On the Subject of Unfurling

When I woke up this morning the air was so thick I could almost drink it.  Around here, tucked between the salt of the ocean and the heat of the mountains, the fog rolls in thicker than goose down.  When you step outside in the watery first light of day, a delicate tinkling greets your ears as every leaf and needle drips dew.
It's quiet and damp.
There is so much room to breath, to stretch, to sigh.
To be gentle with yourself, no matter what yesterday held.

This morning when I woke I had to remind myself to unfurl once again, to relax the spring-loaded spiral of my heart, to trust that I can be safe and open at the same time.

Unfurl those heart strings, let them curl towards the sky.
With every breath, broaden those fronds.
Take that tight curl, that coiled spring you hold in your chest
Let it open.
Let it open.






(100% Sterling Silver, pressed with the tiniest of ferns, plucked right here on the high Northern California Coast.  In US sizes 5.75, 8, and 9.5)

I am a little fern.
And this wet climate suits my soul.

 

The studio has never looked brighter (or greener.  I can not stop purchasing house plants.  Today I stopped by the nursery for a bag of cactus potting soil and came home with a rex begonia in shades of fiery pomegranate and a fern whose tag said only "Mother").  My head has absolutely been brimming with new ideas, bubbling over faster than I can even record them.  However it's a funny space (my head, not the studio that is); my imagination is at a full gallop with imagery in paint, on stone, on leather, on canvas but as soon as I try to reach out and grab just one of those thoughts, the vision dissolves like a mirage.  I can no longer see the piece as a whole, just tiny details.  Random bits.  My pencil seems blindfolded when I set it to paper.  The concepts are so strong in my mouth, but translation falters before my eyes.

Yesterday I wanted to call out to the heavens:
"It's a sticky place to be in, my darling muse.
Sweep away the curtains!  Let me on with my business!
Chop chop now, quit your heartless teasing and give me my sights!"
(except insert a few saucier words of your choosing)

I've pressed on, but it's been one of those weeks where entire days in the studio are lost to a slip of the leather shears, or [multiple] two hour drives working out the details of what our future looks like, or kitty boys who teach a neighbor cat a lesson, resulting hours spent at the veterinary clinic (my Thai!  My little bruiser has a shaved neck and a drain that requires cleaning every so many hours but he is a trooper like none other, demanding food sacrifices for his valiant behavior.  Also, for the record, the other cat leapt into our yard - our boys are never allowed free wandering!).

At the same time, there has been writing, photographing, tooling, painting, drawing and all manner of just looking.  But as of this very second, nothing I'm ready to show.

Sometimes the ideas come so easily I forget about the struggle.
Sometimes I don't trust the fast ideas and often, when ship sails smoothly along I miss the struggle.  The wrestling with unpracticed imagery, the discomfort of stretching into a new concept, the ache of potential failure.  It's like the burn in your calves when the hill is steep, the fire in your lungs when the trail stretches farther than you've ever run before.

It hurts.

I feel as through I'm acquiring creative stretch marks.

But I asked for that growth, and I went after it with gumption.  So here's to believing with every fiber of my being that the struggle reveals the answers, that the pruned branch bears the sweetest fruit.

Here's to the struggle.

When I Say Fern...

... I mean FERN!

All things green and dripping and curling and reaching ever upward.

(and I swoon)

My parents are in town for the week.  Well, to be honest they are in forest.  Camping, not 15 minutes from my home in one of the loveliest areas the North Coast offers.  I don't mean to boast, but really now, but this territory I reside in is so amazing, with so much to offer that I feel luck rising in my soul every time I venture out of doors.

After a solid night of sleep in my own bed and a hearty breakfast (BC is fattening me up on the good weeks - he gives me a wink and adds a little extra butter on my english muffins) I'm heading back out to the woods and water to stay with them and let my soul be filled with all that the ravens see and the black bears smell.

More to come, more to come, but first I need to get my shoes a little muddy and my pockets full of detritus.