Sunday, February 26, 2012

What Secret Purple Wisdom

 This photo is Samantha Rose out crunching in the snowy yard just yesterday evening.  I see myself there.  I am a little pilgrim stepping quite slowly, going forward on faith's journey.
For A Pause in Lent, Floss and Angela have proposed a focus on the Cardinal Virtues. 
artwork link

 At the beginning of the list is valor: the pursuit of knowledge (that's how Americans spell valor where elsewhere it is spelled valour).
I find the pursuit of knowledge extremely creative.  Just this morning I padded down to my work room and gathered a sampling of books I'd like to dabble in for Lent. 
 The more I learn about literacy and engaging in learning, the better I feel about my own gathering of sources and my random attention to them.  Miraculously, there is always a common thread, a sweet "ah ha" found in my collections of words.  A faith builder, for sure.
 Above is the cross I made this morning.  Standing near the work table, close to the scissors resting on my ironing board and few steps away from my yarn stash, I created a cross from a nice fat pencil and a clothes pin. I wound them together with an earthy fiber.  It is my Lent cross.
 Then I read this:
"Therefore use all that is of earth as a staff of remembrance on your troublesome wandering along the narrow way.  May the whiteness of the snow and the blue of the heavens, the jeweled eye of the fly and the scorching of the flame, and all of creation that meets your senses, remind you of your Creator; but make use especially of what the Church offers you to help you yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness."  The Way of the Ascetics, Tito Colliander
 In my copy of The Book of Common Prayer pictured above I pull out "let each one find you mighty to save".
 This morning as we sat in our green chairs, drinking our morning coffee, talking and praying Bill prayed, "remind me I am a sheep." It's lambing time at Gumbo Lily's and this is my third blog year, joining her as she gleans the pure and earth-close wisdom from the ewes and the babies.  More of my Shepherd-given journey knowledge.
 My newest book, fat and full, invites deep and quiet pondering. Still thoughts.  WORD gifts.
In the book I find Luci Shaw's poem:

What Secret Purple Wisdom

What word informs the world,
and moves the worm along in his blind tunnel?


What secret purple wisdom tells the iris edges 
to unfold in frills?  What juiced and emerald thrill
urges the sap until the bud resolves
its tight riddle?  What irresistible command


unfurls this cloud above this greening hill,
or one more wave - its spreading foam and foil-


across the flats of sand?  What minor thrust
of energy issues up from humus in a froth


of ferns?  Delicate as a laser, it filigrees
the snow, the stars.  Listen close - What silver sound


thaws winter into spring?  Speaks clamor into singing?  
Gives love for loneliness?  It is this
unterrestrial  pulse, deep as heaven, that folds us in its tingling embrace, gongs in our echo hearts.
(From The Angles of Light, Shaw Books, 2000, 27)
This year, in this season of Lent, I will read.  I will create.  I will follow my Shepherd.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Ash Wednesday

 "From dust you have come, to dust you shall return."
Ash Wednesday.  What does it mean to you?
I'm going to join Floss for A Pause in Lent again.  It's almost time (this Sunday).
It's a good time to pull out my Making Crosses book.
Good day!

Monday, February 20, 2012

HUGE Journal Page

 Happy Monday!  Yahoo for the US presidents and a day off for me! Bill's home, too.  (happy face!) 
Remember I was in the mood for collages in my journal?  Well, instead I used the big display board I had in the trunk of my car and made a HUGE journal page.
 First, I covered the board with happy scrapbook stack paper.
 Then, I glued all kinds of pictures on it.  See Jenny the bride? I found it on Bill's computer.
 I had a pile of magazines and books nearby, for inspiration.
 I had a cup of tea and a tiny orange at the ready.
 It is FUN to arrange all the images of sweetness.




 Can you spy Pom Pom up at the top of the photo above?

 I used sheets and sheets of stickers!  I love to stick!  I used pretty big nails and hung this happy masterpiece on our bedroom wall.  It reminded me of my room at home when I was a teenager.  I loved to plaster things all over the walls. 
 Our new blinds came today.  The twenty year old blinds (VERY dusty) broke and I don't like sitting in front of the living room window at night when everyone can see in.  I am in front of students all day and that's about all my private side can handle, so by nighttime I need window coverings!  They look good.  I'm so thankful.

 When I was shopping for stickers, I found two cute gnomes.  Look what this one is holding!  Doesn't he look sweet with Lynn's toadstool house?  Happy!
 Can you see the other gnome?  These are my new bookends.  I had my Gladys Taber books in a tall (more dust!) stack on my night table.  I figured they needed a more honored spot in our house.  I may need to make little cushions for the bookend chairs, but I really like having a fancy set of bookends. 

 In an additional act of "pretty stuff greediness" I bought a stack of lovely  magazines.  WHAT a day off!  Glorious! 
It's very cold but the sky is blue. Thank you!
Tomorrow we have meetings all day at school.  The kids get to stay home.  I have swept, mopped, dusted, arranged, washed tablecloths and played.  My sweet husband is home from far away. Bliss.
So here we go, friends.  We're headed toward the green smell of springtime.  Soon we'll all be digging and tilling up the dirt.  Tina (The Quiet Home) said that in Scotland they say that March can come in like a lamb and GO OUT like a lion!  Ha ha!  We'll see.
The bunny stuff is filling the seasonal aisle at the grocery store, so Easter's coming.
Bless your heart today.  Thank you for coming by for a visit.  (HUG!)

Friday, February 17, 2012

Old Snow Please Go Away

 Day 17 of the Heart Month.  Now that the birthdays and Valentine's Day are over, could the snow PLEASE melt?  Is the garden EVER going to reappear?  February has been too busy for me.  I'd like a little lazy.
Thankfully, we have a three-day weekend.  No events.  Yahoo!  Bill will be home on Sunday and then at the end of March we're going to Disneyland.  Sunshine and warm air.  I love you, California!  
I've always heard that we should plant our sweet peas over Presidents Weekend.  I'll try to dig in the snow and see if it's possible.
I remember making a lion and a lamb when I was in kindergarten one hundred years ago.  March comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb.  Nice!  I'm sorry to sing the summer song so loudly.  Are you ready for spring?

Monday, February 13, 2012

Bears, Flowers, and Sweet Treats

 Edward Bear says, "Hello!  Happy Valentine's Day!" I am up early this Monday morning and I am thinking about all the teddy bears and chocolate (flowers, too!) that will be carried to school tomorrow.  We are going to the computer lab, so it won't be hard to patrol the teddy bear brigade.  "Put it in your locker, please."  
Even though we have encouraged our own children to carry their childhood stuff to their own homes, we still have a basement full of bears.









 I hope you receive some pretty blooms instead.  I am dreaming of garden flowers more than purchased flowers.


Have a little chocolate AND some strawberries.
Today I am going to read the students a lovely book titled Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch.  Have you read it?  It's a feel good story that addresses paying attention to people.  Oh, I love THAT, don't you?  Maybe if we paid more attention to each other, people wouldn't do such weird things to GET attention.  What do you think?  
My Valentine is now in Australia and I don't feel like eating sweets.  I think I will eat more pink grapefruit.  I have been peeling them and marveling at the juicy pink sections, gobbling them up!  
Pass around warm hugs and true encouraging words.  That will make the people in your orb feel cared for.  (BIG HUG and focused attention coming your way this Valentine's Day!)

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Friend Smiles

 I lit a candle for you, blog friends.  Here it is day eight of the heart month and it is whizzing by!  I have a big event at school on Friday evening and I've had to allow all the "to dos" to occupy a good amount of space in my brain lately.  Plus, we've had the heart birthdays to enjoy!  Lunch with my girls was fun!  We wish sweet April could have joined us (Atticus is keeping her quite busy and AWAKE!)

 I must get out and about for some heart viewing in big stores and small! 
 I haven't even taken the time to brew tea in my polka dot Christmas teapot!

 However, I would like to brew a pot of tea for Peter Rabbit AND my friend Kim in California.  She is one the kindest women ever and she sent me this LOVELY BP Journal.  It makes me so happy.  Don't you LOVE the way rabbits look?  They have those strong hind legs and tend to stiffen up when you hold them (unlike rag doll cats!) but they look so beautiful!  What a GREAT animal!


 Thank you, good Kim!  Thank you for blessing little old me!
 Here is my friend Sherrie.  She is an answer to prayer.  She is new at my school, just this year.  I prayed for a kindred spirit and He delivered.  We do a little book club for kids after school on Mondays, we Zumba together, we share ideas and plan together.  It's bliss!  Isn't she pretty? Sorry about my cluttered classroom.  I must tidy up.
 More random stuff here.  I am taking a lot of photos for the "big event" and I am not sure why I opened the staff refrigerator at school and shot this picture, but frozen ice pops DO symbolize HOPE for warmer weather, don't they?  I am SO thankful for my down jacket this winter. 
Here's one of my better bird drawings.  Also, a canoe painting.  I used to draw canoes quite often.  I guess I long for the water.  Well, the snow is dwindling away and I'm glad Bill will enjoy some New Zealand, Australian, and Singapore weather after all that shoveling he had to do!  Whew!
It's library day again, so my students and I will sit in the company of books today and that is a good, good, good thing.
Thank you for popping by to say hello.  I hope you are very well and I hope you have a day full of light and joy!
I'm so thankful for friends!
Oh!  My friend Elaine gave me a friend book a few decades ago.  I'll share a few quotes (kids say the cutest things!)
"A friend leaves an apple on a low branch for someone shorter than himself."  ~ Caren
"A friend doesn't care if you haven't taken a bath in two weeks or ever."  ~ Ricky
"Personally, I think a friend would trade papers with you when he has a 100 and you have a 0."
                                  ~Judy
"A friend is someone you like and care for as yourself."          ~ Walter

Followers