AN EARTH DAY CREATIVE CELEBRATION: Exploring the overlap between Body and Earth Spirit

ULURU. Red, red rocks. Earth. I love you. (photo by Chiboogamoo)

Hallellujah for MOTHER EARTH! Hallelujah for feeling a profound and deep connection with this mysterious physical breathing changing entity! Hallelujah!

For Earth Day 2014, Carol Clapp Hays asked those of us on The Daily Creative Practice to generate "An Earth Day Creative Celebration." (see the complete prompt below)

Although I love all the natural elements (earth, water, air, and fire)--probably my first and most immediate love is the EARTH. My heart beats red, red, red for the EARTH. Is it because I spent many of my formative years in running barefoot on the red Georgia clay? 

CONNECTION WITH THE POWERFULLY SACRED. I truly believe that ALL of the EARTH is sacred; however, some places have been recognized by people over time to possess a certain heightened energy. At Uluru in 2006 in central Australia, the red red red rocks and the Earth beneath my feet made my SPIRIT SOAR. (photo by Chiboogamoo)

Since my first visit to Australia in 2006, and two other times, my image making has shifted. Fortunate to be married to the paleontologist Tony Martin (my little Chiboogamoo), I was immersed each visit in the geology of this vast and wondrous continent as we investigated the land to understand it better both physically and culturally.

EARTH AND HUMANS. I have always longed to express a deep meaning that resides within that presses to be stated but escapes expression. My feeling, my EARTH BODY hungers for a simple way to speak. Visiting these rock wall expressions centered me. I felt as though I was given permission to enter the discussion. (photo by Chiboogamoo)

How fortunate I am that Tony Martin is also an artist. Like me, he is curious about ideas and formulating ways to communicate them visually. He willingly and happily went with me to find the art that Australia's original people marked on its rock walls. Geology and art collide!

These markings are a part of "dream time" and are maintained by the art makers' descendants to keep the TRUTH or dream-time story living. 

As a maker of marks, I have been exploring my connections with the TRUTH, hence my name--Hallelujah Truth. Part of the TRUTH is finding and understanding my connection to MY COUNTRY (see this blog for more about Sense of Place and some fabulous Australian art). I began by "borrowing" images from these Australian artists to allow myself to repeat patterns that had meaning for me. They altered over time.

MY COUNTRY. I have always longed to be able to express a deeper meaning, one that I feel but cannot express. My feeling, my EARTH BODY hungers for a simple way to speak. Visiting these expressions made on rock walls and ceilings centered me. I felt as though I was given permission to enter the discussion. (photo by Chiboogamoo)

I often repeated the words "my country" as I drew. Dear Readers, I am deeply interested and engaged in that connection...the one between my entire BODY SPIRIT and the EARTH SPIRIT. What images can possibly express that SIMILARITY, that overlapping of BEING?

That's Coffee with Hallelujah! Soul Blog with me and tell how you would respond to Carol Clapp Hays' prompt:

#5 Funday Monday blog prompt--Natural Creative Instincts: An Earth Day Creative Celebration. This week we celebrate Earth Day! How does the natural world influence or inform your creative process? Do you incorporate or reflect your personal natural environment, the every day environment around you, in your creative work? Do you seek creative recharge in the natural world? If so, where do you go in person or even mentally to reconnect with the Earth? Share some examples of your creative expression that reflects or was influenced by your experience of nature. Help connect us to the nature that most influences you. Whether you write a post or not, I hope you'll find as many ways as you can to celebrate our mother Earth this week!

WE ARE THE STUFF OF STARS: Commingling Artists and Community and Contemplating Change

WINDOW INTO THINKING DIFFERENTLY. Just what is The Goat Farm Arts Center, the place where this image was taken? It is worth finding out! What is Glo Atl? Is it just an awesome performance company? Or does Glo Atl breathe and pulse in that beguiling twilight, dust from exploded stars sifting through the cosmos? Perhaps the Goat Farm Arts Center and Glo Atl are windows into ourselves...for we are the stuff of stars!(photo by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for COMMUNITY! Hallelujah for the ARTS embracing the COMMUNITY! Hallelujah for ARTISTS who ask their COMMUNITIES to journey with them in creating and making meaning. Lauri Stallings is one of these ARTISTS.

A LARGE BODY. Lauri Stalling expands beyond her physical body. She is the stuff of stars, the cosmos, and yes our world! Here she is speaking to ME, Hallelujah Truth (and others), on Saturday, April 19, 2014, at an Glo Atl "Open Session" in Atlanta, Georgia, at The Goat Farm Arts Center. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

Lauri Stallings is clearly the stuff of stars--you feel the ancient energy from the cosmos pulsating in her BEING. Yes, I have met her twice and intermingled with her amazing energy. Atlanta, with its population of five-million-plus, sometimes seems such a small city when you follow your SOUL--relaxing and letting it flow with that star-light-n-dust. 

BUILDING NEW MATERIAL. Lauri explained to those of us, sitting on the side, how the dancers were working out "phrases" or "threads" to communicate ideas. What do you think they are communicating here? (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

The most recent time I "connected" with the BEING of Lauri Stallings was last Saturday for Glo Atl's first "Open Session," where people are invited to watch Lauri and her dancers build new material. And if I understand correctly, Lauri has always had an "open session" policy for her community. She said that people are welcome any time Glo Atl is there creating, rehearsing, or sleeping. 

 As my "mind" opens to what Lauri is saying, I fall fully in love with her philosophy of ARTISTS and COMMUNITY. What happens when the boundaries between the two evaporates and the they are no longer separate entities? Does change occur? And are both ARTISTS and COMMUNITY members impacted? I think the answer would be YES!

What would happen to us all if we listened and saw with our whole bodies as she instructs the dancers? Who might we be if we were open to changing and experiencing that moment in ourselves and others? Great questions posed by Lauri! I know that I am raising my hand to participate in whatever way I can with Glo Atl, whenever I can. I want to answer some of these questions and spend time with the philosophic and cosmic Lauri Stallings and her terrific collaborators.

COMMUNITY CIRCLE. We community members who showed up for the Glo Atl Open Session, were invited into the circle the dancers have created. While we were forming and reforming circles, Lauri asked us to imagine participating in a dance with masks or animal heads. "What would you be wearing on your head," she asked. "Alligator," I answered. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

To conclude this blog entry I have copied Lauri Stallings artist statement that she has on her website because I thought you might like to read what she has to say about herself: 

"I am a choreographer who strives to experiment with new ways of delivering performance experience aspiring to stimulate the senses, provoke dialogue and activate the mind.  

I am obsessed with our perceptions of what we are when we are alone vs. what we are when we are together, and in my work. I try to reassess my views of what family is, offering other frequencies and mind spaces for us to communicate in.   

I do this by having dialogue with venues and collaborating with art forms.  Then I transpose these conversations onto living bodies and into a precarious installation atmosphere and state. 

Drawing on what I’ve experienced as essential ingredients of family- adventure, complexity, nakedness, ritual and loss, I offer the public doors into alternate homes conceived as interior events and exterior eruptions, positive and negative, without  opposing context. 

My intention is to offer a lens of the expanding, unfolding universe inside us, to find our explicit nature before being told what we think we are.  I often hold a mirror up to the public  to contemplate, “I know what this place is.”  Then I lunge deep into spontaneity, challenging people to think together, and this turns the work inside out. 

I make highly choreographed tableaux vivants and movement choirs that inflate the dance to various contemplative states of mind, asking “What does it mean to be  part of a community?” 

Place is a body form to me. I interpret how it’s postured in a community, what it feels, and like a breathing body, I suggest every inch of crevice and curvature has transformative powers. 

Through this endeavor for democracy I invite the public to become a collaborator, and family. I ask how far can we go together, in a world that oftentimes feels like it's wrestling us apart."

That's Coffee with Hallelujah! Soul blog with me what you think about the relationship between ARTISTS and THEIR COMMUNITIES. Have you experienced the dropping of boundaries between the two? What did you feel? Think?

GLO and HALLELUJAH TRUTH. Contemplating the beauty of ARTISTS and COMMUNITY becoming sifting star dust, large bodies intermingling, changing for the good, and being part of one another--experiencing our humanity in a deeper, more trusting way. (photo by my Chiboogamoo)

 

STEPPING INTO ANOTHER CULTURE: Embodying the language incrementally and noticing

ROUTE TO GEORGIA TECH CAMPUS! Invited to teach a class at the Georgia Tech Language Institue, I was delighted to be back on campus and in the classroom to see what I could discover. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for stepping into the unknown and for those that courageously enter! 
As an English language instructor to international adults--ones who have lept from their culture to my American one--I am in awe of their willingness to speak in English and try on new behaviors while speaking a new and foreign tongue!

Recently, I have engaged in learning a new language myself while remaining in my own country, my state of Georgia, and my town of Decatur. The language is that of InterPlay! InterPlay has its own vocabulary! For example:

incrementality, 
babble
hand dance,
body wisdom, 
noticing, ...only to name a few words and phrases!

And I am curious about how InterPlay concepts can be integrated into language learning! Therefore, I was grateful to Karen Peterson, a colleague and instructor at the Georgia Tech Language Institute, who invited me to "guest lecture" in one of her classes on the afternoon of April 23, 2014 as a way to help build the students' confidence in expressing their leadership skills. 
 

LEADERS AT THE LANGUAGE INSTITUTE! Karen Peterson, (front row, right) poses with her class of leaders who have formed activity clubs as part of the coursework this session. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

I saw her invitation as an opportunity to continue practicing my new insight to teaching language, a direct result of my InterPlay training: I would ask the students to EMBODY THE LANGUAGE using laughter yoga, improvisation and InterPlay tools! Why?

• KINESTHETIC LEARNING = Learning through physical activity/Doing 
• FUN & PLAY & CREATIVE CHALLENGE = Positive learning outcomes   
• FLUENCY of SELF (whole person) = LANGUAGE FLUENCY

EMBODYING THE LANGUAGE = Confidence/Empowerment    

(see this blog for more information about embodying the language) 

For this "guest lecture," I decided that I would practice the InterPlay concept of incrementality in the way I saw it practiced in the recent InterPlay Asheville Untensive I attended recently(see this blog). AND...I would have the students play with vocal quality and gestures to arrive at the improvisation exercise, "YES, and..."!

INCREMENTALITY OF VOCAL QUALITY
When teaching English as a second language (ESL), we teachers introduce three aspects of vocal quality:

VOLUME: loud to soft

SPEED: fast to slow

PITCH: high to low

These concepts of volume, speed, and pitch are important to implement at a micro-level for producing syllable and sentence level stress in order that the speaker's pronunciation is clear and easy to for the listener to understand (the opposite would be a mechanized voice vacant of rhythm and tonality). Then at a macro-level, volume, speed, and pitch can be varied to express individual speaker's personality, to tell stories, or to command attention.

These were the steps I used to facilitate the students experimenting with their voices:

Babbling Warm-up for Whole Group and in Pairs: 

1. My name is ****, and I could talk about ****

2. In pairs, students volley back-and-forth: "I could talk about" (exchange pairs three times)

3. In pairs, students take turns telling a one-minute story on a neutral topic. The concept of "noticing" is introduced.

4. Noticing is shared in pairs and then with entire class.

Experimenting with expanding the vocal range in English

1. Breathing from the belly

2. Breathing from the belly with sighing

3. Raising the left hand above the head, intaking belly breath, expressing three vowels (eeeee, ahhhhhh, oooooo) from high pitch to low pitch with hand cascading to the speakers' knees and raising it back above the head, returning to high pitch. Repeat with right hand.

4. Performing a three-breath song for a partner.

5. Noticing is shared in pairs and then with entire class.

Culmination in two-minute story telling

1. In pairs,  students are asked tell a two-minute story on a neutral topic experimenting with volume, speed, and pitch.  

2. Noticing is shared.

INCREMENTALITY OF MOVING AND GESTURING
1. Students are invited to shake a left hand, right hand, left foot, right foot, whatever they were sitting on.

2. The activity WALK, RUN, STOP is introduced and students are invited to experiment and play with those forms. One movement form I like to encourage international students to try is BEING REALLY LARGE, so LARGE that their entire body fills the room. Often the international students who come to my classroom have not been invited to be "large" in this American culture. Instead they feel puny and lack confidence. Embodying LARGENESS here on this American ground, feels good to them! They notice that feeling LARGE feels good.

3. WALK, RUN, STOP is then enacted with music. Student's are invited to pause and watch other students, to imitate, to experience making choices.

4. The noticing afterward pleasantly surprised me! One student made the correlation of movement to speaking English. He observed that WALK, RUN, STOP was similar to using VOLUME, PITCH and SPEED to tell a story! Hallelujah for EMBODYING the LANGUAGE!

5. Students are shown ways to perform one-hand dance with the entire class.

6. Students do a hand dance with a partner.

7. Then expand the one-hand-dance with their partner using the entire classroom.

8. Noticing.

READY FOR THE IMPROVISATION ACTIVITY "YES, AND..."
Thus, implementing incremental steps from improvisation, laughter yoga (We acknowledge breaks between incremental steps with a brisk clapping of the hands twice while saying "Very good, Very good, Yeah," concluding with our hands raised overhead.), and InterPlay, we are ready for the Improvisational activity, "Yes, and..."

Here is the "Yes, and..." activity that was adapted for this leadership class:

PRACTICING YES AND...! The incrementality has culminated in this improvisation exercise of "Yes, and..." First, students practice a script so they see how to use intonation, hand gestures, to agree with their partner's suggestions, and to add an idea. (photo by Ruth Schowalter)

Yes! And…

Function: This is a way to practice intonation, gestures, and making things up (which we need to do all the time!) while making a conversation. It is also a positive way of showing your agreement to a suggestion and making your partner look good.

·      Use rising/falling intonation to show enthusiasm.

·      Use hand gestures, head bobs, and your whole body to punctuate your intonation, thus showing your agreement.

·      Use imagination to build the dialogue and contribute

FIRST, PRACTICE THIS EXAMPLE:

ACTOR 1: Let’s have a fund raiser for our club!

ACTOR 2: Great Idea! We could have a pie eating contest!

ACTOR 1: Yes! And we could bake our favorite pies!

ACTOR 2: Perfect! And we could buy lots of Coke and Sprite.

ACTOR 1: You are so smart! Let’s do that and find a band to play exciting music!

ACTOR 2: Yes! And we can ask our friends to come and dance!

ACTOR 1: Yes! Maybe we could also have a dance contest too!

ACTOR 2: Yes! And we can ask the faculty to dance!

ACTOR 1: Great idea! And we can be the judges!

ACTOR 2: Yes! And the losers can have a pie in the face!

ACTOR 2: Absolutely! And we can ask everyone for 5 dollars!

ACTOR 1: Yes! We are going to raise a lot of money for our club!

End Scene/Change Roles

Now, it is your turn to make up your own conversation saying “yes.”

Possible Topics: 1.  Let’s have a party for our club! 2.  Let’s take our club on a road trip! 3.  Let’s increase our club membership! 4.  Let’s have a social with regular GT students! 5.  Let’s go to Las Vegas! 6.  Let’s have a recognition awards party!

Expanding the “yes” exercise by adding “but.”

Yes! The students enjoyed this "Yes, and..." activity and were quite well warmed up and prepared for it! The 65-minute class period really wasn't long enough for this kind of incremental tip-toeing. However, that is where my teaching went with implementing InterPlay in such depth for the first time. I had wanted to introduce another improvisation activity, "High Status, Low Status" but that will have to wait for another invitation for a guest lecture.

I will leave you with "noticings" from students and my response to them. One student expressed a discomfort with using her voice in such a new way and using such "loud" hand gestures. "It felt unnatural," she said. Another student said she can talk, "that way with my husband" but not other people. Still another student had felt liberated by the exercise; it had brought him some comfort and ease.

"Great noticings," I told them. "What we did in this class today was an opportunity, an invitation to experiment with speaking English in and outside of the classroom. Take what you want from this class today and try it out in the big laboratory of life. See what happens. Notice. Try something else! Have fun! And listen to your BODY WISDOM."
 

EMBODIED STUDENTS WITH HALLELUJAH (first row, center)! (photo by Karen Peterson)

Hallelujah for BODY WISDOM as these internationals learn how to navigate another language in a different culture! They are so brave! 

That's Coffee with Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me! I am so interested in boundary crossings. What boundaries have you crossed recently? Why did you traverse? What aided you in your journey? And how did you fair?

Downshifting, uplifting, and subconscious tectonic plates ushering in ME, VISUAL ARTIST

FIRST PAINTING AT THIRTY. Dream driven, Mose T. inspired, and a call to be ME. (Art by Hallelujah Truth 1988)

Hallelujah for community! Hallelujah for my Facebook group, The Daily Creative Practice (DCP), and the emergence of the Funday Monday blog prompt shared by our members. Join us if you like! Here is DCP member Lee Russell's prompt for April 14th, 2014:

Funday Monday blog prompt—SHOW and TELL. Every consciously creative person I know has a stash of images, quotes, books, spices, garden ideas, etc. that they have been drawn to, and use as inspiration.
 
SHOW: Show something that inspired you and what it inspired you to create.
TELL: What do you keep as inspiration? How and where do you store it? And, when do you pull it out? Why? Whose work do you collect? Is there one person who inspired you to take your creative path? Maybe include links for others of us to learn from and be inspired as well.

BEFORE THE VISUAL IMAGE, IN THE BEGINNING

First, there were the poems and their metaphor that longed for freedom beyond letters and a reader's imagination. Then came the dreams, and they yearned for color expressed in shape on a touchable surface. A well studied fan of Carl Gustav Jung's archetypes, and self-proclaimed dream interpreter (Ann Faraday's Dream Power was my manual), I was thirty, unmarried, uncertain, had just quit my second graduate program spiriting myself away from successful jobs in academic institutions. NOooooooo!!! 

My body had turned away from kudos of my academic peers, who had proclaimed me "one of them"! I was a talented writer. A real budding intellectual...on the way to becoming a hardworking, earnest SMARTIE PANTS!

NOooooooo!!!  I shut down, words fled from me, and I ran away from independence to live at home with my parents in Auburn, Alabama. Although childless, I was pregnant with the ME demanding to be expressed VISUALLY and PHYSICALLY!

Mose T.

FINGER PAINTING, EXPLORING DREAMS!
Cascading my subconscious onto found boards in leftover latex paints and store bought acrylic paints, I swirled dream snakes, spiders, squirrels, and other night-time visitors into parades of imagery for me to observe. The tactile sensation of finger painting thrilled me and connected my entire body with the deep recesses of my BEING, which in turn connected ME with the universe of YOU, THE OTHER!

If there hadn't been an abundance of Mose T. paintings in the Auburn, Alabama, area, I don't know if my image making would have driven itself into BEING as it did. I consider this Montgomery, Alabama artist's work to be one of the strongest influences in my visual making life.

My Life, Marc Chagall's autobiography written when he was only 35 also liberated the ME. Succored by his words, deep, chaotic, and confident, I became unleashed from expectations of what words should render. Yes! Yes, I said to image making and yes to the unique travel of words expressing the ME, proclaiming the ME, celebrating the ME.

MORE TO THE JOURNEY.
Yes, this blog entry brings you a point in time, the inception of ME, the visual artist Hallelujah Truth. In the past 25 years, much much much more has gone into the boiling pot, churning in the volcanic mix, expanding into the profound way of BEING ME. It took many years of downshifting and uplifting--a shouting ripping rush of subconscious tectonic plates moving where they needed to go and finding communion with YOU.

MORE SHALL BE REVEALED!

For now, that's Coffee With Hallelujah. SOUL BLOG with me. Am I communing with you? How?

From the ordinary to the extraordinary with daily creative work: birth, release, connection

THE NEXT GENERATION. As Tony Martin and I, Hallelujah Truth, experience the manifestation of Tony’s writing Dinosaurs Without Bones, we are getting to view the next generation of paleontologists and scientists. It is with such excited energy that this young man engaged with my husband. How thrilling for both of us to see “ichno-dust” in this dinosaur-loving child’s eyes. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)
Hallelujah for living with another CREATIVE! Hallelujah for experiencing the ordinariness of side-by-side crafting of our SOUL WORK and its positive materialization!

I am happily married to a scientist, one whose work is absolutely the manifestation of his SPIRIT! Right now, Tony Martin (a.k.a. Chiboogamoo in this blog), paleontologist, ichnologist, writer, artist, and educator, is relishing the delightful outcome of publishing his third book, Dinosaurs Without Bones (read Publisher's Weekly review here). And I am too! How did this successful outcome happen?

As cohabiting CREATIVES, we witness each other's daily crafting of ideas. In fact, our rituals support the creative process. During the phase of Tony's authoring a book, we both rise in the early morning (between 5:00-6:00 AM). Tea, coffee, juice, vitamins are prepared for consumption, cats attended to, incense and candle lit, and music turned on. Two sacred hours of construction follow before breakfasting. Repeat each day. 

Of course, there are the evenings and devout portions of the weekends dedicated to research and writing for Tony and drawing, painting, and blogging for me. But it is this morning rising together that fills my life with the profound richness of companionship and accomplishment. 

This particular morning, as Tony and I were awaking, we exchanged our deep feelings of appreciation for the connection with others that our creative work brings into our lives. Last night, Tony gave a presentation about Dinosaurs Without Bones at the Telllus Science Museum with an author signing afterward. 
Those in attendance displayed interest in dinosaur ichnology and in Tony. It was important for them to talk with him about their ideas and to learn what he thought. What an honor for Tony and for me as a witness and photographer!

Let me share our journey to Tellus Science Museum with you. Here it is!

THE MANIFESTATION OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS: Ichnologist Tony Martin meets the public to discuss Dinosaurs Without Bones.

TRAVELLING TO TELLUS SCIENCE MUSEUM. Tony Martin and I confronted a traffic challenge leaving our city of Atlanta for Cartersville, Georgia, on a Friday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. It took us nearly two hours to travel just 48 miles. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

TA DA! SUCCESSFUL ARRIVAL. Despite the rain and traffic, the author of Dinosaurs Without Bones, Tony Martin, and I arrived at the Tellus Science Museum, refreshed and on time! (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

DINOSAURS WITHOUT BONES. Upon entering the Tellus Museum, we were delighted to see Dinosaurs Without Bones prominently displayed on the ticket counter. The employees were thrilled to meet the author and his wife! (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

BEHIND THE SCENES. The Tellus Science Museum staff was supportive, friendly, and enthusiastic. Everyone treated the author of Dinosaurs Without Bones as if he were a rock star! But then again, we were in a mineral-rich environment inside this institution. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

EARLY BOOK SIGNING. The Tellus Science Museum Director, Jose Santamaria, and Director of Education, Cantey Smith, asked Tony Martin to sign their copies of Dinosaurs Without Bones behind the scenes. How awesome is that? (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

WALKING WITH THE DINOSAURS. As Tony Martin gains momentum presenting Dinosaurs Without Bones to the public, his gait shifts, and he walks differently. There is a joyful spring in his step! (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

HOW DID THE DINOSAURS WALK? Striding like a runway model on a tightrope, Tony Martin explains one of his most beloved ichnological topics from Dinosaurs Without Bones—tracks! The audience pulses with fascination that a paleontologist can move so fluidly while explaining a scientific and mathematical concept! (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

BEAUTIFUL DINOSAUR TRACK. For his concluding slide, Tony shows a well-defined dinosaur track, and here you can see a toe and claw impression from it. He then enjoys asking the audience what dinosaur trace fossils they would like to see discovered in the future. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

MORE THAN JUST A BOOK SIGNING. For Tony and his wife, Ruth Schowalter (a.k.a. Hallelujah Truth), the Tellus Science Museum book signing of Dinosaurs Without Bones was profound. Book buyers engaged with him from a well of their own curiosity, approaching Tony almost as if they were at church and approaching the altar. But, after all, Tony has created the Church of Ichnology—Substrate, Anatomy, and Behavior—AMEN! (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

TWO BOOKS. One Tellus Science Museum member approached Tony and asked him to sign two of his books! How wonderful to see Tony’s book on modern ichnology, Life Traces of the Georgia Coast, alongside Dinosaurs Without Bones! And there was a question: What does this rock reveal? Tony was not sure, but always enjoys the intellectual challenge that comes with people bearing “mystery rocks.” (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

ICHNO-FAN PHOTOS. Some Tony Martin ichno-fans wanted a photo with the author of Dinosaurs Without Bones in front of a giant shark’s jaws, which serves as an exciting frame for such science enthusiasts. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

DINNER CELEBRATION. Hurray for science and for celebrating science with those who support and nurture it! The Tellus Science Museum staff kindly and generously took us out to dinner afterwards. We toasted to Tony Martin’s successful presentation of Dinosaurs Without Bones and cheered for Julian Gray, who is moving on to a new job in Oregon. (photo by obliging waitress)

QUICK RETURN TO ATLANTA. Traffic had subsided by the time we hit the interstate to return to our metro-area Atlanta home in Decatur, Georgia. The rain continued but we arrived speedily and safely to our two-cat home, the Ichno-Cat Art Palace. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

That's Coffee With Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me. I would like to know several things from you: What is your SOUL WORK? Have you felt its manifestation in your life? Does your SOUL WORK connect you with others?

ICHNO-CAT ART PALACE INHABITANTS. The author of Dinosaurs Without Bones, Tony Martin, and his wife, Ruth Schowalter, pose in front of shark jaws, creating for them a nostalgia resembling that of a high school prom picture. A wonderful time was had by all! A daily creative practice materializes in the world and creates communion with others. How great is that? (photo by Cantey Smith)