transformation

We found some monarch eggs on milkweed near our house and brought them inside to watch the process of becoming a butterfly.  We have done it every year for several years now and it never gets old!  It is fascinating.  Here are some pictures of the process of transformation...

xo
Britt

sight

sight. original mixed media on wooden panel, 12x12. sold.

I was driving early one morning and the sun hadn’t quite reached me yet. Everything was monochromatic and still. As I passed a huge field, several beams of sunlight reached it and startling color jumped out from the grass and the trees that lined the edge.

It made me think about light and how it changes things. Light can be physical and give us warmth and brightness and color. It can be spiritual and we gain truth and wisdom from its divine touch. It can be emotional and we are filled with joy as we let go of our heavy hearts. No matter how it manifests, light is powerful and comforting.

The past couple years have run me ragged. Although I wouldn't change my circumstances - I really love being a mom and find joy in my five incredible children - I have had a really hard time figuring out how to slow down enough to let any beauty and light penetrate.

(If something lovely happens to you and you don’t record it with paper or words or stitches in fabric or ink or paint or pixels, did it really happen?) (you know, like when a tree falls in a forest...) (get it?)

I almost didn’t go to Squam Art Workshops this year. At the last moment my mom and Jake talked me into it: Why wouldn’t you go? It’s your thing. Take care of yourself. You need this.

(They must really love me.)

So I emailed Elizabeth and told her I trusted her (because I’ve seen her gut telling her what to do and I’ve watched how she always listens and wondered at the incredible gift she has!). She emailed me back with which classes her gut told her I would love and then put me in a cabin she knew I would enjoy. I didn’t question it; I accepted it whole heartedly and kept running.

When I walked the familiar path through the woods, my body loosened. My mind widened. My eyes noticed.

The last day I was there, I took Alena Hennessy’s class, the joy of intention. I had spent the past days being filled up and refreshed. I was being fed. And Alena took us out and stood us in a circle and asked what our intentions were.

What?

How had I not asked this of myself? What did I want from this experience? How have I been touched and changed? How did I want it to manifest when I return home? What were my intentions with this squammie experience?

I thought about how the light had touched me while I was there. Not only did it warm me and dance on my skin, it had engulfed my overburdened mind and body and healed it with laughter and friendship and truth. I had sat on the dock and watched the sun rise and seen how the light has a separate beauty from the darkness yet it’s hard to tell when one ends and one begins. I had sat quietly and listened as the light of the Spirit whispered and confirmed and denied, and I could see my life and my potential for what it is: beautiful and imperfect.


(photo taken by the beautiful Elke May right after class.  Thanks, Elke;)

My intentions are to keep living through this season of motherhood that is filled with joy and pain, beauty and hardships, and when things are feeling monochromatic, find a way to slow down enough that I can look up and see where the light is shining to catch sight of what I am missing in my haste. Because there is always light and it is always offering beauty and comfort; truth and warmth; color and energy.



Here is what I wrote in class right before I started painting:

The light

comes in bursts

of hope and peace and

shines

upon parts of life that are hard

and suddenly I can see

the beauty

that was hidden from my

sight.

The color

reflects and shines

bringing joy and peace and awe.

The clouds part

and I know the way.

I am at peace.

Here is the piece that I painted in the inspiring Misty Mawn's wonderful class, Painted Icon:

seeker.  original acrylic on panel, 8.5x11.

(Cabin-mates: I can't help but laugh right now because of our experience with this painting.  Elizabeth was so right to put me with you guys.  You are dear to my heart.)

XO,

Britt

This series of pictures is like an illustration of my life.

There I was at Squam Art Workshops, surrounded by nature and beauty and inspiration and genius, and I try to do a selfie with some of my cabin mates (love) on the way to breakfast.  Instead of making the timer wait longer before it shoots, I made it take 10 consecutive pictures.  Not only that, but I forgot that I left it in manual focus, hence the fact that not one thing is clear.  (Not even the spider web photo that I put it on MF for in the first place.)  Then I scurried back to the group in an awkward manner and knelt right on Sweet One's fingers, perhaps maiming her for life.  Thank goodness she is a good sport.

It was silly.  Like life.

I have been really annoyed at the fact that I WANT to post here and I just clicked to see when my last post was and that birthday party feels like fovever ago.  I had my oldest friends visit and never really wrote about it!  My mom has been here for a month!  My sister and her kiddos came and I met my niece for the first time! My brother came to vistit and nary a post has been posted.  Sigh.

Back to the point of this random post: Thank the heavens that we can still find beauty and joy in the awkward and silly, because that gives me hope.  And when I went away and took a few days for myself, I was able to breathe and be still inside.  And it was like in that wonderful children's book ...ish, I didn't try to capture it, I just soaked it all in.  I watched all the other artists and writers and poets and creative souls capturing bits and pieces and that was good enough for me.

Here is the only other picture I got that is worth keeping and sharing:



And the reason that it is worth it, even though every other squam post has a picture just like that one, is because the lake helped me be still.  It helped in my reflections.  It aided my capacity to breathe deeply.  Watching the sun rise in the mornings and seeing the night sky reflected on its surface grounded me. 

A birthday party picture story.

Thanks to everyone who helped me celebrate my beloved.

xo

Britt

(scanned instax "photobooth" shot)

so what if I don't want to think of a title for this post?

There are times that I make decisions based on what I see other people care about. For instance, I don’t care if my kid eats something off the ground, but I’ve noticed that other people seem to care, so when I see them pick up something that fell on the ground I tell my children, “Oh, don’t eat that. That’s yucky.”

I have a drawer by the stove that is full of utensils: spatulas, measuring spoons and measuring cups, whisks, a ladle, a can opener, vegetable peeler. You know. That drawer. I just had all the stuff in there, there weren’t any organizers and everything was just chillin’ out together. Like a party. One day my mom and mother in law and sister in law were hanging out in the kitchen. Maybe they were cooking or something, but they all wanted me to organize the drawer. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind that I should make a point to go to the store and purchase something to go into my utensils drawer that would keep my whisks from getting unruly. So I told them they could have at it. By the next day I had little compartments within the drawer and everything was in its’ place. Weeks later one of them asked me if I liked the drawer better and if I could find what I needed quicker. “I guess so,” I said. It really didn’t make a difference to me either way. But after a few years of living with it like that I can see that I always know which area of the drawer to go to when I’m reaching for my measuring spoons. (And that comes in handy when you’re making a quick batch of chocolate chip cookies.) Now I notice if someone else unloads the dishwasher and puts something back into the drawer in the wrong place. I found myself correcting my son when he was helping me out one day. “Actually, the measuring cups go HERE.” I heard myself and was a little annoyed.

But I can see that other people like the drawer better when it’s organized and neat. So I do it.

There are all kinds of things that people do that I wouldn’t do unless I felt pressured socially. Things like worry that I have a trampoline with out a net. I wouldn’t care if it didn’t have a matt around the springs, but it does because I inherited it like that. I have a trampoline because it is fun to jump on. Why can’t it remain simple? You feel like jumping high and doing a flip because it is fun, so you go onto the trampoline and do it. That’s how it was when I was a kid, but now there are all these safety measures people have taken.



When people jump high on something that is 3 feet off the ground, there is a risk of falling. Sometimes people might get the wind knocked out of them and every once in a while someone gets a broken bone. To me, these are unfortunate moments, but natural consequences of being human. But there are people, lots of people, obviously, who feel that if there is a risk, we should find ways to prevent these things from happening. So they design things and sell them, making the world a safer place.

My guess is that those people don’t have ADD.