Thoughts

Images:
Number 3 Yellow, 2026
Woven with upcycled mylar balloons found on the beach at Fire Island

2026
YELLOW FOR OPTIMISM, JOY AND DISPELLING MENTAL GLOOM 

There is nothing like grabbing a bunch of yellow
happy face balloons
amongst an abundance of other gold and yellow balloons,
to begin a new weaving.

Wondering whose fingers held this string
before losing their grip and having the balloon
fly away out of reach.

Or maybe it was a golden celebration of 50 years,
which was delivered
anonymously at my doorsteps.

For me, the need of the time was to take these wonderful
holiday days off and create
another woven square, to add to the blue and coral squares
I had already woven.
My mission this winter is to weave
at least three more, to make a series of 6 squares.
Creating, weaving, listening to
podcasts, taking breaks for cooking, meals
with family and friends.
And of course, twice-a-day Vedic Meditation
practice is my daily routine. 

When I looked up the meaning of Yellow from
the spiritual perspective,
I found, in Hindu, it signifies Purity, knowledge, prosperity,
and is the color representative of Lord Vishnu!!
Woooo I thought.
Hadn’t seen that coming.

From my training in India, we know that Lord Vishnu
represents the Maintenance Operator,
one of the three qualities of the Evolutionary Process.
Evolutionary means progressive change… Change
that occurs in a way that causes progression.
Creation, Maintenance and Destruction.

So, in the Maintenance Operator role,
for evolution to be evolutionary,
forms and phenomena have to pass
a test of relevance.

Since Vishnu is represented by yellow,
and is the personification of the Maintenance Operator,
he maintains and protects and sustains
the existence of anything
that is relative.

My process of deduction is this…
It feels so relevant to be sharing this
bright yellow optimistic weaving
at this time,
as we ponder what’s coming next
in the months and year to come… 
That I’m getting that nudge from Nature saying…
Yellow was the right next color for the time. 

Wishing you all a Happy New Year
of Optimism and Joy.
And maintaining only what is relevant
in your lives right now.

01.04.2026 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Images:
New Weave trials with Wire Hangers

Creating Something New / 
Creating Something Different

Recently, I presented a weaving for a possible commission.
She loved my work and had pinpointed from my website,
what she thought she wanted…
I took a piece to share with her and we held it up on the site visit.
We discussed all different solutions for what she wanted
and I recognized
my pattern of maintaining and holding onto a way of doing things,
just would not do for this site.

Maintaining the ever-repeating known can truly be a detriment.
It falls by the way side.
That idea destroyed… I felt a bit defeated… after
ideas are destroyed… Creation prevails.

I hopped on the loom to see what I could do
to create a different vision of
this material, based on the feasibility
of hanging the piece.

At first, I recognized that I felt aversion
to trying something new,
and then, I shifted my mood.
Opening up, letting go of the burdens of the unknown.
I sensed I was moving into the creative,
joyful energy of the new.
Who knew?

We can sit and daydream about the what-ifs
and even have nighttime dreams that carry over
to the day.
These dreams sometimes compel us to stay in one place
and not move forward.
To stay rooted in the imaginary space of non-action.
Not try a different way.
Ignoring the obvious regressions that take place in
day- and night-dreams.
Simply making things up from our dreams.

Or, we can take action in our daily waking state
and change up
how we do things.

Try a different way. See where it takes us.
Dig deep into what
the need
of the time is.
What the approach to the problem is.
Stop ignoring what is not working.
And move toward what will guide you forward.
Even if it’s a “light first draft”. Try something new.

Could be a weaving, a website, a business plan,
a return to college,
a different way to handle a relationship,
a redo of an existing space. 

Stepping into the unknown of creation is always
a movement to our evolution.
As change is constant…
And we want to be a part of that change.
Not simply dream about it.

12.28.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Image:
The beginning of a new cycle, taken from 30,000 ft.

Building the Light 
  
Now is a time to recall with gratitude how things have
grown and changed this year.
More than New Year’s Eve, when we
are so accustomed to think this way.
This is a time for the following:
during dawn and dusk to meditate,
be introspective as you gather your first morning thoughts,
light a candle or candles,
have yagyas performed (let me know if you need a connection),
renew your intentions (then burn them signifying past to present),
transform weakness into strength,
write morning papers…

Honor Nature at this time of alignment.
Take walks, touch the trees around you. 

This winter, Solstice occurs at 10:03 a.m.,
when the Earth’s North Pole tilts furthest
away from the Sun.
The Sun, as it gains its presence and now begins
to return our Northern Hemisphere to more light.
It’s thought of as the shortest day, longest night.
It’s a transition point. 

This is the beginning of a new cycle.
Solar is reborn and a rekindling of the
inner self.
Have the courage to steer through the dark and
open to the experience of the light. 

12.21.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Image:
864 threads of metallic fiber.
The open shed for hand weaving.

The Open Shed

This is what the channel looks like, that I feed the sustainable 
materials through. For each weft material, I meticulously
use this handmade (Thank you @DanielMoyer) 9-ft lease
stick through every other warp thread, to open it.
This way I can feed the material through. 
This is repeated for each weft material.
 
Honestly, if I had not learned the technique of
Vedic Meditation, I would not have found
the state of mind to do this form of weaving.  
My mind would be in battle with the physicality of it.
And I would have called it quits.
To experience the calm reality required to weave this piece,
it is necessary for our attention to be led through
all the subtle strata of creation that make us…
And to arrive at the subtlest layer of who
we really are… What we call our Being. 

Our experience in the field of perception shows that we
experience gross and subtle things. Our eyes see, our
ears hear sounds, we are touched by memories-stories.
We know that there are subtle fields beyond what’s on the
surface. Finer than what we can perceive. 

We also know, when we get activated by too much commotion
in our minds, our senses go into a hyper-alert state that
makes it impossible to simply Be. Loss of appetite, or the opposite.
Need for a drink or the opposite – head for bed.
These reactions activate the fight or flight chemistry within.

It’s Easy, It’s Simple, It’s Natural. 

We find that the regular practice of Vedic Meditation, together
with natural unstrained activity (weaving) in life, is a shortcut
to living a life of Being your pure self in the field of natural law.
Where the Open Shed is the pathway to the subtle layers of
what makes us relative in the field of all possibilities.
And creation becomes a nature stepping stone
in our life story.
We are all capable of getting there.  

12.14.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com

Images:
1. Single strand of Counterbalance
2. 7 Strands of sheath core fiber with Dry Cleaning Hangers 
3. Close-up of Counterbalance 

COUNTERBALANCE 

In 2010, my father came to NYC
to see my doctors, as his health was failing.  
While he would rest, I was developing textiles
and began weaving dry cleaning hangers.
 
Counterbalance was the reflection of what I pertained
from these doctors’ visits.  

My father’s nervous system was weakening.  

The nervous system of humans is the most complete system in all of creation. 

It stimulates the senses and the body
and brings the mind into contact with the world,
through hearing, feeling, seeing, tasting, and smelling. 

All of this moving-energy-in-action is a balancing act. 

Like the quest of quarks (energy)… consciousness conceives, constructs and governs all matter.
And it prints itself out as matter.

So when we begin to weaken,
our ability to be conscious weakens along with it.

My conscious mind connected with a thought
of wanting to see how small could I warp up the loom
and weave these misshaped pieces,
depicting the frailty of the spinal column
which houses the wires of the nervous system. 

It was while observing this decline, I recognized 
my own anxiety and frailty in coping. 

This is how picking up a practice,
that produces an experience of our waking
state of mind — that will help us be rested, observant,
sophisticated in thought processing and a joyful person
to be around — is essential, as we age (evolve).  
I realized, as long as my mind was discontented,
it would continue to be active. 
And I would become exhausted, begin missing things
in business and be cranky to be around…

Counterbalance is the wonderful weight of the
Vedic Meditation practice,
balancing the activities of the body and mind. 

12.07.2025 Deck Talk available upon request info@fifthfloormeditation.com