Signature Pages for My "It's A New Day Cook Book"

And these are my "sign-in" pages. Hopefully all my wonderful 3rd Act sisters will put there photos here and sign in. So, the only thing left now, is to work on the cover! Who knows??? At least I have the title. :) So much fun!

MAGIC BEANS...

This is what my son has called my "magic beans" page. He's written a song called "Magic Beans" about all the fairy tales we believed to be true as we grew up--and we get to mid-life and discover:

Well nothin' ever sprouted
From the spot where momma threw them on the ground.
No singing harps, no golden eggs,
No giant's feasts could ever be found.
Now the banks foreclosed the farm,
Momma's sick, and Jack ain't ever around.

....Magic Beans don't sprout...

So, perhaps this IS my protest of what I expected out of life at one time. It WAS the model presented to me of "a good life". These "magic beans" haven't sprouted for me, but what I have instead is EVER SO MUCH MORE!

NO MORE COOKIES!

A few days back, I decided to use my 42 year old Better Homes and Garden Cookbook for Third Act's collaborative art journal. Talk about FUN! It's like it let off a whole lot of steam, the intro pages just kept coming! This is the first page. Ask Jim--this Granma doesn't cook much of ANYTHING anymore. Been there, done that!

My New "Who Has Time to Cook Book"

Who cooks much anymore??? Who has time?

My 3rd Act Circle of Crones has decided to do a collaborative art project. There are 12 of us, so we decided to do a "round robin" journal. Each one of us is putting together some kind of journal full of blank pages, then we will pass them off to "the next person on the list", and "woola!", 12 months later, there will be 12 beautiful journals chunked full of original art work by 12 beautiful, talented artists (myself included, of course!).

My first task is to put my journal together. As I was pondering how to start, my eyes fell on this much used very old cookbook, and I decided "who needs this cookbook anymore?" Ask Jim. He'll guarantee it doesn't get much use now-adays...who has time?

I got this cookbook as a wedding present for my first wedding nearly 42 years ago. It's been used a lot, albeit not much during the last 10 years, but there was a time... So the book has a little of my history in it. I'll begin "altering" the cover tomorrow, or this weekend. The name will be changed from Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, to "The Who Has Time to Cook Book?" or the "Who Wants to Cook Book?" Not sure exactly what yet, but you get the drift! Clean white 300# watercolor pages are all torn and hole-punched. They'll be removed before I start with the glue, paint, and colored paper. Once the cover is finished, I'll put the pages back in, show you another picture, then neither of us will see it until May of 2011. At that time, the Crones have decided we MUST have a party and celebrate out journals together. The idea is to put all the finished books out so that we can see them together and finished for the first time. What fun that will be!

When it's all said and done, I'll have a treasure of beautiful, personal, fun and whimsical, original artwork from some very lovely sisters.

And this is just the beginning!

Relating to God

Last evening a group of my spiritual soul sisters and I got together for dinner, a concert, and a pajama party. What a delight--but at 60, my body doesn't quite last as long as it used to. By the time the question of the evening was posed, "So, how are you relating to God today?", it was 5 glasses of wine, and far too many hours too late for me to respond.

But on the solitary drive home this morning, I had time to ponder my relationship to God. How am I relating to God today? Much the same as I have been over the last 10-12 years. My perception of God has changed, but God has not changed. I think that's finally sunk deep into my soul.

I lost God about 6 years ago, and I panicked. But over the last year or so, I've found my way back home. The God I know today is the same God I've always known. The only thing that's really changed is my "picture", the way I see God. God is no longer a "being" as I am a being; instead, God is Being, the Ground of all being, the Source of all being. God does not give life; God is Life.

And I still relate as I've done in the past, by staying awake, by paying attention, by taking note, by listening closely. I haven't prayed much with words for many years, but I do practice stillness. When I sit quietly in centering prayer or meditation, all my parts come together, and I can hear--softly in the temple of my soul, the voice of God. When synchronistic acts line up and the eyes of my understanding gets it, God shouts, and I hear. My worship method has changed from singing songs, to simply noticing how my heart lifts, like a large flock of birds lifting simultaneously from the pasture and soaring in beautiful pattern through the bright blue sky. My heart soars with them, in unison, as God and I delight together in the beauty of Creation.

Is God energy? Yes, no, maybe--God is infinite. No one word can define. Is God me? Is God you? Yes, no, maybe--God might be me, God might be you, but God definitely is more. God exists without me, but I don't exist without God. One thing I know--God isn't "he", nor "she"--dispite our distaste of the thought, I rather believe God to be "IT", in me, outside of me, around me, through me, part of me, and apart from me. To know God is to know my true Self. To know my true Self is to know God.

Should I worship this "Energy"--how can I not? Worship is a response of the heart to something more--I don't plan it, nor do I "do" it, but instead, it does me. I was created to worship--remember those vast flocks of birds lifting up into the sky and flying in pattern? How can I keep my heart from following?

To me, worship isn't a song of notes and words, but a gesture of recognition that Something More has caught my heart and given me wings.

I am more sure today than ever before that God is. We are in partnership, God and I. I was born to "see" God, to "know" God, to worship God. And I was born, like those birds, to fly. Even though gravity pulls my earth suit downward, my spirit flies because God is, and we relate.