Day 316 of Year 2 (Actually Day 321)
I needed to feel this energy of this print today. With so much sorrow and darkness in the world of late the simple fact that the sunrises and envelops us with light each day comforts me. Darkness cannot last, the one constant in life is change.
Day 315 of Year 2 (Actually Day 320)
Tonight I made a print with 6 layers hoping each time it would work but it never came together. I had to force myself to stop and make this posted print for tonight. I will revisit the layered piece tomorrow. Sometimes work needs space to unfold. Tonight's piece is at the opposite extreme, it's under layered. But, that's okay, not every night is a success and success is not exactly my goal. Though I prefer successful pieces, my goal is to stick with the process, listen, and remain present. I am so deep into my garden that it's hard to pull my energy out and work in my studio. I tend to be extremely singled minded so I am happy I am able to keep this project going in the face of my garden's siren song. Tonight's poem relates more to my garden than this print I think, but you be the judge.
O Sweet, Irrational Worship
By Thomas Merton
Wind and a bobwhite
And the afternoon sun.
By ceasing to question the sun
I have become light,
Bird and wind.
My leaves sing.
I am earth, earth
All these lighted things
Grow from my heart.
A tall, spare pine
Stands like the initial of my first
Name when I had one.
When I had a spirit,
When I was on fire
When this valley was
Made out of fresh air
You spoke my name
In naming Your silence:
O sweet, irrational worship!
I am earth, earth
My heart's love
Bursts with hay and flowers.
I am a lake of blue air
In which my own appointed place
Field and valley
Stand reflected.
I am earth, earth
Out of my grass heart
Rises the bobwhite.
Out of my nameless weeds
His foolish worship.
Selected Poems of Thomas Merton https://amzn.to/2M4DVyL
Day 314 of Year 2 (Actually Day 319)
Most of my creative energy is going into my garden right now. When I get to the studio, I always have plans to make flowers and plants but this is what comes out. These prints feel like fragment of a greater image. Once my garden is under control I plan to work on larger sheets of paper to see what happens.
Day 313 of Year 2 (Actually Day 318)
Day 312 of Year 2 (Actually Day 317)
I find it ironic that someone who rarely sees morning makes so many images about it.
Day 311 of Year 2 (Actually Day 316)
I've been spending a lot of time in the garden this week. It is renewing, new life budding everywhere. I'm particularly taken with the weeds. Unwanted and untended but unstoppable, they will have their say. Their vigor for life in the worst circumstances is admirable and inspiring. This print has nothing to do with weeds or gardens but there is something in both that is deeply hopeful and sustaining like a sunrise. My love to all those who are sick or suffering.
A Purification
By Wendell Berry
At start of spring I open a trench
in the ground. I put into it
the winter's accumulation of paper,
pages I do not want to read
again, useless words, fragments,
errors. And I put into it
the contents of the outhouse:
light of the sun, growth of the ground,
finished with one of their journeys.
To the sky, to the wind, then,
and to the faithful trees, I confess
my sins: that I have not been happy
enough, considering my good luck;
have listened to too much noise;
have been inattentive to wonders;
have lusted after praise.
And then upon the gathered refuse
of mind and body, I close the trench,
folding shut again the dark,
the deathless earth. Beneath that seal
the old escapes into the new.
From New Collected Poems https://amzn.to/2XqlI44
Day 310 of Year 2 (Actually Day 315)
“As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul…”
― Hermes Trismegistus
This phrase has had a profound impact on my life and work.
Day 309 of Year 2 (Actually Day 314)
I am really enjoying my time in the studio these days. I hit such a rough patch a few weeks back that I was actually thinking of giving up this project. I thought maybe it's run its course and I have nothing else to say in monotype. But I stuck with it through weeks of feeling uninspired and like I was repeating myself. Then one day without warning this new style came through. Now I feel renewed and everyday I am learning again. It feels like a bit of a miracle that so much growth sprung from such parched earth. This is the lesson given over and over in the studio, radical trust in process. Sometimes it is uncomfortable, but the dry patches are needed to move forward just as the ocean must recede to produce a new wave. It is the cycle of life and creativity.
Day 308 of Year 2 (Actually Day 313)
Lift the Veil
By Kabir, Trans. Rao
lift the veil
that obscures
the heart
and there
you will find
what you are
looking for
Found on https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/K/Kabir/liftveil/index.html
From https://amzn.to/3cPA5p9
Day 307 of Year 2 (Actually Day 312)
Day 306 of Year 2 (Actually Day 311)
Sheep
By Jane Hirshfield
Read it here:
Found on https://readalittlepoetry.wordpress.com/category/jane-hirshfield/
Day 305 of Year 2 (Actually Day 310)
Day 304 of Year 2 (Actually Day 309)
This poem touched me today:
This Is the Dream
By Olav Hauge, Trans. Bly & Hedin
This is the dream we carry through the world
that something fantastic will happen
that it has to happen
that time will open by itself
that doors shall open by themselves
that the heart will find itself open
that mountain springs will jump up
that the dream will open by itself
that we one early morning
will slip into a harbor
that we have never known.
From The Dream We Carry: Selected and Last Poems from Olav Hauge
Found on http://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2014/07/olav-hauge-this-is-dream.html
We all think like this poem and hope. But true change often comes in reverse from the inside out. When the outside world will not budge we can still transform inside.
Day 303 of Year 2 (Actually Day 308)
Today I made eggs for breakfast and when I lifted the pan, something I have done many times, it was just too heavy and it slipped from my hand, broke my plate, and clattered to the floor tossing eggs everywhere. It's sometimes difficult for me to understand the limits of what I can and cannot do because they change from day to day. One day I can do something, the next day it's not possible, and then two days later it could be fine again. The hardest part is not the limitations, it's the uncertainty. Learning to live with this flux has been a wonderful lesson in detachment. I have adjusted to the unknown and learned to live and even thrive. There are a lot of unknowns in the world right now, I share my story hoping to show that it is possible to find a measure of peace even in the midst of a storm. My love to all those who are suffering or sick.
Allow
By Danna Faulds
There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado. Dam a
stream and it will create a new
channel. Resist, and the tide
will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry
you to higher ground. The only
safety lies in letting it all in –
the wild and the weak; fear,
fantasies, failures and success.
When loss rips off the doors of
the heart, or sadness veils your
vision with despair, practice
becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being, the whole
world is revealed to your new eyes
From Go In and In: Poems from the Heart of Yoga https://amzn.to/2z4S7oD
Day 302 of Year 2 (Actually Day 307)