My Thanksgiving

Enchantment – 12″ x 16″ x 1″ – mixed media on wood
Life has been busy and full with so many things going on… lots of change and much to contemplate… so I’ve been present in that world, but not so much in this virtual world. But even with all that seems to be hijacking my attention, I really wanted post something for the most recent Inspire Me Thursday topic – gratitude. I have so much for which to give thanks, from the people in my life to the opportunies that have come my way. And so… thank you to the Universe for blessing me with such beauty.

My Thanksgiving

A lot of things have happened
Since the last time we spoke
Some of them are funny
Some of ’em ain’t no joke
And I trust you will forgive me
If I lay it on the line
I always thought you were a friend of mine

Sometimes I think about you
I wonder how you’re doing now
And what you’re going through

The last time I saw you
We were playing with fire
We were loaded with passion
And a burning desire
For every breath, for every day of living
And this is my thanksgiving

Now the trouble with you and me, my friend
Is the trouble with this nation
Too many blessings, too little appreciation
And I know that kind of notion – well, it just ain’t cool
So send me back to sunday school
Because I’m tired of waiting for reason to arrive
It’s too long we’ve been living
These unexamined lives

I’ve got great expectations
I’ve got family and friends
I’ve got satisfying work
I’ve got a back that bends
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my thanksgiving

Have you noticed that an angry man
Can only get so far
Until he reconciles the way he thinks things ought to be
With the way things are

Here in this fragmented world, I still believe
In learning how to give love, and how to receive it
And I would not be among those who abuse this privilege
Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge

And I don’t mind saying that I still love it all
I wallowed in the springtime
Now I’m welcoming the fall
For every moment of joy
Every hour of fear
For every winding road that brought me here
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my thanksgiving

For everyone who helped me start
And for everything that broke my heart
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my thanksgiving

– Don Henley (1947 – )

Tomorrow I will deliver this painting (based on a journal page) and the other four I’ve recently posted to the IO Gallery for its Wall 2 Wall show, which opens December 1. It will run through March 15, 2008, with the artists and works revolving. I am honored and excited to be showing along side the famous 70’s pop artist Marjorie Strider, contemporary modern masters Peter Seltzer, Frank Federico, and William Ward Beecher, and Outsider artists Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Rev. Howard Finster, and Mose Tolliver. If anyone is in the area of Cornwall Bridge, CT next Saturday (12/1), the opening reception is from 5-7 p.m., and I would love to see you!

November’s Promise

Return to a Meadow – 16″ x 20″ x 1″ – mixed media on wood panel
November is my birthday month, and according to my horoscope, I have all kinds of goodness to anticiapte. Reading these monthly forecasts is one of my guilty pleasures; sometimes I get so caught up in the quagmire of my bad voices that having some benevolent stranger tell me that everything is going to be just fine snaps me right out of my negativity. It’s the power of suggestion in action, and when it brings me from down in the dumps to confidently optimistic, I’m a willing participant! After all, we really do control our destinies, both by engineering scenarios and by reacting to the myriad situations that come our way each day. The choices we make in any given situation, often infinitesimal and automatic but sometimes large and well-calculated, constantly shape and shift our paths. Making the choice to be positive, to be happy, always seems to clear my vision, and my path becomes easier to travel.

The above painting, which I finished yesterday, will be among the five I am showing in December-January at the IO Gallery.

Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow

as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
that is not mine, but is a made place,

that is mine, it is so near to the heart,
an eternal pasture folded in all thought
so that there is a hall therein

that is a made place, created by light
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.

Wherefrom fall all architectures I am
I say are likenesses of the First Beloved
whose flowers are flames lit to the Lady.

She it is Queen Under The Hill
whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words
that is a field folded.

It is only a dream of the grass blowing
east against the source of the sun
in an hour before the sun’s going down

whose secret we see in a children’s game
of ring a round of roses told.

Often I am permitted to return to a meadow
as if it were a given property of the mind
that certain bounds hold against chaos,

that is a place of first permission,
everlasting omen of what is.

– Robert Duncan (1919- )