First Snow

  

The first cold flakes fell silently in the early dawn, blanketing the leaves we’ve not yet raked into piles.
Each white glistening orb seems like an answer falling from heaven. My world is transformed from autumn’s landscape of loss into a confection made with spun sugar and pearls.
It is beautiful as we walk outside, but we scurry inside soon as do all our woodland friends. Time to share our stories and dream our dreams by the fire.
Here is my new glaze, Blue Ice Crystal. The first piece sold right away but I'll be using it more in weeks to come. Wishing you beauty, and the light of love that shines from the eyes of those who gather with you by candles and fireplaces, as we burrow inside.

lessons from a woodpecker

My daughter noticed this helpless feathered life lying on its side. A heart beat but a bone protruded from its delicate wing, and blood seeped from its beak. Still, I cradled it in my hands. Marci got a small box with a soft towel, and we laid the immobile bird, a downy woodpecker, to rest in the softness. It looked with acceptance into my eyes and we spoke to it in gentle tones, the language of comfort.

I asked Marci to take it to her room, away from the cats, and warm. The plan was to see if it could rest, and perhaps survive. I wasn't sure if the limp body could support life. About an hour later, Marci burst into my studio claiming that the bird was out of its box and sitting on her rug! We hurried with joy to her door, and the startled woodpecker, with improbable lightness, flew into the closet!

There were a few minutes of comical chase, as I, after catching his tuxedo-ed body in a towel, released him upon command. Just as he understood our soothing, I know when I've been told a thing or two! It occurred to me to open the window, remove the screen, and turn off the lights. It worked! With gentle nudging, Mr. Woodpecker took flight, and dissappeared from our world and into his own.

I think of the lessons from the world, and this is how soothing works. Healing is an unseen ball of light that we pass amongst us, willing all that is broken to mend, and finally, to take flight.

I believe that my cat is incredibly wise

I believe that my cat is incredibly wise. She is, as I write, still as a statue in the garden, in utter acceptance, in perfect gratitude, having found, for hours at a time, what the pharmaceutical industry would like to claim is the effect of Zoloft or Paxil. Wally has joined with the world in that way that brings deep peace and true bliss. She becomes the breeze, when it blows; she gives her approval to tulips and weeds alike. And when I feel trapped in my world of economic downturn and parenting dilemmas and hurtful remarks, I join my cat out on the grass. We let the clouds become faces, and enter the lives of new shoots bursting upwards.

It's all beautiful, to the curious. Sometimes the best prayer is just emptiness. Emptiness and a willingness to be amazed.

Expecting the Miraculous

When the mist rolls in, suddenly, with its moistly tactile caress, I pay attention. It feels like something is about to happen. Maybe wild deer will appear and speak to me. Maybe the sun will follow, riding the clouds like a magic chariot in some ancient myth. Maybe a silent inner illumination will light the places where I am lost.

I am carrying this moment around with me all day. I will respond to everyone and everything that comes my way with curious anticipation. Like it arrived, just as I was expecting the miraculous.

Magical Reverie, Interrupted

The mountains in winter draw me into a magical reverie where every almost silent rustle could be a gnome or unicorn, and I imagine myself living peacefully and blissfully as part of the natural order of things. Even though I live with this astonishing natural beauty, my life has lately been anything but magical and charmed. I've been in the slightly less blissful world of modern technology gone wretchedly amuck. Our wireless internet connection ceased, my computer crashed, and we've been dealing with Charter cable reps, who are not nearly as endearing as gnomes or unicorns. But just milliseconds before my patient husband became the latest example of Tech Rage Insanity, it all began behaving perfectly again.

This explains why I haven't posted blogs this past week. I'm back!

Bee Happy

If you wander aimlessly in the yard, and stop to admire the first shocking purple of the crocuses that open their brave faces to the snowy cold, it is good to have a macro lens! My husband caught this little bee having a pollen party.

Don't tell me this isn't happiness! That its not buzzing in gratitude and praise; that it is not covering itself in grace, saturated in sweetness, savoring a sticky binge, perhaps a little drunk; like a priest who cleans up after communion.

I know there is some biological scientific dissertation on bees, but I don't believe it right at this minute. I want to watch the audacious little bee, and for a moment, drift in happy.

Backyard Beauty

The snow started yesterday, its dance of white fairy dust reshaping the landscape. The curious squirrels began this morning sifting through the glittering terrain, as if the abundant acorns are actually now rare collectibles.

What a metaphor! That which we see as rare and valuable may often lie barely hidden in abundance all around us; everywhere; everyday; for anyone curious enough to search.