Thoughts

Images:
1-3 Island Totem Skidaway, 2025
Sheath core warp, recycled
Mylar balloons and dry cleaning hangers


TOTEM TRANSFORMATION

This week of gratefulness began months ago
when a friend asked for a weaving for their
sanctuary on Skidaway Island,
where their family would gather for Thanksgiving.

Island folk have a certain bond,
a special relationship, especially when it comes to the water. 

We all collect Mylar balloons from the beaches of fire island and my
dharma, ever since I was a wee little one, was to protect the water. 
Never keeping the water running while brushing my teeth…

So, no surprise when I saw all these battered
mylar balloons washing up on the beach,
I would grab them, primarily to
keep the waters clean of them.

Then my awareness kicked in and I realized I could weave them. 

Wire Hangers from the Dry Cleaners had been an obsession as well.

So I collect them, and thanks to many friends near and far, I receive
nice bundles for my weavings.

Transformation of materials has also been an obsession.
A priori knowledge between material transformation
and meditation transformation
is an alchemy that I look at on a daily basis. 

There is so much around us that can be reused. 
Weaving, like meditation, when firmly rooted
and done consistently, settles the mind.

Happiness emerges when we settle the mind,
first on the gross level,
by doing our 2 x a day practice. 

Weaving, on a subtle level — when I see the alchemic qualities of the 
materials turn from something on a gross level into something on a 
subtle level, after being cut and woven into a piece — brings pure joy.
 
Also recognizing that the consistent practice 
of both meditation and weaving brings about
stability, organizing power, perfect orderliness, infinite creativity.  

All aspects of the excavation process that happens in our daily 
meditation ritual. 

On an aspirational level, I am not only helping our dear planet 
and water by cleaning it up,
but also by transforming materials into works of beauty that
can be shared with my friends and family members.

For this I am truly grateful. 

11.23.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Images:
1. Found-Mylar-from-the-beach Weaving,
from water to air Close-up
2. Frame loom 

PERSISTENCE 

From Being to Becoming…

From less aware to more aware. 
Consciousness loves a story. Consciousness wants a story. 

Trickles of water from the top of the mountain turns into rivulet,
then a creek; it twists and turns and becomes a river…
All water moves toward the ocean. 
It gets there through gravity, inexorably. 

It meets obstacles, then works its way around them.  
The river collects more and more ‘me’ ness…
The river becomes wider, more voluminous.
A mighty river becomes placid, then becomes one with
the ocean.  

Do we want to be a serpentine river
or a concrete canal — a straight line
to the ocean?  
Or do we want to go through a process?

From one story into another story…
self moving through to the Self.
Gaining more knowledge.  

In order to grow more, we look around our lifestyle and decide
how we can get more ‘me’ ness out of this life.  

Recognizing that this weaving is complex, not easy, time consuming. 
At the same time, it’s a life-supporting activity
that allows me to listen to 
incredible podcasts. Get my twice-a-day practice in. 
Explore the journey of my thoughts.

Falling in love with how the ocean now meets the sky. 
As I weave and create.
 
Letting go of my old self, wanting to get things done as quickly as I can.
My individuality jumping in and racing through the process.  
What is the rush? Why do we rush?
The process is being persistent in the journey, the habit 
of making. Not destroying, not criticizing myself. Why do I pick detritus?
What is the reason for this, from trash to treasure?
From scrappy to beauty.

Enjoying the journey and habit of creating. Allowing myself to be the 
river on its journey to the ocean.  

Allowing the weaving to be the growth that I need
at exactly the right time.
Graceful natural innocence in the making.  
Not overthinking… but allowing the weaving
to unfold in the different stories woven into the piece
through this time-honored tradition.

Weaving… the interlacing of all things.

11.16.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Images:
WEAVING IN PROCESS
1. 9-foot Frame Loom
2. Close-up of woven Mylar balloons

Spontaneous Right Action  

Spontaneous Right Action… What?

It’s hard to discern sometimes, if everything
is going in the right direction.  
As individuals, we get caught up with
everything going according to plan,
and when this doesn’t happen, we get entangled with: “how did 
this situation get to this place?” 

Each new weaving requires a set of tools for producing. 
For this particular piece, a frame loom was made.
The warp was applied, end knots were put in both top and bottom. 
Weaving commenced. 

In the Vedic Worldview we look for 
the flexible flow in each and every situation.
When we are “in the Flow” it means everything is flowing easily,
like the river flows to the ocean. 

As this story goes, this weaving will be the reflection
of its surroundings —  the mighty Atlantic.
Using the mylar balloons found on the beaches of the Atlantic. 
Connecting the piece with its surroundings.
All seemingly going in the right direction.

Selecting the weft material, cutting and preparing the balloons, 
I used a 9-ft lease stick (which I had
made by a woodworker in Brooklyn) 
to open the shed for a simple tabby weave.  
I then keep that lease stick in place to use every other weft insertion…

I then started the next lease stick insertion and found that every other 
mylar insertion took about an hour to complete.

My individuality popped in and the internal interrogations began…
How did I not think of this?
I had, but simply thought “it will be fine”…
What I didn’t think about 
was how that start and stop
hindered me from the flow of the process.
How do I get to the right place,
to support the process of evolution rather than damage it? 

I manage to do my regular 2x a day meditation.
How can I manage this?
Simply get out of the way of myself, my thoughts, my frustrations.  

Slip into your practice and the connection to all things. 
In meditation… you will 
receive the hint of what to do.  

Thanks to the help from my two assistants,
Rebekah and Eve, we created 9-ft shed rods to shift the warp yarns.  

The Right Action is happening. 
How is it flowing in your life?

11.09.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Images:
June Leaf at the Grey Art Museum
Shooting from the Heart 
1. Wire Sculpture
2. Painting 
3. Portrait of June Leaf


From Memory 

The mind, highly alert and intelligent, can get caught in moments.  
At any given time.

Memory filled with familiarity when entering into a space
and seeing something, or hearing a song,
takes us quickly to a time before that happened.  
 
Deeply embedded in our senses,
impulses of memory get triggered. 

Some can be devastating and paralyze us
and some can be held on a moment.  
Letting the memory bubble up and recognizing it for what it is/was.  

A PTSD moment, PCC moment, a dreamy familiar deja vu moment.
A memory fond and filled with wonder.

It’s this embodied chemistry that gets uprooted
in our daily meditation practice in the form
of thoughts, images, 
that gives us the opportunity
to remember and to hold on to or to let them go! 
They are not us. They are in us. 

They can come in the form of feelings, images,
sounds that can tap into our deep senses, that 
allow us to uncover the meanings and let us evolve.  

Familiarity filled my body when I traipsed into the
Grey Museum this week in Cooper Square
to see the June Leaf show.  

I went see this show, as my parents talked about June Leaf throughout
my life. We had a small studio with its own bathroom connected to the 
garage at our house in IL.
Random people stayed from time to time when I was wee little.
We had students, artists, Rabbis going through school
that needed a spot. 

These memories come flooding in,
deeply embedded in our physiology.
Some more intense than others. 

June’s metal sculptures were all so whimsical and light.  
I recognized the image shown here of the people.
Bingo… a copy of this rested in our living room.
I sent a snap to my brother to verify and we chatted about
the people that stayed in our house and the studio.  

It was the memory of my parents having small moments of time
with this lady that struck me.  
And getting a glimpse of her work on the easel
through the screen door.
She was kind and quiet and would say I could come in…
This mysterious woman with the beautiful name, June Leaf. 

11.02.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Images:
New works in the making…
1. Threading the floor loom 
2. Weaving the selvedge on the frame loom 

Fresh Start 

Each day brings about a Fresh Start.
Like each weaving on different looms
feels different.
You get a clean slate each time you begin a new weaving
and each time that you meditate. 

I recognize each day when I wake up for my morning meditation
that it feels different.
Some days it’s a pokey meditation…
in which I look at my clock multiple times,
while other times it goes like a snap.
I attribute each of these meditations to be an elaborate 
sequencing of what I experienced the day before,
now playing out in my present day’s activities.
Eating too late in the evening, the change of the weather,
getting a long massage, 
walking 20,000 steps, getting a good sleep.
Over scheduling.
Simply Energy flowing.  
 
All contribute to how the practice goes.
Both in the morning and 
in the late afternoon practice, it’s always different.  
 
The creation of anything follows a definite procedure.
Changing the weave pattern, or materials is one thing.
But the structural change seems to have an unchanging basis.
Like being woven on the floor loom or a frame loom.   
Ever-changing creation of infinite variety seems to be grounded on 
some stable plane of existence. (the loom) 
Like the infinite number of galaxies in the vast structure of cosmic
space seem to move according to a definite plan.  

Things change — like every meditation.  
Things change — with each weave structure,
Things change — like the movement of the sky each hour we look at it…
but have you noticed,
the incessant change itself seems to have some unchanging basis?  

It’s really our approach to the Fresh Start of each day,
each creation, each walk we take.
By meditating twice each day,
we put the grounded structure in place
that allows for change to occur.
Each meditation allows us to tap into ourselves
to our true state of being… 
Once there, there is spontaneous support
from all the laws of nature… 
Let the mind go there… 
Let change happen and see where it takes you.
Try looking at things from a clean slate and a fresh start.

10.19.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com