Oregon State motto: Alis Volat Propriis, Latin for “She Flies With Her Own Wings”

(since 1987; This was the original motto of Oregon, but had been changed to “The Union” in 1957.)

I am going home for three weeks with Diogo. We are going to New York for a couple days, then arriving in Portland on the 16th of August and then spending a big amount of time with my family in Klamath Falls and finally ending and returning from San Francisco. I am looking forward to it with great anticipation. I never thought I would be missing my homeland, but I do a bit. Living away from my native country makes me miss it, for all it's blessings and curses.

Also, falling in love, thinking about getting married and wanting to have children makes me long to be around my parents for a bit and touch upon their wisdom and love. I'm missing my mother and father more than I expected to. Despite all our loving disagreements, they know me more than anyone else in the world. Their love for me is part of the foundations of who I am. I really want to come back to my foundations for a time. I hope to have this connection with my own children. Boy, my parents did a good job. This respectful, loving bond I have with them is the epitome of parenthood.

The woman that left Portland a year ago is very different. I feel I've grown up so much in only one year. My feet feel rooted deeply within myself, but I don't feel grounded at all...yet. I knew when I decided this path for my life I was going to be different afterwards, I just didn't think I would be so aware of it. I remember just before I left Portland I had freak out about whether this was the "right path" for my life and I asked many friends whom I respected for advice. The best advice I received was from my friend Dani, who said, ultimately, that there was no such thing as a right path. Which ever path I chose, going to London or not, was the path I would live my life by. Labeling it right or wrong was just a way of worrying and avoidance.

The greatest lessons that I own now is the understanding that everything moves forward, whether it be viewed good or bad, it all moves forward into something else. And ultimately, nothing is good or bad because it all leads on. My worst times in the past are an integral part to my current happiness, had I not had them I would not be where I am right now. And I love where I am right now, even completely lost, emotional, and ungrounded, I wouldn't change anything.

I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale. - Marie Curie

The same is true of art and artists, no?

I'm often completely in awe of the similarity between artistic and scientific discovery and innovation. The artistic and scientific minds often function on very same levels.

Spacelab 2006-7

Here is my answer to one of the questions my school asked me.

The value and survival of theater as a performing art is constantly in question. What value do you ascribe to live theater? Is this value related to its “market value”? In what ways, if any, is theater a “service” rather than a “product”?

I value theater's life. In our current culture of speed, immediate satisfaction, technological isolation, and submissive consumption, theater slows down, unites, and demands active participation of the community it occurs within. Anne Bogart in And Then You Act says, "In the United States, we are the targets of mass distraction. We are the objects of constant flattery and manufactured desire. I believe that the only possible resistance to a culture of banality is quality." Quality theatre is the antidote for my culture. Quality theatre is not a consumption, it is a participation. It is something created between the audience and the performers. It is alive. I believe live performance is an antidote to the opiates of our culture (i.e. television, movies, internet, media, etc). Theatre creates physical metaphors and poetry that the audience must participate in.

Theater is a service instead of a product when its intention is to serve instead of sell.

Ladybird

Here is a video created in my backyard by two of my lovely classmates. Its a simple beauty. Just like Agnese and Martha.

Attitude.

This last week has been about my attitude. And how I needed to adjust it.

I've just finished this book by Anne Bogart about making art in unpredictable times. She breaks up the book into eight tools for action: context, articulation, intention, attention, magnetism, attitude, content and time. Attitude is the section that spoke to my dilemma this week.

The attitude with which you bring to a situation, is what the situation will be. If you consider a person to be a difficult person, they will be because they may sense your attitude towards them and react accordingly. So, I choose the have an attitude adjustment. I have been seeing school, classmates, relationships, well...life in general in a specific attitude. A worried attitude. It's an attitude I get when I'm......well, it's just a shitty attitude that I'd like to overcome.

Last night I rolled my ankle while walking home from a party and bruised my foot pretty bad. Therefore, today, sunday, I spent writing a paper for school, doing laundry, chatting with visitors and meditating....the majority of the time being the meditating stuff. It was the first sunny day that we have had in London in a long time and so taking the day to myself to reflect was beneficial. Usually I meditate while in motion (i.e. running, walking dancing) but due to my foot being out of commission I meditate in a stationery sitting position.

I need to meditate more. especially when I feel out of joint, as I have been feeling the last few weeks.

Needless to say, my head did a spin, I reconnected my mind and body...which for some reason were fighting with each other, and now I believe I have found resolve for the next coming weeks. My attitude is a choice and I take responsibility for it.

1. I respect my classmates and believe that school is continuously moving me as an artist and as a person.
2. If something is going well, trust it. If something is going bad, trust it.
3. Lastly, from Anne Bogart, "Art is an act of the spirit. It asks you to be a conduit for something larger than yourself. You listen to voices from the past in service of the common culture you share with those around you. With an understanding of why, then Heaven and Earth will move in response to your action. I believe this to be the fundamental grace that allows for action in our difficult times."

I am currently reading an amazing book.

And then you act: Making art in an unpredictable world. By Anne Bogart.

It is the sequel to her first book, A Director Prepares. It is coming to me at a time when I really need the inspiration and I also have to write a book report for school.

Please if you are an artist or even if you are not...read this book. It talks about our culture very candidly and addresses creating art and change within unpredicatable times.

If you need some inspiration or if you want a good non-fiction to read. Pick it up.

Much Love.

Erin's Murder Mystery Birthday Party!!

DO NOT BE ASHAMED
by Wendell Berry

You will be walking some night

in the comfortable dark of your yard

and suddenly a great light will shine

round about you, and behind you

will be a wall you never saw before.

It will be clear to you suddenly

that you were about to escape,

and that you are guilty: you misread

the complex instructions, you are not

a member, you lost your card

or never had one. And you will know

that they have been there all along,

their eyes on your letters and books,

their hands in your pockets,

their ears wired to your bed.

Though you have done nothing shameful,

they will want you to be ashamed.

They will want you to kneel and weep

and say you should have been like them.

And once you say you are ashamed,

reading the page they hold out to you,

then such light as you have made

in your history will leave you.

They will no longer need to pursue you.

You will pursue them, begging forgiveness.

They will not forgive you.

There is no power against them.

It is only candor that is aloof from them,

only an inward clarity, unashamed,

that they cannot reach. Be ready.

When their light has picked you out

and their questions are asked, say to them:

"I am not ashamed." A sure horizon

will come around you. The heron will begin

his evening flight from the hilltop.

Exciting new Development.
Diogo and I will be visiting the states in the end of August!!!!

We are going to go to New York first and then end up in Klamath falls for another wedding. Phew, people getting married!!!

Anyways, I'm not sure as yet whether I will be able to make it P-town, but if I do I may be asking for accomodation just for a couple of days. Let me know if you are up for it!

I miss and love you all!!

"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." -Mark Twain

LISPA 2006

Photo montage of LISPA's afternoon initiation class of 2006-7

"Why should anybody be interested in an old man who was a failure?"
-Ernest Hemingway