Here and Now
A few days out from Halloween and I’m looking at a row of shriveled and shrinking jack-o-lanterns that look somewhat like old men with missing teeth.
#Red
“The quieter you become, the more you can hear”
A few days out from Halloween and I’m looking at a row of shriveled and shrinking jack-o-lanterns that look somewhat like old men with missing teeth. In some ways, they are more frightening than ever. And I awoke this morning with “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” stuck in my head. You know the one by The Pretenders, with Chrissie Hynde singing it slow and smooth? Yeah, that one.
Somehow, it seems to happen this way every year, more or less. Halloween comes, time accelerates, and then there is this mad rush to the end of the year. I’m ok with that, I guess. And truth be told, I am ready for the holidays and Winter. Still, the transition seems so abrupt some years. But already I find myself reflecting on this year. All in all, it was good year. I was graced with so many blessings.
And this morning it's cold. There's ice on the bird bath. The sky fills silently with another glorious November sunrise. Suddenly I am overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude. And also, a feeling I haven't felt in a while - contentment. Sometimes we just need to sit quietly to realize all is playing out as it should, including ourselves.
On a side note:
A bush outside the window has turned a remarkable red this fall. And the leaves just keep hanging on. Maybe it's a sign. It does seem to be a Christmas red. I think I will hang Christmas lights in the trees early this year :)
Becoming
While picking a jalapeño and some cilantro for my breakfast this morning, I was keenly aware that the garden was starting to have a late summer look.
First Orange Pumpkin 🎃
“We become one thing, then another, until we become that one thing we were always meant to be ”
While picking a jalapeño and some cilantro for my breakfast this morning, I was keenly aware that the garden was starting to have a late summer look. Cilantro, as well as calendulas were going to seed. Yellow leaves were appearing here and there, and a little green caterpillar sat eating purposely on a kale leaf.
Looking across the desert, the wild vegetation was going through the same process — flowering, seeding, preparing for the next phase of their lives. A bit of melancholy swept over me like a cold breeze. Summer almost over?
Then a glimpse of color caught my eye. I moved a large leaf and there was the first pumpkin turning orange. The pumpkin was small by any standard, and yet, it was busy fulfilling its purpose. Busy becoming orange. What a marvelous thing. Miraculous really. I smiled.
And on the subject of miracles, I held my latest grandson a week ago. He was fresh and fragile, and trusting. As I rocked him, I looked over at his mama, my daughter, and recalled how I had rocked her similarly, in what seemed like such a short time ago. We sat there three generations locked in love. And I watched his sleeping face smile as he dreamed his baby dreams. We are born happy. He was busy becoming and it starts with our dreams. I smiled.
Back in the studio, re-entry can sometimes be difficult after a trip. So, I started a painting. The act of painting always grounds me. Pulls me into the present. I started by mixing Naphthol Red with a cool black and got this great purple-y violet color. As I was building the face, I remembered I had picked up a jar of Golden’s So Flat Cadmium Red on my trip and I wanted to see if it was as matte as they claimed. I painted a swipe across the shoulder. Against the violet, it looked almost orange. And I smiled.
On Drawing (Sacred)
The Eastern horizon is becoming lighter and the coffee in my cup is extremely fresh and hot. The paper is soft ivory in color; stark white would be too intimidating at this hour.
#DRAWINGSACRED
“Then, quite soon, the drawing reached its point of crisis. Which is to say that what I had drawn began to interest me as much as what I could still discover.”
The Eastern horizon is becoming lighter and the coffee in my cup is extremely fresh and hot. The paper is soft ivory in color; stark white would be too intimidating at this hour. The pencil is mechanical. Forever sharp and always at the ready.
I begin quickly and draw in the left eye, all sketchy and scribbly. Its importance is not lost on me however, for it determines the placement of every other feature. Still, it is an almost automatic gesture. At this point, thinking is not warranted and overthinking is not allowed. This first part of the drawing must be bold to compensate for any uncertainty.
To go from a blank page to a finished drawing is foremost a journey of discovery and a good amount of courage. Every drawing is another search for an undisclosed destination. One which you can’t easily name, but you know once you've arrived. Sometimes it is just a mark or a tone, or the swoop of a single line, that lets you know indisputably that what you're doing is worth it. And indeed, that you will attempt it again. Somewhere along the way, for the artist, drawing becomes your voice and in many ways says things you could never vocalize. It’s a subtle magic.
Drawing is an ancient language. It predates the written word. And I am keenly aware of that sacred history every time I pick up a pencil or piece of charcoal. Mark making is our legacy.
With all that is going on around us these days, (and I won't go into the specifics, because you are well aware of what they are) I think it is important to go inward at times. There are many ways of doing that, of course. Meditation, yoga, inspirational reading are just a few that quickly come to mind. But I think drawing is another way. Drawing, making marks, doodling, or whatever you wish to call it, shifts our thought patterns. Drawing focuses our concentration and taps into our individuality. And at some time or another we have all drawn. So, whether you consider yourself an artist or not, pick up a pencil, a pen, or a marker and rediscover that part of yourself. Go inward. Make your own sacred marks today. See how it makes you feel 🖤
A Season of Good
I spent the better part of a day stringing colored lights on junipers and white on piñon. Some would question the timing. It was only November, after all.
#Snow
“Every year I write a Christmas letter of sorts. This year it was difficult to find the right words. I was so uncertain about exactly what it was I felt. Sadness? Disappointment? Grief? But eventually, the words did come and at the most unexpected time. But I won't question that. So, here are some thoughts as we move into this special time of the year.”
A Season of Good
“There’s no telling how snowflakes simply tumble out of blank sky. And tomorrows fall through tomorrows the same way, a different tomorrow for us each.
Most mornings now, I walk out among them without wondering which might be mine. ”
I spent the better part of a day stringing colored lights on junipers and white on piñon. Some would question the timing. It was only November, after all. But I felt a strong need to cut through all the darkness of this year.
“Light and dark. Good and evil. These are simple concepts at the very heart of the human experience. And yet, we struggle, as if they were ever shifting sands changing over time. They are not.”
A wind sweeps a dust cloud down the road, as I kneel to lay out the luminarias. In the north here, we call them farolitos — a small lantern, symbolically lighting the way for the Holy Family on Christmas Eve. This year that symbolism feels more like a prayer. And for a second, I gaze up and think of snow and easier times, although, there isn’t a cloud in the sky. It’s dry. Drought dry. And another dust cloud rises.
“In a dream, I paint canvas after canvas with angelic forms. Cherubim. Seraphim. But as I look back, all the paint runs off onto the floor. Before long I am awash in a sea of paint and indecision. Do I dare paint them again? I know this is a question of faith. But I wake to yet another reality.”
With the lights lit, I walk out into the night to check my handiwork. The lights on the ground briefly mirror the desert night’s sky, with its endless stars. Light touching light, touching soul. It’s cold, but my heart warms. We are often aware of transcendence, even when we can’t name it.
It is this unknowable, unnameable wildness at the center of it all, that brings hope and confirms that the miraculous is possible. Dark turning into light, one season turning into the next — the cyclical nature of everything and the assurance that we are a part of it, gives credence to the promise of this season year after year. Simply put, there is good still, and we are a part of it.
Stories define us, it’s true. And they matter, though they always leave so much out.
I like it that way, keep telling them to desert, and desert keeps filling in whatever it is we’re missing.
— David Hinton, from Desert Poems
An Afterthought: A few days later, after hanging the lights, as if in answer to a collective prayer, it did indeed snow. Not a lot, but a restorative gesture, none the less. Change is always in the offing.
A most joyous Christmas to you all!
PatrickSpirit 🖤
Christmas 2020
Seeds, Saville, and Deep
I was watering the hills where I planted pumpkin seeds a few days ago, when I noticed the faint, waning gibbous moon setting in the west.
#DigDeep
I was watering the hills where I planted pumpkin seeds a few days back, when I noticed the faint, waning, gibbous moon setting in the west. A thought came - had I planted the pumpkins at the right time of the moon? Waxing? Waning? A quick internet search and I found I had missed the optimal time by a couple of days. My father and his father before him, would have known this, intuitively.
🖤
And then, a catalogue of Jenny Saville’s Oxyrhynchus Exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in London arrived. The exhibition was in 2014. I procrastinated, and oddly enough, it took a pandemic to make me finally purchase it. Why I waited so long, I have no idea, because the artworks in this collection have moved me. They have opened me. I have spent hours studying the mark making, the brushstrokes, the color palette. The masterful layering of the different media brings a depth and reveals intimately the process of the artist. These works have changed my mind on what seeing can be. She named the exhibition after an Egyptian archaeological site, the ancient rubbish dump at Oxyrhynchus. She said for her, it represented “culture in pieces - fragments captured in layers of time.”
🖤
This morning as I was drawing, I realized that the paper I was drawing on became exquisitely more interesting and beautiful the more I worked the graphite into it. As though, my purpose was to disturb the upper fibers to see what lay beneath. The time I spent with the drawing became an exploration of the specific materials, but more importantly, a look at my own tenaciousness. How often have I stopped working an artwork just because the fear of destroying it became greater than the desire to explore? And what might I have discovered if I had been just a little more curious?
Dig Deep is a catch phrase we often hear. But I think it truly is a wisdom. When you really think about it, there is always something more to know. Something more to learn. A new way to see and to understand. So why not dig a little deeper. Take another chance. Stay ever so curious.
🖤
(Note: As of this writing, four pumpkin seedlings have started pushing their way out of the ground.)
The Draw of Morning
It started with a need or maybe a want. It's so hard to tell them apart sometimes.
#DRAW
It started with a need or maybe a want. It's so hard to tell them apart sometimes. I wanted drawings vastly ripe with intention. I wanted words I could cling to and wallow in, like dark mud. I needed the pencil to know it’s way across the paper like an afterthought. Gorged on memory and pretense. Needing to exist as much as I. All this, while the truth sat patiently waiting to be discovered. For it’s all just marks on paper. Isn’t it?
Still, I cherish this time when the sun and I rise together. We begin anew like it’s the first day for each of us. The same bravado. Even though we know better, we never let on. With age comes a stronger belief in the immortal and the unbroken continuousness of creation. And somewhere in the midst of all that, I have no doubt, there is a direct line to the soul.