Oakleaf Hydrangea

Here come the Oakleaf Hydrangeas!

Self Portrait: Good Friday

I plan to submit three self portraits for the ECVA Call "Portraits of the Self", and, oddly, this might be my favorite because it feels more like me than the others.   

It is a tough thing when a self portrait reveals something about yourself that you do not see every day.  I guess it means that when we approach a mirror, we must arrange our expressions to suit what we want to see.  But  unarranged, as we wander through this life, others see what we think we hide.  My eyes startle me, revealing in little digits scattered across space a puzzled soul dying of thirst.  It was not planned, but how appropriately passionate for Good Friday. 

The cross I wear in this image was planned.  The original of the digital painting from which this threshold was made has a pendant, not a cross, around my neck.  But since it is Good Friday, the holiest day of the Christian year, I wear a cross to observe the day.  This may be all that is left of my faith on this great and terrible holy day when Jesus, too, asked God why he had been foresaken.   Closer to home, Mother Teresa, feeling abandoned by God, continued to believe by force of will.  She would understand the gesture and approve. 

Self-Portrait in Progress

This is an acrylic painting in progress.  I am painting this for an ECVA Call, "Portraits of the Self".  The deadline for the Call is Friday, so I am about out of time.  It needs more work, but not a great deal.  It is something of a likeness of me, but it could be better. 

I never realized that I have, to some extent, Camille Claudel eyes.  In fact, it is an interesting exercise to paint a self-portrait; a person can obtain much insight into her own identity and the spirit that imminates from the eyes.   

Hyacinth Spent

A Date With Easter

"It's too early for Easter" whines everyone this year, "why, there aren't any flowers blooming to flower the nave..." and so on we complain about a March 23 Easter.  While Easter can occur any time from March 22 through April 25, this is the earliest it has been observed since 1913.  Spring has barely arrived; who wants to celebrate the "Feast of Spring" while there is still the possibility of snow? 

Blame it on The Council of Nicea.  In AD325 leaders of the Christian world got together in Nicea at the invitation of the Roman Emperor Constantine to figure out what to do about the Arian Controversy (which was, basically, a fictional disagreement over whether Jesus did or did not, at some point, exist).  Three hundred or so Christian clerics showed up to decide what they did not and could not know - better known as to develop the party line so everyone could agree on what the "truth" would be.  The "truth" that was voted in became the basis for the Christian statement of faith appropriately entitled the Nicene Creed.  

Besides deciding the "fact" that Jesus always existed, making the Arian Controversay into the Arian Heresy, the Council also tackeled huge issues like prohibition of self-castration, deciding when to kneel during the liturgy and setting a date for celebration of the Resurrection.  While they probably got the self-castration issue right, they really messed up Easter.  Too bad they couldn't make it simple and say the first Sunday after April 21 or some such date.  Instead they decided on the following:

 The first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal (spring) equinox, which is now fixed at March 21.  

Ask any ten Christians how Easter is determined, and see if more than one or two can tell you.   Better yet, ask any ten Christians if there was ever a time when Jesus did not exist, and see the alternating blank stares and responses.  But let me warn you, people get a little sweaty about this issue, and overly orthodox religious leaders get downright mad about it.  So brace up for some irrational conversation if you enter that arena and recognize that people argue best over what they do not and cannot know.  It would also be wise to recognize that some of your poll participants may direct and manipulate you in the sweetest of ways by telling you that what they want you to do is God's will.  They know, you don't, because God told them, not some heretic taking a poll.  

Least you think me irreverent or a heretic, I am a Christian, and I will clean the stripped altar on Good Friday in accordance with the established date, but I may or may not be at an Easter service to recite the Nicene Creed.  What I can assure you of is that I have your number and know that you are psychotic if you tell me what God's will or plan is for my life because I know manipulation when I see it. 

So thanks guys, bundle up and have a happy Easter.

A Petra Dura "Thing"

A few years ago I matched beads to this petra dura pendant to create a necklace to wear on special occasions.  There is something tropical about the design of the petra dura; it makes me want to smell the hot scents of the tropics, and the combination of black and aqua is exotic.   

Petra dura is a type of stone mosaic (literally meaning "hard stone") perfected in Florence, Italy.  The technique includes cutting small slices of colored stone which are formed into a design on a bed of black marble.  Petra dura designs flourished in popularity during the Victorian period, and travelers to Europe often brought home souvenirs of their journeys in the form of stone art - everything from pins and pendants, rings, wall plaques and table tops.  Like other visual art forms, the designs can be jagged and amateurish or highly skilled arrangements of magnificent detail.  All things bright and beautiful - especially delicacies of nature, such as birds, flowers and fruits - were themes used in this art form.  

I have never tried my hand at crafting petra dura, and I probably will not have the occasion, but I greatly appreciate the tiny work of art I wear around my neck.  When I do I commune with the artist whose mind formed this design and whose hands made it appear as well as the lovely ladies who, over the years, held it up to their wardrobes to determine how to best frame it on their bodies.  The artist and the ladies surely smile and join in the wearing.   

I have been accused of thinking too much and caring too much about "things" (said piously by those more righteous than me with disdain as if a "thing" is a bug).  With that disclaimer, I admit that I care about this "thing" because appreciation of this petra dura is timeless communion with the act of creation  and a meaning-making way of making friends with those who made and wore it before me.  Such means of making meaning warms my soul, feeds my spirit and is, unpiously, not all about me.     

Sanctuary

Bluebeard   
 
This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed... Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see... Look yet again—
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.

Edna St. Vincent Millay
 

Lilies

    

Satanic Spottings

Lordy, Lordy, what is Satan up to these days? 

A documentary entitled "Rape of the Soul"  examines allegations of satanic, sexual and occult images in historical and contemporary Catholic works of art.  I barely quit reeling over this idea when my (G)nu friend, John Carroll, told me about claims of demonic images in pine bark down in South Alabama.  His blog post describes the frenzy to find the devil bark worshipers some of the locals want to flush out.

I guess Satan as well as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I really want to behold those pine trees. 

God, it is fun living in Alabama.

The House My Grandfather Built

My Mother has been sick lately, and it has made me think a good deal about her life and look back at family history I accumulated about ten years ago.  While looking at family photos tonight I came across this North Florida cabin built by my maternal grandfather, Willie King (you know someone has Florida roots when she distinguishes North and South Florida as if they are different states).  I never knew this Grandfather because he died during the Depression when my mother was quite young, leaving Granny and six children.  I know that Mama lived in this cabin for a short while when she was just a baby prior to the family moving to a larger house.

I have a good life and a great home.  As the first female in my family to acquire a doctoral degree, that education has afforded me comforts and opportunities my ancestors did not have.  My life is their gift to me because what I am accomplishing in my life is done with the same energy and determination that Willie put into building this cabin with his bare hands.  As proud menials, my family cut their way through the Southern backwoods and passed that work value, energy and determination on to me.  I am grateful for their vision and values and proud of who they were. 

This photo was taken by my step-dad during a trip "back home" for Mama many years ago.  I do not know if the cabin is still standing.