"Gone to the Fields to be Lovely"

Hello to everyone! I hope you’re all well, despite the flux in our world

I was looking through a National Geographic book,

“Simply Beautiful Photographs”, and the photograph below caused me to linger: -

"Photographs have given us visual proof that the world is grander than we imagined”

-Annie Griffiths National geographic photographer

A trio of tundra swans grace a cloudy day Jim Brandenburg, photographer

I’m changing the time of our journaling group to Tuesdays 2:30-4:30, beginning this week on Tuesday January 31st. I will be making myself a new journal before class, so if anyone wants to join me a couple of hours early please let me know, and I will have the supplies ready.

I’m including a variety of links in this review, each of which reflects on the universal theme of beauty and resilience. Hope is out there.

“We are part of a movement that is greater and deeper and broader than we ourselves know or can know.” -Hawken.

I listened to a talk that Environmentalist Paul Hawken gave on The other Superpower at the Paris Climate Talks 2016. In his talk Hawken quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson from a lecture he gave in 1836, and the second quote is from Emerson's "Nature" Essays:

“Who looks upon a river in a meditative state and is not reminded of the flux in all things?”

“The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new land, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.”

Just recently my siblings and I spent a couple of days going through my mom’s belongings…a sentimental journey so many of you have already traveled. Old memories and new discoveries that take time and attention.

“ There is beauty, often overlooked, in nearly everything” -Annie Griffiths

This was one of the many old memories, rediscovered. On July 26, 2012, for their 60th wedding anniversary, Ollie and I and my siblings gave my parents a painting by artist Carol Maguire, titled “ Yesterday”. Along with the painting, we gave them an accordion book filled with hand-written memories from each of us, and all ten grandchildren. Each remembrance began with yesterday... Below is the painting and accordion book:

In looking at Carol Maguire’s website, I discovered that she is teaching a three day workshop at the Creative Arts Center in Chatham this summer from June 14-16, 2017. Each morning she will begin with a demonstration, and then we will paint from a variety of still lives she has arranged. I signed up for the workshop, which still has plenty of available space. The Arts Center is open Monday through Friday, so if you’re interested call them for details, and we can go together.

Camilla shared book artist, Alice Stanne's blog with us. She teaches a class at Mass Art called Books and Boxes. Look at her blog and make sure to scroll down to her older posts. For her sister’s graduation from college Alice made a book and titled it The Guide to Life After College. She asked friends and lifelong friends to contribute any words of wisdom, advice or meaningful quotes, and she added illustrations:

We briefly talked about The North Bennet Street School, and their large selection of continuing education classes .

Leslie and Camilla compared bullet journals. You can follow this link and watch the 4 minute video. I still haven’t fully grasped the concept, but it’s very interesting. They incorporate an index, which would be very useful as I am often struggling to find specific entries in my older journals. I may begin to number my pages, and try to make a table of contents for each of my journals.

Thanks to Leslie and Camilla I am now officially signed up for Amazon’s Audible Books. I have just started listening to Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken.

Recent Journal Pages

If you haven’t seen this yet, watch this touching Michael Jackson Tribute, Heal the World music video, sung by children.

Here is one of Parker Palmer's favorite poems by Lynn Unger, titled Camas Lilies. It was posted in today's “On Being" : Parker writes: “ I take my work seriously, and I’m sure you do, too. But at age 75, I’m trying to learn (or relearn) that, in the end, what matters most is not my ability to “produce” but my ability to love…"

Camas Lilies by Lynn Ungar

Consider the liles of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the natives ground their bulbs
for flour, how the settlers’ hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?
And you—what of your rushed
and useful life? Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything—
leaving only a note: “Gone
to the fields to be lovely. Be back
when I’m through with blooming.”
Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake. Of course
your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.

My Blog