the conciousness of home

Last weekend two of my girlfriends and I went to New York City for a conference.  While we were in the city, we were among a constant throng of people and things made by people.  We were walking on pavement and tile, through hallways of polished marble and rough concrete.  We were walking among artists and engineers, writers and taxi drivers.  We were surrounded by a million energies. 

Nature is part of me and I have a hard time if I’m not connected to the earth.  But I could look up through the tunnel of stationary buildings and see the sky, alive with color, clouds sweeping past and leaving me dizzy. 

The weekend was such an incredible experience for me.  Not only was it inspiring and motivating because I was at a conference with authors and illustrators who are at the top of the game, but I was with two women who are spiritual beacons in my life.  Art and spirituality go together naturally within myself and tend to be done alone.  They can be isolating, but not in a negative way, in a concentrating-on-growth kind of way.  When I am growing spiritually, I am going inward.  I am private with things that are important to me.  Especially when I don’t know if the people around me feel the same as I do.  I’m not looking for approval or debates or proof, I’m searching for personal and universal truths that can be taken on faith.  My prayers are private.  My conversations with God take place Spirit to Spirit.  My answers to prayer are not seen or heard by others, unless I am the one putting them into words.

But this weekend there was constant discussion.  There were prayers spoken aloud and accepted as a group.  The depth of consciousness that was being shared brought a sharp joy that has stayed with me for days.

As we drove away from the city, the enormity of the skyline became smaller and smaller until the buildings became something tiny, reaching for the glory that cannot be tamed.  All at once I saw that something that had been engulfing me, an entire city, was nothing in comparison with something that was not made by human hands.  All that was left was the inspiration growing and steeping inside my soul and a feeling of gratefulness that someone as insignificant as I can be intertwined with God and Man alike.  Divinity and humanity surround us constantly and we get to call it Home.

today

Today I put the babies in their new little fleece teddy bear snuggie suits and we all went to Sams Club. It was really cold so I was thankful for those little hoodies (with the ears on top to make them cute as all get out) because they couldn’t pull them off their little bald heads. (It took us a long time to get anywhere because people kept stopping me to talk about how cute my little twin teddy bears were. Then they would try to get the little teddies to smile, but the little teddies have a secret pact to never smile at strangers.) When we were walking out after making our purchases, the woman checking my receipt smelled like 3rd grade. Just standing next to her made me feel like I was in elementary school again.

Today I ate chocolate chip cookies and tasted comfort.

Today I listened to a random selection of songs. One of them was Longer by Dan Folgelberg and while I sang as loud as I could I remembered listening to this song when I was a child, sitting by my parents’ stereo and feeling love. I feel blessed for having the kind of love that I knew was waiting for me.

Today my ankle ached from twisting it yesterday. That’s right, I twisted it and fell. It was ridiculous.

Today I kissed my kids goodnight after coming home from being somewhere special and I whispered into their ears while they slept. Things like: Mommy loves you. You’re my favorite. I love you the most. Dream about happy things.

Today I had a million things to do. The babies were very fussy and my 10 year old was home sick and I had a really bad headache. I didn’t get a million things done. But I’m okay with that. I’m going to bed and I feel blessed and lucky and happy and spent.

the search for beauty

As the color has faded
and left the skies grey
and the trees bare

I search for beauty.

I look deeper,
closer

I look upward,
inward

I use the senses:
Feel the warmth
Touch the softness
Hear the joy
Taste the familiar
Smell the love
See the beauty

Surrounding me
On every side

Blessings abound

smell

Sometimes something hits you as beautiful. It has to do with a combination of senses. I had my little point and shoot camera and I had to take a picture here because the light was so pretty and the smell of the place brought me back to a place from my childhood.

I’m reading A Natural History of the Senses. It’s not one of those novels that I sit down and gobble up. It’s been kind of like a bar of fine chocolate that I’ve been hiding—I go and take a little in and let it sit on my tongue and melt in my mouth slowly and then sneak away all satisfied.

“Breaths come in pairs, except at two times in our lives—the beginning and the end. At birth, we inhale for the first time; at death, we exhale for the last. In between, through all the lather on one’s life, each breath passes are over our olfactory sites. Each day, we breathe about 23,040 times and move around 438 cubic feet of air. It takes us about five seconds to breathe—two seconds to inhale and three seconds to exhale—and, in that time, molecules of odor flood through our systems. Inhaling and exhaling, we smell odors. Smells coat us, swirl around us, enter out bodies, emanate from us. We live in a constant wash of them. Still, when we try to describe a smell, words fail us like the fabrications they are.”
~Diane Ackerman in A Natural History of the Senses

What are your favorite smells?