Ornamental

postcards, a 13 hour journey

 

the ride, my snuggling into the back seat with cashmere wrap and pillow, began at 5:30am - took us through rain and fog, past flat flat fields and leaning old farmhouses into another part of this state altogether... to water.  wide, shimmering, dusky water...

the ferry boat carried just us, and perhaps one or two young families, an elderly couple.  all but the mother and child of one car stayed put in their vehicles; i stood at the front of the big slow boat, felt the wind on my face, watched the light fade from grey to dark, read a bit.  dreamed. 

 

and in the rainy, soft ocean night, to ocracoke arrived.  shhh.  sweet dreams...

a taste of memory

 

years back, i made an art book that holds within its pages the recipes i've most treasured throughout the years and memories.  this morning when i pulled it off the shelf to retrieve my mother's wonderful dressing recipe (stuffing, some of you call it) and read these words of five year old roy that i'd written on the back of the card: 

"I was reminding you of my heart.  Sometimes I look with my heart.  Sometimes I look at God with my heart".

i just thought, on this day of gratitude, that i needed to share that with all of you.  happy day of giving thanks to you all, everywhere. xo

winter whites

'tis the season for lists of gratitude.  fear not, i will not bore you with a list; you already know what makes me happy, know for what things great and small i am forever grateful.  it is no secret that the littlest things make me happiest, these days; i feel little myself, in the grand and glorious scheme of things, and perhaps that's why i love the bits and pieces that surround me every day.  i don't have a list, but i will say this:  i've come to the realization that i am finally the destination.  for my little family of three, i am home to my boys, it is to me that they are coming.   our holiday will be spent right here in the heart of the north carolina mountains, talking and eating and laughing and sharing stories into the darkest night.  that makes me happy, indeed.

  

i'm leaving before dawn on sunday morning for the beautiful and isolated island of ocracoke, located on the outer banks of this state.  it is a twelve hour journey, and it makes me sad that i'll have to leave while the boys are still here.  but work is calling again, and i'll be spending most of next week there, teaching another group of state school teachers.  we'll be making books and sharing stories too, eating and laughing and growing, i hope, all of us together.  i love ocracoke in december; so many parts of it look like spun sugar glistening in the cold sunshine, the stucco walls of the lighthouse, the rolling dunes of sand.  the whites of winter are obviously having their quiet way with me, and i'm listing one more ornamental piece of jewelry in seasonal white before i'm gone for the week. 

i do wish you all, my american readers, a wonderful thanksgiving; and for those of you who live across waters, i wish you days of grace and plenty as well.  xo

come in

time is passing so quickly - so, so quickly, slipping through my fingertips like silvery mercury.  it is a rainy, foggy day out here on firefly road, as you can see; i took this photograph just a few short minutes ago, and i like the way that the flames from the fireplace are flickering in the reflection of the glass.  they call for snow tonight; come, winter.  come snow.  i'm ready to tuck in for the duration.

 

i like to think of my heart all reflective and covered with glitter, so that it sparkles and shines.  this is my heart, open in the middle, cut out with tiny scallops on its edge, draped in a soft bed of tree and clouds and sky.  (thankyou ann)

i'm going to wait for the snow, and after that, for the stars... the ones that come out in the winter sky, all crisp and bright and twinkly in the cold, all sparkly, like my heart.  and true to the sky, is my heart.  true to the fading, wintery sky.  here is my heart, shaped like a star, lit from within.  welcome, friends.  come in. xo

eggstra special

 

ellen's been busy since she went home, and i wanted to let you know that there are more eggs and vessels in her etsy shop.  i've been busy as well, creating some simple and petite neckaces for my own little shop; i'll be listing them either tonight or in the morning (now in my little etsy shop)   xo

 

 

lessons and growth

"I learned that the world has a soul, and that whoever understands that soul can also understand the language of things. I learned that many alchemists realized their destinies, and wound up discovering the Soul of the World, the Philosopher's Stone, and the Elixir of Life. But above all, I learned that these things are all so simple they could be written on the surface of an emerald." (p87, The Alchemist)

 

"All you have to do is contemplate a simple grain of sand, and you will see in it all the marvels of creation. Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there." (p134)

 

"Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure. You've got to find the treasure, so that everything you have learned along the way can make sense." (p122)

available in my little etsy shop.... xo  (SOLD - thank you, jonatha.  boy, do i feel cool!! x)

a lesson

for the last few months, since perhaps the end of july, i've been doing a lot of second guessing, soul searching, and questioning of myself, of those i know and love, of events and milestones that have shaped the way i am today.  it's been a painful process, one in which i've spent much time thinking and rethinking, mulling, processing, and the only thing that has come from it, other than a broken heart and raging sense of insecurity, is that i am the person i am because of everything that has led me to this day.  i just finished reading The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho (yes, it took me that long to find it; my mother handed it down at the cabin after she'd read it in one day), and out of all the many powerful quotes in the book, both of these stand out above the rest:

1.  "I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living now."(p88/89)

2.  "Treason is a blow that comes unexpectedly.  If you know your heart well, it will never be able to do that to you.  Because you’ll know its dreams and wishes, and will know how to deal with them  You will never be able to escape from your heart.  So it’s better to listen to what it has to say.  That way, you’ll never have to fear an unanticipated blow."  - page 129

    it is an incredible book, simple yet deep, vast, profound.  i highly recommend you spend an evening or two curled up before the fire, drinking in its every word.

out of all this - the past few months, the reading of the book, the time spent in reflection, comes this newest piece of work.  i sat at the studio table and feverishly completed the necklace late yesterday afternoon, just as the last light of the day was beginning to wane.  it wasn't until this morning when i was listing the piece on etsy that it dawned on me:  i had not checked with my friend/student/customer/blog reader, keli hansen, to see if it was okay for me to list a piece that was directly inspired by what she created in a class with me in october.  i was horrified.  the thought had not yet occurred to me, and i dropped all plans to list it until i heard back from her.  you all know how i strongly i feel about imitation - it is a stance i've taken that has cost me blog readers, publishers, and even people and fellow artists whom i had considered friends.  but keli's response?  incredibly gracious and loving, with her deepest, profound blessings.  i now see how easily it is to admire someone's work, to want to emulate the direction a piece has taken.  i loved her incorporation of the antique matchbox, the way that the two of us put our heads together and came up with a way to attach the resin charm to the front without the use of glue.   so, i'm sharing with you today, as i shared with you earlier in october, the piece she made in class (and you can see it in my portland art and soul photo album, there in the lefthand column), and the piece i finished in the pale golden light of late, late afternoon.

it is a powerful piece - both of them are.  and i'll say this as well - it was no easy feat to attach the wiring to the matchbox, to keep the resin charm level and sound in its attachment.  i wrestled, in fact, and had to do it twice before i was satisfied.  it opens, of course, so that whoever is wearing it may place within the box any number of things that are relics from the past, that are talismans to remind us of the place we've reached today - a tiny vial of tears, perhaps, a smooth piece of beach glass, a folded love note, a special poem torn from a long lost book.  a lock of hair.  a baby's tooth.  an old friendship bracelet.  a stone in the shape of a heart, broken or not.

i look at this piece of jewelry and see many things; i look at this piece of jewelry and remember to be open, to be honest, to be truthful, to listen to my heart and soul, to teach and to learn all at once. thank you, dear keli.  thank you for o! so many many things. xo

the loveliness of small things

  some of you may remember these little fluttery layered pieces of silver sheet and mica from yesterday; some may not.  it doesn't matter.  what matters to me is that today i'm packing up some of these to send on their way, and before i separated them from a collection, i thought i'd take them out into the sunlight and hang them like icicles on the bare dogwood tree; only, once they were hung and fluttering and twinkling with the sunlight and the breeze, i was reminded more, than icicles, of prayers tied to trees in the eastern hemisphere.  seeing them suspended there, just beyond my side porch, flashing their simple words of "nest", "home", "bird", they seemed to me to be tiny little sacramental prayers for the tree, tiny messages to the universe that the bare branches will wait through the starkness of winter for new life to come to its reaching arms again.  and that made me smile, it really did, because the very notion of a tree having feelings and emotions seemed a real one to me indeed.

 

these little sacrements - cloud and song - will be winging their way this afternoon out to the west coast, to seattle, where clouds come in so many different sizes and shapes, so many different colors.   i like that they will be worn where they'll be understood, where folks completely know the rain and the grey and the damp quiet of darkened fall and winter.  i came to the computer just now to look up the new owner's address, and was pleasantly surprised to find a letter from her explaining just how keenly connected she feels to the earrings' purpose and design.  her words mean the world to me right now, and i thought i'd share them with all of you, after checking with her to make sure that was alright:

Dear Nina,

You have no idea how fitting these "Cloud Song" earrings are! Since I was a child in upstate South Carolina, I've been a cloud watcher. Recently I decided to spend more time on this activity to more deeply discern the messages in clouds. It's like reading a newspaper, in the sense that Robert Bly wrote about in his poetry anthology "News of the Universe." My former career was a newspaper copy editor and writer of features, but I've "graduated" from that and am pouring my creative energy into learning about and listening to "unimportant" things such as birds, clouds, trees, fish, the waves on the Puget Sound. (I write fiction also.) I am so grateful that you created the "Cloud Song" earrings and that I found them. (Your luscious creations sell so quickly, and for good reason!) I'll try to dream up a cloud song that is worthy of them and of the clouds.

I've been meaning to write you anyway to say how much your blog postings mean to me. I think you are a kindred spirit of Basho, the Japanese poet who lived more than 300 years ago! You may have heard of him. Basho is credited with inventing the haiku. And like our Henry David Thoreau, he strove to express something nearly inexpressible about life and nature. Basho's concept is called "wabi sabi". It's subtle and I won't try to describe it superficially here, but you can say it's about finding the beauty in imperfection. A wabi sabi writer tries to remind readers of the beauty they have forgotten. It's a way of being in the world unself-consciously. This kind of writer notices the flower by the roadside that others hurry by. There's a wonderful book about this I'm reading now and I highly recommend it: "Wabi Sabi for Writers," by Richard R. Powell. You can find it on Amazon.com. When I began reading it last week, I realized that your blog postings are all about wabi sabi. The poems of Mary Oliver also resonate with this notion of losing the ego by immersing oneself in the wonders of the natural world.

Enough for now. I better get back to work (I just remembered I have a day job). Just wanted to share these thoughts with you. I look forward to wearing the earrings that will embody so much beauty and spirit. I'll leave you with Basho's famous crow haiku:

On a withered branch

A crow settles

Autumn evening

 

Wishing you many many blessings,

Ramona

well.  you can imagine just how i felt after reading that.  she gets it.  she gets my earnest attempts to express my deep appreciation for the here and the now and the infinite beauties that surround us, if only we stop and look, touch, listen.  and of course i've ordered the wabi sabi book (along with two others) to be sent to me on monday.  this makes me want to glue words into seashells and scatter them through the woods, or secure them with resin into tiny silver frames and walk along, randomly toss them into the sea, so that they'll wash ashore, all sea-etched and worn, for others to find and place them in their sandy treasure-filled pockets, these newly found talismans of the water and the sky.  that is such a lovely notion; that is such a lovely dream.  i'd like to tie cut words together and connect them with silken ribbon and lace them, garland-style, through the reaching branches of brown winter trees.  i see myself doing this; can you see yourself doing it as well? xo

a naked tree inspires...

thanks to everyone who wrote yesterday and this morning with their beautiful, poetic thoughts and reflections on my photograph of the bare winter maple tree that stands, proud and tall, just beyond my deck and front windows, and is a friend in fair weather and foul.  i love this tree, and love even more the bare branches of winter that remind me of fingers and arms reaching for the sky, for the stars.  your words are lovely, and i appreciate your taking the time to send them to me, both here and privately. 

 i spent all of yesterday creating a new line of featherweight earrings that were a direct inspiration from that lovely tree; i selected words i had printed on tea stained paper  some months ago, words that come to mind when gazing out across the mountains and the maple tree, any tree.    i am reminded of 1.  wind chimes (for their lightness and the way that they swing and flutter when worn), 2. rain chains, those lovely items you can hang below a rain gutter to catch the water as it cascades, and 3.  visual poetry that came to me when looking at the tree's photograph.  i love their featherlight weight, the way they flutter and shimmer, the notion of wearing poetry as ornament.... now available in my little etsy shop...

no standing in the canoe

"As I'm writing, I'm always reader conscious. I have one reader in mind, someone who is in the room with me, and who I'm talking to, and I want to make sure I don't talk too fast, or too glibly. Usually I try to create a hospitable tone at the beginning of a poem. Stepping from the title to the first lines is like stepping into a canoe. A lot of things can go wrong."

                                                                         - Billy Collins, 1999

 

visual emotion

thinking of you

My life flows on in endless song;
Above earth's lamentation
I hear the sweet though far off hymn
That hails a new creation:
 

Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear the music ringing;

 

It finds an echo in my soul--
How can I keep from singing?
                 Robert Lowry
                1860

 

now available in my little etsy shop....

water

 well, she's gone.  ellen came up to visit without a set agenda, said she'd leave when we grew sick of each other.  that never happened, and on saturday she ran out of medication.  even that didn't work; we stretched her visit into yet another gloriously full to the brim day.  she finished the book she brought, began another that i passed along; i happily cooked grand meals (roasted winter squash soup with fresh thyme and cream, my mother's tomato and fresh basil tart, homemade pesto pasta, a lovely caramelized sweet onion quiche), we drank wine and giggled and watched movies until 1am, we drove over this mountain and that one in search of antique trimmings and accoutrements, we bought and wore matching pajamas covered with crescent moons and silvery stars, we worked together on photography and jewelry and the listing of our etsy wares.  we watched those things sell with excitement and applause, we loved on aspen and he loved on us, we ate thai food for lunch and began plans for a shared trip to the far reaches of thailand (yes!  we are!), where we'll walk the streets and fill our bellies with our favorite foods, where we'll gather thai silver trinkets and lovely silks and gemstones the colors of the sea.  and today when i watched her car wind far down firefly road from the hill where this house sits, i began to feel the loneliness creeping slowly,slowly back in.     the sky has been wet and woolen looking itself today, a mirror to the way i feel deep down in my sad and empty heart; naturally the camera came out and i began to snap photos of all the snowy, rainy moisture that fell down upon the house while we quietly slumbered through the night.    how much, i thought, our salty tears are like natural drops of rain!  how much my body, so full of water, is pulled by the tides, by the ebb and flow of oceans and rivers and streams. 

all these thoughts of rain and water and tears and dreams made me think back to different ways i've expressed my emotions in book artwork and jewelry all these many years.  i remember my dusty old water babies book, i made so very many summers ago after walking six miles of trails down a steep, steep mountain through the hail and gushing water and thunderstorms and rain.  on long strips of sterling silver i hammered, letter by letter, my attraction to the water, to the dripping rain.

 i remember jewelry based on droplets of water, from waterfalls to riverbeds, distant oceans and streams. 

 

  i see all of these images, and remember all these things - the feelings, the emotions that are wrapped up within the intricate designs, the motivation that stirs me to sit down and create a work of art from the beauty of what nature that surrounds me - and i begin to realize that within the tears, within the rain, there is an absolute radiance of light that shines straight through and beyond the rain, the crystal, the glass, the art.  radiance.  light.  reflection.  introspection.  and for all these many things that surface in the tears and in the rain, in the workings of my watery dreams, i remain always and forever grateful to the clean, sweet pain. xo

 

Rain

A teacher asked Paul
what he would remember
from third grade, and he sat
a long time before writing
"this year somebody tutched me
on the sholder"
and turned his paper in.
Later she showed it to me
as an example of her wasted life.
The words he wrote were large
as houses in a landscape.
He wanted to go inside them
and live, he could fill in
the windows of "o" and "d"
and be safe while outside
birds building nests in drainpipes
knew nothing of the coming rain.

-- Naomi Shihab Nye

 

lovelies from ellen

here's a  lovely little list of things for you to see on this fine november morning... ellen and i extended her stay by one day, as we spent the entire day yesterday teaching (my)/learning (her) photoshop, macro photography, and working one's way around etsy.  it was fun to play teacher to my big sister, while she took copious notes and watched, watched, watched while we both edited, cropped, tweaked the photos we took of her new little beauties in her eggstra special etsy shop.  later on today there will be more listings of eggs, and another vessel.  do stay tuned.  meanwhile?  we are going to be up to our elbows dying vintage silk ribbon for my jewelry (payback is sweet)... xo

nature's cloak

yesterday was a velvet dream, all glittery with raindrops, glistening with the moisture from a sky that hovered soft and grey.  i lived my life tucked away here in this house, inside looking out. i walked from studio to living room, and out onto the deck into the mist, breathing in the rich loamy smell of dead wet leaves, that vaguely smelled of dried oregano. day passed from dawn to afternoon to night in a shroud of fog, a cloak that draped itself over everything within my sight, and made my hair feel soft and curly and damp, as if i'd been lying out in a meadow at dusk, covered in dew.    

last night's moon was completely full, round and white, but hiding behind the wider white that wrapped itself around me.  how comforting, still, to stand in the yard, to gaze up into bare boned trees, and feel my world shrink down to immediacy, to simply being here.  just here.  right here. 

 

Stepping into fog

I feel the white against me

This night is now mine

               - my haiku for last night

ah, the seasons, and the weather - how it always speaks to me.  i spent all of yesterday constructing this newest ornament, a testament to my love of rain, of trees, of the silhouettes that grace the skies of winter.  it was a joy to envision a design before it fell together, something i don't usually do; but i had pulled out teardrops and raindrops of crystal, of quartz, i had printed the photograph of the tree that stands like a sentinel across from my father's office gate, i found the words printed out on tea stained paper long ago.  it all fell into place, that way, the finding of the words, the watching of the rain, the standing in last night's fog that wrapped itself around me in such a comforting way.  when i look at this necklace, i can remember the smell of the foggy afternoon and evening, all heady and loamy and a bit reminiscent of dried oregano from the spice cupboard in my kitchen.  the words fell into place as i hammered them, letter by letter, into the silver backing, words that will grow warm against one's neck or chest, words that can be hidden or shared, held or dangled, words that will be remembered.  what words come to mind when you glance out your window this day?

 

"The fog is rising".  - last words of Emily Dickinson  

rain

  we've been waiting for a long, long time for rain to come.  this morning when we finally roused, the views outside the windows were of grey and white and lichen green, splashed here and there with memories of yellow. the sounds of drops hitting the roof, the metal of the chimney, the sounds of rain outside my reach are soothing, and i am very glad to be indoors on a day like this, a day that is quiet and filtered and saturated with the rain that falls from the sky. i look at my hands and see the lines, see the dryness of the skin and briefly wish i could be dancing out in an open field, in my favorite month of june, at dusk.  in the rain.  alone.  that moment passes, as i remember november, remember the moment of now, remember to embrace what surrounds me in my quiet little immediate world.   so, off to the studio i go, i pull open tiny wooden drawers and find the drops of crystal rain, just waiting to be strung.  and when i go to place them back, a few escape and scatter, like clear mercury, clattering across the wooden floor.  some day i'll come across them again, and remember the rain. 

i find a string of clear smooth beads and hold them to the light:  a strand of water drops, of moisture suspended on a string.  i dig through stacks of studio papers, stuffed on a shelf, and search for my sheets of printed words on paper stained with tea; i find the words i need, and hold them to the silvery filtered light.  within those drops i see reflections of this house inside, of sky, of leaves and woods and trees.   today i'll work with rain.  with wind.  i think i'll work with this tree.  today i'll sit in warmth and comfort, working by the window, thinking of november, remembering tender things long past, drinking tea, quietly loving the person called me. xo

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

e.e.cummings

 

story booklace

it's that time again, when workshop descriptions and photos for valley ridge art studio 2009 are needed in time for classes to be listed in mid november.  it isn't easy to work on a project, tweak the design, write a workshop description and materials list for something that isn't happening for another seven or eight months; it isn't easy to try to imagine and project just what students will want to discover and explore; it's never easy trying to stay fresh, interesting, and inviting, especially when i've been teaching art workshops since 2000.  but teach them i still do, and valley ridge is my absolute favorite place to both visit and teach.  bill and kathy malkasian do an incredible job making everyone, teachers and students alike, feel welcome, pampered, and deeply appreciated.  i love the rural setting, the rolling hills of farmland, the cries of coyotes at night, the sounds of cows calling to one another during the day (and not infrequently, also at night - something odd for me to hear in the dark).  for the past few years i've gone and stayed for some ten or so days, teaching two weekend workshops and relaxing a bit in between; last year i ended up teaching three workshops, after kathy filled a waiting list and was asked by an industrious student to list an extra class. 

jewelry is my main medium; many of you may not even be aware of my mixed media work, particularly the books, that i've fashioned and taught for all these years.  in the last year i made the decision to stop having pieces published in books and magazines, with the rare exception of a couple of things that fellow artist friends requested i include in their books; i wanted to focus more on the jewelry, on my own designs without the usual deadlines and design restrictions.  yes, i've received requests to feature my own publication, and that may come somewhere far down the winding road; perhaps those of you who've written to inquire may leave comments here with suggestions as to what you'd like to see published.  i'd be interested in hearing what you have to say.  meanwhile, allow me to introduce to you the design i worked on while out at my parents' cabin a couple of weeks ago for my 2009 valley ridge classes.  do any of you remember my copper booklace design of quite a few years back?  it was a very successful workshop, and many of you have in the past requested that i bring it back.  wanting to keep things fresh, i've developed this sterling silver version, complete with front and back design (click on any photo for closer detail).

i love the fact that this booklace contains tiny pages, that it can be worn short or long, front or back.  i love that it features every one of the designs that i've taught and developed all these many past years; i love that it can be adapted for the individual students' own emotions, own colors, own words and sentiments and inner secrets.  it is a design after my own heart, and it will be a pleasure to bring it back, 2009 style, for those who want to dive in and spend three solid days creating and sharing and learning, all at once.

kathy will be publishing the workshop choices in the middle of this month (we're already there, which i find impossible to believe!). 

for now, sister ellen and i are off for another adventure.  perhaps we'll see you there.  xo

new ellen eggs...

 

i thought i'd drop a little heads up note here to announce a new batch arrival of ellen's eggs over in her little etsy shop.  she is so funny - she brought her "shop" with her in a brown paper handled bag, complete with the new eggs, brown padded envelopes, and all the usual sweet packaging accoutrements that go with the shipping of these sweet lovelies.  we've been having lots of sister fun, with a dress up session yesterday morning (ellen shown here sporting a new top from my favorite shop, niche in hendersonville - hi girls!), a trip over balsam mountain to waynesville for apple bread and apple butter and a visit to an antique mall there that is in an old orchard building.  treasures found include an old cigarette tin with a price tag of 4.44 (kathy, you'll understand my amusement at that), some vintage lace, a miniature west highland terrier figurine for the woman after whom i was named.  we talked into midnight last night of the ups and downs of life, and i've received some very solid sisterly advice and reflections that made me feel much better about myself as i tucked into bed.  nothing like absolute, unconditional love to shore you up, right?

please note the furry creature that claimed within 30 seconds of inflation the bed i sleep in when overnight company visits.   he stayed long enough to warm my pillows, then blythely sauntered on back to sleep at the foot of the bed in my room, where ellen slumbered.   two timing devil, i do love him so. xo

no matter what.....

i know and realize my own good merits.   and i will not let things beat me down.

i hope you realize yours.  stand tall.  be proud. 

in honor of all things good:  now available in my little etsy shop:

 

and

 

shall

sisters

 

(what is it about little girls and hair?)

i love this photograph, taken no doubt by my mother.  i love the little acorn cut outs on the wooden shutters, the narrow windows on either side of the front door, the ivy growing on the wall, the azalea bushes , the thick green grass... the evidence of my brother ben with the plastic lawn mower and the woven straw hat.  i love the brown and white gingham dress my mother made for me, the pixie hair cut i wore for years and years, the expression of concentration on my sister ellen's face, the little wooden chair and the woven aluminum one, the garden hose just beyond my feet.  i love the red wooden side of the whaley's house next door, the sound of the cicadas (can't you hear them?), the way that my toes are curled under as i patiently sit for ellen to do her thing (i still sit with my toes curled like that, some 45 long years later).  i love most of all that it is a photograph of my sister and me, spending leisurely time doing what seemed like grown up things, spending time together because, frankly, we didn't have a whole lot of choice.

i love my sister ellen.  i love her so much!  i've said here before that for the earlier part of our adult life, we led completely separate lives, rarely seeing one another at thanksgiving and christmas, an occasional summer visit when i'd make my way to alabama.  now, though, there is a strong, strong pull, maybe like the pull of homing pigeons, that has brought us together in a fiercely bonded way.  she is my only sibling now, and i am only hers; this reason, i think, has pulled us into a tighter embrace and we stay in frequent contact throughout the weeks and months.  for this, ben is happy, i'm sure, and i even give him credit for leading us gratefully back to one another.

ellen is on her way up to the mountains to spend some days with me; unlike a fair weather friend, unlike a sibling who does not give a damn, ellen loves me for all that i am, blemishes and moods, and doesn't try to change the way i am.  she is there when i need her, is there when i write or call, is always quick to be back in touch with me whether i'm down or up, sullen or bright, busy or frantic or not.  i look forward to late night talks with the candles lit, to campfires and mountain drives and sharing of memories that only sisters can share.  so, if i'm not back here in the next day or three, you'll know that ellen and i are busy being the two little girls who have lots of catching up and playing to do.  stop by and say hello, here or there, and tell the moon to watch over us as we sleep, under one roof, within each other's sheltering love. xo

a new day

autumn foliage may have reached its peak here in western north carolina, but in my world - i know this to be true - things are looking much brighter to me after waking up yesterday morning.  in fact, they looked brighter in the darkness of 1am before i finally went to bed the night before.  i also know that whatever deep and festering sadness i carry in my heart right now has been overshadowed - or, brightened, i should say - by the sense of hope that i also carry in this heavy heart.  i think that hope has become my new favorite word (i've never had a favorite word, now that i think of it; murmur was always a good one, and wondrous is another), and yesterday in the studio i sat down to make a tidy collection of resin charms heralding the very notion of hope.

 

hope x 8, combined with sky x 5 = a poem and a dream, don't you think?  and it gives me great pleasure to picture myself working on a new line of jewelry based on that singular vision and concept of hope.  how lovely it will be to sit before my studio table, sunshine or rain outside my window, bare trees standing tall as sentinels out beyond the house, my deftly turning those beautiful words of hope, sky, dream, and poem into an ornamental emotion to be worn around one's neck.  

i heard from a reader in england last night who told me that her husband had woken her yesterday morning with these words:  "welcome to a better world".  i love that they feel this way, and that so many of you out beyond the united states are sharing our jubilation.  welcome to a better world, we say with hope, with our eyes to the sky, with our hearts in our sheltering hands.  xo

OH MY GOODNESS.................................................

here i am, a gal from the heart of alabama, and i am down on my knees sobbing, and saying, gasping, THANK YOU...THANK YOU....THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!  history has been made tonight.  i don't know what else to say right now, but yes.  yes, yes, yes.  xo

 

"This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can." -president elect Barack Obama, in his acceptance speech

*wednesday morning, nov. 5:  i went to bed with puffy eyes, a pile of wet crumpled tissues on the bedside and sofa table.  i had literally danced before the television set, reached out and held my hand on the image of obama there, standing in grant park thanking the american people who worked so hard to get him where he is today.  he thanked us, told us we were the ones who got him to this place.  i stood there crying, and holding my hand to his calm, smiling face, and confused poor aspen because he could sense the emotional upheaval i had experienced all evening and night.  this truly is a new morning, one where i can sit and look out over the early morning mountains and once again feel proud to be an american.  the problems are still with us, yes, but there is a change in the fresh air, and a heightened sense of hope.  that is a good start; yes it is.

throughout the evening, i received multiple excited phone calls from both the boys (and roy was the 1,000th voter at his precinct, imagine that - his first presidential vote) and several from my dear friends julie and kathy and bill.  emails rapidly flew back and forth as each state's tally was called out, and when pennsylvania, ohio, virginia, north carolina were each declared blue, i sat in stunned and breathless relief, still afraid to say it was real.  throughout the night i received emails from people, friends old and new from all over this world, each one of you reaching out to say how happy you are, how happy and relieved and pleased you are for this tremendous turn of events.  i feel overwhelmed this morning for having witnessed history in the making, as it happened, right before my eyes.  i grew up in montgomery, alabama - the heart of the deep south, the "heart of dixie" - where the concept of a black man running this country was a foreign (and impossible) one indeed.  to sit in this house and see jessie jackson weeping before me on the television is something i'll never forget.  oh, how happy this has made me, happy and stunned.  it happened.  it did.  and yes, we can indeed.

a new day is beginning.  take a deep breath, exhale.   we did it.  now, baby steps, forward.  one little step at a time.  come walk with me. xo

hope

it is our election day, here in these united states - as if you needed me to tell you that.  it is a day when we americans can all make a choice, and a motion, and a plea.  it is our privilege and our right to go out and cast our votes, each and every one of us, and i for one am sitting with my breath held throughout this day and evening to see what comes about.  i don't pray much, or i don't pray as often as i should, but for months now i've been begging - pleading - for change.  for fresh air.  for hope...  among other things.

hope  (hp)

v. hoped, hop·ing, hopes

v.intr.

1. To wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment.

2. Archaic To have confidence; trust.

v.tr.

1. To look forward to with confidence or expectation: We hope that our children will be successful.

2. To expect and desire. See Synonyms at expect.

n.

1. A wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment.

2. Something that is hoped for or desired: Success is our hope.

3. One that is a source of or reason for hope: the team's only hope for victory.

4. often Hope Christianity The theological virtue defined as the desire and search for a future good, difficult but not impossible to attain with God's help.

5. Archaic Trust; confidence.

 

i hope.  oh, how i hope.  i hope, i hope, i hope. xo

Morning Poem by Mary Oliver

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

ten things to do with a broken heart

 1.  if the heart is truly broken, try with all one's might to tie it back together again, so that it won't crumble when one pins it back upon one's sleeve.

2.  once the heart is put back into one piece again, albeit cracked or broken, thread some ribbon through the top so that it can be hung in different spots throughout the house, as a reminder of all things good and bad, helpful or hurtful, tender or raw.  hang it in the afternoon sun, from a shiny old door knob, and leave it there 'til the sun goes down, so that it can soak up some warmth and radiate.  

3.  once the sun has set and darkness settles in, drape the heart beneath a crown and declare this heart queen - queen of everything tender and honest and keen.    hang the crown and the heart on a lampshade of ecru silk, and watch the royal heart go from shadow to light, from night to day, from pain to strength and back to pain again.  wait for the cycle to ease, the self doubt to wane.  while waiting, reach out and touch the heart, the ribbon, the crown.  remember to be kind to this heart, to this aching, this tenderness, this broken piece of art.  this heart.

4.  tie the be-ribboned heart 'round the neck of a kindred spirit, of something warm that will wear it with kindness and respect.  

5.  hang the heart before a mirror and allow it to reflect.   

6.  hang this broken heart around the buddha's neck and let the pain of suffering, of introspection, of loves discarded and lost, of loves observant and of loving pain become the buddha's ornament to bear.   leave it on the buddha for a night, for another day, and into the next night.  feel the heart become less burdensome, watch it become another thing of beauty, of special light.

 

7.  hold this heart to the all-embracing evening sky, let the beauty of the velvet sky wrap itself around the shadow of the heart and let the heart find some warming comfort in the growing darkness there.  

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