Write 2013

SparrowNestScript

I chose these quotes as inspiration for the 2013 year of writing.

I am writing longhand in notebooks to keep myself from editing, from getting mired in perfectionism, and from falling down the Internet rabbit hole.

I haven't decided yet, but think I am going to start another blog to post what I have written and keep it separate from what I post here.

Either that, or I'll type it up and put it in the cloud. With the first week of the year winding down, I'll make a decision this weekend.

Belated Holiday Card

card front

 

 card back

 

 envelope

I sent my holiday cards out very, very late, so I'm posting it late, as well.

This year I made both the envelope and card from collages. The envelope is traditional images of Mary. The card is my interpretation of the traditional Nativity narrative and poem Altars of Light, which serve as a theme for the year.

Altars of Light
Pierre Joris
If the light is the soul then soul is what's all around me. It is you, it is around you too, it is you. The darkness is inside me, the opaqueness of organs folded upon organs-- to make light in the house of the body-- thus to bring the outside in, the impossible job. And the only place to become the skin the border, the inbetween, where dark meets light, where I meets you. In the house of world the many darknesses are surrounded by light. To see the one, we need the other / it cuts both ways light on light is blind dark on dark is blind light through dark is not dark through light is movement dark through light becomes, is becoming, to move through light is becoming, is all we can know.

 

Artist of the Day: Space Coffee - Osnat Feitelson

 space coffee osnat feitelson yaron mendelovici

Over the holiday break, I read that CERN, the organization that brought us the God Particle in 2012, is now claiming that time travel is a possibility in the not too distant future.

Truth really is stranger than fiction, (or in this case, science fiction).

It's beyond imagination that we'll be able to travel to the past, the future, to other worlds, especially when you look at the current state of affairs the world over.

A quick trip back to Caligula's Rome, Attila's fifth century, Genghis Khan's Middle Ages, Torquemada's Middle Ages, or the Crusades, the Borgia's Renaissance, the century of genocide, wars 1000 to present,  just may save us from our ignorance, religious intolerance, and violent tendencies, though.

Nah.

One thing is certain, regardless of advances in technology, humans will always crave good old-fashioned coffee.
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artist bio: Gelada is an Indy design studio, we make our Tshirts from the best materials (100% organic cotton & Viscose) all the designs are limited. The design & total feel of our stuff is a throwback to your favourite Tshirt thats been in your closet for years. Gelada is a fair trade clan, we make our own Tshirts, creating a new past, The way of the Future.

Resolutions 2013

declare

 emily mcdowell

This year I will let go of perfectionism & embrace finishing a shitty first draft of the novel. I will honor my own voice and love my imperfections. I will stand up & share my writing with the world.

believe

 sarah parker
This year I will believe I can.

release

allison s
This year I will let go of old grudges and grievances, untenable relationships and situations, and stuff I no longer use or need.

 

move

jan skácelík
This year I will swim, lift weights, walk stairs, dance, practice yoga, and keep moving.

 

socialize

rachel roelike

This year I will spend more time getting out, and on making and maintaining relationships in real time.  

 

risk

lola

 This year I will take the risks, make the changes, take the chances.

 

read

marianne
This year I will read widely and wildly.

 

be

katie rhoads 

This year I will just be the best me I can.

explore

mae chevrette

 This year I will get out in the world and see what it has to teach me.

 

create

 
talkingeyecharts
This year I will make my dream reality.

 

revel

julia dineen

This year I will enjoy the living hell out of life!

 

 

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

I'm staying in...and making my lucky rice & bean soup.

 

If you want a lucky 2013, eat rice and beans. I don't know where I got that superstition, but I didn't eat lucky soup last year, and let's just say, it wasn't my year.

So I'm making lucky soup, reading magazines, and writing in my journal listening to jazz (my new favorite music), feels like the perfect way to usher in 2013.

Whatever it is that you're doing, have a happy and safe New Year.

This year's soup is a Hyderabad Vegetable Biryani hybrid. Apropos of nothing, I'm pairing it with tempura shrimp roll and a ginger beer, followed by a red velvet cake bite and a glass of black currant honey wine from the The Hive winery.

 

(for the wee hours, it's croissants with Italian truffle butter).

 

After dinner it's magazine reading time, (first on my resolution list is to stop buying magazines!)

Tomorrow I'll work on my new year's collage and resolutions.

Happy New Year!

Listen here, here, here and here.



 

 

 

 

 

 

New Year's 2013 Watch & Listen Play List: December 31 - 2013

stina nordquist

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
 Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

I wasn't prepared for the questions 2012 asked. And my god, the answers.

2013. Lucky 13. It's going to be a good year.

My play lists may appear like an eclectic mix. For me, they are code, personal, cryptic, secret messages.

This play list is a compilation of themes and ideas and issues that are on my mind and in my heart as the new year approaches.

Years ago, I laid my dreams aside, forgot them, and in the process, lost my way. 2013 is the year I forge ahead, remake the world, and do the only thing I was meant to do: Write.

I had a dream years and years ago of standing in a vineyard in Ancient Greece. Two women approached and offered me a maker bead. They told me I was a Maker.

Yes. Yes, I am a Maker. A maker of stories.

When I was a young girl, the practice in my religion that I belonged to was to give patriarchal blessings. The patriarch said it was a man's  blessing, which at the time confused me and terrified my mother. I understand his meaning now - I am to be fearless in my telling. He said I would tell the truth from the mountain tops. Decades later in sweat lodge, the medicine man gave me the same blessing. My truth is story. It is time to tell them.

I am hopeful for the year ahead. I am looking to the original revolution girls, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolfe, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, for courage to do the work I must. And to myth, especially the reinterpretation of myth in Sophocles' brilliant plays. And to all the writers who have reimagined ancient stories and made them their own, and thus thrown bread crumbs along the path for me to find my way home by the moon's light .

I am ready for the hard work, for the needed changes, the new directions, and the joy that this year promises.

Happy New Year & enjoy the music!

I'm Writing a Novel - Father John Misty
Hey Ho - The Lumineers
Tell Me a Tale - Michael Kiwanuka
Things Have Changed - Bob Dylan
The Story - Brandi Carlile
She Lit a Fire - Lord Huron
Revolution Girls - Mariachi El Bronx
The Hours - Phillip Glass
Beloved - Rachel Portman
I've Got Dreams to Remember - Buddy Guy
Myth - Beach House
The Great Salt Lake - Band of Horses
The Maker - Daniel Lanois
The Right Stuff - Bryan Ferry
Grace - Jeff Buckley
My Sweet Lord - George Harrison
Optimistic - Radiohead
Shake It Out - Florence & the Machine
She Moves On - Paul Simon
Hallelujah - Savannah Outen
La Vie En Rose - Melody Gardot
Fee Fah Futula - The Henry Millers
More Than This - Roxy Music
Hell Yes - Beck
Sail Across the Water - Jane Siberry
Ends of the Earth - Lord Huron
Head Home - Midlake
Home - David Byrne & Brian Eno
The Winds of Change - Fitz & the Tantrums
Lost & Found - Lianne La Havas
Coming True - Guards
I've Got Dreams to Remember - Otis Redding
Don't Stop the Dance - Bryan Ferry
Twisting the Night Away - Sam Cooke
Passages - Ravi Shankar & Phillip Glass

RIP: Ellie

 Ellie 

Ellie & Harley

Ellie's collar

 

It is a three dog life. Ellie had enough spirit, I thought she'd live more than one lifetime. She is/was the dog of my adulthood and the dog of my daughter's youth.

 

She died today. She was eighteen. In dog years she was eighty-eight.

 

Like the majority of our pets, she was a rescue dog.We found her at the local animal control shelter.

 

When my daughter was very young we would go to the pound on weekends to pet the dogs and cats. We had Sheena, a pure bred Persian cat that had been a grand champion in the 80's, but had been given to us because she had contracted feline leukemia, and although in remission, she was a danger to the other cats in the cattery.

I was recently divorced and thought a dog would restore some normalcy to our family. I was interested in a small dog, but small dogs don't generally like small children. I finally decided a medium-sized dog would be best. I wasn't interested in a farm dog, but when Ellie jumped up and wrapped her paws around my daughter's neck, she begged Mommy please! ,we brought her home.

 

Although Ellie was affectionate and even tempered, it was apparent she had been abused. She had a nic in her ear, was skittish around men and trucks, loud noises, and the broom, and the ironing board. It took her a very long time to get used to my husband, and men in general. She never got used to the ironing board.

 

She was a blue healer border collie mix, a hardy breed that is loyal, physically tough, and a sheepdog herder by instinct. When my daughter was a toddler, Ellie herded her around the back yard. Up until recently, she always nosed the back of my legs as she followed me from room to room.

 

She loved to dig. Nothing could break her of digging in the yard, or the flower beds. And she loved to run, at break neck speeds. She wore a groove around the house. Certain sounds, like the washer would send her racing around the house.

 

When we brought Harley home, Ellie indulged his yipping and snapping and accepted him, although she would get jealous, and bark or hold his favorite toy under her paw, if he was getting too annoying or too much attention. 

 

Christmas day she was disoriented, and in the following days of this week, she slowly faltered.

 

She loved us. We loved her. She will be missed