It's been a little while longer than I expected getting back to you.  Like this little white spider- she really wasn't more than 1/2 inch long- I had seized up, not realizing my capacity for creative change.  The spider represents the female energy of creativity and the message that we are infinite beings that can weave patterns of intricate and simple beauty in our lives.

This little spider belongs in the garden.  I found her in a bowl of raspberries and pink clover that I was sorting through in the kitchen. She was so upset with her circumstances that she popped out two white eggs the size of seed beads that surprised me so much I forgot to take the picture.  Eventually she unravelled herself,  but didn't seem to know where to go,  so I set her on a blade of lemongrass and sailed it down to a bed of thyme. If that isn't a metaphor for what I've been going through I don't know what is.  

So in light of that, may I say that anytime we find ourselves all bunched up and run out of creative responses, let's get ourselves back to the garden - or to put it less figuratively - back where we belong.

It's been well over a week since I last wrote to you.   I hope you have been able to find some comfort throughout all this heat.  There is a definite cooling effect as we come home from our trips to town and enter the ameliorating shade of the forest.  Today I ventured out from under this last week's mantle of heat  for a walk before an impending storm that never came.

                    In Canada we're inclined to talk about the weather, even more so if you're rural.

This is the eastern sky this afternoon.  You'll be seeing more sky shots in the future as I'm fascinated by the clouds that give the sky character and atmosphere (oh! a pun!).

The rain fell with a vengeance last night, but only the angelica seemed to take it hard.

My bug jacket really paid for itself today as I roamed through the wet foliage collecting raspberries while the mosquitoes tried to make a pincushion of me. Thank goodness they never found the hole in the knee of my pants!

Pellargonium- the Martha Washington geranium- is a bright light on the darkest days.  While it buds and blooms, I'm working towards a show next week that has kept me from regular postings.  But soon I will be back to explore my creative depths and share with you.

                                                            Creative buds and Peace.

Ta-daa!  

Flowergirl of the Rising Heart

With all my good intentions to proceed with freehand machine embroidery, I was compelled to hand stitch this piece. It evolved with a life of its own, as I wished .  There is the joy in the handmade that leads you down a path you've never been.  Over the years it's been suggested that I reproduce my work, for all kinds of good reasons, but it would turn what I love to do into a job, and goodness knows there are enough jobs to do in life.  Besides, there is an organic mystery in the unique, at least if it has merit. Ha, ha.

Angelica archangelica

And here is that picture I promised a few weeks back of the angelica at its full height, well over 6 feet.  Who knew I'd be posting so many nature shots?  One of the many happy surprises this experience has brought.

Wishing you a sweet joy to fill your rising heart

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!