Trying something new

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.
Erich Fromm

The great purge of 09 continued

These are random images
from this week
from my bedroom window
kinda like my life right now
random...images...and thoughts

I have the rare opportunity to go through everything I own, sorting, discarding, passing on and just getting a sense of what things are important to me. I feel like I have touched each and every thing in my house over the last 2 weeks and I am almost finished. Just 2 closets and then my art stuff (yikes!! I have been gathering it all up from where ever it has landed and the pile is growing) and I am done. And I have learned valuable lessons. Since I am a sharing kind of girl you get to know what I have learned about myself.
1. I should never be allowed to darken the doors of another art, craft, hardware, or office supply store ever again. Ever. Really. Or really allowed outside since I seem to pick up and bring home any shiny (or not) object that appeals to me. Who can leave a rock outside? That piece of rusty metal? Mine! Discarded bottle cap? Mine! Crow girl lives!!
2. I hang on to the weirdest things.
3. While I have always appreciated the help, I will do everything I can not to let other people pack things up for me again.
4. When something appeals to me, I buy it in every color I can find. (I learned that from my sister, at one point she had an identical red jacket in every size from 8 to 20... packed away just in case)
5. Things, while fun and exciting for the moment, don't make me as happy as they once did. But then, did having every single color of silly putty egg really make me that happy? I do know that all 309 slinkies (yes, that is the count, not an exaggeration!!!) make me very happy... still. Hey, they go down stairs, alone or in pairs, and make that slinkity sound! A spring! A spring! A marvelous thing!
6. I need a guardian. Or a gardener, that sounds like more fun.
7. You can have too many shoes.
Back to the trenches, as long as the trash bags hold out...

Learning from the past and looking towards the future

We must constantly build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

http://secretnotebookswildpages.blogspot.com/

http://soulaperture.blogspot.com/

http://parisparfait.typepad.com/

And this:

a national initiative to light candles on Jan. 19th:

We invite you to join with us

in lighting a candle

on the evening of January 19th, 2009,

the eve of the United States presidential inauguration.

Our intent is to create a global web of light

in support of the well being of the Obama Family

and the wisdom of President Obama's leadership.

We encourage you to share this invitation with others.

In Peace,
Members of a Women Spirit Circle
Seattle, Washington

from here: http://nmcreatrix.blogspot.com

Reflecting

Using all available tools
reflecting, sorting, dumping, having a snack
Rinse and repeat

"And while it takes courage to achieve greatness, it takes more courage to find fulfillment in being ordinary. For the joys that last have little relationship to achievement, to standing one step higher on the victory platform. What is the adventure in being ordinary? It is daring to love just for the pleasure of giving it away. It is venturing to give new life and to nurture it to maturity. It is working hard for the pure joy of being tired at the end of the day. It is caring and sharing and giving and loving." Marilyn Thomsen

There be dragons there...

On Montgomery

At the Botantical Gardens

On Menaul

On 4th

And just because this is New Mexico...red or green?

Grace in small things:
1. No wind!!
2. Warm brownies
3. 6 bags of trash in the dumpster
4. A finished art journal page! That makes 5 I have finished in my whole life...
5. A found feather

Junk

I have a lot of junk. A lot. This isn't even my junk, I even take pictures of junk...
Remember the old Paul McCartney song about junk?

The chorus went something like
Buy!
Buy!
says the sign in the shop window...
Why?
says the junk in the yard.

This week, I am getting rid of junk.
Lots of junk, externally and internally.
I am cleaning out the spare bedroom and am realizing that I have held on to almost every thing I have touched in the last 3 years.
I am realizing that it's okay to throw out something...even if I may want it again someday.
I am letting go (well working on it) of all the things I don't need anymore. Attitudes, regrets, hurt feelings, pieces of rusty somethings that crumble when I touch them and snippets of conversations, ribbon, used up crayons and thoughts that are not productive... they are all going.
I am making way for new "things." Acceptance, trust, light, maybe a new crayon or two. But I will be more careful in what I let in. Do I need it? love it? want to hold on to it for the right reason? will it be a burden at some point?
I do like my stuff, all of it. But it's time. I am not unhappy, just the opposite. I am open. Ready to be brave.

John F Kennedy said: "Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction."

Grace in small things:
1. The perfect breakfast burrito
2. With 2 kinds of salsa
3. Extra sturdy trash bags
4. Not crying each and every time I run across something of Donnie's
5. Finding an old journal where I listed 5 things I was grateful for everyday...from 1997 perhaps I'll share some?

Pressure

The Foundation for a Better Life sends me a quote of the day... not randomly, but because I asked them to. Today's is:

"You are here for a purpose. There is no duplicate of you in the whole wide world. There never has been, there never will be. You were brought here now to fill a certain need. Take time to think that over." Lou Austin

And if that isn't enough pressure, I found out it is National Delurking Week! Yep, we are supposed to delurk and actually tell people we are reading their blogs. I'm guessing it is a made up holiday without any Hallmark cards or required presents except maybe your presence...but still the pressure is on! Thank god it is almost over and I only have to bear the pressure of trying to comply with a made up event for the rest of today and maybe some of tomorrow! So if you are feeling the same pressure, delurk here first! Stop by and say hi, it's me.
The photo has nothing to do with the post except I really liked it and you could read all kinds of things into it. The pressure of looking fashionable even at birth, the contrast of the office builidng and the baby shoes showing the pressure of trying to balance both. Summer vs winter? I just liked the tiny shoes in a car window with great shadows. What do you see? No pressure...

Grace in Small things:
1. Being able to see the moon again
2. New information that I can actually use
3. Egg salad that makes me think of summer days
4. Recognition
5. Always being able to laugh

Shadow dancing down the hallway

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? Vincent Van Gogh

I took this picture last summer at a sculpture garden. The sculpture is actually 2 origami horses made of steel but I was so taken by the shadow of a dancer, I missed taking a shot of them. Do you think the sculptor thought for even one minute about what would happen if someone were standing in that exact spot at that exact time of day? Things happen the way they are supposed to. I am now dancing down that hallway with glee...as much of the time as I can, bitch or not. The Van Gogh quote led me to choose Courage as my word of the year. Crazy or not, the Vin man was right. Here's to attempting!

Grace in small things:
1. The smell and taste of fresh parsley
2. The shadows the brilliant sunshine makes
3. Slippers that are warm without socks
4. Comforting old movies
5. Being able to take care of business without leaving the house!

Hobo signs

Yesterday as I was walking (in glorious 61 degree weather) I passed a house, just a regular house in my neighborhood. What makes it noteworthy is that the yard was filled with crows. Noisy, swooping, raucous crows. Filled, on the ground, in the trees, on the roof...filled.

As I took my camera out, most scattered but a few stayed to check me out and let me get close, but not close enough to see what the draw was. As they came back to the house (because apparently even I wasn't enough of a threat to keep them away) I watched quite a system of landing and taking off, watching and eating, and all of them generally working together.

I wondered how they knew about this house and that started me thinking about a tale my daddy used to tell about how the hobos would mark a house or area. The story goes that his house had a mark that told the hobos that his mom would feed them but to watch out for the old man! He had great memories of those who stopped to eat and the tales they told. So what kind of system must the crows have in place? Great gobs of them have been in my neighborhood the last few weeks so I've had plenty of time to watch them and make up stories of what they are telling each other and how they talk about us.

Then I started thinking (bad habit I've picked up, thinking all the time...) about the kind of "marks" we make so that we know where to stop and where to avoid for what ever reason. We make those marks at family and friends' houses or use their speed dial number or email addresses (or even visit their blogs) to know who we can trust. And we return there again and again to be nourished by them, to share and learn and while the relationship changes and grows or looses momentum it never stays the same. But what do you do if that relationship doesn't just fade away but you can no longer trust that person? How do you erase that mark in your mind/heart/soul that tells you this is someone you can rely on? I know there is an ebb and flow to life and friendships and that things change. But what happens when someone you thought you knew and could completely trust and then the trust was irrevocably broken? Letting go is the easy part, erasing that mark is the hard part. I don't have any answers, just questions. Maybe I should have kept walking and not let those silly crows lead me down this troublesome path. My friend Judith once said that when one door closes, another will open but that hallway is a bitch! I know it is who is with me in the hallway that makes me keep going to find that next open door. My word for 2009 is courage and the plan is that I will courageously march down that hallway... and check in with you as I go!

PS: And as for my high tech whiz bang choosing someone to get the wind horses, I called my sweet niece and asked her to pick out a number between 1 and 7 ( excluding Paula since she was already getting some as a New Year's prezzie) and she chose 6 so that means that Stephanie is the lucky winner! Please send me your address (again!) and I'll send you some wind horses to welcome in a glorious, expansive new year my friend!

PSS: My sweet son figured out what was causing all the problems with my blog and Internet Explorer so you should all be able to look at everything now and not crash...but I don't get to see the phase of the moon or read what Al had to say everyday! Oh well...

Grace in small things
1. Memories and reminders
2. Support of friends - no wait that is a very big thing
3. All shades of purple
4. Spending a gift certificate for art supplies - new things, things that had run out, things I wanted to try, yeah!
5. Sorting out the old to bring in the new