Have You Seen the Sacred Ordinary?

I've been doing a little reading lately, gobbling stories up like Peanut M&Ms. I've been using the Overdrive app on my Kindle to check books out from the library. I didn't realize I was so hungry to read again. And there's just something that thrills me about borrowing good books from the library without even having to leave my house!

After finishing "The Five Invitations (What Death Can Teach You About Living Fully)", I moved on to "Big Magic", by Elizabeth Gilbert. I wasn't even sure I wanted to read it, but I did, and I loved it. It was very affirming. She helped me (begin to) resolve a few issues about my art/creativity, mostly by reiterating the fact that most artists have day jobs, and they still manage to create (and so can I).

I like this quote from the book, "Perhaps creativity's greatest mercy is this: By completely absorbing our attention for a short and magical spell, it can relieve us from the dreadful burden of being who we are. Best of all, at the end of your creative endeavors, you have a souvenir--something you made, to remind you forever of your brief transformative encounter with inspiration."

It also relieves me of the stress of worrying about things I can't control and cannot change. My mind is absorbed when I am working on creative tasks. 

I've been working on a few things this weekend, I got back around to my Kelly Rae Roberts class. I feel somewhat transformed and I have souvenirs!

I can't remember if I've already posted this one. It's a souvenir of a weed growing in our yard. The flower grows on a long stem and the bloom is probably no more than an inch wide. They are small but impressive when there are lots of them clustered together.

This is my not quite finished "sacred ordinary" angel. I toned down her blush after I took her picture! I haven't come up with her words yet. Or maybe I'm waiting on her to tell me something. "It has to be short and pithy, little girl," that's what I'm telling her. One of the other of us will come through. I just know it.

And Now It's April, Just Like That!

I drove over to Galveston to meet up with SpookyRach and then went on to spend the night with my sister. It had been to long since I'd had a short little adventure. Of course Rach and I made our way to a cemetery so we could take a few pictures. The next day my sister and I went to visit my favorite cemetery angel of all time. She (the angel!) was much smaller than I remembered (my sister is smaller, too, but that's a whole 'nother story!).

Here are photos from the Galveston cemetery.

This was a bas-relief piece which was fairly wide but there were buildings in the background so I got in close. I like her a lot too.

And here are the (phone) photos of my favorite angel of all.

I don't know what it is about this angel that I love. Not far away there were many small graves in an area called "The Baby Garden." That name makes me want to laugh out loud and wail with grief all at the same time. There was another woman there, kneeling in the grass as though in prayer. The tears did well up when I looked over and saw her. The last time I'd seen this statue, my son was still alive. My sister and I talked about young people we knew who had lived short lives and tried to make sense of it all, though we both know you can't make sense of it all. So many things we just can't know and must do our best to accept.

I haven't been doing much more in the way of art. I have been reading a lot. And thinking about writing. My thoughts don't seem to stay collected long enough to write anything. I'm in a bit of a funk, to tell you the truth. So it was good for me to get out a bit and see a different view for a while. I'm grateful I got to go.

Oh! Here's a "death poem" I read in one of the books I've been reading (written by Kozan Ichikyo, who died in 1360)! I don't know why I like it so much, but I do.

"Empty-handed I entered the world

Barefoot I leave it.

My coming, my going--

Two simple happenings

That got entangled."

The book I read the poem in is called The Five Invitations (Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living), by Frank Ostaseski. It's a book that is filled with little pearls of wisdom. It's well worth checking out.

Root, Hog, or Die

I forgot to say that since plants are pushed on by "coded cells," (they're gonna do what they're gonna do) and I'm ready for spring to be here (while still grateful for all the things already blooming), I threw some wild flower seeds out in a bare part of our woods, hoping one or two or four will push through and bloom. Otherwise, my bad self says, "Let 'em root, hog, or die." I know, that doesn't exactly sound like a loving or hopeful sendoff but it's the best I had at the time. I'll let ya know how they do.

Ah, February

I've had my checkup at MD Anderson and all was well. I don't go back until June. I've had another birthday, celebrated by having a mammogram on the left side after doing the right side the day before. The doctor was annoyed that they didn't do both at the same time. I'd asked, but they told me I only needed the one done. Next time, I'll know, and insist that they do both or check with the doctor if need be. If I haven't learned anything else from "The Cancer(s)", I'm learning to speak up for myself.

I've been reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek again, and thinking of my blogging friend Jim. He encouraged me to read it. I've started and stopped the book a couple of times but I'm hanging with it this time around. My sadness is that I won't be able to discuss what I've read with Jim. He was right, now that I've finally settled down and stuck with my reading, I am enjoying the book. Annie Dillard is a fantastic writer. The book is awe inspiring and disconcerting all at the same time.

I've still been struggling a bit with feeling down. I'm doing what I can to take care of myself. One of the ways I do that is by getting out with my camera, which I did this weekend. I do think part of my being down is a normal (for me) seasonal thing. I'm ready for the next season to begin. And Spring feels like such a hopeful season. At our place in the country, the azaleas are blooming, and the wild jasmine, and the little daffodils that came from my grandmother's house. Green leaves are shooting out on bare limbs. Hope is everywhere.

So I took a few photos...

 These are the daffodils (I think that's what they are, you should know I am not great with details!) that came from my grandmother's house, that came from someone else's house.

 This photo was taken in the evening, during what is known as the "golden hour." I looked out and the light was so gorgeous, I had to try and capture the scene. I was actually almost too late.

These are the wild jasmines growing up in the trees. They have a pretty scent but the blooms were to high for me to smell.

Here is something I read in the Pilgrim at Tinker Creek book:

"The way plants persevere in the bitterest of circumstances is utterly heartening. I can barely keep from unconsciously ascribing a will to these plants, a do-or-die courage, and I have to remind myself that coded cells and mute water pressure have no idea how grandly they are flying in the teeth of it all."

See what she did there? You're all warmhearted and fuzzy about the plants persevering and you see your own self persevering and it's wonderful in your head. And then she hits you with the facts of coded cells and mute water pressure! And I can't help wondering how much my own coding is interfering with my current state of feeling glum, and how does that affect my attempts to get through this vague darkness?

More to come...

My Cannas Are Dying, I See Light, I See Darkness

We've got a place "in the country" that we go to on weekends. Occasionally I wake up in the night needing to go the bathroom and I'm a bit disoriented about which bedroom I'm in. All I have to do to figure it out is to look for the light. At home, the window is on the wall to my left and there is a security light from someone's yard on another street that shines in that window. In the country, it is our own security light that shines in the window directly in front of the foot of our bed.

What I've been thinking is that when I am in a dark place in my life, I go through the same process in trying to orient myself as I do when I'm in the bed needing to get to the bathroom--I look for the Light. And usually I'm pretty good at finding it. I never do it perfectly, and sometimes it takes a bit of time wallowing in the dark, but I have, so far, been able to get there, to seeing the light.

I was sitting on the porch this afternoon and noticed the light shining on my dying cannas. It was beautiful. I don't know that my photos do the light justice. But also, the flowers are dying. Perhaps my photos do their dying justice. Winter is coming, I am surrounded by reminders of impermanence and loss.

I've been reading After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, by Jack Kornfield. It's been a thought provoking book to read. I'm including a few quotes below with the photographs of my dying cannas.

"The middle path embraces opposites. It rests between them, acknowledging both truths, caught by neither side. In this way we can see from one perspective that human life is suffering, with its inevitable string of losses culminating in sickness, aging, and death. Tet from another perspective it is also grace--filled with gifts and blessings, expressing a divine beauty. Our very suffering can be seen as the grace that brings us to compassion, surrender, and humility." 

Jack Kornfield

 "With a strength of heart we can respond to the full range of human emotions, unafraid of feelings, neither identified with nor embattled by them. When we accept the feelings as impermanent and impersonal forces, we can be free to honor them without being shut down or frightened or caught by them." 

Jack Kornfield

"We cannot live only in the world of light." 

Jack Kornfield

Backyard Photos

I went out in the backyard at my aunt's house with my big camera. Here are a few photos I shot.

Flow

My professor friend Denise was the first one to introduce me to the concept of flow, as written about by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the book titled “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.  Here is a link to an explanation of what he is talking about when he talks about flow, http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/mihaly-csikszentmihaly

My blogging friend Beth posted a video of herself playing piano. As I watching the video, I realized her piano music sounded the way I feel when I am working in Photoshop or out taking pictures with my camera, or gluing pictures and words into my journal to make a collage. Time stops, and there is peace.

It’s a good feeling, particularly when I have serious things on my mind, like dealing with cancer. I’m wondering if any of you experience flow, and how or what it is you do that brings you to that state.

And thank you, Denise and Beth! 

I'm looking forward to more flow opportunities once I'm done with my chemo treatments. When I get disconnected tomorrow, I will have three more treatments left.

Just Like That...

She picked up her camera and went out on a wet (and cool) and dreary Easter morn to take photos of the brightest thing she could find, her bloomin' wet azalea bush.

She's not totally sure she's back, but it made her happy to get behind the lens again.

Easter Wedding

Easter Sunday was also the day of my son’s best friend’s wedding,

a bittersweet event.

There were tears of joy, there were tears of grief and sadness.

People asked:

Why?
Why have a wedding on Easter Sunday?

Don’t they know people have other things to do on Easter Sunday?

Oh, how I love this young man. 

He hugged on me and loved on me and kissed me and patted my back 

and stomped his foot and said:

“Dammit, he shoulda been here.”

And we all cried at the poignant truth of his words.

Still, what better day than Easter Sunday to celebrate love and a new marriage?

There is so much good with the bad,

so much happiness with the sadness,

or maybe it's the other way around:

much bad with the good,

much sadness with the happiness,

I don't know.

What I do know is that life goes on.

Beautiful brides still smile as they hold the hands of their husband to be

and speak their vows of love.

Even as mourning mothers watch,

their eyes brimming with joy and sorrow.

Photographs and Memories

Tonight I've been laying around with layers and textures in PSE. I really want to learn more about using masks but it is proving to be  difficult for me. I remember I had a tough time grasping the concept even when I was in school and taking a Photoshop class.

These are tangled leaves skewered on a stick that I saw on my last walk on my trail in the woods. Black and white with a little bit of light on them, possibly proving there is always at least a tiny bit of light available.

And the vine is entangling one leg of the tree, not yet choking it though, possibly proving there is always something to be grateful for.

My art room has been under siege for months now. First we moved a dresser out from there up to the country. That meant I had things emptied out all over the bed. Then my youngest had a couple of friends who stayed several nights in there. That meant my things got emptied out all over the desk and the floor and whatever smooth surface there was available. I got back in there and started trying to organize things a bit. I found a venomous "love letter" note. It is based on a template I got from a substance abuse counselor, basically you work through several emotions and it tends to end up positively. At first I didn't know to whom the note was addressed but I finally figured it out. I hadn't put a date on it, either. I finally figured out who I was writing to but I still don't have a clue as to when I wrote it!

Then I found scraps of paper with half-written poem ideas on them. One was a haiku that went like this:

Waves roll, wash footprints

away. Memories remain,

sparkle like sea glass. 

Playing Around

I have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off this week for Mardi Gras. We had a freeze last night and it has been raining most of the day so I will not be partaking in the festivities this year. I have been staying inside like a hermit. I've also been staying up late and sleeping in a little in the mornings. I installed the latest version of Photoshop Elements and have been fiddling around some with that. Here are a few things I've worked on.

 The ice was quickly melting when I finally realized how much there was! I went out and took a few photos with my good camera. Nothing too spectacular but still, fun.

 This is an old one I'd take at a plantation garden in New Iberia. I've added a texture layer and played around with the impressionist brush a bit.

And this one is a donkey I'd seen at the Christmas tree farm. I removed the fence bars in front of his face and did some expressionist painting on him then I added the photo to a larger canvas and put the text below.

I Really Should....

I'm going to try and live out this weekend with a sense of wonder. 

It feels like I have misplaced it somewhere.

I really haven't.

It's only temporarily hidden from me.

That much I know.

I try to love, as well as I know how.

I think I live gently.

But boy, 

do I struggle 

with

gracefully letting go

of things not meant for me.

(The quote in the second photo is from Buddha's Little Instruction Book)

Noticing A Need for Grace, From Me, For Myself

Well now. Today I had a problem. I kept thinking of what I was noticing. And then I started thinking that it would be like yesterday and the "moment" would present itself to me.

But nothing really presented itself to me!

I did notice I was carrying an annoyed spirit around with me. My annoyed spirit was "riled up" when I had trouble doing some of the poses in yoga at lunchtime, when I kept losing my balance during the standing thigh stretch. I was supposed to watch my inner talk when I fell out of the pose, and not be critical. I was supposed to say, "I fell, let me begin again." I was supposed to extend myself some grace in this "failure". Fortunately my inability to hold the pose for very long did not trigger my inner critic. She is very harsh. Still, I was not altogether happy about having to "begin again!"

This afternoon, a friend was talking about the idea of extending grace to myself (the same grace I extend to others), and the sassy little girl inside me said to me, "No! You're supposed to live in such a way that you don't ever need grace."

The adult inside me said the sassy little girl needed a spanking, not grace. My friend said that even the little girl needs grace.

Extending grace to myself is apparently going to be one of my life-long tasks. 

So today I noticed a new mantra for myself. Simply spoken, it is "I fell, let me begin again." Or, possibly, I failed, let me begin again."

52 Photos Project, Week Six: Uncommon Shapes

We see this sight every time we make our drive to the country. And since we go after work on Friday, the light is gorgeous when we pass. This photo does not do the scene justice! I notice it every single time and I have been saying that I'd like to stop and take a few photos of the sight. A couple of weekends ago, my husband pulled off to the side of the road and I got out and took pictures. Technically speaking, this is not a "spot on" photo. The highlights are blown out a bit. But I still like it and I can pretend I blew out the highlights on purpose!

I'd said something similar to this to a friend in email one day and it was suggested the words would do well in a "thang" and I immediately decided I'd like to use this photo. What I did was to make the photo reflect itself and combined that into one photo. I like the way it turned out. You may not be able to see the detail as well in this web-sized version but to me, it looks like there are a couple of faces in the photo. In looking at it, I realized that I had not made the ends of the photo reflect that I'd intended to.

This is what I intended to do originally, to join the lighter ends. But I liked the way the trees came together in the original version so I kept it. I'm waiting for inspiration to come for this photo. In the meantime, I like it as it is. It almost looks like a set of pincers coming together, doesn't it?

Actually, I have a version in the works with a Jung quote on it but I am not sure that is what I want to use for this photo so I am keeping it under wraps for now.

Uncommon shapes, that's the theme for week six of the 52 Photos Project.

52 Photos Project, Week Five: Water Droplets

 (and a story of grief and gratitude, of joy and sorrow)

These are photos from November of 2010. I used the stick in the second photo to create a "thang" that still rings true to me.

I was reminded that joy and sorrow are never far apart today when I read a post on 3X3X365 that talked about honoring death and grief (it's the middle photo and story). When she wrote about the grave being covered by fake green grass carpet, she triggered a memory for me of my son's burial.

The cemetery is about an hour and a half away from where the funeral services were held. Several of his friends stopped to eat at a home where they all often hung out together. They thought they had plenty of time. But they were a little late arriving, and some of them were pallbearers. Because the friends were late and we took a little longer than planned, the grave digger people could not wait for us to all clear out before they lowered the casket. They had another burial at another cemetery to attend to. So there I was, still sitting in my front row seat, the grieving mother with what was left of her family. I watched carefully as they lowered the casket in the ground and then shoveled the dirt back in over the casket. Somehow, watching that ritual was strangely comforting to me.

I did not know until I read the blog post story today about honoring death and grief that I am so grateful his friends were a little late so that circumstances transpired such that I could sit and breathe my final goodbyes to my son's body.

Joy and sorrow, they are never far apart.

(My contribution to 52 Photos Project, Week Five)

I Made a Cairn!

Creating this was such a fun experience. It was all so accidental! I had written love, joy and peace on the three rocks and had taken photos of them with my phone. My intentions were to keep a bowl around and fill it with rocks with different words on them.

This past weekend as I was walking, I noticed the rock that I've written perseverance on. I didn't stop to pick it up until I'd gone to the end of the road and turned back around. I was in the country and part of my walk was on a dirt road, which is a bit difficult when you are accustomed to walking on hard concrete. I liked the rock because it was long and relatively flat which meant it would be easy to write on. When I picked it up, I knew I wanted a long word to take up all the space I had. Since I was struggling with my walk, perseverance was the first long word that came to my mind!

I got home from my walk and sat down on the porch to write on the rock. By this time it was fairly dark and I was writing by candlelight (the ones you light to keep the mosquitoes away). I wrote the word twice and left letters out both times! The third time was most definitely the charm! I finally got it spelled right. I persevered!

(Perseverance might also have been on my mind because the day before I'd celebrated 39 years of maintaining the satisfying annoying delicate balance people refer to as marriage! LOL)

I do not know what possessed me to begin trying to stack these rocks but that is exactly what I did the next day after my walk. I fiddled and played, and got extra rocks from my stash I'd picked up on other walks. Finally I got this arrangement to stay stacked. But the rocks that have life and hope on them were blank and it didn't look right. I decided to put life on the big rock and then the empty hope rock looked lonely! So I thought a bit and added hope to the mix.

Maybe sometime I will find another rock that will balance between love and joy. I'm not sure. It will be difficult as the love rock was the most difficult rock of all to keep balanced (and that surely might be a metaphor!).

Anyway, it was a very Zen thing to do, relaxing and soothing. I might try to make another cairn someday soon. In the meantime, I am very pleased with this one!

Also this past weekend, I looked up from talking to my husband just in time to see a bobcat cross the driveway road into our yard! It was one of the times when you blink and ask yourself, "Did I just see what I thought I saw?" It was probably a once in a lifetime experience.

52 Photos Project, Week Four: Crop It

I realized as I was getting ready to post that these are not actually the same photographs! But they are essentially the same, a cardinal at my backyard feeder, taken through the kitchen window this weekend.

I also realized, as I looked for a suitable photo for this week's 52 Photos Project theme, Crop It, that I probably don't crop often enough.

Most of the time, the only time I do it is when I am trying to bring something in a bit closer, as I did with this new bird we saw last weekend.

Facebook discussion indicates this is a summer tanager. We saw a couple of them again this weekend but I did not get photos of them.