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I scheduled some necessary internet repairs that will keep me offline till Friday...when, I imagine, Small Journeys will resume at LightSpeed.
Meanwhile, I will be quietly stitching knowing the web of life keeps us connected.
(Yes, I have email on my mobile phone, but typing on that is not fun.)
The big cloth we call Home. It is a world. It is a shelter with no walls.
I think it will carry going in a safe way.
I need a few quiet days. To understand the Going. Some how it is bigger than my words. It is good to feel that.
Today I am thinking about what I mean by a Small Journey.
There is a bit of stray in all of us. Don't you think.? Maybe what I mean by that is the willingness to leave our comfort zone, if only for a moment at first.
Every bit of what is here in this piece is a small journey in itself. And in some way it is also a nine patch to me . Imagine that. And now as a composition it is also a small journey.
This is a self portrait, even if just for this morning. I call it Serious Stray...Becoming at peace with oneself while considering weave. I think it is about staying in motion. Learning. And the layers of going that make up a lifetime.
So honored to be considered Inspirational...
and mostly loving that this work pictured is in process, yes I love to be represented like that.
Just realizing that fully.
It is important at the moment. As I try to address some confusion about calling myself an artist. Having pulled away for so long from being published. To be here. This is good timing for me. I look forward to reading about my work from a different perspective. Instead of my own.
On a sunny day, there is so much light in the studio. Even though it is a relatively small space, about 14 feet square, it seems larger because of the windows on 2 walls. It is very poorly insulated and needs a new roof, but the woodstove is more than enough to heat it. We had plans to turn it into a greenhouse but we decided we don't need to really. More than enough growing room outside. We decided to just live with the seasons as they are. Still not sure how long we will stay here. And the studio space seems more important to me these days.
Most of the rest of the house has been cleared of clutter. But it never stops collecting here. It is, I've realized, a kind of nest. It nurtures.
Every morning, Soul-o parks on the window ledge and knocks all the things on the first shelf onto the floor. Most of them being rolled up works in progress. Then he rests and falls asleep.
I cleared a bunch of stuff out of the way so I could look at this.
All the while thinking and talking to myself
about clutter. As a form of natural order.
Reminder to those coming along for Small Journeys.... the little pictures that are being embedded in my blog text are links to the series. For folk who are still joining ( thank you) I will be creating a menu of journeys, like breadcrumbs, on the Small Journeys Home page for convenience. In addition I willl tag all the posts here that have small journey links with Small Journeys series. Because it will be a ziz-zag adventure.
I love nine.
When you love something, you tend to nurture it, and to nurture it you need to know what makes it grow. And nurturing growth has a lot to do with realizing the potential in that. Perhaps even the potential beyond what you can imagine. The sense of that.
So I have a renewed love for nine, it's a small thing that takes me back to a simpler time, but it always inspires new journeys. Even if it is nine holes in previous held beliefs. Nine makes me smile.
Feel joy. Joy is freedom.
(Note, the little icons in my posts are now links to the Small Journeys series.)
Rain all day. The wood stoves in the studio is fired up this evening. Not because it is cold but because it is damp. Chicken (aka Soul-o) was out all afternoon and his feet were cold and wet. But not any more.
He loves that there is a pile of sticks to guard.
At almost one year old, in my estimation, he has transitioned into a new confidence. Little fears that still remained have melted away.
Mom planted these. When I first moved here over 30 years ago. And indeed they seem to live forever. On these cool mornings, I find bees sleeping in the flowers. So drowsy, I can even pet them. Although, I must admit, at first I was checking to see if were were still alive. They seem drunk with nectar. Nestled deep in the blossoms and emerging slowly. Just looking at me. What? In a way, Mom planted herself here. As the season turns and these plants bloom, while others fade, I think of her. Resting. And I am refreshed.
I'm working on some little icons (based on nine of course). They will become links to Small Journeys, embedded in my posts. Starting tomorrow. I have decided to keep the comments open here on the main blog. The journeys will simply add quiet clarity. Clarity starts small.
But Not.
Taking a day or two out to rest in change. Taking a deep breath. And just asking myself if change is the only truth. And isn't it just amazing that we might bear witness to it then.
Today I really like this.
And now there will be walking.
I sent an email to all you Small Journey folks who have already joined the going, in case you missed yesterday's post. It is calm so it seems the path has been found.
AND Thank you Michelle, for sharing this:
REST
is the conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be. Rest is not stasis but the essence of giving and receiving. Rest is an act of remembering, imaginatively and intellectually, but also physiologically and physically. To rest is to become present in a different way than through action, and especially to give up on the will as the prime motivator of endeavor, with its endless outward need to reward itself through established goals. To rest is to give up on worrying and fretting and the sense that there is something wrong with the world unless we put it right; to rest is to fall back, literally or figuratively from outer targets, not even to a sense of inner accomplishment or an imagined state of attained stillness, but to a different kind of meeting place, a living, breathing state of natural exchange…
Excerpted from ‘REST' From the upcoming book of essays CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words. ©2014 David Whyte
Sometimes the TimeLines we impose on ourselves, our world, don't seem to sync with what is really happening. But today, with the shift, it seems just about right. As if IT IS suddenly autumn. As if Summer packed her bags. A fire felt right. An odd sense of a shift in color, though not dramatic, has taken hold. The greens have dulled. More light is streaming in the windows. As if the leaves, not yet fallen, have pulled inward on themselves. Preparing for a journey. As am I. It is simply a beautiful, breezy, crisp fall day.
During the summer. In August actually. The Man replaced some of the old windows. I hated to see them go, but the energy loss was sinful. I kept them. I want to patch them into the interior walls. So we might see through what we cannot now. Right now these old frames offer endless visions, piled one on another leaning on the back of the house. Today they seemed like an old mirror. The kind you look into and cannot quite figure out what it is that you are seeing.
Today,I will be opening a new window here, into my creative process.
OK
Click the window above to access the Small Journeys Home Page. And then log in to find a test window. To make sure you Travelling Companions, who have gathered here so far, can find the path I have cleared. If by chance you should lose your way, just send me a note.
If the path before you is clear,
you are probably on
someone else's.
-Carl Jung