This is part of a series I am working on painting the Spirits in the land. This is the Goddess of the Dreaming Cave...The Dreaming Cave represents the womb where anything can be created with seeds planted by our thoughts...... 

Here is one of my latest paintings. I will refrain from explaining it...just let it live the life it needs to. I have gone into a real quiet space since my surgery. Lots of things moving...and lots of questioning about my art...I feel scattered, feel like things are falling apart so something new can grow...and I am just trying to breath my way through it, not resist, and accept....yes....

Shamanic Path to Creativity

For years I have worked with a nature based ceremony. Some may call it shamanism, but I do not. Actually, I don’t even like using that word, because it comes from other cultures. Alchemy is a better word considering my family heritage and culture. I believe in going within, discovering the stuff that keeps me from expressing my True Self, and through different techniques, transforming all that stuff that weighs me down in life, and transforming it into gold or light.

Growing up I was told that becoming an artist wasn’t the best idea. “Try to find another way to make a living.” I did everything I could to shun this path for years, moving from job to job, and being completely miserable in all of them until I finally surrendered to my passion. However, discovering my passion was just the beginning, and it is a journey that I pray I will be on for the rest of my life.

With this new excitement, I began to paint and show, but I kept running into more and more inner roadblocks. I was my worst enemy. People may have liked my work, but I never heard any of it. When I painted, I was always guided by Spirit. However, outside of that, my doubts were ruling the roost.

This is when, on a journey, I was guided to a new place…my Inner Counsel. My times spent with this Inner Counsel transformed my life. We all have these inner councils…they are different aspects of our ego that speak to us…the council says those things that convince us to not take a risk, to wait until everything is perfect, that you can never be as good as anyone else, or that voice that is sure everyone is talking about what a fool you are making of yourself….this is your Inner Council…the Council of Doubts and Fears. The council that makes sure you stay exactly where you are right now. This council of fears make all of your choices, make all of the decisions, and often push away what is good for your life.

Well, I wanted a different Inner Council. I wanted one that is empowered, proactive, creative, imaginative, supportive, adventurous, and passionate. After several years of work, I am ready to teach these alchemical tools to others.

That is what this class is all about….through different techniques, we will create the best tools for you that will help you deal with any problem, that will help you walk through all of those self-imposed roadblocks or imposed by others, help you make choices from an empowered place, and allow you to start creating your life. Some of the things we will learn during the three month course are:

- How to journey

- How to meet your Allies

- Introduction to Soul Retrieval

- Meeting Your Inner Counsel

- Alchemical ways of transforming our fears into our strengths

- Introduction to Ceremony

- Alchemy/Healing Meditations



I will create a private e-mail list for the class where all of the students can share, and where I can post meditations/lessons/thoughts for you to work with. We will meet once a week on-line where I will guide you through your lesson for the week. You will be partnered up with another student from the class for support. We will touch base privately on-line or through e-mail once a week (or more if needed), so I can offer you private instruction and support. Full participation is required for this class, so if you think that you can’t commit to this, maybe wait for another time to try it out. The class costs $60 a month, and I can accept a payment of $30 every two weeks. If you wish to pay for everything up front, you will receive a 10% discount. I can accept payment through Paypal, or through my own merchant account. I accept Visa/MasterCard and American Express. You can also pay me with money orders…whatever works the best for you.


Like I said, this is a three month course that will begin in two weeks. The class size is limited, so if you have any questions, please contact me at istazi@reenchantedearth.com. I can answer any and all of your questions, and I can send you my references.


We will not borrow from anyone else’s culture. Instead, you will connect with the roots of your own heritage.

Hi Everyone, I just want to wish you all a Happy New Years. May it be filled with love and peace. This world is getting crazier every day....My New Year's Resolution is try to bring peace to my community in whatever way I can even if it is just saying prayers and offering smudge smoke...for the people that I am truly struggling with to find compassion for, may they be my teachers of patience and compassion. May I practice loving kindness no matter what the situation may be...I will recycle everything that I can, and we hopefully will be switching to biodiesel here this summer when the plant gets going. I will walk or ride my bike whenever possible as my way of trying to reduce greenhouse gases in honor of my beloved Polar Bears and all of Wakan Tanka's beautiful creations.....We can only dream a new dream by starting out small, and watching it spread like a wildfire...so on New Year's Eve night, I will go out in my garden with a seed of corn from the Holy Corn that was gifted to me at Hopi with these prayers...my prayers for this generation and for the next seven.

This is a painting I did of these beautiful women I saw at Indian Market two years ago. They were watching me as I was watching them. They allowed us to take a picture of them, and we exchanged contact information. As I painted them, I heard John Trudell sing, "We Are The Seven Generations," and this became the name of the painting. The elder is a beautiful woman and a renegade with her rugs.....and she is stern, and she sized me up pretty good. Her daughter was in absolute bliss as she held her beautiful son....and the Grandmother doted on him in a silence that was so gentle and loving....

Please forgive me for not writing of late. I have been without a computer, and then I got a cold. I am almost over it...take care and be safe!

Go San Diego Chargers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I received this image the day after one of my cats died and the morning I found out two of my friends had lost their homes in the California wildfires this past October. I was feeling pretty sad obviously. I had to go to school to work that day (I am a sub), I had no students this one period, so I pulled out my sketchbook, and this image drew itself. The more and more I drew, the more I became enveloped in her, the better I felt. It was a sketch of the Mother Earth's Spirit, and I felt her wrapping her loving arms around all of us...supporting us...and a reconnection. We are so quick to create waste and hurt her, because we are not connected with her. If you meditate with this image, it may help you find that connection.

Change out an incandescent bulb for a fluorescent!

Go for a walk instead of driving

Turn down the air conditioning or the heater by a few degrees

RECYCLE!

This was being passed out in a flyer when I was in Santa Fe a few weeks ago. Wherever you may be, think about this before you go to vote. Think about whether or not your candidate thinks so poorly of us....for me it reminds me of what happened with the Bush Administration and what almost happened with Iran.

Hitler's designated successor, Goering, wrote in his Nuremberg Diary the following: (I never thought I would quote this man)

"Why of course the people don't want war....But after all it is the leaders of the country that determine policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship....voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Remind you of anything?

I have decided that I am not going to say that I am against war anymore. I feel like by doing so, I am entering into the push and pull of an argument similar to that with a friend or a foe. It enables the other person, gives them fuel to keep attacking, to keep proving me and others wrong for their need to be right. Instead, I am simply for peace. My artwork is for peace, for dreaming a new dream. If I am to dream a new dream, I cannot take part in the old battles anymore. This doesn't mean I won't speak my mind, but it will always be for peace and showing where we need to create it or where the seeds of it are being planted.

The fire in San Diego is 0% contained. I don't live in California anymore, but all of my friends do...my mom, my brother and his wife and kids. The fire that was heading towards them split into two different directions. For right now, it seems that my family is safe. However, several of my friends have lost their homes...It is about to burn to the ocean right now up in Oceanside on Camp Pendelton. I don't care what Homeland Security or FEMA says, they don't have enough firefighters. Jamul, where my parents used to take me to visit a friend's farm at least twice a month, is about to go up...Julian, a very historic mining town, one of the places that helped me fall in love with the mountains, and one of the reasons why I live here in the Rockies, is threatened. During the last big fire, they were able to save it. Now I'm not so sure the way the embers are moving around. I grew up with fire, living in San Diego. This isn't unusual. Actually, when I was three there was a huge fire...they were talking about evacuating us on Navy ships. I grew up to be a wildland firefighter. I loved working with fire. It is a living being...I used to tell that to new students, and it is. It will do everything it can to stay alive. It will generate its own storms, and when it does, be careful. That is when it is at its most dangerous point. It is at this point all over Southern California. When it gets to this point, it is absolutely amazing. It leaves you in awe no matter what is happening. The roar is unreal and terrifying. I heard it at a couple of fires here in Colorado from a distance. I heard it up close at the Lost Alamos, New Mexico fire...When you hear it holding that dinky little hose, you realize you are absolutely nothing. You realize how your ego has been lying like crazy to you about your importance. I worked for ten years as a firefighter...Now I am thinking that I should get red carded again, because I should be home helping....

Two of my cats died this week....living in the wilds isn't always safe for cats. My heart is on the ground with everything. I am hoping to to breath. I hope to help my friends in whatever way. My childhood is burning up. I guess it is time for it to change. Nothing lasts forever...not even the mountains or the oceans.

Hi Everyone,

A friend of mine needs surgery, and she is self-employed, so that means she doesn't have insurance yet. The surgery costs $5,000, so I thought I would try to help her by putting some paintings up for auction on ArtByUs and Ebay. 10% of all sales will go to Doctors Without Borders or Wildlife Rescue as well, because I want to keep spreading out the energy of helping those who don't have the help. All of the money raised from these auctions will go to the surgery besides the 10%. I will ship anywhere, and they will come unframed. If you know of anyone that might be interested, could you forward this onto them? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.artbyus.com/auctions.php?a=2&b=176640

http://www.artbyus.com/auctions.php?a=2&b=176671

http://www.artbyus.com/auctions.php?a=2&b=176668

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=290169547003&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=019

Blues and Brews


Well, Blues and Brews is around the corner, so I thought that I would do a couple of paintings of two of my favorite blues musicians. One is of Howling Wolf, who I named my dog Chester after. I found Chester abandoned at a park in Austin, Texas. He was scared to death when I brought him home. He would barely lift his head up to look at me. I decided to put this new Howling Wolf CD on for whatever reason, and he sat up, stared at the speaker with his head tilted to the side, and that is when his personality came to life. Howling Wolf's real name was Chester Burnett.



The painting of Stevie was really difficult and emotionally exhausting for me. I used to work for Texas Monthly Magazine in their New York City office. Once a month I had to call in advertising placements to this wonderful woman, and we became phone buddies. When I went down to Austin, Texas for business, we finally met in person and hung out. Little did I know or really care was that her husband was the drummer for Double Trouble in Stevie Ray Vaughan's band. She told me that the next time they came up to New York for a concert, I should come back stage...well, okay.

A year later it was my 21st birthday, and my dad took me out to one of my favorite Russian restaurants for dinner. He started drinking...he has/had a drinking problem, and he proceeded to get sloshed. He began, for some unknown reason, telling me about his marriage to my mother....how he never loved her, but married her anyway because the invitations were out....then he was going to divorce her, but found out she was pregnant with me...so he was stuck. I was sat there dumbstruck....all of my fears about my childhood were spilled out of my drunken father's mouth. I ran out of there and headed downtown. A friend of mine owned a bar not far from Madison Square Garden, and we decided to create a new drink...well, like my father, I got totally sloshed...beyond sloshed. I hated drinking....never liked alcohol at all....Actually, as I look back at it, I think I was trying to drink myself to death that night.

I guess the owner of the bar sent me home in a limo, and the limo driver carried me up the stairs and left me in my apartment on the floor next to my door. When I woke up, the pain I felt was excruciating and blinding. I couldn't stop throwing up. I was drinking bottle after bottle of pepto, and nothing worked. My friend called asking me where I was and reminding me that he had a surprise for me...to hop on the bus and get into the city. Ride the bus!!!!!!!!!

I somehow made it into the city without throwing up all over everybody on the bus. I somehow climbed into my friend's car and made it back to Jersey to the Meadowlands without dying. I remember praying to die...I had no idea where we were going or what we were doing back in Jersey, especially at the Meadowlands. I couldn't even talk to ask I was so sick. Slowly, we made our way to our seats...fourth row center. I sat there in misery praying for the end of whatever concert I was about to go through. I just wanted to hide in my apartment forever...

Then, it got dark, and then....one note of a bass dropped me to the floor so hard and so fast. I knew exactly who that bass note belonged to....Tommy Shannon. He was the bassist in Double Trouble. My friend brought me to see Stevie Ray Vaughan. Everyone was screaming above me, and I was down on the floor sobbing....Tommy's bass kept vibrating through me until it finally shook all of the sickness out of me. I told him this story a few times...Then I listened to Stevie play...to see him in concert, literally, was a spiritual experience. The way he played was not of this Earth....and then he started talking about his heroine addiction, and how horrible he had felt about himself...and I realized someone knew...I wasn't alone, and I didn't have to drink myself to death or hide in my apartment...he played it all out...and created beauty from it....so now I try to paint it all out I guess.

After he died, I travelled around with Chris from show to show in Austin. His wife asked me to, because she was bedridden for the rest of her pregnancy. I watched a lot of people go up to Chris and Tommy talking, sharing about how Stevie had changed their lives...trying to figure out what to say to make everything better...Stevie used to go to AA meetings and share his story with everyone he could, trying to show them that if he could sober up, they could do it too. People from the Dallas area to this day tell me about when he showed up at their meeting, and how it changed their lives...he was and is an inspiration. For me, he got me started on healing instead of hurting...I am forever grateful to him.

I have no idea if I captured him in this painting or not, but I know that this was one of the most emotionally charged paintings I have ever done.

 

Here are some paintings that I have done for the Taos Arts Festival. I swore that I would never paint the church in Rancho de Taos, because it has been painted and photographed by everyone...Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Ansel Adams and Paul Strand to name a few. When I took Bill there, so he could photograph it, I got sucked in by the lines, those irresistibly seductive curves. The front of the church is like most adobe churches, but the back! The back is phenomenal...the architecture so unique, and the way it captures the New Mexico sun and shadows...Before I knew it, I was sitting down and working away with all of the other artists. I took a bit more of a radical point of view for the paintings, so I am including some pics for you to see what I was looking at!