Prayers for Nepal

Day 17: Reading

I’m still absorbing the special words and messages on the prayer flags we made yesterday, honoring Nepal and fundraising for earthquake relief.

Yes, folks, it’s that time of year again. I’m looking forward to my third go at participating in Susannah Conway’s August Break by posting prompts here on the blog and on my Instagram account. There are no rules, really. Simply take a photo every day for the month of August, based on the prompts or not. I take a photo a day all year long, but you can’t lose no matter how many days you keep this up. And the more, the merrier!

Heart Art

Day 15: Art

This is a painting I created during a retreat depicting kindness. The green hands represent earth and the heart chakra holding space for all of us, the universal One. (My daughter says it reminds her of Dr. Seuss and I accept that as the highest compliment.)

Yes, folks, it’s that time of year again. I’m looking forward to my third go at participating in Susannah Conway’s August Break by posting prompts here on the blog and on my Instagram account. There are no rules, really. Simply take a photo every day for the month of August, based on the prompts or not. I take a photo a day all year long, but you can’t lose no matter how many days you keep this up. And the more, the merrier!

Shine On

Something happened during the last full “super” moon of the summer, with her extraordinary harvest light beaming down from the watery skies of Pisces, my birth sign. All that I’ve sown in the last few days, months and even years is coming to fruition. Now, I can replenish those empty coffers in my creative cache, confident that I will never lack again.

In cahoots, two days later, the moon in her wane summoned a fall-like front that cut through resistance’s last hazy gasps with cold vengeance, dumping wrath from Neptune in the streets, and washing away any doubts I’ve had about embarking on the beautiful new artistic path I’ve chosen.

Since those tides of change departed, the dreamy eye of the Fish remains upon me, watching from the bright seas of a freshly scrubbed sky.

There Will Be Chalk Dust

I’m a big-time smudger. Ever since I was a child who proudly wore her grubby cuffs ringed with graphite, I’ve avoided the crisp-edged side of reality, preferring my world pushed into impressionistic blur across a page.

I like to use my fingers, really get into the grain, smoothing out wrinkles on those foreheads of landscape and still life. And while my sketch pencils need to have sharp wits about them, the pastels should lay out soft as new love.

I favor big sheets of textured paper and a long enough ruler to start out straight before a rip tide of color takes me off to faraway lands, where petals move on a slight breeze and flesh glows with every shade other than the wax of its crayola namesake.

There is no better bliss than the suggestive tint from warm afternoon windows, tunes cranked up a little too loud, a wineglass full of ruby, and time stopping to take a look at what flows from under this dusty hand. Why do I always forget how good this feels once underway, counting back the years I’ve been stalled like some stubborn old man with too many regrets in his pocket to begin again.

None of those sinkholes from the past matter when it is just for you.