Author Archives: Paula Josa-Jones

castles, buttons

Last week I found out that the links to my websites in my email signatures were not working.  Two days ago I discovered that the links to my offerings on my blog (over on the right) – One-to-One Creativity Coaching, my eBook, Breaking into Blossom and  Little Fictions and Ragged Memoirs, also were not working.  They took you to the “Whoops, what you are looking for is not here” page.

This is not good.  My offerings are one of the ways that I support myself and that I reach out with my heart to those of you who are reading. So now all of those things are working.

Today I got this from Abraham:  “It is as easy to create a castle as a button. It’s just a matter of whether you’re focused on a castle or a button.”

This feels connected to the theme of stringing and un-stringing that I wrote about here.  Fixing digital glitches feels like making buttons.  I want to be building castles.  However, there is much to be said for the humble button and the act of buttoning as good protection against the cold.

I have been reading Anna Halprin’s book about her seventy+ years of making performance.  What I find inspiring is the through line of her devotion to her work.  I am sure that amidst all the building of castles there were a lot of buttons.  (She had children too which always makes for many, many buttons.)

Today was a button day.  Tomorrow, castles.

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the view from here

The view from here is exquisite.  A big part of me does not want to leave.  Another even bigger part is ready.  Finally.  I hate the word downsize.  I think of it as something old people do, signally the end of life.  That is not what we are doing.  And yet, it is, in a way.  We are right-sizing our spaces for what we are doing now, which is more engagement with our creative work.  So we want the focus to be on those creative spaces, the studios, rather than living spaces.

What I want is for a lovely young family with exuberant children to fall in love with this house and its surrounds the way that we did six years ago.  Our kids were smaller then and we wanted those kind of spaces. They are mostly away now, and the focus is shifting.  The energy is moving.  I am ready.  I could not say that a month ago.  I am making sure that every day the energy is clear for the next thing to happen.

This morning I had a vision of the real estate angels circling out to gather our new house partners – the ones who will take this house that we have lovingly cared for and be as happy here as we are.

We have found out next nest.  That is exciting.  I am ready.  I am ready.

earth dance

How do you think of dance?
Is it shapes?
Is it steps moving across a stage?
Or is it the aged body
steeped in its years
on earth?
Is it the body inseparable
from everything
it touches?
Are you dancing now?
If you are breathing,
that is the start.

getting down with the lily of holland

Sanne, the beautiful Friesian that I call The Lily of Holland (Sanne means Lily in Dutch), is a kind, gentle boy.  He is the horse that I have used in performances with dancers for the past four years.  He is the horse that, when we need someone to tolerate a dancer doing a handstand on his side, or lifting another dancer onto his back, says “OK, sure.” He is partial to his human herd of dancers.

At the moment, Sanne is on a Lyme-related break.  No riding.  No dancing,  Lots of rest, vitamins, antibiotics, and loving.  Not riding a horse is a good way to remember why we wanted to ride in the first place.  Because we love them, because they are present 100% of the time.  Because we want to be around them for their sweetness.