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Kitchen Table Kibitzing ~ 4.21.20 [1]
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Date: 2025-04-21
Two very different definitions of this word: procreate and procreate
I was at a 3-day art workshop this weekend at a place I’ve been going to for, I don’t know, over 30 years. Art & Soul.
You can check out the site and see what all they do. I describe it as a safe place to go to sort of get in touch with yourself. At this workshop, we started Friday in a circle introducing ourselves and saying one thing about ourselves.
Then we move, dance, whatever we want, to 3 songs played over a kick butt sound system. We sit down again (though you didn’t have to get up for the movement part) and do some sounding. Someone better than me will have to explain that.
I quite like it but realized halfway through that I shouldn’t be doing it. When the dentist said it would take 4 months for my mouth to heal after my surgery, he wasn’t kidding. Even talking a lot hurts.
After the sounding, which just sort of magically ends, we mediate and hear a poem. Twice we hear the poem. Art and Soul is where I learned the secret to poetry. It has to be read out loud and it has to be read twice.
Then the art begins. People get up, and go do whatever art they want, pretty much everything is available there. I am not an artist. At all. Good thing this is not really about art, it’s about art and soul.
Years ago, toward the end of a class, the instructor Arunima Orr, said something about stepping outside our comfort zone, stepping back from our painting, and then doing something that really needs to be done. (Or she said something like that, you’ll notice I didn’t put it in quotes.)
Turning to her I asked if she had any matches. Without missing a beat, she handed me some. Without hesitation, I turned and set my painting on fire. I stood watching my work, noticing out of the corner of my eye that she had brought a bucket of water and set it down next to me.
I tell this story just so you’ll get I am not an artist. Many of the people who take these classes are artists. Amazing artists. One in my workshop is an author and illustrator. There are professional artists and dancers in these classes. And yeah, people just like me.
If there is anything like this in your area, I invite you to take advantage.
This song is best listened to really, really loud.
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