Shema Productions

How can I help?

 

Pictures of our Holiday Marketplace

I love it when things are easy. Amy, the owner of the Rookwood Inn, and I just hosted a holiday marketplace together here in Lenox, MA. Amy sold pre-copies of her new book and I got to meet lots of people from my new community while sharing and selling my artwork. Amy gave me the whole dining room to display my work. Thanks Amy for making me feel so welcome!

You know how things can just flow sometimes? Well this did. In thinking about why this worked so well I realized that my suggestion to Amy to host a gathering together came from my sincere wish to help her get her product out to the community and get more people to visit her Inn. I had the idea that we could do that and create a space for me to be introduced to my new community while showing my work.

Amy loved it. She is a real community person and she wanted to help me too. With little effort (except for all the food that Amy and her staff prepared- which was great) we wrote a press release, it went out, we had lots of people visiting and schmoozing and we had a good time. We both wanted to help one another. I really think this is key.

As I go forward putting my work out in the world I want to remember, "How can I help?" as a mantra for getting things started on the right foot. It isn't about me so much as it is about right relationship and timing. If the juice is there and the intension is good things do seem to take off with a better start.

 

 

Power of Place

It’s taken me a long time to settle down and into my self but I feel like I may have found the place that supports me the best at this time. My last home ON the ocean helped me heal after my divorce and FLOW with my own creativity. I opened up to my art again and even allowed myself to tap into my Jewish roots which I resisted for years.

Now in Lenox, MA, two and a half hours west of my old home, I feel a very different kind of support. I am surrounded by trees, boulders and mountains. I feel very GROUNDED. In two short weeks I been able to settle in, unpack, and go out socially with a lot of new friends. I am most excited that I feel energized to put my work out in the world with more ease - artwork, workshops, online meditations, and even proposals to do corporate training again! Fun stuff that I couldn’t seem to energize as easily near the water.

Is it timing, creative community, the solid ground below me? Likely all of the above. What I know is it was the drive to create my souls work that had me unroot myself again. Moving from one place to another, year after year, had its challenges. Each place served a purpose in my evolution though. It was like adding and subtracting what works and what doesn’t so I could feel at ease and aligned with what is truly mine to do. I think I am getting there! Phew! It feels good.

Singing the New Story

I did it! I posted my performance of Humans Being Rag on YouTube and on my website. I wrote this song for the reunion of The Art of Humans Being gathering I helped co-create. We explored many ways of creating the new story for our world.

This performance was at Summersongs, the songwriting camp I went to last summer. I LOVED being with this great, creative and musical community. Thanks to Larry Seese of Bluesy Productions for creating the video and to Glen Roethel and Mark Dan for being my back up band! 

 

Energizing My New Home

I am really excited about my move to Lenox, MA. I have butterflies in my stomach sometimes because I can’t believe I have done this again - an 8th move in as many years which requires making new friends and so much more. But I have. I felt a distinct ‘it’s time to move’ call from deep within my bones about two months ago. From there, I followed guidance and was led to just the right location. I am so grateful.

I am meeting people, having fun and unpacking everything I can quickly but with ease. The furniture just fits, I mean literally by inches in some cases. I find just the right spot for this piece of art or that furniture. I haven’t hung all the pictures, but most of it is done.  What remains is perhaps the most important job, hanging my Alphabet of Vibration^TM paintings.

I’ve come to understand the incredible power these ancient symbols of creation hold. When they are in a circle they create a supportive energetic field, so where I put them in the house will matter. I have some over the fireplace (as you can see in the picture) and a few in the front hall. But for most of them, I want to feel settled before choosing where I place them. 

Now that my nest is pretty set, I have to remember to get outside for a long walk in the beautiful mountain air! That's next.

The Art of Creating

At the end of August the earth and our world were literally shaking on the East coast of the United States with an earthquake and a financial plummet. All of a sudden I had a ‘hit’ - a deep feeling inside that it was time for me to move. I had opened up to my art, my Judaism and my singing over the past 15 months while living in Swampscott, MA. All of a sudden I understood, it was time to stop renting, move inland and have creative community around me so I could put my work out in the world more easily.

I follow those intuitive ‘hits’ as they often proove to be very sound. I wondered, ‘Where to now?” I remembered a friend saying that the Berkshires, where Tanglewood, Kripalu and many other creative and spiritual institutions call home, was a portal of conscious energy and a great place to live. So I started looking and just three weeks later I found the lovely house I am now living in!

Peace Meditation

Happily measuring rooms in my new house in Lenox, MA in joyful anticipation of my furniture coming in a couple of weeks I am overcome with sadness. “Send in the Clowns” is on. It is part of a collection of Broadway tunes I am playing. All the years I didn’t care for myself or where I delayed in taking wise action come sweeping through my cellular memory.

I put down my measuring tape, sit on the bed and begin the free virtual peace meditation that I lead every morning for ten minutes. I imagine my ‘tools’ - the Hebrew letters and more - because I need to address this feeling NOW.

Entering Peace

OMG! "Entering Peace" came to my mind and heart as soon as I drove into this magical place, the Hancock Shaker Village just north of Lenox, Massachusetts. I was taking part in a Peace conference co-presented with the Center for Peace through Culture.  I learned a lot, sang with Barbara and Graham Dean from Summersongs, connected with friends new and old, including Nancy Roof of Kosmos Journal, and took in the simple, elegant magic of this place.

My heart is full, full, full. I will be living near here soon, as part of a vibrant, creative community dedicated to social and spiritual activism, peace and conscious living. I am forever grateful.

 

A World Cafe Birthday!

I have been a member of The World Cafe virtual community since 2007 when I offered a World Cafe at the end of my Celebrate the Earth Conference. This process of cross-pollinating ideas with each other helped participants integrate the information we gained over the weekend and to come up with an action plan for their own lives. That is when I first me Sharon Joy Kleitch who  helped me run the World Cafe. I also met Amy Lenzo, World Cafe’s Director of Communications!  I am happy to say, these two women are still important friends and colleagues in my life. Amy helped design this site! Isn’t it just gorgeous :)

Celebrating the Alphabet of Vibration!

 
On Sunday I hosted an art opening brunch to welcome The Alphabet of Vibration into the world! I had been keeping them under wraps until the time was right for them to be revealed. My joyful and colorful opening was filled with music, good friends, lots of delicious food and fun.

“Women’s Wisdom Returns” for a second art show!

My second art show is up and I didn’t have to do anything to make it happen. It just did.

Over the past few months, all I did was imagine the joy I feel when my art is shared with people who enjoy it. The other day I also mentioned in passing to the director of my synagogue, Congregation Shirat Hayam, that someday we would talk about my artwork. I had no agenda there, I just knew it would happen.