The Chalice Well

On most Thursday evenings now-adays, you'll find me at Grace Group, or maybe The Well. For the next few weeks, it's Grace Group. Grace Group at St. Timothy's is affiliated with Open Hearts Ministry; some groups are called Journey Groups, but at St. Tim's, it's Grace Group. I appreciate the name difference. We all have journeys to make in our lives, but to survive them and grow in them, we must encounter "grace" along the way. Grace to me is "total acceptance by the Other", whether it be God, or the women who sit across from me on Thursday evenings.

Those Thursday night meetings usually open doors that I'm invited to walk through during the next week. Such was my experience this past Thursday. We were invited to write letters, and I was invited to ponder my response to someone else's story. That was my "work" yesterday morning. Love woke me at 3:45, with an invitation to write, ponder, and work out my feelings through the image-making process we call "art".

As I wrote my letter and pondered my response the night before, as often happens, tears flowed; tears of shame, embarrassment, anger, hurt--and even the question, "where was God in all this". After a couple of hours of writing in my journal, the thought came to me, "Now, go work a mandala."

And this was the result. A friend recently sent me a photo of a "chalice well necklace," and I read on-line about the Chalice Well in England. I already have personal symbols of chalices and wells, and I knew Spirit was inviting me to draw my own Chalice Well mandala. And as I worked this one, remembering one stormy day in 1963, I felt as if Love spoke to me--"I was there in your shame and in your embarrassment. I was there in your fears of being abandoned, not enough, and unworthiness. I saw what happened to you, and My tears fell like the rain that fell that day, as I waited with you in the storm. I was there for you then, and I am still here for you now."

Using the Bling Bling Paper Towel

My 3rd Act Circle women are making our own art journals to work in this time around, and I think I bit off a little more than I can chew. I decided to make a hard cover photo album, and its a little more complicated that I thought it would be. But that's the way I learn.

Remember all that beautiful dyed and stamped paper towel? That's what I'm using to make the cover. So, I've got my hard cover cut from the back of an old drawing tablet, and I use mat medium to glue the paper towel to the cover, rolling it down tight with a brayer. Don't worry about wrinkles--we know wrinkles add character.

Scissors to trip the paper after it's glued down on the front side, gel medium, brush to spread the medium, and brayer to smooth and flatten...but to really flatten after gluing the paper all down, put the cover between two pieces of wax paper under a big book to dry.




See, there really is a good reason to keep big books around.

Now, all I have to do is drill holes, fill with watercolor paper and fasten together. Stay tuned!

Vision Board for 2012

On Saturday, January 14, a few of us met and The Well to make vision boards for this year. I finished mine this morning, and now I have my New Year's resolution: Assimilate, Create, Relate, Loose Weight.



There were some surprises on my board, one of which was the quote at the center, "the sum of her parts". One of the things art has given to me are the many "parts" of myself that have been hidden, some for as long as nearly 60 years.



I knew one of my "words" for this year was "assimilate". When you add a tea bag to boiling water and allow it to seep, you get tea. That's my picture of "assimilate"...it's time for me to "seep". It's also like "savasana" at the end of a yoga workout--the resting time when your body assimilates the work done into it's DNA so that it can change. The work becomes a part of you.


And always I must create--spending time with the Creator and the Muse do replenish my energy and care for my soul. It's life-giving work for me.

And it's time to bless and hopefully improve my relationships. I've been given so very much--so many friendships of all different kinds. Different communities that bless my different parts: my spirit, soul, heart, and body. Friendships that bless the grown up in me, and friendships that bless the kid in me. I am so grateful.


And "always we begin again". I have "battled" my weight for years, but this year feels different. I'm a human being. It's my "job" to begin again. So, here we go.

I hope you have a vision of what you and Spirit can do this year together. Share it.

Sow's Ear?? or Silk Purse?!?

So far on my "blinging paper towel" experiment! I LOVE it! The papers are almost translucent and, at this point in the stamping process, look like Japanese silk...ME? I think their gorgeous! Who knew?

Paper Towel Art???

Well, am I onto something? or will it be "a mess"? Stay tuned!

The Red Door

Circle Way Poets met for the first time in 2012 yesterday. I so enjoy learning in that small space. If you want to be an artist, surround yourself with other artists and make images. If you want to be a writer and write poetry, surround yourself with other writers and poets and write poetry. It's the best way to learn--that and keeping a "beginner's mind". So, this is my first poem of 2012, and it's the one I presented to the circle of poets yesterday for critique. Thank you all for your guidance and help. I think I have a better piece.


THE RED DOOR

In the cacophonous central hall of this temple,
an endless maze of voices shout curses,
demand time and energy,
moan, and
weep past tragedies.

But there is also a red door
through which one may descend
into another time and space.

Circling round and round
Deeper,
then deeper still

into the caverns of
this holy place

Time slows

voices fade

until one passes an opening
into perpetual silence

only one Voice
in this deep space

…listen.



During the critique session, Andy asked, "Why a red door?" I was caught off guard, and hadn't really thought "why red", but as I worked on the mandala this morning, I thought about my love of red.

Simply said, I love red. Red stops me in my tracks and says, "Pay attention." In a noisy, busy place, I won't easily miss a red door. Red is my "power" color, not so much about having Power Over someone else, but power to become who I was meant to be. Most of my life has been spent trying to live up to someone else's expectations of what/who I was supposed to be. Something happened on the inside nearly 10 years ago when I simply died my hair red. All of a sudden, I was "free" to be who I wanted to be, and free to become what I wanted to be. Perhaps that's what Love's Red Door does for me. God's agape love sets me (and you) free to be and to become.

So welcome to The Red Door. All one has to do is grab the golden doorknob and enter.

"the Wrath of God" and Grapefruit?

First of all, my disclaimer—anything said about this GREAT MYSTERY: It’s all a finger pointing to the moon. And yes, I tend to "wordy". I'm working on that.

Like Pitmann McGeehee, “I find myself in a dynamic theological place, and I think that’s the best place to be”—at least most of the time.

My “dynamic theological place” no longer has any “anthropomorphic images” of God. I seldom relate to a male “He” or a female “She”. I don’t think much along the lines of “Father God” or “Mother God”. If I think of God in any of those terms, it’s usually as Lover or Beloved. Even before I lost my anthropomorphic images, Love was the only image of God I related to, and mostly in the form of Jesus. Some may think it sacrilegious, but I think of God more in terms of “It”; i.e., Every-Widening Horizon, The Edge, Life Giver, etc.

One of my favorite meditations is to ponder Paul’s words: We live and move and have our being IN God. The only person I ever lived and moved and had being in was my mother. But one day I outgrew that Space. God, on the other hand, is Space for growth—I can grow and grow…why I can grow as large as the Universe and still live inside that Space we’ve named God! I can never outgrow God—there will always be more to the Great Mystery, and that’s a resting place for me, except…

…except when I hear, read, or attempt to discuss “the wrath of God”.

When God’s wrath comes up, it feels like my feet get tangled. I get so darned tripped up. I’m at least “ok” if I can put the book down and walk away, but the “shaking” really gets to warp speed when I’m in a discussion and can’t walk away. I usually wind up feeling foolish and trapped. And the last couple of book studies I’ve been in at St. Timothy’s have attempted to speaking of the wrath of God, and off I go.

So, I’ve been pondering “why”—actually, I’ve been fretting the issue a lot! It was really amazing to me when I woke up yesterday morning with an analogy that seemed to fit my understanding. Maybe I won’t have to sweat it anymore. The analogy was just there, in my head and heart, all neatly explained, and speaking itself to me.

One of my favorite images of God is Creative Energy—Energy that creates from nothing, Energy that makes all things new, that vivifies, regenerates, resurrects…It could even be called Perpetual Spring.

But for today, in “answer” to this conundrum, Creative Energy will manifest Its Self as WIND. Where does WIND come from? Where does WIND go? I don’t know. It wasn’t here a moment ago. Creative Energy always has been. But for the sake of this analogy, God/Creative Energy has now manifested as WIND.

And WIND just is.

WIND begins blowing North—but wait, I’m headed South. I’m simply walking South on a windless day, when this WIND comes from nowhere and blows fiercely against me. WIND feels like wrath, especially as It blows harder, and I determine to keep moving against it. For me, that’s the most simple explanation I have of “the wrath of God”.

So, what does that have to do with my ugly grapefruit?

The wind that blows our here on the Creek is constant, and sometimes fierce, even when there's no hurricane in the Gulf. And the result of the constant wind on my grapefruit tree is apparent in this photo...


The wind that blows at my house isn't angry at my grapefruit tree--it's just that my little tree stands in the path of where the wind is blowing Add to our sometimes gale-force winds, the natural thorns on the tree, and this is what you get--ugly grapefruit. But thanks to thick skins and the way nature works, these ugly little grapefruit are still juicy and sweet. Go figure.

I also tend to get hung up on “God hates the sin but loves the sinner,” a phrase which tends to come up in discussions on “the wrath of God”.

But in my analogy, the WIND doesn’t hate me for walking against It. And I may not even be “sinning” by walking against it. Walking in the opposite direction might even strengthen me.

That’s another conundrum I’ve been in for a long time. What the heck is “sin” anyway? When my image of God changes, my definitions seem to morph as well. I can’t define “sin” as something I do or don’t do, like adultery, or sleeping with a lover outside of marriage, or being selfish, or getting angry. Shoot, I can’t even define sin as stealing and murder. Those are moral judgments that affect my horizontal relationships, and may not be good choices for living in a civilized society, but I question whether or not sure the WIND hates anything. I know, I’m moving very close to the edge of what religion will tolerate in its thinking, and mind you, I’m not completely settled on this point, but for the sake of this story of the WIND…

Between the WIND and me, perhaps “sin” IS my refusal to change directions and move with the WIND.

I remember sitting and looking outside my window a few years ago. It was a very windy day, and there were leaves on my deck. I began to watch one particular leaf as it “danced” with the WIND. Sometimes it was a flutter—sometimes the leaf was dashed to the deck, only to be picked up and tossed again—then miraculously, caught in mid-air and danced again. And I remember praying:

“God, may my life be such that I always move with Your Wind. May my fears be diminished enough that I can let go and move with the Wind.”

We used to call those RCP prayers—radical commitment prayers that we lovingly pray without much thought—until we’ve been slammed against a few walls and broken. For some of us, that’s how we learn to dance.

But, back to the WIND in this story. The WIND isn’t angry about the direction I choose to walk. Nor does the WIND hate my choice. The WIND simply IS. But if I want to be a part of Creative Energy, for my sake and for the sake of what the WIND is up to, I’ll turn around (repent) and go with the WIND.

So, for me, the “wrath” of God (the WIND) simply isn’t. Furthermore, the term, “the wrath of God”, feels like a tool, a cattle prod, a manipulative tactic to get me to go along with religion’s “majority report”. And the phrase “God hates the sin and loves the sinner” kind of “feels” the same way. For most of my life, when someone says that line, they’re speaking of a particular person and/or “sin”, and it’s a line used to justify judging someone else’s sin. At least, that’s my opinion.

So, does God “hate” sin? I don’t think so. I could be wrong—I certainly have been before, but I’m not even sure the word “hate” falls into language about Creative Energy that vivifies and gives life, that resurrects, that makes all things new. The WIND may certainly feel and look like “hate” (re-examine the skins of my poor grapefruit), but who can know the “mind” of WIND?

All I know is that for me, when the WIND blows, I am empowered to turn and move in Its direction. And there’s appears to be no way I can look into someone else’s life and declare they are in “sin”, simply because I’m not living their life, and I can’t feel which way the WIND’s blowing (or not). Neither do I know the direction they are walking. I can certainly judge whether or not to me it looks healthy for them or the people around them. But I can’t know what it might take for them to learn to dance with the WIND.

I’ve had some experience with folks declaring my sins to me, folks who never knowing what the WIND was up to in my life. Shoot, most of the time I’m still clueless to what the WIND may be up to in my life, until hindsight and time reveals it.

And that’s another story for another day.