Making The Most of My Time

I am trying hard to do some important work now that I am home and focused.   My wonderful husband is out of town and I can do anything I want, no schedules, no major cooking and complete quiet.  Well, this sounds good, I'm having trouble with the complete quiet.........  if you haven't guessed, I'm a people person.  I miss my husband, I often think, oh, I should be starting supper, or OMG, today is trash day, or I get up in the morning and have to make my own coffee....    And who am I going to tell about washing the horses to cool them off and who cares if I scheduled someone to come clean the carpet and who wants to hear me complain about how hot it is? 

Each of my children call me, to see if I need help with something.  It is a very thoughtful thing for them to do, watching out for me while Richard is away.  Emily came to help me wash the horses, it became a party, Ryan and grand daughters, Cait and Lizzy also came to help.  There were a few, "oops, sorry, I didn't really mean to spray you!"  giggle, giggle moments.  The horses thought they had died and gone to heaven.  Standing around all day they stomp the flys off, they sweat and they itch.   A cool bath was such a pleasure to them.  We also washed Jessie, our Lab.  She needed a bath more for the cleaning, the cooling part was the bonus for her. 

I really should be in the studio today, I have this wonderful idea!   I've mentioned that I am making Art Journals.   Books with pages of original art, created by paint, stamps, markers, photos and whatever.  And

also some words of wisdom or journaling an event.  What fun they are, I love them and they are such a new creative process for me, art with a loose structure, allowing something to happen and flowing with it.  Details are not necessary and no two pages are alike.  So it offers amazing freedom.

Being the business minded person that I am, I have decided to make little 5x7 or 8x10 pieces of art, just little original art pieces, based on the Art Journals.    I have the hardest time allowing myself to just play, it seems I am compelled to call my playtime work!  If it is truly "work" then there must be a way to market it.    I was brought up to be busy at something constructive, many people would look at my art journal as play, it is all about me and for me.  So maybe not work, more like wasting time, at least to them.  It is much the same when my wonderful husband walks in the door and I'm at the computer, I call it time to work, he see's it as wasting time.  All in the eyes of the beholder......  

At this time in my life, I cannot waste time, there is so much I want to do, so many things yet to experience.
So it is, I am going to continue with the Art Journals, for myself.  I will just expand my creative process into a little original artwork that can be framed and sold.  Woohoo, heading to the studio for some serious creating while I have no schedules, no cooking and complete quiet!!!!!!

Living My Dreams

I am finally returning to normal, well I prefer to think of  it as normal.  Most think I'm not exactly normal, but that is okay, I'm pretty happy in this state of "normal". 

I had lunch with friends yesterday, while working at Village Artisans, the co-op that I belong to.  I might explain that this co-op of artists share space called, Village Artisans, is located in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  We have 20 members, all artists with wonderfully creative mediums from pottery to photographs, from silk scarves to gourds and so on.   We work twice a month in the shop as the shop keeper.  It is always fun to see something new an artist is doing and talking to people that come into the shop.  Okay, back to lunch with my friends..........

We were talking about dreams.  Many people say they don't dream, I believe they just don't remember their dreams.  I make a real effort to remember my dreams and it helps to write them down or share them as quickly as possible.  Even then they seem to fade into the far away places in my head and are maybe forgotten.  I love reading about a dream that was recorded, some of the details may have faded and it is fun to be reminded. 

So I have had a couple dreams that I want to share, it might tell something about my state of normal.  Last week my friend and I were at the INAFA convention.  By the afternoon of the third day we were on sensory overload.  My friend wanted to walk to a shop downtown and I could only think of taking a nap.
My nap was one and a half hours and I woke refreshed.  I met my friend and we went to dinner and then on to the evening concerts.  The concerts lasted until 10:30 pm and then there was time spent buying the Cd's and having them signed and conversations with the musician, pictures maybe and all the other important conversations with friends that happened.  We didn't get back until midnight each night and went immediately to bed, knowing that 7:00 am alarm would come quickly. 

I remember thinking that night, "Oh, I forgot to ask my friend what she bought at the jewelery store that afternoon, because she had told me that it was a cool place, I'd have to go before we left town."  The next day I remembered to ask about the jewelery store.  She says to me, "Oh, I didn't go."  I said, "Yes you did, you told me you purchased something!"  We continued to go back and forth, she claiming she didn't go because her purse was in the car and I'd driven it back to the motel.  I claiming that she was so excited about going to the shop and purchasing a piece of jewelry.  And that she said I would have to go too!

This went on a bit, neither budging with their side of the story.  It was only then I realized I must have dreamed the entire thing...........It was so REAL to me.   So now I am wondering if I am living in my dreams or dreaming real life, they seem to be too close together and I don't know what is real any longer.

I had another very powerful dream while at this event.  It was probably inspired by the energy of healing sound by the didgeridoo that was gifted to me by Rafael Bejarano.  I remember during this experience a vastness filled with the most incredible emerald colors in blues and greens and aquas.  Lots of space, like floating.......... maybe water floating.   I don't know, but the sound of the didgeridoo was surrounding me as well, and currents moved through my body.  It was great!  I couldn't begin to get up after the experience and felt the buzz long afterwards.  Even an hour later, I found myself to be dizzy and very relaxed.  It was awesome.

I had purchased Rafael's Cd and when we got back to the motel that night, I put it on as we turned off the lights and slowly drifted off to sleep.  I was again shown the colors of the emerald waters and there were whales and dolphins in this ocean of blue colors, the sun was shining.  The whales and dolphins were leaving and we were trying to call them back.  I remember we were using this long horn (it didn't sound like the didgeridoo) the song it played was the sounds of the dolphins and whales crying. 

Then next day I went to speak with Rafael, he looked at me with a smile and said, "you know I've been swimming with the dolphins.....".

Share a Part of Yourself, Write.....

Some days writing comes easily for me.  I use the word writing very loosely, I've never thought much about writing, more than journaling, making lists or corresponding with a friend.  Even journaling was pretty hit and miss over the years, especially when my children were small.  My teachers in school would never have considered me a writer from a look at some of my English grades.

I have a stack of journals that start back in 1972-73, Ryan was born in '72.  Not sure what happen to the journals I may or may not have kept for the next few years, they start again in 1984 and continue on into 2009.   I haven't opened them  since stacking them away.  I wonder what secrets they hold for me today.  I could probably spend the entire day looking through them, remembering events that would have been forgotten, had I not written them down.  Most of the writings were of everyday things, no poetry, no wise words.  Things are not so different today when I write a blog.  Maybe the thing that is different, some of the stories are from a past memory, one that was filed away and now is a chapter in my blogs.   

It has taken years to come to the place I find myself today.  A place that I can take time each day and write a few words.  Even if it isn't earth shattering or complex, just writing it down releases some need to express myself in words.  Is it so different that painting a picture, carving a gourd or even playing a flute?  It is all about finding a creative outlet for the spirit inside yourself to come out and to be revealed.  Not everyone needs to reveal themselves in a public way, doing it in a private way is just as important to your spirit.

I often ask my girls if they wrote down the funny story they just shared with me.  I can't help but think it will be forgotten if not noted somewhere.  I've given as gifts to my girls and dear friends, blank journals, so that they too will have a treasured place to write.  Many have, many haven't and some journal off and on.  I would highly recommend journaling, blogging, or letter writing to everyone.  I fear the emails and face-book is making things too easy, a one line thought, a quick response and it is over.  Don't you just love to get a nice long letter or card from someone?  Reading it over and over, knowing how wonderful it was that they took time to write a special note and mailed it to you.  The greeting cards I make and sell are always blank, giving someone a chance to fill the insides with their personal messages.  Give someone a little gift today, send a handwritten letter to a friend.  I promise, they'll love hearing from you!!!  

Photos:   Two of my greeting cards

 

My Meanderings

I have found writing blogs to be a revealing experience.  Most is good, some are surprising and others are very interesting.  I like writing these chapters about my life, my memories.  It is somewhat healing and it also causes me to organize my thought about things. 

I called my blog "Meandering Thoughts" for a couple of reasons.  I have many things I wanted to write about, not one topic would cover the bases and if you have been reading these stories, I do sometimes seem to meander a little or a lot!

I maybe should have written this as the opener to my blogging, kind of like the forward to the book.  I didn't know then what I know now, after nearly a hundred entries.  I know now the reason for writing this type of journaling.  Is to keep a history of what I remember, what I want to remember and what I want my grandchildren's children to know about the life of someone in their family's history.  Much of my family history has closed doors and that hurts me a little, not knowing about my ancestors.

Maybe it is a vain attempt by me to not be forgotten.  When we stop remembering someone, do we stop honoring their life on this earth?  It hurts me that my family's history is lost to share with my children, I have no way to honor my ancestors with my children and grandchildren.  This is why I write these blogs. 

Could I have found a more private way to share?   I have found that being accountable to followers that read my meanderings, makes me continue.  In old times people didn't have the distractions or entertainments that keeps families from talking and sharing stories each day.  In the past people sat at the table and while they ate, they shared.  Or they sat around the campfire or fireplace and talked.  We find ourselves being pulled away from taking time to share.  I want to share my history, I want to be remembered, I worry that is arrogant and vain.  I am not really that kind of person, it is more about the things we did as a family and the wonderful life we shared, not really about me at all.  I was only one character in the big picture.  It's the picture of all that played with me in this wonderful life.
Oh you can't live in the past, I wouldn't want to do that.......  but somehow we have to connect with the past to know who we are today.  Who helped teach us the way?  Were those teachings and knowledge used to guide us to be who we are now? 

I'm meandering again, later friends.

Intensity, Movement and Change

When I close my eyes, to sleep or just daydream, I often see colors.   These colors are not like what I find in my tubes of paint or my colored pens.  The pigmentation's I see are much more intense.  Sometimes the color I see is totally one single color, as I watch, it changes.  The other night when I closed my eyes in the darkness I could see a mosaic of turquoise that were irregular shapes like stones and surrounding each shape was a darker shade of turquoise that was not quite blue.  I wonder how I can see these colors with darkness surrounding me and my eyes closed.

Other times the colors will change as I watch them with my eyes closed.  A dark purple will come with a corner of it becoming lilac.  Eventually these colors merge and change into a rosy pink tone.  How does this happen?  I don't want to move or distract myself during these moments with the colors for fear of loosing them.  I often notice these brilliant colors move like a lava lamp, the background will be a beautiful green and the globs of moving color will be dark blue.

I have no answer for this magical moment of wonderful brilliant hues, is it my aura playing little games with me as I close my eyes?  Who do I ask about this world  of brilliance behind my eyes?  I suppose it doesn't really matter that can see these colors, I have been able to do it for a long time and I don't think it is harmful.  I look at it as more of a gift, a beautiful gift of intensity, movement and change.  I suppose I would describe my life as these things, are my eyes open or closed?