Pomegranates and Pups

These are without a doubt, the most beautiful fruit.  Well, one of the most beautiful."Like Water for Chocolate," a movie from a thousand years or so ago, had a scene where the young woman was cooking for her lover.  She used pomegranates, which she opened and seeded, as a garnish for a dish,  If I am remembering correctly, she got a little carried away.  Oh my, that whole movie transported me... I just loved the excess of it all.  Which reminds me, I must remind you... It's Sagittarius Time!  So, if you know one of us: Get your spiritual compass set on auto-pilot (aimed for the high ground), and invite her to many, interesting parties.  Mexico, Argentina, France, Spain, Whidbey Island or Victoria BC, any little place will do. 
Isn't it amazing?  They just hang there, looking like this!

All photos of Emerson now have a motion-inspired blur to them.  He tends to have to speak his mind vehemently when told what to do.  While this is kind of cute now, I keep imagining an 80lb Labrador talking back to me.  Let us cross that bridge when we get to it.
To the left you see the spotted Luna-nose.  I must confess:  Emerson really does his commands pretty well.  He is learning to wait for me to go through the door first.  He waits for his food bowl.  He is doing "leave it" now and then, though not consistently.  He is learning "blanket," and does this one really well when he is NOT hungry.  His 'sit' and 'wait' are becoming stronger every day.  The only time he gets grumpy is when he cannot do what he wants, and I kid you not, he carries on quite vocally!

Now, besides painting and writing, I must (MUST) get going on doing yoga and walking and taking my supplements, and riding my bicycle and swimming, and whatever else I can dream up to move this body around quicker,  with more agility and grace.  This is my newest determination, and it goes well with a pup and Luna, both of whom thrive in the outdoors and love to do all of the above (perfect downward dogs!).

Here I go!  In the morning.

xooxoxoxoLC

Patchwork

Didn't you say to go this way?  Do you have the address?  Niko!  Say something!

Well, maybe we should have turned that way.  Peg!  Leave the hat!  Next time, I read the map. Maybe Leslie will let us use the GPS next time.  Oh Niko.  Cheer up, we'll be home for treats.

Yes.  Growing.  I am thinking he might get a little bit bigger.

Snraaarrppphhh.  Grrrrooooooooowwwwwwwwllllllll.   Yelp!  Rrrrrrrrrrrrooooowwwwwffff!

At dusk I went out to pick greens.  There was enough light left to be able to see who was what, and I harvested Arugula, young Borage, Chard, three good sized tomatoes (!), and found three more beautiful, Sweet Meat Squash.  So, in the oven is a squash cut in quarters, baking at 4oo. The house filling with aromatic, yummy scents.  The greens could be a bouquet, but unmercifully, I am putting them into a salad.

While I was moseying around I could hear the hens pushing and shoving and clucking for the best roosting place.  Is it possible that there is only one best place?  One pretty brown egg a day must mean you get the best place, right?

The fig tree is looking droopy.  The frost has touched it, and it just quivers its leaves off. Tomorrow will be the Day of Falling Fig Leaves.  Maybe tonight if the wind comes up like it has for the past few nights.

Dogs.  Good dogs and bad dogs.  Dogs that sleep so cuddly on my bed (a mid-afternoon nap today!).  Dogs that sound like horror-movie monsters, well, make that one dog:  Luna has developed the most nasty sounding growlsnarf I've ever heard.  It is a sound especially designed to communicate with blockhead puppies, one Emerson in particular.  Seriously, it amazes me he still has a face.

Emerson chewed completely through the cord to the fan, fortunately unplugged.  He spit out little pieces of cord.  Imagine the Christmas Tree lights.  Oh, yes.  He and I are going to puppy class, he has already initiated the facility with a gallon-pee.  We are busy doing our 'homework,' which is such good reminder to all-ways be aware with what we say and do with the dogs!

Yes.  Life is fun.  And I am very grateful, filled-up.

I love you!

xoxoLC 

What A Day! Again!

We can't take any credit for our talents.  It's how we use them that counts.   Madeleine L'Engle

In the face of this rioting season of color, harvest, and turbulant storms, I have been facing a couple of old hauntings:  heartbreak and betrayal.  A new twist in the opportunities and probabilities of healing, releasing, accepting life as new, beautiful, full, rich.  

Out my window a heavy-lidded moon holds high-watch.  

Rilke says, There is only one journey.  Going inside yourself.  Sometimes I say, Nooooooo!  Anything but that!

Today was a day of heavy rain, of the sun breaking through, of rainbows and piles of clouds. Persimmons are hanging on trees that are dropping their bright orange leaves to the ground.  It is all so beautiful, even the process of early evening darkness quieting the rash colors.

There is nothing to fear.  

xoxoLC

Miracle Day

An Autumn day holds many wonders

California Buck Eye

I do not know who this was, or how they got here.

If I get hungry this winter, I know exactly where to go for an acorn.

A well-stocked larder is comforting.

As the sky lowers, my need for a cup of coffee rises exponentially.  It is quiet except for the sound of yellow leaves falling, robins discussing the ripening Toyon Berries, and strains of Classical music.

Dogs are asleep.

Emerson the pup ran in mud and jumped in the lake.  He really looks like a little pig.  I am serious.

I love days like this.

xoxoLC

Evolving

Gosh, I have neglected my blog!  November has swept me up in a complete flurry of creative energy.  In a big way I am loving it.  In another it feels like I am "goofing off!"  

I sold a small painting.  It feels big.

Writing has been stop and go, though it runs in my mind constantly.

I am writing from family photos.  It feels like I am "telling...," something that was much looked down upon in our family.  What I understand now, from this perspective of being "grown up!" is that it is all "story."  A shared experience is individualized, personalized, when one writes it down.  Period.

Today I am feeling like I hit a rather impressive brick wall with my painting.  Makes me laugh. A painting is rather like a puppy as it morphs and galumphs toward its mysterious resolution.

Walking in the dusk, with wild geese honking across the river, it occurred to me that all I have to do is to follow my instinct with the painting.  Allowing an abstract image to materialize is an exercise in "allowing;" letting form evolve, releasing control...aahhh, hahahah!  Today I applied a large area of color, stood back and yelled!  It was awful!!  Working on large paintings in a small room literally puts my nose in it!  

In a bit I am hauling the dry one out into the living room for some distance-viewing!  We shall see.  Wish me luck!

xoxoLC

Emerson, and lots more.

Emerson: One Who Grows Like A Weed!I am definitely liking this:  See that face?  He likes me, too!  I am supposing that one can never 'get enough' liking packed into one day, but that does not discourage one from trying, right?
And this, right here and now, is the "meat" of things: the first layer.  Often I rave on about how much I love to gesso the panels.  It is the beginning, the starting point, the launching pad.  It is where the movement begins, from opening the can and stirring the white, gooey stuff, to the dipping of the brush into it, from there to the sweeping movement across the surface.  Working on a large panel can be extra exciting, using big brushes, and gobs of gesso, and large, swinging motions.

Having several "irons in the fire," it feels as though, once again, I am emerging.  I believe I am starting to know how the perked coffee must feel... you know, when the pot is just starting to send up little bubbles from the bottom, the bigger ones have yet to move along the bottom and up the stem, and there is the roar which starts out familiar, faint, which builds in volume and strength.  Funny how that roar changes, softens, when the movement begins.  The heated water pulsates up the stem and burbles over the freshly ground coffee (oh heavenly!  need coffee now!), and the sound is "perky!"  Lighthearted, rhythmic, dancing, it makes the music to which it moves.

"You work best to a deadline," my friend N2 says.  It's true.  Painting into a void is difficult, frustrating.  Writing is similar; writing for no apparent reason can put the kibosh on the whole effort.  Then, a deadline appears on the horizon... movement!  I soften into the work at hand, allow myself the love of it, accept the joy of it.  Hanya has renamed the deadline, "I call it my life-line."

Much of this speaks to how much I, as artist, need the completion of more eyes than mine seeing the work.  There was a time that I thought that this need, as all other needs, was indicative of my narcissistic ego driving my boat, perking my coffee, so to speak.  Obviously volumes have been written about (and for!) the ego, an aside for this moment.  Art needs audience.  Art needs eyes sweeping across it, perceiving it, loving it, judging it, to reach its purpose.  Art even needs the ensuing discussion, "What IS this?"  "I liked it when you painted flowers,"  "Do you ever do horses?"  "HOW do you do that?"  "I feel something deep inside when I look at this..."

So, here we go!  Painting.  Participating in NaNoWriMo.  Working.  Fun fun fun!

xoxoLC

Mid-week; all about changes!

Yes, I know.  But what is it about these enormous things that is so fascinating?Right off, I can see the painting-within-a-painting.  I see the grid.  I see the colors.  I see the letters.  Ooooh, look at the blade:  I see fish!  Migrating up the river to spawn.

This Cat is responsible for tearing out the summer bridge.  It most likely was responsible for pushing the road through the river bar gravel, building the ramps out of the gravel.  Not being a big equipment person, I have no idea how they get the pieces of bridge up onto the cement structures for the summer traffic.  I do know that in a couple of weeks it will all be taken down, and the gravel smoothed out, and the river left to itself until early summer of next year.

And then, through the wet months, the river banks are habituated by fisherpeople, herons, deer, bobcats, coyotes, ducks, hawks, grebes and geese.  People and their dogs migrate to the river in these coming months as well, and well, we are the ones who disturb all the other visitors.  I have fantasized that the Bald Eagle waits for me and my dogs.  Ha ha ha.  I am sure!

Yes, while the Eagle watches from above, the mountain lion, coyote and bobcats all move up or down stream, giving the human and her sissy dogs a wide berth through which to meander.  To the human it looks as though this land is not populated at all, or, if it is, all that lives here are insects, lizards, squirrels and occasionally a foot-long rattlesnake(this year's hatching...deadly). She knows better, of course, but it is nice to let the imagination loose with the flocks of Cedar Waxwings dipping and flashing little slices of red and yellow.

Growing up in Larabee, I learned early of the summer bridge.  There it was put in seasonally, though it seems that the "high water" is what moved the bridge off the abutments.  The men tied one end to a large tree, so the other end swung downstream.  I will have to ask my brother about that detail!  When the water was "up" we were bundled into the motorboat, and ferried across with my dad at the motor.  I can still feel that excitement; the rocking boat, the whine of the motor, the smell of the exhaust, the rushing roar of the churning brown water.  Lordy!  No wonder we didn't go anywhere very often during the winter months!  I cannot imagine putting my brood into a boat, though they'd most likely enjoyed it as much as I did.  Yes, it was panic-city every time, but such a rush.   And I firmly believed that my dad could do anything.  Period.

The river will be gifted back to herself for the winter.  I will take the dogs down for occasional romps in the sand and water.  I love how rivers renew, refresh and re-enliven... me.

xoxoLC