Artful Life Moon Circle - Full Moon Check In

photo from www.nightpath.org

I know, I know - I haven't checked in with the moon or this moon circle for a couple of months. I even missed a few moons with my face-to-face moon circle. But we were back together on Tuesday night, G's house was clean and serene as always. I love her clay coloured walls, soft leather furniture, vivid textiles on the walls, smell of incense, beeswax candles, warm woodstove, gentle feminine atmosphere. We snuggled in to the big soft sofas, toasted with red wine, then started spilling. It seems the last six weeks have been thick with experience, some of it really, really challenging. The strength of women amazes me. Between us we had horrible court appearances, financial crises, deaths, seriously ill spouses, work dramas, child dramas, and the usual repertoire of broken dryers, broken cars, needy children, and sundry messes to deal with. Ironically the circle was cut short by a minor child emergency, just as the mother was explaining how she was finally beginning to understand Margaret Atwood's idea of The Edible Woman. Ha! So in the (now waning) fullness of this moon, I just want to take the opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the fullness of our lives, and wish us all the fullness of our strength and powers to live through it all with joy and courage!! If you'd like, I'd be honoured if you'd share in the comments what your biggest challenge of this moon has been, and how you've met it. Happy Full Moon!

Odilon Redon's Buddha - I've probably posted it before, but I love it so much!

I've had a few nights in a row of being up late working - and last night we came home on the 11 o'clock ferry from Winterfest (dinner at the school for my daughter's graduating class) and all the dishes from the cheesecake I made for the potluck were still sitting on the counter, mixing bowls and beaters with congealed sour cream and hardened chocolate, eggshells, butter wrappers, cocoa powder. I washed and he dried. Then I did a load of laundry and returned some e-mails. So this morning I was tired. I stayed in bed for awhile with my light box, my snoring pug, a cup of tea, and my new Shambhala Sun magazine which arrived yesterday. There's a wonderful article by John Tarrant about living with joy through difficult times and loss. I wanted to share a gem from that essay:

When I meditate it's like calling out a spell in a forgotten language. The spell slowly traces the outlines of a door, making the way out visible, even in twilight, even in the darkest, most forgotten prison. When we lose money or get a diagnosis, we might decide that this is a bad thing, but we might be wrong. Uncertainty and the unknown are not things to endure: they are things to rely on. If you don't even consider winning or losing, there will always be a doorway. -John Tarrant in "It Would Be a Pity to Waste a Good Crisis" Shambhala Sun, January 2010.

questions that have been plaguing me lately

will they dry without cracking?

will there be enough for the craft fair?

will people like my new pendants?

will my business (and I) survive the next financial year?

will the sunshine last?

what on earth will I wear to Winterfest Dinner at my daughter's school?

will I have time soon to deal with that huge pile of bark mulch?

why can't I be more disciplined about my meditation practice?

tonight's reading: business, or pleasure?

why is my to do list always so long?

Intimate Windows

The place I live feels so spacious, benign, and beautiful, that I hardly ever think of it as isolated. My community is small, but my social connections are rich. It's all very familiar and intimate, and New happens slowly. It's a backwater, but not a stagnant one. Still, my window on the world looks much the same day to day. Two really important vehicles that bring New and Fresh and Perspective into my world are books and blogs. I have a super active and creative mind, and I'm highly visual and emotional. I don't really ever get bored, but I can get stuck. Stuck for me is more like a mechanical toy in a corner than anything else - my stuck is frenzied and active, and only a new, creative direction can save me. Over the last year or so, I've been bumped out of my corner countless times by the fresh or strange or beautiful ideas of a number of women from all over the globe, whom I have never met! I have had the privilege of observing and being inspired by their lives through the intimate windows of their blogs. When I first started blogging I kept hearing things like "blogs shouldn't be confessional" and "nobody cares what you had for breakfast." It turns out that the blogs I love the most are occasionally deliciously confessional, and that some people have the most beautiful and fascinating breakfasts (like here, here, here, and here.) If you have the nerve to be honest, and the skill to show us the beauty of life through your eyes, then I will be honoured and fascinated to witness. Although each of these women is vastly different from the others, and from me, there are common threads: creativity, entrepreneurship, compassion, artistry, love of beauty, spirituality, strong visual sense, courage, lack of artifice, positivity, talent, love. Here are a few of my CREATIVITY faves - next week I'll feature my LIFE STORY faves:

Tranquility du Jour
I love Kimberley for her indomitable cheerfulness and positivity, her sense of life-as-play, her incredible business savvy. (Washington DC)





fine little day
Elisabeth is just the embodiment of euro-bohemian cool. She has an incredible eye for light and colour, she conveys a strong sense of place, her design skills are enviable, her life is interesting. (Sweden)









Geninne's Art Blog
A life full of charm, serenity, colour, joy. Geninne is a talented illustrator with a quirky and original style, and a model of balancing art, business, home, and family. (Mexico)








Artnlight
Vineeta has enthusiasm, talent, humility, and a great eye for the decorative. Fantastic eye candy, and exotic inspiration (India)









Goddess Guidebook
OK, Leonie is just adorable. I can't explain. Check it out. You too will adore her. (Australia)

I subscribe to a wonderful Daily Inspiration in my in-box (you can, too) from life coach Lianne Raymond. Today, because it is Thanksgiving down south (we celebrated in October) she shared this W.S. Merwin poem, with its powerful theme of mingled hope and despair. I was moved to share it with you:

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals
back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is.

-W. S. Merwin

An Afternoon to Celebrate Women and Creativity

I'm so happy to be participating in "An Afternoon to Celebrate Women and Creativity" on Saturday the 22nd at the Courtenay Museum. There will be a screening of the movie Who Does She Think She Is?, and some time to chat and network with other creative women. I'll be one of the five featured artists, and will be on hand to discuss my work and show what I've been up to lately. This event is organized by lovelies Lianne Raymond and Charlotte Hood-Tanner. Check out all the details here.

My dish, get one here. Christine Mason Miller's wonderful cards, get them here.

Chogyam Trungpa, the brilliant, iconoclastic Tibetan Buddhist teacher, once quipped that the mantra most useful to most Western buddhist students was "Om grow up svaha." Gotta love that pithy tough-love buddhist humour. I don't know what is happening in my stars, but the last little while - month maybe? - has been just filled with all kinds of rich opportunities to Grow Up. All I can do, it seems, is accept these invitations from the universe as graciously as possible. Some little things help. Listening to Jane Siberry's Calling All Angels. Working (lots.) Hanging out with my beautiful daughter, cuddling my dog, talking to friends, leaning on my sweetie (lots.) Coming here and seeing how many of you left kind and caring comments last week (Thank you.) What little things help you get through your own rich opportunities for growth? I'd love to hear.

lately I have....

set up this vignette on my windowsill to welcome prosperity...

made these adorable buntings after I saw Gennine's and had to have my own...

made cranberry relish with orange zest a while back for our Canadian Thanksgiving...

New Pretty Handmade Dishes...

I've been busy. These are new. I like them. I also have some with fishies on them, I'll post soon. A few of these are now up in my Etsy Shop.