Writing & Art

  • More Musings From My Lakeside Retreat – July 2020

    On July 17th I decided to do a silent retreat day at my Enchanted Cottage. I dedicated this one to Mary Magdalene since she has been appearing to me in my thoughts and daydreams, maybe in my night dreams also, but I don’t remember those. The first set of Haikus are for Mary and the second set from my musings lakeside and in my backyard the same day.

    a plain name, Mary

    it holds the whole universe

    she is the Beloved

    think, say what you please

    she cares naught for your thoughts

    she knows her true self

    the rose, the lily

    symbols of Mary’s pure heart

    abide in my garden too

    raindrops pelting down

    each one a whisper, a word

    Heaven’s telegraph

    hawk screeches: Listen!

    salmon gulps: Trust inner knowing!

    wisdom from my cards

    squirrels everywhere

    zigzag across fence and yard

    mirroring my thoughts

    wind chimes dance on breeze

    water ripples on bird bath

    incense wafts on wind

    , ,

  • Greetings From My Lakeside Retreat – July 2020

    I have always loved this quote of Einstein’s:

    ‘There are two ways to live life – one as if nothing is a miracle and one as if everything is.’

    As I have had enormous amounts of time to contemplate my life, and Life in general, over the past several months of enforced Retreat I have come to believe life is ‘both – and’ as far as miracles go. Life since mid-March has been filled with anxiety, fear and eventual surrender to what is happening around the world right now. So, any little thing that is beautiful or sounds enchanting or sails by my vision into the heavens seems like a miracle. And it is! On the other hand, everything in the world is appearing and happening and evolving as it should so is not a miracle but just Life rolling out in front of me. And it is!

    I feel it is a Miracle I am alive at all in this wondrous, random universe and also perfectly reasonable that I Am here. Why not be here now? I have my part to play, whatever that might be, and I pray I can be a source of strength or solace to someone else on this Path we collectively find ourselves on. Everything that transpires now is a miracle and also natural: a paradox, the Great Paradox (as I am learning through the Shamanism teachings  I have been listening to online).

    So…as I sat by the lake each morning at dawn’s early light this summer I started writing about the ‘miraculous wonders of Nature’ surrounding me. These flora and fauna don’t know I see them as miracles, they just Are:

    Lakeside Haikus

    lake is a mirror

    reflecting sky and trees

    ducks paddle past me

    eagle, heron, hawk

    gliding with outstretched wings

    I sit in silent awe

    silently she glides

    eyes and ears alert for foe

    mother duck on patrol

    splash and flash of hooves

    frolicking on  yonder shore

    teenage deer show off

    ripples on lake surface

    turtle, fish or leaping frog

    stir the water’s soul

    flap, flap, flap, flap, glide

    paddle, paddle, paddle, glide

    I alone don’t glide

    bird stands on a rock

    wings outstretched to catch a breeze

    lovely fan dancer

    ghost moon riding high

    paused betwixt new and full

    luminous halfling

    sun peeks through trees

    lotus petals open wide

    greet the day smiling

    Then I wrote about my human experience as contemplated lakeside during my personal silent retreat July 5th:

    my words drop like stones

    how will they ripple out-out

    open your ears and heart

    sitting in silence

    thoughts flit like butterflies

    by noon they cease

    time and space are one

    pay attention to your dreams

    they whisper the truth

    life is illusion

    dip your toe in the waters

    stir your reality

    , ,

  • Summer Solstice Is Upon Us

    Summer Solstice – (a poem in the Pantoum form)

    My legs are lolling over the arm of the Adirondack chair

    I sip lemonade through a pale green straw

    My book forgotten on the grass

    I stare at the leaves overhead as they sway in the air

    I sip lemonade through a pale green straw

    Wondering, dreamily, what this day will bring

    I stare at the leaves overhead as they sway in the air

    Will it rain today?

    Wondering, dreamily, what this day will bring

    My hands brush the tops of buttercups at my sides

    Will it rain today?

    Or will the clouds just drift apart and vanish?

    My hands brush the tops of buttercups at my sides

    I sip lemonade through a pale green straw

    I think I must look like a painting of summer

    My legs are lolling over the arm of the Adirondack chair

    Dragonfly Dreams

    You come to me in lucid dreams

    In that magical space betwixt awake and asleep,

    Flitting in and around my fantasies,

    Weaving your medicine

    Like a spider weaves her web.

    You glide along on the winds of change

    Bringing to me the wisdom of the Ages:

    This earthly life is all illusion!

    Lift me, transform me, into

    My true Spiritual self.

    , ,

  • Art Continues To Sustain Me

    A question often asked of me and probably of all artists is: ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ Especially over these past few months I have had plenty of time and space to create a piece of artwork per day – many days I produce more depending upon what classes/lessons/free offerings I am pursuing online. My daily art journal usually has a prompt I receive online or think about as I arise in the wee hours of the morning to feed my pesky kitties looking for their ‘first breakfast’ at 3 a.m. I have the pages already prepped with Gesso and sometimes an acrylic color so I can begin straightaway. Here’s an example:

    Often I sit in front of an empty, white canvas propped on my small step ladder which has become the perfect easel for me to either stand at or sit in front of. On a small table nearby I have various acrylic paints, swatches of fabric and lace, pieces of paper, ribbons, feathers, magazine pictures, pages ripped from old dictionaries and books and a mason jar filled with brushes. The plain, white canvas is daunting so I start to glue on pieces of paper, music, lace and whatever strikes my fancy in the moment. I add whatever colors appeal to me and things start to take shape. In this particular painting I wasn’t thinking about a person but suddenly I saw her chin and the outline of a nose and realized she was looking up not out at me like my other Goddesses. I kept layering and redoing her facial features until this Goddess of the Waterfall appeared.

    This next painting is a perfect example of how an outside influence changes everything I thought I was going to create on the canvas. I started with stencils normally used for quilting and added colors and textures around them. I was listening to Peter, Paul and Mary on my phone and the song The Great Mandala (the Wheel of Life) came on and I said out loud ‘Aha! these are mandalas!’ Peter Yarrow wrote it back in the ’60s in protest of the Vietnam War, but when you listen to the words they ring true in today’s world. So, I offer this artwork as a representation of how the cogs of my ‘wheel’ and spaces in your ‘wheel’ fit together to mesh and turn and move forward as One.

  • A Quest For Real Mail

    I have to stay vigilant. My mail lady arrives at different times each day. Usually between 11:30 and 1:30 but this can be altered in an instant. Like the other day when I finally ventured out to pick up a prescription at Walgreens at 10:30 thinking it was safe to do so. But no! she is already on the main highway down the road from my street.

    A dilemma faces me. Should I speed to Walgreens and hope there isn’t a long line at the pharmacy or should I go back home and wait on my front porch? I decide to turn around and follow her to my street’s row of roadside mailboxes. This way I can find out how much mail other people are getting. How long does she stop at each mailbox? Are people getting lots of packages? I have become a calculating stalker in my mostly ‘stay-at-home’ solitude. Mail is my new lifeline to the outer world. I crave anything showing up in my mailbox: the Advertiser with supermarket inserts, hearing aid ads, real estate ads, gutter-cleaning ads, pest control ads, junk mail for people who lived at my address a decade ago. I cherish them all.

    I order things on Amazon almost every day just to have packages delivered on a regular basis to my mailbox or doorstep. I am highly disappointed when items are bundled together for easier delivery. I don’t want easier delivery! I want individual packages day after day after day.

    Today was a bonus day. The item I had ordered was broken inside the box.  Yay!  I have to package it back up, have it picked up by UPS tomorrow and then reorder the item to be delivered next week. Three transactions with a live person for one item ordered – heavenly…

    So, while emails and text messages and Facetime are sweet at this time of social separation, I want Real Mail. Solid pieces of paper and cardboard. I want to feel the paper and cardboard – after wiping them down with Clorox of course, smell the paper and cardboard – after the Clorox dries of course, examine the artwork of the stamps and savor the card or letter or even the ad/flyer whether intended for me or ‘current occupant.’

    ,

  • Art in the Age of Corona (continued)

    May 2020

    Spring is finally becoming a reality out here at the lake. I have had a series of feathered friends flying into the windows of my front porch. First a female cardinal flew against the window as her male companion looked on. After she left, a male robin repeatedly collided with the glass. When he finally left 3 weeks later, I breathed a sigh of relief, but this  morning a little sparrow took his place. Even my cats staring at them isn’t enough to scare them away… So, of course, I thought about how these actions relate to what is happening in the world right now.  An unprecedented event in my lifetime anyway. Are we all just beating our heads against the wall trying to return to a normal that no longer exists and should not be returned to anyway? Spirit is calling to us to change our habits and ways of life that no longer serve us or the planet.  Will we listen?

    Over the past few months several Goddesses/Angels have come to me in dreams and visions, all of whom I have painted as directed by them. This first week of May which is celebrated by many cultures as Beltane, a time for planting seeds and the ripening of trees and flowers, brought forth Gaia to me. She symbolizes Mother Earth and brings forth abundance in nature. We must take care of our planet and honor Gaia and all the wonderful things she freely gives us.

  • Art in the Age of Corona

    Each week, as I sit staring at a blank canvas wondering what to paint next, the face of another Goddess/Angel starts to take form. I am realizing more and more that the image is already on the canvas waiting for me to acknowledge her. Her timing is always perfect. Zanna, pictured here, proclaims: ‘You are protected from all types of harm. The worst is now behind you. I ask you to relax and feel safe.’ The worst may be behind us, but that does not mean we are to rush back into our old lives. I believe we are to take this ‘time between’ what was before and what will be in a week or a month or even a year from now and find our place in this new paradigm we are being invited into by Spirit.

    I am also striving each day to create something new in my art journal. Much easier to do something small and easily completed in an hour or 2. I usually ‘sploot’ several colors of acrylic paint on a page, fold it over and press to create swirls and patterns that suggest something to me. Like the images in clouds, pictured here from a photo I took in Florida in March, suggest angels, animals, or waves on a shore, my blots of paint suggest images to me.

    Sometimes it takes a day of walking past the journal lying open on my kitchen peninsula before I have an‘aha!’ moment and wings and the outline of a faceand hands holding a sacred object start to appear.The picture is from a Susan Boulet calendar I have hadfor years and the my painting above mirrors her.

  • Art in the Age of Corona 2020 continued

    Today is Easter. It is a holiday/festival/ritual celebrated by many cultures around the globe. I have painted this depiction of Ostara the Celtic Fertility Goddess from whose name the word Easter is derived. She heralds Springtime, the time when our sun returns from the darkness of the Winter months. She also welcomes the seeds and plants to rejuvenate and resurrect themselves from the cold earth. The birds are returning from their hiatus south and the butterflies and dragonflies will soon follow. The world around us is fairly bursting with life.

    Easter is a time for rejoicing. In these troubled and uncertain times we can turn to Nature to see how the cycle of life continues ever onward despite extenuating circumstances. Let Ostara be our guide and mentor as she reminds us this is an opportune time to make life changes and prepare for new ventures.

    This picture is a recent page from my ongoing art journal. Even though Jesus is depicted as a baby in his mother’s arms, isn’t this where we all begin and end?

    Jesus called out for his mother at the end of his life…

    Michaelangelo’s famous sculpture Pieta portrays Jesus once again cradled by his loving mother.

  • Art in the Age of Corona 2020

    These are strange times indeed. My emotions swing all over the place day by day but my artwork has given me a focus and direction for these emotions and I have found my Muses, be they Goddesses, Angels or my Spirit Guides, have been coming through to me in dreams and visions. I am eager each morning to put brush to canvas and see who emerges over the days as they come clear to me.

    Here are a few of the Goddesses who have come forth as I contemplated my empty canvases:

    I painted Bridget a couple of months ago and just wasn’t satisfied with her facial features so I ‘Gessoed’ over her nose and mouth Tuesday and did not realize until I stepped back what I had painted – a face mask! Was this a sub-conscious thought or feeling coming through?

    Here is Bridget, re-imagined as of yesterday…a pleasant, warm smile on her face, apparently Coronavirus-free!

    I also decided to participate in the #518rainbowhunt phenomenon taking over my area and perhaps the whole country by now?  I wanted to paint something eye-catching and fun. So, while getting out of my car Wednesday, I spotted this angel which was originally all white and waiting patiently in my herb garden for me to notice her potential as a Rainbow of Hope.

  • Treasure Island, Florida 2020

    I traveled to Florida from February 28th to March 12th. Luckily was able to enjoy the sun, sand, water and sea breezes before the spread of the coronavirus cancelled or delayed events and flights, etc. I enjoyed many walks along the Gulf beach. Found many treasures washed ashore and stood one early morning between the full moon setting and the fierce sun rising.

    This photo is of the page I created in my journal of treasures that washed up on shore one morning.

    waves crashing on sand

    slip back into ocean’s fold

    leaving sea treasures

    Busy little birds along the shore at sunset.

    sandpipers scuttle

    surveying sand for supper

    spy savory snails

    Another day in paradise winds down…

    magic hour at dusk

    lone bird flies across the sun

    accent mark on sky

    , ,