Imagination
“Imagination is housed in the mind and in the brain, channeled through spirit. As such, it is a place, the most boundless place I’ve known. Imagination is one way spirit can begin to take form.” Patrice Vecchione
The invitation popped up in my email. I read Imagination Migration: Collage Installation by Patrice Vecchione & Friends reception Saturday March 23 at Sweet Elena’s Bakery Café in Sand City.
It had been years since I had seen Patrice, a dear friend of those early days when I first arrived in Santa Cruz from my hometown in Georgia as a youth wild and free. She was an aspiring poet and me a modern dancer. I recalled the afternoon we gathered in someone’s backyard and I danced while she read her poem Saxophone Man. In 1980, Patrice was my birth coach and with her love and help my son, Sol, was born at home. Through the years since then we have only seen one another on this or that occasion.
Listening to a nudge from my soul, I knew it was time once again to create another memory with my friend. I so wanted to bring my grown-up son and his children to meet her. On a blustery coastal California afternoon, we were all in Sol’s truck traveling south for an hour’s drive to Sweet Elena’s Bakery Café to surprise her!
In the parking I held one small hand on each side of me as we ducked into the café and found ourselves in the center of a colorful collage of more than a hundred brightly colored painted birds flying along the walls.
She turned.
“You came!”
Her jubilant expression dissolved time of separation and we embraced like before, like always. She hugged us all! My heart took wing and I soared just like one of those migrating birds. The reunion was even sweeter than the smell of baking cookies that filled the room.
I learned from reading her book, Step Into Nature Nurturing Imagination and Spirit in Everyday Life, how her walks in nature inspired her art and the exquisite relationship she had with the wonder of the natural world. She writes, “Walking in the woods returns my life to me over and over again. Much of the art we make is a mirror of nature mixed with our human creativity, individual inclinations, and desire to see what we can create too.” So here we are among birds who too have imaginations. Some birds carry pencils in their beaks so they can write the stories and poems they'll be inspired to write on the sky as they travel. Others wear necklaces with maps to guide them on their way and pictures of the flowers they can't wait to finally see again, after so much time away.
She thanked us for coming and as she has done for decades, invited us to open and engage our imaginations every day in every way. Yes, to create art in the choices we make when we cook a meal, create gardens, ideas we come up with in our jobs. She asks, “Consider what the word “success” means to you regarding the art you make. Might you have your own new and brilliant definition?”
She reaffirmed for me and I’m sure others in the room that we have the choice to use our imaginations, to dream and act upon the changes we want to see in the world. We are powerful in how we contribute to the grander unfolding of life and every one is a valued and necessary creator in their lives. According to Patrice we can nurture our imaginations by having the willingness to take chances and to do what hasn’t been done before.
I quote from her book, “What would spring be without daffodils? How many shades of yellow are there, from sunflower to marigold, from nasturtium to lupine? There must be a hundred pink blossoms on just one hairy honeysuckle bush. The earth’s prodigious production reminds us of our own ability to blossom. Given every advantage, not a single one of those buds will hold back an iota of its unfurling.”
Patrice, I am grateful the necklace I wore had the map that helped me and my loved ones find our way to see you again after so much time away.