Hurdles

Launda Wheatley  - Artist

Last January my life changed in a moment. With a few words the image I had of the future, the work it would take to get there, the sometimes daily renewal of the commitment it would take to create it, became a moot point.

Then, as life does, she went on. The shattering didn't unshatter but all the pieces drifted back and began to find their new places. Some of the dreams were gone, some took up different places within me, some were created as new. Some, I believe, are still falling and will eventually find a home.

In May I began to move forward toward one of the rites of passage as we get older. I started to prepare for a different way to be in the world. As a daughter this happened when my parents passed. As a mother, my identity as a mother changed as he became his own man. As a working woman, I really love my job and the people I work with. Still, now I'm coming to a time when my job won't be the basis for decisions about my time and energy. Like a cannon I shot myself toward retirement no holds barred. And then the whole process skidded into a limbo of various holding pattern, starting in May, until a decision I'd made 20 years earlier could be settled and sorted out. Serious flexibility training and the creation of a super hero teacher of letting go and trusting, again, that every moment is perfect.

The last couple have days have brought news that the hurdle has been jumped and the process has begun with all the force it can muster. Where I was pushing from behind before, now I'm holding on for dear life. Exhilarated and terrified all at once, there is this amazing light shining at the core of my imagination.

I'll always be a daughter, a sister, a mother, a working woman, but now I will also be a woman who spends her days creating beauty within the end of the story of her life. That feels perfect to me.

Hmmm, I wonder what will happen next.

Baboon Peace

I read a great blog called io9. Today I read about how a baboon troop became more peaceful after the death of it's most violent alpha males. Fascinating. Read here.... io9 blog

Bio Light

As a person that learns so much through the visual, although I'm not sure if that's just true for everyone, I love National Geographic. I get to travel entire worlds and see life as I have not imagined it.

Photograph by Taylor F. Lockwood

Brazil—Dozens of bioluminescent mushrooms sprout on a dead log, green stems glowing in the light of a full moon. This species—Mycena lucentipes—grows on the wood of flowering trees in the rain forests of Brazil and Puerto Rico. Its edibility is unknown.

Etsy Artist From Germany

Little pixie Matze OOAK made by Tatjana Raum

Click on the picture and it will take you to her site. Magical work.

Conversations

So I have these conversations with people/beings in my head. Therapists, friends, spiritual celebrities, regular celebrities, beings completely unknown to me, shapeshifters, ex's, etc. Recently there was this conversation about the question "why" and whether or not it's a word that inspires a tendency toward defensiveness. The players in this conversation varied, kinda like in a dream. You know how that goes. I think, at first, it was an ex, then it was my therapist, then it was Pema Chodron, and then it was Ce Lo Green. Of course, sometimes the conversations have to do with making decisions, even daily ones, like getting going in the morning with all the various reasons to get out  of a cozy, warm bed.... or not.

Often I am sincerely delighted by the depth and humor laced throughout the talks. Sometimes they are like debates and these I'm usually enlightened by and can regularly change my mind or direction based on the arguments presented. Still, many times there is no conclusions drawn and I am still left in a quandary, although a much calmer one. These are the times that I find contentment in the knowledge of the existence of Mystery.

Lately there has been a vast amount of talking about the upcoming Retirement and where I will plant myself, or if I will plant myself at all. Some of my advisers have reminded me of my beginnings as a rolling stone while others have taken me through the memory lane of times living on the land in complete solitude and discovering the joys of roots.  Mostly, all of them tell me that whatever I choose will be perfect in the moment of it's choosing and that nothing is set in concrete. Good to know.

Sincere gratitude to my head and the voices that reside there. Thank you.

Photoplay

Took some pictures with my phone on one of my sunnier Autumn walks within the city and tonight after work, with the rain singing to me outside my window, played with the photos and found it calming and way fun.

White Berries Getting Surreal

Looking Up Through Autumn Leaves

Halloween Bats On A Beautiful Door

Traditition

Last night a bunch of us went to Shanghai Gardens. We do this every year around this time to celebrate the coming into the world of our beautiful son. He loves barley green noodles, so, this is where we go. This year his adorable girlfriend was there, his best friend, his other mom and her partner and his 80 something grandma. She was a hoot. She got asked what tattoo would she get and where would she put it. Grandma thought and thought and wouldn't let it go because she didn't want to be indecisive. So much fun..

We also had a discussion about putting our kids pictures on the internet and whether or not we should get their permission. Well, I didn't get permission for this one. I hope it's ok. It's about 20 years old and he's not naked on a pad of sheep's wool or something. ( I wonder if I can find one of those )

I so love the young man we celebrate. I'm beyond grateful that he is in my life and if there were only one thing that I accomplish in my entire life, being his mom would be that with immense joy.

Magical Universe

Preview of a movie that I know I must see. Documentary of an Outsider Artist. I'm probably in love with him already and I've only seen the preview. I guess that's how I am. I love movies.

550 sf Castle

This is the latest dream that wants to be manifested through me. I once heard that you just have to keep imagining the dream very specifically and it will come to you. That's one thing I don't have a problem with, specific fantasizing, eh?  I'm making myself smile. But really, isn't she beautiful?

If you click on the picture it takes you to the company that makes these.

In Between

I don't have a picture for the place I'm in. I don't have words, really. It's that place in between pretty big changes sort of at the beginning of the middle. In full swing but unformed as it will be when it twirls into whatever next place there is. A time when linear does not compute but there's this time thing that wants to go in a line toward but there is no.....

So there you have it.

I Love These Beauties

The zinnias growing in my bucket garden in their second blooming. Such greetings when I get back home. Mucho joy.

Copper Days

Getting ready for an enameling class I'm taking day after tomorrow so I've spent the last couple of days in the studio making copper pieces to use. Challenging and seriously fun and exciting and satisfying. Now I'm really really excited for the class!!!

These pieces were made with Copprclay. Powdered copper in a binder that burns away at 1700°. First you have to sculpt the pieces. The clay is wet and dries pretty quickly but you just use little at a time. Then you have to let it all dry completely. After that they all get heated up to about 560° and then you take all the pieces and put them into activated charcoal made from coconuts. No. Really. (There would only be one firing if they were not going to be enameled) Now comes the big heat and then it gets held at 1700° for 3 hours.  Enough time to get my hair cut and go to the free night at the Asian Art Museum and see the exhibit of Japanese Art Deco. Fabulous. Interestingly there were very few ceramic pieces there. But I did get a picture (I know, illegal photography) of some enameled porcelain. Blew me away. I think I digress. Here are the copper pieces (somehow I forgot to photograph 2 of them that will be earrings) and after the class I'll put up a pic of how they got to be even more beautiful.

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R.M.R.

I've been taking journeys within the nourishment and the mountains, and the rivers and inner city dives of Letters To A Young Poet. Fingers twine around the very stars of each cell.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke

Today

My sister sent me this today. This comes after her surgery being cancelled AGAIN due to some incredibly inhumane, inept, ridiculous and stupid. (that just might be redundant), bureaucratic incompetence. That might be a whole stinkin' pile of redundancies..

So, after cursing the Universe, or Whatever for several hours and losing about 20 grand of unreal money on a poker site (I'm a terrible poker player. You can't play intuitive poker and win, I think) I decided to sleep on it. This decision came after about an hour with Pema Chodron on whether or not you can actually incorporate the concept of trust when talking about the Universe and Life.

Lorca was waiting for me to pick her up from the bicycle pediatrician where she was having her 3 month check up. So off I went walking down the Ravenna meridian, Patty blasting in my head  (I get to go see her now, hopefully), the sensation of fallen oak tree babies on the soles of my shoes, blue sky against the changing colors in the trees, and then all of a sudden, an ex that I've been running into lately after many many years walks toward me. She's tired and sad that she's tired. Epstein-Barr. Another beautiful courage right before me. Another sign from the gods that life is just what it is, always. 

Picked up Lorca and rode, and rode, and rode. I love her.Home now. Cooling off at my desk in front of the fan and wondering what will happen next. There's always that.