starting up

I got home from the residency/retreat all excited about getting back into the cast glass work, ready to start on my next body of work, the river stories, which means I have to finish the botanica erotica pieces.

I have 10 of the proposed 12 and the 3 larger ones already cast so I seemed to be pretty close to finishing. Except that when I was going through my images to select the last couple, I had just too many really good ones so I expanded the proposed pieces to 15 small and 5 large.

Not to mention that I still haven't finished up the body of work before these pieces. The peach box being the case in point. Not to mention the one I haven't even started yet.

It took me over a week to re-enter fully after returning home. And then I had some commission work to do, still have one to do this week and a sketch for another, but...

I finally started on the next wax for the botanica erotica series yesterday.

in response to the rain and shop talk

This morning, walking the yard, I noticed the gifts that the rain last week brought, as if the rain itself was not enough of a gift.

yellow rain lilies

not exactly a fairy circle, more like a fairy conga line

miniature amaryllis

We got home early yesterday evening after spending 3 ½ days in the city getting the glass logo sign for the bank finished. I had ordered the glass, an oval, before I left for the residency and when we finally picked it up, it did not fit the art work from which I had made the pattern. Neither did they return the pattern so I had to make another one and try again. Only this time, I made two patterns, one to give the fabricator and one to keep to check the glass against. We picked it up Monday and it fit so while we had had months to do the job, we actually ended up with only a week since they wanted delivery by the end of the month. Installation is set for next week.

I'm almost done with the full size art work for the other little job we have, a window between the master bath and the closet. It used to be an exterior window before they added a huge closet onto the house.

Their closet is bigger than my bedroom. And it is crammed full of clothes. She has a floor to ceiling cabinet with just all her purses in it. She must have 50 purses and an equal number of shoes. Maybe more. Why do people acquire so many clothes? So they can wear a different outfit every day of the year? And it's not just her. He has an enormous amount of clothing as well.

Marc and I could fit all our clothing in 7' of closet space. Winter and summer combined. And we could probably get rid of some of those.

I do have a design sketch to do for a new job but the other proposals aren't moving. There was some movement on two of them earlier but neither has responded to my reply last week about what they needed to do to get things moving.

Ah well. Back to business as usual. But that's OK as I'm ready to get back to the casting work which I haven't had time to work on for nearly a year.

night blooming cereus

A week ago, Sunday last, I noticed that my night blooming cereus had put out a bud.

I acquired this plant a year ago last spring at the library plant swap and it was a little piece of leaf, about 3” x 4”, stuck in a pot. It has grown considerably in the year and a half I have had it but it's been sitting directly on the ground and the snails and pill bugs, of which we have plenty, pill bugs that is, have riddled it with holes and munched on edges.

I thought I would miss the bloom because we went into the city on Monday and didn't return til Tuesday. I was delighted to see Tuesday evening that the bud had not opened.

Wednesday and Thursday it continued to get fatter.

And then Thursday evening it started to open.

I brought it inside for a while for better pictures. The flash was too bright and totally washed out the petals.

It smelled so good, kind of a lemony fragrance.

Eventually I put it back outside for the night fearful that the artificial light would trick it into thinking it was day and it would close up. And also to let it attract whatever moths it could or would.

ask and ye shall receive

I'd be all 'right on, man' except that I've been asking for rain for months to no effect.

This time instead of being hopeful at the weather prediction, I scoffed.

After I made my post last Thursday, we had a glorious sunset and then it really began to cloud over and the sky was actually dripping a little bit of water. I can't even dignify the amount by saying it was sprinkling.

It did rain during the night Thursday though and it rained off and on all day Friday, though never a sustained heavy rain. Mostly what we have been in the habit of getting plus intermittent heavier showers. Except about mid-day a heavy wind came up with a sudden downpour of heavy rain which lasted all of about 10 or 15 minutes and then it just...stopped. Just like that, no letting up, no sprinkling or drizzling, just a downpour one minute and nothing the next.

It knocked over 5 of the plumerias I have in pots.

And it rained more during the night last night too. I went over and checked my neighbor's rain gauge this afternoon...3.25”. Would have liked more but I am so happy with what we got. I stood out under the eave and watched it for a while last night.

Of course I'd been watching it all day while I worked on this full size drawing for a window, a water scene coincidentally, with flowering plants and a heron.

It has been a beautiful day with cooler temperatures and everything looks so much happier and the air is clean and smells so good.

As long as it was still raining I refrained from posting anything about it here or on FB. If I learned anything at all on the river, I learned not to invoke the gods.

Especially when you are getting something you want or like. Plenty of time to be grateful and thankful after the event.

late summer

It is just so hot and dry here, still. That week in NY has ruined me. It has made me less tolerant of the late summer heat this year. I think if it was spring, coming out of winter, instead of late summer, I would be enjoying the same temperatures.

I've been waiting for it to cool down a little before I tend to late summer chores in the yard because in no time at all my few efforts send me back into the house, dripping sweat.

I know the wheel is turning. The sun no longer sets behind my neighbor's house. Some leaves are starting to fall and I need to rake or sweep the concrete apron in front of the garage. The pecan trees have been dropping green pecans for weeks. The pampas grass is blooming. The titmice and chickadees empty the teacup feeder nearly every day hoarding the sunflower seeds for winter, as if the teacup will disappear. Most of the summer bloomers have gone to seed and everything just looks so tired. The cotton in the fields has been harvested and the farmer just plowed under the stubble from the corn harvest.

We are still in a drought cycle. This summer worse than last but not as bad as two summers ago. Not tree killing drought when millions of trees died. But it is dry. The sky fills with clouds but only teases. Whatever the weather patterns are, they have changed and the rain passes over us. I can't even remember when we had a good hard rain or a day when it rained all day. Most of the showers we get, when we get anything at all, last about half an hour.

I water outside every day but lately, it's not enough. I just can't water enough. I soak the white ginger one evening, letting the hose run, letting the water soak in and 48 hours later, the leaves are curled and the ground is hard again.

My two confederate rose bushes that were so beautiful and amazing last fall, came up diseased this spring. One of the bushes was partially affected last year but this year it was both of them completely. Early summer, I cut them back to the ground thinking maybe they would come out healthy. The new growth came out gnarly and stunted and while a volunteer from last year has grown to 8' over the summer, these barely got 18” tall. I took a section to the garden club meeting, the first of the season, last week. No one could tell me the problem. The speaker, a master gardener, said aphids but I know it's not aphids because there aren't any. I didn't argue with her.

I came home and cut them to the ground again.

The only oasis is the turtle pond and the water lily pond. Big Mama patrols with her posse of goldfish and four little frogs have taken up residence with the water lilies. A steady stream of bees and wasps help themselves to a drink.

The little frogs are used to me now and no longer jump away when I come to pull the string algae and aging lily pads out of the pond.

And the morning glory bush is in full bloom. I love these gorgeous morning glory like flowers and like morning glories, they close up by mid-day.

road rage

We went into the city yesterday to do two small quick little jobs. The two of them took about four hours and the people came and picked them up all on the same day and we packed up to skedaddle back home. Then I remembered that I needed to find some previous art work for the full size drawing I have to do this week before we head back next week to do that job so it took me about half an hour to rummage through years of drawings until I found the one I wanted.

Of course, that put us leaving at rush hour but it's really not so bad as we get on the HOV lane and generally whiz right by the main lanes. Until we get to the Brazos River that is.

The HOV lane peters out, dumping us into the far left lane and before we get to the bridge over the river, the 5 lane highway narrows down to two lanes. We merge into what then becomes the left lane, cross the river and continue on our way.

There are two entrances onto the highway after the river and before the exit for Rosenburg/Richmond, two towns that have merged and will soon be butted up to Sugar Land (so named because there used to be a big sugar factory there) which used to be a small town until it became a chichi suburb of Houston.

Once past Rosenburg, it's another 30 minutes to home in Wharton.

So we are in the left lane, going faster than the traffic in the right lane, which is pretty full because of the merging from the two entrance ramps and because a lot of commuters exit there at Rosenburg, maintaining our speed when this guy in a white pick-up truck comes up behind us, tailgating us, and gesturing for us to move over, move over into the slow lane where there was another truck next to us.

Since we are still moving faster than the traffic on the right and moving as fast as the traffic in front of us, we stay put. When a gap opens up, he whips in, sticks his head out his window yelling and cursing at us as he passes, and then whips back right in front of us in the left lane and hits his brake.

He's angrily waving his arm out the window and finally lifts it up in the international gesture of 'fuck you', hits the gas, passes a couple of cars on the right and then moves into the right hand lane and about a half mile later he slows to a crawl joining the long line of cars exiting for Rosenburg and it's his exit. Because of the light there, and the time of day, he is barely off the highway when we pass him honking and waving.

The guy had a freaking peace sign on his rear windshield.

OK. Maybe he had a hard day and just wanted to get home, I get that. But really, what was the point of all that anger and childishness when his exit was a half mile down the road and our getting out of his way, even if we could have, would have made zero difference.

meditation

As I mentioned in one of the posts about the residency/retreat, guided meditation was offered at the Center for those interested.  

I was first introduced to meditation in 1970 via TM, Transcendental Meditation.  At the time, TM charged a fee to initiate people into the practice and I guess they still do.  That struck me as fundamentally wrong and, since I was a student with no income, an insurmountable obstacle.  The recruiter at the university where we were enrolled who was trying to get me and my boyfriend (the future Rat Bastard) to sign up assured us that it was only a 'donation' and not required so we made our appointment and showed up with the requisite flower and handkerchief.  It became immediately apparent that the 'donation' was, in fact, required but rather than endure the bad press that would be sure to follow on campus and to spare us all the embarrassment (perhaps), they did in fact initiate us that evening.  

I eventually paid off my $75 fee a little at a time to the guy that recruited us but I have no idea if the money was ever credited to me.

A few years later, I was living and going to school in Chicago and after coming into contact with Ananda Marga (a different story), was introduced to yoga and once again to meditation, a gift freely given.

I returned to Houston and several years later I was going through a very rough patch in my life (jettisoning the Rat Bastard) and was hanging around some TM people who suggested that I get reinitiated to help me smooth out the transition.  They all seemed so serene and together so I made the appointment with the same guy who did the first initiation nearly five years earlier and showed up on time with my flower and handkerchief and waited and waited and waited.  He was over an hour late, had forgotten the appointment, and was unapologetic about it.

When he asked me if I remembered my mantra, I had to tell him no although I did remember the one I had received from Ananda Marga (this was the mid-70s and Ananda Marga had not made it to Houston).  Even though he had it written down in his notebook, he would not tell me what it was and instead told me that I would have to pay again to be reinitiated.

Needless to say, I walked out and never looked back and made my way through the troubled time on my own.

I never developed a daily practice of meditation although I would do so now and then when life got stressful or I needed to reenergize.  However, being at the beautiful Chapin Mill Center with their beautiful Zendo, I showed up that first morning for the guided meditation.

Most of us, I think, showed up that first morning, and Waymon gave a short talk about Buddhism and Eryl gave us a short instruction in the sitting, posture, breathing of the meditation they were going to lead us in.  It was very carefully presented without any sort of religious connotation as they were careful not to alienate persons with religious beliefs.

We did a short 10 minute meditation, focusing on and counting our breaths, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 and then backwards back to 1, eyes open but cast downward as Eryl explained that this was a waking meditation and the light on our retinas would help keep us awake.  We wanted to meditate, not sleep.

They described the goal meditation as returning to pure awareness which is our original state, to turn off the active mind and just be.  Of course, the active mind can be very insistent that you pay attention to it so when thoughts would intrude you just recognize it and then let it go, when you lose count you simply start over at 1.

After our first 10 minute seated meditation, we did a 5 minute walking meditation, and then another 10 minute meditation.  The next day, and every day after that, we engaged in a 20 minute seated, a 5 minute walking, and another 20 minute seated meditation.  The second day they both also gave short talks about meditation and Buddhism.  

The third day I did not participate.  I had not been sleeping well and thought, when the alarm went off, that I would sleep in that hour.  Which I didn't.  Sleep, that it.  Eventually I got up and went to breakfast.  I probably would have felt better rested if I had gone to meditation instead of just being wakeful in the bed.

One of our group is a Buddhist and she was asking them about Zen Buddhism practices and so on subsequent days, they employed a wood tool and a bell to start the meditation, we would bow to each other after each of the meditations, and they ended the last one with chanting the Four Vows.  By mid week, more than half our group was still participating.

One morning towards the end of our week there, towards the end of the last meditation of the morning, Eryl and Waymon uncovered the drum and bell that were on either side of the Buddha on the platform.

Eryl struck the bell three or four times and the sound waves were physical.  I could feel them wash over me.  Waymon joined in with the drum and they both started chanting.  Unlike the Four Vows, I could only pick out a word or two but I wasn't really trying to understand what they were chanting, and they were both doing different chants, but was rather just enjoying the bell, the drum, and the tonal qualities of their voices, the physical sensations of the sound.  It was an amazing experience.  I stopped counting my breaths and just listened.

I'd like to say I returned a changed person and have been meditating every morning since my return, but, I'm not and I haven't.

But, who knows.  I have one of those round thick cushions at the city house.  I'll have to fetch it home.