My new journal can be found at www.rheasustar.com

Formulas and Rainbows

When I was young, I was keen on rainbows.

Magic on a rainy day.  

Enlivened by the chromatic dispersion of color...

-white intercepts wet-

-blue higher than red-

The magic just got a little deeper.

Creation reminds us of the times we forgot our redemption.

A promise was made.

Is my promise as strong?

Does my being emit the component colors?

Do I remember?

Or do I now look at rainbows as a new theology - where the magic has turned from a rainbow to NiSIN(CTAi)=NrSIN(CTAr)....?

Let's not fight each other with theology.  Or feel the need to create an explanation of things that we were just meant to enjoy.  To enjoy the magic isn't to lose the formula, it's still there, coursing through the DNA.  It's just much more pleasurable and poetic to look at a rainbow than it is to view a palette of DiSIN(CTAi)=NrSIN(CTAr) in the sky....don't you think?!

Words fall from her lips like burnt umber from a tree in fall.
Sliding
    Gliding
Ever-so-gracefully down to the dewy grass of last nights passions.             

Inspiration, Magic, and Whimsy!

 connectedness

 beautiful leaf art 

 

 “To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.” ― W. Somerset Maugham

 experience

 even in death, there is beauty

lose yourself

 

earthy

 

making the best of those chilly nights

Fall is so full of magic!  Grab a good book, your family, and snuggle into a blanket with cocoa and love.  Experience the wonderment of walks.  Cozy up in warm clothes and get lost in the woods.  Let the explosions of color speak to you, and the whisper of the wind in the leaves caress the softness from inside of you.  Connect with the magic, and you will come alive.

Concrete World

The towering buildings, green shimmer of paint on the roadside signs directing my heap of a van on tires treading concrete.  Passing piles of rubbish and unused vehicles like landmarks on the side of the road.  The putrid smell of industry rolling from large metal smokestacks.  Concrete replacing grass.  Exhaust warnings instead of fresh air.  Man makes conveniences and outcreates himself with new conveniences, abandoning the old in heaps that are now eye sores.  Obsessed with 'better,' we leave 'good' to the landfills.  Boredom and fatigue birth obsessions that we don't have resources to keep up with.  Accumulated junk gets kicked to the curb, then replaced with more of its kind.  Instead of scrubbing the dust from the walls to rid us of the memory of what once was, we find something else to fill the lines. 
A perpetual state of want. 
An insatiable and impossible hunger to feed. 
Man cannot unbuild what's been built.  It has to go clutter some beautiful corner of this earth.  It's in our nature to create.  It's not a matter of shutting down that desire, it's a matter of the integrity of what we're producing.  Let's dump our desire to create into something that adds to the beauty.  Destruction and desolation are at every corner.  So before we buy or build, let's ask....does this matter.  If so...build it, forge it, birth it from your deepest desire.  Otherwise, let your gears keep working, leaving the piles of metal and puddles of oil unspent.  Let's learn to live more intentionally.  Making our world more meaningful, not more needy.  Our dreams of simplification and enjoyment will make each moment come alive and become a creation of its own.  Giving us renewed ambitions and a passion for life.

The white rick rack turns of the ribbing against the floral green and blue flow like the emotions of the generations past.  The back and forth curves, like the daughter of my great-grandmother.  She was strong, learned it from her mama, but the strength turned. My broken and abandoned grandmother took the apron with distrust and control. 

With a family of 10, she nourished them with meals from her garden, she made flannel diapers for her babies, read her Bible, and kept quiet through the boisterous beatings in the night.  Hard and repressed, she gave the apron to my mother.  The movement of the rick rack kept its independence and bordered stubbornness.  The deep pockets, a place to hide her prematurely weathered hands.  The fabric stayed cool, even with the heat of the oven, and internal elevation from all of the rushing, polishing, and folding.  She had an obsession with cleanliness that kept her busy. Avoiding herself, gaining control.

Three generations of women baked their husbands dinner in that apron.  They laid their children to sleep, whispered prayers, and hoped for a better tomorrow.  Like the women before me, I too have hidden myself in housework to keep my loose ends from spilling over.  The delicate white lace in loose loops across my back feels like the only thing holding me together at times.  We are all hurt women who know how to handle spilled milk, but never the mess of  tantrums or unkempt emotions.  I keep my pockets filled with the remnants I collect from my children-- a marble here, a matchbox car there.  When I feel buried in life, I fidget with those things, to remind myself of who I really want to be, despite my inherited inadequacies.

The apron stays tied until the groanings of the children become snores, and the work for the day is done.  Hung on an oxidized nail, crooked from the strength of the old house, down the steps of a white-washed cellar.  The neck hung like a ghost empty of it's soul.  A hauntingly beautiful garment.  It is as it is. The rips and tears are still there; patched over, and mended so skillfully that they are hidden under the hope of love that can still be felt, even under all of the messes.

Inspiration, Magic, and Whimsy!

 

the magic of fall

 

a fairy tale doorway

 

vulnerability 

 

never underestimate yourself

 

a great sweater

 

a sanctuary

 

bringing the outside in

 

 never stop believing in magic