My latest pastel is of a lotus--one of my favorite flowers.  Along with the rose, the lotus symbolizes human wholeness.  I think it is fascinating that such beauty blossoms out of the muddy water where lotuses grow.  On the surface they look separate, but far below, their roots are all intertwined.  Lots to ponder in that image.

The lotus shows me that no matter how murky and tangled things are in the places we live, the beauty of our souls can blossom as we grow towards the Light.  

My dear daughter Janelle just left after nearly a week with us out here.
She leaves a big empty space.  Her presence with us is always such a gift.
I sent her home with these two bags (pictured above) for her and her husband Thomas.  I knitted and crocheted them to be Appreciation Bags.  Inside each bag I tucked a small gift and a note which told each of them some of the many things I appreciate about them.   It was a long list and could have been a lot longer.
The bags are on the glass table on our deck overlocking the red rock mountains.
They glowing in the Arizona sunshine and I hope the glow goes with them back to snowy Chicago!
I suggested to Janelle that she could keep the bag and put notes of what/who she appreciates in her life inside the bag and every now and then take out the notes/cards to have an Appreciation Fest.  Or she could pass the bag on to someone else with a note of Appreciation.  Or…..whatever she can dream up somehow connected with Appreciation and the sharing and savoring of it.
I believe that when we are appreciative, we are in a high consciousness, and it is a great place to be.  Its kind of another form of the old hymn sentiment "Count Your Blessings, name them one by one….."

Here are three images of a rose, all of them my images, meaning, that I took a picture of a rose blooming by a big rock wall;  I did a pastel based on that picture; and then I took a picture of the pastel which also reflected me.  That's profound, isn't it?  I mean, each of us perceives something(or someone, or some event) as an image in our own unique way.  And then we re-create it in some way, even if only in our psyche.  Perhaps we then reflect on it, and even share it in some way. We are truly intertwined with it. Obviously then,  no one's perceptions and images of what we like to call "reality"  are quite the same, and the more we make them our own, the more of ourselves go into them.  How true the well known statement "We do not see things as they are; we see them as we are."  

No wonder it is often so hard for us to understand, really understand, one another!  And how foolish for any of us to claim that our particular image/perceptions of reality is The Right One, and all others err in some way.

All of this, it seems to me, is cause for cultivating the virtue of HUMILITY!

A couple days ago, I had lunch with a good friend at the Albuquerque Aquarium,

where we were seated for lunch in the Shark Cafe right next to a viewing window, and could watch all kinds of fish, eel, sea-turtles, etc. swim by as we ate!

As I reflect now on that experience, I am struck by how much it was like meditating---just sitting quietly, watching one's thoughts go by in the "fish tank" of the mind.  My thoughts are not me:  they are simply swimming through my mind and I am watching them---the beautiful, the ugly, the peaceful, the threatening…..   all going by as I watch.  

A neighbor recently said to me with a wry smile "I don't let myself get all caught up in other people's dramas and issues.  I have learned to be an observer, and it has served me well."  

      Would that be     living meditatively?  

This pastel I did recently of a rushing river is hanging next to the wall clock in my kitchen here in Sedona.  Why?  Because as I enter into the last years of my life (I am past 70)  time seems to be like this rushing river, going faster all the time
even though I am not nearly as busy now as I once was.  For the first time in my life, I have all the leisure time I want for painting, reading, playing music, hiking, knitting, musing, writing…yet, yet, though my pace is so much slower now, time is not.   Not that I feel rushed, but more as if I am being borne along on a current like a leaf.  And there is nothing I can do about it.
I might as well find peace in floating, and let myself be carried by a life force far greater than I.
Can any of you out there relate to that?

Here is a poem of reflection I wrote to go with the pastel:

TIME

It rushes onwards
swirling, splashing, foaming
carrying us all

A water fall's roar
mingles with spray in the air
somewhere downstream

What happens then to
these floating leaves and twigs?
Where do they go?

In some southwest Native American tribes, the good Way to live is called "The Red Road."  There are literally many red roads here in Red Rock country, all of them fitting for the Navaho chant "Walk in Beauty." To walk the Red Road in Native American tradition is to walk each day of life in a way that is courageous, generous, truthful, aware, grateful, and considerate and  respectful of others and of nature and all its beings: the stone nation, the plant nation, the animal nation, the insect nation, the bird nation, etc.  

     It is a demanding way to walk through life, but the rewards are great, and community and nature flourish when people walk "The Good Red Road."   It is a road I want to walk, and I hope you do too. 

Here is a poem I wrote to go with the pastel I drew (pictured above.)

 Sunlit and shadowed

 winding through rugged country

 Red Road to higher ground

Have you ever seen trees twisted like this?  I never have, until I came here to Sedona.  They appear in certain places called "vortexes" where there seems to be an especially powerful feeling or energy.  The twisted tree phenomena is a "sign" of this energy.   

So what does this mean to me?  

Metaphorically, it reminds me that when life takes an unexpected twist, when things seem all twisted up, or when I get a new twist on an old truth, something powerful is going on, and I should pay attention.  

Here is a poem I wrote about this:

Here, a twisted tree

formed by mysterious energy

unexpected sign