August 8th, 2010

Baby Photo Shoot With Erin, Javier, and Mateo
Santa Barbara, California

I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.
~Woody Allen

I first met Erin and Javier through a mutual friend and we hit it off immediately. Turns out Erin is a Hoosier--born and raised--just like me and Javier is an Argentinean...so what's not to love? Mateo is growing up bilingual in a super loving, joyful home and has Queso as an energetic, playful canine playmate.

We had such a blast doing this shoot together that we toasted to it at the end of the afternoon!
Mateo, like his parents, is a super mellow, happy kid who has infinite patience and smiles when large cameras are being pointed at him and grown-ups are making funny faces and noises with every possible type of of rattle and stuffed animals. Sometimes I wish had a photographer documenting the interactions between me and the parents when we're trying to elicit sweet responses from babies....it's probably one of the most entertaining behind-the-scenes moments of baby shoots.

As the shoot went on and little Mateo became more and more tired of our grown-up tricks, we got goofier and more creative...using bottles of tequila, bottles of vitamins, and stuffed gorillas to entertain him. I still wish I had a recording of Erin, Javier, and me all trying to make our best monkey and cat calls~

And I was especially stoked to discover one of Erin and Javier's favorite songs by John Lennon that really speaks to their journey with Mateo....Here it is. Enjoy!

July 25th, 2010
Santa Barbara, CA

Co-Creating The Journey:
Photo Shoot With Lisa Beck and Budhi Harlow of Panzumo
West African Dancers and Drummers

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
Ursula K. Le Guin.

I don’t’ even know where to begin with explaining my relationship with Lisa and Budhi. Friends. Mentors. Co-creators. Teachers.




We perform together. We dance together. We drum together. We commune together. And we occasionally sing together. It’s difficult to separate out the levels of relationship that we have together. But one of the most cherished of these relationships is as their photographer. In the past ten years, we’ve had several photo shoots together which have unintentionally archived our journeys as artists from their first music cd around nine years ago with their first band to their connection with the ocean and Lisa’s growth as a dance teacher to this summer during which our creative energies only seem to growing without abandon and Lisa has become something of a mythical creature…graceful, gorgeous in a very unself-conscious way, strong. There is so much that I wanted to create with her photographically this time around that we decided to do a separate photo shoot of her as goddess portraits (to be released soon) and another of her and Budhi shining in their musical elements….



Budhi is a phenomenal musician, composer, teacher and performer. And in the past ten years, Lisa has not only blossomed as a highly talented musician and dancer but she has become one of the most gifted dance teachers I’ve ever known (up there along with Vanessa Isaac and my beloved Mamacita). Her humility, grace, unending ability to combine her multiple talents have helped make her such an amazing leader. Together they have helped to create a truly beautiful community of drummers and dancers in Santa Barbara over the past several years and one which I consider to be one of the many amazing blessings of my life.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do. There is a beautiful synergy that occurs when creative spirits come together with a similar vision and you can almost taste it in the electrical texture of the photos….This is the path that I have envisioned for many years to come. It’s difficult to imagine having more fun than we did together on this shoot but, after years of experience with them both, I know it’s always possible! ;)

June 28th, 2010
Whirlwind Summer Solstice Weekend....Scantily Clad Drumming, Dancing, and Celebrations!

Wow...so I've survived another Summer Solstice Celebration in Santa Barbara! I've just finished a whirlwind weekend...a Friday Night Pre-Solstice performance of drumming/dancing/singing with the Djun Djun Mamas, dancing with Panzumo's Summer Solstice Ensemble on Saturday in the Parade, threw a bridal shower on Sunday, more celebrations on the beach, then watching another awesome episode of "True Blood" with good friends on Sunday night.

Dang! Now that's a great weekend!

I'm so happy to be on this creative path and to have a life that is so abundant in music, dance, drumming and creative fulfillment with amazing people. Here are a couple of videos of the weekend. The first is a clip of the Djun Djun Mamas...a group that I've been with the past two years. We worked on this piece for about six weeks and are really proud of it!

The second clip is one of our Panzumo Summer Solstice Parade Ensemble dancing several West African Rhythms in the Parade.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k3B2O_Xmmg

June 7, 2010
Ahhhhh...The Joys, Trials, and Tribulations of Camping~
Absolute Spot-On Treatise About Camping by The Stuff White People Like~

Okay, I rarely put up links to other websites here unless they absolutely stun me with their wit or manage to provide sufficient entertainment to distract me from my actual work....and this one succeeds in both!
If you haven't yet discovered "The Stuff White People Like" then you've got to take some time and check it out. It's truly brilliant and super flippin' funny~

Their latest post on "Camping" especially struck a chord after a recent camping trip with friends and family down the Kern River. I've grown up camping, lived in and out of a tent for several seasons of my life as a river guide/outdoor instructor, and will continue to camp as often as I can...but still...has anyone ever noticed how much work it is to pack/unpack/organize?

The masochist in me enjoys it. And apparently, a bunch of other White People feel the same way!

Check it out~ Spot on!
And as they say at the bottom of this post:
Note: This works for all races!

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/08/14/128-camping/

Weekly Teaser....
Here's the first shot I've edited from my recent Goddess Photo Shoot with Lisa Beck~
LOVE IT! More to come....

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~John Muir

Kern River Trip With Family And Friends~

The first river you paddle runs through the rest of your life. It bubbles up in pools and eddies to remind you who you are.
~Lynn Noel

For those of you who have known me in my pre-Santa Barbara Days...I spent many blissful years living and working on rivers. For nearly five years I worked as a park ranger, a commercial river guide, and as an Outward Bound Instructor (yes, I made many young teenagers occasionally cry but was compassionate all around!) throughout the American West (California, New Mexico, Utah/Colorado, the border of Texas and Mexico, and along the border of Minnesota and Canada.

Those were some of the best years of my early adulthood...seasons spent running rivers, living out of tents and tupperware, living into the strength of my body, pushing my physical and psychological comfort zones, basking in the intense desert heat, and living as a nomad through the winters when I traveled throughout Latin America and Australia.

It is true that you can never step into the same river...twice. The same goes with revisiting those years lived on and along the river. But like any river rat, the river continues to have a sweet spot in my heart with deep roots. I still have occasional midsummer night dreams of navigating whitewater in some foreign wilderness. And every time I visit the river I am a different person living out a whole new chapter of my life...but yet the river remains some constant unchangeable force.




I was fortunate to recently return to the river on an incredible trip with family and friends. Although it has been years since I went down the river and even longer since I gave an impromptu "safety talk" or lesson on reading whitewater, it felt so encouraging to know I still had the chops! All those skills came immediately back. I was in absolute heaven being on the water again. My heart sings on the water and I feel like I am home again...all the rivers seem to be one and to contain the same fluid energy.

I'm so grateful to the Abbeys for putting together another Amazing Trip and to the rest of the Rousseau Clan and to my friends Richard and Michele for making the weekend into such an amazing trip! I can't wait to go back to the river and the Sierras with good friends and family~

Life continues to move quickly along...at sometimes speeding up...but when I'm on the river, something seems to have stayed the same if only for a brief moment in time.

"Mangos, Mojitos, and Completely Blissful Escapism"
Club Med Ixtapa, Mexico
May 17th, 2010
www.rsthurston.com
*Make sure to check out the slideshow at the bottom of this posting

After a lifetime spent traveling to developing world countries and living on the cheap, I've always eschewed the idea of resorting it and spending a week or two comfortably cut off from the local culture while sipping fancy drinks and surrounded by my similarly situated socioeconomic and national kinsmen. Well it turns out that this form of travel is called "vacation" and that it's actually quite enjoyable! I had NO IDEA how amazing the experience of resorting it could be.



By sheer fortune, my boyfriend's parents offered to take us and his brother, sister-in-law, and nephew all to spend a week at Club Med in Ixtapa, Mexico. And all I can say is OH.MY.GOD. AMAZING! I think that the older I get the more I appreciate the art of relaxation and learning to spend an afternoon doing absolutely NOTHING! Club Med also provides ample opportunities for guests to stay active if you're not entirely content reading Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and drinking endless glasses of cool, sweet minty mojitos under a private palapa on the beach (I know…it sounds rough, doesn’t it?).

From the morning into the late evening, you can choose from Zumba Classes (one of my favorite activities…a Latin/Hip Hop style of really popular cardio-exercise), tequila tastings, Body Sculpting, Archery, Trapeze/Circus Classes, Tennis, Rock Climbing, Body-Surfing, Kayaking, Sailing, Swimming, and Cooking Classes with the top chefs from the resort. At night you have your pick of checking out an incredible variety of dancing performances, hilarious skits playing off of movies and pop culture music, and an unforgettable finale circus performance.



Then there’s always the option of just staring thoughtfully into the Pacific sipping on a Pina Colada as you contemplate whether you’ll be going with the Beef Tenderloin and mushroom sauce for dinner or the grilled Mahi-Mahi with a side of fresh mango and lime juice.

Or you can do both. Whichever way…it’s all about the options you have at Club Med!



We were especially blown away by a the quality of food and drinks that we indulged in day after day....homemade spinach stuffed ravioli, fresh ceviche, mouthwatering slices of mango, papaya, and watermelon, endless trays of freshly made fruit tortes and pastries, cinnamon and sugar-dusted churros, imported cheeses, hand-rolled tortillas and pre-hispanic dishes, stir-fried vegetables, and Moroccan, Mexican, Chinese, and Italian themed dinners.

The staff was also incredible to us…I can’t say enough amazing things about the quality of service we had there. Another one of Club Med’s philosophies is that guests are treated like royalty but that they have a chance to interact and become friends with the staff, who hang out, eat, and drink with the guests at the meals and parties. I feel a special affinity for many of the staff that we got to know there over the course of the week and want to send out a special thanks to several of them:

A huge THANKYOU to Eduardo (operations manager), Daniel (bar and entertainment), Asaia (hosting), Sandra (boutique), Nat (incredibly talented head of entertainment….amazing trapeze artist and comedian as well!), Jona (hilarious impressions of Ricky Martin and self-professed ‘shy guy’…), Chefs Sheik, Miguel, and Arturo (who taught some super fun cooking classes and treated us like royalty while we were there….including an amazing fruit masterpiece you’ll see in the slideshow!). Big thankyous also to all of the dancers, choreographers, costume designers, A/V guys, trapeze artists, cooks, bakers, bartenders, and groundskeepers that give it 150% on a daily basis.

You guys couldn’t have done a more amazing job or made our experience there more amazing!
Thankyou! Gracias! Merci! Cheers! Obrigado! I highly, highly recommend going to Ixtapa, Mexico or trying out another Club Med. In the meantime, for a little taste of paradise...enjoy the slideshow I put together for Steve's family as A HUGE THANKYOU for affording us with this opportunity!

ENJOY THE SLIDESHOW!