[Jackiejdajda]

hollyhunter

There is usually something real in their posts and something I can identify with. Hope you guys don't mind when I reach out? I don't really have anyone else.

I can't really talk about this stuff out loud..
I tend to just let it go and get on with my books and my work.. and my day after I sign off here..

But keeping all this in.. helps nothing..

Week two.. paying attention.. whew..
I have this saved in a file on my computer..

page 52/53 The Artist Way.. Julia Cameron.


My grandmother lived with that man in tiled Spanish houses, in trailers, in a tiny cabin halfway up a mountain, in a railroad flat, and, finally in a house made out of ticky-tacky where they all looked just the same. “I don’t know how she stands it,” my mother would say, furious with my grandfather for some new misadventure. She meant she didn’t’ know why.

The truth is, we all knew how she stood it. She stood it by standing knee-deep in the flow of life and paying close attention..

My grandmother was gone before I learned the lessons her letters were teaching: survival lies in sanity and sanity lies in paying attention. Yes, her letters said, Dad’s cough is getting worse, we have lost the house, there is no money and no work, but the tiger lilies are blooming, the lizard has found that spot of sun, the roses are holding despite the heat.

My grandmother knew what a painful life had taught her: success or failure, the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

In a year when a long and rewarding love affair was lurching gracelessly away from the center or her life, the writer May Sarton kept A Journal of a Solitude. In it, she records the coming home from a particularly painful weekend with her lover. Entering her empty house, “I was stopped by the threshold of my study by a ray on a Korean chrysanthemum, lighting it up like a spotlight, deep red petals and Chinese yellow center……
Seeing it was like getting a transfusion of autumn light. “

It’s no accident that May Sarton uses the word transfusion. The loss of her lover was a wound, and in her responses to that chrysanthemum, in the act of paying attention, Sarton’s healing began…

The reward for attention is always healing. It may begin as the healing of a particular pain – the lost lover, the sickly child, the shattered dream. But what is healed, finally, is the pain that underlines all pain: the pain that we are all, as Rilke phrases it, “unutterably alone.” More than anything else, attention is an act of connection..


snipped some page 54

Writing about attention, I see that I have written a good deal about pain. This is no coincidence. It may be different for others, but pain is what it took to teach me to pay attention. In times of pain, when the future is too terrifying to contemplate and the past is too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to right now. The precise moment I was in was always the only safe place for me. Each moment, taken alone, was always bearable. In the exact now, we are all, always, all right.



When I get into some bad places I think of Julia Cameron's grandmother and how she taught her to pay attention to right now.. I have an image of the woman.. and I copy that image..
Lately we had some coyotes around.. their haunting sound at nite.. I love to hear it..
But when the cat is out.. we get scared..
hubby goes down stairs and opens the door so cat can come in and he loves our cat so much he left the door open to the apartment..
I shut the door to the apartment.. I did not want coyotes in bed with us..
eating cat.. maybe..

But thats the thing.. staying in the now..

Jackie

[kakuehl]

If crazymakers are that destructive, what are we doing involved with them?

Now there's a question I ask myself a LOT! The answer for me is that God has called me to ordained ministry. Right now the forums are part of my ministry (and NOT the craziest part of it, LOL!) I believe that I am called to love as unconditionally as God loves me.

There are forums and threads that I avoid - where my "wisdom and insight" is not welcomed (LOL). So I thank you for your compliments, Jackie.

[quantum]

Sorry to go back on topic here

I think I'm getting somewhere here. I decided to forgive myself for the things I was struggling with, to go forward and come back to them when I'm ready. I ended up working through much of chapter 2 today which felt great! And had a chance to start reading chapter 3 to see what was next.

It feels good, and that's great!
I just started chapter 3 and she talks a lot about things falling into place. I have definately experianced that in my life. A couple of years ago a woman I knew from the open preschool asked me what I wanted to have for my job. I said I was working with quilts and wanted to continue and teach classes and make money that way. She snorted a bit and said 'yes nice hobby but what do you want to DO for your JOB'.
Needless to say, she's not a friend.
And I'm progressing quite well with my teaching AND my quilts thank you very much.

Anyway I guess the key for me was realising I wasn't the only one struggling with working through this book and not to get too bogged down.
I've got time for that later I'm sure!

[hollyhunter]

Its a great suggestion to report when someone is personally disrespecting someone. We all need to express anger at times but not at the expense of someone else. I hope this thread will be psitive and uplifting. OK Back to the AW!

One of the tasks was to write a thank you letter to someone who inspired your creativity and send it to them.I wrote a letter to my friend Julio and I wanted to share it here because I can't send it.

Dear Julio,
OK, so your dead now but I always think of you down by the school yard with Paul.HA!HA! I can still see you dancing around the room with that rose between your teeth in defiance of the pain of a gouty foot. We all laughed so much. You laughed so hard I thought you might need 911 when I explained that Margaret wouldn't pose nude because she had pimples on her a__. Hard to think of you in a hospital dying of pneumonia. OK, you were 94 by then, it was time.Thank you for showing me you could still be a child at 89. Your art was so playful,full of life and color and you made great coffee.Secret recipe you said. You told me about art and being creative but you took the secret of your coffee with you.You gave me enough inspiration in that summer to last me a lifetime. Why didn't it? You exclaimed how hard I must have been working behind your back to have improved so much with my drawing. In reality, I'd spent my days on the beach playing. I was inspired on one occasion to pick up a pencil and sketch pad then brave enough to show you the results. You told me to keep working as my efforts were paying off. I didn't keep up my art so much. I go to starbucks for a great cup of coffee and just today I googled your name and saw your face again. It made me remember you and smile.

[quantum]

Love it Holly! Wish I'd known Julio, I feel like I do a bit now.
:-)

[hollyhunter]

I was at the bookstore today and picked up "love letters from the devine". I spent the rest of this day absorbed in it as it spoke to my heart so much. I hope my heart speaks back! lol. Focus is impotant and one of my weaknesses.

I'd love to see your quilts quantum. I was in the book store looking at quilting books too. I'm planning to make another one for my son but it will be tricky. He's not a "quilt" sort of guy.

Hey, check out Julio De Diego on google, its pretty cool!

[quantum]

I have done a couple of quilt patterns that are VERY guy friendly! For wall quilts. They are optical illusion quilts.
If you're interested I can translate a pattern and probably email it to you!
Here they are, let me know!

[djvj]

quantum
whoa -- your quilts are AMAZING!!!
you are a true artist!
i'm really really impressed

it is an inspiration

[hollyhunter]

My son would totally love one of those! I don't know if I'm that talented to do such a beautiful thing (is that my censor speaking?)My son is a very talented graffitti artist. His best images seem to come at you from off the wall so I know he'd appreciate how a quilt can do that. I'll try to get my "folksy" quilt on line to show you. I think I do folksy because you can make mistakes and its part of its charm. If mistakes are charming then that's me, very charming!LOL!

[quantum]

First confession, my husband actually helped me to design them!
Second confession, they are REALLY EASY to make! It's all strip piecing (sewing together strips of fabric and then recutting and sewing again)
SO EASY EASY!
I'd be happy to mail you the instructions(in English of course, I'm thinking it would be a little tougher in Swedish!).

[kakuehl]

Here's a hint... it wouldn't be easy for all of us! LOL

[djvj]

amen -- they are incredible, and you should feel very very proud...


i'm going to have to start saving up for one myself!

[Janeytwo]

Quantum,

You're quilts are fabulous!

You're very talented! :-)

LOL! I had a 4.0 in school, then I was forced to take Home Economics sewing. I got an "E" in that last class (actually I was so bad at sewing they threw me out of the class!) :-)

Ah well...guess my talents lay elsewere! :-)

Janey

[Janeytwo]

Hey Holly!

There is usually something real in their posts and something I can identify with. Hope you guys don't mind when I reach out? I don't really have anyone else.

Just sending a hug to ya!

Janey

[Jackiejdajda]

kakuehl

There are forums and threads that I avoid - where my "wisdom and insight" is not welcomed

Oh yes.. me as well..

Once I jumped in with both feet and typed and typed in anger.. and once I broke a keyboard..

It took me such a long time to get angry about the relinquishment.. and I managed to do the anger on line..

Not in real time life..

Its important to help others.. very important..


Jackie