...make it and show it!

I was looking at Celtic art and ancient warrior shields yesterday and reading about Creation Spirituality. I had made a leather string sculpture or something with beads and small bits of rock and shell which looked artistic a few days ago and last night, I grabbed it and decided to rework it into a "real" thing I could take with me and "use" instead of just viewing as quaint but "useless" art. Notice my judgements around art. Not pretty. But I'm working on changing that. ... anyway, I came up with something that I thought I could live with -- something like worry beads to have when I want peace, and after reworking it a few times more - when I noticed I had left some beads out or wanted to change the position of a rock, etc., I came up with this. I am very happy with it and immediately thought of sharing it on my blog. Especially since I haven't felt motivated to write much in awhile (for which I apologize).

What I made is really an amulet, or talisman since that's kinda what I was thinking of when I made it. See Wikipedia:

An amulet (from Latin amuletum; earliest extant use in Naturalis Historia [Pliny], meaning "an object that protects a person from trouble"), a close cousin of the talisman (from Arabic طلاسم tilasm, ultimately from Greek telesma or from the Greek word "telein" which means "to initiate into the mysteries") consists of any object intended to bring good luck and/or protection to its owner. Potential amulets include: gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants, animals, etc.; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—(Latin, "go back, Satan"), to repel evil or bad luck.

Below is an Omamori, a Japanese amulet (also found on Wikipedia).

Here's to you discovering your passion and hidden talents! You know you have them! I know I do! Now, let's get out there and use them!
Blessings, Lauradeanne

Happy Christmas and Mystical magical New Year!

I haven't been keeping up with this blog. I don't have anything snappy to say. Just to get out of the house and get some sunshine.

I've been busy on Facebook, other people's blogs, Salon.com, other websites, you name it. It somehow keeps me from reflecting on my own life and writing about it. It's near the end of the year and I'm feeling tired. Time to rest, hibernate even, alternating with getting outside in the sunshine (as I mentioned already).

Don't know if I should continue this blog...there seems to be so many others out there with so much more information. Information overload. I can never know it all, be it all, have it all. All I can have is this one piece of ground here (I mean that metaphorically). Scattering myself to the four winds...is not good.

What I want in this winter season is a chance to settle in, to celebrate myself, and "be" in one place, trusting that things will come to me if they are meant to be. Without thinking I have to go out and get them (all the time). Though going out is fun ... it ultimately is distracting from what's really important in my life, what's really going on in the inside. Because I get used to living for that high, rather than living at all levels -- the "in here" experience of being who I am as well as the "out there" experience of seeing who you are and who they are and what that's about.....

This blog did start out as a vehicle for me to practice writing and putting it out there, so I could gain experience in it, so maybe one day I could write a book or something..... I am not the entertainer, though I often wish I were... I am more the thoughtful questioner, the introspective examiner of life's patterns.... I hope you, as the listener, reader, and viewer have gotten something of use from reading my blog.

We all have it in us, I believe, to reconsider the way we live our life, what our priorities are, etc. and are we making room for what's really important to us. I know I have trouble with that. I tend to do what's always been expected of me, or what my usual routine is, and sometimes it takes a Mack truck or a big change in perspective to see how chained I have been to "the way it's always been." We need others in our lives to show us that sometimes. We need time for reflection to see things that we ordinarily miss when we're caught up in the action. We need to think back about why that happened and even if we don't know why, it's good to ask ourselves about it. To start thinking about how it all relates. So we can be the one who puts our life together, and not leave it up to our parents, society, or whatever authorities that you particularly defer to.....

And then....before the sun goes down, it's time to go outside in the sunshine! See you in the new year, if I don't see you before!

Oh what a wonderful poem

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

- Mary Oliver

the land of colors and shadows

...just sprucing things up in my environment, getting ready for the Autumn to step into the space and wisk me away to some swirling, brisker, nippier, and all-that-stuff land of orange-yellow-red fall foliage and the shadows of our deep selves coming up to be acknowledged and released.

There's wonderful magic afoot!

What I think is that when there are no more words (I haven't written in ages), it's time for art.

Enjoy! I drew this around 1988 and enjoyed it immensely.

What a load of junk!

In 1991 the Great Wall of China lost its title as the largest man-made structure in the world to the New York City landfill in Fishkill, New York!

Austin’s own landfill on Highway 290 could swallow up the Texas State Capital today. And they want to expand it.

(I don't know who "they" is, but that's what the blurb said.) (Sorry that I don't have citation for this info. Photo by Chris Jordan.)

Best Environmental Ads -

This pictures says it all. So stark and compelling. What we do with our "outcasts," "throw-aways," etc. The anawim. According to Matthew Fox, Jesus was on the side of the anawim (those without a voice).

Best Environmental Ads - Powerful Environmental Ads - thedailygreen.com Source: thedailygreen.com