Snippets and Snatches

Autumn Pleasures…

Fall is almost here, I know it is!  I can’t tell so much from the temperatures, which are now only slightly less than boiling in the south.  I can’t tell by the leaves on the trees, which are still the lushest greens that will never reach the vivid peaks of color I love in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Down here we go from green to golden yellow to brown before the leaves descend to become mulch.  But I can tell fall is coming by the changes in me!

There is enough merciful relief from the oppressive walls of humidity that have imprisoned me in the air-conditioned house, office, or car for the past SEVERAL months, that I find myself enjoying the rocking chair on the front porch at dusk again.  I almost feel like I’m IN the mountains with the sound of wind chimes and trickling water from the newly acquired stone fountain on the porch.  I close my eyes and I am there, thirsting for God in the mountains of Asheville, one of my favorite places.

This afternoon I had the sudden craving for spiced hot tea in my office at the end of the long day.  I’m sure I haven’t wanted this autumn pleasure I acquired since last winter.  The delicious spiced tea, kindly provided by the sweet wife of a co-worker, hit the spot along with the aroma from the newest packet of harvest spice sachets.  Golden yellow mums on the tables at last night’s banquet event have sparked my desire to pick up some baskets of mums of my own for the porch.  These simple autumn pleasures are merely igniting my appetite for more!

I’m ready for mini pumpkins and colorful gourds for the kitchen table, spiced candles, warm socks and real shoes instead of my worn-out sandals.  I can’t wait for a cold morning when I will need my thick chenille, deep blue bathrobe and fuzzy slippers (even with the slightly chewed hole in the toe from a naughty puppy, I love my midnight blue slippers!).  I look forward to sweater weather, hot chicken soup, and homemade chili on Halloween night.  Even though approaching autumn pleasures means the accompanying increased threat of hurricanes, I do not mourn the long, hot summer’s passing.  Ah, we humans are comfort creatures aren’t we?  I hope autumn pleasures inspire you too! 

“Transformation”

September a year ago, I made this collage, another of the Skirt Magazine series.  I don’t want to say too much about it except that it is about change.  Life is full of changes and opportunities for transformation, some we will want to label as good or bad, but they are what they are: opportunities for growth born of joy and sorrow.  In the words of Matthew Arnold, “I bend but I do not break.”  I hope I don’t grow rigid and inflexible, unable to bend in the wind.   Like the tree in the center surrounded by the light of the sun, I hope to grow stronger, more confident and sure, as the years go gently by…

Where My Treasure Is…

inspired by Matthew 6:21

“Where my treasure is there will my heart be,

by Your grace, O Lord, let my treasure be in You.

If my treasure is in power plays, my heart will be trapped in ego ways.

Let my treasure be in giving Love, for my heart of joy will soar above.

If my treasure is in outer things, my heart won’t hear God’s Voice as He sings.

Let my treasure be serenity, for my heart sings for eternity.

If my treasure is in my self will, my heart will not know how to be still.

Let my treasure be Christ’s Holy Light, for my heart will know peace day and night.

Where my treasure is there will my heart be,

By Your grace, O Lord, let my treasure be in You.”

In the quest for what really matters, I asked myself about what I treasure, what I value, what is the meaning of Life?  When these lyrics came to me my life was full of small children bringing me treasures every day!  …Dandelions and purple violets from the yard, feathers from a bird who narrowly escaped one of our dogs, caterpillars, shiny rocks, acorns, broken sand dollars and shark’s teeth from the beach, an empty blue robin’s egg fallen from its nest, the first orange-red fallen leaf of autumn.  Sometimes obstacles kept me from appreciating these daily offerings reminding me of the miracles of creation and I found those same obstacles present (and still do!) in regards to my spiritual life.  When I concentrate on the wrong things, I lose peace/serenity, the ability to love others, and Christ’s Holy Light dims within me and around me.  For me, those obstacles are power plays (my own and others’ can always be chalked up to ego), outer things (wanting materials things I don’t have and allowing their misguided ”importance” to dishearten me), and my self will (oh, this is such a big one still since it usually leads to anger, sin, and separation from God).  It is only by grace that we can know the greatest treasure, the gift of His unconditional Love… I ask you, where are your treasures and what are the obstacles that keep you from Christ? 

Corey’s First Steps

I call this pen and ink drawing “Family Tree.”  We all have one, a family tree, that is.  We may not know all the ancestors that belong on the branches or much about the roots from which we come, but still we have a family tree to which we belong.  This is an actual tree in the backyard on Turkey Creek that I named “Family Tree” long before I ever drew it because of its two trunks, mom and dad, and three offshoot branches, our three kids, growing from the trunks.  This one represents my immediate family.  The extended family tree would be so much larger, with many more branches!  I don’t know if I could ever find a tree big enough to draw that would capture the size of the family from which I am a mere offshoot. Nevertheless, when I sit in the backyard and look at my “Family Tree” I can’t help but become quiet and still, listening for the echoes of our family’s growing days.  I can hear the boys catching fiddler crabs in the mud and my daughter jumping on the trampoline.   

This pastel has traveled extensively…within my family.  It’s hard for me to believe I drew this thirty years ago.  I know because I just got a high school reunion letter in the mail this summer for the 30th reunion this autumn and I made this in my senior year.  For years it hung above the piano in my parent’s livingroom of the house they built and raised six children in Pa.; then it hung above the piano in their condo for a few years until my parents moved into an assisted living facility and there was no room for it.  Now it hangs in my livingroom in SC, a reminder of my dad who liked it so much.  But I also think of the three horses symbolizing my three children and the race through life we have been on together.  Of course, I didn’t know when I made it that I would have three children but that is the meaning I have attached to it through the years, appreciating their wild, free, and strong spirits – and I hope the splashes they make on their journeys in life will be as beautiful as they are!

(detail from a collage)

Making collages is a favorite medium for me; it is quick and allows me to put pieces together into a whole. This is a snippet from a collage about seeking the artist’s way.  Sometimes there is a theme that evolves, sometimes not. Sometimes there are words and pictures, sometimes just pictures.  Skirt Magazines are a favorite source for making collages…I try to glean something meaningful from the pages that are full of superficial ads for plastic surgery and botox specials.  Today is Saturday, time to play!  I hope there will be artist whispers I can hear!

If it weren’t for the boiling August heat, this is where I’d like to be right now…watching the tide come in and out on Turkey Creek, in my own backyard.  Living in a house so close to a swamp (“marsh” is the politically correct term if you are in real estate) is a bittersweet blessing.  On the one hand, there is endless beauty and peace that inspires me to draw; on the other, when circumstances align (like the alignment of planets, almost) such as a full moon, high tide, and a four to six inch sudden downpour, the backyard becomes a lake and, once in a great while, my husband’s studio (a.k.a enclosed garage) gets cleansed, much like baptism by immersion.  We have learned to cope with this disappointing situation by not keeping valuables on the floor, though sometimes we forget and get caught by surprise (such as the night about a year ago when our daughter was in a wreck during a rainstorm and while we went to be with her on the side of the interstate, our son was at home dealing with the flooded studio!  We didn’t care a lick about the damaged stuff because we were so grateful she was okay!).  Even though this is the bitter part of the blessing, it is still very sweet to appreciate this beautiful place on our tiny “island” on Turkey Creek and feel like we hear the heartbeat of heaven in the midst of the burbs.  It’s just that sometimes it beats too loud and fast and we get slammed with a double whammy!  Many things in life are like this, I think, and we have to learn to take the bitter with the sweet. 

Yesterday I heard the tragic news of two small boys found drowned, still strapped in their carseats and a mother’s part in this horrible event is being investigated. Last month it was a two year old found dead in a concrete filled trash can. How do we hear of such things and not be filled with tears or dread or rage or hate? But for the grace of God there go I. And we must pray for the children as Christ knows each by name…Lord, have mercy.

Hush, little child, little child of God Divine,
God will be here, will be near, sweet child of mine.
Hush little child, little child of God Divine,
Fear not the dark, not the dark, where Light will shine.
Rest little child, little child, angels are near.
They will keep watch, will keep watch, wipe every tear.
Rest little child, little child, angels are here.
You are God’s hope, shining hope, no need to fear.

“How can you live sweetly amid the vexatious things, the irritating things, the multitude of little worries and frets, which lie all along your way, and which you cannot evade?  You cannot at present change your surroundings.  Whatever kind of life you are to live, must be lived amid precisely the experiences in which you are now moving.  Here you must win your victories or suffer your defeats.  No restlessness or discontent can change your lot.  Others may have circumstances surrounding them, but here are yours.  You had better make up your mind to accept what you cannot alter.  You CAN live a beautiful life in the midst of your present circumstances.”   J.R.Miller

I don’t know who this guy is but I love this quote and it made me think of this picture from Folly Beach, SC, one of my favorite thinking spots.  Somehow sitting in the midst of all that driftwood makes me think of the vexatious things in my life, yet the beautiful sea endlessly smoothes the rough edges with the crash of every wave.