Love letter: Dear truth
Dear truth,How ominous,This single tenet that greets the overwhelmed world.The minor chords that fade into a bitter sweetness.Look, there is so much more that can be said.We marvel at words, we sell them...as much as a word cannot be for sale...we buy them every day.We buy them like food. Like gasoline. We send them to our friends, our enemies.Until we’re out of words. Then all that can be heard is breathing.A sweet simple melody strung into silence.There is joy here.There is also terror.A sweeping exhaustion.An exhale.And why?Maybe to elevate one who is nearly nothing to one who is suddenly more.But the truth is that by then everyone’s moved on.
Postcard: Self portrait as Frida Kahlo, considering Da Vinci's ghost, encouraged by Dali graces, saved by Picasso's dove, under Van Gogh's' stars, sheltered by Monet's waterlily. Pencil, ink, chalks, on Arches.Kept
Love letter: dear magic
Dear magic,There is a carpet I have which came from my grandfather’s house.It’s mostly red with green and orange flowers, and looks like a kind of relic from Victorian times.This kind of carpet used to be quite common but now it seems to be rare.Grandpa said he brought it back from The Orient; a vast and magical place. He said it was a gift from a queen, Queen Sheba, he said.Once almost everyone who wanted a carpet like this one could have one because grandpa said that going to The Orient in search of these carpets was what everyone did.But you had to be careful to find the magi who tended his sheep in the mountains. He was the only one you could buy this sort of carpet from. But as soon as people figured out the tinsiest bit of magic, practically every one tried their luck with the carpets. And it worked! It worked a treat! Soon everyone was packaging their carpets carefully and shipping them to their home countries and started to show them off. Tricks were turned, freedom gained.But not everyone had the knack to make these kinds of carpets properly and, while a good carpet, well cared for, can show a lot of wear and tear over hundreds of years and still function, pretty soon these carpets began to disintegrate. Then accidents began to happen. People died! It became apparent that not all the carpets were alike and that’s when the hunt began. Money exchanged hands like crazy. Fortunes were made. Fortunes were lost.Finally the accidents began to take a toll on families and that’s when a world-wide eradication happened, grandpa said. Everyone was ordered to bundle up their carpets and burn them. There were huge bonfires set up in every village. For the good of our citizens! People shouted, while the bonfires burned into weeks and weeks consuming every last magical thread.So now most of the carpets are gone. Grandpa is gone too, and so is the magi on the mountain. He took his sheep and walked right out of The Orient and no one ever saw him again.All that’s left is this treasured carpet here on my floor...and quite possibly a couple, maybe three, more I heard rumours about. Let me assure you that you will probably never find them unless they want to be found. And I don't think they do because they're so old now.And just to make doubly sure mine will never lift off the ground again, I have two enormous oak desks weighing it down.It mutters a disagreement once in a while, but it knows it is a bit old and a bit moth-eaten, and knows it probably couldn’t get far, but just to make sure it stays happy, on all warm, dry nights I open the skylight and the windows, and let the warm cross breeze caress it so it can flutter at the edges and feel like it’s in flight, and it happily rests under the stars.
Postcard: The magic formula. Black card stock, pencils, ink, chalks.
Love letter: dear legs
Dear legs,This girl, who was really a mermaid, only no one could tell on account of the legs, ran so fast that she went right off the edge of the world.Swoosh. Just like that.First she fell with her legs straight, like a metal rod, with her arms crossed over her chest.Then she fell sideways, rocking like falling feathers, only faster.Then she got bored and fell like a sack full of mud.Finally she pulled her legs up to her chest, locked her arms around them and got very quiet and very small. She felt like a ball, or a robin’s egg. She felt like a snail shell with the snail inside.Sealed.Heavy.Turning.Then she kicked off the bottom and swam up.
Postcard: collagesent.
Love letter: dear courage
Dear courage,Change is in the air. I feel it. I feel it looming and circling and gathering strength.
I can feel it creaking across my heart late at night.
Resisting is only prolonging the frustration of the situation I’m in at the moment.
The universe is funny that way.It will whisk you up and drop you miles away from where you thought you were heading to, and just makes you cope.
I like change, really, I do. I like new situations and new people and new places. But on the other hand, I really do not like change forced on me.
I definitely do not like Mr Steel-toed Boots the builder next door. I do not like his bullying tactics, the bending of the bylaws, the confrontations on my doorstep, the damage.
Why do we not like some people?
I always think that when you see the light in someone’s eyes, when you finally see WHO they are, you realise that they are someone who you might eventually understand. That’s so effortless, isn’t it?The other ones, the ones whose light you don’t see, they aren’t so easy.
But that’s probably because you don’t let them see your light either.
Watercolour painting of Cher Ami; a WWI carrier pigeon. Tiny little guy flew over war carrying messages back and forth saving the lives of over 200 men. I put him on a nondescript sheet of church voluntary. Just one small bird in the middle of a war. Such a courageous spirit.
Love letters: Dear first love, hunger, and future me
Dear first love, hunger, and future me,I heard,That a breeze is caused by the differences in air pressure on some mountain peak a hundred miles away.In the soft evening breeze a raven flew by the cabin, swooped over the pond and flew up to the windows to look in.There we were. Raven and I. Face to face for a moment.I heard,That same repeating little thought; a need, a hunger. Capture his image, capture that moment, with any available anything that will make a mark.Now that image is etched directly on my brain. Just like the time of the eagles on the snowy bank. Just like the time of the fox in the field. Just like the time of the hedgehog in the front garden.I heard,That this is the way it is with first loves, true loves; they lead to a lifetime of hunger.And it stays there on my mind waiting for the right piece of paper, canvas, clay, moment. They all do. All the captured memories. Waiting.In my mind I blend all the memories like a load of laundry and wash away. Wash away.And sort them out one by one.
Postcards: watercolour paintings of that raven, on Arches paper.unsent
Love Letters: Dear Younger Me
Dear younger me,The things which I wish to say cannot be said,In part because it has been said, (and often), before,And we know this was as true the first as the second time I said it.It cannot become any truer with time.The bigger reason I cannot say what I want to say, is that I want to say something which seems to be a kind of music.A world score of music.It’s less a text and more a space of time profoundly charged by feeling, like the awe given to our small being among the enormous events of universal importance.Universes and stars and suns, impact points, or gods, or some computer generated sims.In any case, the whole of it.Even for those, whose language is to say what cannot be said, the task requires a life of practice, contemplation, prayer. (The latter two don’t work without the first.)Our life began in echo and extends into apprenticeship; a period which may be short, or long, but always ends...if it ends...with a view.Even with the view, I must still learn the personal language that will convey that view to you.And since my view, so similar, is also vastly different from yours, if only because I wish to speak it, I must also invent the language.Life is like that.Postcard: Acrylic paintingsent
Love Letters: Dear Rest
Dear rest,It's so peaceful here.It's quiet and uncomplicated and serene.I love it. Rosy and fresh and cool.Like a good book.Like a song.A bowl of really sweet cherries.Yeah, that's it.Cherries, like cherries.Postcard: Acrylic paint, shadow play, plus a collaged copy of Erwin Blumenfeld's photograph Aubade 1938.The only place I really rest it seems is at my cabin. No electricity, no cell phone reception, no bother.I love it so much. I really have to get up here more often.
Love letter: dear books
Dear books,We don’t all sing like typewriters.Some of us deliver a text which is pondered in the heart.I think there are silences louder than words.........................................................Postcard: oil painting on the cover of a Victorian hymnal.sent...with a little extra postage.(I didn't destroy the book for this postcard. When I found it in the "free" box at a car boot sale, all that was left was the cover.)Below are some photos from my wellness journal workshop yesterday.Since my own experience (here) I've been running wellness journal workshops with the most amazing people all struggling in various stages of treatment for cancer.Some have never drawn a thing in their lives. One wonderful gal yesterday gave up her corporate job and decided to invest in her artistic talent full time, only to be diagnosed. This is the first time she picked up art again in over a year.Want to make your own? Instructions here.And, while I have a library here at home of over 1000 much loved books, I find time and time again that, when I save books, they save me right back. Book save, books heal and books inspire in so many different ways.
Love letter: Dear Intuition
Dear Intuition,The voices made me do it!Love,VLast night I had the sudden urge to read pages from a journal that I wrote 11 years ago.Aside from the questionable prose style, and the pretentious critique of Jung, and the efforts to impress with words like “testudinal,” I barely recognised you. You were so fearless in the face of love and so utterly convinced that you had found the source of happiness.I stayed up late into the night reading as though it was someone else’s story. And I had to remind myself that that girl was you. Is me.It felt good to read my past. It's given me a new perspective, a new vitality of spirit, a quickening of intuition, and a sharp intake of breath, like a pump from some strong bellows, to fan the tiny flame of my heart into a roaring fire.Dear V,I told you so.Love,Your Intuition.Postcard: Ganesha waiting. Collage, white ink, grey felt pen.sent
Love letter: Dear morning
Dear morning,I don’t know how to explain it.You burn into my memory like a memory is supposed to: Six am waking up. Grandma bringing in a cup of hot tea. My skates on a towel in the corner of the room, waiting for me to finish my tea, pick them up and go to practice. Daily... for years and years and years.I still skate on those skates, now just for fun, but tea always starts the day.It’s my ritual and yet not a ritual at all.It’s my pleasure and my passion.My lifetime.I wish grandma was still here. She was the sweetest of peas.Postcard: What's the story, morning glory. Collage, acrylics, inks.sent