Thoughts

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

Image: Integrity Matters, 2024.
Sheath core metallic fiber
and Mylar balloons found on the beach.

Integrity Matters – Deck Talk and Meditation

It’s rather hard to define the world today for ourselves.
 
Interpreting the world in equal parts of color was my intention with this weaving.
Blue, red and white. A balance.
Always striving for balance.
An integration, all woven together.

As we enter into the holiday weekend of Memorial Day, we give thanks
to those who have served our country.  
Yes, this country, United, is divided;
but those who served did not have that mindset.
No one was fighting for only one color.  
They were there in unity of all shapes, colors and sizes.
And serving with brothers and sisters alike.
For generations and generations, this is how it was.

Today there are many ways in which we can live our lives.
For those that wish.
We are here on a course filled with spiritual principles
= to serve, to love,
to be friendly and kind.
To Create. To Teach.
To handle things with integrity and humility.  
Surrender and awareness.
And to be aware of those things that don’t serve us.
We want to stay away from the voice of fear and despair.  

Choose a view that allows for creative outlets.
For sharing with others.  
Create the world around you that helps you
feel the love that’s coming from within you.

Join us on Sunday, June 1st at the
Kumah: Rise Up Festival.
I will be there painting, alongside Artist and Signage Protest Artist @juliepeppito, as we prepare for the “No Kings” protest.
From 7-8:30 pm.  
And listen to North African Futurist, Saha Gnawa – jazz  
and Palestinian musician, Zafer Tawil.
This is an all-night festival with poets, artists and thinkers.  
Held at the Theater for the New City, 155 1st Ave.
East Village, NYC

Go to The New Shul website to get tickets:
https://www.newshul.org/kumah-2025 

05.25.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Image: Flash Points, 2022 for the NYC DIFFA by DESIGN Benefit.
Vertical weaving, using tie-on method.
Discarded fabric scraps and discarded mylar.

Flash Points – Deck Talk and Meditation

This weaving throws me back to when I entered the textile industry in the early 80’s.  
(Along with my first forays into a spiritual practice.)
Working on custom fabrics for Boris Krolls’ corporate clients.
Remembering the loss, actually, the disappearance of architects and designers that I was working with on these many projects.  
By the end of the 80’s/early nineties, it became apparent to me that I needed to try something to calm down my senses.
I began my journey into Vipassana.
Then the study of “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying”
to better understand how I could help.

Looking back, I tried so hard to make that meditation practice work for me, but at the time could not find the community of meditators that so many of my friends were finding at the time.
It took me a while to find a practice that was suitable to my working, creative and family life style.
Something easy and effortless, that allowed my mind to stop thinking.
To quiet it down.  
Tamper those flash points to a smolder,
then to extinguish them altogether.
This I found in Vedic Meditation.

One can’t captivate creativity, if caught in the micro
vision that is caused by stress.
Too much stress causes more stress!  
We all know we don’t want to feel the way we are feeling.
Flash points of old history get embedded in our systems,
and it takes some time to allow it to work its way
up and out, by sitting quietly twice a day.
So many students these days say,
“I was doing great with my practice
and then I got really stressed and didn’t practice”!!!  
Those are the moments when we need to make a pact with ourselves to be disciplined.
So we don’t get triggered.

Those flash points were brought out in this weaving,
that still can get triggered inside of us by today’s
political hot spots, that are near and dear to us.

Using the highlighter pink-colored fabric, it reminds me of the flashpoints that were once there and that are now part of my fabric of history.  

05.18.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Image: Passing Over to Liberation, 2024
Torah Parchment, Cochineal Dyed Tussah Silk
Can be seen at:
”The Golden Thread 2: A FIBER ART EXHIBITION”
At The South Street Seaport
207 Front Street (Fulton and Beekman) NYC until May 16th, 2025

Liberation – Deck Talk and Meditation

Liberation comes in many shapes and sizes.
It could be letting go of clothes you’ve had for twenty
years.  
It could be friends or jobs that no longer serve 
the needs you were put on earth to accomplish.

It could be recognizing the patterns or addictions 
and actions or thoughts that are harmful
to ourselves and others, that are being highlighted for deletion.

In all of these cases, settling down your inner self
is THE BEST way to begin that Liberation
process.  
It’s Mental Hygiene! We sit for twenty minutes 
twice a day, clear our slate of accumulated 
daily stresses and rid ourselves of deep-
rooted stresses that are hiding inside, ready to be released.
Our body does not want to hold onto 
unnecessary stress.

My personal liberation in developing the Torah weavings
is to get a better understanding of the roots
I was born into. 
So, I bought a Torah in Williamsburg that was going
to be buried or sold for teaching purposes and
began some study.
My form of liberation from ignorance.
On this particular parsha (portion), Exodus 12:2, is the story of the bloodstained lintels of the doorways
of the firstborn sons, to be protected from
a decree passed down by Pharaoh, the ancient 
Egyptian ruler.
This piece comes from my series of allegorical weavings and is about
liberation from ourselves, from our neighbors, from our captors,
from our bodies.
Upon completing the knots — I counted 164, that make up this piece —
I found this # coincides with the belief
that the higher spirits are
sending a message that you are on the right path.  
Always lovely to get these signs!

If you have a desire to liberate yourself
from the stress that binds you each day.  Keeps you up at night.
Bombards you with self criticism and inner chatter.
And keeps you from your Creative Intelligence…
Let’s discuss the next steps to learning Vedic Meditation.
Reach out. 

info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Image: Burning Horizon, 2024
Sheath Core Fiber and Discarded Mylar Balloons

Burning Horizon

Everyone’s Nature is made up of earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect and ego.
This weaving is a vivid and colorful reflection of what humans are doing to our Universe.
Our burning horizon.

Politics and War continue to emblazon the planet.
Human Spirits and our inner lives and land are Burning.
It’s impossible not to see the correlation of earth and man.
Cause and Effect.
  
While the warming of our climate is allowing water, our most essential element, to rise up and flood places that have never flooded before.
What are we mere earthlings to do?

Our emotions get emblazoned with anger and doused
with sadness and tears.

This weaving is the reminder to do our part in being conscious of
these two very powerful elements.  Water and Fire.

How can we be better conservators of our planet?
How can we be better conservators of ourselves?  
Our egos need to be acquainted with our true Self (Being). 
I have found the best way to get there is to do your twice-a-day
Meditation practice.  
Let’s call it Mental Hygiene.
You would never think twice about leaving the house
without doing your Dental Hygiene
or going to bed without brushing your teeth.  

Mental Hygiene allows for you to clean away the debris of stress that has accumulated in your physiology; and by sitting with your eyes closed, 
you simply let go of all the random thoughts that fill your mind.  

You begin to see what your mind is thinking
and then recognize your part
in the collective consciousness of this world. 
Then, only then, can we improve the trajectory of our lives, our planet and
the celestial. 
And I rest with the knowledge that Creation, Maintenance and Destruction
is always in play.  
After Destruction comes Creation. 
That’s Nature’s Law.

Have a burning desire or simply want to wet your appetite?
Reach out. 

05.04.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com