the abandoned Owl House

I love finding new abandoned spaces to explore. There is a thrill, a heightened awareness that comes with just the right level of dangerousness  for my intensity meter. I have been exploring deserted places since I was a kid, my wacky wonderful parents were rebellious young  baby boomers who were not going to be stifled by the fact that a baby girl decided she was going to be part of the party.

Today in the Kittitas Valley in Eastern Washington I was gifted with an outrageosuly cool abandoned house. It takes some bravery to stroll into these decrepit spaces, you never know who, or what might be in there.

Some of the shots get very painterly and abstract. Like an energetic signature.

These next 2 paragraphs are from one of my all-time favorite blog posts when I lived in New Mexico called “Trespassing, Holy Dirt, and Baby Jesus’ Shoes.”

http://melissaweisssteele.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/trespassing-consecrating-horses-holy-dirt-and-baby-jesus’-shoes/

When I was traveling around the American West visiting horse people, I had an amazing trespassing experience in the old mining town of Wallace, ID. I found an old Victorian home that looked as if it had not been occupied since the 1940’s or 50’s. The peeling wallpapers and layers of paint patinas were glorious. When I went upstairs, the back bedroom was completely intact. It was so eerie, I could feel the old woman who lived there. You have to be careful about what has taken up residence in these deserted places. You are entering a sacred temple, and the lives of the past occupants are still present. It serves you to be quiet, respectful and alert.

Part of the reason I go into these deserted places is because they are portals. They are crossroads; liminal spaces where the divine and the mundane meet; truly alternate realities. There are potent forces that gather where the heavens and earth merge, and what might you create there? New Mexico itself is one big magical multi-cultural land of enchantment and mystery.  It has revealed itself to me on occasion.

So back to Ellensburg today, as I entered, one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE THINGS ON THE PLANET greeted me as it flew out the large opening on one side of the house, a BARN OWL!! I am owl crazy. period. They do it for me, and in this abandoned roost that I now call Owl House there were more owl pellets {the regurgitation of the inedible parts of their fully devoured prey} than I have ever seen anywhere. It added such a cool element to this trashed environment, with half its roof missing.

Oh the magic of old wallpaper.

A cool mix of pictures came forth with my now favorite Hipstamatic app on my iPhone and their other product the Incredibooth that takes photo booth type strips of pictures. It’s the best 4 bucks I have spent in a long time. So all these images are from this sublime decaying building that was just sitting there in the middle of a field waiting for me to love it.

Pull Tabs RULE!

And sorry to the 2 barn owls who had to circle and hide in the irrigation ditch this afternoon while I rooted around. I will make it up to you, promise!!

OK, so my inner mama bear is coming out, if you do go into these places be VERY CAREFUL, they are disintegrating, the floor may give. Be mindful. Good-and eat your Wheaties too!

Multi-sensory awareness captured on film.

Exit through the gift shop? Surprisingly there was very little graffiti here. Maybe Ellensburg youth have other artistic outlets!

"Oh Mystic Wheelbarrow, fly me to my destiny in the stars!"

The Darkness of the season holds great magic and mystery if we slow down to listen. Take the time to ease your pace and you may be rewarded with quiet whisperings of wisdom and subtle dreamy visions. This is the natural hibernation time for many climates, follow that  instinct to burrow, snuggle and regenerate.

Receive and expire, breathing in the subtle emanations of Spirit, exhaling the illumination as an offering for us all.

Attune the third eye with the heart center, being struck by the awe and beauty of this mysterious life we have been given.

Welcoming in gratitude the blessing we receive, and offer in joy the brilliance of our own light as the greatest gift to the collective.

There lies great rainbow treasures in the richness of the dark.

And we greet the return of the sun as it slowly warms our awakening hearts.

Mellissae Lucia

Beloved Bob Carlson with his wall of great thinkers

First promo video for the movie, boy has the project grown since this!!

    http://vimeo.com/26590741

Sonja Blomdahl with her luminous glass vessels behind her

Father Dick Weiss with daughter Mellissae Lucia in front of his Marine Sciences commission at the University of Washington

Blog for the film: www.PaintedintheDesert.wordpress.com

Angela R Smith and Mellissae in their favorite local- a photo booth machine

Cousin Leela and Mellissae in bee masks at their home away from home- the photo booth!!

Dick Marquis with his stash of vintage chemicals from his pile of old skool science kits

Johanna Nitzke Marquis with the wedding gift Dick Weiss made for she and her Dick-so punk

Connie and Charlie Parriott in their magical rustic retreat in a weathered barn

Full Circle gallery artists communing about the beauty of collaboration

Mellissae Lucia beside herself with joy in the Santa Fe graffiti tunnels where all the magic happens

Charles Peterson photograph of Mellissae Lucia, Angela R. Smith & Stone Gossard of Green River at the Ditto Tavern. Seattle, WA 1985.

It’s good to have friends for almost thirty years. You don’t have to explain all of your family dysfunctions to them, they have seen you at your best and worst, and if they are still around there must be some real love.

My beloved partner in crime Angela and I had a full day reminiscing on our time in the Seattle music scene in the 1980s for the movie Painted in the Desert by MK Barr. The film explores the evolution I  underwent after a great loss, ending up in New Mexico doing painted body photography on the land. Part of the story is the rebellious and subversive years spent in the clubs and bars of Seattle’s own musical metamorphosis.

Angela and I spent a couple of hours breakin’ down our perspective on why Grunge emerged here in the mossy Northwest Spore Cave, what it was like to be females in that male dominated world, how we snuck into bars at fourteen years old to see the shows, what a broad cultural and musical range all of the people we met through the scene had, how un-sexy it all actually was, and why the word Grunge makes us cringe. It was a blast.

After sharing our seasoned view on the bands and culture of that era we rolled down to Belltown to see the Pearl Jam movie that Cameron Crowe created.  http://www.rollingstone.com/videos/new-and-hot/pearl-jam-first-trailer-for-pearl-jam-twenty-20110726 It was a wonderful mix of old footage of Andy Wood from Malfunkshun, Chris Cornell from Sound Garden and seriously grainy images of Seattle from 1984. Pearl Jam is a really honorable and talented group of guys, and the movie showed an unvarnished view of their struggles and triumphs.  After that fun we had to do our old stand-by, photo booth pictures. We are well-practiced in hammin’ it up in those little magical boxes, we have been doing it together for almost three decades. I must warn the old skool folks though, they take credit cards now, BE CAREFUL, don’t go into debt. I am so grateful I did not have credit cards back when I was a wee one taking all of the images, I could have been in serious trouble.

The only thing now to round out the Seattle scene trifecta is to finally see the Andrew Wood film that has been delayed for years. http://www.malfunkshun.com/  I guess the rights to the footage and music has been a challenge, and we will patiently wait for Amazon to deliver the Glam Rock magic of that genius star child who left us all too soon. Chris Cornell said in the Pearl Jam movie that the Seattle scene actually died the day Andy Wood did, not when Nevermind by Nirvana was released, and not when Kurt Cobain took his own life. Agreed.

Mellissae & Angela before giving our sassy perspective on the early Seattle "grunge" scene. Would these Cherubs lie?

Photo Booth mayhem in Belltown after seeing the rockin' Pearl Jam movie at the Cinerama.

prayers with punk attitude

has Mellissae become that grouchy old man who says s*@#???

no comment.

Rio Chama

Today I leave my beloved New Mexico to soak in the ocean ions for the winter. I will miss her vast and haunting lands, and there are times we are to leave the beloved to return with new adventures and riches to share with her. MK has begun editing the Painted in the Desert film, and I look forward to showing her my own camera work for the project I took the last week in Abiquiu.

I send love to all the friends I caught up with, and to the others I will catch on the next round.

Jude Alexander's The Tarot Game

I shall dream of the cottonwoods along the Rio Chama, the aspens twinkling in the wind, and the lightening that punctuates the smokey black skies. It is a good thing to find a place you are profoundly in love with.

Until next time beloved New Mexico,

Mille Grazie for all the blessings,

devotedly yours,

Mellissae Lucia

Cottonwood Elder spirit

How will this weave into the story?

MK and I had a whirlwind filming tour of New Mexico last week. The energy here is very, very intense, and during our time in Abiquiu I was initiated back into this land I love with a cleansing experience. When I first considered moving to New Mexico, EVERY SINGLE PERSON I spoke to told the same anecdote about living here. They all said in their own way that this place has a very powerful essence and that it will chew you up when you first arrive, and then it will decide if it spits you back out or keeps you. And if it does keep you, you can never truly leave. Very Hotel California.

Abiquiu, New Mexico

The ecosystem is also a very potent place, with the heat, altitude and dryness challenging to someone raised at moist sea level. Each time I return after leaving for more than a few days I have to reacclimatize. They say it takes six weeks to reproduce more red blood cells to carry the extra oxygen you need at this altitude. For the first few weeks to a month, I am usually wiped out. And, even with the recalibration I am in my happy place.

Another interesting aspect of MK and my filming trip was our truck. It had Louisiana license plated, and I sense there is some synchronicity or connection that will emerge from that place.

Janet Elk & Mellissae

This week I have been revitalizing with my the sister of my heart, Janet Elk. She is also the graphics person creating the gorgeous Oracle of Initiation-Rainbows in the Dark book that will be available soon. One of the interesting things that both Janet and I are going through is that we truly have moved into being very different people, and we are both exploring how the “new” us flows through the world. Janet has moved here to New Mexico from the west coast, and I have taken on a new name. Bot of these external and internal shifts offers an expanded sense of self, the opportunity to tell our stories in a unique and freeing way. We do not have to carry the old baggage forth, we can head into a season of joy, a season of wildness, a season of creativity that may have been suppressed in the old environment.

Janet with the Rio Grande

We went shopping at the Albuquerque thrift stores and both of us questioned what the new us may want to wear. As I put on a classic “go-to” item, I clearly saw it was not the new me. Janet and I are both on a path of discovery, questioning all of the old wishes and passions that we have carried for years, asking, “do I really want to go to Tibet {put your own historic desire in here} now?” Ask yourself if you are in the place of becoming a new you, and what might that fresh essence want?

Lovin' the earth

Tomorrow I head back up to Abiquiu, the home of my heart, and meet with the land I love.

You have NO IDEA how happy I am to be back in New Mexico. It truly is one of the places of my heart, and I am glowing from the return home. There is something about the vastness of the sky and the pinion baking on the earth that satisfies me like no other place.

Its such a good day when we have mud, rivers and graffiti in New Mexico

MK and I are having a BLAST filming the Painted in the Desert movie. We went to the three graffiti tunnel locations around Santa Fe that I created the underworld Painted Body ritualistic photography series in. I had never taken anyone to two of them, and it was a sweet return.

Santa Fe tribe divining with Mellissae's Oracle of Initiation deck

Later we convened with the local tribe to divine with my Oracle of Initiation deck and discuss art, transformation and magic. Today we are off to one of my absolutely favorite places on earth, Abiquiu. The artist Georgia O’Keeffe lived there for the last half of her life, exploring the arroyos and mesas of that Technicolor landscape as I do now.

ALTER!!!!

Red Rio Grande LOVE

I have not been home to the southwest in six months. New Mexico is one of the most enchanting places I have ever been; I fell in love with the land three years ago, and have not been gone for more than a month since that time. I tend to start sobbing and shaking when I pass over the state line, a rather fascinating phenomena since governmental boundaries are so arbitrary. Maybe over time there does become a force-field to locations created by the inhabitants and the place itself. I remember flying over Arizona as I returned to New Mexico and having the same reaction, like the pull of the beloved, the love of your life who you are returning to after a very long quest.

I am returning after time spent in San Diego, Mexico, Central America, Seattle and now a homecoming to film the documentary MK Barr is creating about the initiatory journey I have undergone over the last nine years. www.Paintedinthedesert.Wordpress.com 

The collaborative aspects of the project have been so incredible. I have been praying for some time to have really juicy projects with other humans, and this is really the first time it has happened at the level I desire. I say to myself when I am headed into an intense time with my work that I am getting on a rollercoaster. Be it a big push to finish a project or traveling and teaching, I have to prepare myself energetically to be out of my normal rhythms and meet the level of exertion the process demands. This is the first time I have a longer-term peer and ally along on the wild ride of my artistic processes. Send us love and support as we journey forth into a very wild, fierce and unpredictable landscape to film the culmination of this journey into my true self, returning home to the land that welcomed and transformed me.

Here is the video MK made for Flying Turtle:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150378215599923

I am in love with the people I meet dancing. ALL of them. They are brave. They are fierce. They are willing to step out of their comfort zone and challenge themselves every time they commit to the dance. Something happens when people really get into the process and everyone becomes illuminated. You will commonly hear people say to the group after, “I fell in love with all of you tonight.” This is a revolution, this ability to love beyond boundaries, beyond the fear of how it will be received and open your heart to the collective. The dances I have been to in Seattle, Santa Fe, San Francisco and San Diego have all been the most welcoming places I have ever entered. There is a kindness and an openness to anyone who shows up to play that is a precious gift even before you start to move.

My life has been completely transformed by the process of movement in community. My own issues with value, belonging, facade, embodiment, boundaries, safety, sensitivity, beauty, power and intensity have been tested over and over again. It is a good thing that this is so joyful because I would not have gone through the learning if I didn’t get some pretty high-powered juice back.

MK Barr is creating a movie about the process I underwent re-igniting my life-force after a great personal loss.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/107791586/painted-in-the-desert-a-travel-essay

It was essential to capture this aspect of my journey, and through the Seattle Flying Turtle  tribe we were blessed with the community projecting its grace into the video camera.

Dancing is really about playing with energy. Your, mine and ours. When you watch people who feel really embodied in their movements there is an energy alignment there. The movements may be flowing or frenzied, but they feel authentic. They have tapped into their center, and then can expand to meet those around them. When the filmmaker MK spoke of the shoot afterwards, she said you could have never, ever, choreographed how beautiful the dance was. The variety of the rhythms and movements that were occurring simultaneously across the floor were astonishing. You would see one person with a steady bouncing beat beside a woman raised into the air as she pours back to the ground like molasses. There were bounding chaotic dancers meeting slower fluid folks who moved their hands like East Indian mudras. Some would whip back and forth like a rubber band was attached to their torso, stretching to the limits of the tension, and then spinning back in to fly past the body of the other.

This is some of my favorite engagements, when you both understand each others movements in a totally intuitive and non-verbal way, and are able to dip in very closely without touching and then zoom back out. Its like two hawks playing in the wind, riding the energy currents together.

We have 6 more days to raise $3751.00 to reach our kickstarter funding goal to receive ANY of the funds so far pledged. If 376 people each pledge $10 each we can change the world through supporting the visions and projects that the larger media does not deem valuable. Dance is a spiritual experience for many, tithe to your practice, show how dance fits within a magical and spiritual life. Go pledge to the world YOU want to create here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/107791586/painted-in-the-desert-a-travel-essay

I want to give Scot Robinson, the master of ceremonies at Flying Turtle BIG LOVE for creating such a juicy and vibrant container for the tribe over the years with Bruce Carloye’s early partnering. Mary Anderson of Ecstatic Dance here in Seattle. Mary’s was the first dances I attended and I still feel at home there. Soleil Hepner of Yoga and Dance Blaze who has been promoting all local Seattle dance with her free newsletter for almost a decade. Franklin Markowitz and his Morphic Field dances and Jenz Wazel and his funky Soul Motion and all the other folks doing dances here in Seattle. Much love to my new tribe in Santa Fe, the Embodydance community that taught me I could belong in any location. And to all the other cities and dancers across the globe who are sweating their prayers as we all reclaim loving, joyful engagement with each other. You all fill my life in a way nothing else has, and I thank you all for showing up. I took all of these images the night of filming for the Painted in the Desert documentary.

Whale bone altar

Horses completely changed my life. They are one of the great mysteries and miracles of my pathway into my sovereignty, and last night I was able to touch again that early passion and love I felt for them.

A little background on why horses made such an impact on my passage. Over the last nine years my entire life has completely changed. Before the big shifts I was married and living in Seattle, looking forward to having children and I had nothing to do with the horse world. When my husband got cancer and died at 37, everything fell apart. I had to find a way to resurrect myself, and it came through reclaiming the essential components that had delighted me throughout my life:  art, the land, and adventure. Through these three key elements I was able find the will to live again.

Part of that metamorphosis was falling in love with horses. The impetus to be with them came out of the blue during a session with my teacher Valerie Wolf. I blindly chose one of her stone animal fetishes for her to do an intuitive reading, and when I looked at my choice it was this amorphous lump of rock.  I had no idea what it was, and Valerie laughed and said no one ever chooses it because they cannot tell what it is. Since I had released my visual attachment to the outcome I was available to spiritual serendipity. Valerie’s reading from the horses said I belonged to them, I always had, and that I would learn a tremendous amount about balance, power and integration through working with them. It had never occurred to me to pursue that world, I felt like in my mid 30’s that I had missed the golden age of horsemanship, and it was not a viable option now. And, when I imagined it I saw myself riding through a lush wooded terrain with dappled sunlight dancing on our pathway. I felt like a goddess in the English countryside, poised and peaceful, in my element. So I was brave, and I went for it. Time for a  commercial interruption: I have found that to expand your life and claim your passions, it always requires stepping out of your comfort zone. Always.

So, I went and did something that scared the hell out of me and I knew nothing about, the equine world. Over the next five years I learned how to be safe around them, how to read them, and what astonishing creatures they can be.

Buck

Last night I watched an incredible movie on Buck Brannaman, the Natural Horsemanship expert, by accident. http://www.buckthefilm.com/  I took myself out on a date-night, and it happened to be playing on Broadway just up from my favorite sushi joint. The poster has Buck with his head bowed, and just the brim of his hat is showing. I did not realize it was about him, and luckily I happened to read the promo text next to the poster. It was the last night it was playing, and fate brought me to experience the film on the big screen.

Buck Brannaman comes from a lineage of real-deal  cowboys who introduced the horse world to the humane and intuitive process of horse partnership called Natural Horsemanship. The old paradigm of horse training was that you needed to “break” a horse so it would bow to your will. It was aggressive, cruel, and really out of alignment with attempting to get such a sensitive creature to make an alliance with you. Horses are paradoxical because they are both gargantuan and timid {well, maybe not timid for the stallions}. In the animal world there are predators and then prey. Horses wound up in the prey category, so they have very highly attuned perceptive abilities to keep them from being eaten by the cougar. As Buck said in the movie, we are asking the horse to allow us to climb on their backs as the cougar would do to kill them, and then,  escalating our extreme requests, we want to toss the dead hide of another animal onto them as part of the process.

Horse Dance Ceremony image by Jak Wonderly

It really is astonishing that horses tolerate us at all considering all of this. And my experience has been that most of them do more than tolerate us, they allow us to partner and commit to them in such deep and profound ways that it is truly a miracle. This extreme sensitivity is also their greatest gift as teachers to us. Because of their keen awareness, they are beautiful mirrors to our inconsistencies and hidden emotions that are affecting everything in our sphere subconsciously. Their need for reliability makes them intolerant of our repressed issues because in that unpredictability we may turn on them and eat them. Sometimes what can look like a great challenge becomes a profound gift in service to others.

As I learned in the movie, Buck is a genius. He is gentle and sensitive and strong, overcoming astonishing obstacles to be in his place. He is a mans man, a bona-fide roping Montana cowboy who really works psychologically with people, transforming horses lives in the process by teaching humans how to take care of their own wounds so the horses don’t have to act them out. He is fierce and kind on calling folks on their part of their horses behaviors, and people listen to him, and respect him. His entire life trained him to be of service to this world. As the movie said, if god imagined the perfect cowboy it would be Buck.

Since I am part of making a movie at this time www.PaintedintheDesrt.Wordpress.com , it was fascinating to hear film legend Robert Redford honor Buck’s authenticity and wisdom. Redford explained how the film the Horse Whisperer would not have been possible without Buck’s support. Buck taught Robert how to enter the world of deep listening and attachment to horses, and Buck was Redford’s role model for the character in the film. And Redford also talked about how refreshing it was to be with Buck’s genuineness in Hollywood’s world of illusion and artifice.

A very big guy!

And now I sit here crying, because I loved that world. I loved the horse clinics and the people and the dirt and the round pens and the worn in cowboy boots, and of course, the astonishing connection to the horses. I also fell in love with many of the horse people I met. The intuitive ones I was guided to were so straightforward, sturdy and down to earth that they were like a breath of fresh air. Horses really do cross class and cultural lines, and there is a large contingent of folks who have also fallen for these noble beasts.  Even the most conservative folks will get starry-eyed and mystical sounding when they talk about the mystery and magic of their horses companions. As I watched this fascinating film I missed that world. Horses were like a reunion with something I always craved but didn’t know how to touch, and they never ceased to amaze me with their actions, intentions and generosity. They could be tough teachers, and also so tender it could break your heart open.  Their smell still enchants me like no other, and I miss that level of passion for something that brought me in contact with a new community and experiences. I also recognize it is an insane amount of work to get really good with them, like fly fishing; you’d better be patient to actually get to any level of expertise.

Pegasus horse collage by Mellissae

It was a love affair that came out of left field, a world I did not know, and a part of me misses it. At one time I thought I might move to Bozeman, Montana or Ketchum, Idaho and become a rancher. And things do change. Sometimes our most profound initiations are to lead us to another place.

I realized the passion that had overtaken me for the horse world had left when I arrived in Texas almost four years ago.  In some ways that was a total relief, not to have such a yearning  to be tied down, to release the responsibility of how much work and resources they require. And they always were a lot of work for me, to learn about them and train myself to work adeptly with their particular energy. And in some ways that time I spent falling in love with them, traveling for three years on and off to the west was some of the most precious times I have ever had. So I just wanted to share this aspect of my emergence because the draw to earth-plane horses really did leave me, they became symbolic, metaphorically carrying me back to the land, and I miss them, or maybe I miss that feeling of falling in love with a new world. And all of the things that I think can come with that world, wide open spaces, beautiful terrain, cleansing physical labor, loyalty and love and commitment, quiet  intuition, connection to the land, honor and simple kindness.

Thank you to those gods who incarnated in 2000 pound, four-legged bodies. Those magnificent angels who offer us daily their fear and trust, their beauty and vulnerability, their transcendent intuition that reflects us back to ourselves. I can never, ever thank the Horse Spirits enough for how much they revolutionized my life. They are the reason I am who I have become, they opened doors for me that I had not even imagined, they offered me freedom and grace and the vast silence I needed. They carried me back to my home on the land, and my own creative visions. They are one of my greatest allies and teachers. A true gift.

I also want to thank all the teachers who guided me though the complex world of apprenticing to horse wisdom,  I could never have done it without you. Leigh Shambo of HEAL; Equine Rescue Association in Marysville, WA; Kim McClellan the horse dreamer; Linda Kohanov, Epona and their entire staff; Ruth & Chuck Kraft at Horse Handling “Festina Lente;” Jen Grace and the Horse Dance Ceremonies with Maria & Lynda Yraceburu; Kate Vigneron and the beloved Madera Hills Ranch in Texas;  and the entire Montana horse crew, I fell in love with all of you and your glorious landscape.