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Dream Hands

My dream hands do the work
In another world, one I need
A black cat’s eyes to see.

I travel the red river of my own sleeping blood
In search of three strings I know
I must find and braid together.

Raven’s wings take me up
To that Rainbow Place
Where One Eye sees all.

It was January 10th, 2012 and we were all rusty. Many of us had not painted over the holidays. Juggling Fruit for Fun started as a ten minute warm up class exercise. My students painted and I painted with them. It is not cheating to go back and complete the image later and that is what I did.

Fast warm ups often produce fun and energy, on the paper right where you want it. It is a good way to put the muse on alert, solicit the help of your art guides and convince your subconscious and other invisible sources that you are now serious about getting on with painting.

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

tempts me to the barbeque hootch
in the back yard, traps me there
between the drum of rain
on the plastic roof
and the smoke of charring steaks.
Six minutes per side of beef;
nothing to do but sit
like a neighborhood cat
in the canvas chair, spatula
in one hand; bubbles
in the other. For the first time
I notice how our backyard is like
being inside a green glass jar,
how the wind shakes the pear and
cherry blossoms in wind spirals of petals,
how flocks of kinglets with their high,
distant voices never stop commenting
on their aerial world and the worth
of bud burst.

–Sandy Brown Jensen
Last April 2011 sometime
Notes retrieved from my journal

Heceta Beach Rain Agates

When I was a child, the sky was this soft with rain.

Headlands reared up dark as horses over rushing creeks entering the sea like me after a long run through clear cuts & old growth red cedar.

Pelicans like synchronous pterodactyls circle the sanctuary of birds.

Some agates are left for a life of looking
on the rich clam flats and pools
that rise and fall between the tides.

-Sandy Jensen
June 12, 2011
Happy birthday to Cheryl and Lisle!