While Dreams And Whistles Waft

 I don't live close to train tracks, but there are precognitive winds blowing and I now hear train whistles morning and night announcing movement and change. I have been dreaming in the thin hours before dawn of awakenings; of a childhood friend held in suspended animation inside a clothes bag, hanging in a basement for one year, who suddenly unzipped the bag and walked out; of a lidless, ramshackle coffin sitting on a workbench, again in a basement, with the corpse of a man too big for its confines who began talking to me as I passed him by. He had decided it was time to get back to the business of living life. So he did.

And so, it seems, must I.

Stress has been stupefying. Words and wishes have been lost. Health, the first and only true wealth, has ridden the rails towards calamity. It's time to listen deeply to what my soul would choose if all possibilities lay shining at my feet.

In the movement and the changes to come, in the awakenings that bring me back to life, I will find the only true thing I have been missing while dreams and whistles waft~ the animating force of myself.

A Day For The Earth

I love you, Mother Earth.

Cold Rain In April

A weeping, cold rain in April.

Wind like March.

A nest,

not of soft grass and animal hair,

but of blankets.

In that nest,

under wet windows,

the weight of things that can no longer be born

are imagined to be lifted.

Ideas of new life

and new ways

of navigating uncertainty fall,

 drop by drop,

into a heart still holding its breath.

Rest. 

Nourish.

Breathe with certainty. 

Courage will come, 

weights will lift.

The rain and the wind

will give way to flight

in the perfumed skies of May.

The Soul In Bloom Is Blossoming

My magazine has begun to bloom.

Thank you to the generous souls who
took a chance on my offering.

My heart is filling rapidly.

From Lisa~

"Just received my copy of this today. One of the most beautifully written and elegantly photographed 'magazines' I've ever seen. More of a soft-cover book, really. I'm ordering several more to give as gifts as I certainly am not willing to part with my copy! I highly recommend this to everyone!"

From Skye~

"I just received my copy of The Soul in Bloom. So incredibly beautiful & nourishing!

Thank you for such a soul-full creation."

From Don~

"I just got my magazine. I love it, I love it, I love it."

To order a copy of The Soul In Bloom, spring edition~

go HERE.

Buffalo Botanical Society~ part 2

 How is it we don't believe in miracles, 

when miracles are all around us?

Buffalo Botanical Society~ part 1

The non-botanicals were just as intriguing.

The Warmth Of Grace

It's like waking from a fog, slowly. It's like living beneath the cold rays of an obscured sun, waiting for warmth, waiting for warmth. And one day, after 3 months of days with very few words and too little sparkle, there is a shift; small, still shrouded in feathers of fog, but notable.

One breath reaches the floor of the gut, lips upturn, and quietly, life renews.

It has been a productive time; angst and exhaustion leading deeper into the cold and mist where inhibitions rule and humor lies dead and the way out spirals ever downward until 3 spare inches from rock bottom, the cold sun casts a ray on 2 ancient words: let go.

In the letting go, there are things to be kept: compassion, trust and the warmth of grace.     

The Soul In Bloom~ issue #1

 

{visiting my aunt in the hospital~ 2 fresh blooms, 1 magazine}

Today, a dream is launched. After writing steadily on this blog for 5 years, I am taking my words and pictures into the 3rd dimension. I am indulging my love of magazines and creating my own. Today, I offer you The Soul In Bloom~ spring issue , the first in a 4 part series of keepsake magazines. There will be one issue for each season, based on the highlights of my 5 year odyssey here at Evenstar Art.

I have taken my most needful and broadly applicable essays and paired them with spring photographs. The pages of the magazine are uncluttered, fresh and easily readable. I want the messages of hope and love and encouragement to stand out. I want this magazine to uplift and give courage to any one who reads it or simply flips through the pages. I want this magazine to make a difference in how some one feels about life and themselves. I want it to be a reminder that love is ever-present, no matter what.

It is not a perfect offering. It is not a money-maker. It is a thread in my tapestry of wishing to add more beauty and goodness to this shared life. It is an antidote to the fear given center stage in our world. It is born of my need to contribute. I created this for you.

This is a print-on-demand magazine. It will cost $14.95 + shipping. I would be honored if you felt compelled to buy it. I would be fulfilled if you kept it and referred back to it in times of need. I would be grateful if you shared the magazine and the link to purchase it with others. 

To purchase a copy of The Soul In Bloom, go HERE.

{Thank you to Kelly Letky of The Blue Muse for her invaluable graphic design help in creating this first issue.}

The Body Genius

My months-long mystery of not feeling well is on its way to being solved. Answers couldn't arrive at a better time. I've got lots to do and my favorite moments of spring~ the wild, white cherry trees in bloom~ are coming. New direction is begging to be taken. And love is waiting at the door.

But before any new doors open, my body needs some balancing. Finally, a doctor said to me, "you have every symptom of hypoglycemia". That's the pancreas overreacting to sugar, causing my blood sugar to become too low. When it gets too low, it's startling in its capacity to render me useless.There is panic and hunger beyond anything normal and at its worst, sudden despair. I have not figured out, yet, how to help myself.

Tomorrow will find me at a lengthy glucose-tolerance blood test. The amount of time that I won't have any food in my system, before and during the process, is already making me nervous. I won't be a pretty sight. But answers will come and advice will be given and no medication will be required.

In the meantime, all simple sugars have left my home and the process of figuring out what keeps me properly inflated and happy has begun in earnest. On the list is Brewer's yeast, dissolved in sugar free almond milk. It's disgusting with a capital D. But I'll do it. Off the list are too many favorites to mention. (I will miss you dearly, Ben and Jerry.)

I have faith the eureka moment will come and balance will be the prize. New levels of understanding the genius of my body are unfolding. And without this body, there is no new direction to be had and no new love to drink in.

the goodness of ordinary days

Let's focus on the goodness today. We all have so much of it. If we looked at the myriad ways we are each of us blessed, really stood still and examined it all, we would be blinded. Yes, there are unfulfilled goals, places we have not been, and financial levels that may never be met, but there are moments and hours of exquisite beauty in all of our lives that fill in the gap. If we took note of all those moments and hours, we would find there is actually no gap to fill. We would be more tolerant of grief and disease and accidents, knowing in our hearts that during difficult times we are still the recipients of grace.


If the end of winter and beginning of spring has been turbulent for me, it does not matter. If anything, my resistance to drama has weakened and I find myself withdrawing from most of it. What a beautiful thing. What a way to refocus on the important moments of life. Like planning for my return to the blue and white room, my favorite restaurant of all time. It belonged to my great grandmother, the inn and the restaurant on the shores of the north sea. This May, I will feast in that blue and white room with my mother. We will return to the inn and fond memories of her childhood in Germany and we will share a meal. On Mother's Day.

It will be a cluster of moments and hours we will never forget. It will fill in the gaps and carry us through and open our eyes more wide to the goodness of ordinary days.

illness as opportunity

Amid the needles and indignities and loss of illness, there lies an opportunity. This opportunity has hovered, warm and ready for years or a lifetime, waiting and hoping for its moment to shine and bleed its way sweetly to the surface. It is the opportunity of liberation; liberation of the depths of connection, the depths of the human heart, and the marrow-deep meaning of life.

In illness lies the permission to stop holding back, to give and to receive with feverish need. Illness allows the rushing in of words left unsaid and a re-ordering of how time is spent. It brings down walls that have stood too long. It shines a light on things that don't matter. It gives clarity, like little else can, to the high-road of human relationship.

Illness, plain and simple, is an issue of love, often highlighting its lack. It is love's pained call to be brought forth into life, to be recognized as life's true meaning. Love is a feeling, an energy, an action. It is oxygen for the human soul. Illness, short or long, fatal or not, is an opportunity for all whom it touches to liberate themselves from the meaningless and focus more fully on a life lived with love.


{My mother at a chemo treatment in February. Always there is love expressed with flowers.}

the resplendent swamps of march

There is so much despair in the world today. There are too many images of loss and fear. I have to turn away. I have to protect the spirit within me that knows there is more unbounded beauty and life than anything else. So, I went to the swamps, the cold and thawing swamps of March, resplendent with noise and wings.

It is my yearly ritual on the cusp of spring to stand before the joyful noise of Canada geese and blackbirds. Despite the cold, they are urgent. They know, on deeper levels than I will ever know, their purpose. I go to listen and I go to be consumed by the glory of wise commotion.

The color of old corn, the white and the blue~ the palette of almost-spring~ is the perfect backdrop, the perfect stage for incoming life. In that palette, on that stage a quiet, yet no less urgent player emerged. A beaver. My first one, almost up close, eating and swimming, eating and swimming, reminding me I, too, have purpose. Despite my love of all things winged, of lofty ideals and of stars, the beaver reminded me the way to go beyond the ideas of loss and fear is to be grounded and practical and acutely tuned to the care of myself. The beaver reminded, as well, that for me to fly in this world and to know its unbounded beauty requires a walk and a swim to begin.

the warmth will come

With winter quite reluctant to give up its rule,

I've had to make my own spring.

And like the season of spring,

there is uncertainty and change afoot. 

Yet seeds have been planted,

the warmth will come and

life will take on a fresh bloom.

Reason #1 To Get On With It

"Life insists on being lived and anything that belongs to life which is allowed to lie dormant has to be lived by some one else. If we do not accept our shadow, we force our children to carry the burden of our undeveloped capacities. They may become mediocre scientists or artists because we denied our own talents."

Irene de Castillejo

the sweet side of life

Because eating ice cream should be an event, and not one just for warm weather, we went in mittens and boots to Parkside Candies in Buffalo, New York. First opened in 1927, Parkside is still peddling sweets and serving up ice cream with white paper doilies 84 years later. If it's true that ambiance makes food taste better, then my peanut butter sundae was the best I've ever had.

unterminal

lest you think i'm terminal or bored with writing to you or a (don't-i-wish) drive through bride in vegas playing the nickel slots in fishnets and sequined shoes, i return to assure you i live and breathe. unterminal, unbored, and uneloped.

instead, i return with multiple tests under my belt and no answers to show for the money i'll soon be laying out for all the medical attention i sought. nice. i also return fully engaged in a project meant to squash my endearing attention deficit malady. you'll hear about that one soon, provided i actually finish the darn thing. and i return with an itch to bitch about this crazy winter that won't get over itself and give spring a hope to happen. but i won't, because it's too easy to whine about weather and i honestly love my almost-knee-high boots with the laces and pom poms and before i know it i'll want to bitch about the heat. so no.

but i've missed you, and i need the therapy of writing and obnoxiously taking pictures everywhere i go.

i'm back, then. uncured, yet happy, and looking for all that's good.

back soon

haven't been feeling well. 

working on a solution.

be back soon.

:)

a little fresh air

not everything that has seen better days

has run its course.

sometimes a little space,

a little fresh air,

and a different way

of looking at the roots of the matter

offer just the right formula to

bring in some color

and allow new chances to bloom.

21st century girl

in so many ways, i am behind the times. technology confounds my right brain and often makes me nervous. i was born into simpler times and to this day i am fond of the simple and the straightforward. like hand-held can openers and the rotary telephone. i feel safe in the 20th century.

but it is the 21st, and the singular household phone with 3-way party line and the no-hurry clicking sound of a number dialed with the eraser end of a pencil is long gone. (although it is hardly a problem to scare up the icons from my youth in my father's "relics-r-us" basement museum.) yes, i have a cell phone, the antiquated flip-open kind, and 3 phones at home that plug into the wall. finally, though, the outrageous fees to keep my little-used home phones active have prompted me to take a leap into this 11 year old new century. i ordered an upgraded cell phone.

it arrived yesterday. i felt nervous as a cat.

it took me hours to even open the box. more hours to call for activation and read the start guide with minuscule print. it's a slim rectangular thing, black, with exposed "qwerty" keyboard. (the touch screen model is too big a leap for this rotary-loving girl.) it has a camera and when i read that the tiny silver disc under the lens is a mirror for self portraits, i laughed out loud.

it's a no-contract phone. i bought the modest option for texting, 15 per day, never having sent a text in my life. with mid-life eyesight and an impossibly small keyboard, i stand no chance of joining the teenage ranks of those who walk through life with head facing down, fingers moving faster than a squirrel on crack.

and now, to terminate my land-line service. the thought of it makes me nauseous. my right brain feels unsafe. but i will do it. i will unplug myself from the 20th century and belatedly join the present times. don't expect a text from me anytime soon. or self portraits from shopping mall food courts. i'm still an old fashioned girl who is rarely camera-ready and enjoys looking up at the sky.

splendid, i say

Won't you be my splendid Valentine?

while snow is still on the ground

let's be honest. winter and its deep lathering of grey days is wearing us down. there are hours when the monochromatic landscape bites the edges of our hearts. we feel sad. agitated. exhausted. it feels like everything takes twice as much effort.

and it does.

we need sunshine and hope and enthusiasm, despite the contemplative nature of the season at hand.

we need to be that sunshine for each other.

if we can muster it, let's do our best to smile more and offer words of encouragement where ever we notice luster is lacking.  let's let the people around us know we care. let's ask for help if we need it.

let's lift ourselves headlong into spring while snow is still on the ground.

we can do it.

together.

down the rabbit hole

 

dear chinese year of the rabbit~

we could use some softness in the world.

and humor.

please do your best.

{yup. you guessed it. that's a rabbit pelvis.

found while traipsing through the woods.}