Turtle keeps coming up in readings and dreams, leaving the feeling of a deep and rich presence of calm. In one dream, there was an enormous turtle (as big as a car) with layers of turf, dirt on it. Grass literally covered it’s back. When I saw the turtle in the dream, I said (in the dream), “Oh, yes, I know this turtle. She has always been here.”
I’ve read that turtle symbolizes Mother Earth. The turtle in this dream gave a sacred calm as she was nearly one with the earth, a thick layer of grass on her back. She could rise up, and she could sink down low and be unseen. We’d walk on her grassy back and never know it. Just like we walk upon the earth and mostly never give it much thought. Maybe we’re walking on a giant, calm, sacred turtle.
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Tagged Animals, consciousness, creativity, drawing, Dreams, Healing, intuition, light, love, Manifested wishes, Meditation, Native American, Nature, painting, Psychic Dreams, Spirit messengers
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acrylic on canvas/2010
I am almost always, without fail, a figurative artist. But every now and then, something gets to me and I have to push color around in a different way. I am not even sure what I was getting at here in this, but I felt great with the symmetry and color play. I didn’t question why this was what felt right one day, I just went with it. I don’t think we have to logically explain all our creations.
This is one of the Westport Sketchbook drawings I did in 2010
For some reason in this drawing from Main Street in Westport, I felt compared to capture bricks and stones. There is so much detail underfoot, we hardly ever notice what we’re walking on.
I grew up observing the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. The dramatic and somber ritual of following along retelling the story of Jesus carrying the cross and then being crucified always felt deeply real to me, and I connected my own sorrows and placed my own woes about the world into that ritual. My favorite part was when Veronica pressed a cloth against the bloody face of Jesus, and the impression of his face was perfectly visible on the cloth, like a holy mono print. I don’t even know if that is an official part of the Stations of the Cross now that I look back, but the most tender moment of all, besides the part where Mary, his mother and Mary Magdalene weep at the foot of the cross. In my mind, this Jewish man who had words of wisdom was persecuted for the wisdom he had, and I never understood as I grew, why Christianity and Judaism is separate, and how Christians could have persecuted Jews over the centuries when the God that Christians pray to is a “God made man”, a Jewish man. So I’ve devoted much of my adult life to studying Judaism and keeping the Jewish rituals, in my own private way. Nobody would have me, as I am expressing faith in a way that means I kind of don’t belong to either Christianity or Judaism, but in my mind I’m part of both traditions, and I distinctly feel that way inside. It reminds me of when my two sisters were fighting, and in their rage they both turned to me for my opinion. I saw two angry faces staring at me, awaiting my answer. I said, “I think you’re both right”, hoping this would help, and instead they both came after me. Oh well, it is what it is! And when Jesus was asked what is the most important prayer of all, he answered, “The Shema”, so I say it (the short version, but the long version is beautiful enough to bring me to tears, so I think I’ll start saying the long version) every day, and in Hebrew.
Here is the Shema:
“Hear O Israel, the Lord is One. You shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might.”
Click here to read more about the Shema and some fabulous books about the Jewishness of Jesus. Happy Easter and Happy Pasach!
A painting I did based on a memory from childhood/2010
When I was young, waking up at Grandma’s house, I’d hear voices whispering and open my eyes to see the two French ladies with poofy hair hanging in frames on the wall beside the bed, in conversation. I remember being very still as my sleepy eyes were barely open, watching them and listening. The whisper sound may have been my face and hands against the soft downy pillow, but no matter, it felt real to me to hear the French ladies. Years later, I had my own room in a house which had been designed to be “tornado proof” as it was in Topeka, Kansas. The room had splotchy wall paper. Every single morning I woke up, I’d discover someone I’d never seen before in those splotches, they, too talking. There was a mustachio man and a dancing lady, a forlorn child and horses running, their delineated faces clear as ever, but also hidden in the splotchy wall paper design.
If you’re relaxed and quiet enough, you might see and hear the walls talking. If you do, tell me what they say!
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Tagged children, consciousness, creativity, drawing, Dreams, Family and friends, Healing, intuition, light, love, Manifested wishes, Psychic Dreams, Sketchbook
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I have cousins in the Dallas area and am grateful everyone is okay after the tornadoes yesterday. I cannot fathom the power of these tornadoes, that they tossed tractor trailers (weighing how much—a ton?) in the sky, truly sky-high. These are stealth tornadoes. It really is a miracle nobody was killed. Only about 11 injured from what I heard on NPR this a.m.
I saw my first-ever tornado as a child in Texas, and it was a frightening experience. Over the course of my life, I became fascinated with them and did my own personal study of them and how they form. What they now call “wall clouds” I used to call “the edge”. That is when the tornado is forming and it creates a literal right angle in the sky. It is not natural cloud shape–it is truly like the corner of a rectangle, and I would watch them thinking, “One’s about to come down”.
My prayer this morning is for all the people who suddenly have total sky right above their heads, and their private rooms are completely public. Is it just an illusion, these rooms we dwell in? In one instant, suddenly, it can all be ripped open. There is that Chinese saying, “May you live in interesting times”, and I’m wondering if it really is too interesting, sometimes.
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Tagged Books, children, consciousness, creativity, drawing, Family and friends, Healing, intuition, light, Nature, Prayers, Sketchbook, sky
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monoprint/2012
“So life has its ups and downs, the sun rises and sets, and there are cycles to everything. There are differences in all things, which is precisely how we know them individually. There’s light, dark, up, down. This world of opposites or duality is the one we live in–and this is life.” from I BELIEVE by Eldon Taylor
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Tagged Books, consciousness, creativity, drawing, Healing, intuition, light, love, Manifested wishes, Meditation, Nature, painting, Sketchbook
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watercolor and ink/2010
I like to look at the past for what it was, learn from it and face it. But then, I like to see it how it should have been. Why not allow the past to be better than it was, it’s gone now, anyway! It only exists in your mind, so why not revisit it with romantic ideals and dreamy wanderings? Idealizing is better than torturing ourselves with exaggerated mind-movies that are ghastly and injurious. Maybe mercy is when we have perspective of the past mixed with our ideals, creating the great relief of home movies-in-the-head worth watching. I even like to imagine the what-ifs and see where those day dreams take me. One is, I pretend we never moved away from Texas. I get to be in the rodeo and be one of those people who sticks up two fingers in the shape of a long horn and everyone smiles at me and says, “UT!!! Way to go UT!” I wear cowboy boots every day ( and I wear them with the knowledge that there is no other way to dress) and grow up in a newly built and designed house, of course with a terrific bedroom with a canopy bed and a view of cotton wood trees in the open plain. And my horse can come to the window and there is the scent of blue bonnets and yellow roses.
It’s either that or I make myself see it how it really happened, and we have to move to Kansas City all over again. See what I mean?
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Tagged children, consciousness, creativity, drawing, Healing, intuition, love, Meditation, Nature, painting, Sketchbook
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Early morning study of Georgia Sweet Tea/2012
We love the way the pug prances and poses, exactly like a Fu Dog sculpture. And for every single mischievous thing she does (continually biting at my Cavalier King Charles spaniel’s ears as though they were great tassels for her amusement), she glances up with the most innocent Yoda expression: “I am a sweet pug.”
