Conversations With The World

11"x14"  acrylic on canvas - Geography of Moss

I woke this morning to a phrase whispering in my head "everything is sacred".  I have been holding up words to the light as potential talismen and good travelling companions, but perhaps I have a phrase, instead?  The impatient me is apparently on holiday and I am happy to roll things around a bit and swish them gently to get a feel for them.  Perhaps sometimes when you look for something, what you find is a little different than what you went in search of.  To find what you really need, you require the gift  of openness.

Often we're so busy looking for answers and solutions, that we can't see one that hovers slightly outside our line of vision.  I imagine this happens to me quite a bit because I often charge off with fixed ideas of what I'm looking for and I'm very often in a hurry to find my "answer" and get on with the next thing on my list.  Life is always holding out valuable little lessons on in it's gentle palm, along with our solutions if we can just scrunch up eyes the right way and pull the slightly ethereal into focus.

On this grey, rainy morning other seemingly wise words floated up, cloud like  "Everything is whispering to you".  This made me think of David Whyte's poem "Everything Is Waiting For You" and then I thought of how he speaks of conversations.  Yes, we are always having conversations with the things around us and with the thoughts that manifest. Often we do all the talking (we're a bossy lot, us 21st century, logic addled peeps).  What if we could get really quiet and listen a little more (says she to herself. Always what we write is what we most need to hear).

11"x14" oil and cold wax on paper "Travel Diary"

The veil of sleep was lifted off ever so gently this morning because I was treated to a little snippet of dream.   In my dream there were rows of u shaped hoops in a garden. Each with a small rose plant by it (bush would be too large a word here).  I was going along the rows with cuttings and tying them carefully with a twist tie to the hoops.  Trouble is I was tying them up in the air, not at ground level, so they had no access to the nourishment of the earth.  I took this as a conversation about projects I have been engaged in and ones I am eyeing on the horizon, the rows and rows of things. It seems I am being  reminded that  even if I work very hard at something, if it is not rooted in some ground that can nourish it, how can it grow.  I hear whisperings about wasted effort, about more care and attention to what is truly important.  I hear whispers about being "grounded".  Often I find my dreams are very literal with a slightly funny edge to them.

So this seems a little Monday reminder to us, as we walk into a new week, to see everything as sacred, and as a conversation.  Everything is whispering to you, even the parking ticket, the plugged sink, the steaming cup of strong coffee you are drinking.  What if we took time to really listen and see?  How would our week unfold? Come tell me the stories of you conversations and I will tell you mine. Happy Monday.