Following the advice of my ‘artsy friends’ I submitted my writings to publications and contests and, amazingly to me, had a couple of them accepted. The first submission was to the Golden Haiku Challenge in Washington DC. My haiku was one of 200 chosen out of @thousand submissions from 60 countries and displayed on a poster for 2 months on DuPont Circle’s Golden Triangle district. I wrote this haiku while in Florida in March 2020.
My second submission was to the Stillpoint Quarterly magazine which is a beautiful publication of both photographs and the written word. The theme for the Fall issue was Living On the Water and I thought ‘how perfect for me.’ You can read my story by going to http://www.shantiarts.co>landing_SPAQ then clicking on Nature, Art, Spirit-Shanti Arts. The Fall publication information should appear. Scroll down a little until you see the picture of a wooden dock with my name under the photo. Click on that for my story: ‘Lessons Learned While Living Lakeside.’
My next submission was in answer to a request from a friend who is a board member at Oakwood Cemetery in Troy. They are looking for stories of people who are interred there in more ‘modern times.’ Most of the stories are from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I was so honored to share about my son John’s life and artwork: oakwoodcemetery.org/who-is-buried-in-oakwood. His photo and story should pop right up.
Every month I submit a haiku to Tricycle magazine. No winners yet, but I enjoy writing them.
I am in the middle of an online art course titled ‘Water Spirits’ with Michal Shimoni who lives on the Sea of Galilee. Each lesson has revealed a new Water Goddess to me, materializing out of the blank canvas as I apply layers of textures and paint.
First is perhaps Mary Magdalene, next is Miriam, Moses’ sister, at the parting of the Red Sea and last is an as yet un-named Goddess rising from the sacred waters. These women came to me in dreams and visions during meditation.
I love to create paintings of Goddesses in honor of the New and Full Moons each month. Here’s a sampling: the New Moon Goddess in Virgo on September 6th and the Goddess Aquarius filling up the Moon on August 22nd.
I continue to walk to the lake each day but with the rising of the water level due to fierce storms and heavy rains all summer my dock has often been underwater so I now sit by the sweet little creek across the lane from my cottage. I have my favorite boulder to sit on while dangling my feet in the cold, clear water rushing down from the mountain. I can sit for hours listening to the water falling over the rocks and watching the sunlight play on the leaves and stones. It is during this time that the visions of goddesses and words for poems and stories flow into me. Ah…life is good.
Poetry, Prose, and Painting 
