Unabashed

Today:  I am filled with the kindess of strangers and the warmth of feeling known by the closest of confidants.  My hair is still in knots from last night's sunset driving with all the windows down and Neko Case is stuck on repeat in my head.  I feel a tenderness towards humanity that is too often reserved for the trees.  I feel fiercely determined, I feel the stirring to create, I feel the apprehension of upcoming appointments that place a time stamp on the future.  My feet already hold a sharp flip-flop tan and I'm giddy to see the snap peas are blooming.  I'm dusting off words that have been left idle by the roadside.  I am a daughter of the earth, I am on time for my life.

* * *

Good God of 85 Degree Temps.
Holla.
And welcome.

How was your weekend?  I managed to flash my thighs in the sunshine whilst day drinking and veggie planting... oh the holy trifecta of Summer living.  When you hold such a watery heart and a coastal soul, it's easy to forget how utterly delicious this weather can be.  On today's menu?  Lilac plucking and toe painting.  After the work day of course.  Or maybe smack in the middle.  It's a physical hardship for me to stay inside.  I know, I know, this LIFE!  Whee!

I've been thinking much lately on trying to pull all of my body, all of my mind into the physical place I stand on the earth.  Blame it on a wanderer's spirit, a gypsy heritage or past lives, but I find myself all too often residing in one place while my heart wanders the hillsides of another.  I thirst for salt air, for snow caps, for warm oak leaves, for hawk cries, for sisters who laugh, for lonely roads, and for languid meals.  It's something like wanderlust, but deeper, a searching for the fertile soil of roots that run deep, and slivers of earth that cradle my form.  Days like this make it easy to dig fully into the place I stand, so I take them, gulp them down greedily, and fill myself up with their contentment.  I walk barefoot and run my hands along the trees.  On others my feet twitch and I crave the sight of every new thing, the experience of every fresh locale, but deeper still I crave the foundation of home.
As ever, I am a dichotomy.
But I wouldn't trade it for the world.
* * *
The wind whistles too sweetly through this old house, and I need to check in on the cucumbers.  Or something like that.
Here's me, wishing you lollypops and unicorns!
~ U ~

Salt Air

 

I don't know if this is true of other oceans,
Of warmer shores or bluer waters,
But when I breath in the mist of Mamma Pacific,
Time no longer matters.
* * *

A Ring for Abundance

Know Thyself: A Ring for Abundance

(sterling silver and raw citrine)

A while back I made a couple rings in this vein of thought with natural amethyst clusters; earthy, deep and raw.  Since then, the design (and intentions behind it) have danced around the back of my mind, telling me that I was no where near done with this concept.  And so I sourced a gorgeous hunk of citrine, natural (unheated, untreated, as much on the market is) and bursting with magic.  Every little crystalline point sparkles in the sunlight, singing a song of abundance.  You know, the type wherein the heart brims, the hands overflow, and the whole earth bursts into song?  That's the kind of abundance I'm talking about here.

And I tell you true, it feels good.

Happy Wednesday you beauties!  I hope your vitamin d meters are spinning off the charts!

* * *

(p.s. That bundle of citrine abundance is in the shop now!)

Rain Dance

Some days, some weeks, all my work happens on the inside.  I don't use many words, I don't take many photos.  My skin rests, my hair stays pulled back.  From the outside not much seems to bloom.  But inside, the good work is sprouting.

Earlier this weekend I talked with a good friend about the concept of artistic fullness.  There is much written about the "well of creativity" and the continual need to fill and fill to brimming.  I think about my internal source not so much as a well, with it's straight sides and uniform depth, but as a vernal pool, a natural feature on the undulating landscape of living.  When the seasons shift, the waters rise and the whole of the pool teams with life scurrying under the surface.  The sun rises, the sun sets, and slowly the waters pull in towards the center, leaving a ring of vibrant flora.  This outer ring gives way to the next burst of color, giving way to the next, until a cross section of beauty is radiating out, deep and lush, left behind by the receding water.  The rich liquid of life itself is reduced to a small pool, still bountiful, still fertile, still carrying seeds and life and the minutia of creation, yet condensed and calling out for rain.

And so I do a rain dance.

Renewal

Epoch Ring

(sterling silver and adventurine)

A few years ago I was sick, wracked with everything western medicine could do to stop cellular mutation.  One day I read a short snippet, surely in one of the trillion pamphlets and packets the doctors have given me, that simply read: "In one year's time, the body will replace, turn over, and regenerate up to 85% of it's cells."  

I could picture it like some sort of virtual, interactive map: cells blinking and lighting up throughout my body.  New cells, scrubbed clean, bright and shining, springing up at every second.  Of course they carried the imprint of history, the story of their elder cells, the ancestral burden of trauma, but they were NEW.  And they were HEALTHY.  And I hung onto that image like a lifeline.  One year, I told myself, and I will experience a new beginning, a rebirth of organic nature.  One year, and I'll know I'm filled with baby fresh cells and a new era will begin.

* * *

A short while back I made a ring, quite similar to this one, for myself; a modern, abstract image of those cells bursting with new, rich life.  It was my reminder of the 85%, of the one year's time.  When I created it, I intended to make several for the shop, but it felt too private, too secret to share, intimate in the way that abstraction can make one feel as though they're standing in their skivvies in front of the school.  And then this last weekend I felt the fire to make one for you and share the story here.  And that's the kind of fire I'll never ignore.

* * *

Happy Renewal Friends!

Merry Spring!

Get out there and let the sunlight kiss your cheek!

~ U ~

(the Epoch ring is heading to the shop right now)

The Joy of Tropism

The Joy of Tropism
(sterling silver and prehnite)


Arc, twirl, swell, unfurl, curve, burst,
All you green things,
All you growing things,
Spring is coming into her glory,
Raise your heads and stretch toward the light.
* * *
Sometimes I just need to make something for the pure joy of being alive.  For the thrill of waking up, peering out the windows, and saying "it's going to be a gorgeous day."  That's what this little bauble is full of: the joy of just being alive.  Of growing upward and onward in both rain and shine.  Of being that green thing that wriggles and turns its face up.  Of happiness.  Of cherry blossoms.  Of the first wee threads of chartreuse popping up through the garden soil.  Of sunshine of the soul.

(if you need that little punch of delight in your life, she's heading to the shop now)
* * *

Have a gorgeous day you chickadees!