Face and shadows to start

 

A self-portrait by my son, Tai Rogers. He's now a high school art teacher, a challenge for which he's quite capable. But the logistics are somewhat daunting as he begins this new avenue of endeavor.

As winter lingers (though a respite of 70F degree days has surprised us) this redbud has just it's own limbs to show still. It lives near our Black Mountain Library.

By Susan Seddon Boulet

Thanks for all the positive  feedback about the divine feminine and Women's Day last Sunday. It really touched my heart. Especially since I heard that day of two deaths of dear ones, one a sweet pet, the other a husband of a blogger. There are now empty spaces in my friends' lives. And it reminds me how easily we can lose one another. Give out some hugs today!

Yes the Bradford Pear is beginning to blossom. Will we have more freezing weather? Due Thursday night this week!

Lunch back in the dining room at the Lakeview Senior Center! Here Trivia, the manager, interviews a new participant.

Wandering around to say hi, or taking a  seat and catching up with others, the group of seniors was so happy to be together again!

More signs of spring, green leaves appearing on a bush.

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Life

gifts me with breath.

All i have to do is allow it in.

I have been holding my breath long enough,

afraid of life itself...

~ Barbara Heile

Forcing spring

Does it work? Momma Nature (Gaia I call her) has been tricky with nice warm days in February, and then a few which are below freezing. The other day I woke at 7 to frost on my car and the roof of the apartment building downhill from me. It then was sweater weather at 3pm of 56 degrees.

Rain was due the next day.

I was gifted with a nice big branch of Forsythia, which has been inside at a window, sometimes getting some sun, at least more consistently warm than outdoors. I was hoping for beautiful yellow buttery flowers.

I don't know what makes some buds turn into leaves, and some into flowers. Of course Momma Nature must know, and the buds were thus determined long before they open.  So this is how it is.

Don't mess with Mother Nature

Gaia is the name I use for the goddess of mother nature.
She's in charge of trees, rivers, plants, weather and earthquakes.

So when us piddly people plan an event, and Gaia has other ideas, guess who wins! Here's my journaling of our trip to Shelby NC.

All day Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020, it rained in North Carolina. Western NC has lots of mountains, and creeks and rivers that flood from the runoff. This storm also included a line of thunderstorms and tornados. I kept an eye on the radar screen as we drove right behind the worst of the storms which were going slowly east. We were driving southeast, but we stayed on the western side behind that line. We also stayed on Interstates most of the way, and had no trouble at all.  My use of a certain impromptu wand might or might not have had any effect on traffic and conditions. Believe me, plastic straws were the underlying theme of the day.

My display

We unloaded our pottery at the Cleveland County Arts Council in Shelby NC. It was a bit wet, but quickly accomplished by Tim and Allan. There were just 2 employees there. It seems sometime while we were on the way they decided to cancel the opening reception.  It meant it would be held in a week, but the show would still be up for the whole month.  Apparently too many people (probably of importance) couldn't get through their own swollen-creek roads to town.  Only one other artist hadn't put his works out yet...and I'm sure when the rain stops he will make it to town.

But I did take time to go look at all the other potters' works. I'm sharing them over on Alchemy of Clay!

We were really ok without having an opening reception (aka party with lots of potters and some customers.)  Cathy and I had been pushing ourselves all week to get ready, pricing, packing, inventorying, glazing and firing in Cathy's case, repacking, etc.

Our dear friend, Tim, had not had a much prep work to do, and probably was ok with another adventure with these crazy potter women.  His job was loading and unloading his van, and fixing the lighting switch which had failed when we last were going to drive with him to a show. He had also put in the third seat so we could all drive in comfort, and he had the van inspected and renewed his registration. Plus, he got to do all the driving in the rain! That was a pretty major undertaking, and I was especially grateful that he drove us home after dark in the rain...something that would have left my white knuckle marks on the steering wheel.

Since there wasn't a party, we asked the locals for restaurant recommendations after we'd arranged our displays.  We ended up at a Greek/Italian place...very nice layout. My cousin, Violet, had recommended the Spanakopita, which I ordered. Cathy and Tim had Greek salads with chicken. And as we were handed plastic straws to use with our water or diet cokes, I had to remark that these would someday be rare antique items of value. That probably explains why I have such a collection of them. I had brought my own hard plastic straw in my sipper which turned magically into a wand for good safe driving...but I left it in the van.  And I drank a much appreciated beer anyway (do not try to drink beer with a straw!)

Toscano's Cafe still had this unique Christmas tree up.

The bottom layers of my 'pita were kind of burned and hard, and so I couldn't even cut them.  But the top was delicious.  And when I got home with my Balaclava-to-go, I found the same problem with the bottom layers being hard and over cooked.  Shucks, I wasn't very happy about that. I love good Greek pastries!

Yes, I captured Tim looking around the corner...he'd been a real trooper with all this rain, so we treated him to dinner.

More is to be posted tomorrow. Over on Alchemy of Clay. I think I took a shot of everyone's pottery at the show.

61 degrees F on Jan 20th

Holy Cow.  What happened to winter?
OK, I keep posting this amazement that this winter is not behaving properly.

But having just tossed out a bunch of old pottery, and washed out a bunch of trashbaskets with the hose outside...I think my body, as well as the rest of the earth around me, is responding to spring.

This is it.  We'll look back in a few years and say, that was the beginning of the big changes of global warming.  Remember the last snow?  The LAST snow?  It might just have been that.

Well, no doomsayer me.  I just feel like time has run out for the life of our civilization.  And there's no turning back.  Guess that does sound a bit doomish, doesn't it?

So we'll slide slowly into decline.  Remember the "rise and fall of the Roman Empire?"  I don't really.  I think it was pretty military.  I wonder if our "rise and fall" will be considered ecologically.  Probably not.  History tends to be written around military feats.  Maybe not this time.

OK, prove me wrong, Gaia, oh goddess of the earth.  Or Atlas who might shrug us off his shoulders.  It's fine by me.  But I think cycles will continue, and probably humankind...and another civilization will probably stuggle and replace ours.  It's what history has shown many times.  If we have any chance because of all our huge errors of judgement, that is.

Snow all over today

It will be gone tomorrow.  So as soon as the thermometer says it's up to 20, I'm going to bundle up and take more pics.   Here are the ones out the windows and doors for now.

Out the back door, are those bird tracks?

Why would a bird walk across the snow?

Not very deep at least, and due to melt tomorrow.

You can't see because of the screen, but out the living room window, the bird tracks went under the car, then back out, then under again.  Must have been some good something or another there!

My industrious neighbor may have gone out, at least he swept the snow off his windshield.  Montreat Rd. traffic is traveling pretty slowly.  I like my little statue of Gaia having snow on top of her.

How fragile it is, looking down at the sky

A really neat video...
in case you haven't noticed, I love science, and astronomy especially.

http://www.upworthy.com/some-strange-things-are-happening-to-astronauts-returning-to-earth?g=3

This is a bit long to watch, but has some great views of earth, not to mention letting us know what the astronauts thought when returning to earth.

The thin veil of our atmosphere is part of how fragile this planet earth is.  Another part is how it must look to those who have been honored to venture off it's surface into space, to see it hanging in that immensity of black.

We who walk around on the surface...or dive into Gaia's waters...only have a mental image of how this great planet is actual twirling around on its axis while driving through an orbit around a star.

It's not emotional.  Though certainly it triggers awe for those who write poetry and music, who are artists and worship trees and nature.  I continue to be moved by nature. But I can only imagine what the astronauts experienced.

I added this post to Skywatch Friday, you can't get much more sky!  Every time I look for my listing, it isn't included there.  But people keep telling me (see comments) that they came from there.  Must conclude that I can't see my own blog listing there.

Dia de los Muertos

The Day of the Dead...according to Wikipedia, I think, is today.

Honoring my ancestors.  Having beauty around me that can be directly attributable to them.

Thinking of them with some gratitude, and some sorrow, and some musings of memories.

I'm not Mexican, though my mother's family had close leanings from San Antonio.  I think Mexicans were treated much as blacks were in the south...another culture, race, somehow inferior to those white folks who settled on land that had belonged originally to yet a more ancient race of people, the indigenous Americans.

The Celts (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Germany, even Spain and France, all were impacted by them...and I think even Italy)...well the ones who survived to keep any holidays and traditions going, especially in Ireland, had Samhain on the 31st of Oct, and their New Year began yesterday.

I did celebrate that a bit.  I looked up my own personal reading for a new year.  I considered setting personal intentions that embrace the ideas that have been floating about in my head for a while.

Gaia is the earth goddess who has reared her powerful head and spoken to us all.  If we had a shaman in our midst, and were a tribe that depended upon our agriculture, we'd pay a lot of attention. Our political arena makes a lot of effort to display feathers of power like cocks to catch the eye of the goddess' hens.

What is important for me to do this year will have to do with staying closer to the earth, living more in harmony with our ecological needs, having greater awareness, and making more choices that support Gaia's needs, which obviously would also be my own.