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Friday, June 14, 2013

Notes

You really light my fire, do you know that?
I'm endlessly awed by your support and I will never, ever tire of telling you so.  
Thank you.
THANK you.
Thank YOU.
You keep my spirits ever encouraged, you keep food on our table, you remind me that this life path is exactly where I want to be, you make possible this life that we're cultivating.
I appreciate you with the whole of my heart and soul!  And I really, truly want you to know it!
* * *

On a business note:
There are some big shifts happening here!  The blog will be shut down for a period of time this weekend as we make the BIG switch to the all new (and if I say so myself, GORGEOUS) UmberDove website!  It's been such a long time coming and I can't wait to reveal it to you.  Big things friends, big things.  To make it easy, you will always find me at www.umberdove.com, and I appreciate your patience as we fiddle with the technical stuff this weekend!
* * *

In summary:
You're great. 
I'll see you next week!
~ U ~ 

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

On Love and other Small Fortunes


The Anthology of Pocket Sized Fortunes
A Postcard Pack of Collections!! 

For the last year I've had so many lovely friends request another pack of postcards for the etsy shop - and for about as long, I've been jonesing to create one! 

I am a collector of curiosities; there is no other way to admit it. These cards are full of the small treasures I fill my home with, gifts from nature slipped into pockets, treasured items from dear friends who know me well, bits of the natural world that give me pause, objects d'art that make my heart flutter.  Creating these wee vignettes is such pure play for me; I ransack the mantles, window ledges, side tables, studio corners and naturally, every pant pocket, gathering up a host of treasures on the dining table.  I hem, I haw, I try this with that, I take those out and add these.  I sip more coffee, I dig through jars of sea glass.  And before I know it, I've spent the better part of a day just having fun.  True, light-hearted, nimble fingered play and an every refreshed love for this world I'm blessed to wander.
* * *
Agape Rings
(sterling silver and rose quartz)

We all love.  We love puppy tails, peonies, sherbet colored sunsets, that first hot beverage of the day, the feel of a cool breeze when the day is warm.  We love our chosen families, the friends who meet us for dinner, the people who inspire, the ones who shower us with love.  I have no doubt that every single one of us loves, and loves in spades.  But every now and then, love is tricky.  We forget to turn that shining beacon of love we project to our favorites upon our selves.  Self-love takes intention, and in my life, continual reminding that I am worthy of love, worthy of my kindness, my gentleness, my own unconditional love.  It's a practice new every day, and just in case you are practicing too, I made these rings.  
The tallest domes of rose quartz you ever did see, luminous, vibrant, and rising up high.  Stacks of sterling silver swirling and flowing out, up the arm, straight up to your own heart.  She's light but you'll know she's there, delicate, but substantial enough to pack a love-filled punch.  As I worked on these, I filled my heart with so much love for the fingers who will wear them and soldered in little prayers that they remember to love themselves whole.
* * *

(you can find both the postcard packs and the agape rings in the shop right here!)
I wish you a cheery Tuesday birds!
~ U ~

Monday, June 10, 2013

A Day in the Life of the Dove - A Seattlish Saturday

[A photographic account of a single day in my life - a day of dearest friends visiting for the first time and more young'uns on all fours than any one knew what to do with.]

~ June 8th 2013 ~
9:14 am
11:04 am
11:05 am
11:49 am
11:57 am
11:59 am
12:37 pm
1:32 pm
2:40 pm
2:57 pm
3:48 pm
4:07 pm
4:14 pm
5:06 pm
8:13 pm
8:38 pm
9:01 pm
9:42 pm
9:48 pm
11:31 pm
* * *

Monday, June 3, 2013

Fragments from a Weekend

 I live in the city.  Sometimes, like this morning, this still strikes me as an oddity.  I wish he wasn't at work as my coffee for one feels lonely.  Simultaneously solitary and yet enough as I pad around the property scuffling under the juniper and squatting in the dewy grass.  This morning there was a single vertebrae left atop eight month old detritus I've yet to clear in the name of "forest compost."  I'll add it to the collection because clearly the crows left it for me to find.  
* * *
First there are take out breakfast burritos and drive-through coffee.  The glare of sun on the lake and consequent wall of cloud cover.  It's never the temperature I expect.  We tromp, they gallop, I whistle, we talk.  Everything is so green, the chroma bursts and makes me heady.  There is such an art to joint dreaming but somedays it comes easier than others.  Today, as we pick out properties, discussing important details such as where the studio with its conjoined solarium will sit, I know it's one of the easy ones.  
* * *
Is it common to stride through life unaware of the exact weight we carry in stress until it leaves?  I hold my breath awaiting medical results - as though the act of testing itself makes real the possibility of illness.  But for the first time in three years, the weight was matched by a single beacon of belief in health.  After all, I'm learning.  After all, I'm restructuring each level of my being towards wholeness.  After all, I believe my work here is barely begun.
And after all that, the results came back.  Utterly, perfectly healthy.
(Healer Ring, sterling silver and prehnite)
* * *
Sometimes I hold an image for a long, long time.  Sometimes it just needs to gestate, sometimes I'm waiting to see more, sometimes it's just too much and I find the excuses to stall.  Three years is a long time and this moves straight past all my comfortable barriers into the realm of unknown possibility.   Now it's begun.
It may be finished in a week's time, it may be finished in three months.  I'm not rushing it.  But around here, it will be referred to as "the painting Hummingbird blessed:"
Sketching with a long brush, details of gesture, details of the red-tail, details that will come.  I step close to work, I stand back to view, maybe five feet, eyes squinted.  At that distance, the hummingbird flew down between my physical self and painted self.  It hovered inches from the painting, back and forth between the face and the hawk, rose up, nearly landing on the top edge of canvas.  It turned to face me, lowering its busy body to the center of the canvas and hovered.  For a long second it just buzzed there midair, looking at me, looking at it.  And then with a zip and that flash of iridescence, it was gone.
And that is how I know I'm on the right path.
* * *