Improvisational Movement and Art/Altar Collaboration at Dance Church

COLLABORATION #1 (by Hallelujah Truth and Brian Sherman)

Hallelujah for Dance Church on the second Sunday of every month at the Decatur School of Ballet. In addition to the magic that takes place by "moving our bodies" in any which way we please - improvisational movement - in community with other participants, Brian Sherman and I have been improvising art on the Dance Church altar.

COLLABORATION #2 (by Hallelujah Truth and Brian Sherman)

Our lives have collided sporadically over the years whenever we both happen to be able to attend this once-a-month "dance church" from 10:30 to noon on a Sunday morning. At Dance Church, we are invited to bring and place items on an "altar" while we are dancing. 

I first started paying attention to the Dance Church altar when I became aware that Brian was bringing a lot of copper in varying forms of pennies, wires, and other objects. The randomness of his objects drew me in. I was fascinated by his birdlike gathering of bright objects, and he seemed to have some unstated principle that dictated how they were collected and placed in different containers.

BRIAN'S OFFERINGS

Was it the improvisational dancing that "moved" me to start interacting with Brian's found and gathered objects? I found myself taking them out of the containers and arranging them in patterns that felt satisfying. 

Soon after my initiating the first arrangements, Brian informed of his only "rule." I was not to put anything away once the object was "out." He has an organizing principle for his collection of objects and how he stores them. Fine by me. I function at my best creatively when I know my parameters.

COLLABORATION #3 (by Hallelujah Truth and Brian Sherman)

Over time, I felt comfortable enough in this receptive environment of Dance Church to start bringing tablets of my art work. I have a "display" principle myself, one that is easily carried out in this open nonjudgmental environment. I like to "control" the viewing of my work. That is, I like to offer the viewer, a certain limited time to see my work, and then I conceal it, offering another work to see. (Yes, please ask me about this. I find it fascinating how I interact with viewers of my work and have much more to say about it.)

Anyways, what you are viewing here in this blogpost is the outcome of the collaborations Brian and I made today. What do I love most about them? The nonverbal emergence. Brian and I don't talk during the Dance Church.

COLLABORATION #4 (by Hallelujah Truth and Brian Sherman)

Instead, he brings out sets of objects in containers. I put up my pad of drawings. We dance. We move. We look. I arrange objects. I turn the page on my pad of drawings. Brian brings out objects. Maybe, he shifts his container of objects.

I watch him. He watches me. We dance. We rearrange. We appreciate each other's offerings. 

BRIAN MOVES TO THE ALTAR. We created a dance of moving towards and away from the Dance Church altar during our 90-minutes of dancing and co-creating.

I find that I don't need to know a lot about what is going on in our collaboration. Moving. Looking. Seeing. Creating. Recreating. Without speaking feels satisfying.

COLLABORATION #5 (by Hallelujah Truth and Brian Sherman)

COLLABORATION #6 (by Hallelujah Truth and Brian Sherman)

I have known that Brian is a retired sociology professor and has a radio program on WRFG, a local public radio station here in Atlanta. He has been kind of enough to buy Tony's books. Tony and I both feel supported by Brian. And there is this art thing. I like experiencing it rather than trying to understand it.

BRIAN SHERMAN AND HALLELUJAH TRUTH. Brian has made me more conscious about documenting what we do. Hence the photos I took today, and the photo of us together taken by Tony Martin at the conclusion of Dance Church.

Dance Church was perfect for Tony and me today. We both needed to release the tension from our bodies after attending a three-day conference in Savannah, Georgia and four hour to and from the Georgia coast.  Thanks to Dance Church, we had such a sweet, connective time, moving and dancing with others in our Decatur community. 

And for me, I co-created with Brian! What do you think of our collaborations? That's Coffee with Hallelujah! Soul Blog with me! What might you improvise today with someone else?

Regeneration: Collaboration of an Artist and Scientist

REGENERATION. More than once, we are given the opportunity to climb out of our burrows and to live our lives renewed. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

"Burrows acted as a midwife in the birth of Gaia."  

-Tony Martin, The Evolution Underground

“One of the functions of art is to give people the words to know their own experience… Storytelling is a tool for knowing who we are and what we want.”  

-Ursula K. Le Guin

Dear Readers,

This story weaves together tales of a marriage between an artist and a scientist, who are both educators striving to use images and words to create and capture their experience and the story of a burrowing animal named Lystrosaurus, which survived a major extinction more than 250 million years ago by BURROWING.

Since my dear husband and I are without children, years ago we established a creative quest to deepen and enrich our marriage. We pledged to find concrete ways to co-create as a route to develop our skills of negotiation, to discover, and to give birth to something unique forged by our bond.

In the past, we have rented an artist's studio together and collaborated on art pieces for an exhibit at our local natural history museum (see this blog), we have cultivated a researcher's lifestyle for Paleontologist Barbie who travels to ichnological wonders of the world (see blog entires here), blogged about our field experience in Montana (here), and we've developed science communication workshops (see this blog and blog).

Recently, though, I have felt an urge to write about our micro-collaboration in his book, The Evolution Underground, which came out last year (2017) in February. We joined our forces together to make one image of Lystrosaurus. 

COLLABORATION OF AN ARTIST AND SCIENTIST. After we discussed what the image might show, I drew the outline depicting the story. Tony used Photoshop  to color and texturize the image. We knew we wanted the image to depict hope and continuity.  (Art by Hallelujah Truth and Tony Martin)

But which came first in my experience to take action to visualize the Lystrosaurus story? My MARRIAGE (Tony and me)? HALLELUJAH (me)? Or the SCIENCE (Tony's ichnological knowledge)? 

Me! This wisdom to place myself first in the vast realm of paleontological knowledge and alien terrain where my marriage takes me, was given to me in the early 2000's by a dear family friend, Melissa Walker, who told me to anchor myself, my "ME-ness" first. She advised me to find the value in our co-experiences that nurtured and sustained me. Thus fed, I could venture from a profoundly strong stance into my collaborative marriage and integrating scientific knowledge into my humanities background. 

Therefore, Hallelujah to my Truth, to ME, First! It is now February 2018, and I have wanted to acknowledge the Hallelujah Truth image I made that preceded the image that Tony and I made (pictured above). Ta da! I am presenting "Regeneration" here (below). I am in the BURROW with Lystrosaurus. I placed myself there because I know about BURROWING. Don't you?

HALLELUJAH IN THE LYSTROSAURUS BURROW. I learned from a friend to be present in my husband's life meant being fully present in myself. Finding the "why" in traveling to outcrops in foreign lands, looking at rocks all day, and living and breathing ichnology as a way of life. I find my way in not intellectually, not with my head, but with my heart. Making art is an active way to move into feeling and experiencing new thought. I draw myself to presence myself. Did I become Lystrosaurus? Ha ha! No, but I acknowledged myself as a BURROWER. Being human requires us to pluck ourselves out of our daily/weekly regimens and to rest, recover, regenerate. Returning to our lives restored feels to me like a rebirth. (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

MOVING TOWARD FULLNESS. What is life if not a movement towards fulfillment of our potential? If we are lucky enough to survive the onslaught of life's wounding arrows and its cataclysmic disasters, we are given second, third, fourth, ad infinitum chances to try again. We might even begin to "play" and "enjoy" these times of regeneration.  (Art by Hallelujah Truth)

I drew on my BURROWING experiences to empathize with that of Lystrosaurus. Amazing to me that Tony could visualize animals surviving the worst mass extinction with such simplicity in a childlike mythic tale. 

HALLELUJAH EMPATHY. I allow myself to feel in order to connect. I draw to envision and to connect. I learn as a result of feeling and taking action. I am enlivened and ready to collaborate because of being anchored in SELF. It also helps to be a BURROWER (one who claims time for introspection and renewal).

As a true collaborator in my marriage, I asked Tony to write something for this tale of our marriage and Lystrosaurus. This is what he offered: 

"In a book about burrows, burrowing animals, and how burrowing animals have used burrows to survive catastrophes throughout earth history, I knew Lystrosaurus would have a starring role. Species of this stout-legged, dog-sized reptile, which lived about 250 million years ago (20 million years before the first dinosaurs) and survived the worst mass extinction in earth history. What probably helped them to survive a runaway greenhouse effect and ecological collapse? Burrows, which they dug and used as safe places in normal, everyday life, but which really came in handy when outside environments got more and more hostile to other animals. So I thought the best way to convey a sense of Lystrosaurus as a survivor – and one that survived because of its burrows – was by telling a fictional story centered on one female Lystrosaurus that underwent a Joseph Campbell-style “hero’s journey” during a time of mass extinction. I think it worked well for communicating many scientific ideas connected to Lystrosaurus as a survivor, but it also was a lot more fun to write. Ruth's idea of our creating a collaborative artwork, and one that expresses emotional and spiritual connections to this tale, somehow completed it." -Tony Martin

When I began this tale of my marriage and our Lystrosaurus collaboration, I imagined "stealing" lines from Tony's Lystrosaurus story, but I think I will save that story for another time or let you read about it in his book, The Evolution Underground.

 Let it be said that not just anyone can make you cheer on a reptile from 250 million years ago as it climbs out of a BURROW to discover it might be alone, and that its species may have been annihilated. Since I am one who thinks in myth, responding to the world in metaphors, I was completely captivated by the Lystrosaurus's story of survival and found myself identifying with its journey. 

Perhaps I'm coming out of another BURROWING experience in my life right now. It feels good to write my Coffee with Hallelujah blogposts again after a year of silence. I have returned to the surface after a year-long submersion in my BURROW. I continue to collaborate with my dear husband as we soon head off to Savannah, Georgia for the Southeastern Evolutionary Perspectives Conference. We will conduct two workshops together there! 

That's Coffee With Hallelujah! Soul blog with me. Tell me about your BURROWING experience(s). Are you in or out of your BURROW? May I suggest that we create grace from the mundane to the mysterious as we move forward in 2018?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Deep gratitude to my husband and collaborator. Tony Martin, author, paleontologist, ichnologist, and artist, here holding the cast of a burrow made by a marine invertebrate from the Georgia coast. He is a professor of practice at Emory University, where he has been teaching for 28 years. -photo by Lisa Alexander Streib Art

What's Your Water?

Embracing Water (art by Hallelujah Truth)

WHAT'S YOUR WATER?
An intriguing question! I've been contemplating this question since I attended the 100 Miles Second Annual Conference on Jekyll Island, Georgia, USA, last week (January 13th).  The renown marine biologist, movement maker, and visionary, Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, passionately spoke about WATER with an evangelical fervor!

WHAT'S YOUR WATER? The question asked by Wallace J. Nichols at the beginning of his keynote talk at the 2018 100 Miles Conference on Jekyll Island, Georgia, USA. 

Someone a while ago asked me which one of the four elements (Earth, Water, Air, or Fire) I most identified with. The questioned haunted me for some reason. In part, I felt challenged. I had always held all of the Earth to be very dear. Why would I choose one element to embrace in particular?

Then one day when I was hiking with my boon companion, Tony Martin, on Mount Arabia, a national heritage area close to where we live in Decatur, Georgia, I had an epiphany! I was hopelessly and madly in love with ROCKS.

YAY ROCKS! Of the four elements, I have fallen deeply and madly in love with ROCKS. Here I am at Mount Arabia, a granite monadnock, which has its own rich ecosystem. (photo by boon companion, Tony Martin)

For those of you who know me, you know that my boon companion and husband is a paleontologist, and even more importantly, an ichnologist! Since we met in 2001, I have spent innumerable hours out in the world on, at, surrounded by, and embraced by ROCKS. 

These ROCKS have histories! Rich in story, they can tell us about how the earth evolved, rivers that flowed through them in ancient times, fiery powerful forces uplifting them and downshifting them, and life (like dinosaurs) that walked upon them and left their traces.

I adore the smell of rocks, their rough and smooth surfaces beneath my feet, and the vast and various colors! Yay ROCKS! 

So imagine my surprise at being asked to shift my mindset to WATER at this 100 Miles Conference (I have always seen the 100 miles of our Georgia Coastline as an inseparable duality of land and sea). Why should I consider the question: WHAT'S YOUR WATER? Why is this question relevant and why is a research associate at the Academy of Sciences asking it? 

Wallace J. Nichols
#100MilesGA 2018

Because the health of our Earth's waterways and oceans is dependent on each of us connecting with WATER in a personal way! It is not enough for us to "know" the facts that our oceans are at risk from rising temperatures, overfishing, and pollution. We must also "feel" impacted by those negative changes as a result of our relationship to WATER. From connection comes responsibility, and from responsibility, action.

The only way we are going to succeed in engaging ourselves and others in conserving WATER is to get EMOTIONALLY involved. It is not enough to espouse water's value intellectually through education of its economic value and the balance of ecological systems! NO!

We must love WATER wholeheartedly with both our minds and--significantly--OUR HEARTS!

THE FOUR E's! In addition to "knowing" about water through the 3 E's --Ecological, Economical, Educational -- we need to experience it through our Emotions. (This image is a PowerPoint slide from Wallace J. Nichols' keynote talk at #100MilesGA.)

Imagine a scientist inviting us to name our WATER. What is your experience with water? Can you name the body of WATER you first went swimming in as a child? What kind of activities do you do with WATER? How does WATER make you feel? 

Wallace J. Nichols wrote an entire book -- BLUE MIND -- exploring the role WATER plays in our lives. As a scientist, he looks to neuroscience to explain the benefits to us humans at an emotional and health level. In the works is a new book, "The Seven Ages of Water," in which Nichols explores from birth through death the cognitive, emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual benefits of healthy waterways and oceans.

CALLING FOR A SPIRITUAL AND CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION. Asking scientists to shift in how they engage themselves and the general public in thinking about conservation. (Wallace J. Nichols used this in his keynote talk #100MilesGA 2018)

ALWAYS INCLUDE "BLUE MIND." The summary slide of Wallace J. Nichols' keynote talk at #100MilesGA celebrates the role of WATER in our lives. He emphasizes that we all need access to water at every stage of our lives. He also encourages conservationists and scientists to be present to the universal need of humans to connect with water and to share this "Blue Mind" awareness in their public outreach. 

BLUE MIND. For a week, I have been contemplating what my "Blue Mind" might be. Right now, I am dancing with my WATER, open to feeling the connection I know I have. For the past three days, I have been drawing this "Blue Mind" image, meditating on the various water experiences in my life. I am so thankful for this opportunity to expand my heart in connection with the Earth. In a short 7 days, I am thinking differently about WATER. It is almost like I am hearing its pulse. And that pulse is amplifying. In the future, I will write more about my WATER experience. (Art by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter)

OUR BELOVED GEORGIA COAST. In answering the question "What's Your Water," I can make this claim: My WATER(s) are the coastal waterways along the coast of Georgia and the marshes and fresh waters on its barrier islands. I have had the enormous privilege of spending time up and down the 100 miles of our Georgia coast as Tony Martin researched and wrote his book, Life Traces of the Georgia Coast, and now works with his Emory colleagues the digital project, The Georgia Coast Atlas. Here we are on Ossabaw Island, December 2017. With each visit to the Georgia coast, I fall more deeply in love with what we locals call the Golden Isles. 

That's Coffee with Hallelujah for now! Soul Blog with me. I want to know your answer to the question: WHAT'S YOUR WATER?

2018 FEAST FOCUS

FEAST FOCUS. My intention for 2018 is to keep my focus on the GOOD. There is so much  of that goodness in my life, why not direct my gaze at it? This takes the practice of restraint. Each time I turn my head to what is "not good," I will practice turning my head back to what is abundant and resplendent in my life. In addition, I will look towards the "ordinary good" as extraordinary. My plan is to diminish the negativity and embellish all else. This image of Hallelujah with the seed represents "heart growth" gained from focusing on the feast. (art by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter)

Hallelujah for 2018! Hallelujah for posts in our life fence that allow us to begin all over again!

Dear Readers, what word have you chosen to guide your actions in 2018? I discovered my word while traveling in Argentina. I experienced such an overwhelming sense of abundance, that the word FEAST chose me.

I had been flirting with this word in 2017. My focus was increasingly attending to the riches in my life. Let me name some of them here:

GROWING THE GOOD

Life with my boon companion, Tony Martin

Friendships with women from China, Korea, Japan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Argentina

Good health

Opportunities to integrate InterPlay with teaching American English fluency

Art making and Art friendships

Facilitating improvisation (InterPlay) as a way to improve science communication

Hard honesty given to me by trusted friends

There are so many other jewels in my life that I am not mentioning here, but you get the idea--right? 

Hallelujah for the FEAST!

This FEAST FOCUS requires me to restrain my peripheral vision. Yes! I can see all that is wrong in my personal universe and the ripples of your universes and the world's.  2017 with the Trump presidency shut me down. Some personal challenges with relationships dampened my joy. Lacking vision hampered my creative growth.

I am asking that this 2018 FEAST FOCUS allows me to regain my spirit, my umph--that which makes me feel vital and juicy!

PERSPECTIVES. I place myself at the "heart root" to improve my  perspective of the GOOD. Thanks to Cynthia Winton Henry for her offering of the words from Muriel Rukeyser "The blessing is in the seed." See my previous blog for more on this theme.

That's Coffee with Hallelujah this morning! I invite you to share your 2018 word and to give an explanation if you care to. What are you leaving behind and moving forward towards.

TATTOO: Interconnectedness between Cretaceous Past and Our Present

DINOSAUR-RHEA JANUS TATTOO. I created this image as a tattoo for  a fictional Argentine ichnologist, created by my dear boon companion, Tony Martin in his work-in-progress. The tattoo incorporates the head of a Cretaceous theropod dinosaur and that of an extant rhea, a large ostrich-like bird that roams the Argentine pampas in the same places where dinosaur fossils are found. The image has been stylized to reflect some aspects of the art of the indigenous people who inhabited the lands that are now Argentina. Art by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter

JANUS

Happy New Year! Welcome 2018 and all that we have to discover in the upcoming months!

Hallelujah for travel both geographically and in time! Hallelujah for the imagination that allows us to take the present and past and merge them together to either tell a story or create an image!

The above image is an amalgam of ideas past and present. I created it as a tattoo for a female Argentine paleontologist protagonist in Tony Martin’s current work-in-progress (more to be revealed at a later date).

How appropriate that I would create a “Janus”-like figure at the beginning of 2018 and in the month of “January.” As a god of motion and change, Janus represents beginnings, passages, and duality.

RHEA

The tattoo combines the head of a birdlike dinosaur from the Cretaceous (looking to the past) with the forward-looking head of a rhea, a large Argentine flightless bird (similar to an ostrich) that roams freely on the pampas. Their shared evolutionary ancestry is represented by one large foot that could be both dinosaurian or avian. The foot is important since Tony’s character is an ichnologist, one who interprets behavior in the past from fossils including tracks.

The spiral at the animals’ heart center is a reminder of “deep time” and the interconnectedness of these creatures throughout evolutionary time.

PALEONTOGIST WITH ARGENTINIAN DINOSAURS. Here Tony Martin "becomes" a dinosaur as we waited for opening hours at  Plaza Huincul’s Museo Municipal Carmen Funes. For the tattoo image, I  used the profile of the dinosaur's head to the left of Tony. Notice how bird-like these dinosaurs are!  Photo by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter

One of the reasons that Tony and I went to Argentina during the winter break this past December was to explore and visit some of the paleontological riches of this South American country. We also wanted to understand both its indigenous and European culture.

Thanks to our Argentine friends - paleontological colleagues of Tony’s - we learned about the Aguada people who lived in northwest Argentina from 700-1000 and the motifs they used on their daily lives.

IMAGES FROM THE AGUADA CULTURE. These images were shown to me on my first day in Argentina by Diana Elizabeth Fernandez in response to my questions about rheas and the imagery of the indigenous people of Argentina. These ancient people called this large flightless bird a "suri."

Therefore, my tattoo image is informed by the imagery offered to me by Diana Elizabeth Fernandez, who is both an ichnologist and daughter of a anthropologist/ethnographer working with content related to these ancient Argentine people. I also incorporated other ideas I found as I searched Aguada images on the Internet, like the image below, which offered me the concept of Janus (cannot find the source, my apologies).

 

This tattoo image may evolve, just as Tony's work-in-progress is evolving. I will remain open to refining it. For now I am satisfied and so happy for the opportunity to collaborate with the imagination of my husband. Our shared life brings us great adventure and joy.

Acknowledgments: Thanks to Diana Elizabeth Fernandez for her close listening to what Tony Martin and I were searching for during our visit to Argentina. We could not have had a better friend, colleague, or assistant in helping us locate images, understand Argentinian culture, and navigate the transportation system or Spanish language.