Begin Again

After everything, I will love you

as if it were always before,

as if after so much waiting,

not seeing you and you not coming,

you were breathing

close to me forever.

Pablo Neruda, from 'Integrations'

This morning I gesso panels.  I love the process of Beginning.  Why didn't I photograph Rebekah and Mary yesterday as they each took a turn at a panel, gesso sticking and spattering and dripping?  I love to watch them.  You know, they came yesterday to help Nonnie (me) clean house, because she (me) doesn't like to do that much (unless I have someone to dance with).  They dusted, "Look!  You can't write my name here anymore!" and swept spiders out of corners with squeals and gusto (my fly-catchers!).  Then they decided that the dogs were dirty too, and needed washing (yes, this is definitely deja vu), SO we went outside and washed dogs.

Rebekah is a Gemini, and I a Gemini Moon, so we collaborate  in a most excellent way.  After all the tasks, and a few creative sandwiches we unwrapped the virgin panels and dug out the Gesso and brushes, put down the canvas drop-cloth and away we painted!

Then I went swimming in the Lake.

Now I pick up my brushes, open the Gesso can, and dip into the thick white stuff.  O Yes!

You were breathing close to me forever!

xoxoLaura

A Poem for today

Philosophy    

by Pablo Neruda

The truth of the green tree

in spring and of Earth's crust

is proven beyond a doubt:

the planets nourish us

despite eruptions

and the sea offers us fish

despite her quaking:

we are slaves of the earth

that is also governess of air.

Walking around an orange

I spent more than one life

echoing the earth's sphere:

geography and ambrosia:

juices the color of hyacinth

and the white scent of woman

like blossoms of flour.

Nothing is gained by flying

to escape this globe

that trapped you at birth.

And we need to confess our hope

that understanding and love

come from below, climb

and grow inside us

like onions, like oak trees,

like tortoises or flowers,

like countries, like races,

like roads and destinations.

gardens, harvest, neighbors, bounty

"I must be myself.  I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you.  If you can love me for what I am, we shall be happier.  If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should."  Ralph Waldo Emerson

My mother's sewing machine, cabinet and all, has been riding around with me in the back of my car for about five+ days.  My intention is to go through it today, discard and sort and take the whole-shebang to Goodwill.  Done.  Fee-nay.

Right.

So, it doesn't really go that smoothly.  I start and stop and start again.  I water something and bake a cobbler and go next door and help eat it.  Now the hood of the Explorer is covered with bobbins, weird assorted barely identifiable items, thread, and two packages of "deluxe Bra-Bak repair" which assures one that it will "add new life to your bra!"  The garbage can has about 3 thousand straight pins in it and now I am thinking that that is an environmental hazard.  O Goddess, this is a never-ending job!

And I am going around taking photos of the splendor around me, specifically my garden, and now I am branching out into Sandy's garden.  And it is occurring to me how Mom filled book after book after book of photos of her flowers, her garden, her cats and chickens,  and this morning I was laughing with her.  Of course she took innumerable photos of the splendor which she had a hand in creating!  Hanging fuchias and begonias, blazing dahlias, an unending progression of daffodils and apples, chickens in the kitchen and kittens in shoes.  Thanks Mom, for just being You.

  

I think I am "getting It!"

xoxoLC

Labrador mid-morning snack

Well, breakfast was good, and these are too.

And look who arrived in the mail yesterday!  All are up and peeping this morning!  Jolee was up two or three times during the night to check on them, the last time feeling worried because there was not a sound coming from the nursery box... to find them all sacked-out, laying on their sides!  Has anyone heard a chicken snore?  This little batch of mail-order mixed Bantums has landed in one of the Paradises On Earth... Jim and Jolee's.

Annie said that she "had fun at Nonnie's Jungle!"

And Life is Good in Nonnie's Jungle!

I love you!

xoxoLC

I lift up my mind and my heart

"I lift up my mind and heart to be aware, to understand, and to know that the Divine Presence I AM is the Source and Substance of all my good."

"I am conscious of the Inner Presence AS my lavish Abundance.  I am conscious of the constant activity of this Mind of infinite Prosperity.  Therefore, my consciousness is filled with the Light of Truth."  both quotes from JRPrice

Meditation notes from last night and this morning:  Last night was fidgety and restless.  Having returned home from our Thurs. eve Trek, I was ready maybe, to run a marathon.  Moonlight poured over the yard and vineyards and the mountains, thick and blue, illuminating everything.  The votive called me into its occasional  yellow flicker.  I do not recall relaxing...

This morning I am calmer, I feel relief.  Turning inward to Inner Presence: a place of calm and saturated color.  A place of infinite Connection, All present Presence.  "The Light of Truth" infills my consciousness...  until I start grasping and gasping to stay there!  

Square 1

"God is lavish, unfailing Abundance, the rich omnipresent substance of the Universe.  This all-providing Source of infinite prosperity is individualized AS me---the Reality of me."  JRPrice, and me, again.

Meditation Notes:  Well, Monkey Mind has turned into a troop of monkeys.  Or is it a herd?  A batch?  A flock.  A community, society or population?  At any rate, it is a whole truck-load of monkeys.

And I am back at Square One, which is the on-going title of all, or almost all, of my paintings. Variation-on-the-theme...  Square One Revisited.  Humm-dee-dum, making friends with the 1 squared.

I seem a bit cavalier this morning, a little "yeah, yeah, yeah."

Wandered around before starting, joined the Monkeys, take out the garbage, pick a pear, eat an orange tomato, water the chard.

Settling onto my chair, and breathing into this moment of "lavish unfailing abundance," there appears to be nothing to do but breathe into It.

I begin again, at Square One, grateful for the infinite Presence of renewal.

xoxoLPC

an old truck and an old saw

A new day, a new friendship, and he has always loved a good tree to cut up.

I am still reading a meditating, and have been a little pressed for time.  And I love you.

xoxoLC