Details

The sun is sliding down the blue blue sky, coastal mountains seem to be growing to meet it.  Soon, this bright day will move into chilly evening.  Just now I was thinking of returning to the garden, as I have more tomato cages to uproot and clean, but the temperature in the room dropped about 10 degrees.  I looked up to see that the sun is setting!

And, I don't think I'll go back out there!  Hehee!  Took 4 o'clock coffee out to the Tree Trimmer.  Took photos, and drank the coffee.

Back in the olden days, when I was a kid, we had 4 O'Clock Snack every day.  Visitors to our farm said that we had four meals a day.  "No we don't.  4 o'clock snack is a snack." was our stock reply.  Looking back I realize that that snack was probably 1200 calories, since it included milk, cream, pie or cake or cookies, warm and fresh from the oven.  Left-overs from the "snack" were the evening meals' dessert, maybe served with lemon sauce or whipped cream to spruce it up.

Omg.  Well, we were farm kids.  Recently my brother shared that he and Dad had a similar morning "snack" before they left the house for the milk-barn at 5:30 in the morning!  Dang.  Had I known, I might have gotten up earlier.  We, my brothers expecially, burned those calories.

Here are Lucy and Stripe helping with the gardening.  They are stealth-bug-catchers.  Stripe (the brown one) found a cut worm and dashed off with it so as to not have to share.  Lucy gave chase, but in the end, let Stripe have her fat worm.  I wish that they would go after gophers.  I need help in that area.

My friend, Rev. Joyce Duffala, has told me a number of times, "God is in the details."  Once again, she is right.

Every phase of gardening has its timely details.  Not unlike Life, hmmmm.  I procrastinate.  Not really wanting to go out and get dirty, or stickers in my delicate fingers, or bugs in my hair.  Every time though, those details draw me into the tasks, into the golden afternoon light.  Today was no different.  A bed for the greens is prepared.  Most of the tomato cages removed, cleaned and in a row.

I am plotting.  There has to be a way to thwart this colony of gophers which has moved into my sacred gardening area.  This is a detail that I am finding difficult.

Valentine's Day approaches.  This one will be Wayne and I's 31st anniversary.  That, is amazing.  I am not one to go on and on (hahaha!  guess that isn't true!), you know, all mushy & stuff.  I will say, though, we are doing well!  Growing well!

Yes.  I do love you.
xoxo
LPC

Freedom Is An Empty Box

All this cleaning-out going on, everywhere!  Not a room untouched, a box unopened, not a paper unread, or a dust-bunny undisturbed.  This is unsettling.

The Blue Bird box is cleaned.  The back porch swept.  The ashes out.  The studio tidied, dusted, re-arranged somewhat.  A box from the storage unit emptied, right down to the layer of pretty rocks on the bottom.

Rejuvenating.  Restorative.  Transformational.

Of the many gifts in living in N. California:  February is the month of ripening citrus.  Oh!  Afternoon light dancing through the orange tree highlighting the fruit, a blatant invitation to indulge in juicy tart sweetness.

Daffodil spears are pushing up through the leaf mulch.  It is late January, after all, the Paper Whites are almost done!  Black lambs are racing around in the tender green grass!  The sky today, regardless of that strong cold breeze, is as blue as possible.

I have been turning the mulch.  Having ordered and received my new panels (5' X 5' made of Balkan plywood for strength and lightness) there is work to be done in the studio.  Surfaces to clear, paintings to move, shelves to tidy.  In the midst of this process I lost it.  Haha.  To be expected, perhaps, with breathing in the dust and stories of "stuff"and sunlight muted by winter-spotted windows.  Yesterday it hit me that actually, I am not an artist, nor am I a writer.  I have no career, education or accomplishments.  Life is meaningless.  Yesterday I did not see this as a gift.  I fell face-first into the mulchy hole.

Later in the evening, when I settled into my chair to watch the Dog Whisperer, I noticed the agreed-upon-box-from-the-storage-unit perched upon the dog crate in front of the damm TV.  No choice (haha) but to go through it, like I've agreed to do.

That Box:  OMyGod.  What a box, even though deceptively small.  Yes, it was a box of destiny.  Past.  Passed.  It contained letters, journals, sketch books.  It contained misery, destruction, heartbreak and failures.  It contained frustration, rage, disappointment and fear.  It contained my worst fears.  Every one of them.

I sorted the contents one by one.  I read the letters.  I looked at the sketches.  I made decisions:  I keep this drawing and throw away the rest.  I put books into another box for Goodwill.  I put 10 pounds of Court Papers into the recycle bin.   I burned the letters.  Something wonderful started to happen, but I didn't know what it was. 

I felt a feeling of emptiness filling me up.

The Mule Got Drunk and Lost In Heaven

The

Mind is ever a tourist

Wanting to touch and buy new things

Then toss them into an already

Filled closet.

So I craft my words into those guides

That will offer you something fresh

From the Hidden's Tavern.

Few things are stronger than

The mind's need for diverse

Experience.

I am glad

Not many men or women can remain

Faithful lovers to the unreal.

There is a kind of adultery

That God encourages:

Your spirit needs to leave the bed

Of fear.

The gross, the subtle, the mental worlds

Become as a worthless husband.

Women need

To utilize their superior intelligence

About love

So that their hour's legacy

Can make us all stronger and more clement.

Sometimes a poem happens like this one:

The mule I sit on while I recite

Starts off in one direction

But then gets drunk

And lost in

Heaven.

Hafiz

For months I have not been able to find my friend Hafiz!  The Gift was in plain sight, I just could not see it.  Home again, next to my laptop, my all time favorite book smiles.  We are back in business!

All is possible.  Hafiz says "Hidden's Tavern,"  Emily Dickinson calls them "possibles."  Each day presents them, each breath enlivens them.  Each word represents them.  Each action fulfills them.

All is possible.  All is well.

I love you.
xoxo
LPC

New Territory

Not a square in sight.  So far.

Having grown up on the Northern Coast of California, the roar of the surf was the soundtrack of my days, 24/7.  When I reached the incredible freedom of my driver's license, "the beach" would call me with its distant conversation.  My young dreams of future life were of a house on the Coast, with animals and a studio, and bookshelves lined with Leo Tolstoy and Zane Grey.

Of course, life has carried me far, beyond my wildest dreams in many ways, though short of living day by day on the Coast.  I am not disappointed.  I am satisfied.

My studio is a humble bedroom-converted, with windows that encourage sunlight to splash into the room.  On a fairly regular basis I am driven to clean out and re-organize, because my obsessive-compulsive housekeeper raises her critical head and delclares my sanctuary a mess.  Geez, I say.  Must you be so harsh?  Don't most artists have all their stuff, their material, all around them?  O. K.  I see:  Do we need all ((ALL)) of this?

To be fair, I do admit that I have been cleaning-out.  Have made my lists, and checked them off.  I do enjoy a more open space within which to work, as meditation often begins with my eyes landing gently in a corner, on the window sill, or top shelf.  Inspiration is only a breath away, or a stepping aside to allow its entry.  It comes forward, not unlike the winter sunlight dancing with the Madonna and Lady Guadalupe and the Blue Birds.

Fifteen years (or so) ago, the forces of nature which govern and pummel the Northern Coast created a never-before Sea Ball.  High tides, high winds and the January surf created them from sea grass, twigs and roots.  My nieces, nephews, kids and I collected them out the the wild water.  They still inhabit my space.  No.  I will never throw them out.  I have given a few of them away, re-homed them.  Periodically I give them the once over with the vacuum cleaner.  After all this time and cleaning, they still pour forth sand.

It is human nature to be creative.  It is our nature to create and hold beliefs, ritual, and meaning about our lives.  These become our stories, what we hold to be true.

So often, what we hold to be true isn't.  This is the space, once cleaned out of untruth, becomes the source of our renewed and rediscovered creativity.

Hey.  I love you.
xoxo
LPC

Looking Back, and Forward

Several moons have travelled across the sky since I've written.  Now, faced with how to catch up, I say, just jump in and do it!  Isn't it odd how liquid time is?  Moments pile up like sandstone, memories wash away details, monkey-mind elaborates and exaggerates!  What is one to do?

Smile and go with it?  Realize that what I put here is just my story, or all my story.  Let go, my Dear, of making it good or excellent or rotton or complicated.  Let it flow!

We have been at the Coast for a week.  It has been wonderful.  In fact, we are still here, though packing and leaving tomorrow by noon.  Yeah.  Going home.  Picking up the dogs!  Checking back in to my Life!  Renewed.  Resolved.  Inspired.  Quieter.  Maybe a little more solid.  

The past year has been full of growth.  Apparently my personal growth was needing some updating, as from here it seems that is all that I've been doing.  I tend to forget in any given moment, that Life has been very very very full.  My partners and I ran our Phantom IV Gallery for a year and a half, and closed it October 1.  By itself, that was an adventure!  for which I am grateful of every moment.  The Gallery experience moved me deeper into my own artwork, and also delighted with meeting and getting to know other artists.

The coming year excites me.  I look forward to renewed energy which emerges with the light.  This dark time of year is incubation, where seeds/ideas planted in dreams or conversation or writing swell and germinate.  Minutes of light extend each day moment by moment.  I can feel it!

Oh, and my new planner awaits me!  It's arrived!  And I cannot wait to crack it open!

My little secret:  I like the discipline of planning and doing.  For so long, spontaneous was very important to my way.  Let whatever happens lead.  Oh Lordy.  I cannot believe I did that for so long, not realizing the suffering I caused my own self.

Two and a half years ago I joined a 12 Step group to "try" and lose weight.  My weight has bugged me for as long as I have been spontaneous, I kid you not.  So, after watching my dear friend melting away, and asking her, "What the...???" she invited me to come to a meeting with her.  That was August 17, 2010.  Wow.  And what does Program do for one?  Let me tell you:  Following the Steps, using the tools, giving back to the Fellowship has brought the spiritual into my life, completely.  Yes.  Every morning I read my literature, I write in my journal, I pray, I meditate.  I call my sponsor, and my sponsee calls me.  I walk, I meditate.  I prepare and eat an abstinate breakfast.  I go to work, or take the dogs out, or do yardwork.  I prepare and eat an abstinate lunch.  I go to work, or to the studio.  I prepare and eat an abstinate dinner.  I make calls to Fellows.

And I have lost 58 pounds.  They are gone.  Don't even threaten to return.

Of course, Life is interwoven in this schedule.  Life with family, friends, spiritual community.  Interwoven is the key.  No longer tangled, knotted or torn.  A calm has enveloped my life.  No, not boring, or resigned, but a beautiful order.

The coming year promises more: art, fellowship, deepening relations, Love, writing, giving, growing.  I look forward to an incredible year.

For you I see good fortune, community, shared work, solidarity, faith, trust,  and love.  I see this for us all.  I celebrate.

I love you.
xoxo
LPC

Rainy Day Colors

Something has happened

To my understanding of existence

That now makes my heart always full of wonder

And kindness...

As I 

Dance with

Precious life

Today.

Hafiz

It is starting to feel like we live in Oregon again.  Or Way Northern California:  All day gray, rain, snails everywhere, especially underfoot.  I may have crushed ten on my daily trips across the back yard, this one on the inside of the kitchen window, slowly making its way.  Seriously fascinating, except when mowing down my newly planted lettuce.

Phalaenopsis!

The light today, filtered through the clouds, was weirdly soothing.  People are starting to say this isn't right, rain in mid-May.  I say stop.  Let us enjoy a plumped water table, wet leaves, black soil.  It is a day to make soup, to meditate, to pray.  A day of renewal, right here in the middle of the week, hump-day.

This evening as the sun was low and under the clouds, a show began.  Layers lifted from the forest, churning in the golden rays above the valley, while evening settled in the lowland.  It's all wet, cool and filled with birdsong.   Hummingbirds careen around the feeder.  Night is here.

In gratitude I accept this Gift.
xoxoLC

Gently

Gratitude is a homely but effective antidote to despair.  Julia Cameron, "Finding Water"

"When you begin to slide into despair, " says Julia Cameron, "it is because you have lost your sense of grounding.  Therefore, the tool to apply is one of gentle well-being.  Put simply, your need is to count your blessings."  She goes on to instruct us to "take pen in hand..."  yep, another list.  Twenty-five things for which I am grateful.

1.  I love my kids.
2.  My kids love me.
3.  I am healthy.
4.  Anticipation is alive in me.
5.  All is well.

When sadness is overwhelming, Spirit does not leave the room.

6.  Those frogs!
7.  Rain, and more rain.
8.  Stars, bright after the rain, that coyote howl.
9.  That I can see, hear and smell the rain, the frogs, the coyote.
10.  The long husband snoring softly in the other room, two cats curled with him.

I am grateful for life.  Last week my youngest son lost one of his dearest friends in a car accident.  His sadness has transformed and deepened him.  He has supported the parents with his presence, he has cried rivers.  He is contemplative, vulnerable.  He is picking up, and moving along.  The Memorial Service will be this coming Thursday.  He and his friend played T-ball on the same team, hung in there together and graduated from the alternative high school.  They understood one another.

It is difficult to understand things:  Life holds so much mystery.  There are a myriad of circumstances which make no sense what so ever.  As I write this I can hear some one speeding on our country road.  They are running through the gears, their engine is screaming, this is the second time that I have heard them as I write; the speeding car.  My son's friend was killed instantly, it was 2 a.m., on a rainy, foggy night, on a winding back road; the driver, his other best friend.

I have watched my youngest shed a skin these past days.  He will be 23 years old in a little over a month.

Mothers share tears.

I am grateful to know Love.
xoxoLC

Yellow

Love is this:  The evening yellow of a long, hot summer day, full hearted, opening gradually, imperceptibly, gloriously.  Open to the Yellow.  Open to Love.

I want to soak up the last ray of heat.  I want to pull it into my center and hold it all night long.

To be prepared for morning, when the light will seek me, as I know yellow, carry

and gift yellow.

It's all yellow now.

xoxoLC

  

An Unfathomable Well

A darkness I am with today:

is anger, and while anger per se isn't necessarily dark---  I equate it with bright  hot  color  & lots of movement, backwards  forwards  up, down  sideways--- the dark part of this anger today is the urge to duke-it-out, to name-call, to sputter cuss words, to knock some-one-or-thing over. And that, in and of itself, is just the shadow part of the darkness.  This darkness today--- this particular anger--- is more volcanic.   A rumbling  earthquaking  ominous   seat-of-your-pants,  marrow of your pinkie  gathering:  It's going to blow!  Like lava seeking it's way, burning tunnels in the darkness, this anger is righteous, more than any other.

Ha!  I don't think so!

And that's the darkness I'm with today--- the unlit cavern of giving-up, turning it over to slamming words, kicked doors, and the wide arc of a full swing

knocking over that little one

 smaller than me with

 her big round brown eyes  

knocking her over  

not even looking at her

just ignoring her

Yes, a darkness in the wide-awake daylight.  Not the anger, just the fear and the dance of fright hopping circles around the little puddle of tears.

And oh, yes!  Deep gratitude!  For my friend, Hafiz, who this morning mentions:

It Will Stretch Out Its Leg

All the classes you have sat in,

All the money you have paid

For "truth,"

Something must be wrong, though,

If your eye still wanders through the streets

Acting like a beggar.

Why not try this:

Let all the fake teachers starve.

Picture one of the great masters

In your mind,

Put your lips against his cheek

Each morning.

Say, keep saying,

"Dear Beloved, pinch me.

I want proof You're near---

A love-bruise on my rump will do."

The Friend is an unfathomable well

That knows everything;

Draw from that safe luminous sky.

Stay near this book,

It will stretch out its leg and

Trip you;

You'll fall

Into

God.

*****

Hugs.  Love.  Smiles.  Tears.  

xoxoxoLPC

Wild. Wildness. Wilderness. Migration.

What the eye sees is a dream of sight

what it wakes to

is a dream of sight    W.S.Merwin

On the horizon is a "fly off" about a mile long.

   Imagine this!

It just looks like fun!

The sun peeps over the mountains, under the clouds.

Quick!  Count!

We got up really really early.  I made the French Press of coffee, poured mugs full, shook in the foamy cream.  We put on all of our wardrobe, at once, in layers.  We loaded Luna and her quilt, put the last of the coffee in the thermos and headed out into the dawn.  Yes, it was the frozen dawn, in that it took precious minutes to get a hole in the ice on the windshield so I see the road.  We drove to the Wildlife Refuge, and as we got out of the vehicle, wave after wave of the geese were "taking off."  It was a remarkable sight.  And we had not even gotten out of the parking lot!

I love Humboldt County.  Perhaps it is in my DNA.  The land, air, moisture, seasons, revive me. Being out in the middle of the marsh as the sun climbs the eastern side of the Coastal Mountains is a remarkable experience.  I need this wildness.

Blissed out, is all I can say.

xoxoLC

Who's God? My God! Oh God!

To get good photos, you have to go out... Ansel Adams or Morris Minor or Reese Bullen 

or Mr. Sams

Here is a great assignment: This week in your morning pages, write about the god you do believe in and the god you would like to believe in.  Hmmmmm.  So, is the god who creates raindrops sliding down a pine needle, gathering in perfect, crystal clear drops before falling to the waiting green earth... big breath... the same god that created me, creates me, creates through me?

Such a risky question, who is in charge here?  At times it is difficult to accept that God, in all Its glory and power and strength and creativity would choose me, little ole me, to do one smattering of anything representing Her.  Often my thinking has been that God would, of course, as a matter of fact, choose every body & thing besides me!  God must have a sense of humor to endure this abuse.

Memory:  In P.E.(many moons ago), especially for body-slamming sports, if I wasn't doing the choosing, I was chosen first, probably since no one wanted to play against me, and not necessarily for scoring goals, as one day I would be hit-every-shot, and the next miss them all. On those off-days, I defended the goal as if my life depended upon it and no one made any goals, we all suffered bruises, "Gawd, Paine..."

Oh.  This sounds awful.  I apologise to all of you that I knocked over physically or trash-talked. A bully-girl just met herself again.  And, important here... I apologise to and forgive this Tough Girl, who really wasn't very tough.  I really forgive her!  I expected you, me... to tough it out through everything, left you out there on the court/field with no defense or offensive team to help you, assist you, support you.

Whew.  Beautiful.  

So, for the rest of today, I will tippie-toe into surrendering to my Good:  my portion of God expressing through and as it's creation:  I surrender to opening to my Good, my God, my Goddess.  I open to this; unrestrained, unhinged, unencumbered, full-on expression!

xoxoLC