Ash Wednesday: snakes, crucifixes, and the eyes of Love...
My friend, artist Susan Meyer, came by yesterday with some lovely porcelain crosses she hand-paints. In brainstorming how to hang them, we came up with this chain. We love the look of the descending dove hanging over Jesus' shoulder. I kept the one pictured to the right since it accidentally blurred a bit in the process, lending a kind of mystical shroud element to the design. Susan gets her inspiration for the penwork drawings from ancient icons.
I've been thinking a lot about Jesus on the cross lately. Up until recently, I recoiled at the sight, maybe a harkening back to my Lutheran upbringing. Lutherans don't have Jesus on the cross since He is risen. As for me, it hurts my heart to see anyone that exposed and vulnerable, which I suppose is the point.
This week a dead snake on our sidewalk both repulsed and attracted me. It was grotesque yet beautiful, not unlike a crucifix. In the book of John, just before the famous 3:16 verse there is an odd reference that used to give me the creeps. "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." The story John is referring to comes from the Old Testament. After being rescued from Egypt, God's people sin against Him and Moses by complaining that they had no bread or water in the wilderness. I guess they forgot God was their bread and water. God sends fiery serpents and His people were dying from the bites. Moses confesses their sin and God tells him to sculpt a serpent, put it on a pole, and raise it up. To be healed, the poisoned people had only to look at the bronze serpent. What a strange story and not the tactic I would use to win back friends. Not that I know the mind of God, but I wonder if He was making the choice they had already made more clear, to choose His way or to choose sin.
Jesus, a serpent? May it never be! (As previously blogged, Peter and I are of like mind. He said similar words when Jesus predicted the crucifiction.) I used to avoid the serpent story obsessively for fear of the snakes in it, which to my mind have everything to do with evil and nothing to do with Jesus. But one day I forced myself to read it, not unlike those folks in the wilderness turning their eyes toward the bronze likeness on a pole, and I realized that it is fitting for the image to repulse. In Paul's letter to the Corinthians he writes: "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." So if Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin, as far as symbols go, a serpent fits the bill pretty perfectly.
Bear with me as I ramble. I have been musing on this for days. What astounds me is that when I have the nerve to fully face my shame, to turn my head and gaze into all my failures, meanness, faithlessness, anger, greed, lack of compassion, (the list goes on), turning fully, not stopping short to focus on my guilty feelings, when I am really brave and am ready to see my sin in all it's ugliness, what I am met with is the face of Love.
This is what Christians all over the world remember today, some of them bearing a smudge of ashes on their foreheads. As for me, I'm going to find the perfect spot to hang my cross.
TS Eliot, St. Therese, and shirts of flame...
"The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.”
― T.S. Eliot,
I am reading Heather King's Shirt of Flame: A Year with St. Therese of Liseux. Therese originated the phrase "shirt of fire." King opens the book with the portion of TS Eliot's poem I have quoted above.
Chemo, cosmos, and a mustard seed...
This morning, as I walked up to my door these cosmos greeted me. Don't they look eager and happy to see me? Not too far up the path my sunflowers are getting ready to bloom. I don't usually bother to cover my plants when a freeze threatens, preferring a 'survival of the fitest' approach, but if the weather threatens I have sheets ready to cover them up. They've come too far to give up on them now.
We are nervous about the onset of Thursday's chemo's side effects which were no small picnic last time. My M.O. is to cook all manner of food. I think I might gain 300 pounds before John finishes his treatment. Thankfully, so far his hasn't lost much weight although hair is another story. He keeps saying he is after 'the Bruce Willis look' but John is tall and lanky so I prefer to think of it as 'the James Taylor look.' In proving my point, I found that James Taylor has free online guitar lessons on his website which inspired me to dust off my guitar and give it a go.
After my cooking frenzy, I spent some time in my studio working on designs I'm developing for a local church's gift shop. Since I have loved mustard seed necklaces since I was a little girl, I filled little vials with seeds, then wrapped a tiny piece of leather around the top. Jesus told a parable comparing a mustard seed to the kingdom. It can grow into a mighty tree that will shelter birds. He also talked about the power of a faith even if it is as tiny as a mustard seed. I was so pleased to be able to incorporate my Tree of Life charm so that this necklace has all three elements, mustard seed, tree, and bird: just add faith.
The sunset tonight was so stunning I insisted that John drag himself out front to see. An amazing orangey- pink streaked the sky as the sun set behind trees on the horizon. I don't often take pictures of sunsets because no matter how good the camera or the photographer, pictures never do them justice. I couldn't help myself though, so I grabbed my camera, raising it higher and higher to try and capture the sunset and not the cars and houses in the foreground. While the photo fails, the taking of it, my hands stretched high and heavenward, felt just right.
Happy New Year garden...
This little nativity rests in my succulent garden. I didn't know the plant blooms! I thought it was wilting and upon closer inspection realized it was flowering just in time for Christmas. Everyday the blooms seem to do something new, hanging with impossible faith like little decorative lanterns out in mid-air. An orchid my friend Susan gave me added its voice to the holiday celebration.
My dear friend's niece sings Christmas...
Uploaded on Dec 14, 2011
www.emmanuellelo.com
emmanuelle ©2011 Stoneagle Music
This Christmas, friends and family (disguised as musicians, producers and designers) helped my 12 year old friend, Emmanuelle, birth blind, to share her song with a few more people than come to pot luck and backyard concerts. It took 10 days, a lot of delicious energy and too many smiles to mention. We hope you love it as much as we do. Merry Christmas
Hard to believe an eleven year old wrote the words and music, pure magic!
Tree of life revisited...
I made this pendant during a PMC certification class I took a few years ago. I found it this morning while I was rummaging through my jewelry. It is one of my favorites, but it didn't occur to me until today that it shares something in common with my bottle trees. It was made out of scraps. I had a little pile of bits of PMC paper from a previous project and started playing with them and this is what I got. Now I'm wondering if all of life is like that... bits and scraps and leftovers we do our best to transform into something we cherish.
Current exhibits and fairyland...
Here is a shot of Ann Marie's fairy playland. It makes me feel like Wendy in Peter Pan.
In the upstairs gallery is William Allen Poe's photo exhibit chronicling Calvert County's African American heritage. I loved the quote below.
Glitter will change your life chickadee.
I have a third tree about finished with two more to go. The chickadees have found the bird feeder I put out in front of the artist's house so my heart is full. I love watching them rifle through the mix to pick out the sunflower seeds, kind of like I like to find all the cashews in nut mix. They are much more robust in their approach than I am, using their beaks like pitchforks, casting the millet aside as though it were sawdust.
I'll try to get some pictures of the trees progress. In the meantime here is another shot of the roll of wonder, Joy's Horizon. I can't get enough of looking at this piece. Sargent Art and M Jacobs and Sons have been so generous with materials donations. Please 'Like' them on facebook for me if you get a chance and buy Sargent's glitter glaze. It'll change your life. That's my new line when visitors come to make blossoms for the trees for the public installation: "It'll change your life." Then, when they are finished I say, "Don't you feel changed?" So silly .
Never, never, grow up....
My last customers today in the ArtLab were so much fun. They reminded me of something Madeliene L'Engle said to me at a writer's retreat many years ago: "You know, God is not a grown-up." Thanks, ladies, for helping me remember that I don't have to be one either.
Grace upon grace...
My Natalie drew this for me in one of her classes. It comes from a portion of a passage from the New Testament that reads: "For of his fullness we have all received, and that grace upon grace." I took a silversmithing class at Maitland Art Center several years ago (highly recommend) and made a spinning secret decoder type of ring with 'grace' stamped on one side and 'upon' stamped on the other. I love the symmetry of the words and dot, dot, dot-ness they create as you can endlessly bounce from one to the other: 'grace upon grace upon grace.' My precious ring is lost somewhere in my house but the words it helped freeze in time continue to bounce in my soul like a heartbeat.
Here's to swimming with your clothes on...
I love Peter, the disciple. From what I can tell he is impetuous, adamant, and often mistaken. Try as he might, he often seems to just not 'get it.' I am no Bible scholar, and I confess that I fall so in love with my ideas, I lean toward not caring if my interpretations are right or not. And my fickle heart resonates with Peter. He burst out with pronouncements and whispers denials and is wrong much of the time.
People fault him for the whole walking on water incident, but I didn't see any other disciples getting their toes wet. He has faith, ardent faith, that wavers and is sometimes misplaced. Jesus called him 'the Rock' and in the same story 'Satan.' Seems to me that Peter was all over the board yet spends very little time in-between.
So, they are all crying out in fear, these disciples, when they saw Jesus on the water. Peter demands proof: "If it is you, command me to come to You on the water." And Jesus says "come" and Peter does, but starts seeing all of nature stacked up against his defiance of same. At least when he sinks he knows who to call: "Lord, save me!"
Fast forward to post-resurrection, post-Jesus denying Peter, to the risen Christ appearing to the disciples at the sea of Galilee. It is John who recognizes the man standing on the beach, the one suggesting all the good fishing is on 'the other side of the boat'. John says to Peter, "It is the Lord." Why did he tell Peter? Was he whispering a fact he is just coming to realize? With Peter there is no hesitation, and here comes my favorite part: Peter puts on his coat and throws himself into the sea. (Oh, Peter, my soul-mate. I am ever throwing myself in and out of the fire, in and out of the sea.) But why the coat? I have heard sermons making fun of Peter for this, but I think it was his act of faith, his hope that maybe this time he could walk the short distance to the shore while the others rowed. I think he was hoping to greet Jesus, heart full of faith, arms open for embrace, with water on soles of his feet.
The Giant Despair, Dancing on Crutches, and Pretty Maids all in a Row...
My bride-to-be daughter was wanting something kicky for her bridesmaids to wear and we came up with these octagonal crystal earrings. The bead chain slides through the middle, so they are sort of 'kinetic', going cutely wonky the more you dance the night away. I love designing for special occasions. It nudges my creativity in new directions, like the architectural look of these earrings. Danielle insisted they be short, not chandelier, giving them a throw-back to the '40s vibe.
I had knee surgery shortly before the holidays, expecting to be up and about in a couple of days. Now in my fifth week of 'no weight bearing' I have new sympathy for anyone confined to a wheelchair. Thankfully I only have one week left after which I should pick up a paintbrush to repair all of my banged up walls. I have broken glasses, a rice cooker, spilled innumerable food items, knocked over a lamp and water glass onto a power strip, and almost fallen a hundred times. I am clumsy at best. Put me on crutches and I am a deadly weapon.
All of this has made me quite cranky, but my friends and family are bearing with me. I think they will be as happy as I when I can put one foot in front of the other again. I am reminded of a character in Pilgrim's Progress that I fell in love with as I plowed through Bunyan's work many years ago in seminary. Ready-to-Halt my kindred spirit, joins the journey on crutches. After a great victory against The Giant Despair, he and Feeble-mind celebrate with Christiana:
"Now Christiana, if need was, could play upon the viol, and her daughter Mercy upon the lute: so, since they were so merry disposed, she played them a lesson, and Ready-to-halt would dance. So he took Despondency's daughter, Much-afraid, by the hand, and to dancing they went in the road. True, he could not dance without one crutch in his hand, but I promise you he footed it well: also the girl was to be commended, for she answered the music handsomely."
Here's to a New Year of dancing, dancing, dancing even if it's on one crutch.
Accidental pearls, healing crystals, Ta-da!
I was playing with some new materials and have fallen obsessively in love. Above is a 30 inch necklace made of pyrite and vermeil chain. The large gems are worn to one side for a cool asymmetric yet balanced look. I don't understand why it works but it does. It works so my twenty something daughters each snagged one the minute they laid eyes on them. I am really excited with this new direction in my designs and am hoping to get them up on my site for sale soon ($65). I am reopening my Etsy store too in order to facilitate shopping for everyone.
The necklace features a rough cut pyrite chunk juxtaposed (there I go again) next to a Keshi pearl. While most Keshi pearls today are intentionally formed, originally they happened by accident or mishap when a pearl formed without a nucleus. I love the concept of beauty emerging, as it so often does, when things go wrong.
The third element in the necklace is a 'Herkimer diamond' or double terminated quartz crystal. I love how it is drilled right through the middle causing it to hang in unlikely horizontal surprise.
James chides me that I should not include that both pyrite and the crystal are thought to have beneficial metaphysical properties, and while debunked by science copper is thought to have healing properties as well. I joked with him that I felt so much better after photographing the necklace he might want to consider holding it for a while. Regardless of whether minerals can radiate good karma, I believe beauty does the job all by itself.
The scent of pine.
When I was a teenager, I used to walk out into the woods on my grandparents lake property in northern Wisconsin. Slipping between trees and onto ancient pine needle trails, I imagined myself with nimble moccasined feet, so at one with the earth they keep the silence in tact. Nostrils stinging with fragrant tannic whiffs released by every softly crunching step, I circled up a hill and then descended into a hollow of trees, tall thin birches peppered with oaks. I sat down, leaned against a sturdy trunk, and faced the lake where the water gently lapped the shore, slowed by rounded stones and cattails. “Take off your shoes,” whispered my mind, “the ground you are on is holy.” There was no burning bush, no audible voice, just a momentary thought so subtle I considered ignoring it. Was I trying to force a religious experience on myself? Feeling a little silly and dramatic, I slipped off my shoes and placed them on the ground beside me. In that instant, sunlight hit the rippled water and sent sparkling reflections through the trees, and I was enveloped in flickering patches of light falling like stars, or snowflakes, or angels all around me. I was astonished and have filed this image along with half-a-dozen others, when this world and the next fold in upon each other and I am in two places at once.