Well Oh My Winter Sun

Here

..............I am exceedingly delighted to be here in front of this open fire, with two feet, red sock clad, soaking in the warming glow of flames and embers and all things imaginably warming in winter weather. I am happy, I have a lightness and a sense of arrival tonight. A gentle flicker of gold fills my heart as I recount and recall these last few weeks. I can rest now, I can be here in my new home.

I love it, in fact I may be in Love with it. These walls, so old and stony and sure, are holding me as kindly as any warm blooded fella could. And when that winter sun shines and silvers up the lake, reflecting light through every pane of glass, the fire crackles to let me know we are here together.

Today was the first day I could paint, having finished unpacking and being almost done with all the other bits and bobs associated with moving all and sundry.  

We have adjusted to being here. It was a trying few weeks, to move before Christmas. I would never move in winter again, I can quite see why its not usual. I learned the hard way, and I think it added twice the stress to it all. But we rose to it, and its done.

We had a quiet Christmas, just unpacking enough to get us through. Our old potted Christmas tree from Tristan and Jenny came back to us to bejewel another year and Christmas eve my sister came, and we made a ginger bread house( my first attempt).
We decided it was more like some of the run down cabins we saw in the Appalachians, it had a rustic feel to it rather then the cleaner lined scandinavian style; ) It was delicious all the same, and we made it gluten free too. The eating of it seemed about the most moorish thing in the whole holiday, but we had help.

Little M has found her new places to play outside and in, making a little house under the stairs with a sheepskin and silks and her little pots and pans, I would live there too if I was her size and a new fountain to run around too.
I haven't taken many photos yet of here, but this is one of her watching out at two crows, dating she said, sitting on the wall and kissing beaks.

She has a great space for play here and to keep her toys, and we can have animals too, which we have both pined for a while, as much as we love our Patches and Nutmeg( guinea pigs).
We have sent out our wishes with shiny pennies in ponds on starry nights And turning three times under new moons, for a puppy to come and join us. I am trying to hold off till Spring, till I can have a breather before the next big event, but little M's enthusiasm is bound to bring some little bright thing into our lives before we know it.

.......................Its big here and has a kind of grandeur about it, but at the same time holds this old barn feel to it, it keeps its modesty and has lots of depth. I saw possibilities here for my art and my life to take steps forwards and expand a little, like wings that needed to stretch out. I can live, work and show my art here.
I will open the studio from equinox to equinox, and have 'visitors welcome' written on my gate and we shall see what comes. I have missed online here, this space, and the lovely friends I have met and the tracking of their logs. I wore Milla's medicine pouch almost through the whole month of moving. Her beautiful dreamcatcher hangs over my bed easing my dreams to the lighter side even under the stress of it all............

...........For Now I prepare in these Winter sun days ...

........................and nights where that sun comes through fire on wood, from trees that stretched up and took that sun in. They bless me with their warmth, toasting my toes and helping me remember the way things are.

Winter Sun Moments

We made a trip to Fanore, a tiny village on the west coast a few weeks before we moved. We stayed in a place looking over the sea for two nights. We played on the beach and watched the resident dolphin play with the surfers and visited a bird of prey education centre.
We were also just opposite the grave yard where the poet, philosopher, teacher John O'Donohue was buried. He is a mighty inspiration to me. His writing transports and transforms and holds you and your heart, it breathes you in, and you breathe it too. I met him once when I was about 12 years ago and never forgot him, He had peaceful shiny eyes like none I had ever seen, and I wanted to know more about that. He died just a couple of years ago, he was just 53 and in Paris.
Me and M visited his grave, and sat there a while while the morning sun shone out to the islands bright and clear, and around us too, warming us just enough so that the sea air didn't bite our noses.

Good night and thank you dear reader.

More Art and Heart soon ...... perhaps even some prints to sell, I wont give too much away just yet
xx

E

the life that shapes me.........

.......

I have had some great conversations lately with my neighbor and some other kindly folks one might meet at school or roundabout. Lots of food for thought. I have read lots more blogs as I spread my wings a little wider into that world, and am inspired by it all. I am coming a little closer now to understanding what I write about and why I am here, still exploring though. A curious soul I am. And it gets "curiouser".

 I try not to wonder so much that I miss the point of feeling alive in a mystery but its in the very essence of my nature to question the days pass, and the way of things. 

After I dropped off Little M to school today, I hung out the washing along the line. The sun was just above it, twinkling over the edges of my tea towels. I felt a feeling for meditation. 

Looking round to the half moon, I was inspired enough to do it too!

After a summer of no routine and a flu to beat the band, as we would say in Ireland. I felt like my meditation practice had disappeared, gone off somewhere down the garden path. Luckily it was there I found it again, one still Thursday morning, under the fig tree, somewhere near the compost bin. I do seem to have some good ideas there...must be all that transformation; )

It was in my sitting still that I noticed how quiet it all was but for the birds, sunny too. Finally a reprieve from the wet winds.

It put me in good order, as it was sure to do. Even the very effort of it seems to bring about a little peace. And if Peace is what I am after, which I am most definitely partial to, then this is where I begin. 

To the woods then and a walk to the studio, with contemplation in mind. The sun had me melting into the trees. Deliquescing in the long shafts of golden light and scattering leaves, my worries and woes of these last few weeks drifted by.

 It being a year since I switched on this Elisheva Project, its also the week that I finally took the plunge and ventured to the big city with my paintings under arm( though a little uncomfortable, as some are quite large, I managed) to have prints made with the intention of selling and circulating my work. Its a huge step for me. Voices of doubt crawled and creeped and scared me all week, or weeks till I finally turned to speak with them!

The loudest have been my sense of value I put on my own work, and trying to make some kind of balance within me between the useful critic, that knows when something feels good or needs a bit more or less and the very irrational critic, that really doesn't like anything I do at all; ) but does gets very excited when I finish anything. Oh my fearful ego.

Its a trust issue, and one I have to work with.

It feels like such a different relationship with art, quite distant from the last, perhaps if this were a metaphorical globe I would be on the other side of art world. Its like day and night, from where I used to be. This time I feel I can make a mends. I may have come far enough along.

As I stood in the little white gallery out front from the printers in dublin, clean and white surrounded by framed work, new work, different work from mine, Oh so different. I took at look at myself on the inside and out. I wish I had a picture of meself there to illustrate.

My hands, big hands with very long fingers were shaking as I opened the package of my work, It was a little birth to bring them out, so new. A new way of working for me. Now I paint in a bright attic. I could say I have gone back to my roots, but I really would be speaking of the woody kind. So far back and deep down are those ones I don't remember where that began. But it feels so right, and that has been the truly guiding factor of this last year and my efforts to make art again. It kind of feels holy to me, and that little critic is enjoying some of it deep down, I know.

This art reflects who I am now.

Who is that then? 

Well, Tallish mother of one sparkling child, in green raincoat, brown hair, tweed skirt, unusual gray shirt with buttons sewn along the neck, a little make up, hair askew from the wind, and green shoes with mud all around the edges: )

And Inside .......A little tired because M has a cough that I have been listening to it for three nights, slight ringing in my ears from my flu thats not quite left me. And a heart healing with a kind of joy that seems to grow, finally. 

Also, Having completely fallen in love with a woodland in Clare, so much so its all I can do to paint about it and write, and talk about it!

I have lived here three years, and this environment has had such a deep impact on me, I am where I am, its become me, by osmosis, these rich woods and all they hold, this home and garden, my neighbors, this community full of happenings and workshops and festivals and people who choose to celebrate it all even if we are in the midst of very messy economy. 

This wonderful waldorf school and all the magic that offers and sense of occasion in life. The connectedness with the rhythms of the seasons that brings into my home, is a vital part of my way of living now and raising my daughter. 

The compassionate understanding of the different needs of each child, and the respect that emerges from that has taught me more about relating with people in the world then just about anything else I have come across. A day in the kindergarten, is a day spent with a whole spectrum of personality and emotion held peacefully and confidently by teachers who have a real pedagogy and vocation in their work. 

I had never thought how children as human beings that move and create, cannot be expected to spend half their childhoods sitting in a chair to learn. As the alphabet can come later, as most scandinavian and other european countries have chosen the age of six and seven to teach letters, waldorf schools hold on to that too, till a child appears ready to be in a formal class environment. As one Mom said to me, your child can be in education for a life time if they choose, but childhood doesn't last so long. When they are ready, they learn faster too! Can you tell I am enthusiastic about this.

I feel so touched by being Here, but I also know now that Here could be anywhere really, and was everywhere I have ever been. The difference being now I am open to it. I can be conscious or not of that, but it is something that has changed in me, my art could be about the seashore one day, that would be nice too, or the sun, don't get me started on sunshine. For now the forest is my love, I better tell Pj though I think he may have suspected all along; )

What shall I give back to the woods I wonder? And to this community?

Since coming to this village and growing into my motherhood, I have let go of parts of me that I don't need here and now, and I have gained others. Maybe its more like parts are resting whilst others are waking up. Just life really, and an intrigue about that, that I can't help but be eager about unfolding. Being present with it is everything. Its easier said then done, but a little goes a long way, and I can't tell you how hard it has been at times not to be aware of that, maybe sometime I can share that too. 

A couple of days ago, I met an american woman who is traveling here. We discovered quickly we were both EFT enthusiasts and spoke a little more about writing blogs, I told her about this post and then she recites quite brilliantly this poem. s She meant every word of it, and I had that lovely shiver down my spine!

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

David Wagoner

I have come across such wonder..... HERE too, online that is. Such awe inspiring writers and life lovers traversing each others days across these maps of words and pictures. These windows into lives we get here, with such authenticity and heart at times that it takes my breath away. The creativity in motion abounds, the sharing of art's work and the trials and tribulations impels me on in my own quest and supports my dream. Could I ask much more of this space? It seems I can. Its never ending....

Thank you dear reader

And a special thanks to my new neighbor, who has brought such heart to my doorstep, kindness and evening conversations, maybe even a little of that 'urban' me that I had left behind, that likes reading newspapers and going to cafe's: )

xx E

Today poems!

They must be golden tipped boughs now
touching the water top, out at the bay edges,

Where soft water invites you in,
Skin is made into silk there under lake water


Like otters we dived under 
becoming wild again.


Madeleine has not learned to swim on the silver surface, 
She tirelessly jumps in again and again


Only a second to take her new breath between each dive,
Her natural confidence surprises me and pleases the mother in me.


The lake is mirror still but for us
and a ripple from beneath the tallest Bull rushes.


Far out beyond us swans are white specks
in the reflection of stormy blues, moving quickly into heavy greys.


The rain is hanging there, almost here.
But, The thunder rolls.


We can feel it in our bones, Its a sensory superfluity now, 
first raindrops on our faces, and silver circles break the surface.


We crouch in the water, I am on my knees
Our fingers entwined beneath.


The water nestles around our shoulders
we watch this vista soundlessly waiting.


The laiden sky gives in 
We have got a soaking


laughter resounds across the way and up the hills
through the greens


We turn, splash, run, wade our way back, stirring it all up
Pulling my legs up against the weight of water


And holding hands we yip and yell like animal calls
finding our voices again


Lightning cracks when we reach the grassy shore
Under the hawthorn trees our clothes are still wet through


summer rain warm with chills
I look back to the hills, a glance


From the forest I stand with rose hips in my hands
and one acorn, I have disturbed a red squirrel that scampered here


A dash in brilliant auburn red, a flash of autumn
up a beech, till high enough to safely stare back at me 


In his utter stillness I halt, then
Wood pigeons flurry and fly overhead, dead branches fall


Its a hundred days since summer swimming wild
In this portal of earth change, I turn to the direction of the bay to smile. 






Thankyou dear reader xxx E

First day of Spring

After a trip to galway, first day of Irish Spring with dear Madeleine. A bag of new yarns acquired and memories coming back to me as I crochet along these days.
Memories of first stitches and little hands finding my way, finding rhythm, even harmony in what seemed a discordant world. xx


I have not spun all my yarns?
Only winter's are done.
A web is always to be worked
A golden spider weaves in golden silk
I must remember that

Now, in me it seems
Living in me, in and out of my suitcases and baskets too, I have found her a home
That needs to be brought out to the dewy morn and the bright sun.
Wools, yarns and ribbons, some dust that settled.
There is me, at eight years old,
and fabric made from a hook and my hand.
A smile that is all my own.

I am returned like Spring
Or like fire that is set in an old place, to bring life back to the house.
Crackle and flame and dance
Light
Tears fell on new material, made by my joy to work
and to spin
My words
My pencil moves from word to circle to color in ink, to hook and yarn.

Is there no stopping me?
Good, I am alive then.

I picked up my daughter from school
she roared at me for taking her from the swing
She roared her way into Spring.
Like the river with last nights rain, on its first day out.
Like Stravinsky's Rites, hard and deep she wailed till we both cried and let go of the banks
like rivers glad of some rocks to mould.
She moved and I too moved by her face soften.

Are we not already old from this?
How many times round?
No, you would think such hurt would age you
But cup your hands in the stream to wash away tears
wash your face in the cool, and you begin again
Webs form from the rocks to the hazel branches where jewel drops are between the lamb's tails
They reflect us all in the forest
worked round and round and in and out and round again
They show me
there is work to be done
A fire to make, bread to bake,
love to open every door with golden light beaming
To a room, where a child will learn to hook her yarn through another's hands again.
To make her own fabric.

And love you anyway

Written on the way back from wexford listening to James Horner's forest music and driving through the dark evening to home. 

Lets be snowflakes
intricately different,
perfectly the same
here for a day
or more.

Lets be light falling on Christmas day,
falling through on brightening day,
to the cold ground
that expects us.

If you like, we could even dance
in the dark cavern,
where winter's light shines
through the dusty space
in morning beams.

Lets flurry dance,
swirl in surrender to the season.

Lets be all in white then
like the snow falls in here
and out there too.
Out there on the craggy black mountain tops.

We could go as snow does?

We can Sing gentle songs up there
that would still echo
Echo across to the other side,
too and fro
in lullaby.

Ravens may lay on the drafts
and bring the black of the raveen up to white
they turn like autumn leaves
that escaped winter's hold
to listen

They call then
and our soft song is the same
not lost inside
Goodbye, hello they would say,
Lets be like the snow that comes and goes.
and love you anyway.

White light snow,
tarry though, just a little while before you go away.