Red Cardinals and Car Alarms

A red cardinal in Winter.

When I was teaching in West Virginia last June I saw my first Red Cardinals.  I didn’t realize that they were ground feeders and they would just be standing around on green grass, like little red ornaments, eating away out in the open.  They’re so bright that I had assumed their behavior would be more shy-like to protect themselves from predators.  Here in Washington State our state bird is the bright yellow Goldfinch, but you rarely see them because they are so shy.  They have to be careful because they are easily seen and they nest later then most other birds in our area.

Washington State's bird, the Goldfinch.

Okay, so I mentioned this to some people that I was with, many of whom live on the East coast.  The comment in reply was that they were annoying birds.  I thought they were so pretty they couldn’t be annoying…Like our Stellar Jays here in Washington state which are bright cobalt blue and whose call is rather raucous.  They’re so pretty that their call is forgiven.

Anyway, I was looking up bird calls.  Yes, you can do that online at www.audubonguides.com for free.  There has been a bird I’ve been hearing this last summer that I don’t immediately recognize  so I thought I would see if I could hear it at Audubon Guides.  I think I was hearing a Wrentit maybe.   Okay so I started just listening to birds because it’s fun (YES I get to do things for FUN) and I selected the Red Cardinal.   What a surprise!  Many parts of it’s song are what car alarms are taken from!  How sad that they would choose to make a bird call become annoying this way.

Stellar Jay

Dodging Bullets

Ever get the feeling that you might be on some list somewhere for some rotten reason?   I know that feeling.  Everyone that knows me believes there is a ‘Meredith Arnold Vortex’, I have an invisible ‘V’ on my forehead and I have proof there is yet, it seems to me that to believe in it makes it stronger, more real, allows it to be  so I don’t tell that story so much anymore.

That story is about how we take so many things for granted, for example:

When YOU push the button for the elevator, you  just know there is an elevator coming.   So you step back and wait for the inevitable.

I don’t.  I just know that I’ve pushed a button and I hope that the door in front of me will open and there will be an elevator but I know that some day it will be something else…or may never come…or instead, the door will open and out will pop a Genie, a fire breathing dragon or there will just be a big black hole or…

You get the drift?  Are you catching what I’m throwing?

So how does one dodge bullets if one thinks this way?  Thinking this way means you never know what’s next, what will happen from moment to moment.   This is what I call ‘untethered’ thinking.  Untethered thinking feeds on itself and I have to catch myself before I go there.  Hence, not much is said about that old Vortex these days.

Unique Character

I’ve been thinking about the unique characters that we were exposed to with the advent of television.  Yes, I remember when NO ONE had a t.v. which is a very weird thought, really.

Anyway, thinking about those characters like Peter Lorre, Neville Brand (low gravelly voice/a main character in ‘Laredo’), Everett Edward Horton (narrated ‘Fractured Fairy Tales’ on the ‘Rocky and Bullwinkle Show’), Hans Conried (also did some voice overs for Rocky and Bullwinkle), Dom Deluise and more.  Where are our characters now?  I just can’t think of any except for the unique Guvnor (I’ll be back) Arnold, whose voice you can pick out of a commercial easily if it were in one.

Sounds are important.  Characters are also important.  They’re the ones that let us know it’s okay to be different, (how can you not?).  They’re the ones we remember above the run of the mill, vanilla, sameness that is the context of the majority.  They’re the ones that make me realize why it’s important to think about what you want to be known for.  Would you like to be remembered for your voice, your work, your personality, how you speak or your spirit?  It’s all good but you must know that you get to pick which it will be.

Do You Remember: Mother May I?

Hubble telescope picture.

When I was a kid and everything was possible, we used to play Red Light, Green Light, Statues, Hide and Seek, Mother May I, and Tag outside all during Spring and Summer.  You could hear us kids yelling “Red Light!”, a pause and then “Green Light”, the usual amount of giggles as everyone tries to stand still when red light is called.  It seemed to last most of the year and I can remember how long the days seemed to be – they would last forever, I thought.

I used to hear this in the neighborhood as I got older and even in the first neighborhood I lived in after moving out of my parents house.  But I haven’t heard any of these games being played out in the neighborhood in years.  I suppose between television and computers, kids don’t go out into the neighborhood and play together so much.

I think that’s sad.  One of the things that these interactions taught us kids was how to deal with each other as a group.  It also taught us about who was the leader that day, that week, how to balance when standing still and how to play with each other even if we didn’t all like each other.  There just wasn’t anyone else in the neighborhood so I learned how to be part of the group regardless of people preferences.   These are the diplomatic skills that I use to this day.

These things taught me that I will have to learn how to work with people even if they’re not my cup of tea.  To be able to separate out personal preference from work is an important lesson and one that I see missing more often as the years roll by.  I think it’s important to remember that personalities are as varied as there are leaves on a tree,  (they really aren’t all the same!).   We won’t just love everyone we meet in our lifetime and it would be ridiculous to expect that everyone would love us.  The key is to keep focused on the task at hand, not whether we like each other.  It’s always surprising to find how much better things work when we stay focused on the goal especially when we learn how to balance when standing still.

Being Present in Your Life and With Others

Detail: I collaged my desk at ArtWorks. It makes me happy.

Something I try to keep in mind is to listen with attention instead of listening with intention.  If I’m waiting to interject whatever I have to say then I’m not really listening, right?  So if I just pay attention and stop trying to figure out how I can add to the conversation or respond to what’s being said, then I’m really listening.  I find that people really appreciate being heard.  This is being present in others lives which is something that Hospice teaches a lot.

One time I asked Linda Goff, a good artist/friend of mine no longer on the planet, how come she was always so quiet when we were in a crowd.  She said that she had learned that people don’t really listen so why bother to speak?  I was upset to hear her say this because any time she ever said anything it was defnitely worthy – at least to me.   Even if she was just burping, (which she did in public often, mischevious, irreverent soul that she was!).   So I learned from Linda about listening more because I wanted to be sure she knew that I was listening to her.  It was a way I could let her know she was important to me.  Once in awhile I catch myself really listening and I know that this is a gift that she gave to me that will last my lifetime and it’s a gift that I am passing onto others.  You know: the gift that keeps on giving.

Being present in your own life is also about listening with attention.  Listen to yourself, hear what you really feel, DO less, BE more.   In the being you are paying attention. In the being you are present in your life.  If you are always doing then you’re focused on the end result (like running according to a schedule, pursuing goals).  Allow yourself some being time.

I know artists understand this well.  When they are creating art there is no time sense.  Hours can go by without being aware of it.  They’re in that being place.  They’re present in the being without intentions, schedules, requirements or needing to hear or to be heard.   No explanations are required, no justification for what you’re doing.  It is what it is.

That’s a world that ‘just is’ whether you’re being or enmeshed in doing, there is always a world there that *just is* waiting for you.  All you need is to be.

Happy Birthday Linda, wherever you are. (Aug. 9, 1952 – May 6, 2003)

Get a Handle on “It” Whatever “It” Is

Do you have some wish about something, anything?  Like do you wish you had more time?  More money? More space?  More excitement in your life?  More fun?

We spend an awful lot of time thinking about what we DON’T have and that doesn’t get us to what we want TO have at all.  In fact, it’s the wrong way to go entirely.  It just gets you more of what you don’t want.  Read on and see what I mean:

What if you thought more about what you do have?  What would happen?  Would you realize that you have a lot?  Have enough?  Have more then plenty?  Maybe you would see that you have so much that you decide you don’t need another thing?  Maybe thinking about all that you do have can either be liberating or confining,  (if you have too much!)?

When I was working in Tacoma last week I decided to look at it as a new experience that I was going to make positive no matter what.  So despite the crazy rush hour traffic on Friday afternoon, the same long drive three days in a row after working all day elsewhere, etc. I concentrated on other things like how beautiful the weather was, how good the music in my car, how I wanted a good parking place once I got to my destination and so on.  Interestingly, I was able to park right across the street all three days in a row.  Isn’t that wild?

Even if this version of positive thinking doesn’t account for the great luck on parking I have to say that it sure made my day a better quality one then if all I did was worry about the traffic, how it took me 45 minutes just to get through downtown (normally a 3 minute drive), worrying about the time, the parking, having to drive and other complaints.  It reinforced my perspective on choosing what my quality of life is by deciding it for myself no matter what.

So I encourage you to choose what your quality of life is every day.  Decide for yourself.  It is *your* life after all and every time you leave it up to the people or circumstances around you, you’re choosing to be at the mercy of everything outside of you instead.

The Renee Award

 

   Marie awarded my blog with the Renee Award some time ago and I’m finally getting around to posting about it…   

    The Renee award was created by two friends of Renee to honor her.  Renee’s blog, http://circlingmyhead.blogspot.com/  is extremely worthy to read, if you get a chance.  Her most recent post is to her now adult children  made me think of how wonderful it must be to have her as a Mother.  I don’t know a lot of parents that would do this for their children this way and it really is beautiful.  

   I should tell you that Renee has stage 4 cancer so has a different perspective going on.  I understand how chronic, life threatening illness really hones down your life to only the most key, and important stuff.   I have a more normal life now and can see things from two sides of that fence.  I get how we forget the ultimately important stuff day to day when there isn’t something like this to remind us to stop sweating the small stuff or delight in the littlest things.  Still I think we should make the effort to do whatever we can to remind ourselves that this is our life, here and now, and if you don’t choose to live it how you want then how are you living it?  If not *your* choice, then whose?

  Maybe a touchstone in your pocket that you carry around every day would be a reminder to you to stop for a moment, breathe and be.   One of the questions I ask myself throughout the day is: will this really matter when I’m 87?  How about an hour from now?  It weeds things out quickly for me!

  Marie’s comment on her blog about the Renee award is lengthy but she ended it with: Welcome to the Singe Sisters Sorority at the Hellinback College of Hard Knocks.  =)

  I love you Marie and am honored.  Thank you for all the stuff we’ve traveled through together through the years.  Thank you for being my family. I can’t tell you how important that is to me and how much respect I have for you.  I will always want the best for you, whatever you deem that to be, no matter what.   xxoo

New Directions and Addictions

Felting Fashion by Lizzie Houghton is due out August 4, 2009.

        OMIGOSH!  It’s really incredible how one thing leads to another. It’s like the old nursery rhyme “For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost”.    So who knew that not being able to knit was keeping me blind to a bunch of possibilities? When I was young and the local yarn shop tried to teach me how to knit, they realized that I was left handed so all they had to do (they thought), was sit in front of me and have me copy what I saw. I learned many years later, as an adult, that what I thought was knitting was actually purling.
      So here comes a couple of months ago, I started loom knitting.  As it began to dawn on me that I could knit, actually knit, the wheels in my head started to turn like crazy.  I started working with wool because I wanted to felt.  Then I bought natural colored wool because I wanted to dye my own colors for the felted pieces.    

Excellent book 'complete feltmaking' by Gillian Harris

       I wet felted some knitted purses and then I needle felted some things that I would like to make into jewelry. The needle felting was my downfall though. I ruined my hands with the repetitive motion and for the last two weeks I’ve been unable to do a lot with them. Tomorrow I see a hand surgeon. HMPH. 
     So today as I’m chomping on the bit to finish this felted project and do more needle felting and mulling over what to do, I mentioned to my husband about needle felting machines. I explained to him that they are pretty expensive, like a sewing machine but more then I would pay, and how I would like to move along on my projects. He pops out with a simple question: why can’t we convert your old sewing machine into a needle felting machine? So that sets me off on the internet to see what anyone has to say about that and lo and behold! There is such a thing as a needle adapter for converting a sewing machine into a needle felting machine. I even found the adapter on Ebay at a discount from regular price with extra needles and foam. Apparently you pull the bobbin assembly out and the feed dogs/plate on the machine. In their place you put high density foam in the cavity so that the needles will sink into that. It keeps them from breaking.    My old sewing machine is a cast iron special from Mongomery Ward and weighs a ton. It should be able to stand up to whatever I throw at it. It is a two tone, aqua/teal, VERY retro and I can’t wait to be able to needle felt again. I know my hands will appreciate it, too!

     On that note, when we went up to Vancouver day before yesterday I didn’t even take my laptop with me. It was weird to be without it since it goes everywhere with me but my hands appreciated the break. I did loom knit another purse in the car going up and back though.

  We had a wonderful time and the weather was absolutely beautiful.  I’ll post on that next.

Land of Enchantment

BeadFest Santa Fe! WooHOO!

 

 

       I’ve recently returned from teaching in Santa Fe and Miami with a short side trip to Orlando to visit my friend Cami.
This trip was a real treat all around and I was able to catch some good pictures. I spent more time in Santa Fe than required for some vacation time and we visited some beautiful places.

 

 

 

 

 

Houses in a cliff at Bandalier, New Mexico

   Bandalier is an awesome place.  I always get the feeling of immense history and  spiritual presence when at Bandalier, not to mention the amazing scenery.  We really do live in a beautiful world.

Prayer flags on the wind at the Tibetan Project in Santa Fe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

              The Tibetan Project on Canyon Ave. in Santa Fe has always been a favorite place to visit.  My first visit there I bought Buddha’s hand open to the sky, a bronze casting which sits in my studio to remind me that the world is much bigger than I am.  There were hand knotted rugs piled everywhere and laughing children playing on and around the rugs.  I was hoping to visit the center again but they were closed this time.  However, the garden of Buddhas is there for anyone to wander through and the gallery next door has a wind sculpture garden that is really amazing.  It’s always nice to visit Kuan Yin, too!

Kuan Yin and my best friend.

   New Mexico really is the Land of Enchantment! It’s really worth a visit if you’ve never been: there isn’t any place like it on earth.

  Until next time…

Fabulous Artistic Inspirations!

 Wow, what a week and I still have another to go in my crazy 12 or more solid days of

 

New etched metal and polymer clay pendant

working.  Thank goodness it’s all about ART or I would be a raving looney (I’m not already am I?).  In these flurries of intense work times when I am mentoring others more than in my studio making my own stuff I have to sleuth out quick shots of inspiration to re-tool my own spirit, keep me going “to the other side” so that I am not diminished in my passion to help others find their path and their voice.  This helps me to get to my studio time still awake and eager to get to that work instead of fried, crispy and burnt toast-like.  Here are some of the places and things that help me retain my energy and strength to do and do and do:

www.workshopontheweb.com – Online newsletter that offers quite a few free taster articles on mixed media exploits! Just looking at the pix is inspiration and perhaps I’ll have time to try out the techniques, too.

www.silverwave.com – Native American, New Wave and more music. Free mp3 samples to listen to. Some of this music is haunting.

www.allartsupplies.com – probably the best priced supplies around in many respects.  Tons of different categories, mediums, etc. that I love to look at and think about when I have a moment.  This inspires me to focus on what I want to do when I get the chance.

  I love resources and being able to find a thing or learn a thing.  I hope these places inspire you to go forth and create!