Experimentation

How do we know when 'enough is enough'?  If you visit with me often you know that I go full bore into something, testing, making, talking and writing about it.  And then, one day, sort of like a bit of fog or smoke - elusive - I know that its time to move on or over or back.  Its time for me to experiment once again. 

Thus this messy table has appeared.  It's covered with bits and pieces of fabric, with buttons and bobbles and beads. All waiting for my next passion.  How blessed I am to be able to sense a discomfort and refill my mind and hands with a something different and challenging.  

"Part of the elasticity that you need, in order to continue to create, is the foregone conclusion that not all of it is going to be fabulously successful.  But it's all going to be part of a long lifetime body of experimentation." - Elizabeth Gilbert

A Cheesy Mouse

Okay -- I ask you -- how did he get the lid off this jar???

I think things have gone a bit mad around this house.  If I'm going to save my sanity  I simply must put a sign up saying "no more mice".

"You see a mouse trap...I see some fresh cheese and a challenge." Scroobius

Autumn Equinox

The weather is slowly changing. The days will soon shorten.  This time of the year is so beautiful to me.

I love going into the storage closet and pulling out sweaters, jackets and yummy warm socks.  Although my life changes very little from season to season – at this time of the year I have wonderful memories of the first day of school, football games, leaves changing and then falling to make a rustle of my morning walks.

With the change of season I feel a change of direction.  I don’t exactly have a road map yet but my mind is moving, one step at a time, toward work that will lend itself to cooler days, hot cups of tea and the enjoyment of bright blue Fall skies.

"Delicious Autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the ever successive autumns." - George Eliot

Garden Mouse

I'm so used to seeing mice inside that I nearly tripped over this little one.  He had found a lovely place in the moss.

The sun was out so I'm glad that he'd found a leaf to shelter his head.

Before leaving him to his own devices I tried to encourage him to ask some of the 'herd' that has invaded my house to come outside and join him.  I'm not sure whether that was nod of his head or a slight breeze had come up.

"If your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life." - Bill Watterson

Reds and Yellow

Autumn is coming and as a goodbye to summer the yellow and deep red flowers appear.  Do they show up at this time so that we will have their vivid colors to remember as we go into Autumn and Winter?

They don't last long at this time -- but they do attract the birds as well as the eye.

Soon I will be longing for these beauties as well as all the other blooming plants and flowers that I have gotten used to over the spring and summer.  Perhaps the fact that they aren't there for me all year long makes them even more precious.

"We may think we are nurturing our garden, but of course its our garden that is really nurturing us." - Jennie Uglow

Teatime Mouse

My tea time is very precious to me.  It is my reading time, my thinking time, my just plain being calm time.  So you can imagine my horror when I found this little lady trying to get into my precious stash of tea.

Before I had a chance to chastise her, she was complaining to me about how difficult it is to get the lids off these tins.  "Yes, and that is for a reason, so mice won't sneak into my tea supply".

You certainly know, I can never deny a person a cup of tea -- so I gave her a little assistance.  She repaid my help by sharing her morning cup with me and we had a very nice visit.  

"A cup of tea makes everything better." - anonymous

"Navajo Way" Blessing

                                                                                Art by Tony Abeyta

"Walking in Beauty" (Blessing)

Today I will walk out, today everything unnecessary will leave me.
I will be as I was before, I will have a cool breeze over my body.
I will have a light body, I will be happy forever.
Nothing will hinder me.
I walk with beauty before me.  I walk with beauty behind me.
I walk with beauty below me.  I walk with beauty above me.
I walk with beauty around me. My words will be beautiful

In beauty all day long may I walk
Through the returning seasons, may I walk.
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With dew about my feet, may I walk

With beauty before me may I walk.
With beauty behind me may I walk.
With beauty below me may I walk.
With beauty above me may I walk.
With beauty all around me may I walk.

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
My words will be beautiful.

                                   Navajo deity called "Monster Slayer at Crow Canyon

Accidental Mouse

Its not always a good thing to walk into your kitchen and find not only a mouse in the corner of the counter top -- but one who has obviously felt the cruel strokes of a mixer blade.

He was quite the grouch about it, mostly complaining about the damage to his tail, which he had previously been quite proud of.

I felt so sorry for him that I just couldn't get angry, as well I should have.  Perhaps he's learned his lesson and will pass it along to the others.  Only time, and healing will tell.

"When you're in a slump

you're not in for much fun

Unslumping yourself

is not easily do"

Dr. Seuss - "Oh the places you'll go"

Hopi Prayer

 Hold on to what is good
even if it is a handful of earth.
Hold onto what you believe
even if its a tree that stands by itself.
Hold onto what you must do
even if its a long way from here.
Hold onto your life
even if its easier to let go.
Hold onto my hand
even when I've gone away from you.