finding our bearings

Well folks, it's been a while.  Sometimes updating this blog gives me a little anxiety.  The expectations seem too high-- I mean, I can barely use a comma-- I swear.

I try to keep the wildbeings facebook page a little more current, but even that seems beside the point.  I understand that documentation is sort of important to this project-- but it's not really the part that I like.  I like the discovery.  The unveiling.  The weird synchronicity that makes the elephant and the elephant- loving DJ find each other. Everything else is just WORDS.

That being said, the lack of updates is in no way indicative of any slowing down of spirit animals finding their pairings around town.  I'm still getting them out there on a weekly basis.  I left one in the rain at the cancelled Warren Haynes show on Monday.  Got a blue bunny off to some blue bunny girl at the duck and dive.  Got a broken wizard-fox to a broken dude (it's true-- he showed me scars!), finally found the perfect fit for the bearcat, and with a little help from my friends--  I think a few even made it to Chicago!
 
I have a new fall batch about to be fired.  And I will try to be more diligent about the blog posts and updates with this group.  It's a serious business, being a spirit animal distributor.   Back to it!  Better than ever!

     

june strawberry moon

What a WILD month! 

The project continues.  Accidental honey badgers and fish and temporary wolves have made their way into the world.  And now we're racing into summer and there is a whole new batch about to hit the fire. I'm out there, still looking for a lynx.  A blue heron.  A panther.

The biggest news:  Wildbeings was mentioned in Salt Magazine's "Muses of the Cape Fear!"  We are honored and thrilled and maybe even slightly embarrassed.  It's also kind of daunting.  Does this mean we have to step up our game over here?  And what does that even MEAN?   It's something to think about.  Maybe I could be more diligent, write better, more.  But taking this project more seriously seems not in line with our manifesto at all. It's something to think about.  

And so... the Back at it!  Happy summer, animalfolks!

Spring to summer

Spring is a short season in the part of the world.  Some years, it seems to go straight from winter to heat stroke overnight.  We've had a decent spring this year.  I'm grateful for that.   

I went to The Brooklyn Arts Center on Tuesday night. (Have I mentioned that the live music season is upon us?)   I listened to some interesting, but maybe a bit longwinded, didgeridoo music.  Gave away a red fox with a blue crystal on his back.  We deal in foxes all the time-- we love foxes!  But this was a good one, kind of marking the end of my spring spirit animal hunt.

 Foxes are loyal and meet up with the same mate year after year.  But then they separate-- fox females roam alone for 6 months out of the year.  I like this about foxes.  They don't stand in each other's sunshine.  In a fox world, family and individual are not mutually exclusive.  They are wild and free to wander.  A matrimonial inspiration, really.  Who got the fox?  Who knows?  Maybe I left him in the cab?  Or possibly he disappeared with my sunglasses?  Bermuda triangle?  Or maybe I found a fox?  Your guess is as good at mine.

I'm currently in the process of making some spirit animal wedding cake toppers.  And a hummingbird for my 90 year old grandmother.  But don't worry!  Sunday I will be out on the town, looking for a lynx.  And the hunt continues into summer!  More later, spirit people.   

fox in the wind

What a week it's been!

Took some junior spirit animal adventurers (my children) to Greenfield Lake on Friday to tailgate the Pink Floyd cover band and laser light show.  They hid a little bear.  I have no idea where, but I know it kept them busy for a good ten minutes.  Bears are starting to come out of their dens a little now.

Saturday night, Wildbeings attended the launch party for C'est La Guerre at the Goat and Compass. Somewhere between 10 and 15 little beasts left my nest.

So this is the thing: I enjoy beer.  I really do.  And on this night, I also enjoyed some sort of vodka-ginger-beer concoction.  I was wearing a creepy-cool fox mask and a REAL fox tail.  Everyone was wearing animal masks.  French pop music.  Four legs good, two legs bad.  Well, I hope you can understand how things are a little fuzzy.  Here's what I remember:

I gave a girl with an owl tattoo an owl before seeing the tattoo.  I gave an otter and a narwhal to people I've been looking for.  I gave a guy with a big beard a beet.  Yup, a beet.  (We're outsider art, man.)  And I hid a bunch of animals in hay and corners and pockets.  Gave some to the artists.  And then, who knows?  Apparently, I ventured across town, gave away my fox mask, and came home way too late, soaked in beer (presumably my own.)  It was a big night for those of us in the animal spirit business.

Wildbeings has some other big things going on in the next few weeks-- but for now, I'm thinking I might need to lay low-- or maybe start hanging out on the other side of town until that whole Fox on the Town Night blows over.

Spring! Always gets me.

The season of the fox

It's Wednesday!

This Spring season has taken off like a fireball phoenix.  Here at Wildbeings, we've been globetrotting, making friends, spreading our wings and growing our brains.  This is the time of year to let the string out a little on your kite.

We've been busy beavers, busy bees.  We've gifted a few hedgehogs, a mole, and a screaming weasel in the past few weeks-- plenty of folks out there who are just cracking open their wind-in-the-willow-style underground habitats and noticing the sunshine and fair weather. (Rain is fair, folks.  Just ask my cucumbers.)  Some of these animals might appear day-drunk in the next month or so.  Northerners are especially at risk.  Embrace it!  Spring drunk!  We love it!  Hibernating animals, this is your final wake-up call!      

If you follow us on facebook, you may have noticed that we've been a little fox-obsessed.  For one thing-- maybe I'm a fox.  Or a coyote.  This is what I was told during a spirit animal reading I had ages ago.  And it feels true.  I'm tricky, for sure.  And I once had a coyote approach me, wet and skinny, in Joshua Tree.  And this month I was lucky lucky lucky enough to have a fox den on my property.  In an urban area!  And as if that wasn't amazing enough, there were BABIES.  Fox kits-- 5 of them-- that got washed out of the drainpipe in a storm.  One little barking alpha bugger bit my finger!  Which made me fall in love, of course.  So Wildbeings is maybe a little fox-brained, as usual, this spring.  Bear with us.  (No pun intended, we love bears, but they're more summer animals.)

We just returned from Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival where we managed to get a little tiny ceramic house on stage for the Wood Brothers.  I know a house is not an animal-- but it kind of is!  They're the Brothers Wood, for crying out loud, they should get it.  And they were incredible by the way-- even in the mud and rain. 

We traded a shaman-style fox with our friends at Twisted Bliss Designs-- as we do every year-- for a couple of nice sparkly rocks.  And we traded a weird little hedgehog for a dashboard dancing sunflower.  And we slipped a whistling turtle into some whistling guy's beer.

But now the fun really begins!

This Saturday night Wildbeings will be doing our first ever PLANNED event.  We will be at the Goat and Compass supporting outsider art in Wilmington.  We love outsider art.  We ARE outsider art!  Come on down and find your spirit animal.   Or better, let your spirit animal find you!     

And as if that's not enough: watch out for us in an upcoming issue of Salt Magazine.  An amazing fan has nominated us as a "Port City Muse."  Which I might argue-- it's more like you folks are the muses, what with your weird animal selves.  But whatever, I'll take it!

So I'll be out and about today slipping the last of this batch in your pockets and purses and unattended hoodies-- while a new batch holds itself together in the kiln, warming up for the weekend.

If love and light has a season, friends, this is it! 

Island animals

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know that place for the first time.

-- TS Eliot

We're back!  And with some fresh wind in our sails!  Every Being should go on a journey like this once in a while-- sharpens the mind, lightens the soul, reminds us of our rooted flow.  Full moons and ocean tides and language without words: all animals need a little wilderness.  And it's almost Spring!  So you know my fox-coyote self is starting to feel frisky anyway, as per usual-- nose up, fresh dirt, smelling that chicken breeze.

True to form we got a few little animals out there that seemed just right-- cause they go where they go... 

So in Little Corn Island, Nicaragua, a fish went to a fighting, hugging, flip-flopping Russian.  This was a woman who would hug you one minute and threaten to kick you in the head with some kind of Thai martial arts the next.  She liked me, thankfully, because I would not have wanted to be on the wrong end of that foot!  But she got the fish because it was so clear that her emotions were swimming very close to the surface.  A lover AND a fighter.  So the fish jumped in her pocket to remind her that there are times to swim with the current, and times to swim against it-- and there are times to just swim away.  Fear and anger don't have to be the motivation: fight or flee, float or swim-- do it with intention, little Russian fish. 

And we placed a little rat, I think, in a banana shack being built by a gringo.  Mostly because this guy had a big toothy smile, a good line of bullshit, and absolutely no qualms about making out with drunk bar patrons-- he seemed to be a natural rat, and to be honest, I liked him.  He owned his asshole agenda.  He had a quick wit.  And he smiled a lot.  Some folks tend to be offended by the rat-- this guy knew better.  He embraced his smart rat self.  Also, I think he left me a cool heart shaped seed in return-- first time I have been tandem gifted.:)

I also gave away a little hedgehog with a heart on his chest.  This one landed right where it was supposed to go.  The woman who got the hedgehog told me it was having to do with her young son, that he had experiences with hedgehogs and collected hearts-- that it suited him perfectly.  And I believe that.  But there is something of a hedgehog in this woman, too.  Hedgehogs teach us that we can be gentle and vulnerable but still protect ourselves.  They teach us how and when to use our defenses.  They teach us how to discourage negativity without internalizing it.  I have never pretended to read people, but something... something...  protect that heart, Hedgehog-- and keep rolling on.

And there is still a little red fox somewhere in the jungles of Nicaragua, with some enthusiastic and awesome animal spirit people from Canada-- can't wait to see where that one ends up!

Back in the studio this week.  And back on the town.  With renewed love and light and appreciation for all my animal spirit friends!

Ready up, Spirit People!  Eyes and hearts (and pockets) open! 

A steady forward motion

March.  In name, it's one of my favorite months.  I mean, moving into spring, like it or not.  A steady forward motion.  Marching orders.  March march march.

I was marching a few animals around town last night.  It's maybe my last night out for a while.  So, a rodent.  Maybe a chipmunk.  People don't give rodents much credit.  But the truth is, they're smart.  And chatty.  They're external processors, liking to figure things out by talking things through.  And they're stealthy, too.  You don't notice them picking your pockets, whispering in your ear, running up your pant leg-- they do it anyway.  If you got this little non-descript rodent you're likely operating under the radar.  And this could be to your advantage.  But look around, there is a whole community of rodents doing the same thing you are.  Power in numbers, friend.  Don't isolate yourself.

And the seahorse.  Or maybe it's a seadog.  This is an animal who operates in both worlds:  the weird wet emotional dreamy realm, and also the hard firm and grounded realm of straight up reality.  Tricky.  Not just tricky for the seahorse spirit, but tricky for the rest of us, too.  People who live in the ecotone, the space where water and land meet, are special.  Like weeble-wobbles, they are innately balanced and it takes a lot to knock them down.  But it is maybe not always comfortable for them.  They struggle a little with where they belong, feeling a little out of place even when things seem to be exactly right.  And this one has something about perspective happening, too-- because when I mentioned that I was looking for a seahorse, I don't think this literal interpretation is what folks expected.  There is something unexpected about this spirit person.  More than meets the eye.

A few little buggers have made their wild way to the great North-- sailing around frozen Norway.  Possibly the furthest we've been from home (although one did wind up in Russia, somehow.  And certainly California has attracted a few.)
And this week a little bundle of spirit animals are headed to South America.  Wildbeings world tour.  Keep your eyes peeled and your pockets unzipped spirit people!   Happy MARCH!

Goal diggin goats

It's been quite a little while since I've updated this thing.  But don't worry, animals are making their way into the world all the same.  I distributed a long-nosed vole and screaming weasel just this week.  The fact of the matter: this experiment takes constant claywork and I am not always so great about sticking to a single art form.  And suncatchers made out of junk and cardboard box city sculptures don't slip easily into people's pockets.  But alas, a batch has been miraculously bisque fired-- and today it will be glazed! 

So keep your eyes peeled for a whole new batch of wild spirit-- a lot of land mammals in this one.  Coincidentally (ha! sure.), it's the year of the goat!

Goats.  They climb and climb no matter how steep or cumbersome their path. They keep inching forward and up, forward and up. With stubborn determination they stomp and push and eat anything standing in their way: tin cans, broken glass, paperwork-- heck we call that breakfast.  This will be a year of self-discovery and vision, spirit people.  Plant your seeds and set your goals.  We are goal diggers!  So alright, folks, horns down.  Here and now.  Start the climb.  Go slow, go easy, but go!       

Happy Zoo Year

Here we are.  It's January, 2015.  Can you believe it? 

I have always been a person that cannot pass up a fresh start, a new day, a clean slate, an opportunity.  But I don't really do the new years thing.  My birthday is on the 6th-- and it has always seemed more true to the idea of reinvention-- doing it on my own personal new year rather than the homogenized calendar day that The Man and the hallmark people shove down my throat, our throats, everybody. 

I never loved having my birthday right after the holidays.  For one thing, people are always saying things like, "Whew, the holidays are OVER!" when it's, like, two days before my birthday.  Also, I've always suspected that people buy me loads of Christmas presents and then when they remember it's so close to my birthday, they split up the loot.  Folks are sick of it.  And they aren't shy about saying so-- celebrating a birthday in early January is overkill, it's annoying, we'll celebrate later.  Sure we will.  Sure.

People always ask me about my own spirit animal.  Truth is, I don't know.  I got a 'professional' reading once-- the woman told me I was a coyote with hawk medicine.  Both beasts have had a  formidable presence in my life.  One thing I know about hawks: they see things that other folks don't.  They fly ahead, above.  They see the big picture-- and sometimes pretty clearly.  What I've learned about this part of me: not everyone is ready to hear what the hawk has to report.  Especially true when the report comes out of the mouth of the tricky laughing coyote.  But that's what years are for, growing and learning.  One of these days I will be a very powerful coyote-hawk who knows just how to temper all my magic-- but for now, hang in there friends, bear with me.  It's a wild world out there and the best thing we can do is keep learning, keep smiling, keep loving, and keep trying to understand one another. 

So the full moon starts tonight.  Full Wolf Moon.  And it will stay full for three days.  During these next three days leading up to my birthday I will be around our local beer joints distributing the final batch of last year's animals.  Rabbits, hippos, narwhals: the first menagerie of 2015.  They are going out on the town tonight with SERIOUS good vibes-- because these are last year's animals.  But they are going to find purchase, dig in, and make this year work for them.

You'd be smart to hitch up your wagons, light your lanterns, and get on down this road, folks.  Welcome to 2015! 

  
 

Beasts and beauties and a new year around the bend

The recent dark moon has people acting screwy.  Folks who I know to be solid land mammals are suddenly flailing around the seashores and lakes, looking like they want to swim.  Bird people are digging dirt-- and not just for worms-- digging cause they've lost focus, cause they've forgotten to look up: those wings aren't just for show, folks. 

Time for a little wintertime introspection.  Remember our faculties.  Remember we are spirit people.

I've recently given a little sea lion to the son of a beaver.  These are both animals that can do well in those ecotone environments.  Survivors.  Playful hardworkers.  Beavers are builders.  They remind us to build up our dreams, not lose focus.  If a beaver has shown up in your life, chances are, you need to spend a little time repairing your balance.  Maybe your creative energy has been diffused-- you've forgotten that your work and your personal legend are intrinsically tied together.  Beavers tell us to act on our dreams, make them reality.

In the same vein, sea lions are creative, sensitive, souls.  These folks tend to swim around in their own heads a lot-- and the trick for them is to figure when and how to bring their gifts to the surface.  Folks with sea lion totems should pay particular attention to their ears and what they're hearing or what they're listening to.  Music and words can unlock doors for these folks.

I also tried to get a three-legged unicorn to a three-legged unicorn.  Not sure if it made it.  Unicorns are special, of course.  And over here at Wildbeings they're even more so because they always break.  Mostly the horns break off.  In this case, it was a leg.  So I was looking for somebody who still had their magic intact, but maybe had forgotten about it because they're concentrating too much on their limp.  The three legged unicorn is a reminder that you're very special-- but it's up to you to figure if you're a magician or a cripple-- depends on where your energy goes and flows.

This is a time to go within, reevaluate, refocus.  Time to remind ourselves that we have special talents and we need to remember to use them-- or they'll atrophy.  So wherever you are in this last week of the year-- land or sea or air-- be there.  And start from there.
 
We will see you in the new year, beasts!