An interesting experiment: a group of people, connected through Nowhere coming together for one week with somewhat vague notions of art, community and sustainability and exploring throughout our time together what these concepts mean to us and what Ǵrowing Nowhere’ really is.

Using the Nowhere (non-related… just a nice little burst of synchronicity) book that Cara brought on tapping into and exploring creativity we decided that if we had a question that epitomizes our quest for this week it was:

” How can we inspire and realize creativity in a balanced and sustainable way in ourselves, our group and the wider community?”

I like how all these things that are arising in us as a group, things to do with our purpose here are things that I have felt very drawn to and been exploring myself in recent months. Makes me think about things like collective consciousness. Makes me happy.

…………..time lapse of several hours……………………

Wow. I just gave a tour in Spanish to a few local girls. One of them breeds chickens that are a specific breed to this area. I hate, hate, hate being on camera and leading things like that but in a way I can kind of do it and I feel grateful to be pushed into it. Tis a good thing to have ones confidence in oneself increased.

What else?

Been thinking about the differences between creativity here and at Nowhere… Nowhere, being a desert like Black Rock in Nevada is like a blank canvas where we have to build or create something from scratch. We are in a way somewhat detached from our environment – and it often feels like there is a battle there too – against the heat, the dust, the mosquitoes etc. Here at Pipirimosca however we can wonder around the farm, explore the heaps of junk, climb trees, and find ourselves with all these ways to interact with and engage with our environment. New ideas arise, spontaneous inspirations, collaborations  unfold and gradually manifest…

…so I felt somewhat sad this week that I had a such a concrete idea for my project and it involved using materials I had brought with me and not really interacting with people or the outside world… a pretty familiar feeling for me. Watching everyone around me engaging with the outside world and all the creativity and spontaneity really heightened my awareness of  being closed and being trapped in my own little world. I had many moments of feeling very sad over the past week because of this.

So what  a beautiful end to the week to be able to participate in a sweat lodge with my two moon sisters (Fuck, this is so cringeworthy writing this but damn it they are moon sisters), which was Tessaś project and use the transformative power of fire and heat, of connecting with female friends and energy to fuel intentions for change.  We sat for hours in our little cocoon, or womb as it began to feel like while Chris and our French friends tended the fire and gave us more hot bricks when we asked. Naked, dripping in sweat, sitting on the bare earth, slowly getting more and more filthy and primal and hot and reveling in it. It was the most beautiful and raw and funny and intimate and transformative experience.

And so today is different. I am collecting things from people, exploring materials that are around here and making a patch for the  quilt with memories from this week… I got Massimo to destroy some fabric I found with his angle grinder and then tried to get the dog to chew it but it looked up at me with a docile expression and ignored my demonstration… Oli used the ink he was drawing with to write something on some denim I found and also donated a button. Thereś fabric from Alannaś tentacle creations and Coco, one of the French guys wwoofing here just gave me something too…

I find myself volunteering to organize the greeters this evening at our event/party thing so it appears that today, my last day, is all about exploring and engaging with the outside world. Which dear reader, makes a very happy Ruby indeed.