Art Therapy for Broads Abroad : Love Circles : Exercise #8

::If your sister hits you, don't hit her back.  Parents always catch the second person.:: 
- Michael, age 10

As odd as it may sound, Michael's parents have taught him a very important resiliency skill.  The last six years in Texas, I worked exclusively with very high risk kids in extremely tough home situations.  The laws that we all believe are meant to protect children, unfortunately leave them vulnerable to some very distorted dynamics.  In twenty-five years of counseling, only four children, who were being physically and/or sexually assaulted in their homes, were ever fully protected. 

Acknowledging this fact, that legally we protect families, i.e., especially adult males, over children's welfare, was desperately heartbreaking for me.  With limited alternatives, The Little Level 5 Tornadoes that came to the alternative elementary school where I counseled, helped me create some very fun projects that taught them how to survive their experiences.  

Today's Secret Message of Love: I trust myself!

Love Circles © News From A Broad, 2012

with special thanks to the Super Heroes Power Club founders : Kenny, Karen, Jessie, Sam, and Alli, the bravest kids in The Universe!

Materials:

• Scissors
• Any circle form, from a Hula Hoop to a large embroidery hoop (interior portion only)
• Fabric : For a Hula Hoop, 12 t-shirts : For embroidery hoop, 12 large fabric napkins, bandanas, or 2 t-shirts.  

NOTE: Different colors and textures will make the Love Circles POP!

 

Process:

Create the Warp

• For a Hula Hoop, using a large t-shirt, cut just under the arm pits.  Cut the tube into 1" strips.  These will be stretched over the hoop.  For an embroidery hoop, cut a large bandana into 1" strips.  These will be tied onto the embroidery hoop.
• For a Hula Hoop, begin stretching the tube 1" strips over the hoop, creating a cross initially, continuing until approximately 10-12 tubes are stretched evenly around the hoop.  For an embroidery hoop, tie each end of each 1" strip, end-to-end until you have 10-12 strips tied to the hoop.  
• Make sure the strips are tight.  In both cases, your warp will look like spokes on a bicycle tire.

Create the Weft

• For a Hula Hoop, cut the rest of your t-shirts under the arm pits, open up one seam, and cut 1" strips.  For an embroidery hoop, cut the remaining napkins or bandanas into 1" strips.
• Gathering any two warp loops in the center, tie one end of a 1" strip onto this point.
• Weave into a tight spiral.
• Overlap the next strip, and continue until the spiral is complete.

Options:
Added touches:

• Use beautiful yarns as the warp or weft
• Tie trinkets, like sea shells or beads, onto your Love Circle

Conclusions:
Our most sacred shape is the circle.  The are found in nature, in sacred spaces around the world, and as a mathematical function for understanding the chaotic order of the Universe.  Use the Broad Dream Notes as a guide for processing this exercise.

Create the life you want!

The Broad  
 

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Importing Household Goods : Was It Worth It : Part 3 of 3

::If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.:: 

- Sir Ken Robinson
The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

This is part 3:3 in the series.  Part 1 : Part 2

 

Last Saturday, at 1 a.m., five men, myself, and two teen girls with their mother supervising, brought the contents of my Austin, Texas 10' x 10' x 10' storage unit of household goods, safely from a 40' shipping container into my tiny Merida, Mexico house!  

By 2 a.m., surrounded by thirty-five 30 gallon totes, 9 canvas Space Bags, 5 cardboard boxes, and 22 pieces of furniture,  Manuel, aka Lolo, my contractor, and his apprentice, Yoyo, sat at my kitchen table drinking strong New Orleans French roast coffee with chicory, while I prepared my first full meal in my new home.  Our celebratory breakfast consisted of baked bacon, an omalette, and sliced strawberries with powdered sugar, all prepared in my REAL cookware, in my REAL kitchen!  

One of the most wonderful aspects of shipping from one country to the another, is that every item must be catalogued.  With my list in hand, I knew exactly which numbered tote went into which room of the house, and where to immediately find anything I wanted.  Locating my cookware was a snap!

In addition to every box being numbered, My "How-To" process for packing involved using the color and size of the totes to help with the organization.  The advantage of this system allowed the movers to easily recognize where each group of items were to be placed in the house.  Words, like "kitchen" or "bedroom", written on the sides of the totes or boxes would have been worthless as my Mexican friends read little English.  Here is an example of my system for my studio items:

LARGE PURPLE TOTES

1. Sewing thread box (clear plastic), vapor filter mask, light green silverware box filled with 40 tubes of acrylic paint, paper for collage in plastic folder, Buddah concrete garden plaque by Tina, retablos, marble cutting board  with taped Xacto knife and blades.
2. Under cabinet radio/cd player, 4 metal frames with mats, portfolio images in bound black zipped binder, 8 glassware containers filled with various art supplies such as chaulk, pens, paint brushes, zippers, etc..
3. Various art supplies, including iron, fabric, Velcro, box display, four painted cubes ("small conversation",  three plaster works ("I love you" & "belly button lint"), five plaster pieces ("yo, mama") 

This system allowed the broker to identify every item on the manifest very quickly, reducing delays at port.  As I live in a very large and busy city, the 40' shipping containers arrival during early morning hours was an attempt to limit the obstruction of the street to through traffic.  By placing a coordinating color construction paper sign in each room of my house, the movers knew immediately where to place every item, allowing us to more than meet the one hour window I was given for unloading the container.   

Someone recently asked me how many people were involved in my move.  Logistically, the two primary agencies were the port-to-port company and the brokerage company.  However, when the time actually came to take the items to port, a third entity appeared, namely, the shipping container drivers.  In the mix were the port authorities, the schedulers, and the many people who helped me load the container in Austin, and unload the container in Merida.  If I include moving the items from my Austin home into the storage unit, unpacking several times to better organize the items, in total, my items were heavily handled 3 times by 15 different people.  Amazingly, when I unpacked, only three items were broken.  

Random thoughts as I unpacked my shipping container "gifts":

• Two years is a long time to be without a home
• Oh, that's for when Nancy, Marlene, Lynette, Rhonda, Sophia, Joan and Barbara come over for lunch.  I  knew I bought a table for 8 for a reason!  
• Patrick and Forrest, our stuff is here in Mexico! Come help your mother unpack.
• OMG, why did I pack that!
• WOW! I have more art than I remembered packing.
• I've really made this happen!

Thank you Universe for keeping me safe and out of my own way.

Create the life you want!
The Broad


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Importing Household Goods : H U G E : Part 2 of 3

::I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin. And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.:: - Shauna Nieguist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life

This is 2:3 in the series.  Part 1 : Part 3

I'm a big believer in creating the life you want.  Only issue is that I am more practiced at guiding others through that process.  When I began the dismantling aspect of this journey, I also implemented some rigid rules for myself.  The first rule grew out of using the Four Agreements as a guide for increasing resiliency.  I've described the method I used in Power of Words : Affirming Intention.  As much as I can, I make every effort to avoid gossip, and that includes gossiping about myself.  It isn't necessary to share every trauma inducing aspect of your life to connect with another human being.  There are at least two head-on collisions that will result from this: You will be judged, making you feel like crap, and you will be colluding with people who may not be healthy.  


For at least the first six months of living abroad, I broke all of my own rules.  Nothing was stable and there was no context for stability.  Even though I had visited my beach village half a dozen times, I had no connections.  Everyday I considered packing up my car and driving back to Austin.  Knowing this was not unusual for a newly landed expatriate, I asked my friends back home to support my efforts in three month increments.  


The biggest shift came when I bought my house.  I was going to have stability, and over the next six months, I established strong connections with some very loving people.  Research has shown that having at least one major relationship in your life will bring you into healthy alignment.  Considering that the stress of moving abroad has been likened to the death of a spouse, I'd say grab as many friends as you can.  The support is important for all of you.  


Back to the HUGE aspect of my journey.  During the year I was forced to wait, I lost a major relationship, was in a complex legal battle, and continued to counsel middle and high school students with high levels of trauma.  The up-side is that I had one more year with my children and friends, time to process what I was doing, and grieve my lovely home for the next few months.  

Just after the house sold, I discovered that I had some major health issues.  It may seem counter-intuitive to walk away from a job with decent health insurance when one is facing serious medical concerns.  Staying in Austin was not an option.  I knew that I would not be able to break the patterns that were sustaining disease there.  With faith folded into a neat package and  packed into my back pocket, I drove into Mexico in ignorant bliss.  

"My will be damned" is how I refer to those years before I actually moved abroad.  No matter what I did, I was making no forward movement towards the life that was waiting for me.  I was forced to realize that every moment was, instead an important step towards actualizing this dream of myself.  Now, in Mexico, when something is requiring too much effort, I sit back and accept that it probably isn't meant to be part of my destiny.  If I'm uncertain, I have that small expatriate tribe to call upon.  "My blessed life" has fully returned.


So, did I will my allotted household goods into Mexico or was it a smooth transaction?  Next installment in 24 hours!

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