During this Spring the student will immerse herself in the metaphor of the sacred vessel. Through interactions with texts such as The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain, Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes and Centering by M.C. Richards, the student will respond to these texts via words, images, pottery and poetry, expanding on forms of communication. Where does the sacred feminine meet this earth, and in what sorts of vessels is this conceived, what sort of matter? How can we communicate a deeper connection to the inner feminine by using creative forms of expression? How has the use of language moved us away from a deeper connection to our inner feminine and to our embodied selves? Through learning the skill of throwing pottery the student will use this creative form as a way to connect to her own vessel, her body and womb. She will document this unfolding in a variety of ways, expanding her skills and knowledge in herbalism, poetry, ceramics, drawing, printing, and dancing. The student will also participate in a 4 credit Herbal class, which will allow her to practice using the language and also the medicine and folklore that plants have had to offer throughout time. The goal of this contract, besides gaining skills to use in future endeavors, is to seek an answer to how we interact with vessels and to expand a deeper knowing of the importance and significance of vessels.  How can language relate these embodied experiences and concepts, and how can they not? The student is particularly interested in the boundaries of language. In other words; where does the vessel of language start to overflow? And what vessels of expression will catch the overflow?

ABCs and 123s – weekly log and field notes

• V – Week 9 Log June 3, 2013 This week I focused on the transformation within myself, I thought alot about the whole, what did I learn from this quarter as a whole? I taught myself to throw pottery, ...
• V – Log Week 8 May 26, 2013 I believe what helene cixous was getting at with her own exponential need to write and with expressing the dire need for all women to write, was that we need ...
• v – Log week 7 May 19, 2013 Week 7: – A week full of difficulty.  Questions pondered: How does the body appear in writing? Why do we Write? Can you write the body, or are words woven to ...
• V – Log Week 6 May 12, 2013 May 6th Polishing work, Meeting with Sarah, Glazing pieces – taking responsibility for my role with the relationship 3.5 hours May 7th Class (Susan Givertz), 2.5 hours, Reading Perloff chp 6, Plant research, Salal (stalking the wild asparagus/moore) 7 hours May ...
• V – Log Week 5 (The year of the Water Snake/Feminine Laughter) May 5, 2013 This week has been focused around snakes and what they represent, the historical context surrounding them that have to do with the rise of the alphabet and the decline of ...
• V – Log Week 4 April 28, 2013 April 23rd – 7 hours Read Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Shlain Responded with poetry and transers, playing with harmonizing word and image. Posted on Wordpress Poetry April 24 – 8 Hours Read Shlain Paper on Healing ...
• V – Week 3 Log April 23, 2013 Week 3 Log of Hours/Work April 15th – 5 hours I worked on my ILC, fresh back from the Hoh rainforest with lots of inspiration in my pocket! I also read Centering by ...

Poetry

• v – Words coming to form… v - Words coming to form...
• v – Vessels from Spring Vessels from Spring   Attached is a powerpoint of the vessels i created with clay this spring. To me they speak of the process of learning and of embodiment, Enjoy!
• V – In the beginning…ABC’s.               Autograph Blank Clay Dealt Exposure Formed Grace Hyacinth Igloos Joyously Kindred Lovage Mountains Nesting Over Paradise Quills Ramshackled Snakes Thrilled Universal Vigor Wishing Xylaphones Yawned Zaniously  
• V – Poppy Pod inspired Vessel The women gifted them to the other allowing displacement of face motionless animals and grief stricken men were humbled by her earthen beauty once upon a time. and yet we know when we ...
• V – Wedging (poetry in response to pottery)   (Part One to be used in paper) This piece was inspired by “Exercises in Style: Sonnet” and my relation to wedging clay. Here she enters, moving with precision in her deathly stained apron and ...
• V – Plants of memories The lilacs drift into my nose and force-feed me memories of Ballet on warm Venice evenings -The quarters clinking into the jar- The repitition of bones and memory Jasmine shifting the mind towards my ...
• V – Reading Response, From Week 3. This is a reading response to “The Alphabet Versus the Goddess” by Leonard Shlain. In the first 50 pages, Shlain goes over the history of how women interacted in the world ...
• V – Eyes and Hands, Forming Vessels. My hands become the vessel squeezing the clay into shape to center. If I am not centered, the pockets of air cause a wobbling ending in destruction -wedging gone askew. As if I hiccuped and forgot ...
• V – Healing Paper Sharing with you all a tiny poem I wrote for my Herbal Class:
• V – (Dandelions and V’s) Harvesting Taraxacum Offcinalis: Oh how the vibrant Yellow of the wide open dandelions rejuvenate my spirit.      Their headlong medicine turns me onto a new page of thought, a thought of ...

Bachelardian Reverie

• Neuro Reverie Week 8 May 28, 2013 Liberty.   “Organ in a body of organs” (Neuro, 230) -this thing, this neuro-science science of picking a part apart the pieces. leaving the whole, formed only through pieces pieces holding pieces. we can know the pieces but we cannot ...
• V – Neuro Reverie week 8 May 21, 2013 Liberty. “…selves are memories, and memories are patterns of synaptic interconnections. How are these patterns of synaptic connections established? it is now ‘experience’ that shapes the patterns ...
• V – Neuro “Reverie” Week 7 May 14, 2013 “The Mechanism is the growth and pruning of synapses in response to experience – synapses that become “Hard-wired” by repeated use”. (194) Molding molds of children in infancy/in fencing of gardening ...
• V – Spring Reverie week 6 May 5, 2013 Liberty Peru Neuro Chapter 5 – The Social Brain Inspired by ideas from these two qoutes (and ideas discussed in “Neuro” and “The Vegetative Soul”) “…brain regions shaped by evolution, notably the amygdala, ...

Term Paper Abstract

Read full Spring term paper here