Saturday, February 26, 2011

Madonna of the Magpies


Oh dear I found this surfing around yesterday
for another picture on the net
and I saved this one..because
hello....magpies and madonna
I saved it for our madonna of the magpies
only thing is....I don't know who to attribute it to
I thought I saved the site, but I can't find it
so enjoy it for the day my fellow magpiers
If you look closely the title is on the painting
Madonna of the magpies
looks a bit like Tess, don't you think?
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A Finn day

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Thursday, February 24, 2011

Microfiction # 71 -Committed

microfiction # 71

Writing prompt
from Susan at:
http://www.stonyriver.ie/                                                                                            



Life like a long hallway
Little shafts of light
from brief opened doors
Darkness snares his feet
and he stops, never reaching
a life

-138-

magpie tale , Revealed

Magpie # 54

Revealed

Life had been a series of puzzle
pieces,scattered,turned around,
ill fitting,missing jigsawed days
until the right one of me
emerged and looked at the bigger picture
Then every bit of it fell into place,
interlocking,revealing a why for every piece
Not one left in the box
unclaimed

***

Friday, February 18, 2011

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Today, I will love much.

The snow of February is almost gone.
Hard to believe,
two days of balmy weather,
and my angst is gone,
and I forget how I grumbled.

But the earth drinks up the water
and the buds swell even more
And I feel a renewal,a swelling too,
in my being... to love much.
The sky is blue
the sun is out
I'm going to Galena,my promised land
can't wait to see the fields
and the cows
and the good people that live there

and as the poet Wilcox states above
"Earth has enough bitter in it."
So," love much"
 today

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Today
is all I have,
and I can't hold it in my palm.
I have to breath it in
one breath at a time,
hold the taste of it in my mouth,
not mindlessly swallowing,
for it shall never be this day again.
I must ask myself,
What do you hear?
For it is only in the focus of a thing
do you hear,
see, taste,
smell,
touch,
and love.
Today is all I have
and it comes in moments,
 seconds,
and heartbeats.


Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Magpie Tale # 53, The Shaker




There was salt in the pepper shaker for as long as I could remember.
Grandma said the salt shaker got broken the year she moved into the house so she
simply added salt to the pepper shaker.
My brother and I, in our youthfull innocence, told her it wasn't right to do that.
I even pointed out to her once, when we were very small,
that the shaker had a scary face.

"Stuff and nonsense" she said, "why that shaker is pure crystal.
 But I don't want you two using too much of my salt."
And she always did keep her eye on that shaker.

But we knew that there many things in grandma's house that were strange and frightening.
She made us sleep up in the attic when we stayed over. Once, I saw a bat fly overhead
in the middle of the night, lit by the moonlight shafting in through the eyebrow window.

"Folderol and snakes" she said, shaking her head,her eyes glistening in a menacing way.
"Bats are the friendly things in this house."

As we got older, my brother decided to skip the trips to grandmother's house on the weekends.
But grandma fascinated me with her ways and I loved the herb garden out back of her house.
I loved its shape, interlocking triangles.
When I asked her why it was this way, she took her tiny thin finger and poked me on the shoulder.

"Magic" is all she would say.

But I never saw any,magic that is. She was just a plain grandma who was always busying herself
with reading and cooking and the taking care of her cat,Boo.
Boo didn't like me. He sat on the table with his paws around the salt shaker glaring at me with his yellow eyes,tail flicking wildly.
One night Boo starting hissing and arching his back,shilly shallying across the room like he saw something.
'What is it Boo?" I asked him.
He jumped up on the table and knocked down the salt shaker. He began yeowlling and flew off the table like his tale was on fire.
"Grandma,grandma!' I yelled, "Boo knocked your shaker down."
From out of the kitchen my grandmother came,an alarmed look on her face when she saw the shaker down and opened,a tiny bit of salt spilt on the table.
"He's out, child, get behind me," she said grabbing my shirt.
"Who's out?" I asked, my breath short and rapid.
"The spirit." I have neglected to keep the shaker filled, and he's gotten out."

Before I could answer, the lights dimmed and a wind howled across the room
rattling the crystal on her chandelier.
"Quick child,into the pantry."
She grabbed my hand and we rushed into the pantry and she locked the door.
"Salt, we need salt!"
 She grabbed the container and began sprinkling it all over me making my eyes burn and tear. Then she poured it on herself and across the crack of the door near the floor.
 "What spirit, Grandma, you're scaring me!" I cried.
"The spirit I conjured out of this old house. I thought I could trap it in the shaker, evil hates salt,child."
"Is that why you never had pepper?"
"Shhh!" she said as the door began to shake and the door knob rattled.

Outside we could hear Boo hissing and spitting, and things being knocked around the room.
"Get him Boo!" grandma said, her fists clenched.
We heard the sound of breaking glass and the roar of a tempest.  Then nothing.
 Grandma waited a while before opening the door and peering out, a handful of salt in the palm of her hand.

"Oh,Boo!" she cried,"my precious Boo!"

Just below the shattered window, Boo laid still on the oak floor.
"The spirit doesn't like cats either," grandma said holding her injured cat to her bosom.
"Quick child,go back to the pantry and bring me the purple glass canning jar."

I did as I was told and watched as grandma reached into the jar and pulled out a root that looked like a person. She rubbed it over Boo's body while chanting something very low.
 "Mandrake," she said.
Slowly Boo opened his eyes and began purring.
Grandma looked at me with resignation in her eyes.
"I guess I'll have to teach you now, teach the ways."

"Grandma ,you mean I really did see a scary face in that shaker once?"
"Yes,child," she answered, "you did. Now we must get to work right away,he'll be back."







A battle time


While out to dinner with my DH
I said to him ..

If someone messed with my mother or kid, I'd take them down..
but it is still hard for me to fight for myself...

We had a nice discussion about this, but truth be known,we weren't talking
about the same thing.

I made several drastic changes in my life, and lifestyle, about 7 years ago.
It was hard and very inwardly painful.
...I tell friends
 that it was a matter of recovering from myself.
I had to fight back against the person who had found a place of safety and no growth.

You see that woman in the red shorts in the above picture?
....that's who I really am on the inside
But it took much excavating to find that out.
 I am a sensual, confident woman
who loves red, and body adornments, and toned muscles & fashion
A free spirit who yearns to create
who wants to write and draw
a woman who wants freedom of body
to have that body,mind and soul connection

where once I had 3 pairs of shoes, I have now lost count

Yoga, Pilates,walking, good eating, and weight training
are me..ME!

I now have a room of my own where I indulge my creative spirit
yep, me.

But  I was  none of that

It took a lot of fighting back to find her and I have to do it dail.y
I only wished that I had excavated her sooner..when I could wear those shorts

That discovery journal was the important tool
It is not the actual cutting and pasting that impacts
but when you stand back and look at it as a whole
...what it reveals
OMG..what is on those pages? shocking
Is that really me...the one inside?

My Artist Way friends said a resounding YES
"we saw it" they said
"you just had to discover it"

But.... seeing it finally is one thing, then I had to implement these desires
Good lordie...not so easy
Not welcomed
Frightening to family/old friends
People think you have lost it 
My neighbor stopped me one day
 while I was getting the mail
..asked if I was sick..you look so different she said
Not the reaction I was hoping for

I went from a overweight house frau
to work out beast who jingled everywhere she went
Sounds simple these seemingly superficial changes
They were dynamite
  
I became a rebel for myself

I battle the old me every once in a while
She liked it safe
But I don't
So fight back....I say to myself, fight for your-self

Bless my DH for not seeing that I have lost
a piece of myself lately....and was trying to tell him
that I need to engage in a fight with that safe someone inside
who wants to take me down
A constant battle that is mine alone

Journal entry:
Change gives you different enemies
watch out

***

Monday, February 14, 2011


We've said it all,
no regrets
Now we hear the words
just looking at the sky
while holding hands



Sunday, February 13, 2011


Like the joy of forgiveness
my lungs expanded
wanting more grace
a touch of Spring wafting
through the air

Saturday, February 12, 2011




We still speak of dreams
but the best ones we have lived
 without our knowing

discovery journal page today

I want to thank all of you kind people who bother to take the time
to read and comment on my blogs
I do have another blog in case you didn't notice
where I tell you about my love for the garden
and this week, Everyday Goddess, picked me as one of her posts of the week
 http://www.goddesswrite.com/
I even got a sun for it
What I am trying to say is that her kindness,
and all of your comments that are so kind and encouraging,
go into me
and I am blessed because of it


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Friday, February 11, 2011

Magpie Tale #52..WAITING


Ah,Tess, this photo calls to me, you outdid yourself
What a good eye, what wonderful composition
what heart strings you have played
A regular Rockwell you are
Now, to see what bubbles up

WAITING


I bought the house. The one on Peace Pipe Lane.
The one that is so narrow you can hardly pass to the back without going single file.
I just had to have this painted green brick house with the cream colored trim when I saw it. 
The red brick chimney sealed the deal.
I became aware of this house while at the Bridge Coffee House and Book Store,
saw its photo in a real estate magazine. The kind that they leave out for tourist
who have had a magical weekend meandering their ancient streets.
The streets where every house is at least 100 years old.
When I told my friends that I bought this house they thought I was bewitched.
Funny they said that,I was.
 In town one day I visited an herb and natural healing shop,got my palm read.
The woman said she saw a move in my future.
Really? I said. 
On the last day of my vacation to this out of the way town I was truly sorry to have to leave it.
Especially the cemetery that I had visited on Mound Hill St.
So many children didn't make it more than a day back then.
Most women died decades after losing their husbands.
 But one grave that I took a rubbing of really gave me a jolt.
It read....Mercurial Bead, died, not knowing.
Not knowing what? What?
I asked around town, but you know how small town are...not a word.
So I went to the library. I snooped around some old records and found that she had lived on Peace Pipe Lane. I was startled when the  librarian appeared and sat down next to me. "Do you want to know what she died not knowing? "
I shuddered straight through to my shoes.

"Someone took her child. She sat by the front window of her house for over 50 years, waiting, but she never knew what happened to her. Finally one day she hung herself in the basement,couldn't take the pain anymore. They say her house is haunted...can't sell it."

Well, I bought it. I understand Mercurial. I too, am waiting, waiting for someones return, my husband's return-MIA,Vietnam.
Maybe I can freshen the old place up a bit, bring some cheer.
Maybe I will make a pot of tea, put out two cups, ask Mercurial to sit...to tell me,
What's it like, knowing?

***
Happy anniversary Magpie Tales!

another page

I haven't placed anything in my discovery journal in a long time.
Pictures,phrases,quotes,art..or whatever I have collected along the way that spoke to me-
sometimes collaging bits and pieces of them...like this one
Browsing through my books (I have 4 journals of discovery) I came upon a few that spoke to me
right now

Your dreams are waiting---------get gutsy
yep...that's the one
avoidance can only take you so far
if the dream is real

***

Thursday, February 10, 2011

A Haiku Thursday


It fell from the branch
the maple leaf mixed with oaks
It does not belong

***
 

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

a page from my illustrated discovery journal


Sometimes it is the pain in our lives
that opens us up to realizations and change
and that is powerful indeed


***

Monday, February 7, 2011

microfiction #sixty and nine

Susan host microfiction Monday at
http://www.stonyriver.ie/



The red sandstone school and old clock were still there,but what was once romantic,
was now only time and an old building on a moonless night
-141- 

***

Seconds


..spent the weekend Downtown
enjoyed a 100th birthday celebration
for President Reagan
Then on the way home...it was snowing,
the streets were almost empty and
the city of Chicago seemed sleeping...
except for this fella who dashed in front of our car
on a green light
in a hurry, or cold ,or lost in mindlessness

I thought of how a second
can change one's life
his and ours
and then my mind wandered to
how one man,like Ronald Reagan, can change a country
or one woman, like Rosa Parks,
can change a country's conscience
It is seconds these life changes..words that took seconds to say:
..Mr. Gorbachev,tear down this wall..
and an action that took seconds:
Rosa Parks not giving up her seat on a bus
Seconds,
big things really happen in seconds
And for us yesterday morning,
I am glad we had seconds
to avoid hitting this man, who never saw us,
busy on his way to I'll never know where

So,I take this second
to thank his angel,
the one that looked
like snow falling on city,
the one that he never saw...



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Thursday, February 3, 2011

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