Each year when I begin this blog, I look to the lake for inspiration. "Clearknowing" emerged from last year's frozen February. Everything was encased in ice. Twigs on trees, rocks on the lake, the massive crust of ice which was once the shoreline. Clearknowing was a re-languaging of the kind of learning to clearly know our responses and the ideas that keep our perceptions frozen. I had hoped for an embodied learning, the kind you know in your bones. We came to class cold, shivering - we were feeling it. We unwrapped our scarves, our gloves our boots and unpacked ideas. Some days class seemed like a slow thaw, some days an active chipping away of ideas and some days there were deep glacial movements of seismic AH-HA proportions. It was different for everyone. Spring finally arrived and we looked back to February. We had become more pliable, flexible and forgiving of ourselves and of others. The construction of bias became clear and misperceptions began to melt away. I am awed by the metaphors that nature provides and particularly grateful for Winter's offerings. I welcome this inward turning, this time for contemplation.

This year I have gone back to the lake, to the place where I could find inspiration . I wasn't hearing or seeing the metaphor for this blog , so in the silence of the Magic Hedge near the beach at Montrose harbor, I walked and waited. The hedge is "magic" because it attracts birds as a stop over point while in migration. It was a former military base and is now one of three bird sanctuaries in the city. A stopover point, a "birders" paradise, a wild piece of restored prairie for conservationists, a haven for nature photographers, a gay mens' pick up spot and where I do my walking meditation, the hedge is a point of cultural convergence.

Forty and fifty degree days have been strange but welcome aberrations this winter, along with the appearance of the Snow Owl. A hauntingly beautiful snowy white owl right out of Harry Potter, also known as the mythological consort of Athena her symbol of wisdom, has made the hedge it's home for the winter. It is thousands of miles away from it's natural habitat looking for food by feeding on voles, rodents and rabbits in the hedge. New to this environment, this culture, which now includes specialists from the Field Museum and bird paparazzi, the snow owl is sometimes flushed out in the morning by overzealous birders just to get a look. This has enraged the true birders because any unnecessary disruption or movement by the owl can be life threatening. It needs to maintain it's weight, just to survive.


I am strangely captivated by this animal's journey to the point of receiving an white owl mug and owl Christmas ornament from a dear friend as a gift. In my walking meditation I often think and wonder...how is it to be so out of your element? so vulnerable, celebrated, exoticized, protected, threatened, surveilled? How did this animal end up free and another in captivity at the zoo? Can we qualify disruptions as bad or good when we never really know the extent of the ripples we create... or are effected by? This symbol of wisdom has been a welcome disruption. I contemplate the beginning of the Arab spring. Would we ever imagine that one person's frustration in Tunisia ending in the flames of self immolation, would spark a world wide revolution? Points of cultural convergence are everywhere. Some disruptions are loud and far away, some quiet in our own back yard, in our homes, in our internships, on the bus, the El, the lake. How are we changed by these disruptions? How do disruptions cause change? What is our responsibility as witnesses to change? What does art have to do with any of this?

Last weekend as I was leaving the hedge I felt sad and disappointed because I haven't seen the owl for a while. I miss it. I felt a little better hearing that it is feeding down at Northerly Island - the old Meig's air field a restored prairie habitat and park near the Shed Aquarium. As I leave the quiet of the sanctuary my eye catches the color of a bird sitting in tree. I stop and edge a little closer. It doesn't move. I am taking care not to startle it. These are bright colors that I have never seen on a bird in winter. I am drawn in... closer and closer. I move breathlessly and quiet. I creep ever so slowly within a few feet and stop. I am startled. It isn't real but, still a bird nonetheless. A hand made painted bird wired to the branch? Is it here to attract other birds? It reminds me of Don Seiden's work. Is this art? Is this an installation? Am I the only one who has noticed this? I look to my left and see another art bird wired to yet another tree. Someone does not want these birds to be taken down, to fly away. They are perched on trees a few meters from the entrance. What are they doing here? Why? What is the point? I have forgotten my disappointment and laugh out loud to myself, at myself. I have been flushed out, I have been made to move and to think critically. An owl and art birds... all birds all out of place, quietly disrupting this place of convergence and disruption. Thank you Winter.

The blog "officially" begins this week and posting is due on Monday. Please post your images from Tuesday's class with a brief optional reflection.
Those of you want to post from the previous week's readings please feel free to do that. Postings should be a minimum of one paragraph and can be just one paragraph, they can include; photos, videos, images of your own artwork, etc.

Welcome to Cultural Disruptions a place of convergence and disruption.