Rock Cairns

The word cairn comes from the Irish carn (plural cairn) or Scottish Gaelic càrn (plural càirn). 

I encountered my first cairn hiking in Maine - I had never hiked until I came to Maine. For a couple of summers as a teenager, the only hiking I ever did was with a gang of Maine townies once a summer. The first summer we hiked Mt. Washington. I had never seen a mountain that big in person. The hike up and torturous stumble down just about killed me. But it was also a stunningly rude awakening to a whole new way of being I would eventually come to love.

Much, much later and as part of my get-mentally-and-emotionally-healthy-or-die phase, my therapist at the time informed me that I was a workaholic, among other things. Workaholic was the only ic I could relate to. All of the other ics were over my level of understanding at the time. All I know is I was working 24/7and loving it.

So what's wrong with that, I asked regarding working 24/7. I love it!
She asked me if I remembered my children's birthdays. 
She had me there.

As part of the the exercise I had to make a list of stuff I loved to do. 

Work, I said. 
No, she replied.  You have to find something else you like to do. You have to make a list of things you like to do and start doing them on weekends. You are not allowed to work on weekends any more.

I sat there and thought about my list.

I can't think of anything, I said.
Fake it, she replied.

So that night I made a list of stuff I was faking I liked to do. The only one I remember on my list is hiking because that's what I started doing. It didn't cost anything and I lived in Carrabassett Valley - hello - the hiking capital of Maine.

I spent a long time just hiking around the valley by myself. I didn't scale anything, I was just trying to get a feel for it. I hiked along through the woods and periodically asked myself, do I like this? I remember not being able to answer that question for a very long time. So I just pretended I liked it. I did however like the cairns I'd find along the trails. I liked adding my two cents worth and building some of my own.

I eventually got into seriously good shape, started running more - every day, did a 10k, scaled the Bigelow Range - my ultimate personal goal, and then hooked up with a bunch of other women hikers. As a group we hiked everything we could whenever we could.  It all culminated at Katahdin. For two years in a row we did Katahdin. It was incredible and the cairns up there were very cool.

I ended up hiking constantly for many years everywhere I traveled -  built cairns wherever I went - but gave it up when I moved to Portland. Maybe someday I'll get back into it, but for now I'll do a day hike with my brother when I go to California or with my kids when I go to Seattle. But that's it.

These days I hike along the beach and build rock cairns there.


Rock Cairns • 8" x 8" watercolor framed to 12" x 12" • $200

Peace is an Inside Job

I figured it was time to do another meditation for peace. I occasionally forget what peace is, and it would appear the world is forgetting too.

I try to find things I like to do because if I love what I am doing, I'm creating good energy. We all know energy is constantly expanding, spreading out - the Theories of General and Special Relativity - so it's really important for me to be in a good place as much of the time as is possible.

There are lots of ways to find inner peace. I have found painting these mandalas to be a great exercise for me.

Peace.

Mandala For Inner Peace • 8" x 8" framed to 12" x 12" • $200

Just Pretend

If somebody asked me

to live in a tree

and it was environmentally

okay,

I would absolutely

move in one today.

But since it's not

I'll pretend instead

and then pick a spot

to plant a tree
 so one day
there be many.

 In memory of Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement 

http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/w.php?id=59

 Just Pretend • 8" x 8" framed to 12" x 12" • $200

Some Thoughts

I realized when I started this piece of art, originally titled Thoughts, that my thoughts were impossible to record because they simultaneously morph into memory. So it's more about what I think thoughts look like as I'm having them.

This prompted me to find out more about thoughts in general. What the heck is a thought, where do they come from, what are they made of? I wanted a scientific, nuts and bolts explanation. So I decided to go to MIT - brain central - to see what they had to say. It would appear that there is still a lot of speculation, but I did find a piece by Elizabeth Dougherty - an MIT engineer.

Reading her piece was like listening to my neighbor Greg explain Einstein's Theory of Special and General Relativity. I get it when he's explaining it, but by the time I get to the top of the stairs to my apartment, it's gone. I've asked Greg to tell me the story a couple of times. I'll get it eventually because he's starting to use more graphic explanations.

Right now, the only thing that I know I will remember from Dougherty's piece is this:

"Trying to imagine how trillions of connections and billions of simultaneous transmissions coalesce inside your brain to form a thought is a little like trying to look at the leaves, roots, snakes, birds, ticks, deer—and everything else in a forest—at the same moment."

In the meantime and for anyone who gives a damn, here are more technical excerpts from Dougherty's piece:

"Thoughts are... really just electro-chemical reactions...

The human brain is composed of about 100 billion nerve cells (neurons) interconnected by trillions of connections, called synapses. On average, each connection transmits about one signal per second. Some specialized connections send up to 1,000 signals per second. “Somehow… that’s producing thought,” says Charles Jennings, director of neurotechnology at the MIT McGovern Institute for Brain Research. 

Given the physical complexity of what’s happening inside your head, it’s not easy to trace a thought from beginning to end. “That’s a little like asking where the forest begins. Is it with the first leaf, or the tip of the first root?” says Jennings. 

Simpler, then to start by considering perceptions—“thoughts” that are directly triggered by external stimuli—a feather brushes your skin, you see these words on the computer screen, you hear a phone ring. Each of these events triggers a series of signals in the brain. 

When you read these words, for example, the photons associated with the patterns of the letters hit your retina, and their energy triggers an electrical signal in the light-detecting cells there. 

That electrical signal propagates like a wave along the long threads called axons that are part of the connections between neurons. 

When the signal reaches the end of an axon, it causes the release of chemical neurotransmitters into the synapse, a chemical junction between the axon tip and target neurons. 

A target neuron responds with its own electrical signal, which, in turn, spreads to other neurons. 

Within a few hundred milliseconds, the signal has spread to billions of neurons in several dozen interconnected areas of your brain and you have perceived these words." 

Some Thoughts • 8" x 8" watercolor  framed to 12" x 12" • $200

Rocks in My Head

 The weather was stinky

so I didn't go to the beach today

Instead I got to play

with the rocks in my head.

Rocks in My Head • 8" x 8" watercolor framed to 12" x 12" • $200

Sailing in the Bay

Tom  and I went for a sail around the bay on Saturday. His son Steve came down the next day. Both days were gorgeous and the wind eventually pretty darn nice, though it built to a fever pitch on Sunday.

There was only one thing I didn't want to do with an outgoing tide and a sea breeze in our little open sailer - cross the Hussey. It gets lumpy, and just plain ugly and uncomfortable even on the best days. We did it twice - once on each day. It was as close as I've ever been to a full blown mutiny. I don't mind getting wet when I've got the gear. But I didn't have the gear and got wet. And it was cold baby with the sea breeze.

In retaliation I did what any good sailer would do in my soggy shoes - I ate four of the eight molasses cookies. They only got two each. If I wasn't trying so hard not to mutiny - when I'm angry, lonely or tired, I eat -  I would have thrown the whole bag to the gulls.


Sailing the Bay • 8" x 8" watercolor framed to 12" x 12" • $200

Color Therapy

A couple of springs ago on one of my trips to town, I was genuinely surprised by a splash of color this sidewalk garden hit me with. It was in front of a nondescript brick building, and like many of the gardens around here, had just suddenly appeared. Many owners plant flowers in full bloom, but this time I think I was coming out of that white winter haze we call hibernation.

Anyway, it was simply beautiful. I took a pic and figured I would do a painting of it some day. Never got around to it until today. Guess I was needing some color therapy.

Color Therapy • 8" x 8" watercolor framed to 12" x 12" • $200