this is to mother you

tonight i heard emmylou harris sing this song under the moon and stars at the mountain winery in saratoga, california. i had never heard it before. i couldn't believe the beauty of it.

"This is to mother you
To comfort you and get you through
Through when your nights are lonely
Through when your dreams are only blue
This is to mother you
This is to be with you
To hold you and to kiss you too
For when you need me I will do
What your own mother didn't do
Which is to mother you
All the pain that you have known
All the violence in your soul
All the 'wrong' things you have done
I will take from you when I come
All mistakes made in distress
All your unhappiness
I will take away with my kiss, yes
I will give you tenderness
For child I am so glad I've found you
Although my arms have always been around you
Sweet bird although you did not see me
I saw you
And I'm here to mother you
To comfort you and get you through
Through when your nights are lonely
Through when your dreams are only blue
This is to mother you."

the fire that holds it all

three times my life has opened

by: jane hirshfield

"three times my life has opened.

once, into darkness and rain.

once, into what the body carries at all times within it and starts to remember each time it enters the act of love.

once, to the fire that holds all.

these three were not different.

you will recognize what i am saying or you will not.

but outside my window all day a maple has stepped from her leaves like a woman in love with winter, dropping the colored silks.

neither are we different in what we know.

there is a door. it opens. then it is closed. but a slip of light stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor, or the one red leaf the snow releases in march."

-from her 1997 collection: "the lives of the heart"

the sweetest cookie

woopi, cookie and me outside of the children's library that woopi got up and running this spring in her apartment complex. it's beautiful. a group of women volunteer and over 100 kids use it after school and on the weekends. it's a wonderful resource for the community. woopi was very proud to bring me there and show me what she had created! "and i don't get paid," she kept saying!

hanging out with the kids

group photo before saying farewell
we went for sushi with one of woopi's fellow library volunteers and her two girls...soooo cute!
cookie and i jammin' with our microphones all the way to the mountains
waiting for the gondola to arrive so we could hitch a ride up the mountain...cookie was pretty nervous.
scary gondola ride up to the top of apsan (a mountain in the middle of daegu)
woopi and her best friend from high school and her friend's husband

in the restaurant on top of apsan overlooking a smoggy day in daegu

sweet cookie...


kissing cookie


woopi and her boys



with woopi and her husband

the lady of the snakes

"Little pink dress, hanging by her knees
Just overhead on the old trapeze
In the old tent tonight, spotlight going round
One of these nights the old girl's going down
Hallelujah, the old girl's going down

She started with us on the back of a horse
Just seventeen and already divorced
She took to the air with the greatest of ease
Like she was born to be gliding on the old trapeze

Some people don't care if they live or they die
Some people want to know what it feels like to fly
Gather their courage and they give it a try

Some guy broke her heart and how her heart it did ache
So she went to the tent of the lady of the snakes
Who gave her a potion and she drank it in
After that her heart never ached again
After that her heart never ached again

Some poeple don't care if they live or they die
Some people want to know what it feels like to fly
Gather their courage and they give it a try
Fall under the wheels of a time goin' by

Little pink dress, hanging by her knees
Just overhead on the old trapeze
In the old tent tonight, spotlight going round
One of these nights the old girl's going down

Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah
Hallelujah"

-"Trapeze" by Patty Griffin

all we can do

"Grief will come to you.
Grip and cling all you want,
It makes no difference.

Catastrophe? It's just waiting to happen.
Loss? You can be certain of it.

Flow and swirl of the world.
Carried along as if by a dark current.

All you can do is keep swimming;
All you can do is keep singing."

-From How Beautiful the Beloved by Gregory Orr

"dance when you're broken open...dance when you're perfectly free" - rumi

"i'm not just dancing,
i'm dismembering muscular memory
and shaping things to come."

-jewel mathieson

all the time

"sometimes i go about pitying myself, when all the time i am being carried on great winds across the sky."

-ojibway wisdom

castles in the sand

a group of us from yeungnam university hopped on the train to busan last sunday for the haeundae beach sandcastle fest...and the opening night performances of the 5th annual busan international dance festival. upon arrival, we met up with a few friends who live in busan.

christina sandwich!
"stop nuclear war"
totoro




watering the sand!


gorgeous shot, matthew!
pegasus rides again....the stage set up for the dance festival, right on the beach
heaven...i'm in heaven.

love the little visor!
heather, jen and t dippin' their toes in!
so happy to be at haeundae!
the east sea
christina brought along a couple of games for us to try out on the beach. a cambodian version of hacky sac and a rope! the possibilities were endless! and the laughs too!


heather showin' off her rock star hacky sac moves!
as sarah would say, "j-fo, summoning her powers!"


chris and sarah - "stay down, gurl, stay down!"
ROPE GAME:
(in matthew's words)
"wrap rope half way around one person's waist, then feed the rope towards person two diagonally. again, wrap the rope half way around the waist. each person holds onto the rope with one hand. goal of the game, throw your opponent off balance without moving your feet and only using one hand to hold the rope. loads of fun."
heather and christina
pablo plagued with the giggles!
we finally got him to play, as he'd been watching our silliness with a big grin for quite a while!
and she's going, going....gone! finally, someone took down the reigning champion!


i will NOT go down!






sarah...aka: gumby
booty power!

i get such a kick out of the formality of beach attire here!

we had quite a few onlookers as we played our beach games!


a picture worth a thousand words
pablo and i sippin' on some complimentary drinks while waiting at outback steakhouse for an order to go!
a beautiful boat on the sea...gorgeous scene...and an extraordinary, balmy summer night.
hyun ja kim and korea art dance company - "sea"


in ja park ballet - "fantasy"



the canadian tap dancers (ZOGMA)


dance group from chicago - "hopelandic"


hong kong's city contemporary dance company "365 ways of doing and undoing orientalism"




australia's expressions dance company - "raw"