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

Days to die for........

.......I was walking in the sunny forest this morning, meeting with the trees. They were meeting me too, and I was loving it.

I was walking in the city Yesterday, in Galway, where it was both sunny and windy, and seagulls flew above me, riding the wind, shimmering in the high sunlight of the mid morning as I crossed the bridge, loving Galway. 

I went to see my herbalist Dr. Dilis Claire as I have done every two or three months for the last...oh ......almost two years. 

We had fun as she listed my symptoms that I arrived with, all that time ago. 

As she read out each one... "how is this/ how is that? and any pain there??? ".... or, " what about this"....on she went along; I shook my head saying, "No, thats not there" or, "Oh yeah, I forgot I had that, and gosh yes I had that too". I was pretty well clear of everything. A little tired still, but thats about it. 

Its been a long road, I was feeling ill for years and then terribly sad too from being grief stricken, Its been a steady and determined combination of EFT, herbalism, and meditation, and I find myself....... well healthy. 

Should I whisper that? 

No, yesterday I wanted to shout it from the bridge up to the seagulls, so they could carry it out to sea and maybe to the other side. 

Today I told the trees!

They stretched out their arms to me as I passed, gently patting me on the back as I followed the path through, under the great old oaks and the cathedral-like line of beeches, and those strong hardy hazel. 

I feel so supported and free. I have been given a gift and each day I feel really well, is precious. 

All those herbs I have taken, I want to write a prayer to each one of them. To kiss the hawthorn for improving my circulation, and the rose, and the marigold too, and..... so many amazing, intelligent plants that came into my body, worked with my tiny cells in the most miraculous ways. 

They lifted me up to see all I needed to see, gave me the energy to revive enough that I could tap with EFT, and sit through my deeper and longer meditations. 

I could face the darkness then, and the grief that frightened me so. 

I am well, a body alive. 

These Fall days are so beautiful now. This is my favorite season!!!!!!!!!The one thats all about letting go, and carrying the light with you through the darker days. It is the perfect reflection of my greatest learnings these last few years, and now as I bask in the colors of Autumn and in the falling down of everything into the NOW, I value the experience of it even more.
In my improved health I breathe so deeply.

Today is the Michaelmass festival at school and although I am a mere novice at understanding the depth of meanings that Rudolph Steiner taught about these festivals, I do listen and read a bit about it all, and use my own intuition to see what it means for us. Today, its the story of Archangel Michael and the dragon that stand out for me and little M.

I read, in a second hand book store yesterday, about this. (Charlie Byrnes wonder emporium of books, bookstore to be exact: ) That Michael is the angel that guides us in our individual freedom, in finding our own healing path, he protects our journey into love and peace, to find our way in overcoming fears /fighting dragons.

Today little M came home with a red felted pouch she made in school and inside was a dragons tear she said.
They had a harvest feast at school, and we this evening had our own feast. It felt important today to mark it together, I needed to celebrate. We happend also to be sharing our supper with some lovely lassies too, and I was glad to be cooking for friends again.

I asked M and her little friend to pick some flowers for our table.

It became a floral mission beyond my expectations I can tell you. Look at what they did.

Magnificence ........it was a feast amongst Autumns final blooms and seeds of color, a last glimpse of summer.


Now I am almost finished Milla's package for the Bio regional swap. A wonderful idea, inspired and brought together by Mary Good, who writes Terralectualism. She has got a group of Blogging lovelies to send parcels to each other, of our bio regions. Sending a little of who we are, and where we are, and what we do. I have been given Milla to bestow my gifts upon, and cannot tell a word about what is going in there so as not to spoil the surprise, but I am deeply loving this idea, and so glad to be involved. I have always dreamed of a job where I make and find presents for people, I feel a little as if Mary has grated a wish: )
I have been doing a similar thing with a friend in Glasgow for the last few years, as an artist swap. Thats another post I shall get to.

The Studio was bliss today, sunlight pouring in and nothing the sounds of the chickens outside having dust baths under the trees, and the breeze on dry leaves. Yellow leaves are falling past the windows there and flying in across my floor when I open the door.

I have been learning some eurythmy as part of the research for my new project and today I felt I finally 'got' the essence of the movements that I have learned thus far........

 lalalalalalal I could go on all night it seems but I shall stop here with a Thank you dear reader

Be well this night

....Let the waves break
Let the stars rise
Lets the flames leap......

warmth

xx E

Whoosh.......

A wild autumn wind came and broke branches, howled around corners, and cast out summer in a whoosh and a whish. Me and little M curled up in each other and listened to the echoing winds and watched the light come in as quick clouds passed over head, letting moonshine in and then away again it went, with only darkness drawing in through our skylights.

The winds brought plenty of windfalls in the way of apples and the last plums at my Father's garden. And so many leaves fell too, not yet fully turned in color.

Many flowers still bloom though.

                              Bright and beautiful tansy

The tansy being one of my favorites, and the sunflowers of course radiating their brightness, like huge smiling suns. Yellow abounds, and some reds and oranges, pinks and even some blues now fading into the grey skies. The greyness or the whiteness, usually of these skies, seem to only heighten the brightness of Autumn's gifts. My new and lovely neighbor knocked on my door today to share the joy of a bright orange mushroom she brought from the woods, and three days earlier, my friend Sara arrived with the most beautiful purple green cabbage, as big as can be, all life force falling from its heart.

Well amidst all that I had a fever, for nights and nights it seemed, but maybe it was just four or five. It felt longer. I had chills and aching bones, and tiny pains here and there that would cause an out -loud ouch every now and then. The pains finally ended up in my head with a three day headache, which drifted away one night leaving a cough behind. Well I thought, that really seems a lot for one week. And as I bark away now, thinking of the month that has passed, I look inside to see if somewhere within is that familiar smile that renews me after each and every little challenge big or small, remembering the magic of all experience, and what grows from it. Yep its there! a small one but its there all the same: )
Its been a full three weeks though.

Before all the hullabaloo, there was this one thing that has had my deepest of attention and had taken away all my writing blog time, as I have been considered all sorts of things about it.

I did a course in Limerick called ASIST. It is a suicide intervention training course. I chose to do it a while ago, when I felt so compelled to try and turn around some of my grief, and perhaps it was indeed time to now offer some help. It was a very in depth and intensely filled course in learning the skills one might need to effectively help someone in a suicidal state. There is so much to say about all that, and how it effected me, and the healing that has come from it, and since doing it. Its a post all of its own at some point, I think.

It was empowering to say the least. ASIST is available to take all over the place it seems. It originates from Canada in the 80's and has been found to be so successful that it has spread.
Here, it is offered by our health system and is a free course, anyone can do it! You can learn to have both the confidence and skill to be ready to see those who need your help, to notice those who are suffering, read between the lines of those that hide it so well, and how to act for those who are really at risk. If I did decide to do some volunteer work in this area, I would looking here at Pieta house.

Needless to say, I have done very little work in the studio, but for the wonderful new little art classes I am doing with two daughter's of a friend, who are being home schooled now. Just a couple of days ago, we had such a time playing with color. I am working with them for a couple of months introducing some important elements of art making through the forest and the changing season, we are taking an adventure together through shape and color, light, and form. This week we had a grand experiment in color, me being quite enthralled by mandala's this past while in my own work, I stumbled upon a post over at Momemt to Moment, a veritable treasure trove of ideas in being creative with children. I was inspired by her post on making mandalas with nature. And thought it a wonderful way for us to work with color, and what an opportunity it is now, with the forest in full color transition.

This is what we made

We began with the darkest colors of our autumn booty, which we had gathered from garden and woods. We talked about what is bright and what is light, what is dark and dull, and put our colors in some kind of order. And as they radiated out we talked about the gradient of color and how they transition, and how leaves are green and turning to red, with oranges and yellows in between.  How different shapes and textures make refections of colors and others seems to suck the color in. 

It was so impressive to watch it grow and so beautiful to finish. The girls were so keenly involved with it, and stayed with it till the end. We painted then, anything we felt inspired to paint having made the mandala. They all decided on trees, and as little such groups do they began to compare their works, and the ever present question, it seems we can never shake off... who's is best?

Would you like to know a great diversion with this??? 

Ask them to sing their paintings!!!!!

Having explained again, that each child paints in a unique and wonderful way, I suggested they sing the feeling of their paintings to illustrate how different they are. I began, by humming a different tune for each work, which I felt described the feeling of the way they create. 

It works a charm and is so much fun.  It brings great appreciation in the individual nature of each one. The girls thought it such a funny thing and sang for each other's work too. Before long I found myself sitting with a wonderful kind of new minimalist jazz vocals happening with three wonderful little spirits.  

At some point then we were joined by Sophie's chicken and her half grown chicks coming in to visit with their cheep cheep and curious wonder at our floor creation: )

A few years ago I did a similar kind of project on an art residency with 5 to 7 year olds. I covered the walls in paper up to about their eye level, and played a game of dance and draw. They each had a crayon and a pencil of their own choice and I played music and they danced to it. When the music stopped they had to draw on the walls. 

It was pretty high energy as you could imagine, but the music was the director. I would begin with Rachmaninov and some fast moving music, bringing about some pretty erratic mark making and then end up with some of Debussy's softest sides, which brought such fluid lines and shape making, and a kind of calm. 

I was so interested at the time, how creative energy flowed and manifested, and unbeknowns to those little folks I was totally learning from them, rather then them from me. I wonder will they remember at all those dancing days with that 'artist' that came to stay for a while: )

It has been a whoosh this September, and really feels like we are coming up on winter faster here. It feels chilly and like halloween is around the corner. 

Everyone is talking about another cold winter, and I am still getting over the fact that summer did not give a lot of sunshine this year. I am making do with color again. And hoping this coming week to be in my studio a lot. Till then here is some pictures of mandalas I made of summer near my studio and winter and autumn last year. This autumn one has sold, and will be on its way soon. 

they are all part of my 'cellular work' pieces. More about that at a later date.

And then I will tell you of little M's day at the farmer's market and some of her new drawings that take my breath away, and will be preparing the magical Milla's parcel as part of the bio regional swap over on Mary's beautiful blog....... 

Till then ........Thank you dear reader, so wonderful to have you visit and look through these days with me xx