Painting Spring

April 13, 2013 By

spring-color

Water soaked grey sky
pure tones of birch
magnolia, forsythia
spring green leaves
redbud

spriing-colors-in-trees

Raindrop music
fills the air
my paint brush
drips with color

JZR

I made these photographs and wrote this poem back in April of 2008, posting it on the blog I was then tending.  I’m going back through all of the posts now and considering putting together a small e-book to repurpose some of the writing and photography I was doing at the time.

Spring, being the season of rebirth finds me also at work on a new Website and hope to have it up and running before too long.  I’ll let you know more as it progresses.  In the meantime next week will be all about getting my studio cleaned up and getting back to work on my memoir.  There are many new ideas filling my thoughts.

Filed Under: Being Creative, Books, Memoir, photography, Poetry, The Garden, The Seasons Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The Courage Of A Seed

April 9, 2013 By
Water Lily Seed Head, © Joan Z. Rough

Water Lily Seed Head,
© Joan Z. Rough

“In nature, we are quietly offered countless models of how to give ourselves over to what appears dark and hopeless, but which ultimately is an awakening beyond our imagining.  All around us, everything small and buried surrenders to a process that none of the buried parts can see.  We call this process seeding and this innate surrender allows everything edible and fragrant to break ground into a life of light that we call Spring.  As a seed buried in earth can’t imagine itself as an orchid or hyacinth, neither can a heart packed with hurt or a mind filmed over with despair imagine itself loved or at peace.  The courage of the seed is that, once cracking, it cracks all the way.  To move through the dark into blossom is the work of soul.”

Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways To Listen, Staying close to What Is Sacred

 Last Sunday, found me shuffling through a pile of books that I had started reading and put aside because something else called to take their place for the moment.

I had started reading Mark Nepo’s, Seven Thousand Ways To Listen, in early December.  Wanting to preserve the sweetness of the experience of reading Nepo’s words, I opened it daily, reading only a few pages or even just a few paragraphs at a time.  I would ponder what I had just read, savoring the wisdom, as I might a raspberry lozenge that I don’t want to dissolve on my tongue too quickly.

Obviously, it was slow going and in the midst of total chaos and my failed time management in February, I set it aside until things calmed down and I could once again tap into the richness of Nepo’s writing.

Sunday, I opened the book slowly to the page where I had left off, starving for a shot of spiritual wisdom. I sat in my reading chair, while a chorus of birds sang just outside my window, and read the words above.

It was like a homecoming … finding a long-lost relative who I haven’t seen in years.  I was awed by the words and found myself rereading them over and over, filling up the empty spaces in my heart that had been drained over the past month or two.

I am so ready to begin reading just a bit of this book again every day … without rushing, so that the words settle in my soul and I again carry within me the courage of a seed.

What are you reading?  Do you have a book that you cherish and read only a few sentences at a time?

Filed Under: Books, Healing, Kindness, love, Matters of the Spirit, Mental Health, Navigating Through Life, Quotes, The Seasons, Wise Words Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Winter

January 25, 2013 By

DSCF0750On this day thirteen years ago, I wrote the following entry in my journal.

“I love the winter landscape when the eye of God seems to be everywhere, and snow is a white backdrop for the dark forms of trees.  I see things I never notice in the summer … fallen trees, leaning trees, trees growing up tall and straight. The tension in the patterns. When there is no snow, we see only gray on gray, brown on brown, black on black. The smallest details fade, melt into the background. Today would be a perfect day to go for a walk in the woods, to pay special attention to the visual structures the snow provides.”

DSC01859While I love bold colors and the warm seasons, when the garden is filled with flowers over a lengthy span of months, I also love the contrast of winter. It is when there is snow on the ground and the trees are bare, that I become aware of black, white, and the multitude of grays in between. I consider the composition of the landscape that I miss during the other seasons when it is hidden by foliage.

At no other time of year is the structure of the natural world so observable. Just a few days ago, when the sky was an ashen gray and rain splattered through the gutters along the roof’s edge, I examined the silhouette of a trees dark branches against the colorless sky. From my window, I marveled at the way the limbs spread out into empty space. I was reminded of blood vessels in the human body or the bronchioles within our lungs, that branch out from larger vessels, then taper off, narrowing into the smallest of twigs where buds burst forth as spring unfolds.

As I work on my memoir, I read through old journals … words that I wrote long ago, during other seasons of my life.  I am struck by the patterns and structure … the way my thoughts form on the page. Though time speeds by and I am miles from where I was thirteen years ago, the footprints and observations I chase after remain as they were and the mysteries I follow never end.

Do you keep a journal?  Do you go back and read them again, years later?  What do find that has changed?  What has stayed the same?

Filed Under: Matters of the Spirit, Memoir, Quotes, The Garden, The Seasons, Time, wonderings, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Winter Garden

January 15, 2013 By

DSC01565“Go into the garden and try to learn the world that surrounds you.  Look at how you’ve placed a stone.  Now the trees and shrubs are bare you can more easily see how they harmonize with the garden.  Imagine.  Let the images in your mind be companions to your practice.  Don’t think of the coming year and what it will bring, rather settle into the now of this season.  Rest, reflect, prepare.  Listen.  There is a story the earth has to tell you.”

Patrick Lane,  What the Stones Remember

Filed Under: Quotes, The Garden, The Seasons, Trees, Wise Words Tagged With: , ,

Living Simply

November 17, 2012 By

I thought yesterday was October first and here I am preparing for Thanksgiving.  Why do I feel like I’m living in a time capsule that moves forward at a gazillion miles an hour?

As a little kid, I felt time moved too slowly.  Adolescence was the worst.  All I wanted was to be grown up and out from under the boundaries my parents set up for me.  During my twenties it sped up a bit. But being the caretaker of two little people, I still felt pretty limited.  Once those little ones were in school, the pace picked up from that of a turtle to that of a hungry dog anxious to be fed.  Once Mark and Lisa left home there was no stopping the hours from rushing to the finish line.  These days I get up in the morning and before I know it, it’s time for bed.  There are never enough hours in the day to do all of the things I put on my list of daily intentions. It can be so very frustrating.

I want things to slow down a bit now, thank you very much and I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way. Most everyone I know complains about there being too much to do in too little time.  While we whine about our computers being too slow, we wish for the time to take a nap, soak in a bathtub filled with bubbles, or simply lounge about, dreaming of what a real vacation might look like.

Today is my seventieth birthday.  It’s once more time for me to stop my craziness and think about what is most important to me.  Is it more pressing for me to spend my time and money accumulating more stuff and being seen at every community event? Or is it more important for me to slow down and smell the proverbial roses?  What about seeing friends for lunch or going for long walks in the woods or through streets crunchy with falling leaves? Do I need to go see every movie that is now playing at Charlottesville’s new fourteen screen movie complex this very week? Or might I stay at home, sitting in front of a fire, with a good book, snuggled up with my dog, Sam?

This past year, I seem to have opted for the long walks and the good book with sweet Sam at my feet.  And even though my pace is slowing naturally as I age, it’s not all that easy to stay in the slow lane.  If I’m running late for an appointment, I find myself swearing at the numerous red lights and the heavy traffic that makes me even later.  And if it’s too cold or too hot, I can easily find myself wishing that the season would move on and bring me more comfortable weather.  What I too often forget about, is living every moment as it arises.

I’m not one who is fond of this holiday time of year.  I do love being with my family and eating turkey with dressing and pumpkin pie, but I’m not happy with the consumerism that I sometimes feel wants to devour me.  Now Black Friday is set to begin Thanksgiving evening.  Will we now call it Black Thanksgiving? Those who have jobs in the big box stores that are so popular because of their low prices, are in many cases forced to work on one of the few days of the year that they have off to spend with their families.  A recent news report pointed out two women somewhere in California, already on line at their local Best Buy, so that they won’t miss out on the latest whatevers that they absolutely must have.

I could easily sit here and wish this season away, preferring it were March, and being able to work in my garden.  But where would that get me?  I’d have to skip tonight’s dinner at one of my favorite dining spots, and then hearing our local  symphony orchestra perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major Opus 92.  I’d miss being with my grandkid’s on Christmas day and most likely miss out on a snow storm or two that could transform my world into a fantasy land dressed in white.

It’s true that there may also be some very painful and unhappy days that I might be able to avoid by wishing life away. But if I didn’t enter the darkness from time to time, I’d never appreciate the light and the joy that surrounds me.

Today, I’m reminding myself once again, that rushing my way through life is not worth it. I don’t want to miss the smell of wood smoke in the air, and early daffodils poking their frilly, yellow heads out in February.  Once Thanksgiving is over, I’ll sit down and listen to Handel’s Messiah, while sipping a steamy mug of mulled cider as I write down all of the things I am grateful for this past year.

I’m convinced that I need to live more simply, being present in every moment.  Time here is too short. It should not take cancer or any other dreaded disease to slow me down, forcing me to finally begin appreciating the littlest things that I too frequently overlook each and every day.

Happy Thanksgiving Y’ All!
I hope you enjoy every precious moment.

Filed Under: Animals I Love, Childhood, Dreams, family, Gratefulness, Matters of the Spirit, Music, Navigating Through Life, Thanksgiving, The Garden, The Seasons Tagged With: , , , , ,
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