The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others’ burdens, easing other’s loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas. -W.C. Jones
Music is a balm. Music uplifts and makes us smile and gives us hope. The creation of it, the listening, the sharing of musical ideas with our band mates, and performance for the public are such spiritual experiences.
I created this art journal for my friend Lorraine who ADORES the color orange. I am not so fond of orange, but I am very fond of my friend and wanted to make something special just for her. So, a lovely little art journal made of old greeting cards, with generous doses of the color orange, seemed just the thing! I call this little book, Orange You Glad (to have a friend like Lorraine).
This book created of recycled greeting cards is not my idea. It is from the astounding artist Jenni Bellie who lives in England ( I am jealous) and creates the most remarkable things from recycled materials. Jenni is a gifted painter and constructor and has an unbelievable imagination! I LOVE HER.
Luckily, Jenni cheerfully and patiently shares her brilliance with the rest of us via online tutorials on her site. I don’t remember how I stumbled upon her wonderfulness, but am so glad I did. Jenni has opened a new creative door within a girl who still considers herself (after only a year and a half of rediscovering her creative self) a fledgling.
You must go visit Jenni at
http://jennibelliestudio.blogspot.com
Not only is she a fascinating artist, she’s quite a writer as well and I have enjoyed reading her blog, her stories and her adventures.
Here are more pics of Lorraine’s Orange You Glad journal.
The sun is shining the birds are chirping and your child with the musical muse is just not feeling like devoting any time to lessons today. The lazy days of summer don’t have to mean a lackadaisical attitude about practicing music. Here are MMS’s top ten tips to keep your young musician’s practice routine sizzling during the summer!
1. Keep your child’s instrument handy.
I dropped the hose today.
Before you widen your eyes and gasp and think lurid thoughts, let me clarify.
A salon shampoo station consists of
1. A porcelain sink or “bowl” with an indentation for the head and ears (don’t forget the ears) of a client
2. A reclining chair so the client leans back into the bowl
3. A tap with hot and cold water.
4. THE HOSE- a plastic tube with a sprayer on the end intended to wet and rinse a client’s hair (not the client,the chair, the floor, the rug, or the wall across from the shampoo bowl..) Do not, I repeat, Do Not drop the hose.
They told me I would do it. They said no matter what, it would happen. I scoffed and laughed and tightened my grip on the wild water hose. The first words that popped out of my friend Jacqueline’s mouth when I told her about my new adventure as a salon tech/shampoo lady, were, “Don’t drop the hose!” She was speaking from years of experience as a stylist.
But I was determined it should never happen to me. I would capture the offending hose in a strangle hold and never let go, but
I dropped the hose today.
Our client was seated in a chair at the new bowls at the salon. These bowls allow a client to nearly sit straight, tilt the head back a bit and get a nice shampoo without reclining all the way in a chair. In the midst of rinsing her hair, as I was gabbing about this and that, I let go of the hose. Such a small, involuntary movement.
So much water.
The front of my client’s rubber color cape got a nice spray as did the chair. But mostly I made a nice big puddle of water in the FLOOR in front of the chair.
At a moment of supreme embarrassment, my client and co-workers could have come unhinged and chided my clumsiness and lack of a good grip on the hose after being warned it was a wily beast apt to turn in a second.
But this is what happened: my sweet co-worker asked my sweet shampoo tech assistant to clean up the water while I continued to shampoo our client. The assistant laughed and said, “Remember when we were learning to shampoo and handle the hose and we BOTH wet the wall at the front bowls?” She cheerfully grabbed towels to clean up the mess. My client, bless her soul, kept claiming, “It’s just water! Don’t worry about it!” Stylists stopped by, noticing the melee, to stare and smile and say, “Well you finally did it!” One claimed I was now, officially, part of the crew.
The entire incident reminded me of life in general. Each day we have accidents and irritations and things don’t go according to plan. We say things we don’t mean in response to things that, in one or one hundred years, will not matter. We can blow a small incident so far our of proportion, as to cause a skirmish, a battle of wills, a war of unkind words, hurt feelings and disillusionment in our fellow humans.
Our attitude is everything. Reacting with hate and hostility to any situation, whether it be a work incident or an election or a family issue, is not right thinking.
Learn to react with understanding and compassion. React in the direction of love. Love, after all, is an action word.
And don’t let go of the hose.
“Fear can keep us up all night long, but faith makes one fine pillow.”- unknown
A sweet waxing crescent moon nods in the sky and it is All Hallow’s Eve and the world is frozen. In Virginia it can be summer one day and below freezing the next and we are in the next days of weather after a few glorious days of 80 degree warmth. The heat is on and I am not sleeping for fear of it. The high cost of home heating oil keeps me awake. And the fact that my furnace is an aged soul, still tottering but able to function and for that I am most grateful.
I am not a winter person. Cold is not inviting. Wearing three layers of clothing and a stocking cap INDOORS is not my idea of coziness. I am a summer girl. A brown native who relishes 90 degree days and baking sun and thinks sweat beads sparkling in the blazing heat are more exotically beautiful than a strand of the finest pearls.
But I am in Virginia. A cold tundra but by far not the coldest state or place.
When I was a child it was so cold in our house I would get dressed for school beneath the covers of my bed. I was always the first to wear a coat or sweater or several layers. The first to drink hot soup and hot tea and hot broth and pray for summer.
How can I effectively combat this frozen season, this winter chill of soul and spirit and self?
This morning during another sleepless winter night it came to me.
Rise above- and dig in.
Recognize within the frozen earth, inside bare, flowerless branches, a new world is waking, stretching her arms and legs and opening her eyes. Summer and winter exchange forces and bring new life to the natural world. Instead of focusing on freezing, perhaps I should focus on fragments of possibility. For it is there. Rise above- dig in.
In each ending is a new beginning. I’ll continue to pray for my frail little furnance, hope for warm winter days and drink hot soup, coffee and broth to heat my body.
But my soul will begin to see Winter differently. She is a sleeping child, a warm spirit nestled within the hard earth and barren branches, developing, determined to dance her wild fury at the first hint of spring.
Welcome winter, bring your chill
To All Hallow’s Eve bright and still
Draw the veil deep within
Rise above- and dig in
- tammy brackett
c- 2011
“We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race. ~ CiceroSeizing pleasure….
“My children, you have forgotten the customs and traditions of your forefathers. You have bought guns, knives, kettles and blankets from the white man until you can no longer do without them; and what is worse is you have drunk the poison firewater, which turns you into fools. Fling these things away; live as your forefathers did before you.” – Pontiac, ODOWA
A recent round of natural semi-disasters passed through my life recently. I say semi-disasters because, luckily, we had little damage from either the 5.8 earthquake that struck our region Thursday August 26 or Hurricane Irene which plowed through August 27 and 28.
Irene’s wind and fury did leave us powerless for nearly a week. There was no internet and no phone service. Our neighborhood was quiet and dark the first few days after the storm. Most neighbors secured generators after two or three days, which provided them with light accompanied by a nearly defeaning roaring din that was more disconcerting than the dark and quiet could ever be.
I heated water on our gas grill and made instant coffee in the morning. I used the warm water for a quick wash before work. After work I scoured the opposite side of town for ice (there was none) and food (there was no fresh food just canned) and then cooked items from our slowly defrosting freezer. We ate outside on our deck round our lovely mosaic table that we never use. We went to bed when the candles burned down. We were nearly living as our forefathers.
Americans tend to consume until we cannot do without “things” that 100 years ago were not necessary to daily life. Better phones, bigger homes, more power drains the simplicity from life. For all our so-called progress, we certainly don’t seem to be happy or content.
Power, in all its forms, has not resulted in true light or enlightenment. Power has left us in the dark.
Contentment is not grounded in power. Contentment is attained most readily in an unplugged environment. Consider our forefathers and how they lived before power, running water, and blink of the eye communications. Duplicate the lives of our forefathers in some small way today and discover the true power of unplugged enlightenment.
