This space of time, this place of heart, this tree of Paradise

Slowly, surely I stand and look at the cloud patterns on approach. Time patterns as a quiet fool sometimes, and I am the one who stirs the pot, watches the sky and cloaks my shoulders with shawl. Down spins the first leaf speckled with ochre and sienna, crimson and worm-hole.
Where to in these moments? Holding on to small little hands, we find that place of comfort. Soft, still and sweet, I too remember the familiar smell of wood burn, tart apples and hand-spun wool tight and pressed against a cheek with a glass of cold milk.

Little kisses from those who trust me with all they are.

Icons are moving their lips to smile.

I must admit, the movement of imminent goal of sharing my attempts of icon-writing with others quickens my blood. I want to get better. I want to find my way. And I am happy to share that journey with little hands grasping on to table-side, if that's what it takes.

Aaron's birthday will mark the delivery of eight or so of my icons to a gallery in Brattleboro, Vermont. To share, to mark a new phase in time in which to create.

Seraphine, the recent french film we saw last weekend, was an enormous encouragement to me--a beautiful and haunting portrait of a woman driven to create as an intimate and sacred love letter to the Other. A conversation with the divine, spoken through hand-made pigments ripped from the earth and other matter--distilled in a love and intimacy that channelled through her own unique brush. Tree of Paradise. Not without encouragement. Not without misunderstanding. Often and almost always alone and with interior conviction, and exterior semblance of a sort of madness. Who are we who create for the Creator? Holy fools?

I still fill with tears contemplating her grand gesture, wedding gown and bare feet trailing the cobblestones of her village, knocking on doors announcing the Feast. The here, now, always. Image bearers, the light of the Incarnation flooding it all. The mystery of the why spilling over canvas as blood on sacred ground--an echo to Love, a voice singing in the beauty and pain of life. The patterns of creation through fruit and leaf, limb and light. Colors that annunciate and speak of an intimate and most profound language.

Remember you are blest. See this film, spend time with her paintings, and kiss the crimson leaf you find at your feet.

The earth of Philokalia

It is all pushing. Time and space and brushing the dust of Eden off my feet. Where is this boat heading? I want to be lost in the timeless creation of creation, like the white levakas painted in layers on my board. A symbol of light, beginning, and that which simply is. Where is that mystical flow that can sweep one up and into shape? What is this my shape? How am I to enter in? And I do know. That prayer is carrying me along....Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Mercy.
Grace.
And joy.
So much dust these days to shake off. To reflect outwards that inner light, and not to let it stay cloaked. More light, more hunger, more thirst.
This time is a bit like temptation in the desert. We walk bearing the assumption of lost, we are indeed nothing, and there are shadows of the Other stalking. But I see the shadows, I feel my way, I bear the Light, and I know this too shall pass.
If only I could know for certain this was all for refinement. Certainty is too scientific, too full of itself. I will learn to be content. I will learn to yearn without restraint--to pool myself and be as a drink of water. Filled and giving. Moistening the tongue parched from the desert dust.
Show me the tree. I know the bird can find refuge there.
Quiet, still, true.
o let me fly.
an apparition of light breaks on wing
washing skies that slowly
diffuse
and lift my feet,
this clayborne heart,
and scatter fields
of unyolked promises
for a mile of mercy
stripped
and sweated
sweet
and full.

I'm sorry I am spiraling a bit. My head is needing to rest. I need to paint. My tree seems appropriate to share. It is where I want to be. It is where I am.

Bear with me heart as I ache...

Time flowing in an orbit all its own. Last week we received word of my little 2 yr. old cousin Mason's accidental drowning in his backyard pool. My heart threw itself into a panic as I tried and still try to comprehend the reality of this meaning. The silent whisper of why floats by and forces me to stand firm on the ground of rooting in the moment. How can we not, pulling along our fragile skin with lives balanced in an obtuse world? All is transient. All is passing. When- how- why? Eyes on the Eternal, I think about this thing called mortality and lay stripped, feeling like I need warm rain to fall on me and turn the soil of my being into a moist clay--able to be shaped into whatever it is called to--whatever it is named.

Love. Poured forth. Needing the cup to catch every drop. How to live life to the fullest? How to live love without obstacles? Caring for little lives that depend on us to show the way, to carve a mark on the heart--this is the easiest most beautiful and natural thing to do in the world and also the most difficult with the weight of life and the sin of the world and the ever-present reality of our bodily limits. How do we do it? How can we capture some of that love and place it in a jar to behold, as small children stare in awe as with fireflies caught? To summon beauty and truth forth and find a way even in the most simple and ordinary places to allow them to illuminate life, casting back the dark of the night. Casting back the wages of sin. Light. Light. Light. Time moving forward with deep undercurrents racing back in the gesture ahead. We can love. More. Now.

Aaron found this quote that put it in its place-- the unknowing of death...

"To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?" - Socrates

I had to make a painting of Mason. No way to travel the whole of us there, and yet aching with grief. No way to imagine the pain felt in the loss for Jen and Paul. And yet it can happen to any of us, any time. It made sense to me why the human inclination is to depict the loved especially if they have passed. And photographs that suspend time cannot do this the way the hand can mystically transport out of time, beyond time. I am still in awe of the process of forming image--especially in human depiction. What is it to paint with love if we want to live with love? What is passion in our creative outlays of pursuit? It is all love from beginning to end.

And the halo came so easily, so quick...

I am going to pray now. Little night breath steadily blowing in and out. Life. Beautiful little lives gifted for a time together here, then eternity there. Now. Steady. Breath movement as in a linear line moving through time. Peace. My children. God's children.

And again love...

Onwards and new things...

So here is a replacement photo of my finished St. George slaying the dragon being that it is the first that truly feels complete (and totally made without my dear mentor Ksenia around). I am excited to dive in to the next which are two resurrection icons along with more miniatures of the Holy Face. This is good.

Today I will meet with Father Andrew of Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in Claremont about doing a week-long workshop for a group in August in Keene. This meeting coincides with my first experience of an Orthodox service. Needless to say, I am of little words today, feeling very much excited for this initial opening. Praying for my heart that my excitement can remain in check.

It is indeed good. And all shall be well....

Interior renovation

I have been wanting to share this image for awhile. I find it strangely provocative and a bit pictorially symbolic of the healing needed in one's spiritual life. I speak of myself. Broken, sometimes feeling like caving in, but still resounding of mystery and the ability to enter in and make beautiful.

How is it that time slips so quickly through the cycles of life? Lent again. Denial of self and gifting of self--trying to break old patterns and make strong and new. I can open that door to the Spirit to rework. O interior castle may there not be too many layers of grime to wash clean...

All I want is to have vibrant love and live it out wholeheartedly. I am realizing my ignorance of theology, of philosophy, of life... What are the vestments of faith and how are they worn? Things I once accepted without questioning are being questioned. How to live? How to live that vibrant love? How do we dive deep into God and listen to all He has to say?

Two little ones to juggle along with the other three. Wanting to go into the studio, and yet wanting to gift little people with all the good things they need now with basic love and exploring life. So I opt for the love of the littles, to the littles and being in the moment with them. This is good. Realizing it is ok to want to write icons, but I don't do it for me. I want to grow in knowledge--in things of interior life. And learn how to live.

Finally I will go to an Orthodox service this week. I am more than excited with all that I have been reading and looking and already living out in prayer through the icon. We want to be in community. Where will this be? Change has to happen.

Kiss the icon--and enter in.

Why are lessons so hard sometimes?

Today I am writing in frustration. Too little time and then unforseen forces leading to accidental circumstance. One of our cats has scratched two of my icons and then sent my pigments flying into powdered puddles on the floor. Basically wounds and dust. I am trying to see a lesson amidst this feeling of angst. Trying to let it float off me instead of weighing down. Help.

I miss Ksenia. I want to find that rhythm that leads their days. Paced, slow, meditative, timeless. The shape of time is different in the here and now, and I know that, but feeling the need to place that blueprint within to fit when the time is right. Interior survival.

All I hear is Soren's breath, these keys being typed, the windchimes outside, and the tick of the clock. Good sounds. Oh to go crack an egg!

Here are some images (not a very good ones) of Ksenia's studio and some icons up. Visual reference points. Encouragement. May my brush not be hasty, and my patience not be short.

I am bathed in this most wonderful sense of being gazing upon her icons: the smell hits me, the beautiful mystery and familiarity, the reassurance of history. I put my hope in what lies ahead--obviously in the ultimate beginning, but also in release from days of being a novice when I will wield a confident brush. Those days will come.

New babe and the door of winter yet to open...

It has been months. Time rolling by as my pregnancy built. No words passed by this zone in the build to new life--I stretched and encompassed the little growing Soren within me. And now here he is, gently breathing asleep on my chest as little Emma collects paper clips on the floor, busily making piles and singing as she goes. It is amazing to ponder the enormity of life change possible in several seasons passing...
And so now I slowly pull together the shape of life in this time. Two little people totally dependent on me (not to mention the three older ones), and a significant desire if not insatiable need to continue to hone the skills in becoming the iconographer that calls to me. How to do this? To take what little time belonging to me (in napping times of the little ones) to enter that space.
And here comes winter as we round the corner of Thanksgiving next week.
I jumped back into writing the face of Christ the other day feeling out of sorts--not truly myself, missing and hungering to pray in that way. So I did. And Christ looked back at me for two hours as I lined his hair with raw umber as lovingly as I could and paved the way in pompeii red for the outline of the cloth from which his face looks out. A simple way to love I suppose, but the love gave back. And questions poured forth, and I know that I must continue to find whatever time I can to contemplate this place of simply being and being loved--a place where there is a semblance of understanding and being understood. And drawing forth to take with me upon leaving that time and space, so it is still with me. Like the Jesus prayer. To be able to pray without ceasing and to love continually.
I am excited about future plans for the Saints to come out of the door I write. Now I see the flaws of each past attempt, which actually encouraged me that I saw the growth and the struggle. Another reason it is so important to forge ahead and keep growing. To keep the eye discerning and seeing more--opening up to do the best it can in working with hand and heart.
So for now, the paperclips are played and little eyes upon me to move on.
But I will return to share pictures and images.