finding balance

I need to work on the balance in my life. It's a lesson I'd rather not have to learn again. Therefore I plan to avoid all social media, well, not blogs, til Monday. No FB, no Twitter. I'm going to work outside. I'm going to get my hands in the dirt. I'm going to go out with my sister and explore Old Town Rosenberg. I'm going to finish the model I started and didn't finish because all the previous stuff came out of the kiln. I'm going to do what I can do to nurture the earth, enjoy a relationship, and bring beauty into the world. I have to detach and remember the divine flame within, that flame that inhabits all of creation and makes us one even if I don't care for this particular expression of the TATI* that I find myself in. However, don't think that this signals acceptance. No no. As my friend Reya says, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We have years of resistance ahead of us and it won't do to get burned out early. There is nothing I can do to prevent anything that will happen in the next four days.

I've been engaging in a lot of physical activity this week and last but as often as not I'm still awake 2 or 3 or 4 hours a night. Consequently I've been sleeping late, not rising until about 8:30. Since it seems to be spring here I've been cutting back all the dead foliage from the hard freeze. Ginger, yellow bells, confederate rose, morning glory bush, jasmine, Philippine violet, firecracker bush, and lantana one day, the century plant and the roses the next. 

I also finally dug up one of the large clumps of yellow butterfly iris that was crowding out two of the roses. That took me well over an hour and I cracked the handle of my shovel doing it. I still need to dig the other one up as well but they both got severe haircuts. 

remember this from last April?

it looks like this now

There are piles of debris everywhere, thorny stacks of rose cuttings, a trail of dead foliage and branches as I worked my way around the yard.

one of many

The azaleas will no longer be constrained and are starting to bloom about 6 weeks early. The red shouldered hawks are soaring in the sky calling for mates. The mosquito hawks are coming out. The birds are all chirpy. A woodpecker is hammering away at some piece of metal outside showing off for the girls and a wren is fussing at the cat every time she goes out. All kinds of new and regenerative growth is coming out. And it is barely February.

I harvested two big heads of broccoli last Sunday and made broccoli cheese soup, some for now and some for the freezer. I need to get the raised beds in order and build a new one since we plan to plant more food this year. And I got the satsuma orange planted.

The weather has been warm and dry all week, dry as in no rain but also as in not humid, and last week as well though today is cooler and overcast and wet and it's supposed to rain today. 

Perhaps I'll update my website today.

*The All That Is

random stuff

Saturday...

Three days before Christmas Eve I was seeing ads for celebrating New Year's Eve. So it goes in America, the land of the 5 minute attention span. Hey, it's almost Christmas, we've just about milked this cow dry...on to the next thing we can convince people to spend money on.

The day after Christmas, that magical day, the most wonderful day of the year where you get your heart's desire; the stores are mobbed with people returning all those thoughtfully selected and lovingly given gifts. One year I would have gladly been in that mob had I not been a child after opening a present that my father picked out...a pink and orange plaid pantsuit.

The radio station that started playing nothing but non-stop Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving is still at it. I'm supposed to have it on in the store and I do...in the other room as far from me as I can get it. Thankfully, it's a crappy radio and it keeps shifting into static which I only discover when I go to turn it off at the end of the day.

Sunday...

Today is Marcmas! Ordinarily we would be going to the movie and out for dinner but because we have the dogs we'll spend a quiet day at home although I think we will be getting a visit from some combination of our daughter and her family later. We'll celebrate tomorrow or the next day depending on what time my sister gets back.

It's overcast and windy and rainy today, the beginning of the end of our warm weather I think. A winter storm is moving south and it's supposed to dip down into the 40˚s this coming week. 40˚s are OK but we'll have to turn on the heater. I still won't have to move the plants in though. Right now they are all huddled against the south side of the house in the crook of an L, protected from the west as well.

Last Wednesday I got up from the couch mid-day and felt a stab of pain in my lower back, the kind of pain that doesn't let you do anything, a reprise of an injury from 13 or 14 years ago when we worked non-stop for 3 months fabricating 10 – 5' x 6' panels for two walls at a hospital. I stressed my back so badly that when done with the job, a week later when I had fully relaxed, I experienced such severe pain that basically all I could do was lay flat on my back. No picking up things or grandkids, no gardening, it was impossible to sit comfortably, and sneezing was something to be avoided. Anyway, I did eventually recover from it and working out at the gym helped bring balance and strength back to my body. I've tried to be very cognizant of keeping my body balanced since then so I was really surprised when this happened for no apparent reason. Fortunately, it is not lingering and while it still aches, it's not that debilitating pain and I was able to do my regular morning yoga routine this morning.

Speaking of yoga, there is a new yoga instructor here in Wharton. She plans to open a yoga studio starting the first week of January, as opposed to just teaching sessions here and there, with real yoga studio prices, more than twice what the lady in El Campo charges but then her classes will be half again as long. I'll probably try her out but because she works full time, her classes don't start til 7 PM (and the one I'm really interested in doesn't start til 8:15 PM). By then, I'm fully ensconced in the house for the night so we'll see. If the studio goes well, she plans to quit her job and then classes at earlier times will be available. It would be nice not to have to drive to the next town for yoga.

Well, the birds are giving me the stink eye so I guess the teacup is empty.

other signs the wheel is turning

(besides the shortening days that is)

The cotton is ready for harvest,

the deciduous trees are shedding leaves, sparsely but continuously,

the seed pods on the magnolias are pinking up,

the mississippi kites have migrated,

the pampas grass is sending up it's feathery plumes,

(I think my camera lens fogged up when I rolled down the window of the car to take this picture)

the confederate rose is putting on buds,

that day the wind unexpectedly comes from the northeast,

the ox blood lilies pop up seemingly overnight,

and then one morning, it's undeniably cool outside, 

even if only for a couple of hours.

2. Chapin Mill Retreat Center

Before I delve into the experimenting and learning we did at the studio, I thought I would tell you about Chapin Mill Retreat Center where we resided, had our morning meetings, and our meals.

Long before the 135 acre retreat center was built, before even the grist mill was built on the lake fed stream, it was an area revered by the first nations. To the Iroquois tribes 'the place of clear running water' was a sacred meeting place where conflict and bloodshed were forbidden.

The grist mill was built in 1811 and Ralph Chapin, chairman and treasurer of Chapin Manufacturing in Batavia, New York, a company founded by his grandfather in 1884, eventually acquired the property. Chapin, a buddhist and charter member of the Rochester Zen Center, donated the property to the Zen Center in 1996.

The property itself is rolling wooded hills interspersed with meadows. There is a small spring fed lake that feeds a live creek. There are several hiking trails but our days were so full that none of us had the time to take more than a short stroll around the area where the Center is.

It's a beautiful building with wood floors, white walls, and wood beams; serene and minimal. Windows and doors to the outside are spacious and open (with screens). When you first enter the foyer, a residence wing is on the right and another shorter wing is straight ahead, the left handed wall of which opened into the inner courtyard.

 

To the left is a long corridor, one side of which has sliding glass doors that open to the inner courtyard, that takes you past the 'mud room' (which is open and a part of the foyer), the piano room for comfortable sitting and companionship and leads you into the dining hall, an open and airy space with access to the kitchen and pantries. At this end there is another short residence corridor that parallels the other, also opening into the courtyard.

So, the building is built around this lovely gravel, grass, and paving stone courtyard with two Japanese maples, two sides of which are residential, one side is the front corridor and across from that is the fourth solid wall around the courtyard with deep covered porches on all four inner sides. There are two doors in the not glass wall that open into the corridor and across that, into the Zendo. The Zendo is the main meditation room.

It is built in two levels and sometimes the lower level is underground like a basement and is referred to as such. My room was one of the basement rooms (we shared bathrooms) and while I was below ground level, the land sloped past my room so I had a full size window. 

more next post

1. she's baaaaack

Didja miss me?

I'm slowly slipping back into what passes for the real world around here. I've not only been gone physically, I've been gone mentally. And off-line almost completely.

As much time as I spend on-line on FB or reading blogs or writing my own blog or researching images for artwork, I thought I would have withdrawal. But as it turned out, I liked being unplugged.

Not that they didn't have wifi at the retreat center or at the studio, though I could never get connected at the studio and after the first day, I didn't even try...too busy. I would check my mail once a day at night after everyone had settled down in their rooms. I even logged onto FB once or twice at first and realized almost immediately that I had absolutely no interest in any of the things I usually pay attention to.

My hot button issues had been getting oppressive lately. It's depressing to have to focus so constantly on the negative things you want to change but how do you stay informed and active for change otherwise?

I would sit on the steps and gaze at the night sky and try to release some of the energy that was being generated so I could get to sleep. We had a waxing moon when we all arrived, it came to full about the middle of the week and waned from there on rising an hour later each night so by the end of the week we had a pretty good star field.

There was a cartoon going around that went something like this: two people are walking and one says to the other...'my wish to stay informed is at odds with my wish to stay sane'.

You may remember that I signed up to participate in a week long residency/retreat to address The Familiar with an eye to trying to approach my work from an unfamiliar direction.

I might have easily let this unique opportunity pass me by but I was in a position to be able to take advantage of it and lucky enough to have two people who kept following up with me while I worked my way through my reluctance to travel.

Anyway.

We spent Saturday night in the city and got up at 4:45 AM to get me to the airport for my early morning flight. I arrived in Rochester early afternoon and Lance of Oatka School of Glass, one of the studio owners sponsoring the residency, picked me up at the airport. We fetched two other earlier arrivals from the grocery store and headed to the center to be greeted by Catharine Newell, our lovely and accomplished leader.

I did a post about Catharine's work here.

The residency/retreat (and I include the retreat because it was very much that as well) was being held at the Chapin Mill Retreat Center, which is a Zen Buddhist meditation center outside Batavia NY which is where Oatka School Of Glass is located. This turned out to be a stroke of genius, I think, as it allowed the participants to coalesce into a really wonderful group, all residing in this extraordinary facility for the week.

This was a group of 15 women artists who have an interest in glass as a material but not limited to that in their personal work, our facilitator, our hosts, and the volunteers in the kitchen and studio that really made it all possible.

Our first day was all about arrivals and getting our room assignments and linens and settling in and introducing ourselves to everyone as they arrived and assembled and exploring the grounds as time allowed and our first dinner together. The fare was vegetarian, no smoking or alcohol allowed inside.

As it turned out, no one shared a room so my diligence in securing earplugs for any and all was all for naught.

more next post

misc pictures

I have a lot of pictures piling up to share but instead of diddling around on the computer when I wasn't working, I've been spending my time outdoors diddling around in the yard. I had another day of diddling in the yard planned for today but it's raining, and very welcome, so instead I guess I'll diddle around on the computer.

Speaking of computers, someone needs to coin a better term for these devices because I rarely do any computing on mine. I use my calculator for that. It's really a communication device. We write on it, email correspondence, share our views and express our opinions of the world through blogs and social media, find images, do research or, as I like to call it, consult the All-Knowing Oracle. But compute? Nah.

a row of birds in silhouette above the etched shower and toilet stalls

You might have noticed that I used the past tense when referring to my income producing work. We did finally finish the last of the commissions last week that had piled up starting from the end of last July. Whew! We are both a little burned out. There are a few things still in the works, one small job that we will probably be doing sooner rather than later and two other proposals still hanging out there.

I'm hesitant to be too happy or wish too hard for a break as we must be careful what we wish for because, as we all know, gods and genies love to fuck with our heads, but I am looking forward to not having to go into the city every week for a while. And the week long grandkid visits start soon. I can't believe it's already that time again. Seems like they were just here. Well, they were just here but only for the long weekend.

So here's a few bits and pieces of the past several weeks, not in any sort of chronological order.

The big pecan by the corner of the shop dropped another big limb while we were in the city last week. This is what we came home to. The trunk end of that limb was at least 8” in diameter. That's the second one off this tree in a week's time.

This might be why. Girdling is not good for women or trees.

We also discovered that the birds had gotten to our first tomatoes that ripened while we were gone.

Yesterday was market day in this little town. I got a bag of (wormy non-GMO) corn to put up so I sat down to shuck it all and blanch it and get it in the freezer. One of the ears didn't get pollinated except for a few kernels.

Each strand of silk is attached to a future kernel. If that strand doesn't get pollinated, no kernel develops.

This guy was hauling ass. It looked just like a stick humping it's way across the bare ground. By the time I got back with my camera, he was in the grass so I relocated him for the photo shoot. It was doing it's 'see how scary I am' defense dance, thrashing it's head back and forth trying to get that big thing hovering over it to move along. I have no idea what it will become as I couldn't find it in my caterpillar book.

The spring blues, pinks, and purples are all going to seed and the 13 Acre Field is yellow and white with cone flowers and horsemint.

The altheas have started blooming.

A soft and pastel sunset.

Just hatched stink bugs on a green dewberry. This photo snapped right before I doused them with insecticidal soap. Not very crisp, I know, but I can't very well run out and take another.

Most of my efforts in the yard this spring have been in and around the Little Back Yard,

although I have worked some on this end of the long bed behind the shop.

I have more pictures but this is enough for now.

pumping it up

Did I mention that a new gym opened in my little town in December? It's an Anytime Fitness and it is very close to my house. Of course, anywhere in a town of less than 10,000 people can be called close to my house, but this is just down business 59/Richmond from my little neighborhood out in the county.

They have opened up in the old abandoned roller rink. The owner divided the building once they got a good tenant and is finishing out the rest of it for offices, as I understand, and have given it a completely new facade. Anyway, the gym takes up less than half, I think, of what is the whole space in that old building, though it does have the front section.

I'm happy we finally have a regular gym here. I'm used to working out and it is my main defense against the osteoporosis since I refuse to take the meds. They increase your bone density but don't necessarily increase your bone strength and the side effects are heinous. And they are finding that women who have been taking those meds, are still getting broken hips when they get older.

When we first moved out here permanently I joined the gym at the junior college but there were time restrictions on when non-students could use it and I could never get myself over there during the allowed times.

So, the gym is smaller than I thought it would be. I signed up for 18 months pre-paid before the buildout. Small, but well equipped I think. Right now, if I go late afternoon and am there when the after-work crowd starts coming in, then it seems a bit crowded. I imagine going very early gets the before work crowd. I'm lucky that I have the flexibility to go mid-morning to early afternoon.

Actually, the gym is open 24/7 with members having a little electronic gizmo that unlocks the door and they are very security conscious with cameras and everything but I'm not likely to go after about 5 PM. Cuts into the cocktail hour...or two.

Anyway, I know that participation will begin to taper off. I speculate on which ones will cave after a couple of months. Like the lady next to me on the treadmill who was ready to quit after less than 10 minutes. Or the ones that use minimal weight on whatever machine. Or don't really know how to use the machines. I wonder about the young women who come in with their slim hips, flat stomachs, and long trim legs who do half a dozen reps and then dick around with their iPhones while they rest. None of them ever break a sweat.

I still have to make myself go but once there I work out for at least an hour and a half and I'm already feeling better, abs and back getting stronger and leg cramps at night aren't bothering me.

This is my goal.

Just kidding. If you want to take a stroll down into grotesquery just do an image search for female body builders. This one is tame.

blessings on us all

(I wrote this last night but didn't publish it until today)

It's Christmas eve and not being an adherent of either the religious aspect or the cultural extravaganza it's become on the secular side, I am having a normal relaxed evening and my day tomorrow will be one of those rare days in which nothing will be asked or expected of me.

I worked at the store today for my sister who is visiting her family and for who this holiday still means something.  I'll cover for her on Wednesday too.  I'm happy to do it and happy I successfully tracked down several items for people over the last few days.

I missed a couple too.  Like the antique ironing board someone's friend had told her she'd seen.  I assumed she meant the child's metal toy ironing board I had sold the previous week but when the man showed up Saturday and picked up the china cabinet he had bought, there in plain sight was an old wood antique ironing board.

Another day a woman came in looking for antique irons, the kind you heat on the stove.  I knew we had some but could not find them so I sent her to another shop, same vendor.  Later Joe, the vendor, came in and I related the referral.  Then he showed me in his section the two antique irons.

I've been in a pretty good mood since last week after we finished that big job, relief and elation at being finished and feeling pretty good about the product coupled with some pretty nice weather and the general good mood of the population.

Christmas, or at least the last few days before, does seem to put people in good moods and that kind of energy is contagious whether you believe the religious myths or not, good moods are contagious just like laughter, you can't help but be buoyed by the energy field.  

At least that's how I think of it this year.  I don't generally like the Christmas season but I'll save my scroogey attitude for a different post.  While I like Christmas carols, ironically enough, and would sing them with feeling given the opportunity, I do not believe in the divinity they proclaim.

My family is scattered and varied on this night.  I was raised as an Episcopalian, I raised my children as Jews.  I left Judaism behind as I had Christianity before it as my understanding of the divine deepened and matured.  I hold to no religion that defines the undefinable, that tries to hold themselves above all others as more beloved, right, or true.

We are all children of the divine no matter how we express it, no matter what story we attach to it to help us divine the Divine.  Even the atheist is as beloved as the most devout religious follower because each story, each myth is as only one petal of a glorious flower.

So I say Happy Holidays to friends and family as there are many holidays, some ancient, some old, some new, celebrated in the weeks before the end of the secular year.  May you all be blessed in the year to come.

balance

I stopped shelling pecans about two weeks ago. My hands just couldn't take it, cutting stencils for 3 days and shelling pecans for 4 days, and since I already have 10 pounds worth of shelled pecans, I figured I would wait til I finish all the stencils for the mountain wall.

I'm still picking them up though, almost three boxes worth and still when you look up in the trees you can see pecans.

One day, several weeks after the pecans began to fall, when I leaned down to pick up a nut, I felt a twinge in my back. I'm right handed and I carry the bucket in my left hand leaning down and slightly sideways to pick up the nuts with my right hand.

After doing this over and over for several weeks, my body was telling me that it was getting out of balance. So I decided to switch the bucket to my right hand and pick up pecans with my left hand. Voila! No pain. Only my right handedness is so entrenched that I would notice after a while that I had, unconsciously, switched the bucket back to my left hand.

That first week, I had to make a conscious effort to be aware of what hand I was using. After a couple of weeks, it didn't matter which hand I carried the bucket in as things had balanced themselves out so long as I periodically switched from one side to the other.

It reminded me how important balance is not only in the human body but in life.

One of the guiding principles for my life has always been 'all things in moderation' and I seemed able to apply it towards all things except my work. When I am working on a project, I tend to become totally absorbed and work for hours on end with no breaks.

As long as I was young with a resilient body, I never suffered any ill effects from this tendency. About 12 years ago though, we were working on a job that consisted of 10 panels approx. 5' x 6' each that made up two 25' long walls. It was a beautiful job and we were elated to be done and have it installed. After months of working intently, intensely, and non-stop, I was finally able to relax. And a week later my back clenched up so badly that I was all but immobilized. I had, for months, been stressing muscles, holding positions in one direction, without ever engaging the opposing muscles and now I was paying the price.

I'd like to say that after a week or so all was well but it was not and I feared it was perhaps a permanent injury. Sitting, standing, bending, lifting anything was extremely painful. Working in the yard was impossible for more than 5 minutes. It did, over about a year, get incrementally better but it did not heal until I joined a gym and worked on strengthening my core muscles, front and back.

So.

I was out there a couple of weeks ago, feeling pressed for time, a little stressed. There is so much I needed (and still need) to get accomplished by the end of this month, and by the middle of December as well. That's our target date for finishing up the mountain wall.

I was feeling guilty and thinking, as I wandered around enjoying the temperate weather and idly picking up the fallen nuts, that I should quit wasting my time and get in there and get to work on the waxes or filling the molds or whatever particular task awaited me.

Fortunately, my previous thoughts about balance reminded me that this activity was just as important as the intensely focused activity of work in regard to my personal and physical well being.

I have tried to keep, in the conscious part of my brain, the warning of Spider Woman when she was teaching Wandering Girl how to weave:

"But there is one danger that you must always be aware of. The Navajo People must walk the Middle Way, which means that they must respect boundaries and try to keep their lives in balance. They should not do too much of anything. You must promise not to weave for too long, or a terrible thing will happen to you." from The Magic Of Spider Woman by Lois Duncan

For Weaving Woman nee Wandering Girl, that was becoming trapped in her most perfect blanket. For me it was a grave injury to my body.

I was led to this story, I believe, by Spider Woman after she made herself known to me on a vacation through the Navaho Nation several years after we finished the job that got me so out of balance.

It was one of those light bulb moments.