Tag: lady

  • My Sunday Art

    Yesterday I played in fabrics and designs, colors and textures….and here are two pieces that I completed.

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     I had made angels last year, and wanted to do another.  I believe I can just do "Ladies" with wings.  I will try that later….

    Here is a close up of the ball of energy…

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    And here is a Lady I have been working on a long time.  I did the background, added the Lady, and then yesterday the vase of flowers and completed the quilting.

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    When you step back from this one, it looks like you are looking through a window at a woman looking through a doorway….

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    I have so much fun doing the quilting, it is like drawing with thread… 

    The water I painted using a paint that works like dye.  I still may add beads, but the sewing by machine is done.

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    When I am done playing I feel so full of energy….like somehow the energy of the colors fill me up!  I love the process of creating…

  • Perfectly you!

    The reason I began this blog or writing for that matter, was that I found myself upside down in an upright world, my insides didn’t match reality, my dysfunction led me around the world not me.

    This me, I called the mental woman and she resided in me, in my thoughts and in my beliefs, she had ownership of this vessel and steered my actions from a fear based setting.

    I lived governed by fear and did most things to ward off the impending doom, for if and when the doom arrived, I would die.

    You see, once upon a time, a little girl was in a delightful safe world and out of nowhere, in the midst of her caring kindness an ugly monster appeared, plunging her into a state of terror.

    Once this terror is felt and no one releases you from it, you then set forth with the Fight or Flight Switch always on ON.

    My past six years has been to re-set that switch, to not respond in terror, but in love.

    When my daughter’s psyche hung in the balance, when I could see the abuse’s affects, my Mental Lady, my Wounded child, and My Loving Awareness all arose.

    It was the epic battle within me.

    One moment I was writhing in terror, frozen, feet ice cold dripping in sweat, a child without a way out.

    The next I was a mental woman taking control with needs that overshadow my daughter, fear that I had somehow allowed this to happen, it was my fault.

    And the most wonderful delightful experience I have ever felt was to be present with my child, to sit with her and her pain and see nothing but innocence, feel nothing but love.

    The contrast of these three individuals that I vacillated between had me swing to the highest of highs to the lowest of lows.

    It was like my past ghosts and my present awareness engaged in many battles, taking me on a wild life review.

    My views of her, my views of self, my extraordinary view of my husband, was like an epic play and I played each role.

    I feel utterly blessed and filled with gratitude that the most predominate woman within me is Loving Awareness.

    To live the rest of my life in this mode, riding behind
    Big as a house Heart, means to me that the Universal love, the essence of nature, the God Spirit, is leading me forward, that the clutches of evil and fear have been released.

    I am a woman who has been to the depths of hell and have emerged brighter, more loving and kind to my self.

    I know if I can travel this road, than my daughter and all girls and women who find them selves like I did, can do it.

    You do it by loving your Imperfections until they become perfectly you!

  • My Ladies come alive!

    Sometimes in life the Universe offers you a glimpse at someone who is a delight to watch and listen to.

    She arrived wearing a black hat, set jauntily on her head and big interesting jewelry all off set on an outfit in black.

    Around the room she went introducing herself, holding your hand, looking you in the eyes and repeating your name.

    She immediately changed the energy of the room, at least for me.

    As she gave her message, she was delighted with herself and her Art, asking for others to join her vision.

    Her Art is a community project; it involves everyone who is open and willing to share.

    She envisions 10,000 individual stories all hung together joining a long line of connections, weaving the past to the present, showing the walks of many who have walked upon the same roads we travel today.

    Her idea is to see whose shoulders you stand upon.

    Written in the first person, a story and a picture, all hanging together in a line of humanity, their lives, their struggles, the journey of their times, told by someone today.

    The Art will be displayed this summer at an opera and a music festival.

    She needed help with panels upon which the story will rest. Some of us will lend a hand in making her vision possible.

    After she involved us in her Art, she then sat back and enjoyed ours.

    It was fun to watch her engage life, how she seemed to hang on each second, paying close attention to what was at hand…astute, curious and involved and very much her own self and very comfortable there.

    I have to admit that I wanted to share my quilts with her, just to watch her reaction.

    I was tickled when she smiled and literally gave me a thumbs up, very pleased.

    She epitomizes my ladies or my ladies are a reflection of her!

    What is the saying life imitating Art…

    It was like seeing one of my Ladies come alive!

  • Act of Forgetting.

    I was greeted at a mailbox yesterday by a bundled up smiling lady, her eyes bright and her cheeks rosy, I handed her her mail, commenting on one letter.

    It was a card from her to someone, and I had brought it back for her.

    She had just put the person’s name, but no address or stamp. I said we didn’t know where her friend lived and that usually we needed a stamp.

    She chuckled with delight at herself, finding her error funny and looked at me shyly.

    I told her we brought it back for her to finish; she smiled and said, “thank you, I am glad you did,” clutching it to her chest.

    I explained to her that we didn’t know her friend or where she lived, but that if she could help us out with a few more hints, we would deliver it….

    I left her standing there, arms full of mail, smiling at herself…”keep warm”, she said as I drove away…”I will, and you too” I hollered back.

    Her energy and spirit rode along with me in my jeep, amidst the boxes and packages, bringing a smile to my face every now and then…picturing her delight when she seen her half written card and her eyes as they met mine.

    A kindred spirit.

    For I recalled my daughter’s comment to me that morning, “Mother you left all the cupboard doors open.”

    I smiled that same smile seeing the evidence of me making a cup of tea, caught in the act of forgetting.

  • A Cracked Lady that is Imperfectly Me.

    I am trying to lay on paper the picture I present to the world; how I am learning about a life I lived unknowingly to me, mourning that life, while living this life today.

    The combination is insane at times.

    Finding parts of myself that were missing, living them, and then releasing them and mourning their loss, at the same time I am living in the present building a life and feeling this life, a combination of present and past, mourning and living, dying and being born.

    My broken past revealing itself and its corrections laid back into the foundation, rebuilding me and who I am.

    Like building a new foundation on a fully built house, taking out one brick at a time, without moving the whole structure, yet the whole structure eventually changes.

    Being a caterpillar while making a butterfly without a cocoon.

    Living naked in the midst of change.

    Each broken brick creates a past I tentatively embrace, knowing it changes who I am and how I live today.

    Like picking up pieces of a puzzle wondering what the final picture will reveal.

    Perhaps the whole change is who I am, that I am the combination of a life of denial, a life of destructing that and rebuilding.

    I am the pot, the crack, the broken pot, and the glued backed together one.

    A cracked lady that is imperfectly me.

  • The Short End of the Stick!

    Each day when I am at work, I silently thank my co-worker for wanting the larger route, the one with fewer dirt roads, but much more mail, for every day my route appears to be easy.

    No matter what day of the week, when we both arrive, I have less, which doesn’t allow me to utter one complaint, for each day He has it harder than I.

    It is amazing that this simple fact that his lot in life is harder than mine leaves me no room to complain, which also sets the tone for the day.

    How lucky am I to have this little route.

    What an awesome way to transition back into the working world, feeling like you are the lucky one each day.

    This lightness carries me through the day, no matter what I have to deliver, he has more, no matter how long it took me it will take him longer.

    He willingly gave up this route for a variety of reasons, yet now he is looking back at with different eyes.

    You truly don’t know what you got til its gone… but I am fully aware of what I have and each and every day and even a few times a day I give thanks to the Gods that be, that something within him wanted him to leave this route to me.

    I am thrilled to be left holding the short end of the stick!

  • My Lady’s Holiday…

    My friend and I spent the past few days on the shores of Lake Superior at a little beach house my In-Laws own. 

     

    Transported away from being a responsible mom and wife, allowing us to just be ourselves with ourselves and with a wonderful friend.

     

    We did yoga on the deck in the sunrise and I then took my chilly bath in the lake, followed by a healthy breakfast of yogurt and fresh berries.

     

    We then sat our chairs facing the water, soaking up rays and sharing our selves with each other, the books we read, the things we know, and the things we don’t know….

     

    From floating on inner tubes to paddling kayaks, our day and evenings slipped by.  By sharing and talking we come away more alike and less alone.

     

    It came to me that I would like to do this with all my Lady friends, all the wonderful woman that I am in contact with, old friends, new friends, young friends and old friends, a Lady’s get together, bringing together many Ladies in one place, all getting to know themselves and each other in a place filled with natures gifts.

     

    While talking to my friend we decided this should be an annual event.

     

    We talked and dreamed and schemed and planted the seeds for a “My Lady’s Holiday”.

     

    A weekend event that all you need to bring is your wonderful spirited lady within, to come and share, to come and meet, to come and play and be.

     

    My Lady’s Holiday has reconnected me to me, and has given me a gift of a deeper friendship.

     

    Take your Lady on a Holiday; take her for paddle on the Lake, a refreshing swim, lay on an inner tube, share an afternoon with a friend, do yoga stretching her body, open her up to the wonderful opportunities of a great friendship.

     

    Expand her horizons, learn new things, meet new people, learn new things about old people, sit and enjoy a lazy afternoon, bring your Lady on a Holiday from being so responsible in life, give her time to play with a friend.

     

    I look forward to many more “My Lady’s Holiday”.

     

     

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    My buddy….

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    The wonderful dinner she made…

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    and me by our Artful Fire Pit…

    Life is good!
     
     
     

  • Letting It Go!

    Acceptance and I are staring at each other; it dangles both pain and freedom.  I see the two sides and feel caught in between, stuck standing still.

     

    I see with big lady intellect and with little girl dreams, I feel the struggles between them.

     

    The lady’s wise words and focus on actions fall on the little girl’s deaf ears. 

     

    Or perhaps I don’t want to be the one to end the little girls dreams, to crash and burn her long wait, to give her nothing but acceptance.

     

    Acceptance, hollow, empty, cold and unloving.

     

    Can I break my little girls heart?  Is it my only heart?

     

    Acceptance shatters all dreams.

    Acceptance makes daddy’s monsters forever.

    Acceptance makes moms cold and distant, always.

    Acceptance hurts in reality.

     

    I always thought what I feared most was my mental lady, instead what I feared the most was the shattered spirit of the hopeful dreaming little girl.

     

    To live empty, hollow, forsaken, alone, cold and hurt a girl with broken dreams.

    Is it possible to separate the little girl from her dreams, to untangle the loveless dream and set her free?

     

    To let the dream go, like a flyaway balloon…

     

    But keep the little girl spirit, her optimism, and her dreaming quality?

     

    My little girl survived holding on to that dream.

     

    And now her survival depends on her letting it go!

     

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    I know God will not give me anything I can't handle.  I just wish that He didn't trust me so much. 

     ~Mother Teresa