Category: Art Journey

I lost another pot of bone broth this week.

The last time it happened, it was because the predecessor of the swanky new stove died in the middle of the night and my huge, magical broth cauldron was cold when I woke up. This is not a good thing with bone broth.

This time, there’s what was a lovely pot of broth sitting in the bottom of my fridge which is, blessedly, working just fine. I created this pot of magic with some help from my InstantPot, as I haven’t quite figured out the gas stove/ broth thing yet. (It has to do with timing.)

Anyway, gorgeous pork hocks in the InstantPot with onions, garlic, bay leaves, etc. Then, the place where things fell apart.

While said broth was still very hot, my hip decided to do some random, painful, twisty thing while I was minding my own business, walking down the hall, and it’s been both painful and untrustworthy ever since.

All of which means that the Legendary Husband has been busy doing more of the daily living stuff around here than usual. Somehow, we figured that we’d put the broth in the bottom of the fridge and weed all the chunks out in a day or so.

Yep. You guessed it!

It’s now about 10 days later and, well, that’s too many. So, I am now the sad possessor of a pot of difficult to dispose of garbage and I really wish I had soup.

Now, I wouldn’t blame you if you were wondering why I’m telling you all this and/or whether I’ve taken up writing about appliances as a new mission.

No, on the appliances, though they do, in some cases, become useful metaphors.

You see, the next thing you need to know is that I was chatting recently with a very bright young woman who was doing some pondering on the things that “good Christians” do — or don’t.

The last thing on her list, which she’d obviously learned really well, was try to avoid mistakes.

That thought kept bugging me, rather like a case of poison ivy, at which I am, unfortunately, something of an expert. You know you’re not supposed to scratch it but it itches!

Then, early this morning I figured it out.

I have been trying, not quite successfully, not to feel guilty about that pot of broth-turned-garbage in our fridge. I used really good food to make it. Food that’s not always easy to come by. And I could have used it to feed others. And, at the moment, my hip hurts and I have no soup and I want some.

And, just between us, there was a voice inside me wondering if, just perhaps, this was the sort of thing good Christians don’t do.

Thankfully, there are some other voices inside me as well.

One of them is from the guy I think of as the Prophet, Steve Glenn. Steve is the Developing Capable People creator who said, There’s no such thing as failure. Only experience to be learned from.

And another is a voice that is, essentially, mine. At least the part of me that’s been learning new things again. Many of them from Shiloh Sophia McCloud and the Intentional Creativity® gang.

It’s even written on an index card, as most of the really important things around here are:

Intentional Creativity is what helps the struggles become art… and new possibilities!

Thus, the painting with which we began. It wasn’t “doing” what I wanted it to, so I followed the inspiration to pray. In dots. Teal colored dots, which the Feng shui folks I hang out with would say are for clarity. A couple of hours worth of prayers for guidance, with the canvas turned so I could sit!

Now, here’s the tricky part. All the layers under those dots weren’t mistakes to be avoided. They were learning along the way that brought me to a place where I realized guidance was what I needed in the moment. Which seems, at least to me, like the sort of thing Jesus/Yeshua would have been in favor of. And totally what I want my girls to learn.

Next, big scary glaze! And throwing out the stuff in my InstantPot so there’s room for actual soup.

Blessings on your journey!

Tonight, I’m going to Graduation. Again! In this case, Graduation from the Intentional Creativity® Coaching program known as Motherboard.

Yes, we finished a while back. And the planned in-person celebration was postponed because of the pandemic. There seems to be no way to predict an end to that, so we’re going to celebrate now, courtesy of our friends at Zoom.

The invitation reads something like, Dress creatively. Bring a candle and a cuppa, and perhaps some chocolate. And a favorite Motherboard drawing.

I foraged in the closet for the black velvet cap that came along with my doctorate. And blew off the dust!

Deciding which drawing to bring was a no-brainer. It’s not re-copied and pretty. In fact, it’s exactly the way it happened live. And yes, it’s the one in the picture.

Why did I pick it?

Because that’s the moment, in the whole Motherboard journey, when I learned the most. The most about me, and what was holding me back. And the most about where Intentional Creativity Coaching fits in my world.

Which is a lot to learn in a Zoom meeting with a wise friend and a big sketch book and some markers.

I’d been working on learning it for quite a while. And it is all about voice.

In fact, I was writing about the same notions of voice just after 9/11 for a paper in a course called Approaches to the Study of Myth. Dr. Christine Downing led us through some of her journeys with Freud and Jung, with some help from a writer named Bruno Bettelheim and some old notions of soul.

Chris told us that “what Freud meant by Seele or Soul was what the Hebrew scriptures meant by soul… what the book of Genesis meant by soul — that which enlivens us while we are still alive.”

Suddenly, I had a place to connect! Here was a concept I knew. The nurse in me knew about those (dare I say?) holy moments you can literally see, which are so much larger than simply breathing, and yet are so tied to breath, with which life enters or leaves a body.

…My head was spinning with stories in which the Hebrew notions of breath, soul, wind, and spirit were pivotal. And then, there in class that day, another layer of meaning.

Voice. How could I have missed it? How could I not have been told?

(I’m assuming you won’t mind if I skip along a good bit, to the big thing you need to know… The Advent before all this pondering of voice occurred, I was preaching in a traumatized church down the road a bit.)

The lectionary text was Isaiah 12:2-6. “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and will not be afraid,” spoke the prophet in what we now know as verse 2. Not a bad place to start, certainly, but first I had question. You probably did, too. Why did the lectionary text start with verse 2? What was wrong with verse 1?

Were we not ready to say, with Isaiah, “I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though were angry with me, your anger turned away and you comforted me”? Was it the notion that we might have done something to anger God that we could do without? Or simply the notion of an angry God?

I learned that the Hebrew word the NRSV translates as “comforted me” actually means something much closer to “fixed it so I could breathe again”!!!

Fixed it so I could literally inspire trust and certainty in the God who had become my salvation, even though God had been angry with us.

At the time, that seemed like a pretty big promise for a person who has asthma.

Not to mention seeming like a pretty big promise, still, for a person who learned, in the program called Motherboard, that while she used to be afraid, in a not quite conscious way, of being burned at the stake, she isn’t any longer.

Today, I’m using my voice to speak out for International students, including my friend and intern, Gloria and a whole lot more young people who are hoping to graduate! USA friends, should you wish to use your voice, too, you can find your elected legislators here. I had hopeful conversations today with the Legislative Director for Congressman Hank Johnson (D-GA-04) and the campaign manager for The Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, candidate for the US Senate and both of them value our input on this issue and issues like it.

And I’m using my voice, along with a bunch of markers, to help others unstick stuck stuff. If you’d like to know more, I hope you’ll email me at suesvoice@gmail.com

And I’m using my voice to say another pretty important thing that I just couldn’t stand to leave out. Whatever understanding you might have of the Divine is welcome here. If the “angry” thing troubles you and you’re at all conversant with the Judeo-Christian traditions, I highly recommend a stroll through the Hebrew scriptures, in which we find tales of God experiencing all the emotions we identify with humans which says something, at least to me, about being created in God’s image, though that isn’t the way my Sunday School teacher explained it!

For now, a quote from Rumi, with thanks to Havi Brysk Mandell who is also graduating from Motherboard!

Let your throat-song be clear and strong enough to make an emperor fall full length suppliant, at the door.

Several years ago, before I knew many of you, I applied for a Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing.

It was a bit like making a scrap quilt. A poem here. An editorial there. A few paragraphs of an academic paper on the next page. All glimpses of me as a writer.

And then came the hard part… responding to the big question. What did I, and presumably the other applicants, see as the difference between the three tracks of the program, Fiction, Non-fiction, and Poetry? And for which track did I wish to apply?

Now, you’ve probably already guessed that I’m fluent in libraries and know how to use a dictionary. Even the old, heavy kind, covered in dust. Sadly, that didn’t solve the problem.

I knew what the right answer was, at least as far as technical differences in literary genre. There was just one problem.

I didn’t, then, and still don’t, now, believe in distinct cages into which this work or that might be placed forever.

You see, I spent some time at Pacifica Graduate Institute in California, just after 9/11. While I was there, I learned about notions of chosen myths and functional fictions, which reminded me of my NLP friends. I also learned some more about the filters through which we all take in, sort, and utilize information of various types… a big conversation just now in the art circles where I hang out.

All of which is to say that I responded, in my application, with the statement that I didn’t really see the use in choosing a category. I just wanted more help with my writing, particularly with stories about things I hadn’t experienced yet, which might be sort of like fiction. (Though not necessarily, if they were true for me!)

I was accepted!

To the “narrative non-fiction” track.

I declined, politely, as it seemed like a lot of money and energy to spend on something I’ve been doing since I was six.

Now, you, as a reasonable and intelligent reader, are no doubt wondering why I’m telling you this story just now.

Well, here’s the answer…

Because we just spent a couple of hours hooking up some new electronic gizmos so that my currently cranky hip and I might spend the 4th of July weekend watching Hamilton on the Disney+ channel, along with most of the second and part of the third seasons of The West Wing and two of my all time favorites, the movies, 1776 and The American President.

Hamilton was new for me. The others, old friends. And huge reminders, in this moment, that there really is a whole lot of difference in what we call history and fact and fiction. And a whole lot of overlap.

Or, as writer Kathleen McGowan’s “fictional” history professor explained:

History is not what happened. History is what was written down.

(Which implies more than a few issues of wealth, gender, power, and access to education.)

I, for one, want something pretty close to the nation William Daniels fought for in 1776. Plus, of course, several of the things he lost out on. Fought, though we don’t sing songs about it, during a small pox epidemic.

And I’m sick and tired of the nonfunctional fiction at work in the current administration.

So I checked, again, to be sure that I am still registered to vote in Georgia where that’s more of an issue than one might hope. I made a contribution to an organization sending face masks (the real kind) to nurses and others on the medical front lines. I renewed, like Andrew Shepherd, my membership card for the ACLU. And I made another contribution to the Poor People’s Campaign and their National Call for Moral Revival.

Why???

Because I have two granddaughters growing up in this world and because I want a nation that lives the stirring poetry of its legends and its songs, though not the ones that go with bedsheets. Which means, I suspect, that I need to live them, too.

ps… The quote in the painting is from Audre Lorde, with great thanks.

Okay… I know I’m not supposed to say that, but we’re being honest, here. In one sense, we’re ready. Stocked up on CBD oil for the dogs in case they really do the huge fireworks thing at the lake down the street, though I can’t imagine why they would, given the pandemic and all.

Bill’s weekly male bonding event moved to Sunday.

A high likelihood of chicken wings from our friends at The Corner Pub. I inherited the fried chicken on the 4th of July gene from my mom’s family and this is pretty close. It also helps the community and requires a whole lot less cleaning.

Fried okra is not a gene pool thing for me, but I’ve lived in the south long enough to claim it as my own.

We’re still sheltering in place as much as humanly possible.

And, if we’re going to get down to the real issue, finding things to celebrate in a flag-waving sort of sense is even more complex than usual this year. At least for me.

Then, I saw this:

I know. There’s a good chance you’ve already seen it, too. And I had to hunt around for a version without ads. But, for me, this is hugely hopeful. Which, when you get right down to it, could be said for the original 4th of July as well.

Yes, we’ve got a long way to go. But at least more of us seem to be realizing that, and speaking out. And that is what I want my girls to learn… that even when we are face to face with real, better is still possible if we put our hope to work.

May you and yours, and me and mine, and all of everyone’s be blessed.

And, yes, just in case you’re wondering, there’s part of me jumping up and down inside, wanting to add a list of exceptions to that blessing, but that’s kind of the point of blessings when you get right down to it.

… all of everyone’s. So be it.

And Happy Canada Day!!!

The photo shows the very, very early steps of the painting process known as Artifact. What you see in the photo is the beginning of a step called coding.

To code a canvas is to make marks. Anything from “random” scribbles to symbols to words to your dog’s foot prints could be coding. (Assuming, of course, that your dog is a lot smaller than mine are!) And, as you probably guessed, “random” also suggests “non-conscious” which comes from so deep inside it might feel random, but really isn’t.

(And, just in case there’s a voice inside you whispering, I could do that, you’re right! You could!!!)

It’s a go-with-the-flow kind of thing. And, in this case, a big thing. To give you a sense, the photo shows marks toward the top, kind of in the center, of a 36×48″ canvas, which, in the places I hang out, is kind of medium-sized!

It was my left shoulder, with its deeply irritated rotator cuff, that chose the canvas. It’s about all I can wrangle right now, if I want to get anything else done!

And, I do! You see, several things I’ve been pondering in a not-totally-conscious-imagination sort of way bumped into each other yesterday and I have answers for one of my all-time favorite questions:

What is the next right thing?

Part of the answer to that involves adding to the tech toys around here. This is NOT my favorite sort of hunting and gathering, as I don’t much speak the lingo, but I do have very smart help!

Shopping is, of course, a bit more challenging than usual these days, though summoning things electronically is preferable, at least in Georgia, to venturing out, all masked and anxious.

Thus, it is time for waiting. And coding. You can’t tell much from the photo, I know, but a whole lot of this particular medicine painting is about grandmothers. Me. Mine. You. Yours. Those of the Intentional Creativity® lineage. And those of the world.

The curved band, just to the right of the one with spirals, is one of the most important ones to me. It’s the Hebrew word for remember, which also means to remind. And the writing, being oriented vertically rather than right to left, and actually written around the curve, becomes an abstract-esque sort of design which carries deep meaning for me.

I was remembering Elsie, also known as my Farm Gramma, while I was alternately tech shopping and coding.

One of the stories I know about Elsie is the time she and Frank, the grandfather I never knew, packed up their truck with six kids, a wood stove, and a goose whose name, I’m pretty sure, was Oscar, and left the farm they lost in Illinois during the Great Depression to head off to a new farm in Indiana, purchased with money Elsie inherited when her Uncle Harry passed on.

That would have happened in about 1933, just 13 years after women were finally able to vote in the US which is pretty remarkable when you think about it.

It also feels hopeful, to me.

Hope, as you may have noticed, is a big thing around here. And it has a whole lot to do with that next right thing.

And, in my world, hope comes with prayer dots. You can’t see them yet, but they’re there. And there will be more.

Prayers for struggling friends. For safe kids. For courage. And, in this moment, for a woman named Carmen, whom I’ve never met. Carmen is one of my bonus Intentional Creativity lineage. A woman unrelated to me in a genetic sort of sense – though, as my understanding of that grows, I wouldn’t swear to it – but definitely part of my chosen family. And prayers for remembering.

I sometimes wonder what my girls will remember about me. One of the things I most hope they’ll remember is that I’m not afraid to try new things. Or, rather, that I try new things which feel important, even when they are scary.

For now, though, more dots. And yes, there’s voice in this story, too, for the voice in my painting is saying:

Comfort, comfort your people.

I’m pretty sure Isaiah (40:1) won’t mind my tiny smidge more editing after all these years.

And I suspect my painting has picked a title!

ps… When that next right thing is ready, somewhere other than in my head, you’ll be the first to know! And if you’re looking for some, well, finished art, there are some of my favorites waiting here to be adopted.

You know those times when many things you thought were separate come together and make something you needed but didn’t know you did? Well, this is one of those times in my world!

Here’s the short version:

A new paint journey called Artifact is beginning in the land of Intentional Creativity®. It’s the big summer offering from Maestra Shiloh Sophia McCloud. I’m thrilled!

Except that I’m not quite finished with some of the “prerequisites.” That word is in quotes because many of those, including me, who hang out with Shiloh at least profess to not believing in being “behind” which makes “prerequisites” kind of a loose thing. And I’m almost done!

You see, Hydra’s Flare as she is officially known – who strongly suggested her name be Consider the Lilies, instead – surprised me with another presence in the painting. One of those kind who appear anyway even though I didn’t plan it.

And that second presence has had me asking questions for a bit.

There have also been other questions in my world these days. (We are, for this moment, ignoring the kind of questions one might shout at the tv if one were watching the news.)

Questions from the new friend/summer intern who’s hanging out with me.

And a question in a group where I hang out with another of my mentors. Sam inquired, no doubt in a bid to get us thinking, How do you know when you’ve had a good idea?

My response was of the immediate, intuitive sort. I start crying and then all the other ideas jump up and down.

This is not a surprising answer for me as I have been pondering Frederick Buechner again lately and his assertion, as you may recall, that sudden flashes of tears are the surest signs of truth we get.

And, yes, the editor inside me knows we just said that but she is crying, too, which I take as permission to be redundant!

But, I have a painting to finish! So I headed to the studio about an hour ago, fresh tea in hand, and cued up the frequently philosophical James Taylor to keep me company. And then I saw it.

The second being in my painting had tears rolling down one cheek. Truth tears.

And then I realized that the more noticeable being, the one I planned for, was missing something important. A voice.

That piece will have to wait for another moment, but she’s finished, now, inside me. And I suspect she’ll be back soon, with a great deal to say about voice.

For now, it’s on to opening videos for Artifact which will be, in case you wondered, a medicine painting. That brings tears to my eyes, too.

Oh, all the dots in the painting… prayers for you and yours. For safety. And inspiration. And a way to use your voice.