The core team of FoAM bxl, including me, started our macrotransiency with the new moon in February 2016, carving out time to lay fallow and pursue things that “there isn’t time for”, to explore the unknown and embrace the unexpected.

This page is the informal log of my transiency process, in reverse chronological order.

30 May-5 June

This week i can tell more of what i didn't do than what i did.

I didn't take a train ( there was a strike of public transport)

I didn't leave my home/garden for 7 days ( the weather was really bad too).

I didn't talk to anyone els than my family.

I didn't write emails except for 2 emails concerning rental. In fact i almost managed not to open my computer at all.

I didn't take almost any pictures ( with the rain and storms the light didn't look right)

I didn't use electricity for almost one entire day (due to the extreme amount of water falling down our electrical system gave up…)

I've spend most of the time sleeping, reading, researching topics that i just read about,trying out a new set of physical exercises, having coffee or tea in the garden even if it rained, drying rose petals, making elderflower syrup, cooking nice dinners and so on…

I have to say after week like this my head is so empty and light that i can hear radishes growing and clouds passing by…

23-29 May

As one of the last “must do” things for FoAM this year is hosting and catering for the events. This time almost the entire week. No mater how well i prepare for thees things there is always the unexpected present. This time is the Internet failure. Not our fault but how to explain that to the clients? And how to avoid high costs of letting them to use my phone connection as a hotspot? Another thing that strike me - as more “resilient” and “holistic community” based people guiding their events at FoAM as harder it is for them to except me as a person and not as a job title (in this case coffee lady or a cook). By some reason it is very hard to believe that person that serves coffee and food can be worth talked to normally and not treated like a lower thing…The opinion does change after two or three days…Interestingly it almost never happens with people from EU commission or elsewhere. I wonder why?

On the other hand this week i took lots of pictures from the train in the early morning. A moving line of the landscapes. There is something magic about those horizontal lines…

Some moving landscape pictures i double exposed with plant shots

16-22 May

Spring really is my season. Vibrant colours, explosions of scent, eyes piercing hundreds shades of green.

Stand in the middle of the garden

Breath in all the sweet scent until you lungs expands till maximum

Stretch you arms side ways and turn the hand palms upwards

Close your eyes and keep you breath till you feel dizzy

Breath out and let all you worries go

Then pick up one leave of lady's mantel and wash your face with morning dew.

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9-15 May

Last days of Kunst in de Keuken. It has been a very pleasant trajectory with both classes. It is difficult to measure the success in such things and i can't even imagine how much impact it does on the kids.The only measure i can see is the personal attachment of them to me and their engagement in the activities. To end the trajectory both classes met at FoAM. 39 kids + 3 teachers and us 3 hosts of the workshops.This time i involved Ingrid for the first time. It worked very well. She brought a new angle to the activities and helped to finalise all my talks about ecological side of food production and our eating habits.

And now i feel i can really dive into the transiency. No more engagement with concrete projects.I can choose from day to day what to do with my time. Still looking forward to be completely free from the emails. At the moment it is still necessary to follow up rentals and so.I have the impression that rentals are picking up.There are more requests and curiosity.

The week ended with a nice and easy lecture workshop about complexity with Julian Still.It brought back some memories of two or three years ago. He came then to give a talk about systemic constellations and as an example we did an exercise on FoAM network.I remember how it made us all at FoAM BXL think about heaviness and responsibility misbalance within the network. But thinking back now i feel many things are changing towards something good. Somehow our complex organisation is becoming more transparent, honest and lighter.

2-8 May

Every year around this time our old cherry starts blossoming. I can't resist sitting under it and reading trough A.Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. He is not my favourite Russian writer but it suits very well with the setting. Also the Cherry Orchard describes beautifully times of change.

“Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive… Everything that is unattainable for us now will one day be near and clear…”

“All you ancestors were serf owners, owners of living souls. Do not human spirits look out at you from every leaf and stem?”

“Going to see plays isn't what you people should do. Try looking at yourselves a little more often and see what grey lives you all lead. How much of what you say is unnecessary.”

“But if we reason it out simply and not try to be one bit fancy, then what sort of pride can you possibly take or what's the sense of ever having it, if man is poorly put together as a physiological type and if the enormous majority of the human race is brutal, stupid, and profoundly unhappy?”

“I know exactly the potential of the people around here. They have the potential to lie. They have the potential to deceive. They have the potential to inveigle. They’ll change nothing. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I lie awake thinking, my God! We have so much. We have these huge forests. We have boundless open fields. We can see the deepest, furthest horizons. Look around you. Look. We should be giants. We really, really aren’t.”

“A hungry dog believes in nothing but meat.” A. Checkov “Cherry Orchard”

25 April-1 May

My mother is visiting us. She is here already for a third week. It is great! Finally i have more time to spend with her as wel. Talking about old times and other family members. There is always a new twist or details to the stories that we talked about hundred times. It takes time to look at things from the perspective.

My mother is soon to be 70. She represents the generation that was building “the bright future” of Communism and then lost everything that they lived for…Savings, habits, security… Walking with her in different Belgian cities i notice how unsure she feels about her self. Even the obvious things she questions if she got it right. And she still doesn't dare to just walk into the cafetaria and order a cup of coffee…as if she doesn't deserve it…

The ghosts of Sint Pieters Church Gent

18-24 April

Working with Eisa on Host again.Such a complex piece to perform. It seems the build up of this work will never end. There is always new details, aspects of performing coming up. As much as i like working with movement and narratives on stage as much i dislike dealing with incompetence of technical team. Can't understand why can't they enjoy of creating something beautiful together with us. Instead there is always resistance, negotiations about things that can be fixed so easy yet you have to fight for it… The top of this time :“No the white beach chairs are not ok for this setting”….

Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. As if life were a progressive and cunning crime with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely, even you, at times, have felt the grand array; the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding out your solo voice You must note the way the soap dish enables you, or the window latch grants you freedom. Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity. The stairs are your mentor of things to come, the doors have always been there to frighten you and invite you, and the tiny speaker in the phone is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good in you at last. All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

— David Whyte

from Everything is Waiting for You ©2003 Many Rivers Press

Thank you Bart for this excerpt.

11-17 April

An emotional week. Painting the colours in the room of my son into the the plane white walls. It started as a very practical thing to do but with every stroke of brush it became a sort of ritual of saying goodbye to the childhood of the boy.

This week made me understand how much i dislike organising multiple events at the same time.At the moment it's annoying to read and respond to so many emails concerning matters that has nothing to do with each other. I unconsciously avoiding emailing…On the other hand i enjoy so much on concentrating on a few activities. This week i gave two workshops for two classes. Very different yet so much reward when kids leave the space with dirty hands but inspired and smiling.

04-10 April

28 March-03 April

Goodbye darkness of march and welcome colours of april. There is something magic about the spring. In Lithuanian language plants budding is called “sprogsta” which means exploding. To me it is very accurate expresion of what is happening in the nature.

It has been a month and a bit of our transiency. I have to admit it flue by extreemly quickly and i still have a feeling my transiency didn't start yet. Even it is not so much happening at FoAM Bxl (i'm only engaged in teaching in two schools and taking care of the studio) very often i get a feeling of panic that i'm forgetting to do something. The only remedy for that is to stand up and persui all those experiments i've been putting away or never taking time to document it…

This spring i was playing around with letting the scraps of food grow. My window cill is accommodated by different jars with peaces of various plants: halves of onions, pieces of ginger, bottom bit of celery and so on.Not every plant succeeded in getting new roots and letting out new green leaves. But those that did look very weird, fragile and beautiful.

After a few months of waiting finally the book by Matthew Biancaniello “Eat your drink” has arrived. Lots of new interesting stuff to try out and new ideas of what can be done. I'm also wondering why i still don't have a blog or any other way of documenting all those recipes i invent?

Continuing playing with the cameras. Plants and moving:

21-27 March

04-20 March

Back at school for Kunst in de Keuken. This year in the planning i get less time than usual.We work around the theme of Time/Timing/Timer. Ironically i can say we don't have enough time to play around.This week we've made filters from transparent packaging leftovers and took portraits. The idea is to try to film trough it next week. Fingers crossed we'll manage our time well.

Visited FoAM Amsterdam. Wonderful to be a visitor and a tourist. Amazed with the community gardens of Theun. Hearing all the stories of the progress trough out the years and now seeing it in real i can appreciate the process of it even more.

Some results of the long exposure and double exposure. Note to my self in digital photos i still miss sharpness,texture and not happy with colours.With analog i need to find light balance between layers.

07-13 March

A week away to the dark cold wet and spring nowheretobeseen Lithuania.

Facilitated two events :

-Community building in a city of Panevezys that lost the city rights.

-Mapping out future plans of an ongoing event Migruojantys pauksciai.

As a reflection i was thinking how great it was to have Hosting Craft crash cours thought by Maja. Even i didn't think i have a talent for facilitating groups or events on my own, now it is so much easier to improvise with different methods and yet keep everyone on track and achieve results that i was asked for.

On the other hand last week was constantly surrounded by few people. I seem to attract them to tell their problems to me.I do try to avoid it but from time to time it gets to me… Coming back i feel i absorbed so many troubles that my body is aching day and night. And this time for sure not because i was doing to much, but because troubles of the others found the way inside of me…

Feb 29-March 6

Reading “The rest is noise” by Alex Ross.

Ones again amazed by the turbulence in the arts and society at turn of the 20th century. So many new directions, chaos, disputes, sense of apocalypse.Such a strong necessity to relate to different spiritual movements. This book is also filled with the musical anecdotes: “The joke went around that Webern had introduced the marking Pensato:Don't play the note, only think it.”

Experiments:

Gather all the necessary material for film development with coffee.

Working with long exposure. Also digital with canon and fuji.

Shooting first layer of Lomography purple for double long exposure experiment.

Images: