the color of my soul

husband's bestie has sold his place and is moving away at the end of the month. he's a truly lovely person, a retired pilot, and i will miss him because he's been a staple dinner guest at our house for over a decade, but husband will miss him even more. in fact, i'm a little worried about husband without him. a young couple has bought his place and the wife is apparently a fellow american. husband has briefly met them, but i haven't. they won't be the same, but if i've learned one thing, it's that things don't stay the same and you have to be open to what comes next. 

i've been reading a lot of new substacks of late and many are focused on the new years resolution genre. i guess it's just that time of year. a surprising number of them quote rumi. kind of weird how appropriated his work has been by the gratitude/self-help set. i can't decide if it's good that it pushes it to a wider audience or if it somehow cheapens it. maybe it's a bit of both. but anyway susan cain asks in the new year's edition of the quiet life, what color is your soul now? what color do you want it to be? which she doesn't attribute to rumi (though she does quote him in the stack), but marcus aurelius, "your soul takes on the color of your thoughts."

affected by the time of year, i think my soul is currently that wintery nordic greyish blue. it's not a terrible color for your soul to be. it's peaceful and quiet, if a little cold. it seems a little lighter and more tending towards the blue than the grey after yesterday's scream in the forest. it feels in tune with the slight slowly returning after the solstice. i think the color i want it to be is a sunny, bright yellow. and that will surely come with summer and the buzzing yellow of the canola fields. and it will no doubt pass through that brilliant light green of the first beech leaves as they unfurl in the spring on the way there. our souls aren't just one color, but the whole spectrum and that color can change with the season or even from day to day or minute to minute. but susan is right, that it's worth thinking about what you're feeding your soul. and currently, i want to feed mine light. 

finding solace in poetry

i've been looking for solace in the face of the political climate. it hasn't been easy to find. but there are bright spots here and there. and one of them is the poetry of mary oliver. i've often said i'm not a poetry person, but these times call for beauty that's complex and deep and which speaks directly to a parched and wounded soul. and nothing does that like poetry. funny, i'm also not a morning person, but these two poems lauding the morning both spoke to me and soothed my soul. i even worked them into my art journal today. soul soothed. at least for the moment.

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety -
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light -
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

- Mary Oliver

Morning

Salt shining behind its glass cylinder.

Milk in a blue bowl. The yellow linoleum.

The cat stretching her black body from the pillow.

The way she makes her curvaceous response to the small, kind gesture.

Then laps the bowl clean.

Then wants to go out into the world

where she leaps lightly and for no apparent reason across the lawn,

then sits, perfectly still, in the grass.

I watch her a little while, thinking:

what more could I do with wild words?

I stand in the cold kitchen, bowing down to her.

I stand in the cold kitchen, everything wonderful around me.

- Mary Oliver

small abstractions

today was a good day. i spent the morning with my very big lego ship and 600 people who hadn't seen it before came by to see it. they also had hot cocoa and sausages. that was good.

then i spent the afternoon being creative. we've started a thing in our local creative group called "CreaGiving" - where we teach one another a technique. today, we learned to make small abstractions using print techniques and an old hotel room card. i also used a small acorn cap as a circle stamp. in the end, we mounted the best ones on cards. i didn't mount any of my bright ones, as i want to work further on them. but i made some pink and yellow ones that i was happy enough to turn into cards.

perhaps i'll send mom a real letter using them. she does still appreciate the written word, so i will do it while i can.

those three pink ones in the foreground are mine. i'm quite happy with how they turned out. and a whole afternoon spent being creative was precisely what i needed.

* * *

this prediction of what the trump years will be like chills me to the bone.

* * *

this will also scare the shit out of you.

it's about the MI6 agent who uncovered the trump-russian election interference intel.

another successful drink & draw weekend

i had a little weekend getaway with a few friends. one of them has moved over to fyn (the island between us here on the "mainland" and the big island where they keep copenhagen) to an idyllic little village and opened a gallery and B&B. so charming! and she's got a beautiful studio, where she showed us how to do the monoprint technique she's been working with of late. we used "china paper" - a thin, but surprisingly strong paper that can take a lot of layers of paint and texture.

so much fun. we each chose a color palette and after a walk, to gather bits and bobs from nature, we settled in to work. we used a variety of techniques - painting with acrylics, using gel pens, printing with feathers and plants, slowly building up texture on our pieces.

i found myself working with mustard yellow, teal, payne's grey (it looks quite black in these photos) and a peachy color that i mixed, plus the odd metallic gold accent. it was interesting how we were each drawn to a specific palette that i'm not sure any of us consciously knew we had in our heads.

some of my pieces worked and some didn't. some worked for awhile and then stopped working. it was an interesting process and one which i thoroughly enjoyed, but never really felt i had control over.

through it all, we laughed and drank some wine and enjoyed some good vegetarian chili, told stories, shared and laughed some more. we had moments of silence, deeply concentrating on our work, and then more laughter and sharing. it was that kind of powerful feminine medicine that you just need once in awhile.

i was surprised by the direction some of my pieces took - these two got rather dark after i became inspired to use a bit of dusty grey pastels on them, giving them a very different look than my other, bright pieces (underneath, the palette is the same). and some of my old favorite helleristning motifs came out from somewhere in my subconscious. it felt right, like moments of flow always do.

here's the end result of one of the others - i think you can tell that she's actually educated as an artist.

this friend did two rounds of the small sheets of chinese paper, with very different color palettes. she felt the second round went much better than the first. but sometimes it does take warming up when you're learning a new technique.

and our hostess, who had been working with the technique for some time, made some beautifully textured, multi-layered pieces. beautiful to see the individual ways our creativity manifested itself, expressing something utterly unique, using similar materials. magical. we definitely need to do this more often.

mythical sightings in the garden

it had been far too long since i had a proper leisurely wander in the garden with my real camera in hand. far too many shots of late have been snapped with my iPhone. but on this lazy leisurely sunday, where i've declared that i shall not leave my pajamas (you can put a coat over them and tuck them into your boots for a garden wander), i spent a good hour out in the cold, fresh, still, frosty world. my trusty photographic assistant molly the cat was there (turns out she's not that much help).

i managed to catch glimpses of a few mythical characters out there...a unicorn, a wizard and a popsicle-toting yeti. you never know what you'll see when you go out into nature and have a look.

i forgot how good such activities are for my soul. and speaking of things that are good for the soul, i'm going to be taking an online course - who am i now? with the wonderful kylie bellard during the first two weeks of january. if you'd like to join me, that would be awesome.

glorious, healing autumn light

these glorious mornings of spectacular light are precisely what i need to fortify me for the day. breathing in the cool, crisp autumn air, walking through the dew-laden grass, past sparkling spider webs, surrounded by the golden, warm light is the very best start to the day. i'm so happy to have animals to feed so that i get out there and savor these moments every day. some mornings, it's like the golden light flows into my very veins.

some days, i'm more grateful than others for the fortification of the soul that these mornings provide. there are days when it seems like the little things (colleagues who don't return your good morning, loud phone conversations that make it impossible to concentrate, displays of lack of respect for people's depth of knowledge and passion for their work) chip away at your energy, draining it away. but then, i think back to the light and the play of the fog and the cool, crispness of the air, and breathe on through it...letting the memory of the light once again deliver the healing energy and return me to center.

happy weekend, one and all.

artist Wes Lang at ARoS

tattoo artist turned regular artist wes lang's studio exhibition was closing when we were at ARoS and so we were fortunate enough to see the man himself, since he was there to see it one last time. he was super gracious and talked to people and was totally willing to pose for pictures with all sorts of random strangers.

here, i caught a shot of him as he chatted with some visitors.

his art retains that tattoo feel and is infused with various american icons...native americans, motorcycles, flags, skulls (not that skulls are uniquely american). the exhibition was an ambitious rendering of his studio, so there were paints littered here and there on the floor and many large canvases that were works in progress. with him there, it definitely lent the feel of really being in lang's studio.

and although the teenagers didn't really want to admit it and they were quite embarrassed to ask, we did get a photo with him as he stood outside and had a smoke. he was super gracious about it and the kids were thrilled and excited. it was a very nice end to our visit to the museum. tho' i do hope that they won't all be inspired to get a tattoo...

visiting ARoS - the care and feeding of the teenage soul

we took five teenagers to modern art museum ARoS in århus on sunday. it was, in some ways, a long day, but it was also a fun day. they have so much energy and so much to talk about, it is both refreshing and exhausting.

ARoS is a relatively new modern art museum, sort of jylland's answer to the fabulous and much more well-established louisiana near copenhagen. but because it lacks the history of that wonderful place, it struck me as trying too hard in some ways. that doesn't mean i didn't enjoy it, but it most definitely wasn't louisiana.

ron meuck's boy is probably the most striking and significant piece in their permanent collection. it truly is enormous and yet so detailed and oddly lifelike. quite disruptive to the senses, actually. but then most art that's worthwhile is.

there was a special exhibition featuring the work of video artist jesper just. i liked this projection onto the floor, enabling you to walk directly on the exhibit. it was wet pavement without getting wet.

this crazy eyeball lampshade was part of the 9 rooms exhibit. you could sit down in a kind of living room and watch an ever-changing screen. the colors changed around you and it was somehow oddly surreal. i imagine if you were tripping, it would have been, well, pretty trippy.

i probably enjoyed the out of the darkness exhibition on the 6th floor best. mostly because i separated from the kids and went through it on my own. tho' there were others, i somehow had it mostly to myself as i walked through and i'll admit i like it best like that. this photo doesn't do it justice, but there was something quite powerful about walking down this darkened hallway with big fans turning slowly above. it felt dramatic and like i was contributing to the art itself through the act of walking down the hallway.

out of the darkness played with the notions of traditional ways of exhibiting art, even while it also engaged them by having a strict entrance and exit and only one way through, forcing you to follow a particular, pre-determined path. at one point, you come to a room that seems a bit like a warehouse for storing art, but instead it was exhibition space, featuring multiple andy warhols and bjørn nørgaard's jars of chopped up horse, among many other pieces, rather casually displayed and labeled with a dyno labler. (this may be one of the spaces that struck me as trying too hard.)

i would like to have studied this piece by danish artist tal r for much longer. layers upon layers of thoughts and sketches and inspiration.

surely the best part of ARoS is olafur eliasson's rainbow panorama on the roof - you look out upon the city of århus through literally (in some spots) rose-colored glasses.

i don't know what the kids will remember. they were quite engaged and excited to see contemporary american artist wes lang (more about that in another post), who was there in person, as it was the closing day of his show. they may have been chatting about all of their ordinary things like schools and friends and dramas, but doing so in the presence of art must surely be good for them on some deeper level.

there were a couple of floors that we didn't even get to, so we'll have to go back again. even tho' it's no lousiana, it's still definitely worth another visit and making sure they experience art is surely an essential ingredient in the care and feeding of the teenage soul.

it was a berry good weekend (sorry, i couldn't resist)

it is a very good year for strawberries. they came on just in time for sabin's party last weekend and we were able to pick a huge, impressive bowl that day. then we were too busy to pick more than just enough to eat instead of after dinner, until saturday. saturday, i decided i'd do a major picking of the entire bed (whose bright idea was ten rows of 50+ plants each?).

i thought it might take me a couple of hours, but i was wrong. my first bucket was full after moving only one meter (yard) down the first row. i managed to enlist some help from a couple of teenagers, but, as you might imagine, they didn't last that long, tho' admittedly they lasted longer than i thought they would. by the time i entered full-on burnout and decided to just continue the next day, four hours of picking had gone by.

picking strawberries apparently just made the girls hungry and they went off to make waffles to eat with a big bowl of...you guessed it...strawberries. we were going to have fresh honey to go with them as well, but husband checked the hives and decided to wait another week before our first harvest. that was ok, because i had enough to do with picking and cleaning and hulling the berries.

woody was very helpful. he would lie on the best berries, protecting them, i'm sure. the cats were all happy that we were out there, hanging out in the garden and molly and little bear also stopped by to "help."

with so many berries, i was on the lookout for creative ways of using them. we're not big jam eaters around here and tho' i will make some jam, i didn't want to use all of these berries for jam. so with the help of some suggestions on facebook and a bit of browsing around pinterest, i made a couple of 1.5 liter jars of something called a strawberry shrub (just google it, i can't be bothered to hunt down a link and i didn't use one in particular, but combined several). it's a vinegar-based drink that can be mixed with alcohol or just fizzy water - kind of a new (or perhaps ancient) form of tangy cordial. i ended up making one of cider vinegar and another of balsamic, as strawberries and balsamic vinegar make a surprisingly good pair.

i had a 3 liter box of vodka, so i also made three kinds of strawberry-based vodka: one with only strawberries, one with rhubarb and strawberry and a bit of ginger and one with strawberries and elderflower. can't wait to make cocktails using those. it's rather interesting how quickly the vodka begins to strip the color from the berries. when i strain them in a few weeks, i'll have to bake a cake or something with the boozy, but faded berries.

and speaking of berries, it won't be long before the blackcurrants are ready. they're some of my favorites of which to make cordials. we planted a couple more bushes, but they're still small and not producing much yet. but the two larger ones are doing well and we'll get some cordial to hoard away for the winter.

we have loads more redcurrant bushes and they are doing well. the first few berries are starting to get their ruby blush, but it will be a few weeks before they're ready in earnest. they have such high pectin, i always have to be careful that my cordial doesn't turn to jelly!

after a friend told me how dead easy and very delicious elderflower champagne is, i gathered some of the last elderflowers and made a vast vat of it. what's awesome is that you're supposed to forget about it for a week or so and let it start to ferment. turns out i'm pretty good at that. too bad i always threw it away when i did that, rather than realizing it had turned to alcohol and trying it out. silly me, i didn't know! i'll definitely let you know how it turns out.

five and a half hours of picking berries and another four hulling and preparing them over two days resulted in 9 (tho' only 7 are pictured) bottles of cordial, in addition to the vodka and shrubs above. it's a gorgeous, deep red color and is going to make for awesome cocktails.

working in the strawberry beds, i was reminded of why we moved out here to the countryside. picking berries, while time consuming, felt good for my soul. in this hectic, crazy, distracted world we live in, it's nice to do something that just takes the time it takes. i listened to music, but mostly, i enjoyed being in the garden, talking to the cats and picking the bountiful berries, just being in the moment with the task at hand, knowing that come next winter, i'd be glad i did it, as we enjoy the fruits (literally) of my labors. i think it's good for us to do things that result in something tangible, rather than the rather ephemeral labors we engage in on a daily basis at our desks. my berry stained fingers will attest to my labors tomorrow when i'm back in the office. and i will smile as i look down at them on the keyboard, happy from a productive, sweet weekend.

on drinking and drawing and laughing and talking and nurturing one's soul

i didn't know what i was going to actually draw at drink & draw - i put way more thought into the food i'd make than to the actual drawing part. but when one of the guests, who is a librarian, took out a book of poetry, a library book, no less (tho' it's one the library was getting rid of), to draw in, i knew i had to draw in a book as well. it's one i bought ages ago in some or other flea market - purchased because it had a gorgeous art deco cover (it's in the background of this photo). i hadn't even noticed the name of it, which is talsimanen (the talismen), which seemed extra fitting. i got out the inks (still in love with payne's grey) and got stuck in. it was odd, because initially i felt very restless and unable to settle in and draw, but something about the others drawing diligently away, using pastels and pens and pencils, settled me down and i got into a groove.

there was something magical about the evening. eating good food, drinking some wine and then taking out art supplies opened us all up in a way that the food and wine alone wouldn't have done. we don't know one another that well, but we were soon telling stories of past loves and past husbands and feeling we were in a setting where it was completely safe to share.

it's funny how kim's casual mention on facebook of a drink & draw evening she had attended, morphed into something very meaningful right here in my own home. an evening of laughter and sharing with women who inspire and comfort and challenge (in a good way). it definitely won't be the last time we do this. it's interesting, as i grow older, my need for spending time with women friends seems to on the rise. the evening gave me both that and fulfilled my need to throw ideas out there into the world and see what becomes of them.  it became so much more than i had imagined. and it was precisely what my soul needed.