Love letters to my life #1: A new venture

Tree of Life

This is the first in, hopefully, a long series of love letters to my life, to be written on the 17th day of each month remaining to me. The thought that I might not be here to write the next one, prompts me to express my appreciation for every tiny moment, all the joyous occasions, and each heart-wrenching setback that has landed me in this particular moment of birdsong and unfolding new directions.

I am one of the lucky ones. Here in this moment, in the early days of my eighth decade, I am free, healthy, engaged with beauty and expression, rich in friendships and community,  exploring a new culture, learning a new language, watching, sometimes with astonishment, as each new page turns, revealing bits and pieces of the world and myself that I never knew existed.

Understanding the infinite immensity of all that surrounds me, I rest in the awareness that revelation will continue as long as I breathe. After that, who knows?

Neill James, photo and article

Today, I thank all the forces that brought me to a new landscape ... Mexico … and invited me into the unique culture of Ajijic, a small village guarded by two distinct feminine spirits … Teomichicihualli, goddess, fish-princess of Lake Chapala, and Neill James, an adventuress, travel-writer from the United States, who settled in Ajijic in 1943 and proceeded to do the work that called her … perhaps as an incarnation of Teomichicihualli herself. (For more about these spirits, read here.)

Artist: Jesús López Vega

Each of us writes, and lives, a story about our lives. It’s
never a true story, but it’s a handy one that provides a lot of justification for the choices we make and explanations for what befalls us. My story was simple … I was an only child, separate and alone, childless and unmothered, rolling through life free and independent. I could make all the details of my life fit that story. It was a story that didn’t allow space for community as I rolled from one place to the next, even though I frequently proclaimed my desire to find connection and community.

When the rolling stone of my life plopped me down beside the largest lake in Mexico, something changed. Life took me out of my rolling, 60 mph life and said: Walk! And, while walking through the streets and along the shores of the lake, community sneaked up on me. I fell in love with this odd blend of immigrants and indigenous, Spanish and English, wealth and poverty, raucous noise and generous souls. It’s like I have been touched by both Teomichicihualli and Neill James.

Many years ago, in the throes of an entrepreneurial moment, a friend and I started a small gallery of art and crafts. It was a joyous adventure and we created a luminous, creative offering for the community. It lasted three months and, when it failed, it broke my heart … and the friendship. I swore I’d never take a risk like that again. 

Never say never.

Tiny gallery to be on Colón

A new friend and I just signed a lease for a new gallery here in Ajijic … Galería del Futuro.  Steve and I are both digital artists and had been talking about finding a place to show our work. When the right place at the right price showed up, we started talking seriously about the possibility. Shadows from the old venture wafted through the air and I outlined all the reasons I didn’t want to be part of it. I didn’t want to be tied down to a retail store; no one was going to buy our work anyway, it would be a waste of money … amazingly negative talk from someone who believes in positive thinking and benevolent self-talk. 

What it might look like after painting.

However, as we continued to discuss the possibility, a new thread appeared … we could help young, local artists by showing their work also. Suddenly, passion was ignited as the whole project took on a different aspect. We both recognized our deep interest in supporting young artists … a kind of support we had never experienced ourselves. This possibility also linked us to a project some established artists here were working on to try to support promising young, local artists in their artistic development. We began to see this new gallery possibility not as just a commercial venture that might succeed or fail, but as a connection to the community, an investment in the future, a legacy.

As always when a new venture begins, we do not know whether it will succeed or fail. However, I do know that this is now part of my journey, a new piece of me being opened to life and the connection of everything. 

I am so grateful for my life and all the wonderful experiences coming my way.

Egret Dance

Egret Dance by Joyce Wycoff

When I first came to Lake Chapala, I was enchanted by the American White Pelicans, their graceful gliding across the water and the high contrast of their white bodies on the dark waters of morning and evenings. Over time though, it was the egrets I fell in love with and the ones that started demanding their place in my art.

Egrets are part of the heron family and the ones here at the lake are mainly snowy or great egrets. It is apparently mating season now and watching the males fluff themselves up and dart at a normally uninterested female always makes me laugh. As these charming birds have taken over a great deal of my photography and art time, I’ve come to think of them as a “totem.” Basil Johnston, in his 1990 book, “Ojibway Heritage,” says that a totem is “that from which I draw my purpose, meaning, and being.”

I’ve thought about that statement a lot. Egrets are considered messengers in the world of animal/totem symbology, so I’ve wondered what message it is that they are trying to deliver. On one level, I just like the way they look and they seem to snuggle into whatever art I’m making, giving it a richness and life that it didn’t have before they showed up. On another level, it feels like there’s more there, some connection I haven’t quite grasped.

Krista Schwimmer offers an interesting article from her time of watching these birds. She states: 

Watching an egret fish is particularly engaging. I love especially how the bird stirs the water with its beautiful, yellow feet. For me, this gesture with its cheery feet symbolizes the importance of approaching work with an element of enthusiasm.

In her wonderful deck called “the Medicine Cards”, Jamie Sams talks about the message of the heron. She says it is about bringing balance between the mind and the emotions.

I’ll take those ideas for now and try to stay open to other messages this snowy bird offers.

Egret Dance is a piece that emerged from a previous work. I awoke one morning with an idea for adding texture and depth to my images. That led to hours of exploring techniques and being somewhat pleased with the result. However, as much as I liked the color and composition, the piece just sat there until the egrets came waltzing in. I caught these two in their mating dance … an unsuccessful dance … and suddenly the piece felt more alive.

Storm on Lake Chapala

It begins with a whisper of leaves stirring, a quick glow from distant lightning, the low growl of the approaching storm. 

 

I awake to the now-familiar pattern as the whisper grows louder and the wind increases, banging and crashing unseen objects into each other, loosening sheets of rain against windows and rattling doors. Angry thunder rumbles across the lake and bounces off mountain walls. Wind and water assault the land with a fierceness that makes my body tense. 

 

I wonder about all those who live in their flimsy structures at the edge of the lake and those who live with hurricanes, holding their breath, wondering if their fragile houses will withstand the unleashed forces of nature. 

 

And, then, like a passing freight train, it’s gone, leaving nothing but a sigh of dripping leaves and then silence. 

 

I feel my body relax, knowing daylight will bring blue skies, clean streets, and a bustle of everyday people going about their everyday lives. 

 

Street reflections from other mornings after the storm.

 

 

19/100

 

Rainbirds of Lake Chapala, harbingers of rain

Click here to hear the rainbirds

One of the first things I heard when I came to the Lake Chapala area was about the rainbirds. Theoretically, when they begin to “sing,” rain is 42 days away. Some of the less fanciful folks say the rain will begin mid-June regardless of the rainbirds. And, some rather harsh locals insist that they are neither birds, nor do they sing.

Admittedly, now that I’ve heard them, I would have to agree that few would call this singing and apparently the “birds” are Lake Chapala’s form of cicadas coming out of their long hibernation. Apparently the males flex their tymbals (drum-like organs on their abdomens) to make a sound somewhat like someone learning to play a one-stringed violin. (Click under the picture above to see if you would call this a song.)

In looking for more information about rainbirds and the weather here in this paradise billed as the second-best climate in the world, I found:

     - May is the hottest month, mainly in the upper 80s with a few 90s thrown into this largely unairconditioned land. However, the humidity is in the 30s so it’s dry heat and cools off at night to 60-70.

     - Rain starts in mid-June and mainly falls at night. (How civilized.) The mountains turn green, flowers flourish and the temperatures stay in the mid-70s to 80 through September. Sunsets are spectacular.

     - Sometimes tropical storms hover over the area, hiding the sun for three or four days, during which time everyone goes into a state of sun-deprived depression.

     - During the tropical storms, the winds play musical furniture with everything that isn’t tied down. 

     - From October through April, the weather is spring like with almost no rain but lots of snow ... birds.

More lake trivia:

Lake Chapala, from the Nahuatal word chapalal meaning the sound of water splashing on a sandy shore, is 50 - 70 miles long and 15-20 miles wide. It was formed 12 million years ago and was 7 times larger than it is now, covering the current city of Guadalajara. Mammoth fossils have been found in the lake bed.