Chiyono’s Bucket

by | Feb 20, 2023

Watch the unboxing of the book and read the story.

Chiyono’s Bucket: Awakening Reimagined couples the story of a thirteenth century Japanese servant named Chiyono with observations about a twenty-first century photograph. Pairing these reflections, I found my way unexpectedly to an understanding of awakening that felt far more approachable than the lofty, unattainable notion of it I had always held.

This letterpress book was a heartfelt collaboration with Jim Wilder, founder of The Wild Apple Press, based in Bethesda, Maryland. Established in the 1960s, The Wild Apple Press focuses on printing original stories about Irish history and culture by Irish writers. All type is handset and printed on a Vandercook No. 3 proof press by Jim, who honors his Irish heritage through his publishing. Luckily for me, Jim made an exception for my story, which veers from his Irish catalog of work.

Originally, the essay was an assignment for a class with Dr. Ayo Yetunde on Buddhist spiritual and pastoral care at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. This was during my stint in seminary before I found my way to the Master of Fine Arts program I am soon to complete. Our assignment was to write and deliver a dharma talk. The photograph that is central to the reflection is one I took while on a trip to New Mexico with a small group from the Seminary. On that same trip, I heard the story of Chiyono for the first time. I suppose this is how the two became unlikely partners in contemplation.

My friendship with Jim dates to the late 1960s. Seen in this photo, I am the shortest one in the group. Jim is on the far right. An old and dear family friend, Jim and I share a passion for the written word, for beautiful typography, artfully designed pages, and meaningful stories. We’re the kind of people who use instructions like “just a titch to the left” and we understand exactly what the other means by this. We also appreciate how even small adjustments can be enormously impactful.

Though it has been about a year and a half since the book was published, I still have the same excitement when I hold the slim volume in my hands as I did when I first unboxed my copies in the summer of 2021. I relish Jim’s attention to details: the weight and texture of the handmade paper he selected; the particular shade of blue he mixed for the title; the careful placement of the photograph after printing was complete; the hand sewn binding; and the tidy knot in the crease of the center page spread. The story was printed as an edition of sixty copies.

A testament to Jim’s artistry, works from The Wild Apple Press are held by the Royal Irish Academy Library; National Library of Ireland; Russell Library, Maynooth University; Early Printed Books, Trinity College Dublin; Burns Library, Boston College; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Catholic University of America; and Special Collections, University of Delaware. In 2017, the National Print Museum of Ireland hosted an exhibition featuring The Wild Apple Press.

While my stories often take a completely digital form, I have deep and abiding love for the feel of a book in my hands and the crisp sound of a page turning. Telling stories the old-fashioned way will always have a place in my heart.

Contemplative Pause

by | Dec 11, 2022

contemplative pause meditative film series

How can art be used in service of a mission, toward a meaningful purpose? That’s the question I was set to address in a summer internship as part of my Master of Fine Arts program at California Institute of Integral Studies. I strongly believe that stories can be healing and lead us toward wholeness. My internship for Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico was a chance to put my beliefs into practice. Could I make something both beautiful and useful that wove teachings from their programs into a semblance of a story narrative that would be meditative and immersive?

At the end of the summer, I did a Q & A about my experience for my program’s blog on medium.com. I share it here for anyone who may have missed it there.

How did this project come about?

This project, which I call Contemplative Pause, arose initially because I wanted to dive more deeply into teachings from a year-long program I participated in at Upaya Zen Center. A group of 300 of us from around the world—representing a variety of religious and spiritual perspectives, not just Buddhism—met twice a month to consider how Buddhist wisdom can be used as fuel for action to make a positive difference in the world. As a service-offering culminating my year in the program, I produced a short, experimental documentary film telling the stories of nurses who provided frontline care for Covid-19 patients in the beginning of the pandemic. My first year of the MFA program coincided with this project. Our interdisciplinary arts workshops that year became an invaluable space for me to receive creative ideas and feedback from classmates and professors.

I wanted to build on the techniques I crafted in that project of creating multi-layered, abstracted visuals designed to focus the viewer deeply on the emotional tenor of the audio narrative. I did not want viewers to simply hear the nurses’ stories; I wanted viewers to have a visceral and bodily experience of their narratives. My question for this project was how might I use those same techniques to create an artful and meaningful contemplative experience from the raw material of over 30 talks given by a wide variety of teachers in Upaya’s program. Further, I wanted to explore how I might use the internship in our MFA curriculum to make art in service to an organization whose mission I admire. I was fortunate that Upaya Zen Center was open to the idea of having me use my internship to create such a project for them.

How did the internship and mentorship classes play a part in your process?

My intention with my summer mentorship with filmmaker and CIIS adjunct professor George Reyes was to expand my visual vocabulary and film techniques. George and I came up with a plan for me to produce short film experiments for our weekly meetings in which I would play with the interaction between sound, silence, voice, music, and visual imagery. I focused in these experiments on how I could use each element in concert with the others to encourage the viewer into deep reflection on the content. At the same time, I was sifting through approximately 50 hours of audio of the Upaya talks looking for short clips that could stand alone as powerful teachings without need for lengthy context. At first it was simply a matter of expedience to use the raw material from my internship project as the basis as the basis for my weekly film experiments in my mentorship. But very quickly I saw that the film results had even more potential for creating an immersive, reflective experience for viewers than the audio-only format I had originally envisioned for my internship project. The internship and mentorship ended up working together very synergistically, which had great benefits for my growth as an artist and the quality of the final project I produced for my internship.

How does this project fit in the context of your larger goals for your art?

The contemplative film series gave me extensive opportunities to test, experiment, and refine my visual techniques for illustrating narratives without relying on the standard “talking head” shots that are more typical of documentary film. I ended up with many experimental clips that never made it into the final project, which now gives me a library of visual ideas to draw from for future projects. At the encouragement of my mentor, I also began to research findings in psychology and neurology about how the brain receives and interprets visual and auditory information. I was fortunate to have access within the CIIS community to immediate resources to acquaint me with such research. Dr. Christine Brooks, a faculty member in the Expressive Arts Therapy Program within the School of Professional Psychology and Heath, graciously gave me an overview of the field and helped me situate my research in the most helpful context for my work. I am excited about the possibilities for insights from such research to help augment the intuitive approaches I am already using.

What’s your next project?

Next for me is a short documentary film in the same immersive, experiential style of my previous two projects. In this film, I will focus on a small group of American Zen Buddhist teachers who hold the master designation known as Roshi. Specifically, I want to highlight the experiences of women who were among the first of their gender to serve in this role. This film is part of an inquiry of mine that began with the nurses project to examine how individual stories can be combined to create a collective narrative in a way that respects the uniqueness of each individual’s story and also highlights the collective threads throughout them all.

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TANGLE

Featuring Matthew Kozan Palevsky, Joanna Macy, and John Paul Lederach.

THIS MOMENT

Featuring Cynda Rushton PhD RN, Frank Ostaseski, and Roshi Joan Halifax.

THE NATURE OF EVERYTHING

Featuring Roshi Eve Marko, Lama Rod Owens, and Dr. Larry Ward.

Manifesto reimagined

by | Feb 7, 2022

What if the word manifesto was not a dictum imposed on others but an invitation into your evolving purpose and practice in the world?
Manifesto by Studio-Lu

A recent assignment in my M.F.A. program called on us to write a manifesto for ourselves. My first thought was, “I have no idea how to write a manifesto!” Yet, the moment that thought evaporated, another was close on its heels: “Be particular.” It is a phrase my grandfather used often. Honestly, I am not 100% certain what he meant when he used it, but it became a catch phrase in our family over the years—a response that could suit more occasions than you would imagine. “Be particular” became the beginning of my manifesto.

More words followed easily. I pulled phrases from my website through the years and thoughts I realized had long been guiding principles behind my work. Voila. A Manifesto. Homework completed.

Sharing it with my writer’s circle after submitting it for class, my fellow writers liked the sentiments I expressed but bristled at the word “manifesto.” For most, it conjured notions of “manifest destiny,” of conquering and taking by force. These meanings are the antithesis of what we foster in our circle, where we cultivate deep listening and seek to nurture each of us as writers to find and live into our own voice.

I admitted to the same initial reaction. My feelings shifted, though, when I thought about manifesto as more akin to manifestation than dictum. With that lens, the word became more of an evolving process to me, a sense of creation and offering, rather than an imposed mandate. We talked about reimagining the word as coming from birthing rather than conquering and what that transformation might look like.

 

After the Manifesto by Craig Buckley Columbia University
Searching to see how others are thinking about manifesto in this day and age, I found a book called After the Manifesto, edited by Craig Buckley and published by Columbia University Press. While Buckley investigates manifesto in terms of architecture, he captures the spectrum of viewpoints on it in a way that is applicable to uses of manifesto in any genre. Of the various reactions he mentions, I find myself in the “protean camp” at the moment, willing to re-vision what this word means, repurpose it to be more fitting now and into the future. In the spirit of manifesto as an invitation to growth, evolution, purpose and practice in the world,  I offer you my mine. What’s yours? Or, what’s a better word than manifesto that can accompany us with ongoing relevance?
MANIFESTO | BE PARTICULAR  ©2022 Lucy Mathews Heegaard.

Dear Rebecca

by | Dec 28, 2014

In the winter of 1863, my great, great, great, great grandfather, David Mathews, left home to serve in the Civil War. He was 36 years old, not a wealthy man, and regretted having to leave his wife, children, and extended family as he felt his greatest responsibility was providing for them in the lean times the war had brought.

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