Patrick's Birthday 2013

Today is Patrick's birthday.

One of my Magical Sabbatical sisters, Kristy, sent me a new Virgin of Guadalupe candle.
I am going to light it for the first time today. There is a perfect space for it, on Patrick's shrine in his old room.
My writing room now.

This shelf is just to my left.  I don't even need to turn my head much to see it.


This post here still says about all I can say about my boy's life.
It's really just a lot of photographs.
I know there's surely more to say, something better, something more meaningful, something that will hold more. More love. More connection. More understanding of who he was....really.

Among all the things that break me when I think about Patrick is the sense that I didn't know him.
My therapist said that, at twenty, he didn't even know himself.

Still. I keep thinking a mother should know her son.

But, almost 7 years after he left us, I'm still waiting for that.
And I am patient.

And until then, I bless you, beloved son, bless you big.

I bless you

every day.
Your name forms in pale strands
drifting in the black pool
behind my closed lids.
Your name forms and slowly drifts apart
and I think of Sartre’s
deep dark,

but his nothingness was his

and mine allows
blessing you still  (knowing
it matters)

every day at the altar

where i leave orange & lemon
peels, candied ginger
offerings for the saints
and goddesses and my beloved dead,

where I light candles poured in the slow dreamtime.

They are lined up waiting for fire and hope.
In the burning and the melting
I bless you every day.

My words are tumbling water,
filling all voids
bearing sad things away
and I bless you

every day.

(Zann Carter - 2010)

Lulu

My new scarves are called Lulu.
Randomly knit on big needles with lots of yarn overs.
Then things are woven through the stitches. 

Currently, I’m combining Noro Taiyo, which is mostly cotton,  and sari silk ribbon.
Who knows what the next iteration will combine?

Inspired by my Block Party Banner project,  which was inspired by the philosophy of Saori free weaving, applied to knitting.

)O(

Vintage Flower Pins

Just had to make an extra entry today to share the lovely display of my vintage flower pins I'm offering for sale at Passion Window Gallery. Vickey, who owns the shop, has the most amazing gift for creating stellar displays.  I have wanted to sell some of my collection of pins for some time, but was always stumped on a way to show them - my head was stuck on putting them on cards or just sitting there in a display box.

Look what Vickey came up with - a beautiful metalwork tree that is an art piece in its own right + some tiny lights, with the flowers just blooming all over in abundance.   It's Spring in that corner of the shop!

Year of the River Scarf

Here in Terre Haute, IN, we have kicked off a yearlong series of art, poetry, and education activities to honor the Wabash River, our watershed and the importance of water to all life. A celebration of the elements Water and Earth.

I am diving into this community event with joy.

I've long wanted to explore water in my poetry and writing, especially after we experienced so much difficulty with water - both in the flooding of Honey Creek in 1993, when we waded out of our apartment in the southern part of the county and in the widespread disaster of the June 2008 flood. In between we had leaky things, and numerous clean-ups of rainwater in the basement - far more home/water challenges than I ever had dealt with in all my 40 years in South Florida!

I am busy reading about water in general and water spirits and myths. I'm reading about the Wabash and my watershed specifically. Making notes, jotting down images that come. I'm immersing myself in this project and maybe it will be behind most of the creative work I do this year.   In words and fiber, water will be flowing.

In the kind of synchronicity I love, I am taking a yearlong e-course called Apothecary Circle. It began with a Water Challenge for January - all about drinking more water and going for optimal hydration.


How perfect!






Meanwhile, here is a piece I was working on in late 2012, finished up this week and realized it, too, is a perfect launch of my personal work for Year of the River. 

Here is a River scarf:

It's a free-range knitted piece, based on directions from Jane Thornley, provided in her 2012 Inspired Knitters Club. Four or five different yarns, weights, textures and a bit of sari silk ribbon.

Comes with a nice blue shawl stick and will be on sale today at Passion Window Gallery, the little shop I'm working with in downtown Terre Haute. If you're in the area, stop in and try on a River.

Epiphany2013 - Twelve Holy Nights Project Completed

Today is the culminating day of the nourishing festival season that begins for me at Advent.
 I am a mixed spiritual breed, obviously: a Goddess-loving, neo-Pagan Unitarian Universalist who finds great meaning and inner growth through the esoteric Christianity and festival celebrations of Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy.  And so it is.

I posted the beginning quarter and explanation of my Twelve Holy Nights project here. In a nutshell, I set myself to meditate upon the months of the coming year and write simple directive captions for the 2013 Sulamith Wulfing calendar - one night for each month. 


Here is the rest of the year: 

Night Four

April

Intuition

Look deeply at what lies before you and what fills your being. Gaze steadily with all your eyes. Trust inner Vision. Know trees have your back.

Night Five

 May

Shelter

Immense love flows through the Universe, spiritual realms permeate the physical.A steadfast Presence has been with you from birth. Accept the shelter of great wings, the unceasing rainbow Light of Spirit. 


 

Night Six

June

Hope

Longings, summoned from Spirit depths, transform into possibilities. Awaken from Midsummer dreams. You have the tools to draw them into the world, to bring them to life.

 

Night Seven

July

Shadow 

Find moments of solitude in candlelit Shadow. Contemplate that which you want to birth. Strange and lovely things gestate in Darkness and your midwife Muse will help you welcome them. 

 

Night Eight

 

August

Heartfire

A circle of Light surrounds you. Your broken-open heart has a gift inside. Everything renews itself in that fire.




 

Day Nine

September 

Surrender 

On the edge of a precipice, it takes courage to turn your back on the abyss before you and surrender to where you are: the companionship and beautiful things of the present moment.





 

 Night Ten

October 

Guides

Many Guides journey with you. Open yourself to meeting them in all their forms. Listen, as they care for you and murmur wisdom in your ear.

Night Eleven

 

November

Discovery:Integration

“...for whatever we lose, like a you or a me, it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.” 
                              -- e.e. cummings, maggie and milly and molly and may





 

 Night Twelve

December 

Incarnation

Settling into our physical bodies and earth-lives, we can lose sight of Spirit. Know that Spirit waits patiently until we long for reunion, and lovingly returns to our joyous welcome.

******

I have come away from this simple project knowing that Wulfing's work carries layers of esoteric meaning. Many of her paintings are illustrations for fairy tales. I chose to look at each of these works without the filter of the original title or tale that might be illustrated.

I did not attempt to create a cohesive journey through these images and the Nights and the coming year. I just came to them each Night open to whatever they wished to say. I was often moved to tears by what they evoked for me.

There are details, small elements, in nearly every piece that are profoundly symbolic, that one needs to look closely to see, and not only with the physical eyes. I am so happy to have the reproductions in  the Amber Lotus calendars I have, because often the Wulfing works available online have been cropped and some immensely meaningful bits are lost.  I also come away from this project with deepened sense of wonder and profound reverence for Wulfing's work.  Blessed be!


)O(

New Year's Invitations

Today is a day, not of resolutions, but of invitations.
Today is the day I invite things into my life for the coming New Year.  This idea comes to me from the New Year's tradition of the family of beautiful SouLodge mama Pixie Campbell.

My invitations are extended through a conscious doing of those things today - doing them even in small, symbolic amounts, but doing them with intention, with a bit of ritual or ceremony.

For example,  if you want to walk for exercise this year,  take a walk around the block. A mindful walk, filling your thoughts with a sense of 'opening to' or  invitation.  You might think - or even say aloud - something like -" I invite walking into my life this year. I open myself to make room for that. And so it is."

My invitations so far today have been extended to: peaceful music, flossing, drinking water, Tai Chi, taking all my supplements,  thinking sweet sacred thoughts, reading.  Writing this blog post today is an invitation.

I plan to have a grand party this year,. Invitations are going out to lots of self-care elements, things that will nourish my mind, body and spirit, elements that will nourish my creative work.

I know, too, these are simply invitations. Not all may show up to my gala.  Some may show and leave early.  I intend to make merry with all who show, for as long they stay!

If you're reading this and it's not New Year's Day, big deal!  You can make any day a day of such invitations.

Blessed be!

)O(