Start

Start writing before the words of the day impose themselves on you. Start while you’re still asleep, just poured the first coffee. While the dream world still holds you in sway, while your conscious mind and worries haven’t yet had time to plant themselves firmly in your mind. Start before you start playing out the arguments you might use with your boss or husband that day. Start in the dark of winter mornings, when the ghosts of the past are still present, when the darkness hasn’t yet faded, as the sun slowly spreads shadows and light and the fall leaves shake in the morning breeze, casting prisms on the floor.

Someone Else Wrote It

IMG_3553Recently, I opened a notebook from a few months ago and found lovely drawings and stories that I didn’t remember doing. I had intended to write on the leftover blank pages but started viewing the work. It felt like I was looking at someone else’s work.

I often put aside writings or paintings for at least a month or more after finishing them, before editing them or making the final touches. When I come back to the work, I have enough perspective to edit words severely, add an extra line of paint, or eliminate a too busy portion. Sometimes I just note what I liked and what I didn’t like about the piece, tuck the piece away, and use that information to inform future work. Then, I move on. I figure that good work will emerge about 1 out of 10 times, if I’m lucky that day. This doesn’t bother me. My artwork is done for my own entertainment, catharsis, and meditation. The final product is merely a by-product of the process. But occasionally, when I look back, there is a lovely sensation of satisfaction of having done something well.

Crossing Patapsco Valley

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Bridge ahead,

moving mists

hover above it.

Tantalizing

changelings,

or drifting souls,

dare me to drive

through

and beyond them.

I hesitate in apprehension

and reverence.

The clouds roll and seethe

in waves and mountains.

I step on the gas.

Metamorphosis

awaits.

Release

I will not keep

the rose and ochre

shells

and ebony skate egg case.

I’ll throw them back

to the sea.

Release

and

redemption.

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Backyard Sunday

IMG_3531I lay flat in my small, urban yard and heard the cheering fans at Camden Stadium, the young urbanites at the bar at the end of the block, and the occasional radio rolling by in a car. I sank my body into the slate footstones, trying to unfurl the tightness stored in large quantities, imagining the Earth’s warm core seeping into me. Listened. The chorus of birds sang to their young, caught in the interstices of the cacophony of the city. The new leaves and pink and white buds on the crab apple tree were splayed with sunshine. I sat up and dipped my brush into amber, sapphire and emerald watercolors. The paper was fresh and white.

Buddy, my black and white cat, meowed to come join me and I opened the door. He settled comfortably under the tree, hoping the birds wouldn’t notice him. Suddenly, Buddy decided it was his chance to jump into the neighbors yard and try to find that orange tabby that lives somewhere in the alley. Yikes! Buddy is a rescue, with no claws and two teeth. The tabby outweighs him by at least 10 pounds. The orange tabby probably eats rats bigger than my cat. I ran out the gate, captured Buddy, and threw him back inside. He was indignant, but saved from his own intentions, as we all need to be at times. I went back and completed my painting. It was a glorious Sunday.

vows

11/14/2013

Geese call

southward flight

early sun glistens

on shorn corn fields

stalks short and gold.

This quiet moment

I sip coffee,

ignore the day’s work,

wish for flight.

 

3/14/2015

Geese call

early morn

turquoise sky.

Returning

ready to

dance courtship

exchange vows

renew life.

 

Aikido

In the course of learning or teaching aikido, people often speak truth. Here are some of my favorites. The transcriptions may not be perfectly accurate, since I heard them in class, but I hope I preserved the message.

“If you’ve been wrongly perceiving what is happening for a long time, it’s difficult to truly see what is really happening.” – Shihan Chuck Weber, at Baltimore Aikido, 7/25/2015

“Use the point of your sword as your shield.” – Shihan William Gleason

“Draw energy from the earth.” – Shihan Mary Heiny

Hawk Hunting

Hawk perched high,
hunting,
surveying his kingdom
casual as any monarch.
Evil splits the land.
They poisoned the pool,
lay insecticide beside it.
The dragonflies were dead.                                                                                                                                                              They called us
insubordinate,
unruly,
but we fought for truth
and burned in fire.