A fond farewell to this month of June, my first month of blogging. What a fun, and surprisingly creative experience it's been.  Well, onward and upward...each day a new adventure. 

                Peace...the harmonic bell to which each heart resonates                           

Quietly going about our business...

This butterfly enjoys Sweet Cicely...

These gloomy, rainy days have been so good for the plants,

incubating their goodness, like these blackberries-to-be.

Why hasn't somebody invented milkweed perfume yet?    I don't know what this shrub on the right is called, but she's lifted her skirts, leaving her sisters in the garden, and gone and planted herself in the woods.

Everything is so lush.

                                  One more peek at this month's project before the final unveiling,                             this time from the underside in all its abstract glory.  Days and days of stitchery-do.

And then we rest.

This dragonfly actually watched me as I watched him, tilting his big eyes towards me.

All of an afternoon...the flowers, the bugs, the trees, the weeds and me...we all send our wish of love and peace on earth with abundance for all on our beloved blue planet.

Some days are like that - just golden.  It's as if we were making our own alchemy with each step.  Holidaying in our own town at the antique car rally, walking down the main strip as if we owned it, soaking up the festive atmosphere - what fun.

And yesterday, more of the same: yard-saling, strawberry-picking and antique shops with a great summer supper and an old movie. Here's a picture of our old girl in the wild flowers just as happy as we.

Savouring the Solstice, this "last day of Spring"

What if everything we wanted came to us as easy as wishing?   What if we worked hard all our lives towards something we wanted only to have outgrown it? There are secrets that lay waiting to be discovered.  They can be found in the meditative quality of one's work but they can't be forced by working harder or faster.  I can't deny that I've had some resistance to the discipline of persisting on my latest embroidery project, fearful that it would not resolve itself.

The pink heart revealed itself to me this morning.  It came as I resumed my embroidery after finishing Gabriel Garcia Marquez' autobiography, Living to Tell the Tale.  Marquez is a Colombian journalist and magic realism novelist with a self-admitted Caribbean sensibility.  The perspective he writes from in his autobiography is often touchingly (and dangerously) naive. I believe the revelation came to me because this book was still so fresh in my mind and resonated with changes in my  life.

So here is a sneak peak at the work I started almost 3 weeks ago. I see the pink heart as a message of hope, resurrection and redemption as it rises from the flames. However, it is open to interpretation; that's how it's meant to be.

Joy!

The longest day of the year is fast approaching.  How sweet are these fleeting hours as the garden and landscape flourish from these Aprilly showers we've been getting.  The blackberry and raspberry blossoms are thick on their vines, and today I found giant moose tracks on the laneway!  Soon, soon I will have something new to show you.

As evening is nigh, one last glimpse of sunfall.

It's been another lovely day spent mostly embroidering. I'm eager to show you the final results, which could take some time as I'm not in possession of an appealing background colour.  But soon! I'm being ever so diligent.

Oh dear, we must do something about that comfrey.

Yesterday I visited our closest fabric store almost an hour away and found some groovy cottons and linen/cotton blends in the remainder bins and some embroidery floss in colours I thought were very nice considering they,too, were on sale. So I was tickled and eager to cut them up and stitch them into funky new dolls.

But all that must wait as I persevere on my flowergirl embroidery which is taking a different turn since I ripped out the background 2 days ago. I'm used to working quickly which engages the intuition in a way that this slower, mind-wandering pace can't. I find it easier to hear my own voice when I'm away from her, ironically. But isn't that often the way.

Adieu til next time.

All kinds of learning curves this week, and wouldn't you know, they're all related to not listening to my intuition. What a handy little tool the intuition is; makes me think of my friend who once said, "You have the tools; now pick them up" or even better, when commenting on a client who hadn't taken his medication, "Next time I must write on the bottle 'works best when taken'."


That said, I can't bring myself to show the botched up job I've made of my embroidery from Saturday's post. Doll #3 is not doing so well either; he's looking a little lumpy, a little under the weather I guess. So we're all taking a little break.


Patience. Patience and Compassion. Practising this on oneself is one form of filling the well. When our well is full, we can then give these things to others. This is one of the many sacred circles: action and consequence. Yes, being patient and compassionate is a form of action.

Here are some watercolours I did in May on pages from an old childrens' textbook.

How could I bear to be away from this post for 2 whole days? Actually, I've peeked in but wanted to have something more substantial to show you. Here are some pictures I took yesterday that were may favourites out of all the garden flower and landscape shots .

I'm always enchanted by the wild Indian Paintbrush and buttercups, daisies and pink mallow that come up in the lawn each spring so that we're not to mow until their season is over.

And how about this swallowtail butterfly in the comfrey! Heaven on earth...between the mosquitoes of course.

I love this evening shot of the angelica which will grow to over 6 feet high! So mystical and prehistoric. I will show it to you again when it comes into full bloom.

Here is a little embroidered piece in progress.

It rained again today. That means the mosquitoes hovered around all the sheltered areas outside our house, which includes the doorways, so that I was assaulted by these diligent little sentries each time I escorted our old dog out for a pee. I'm one of those people who consider bug season more reason to stay indoors than winter blizzards. Ah, for a good old wintry blast... in due time of course. It's too nice to see our little vegetable garden coming into its own, and hear the warblers and wrens and ravens and owls in the forest.

Do you find yourself feeling plugged in to the universe sometimes? I marvel at the choices that intuition and imagination offer. When we're in the right "space" we tap into other wavelengths, so it's really not co-incidence when we experience synchronicity or universal consciousness, but something we've attracted to ourselves. I've been doing collage, incorporating sewing into it, for many years. I'm so pleased to see collage making a resurgence in everything from illustration to animation. This is an art form that really speaks to me perhaps because it seems so close to child's play.

Here is a piece I completed today in one of my old-fashioned moods. I hope you find comfort in something or someone you care about today.

Day Two. Howdy do!
What a day this has been after last night's thunderstorms: temperate and sunny and fun in the studio working on doll number three. Dear Elise Muller joined me on a break from her stone carving to sew a homemade baby blanket for one of two incoming arrivals.

I've been coming to doll art for years as the inevitable destination of my mixed media artwork. Finally, my magpie collecting bug makes sense. Linen and string and buttons, embroidery and patching and applique. There is a wonderful relief in doing what one should be doing.

Here are my 1st two dolls, recently completed. Doll number one, on the right, is a primitive little mister with a cotton string "fright wig", and there, on the left, is his red-headed sister: Buster and Lucy Lavender Legs. Oh, that's me in the middle.

Elise Muller stitching a baby blanket.