a breath of that intoxicating scent of flower and earth and sun make all our hard work worthwhile.

But there are other, out-of-the-ordinary ways to enjoy the garden that many of us miss in the practical rounds of weeding and watering, pruning and cultivating. Here are a few simple suggestions for delving deeper and discovering the heart and soul of your garden this summer.

• 1. Make a point of observing your garden at different times during the day.

The dew-spangled garden just at dawn (or at least early morning) is different from the sun-swollen mid-afternoon garden, and a distinct experience again in a cool, misty twilight. Nothing compares to the magic of the garden limned by the silvered fingers of a full moon.

• 2. Walk your garden in different weather situations.

Most of us enjoy the garden on a sunny afternoon, but don’t miss its wild, tossed beauty in a windstorm or the deepening greens and cool wet scents of the garden in the rain.

• 3. Don’t just stroll in your garden.

Grab a blanket, stool, or lawn chair and settle yourself close to a flower bed. Now watch the interplay of blossoms, insects, breezes and birds. Observe each petal and leaf in its unique relationship to the plant as a whole. How many color variations are there in a single bloom? A single leaf?

• 4. While you’re sitting there, close your eyes for a few minutes and listen.

The drone of nectar-laden bees, the rustle of foliage, the background of birdsong, the skittering of insects through the grass, maybe even the swift whir of a hummingbird– they’re all part of your garden, too.

• 5. Display a big spray of cut flowers in your garden–they’re not just for inside the house.

Cut flower bouquets allow you to bring together blooms that can’t grow together because of conflicting light, water and soil requirements. The resulting combinations can lend a whole new dimension of beauty to your garden, and a lovely focal point for a patio, deck or gazebo.

• 6. Sprinkle your garden with tiny lights at night, for just pennies.

Tea light candles set in empty glass jars (Mason jars are excellent) weave a flickering path of beauty through the nighttime garden. Watch how flower colors mute and blend by candlelight as the garden takes on an entirely new persona.

• 7. Finally, keep a journal of your garden.

Not just the prosaic facts on planting and blooming dates, plant performance and propagation notes. Weave in your thoughts and observations as you follow the suggestions in this article. How did the garden look in the rain or at dawn? What made it different by candle- or moonlight? How did it sound? Did you learn anything new from your observations? Don’t forget to note down how the garden looked on special days throughout the summer–birthdays, anniversaries, family visits, holidays. Your garden journal will make great winter reading when the garden is sleeping and you’re curled up in your living room, browsing through seed catalogs and dreaming of spring.

The great gift of a garden is that it delights all of our senses. With a little creative thinking, it can delight the spirit and soul as well.

© 2005 - 2007 Sherry D. Ramsey, all rights reserved

About the author:
Sherry writes speculative fiction. She’s published many short stories and her newest SF novel, “One’s Aspect to the Sun” was recently awarded second place in the 28th Annual Atlantic Writing Competition’s novel category, the H.R. (Bill) Percy Prize. She’s also the author of many essays and articles especially on the craft of writing. She is the publisher and editor of the highly successful Scriptorium Webzine for Writers. You can read all about Sherry at her author’s website www.sherrydramsey.com.

Be sure to read Sherry’s other works in The PCQ.
short story
- Accidents Happen
poetry
- UPLOAD
- I, Galaxy

Originally published in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: inspiration

[-essay, inspiration-]

by guest essayist, Julie A. Serroul

As a writer I exist on the life-breath of inspiration. Occasionally, I seek it out from hidden places, but other times it wallops me in the back of my head. Sometimes it creeps in quietly, and most inconveniently, when I have no time to take advantage of it. But take advantage of it I must, because I am a writer.

Ideas are one thing; they are constantly arriving and evolving, and they are the roots of some very excellent stories. Inspiration, however, is another animal, or at least, a different incarnation of the same animal, and it chews at everyone differently. It may be that you take your inspiration straight up, on-the-rocks, fresh and instant. Or maybe you prefer to let it percolate, then quietly sip the powerful brew much later.

In any event, it is an irresistible itch, an unquenchable thirst, and a toothache that you can’t keep your tongue from. It is at once delicious and tortuous. Enjoy it, whatever it is to you, but do not ignore it. It is a relentless, ardent lover that will passionately pursue you and endure much rejection, but, at some point, will turn abruptly and leave you cold.

Love it back and keep it interested. Because if you let the moment pass, like so much else in life, it is gone forever.

© 2001-2007 by Julie A. Serroul. All rights reserved

Read Julie’s short story in The PCQ: The Dowsing

Julie is an associate editor at The Scriptorium Webzine for Writers. She writes speculative fiction and is currently at work on her first novel-length fiction. Look for her articles in The Scriptorium.

Originally published in The Scriptorium.; re-published by permission of the author in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: inspiration

[-inspiration-]

Inspiration means to inhale, to breathe in. It was chosen as the theme of the first Practically Creative Quarterly because this project is the result of inspiration brought on by my recent exploration of webdesign.

Learning something new always energizes and leaves me with a delightful side effect: an urge to revisit and expand upon interests that have been dormant or languishing due to lack of inspiration. My abiding interests in art, writing and the creative process are refreshed by this new-to-me medium.

None of us would last long if we only breathed out. Remember that when your enthusiasm fades. Everything here is meant to help you discover or be reminded of how you get inspired. Reading and viewing what’s in this issue will renew, refresh and get you ready.

Breathe it in — and out.

Inspiration fills us. Exhalation is putting what we’ve created out into the world.

Art work: an artist trading card/painted photograph by Nancy Waldman
© 05-07

Originally published in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: inspiration

[-r-mind, perception, exercise-]

by Nancy S. M. Waldman

If, when you try to create, you find yourself full of doubts about your abilities, you are by definition, NOT in a state of R-mindfulness. The R-mindful brain is not worried about wasting time. It’s not worried about lack of talent. It’s not worried about product. In fact, it’s not worried about anything.

An R-mind is focused on the activity of creating, not on the person doing the work. In order to successfully create, we must get to that space/place within ourselves where the work becomes the focus instead of doubts about ourselves.

Because our “everyday” mind (the “L-mode”) is so used to being in the forefront, making decisions, doing the daily mental chores, it won’t give up control easily. That is why we often must fight down the sudden urge to clean the kitchen floor when we sit down to finish a short story or begin a sewing project. To the everyday mind, it makes perfect sense that the kitchen floor needs our attention more than this impractical, optional creative project. But that creative activity is as much a part of us - more, it could be argued - as the practical activities of daily living. It’s just that the creative mind is a gentle, subtle, easily cowed part of us. We must learn how to let it take the stage.

Since our theme is Space … and spaces, this issue’s trick involves focusing on negative space. The magic lies in being able to trick your L-mode into giving up control. When the everyday mind is confused, confronted with a sensory puzzle it can’t readily solve, it will recede and you will be on your way to being R-mindful.
Read the instructions several times before trying it.

Before beginning your creative project, sit comfortably at your desk, sewing table or wherever the work will occur.

1. Close your eyes, take a big deep breath, and let it out slowly.
2. With your eyes still shut, breathe deeply, in and out, very slowly, exactly three times.
3. Open your eyes. SEE what is in front of you.
4. Notice the word: “see” instead of “look at.” they aren’t the same.
5. Expect to see something that you haven’t noted before or at least noticed in a while.
6. Focus on one thing or a part of a thing. if you find yourself unsure, zone in on the edge of something. See it.
7. While keeping your eyes on your focal point, shift your focus. let your awareness go to the immediate space around that thing.
8. Keep breathing. stay with that sight for a few moments. allow yourself to relax into this time apart.
9. Shut your eyes. breathe in and out exactly three times.
10. Open your eyes and begin to work.

Try this each time before you begin and see if it helps. You may want to read the information on R-mode in the metAphorism feature of our first issue, here.
When you see this symbol in The PCQ be aware that this is information that may help you understand and access this part of yourself.

Originally published in the July 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: Space and Spaces

[-essay-]

by Nancy S.M. Waldman

This German word - zwischenraum - comes back to me from the past. I first heard it over 25 years ago soon after the funeral of my father. Grief is one of those painful but natural and necessary pauses in our lives. The kind of “time-out” that our minds tend to capture and highlight forever.
Because my father wasn’t a religious man, we called upon a previously unknown to us Unitarian minister to speak at Daddy’s funeral. He did a graceful job of it and the family - in thanks and in need - attended his church the following Sunday. He spoke that day of the importance to our lives of something we have no one English word for, something we rarely notice: zwischenraum, the gap between things. The concept and the significance of it has never left me.

Several weeks ago I attended my step-daughter’s dancing competition. During the adjudication portion, the judge told a group of student choreographers, that the most powerful moments in dance are often not the steps themselves, but the moments when they hold their bodies still and, by doing so, hold the audience’s rapt attention. Stillness between movements. Zwischenraum.

Musicians may have an advantage in this area because the rests - the pauses and stopping points - are not only ordered by the composer but also timed. The Ramones notwithstanding, most music would lose much of its power and pleasure without those moments of silence between the notes.

For the rest of the arts, the spaces are not always as obvious but they are just as important. When you draw something you see, do you pay attention to what you aren’t drawing? This is Negative Space and paying attention to it is a vital step in learning to beautifully reproduce what is in front of you. The air space around solid objects. Zwischenraum.

It isn’t just the arts that show us the importance of space. In our cities, the often almost non-existent breathing room between buildings, houses and signage has a negative impact on quality of life and how people respond to each other. In some places green space has become the rare oasis between everything hard and contrete. In our homes as well, we long for the luxury of more space in which to work and play. And in our days, time and space sometimes merge. “I don’t have any more space in my day” we say as if they were one and the same. Free time in-between what has to be done. Zwischenraum.

Nature abhors a vacuum and space - whether it’s actual physical space or, time - has a natural tendency to fill up before we’ve even had time to notice it’s there. When we don’t honour the spaces in our lives we feel stressed, even frantic. Overloaded and overwhelmed. Incapable. Exhausted. At times, for many of us, the lack of space/time overtakes even our most physically necessary space: sleep.

Pauses in life are restorative, necessary. A long soak in the tub. An afternoon fishing or lying outside with a good book. Meditation. Prayer. Naps. Vacations (though these have to be specifically planned to be restful!) A proper night’s sleep. These are indeed necessary. But essential time-outs aren’t always joyful. A time of grief or depression can be a time apart, a pause. These pain-filled spaces in our lives are as necessary as the pleasurable ones. These are the times when we grow into more evolved persons.

After reading this, take some time/space to consider zwischenraum. Close your eyes for a moment and think of how you feel when you are truly rested. Think of the feeling you get when nothing is looming. Or when the path ahead feels open and wide and unobstructed. It may even make you anxious if it’s been a long time since you’ve had this luxury of inner space. It is, however, vital to living life well and can be cultivated in our busy lives.

The minister from long ago was pointing out that the gap is as important to our quality of life, as what the gap is between. We must pay attention to it, or it will be filled and will vanish along with our peace of mind.

In the arts as in everything else in life, mind the zwischenraum.

‘Zwischenraum’ photo by nancy sm waldman © 05-07; all rights reserved
‘Mind the Gap’ photo by suze corte © 05-07; all rights reserved

Originally published May 2006, The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: space and spaces