As I remained at a loss for the appropriate yet less obvious song, my brother suggested "Into White" by Cat Stevens. The shared idea and the song itself only strengthen my suspicion that each of our definitions of grace is something intimate and unique.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Grace
Because my mind is acting rusty, pretending to be the yard furniture left out all winter so that it no longer adjusts to more comfortable positions, the only song I could think of to speak of grace was Amazing Grace. Maybe by the time this post is finished, there will be more choices.
To begin, any grace, all grace, is amazing to me. This week it found me gnawing over an annoyance I no longer remember, feeling ill-used and unheard. Living in anything close to harmony with another human has tip-toe moments, self-silencing even if it means using duct tape moments, this isn't what I signed on for moments. One example of grace is the fact that my most control-driven years seem to be in the past. Since I really can't remember what caused this specific disquiet, I will just call it that, a wide sweeping gesture of my right arm showing you it went from here to here and made me uncomfortable and messed with my optimism.
I started poking my snout into old closets where past disappointments have been folded until they fit in empty Nike boxes. Everything seemed tainted, even high-altitude sorts of possibilities that were, at most, just a few days old. In antidote mode I sat down to work on the Sunday crossword. Maybe the clue is there: cross word. I rassle just enough with the LA Times puzzle. I no longer see the NY Times but might have gained skill if I worked it every week. A crossword focuses me, even more than drawing or coloring, for the way the mind has to play along, has to - help me - remember. Names, things, Roman numerals, older models of automobiles, rivers, vice presidents, extinct brands of fruit juice.
When absorbed in harmless trivia, my mind can relax, put down the sharp objects and blunt instruments it gathered to defend the realm. It makes room for grace, which falls over me like a blanket tucked around a sleeping child. It lifts a weight and replaces it with peace. It sweeps away annoyance like a crime scene cleaning squad. Not a trace remains. It comes without being summoned, as though it is an unknown state. It staggers me with its precision, its timing. I know the meaning of awe in being aware it exists and that it comes for me.
This was, in assessing the magnitude of life so far, a tiny matter yet one that caused the wind to rise and the whitecaps to threaten small craft. Sometimes my long-practiced capacity for stillness is as close as I come to a reliable state. When it is jostled, I feel lost. Only grace restores equilibrium without contortion, without the necessity of fixing something beyond my ability to repair.
Still no song except the obvious. You may sing it to yourselves.
To begin, any grace, all grace, is amazing to me. This week it found me gnawing over an annoyance I no longer remember, feeling ill-used and unheard. Living in anything close to harmony with another human has tip-toe moments, self-silencing even if it means using duct tape moments, this isn't what I signed on for moments. One example of grace is the fact that my most control-driven years seem to be in the past. Since I really can't remember what caused this specific disquiet, I will just call it that, a wide sweeping gesture of my right arm showing you it went from here to here and made me uncomfortable and messed with my optimism.
I started poking my snout into old closets where past disappointments have been folded until they fit in empty Nike boxes. Everything seemed tainted, even high-altitude sorts of possibilities that were, at most, just a few days old. In antidote mode I sat down to work on the Sunday crossword. Maybe the clue is there: cross word. I rassle just enough with the LA Times puzzle. I no longer see the NY Times but might have gained skill if I worked it every week. A crossword focuses me, even more than drawing or coloring, for the way the mind has to play along, has to - help me - remember. Names, things, Roman numerals, older models of automobiles, rivers, vice presidents, extinct brands of fruit juice.
When absorbed in harmless trivia, my mind can relax, put down the sharp objects and blunt instruments it gathered to defend the realm. It makes room for grace, which falls over me like a blanket tucked around a sleeping child. It lifts a weight and replaces it with peace. It sweeps away annoyance like a crime scene cleaning squad. Not a trace remains. It comes without being summoned, as though it is an unknown state. It staggers me with its precision, its timing. I know the meaning of awe in being aware it exists and that it comes for me.
This was, in assessing the magnitude of life so far, a tiny matter yet one that caused the wind to rise and the whitecaps to threaten small craft. Sometimes my long-practiced capacity for stillness is as close as I come to a reliable state. When it is jostled, I feel lost. Only grace restores equilibrium without contortion, without the necessity of fixing something beyond my ability to repair.
Still no song except the obvious. You may sing it to yourselves.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Other voices from other rooms
It has been several days since I've had the luxury to follow links, to discover. On a twitchy morning, which is how this began but not how it continues, the sight of the extraordinary and labor-intensive prods me to mutter insults like "slacker" to myself. How mean, how unpleasant. Who would spend time in the company of someone just like the library supervisor who used to glare from her desk, mouth pinched in disapproval, at too much hilarity. Clearly, any two people who could find something to laugh about during the typing of catalog file cards were at best to be frowned upon and at worst to be reprimanded. It is much too early in the day for criticism. I'll replace it with admiration for soaring imagination and skill and use it, not as a cudgel, but as a springboard for my own elevated thoughts du jour.
Take your fresh and eager young hearts to see this work at Jay Anderson's blog. A brief, intricate and magic-affirming video awaits. Books by the featured artist, Rebecca Dautremer, may be found here.
For today's post, Jay interviews Viv Sliwka of Hen's Teeth Art, an example of whose envelope art follows. (The link no longer takes us to the Hen's Teeth story but here is a link to Viv's etsy shop, just in time for, well, whatever you want it to be in time for.)
My personal bridges over troubled water require color, humor, simple joy, a deft hand and a facile mind. An envelope from Hens Teeth meets all my needs. And apropos of a Simon and Garfunkel hit, last month on her blog 37 Paddington, Angella offered those of us of a certain age the chance to rekindle our collective passion for the pair and the soundtrack they gave us. A post worth visiting.
Take your fresh and eager young hearts to see this work at Jay Anderson's blog. A brief, intricate and magic-affirming video awaits. Books by the featured artist, Rebecca Dautremer, may be found here.
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| Author, artist Rebecca Dautremer, I highly recommend "The Secret Lives of Princesses." |
For today's post, Jay interviews Viv Sliwka of Hen's Teeth Art, an example of whose envelope art follows. (The link no longer takes us to the Hen's Teeth story but here is a link to Viv's etsy shop, just in time for, well, whatever you want it to be in time for.)
 | ||
| Art from Hen's Teeth, Viv Sliwka. |
Sunday, October 7, 2012
The procession
Life as a Renaissance Faire procession, all fluttering banners, gonfalons, trailing ribbons, flowers and flutes. It is a scene that recreates, in my imagination, the wake of a land-borne ship: dusty footprints, daisies fallen from garlands, sounds receding, molecules separated and rearranged. Our own solitary procession leaves its traces as well. Often, we have no idea what they are or even that they are.
It is not only the scholarly, the devout, the remarkable who influence and change thought, who inspire, who ignite. We are all touched and altered, even if imperceptibly, by those whose paths we cross.
The message I've received from multiple, diverse sources, is this: burrow within, find what is truest and least tangled, what feels weightless and brings the shining essence of me with knowledge but without baggage. Wear it, model it, give it, live it - no small tasks - and don't ever ask, "Am I doing okay?" You know. You've always known. Keep moving. With love,
The message I've received from multiple, diverse sources, is this: burrow within, find what is truest and least tangled, what feels weightless and brings the shining essence of me with knowledge but without baggage. Wear it, model it, give it, live it - no small tasks - and don't ever ask, "Am I doing okay?" You know. You've always known. Keep moving. With love,
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Walking in my dreams
Maira Kalman, with her words and paintings, animates the snapshot moments that speak of how our lives exist in stand-alone compartments that may or may not seep from yesterday and into tomorrow. One of my failings or gifts is looking for and, mostly, finding a Bigger Picture, a context within which there is meaning and portent in anything from (I exaggerate) a toothpick to bending the space/time continuum. At the same time, I have come to know that some experiences are simply gems, cut unlike any other and residing in solitary perfection on the pedestal of a day, an hour. They have no history, no expectation, they just are and our only work is to love and savor them as that.
Ms. Kalman walks and tells us why. My response to this is bittersweet, as walking for me is a challenge mostly beyond my capability, at least for today. Getting about inside my home and for necessary increments here on our apartment grounds is hard work, done because it is what there is. In my dreams I am always mobile, agile, ageless. I move from here to there with ease and I dance and climb lighthouse stairs, stand in lines and in conversation at parties. I miss walking, which was transportation for many periods of my life. I miss seeing what one sees when afoot, I miss the freedom of pace, the discoveries of which Kalman speaks. How do we find that mind-clearing motion when walking is not one of the choices? When not present to absorb and interpret, first-hand, the neighborhood and the directions in which it expands, how do we release the mind to travel as a passenger, an observer, and not the museum tour guide deconstructing - or enhancing - each object viewed? There must be a way. I want to find it.
Ms. Kalman walks and tells us why. My response to this is bittersweet, as walking for me is a challenge mostly beyond my capability, at least for today. Getting about inside my home and for necessary increments here on our apartment grounds is hard work, done because it is what there is. In my dreams I am always mobile, agile, ageless. I move from here to there with ease and I dance and climb lighthouse stairs, stand in lines and in conversation at parties. I miss walking, which was transportation for many periods of my life. I miss seeing what one sees when afoot, I miss the freedom of pace, the discoveries of which Kalman speaks. How do we find that mind-clearing motion when walking is not one of the choices? When not present to absorb and interpret, first-hand, the neighborhood and the directions in which it expands, how do we release the mind to travel as a passenger, an observer, and not the museum tour guide deconstructing - or enhancing - each object viewed? There must be a way. I want to find it.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Etta sings of impossible choices
Still gasping in Pasadena, the heat, the thing, that wouldn't leave. Etta James with the chilliest blues was the morning jukebox song. Meaning of this? At first, I just listened. The original recorded version - the shortest - seemed the best choice for clarity of sound and its massive lack of ambiguity.
We all receive great sacks full of what is unrequested and unwanted, bad surprises and situations harder than we ever dreamed we could handle. Wiser minds than my own discovered, promise, that each circumstance brings a gift that is greater than its burden. It is a lesson, in my case, of slow dawning. We are called again and again to bear what could be called unbearable. We are not asked if it is convenient or if it fits into our life or our plan. It arrives, no return address, and redefines inconvenient, the bomb that blows everything apart.
Over time my gratitude list has as a constant the fact that I'm still here. Many are not and I don't take for granted or trivialize the fact of resilience. Though I no longer choose to go back to the sites where, for a time, hope disappeared, when I hear Etta James sing of making what seems her better choice, I get it. How do I unknow, unsee, unexperience THIS? I don't know how we do it, just that we do. And I say, "Thank you."
We all receive great sacks full of what is unrequested and unwanted, bad surprises and situations harder than we ever dreamed we could handle. Wiser minds than my own discovered, promise, that each circumstance brings a gift that is greater than its burden. It is a lesson, in my case, of slow dawning. We are called again and again to bear what could be called unbearable. We are not asked if it is convenient or if it fits into our life or our plan. It arrives, no return address, and redefines inconvenient, the bomb that blows everything apart.
Over time my gratitude list has as a constant the fact that I'm still here. Many are not and I don't take for granted or trivialize the fact of resilience. Though I no longer choose to go back to the sites where, for a time, hope disappeared, when I hear Etta James sing of making what seems her better choice, I get it. How do I unknow, unsee, unexperience THIS? I don't know how we do it, just that we do. And I say, "Thank you."
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Pop music under the full moon
1980s pop on the morning jukebox, breakfast at the homesick restaurant. Today I wish the present moment did not find me with a self-assessment of worn and scruffy, attributes for an ideal studio assistant (see earlier post: Rosa Mira, etc.), without quite so many incoming messages yet to be decoded and rather less seized up of body than the Tin Man. Today I wish the present moment held a spot for me as somebody's baby.
Yesterday's Gumby vs. Frozen Charlotte consideration took a literal turn with the word "yoga" appearing in emails and comments. What I was seeking was poster children for that sealed-in-amber feeling of having stopped saying yes often enough to sources of tearful joy, giddy anticipation, dizzying flashbacks. My belief in the inseparable nature of mind/body/spirit may at times create a murkiness - what IS she talking about? But getting unstuck in one realm is a foot pulled out of the tar pits in another. It is truly all connected.
Reading today at Cafe Astrology about what any of this may mean or even signify, I found:
"With the Moon full and bright in the sky, symbolic "illumination" occurs in our own lives. However, these new feelings and revelations are emotional ones, as there is a sense of emotions bursting forth into our consciousness. It's time to express ourselves, and to let things out of our systems. Of course, we might want to exercise some care while doing so, knowing that what is coming out of us is new and not particularly rational as yet.
"This Full Moon activates the Uranus-Pluto square, reinforcing the "battle" between the need for companionship and the need for independence. There can be a sense of surprise, shock, or frustration involved with our emotional discoveries. Certainly, there can be a strong urge, or need, to break free from old patterns in our relationships." (FYI, Cafe Astrology will prepare, for free, a natal chart for you. It is a generous gift for those interested.)
The "new and not particularly rational" information about the need to break old patterns describes my flailing and teetering here, trying to tell what I seem to know, trying to put words to how it feels. There are emotions bursting forth and thoughts race past of how I need to draw, draw, draw, not necessarily to illustrate what is being illuminated, floated to the surface. It is more about drawing - as with writing - whatever comes and trusting that what appears is relative, essential to the process.
Yesterday's Gumby vs. Frozen Charlotte consideration took a literal turn with the word "yoga" appearing in emails and comments. What I was seeking was poster children for that sealed-in-amber feeling of having stopped saying yes often enough to sources of tearful joy, giddy anticipation, dizzying flashbacks. My belief in the inseparable nature of mind/body/spirit may at times create a murkiness - what IS she talking about? But getting unstuck in one realm is a foot pulled out of the tar pits in another. It is truly all connected.
Reading today at Cafe Astrology about what any of this may mean or even signify, I found:
"With the Moon full and bright in the sky, symbolic "illumination" occurs in our own lives. However, these new feelings and revelations are emotional ones, as there is a sense of emotions bursting forth into our consciousness. It's time to express ourselves, and to let things out of our systems. Of course, we might want to exercise some care while doing so, knowing that what is coming out of us is new and not particularly rational as yet.
"This Full Moon activates the Uranus-Pluto square, reinforcing the "battle" between the need for companionship and the need for independence. There can be a sense of surprise, shock, or frustration involved with our emotional discoveries. Certainly, there can be a strong urge, or need, to break free from old patterns in our relationships." (FYI, Cafe Astrology will prepare, for free, a natal chart for you. It is a generous gift for those interested.)
The "new and not particularly rational" information about the need to break old patterns describes my flailing and teetering here, trying to tell what I seem to know, trying to put words to how it feels. There are emotions bursting forth and thoughts race past of how I need to draw, draw, draw, not necessarily to illustrate what is being illuminated, floated to the surface. It is more about drawing - as with writing - whatever comes and trusting that what appears is relative, essential to the process.
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