16 June 2016
“I believe there is a song that is stranger than wind, that sips the scald from the telling…”~Karen Volkman
Make art about the first thing that comes to mind with the phrase I believe….
flowers-1680-1050-wallpaper
15 June 2016
We’ve had a sick kitty cat. Ulli, our twelve-year-old rescue, a tiny delicate graceful gray creature who, because of the trauma she experienced before we got her, even after all these years, still jumps at loud sounds and runs from strangers, who will panic herself into an asthma attack in one minute, then turn and stalk a deer in the next. Ulli is definitely one of those cats who make you feel awed and grateful when she stops for that second to allow you the privilege of petting her, or when she musics the air around you with the low distant train rumble of a contented purr.
My oldest son, a large bearded Viking of a man, is completely devoted to this animal, and as age inevitably creeps into her bones, slowing and thwarting some of the natural processes, he becomes the one anxious, determined to give her the best care and most love he can. We both went to the vet to pick her up from a required hospitalization for twenty-four hours, and he loaded her little bitty crate into the car, saying, “It’s okay, Ulli. You’re all better now. No more tummy trouble. No more doctor. We’re headed back to Mimi’s for a little bit.”
I laughed, at being Mimi to this grand-cat, and in relief that our Ulli is okay, and in gratitude that my own child is so relieved to have his beloved old lady cat back in good health. The blessings of family, y’all. That’s what it is today.
“The smallest feline is a masterpiece.” ― Leonardo da Vinci
Make art about animal family.
Daily Prompt Catch-Up
6/11/2016
Beautiful day with family today.
From “On Family Regathering Seen One Night Through a Window” by George Moor
All flows; the person has no permanence.
The children will grow up, the parents die.
For each precarious present the past tense
Is waiting; all is sort of a lie.
The clean cut fruit in dingy crystal bowls;
The fading chairs; the family sitting down.
For reassurance meet these traveling souls,
Each with an intimate sadness of his own.
Old habits calm. Old stories of old days….
Make art about family.
6/12/2016
Just don’t have words. Heartbroken.
6/13/2016
My son and I found this tiny nest yesterday, tumbled on the grass beneath the Guardian Oak. No babies, wounded or otherwise, in sight, just this miracle of weaving, bits of bark and straw and leaf and string. Inside the tiniest shards of shell left behind, thin and white as paper. I was struck at how delicate—and how strong—it is, kinda like Love.
Make art about the fragility, about the persistent strength, of Love.
9 June 2016
Having a bit of an identity crisis 🙂 Maybe not a crisis LOL 😀 but definitely a shift, some kind of transition, reinvention maybe.
“I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line.”― Jeanette Winterson
Make art about changes in identity, about shifting views of the self.
6 June 2016
I have a special affection for deer, for many reasons. I sit out on my little stoop and they slip like shadows from the woods, all velvet eyes and dancer feet, and they let me enjoy their company, their beauty, as they browse and graze through the section of the yard I leave wild just for them, what my kids call ‘Deer Diner.’ I planted them a persimmon tree there in that corner a couple of years ago, and I leave them three cups of corn daily 🙂 paying my rent for sharing this little wooded four acres that their kind occupied long before my house was built. I love them more than I can articulate. Their presence brings me into a place of peace like no other animal. I think they understand this 🙂
Make art about deer. Or about what in nature brings you peace.
5 June 2016
“In a field /I am the absence/of field.”~Mark Strand
Make art about absence, about being out in the field, about who you are in the field.
I dreamt my husband and mama, both gone now for years, having walked on to the next life, were helping me in the garden, setting up two new raised beds, working the dark rich soil with rakes and with our hands. I was planting turnips, the seeds so small, so many shades of purple, lavender, violet, plum, deep purply rose. “Plant cabbage with them,” Mama said, “Good companions.” John nodded, “Or spinach, or peas.” He grinned. “They like each other.”
I woke up thinking about companion planting, about ecosystems.
Ecology is all about interconnection and eternal change, creating patterns, connection, cause and effect, that shape every organism and phenomenon. Our own minds work this way, but, I wonder, Can we step back and recognize that? Can we extend that eco-understanding beyond our needs, thinking like an ecosystem”? Recognizing, developing, and honoring our “eco-mind”?
Wouldn’t an eco-mind also able to see that the survival of our own species, our own existence, our own desire to thrive, is connected to our consciously creating the context needed for that thriving, and that it is inextrcably tied to the well-being, the continuation, of other species and the health of our wider ecology.
Can we learn to see that we don’t exist above or beyond the ecosystem? That those turnip seeds, in their tiny purple majesty, are as essential as the bees that come to the comfrey, the deer who watch from the shaded wood, the cardinal that sings from the Guardian Oak, the groundhog who thinks I don’t see her in the tall grass at the edge of the yard, to the spider silent in the rain-silvered web at the side of the garage, are as essential to our own survival as they are to ours?
Make art about interconnections, about ecosystems
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Mary Carroll-Hackett: Poetry and Prose 
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