angelbirdflies

Quote of the day from Bodhi's utterly random ramblings: "Acually and scientifically the world is in fact flat and Egyptians said it was round.  Who am I? It starts with a B- B- B.  Ballet dancer (insert a dance).  Egypt is in fact right.  What am I now? An alien with four arms.  The aliens live near the world, they thinks it's round too...I say flat and round.  Egypt is right and the scientists are right and the aliens too and people are right...except for Owen.  Owen is wrong."

When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you. Turn to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own. There you can be sure you are not beyond love. The dark will be your womb tonight. The night will give you a horizon further than you can see. You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in. Give up all other worlds except the one to which you belong. Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you. _David Whyte The House of Belonging

Okay...gasp...shock...insanity.  I signed onto match.com for three miserable days.  Ugh.  And I thought facebook was objectifying and crazy.  I discontinued and learned a great deal.  1) I would rather be lonely, 2) you can get 60 emails in 12 hours, 3) If we all just offered present moment beingness to one another during the simple goings on of our days we would find ourselves feeling far more connected and far less alone.  So here is what I am going to do...I am going to practice talking to people.  Being kind to people.  Not rushing away when I could stay and offer presence to a situation.  I discovered that I have been retreating all my life.  I wonder what life would be like if instead I began taking steps forward.  It is worth considering.

I haven't woven in a very long time, too long, long enough to forget some of the finer points involved as this heap of lovely, tangled linen will attest.  I decided not to get out my ball winder and just wind a skein of yarn directly using the back of a chair.  I know better than to do this but stubbornness united with a desire for immediate action and led headlong into this mess.  As the yarn became more and more tangled I found myself falling apart, my heart cramping, knotting into a ball.  Until finally I gave up and walked away from the disarray I had made and stood a few feet off with a bent head, tears rolling silently down my cheeks, alone, in my silent house, candle flickering in the back ground.  I stared for a time at that wreck of yarn and felt the weight of my own internal tangle. The tears fell. People keep telling me to be grateful as if gratitude will cure everything and I am.  They beat me with it whenever I raise my head from my interna...

i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any--lifted from the no of all nothing--human merely being doubt unimaginable You? (now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened ---e.e. cummings

It has been an interesting few weeks.  I have been contemplating connection a great deal as a basic need of being human.  I watch my fellows rushing from one place to the next, gathering technology to themselves like talismans of protection against the emptiness of separation- a perpetual flutter of texts and calls and music and smart phones and GPS and more.  Yet so many of us are longing for the central cord of union- with one another, with ourselves, with life.  It's as if we are frightened of being disappointed, so we retreat deeper and deeper into the tight orbit of self.  My teacher recently filled me in on a little secret...the meaning of life is to LIVE IT .  That isn't tidy or safe.  It is messy and vulnerable and unpredictable and unknown.  And yet LIFE extends an invitation to us in every moment asking us to unleash the breathtaking beauty hidden in our hearts and experience, EXPERIENCE, experience life.  Life isn't singular. ...

 My beautiful boy is reading and writing up a storm.  This explosion into the literary world is wonderful to witness but the treasure of his love notes warms my heart in a way no words can describe...aaah motherhood. The two of us spent Sunday finishing the fence, fooling with the breaker panel (which took me a while to figure out and once I did the compresser kept throwing out the power until I figured out that the extension cord was probably to blame) and pulling ivy off our brick wall.  We enjoyed fish tacos for lunch and smoothies with air popped corn drizzled in flax oil, stevia and cinnamon for dinner.  Now he is snuggled under a blanket watching Scooby Doo before bed time and I am astonished by how happy I am to be a mom.  Honestly I don't know who I would be without my boys and I don't want to. Love letters, fences and SCOOBY DOOBY DOO!

 Of course moving to a new house means finding new nature nearby and look what is just a half-mile from our door... This beautiful lake and bird preserve isn't my mountain but it will become a dear friend in the months ahead when a nearby jog is easier than a six mile drive to hike.

 The living room...you can see my agave painting in the corner and another new piece ready to be hung.  It was my first experiment using smoke as a drawing agent.  I love the effect and patina. Do you see my beloved loom in the corner...just waiting to be warped?  And here is the studio/media room...  And my wonderful farm style kitchen The hall with my newest piece, Guardian, freshly framed but not yet hung.  The fabulous bathroom with lots of driftwood, old tile and a hemp shower curtain.  Bodhi's bedroom.  He chose which of my pieces he wanted to hang in his room.  I also found a stack of used coffee bags and up-cycled them into curtains and pillows....  His alter (which he totally designed himself)...  His bed with pillows made by mom and another piece of mama's art entitled Flight. My bedroom and my dream bed....ahh.  I love iron beds.  The pillows are coffee sacks and vintage ticking....

Where have I been?  I am not entirely sure....underground? within? digging? sprouting?  I don't know really.  I thought this photo might explain it better than my words ever could.  My co-teacher discovered this incredible corn plant growing from a wad of clay made by one of our five year old students and kept moist for future use.  Our student had employed an ear of indian corn to make impressions in the earthy mound.  Some of the kernals obviously found their way into the creation and this beatiful gift was the unexpected result.  When we first saw it we both knelt in front of it, awed by the determination of life.  This image became a sort of metaphor for my life right now.  I feel like freshly kneaded and tilled earth.  I don't know what seeds have been planted by the larger hand of life.  Yet I seem to trust the determination of life within me, like those seeds of corn embedded in clay.  There is a resilience and tenden...