The Solstice

Happy end of year everyone.

This beautiful poem warms my heart.

Winter Solstice

by Rebecca Parker

Perhaps for a moment the typewriters will stop clicking,
the wheels stop rolling,
the computers desist computing,
and a hush will fall over the city.
For an instant in the stillness,
the chiming of the celestial spheres will be heard
as earth hangs poised in the crystalline darkness, and then gracefully tilts.
Let this be a season when holiness is heard and the splendor of living is revealed.
Stunned to stillness by beauty
we remember who we are and why we are here.
There are inexplicable mysteries.
We are not alone.
In the universe there moves a Wild One whose gestures alter earth's axis toward love.
In the immense darkness everything spins with joy.
The cosmos enfolds us.
We are caught in a web of stars, cradled in a swaying embrace, rocked by the holy night, babes of the universe.
Let this be the time we wake to life, like spring wakes,
in the moment of winter solstice.

thankful

The holidays are here and the hustle and bustle disrupts my studio time. It takes a little getting used to. I need to figure out how to go with it instead of fighting against it. I need to remember that the activities, traditions, and opportunities for shared memories are more important than getting one last stitch into that binding.

I remember the Thanksgiving from 2012 more than I do the one in 2013. The crowd was rowdy, the food somewhat mismatched (but still delicious) and at the end of the meal we all drew pictures on the tablecloth with fabric markers. Family members from four to 65 all contributed a little to create the masterpiece above. I take it out each year now to remember that day and this crazy collaboration.

I recommend it to anyone who has felt the holidays getting stale (I purchased inexpensive cotton banquet cloths for the canvas).

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spirals - a universal pattern

Sonja Hinrichsen draws in snow. Her landscapes are collaborative, experiential and temporal. Her goal is to further the appreciation of the natural world. She says it this way:

These works correspond with and accentuate the landscape, and I hope that they help arouse appreciation and consciousness for the natural world. Modern society is becoming increasingly more disconnected from nature. I believe, however, that for a successful future of humanity it is essential that we re-gain a greater awareness of our planet’s nature. - Sonja Hinrichsen.

Sonja Hinrichsen snow drawing at Catamount Lake, Colorado

Spiral meander, Paula Kovarik

Those of you who have followed my work may see a strong resemblance to some of my doodling. That's why when I saw Sonja's work I was immediately attracted to it. I wondered about how universal patterns like the spiral become part of an intuitive vocabulary we all recognize and use --the pattern that connects (see Gregory Bateson for more discussion of this). I know that I am entranced by them. My work intuitively follows those patterns.

Spirals are everywhere: shells, leaf whorls, water currents, dna, wind patterns -- even the path of the moon around our earth and sun and the galaxy within which we live. (There is a wonderful discussion about fibonacci spirals here: Doodling in Math: Spirals, Fibonacci and Being a Plant by Vi Hart)

So I wonder...since we are part of a spiral galaxy does this influence the way things grow and the way we interpret them? Is the answer in the spiral?

cold snap

The weather maps I have been collecting for the past year are decidedly blue and purple in cast -- a sign that arctic winds are traveling south. So it was with a sense of joy I noticed these colors in the kitchen. The rescued tomatoes and the first winter lentil soup.

waltzing trees

Trees dance in the park, reminding us to find joy in changing weather. 

A pair of waltzing trees