Let me officially designate myself here as "unstuck" now. The RV is in my driveway - a little rental in Phoenix with a fantastic landlord who allows us to build whatever we desire and grow our own food (including animals if we'd like) in the backyard. We've been here about five months and are fairly settled in. I've begun to put on monthly salons and although the specifics of the vision have changed - no longer on the road with the Abundance Tree - the core of the vision remains the same.

The Abundance Tree will live on in this small neighborhood for now. And the RV will find a new life - as what? I'm not sure yet, but isn't life all about rolling with what happens, instead of imposing our own vision upon it like so much blank canvas?

That, I think, was my lesson in all this. The planning was perfect - I did everything I was "supposed to" - but perhaps that's not everyone's path. Life always has worked better for me when I'm flying a bit by the seat of my pants. When I trust that things will work out and just show up and do the work. That worry thing just doesn't compute in my brain. It steals so much good creative energy.

Now I'm showing up every day and tweaking the different parts of my life - seeing what can be discarded - what matters and what I need to procure to make things better, easier, more creative and in the flow of life. Our latest experiment is to cut down on the computer time by replacing it with other things - with nights out under the stars dreaming of the future or the past, with at-home artists' retreats - no computers, no distractions, just non-stop art or activities meant to inspire. All easy entertainment are disallowed but anything else goes - meeting the neighbors, volunteer work, gardening, running, hiking - all good. All have the potential to inspire. But no TV, computer, idle chit chat, social media or video games. These are the things that distract.

The initial results are pretty amazing - we've cleaned the whole house, begun doing silly things like carving candles and finished several open-ended creative projects. My kids were sketching - not because I made them do it - but because they had nothing else to distract them and so they just spontaneously started to sketch, or knit, or carve. We've returned to a game we used to play years ago, too - reading and gaming about definitions of new words. Seems that everything is interesting now. Perhaps productivity is simply a matter of removing all distractions. Perhaps removing all distractions happens effortlessly when we simply take a moment to observe what is and is not a distraction.

Please Help if You Can

Hello Everyone,
I've reached a point where my art addiction, combined with that of my fellow artists has overgrown our personal pocket books and you all are people that are friends or family of the artists, or among our network of other amazing artists and creators or patrons and saints.

It pains me (as you all know) to even begin to ask for assistance this way - my first time, be gentle with me -  but I was convinced by a very wise woman that since I'd freely given throughout my life to worthwhile projects and had created all this time without ever having done this, I was not "begging" to ask for assistance for my own worthwhile projects. So here goes:

My partner and I have assembled an amazing group of eighteen volunteer artists who are all diligently at work creating fun and meaning in this world and we are asking you to consider assisting us as much as you are able. We all do this as a gift and expect nothing for it, but, we haven't been able to convince the gas stations, truck rental companies or lumber yards to do likewise (yet).

So please take a moment to look at this website and if you feel moved, please help us finish and transport this project by clicking on the "DONATE" button at the bottom of the page and make whatever donation you are able, through paypal so we can continue to bring art to the world.

http://glancefloor.anticonformityusa.com/PHILOSOPHY

Thank you for all your help! And please feel free to pass this on to anyone you think would be interested in assisting us.

Take Two! On Cages and Sages.

It's been a month since my last post here. The RV has been in the shop this long. Apparently the previous owners decided to do some interesting Frankenstein repairs and the new mechanics had to pull in experts from all over the world, either that or they found the good scotch in my hidden cabinet and have been having weekend parties. I just hope they restocked.

My son is with his father for some orthodontist appointments and I have been staying with friends. I seem to have developed into a sort of modern day Mary Poppins and, in fact, told this by a friend, I was promptly given a delicate ruffled polka-dot umbrella, which I will attempt to employ for levitation but I'm not holding my breath.

A few weeks ago, I realized that my very well laid out plans of building the Glance Floor in Flagstaff and then installing the first Abundance Tree at the Star School were not going to happen. The Abundance Tree is now postponed until September and all the wood painstakingly packed onto and inside the RV was removed and loaded into a friend's backyard in Phoenix, a new Phoenix crew assembled on the fly and we've been working on it in the 114 degree heat and record humidity for this desert region. I can honestly say that I'm now acclimated to Arizona. The burn will be a breeze compared to this.

I have, an amazing crew - always looking for the silver lining or what was "meant to be" has opened me up to some amazing opportunities to get to know people with similar mindsets and good work-ethics. It may be strange for a homeless woman whose entire worldly possessions have been sitting in a dealership trying not to explode to say that she's been blessed, but the fact is, I really have. And I've learned a level of patience that is frightening.

A friend told me that I was experiencing "Holy Poverty" and I think that will need to be the name of an art project some day. The same friend suggested an interesting name for the RV - I've decided it needs a name, since it's now taken on a bit of a personality. The friend suggested it be called the "Sage Cage" when I told him that I'd been considering painting questions on the sides of the RV to inspire conversations in the passing cars. I told him I was a bit uncomfortable with this as it implies something about me that I'm not really feeling I adequately embody - but perhaps I could assign the moniker to my son and feel better about it. Then he suggested that I could assign it to everyone else in the cars around.

So all the world is a cage. And all it's players, sages. I like this.

Thank you, all the sages I've been lucky enough to cross paths with. I'll see you all on the road.