blogjanuary: rain

This morning we have a few clouds and a very bright autumn sun. It is a bit chilly outside so I declare it to be a pajama day so that I may go on a walk-about through an imaginary landscape.

Today I would color the landscape’s sky…hum…various shades of pink? Yes! A pink sky with lavender clouds that has water vapor made from the calming scent of lavender.

Trees…I would like triangle and round trees in this landscape of pink skies, baby blue grass, dark lavender rivers, and golden mountains. The rectangle and curvy tree trunks gray. The leaves splattered with the colors of garnet, jade, and sapphire.

What colors would you use to create your imaginary landscape?

It would be wonderful to have a rainy day. I image children running about in the lavender rain with green rain boots, red rain coats, and orange rain hats.

Can you imagine us in our rainy day outerwear jumping into lavender water puddles and seeing the water spraying blue and red water drops all about us? Can you picture us collecting small sticks and gravel to build dams in the small streams of water that flow along the sidewalk?

And dragonflies with iridescent wings of blue, green, and purple darting here and there between rain drops? No! No!”They would be saying, “we simply cannot have our wings dampened and dirtied!”

I must say dragonflies are very proud insects.

A rabbit or two would have spots of blue and red rain drops on their white fur. Some of these spots blending together, as rain drops often do, and creating circles and rivulets of different shades of lavender.

Oh what might you say if you saw white rabbits and gray field mice all wet from the rain that colored them with blue, red, and purple spots and rivulets?

When their parents saw them, I imagine they would click their tongues, smile, and join them in rain play? It would, indeed, be a wondrous day!

I picture robins, blue jays, sparrows, and finches gathering and showering in the rain. The crows though are hopping and cawing in celebration of this rain storm while keeping dry under the picnic shelter. Ants, spiders, and worms hear the thumping of the rain drops and feel the quaking of the leaves as the rain drops reached the ground. What a noisy invitation to come out and play!

Shall we put mud pancakes and gritty lavender tea on today’s tea party menu? I heard that gritty tea tickles the tongue. I’m sure the crows would be delighted to have us join them in the picnic shelter.

Who shall we invite for tea?

I hear bees politely excuse themselves from play and tea as they hurry home. The queen sent out a royal order; all worker bees are given a day off from work as they do like to nap during rain storms.

Can you imagine ants, spiders, and worms opening their mouths to drink in the water as they play in the rain? And rows of bees snuggled in fluffy quilts in front of a fireplace?

Hum…that’s a cozy thought.

blogjanuary: joy in life

“The morning chill came through an open window. The morning had begun its transformation from black to variations of dark blues to lighter hues outlining night’s black shadows. It had just passed…the morning ritual. The magical moment of silence in which all of the world – right before the sun’s rays lightens the sky – seems to hush in stillness.


Then in the distance one songbird followed by another as if a congregation’s ‘Amen.’

My mother came to visit. I may have called her as I, with a cup of steaming tea, looked up at the antique framed cross stitch hanging on the dining room wall.

It was during one of those rare visits to her home in which she shared a beautiful piece of counted cross stitch. I saw the delight in her face as she told me it was a gift…a gift of gratitude to someone unknown to me…a stranger. Aged jealously rose unbidden and formed a barrier between mother and daughter.

Within that moment, forgotten…a white tablecloth, each corner embroidered…a crocheted lap blanket…a crocheted dolly sewed onto a pillow cover…applique images within a child’s alphabet book.


And then. ‘Would you like me to make you one?’

‘Yes! Oh yes! Please let me frame it.’


Within an antique framed cross stitch…a magical moment. An exchange of love and validation

Excerpt from, bc kofford, “My Mother Came to Visit”

blogjanuary: a treasure that has been lost

Wanting more than what is given…

I’ve often found myself pondering the realm of the hungry ghost within the Tibetan Wheel of Suffering. This realm is illustrated by beings who have long, extremely slender necks, needle mouths, and bloated stomachs.  They are characterized by their infinite emptiness and eternal starvation. … If they do obtain a taste of what they desire, their insatiable craving – their wanting more than what is given – blinds them to the small treasures within life … a flower, a smile, a sunrise, a birdsong, a joy-filled moment, a gentle touch.

Included within of the six realms of the Wheel of Suffering is a tiny figure symbolizing a bodhisattva.  These spiritual warriors are compassionate beings whose sole and unique purpose is to work for the benefit of all beings. Within the realm of the hungry ghost, is a bodhisattva holding a bowl filled with spiritual nourishment.  These spiritual morsels: grace, faith, mindfulness, centeredness, compassion, loving-kindness, and equanimity, all contain the nutrients to help them ease their suffering.

blogjanuary: earliest memory

The personal story is a narrative of our unique sense of identity.  We create our identities through the stories we weave onto a tapestry that is formed against the background of our family mythologies.

We pull threads from of an assemblage of recalled details from our pasts and weave them into images that cast us in whatever role corresponds with our current situations, feelings, thoughts, or actions. The colored threads of this tapestry are often re-embroidered to reflect the creative and dynamic process of our perspectives as we shift in, out, and between various roles, feeling states, and cognitions.  As we reflect on our self-created images we are in turn affected by them; therefore, there is an unconscious re-weaving of our tapestries.

Excerpt: Koeford, B., A Meditative Journey with Saldage

blogjanuary: how are you brave

“Artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide.” ― Donald Woods Winnicott

Blogging despite living within a continuum of a drive to communicate through art and an emotional need to be hidden behind one’s art … is an act of courage.

“It is a joy to be hidden, and disaster not to be found.”
― D.W. Winnicott