Welcome to Yours, Mine and Ours …
Immortal Beloved:
The World’s First Goddess Perfume and Coloring Book !
We leap in ecstasy to inspire your imagination with a hearty welcome. A New Birth enters the world. The re-birth of the Idea of The Immortal Beloved. And Who or What is THAT???
Yes, it is a BIG IDEA. Yes, it is about a creative collaboration of artists and perfumers. And yes, we are tapping you, Immortal Beloved, to awaken your memory of all things beautiful via your senses and your creativity. Pairing a coloring book with a perfume is experiential art completed by YOU… to inspire, to resonate through time, and to reflect the marvelous complexity of our sensual beings.
This project took exactly a year. It began with my urge to illustrate some of the humorous accessories I created for styling videos or photo shoots. The first 3 drawings emerged. Next I began lining them up with goddess myths and stories that inspire me from around the world. I realized my 12 goddess illustrations, connected to healing rituals I have loved over many years, which then led me to write tons o’ text resulting in a book of almost 80 pages! Immortal Beloved is for every girl and boy. Kids today and cray-cray happenings these days, we all need some Good-Goddess-Soul-Soothing.
Our collaboration with the perfumers of Brooklyn’s House of Cherry Bomb actually began many years ago, as these immortal things tend to do. Meet (l to r) filmmaker and Metropolitan Museum of Art Lecturer, Alexis Karl; me, Jade Dressler, playing artist, illustrator and author; and master perfumer of AromaM, Maria McElroy.
…and so…
Once Upon a Time is NOW.
Immortal Beloved, the World’s First Goddess Perfume + Coloring Book is officially launching for holiday, December 2017. The book is now on Amazon, here! The book and perfume as an extraordinary gift set, is available now, click here for that magic.
Pocahontas, Pinga, Abundantia, El Sirena, Saraswati, Kwan Yin, Ixchel, Freyja, Sheela-Na-Gig, Cleopatra, Amma Mama Africa and Tara, the Black Madonna … familiar and strange names to awaken new skills as a Wonder Woman!
The first gleam in the public eye of the perfume and project occurred November 2016 in a pop-up shop preview presentation for the University of Arizona Museum of Art‘s Head to Toe gala benefit.
Immortal Beloved as a concept taps the wearer into a global scent trail of the ancients and the thread of story and empowerment of Immortal Beings yet to come in the future. (which includes YOU)
To color in the forms of immortal goddesses and create them as art via the Immortal Beloved coloring book opens the imagination and offers a meditative, peaceful pastime. Like enjoying a 1000-piece puzzle, a knitting hobby, or creating a dream catcher filled with wishes and intentions, the slow luxury of coloring evokes and reminds us of our original rhythmic, peaceful and creative selves. This kind of knowing exists and builds through repetition and connection, a ritual as ancient as humanity.
THE PERFUME
Like clothing, form, or myth, perfume is a many layered adornment and celebration of our bodies, and at the same time, it transcends time and memory. Perfume is a communication between all of nature and her plants, humans, animals, and the pleasures of the moment. There is an art to perfume creation, which extends in turn to the wearers. The scent becomes a part of a multitude of personalities, a signature of connection and individuality that makes history.
THE GOODS
Here’s how to tap into your Immortal Beloveds:
PERFUME
The Perfume is available now here on Etsy,
and…PERFUME AND COLORING BOOK
just the… COLORING BOOK
and…
GICLEE PRINTS
…of the cover and goddesses are also available now in this collection, click here!
PEEP ALL THE GODDESSES IN THE GANG:
Goddesses of the Earth
1 POCAHONTAS of NATIVE AMERICA
2 PINGA of THE ARTIC + INUIT NORTH
3 ABUNDANTIA of ITALY
and
LA SIRENA of SPAIN
Girls of the DreamTime
4 SARASWATI of SOUTHEAST ASIA and THE AUSTRALIAN DREAMTIME
5 KWAN YIN of THE FAR EAST
6 IXCHEL of SOUTH AMERICA
Galaxy Gals
7 SHEELA of THE CELTS
and
FREYA of SCANDINAVIA
8 CLEOPATRA of EGYPT
and
AMMA, MAMA AFRICA of MOROCCO
9 BLACK ASTARA of CHINA + RUSSIA + TIBET
*********
AND MORE ON THE PROJECT
We’ll be sharing each chapter (and the back story creation of illustrations) here on this blog. The first two goddesses, Pocahontas, Pinga are up now!
Get your own EMPOWERMENT via IMMORTAL BELOVED by clicking right here.
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Tags: Abundantia, Alexis Karl, Anjani, coloring book, El Sirena, Freya, goddess, Immortal Beloved, Ixchel, jade dressler, Kwan Yin, Marie McElroy, Pinga, Pocahontas, Saraswati, Sheela Na Gig, The World's First Goddess Perfume + Coloring Book
PINGA. HER FAVORITE QUOTES ABOUT HERSELF.
“Always a lover’s scent that seals the deal …
Small things and big things, body parts and tectonic plates, slowly grow,
and grow distant. I gave everything to keep us together.”
Priscilla Frank, interpreting Bjork lyrics
“In the end, it’s the combination of Her Wrath and Her Grace
that paves the way to Liberation and Everlasting Bliss.”
divinations.wordpress.com
“Get Up (I feel like being a) Sex Machine.”
James Brown and Flying Lizards, song title, 1968 + 1984
On Monday, Aug. 21, 2017, a total eclipse spectacle will arch over the entire USA, coast-to-coast, for the first time in a hundred years. In astro-speak, we have the dark new moon: the feminine void, the womb of possibility sailing over to cover the light of the sun: as it is in the astrological sign of Leo the lion, the heart, the bright love.
What means this heavenly dance? This we know: something will be eclipsed from our lives and have a profound effect upon us. What we make of this depends on our own dreams, legends, and myths layered upon those of eclipse-peeking humans, spirit animals and this glittery web of consciousness we soul jewels currently find ourselves enmeshed in and weaving in. I usually experience eclipses a month ahead (look it up if you are not astrology-savvy, it is a thing, I swear!) so …
So take it from me … get ready for a ride. Prepare all your symbols, myths, dreams, your girl, your boy, your negligees, prayers, and toys!
Confession: Here is what went down for me in the past months, some myths and all about Pinga.
Pinga? Yes, Her.
Let The Little Lady Pass!
In honor of Miss Moon for her serene float in front of the sun, I’m sharing the illustration and story of Pinga of the Inuit Artic North, the Snow Queen goddess in Chapter 2 of my upcoming adult coloring/comic book, part of the Immortal Beloved: The World’s First Goddess Perfume + Coloring Book project.
Almost all goddesses of history are aligned with the moon’s energy, the classic female, and emotional, changeable archetype. The ever-reflective moon rules our tides, creation cycles and our inner landscape of desire. Our hopes, fears, finances, sex and the like. This energy is located in the second sacral, sexual chakra of the body, the second “star gate” of your home’s sacred space and the second sacred site on our planet, the North Pole. You may well think it odd for an icy snow goddess to be relevant during a hot summer eclipse.
Actually, to shake things up like an eclipse, in the culture of the Inuit people who live in the Artic, it’s flipped, the goddess is the sun and the god is the moon. The Inuits tell a heavenly tale perfect for the cold moon’s protecting slide across the hot sun. Protection of the heart, calming wrath and desire, dualities changing roles and merging … these are themes of both eclipses and current events.
Here Little Bear, have some Solar Eclipse Myths and Legends.
Inuit folklore says the eclipse is due to the Sun goddess and Moon god having a big fight and she storms off. When Moon Boy catches up with his sister, it begets the solar eclipse.
Sun got bit by a bear say The Pomo, indigenous people who live in the northern California. The bear started a fight with the Sun and took a bite out of it. Pomo Shamans were known as ‘Bear Doctors,’ a name hinting at the healing power of mysterious eclipses.
Bear stories can hint and tell us about hibernation and other inner dialogue mysteries that project outward. From our first bed, the womb, to adult wrath, fighting, equality, and relationships bear shows us how we create our desires. Before I share Chapter 2 and the story of this goddess Pinga, here is the uncanny series of layered events in my own life ~ a dream, a legend and a real life “eclipse” ~ in which I am left astonished at the depths of stories to resonate and call to us beyond our ordered lives.
The Dream
About a month after I awoke in the middle of the night to the taste of blood in my mouth around my eyetooth, gushing for no conceivable reason whatsoever, I had a very lucid and scary three-part dream.
In the first part of the dream I must obtain the eyetooth of a massive, sleeping and snoring bear in a white room. I approach, it snores and I jump the *%$#@ back. In the second part I have flown up to the doorway arch of the room and hover like a bat over two men fighting. I try to reach the thermostat to change the temperature and the scene. Switch scenes to the 3rd part where I am hiding under a white sheet while the massive furry paw of the bear tries to move the sheet and uncover me. Like a self-similar fractal, it kept coming, pawing at me endlessly trying to get my attention.
To give one’s eyeteeth, is to give something one considers very precious, usually in exchange for an object or situation one desires.
Eyetooth = Eye Vision + Teeth Decision. It was astonishing to recall this dream when several months later, Lucky, my beautiful panther black cat, whom I often called “Little Bear,” developed cancer right above her eyetooth and she is suddenly eclipsed out of my life when she can no longer eat. One month before the eclipse. Perhaps you can see here the 3 little white hairs she had on her heart. While the Little Bear’s passing has been inconsolable, I know this pain. Eclipses, with their eclipsing of a person or situation most often occur for me a month before the actual eclipse. Let the Little Lady Pass.
The house, like the dark moon, is quiet.
Her spirit is inside me now.
To cut one’s eyeteeth on is to be initiated or gain one’s first experience.
The Crescent Moon Bear Story.
A version of The Universal Myth I found later that Echo’d my Dream.
A husband returns from the war, full of wrath, refusing to enter the home he shared with his very loving wife. Distraught, she asks a healer to give her a cure and return her husband to chill state and to her loving arms. The healer gives the wife a task: “Climb the highest mountain and obtain a white hair from the crescent of the black bear that lives there.” Undaunted, the wife makes the arduous trek to the mountaintop enduring terrible ordeal after ordeal. Along the way she thanks each troubling obstacle and carries on with her unconditional loving self. Through her patience she cajoles and obtains the precious white hair from the crescent heart of the bear. She is exalted as she goes back down the mountain, still thanking every challenge.
Back in town, presenting the hair to the healer, the wife is in shock when the healer tosses it into the fireplace. “What do I do now?” cries the wife. “Proceed with your husband as you did up and down the mountain,” says the healer.
From Women Who Run With The Wolves,
Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D
Rage is a teacher, says Ms Estés.
Of course this is crucial now, in our speech, our activism, how we learn to convert hate to love. Inside and in society. Gratitude is the way up the mountain. Everything is a process. How apt this story is for now!
The crescent moon will speak as the moon goes back to winking at the sun after their rendezvous. I will exchange my eyetooth, I will obtain a thread of my heart and evolve my rages.
They are mostly at my slow computer. We will survive.
… and now a bit Wiser. A bit more in Awe. A big bit more in my Heart.
Katrina Plotnikova
and so … The Back Story.
A Crescent Sketch Evolves. The Sequence of the Pinga Image.
Like a shaman’s timeless mask, I had this simple sketch (on the darker paper) of a woman with a ruffled collar like mountains for years. I always wanted to do something with the sketch, which I called Lilith, a name for the “dark” goddess. For me the idea of Lilith always rides the edge of reverence as the sexual pantheon of genders that I feel within. Below, this was the only photo I looked at in my research to update this illustration. It perfectly echoed my original sketch. O the Raging Starkness of Desire with Pinga!
No surprise to recently find that the masks of the Inuit Moon Spirit Shaman, with their simple openings for eyes/vision and mouth/teeth may have whispered their way into my drawing. Years ago, now again.
When the idea of Pinga called, I expanded her into the landscape.
Propped up on my computer, you can see that she grew a fierce, loving heart based on another illustration of mine, more abstract:
You can purchase THIS here on my shop, The Jade Dress Shop.
Pinga is here. This shamaness robe, not available for sale yet;-) however …
and now:
Try on Pinga. Here’s the book excerpt. Enjoy.
STAR GATE 2 | DESIRE | PINGA of THE ARTIC + INUIT NORTH
HER STORY IN THE ETERNAL MOMENT OF NOW.
Ooooo, Ooo Chile, it’s chilly out here! Ping. Ping. Ping in the Midnight Sun. Feet crunch-crunch-punching snow. Trekking for days drenched in the duality of mind or desire can feel like the unending polar-platinum-plutonium pounding expanse of the Artic and Antarctica. Life’s rainbow spectrum of color is MIA. All seems still, lifeless, and frozen in polarity. Yet a gust of blinding snow suddenly can bring a rainbow mirage of Pinga, The Snow Queen, Lilith, aka Desire, shimmer brushing the surface with her merkabah, a psychedelic, crazy-quilt-colored Mothership navigating by the eerie, mystical Northern Lights to sail upon the second chakra’s astral seas. Queen of Watery Emotional Weather in all its forms from extremes of pleasure to pain, Pinga’s snow crystals, ice, and the steam of her geothermal hot springs are always shifting into each other. Is it any wonder that global warming of the poles is our current Earthly dilemma of duality! Beneath our mind’s surface, full of tangled either/or contradictions, we mimic her emotional osmosis and learn to smartly surf the sound waves of our magnetic heart poundings.
She rises glistening, icy islands and rolls shiny folds of freezing waves in endless tidal changes under the distant white sun of snowman’s land, the Inuit territories. Pinga of Desire is Goddess of the Hunt, Fertility, and Medicine, and her touch pings light like a snowflake on a warm face, or pounds down, crushing the earth with polar bear paws and achingly slow glacial legs. As Desire, she stops for centuries to sit in an igloo-shaped squat. Cold hands, warm heart, she’s always eternally longing for the other, and yet she is also Goddess of the Sun and thus paradoxically attached to everyone. The moon is her brother … the opposite of many cultures; things are often very topsy-turvy at Earth’s poles, yo. Moon Brother chases his Sun Sister for sex antics … she’s always a bit out of reach, except at eclipse time. Like Eve’s sister, Lilith, she’s not easily submitting to her “brother,” Adam. She shapes her world to her desires, a mistress of the art of sexual healing. Rule #1: Ladies first, all win.
HER ANCIENT FUTURE SIREN SONG FOR YOU. Energy and emotions stuck on frozen, fearful, and hopeless? Hunkered down in your igloo cave of ice-blocked emotions? Are you sore as hell? Feel Pinga’s source and soar to heaven instead. The 9-Star Passport, Pinga is Desire, Wealth, Sex, and Money; lo and behold, whether nurtured by fear or hope, this is the flow-y, feeling, healing energy of things. She rules the second, sacral chakra, located two to three inches under your navel, aka your loins; the earthy, hermetic crossroads of creation, the expression of all our mercurial dual desires. In Hinduism (the folks that bring us chakras), the goddess here is Maya, or Illusion, the Devi Mahatyam also known as The Great Self-Worth; The Great Essence; The Exalted State. In one of her stories, when the world was all emotional water, she invented a trick to stop the ceaseless arguing of her ever-warring, overly dramatic demon children, whom she named Too Much and Too Little. Surely you’ve given birth to these kids as well! The demise of their illusion had to be found on a spot not touched by water, which turned out to be the loins of Maya’s god consort. Thus land rose up right there at that spot rocking massive seed potential in the ceaseless ocean. Thus, the world’s best “lap dance spot” can be wherever we “sit and rise up,” a sacred space where we turn off the noise of illusion, measurement, and self-judgment of Too Much and Too Little and come back to being, grounded, and balanced in our true nature, the intuitive knowing and essence of Unconditional Love.
Wrapped in thick, blood red Icelandic wools, Pinga sits with sinewy ropes binding her feet and those of all mothers to her Earthship, her swirling turquoise and emerald womb lap. One hand holds up the trusted radiance of her clear, instant, bright- light, right-on intuition which she cultivates during long, sunlit nights, and the other draws boundaries of family and community at water’s edge. While scientists give dire, scary reports and predictions of climate change, loss, and extinction, she balances her every desire and choice with deep knowing of all-creature connects. Osmosis beyond either fear or hope, and thus she shapes the tide towards a new vision with all her co-creation. Pinga is the choice of trust, the weathering of bright hope and knowing, choosing sm-ooooo-th, flowing abundance, joyful sex, creativity, and Hey! Chill out about all that.
HEAR HER, SENSE HER, HEAL YOU. Mind’s ceaseless duality is actually healed by a desire dive at Star Gate 2. Inject hotness into a moment with her heady, warm, resinous Amber scent, a one-million-plus-years-old rock of Mother Wisdom. Heal via warm sips of Iceland Moss tea. Replace fuzzy thinking with icy, cooling Mint for clarity. Reflective multiplying elements like water, glass, mirrors, or silvery mercurial metals placed in Star Gate 2 entice a hot mind-meld. Behold, a birth of more light into your lap-dance, if not your world. Not too Much, not too Little. Just Right.
HER MANTRA TO TRY ON FOR SIZE + FIT. Ooooo! Ice, Ice Baby! Desire Me! Please Me! Rise up my Pinga power. I am a vast giving, glowing, and receiving station. Eclipsing duality, we float safe in the endless sea of desires, feeling our emotions balanced in joy, radiant hope, wealth, fertility, fun, and major, major, My, My, Oh My Maya! deep, sacred sexuality. Lights on, passport stamped, let’s go!
***
Fact: Bears are impregnated just before turning into the earth, their womb caves for hibernation. After mating, the sperm and egg float freely in the dark womb of the bear, much like stars sprinkling, dreaming, and playing in the vast night sky.
They unite just before the Spring.
I wish you an extra-ordinary eclipse!
Find Immortal Beloved: The World’s First Goddess Perfume and Coloring Book here.
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Tags: bear, crescent bear, DREAM, eclipse, folklore, goddess, illustration, Immortal Beloved: The World's First Goddess Perfume + Coloring Book, Inuit, jade dressler, moon, myth, Pinga, shaman, solar
Welcome. It is July 4, 2017, Independence Day.
Herewith, some independent symbolics, ideaologies, and wishes from Kiawah Island, South Carolina, United States, via kayak, July 4, 2000, spanning to July 4, 2017. Plus! a preview of my book.
It was midday. I relaxed the oars of my kayak, thankful for that familiar dripdripdrip back into the tidal creek waters, tiny notes to lead into the symphony of vast quiet where I could tune into the frogs, fish, deer, bobcats, gray foxes, raccoons, osprey, dolphins and river otters … echoes of the original wind song in the marshes of Kiawah Island’s rich wild life.
It was here that the idea to change my name, my identity was born.
We are all immigrants here.
On this July 4, the birthday of the United States, I reflect how we, a nation of melting pot immigrants, with the exception of Native Americans … and beyond them, the wild creatures … how can we bridge today’s perilous cultural footprint from that identity of fear, bullying, and violence … and return to the essence, identity and dependent (crucial) balance of all beings, this legacy of this exquisite land and its original inhabitants?
Answer: Pocahontas and Hamsa. Pocahontas Handily Solves Our “Immigrant Problem” with her spirit. Way beyond Disney, she hands us the solution.
First, hamsa. An open hand is a welcoming symbol of protection, peace, and an open heart.
Say hi! to this symbol found in all cultures from this country’s first, original people marking the land with their hands, like these by Esalen Indians in Big Sur, California.
Petroglyphs marking their honoring presence, identity, and connection to The All.
Hi! to the “gesture of fearlessness,” the Abhayamudra of the Buddhists.
Hi! to La Mano Poderosa, “All Powerful Hand,” in Christianity.
Hi! to Mexican Milagros, “Miracle” hand symbols for good luck.
Hi! to talismans found all over the Middle East from Israel to Arab lands.
Hi!
Hamsa, aka The Hand of Miriam or The Eye of Fatima is the ancient blessing, power, and symbol for protection on material and spiritual planes loved by all faiths, led by Middle Eastern, Judaic, Christian, and African cultures. Perhaps the Middle East’s one shared symbol, she waves hello all over North Africa, Israel, and beyond in talismans, amulets, as jewelry worn on the body, and as intriguing architectural details. With origins way before even the old kingdoms of Egypt, where it was called Mano Pantea, or Hand-of-the-All-Goddess, and seen throughout herstory, from Inanna to Aphrodite to Mary, the two fingers originally represent Egypt’s Isis and Osiris. The eye on the palm is for their child, Horus. The Hamsa symbol has even been found in Native American burial sites.
Traced further and farther back in time, Hamsa, in the world’s most ancient language, Sanskrit, means I am that, for the two sounds of the breath, the inhale (Hum) and the exhale (Sa), a self-defining identity mantra ( Me! ) that we all perform a thousand times everyday.
Solution #1: A welcoming hello to others, a conversation seeking peace and common ground is always a start.
Solution #2: Hi! And here is a sneak preview, an excerpt from my coloring book publishing in several months: Immortal Beloved: The World’s First Goddess Perfume + Coloring Book. Read more about the book here.
I first had a glimpse of the material for my book, seventeen years ago on July 4th, after my kayak adventure. In reflection, I see the long curve of creativity. The long curve of history. Of humanity and of a planet in harmony with all global beings.
See our preview here and discover why our first goddess, Pocahontas, offers a bit to enlighten us on “the immigrant problem.” Go on girl, goddessplain’!
“Not much is known about this memorable woman.”
Anonymous
“Ah! Come on! Actually … I shall persist!
We do know a whole hella lot about this woman!”
Jade Dressler
STAR GATE 1 | ROOTS | POCAHONTAS of NATIVE AMERICA
HER STORY IN THE ETERNAL MOMENT OF NOW. C’mere. Closer. Now look here in a clearing, where just after the last wintry blizzard melt, cradled by pines and the sweet earthy of Sage, Tobacco, Sweet Grass, and Cedar all sultry around a campfire, thousands of minute, speedy orange fire spiral-swimmers-disappear-up into Father Sky’s night to wink with stars. Waaaay-way below, a blanketed mountain of a Grandmother sways deep in trance. Her head lifts, nose to the air, she lets loose a wail, “Ah- ah-rrr-ooooo-oh-Mmm-mmmm!” in wolf-speak immediately core-crushing the whole entire earth, making every breathing being within miles leap the … out of their skins. The galaxy shaken. And then, so soft, like a sweet morning dove, “Ah-who-who-who- who?” she whisper/sings a heroine song to the gathered children, their eyes wide. Like animals imagining. Like fireworks in a hawk’s eyes, the evening stars look down and glint knowingly with love.
“Slow down, slow down, slow down!,” the King cautioned Pocahontas, his free-spirited, but Daddy’s-Little-Girl daughter, who was up the next day’s blue dawn howling for the 10,000th time her rendition of The-Wolf-Song-Heroine-Story-Hallowed-of-All-Howled-Myths to her cornhusk and hemp doll and making the 10,000th circle around him. Centuries later the song circled into the radar imagination of Disney animators conjuring and drawing her ancient tale, and one may say the Pocahontas has definitely persisted despite controversy. The root story of Pocahontas has her marrying a boy from the “other side,” a European settler, and then arcs to engravings of her in swanky ruffs as the invited guest presented at the European courts of nobility. However disputed her portrayals, her legacy as a peacemaker dedicated to family and community, an intermediary between Earth and her settlers, and a Master/Mistress Re-Inventor of Self, makes her very much a Goddess and very American as well!
Across the land the legend of this princess dances and waves in the wind from Morning Glory smiles and eager green, glowy wildflower sprouts re-leafing and relieving winter, dawn-rising in the East to the clear, strange scent of Nicotiana tobacco flowers bowing out at midday, and to the tallest, sun-guardian redwoods of the Western dusk. This princess ran through American history as a suffragette; she was a solid-gold Soul Train dancer, and she is a pussy-hatted patriot-ess. Her real name, Matoaka or Flower Between Two Streams, reflects her “connecting” essence, seen here as a Mountain Camellia flower at her heart between two woodland streams. Her Christian name, Rebecca, may be a symbolic gesture to Rebecca of the book of Genesis, who also was the mother of two nations or distinct peoples. She is a “re-beckoning” as Pocahontas is first gate of The 9-Star Passport, the spring season of rebirth, the east direction, the element of wood, and the fresh verdant world of plants. Later in life she was called Rebecca Filia Potentiss, perhaps as in Sister of Potential, having great power, influence, or effect. Just as time spent in nature arises an instinctual devotion to our earthy roots, the same instinctual body-to-earth re-birth truth is found at our first chakra, geographically located at a point between our sit bones.
HER ANCIENT FUTURE SIREN SONG FOR YOU. Feeling un-rooted, anxious, a stranger in a strange land, ungrounded and unknown? Evoke Pocahontas! Her legacy is for us to remember our own foundational experiences running free as a child in touch with the earth. All of us are multi-cultural emissaries between any two streams of humanity or simply choosing our own faith over the fear of others or those of society. The 9-Star Passport’s first chakra is our ROOTS, our basic security; it is our ability to spin out our own precious spider webs of connection, influence, and legacy to invent and own/share new creative cultures from there like Pocahontas. Welcome to Your New/Old Dream. Earth Goddesses may inspire you to make a dream catcher; a shield; a medicine wheel or a potted herb plant to heal and place in Star Gate 1, the Root of your home. Ask your inner girly-girl or tomboy child, Hey, kiddo, what do you feel, desire, or need?
HEAR HER, SENSE HER, HEAL YOU. “Ah! Ah! Ah! Good Morning,” crow cawing, sultry Honeysuckle teasing, frogs twanging. Go outside. Touch the earth, dance with a butterfly, burst a wild berry in your mouth, kiss a tree! Listen to wise great-grandparents! Evoke power with Bloodstone, Smoky Quartz, or rub a Zuni animal fetish stone smooth with prayer. Pamper yourself, hide in your man-cave or gal-wigwam, eat a heap of mashed potatoes, or get with your clan in a sweat lodge. Crochet or knit that thing … make what your Grandmother Spider gave you. Hike trails west to Arizona, or New Mexico. Dance Wild in Black Rock Desert. Stand with the Original People of America in every honoring way, a bridge to peace with our collective wilderness within. This sacred grounding medicine dances with Mother Earth, Father Sky and you as her protector, listening, and healing.
HER MANTRA TO TRY ON FOR SIZE + FIT. Ah! hello, my soul roots. Plant me. Root me. Bare feet toes squishing warm, muddy earth, wading in a babbling brook, I hear my family. This is my family and community. All My Relations. How I love you. Om Mitakuye Oyasin. What a lover of this very moment between worlds I am. Stamp me as Streaming Sun. Beaming Smile. 10,000 times again and again.
Find the book and perfume of Immortal Beloved: The World’s First Goddess Perfume and Coloring Book, here.
A Tricolored Heron Taking Off
Sweet Dolphins.
Arrivals and Departures.
A Bobcat Hello.
An Immigrant on the Beach of Turtle Island.
Oh. Hi! Yes, and my July 4th name change. Here’s the story.
I was so inspired by my kayak instructor that day back in 2000. Her name was K.C. She lived in her Winnebago loaded with kayaks and traveled coast to coast as a kayak coach. Her free-spirit and strong goddess lifestyle encouraged me to think of myself like her, perhaps become J.D. for my initials. J.D. turned into Jade rather quickly and thus my name change, reflective of a major life change. We live in a free country where being free to express oneself in creative, positive and sharing ways is who we are. Those freedoms are precious, all of humanity knows it, and we only have more to discover in being FREE.
That’s why I am a patriotess for this country and the freedoms she represents. That’s why I wrote about Pocahontas and her legend. That’s why I’ve illustrated and written about 12 global goddesses as inspiration for our best identities.
Stay tuned for the release of my book on Amazon and on our shop, The Jade Dress Shop, by clicking here. Get on board our mailing list by clicking here.
Earth to immigrants, aliens, boat people, creatures in shells, shallows and all those seeking freedom, peace, and opportunity. Hi! We all live here! You are Welcome.
*********
Thanks Google and Kiawah Island Real Estate Newsroom for images!
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Filed under: WOMEN | Closed
Tags: Abhayamudra, author, book, coloring book, Disney, Esalen indians, goddess, Hamsa, Hand-of-the-All-Goddess, immigrants, Immortal Beloved: The World's First Goddess Perfume + Coloring Book, Independence day, July 4th, kayak, La Mano Poderosa, lower Between Two Streams, Mano Pantea, Matoaka, Mexican Milagros, Om Mitakuye Oyasin, perfume, petroglyphs, Pocahontas, Rebecca, Rebecca Filia Potentiss, root chakra, The 9-Star Passport, The Eye of Fatima, The Hand of Miriam, writing
two very special design events.
MAY 21, 11am: Across Perspectives: Design Futures. Worth waking up for!
I’m excited to invite you to join me on Sunday am … I pulled together my favorite design people (along with the amazing Scott Sanders) for a chat on all things new in design. Early birds can listen in as leaders in the design field for over two decades, top design trend experts, first-class designers, architects, editors, and Feng Shui experts (oh! me!) predict design trends, industry challenges, and strengths. This crew’s perspectives on the most important design trends and practices for the coming twelve months is a blueprint for anyone planning success in 2017. Happy to say that our talk was enthusiastically covered by industry heavy, Editor At Large! ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) is North America’s largest and most prestigious series of design events for interiors and is held at the Javits Center, NYC.
Read more + who’s who on the panel below!
Ornare’s NYC Showroom Opening Event : May 22, Monday
MAY 22, 6 – 9pm: I’m so happy to announce that Ornare, our friends from Brazil, who share my love for interconnected and harmonic spaces with showrooms in Miami, Dallas, and spots internationally, are launching their showroom in NYC at last!
Celebrating their 30-year anniversary this year, Ornare is well-known for design-system solutions – kitchens and bath, closets, and home office. Opening night will be held at the A+D Building, 150 E 58th St., from 6 – 9pm, sponsored by Interior Design magazine. RSVP here.
It’s sure to be one sleek and happening party!
Suzanne Slesin
Pointed Leaf Press
Moderator of the panel, Suzanne Slesin, is Publisher and Editorial Director of Pointed Leaf Press, internationally-respected journalist of home design with thirty years of experience at such publications as the New York Times, Esquire, New York, and House & Garden. www.pointedleafpress.com
Our Panelists:
Scott Sanders
Interior Designer
Scott Sanders is principal of Scott Sanders LLC a full service New York City and Hamptons-based interior design firm, specializing in residential, hospitality, and commercial interiors for notable clients and properties, with its signature “New American Style.” Scott Sanders began his career as lead interior designer for Ralph Lauren Home, transforming the global residences of clients. Today his projects include the hotels of the Rubell Family and he is the author of two books, “The Insider Guide to the Lord Baltimore Hotel and Baltimore, too” and “Picture Perfect: Designing the New American Family Home,” from Pointed Leaf Press. www.scottsandersllc.com
Jade Dressler
Creative Director, Designer, and Feng Shui Expert
(Introducing my The 9-Star Passport. A life + design navigational system for people, brands, and spaces!)
Jade Dressler directs brand concepts, content, and products for luxury and pop-culture lifestyle clients in art, design, and lifestyle. While at the helm of her NYC-based agency for the past ten years, her design career has impacted culture for over twenty-five years. As founder of The 9-Star Passport navigational design system for spaces, Jade has practiced in the BTB (Black Hat Sect Tantric Buddhist Feng Shui) since the 1990’s. Place-making, sustainability, and sacred geometry are key to her brand and design work with creative clients and with her Slow Luxury travel/design initiatives. In her spare time, she curates award-winning art installations in urban settings, such as Milan’s Salone to the wild mountains of Brazil. www.jadedressler.com
Ellen Fisher,
VP for Academic Affairs and Dean
Ellen Fisher, Ph. D., ASID, IIDA, is the Vice-President for Academic Affairs and Dean at New York School of Interior Design. She is a NYS Certified Interior Designer who has designed many residential and commercial interior design projects, and was recognized in 2017 by DesignIntelligence as “One of the 25 Most Admired Design Educators in the U.S.,” the only interior design educator to be named. www.nysid.edu
Ingrid Abramovitch
Features Director
Hearst Design Group (ELLE DECOR, House Beautiful, Veranda)
Ingrid Abramovitch is an award-winning design and lifestyle journalist, editor, and author with endless story ideas, strong narrative skills, deep design contacts and knowledge, and a creative outlook.
www.hearstdesigngroup.com
Chad Oppenheim
Principal Architect, OPPENHEIM
The architecture of Chad Oppenheim is simultaneously daring and sensible, romantic and reductive; evocative and essential. An alchemist of atmosphere, Oppenheim transforms the prosaic into the poetic– eliciting a site’s inherent power through minimal gesture and sincere means. Spaces and structures, optimized for pleasure and performance, establish aesthetic delight with passioned sensitivity towards man and nature. www.oppenoffice.com
(note: as of 5.19 Chad will be in absentia. Get well soon!)
Rio Hamilton
Design and Fashion Blogger/Marketing Strategist
Even before establishing his website, riohamilton.com, Hamilton was a luxury-lifestyle insider and connector. In addition to his design and fashion blogs, he’s provided marketing and business development strategies for the interior design industry for more than 15 years, working with top- tier brands and creatives. After graduating from UC Berkeley’s interior design program, Hamilton headed the marketing management team at Trout Studios before heading to London to join the Max Gibbons ID team. His New York experience includes a stint as director of sales and marketing at Niedermeier. www.riohamilton.com
Thank you ALL!
An added bonus…the people on stage have all had the opportunity to work and play together, so the ideas will be creative, interactive and stimulating.
Stay tuned, I’ll do a trends piece next from the show, our panel and Ornare’s opening event!
Cheers!
Jade
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Tags: architects, Chad Oppenheim, design, Design Week, designers, editors, Ellen Fisher, Esther Schattan, Feng Shui, Future, ICFF Talks, Ingrid Abramovitch, interior designer, jade dressler, NYC, NYSID, Ornare, Pitter Schattan, Rio Hamilton, Scott Sanders, showroom, Suzanne Slesin
Mark This One…
Supreme Delight.
One fine, average Friday on the way to the bank, my eyes, and the sunshine, suddenly caught pink-purple, glitter-metallic high heeled boots clip-clopping and spiraling my way…I looked up to see an astonishingly, well-suited, dapper man…
briskly striding towards me, all runway-style, all M-A-J-O-R.
WOW. JUST WOW. WAKE ME UP!
OH MAN, HE’S AN OMEN!
In a flash, I realized how much we all need simple, Familiar portents of happy, even the Spectacular these days…
and how can we build on those to
create a year, a life, of living gorgeously?
WHAT WILL MAKE ((( YOU ))) HAPPY IN 2017…IN ONE WORD?
Hello 2017! I’m usually the quizzical unicorn at dinner parties asking honest, simple and deep questions to elicit spontaneous measures of HAPPY vs. the usual cocktail chatter.
Quiz: Can you tell I am some kind of winking guru quizzer by this picture below? Sure ya can, let me share with you what I discovered during my 2016 winter holiday /cocktail dining quiz sessions.
I asked groups of friends for one word to describe 2016, and we heard “SURRENDER, TRANSITION, VULNERABLE” and the like, while one woman just held up her hands, open and balancing…face all in a quiz … it also kind of looked like the hand gesture for “WTF?”
Hmm,“BLESSED” wasn’t one of the answers. So 2015, I guess. Yup, life grew in complexity for 2016, we all agree. 2017: This is the year to Question everything in order to make life SPECTACULAR. In reviewing the year, I actually discovered that many inspiring, humanistic, and futuristic EXPERIENCES/OMENS already occurred! Along with the impossible and painful…omens that are steps ahead of the curve were right in front of my unicorn horn. (aka, Jewish-girl, quizzicle, yenta-unique-non-surgically-altered nose.)
So in a mere 17 trends, plus 1 to move us forward…here’s our a little thankful, ONE WORD review of 2016 experiences and trends.
(Oh yes, honeychild, some of these are our clients and projects, give us a minute to KVELL! Plus others that make for good omens with hints of YUM-makings for 2017. You’ll get yours, doll! How-to’s and definitions, PLUS! my key WORD and my own winner for PERSON OF THE YEAR, as your reward for getting through another of my long, hopefully inspirational, learn a little something-something, blog rants!)
THE LIST of 18:
ART: DECADE-DANCE
BEAUTY: IMMORTAL
COLOR: GREENERY
DANCE: TOGETHER
DESIGN-TECH: ALIEN BONES, LASER DRONES
DRINK: KOMBUCHA
EXPERIENCES: UNARTHODOX
FASHION: THE FRANCA-EFFECT
FILM-TV: MOONLIGHT
FOOD: BAVARIAN RHAPSODY
HEALTH: MICROBIOME
JUSTICE: ELECTION OF PROTECTION
MUSIC: PRINCE BOWIE ALI
SOCIAL: HOLY TOLEDO!
TRAVEL: VOLUNTOURISM
URBAN DESIGN: ROOF-RAP
VISION: UFO ME
And
WORKOUT: WERK-IN
ready?…
1 ART: DECADE-DANCE
Quiz: And, who is THAT dapper man? It is our CLIENT: Scott Sanders, interior designer, the man who began Ralph Lauren‘s interior design business. A TREND: we are calling Dancing Decades pairs together objects and furnishings equally Spectacular and Familiar, which places inhabitants exactly in the MOMENT for a new definition of comfort. To open 2016, his PROJECT: was the re-imagining of Miami Beach’s iconic Albion Hotel.
Scott, above in the room he designed for Sotheby’s, was asked to design the legendary hotel, famous for hosting the first poolside conversations which birthed Art Basel Miami Beach, steered by the Albion owners, The Rubell Family, ART-world honchos. See the interview we placed in Departures magazine (read more here) with the two stellar visionaries, Mera Rubell, of all things art and hospitality, and Scott, of all things spectacular and familiar in interior design and their 17+ year collaboration.
Of note, here’s the Scott’s Spectacular entrance echoing the original 1930’s Art Deco cruise ship design of architect Igor Polevitsky…
And see the Spectacular wall of paintings by Purvis Young, who was a noted local, self-taught artist the Rubells introduced to the art world, which cozy up the double height ceiling with Familiar.
It is a particularly soothing mix in these times. Ditto the Spectacular sky high atrium of New York City’s Beekman Hotel which opened this year, and the cozy, Familiar lounge down below,
Where a personal text at the bar says: “Your table is ready.”
OMEN FOR 2017: Honoring and care-keeping the (Familiar) history of a shared public space while inspiring the (Spectacular)…
Quiz: Didn’t the Familiar and Spectacular also resonate as the power of the beautiful people standing at Standing Rock?
2 BEAUTY: IMMORTAL
Quiz: Speaking of beautiful, why is that cactus holding a fancy perfume bottle?
Because I asked it to pose for our PROJECT: The Immortal Beloved perfume launch in the Wild West and…
…Slow Luxury bespoke perfume experiences in New York City. TREND: Immortal Beloved is the name of a new perfume as well as a new attitude in our relationship to materials of beauty. Scent and beauty products are not vigorously regulated against pervasive toxins, and thankfully more people are interested in the “immortal” long view of natural, organic, and traditional materials and methods. Our Slow Luxury initiative fosters the creation of artisan bespoke perfumes for individuals, complimentary scents for couples, and even travel experiences. Above, our CLIENT: Maria McElroy, Master Perfumer; House of Cherry Bomb perfumes at one of our events at the swellegant Cornelia Spa at The Surrey Hotel.
Bespoke perfume for couples launched for Valentine’s Day 2016 at Cornelia Spa and was covered in IN New York Magazine and in November we launched Immortal Beloved, The World’s First Perfume and Coloring Book at the University of Arizona’s Museum of Art‘s gala benefit and pop-up shop event. Read more about that, here.
OMEN FOR 2017: Formerly you could buy Maria’s perfumes by the bundle in Bergdorfs and Sephora among others…ho hum, very pre-2017! NOW it’s about more than a new spritz…it’s about how YOU IMAGINED and MADE that perfect IMMORTAL SCENT for yourself. Omen! You can travel with us to Marrakech to design custom perfume, clothing, and furnishings in 2017. Read more here.
See Maria’s Instagram from her December trip and teleport.
Quiz: Might you be among the growing many who happily support the planet by eating sustainably, curiously, and greenly? #3 is for you.
3 COLOR: GREENERY
Quiz: Who are these dapper men and greenery? Meet master chef David Bouley at his Bouley Botanical restaurant space in Tribeca, New York City and our CLIENT: Dr. Pedre, integrative physician. We discovered Chef Bouley’s PROJECT: Doctor and the Chef Series, an evening featuring a multi-course tasting menu, along with talks by cutting-edge doctors, together in the fresh herb-wall-gardened greenery space…and connected the doc, thus…an omen.
TREND: “Greenery” is Pantone‘s color for 2017 and we were immersed in it April and October for two special dinner collaborations at Bouley Botanical. Both evenings were a memorable, extraordinary culinary journey through multiple dishes, like this green, non-green Hibiscus Granite New York State Cascade Grape Sorbet, with Tahitian Vanilla ice…and below the green, non-dairy version, Avocado-n’ice cream from Supercharged Foods beauty and healer, Lee Holmes, our table-mate. Catch the dinner recap here along with coverage by Robb Report!
OMEN FOR 2017: Greenery is Healing through Food and Awareness of the link between ourselves and the planet…Heaven on Earth!
Quiz: What else is supreme linking? (note: linking, not licking, I know because we were just discussing ice cream, you got inspired, but try to focus, ok?)
4 DANCE: TOGETHER
Quiz: Who are these people advocating for politicians to dance vs. debates and duels? Raising our collective emotional intelligence has been a trend and is clearly needed in this world. I was so happy to envision and enlist Tanya Rivero, host of Wall St. Journal’s Lunch Break to tell the inspiring story of Dancing Classrooms and how a TREND: the art of partner dancing (Ballroom; Fox Trot; Tango; Merengue; even The Hustle) as art to heal and engage kids.
PROJECT: We were honored to do PR and event production for CLIENT: Dancing Classroom’s Elevate event this year. The inspired gentlemen above are Dancing Classrooms’ founder, Pierre Dulaine who literally lights up a room, and MC for the Elevate benefit evening, JW Cortes of Fox‘s Gotham, a veritable hero of an actor who headlined a Latino lineup of Grammy nominee talent, and one who spoke eloquently of how “the arts can and will save lives.”
Pierre said he was an awkward child and ballroom dancing gave him confidence and poise; he then taught dance to kids in one classroom in NYC as a way for kids to grow in emotional intelligence, respect, and hope towards their success in life. From one class to now 50,000 children in the US and 5 global locations, Pierre’s story has since inspired movies, such as Mad Hot Ballroom, Take the Lead, and Dancing in Jaffa, where he introduced partner dance to kids in the Middle East.
See the Wall St. Journal segment here, with Tanya’s super smart lineup of other inspired guests. See the boldfaced names who came to dance at Elevate here.
OMEN FOR 2017: Dance Together!
Quiz: If Standing Rock was powerful, can you imagine if we held a dance party and everyone came? Ballroom dancers, Burning Man kids, and party people dancing in serious joy. There’s some visuals and change dancing up on the front line for our rights, eh?
And if you are tired of hearing that Millenials cause this and Millenials cause that (they do)…some brilliant Millenials in science and tech push the globe and our noggins too. See here…
5 DESIGN-TECH:
ALIEN BONES, LASER DRONES
PROJECT: This past November, we were invited to design a pop-up shop for Head to Toe, The University of Arizona Museum of Art‘s gala exploring how to wear art in 2016. Flying to the American West always makes a wrinkle in Time for us…expanding ideas and new linking from ancient bones to modern laser-swerves in design, a nod to the sweeping TREND: of new vision via drones.
Above is a design of Merve Oztemel, from Istanbul, whose laser-sculptural art we introduced to the US and the pop-up. Merve’s headgear sits somewhere between fascinators, alien bones, and Princess Leia.
Below, the latest architectural WOW of Santiago Calatrava, the World Trade Center transport hub, called Oculus, is of the same spirit, which we say sits somewhere between bird flight, whale bones, and drone vision.
Just to push further, in the Feng Shui I practice, there is an ancient Tantric practice of astral body meditation, done to clear the mind and energy, which essentially does what drones do, float, show us the expanse, and look back at us from another perspective. Amazing…this Techy-Trekky-Tantric future show is just beginning!
ODE TO ANCIENT FUTURISTS 2016: Back in Arizona, when we co-MC’d the art to wear fashion show at the art museum, in addition to designing the pop-up shop, we noted in our commentary that fascinating fashion and design explorations no longer need be tied to major runways or platforms. Invention is everywhere. Read more about the project, the fashion we peeped and the gala here.
What’s your Oculi-Spectaculari invention for 2017?
I naturally had to do that oculi-see-me-I-am-a-nerd-selfie thing upon my visit this year to the spectacular 66th floor of the new WTC, itself a drone view of the Oculus! I was invited by event planner-maximus, Sarah-Jane Benison, to see the studio-in-the-sky of painter and filmmaker, Marcus Robinson, who has been documenting the re-birth and re-build for over 10 years!
OMEN FOR 2017: Tech-design via matched natural patterns inside and out inspires the new spirituality. Quiz: Or is it the other way around?
6 DRINK: KOMBUCHA
Quiz: Happy New Year 2017 and why on Earth do we find ourselves toasting with Kombucha instead of champagne?
Getting the message! Between the one day I peeped a well-known sushi chef’s kitchen kitted out with a production line up of kombucha tea in mason jars getting cultured…to this Inc. article on GT Dave, the founder of GT Kombucha, (below) who began his business at age 15! and turned this “fermented probiotic beverage into a $600 million category–one that he still dominates”…a product whose healing benefits abound…plus celebs do it so it’s a TREND: via Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Reese Witherspoon.
Quiz: WHY are you still asking why? Follow the unicorns, It tastes tantalizing, gives no hangover, and is fermented health in a bottle!
OMEN FOR 2017: Cheers to visionary unicorn entrepreneurs, GT Dave began at age 15! At the rate that self-motivated individuals are carving out new paths, plus all the opportunities in health, tech, and the environment, no need to wait for Trump gymnastics, my people!
Quiz: Why not question status quo, and make money for good? Hint Hint: As of this moment in time, there are no beautiful bars or lounges serving kombucha in NYC. Incredible! Opportunity! Happy!
7 EXPERIENCES: UNARTHODOX
TREND: A little UNARTHODOX HANDS-ON fun is always a good idea. PROJECT: We made a little NY1 lights-camera-action happen in our CLIENT: Unarthodox‘s Chelsea studio, where NY1 arts producer Stephanie Simon shed her shoes for some delicious multi-media, free-form creativity classes and happenings. Watch the segment here.
In other hands-on news, gallery Les Atelier Courbet invited us to patch, sew, and dye Japanese traditional textiles as part of NY Textile Month. Imagine Brooklynites ceremoniously gathering their soiled white garments like a prayer offering, and queuing up to the vast indigo vats…
…lorded over by master indigo farmer-dyers of BUAISOU visiting from Japan, everyone’s past lives as peasants humming through their astral bodies.
Peep these “Boro Textiles” antique hemp and cotton pants at $1800. or so, above at Les Atelier Courbet. “Boro Textiles” is not a cute clothing collection crafted in Brooklyn or Queens, it’s the folk craft of patched garments made in the Edo Period in Japan, 1615 – 1868. The patched fabrics, hand sewn piece-by-piece, were used again and again for work-wear. Today we value the aesthetic worn-out condition as intriguing evidence, “…layers of historical and social information, giving priceless value to the non-precious textile.”
The Cooper Hewitt Design Museum wrote, “There’s an expression Mottai-nai! in Japanese, which we say to remind ourselves not to let anything go to waste. The idea has origins in ancient Buddhist philosophy but has long since become part of our everyday thinking, an attitude of respect toward nature and care toward the material things we use.”
OMEN FOR 2017: Everyone is suddenly a Luddite Shaman, desiring blue hands vs. manicures, via three OMENS we love: hands-on creativity, conscious interaction with the environment, and respect for creating and celebrating material goods that last.
8 FASHION: THE FRANCA-EFFECT
I first met the glowing, inspiring, innovator Franca Sozzani, Vogue Italia‘s editor-in-chief, the year we supported Fashion-4-Development (click here to read more on that PROJECT), an initiative of the United Nations, for which she was Goodwill Ambassador. She was a Great Italian Love Song…unfortunately, Franca passed on this year, 2016, but not without laying her very important, bejeweled gauntlet down for the rest of us.
For 28-years at the helm, she was known to let her creatives take free-rein, bestowing beauty and provoking images and ideas on the world, from her groundbreaking first “all-black” issue of Vogue in 2008 (oh lord, it took that long???) and her support for sustainable development in Africa.
She approached me after I spoke at a Fashion-4-Development round-table for sustainable fashion, she said she admired our Slow Luxury ventures, especially our travel to Marrakech, invited us to her home there, and curious to hear more.
OMEN FOR 2017: Many in the fashion industry and beyond were inspired by this powerful, golden woman. I have this theory that when inspiring people pass, they have instilled their impact into those around them to carry the torch, grow stronger, give more. As admired editor, Emil Wilbekin tweeted: “Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people – the beauty within.” Franca was a champion for THIS. The Franca-Effect will always steer our creativity and bespoke, sustainable travel adventures. Quiz: Who is your Franca- Effect for 2017?
Quiz: Speaking of inspiration, what stories and images are now in your heart from 2016, what guides your life from that?
9 FILM, TV: MOONLIGHT
“All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close–up.”
Reflection of “close-up” hit home on three TRENDS: for me in 2016…mobile phones capturing people on the protest front lines, those murdered from behind on the street, and PROJECT: my dream to see my own social justice film on the big screen.
Quiz: Are you squirming? The truth is that, along with the beautiful, the horrific must galvinize our creativity.
First, the beautiful. The most extraordinary movie I saw this year and the opportunity to be involved in more international TV production and creation moved my creative compass forward. Exhibit A, Moonlight, a groundbreaking film in which we experience the hardships and joys of a young, African-American boy and man in three phases of his life…a portrait up-close and very personal, which is precisely why this film has been nominated for dozens of awards, which it so well-deserves.
A new view of masculine FEELING, kindness, strength, homosexuality, and love. Close-ups? The intimacy that this film engenders gives me some hope for humanity, dissolving the 4th wall as we’ve never on the screen.
The image above, when the boy, bullied and battered by life (named Chiron, for the mythical centaur, who as the master of the healing arts, could not heal himself and willingly gave up his immortality) goes to the ocean with a new father figure/friend, who holds him in the water (emotions) and invites the boy to relax and float softly intoning, “I got you, I promise I won’t let you go.” It’s a powerful moment of trust through pain that every human can relate to, the allowing, the moonlight which always shadows our sun. We see ourselves in both roles, the protecting parent and the trusting child. The intimacy of this scene plays out deep within us.
Well, maybe not as intimate as BEING on screen!
Yep, Exhibit B, it’s a shameless segue to my own 2016 international film and TV production adventures! PROJECT: Here below is the gang we gathered (in a speedy 2 days) for a Rockin’ NY segment airing this year for Sieben TV, Germany’s second largest privately owned television company with (r. to l.) CLIENT/FRIENDS: Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin; Scott Sanders; Tomas Hill, founder of East End Limouine; and moi.
This is our fourth video/film/TV co-create with Ms. Costin, assembling this cast of characters for this story, including a gourmet lunch from White & Blue Restaurant and craft beer from Paulaner NYC Brewhouse, booth on the Bowery.
OMEN FOR 2017: Film galvanizes us, from mobile phones exposing the violence this summer against people of color, to groundbreaking movie portrayals, and to selfie boom-boom videos everywhere. Pain galvinizes us. Keep filming my friends, we are all now the media, inventing and watching ourselves everywhere, and hmmm…
Quiz: OBSERVE and SERVE. Isn’t that what YOGA tells us to do?
10 FOOD: BAVARIAN RHAPSODY
11 HEALTH: MICROBIOME
Quiz: How do you make your little earth garden inside grow, Grasshopper?
In the land of TREND: Microbiome, over a trillion organisms swirl, an inner world cranking out as much feel-good dopamine as in the head and where 90 percent of the body’s serotonin floats. Not only must this goopy inner-soup be fed well, it became a Macro TREND in 2016. More than what’s on your plate and in your body, it’s a whole body/lifestyle approach, healing persons and planets. Our ‘science project’ came to life this year, in the form of our PROJECT: the Happy Gut site and video launch, and the Good Morning America segment for CLIENT: Dr. Vincent Pedre and his book and brand platform.
Healing through food and awareness of the link between ourselves and the planet…Heaven on Earth! The Microbiome is a new frontier re-making how we think about our relationship with food and the basis for conditions from Autism to brain health. Healing does double duty for both our bodies and and the planet by insisting on organic, non-GMO crops and sustainable animal rearing… and eating slowly with friends! Peep this dinner party video we co-produced on happy, healthy eating for Dr. Pedre.
And…Kudos to the Doc, appearing on Good Morning America to share his garden/digestion analogy we helped him prepare for his moment in the TV cameras with Robin Roberts and millions of viewers!
OMEN FOR 2017: Food trends may just unite humanity to save the planet. Whether uniting against GMO’s pesticides, reviving old/health food traditions, more organics…even WASTed food. Peep the revolution by Chef Dan Barber and his creative collab to create new dishes from food otherwise wasted by the industry.
12 JUSTICE: ELECTION OF PROTECTION
13 MUSIC: PRINCE BOWIE ALI
Popping out of a meeting the week before the holidays on the corner of Bowery and Houston, my eye caught a massive Bill Cunningham, then a massive Buzz Aldrin staring down at me from high space. While everyone will miss being snapped by Bill and the possibility of outer space adventures with Buzz…these Immortal Beloveds beaming down from atop of the Logan Hicks‘ mural, were actually part of a massive slide show of TREND: heroes and heroines passed this year and a supreme moment of Grace. As unexpected, generous, and surprising street art in the heart of the winter cold, it captured the shock and the impact of the “larger-than-life” majors we “lost.”
The music triad of Prince Bowie Ali fit together for me as royalty, my musical soul is in eternal gratitude to all three. Bowie gave us the nerdy androgyne, perfect for my teen angst; Prince gave us the pansexual; handy for being in my twenties, during which I sported the sexuality and the same afro upon my head as Prince Pan. Yes, I admit that I ventured an “ow-a-ah,” Prince-style here and there.
And before both of them, terrifying, true, and wildly inspiring in my childhood, Ali, whom Rolling Stone called “a rhyming trickster“ and wrote about what I always knew, that his “legendary putdowns, toasts and snaps are part of hip-hop’s DNA,” in this excellent article tracing Ali’s influence on rap music.
THAT influence on all spoken word, all music, and all Self-Awareness throughout time. THAT deserves a street. Here, New York’s 33rd Street in front of Madison Square Garden became “Muhammad Ali Way” in 2016.
OMEN FOR 2017: Now my musical prayer…can we all stop looking down on men and women slain on our streets, our jails, our houses of worship and fun?
Can humans stop looking down on ourselves as scared, unloved nerds or looking too high up to heaven awaiting virgins and other religious prizes causing us to act out of fear and hatred?
Can we instead look deep into our center, our true HEARTS as HUMANS and change our every thought and action from hate to love so as to influence the world? I pray so.
14 SOCIAL: HOLY TOLEDO!
Quiz: Just go get what you want, OK?
and Quiz: Who is this man?
PROJECT: I drew this image of Derek Blasberg, he a multi-titled one: socialite, humorist, Vanity Fair‘s Our Man on the Street, Gagosian gallery senior-staff, and the host of the television show, CNN Style, and passed the original on to him via a mutual friend. We are not yet on his ‘get up on my St Barths’ boat sista’ terms…so I did hope he got it…and yet…through the magic of Instagram, see below. OMEN! He got it.
No matter what is a mess in this world, it’s still a magical world of connection! This is what gets me down kissing the ground! In another example, I read that fashion designer, Marc Jacobs likes to cuddle with his dog Neville and watch RuPaul’s Drag Race…just as Neville was about to launch his first Rizzoli book since his Instagram successes. Did the cuddle-kids see this yet? IDK. They will!
And then sometimes the social-love-magic happens so randomly that one feels OMEN’d. This little fashion-inspired sketch below, after I first cycled on New York City’s Citibikes.
This sketch was liked by the Toledo’s, Isabel and Ruben, the married artist/designers that have been one of NYC’s most amazing creative couples since the 80’s, here one of my favorite articles on them, in Harpers Bazaar. Their “like” had me in a makeout session with the floor! Beyond Excited.
CLIENT: Me!…all these drawings were part of my PROJECT: to chronicle inspiring NYC and to draw for the simple pleasure of it.
OMEN FOR 2017: The Desire, the Creative Urge. Definitely go with that feeling for 2017. If it means turning off the phone, ceasing the shopping online or a pledge to kick the Netflix-fix for one night, I promise you benefits to open up worlds for you! Want your portrait done by moi? Click here.
15 TRAVEL: VOLUNTOURISM
Oh nuthin’…just a good morning wake-up, brunch with giraffes, along with the millions who read USA Today. Here is the article in which we placed our Slow Luxury travel partner, Epic Road, leaders of the TREND: “voluntourism” and “transformative travel.” Epic Road is on Travel & Leisure‘s A-List and you can read more about our latest adventure, our PROJECT: the Slow Luxury Epic Road trip to Marrakech, to create sustainable bespoke perfume, clothing, and home design objects, here.
OMEN FOR 2017: We ALL have an opportunity now to serve and heal the world…we say go for it!
16 URBAN DESIGN: ROOF-RAP
This sooo warms my hippie heart!
TREND: “Grow Food,” See the video below, a rap song created by kids in North Minneapolis growing food with Appetite For Change, an .org using food as a tool to build health, wealth, and social change ...and rap lyrics! I was crying with joy when I found this video that went viral:
“Cocaine doesn’t grow in my community, but kale does,” affirms Denver-based DJ Cavem. With creds as a music educator, Grammy Award nominee and international recording artist along his yogi wife, Alkemia, they created their Sprout That Life Barnraiser fundraising project to link music, hip-hop to jobs in the green sector via their educational curriculum. As a supporter, this unicorn is KVELL-ing over this!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwVgbdSNilg
The New Farming is an omen for a better world. In cities, on roofs, by kids and in winter…consider these fun facts from just the tip of the iceberg of urban farm PROJECTS here in NYC:
In 2016, one of the most high profile urban agriculture projects worldwide, Gotham Greens’ rooftop greenhouse, grew over 10 million heads of lettuce and herbs for 300+ customers, donated over 30,000 lbs. of healthy produce to schools and food pantries across NY and Chicago, donated over 40,000 seedlings to local schools and gardens and saved over 10 million gallons of water. And then there is Brooklyn Grange, where the Pagan, bridal lady below is grazing, which operates the world’s largest rooftop soil farms, atop two roofs in NYC, and grows over 50,000 lbs of organically-cultivated produce per year. Plus, people celebrate up there!
OMENS FOR 2017: Beautiful Life! Considering that food production and feeding a hungry, warming planet is a major DESIRE, positive TRENDS, like grants for farmers and the growth of tech innovations, making headlines like “Winter Farming is the Hottest Thing” …these are OMENS which make us rap, dance, and sing on this floating Earthship.
17 VISION: UFO ME
Now, from an even higher ROOF RAP…I happened to be reading The Fabric of The Cosmos by Brian Greene, and there on page 425, I was astonished to read that cosmic rays, which are “highly energetic atomic nucleus or other particles traveling through space at a speed approaching that of light,” originating from outside our solar system, still, 9 decades after their discovery, are a complete mystery as to where they come from.
Quiz: Why?
They may come from supernova explosions or …?, and are mentioned as causing a range of effect from mobile phone blips to cancer to climate change. There is even an Oh-My-God particle (it’s real name!) with the highest energy recorded yet at 20,000,000 times more energetic than the energy ever measured as an extra-galactic object.
OMEN FOR 2017: I did not know of this. Stuff from outside our solar system is like religion, open to hypothesis, no one really knows and the only fitting response is to carry on in LOVE. Given the cozy place science and religion blurs will find in the White House for 2017…LOVE is the message and the way.
18 WORKOUT: WERK-IN
PROJECT: While I always yap on about community to work out woes and soothe the soul, I shall never offer up my body temple to groupie things like ugh: TRENDS: Soul Cycle, Cuddle Parties, or Las Vegas-style water-calisthenics on a cruise ship (I made that one up.) Torture-chambers, all. If I’m gonna work out angst or my flesh..and commune with humanity, I’m on a hot dance floor, a yoga mat or running track, or weaving through the masses on city streets, very high heels on, music up…or marching with a few million other people for freedom.
So when a friend coerced me to try the latest workout class-ugh- TREND: The Class with Taryn Toomey, rumored to be the hardest work-out ever, involving both yoga mats and optional sneakers (?) I prayed hard on it my sisters and brothers, I prayed on the torture… and then surrendered.
It starts like this below, cool music, cool vibe via Taryn teacher-talk. Into it. Little energetic leaps, ok.
And before you know it, you’ve clocked about 10,000 of the little/huge jump-ups and fun/jump/torture/push-up/hand-stands, see below, to really loud rock-n-roll anthems while Toomey raps (screams) yogic-ish, blissful power talk that would inspire a nerd or a queen. I altered equally between these two states of being, which I think is exactly the OBSERVE which heals for a WERKOUT/WERK-IN.
I had all the QUEENLY peak “wow-surpassing myself!”-“I am a champion”-” wow-I’m so high” and NERD crying moments. Not to mention the bliss of doing this in tandem with some hard-a__s NY’ers. In short, we werked our supermodel __’s off. CLIENT: ME. PROJECT: Our Body.
OMEN: Workouts are best when they WERK-IN both body-helter-skelters plus yogic-like mind-melters.
The other community/group activity I always adore are creative enterprises which support community, become community. I love when creative work is available and accessible to all, case in point, The Alpha Workshops, which I wrote about earlier this year, after attending their gala benefit. The Alpha Workshops are an artisan’s atelier modeled on the famed Omega Workshops, the Weiner Werkstatte, the Bauhaus, and the American Arts & Crafts movement. Alpha is “is dedicated to creating beauty and changing lives.” They are the nation’s only non-profit organization providing HIV-positive individuals with industry specific training and employment in the decorative arts.
On top of that gorgeous gesture, they even excel at the precious, small acts of gratitude and I’m so grateful they shared this on their social media, “If you haven’t been over to see Jade Dressler‘s dreamy, inspirational, freewheeling blog it’s a must visit- and we’re honored to be mentioned for the original art at this year’s Alpha Awards (whose “layered beauty rivaled the new prints from Italy”) in this lovely piece on Jade’s inspiration du jour.”
And here’s the real-real “inspiration du jour“…the White Helmet women volunteers in Aleppo.
The healing of the world is literally in our hands. “WE ARE THE ONES WE’RE WAITING FOR.”
“Studies show that around the world and here at home- the surest way to lift a family or community is to lift a woman. When a woman rises, she brings her people up with her. When she rises, families rise, communities rise, and the world rises. Together Rising exists to heal the world, one HER at a time.”
Those quoted words by Glennon Doyle Melton, who put together, Together Rising, the non-profit organization that has raised over four million dollars for families around the world through its Love Flash Mobs, and a community of women, who lately has raised hundreds of thousands for Help Refugees and White Helmets on the ground in Aleppo.
I found out about this work through following Marie Forleo, who became an official project partner of The Compassion Collective and joined forces with the likes of Glennon Doyle Melton, Elizabeth Gilbert, Brené Brown, Cheryl Strayed, Rob Bell, Valarie Kaur and Laverne Cox.
I mention all this because just one thread led me to the Power of Together. Thank you to Marie Forleo, and everyone. Community begins here. Now.
And Oh! What an Omen it was…it was called the “Women’s March,” where plenty (perhaps millions!) of women and men around the world marched for the freedoms we hold dear. I joined in NYC, for the first time ever in a protest march, and it was historic, healing, cheerful, inspiring, creative, and fun!
A New York Times image…times this by many streets blocked, estimates say 400K. Easily! All of Midtown looked like this!
See? I did it…here’s our little posse. I werked-it-out and it felt so good!
OMEN for 2017. The Feel-Good Workout-Werk-in Formula. The Feel-Good moves from Self, to Others, and then En Masse. Familiar and Spectacular!
PERSON OF THE YEAR! YOU. YOU reading this right now, YOU hold the greatest power of LOVE to share and give. ‘Nuff said.
ONE WORD for 2017: It’s two words, but its important to go the extra mile and add your action to GOOD…that new COMBO WORD is DO GOOD.
WHAT WILL MAKE ((( YOU ))) HAPPY IN 2017…
IN ONE WORD?
DO GOOD.
There it is! Cheers my brethrens and sistrens!
Thank you for reading, caring, and being an inspiration to me!
xo Jade
***
Photo credits: Many by us, others gladly credited,
such as the indigo dying photo by J. Travis Smith
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