Pirate Faire...arrrrr!!

The first sign of fall for me has become the Ojai Pirate Faire every year! It is a great experience for our dance troupe & students. This year we had an encampment again, which was managed by Ayse & Julie. And it was something else! So comfortable and beautiful!
We have this gorgeous Bedouin Tent that we raised money to buy as a group that we set up and behind we have dressing rooms & a kitchen and a place where many of the group pitched their regular tents.
Ayse planned out a kitchen schedule so that there everyone took turns preparing meals and wow! The food was great! Everyone pitched in with cleaning and maintaining, it was so amazing.



Our show was really fun, we had our friends Donavon & Vedat of the Anatolian Folk ensemble and my husband Robert, another drummer Ed, random other wonderful musicians, Daniel from Byzantium music, Daoud from Baba Ku and another old friend Steve Newman. It was lovely and a joy to dance to!



My students did a dance with baskets on their heads that were filled with chocolate coins, Nataraja danced improvisation, Ayse's students & Wild Routes danced, and also TWNN (troupe with No Name) did wonderfully creative formations and were very cute! Michaella did Heidi's solos. We all drank too much...Everyone was special!
Tonantzin, Ayse, Heidi & I made up She'enedra for the faire and we all soloed and did sword balancing and fights.




Even though the 2nd weekend of fair was miserably hot it was really fun! I'll post a bunch of pictures right now!

Oasis of Belly dance award....This is so cute I'm just tickled!

probably too tickled about it but it was cute anyway...
I don't know how but I got nominated for an Oasis award and it links to my horrible website! I took the pretty one down and haven't put up a new one yet...because it's hard!!! I'll stop whinning now...
Anyway, if you want to vote for me that would be cool, if not that's cool too! But vote for someone! I'm voting for Barak Obama, but he's not in this contest...

the winner gets to donate money to her charity of choice! How cool is that??? I would love to do that! Any ideas for good charities? Post 'em here! I'd like to know. I would most likely pick something nice for women either a scholarship or to help with medical needs.
So go to this link to see the nominees & vote for...someone!

http://hometown.aol.com/homeskillety2k/page1.html
email your votes to
navel_y2k@yahoo.com

you get to vote for
Oasis of Honor -that's a soloist
Oasis of Color-that's where you'll find me
Troupe Oasis

Olympia Belly Dance workshop!

Ok I admit it! I strayed from the plan on the workshop! But I couldn't help it! It was fun that way!
I believe it was a good thing because the ladies all seemed to enjoy the workshop a lot. I think they learned some new stuff that will enhance the wonderful things they are already doing. I did a few different belly dance things there...first a Hafla at the Eagle's building, a beautiful old building on 4th street. There were some lovely dancers and really fun performances.
Then I did the workshop, where I strayed from the plan.
Then I danced at the Indian restaurant also on 4th street.
I got the chance to meet a tribe friend Alicia
here is a picture of the workshop attendees & myself....

Other trip highlights were...
eating this really good double crusted pizza,
going shopping at Canvas Works (pretty yarns & fabrics)
hanging out with my family
and driving down to Portland and seeing a beautiful rose garden & eating at a restaurant with a "dog food menu" as well as people food!

Olympia trip

This is more of a photo album of my recent trip to visit family & teach a belly dance workshop in Olympia Washington...I guess it's really only interesting to our family!
First is my handsome son Jared, with baby Solace, Stella, & my daughter Jillian, Ezra is the whitish blob in the foreground, there's a better pic of him later.

The second is me holding cute little Solace!

Then my beautiful Jillian!

Jillian, her friend Amanda, & Stella on a walk at the Nisqually nature preserve.

More at the nature preserve,
Jessie (amanda's boyfriend), Stella, Jade my daughter-in-law pushing Ezra, & Jillian

my tribe blog

I actually have been trying to put these feelings into words for a few weeks. I finally did somehow today on my tribe blog, so I'm recording them here, mostly for my own reference. And who knows maybe they will help someone else too...


I have had some pain lately from a hurt and I've tried to stay positive and always think kind thoughts when the feelings raise up and look at me. I remember that the person that showed these feelings to me is just a lonely sad person that really doesn't know how to communicate very well, and this person is good and I really do love this person. I'm learning to be better because of this how to communicate very clearly, listen, be kind, be fun, it is a good lesson for me!

This also reminds me of what an exceptional human being my husband is because he has the amazing ability to step back from hurt and insults and to see them for what they are and just move on, not holding on. Most people only know Robert's silly party side and don't really know what kind of person he really is! He is great! I strive to be more like him...thanks Rob! I have a lot of friends at varying levels of closeness, I feel really blessed to have them from internet friends, to people I see very frequently in physical life, I'm very social and love this and am also grateful for this blessing. Being open to so many people opens me up to a myriad of circumstances...very enlightening at times!

So one of my favorite spiritual teachers is Thich Nhat Hahn and his books are strewn all about my house. This morning I picked up his book Anger, and this is what I read... so beautiful!

"Turning Garbage Into Flowers

The organic gardener does not think of throwing away the garbage. She know that she needs the garbage. She is capable of transforming the garbage into compost, so that the compost can turn into lettuce, cucumbers, radishes, and flowers again. As a practitioner, you are a kind of gardener, an organic gardener.

Anger and love are both of an organic nature, and that means they both can change. Love can be transformed into hate. You know this very well. Many of us begin a relationship with great love, very intense love. So intense that we believe that, without our partner, we cannot survive. Yet if we do not practice mindfulness, it takes only one or two years for our love to be transformed into hatred. Then, in our partner's presence we have the opposite feeling, we feel terrible. It becomes impossible to live together anymore, so divorce is the only way [my words here - or the break in a friendship]. Love has been transformed into hatred; our flower has become garbage. But with the energy of mindfulness, you can look into the garbage and say, "I am not afraid. I am capable of transforming the garbage back into love."

If you see elements of garbage in you, like fear, despair, and hatred, don't panic. As a good organic gardener, a good practitioner, you can face this: "I recognize that there is garbage in me. I am going to transform this garbage into nourishing compost that can make love reappear."

While I was sleeping...

something new happened in the fiber world...I had just gone into my other life as a belly dancer full tilt about 3 years ago. I left working at the yarn store, and stopped attending meetings at my spinning guild. Not really on purpose but because I was just too busy with dance. Tribal had taken off and had swept me up in the storm!
While I was sleeping people started making some amazing new art with spinning! Chunky, textural, deliciously studded with beads and treats type yarns have come into being! I'm amazed and want to play now! I made myself some pirate yarn with red & black wool, shredded bits waste fabric from my serger from black & white pirate prints, red lace, all plied with some shinny red thread. Here's a picture, my photography skills don't do it justice though...

the etsy shop

So I finally put some yarn for sale in my Etsy shop. I'm calling it Raspberry Sorbet cause that is what the color brings to mind! It is a wool & mohair blend. One strand is more raspberry colored the other changes between a lighter raspberry & purples. There is a cute teeny tiny leaf that ended up sitting on the yarn for the picture from my Acacia tree, it's not a bug or anything like that!!!

I've been really slow about this partly because I didn't have much elbow room in my studio and finding stuff that I've stashed is sometimes difficult! Well it's really not any better yet! But my daughter moved out and I'm going to be fixing up her old room and turning it into a guest room; and you realize guests don't really need a closet! Just a bed really! So I can finally organize the stash and figure out what I'm keeping in my life that could go onto another home.
Look at what I live with...this mess...

it's kind of embarassing!