by Heather Plett | Jan 12, 2010 | art, Creativity
Last night I started my drawing class. At the Winnipeg Art Gallery, no less – a place for SERIOUS artists. (My last class was through the local community centre, so this is me “kickin’ it up a notch!”) I’m so excited. My teacher is just the right mix of down-to-earth, approachable, relaxed, wise, and seriously talented. I know I’m going to enjoy soaking in her wisdom. We spent last night learning about shading with cross-hatching and smudged charcoal – playing with light.
This is what I wrote in my journal on the bus ride home. “My first drawing class is over. Loved it! Oh yes I did! Teacher, looking over my shoulder, said ‘you have a great sense of light!’ Woohoo! Light! I am elated! Let the light shine on me! And may I recognize the value of the shadows for the way they bring out the light.”
Yup, I was just like Maddie coming home from her art class – silly and imaginative and just plain giddy. I didn’t tell goofy stories like she does (not sure my bus-mates would have appreciated it), but I’m sure I was grinning all the way home.
This morning, in honour of my desire to “bask in pleasure” just like a kid, I want to share a blessing from one of my favourite books:
For the Artist at the Start of Day
May morning be astir with the harvest of night;
Your mind quickening to the eros of a new question,
Your eyes seduced by some unintended glimpse
That cut right through the surface to a source.
May this be a morning of innocent beginning,
When the gift within you slips clear
Of the sticky web of the personal
With its hurt and its hauntings,
And fixed fortress corners,
A Morning when you become a pure vessel
For what wants to ascend from silence,
May your imagination know
The grace of perfect danger,
To reach beyond imitation,
And the wheel of repetition,
Deep into the call of all
The unfinished and unsolved
Until the veil of the unknown yields
And something original begins
To stir toward your senses
And grow stronger in your heart
In order to come to birth
In a clean line of form,
That claims from time
A rhythm not yet heard,
That calls space to
A different shape.
May it be its own force field
And dwell uniquely
Between the heart and the light
To surprise the hungry eye
By how deftly it fits
About its secret loss.
~ John O’Donohue ~
by Heather Plett | Jan 11, 2010 | random
1. My oldest daughter is insane. She LOVES to go to the gym, LOVES to run on the treadmill, and WILLINGLY got up at 5:45 this morning to drag me out of bed and drag me to the gym. She finally has the doctor’s okay to start running again (since her knee surgery in September), and is doing everything in her power to convince me running is FUN. Yeesh.
2. I may have to admit that my eye-sight is not quite what it used to be. Gulp. Everybody warned me that it would start to deteriorate after 40, but I refused to believe them since I’ve happily lived without glasses all of my life. But last night… darn it all… I could barely focus on those nearly invisible stitches I was trying to rip out to replace a zipper. I have the injuries on my finger to prove it. Aargh.
3. Tonight I start a drawing class at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. I’ve got a healthy mix of excitement and nervousness. More excited than nervous this time around, but this feels like SERIOUS art instruction instead of just the community centre stuff I did last time around. Yikes! Who am I trying to kid?
4. Speaking of art classes, Maddie started hers on Saturday, and oh my gosh that girl is fun to have in the car on the way home from art classes. (And swimming classes too, for that matter.) She gets really silly when she’s happy and her imagination goes wild when she’s gotten positive energy from something she loves. I think we grown-ups have gotten a little too good at stifling that kind of thing to the point where we often don’t even recognize what gives us true pleasure. We can learn some things from Maddie about basking in pleasure.
5. Since I mentioned the other two daughters, I should mention Julie too. It appears she has inherited two of my characteristics – perfectionism (when it comes to projects, anyway), and procrastination. Not a great combination when you have a big creative project due on Monday and want to get some actual sleep on Sunday night, but boy-oh-boy does she have a nice project to hand in this morning!
6. I’ll be spending most of this week at a staff retreat. If you’ve been here for awhile, you might remember last year’s retreat. This year will be significantly different, because we have a lot of new staff on the team. None-the-less, I’ve got some fairly big challenges that make me feel a little queasy about the whole thing. I may have to wear my colourful jacket again for fortification.
7. After the retreat comes the fun stuff – a weekend at a soccer tournament in the States. I wish I could just jump to the fun stuff where I get to hang out with my family in a hotel and help my daughters spend the money they’ve been earning by trudging through the neighbourhood delivering flyers.
8. I have one of those plants in my office that I only know of as a “mother-in-law’s tongue”. A rather horrible name, I know (especially since my mother-in-law’s tongue is anything but sharp), but I don’t know the proper name. (I just looked it up on wikipedia and it’s also known as the “snake plant”.) It has one really tall leaf that is shooting toward the sky. It seems like it’s trying to serve as a metaphor similar to the “tall poppy” where people dare to stand above the crowd even when they might be shot down for it.
9. I have a grinning plastic monkey on my desk by my computer (from my friend Kelly from back in the days when we were trying to avoid using the word “monkey” in communications plans because the lab we were working at was beginning to do experiments on “non-human-primates” – ah yes, we were spin doctors!). For some reason, that monkey is making me smile this morning. Thanks Kelly.
10. Nine doesn’t seem like the right number to end on, so I’m adding this point just so I can end on an even number. I have nothing more to say.
by Heather Plett | Jan 8, 2010 | Creativity, hope, Passion
A few days ago, I let Maddie drag me out of the house to see the Olympic flame as it passed through our city. It was my first day back to work and I really didn’t relish the thought of leaving my warm cocoon again in the evening, but I just didn’t think it was right to extinquish the enthusiasm of a 7 year old child who’ll probably only have one chance to see the flame in her lifetime.
In the end, I was glad we went. We didn’t get there in time to see it arrive at the Forks, but it was burning brightly in a fairly large torch on the stage where performers were putting on a concert.
At the end of the festivities, the flame was passed from the large torch to a very small enclosed lantern where they keep it burning through the night. It was just a tiny flame, but it was still THE Olympic flame. The next day, it would burn brightly again as it continued its journey toward the coast.
As I stood there watching them shrink the flame and then extinquish the large torch, a sudden epiphany visited me. That flame is just like me. Sometimes I’m burning brightly for everyone around to see, and then sometimes I have just a tiny flame burning inside me, nearly invisible to the naked eye. The beauty of the moment was the recognition that that small flame still holds within it the capacity to burn fiercely and powerfully.
Lately I’ve been going through one of those “tiny flame” periods. There are moments when there seems to be no more passion, no more inspiration, and no more energy. No more fuel for my fire. It’s not just a “January blahs” thing this time around. It’s a “something happened that makes the future seem dark again” kind of thing.
But seeing that flame reminded me that it’s still burning deep inside me. I just have to wait for it to be refueled and then it will shine again.
This morning, after having a conversation with a good friend over a chai latte, and then reading the article that my friend Darrah passed on, I had another epiphany. I am letting the shadow of this difficult situation cloud the future and I am forgetting to focus on that tiny speck of light that still burns within me (and within the people around me). I am also forgetthing that I have some control over what fuels my flame and do not have to wait for external forces to fuel it for me. But at the same time… I don’t NEED to burn brightly all the time – some times low flame times are crucial for helping me refuel and prepare for the times when I am called on to burn brightly.
As Pema Chodron says in the article linked above, sometimes we take the shifts of our emotional weather too personally. Sometimes we let ourselves believe that our current experience is how it IS instead of remembering that things are always shifting and changing.
A few days ago, I wrote this on Twitter: “I’m in one of those moods where I can flip-flop between ‘life is beautiful’ and ‘life sucks’ in mere seconds.”
Today I wrote: “Every day gives us another opportunity to rise above the things that dragged us down the day before.”
What about you? Where is YOUR olympic flame these days?
by Heather Plett | Jan 7, 2010 | journey, travel
Today I am posting this picture simply because it made me smile yesterday when I came across it in one of our work publications.
It makes me smile and it helps me to remember that I’ve lived a good life. I have been privileged to walk on foreign soil many times. And I will do it again and again. This was taken almost exactly 5 years ago in Kenya, and yes, that’s me with a little less hair, a little less weight, and a fly on my cheek. And a huge grin on my face because I was doing what I love most in the world – going on a journey. And meeting fascinating people. And letting the world change me.
This is what I wrote on my very first post on this blog, when I was preparing for my first trip to Africa:
I won’t expect that my English words are somehow endued with greater wisdom than theirs. I will listen and let them teach me. I will open my heart to the hope and the hurt. I will tread lightly on their soil and let the colours wash over me. I will allow the journey to stretch me and I will come back larger than before.
I believe I did what I set out to do – allowed the journey to stretch me. And I’ve done that on every journey since.
I’m looking forward to seeing what journeys will stretch me this year.
by Heather Plett | Jan 6, 2010 | Beauty
Do you ever stop and stare at the art on your window pane?
The endless variety?
The symmetry? The precision?
The delicate brush strokes mixed with bold connecting lines?
The way the sunlight changes each piece at different times of the day?
The bold and unorthodox lines? Sometimes balanced, sometimes not?
The soft edges mixed with dazzling sparkle?
The playfulness of the artist’s dancing brush strokes?
Some days, the best you can hope for is just one glimpse of beauty in the middle of the messiness.
