Love IS All You Need

All you need is love ~ The Beatles

There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy



There's nothing you can make that can't be made

No one you can save that can't be saved

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time

It's easy

All you need is LOVE

Love is ALL you need.

There's nothing you can know that can't be known
Nothing you can see that isn't shown
No where you can be that isn't where you're meant to be
It's easy

All you need is LOVE

Love is all YOU need.

First Signs of Spring

: )

Hanging Out

Old Man Hayden telling a good story.

Willow, relaxing.

Old Man Hayden, rockin in his rocker.

Moment of silliness.

And another.

Hayden and his good buddy.

Paint Something

A gourd. . .

paper . . .

Have fun!

Shanty Town

What to do on day number 5 of the streak "best days of late winter",   Some of the warmest days on a longer streak of warm sunshiny days.

I know, I know - lets build a shanty town!

What you need:
blankets, sheets, tarp
String
Scissors
trees, bushes or chairs
wind chimes, or bell of some kind or other
wind sock, kite or other wind blowing flag of one kind or another

What to do:
First decide where (preferably outside) is the best location for this new town.
Decide carefully, look for bushes or low trees - where, best, would a blanket, sheet or tarp best create the perfect dwelling.
Build your "fort".  Now, we all know how to do this.  Most of us have built a fort or two in our day. This is where string may come in handy.  Use string to secure the walls of the dwelling or use it to make a line to one tree to another then lay a sheet over line to make a sweet little tent. Pull out corners and secure to ground with rocks or tie off corners to trees . . . the possibilities are endless. Use scissors to cut string if needed.

Next, you'll need to construct at least one more dwelling nearby.  It's always nice to have neighbors.

Finally, you need to raise the town flag and place your bell or wind chimes near your dwelling door (how else can neighbors alert you of their arrival).

There your Shanty town is complete - time to move in : )

All About Nothing

Sometimes nothing speaks louder than something.


Today I am going to bask myself in nothing.  That's right, I'm going to appreciate nothing.  I am going to appreciate the space between things.  Silence and empty spaces.  The beauty of the nothing that surrounds a thing. 

Yes people I'm still on my meds and perhaps it is that, helping me see more clearly my position in the cosmos.   I see perfectly all the things in my life and I am beginning to see beauty in the space between.
The air and the force holding all the stuff together. 

Sit and look at nothing long enough and you'll see that's it's active.  It moves.  Bugs fly threw it.  Dust floats though it.  Sun shines on it.  It's formless yet takes the shape of the thing it surrounds or fills up.  Paradoxical thing. 
I'm looking also at the space between sound and action.  Beautiful pauses and stops.  Sitting, doing nothing. 
It's a beautiful thing. 
 If I only could get my kids to observe nothing and sit in silence to fully appreciate it's vastness, I think I would have reached Heaven.

The Beauty of Nothing. 

Chasing Fairies

Doesn't look like much right now.
 I have lettuce coming up but it seems there are a couple house fairies (Willow and Hayden) that keep eating the new leaves as soon as they pop up.
If I had known that this was an easy and effective way to get those fairies to eat their leafy greens I would have planted lettuce years and years ago. 

Oh well, it's organic and I do suppose it could be worse. 

They could have a taste for bulbs or pine bark.  Lucky for me it's lettuce.  I won't fret with the daily task of chasing those pesky fairies out of the garden.  It is, after all, their garden too, without those diligent little fairies I wouldn't find as much joy in gardening.

Eat up little fairies, eat up!

Gettin Ready for Spring

I'm the girl with dirt under her nails, paint on her clothes and blisters on her hands.
  I'm rough around the edges, don't care for dresses and heels.
 I prefer gardens and bugs, laughter and hugs, and rolling in the mud.
My garden is ready and in my head it's already spring.

Random Thought

When someone slings mud at you or you're feeling stuck in the mud - make a mudpie!

Good thing I love mud, I'll be making mudpies today : )

just being myself folks . . .

Connected

If you see someone wise, who can steer you away from the wrong path,

follow that person as you would one who can reveal

Hidden treasures.

Only good can come out of it.

The Dhammapada

Spring

Do not give attention to what others do or fail to do;

Give it to what you do or fail to do.

The Dhammapada

Ricky Martin?

Yeah, that's my dresser, it's a mess : )

Hayden is the main attraction!

Tooth Extraction

press play to view : )

"To Infinity and Beyond!"

"I don't fly, I fall with style"

Toothless Wonder

The Man of My Dreams

Random Thought

Dogma puts God in a box.  Karma puts God in your Heart AND the Hearts of others. 
Pay it forward.

just being me : )

Birds

http://www.theartistsasylum.blogspot.com/

Gifted

Epiphany

I am sitting here on this cold blustery day contemplating what it is I want to be when I grow up.  I do this a lot.  Hayden will start pre-k in the fall and that will leave me with a bunch of time on my hands.  I need to figure out what I want to do with that time.  I have to admit that I have been pondering this question even before I had children.  I guess I've never really pictured myself being good at anything.  I just live, I suppose, without a purpose or meaning.

My children gave me great purpose and fulfillment that I don't think I could have captured as completely with a career.  I am pretty good at it and I'm very proud of my great kids.  They are my greatest and most precious part of my life along with their supportive and strong father.  I am blessed to say the least.  I am not blind to my own strengths and talents; however, outside of being a mother.

I come back to the same set of qualities and talents that I seem to have possessed since I was young.  Art, writing, and my tender heart.  I may not be a genius in these areas but it's all I know.  It's all I've ever been really good at.  I've leaned on my talents ever since I could remember and because of my tender heart it was my saviour.  It is who I am and I have continually turned my back and neglected this part of myself over and over again.  I have rejected and abandoned myself over and over again. 

Who would I be without my art and my poems and writings?  I don't know but at this time in my life I shudder at the thought of it.  I am once again embracing these talents; though, this certainly isn't the first time I've recognized that I am truly an artist.  I can't imagine being anything else.  No matter how hard I try to be something else I always come back, for the first time in my life I am actually feeling like I'm home but with one very strong difference.  I must stay true to myself this time around.

I am ever trying to please other people.  I am constantly trying to make other people happy.  I have been willing to stray so far from myself to gain the affection of others that I have made myself miserable.  I can't make everyone happy, believe me I have tried.  I have done nothing but disappoint people and worse of all stomped on my own spirit.  I see now what I am and what I need to do to come back to center.  I have to please myself and do what makes me happy.

I will always have a very tender heart.  I care deeply for the feelings of others.  I am also very outspoken with my feelings.  This will never change and believe me I've tried to change it.  I have resigned myself to this quality in myself and now see it as a great strength. 
I will always be an artist.  This is something I have also tried to change. How easy would it be to just toss it aside and be a librarian or a some other something or other.  It's not easy and I can't do it.  It comes back.  How many people would give a limb to be an artist of anykind.  I didn't want it for the longest and would have gladly given it up.  I can't do it.
I surrender.

This may sound all very dramatic and exagerated but I can tell you it's not.  I know other artists who feel the same.  It's a blessing and a curse.  The curse being the constant feeling of having to make people happy.  The constant feeling of not being good enough.  I have learned that to be truly successful these thoughts must be abandoned.  So, I surrender to it.  I have to, it's who I am.  I can't live without it and I'm not hanging out in my closet anymore.

I'm not going to make everyone happy.  I can't write, paint, draw or be what everyone else thinks.  I have to write, paint, draw and be myself.  My art may not suite you, it may not be what you think I should be.  My tender heart may break and I am prepared.  I am prepared for the first time in my life to take the good with the bad.  I will stop apologizing for not making everyone happy.  I will stop stepping outside myself to please the individual.  I am what I am and that's all that I am and what a wonderful am I am!