Last month I was standing in the light celebrating my full and wonderful life. This month I’m feeling a little less bold. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a good, rich, and very full life; it’s just that it’s hard to quell those negative voices inside that cause me to question what I’m doing as I prepare for the visibility and vulnerability that will come with my book launch. Read more
In October of this year I will turn seventy-two. That’s almost three-quarters of a century of living on this planet. And yes, there are days when my body lets me know just how long that is. But then there are other days—most days in fact—where I am amazed at this beautiful life I am living. I have a lovely cottage home and garden. I have an active art practice creating, mentoring, and teaching (in June I hit the 100 mark for SoulCollage® gatherings at the Down to Earth Studio). I wrote a book. I hike and I go out into the wilderness each year on my vision quests. Read more here
Last month I went out into the Modoc National Forest on my annual questing date with Mother Earth. This year I renamed my time out there “quamping” (part questing, part camping) because aging has limited my ability to fast for extended periods and my body requires more comfort and convenience than traditional questing dictates. But the delicious time-alone-in-nature aspect remains, as does the call to pay attention. Each time I go out into the wild I return with an unexpected treasure. This year I discovered…read more
This is an invitation for those of you who live locally to come see the Earth Love Art Show in April. The show will feature shrines, banners, paintings, and ceramics that express love for our earth home. Most of the shrines and banners were made here at the Down to Earth Studio. Click here for details
Shhh…the Earth is listening.
We must tell her how beautiful She is.
Happy Imbolc!
Happy New Year! In preparing to write this year-end note to you, I looked back over 2022 at everything we created together – all the beauty we added to the world over this past year. And I was surprised to learn that we gathered for twenty-one workshops, seventeen here in The Down to Earth Studio, and four offsite (the Art Department Supply Store, Newport Paper and Book Arts Festival, Breitenbush, and the Alton Collins Retreat Center). With an average of eight people in each workshop, that’s a total of 168 (probably more like over 200 when you consider that people often make more than one thing at a gathering) paintings, collages, SoulCollage® cards, shrines, goddess banners, eco-dyed pieces, and Kintsugi bowls.
Lately I’ve been thinking about a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay), spiritual leader and peace activitist: “It is possible the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing understanding and lovingkindness, a community practicing mindful living.”
Have you met the Hindu Goddess, Akhilandeshvari? Akhilandeshvari (Ahh-kee-lawn-dish-vari…fun to say, once you get the hang of it) is a goddess who embodies the ability to come together and fall apart, again and again. “Ishvari” in Sanskrit means “goddess” or “female power,” and the “Akhilanda” means essentially “never not broken.” In other words, The Always Broken Goddess.
Akhilandeshvari is the personification of healthy annihilation and the archetype of unexpected change. She breaks apart in order to come back together as a more powerful version of herself. Indeed, it is exactly because she is able to break apart that she is so powerful. She does not expect that things will stay intact and the same.
I have a fear of visibility . . . of being seen. I mean really being seen—for the flawed human that I am. When I think of my book being published, an iceberg of terror forms in the middle of my chest. Bearing all my deepest faults and fears in writing for everyone to see—it’s horrifying! And that’s just the emotional side of visibility; then there’s the physical side: too old, too fat, too emotional, and on it goes. In my experience our patriarchical culture encourages silence, subservience, and invisibility.