This is my exploration practice exercise for the Attunement gathering at Edenvale this weekend. I purchased 9 x 12 black construction paper so everyone would have enough room to trace their hand. I take them back to their childhood, perhaps the last time they traced their own hand. I ask them to first put inside their hand qualities and interests that they love/ appreciate about themselves. Then I ask them to depict their attunement world and the areas of interest and responsibility that they connect with most often . I will give each of them a chance to debrief and they will go home with a cover sheet on their art. What do you think, will it work?

July 9, 2011, painting with Cheryl, writing with Peter at Ft. Ebey State Park on Whidby Island

So many bright stones turn in shoreline surf
that when I close my eyes at night, they still
shift, roll, shine in the water sliding down
the cave wall of my sleep.

In half lit trance I gather again green jasper, slick,
hard as jade. White quartz, rounded into thousands
of small bird eggs, is beach punctuation
in the grammar of the shore.

Once again, in dream I said, “Pile the clearest agates
on my grave when I go, fresh
from the tumbler of the sea.
Find them for me here, on this
sunny, specific strand of gravel beach,
headland to headland, where

even the oldest cliffs dissolve
to polished agates moved by waves.”

The Bluff Trail entices us from headland to headland

The wind driven shapes of ancient trees

Art lessons on the picnic table; Cheryl’s beautiful soft washes

my paintbrush overloaded with all the colors of the evening sky

Sandy Brown Jensen
Photos by Peter Jensen
Art lessons by Cheryl R. Long