Category: Contemplations

Do you know the old saying about many things being true and not all going together very well?

I’m beginning to think that’s most of the truth, most of the time! I mean, if we’re paying attention, there’s a whole lot of chaos going on and we need safe places to go. Places to take a break from the chaos. Places to make even a hint of order out of the chaos. Places safe enough to actually allow ourselves to sleep… and dream!

For me, at least, art – and the stories that grow into and from it – helps!!!

It’s a brain processing thing, for sure. The kind that helps all of our powers of perceiving and creating to work together. To make space for newness. (As you may have noticed, this feels like a really good time for that!!!)

And, here’s a bonus! We notice new things when we make art!!! We ask new questions and, if you’ve been reading along for a bit, you know I’m all in favor of new questions!

Now, here’s where we go out on a limb… what if – maybe… just maybe – making art gives us whole new strategies for making choices???

What if we practiced asking ourselves what we could do, rather than what we should do??? You know… actual internal preferences – vs – automatically complying with what we think others expect from us!

And, NO! I am emphatically NOT talking about the kind of coulds filling the news these days. The kind of things that go along with the notion that, in order for X to have more power, all the Y‘s must have less…

Instead, I’m talking about what colors or styles or elements could I choose that would help draw me in the direction of my own highest intentions, whether everything “goes together” or not. Whether it’s “the way we’ve always done it,” or not.

Let’s line it all out… The art we began with is a colored pencil sketch of a tree. It lives in a place I love, and became part of my inner family a while back, when I was up to my eyebrows in an art-venture known as #Guardian.

The same tree appeared previously in a couple of my paintings. In real life, it looks like this:

At one point, in the land of processing new questions, it also looked like this:

All true. All useful in different ways, depending on the questions and the needs. And here’s the punch line:

If a tree can teach me all this – and soothe my spirit at the same time – why would I be okay with needlessly endangering them???

And that, my dear friend, is the thing known around here as one step reframe with a big gold bow! (The reframes are very rarely actually one step, but feel like it when the light comes on!)

And – drum roll, please! – all of this reframing becomes medicine in my basket. Medicine for helping folks like you manifest your biggest, dearest intentions, one step at a time. If this notion sets anxiety/excitement bubbles rising inside you, let’s talk! 45 min. My gift. You bring a cuppa, some paper & a pen or markers… some red thread could be handy, too. We’ll name your next right thing!!!! Just click here and ask the calendar elves to hook you up!

ps… even though we’re running short on shipping time for the holidays, the buy 2 – get 1 free special on A Creation Poem… is still good! Here’s what one reader had to share: “What a gift! My youngest grand-children explored the paintings, simply transfixed, while the teens delighted in the inclusive language…” (Marilyn Washburn, MD, MDiv, PhD) No special codes needed. Just put 3 copies in your basket and they’ll make the magic! (pps… there are lots of other goodies discounted, too! Everything in the collections of Original Art, Archival Prints, and the Special Guest Artist Collection is 25% off the listed price – no codes needed. The elves have got you!)

Do you remember Tevye, in Fiddler on the Roof???

Can you hear him, even now???

I can! Dancing on the roof, shouting Tra-di-tion! at the top of his lungs, while his version of the way we’ve always done it was rapidly changing around him…

And, as you’ve already guessed, I can relate!

In fact, I feel like one huge collection of traditions – of stories – that don’t all seem to get along very well.

And how in the world did The Muse get Tevye and the angels and shepherds into the same story on this third Sunday in Advent???

We’ll come back to that question in just a bit!

First, though, could we agree that many, many of us are more conscious of living in the midst of mixed metaphors than we used to be?

Some of that change is technical… as in access to information Tevye could never have imagined! And today – in one of my old, old stories – is about information.

Angels appearing in the fields, telling the shepherds to take their flocks and make their way to Bethlehem, following a star.

No Google Maps. Just wilderness.

No generations of Grandmothers telling them this story all their years. Just go. Now.

No Motel 6 or Howard Johnson’s along the way.

And, at least in my heart, they went. Complete with a Hungarian herding dog (!) and – quite possibly – some Red Thread of their own… connecting them in ways too big to really comprehend.

In this moment, we are remembering. Many, many of us.

The questions – the ones they leave out of Hallmark® cards… probably quite intentionally – are important.

Whose version of the story are we remembering?

Who is included? And who is left out? And who gets to decide who gets to decide???

And – perhaps most timely of all – who benefits hugely, while others suffer???

I’m going to go way out on a limb here. Just me… the most sense I can make of all of this, at this moment. Now.

This story is for everyone who would say yes. Everyone longing for hope. For peace. For justice. Everyone ready to set out on the path with others, longing for ways to be love.

It’s not the only way to tell such a story… and I’m not sure the details really matter all that much.

As long as we choose love… the kind of love big enough for everyone.

ps.. yes! That last word – everyone – is a challenge for me. There are, indeed, a few folks my hurt, angry, frightened emotional self might choose to leave out. (Go ahead and guess!) But, here’s what I know… that part isn’t my job. My job is to say yes. Over and over again. As many times as it takes. Good news isn’t easy. It just beats the hell out of the alternative.

pps… meet my #wip – even though it isn’t Wednesday! A very opinionated painting known, officially, as #Embrace. Unofficially, she is becoming Our Lady of Good Trouble. Stay tuned!

ppps… need a Good Trouble gift for the Littles you love??? A Creation Poem… is just the thing!!! Put 3 copies in your basket and the elves will be thrilled to make one copy free at checkout! And HURRY… they’re magical… and they still need to be shipped! Daphne & I are on it! (AND, everything in the Original Art, Archival Prints, and Special Guest Artist collections is 25% off the listed price. The math elves have got you!) Just click here to be instantly transported to the place where Hope is waiting…

Okay… word junkie that I am, I looked it up! Latin. French.

To form a mental image of. To represent to oneself. There are also, according to the elves in my phone, connections, in Hebrew… to form and fashion… to squeeze into shape as a potter does with clay!

And, yes! I’ll bet you can guess where this is going!!!

Straight to the place where the season of Advent begins, slightly belatedly this year, in my heart and our home!

There I sat, a stranger in a strange (cold!) land called Hungary, on the floor of a local artisans shop, digging ever so gently through baskets of kings and shepherds and angels… choosing my hand made, clay, nativity figures.

It was January of 1989, months before the Eastern Block fell. And my tears flowed as I tried to grasp the courage of those artists, making nativity figures in a time and place when Religious Education was against the law! (Though making money off the stories was, apparently, permitted by the autocracy.)

And, yes… I’ve told this story time after time, since then.

And, yes… this year it feels different. And I am listening, deep.

The literal path my three kings have set out on is in a different location this year. Somehow, I need them to be where I can see them from the magic chair, for it feels as though I’m going to be there a good bit.

In Feng Shui land, their new place would be associated with abundance which feels both ironic and hopeful, just now, in this time where it seems like an abundance of courage is just what we need!

The Wise Ones came from people who had been watching the stars for generations. Astronomers. Hoping. Waiting.

And, it seems to me that we, too, have a road of hoping and waiting ahead of us.

The question seems to be…

What will we follow, along the way?

Frankly, I don’t know squat about astronomy or astrology, though I have noticed that I’m curious!

I’m not much good with compass directions, either.

I am good at noticing and wondering!!! And, more and more, I’m getting good at learning from my dreams.

I even have a name for where I’m headed, however rocky and twisted the path may seem.

Fred’s place! The place where I am called!!!

And, here’s my symbolic map. Really!

For now, though, I can hear the paintbrushes calling my name. What is calling you???

ps… I’d really love to know what’s calling you! 45 minutes. My gift. You & your big dreams. Me & my medicine basket. A cuppa. Paper and markers… or eyebrow pencils if that’s what you have! Some red thread if it’s handy… to get one step clearer!!!  Just click here and ask the calendar elves to hook you up!

pps… today, I mailed copies of A Creation Poem… to 3 different states! Huge fun!!! And, I’d love to mail some to you, or the Littles you love! I have art I’d love to mail you, too! So… the elves have automatic discounts set up just for you. Buy 2 copies of my new children’s book and get a third one free! And/or choose anything from Original Paintings, Archival Prints, or the Special Collection by my dear friend, August Venuh, and get 25 % off your choices. You just click here to fill up your basket and the elves will do the math! They’re really excited to help you, so fix yourself a cuppa and wander in the wonder! It’s time to deck the walls!!!

We are going on one of those Squeegie Hunts! I’m not afraid!

You don’t need to be, either. Really! At the moment, we’re just talking dreams. Early Saturday morning…

… I heard Ben Kline’s voice. Ben was one of my heroes at Columbia Theological Seminary. Theology professor. Occasional President and perpetual do-er of things that needed doing. King of the Listening Ears! And former Dean from Agnes Scott College, just down the road.

One day Ben was telling us of the night he had Robert Frost as a guest at Agnes Scott. Frost was, by request, reciting his poem, The Road Not Taken… which I’ve taken the liberty of re-arranging just a bit for space:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and, sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler, long I stood… And looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth; then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear… Though as for that the passing there, had worn them really about the same, and both that morning equally lay, In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh, Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference!

I had chills all those years ago, as I listened to Ben’s recollections… long before I had come to understand that they were signs of something that mattered deep inside me. You see, I – single mom seminary student – was very much on the road not taken – at least in my experience and time!

When I heard it again, in this moment of dreaming, 30-some years later, it was even more clear, and there were, indeed, more chills.

There was another voice, as well. One you’ve heard me quote many times… Theologian & fabulous author, Frederick Buechner:

The place where we are called is where our deep longing and the world’s deep need meet.

I’m betting you can guess why that might sound different in the context of now, than it ever has before! In many ways, there isn’t a road for now. Not an existing one, at least. But there is, if we will see it, a map!

For me, it’s a choice, in the place where the road diverges, between the way we’ve always done it and the way my heart and soul are called, which feels like both the road less traveled by and the place where my deep longing and the world’s deep need meet.

My inner librarian, though, was not finished! We needed tools for the road!!!

#Filters, for sure! My Map of Reality. Some red ink, for editing, which often sounds scary but is, actually the best part!

And my Medicine Basket, ready for experimenting with new strategies! As you may have guessed, it was quite the Red Thread circle! And there was space, too, for Emmi, the grand-puppy, who laid next to me, where I could feel her ribs moving as she breathed in and out. Literal – and mystical – INSPIRATION!

Mostly, in this moment, I have questions! And that’s totally okay with me because they’re my consciously chosen questions, which experience suggests work way better for this kind of journey than the external kind which generally come with tons of vested interest and someone else’s desired outcomes!

One of those questions is, obviously, Why? That one’s easy… Because my Littles and all our Littles need a world where they know they matter, each in their own way, and we Bigs have a whole lot of work to do on that!

Another question is, How long will it take?

That one’s more complicated! As long as I have breath is one answer, but it may not be enough, so I’m going with helping folks just like you set out on your version of the same journey… the road less taken… to the place where your deep longing and the world’s deep need meet.

We’ll probably need to set down some of the things from our pre-conscious medicine baskets, and make space for new tools and perceptions for the roads we’re choosing, which is totally okay! Old, ineffective medicine makes great compost, which helps the new world grow!

ps… there’s still time! It’s Giving Thanks Weekend! And, there are great deals for you at FierceArtWithHeart.com Use code Giving Thanks Weekend to save 25% on items in the Original Paintings & Hat Heaven collections – even those already discounted! And/or… purchase 2 copies of my new children’s book, A Creation Poem… and get a 3rd copy FREE! Just put 3 in your basket and the elves will make the magic! Hurry, though… the discounts expire on Dec 2 at 11:59pm ET.

pps… there’s still more time! 45 minutes. My gift. You & your big dreams. Me & my medicine basket. A cuppa. Paper and markers… or eyebrow pencils if that’s what you have! Some red thread if it’s handy. Just click here and ask the calendar elves to hook you up!

And I am declaring that today is National Pie Day… at least in my family. You and yours are totally invited!!!

Granny Elizabeth made fabulous pie crust. Gramma Elsie was so dedicated that she rode through the cornfields on the back of my uncle’s motorcycle, an apple pie in each hand, lest the Wednesday night dinner folks be deprived of pie when the farm truck broke down.

The menu for this year includes apple, pecan, pumpkin, and key lime… really! Fortunately, we have many hands! (And no motorcycles!)

The grand-dog, Emmi, seems content with a basket of stuffed toys and frozen things to be gnawed on!

I did take a bit of time, earlier, to hang in Zoom land with my friend – sister – teacher, Shiloh Sophia McCloud, for a bit of reflecting that used to feel outside my tradition.

Yep! Mother Mary Oracle Cards! (The Pilgrims and the folks who, as we say in the South, raised me right will get over it!) It’s actually another way of thinking about Filters! and you know how big a deal that is around here!

You’re probably busy so I won’t line it all out, though it was great! Let’s just say lots of questions were involved and you know how I love that!

I will share my biggest inner take-away…

I release feeling the fear and I am open to something new!

You, I suspect, get how big an affirmation that might feel like in the context of this moment! (See, it really is a Filters! thing!!!) The best word I know for what I’m feeling is #QUICKENING!!! (Stay tuned!)

For now, though… pie! Just think of the days before super-markets! Days when food needed to be gathered and preserved, lest loved ones be hungry before there was more. What a perfect job for pie! And a way to value and include people with special favorites!

It’s also a fabulous way to get everybody involved in creation! Too young for stoves? Toss apple slices with cinnamon & sugar. Crimp the edges of the crust. You hear me… ways for our Littles to really contribute!

And, when they get a bit older, as ours seem to be doing rapidly, ways for them to express themselves!

Somewhere in time, I suspect the ancestors are smiling, even though there are some things we’re sharing that aren’t the way we’ve always done it!

Sending much love and hope to you and yours! And, the possibility of something new, in just the way you’d welcome!

ps… curious? There may be some new openings for #Quickening after the holiday! I’ll gladly keep you posted!

pps… what if you could help your Littles claim their place in beginnings & belonging, stay warm this winter, support an independent artist, and save money??? You can! Click here to be magically transported to FierceArtWithHeart! Then, choose an utterly unique hat or hats and add them to your basket. Then, choose the same number of copies of A Creation Poem… as you chose hats and add those to your basket. The elves will automatically make the books free. (One hat/one book… two hats/two books…) And, hurry! This offer is only good as long as their are hats available! And browse a bit… awesome gifts for everybody, from art mugs to art leggings and original paintings!