Thoughts

Images: Photographs of the Five Elements, Illinois

Nature’s Beauty

Spending time in the surroundings I grew up in. 

It had been 46 years
since being here on my birthday.
Thank you all for the wonderful wishes.

The five elements stood out so proudly.
 
The elements so much more evident now, after training in Vedic Meditation. 
The subtle cues of Nature’s natural reflection.  Always giving and providing.

The EARTH so proudly displaying
the abundance of corn and soybeans, thanks to the rain,
the coolness and the sun.
The rich earth so nourishing.
The trees rooted in the earth, so strong and shade-providing. 

WATER as refreshing as ever and enjoyable to jump into.
Watching the children splash and share their skills in swimming.
In fishing, in catching turtles.
Forever entertaining.
Its reflection at night’s end, the beautiful ripples
and textures, the endless entertainment. 

The SUN heating the air and providing hours of beauty and engagement.
The sunset where my father and I would go each summer evening as a child
to watch it set. Every evening different than before.
Its brightness and vision. So consistent,
always on time. Reliable as you rise and as you set.

The WIND with the subtle breezes coming over the wheat and corn fields.
Cooling us down and keeping us refreshed. 

And the SPACE above, around and over the lake and land,
so elegantly executed by Nature’s natural beauty.  
Over the fields. It shows us expansion,
it shows us symmetry and asymmetry and diversity.  


The combination of all 5 elements at one time
is mesmerizing…
as the sun reflects on the water
underneath the canopy of the trees
creating a visual rhythm of beauty
as the trees gently move in the breeze
in the space around us.
So precious and engaging.  
The immensity of sounds from the birds chirping,
the train in the far distance
and the woodpeckers pecking.

As peaceful and magical and forever changing, as time rolls by us.
Each moment precious.
So take the time. 

Grateful for the abundance of beauty in what Nature provides. 
Sharing some soothing time not listening to the news.
Soaking up Nature’s beauty for a minute.

06.29.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Image: Floating Warp Geometry, 1980
Linen, cotton, wool and rayon

IT’S ABOUT CHANGE

As a weaver, it always starts with the warp.
I remember distinctly picking out this linen warp to weave.
I was not stable enough, at the time, to know
what I wanted to weave until I began the weaving.
I knew the size.
But not the pattern.
So many options, so many ideas. 
I realized right away that I wanted to show the warp openly;
I had never done that before.
How could I adapt, then, to all the colors and textures
I wanted to weave,
how would I secure the structure and how do I integrate everything together? 
What makes sense…
How can I create a weaving showing the purity
of the materials and have order and geometry?  
All of this can be paralyzing.
There was always a willingness to grow and learn.
So I wove and built a new geometry.
I did unweave a bit here and there
until I got it the way I wanted.

As Vedic Meditators, we need to check in on 5 principles
of Evolution, to ensure that we are not regressing in any way.
That we are going in the direction of progressive change.
We wish to have optimal growth.  
We want our lives to be the byproduct of our right actions.
These five elements need to be embraced for optimal growth
to higher states of consciousness:

STABILITY gives us the capacity to grow our capabilities.
A product of the grounded mind. This comes from Vedic Meditation.
ADAPTABILITY is having adaptive responses to demands
or changes in expectations without wanting to flee.
INTEGRATION means being able to integrate our lives
into new innovative useful knowledge that
enhances our repertoire of capabilities. 
PURIFICATION is letting go of rigid attachment to irrelevant ways
of behaving that are no longer helpful and are holding us back. 
WILLINGNESS TO GROW means having a willingness
to look at new ways of doing things that embrace the need of the time.

In my art and life, I now go through a checklist.
Is my warp Stable.
Is the weaving going to adapt to the setting.
Is everything integrating beautifully.
Is there a purity in the language.
Am I willing to change.

06.22.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Image: Artificial Heart Artery Prototypes 

Strong Hearts Prevail 

Our hearts are there to be felt.  
That’s why there are so many songs written.
Healing hearts, breaking hearts and hearts of gold…
Heart Arteries supply blood to the heart. 

I was asked to come up with concepts for weavings
using recycled Heart Artery material.  
This was uniquely the year of my formal meditation 
training, that took me to India for the 3rd time and the year Covid hit.  
Turned out to be good timing (work wise),
to be there in training for 3 1/2 months, that would change my physiology and world.

Needless to say, the Weaving commission project was
lost in the heaviness Covid brought,
which also changed everyone’s world as we knew it.  

At the time, I was questioning the mechanics of the practice of Vedic Meditation… and how would I teach it? 
How would I explain the benefits? 
Forever seeking the knowledge of what is
really happening each time we meditate. 

What was noticed right away was that my physical
health improved.  
I didn’t get the headaches that plagued 
me for years.  
Instead of compression that I felt in my heart and head
or a droopiness in my heart
(Weavings portray my sensations),  
I recognized my mental potential became more clear.
I perceived more “aha moments.”  
Connecting my feelings, by recognizing
what was really happening.  

By releasing stress,
which is what we are doing each time we meditate,
it makes us more conscious. 

Recognizing that those repetitive feelings of discomfort
are unsustainable and cause more stress.  
A job, a relationship, diet, career…
When you meditate, it will be harder to maintain them
if they are causing you so much stress.
Because your heart simply isn’t in it.
We only have a certain amount of adaptation energy
to sustain something that is unsustainable.  

Meditation gives you that platform
to recognize what is unsustainable.  

Weaving pulls me into metaphoric connections
with what’s happening and how I’m feeling.  
Meditation is the key to unharnessing the unsustainable. 

Tap into your heart. 
Learn to Meditate.

06.15.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Image: Subtle Stria
Subtle Stria, made from Recycled Garment waste, 2025.
LUUM Textiles 

Beauty in the Subtlety

The stars are subtle yet they shine.  
They are there when you have the presence of mind to admire them.  
Usually in the quietness of an evening stroll, a solo venture.  

This will be the first NeoCon in 44 Years that I will not be attending…
My Collection Unified Field
will be shown at Luum, 311 North Green St., 7th Floor, June 9-11, Chicago, IL

There are some beauties in this launch.  A velvet, Oblique Argyle,
a recycled garment waste stripe named Forward Motion.
With a solid to coordinate named aptly, Stability. 

I want to bring your attention to the subtlest in the collection,
named Subtle Stria.
For its beauty in the subtle.
And the color palette, along with its sustainable story.

Reading a chapter in MMY’s The Science of Being and Art of Living.  
It describes how the mind works through its knowledge of the senses in reaction to an object. 

When one speaks inwardly and the mind hears, it is because the mind associates itself with 
the subtle level of the sense of hearing. 

These days, we are being saturated by image after image. 
When one sees…
Our eyes are open, the mind associates itself with the open eyes and 
connects with the object before it.
Then our senses in the form of feelings are in play.
Like, dislike, too subtle, not strong enough. Just right.

In weaving, one doesn’t transcend the mind from thinking, whereas one does in meditation. 
The subtlety of the selection of what comes next is organized by our senses.
What yarn, color and texture…

In meditation, when we allow our mind to move beyond the organ of speech,
it experiences subtler states of thought;
this turns into a feeling of charm, and as charm increases,
the subtle layers of happiness increase. 
It’s in the subtle that true happiness exists.

The Statement fabrics are great! But the Subtle ones are sublime.

This week as you walk through Fulton Street and the mart,
see what stars stick out in your senses.
And enjoy the beauty of the collective.
I will be with you in consciousness.
Send pics from the Luum showroom : )

06.08.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Image: Still Life
Golden Rule, 2024. Mylar Balloons.
PLEASE, 2016.
Sébastian De Ganay and John Baldessari Chair
Sail Cloth, 2002.
Woven Fiber Optics Collaboration with Harry Allen
Small copper basket from course with Gary Trentham 
Plant from my drycleaners xoxo
Reflection of Noguchi lamp

Bliss is the other side of Grief 

This week a student said she was experiencing
moments of bliss in her meditation
and outside of her meditation.   
Last night on a mentoring session with my teacher,
Thom Knoles,
Shri 1008 Mahamandaleshwar Maharishi Vyasanand Giri,
he discussed the metaphysical description of Bliss,
as being Supreme inner contentedness.  
The mind falls into a constant saturation of happiness.
And the mind can’t conceive of anything beyond that Beingness.  
He then said, “Bliss is not Blissful. It’s not ecstatic happiness.”
We discussed…
when you experience Bliss, the product is Silence.
Bliss does not emerge from Silence. 
Silence is a conscious mind, and it emerges from Bliss.

This is easier said than done.  
When we sit in the Still Life of our space and meditate,
the vibrational quality of the mantra
takes us to the quiet part of our Being
and drops us off there.
The dedication to the twice-a-day practice
allows for transformation to occur,
that can then manifest into feelings of Bliss.  

I inquired about Grief.
As I am experiencing my share of it,
along with many of my friends and students.  

Grief, on the other hand, is caused by a missing,
a vacuum, an absence that nags at us.
The mind comes up with thought after thought
and answer after answer as to why
this happened or that happened.
Grief is a working attempt to gain supreme inner contentedness.
It creates much thinking, too much nagging.  
Therapists give way to work through all manners
of the thinking process
that can bring some sense of solace.
 
Meditation can help by stilling our lives. 
Grieving is like a turbulent river, looking to flow
into the ever-open ocean of awareness.  

Where Meditation can take us to the deeper layers
in the ocean, to the stillness.  

And once we feel that subtle layer of Bliss.  
We know we are getting there.

06.01.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com