What Life is Becoming

I love to look at the evidence of life. Not what I imagine it to be, but what it actually is. I took pictures most every day this summer. Many of them were in fields of flowers or farms. And not very many of them were technically “good.” But, I sure had fun. Part of the fun was the nature of the work: sunshine, bees, and walking up and down rows of color. The other part of the fun was playing with my husband: laughing, sweating, guzzling gallons of water, road tripping. When I take account, I notice one thing. I would have loved the whole summer even if there were no pictures. The pictures are the icing on the cake—not the cake itself.

Film scans arrived today. A mixed lot, for sure. But these photos accurately portray my summer experience. Click on the picture below for more views.

Make a Concertina Book

I’ve fallen in love with making these little photo books. I had a stack of small photos that I used to work out the sequencing for my Florilegium project, and this is the perfect way to make use of them. Little gifts ready to share with friends. 

I learned how to make them in my class, Summer of Stillness, taught by Paul Sanders, but there are many versions and tutorials online.

Botanical Gardens Landscapes

Joy Conditioning
    after Wendy Suzuki
The next time you lie in bed thinking of 
the one thing you said wrong, remember 
also everything else you said right. 
Remember the burst of a fresh strawberry 
at the edge of summer's beginning. Feel 
the red juice coat your mouth. You might 
even remember last week's call with your 
mother when she said I'm so proud of you, 
or the one friend who said I love your poem. 
We are malleable, impacted, trained by the 
terrible recurring thought just as we are by 
the repetition of kindness. So do this in 
your next joyful moment—        take pause
pay attention to the constellation of light 
shining singularly into your life. Let this 
memory embed itself into your body as a 
fiber of truth you return to when all alone 
and full of self-doubt, even if the voices 
won’t quiet entirely, even if all you have 
to hold on to is this one twitch of joy 
announcing itself as a reminder of your 
inherent goodness. 

—Moudi Sbeity

Thank you to my friend, Jan Falls, for introducing me to this poem. The one I needed today. 

Contentment

As the season begins to shift, I wander around my favorite places with a deep sense of contentment. Even with the nagging pain of my left leg (spinal nerve compression), and even with the many things that could go wrong, I have a deep sense of belonging to this place and of being loved by a very special handful of people.