tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48001052169505348512012-01-27T08:05:59.688-08:00CALM THINGSby Shawna LemayShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.comBlogger2031100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-22090629167438053952012-01-27T08:00:00.000-08:002012-01-27T08:04:37.871-08:00in truth, in secret
This cupcake photo has nothing to do with the post, but if it's lured you in here, then it's done its work.
: )
A True Poem
by Lloyd Schwartz
I'm working on a poem that's so true,
I can't show it to anyone.
I could never show it to anyone.
Because it says exactly what I think, and what I
think scares me.
Sometimes it pleases me.
Usually it brings misery.
And Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-38481184913237869642012-01-26T08:13:00.000-08:002012-01-26T08:13:03.799-08:00We are required to make something beautiful
"May my silences become more accurate."
~ Theodore Roethke
There is this impulse to check the email first thing in the morning, look in on Facebook, check my Flickr page, post a photo....but I've been trying to quell that impulse, and get back to doing what I've always done, and that is, write in my journal. Read random passages from random books. So. Much. Better.
This is the way toShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-13981395999332750722012-01-25T07:35:00.000-08:002012-01-25T07:37:44.112-08:00a world that is fit
“Every true artist is the salvation of every other. Only artists produce for each other a world that is fit to live in.”
~ D.H. Lawrence
“For my part, I prefer my heart to be broken.
It is so lovely, dawn-kaleidoscopic within the crack.”
~ D.H. Lawrence
A poem of mine from Blue Feast:
SKINNED
It happens so easily, I should be glad.
That I have the aptitude.
The simplest Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-13687586876179983232012-01-25T07:28:00.000-08:002012-01-25T07:28:26.634-08:00I never saw a wild thing
“I never saw a wild thingSorry for itself.A small bird will drop frozen dead from a boughwithout ever having felt sorry for itself.”
~ D.H. Lawrence
Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-88788952132714185022012-01-23T07:24:00.000-08:002012-01-23T07:24:45.336-08:00reveries of bird flight
"I hope to explain here how these reveries became working reveries in me, how reverie works one's inner being, how the reverie of a poet can bring one inner calm. How healthful it is for the psyche to spend long months faithful to a single image, faithful to water or to all the reveries of bird flight!"
~ Gaston Bachelard
"The bird called out to me, I came...."
~ Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-77612592476709003002012-01-22T07:01:00.000-08:002012-01-22T07:50:17.161-08:00the known self
.
“This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-18155338812677274532012-01-21T08:11:00.000-08:002012-01-21T08:23:54.922-08:00tea and sandwiches
It was a week of tea and sandwiches. I recently picked up Power Foods, a book by the editors of Whole Living. When you're stressed out, I think it's just that much easier to let yourself go, and boy have I. I don't have any fancy resolutions - and I'm not a dieter. But I'm trying to eat better, exercise more. So far it's been fun. My goal as usual, is to not make two meals at dinner. So Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-6694121212568418552012-01-20T06:03:00.000-08:002012-01-20T06:03:04.542-08:00the tones
"The tones of gray, pale turquoise and pink will
prevail."
~ Christian Dior
Lately, as those of you who read this blog regularly know, I've been seeking calm through colour. As it happens, I am wildly in love with gray, turquoise and certain shades of pink lately. The combination has such a beautiful effect on me - so serene.
What is to be be calm? How elusive, Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-85615417348816368382012-01-20T05:39:00.000-08:002012-01-20T05:39:00.798-08:00What will you give up?
"A little while alone in your room will prove more valuable than anything else that could ever be given you."
~ Rumi
This bears repeating, doesn't it? and often....
I feel sometimes as though I have spent my whole life trying to get to the room. I'm sure many artists and writers feel that way. And there is often a trade. What will you give up so that you can find your wayShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-2401673451997479292012-01-17T08:45:00.000-08:002012-01-17T08:47:43.150-08:00Winter love, winter dreams, winter messages
"Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men."
~ Goethe
Winter sends messages slow as dreams in an icy calligraphy. There is a perfect grey silence this morning. The temperatures are still so low. Minus 43 with the windchill again early today. No incentive whatever to go out and run those errands, which suits me fine. They can wait. And I have two Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-46436917844343592712012-01-16T07:44:00.000-08:002012-01-16T07:55:48.767-08:00You must believe
On Poetry and Craft [excerpt]
by Theodore Roethke
The poem, even a short time after being written,
seems no miracle; unwritten, it seems
something beyond the capacity of the gods.
*
Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of
haste. It's what everything else isn't.
*
You can't make poetry simply by avoiding clichés.
Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-87411024129746386182012-01-13T08:05:00.000-08:002012-01-13T08:07:13.182-08:00Winter Indulgence
From Margaret Atwood's poem, In the Secular Night:
"It’s necessary to reserve a secret vice."
A little CanCon this morning. Sarah and Margaret. I think they go together very well actually. Both are wonderfully refreshing, are they not?
As for me, I have high hopes for this day. A home day, a writing day, a creative day. First I will be planning for the course I'll be teaching atShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-21758810381919286742012-01-11T10:25:00.000-08:002012-01-11T10:25:35.936-08:00Beauty speaks softly
"The voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the
most fully awakened souls.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
"No single event can awaken within us a stranger whose existence we had never suspected. To live is to be slowly born."
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I don't know that I'm fully awakened....but I am being slowly born....
I needed a little light here today after Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-68212850655340087072012-01-10T07:32:00.000-08:002012-01-10T08:39:50.046-08:00Shadows hold their breath
There's a certain Slant of light, (320)
BY EMILY DICKINSON
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –
None may teach it – Any –
'Tis the seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –
When it Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-44164616006104085792012-01-09T07:35:00.000-08:002012-01-09T07:39:02.497-08:00How I'll spend this day of mine
"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."
~ Annie Dillard
"For a writer, published works are like fallen flowers, but the expected new work is like a calyx waiting to blossom."
~ Cao Yu
Today marks the official end of the holidays, if you have a school-aged person in your home, anyway. And mine has just headed out the door. So this is where I begin to pray for Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-72013661767324082082012-01-07T07:57:00.000-08:002012-01-07T07:57:39.117-08:00silence and offerings, or, silent offerings
Gift
~ Leonard Cohen
You tell me that silence
is nearer to peace than poems
but if for my gift
I brought you silence
(for I know silence)
you would say
"This is not silence
this is another poem"
and you would hand it back to me.
Or this poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca that begins:
I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give.
Keep it likeShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-29989434535820750102012-01-04T06:41:00.000-08:002012-01-04T06:42:04.237-08:00They are always there
“Around us, life bursts with miracles--a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-68860336652836136702012-01-02T07:51:00.000-08:002012-01-02T07:51:48.515-08:00The whole World
"Be silent now.
Say fewer and fewer praise poems.
Let yourself become living poetry."
~ Rumi
"A wealth you cannot imagine
flows through you.
Do not consider what strangers say.
Be secluded in your secret heart-house,
that bowl of silence.
Talking, no matter how humble-seeming,
is really a kind of bragging.
Let silence be the art
you practice."
~Rumi
Coleman Barks, in Rumi: Bridge to Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-5794122287636677162012-01-01T15:31:00.000-08:002012-01-01T15:31:30.270-08:00Transactions with Beauty
And here it is, the cooler, calmer, cleaner version of my study. What I love about painting a room is that all your old junk seems new again. We've lived in this house for just about 13 years. And we've done this one other time - take all the books out and move them back in again. Truly, it should be done more often. Books and dust, well, there's a natural attraction there. I also have Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-61470127691837970272011-12-31T06:26:00.000-08:002011-12-31T06:28:57.047-08:00It has turned her brain
“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.”
~ Louisa May Alcott
{Some photos of the books from my study, which we moved into our living room whilst painting the study. And yes, it was a huge task. (I'm tired just looking at these photos). And yes, I did weed the books a little. I tried to. And yes, I have read all these books. And yes, it has turned my brain.}
{Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-15475765609046792152011-12-22T13:19:00.000-08:002011-12-22T13:19:11.984-08:00Looking for Light on the Shortest Day of the Year
Today there will be 7 hours and 27 minutes of sunlight. Sunset at 4:16 this afternoon! Which means, we go collect our kids from school, make them a snack, and that's it folks. The world shuts down. This can get a little depressing that's for sure. So, today was a search for light. I had R. bring me home roses this morning after doing the school drop off. We had pears and brie and Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-78147035431585135792011-12-21T08:34:00.000-08:002011-12-21T08:34:52.540-08:00Odd Angles
A running post this morning, a poem, some light, some candy.
I found this poem by Lisel Mueller this morning under recently added on The Poetry Foundation. It begins:
Sometimes, when the light strikes at odd angles
and pulls you back into childhood...
And I think it's often the way light hits something, an object, a dish of candies, that sends us back to childhood. We Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-1497303220450739222011-12-19T05:19:00.000-08:002011-12-19T05:19:26.140-08:00The House was Quiet
Up at 5am this morning, dead awake. Which doesn't make me unhappy. Ideas for my writing rattling around in my head. And the quiet. How I love the quiet at 5am.
"A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live."
~ Bertrand Russell
"If we will be quiet and ready enough, we shall find compensation in every Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-31901678418242898662011-12-18T18:46:00.000-08:002011-12-18T18:46:33.091-08:00Preferring the Loneliness of It
"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show."
~ Andrew Wyeth
A light skiff of snow when we woke up this morning. The sky was mainly grey when I set off to walk the dog, but there was a glimmer of pale blue, which disappeared mid way Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-38834817265197679252011-12-16T10:01:00.000-08:002011-12-16T12:08:56.375-08:00The Solitude of Revery
“When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”
~ Buddha
A quick running post this morning to say hello, happy Friday, and wishing you all a calm and lovely weekend. I've spent the morning so far walking the dog, writing emails - gosh how they can get away from you, editing an essay of mine that is going to appear in an anthologyShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-21338685710649580172011-12-14T19:00:00.000-08:002011-12-15T08:33:13.664-08:00There is not a particle of life...
“There is not a particle of life
which does not bear poetry
within it.”
~ Gustave Flaubert
I'm finding it very difficult to find my way to poetry lately but am ever so grateful when I become awake to those particles of life bearing poetry within. This dish of misty mints led me to reveries of childhood Christmases. It's interesting how the taste of them brings up memories of the Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-22543633878464166482011-12-13T10:19:00.000-08:002011-12-13T10:22:50.061-08:00Shouting Yes! to a Luminous Existence
"Nobody important? Blimey, that's amazing. You know that in
nine hundred years of time and space and I've never met anybody
who wasn't important before."
~ from the Dr. Who Christmas Carol episode which we watched last night.
Isn't that magnificent? What a brilliant sentiment.
And so how are you all faring with the Christmas hoopla? I've spent the last few days feeling a bit under the Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-83092478291641793152011-12-10T06:27:00.001-08:002011-12-10T08:16:07.940-08:00No Layoff
“In every crowd are certain persons who seem just like the rest, yet they bear amazing messages.”
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery {Night Flight}
How quickly this Saturday morning has arrived! And how quickly Christmas will soon be arriving. And then the new year....you can see how simply my mind works. Well, I have been thinking about fragility this morning - which seems a natural leap Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-85750256542288933542011-12-08T10:47:00.001-08:002011-12-08T11:38:29.329-08:00The Soul Loves Beauty
“Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment.”
~ Claude Monet
Today I woke up, craving colour, light. This craving seemed to come directly out of my be-wintered dreams. I adore our winter grey days, but there are times when light becomes necessary. Have you read John O'Donohue's book, Beauty? The more I read it, the more I love this gentle book. In it he says,
"Colour is the Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-50896920268730393652011-12-05T16:42:00.001-08:002011-12-06T05:58:28.598-08:00For I insist that winter is beautiful....
Is it true that dreamers like a severe winter, as Baudelaire has said? Our homes, our nests, he says, "will be all the warmer, all the downier, all the better beloved..." Winter has been called, the 'sad season' but it is also, intimate, dreamy, drowsy. In Gaston Bachelard's book The Poetics of Space, he talks about the occupied house in conjunction with the 'winter cosmos.' As the Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-26837735243485439852011-12-03T14:37:00.001-08:002011-12-03T16:23:59.120-08:00The Wings We Have are so Fragile
Our creativity is so fragile. I truly believe that creative people - artists, writers, and anyone who makes things - we are meant to be in the flow. That when we are not making things, when we are taken away from that state or jolted from it, when the inevitable interruptions of life also interrupt our creativity, that's when things are misaligned. There are times when we are more productiveShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-22611752762033669162011-12-02T07:17:00.001-08:002011-12-02T07:45:09.014-08:00Mad Interior Travels
One of my 15 minutes running posts this morning, to say hello, to share a few pictures, some silly, some not so. I splurged on a canvas map from Paris, the No. 13, on the weekend. It's in pretty great shape. I have a few more ideas for it, but this is it for now.
Below you'll see the little paper TARDIS that C. made and I think works pretty well on the map. We've been pretty Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-73920842064177266282011-11-29T06:50:00.001-08:002011-11-29T08:58:26.334-08:00Existence leans its mouth
"Existence leans its mouth
toward me,
because my love
cares for
it."
~ Meister Eckhart
"Most minds
do not live in the present
and can stick to a reasonable plan; most minds abruptly turn
and undermine the
chance
of
humming."
~ Rumi
Both of these quotations are from a book titled Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, trans. by Daniel Ladinsky.
I Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-65833836523664991832011-11-28T05:11:00.000-08:002011-11-28T05:11:15.964-08:00Three Persimmons - Variations
It's been nearly two years since I posted on the famous painting Six Persimmons. Which is a fact that startled me a little. Two years!
It also means that I'm probably repeating a lot of things by now. Sharing things I've shared before. But today I'm thinking, again, about kindness, and how to be kind, and what it is anyway. Which brings me back to an excerpt from a Mary Oliver poem Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-21665795454687170792011-11-26T07:19:00.001-08:002011-11-26T08:11:48.509-08:00In answer to the shrouded heart
THE POET'S OBLIGATION
by Pablo Neruda
To whoever is not listening to the seathis Friday morning, to whoever is cooped upin house or office, factory or womanor street or mine or dry prison cell,to him I come, and without speaking or lookingI arrive and open the door of his prison,and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,a long rumble of thunder adds itselfto the weight of the planet and Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-33166864026710978372011-11-25T05:28:00.001-08:002011-11-25T06:00:05.629-08:00"Beautiful rifts in time" ~ Eavan Boland
I'd never tried a pomegranate until I was an adult. I remember in elementary school that every year at about this time, here at latitude 53, at the beginning of our long wintering, a particular girl would bring one, and eat it very slowly in front of us all. Even more slowly than one usually eats a pomegranate. And never did she offer.
R. painted me a large painting which hung over my deskShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-29116689303573399722011-11-24T06:46:00.001-08:002011-11-24T07:00:01.106-08:00But, first, remember, remember, remember....
“But, first, remember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the signs. And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so downShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-53888205900293953522011-11-23T07:00:00.001-08:002011-11-23T07:06:27.738-08:00Within the Strict Confines of Dignity and Beauty
Driving to work yesterday afternoon, I heard Leonard Cohen's new song, Show Me the Place, on CBC. I nearly had to pull over. Overwhelmed by the beauty. I'm not sure how long the link will last - but I know I'll be playing the song several times today. Can't wait for the album. Can't. Wait.
Also on the Radio 2 Drive site, this quotation from a recent acceptance speech by Mr. L.C.:
"As IShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-80090992818391990412011-11-21T17:28:00.001-08:002011-11-21T18:13:22.189-08:00Skyflowers blossoming
From a poem titled The Snowfall is So Silent by Miguel da Unamuno (1864-1936), translated by Robert Bly:
"The flakes are skyflowers,
pale lilies from the clouds,
that wither on earth.
They come down blossoming
but then so quickly
they are gone..."
The rest of the poem is here on Poets.org
Snow, delicate snow, says Unamuno.
Which is all true. But yes, snow is Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-30028351980923641142011-11-20T06:56:00.001-08:002011-11-20T07:29:16.323-08:00poetry...patience
EVERYTHING GOOD IS SIMPLE
By Nikki Giovanni
Everything good is simple: a soft boiled egg...toast fresh from the oven with a pat of butter swimming in the center...steam off a cup of black coffee... John Coltrane bringing me 'Violets for My Furs'
Most simple things are good: Lines on a yellow legal pad... dimples defining a smile...a square of gray cashmere that can be a scarf... Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-44298216278491813702011-11-19T06:59:00.001-08:002011-11-19T07:11:41.355-08:00Invincible
"In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer."
~ Albert Camus
"It doesn't matter if the water is cold or warm if you're going to have to wade through it anyway."
~ Teilhard de Chardin
And for water, perhaps you could read 'snow' or 'winter' or 'life.'
Winter, as a habit of mind.
I had a lot of fun taking these photos, and my Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-35533376446109194702011-11-18T07:33:00.001-08:002011-11-18T07:54:47.537-08:00Tell Yourself
“Be like melting snow - wash yourself of yourself.”
~Rumi
This is the time of year I learn to love the winter again. I learn to embrace it, every day. Often, I fail. It's gray and the snow is falling still this morning. The days are already short but getting shorter. A litany of complaints about the roads and the snow and the cold and the length of the season all around; the air is Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-43361888297580777902011-11-16T18:36:00.001-08:002011-11-16T18:46:40.636-08:00Poem and Painting Pairing - Ito and Picasso
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Plant de Tomates
ORDINARY AWE
by Sally Ito {in Alert to Glory}
Awe came upon everyone. Ordinary awe, the kind that filters
through the fog of everyday. Shaft of sunlight on plant,
slip of birdsong when suddenly motes are illumined, and
random notes form a chorus. Ordinary awe, the grain of sand
in potentia for the mirror, the glass, that vessel Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-16972337361629457402011-11-16T09:02:00.001-08:002011-11-16T10:26:55.010-08:00They Sing in Chorus - or a stack of books, an exercise
“When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?”
~ Nicole Krauss {The History of Love}
"Flowers call to us. They speak a language we almost hear. Each flower's color seems an announcement. The single wildflower by the path murmurs its particular name. In a vase, they sing in chorus."
~ Gretchen Scoble and Ann Field {The Meaning of Flowers}
"Like Jane Austen and George Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-11308594606723754282011-11-14T11:07:00.001-08:002011-11-14T11:27:18.545-08:00Perfect Sweetness
“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
It's been a creative day and so even though I've posted already today, I thought I would pop up these photos as well. I love the mellow pastels Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-53698831333460119222011-11-14T06:42:00.001-08:002011-11-14T07:27:58.772-08:00A Saturday Afternoon Holiday
I can't remember the last time I spent a few hours on a Saturday afternoon, wrapped in a blanket by the fireplace (albeit a fake fire), reading a book for pure pleasure and escape. The new P.D. James book was perfect for this, and yes I'm reading it on an e-reader. I can't see ever giving up 'real' books, but the e-reader has its uses. There's a lot of anxiety about e-readers, I think, but Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-5174811652403039812011-11-13T07:14:00.001-08:002011-11-13T07:23:13.713-08:00Cupcakes for the Party
A quick hello, and some pictures of the cupcakes for the party, as promised to a few faithful readers. R. turns 50 in December but we decided to celebrate this weekend as it gets too busy close to the holidays.
C. helped with the cupcakes - chocolate with a salted caramel center and chocolate ganache icing. I myself am not much of a baker, and I would never usually attempt a recipeShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-74804450292898768472011-11-12T08:49:00.001-08:002011-11-12T09:19:02.203-08:00Making Your Unknown Known
“Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”
~ Georgia O'Keeffe
“If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for a moment.”
~ Georgia O'Keeffe
“I think it's so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is so momentary - you're happy for an instant Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-79113679916912196922011-11-09T06:00:00.000-08:002011-11-09T06:00:20.541-08:00Salt and Kindness
I've bought some fancy salt to make chocolate and salted caramel cupcakes for R's bday party this weekend. It comes in the prettiest little container. So then I thought, I will find a poem about salt to go along with this. And ended up finding one on kindness. (There is the mention of salt in the first stanza). It's a work day for me, so I must dash off. Have a beautiful day.
Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-51347956668606784722011-11-08T08:12:00.000-08:002011-11-08T08:15:02.660-08:00quietly, quietly
There are so many ways we can let ourselves off the hook as writers. So many reasons, excuses we can find to not write, to not spend the time alone, and there are thousands of ways to become distracted. So many ways to lose heart. I myself have been very anxious about my writing lately, to the point where I become paralyzed for small intervals. I know that this is even part of the Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-19047276398025423512011-11-07T05:33:00.000-08:002011-11-07T09:05:05.884-08:00"You say yes to the sunlight..."
I've been pondering this quotation by Herman Hesse for some time. I don't know that so many people read Hesse in a big way any more, but I went on a binge a while back and read four of his novels in a row. Clarice Lispector was a fan of Steppenwolf so maybe that's what got me going. I'm still under the spell of Steppenwolf, I think. So here is the quotation:
"There is no escape. You
Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-40280548273332600052011-11-06T07:24:00.000-08:002011-11-06T07:24:05.872-08:00And whoever remembers childhood best...
This is how the poem "1924" by Yehuda Amichai ends:
And whoever remembers his childhood best
is the winner,
if there are any winners.
I've been looking at these photos I took for a couple of days, wondering what I should say about them. They're china horses (and a black lab) all the way from my childhood. The palomino and the one next to it belonged to my grandmother who gave them to me Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-20467420601514477692011-11-04T07:31:00.000-07:002011-11-04T07:33:24.704-07:00Give back your heart to itself
Love After Love
by Derek Walcott
The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another,Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-30204289588431607952011-11-02T07:53:00.000-07:002011-11-02T07:54:43.126-07:00Fragmentary Thoughts
Honestly, I think all my thoughts are fragmentary these days. Life is so fragmentary! Even the way I read is fragmentary. Bits and scraps, or as Virginia Woolf would say, scraps, orts and fragments. Mostly this is fine. But there are also times when I crave a wholeness, a span of time, a long bath, a thick book.
I've been waiting for the sun to come up properly. On a day off, Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-16972971626244524392011-11-01T07:50:00.000-07:002011-11-01T07:55:25.369-07:00Fibers of Light
"To us, each object is imbued with invisible fibers of light that reach out into the universe..."
~ Alex Jacobs (Iroquois artist, quoted in The Eros of Everyday Life by Susan Griffin)
When I think of all the many books that have changed me, that have had a really profound impact on me, Griffin's Eros is on the list. In that title essay, she says, "Everything I encounter permeates me, Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-45223602744801028472011-10-27T13:12:00.000-07:002011-10-27T13:12:33.071-07:00A Courage from the Depths
"I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do."
~ Georgia O'Keeffe
This sentiment by O'Keeffe shouldn't be a 'calm thing' - but I do think it is. To know how and what you are, to know that about yourself, and to go forward anyway, it's a kind of courage from the depths.
Pema Chodron, in No Time Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-47504286224872618822011-10-26T14:46:00.000-07:002011-10-26T14:47:01.326-07:00Balance and Peace
If yesterday's post was about balance, then perhaps today's post should be about harmony.
"To paint is not to copy the object slavishly, it is to grasp a harmony among many relationships."
~ Paul Cezanne
That's the whole lot of them, above. And I can't promise there won't be more photos, but here is what there was today. It was fun to try to develop some type of harmony from all Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-89974100996303579172011-10-25T09:43:00.000-07:002011-10-25T09:43:58.661-07:00A Tolerance for Unbalance
"The truth is balance. However the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie."
~ Susan Sontag
Well, balance. That a person wanting to live as an artist, as a writer, reaches a stage where one achieves an unbalanced balance. Does this make sense? In Living with the Devil, Stephen Batchelor quotes Robert Thurman, regarding the ability not just to dwell in "unbounded Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-72846571781738325892011-10-23T07:37:00.000-07:002011-10-23T07:37:47.191-07:00Good for My Heart
Sunday morning, how is it already Sunday morning.......? It's been a week of waiting for the correct light. And writing gibberish, that somehow in the end turned into something - a rough something, but a something nevertheless. It's like that at times - you write in your notebook, line after line, knowing it's dreadful (most of it is) with the hope that there will be at least in the end a Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-58387525148208419222011-10-15T15:28:00.000-07:002011-10-15T15:28:57.824-07:00October Walks The morning moon follows me on my walks these days. Shy thing. Hides behind clouds.
Peeks through tree branches.
Disappears for a while.
And then, the reappearing act.
Here is the path I've been walking again. Out into the field rather than on the gravel path. Others are walking there too - it will take a while for it to be clear again. No one is sure if the coyotes are Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-54081526380112430822011-10-13T17:26:00.000-07:002011-10-13T17:26:33.292-07:00Life has loveliness
A poem and a couple of brightly coloured photos for you today. Well, if life has loveliness to sell, I for one, will be buying.
Wishing you a happy Friday (tomorrow) - filled with 'all beautiful and splendid things.'
Barterby Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1993)
Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-61319332915878072452011-10-10T06:07:00.000-07:002011-10-10T06:07:32.672-07:00A Style of Mind
I'm normally a pretty focussed person when it comes to my creative goals. But with a couple of weeks of a crumby cold, still getting used to this new job (it's only really been a few months), and other various small interruptions, I just can't seem to get it together lately. Last week I was asked to submit my work to Getty Images via Flickr. Probably a lot of people were sent the same emailShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-78042649728664941762011-10-09T08:25:00.000-07:002011-10-09T08:25:39.688-07:00Everything is Brighter
“In an orange, an apple, a ball, a head, there is a culminating point; and this point is always - despite of the terrible effects of light and shadow, coloring perceptions - closer to our eye; the edges of the objects run towards a center point placed at our horizon. Objects penetrate each other… They do not stop living… They are spread imperceptibly around themselves by intimate reflections,Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-840812610257237452011-10-08T07:15:00.000-07:002011-10-08T11:41:14.737-07:00My attempt to say, I exist...
Everyone's a poet in the autumn. I collected some leaves while walking the dog yesterday morning, and then generally enjoyed a fairly melancholy day. You know the sort of day, when everything you write and do seems like rubbish. Complete and Utter Rubbish. I wrote five lines which seem a bit more salvageable this morning. Worked half the day on them before giving up. Took a bunch of photosShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-21038640970931412011-10-06T05:56:00.000-07:002011-10-06T05:56:56.091-07:00The Shifting Weights of Beautiful Things
"How one walks through the world, the endless small adjustments of balance, is affected by the shifting weights of beautiful things."
~ Elaine Scarry
Woke up at 5:30 am this morning full of angst. R. had been awake earlier, worried. We've not done this so much lately. But every once in a while it hits us again. The precariousness of this life, artist and writer. My new job at the Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-36828746664342949692011-10-05T08:45:00.000-07:002011-10-05T08:46:28.159-07:00Thank You Leonard
From my morning walk....today light fog and misty drizzle. Just wanted to share this quickly with you before disappearing into my notebook for a couple of hours. Have a wonderful and calm day my darlings. And safe travels to friends waiting in airports...Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-80002739542126121702011-10-04T09:53:00.000-07:002011-10-04T10:02:25.167-07:00Walking the Dog in Outer Suburbia
It's rarely foggy here, but it was this morning. I sat in my upstairs window seat this morning early with my notebook. Far from the computer. That was about 5 hours ago. It's now 10:30 am. Thus the short choppy, exhausted sentences. I love sitting on my old, ripped and rickety chaise in the dark. (I dream of having it recovered some day in a dove grey colour). I turn the closet lightShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-77890530083492705662011-10-03T05:37:00.000-07:002011-10-03T05:37:43.593-07:00Awake Early
Hello to all you early risers. All of my plans to wake up early and write have been side railed by the wonderful cold/flu thing going around for the past while. But this is the week. Waking in the early dark. Drinking coffee, reams of coffee. Scribbling in my notebook. So beautifully, blissfully quiet at this time of day. Which is not to say that some mornings it's hell dragging oneself Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-6998225099333837412011-10-01T07:35:00.000-07:002011-10-01T07:35:52.238-07:00Begin serenely...
A quick Saturday morning hello, darlings. May you begin it serenely...
“Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
And may you find Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-77628000219731724922011-09-30T08:54:00.000-07:002011-09-30T08:56:13.796-07:00Poem and Painting Pairing - Liebermann and Sexton
A painting by Max Liebermann that will be at the Hamburger Kunsthalle until February 2012. To see a larger image of this painting, go here.
I think it's interesting to compare the studios of artists to the rooms of writers, poets. Here is a supremely intense and vivid and visceral poem by Anne Sexton titled, "The Room of My Life." It begins,
Here,
in the room of my life
the objects Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-23721215161883691512011-09-28T09:50:00.000-07:002011-09-28T09:50:52.070-07:00Falling Light
"Listen. Put on morning.
Waken into falling light."
~ W. S. Graham
I have such a craving for light this morning. It found the heather on my kitchen window sill.
I think we all have those days when there's too much to do and the body just wants to sit and be still. The craving for quiet and stillness is there, but yet, the errands call. In other words, time to comb my hair, turn Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-45216171527328347782011-09-27T09:08:00.000-07:002011-09-27T09:08:42.386-07:00A Day is Precious
More evening shots from last night. There's something calming, soothing, about the coming of fall, the earlier darkness. (In spite of the big neglected mess that is our backyard). I've made a pact with myself to try and make or write or photograph or do something beautiful every day. At the very least, to read something beautiful. Maybe it sounds corny, yes it's corny, but it's a way into Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-3103404135358330662011-09-26T18:47:00.000-07:002011-09-26T18:49:21.346-07:00The Deep Alone
It's a beautiful evening. The sun is going down right now. Half an hour ago I stepped into the backyard and snapped the above. Which I find calming.
And here is a poem I read with my morning coffee, so long ago now, by Edward Hirsch, titled, "I'm Going to Start Living Like a Mystic." I'm fond of the ending:
"I will walk home alone with the deep alone,
a disciple of shadows, in praise Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-3040998496078382082011-09-23T05:32:00.000-07:002011-09-23T06:00:59.217-07:00Poem and Painting Pairing - Hirshfield and Picasso
Reading at a Table, 1934
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973)
Oil on canvas
THE POET
by Jane Hirshfield
She is working now, in a room
not unlike this one,
the one where I write, or you read.
Her table is covered with paper.
The light of the lamp would be
tempered with a shade, where the bulb's
single harshness might dissolve,
but it is not, she has taken it off.
Her poems? I will never Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-25014572237888804292011-09-22T06:00:00.000-07:002012-01-02T15:45:10.711-08:00Beautiful Choices
I posted these two photos on Flickr a couple of days ago, but decided I also wanted them here. All the beautiful colours, all the choices. So many flavors! Now that my girl has her braces off we're free to have such things in the house. I've never been a huge jelly bean fan, but now I am. We sat on the couch together and ate a bunch of these one by ones, talking about the flavors, and Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-4348987693837044862011-09-21T09:18:00.000-07:002011-09-21T09:25:40.142-07:00How to Be a Poet
Late in the summer I bought a hibiscus plant for $7.99 at Home Depot and it's been blooming ever since, taking my breath away with each eruption into yellow. For a little less than the price of a fancy Starbucks coffee, this glorious golden miracle.
So yes, lately I've been obsessed with bowls. The stone bowl above we got for a song, maybe 15 years ago. We bought one, and went back for Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-48655495873974474702011-09-17T10:02:00.000-07:002011-09-17T11:18:29.420-07:00Walking the Dog
There's the pup in all his goofball glory.
It's not the most picturesque place in the world, this path beside the utility corridor which is beside a fairly large roadway. But if you get in close enough, you can edit out the power lines, the semis roaring by, the rows of suburban houses.
I don't usually take my camera with me, as this is the time I like to think about what I'm writing, Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-78876955937665849592011-09-16T05:51:00.000-07:002011-09-16T05:51:27.479-07:00Poem and Painting Pairing : Armantrout and Varo
Remedios Varo - Magical Flight
The beginning of a poem by Rae Armantrout titled, "Articulation":
With whom
do you leave yourself
during reveries?
read more here.
A little music for your Friday:
Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-54712775169917553482011-09-15T09:28:00.000-07:002011-09-15T09:53:07.336-07:00You're Having Your Turn
Yesterday afternoon I had the notion to take the above assemblage outdoors. I had company though. The fellow below.
He currently has the bad habit of eating the fallen apples until his stomach aches. But while I was watching him he knew to leave the apples and only look longingly at them.
There are so many good dog poems - Neruda's "A Dog has Died" comes to mind. And there's aShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-71235631686410758842011-09-14T08:35:00.000-07:002011-09-14T08:36:24.422-07:00Thinking of Blue Feasts
I hardly ever open this book I wrote so many years ago, titled Blue Feast. Not really that long ago, though it seems so. It had been completely bashed in a couple of reviews which took the wind right the hell out of my sails at the time. I guess that's what such reviewers are aiming for of course. Meanwhile I was in that wildly fragile state - you know that time before your kid goes to Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-17820778472784568822011-09-11T08:59:00.000-07:002011-09-11T09:01:15.460-07:00The Roughest Courage
“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
~ Emerson
One evening not so long ago we sat in the backyard of our friends' house and sipped wine and ate delicious food and watched it get dark too early. It's such a beautiful yard, and filled with warmth and light and interesting objects. I think it perfectly reflects who these two lovely people are, so Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-45287834265198036982011-09-08T09:14:00.000-07:002011-09-08T09:21:02.831-07:00Something Peculiar, Little Understood
"The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what he saw in a plain way. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one." ~ John Ruskin
I've just begun reading Mark Doty's book, The Art of Description. Looking forward to spending more time with it, but already it's one of those books where you crack it open and something immediately Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-39323345759120714752011-09-07T06:02:00.000-07:002011-09-07T06:02:48.881-07:00Which Maybe Isn't Poetry
How completely ordinary life is most hours of the day. On Sundays, the ritual is - grocery shopping, house cleaning, and then cooking. This past Sunday, there was also baking. Which I did, and not C. because after the first couple of days of grade 8, she wasn't up for it. I don't fancy myself much of a cook, but since I do like to eat, cooking there is. Shrimp and green onion cakes above Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-23046769334935526452011-09-05T12:58:00.000-07:002011-09-05T12:58:20.675-07:00Fragrance of the Unseen
"If you catch a fragrance of the unseen,
like that, you won't be able to be
contained. You'll be out in empty sky.
Any beauty the world has, any desire,
will easily be yours..."
~Rumi (from The Glance)
"If anyone asks you to say who you are,
say without hesitation, soul
within soul within soul."
~ Rumi (from The Book of Love)
It is the time of year to breathe in deeply the Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-81480233857861539802011-09-04T06:57:00.000-07:002011-09-04T06:57:16.903-07:00Can You Taste What I'm Saying?
The Simple Truth
by Philip Levine
I bought a dollar and a half's worth of small red potatoes,took them home, boiled them in their jacketsand ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt.Then I walked through the dried fieldson the edge of town. In middle June the lighthung on in the dark furrows at my feet,and in the mountain oaks overhead the birdswere gathering for the night, Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-32264566212446616742011-09-02T05:55:00.000-07:002011-09-03T07:17:10.120-07:00It Must Be Received
A poem by Valerie Martinez titled "Bowl," begins thus:
Turn it over and look up
into the sphere of heaven.
I've been a little preoccupied with bowls lately, it seems. The shape of them, all that we do with them. The possibilities - think of all the permutations - colour shape size. The materials they are made from. We use them for mixing, serving. We use them to decorate. WeShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-22989467210869284512011-09-01T08:56:00.000-07:002011-09-01T12:21:49.853-07:00Poem and Painting Pairing - Matisse and Feldman
Conversation, by Matisse
From Wikipedia: Art historian Hilary Spurling has described this "stern encounter" as "portray[ing] the profound underlying shape or mechanism of a relationship laid down for both parties on the day, soon after they first met in 1897, when Matisse warned his future wife that, dearly as he loved her, he would always love painting more."
How Wonderful
by Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-864595436314286502011-08-31T15:56:00.000-07:002011-08-31T15:56:24.327-07:00On Elegance
Coleman Barks writes a brief intro to each section in The Essential Rumi. In the one titled, "On Elegance" he says that elegance is, "The sudden opening of one's eyes to the elaborate, extravagant beauty around us."
Rumi:
"Because I love this, I am never bored.
Beauty constantly wells up, a noise of springwater
in my ear and in my inner being."
I saw a photo similar to this in a bookShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-78143141389394396882011-08-30T09:06:00.000-07:002011-08-30T16:47:33.432-07:00"...to yield the blossoms dictated to my heart..."
"But to be what I am, to live what I was meant to live, to want to sound like no one else, to yield the blossoms dictated to my heart: this is what I want - and this surely cannot be arrogance."
~ Rilke
I found these late blossoms in our front yard after walking the dog this morning.
I placed them in the stone bowl full with some water and looking at them has made me feel calm. Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-35128732865811787492011-08-30T06:11:00.000-07:002011-08-30T06:11:53.869-07:00Oh Yes
Ode to Things
by Pablo Neruda
I have a crazy,crazy love of things.I like pliers,and scissors.I lovecups,rings,and bowls –not to speak, of course,of hats.I love all things,not just the grandest,also the infinite-lysmall –thimbles,spurs,plates,and flower vases.Oh yes,the planetis sublime!It’s full ofpipesweavinghand-heldthrough tobacco smoke,and keysand salt shakers –everything,I mean,that is Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-4563605038930968392011-08-28T07:12:00.000-07:002011-08-28T07:13:06.138-07:00Until
Ode to Thanks
by Pablo Neruda
Thanks to the wordthat says thanks!Thanks to thanks,wordthat meltsiron and snow!
The world is a threatening placeuntilthanksmakes the roundsfrom one pair of lips to another,soft as a brightfeatherand sweet as a petal of sugar,filling the mouth with its soundor else a mumbledwhisper.Life becomes human again:it’s no longer an open window.A bit of Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-42680016739854183122011-08-25T19:08:00.000-07:002011-08-25T19:10:31.484-07:00Live deliciously...
Another one of those flying, fifteen minute blog posts. Because the next few days promise to be busy. And there are all these pictures I want to share. A couple of them have even been on the Explore page on Flickr. Which is lovely, but a bit disconcerting too. So many people looking! It's nice, but it's not what my usual Flickr experience is.
I read this poem that I thought was so Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-26543802802381244152011-08-22T07:11:00.000-07:002011-08-22T08:22:59.984-07:00Don't Let Your Soul Get Lonely
"Narrative is not the relating of an event but this event itself, the approach of this event, the place where it is called on to unfold, an event still to come, by the magnetic power of which the narrative itself can hope to come true.
That is a very delicate relationship, no doubt a kind of extravagance, but it is the secret law of narrative."
~ Maurice Blanchot
August, the summer, Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-51611171518305913792011-08-19T12:53:00.000-07:002011-08-19T12:53:44.680-07:00Colour of Truth
It's that moment of summer, near the end, when you look back and see if you crossed off all those things you wanted to do on that list you made at the beginning. Oh, lord no. Not even close. But then again, we did manage to paint our walls grey and slush out our unfinished (doomed to be always so) basement. It's actually not completely embarrassing down there any more. We've also re-hung Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-32180538539914016592011-08-17T12:20:00.000-07:002011-08-17T12:21:19.992-07:00What Makes You Come Alive
Randomness alert: the pictures have pretty much nothing to do with this post, and the rest of it is likely to be unconnected too. (There, I've just given myself permission to ramble, nice).
Just a bunch of stuff I've been thinking about lately, or that keeps cropping up.
First of all, the power of a smile.
I love friends, I want more friends. I love Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-88924298456389413292011-08-11T18:02:00.000-07:002011-08-12T06:04:38.371-07:00Poem and Painting Pairing - Fanny Howe and Cornelis Brize
Cornelis Brize - Documents on Wall, 1656
Lists are on my mind. My desk is a sea of lists. Mostly on yellow post-its. So of course instead of tackling the things on the lists, I'm just thinking about how lists of things can become art. In poetry, there is the catalog or list poem. Sometimes the list is part of a poem, or part of a prose piece. One of my favorites is by Fanny Howe Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-35523045263297181172011-08-11T14:07:00.000-07:002011-08-12T06:03:54.811-07:00Sweet Pea Riffs
The thin skin of the petals, the scent, the way they hold light but also let it pass through. The glow of them. The quiet of them. The gentle way they breathe, short and even sips. The distance of one petal from another.
The way they attract light in a dim room. A bouquet of them a lamp. Looking at them, the heart blossoms. Their elegant, slender stems. Their helpless gorgeous Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-1498550703835662052011-08-09T06:56:00.000-07:002011-08-09T06:56:40.949-07:00Exclamation of Yellow
"I rested. I went to contemplate my hibiscus. I feel tied to hibiscus by an illegible message. Hibiscus are animated by sequence. One flower stretches toward victory. First one sees the soul swell the petals, folded so as to exhale. Next: exclamation of red. Now the flower is going to redescend. There is no pause between the ascension toward birth and the decline. The newly born flowerShawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-3421513898733145182011-08-01T07:41:00.000-07:002011-08-01T07:41:35.143-07:00Jasper - Part 3
I swear this will be my last post on Jasper and The Jasper Park Lodge. (Geez, you'd think I was getting paid for this). But hey, it's great to make the vacation last longer by reliving it on the blog : )
It was SUCH a great year for wildflowers. The last few years have been a bit dry out there (and here) but the rain seems to have brought out a ton of wildflowers. Or maybe it was just the Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4800105216950534851.post-16814538751598641842011-07-31T12:19:00.000-07:002011-07-31T12:25:52.055-07:00"Now what food do we feed women as artists upon?" ~ Virginia Woolf
This is part two of our Jasper trip, but I must preface by saying we've been eating a lot of Kraft Dinner in the last couple of years, we artists. (Okay, actually we usually make homemade mac and cheese, and we do eat pretty well in general, but just not out at restaurants too often).
Here we are at Cavell's at the JPL. Above is the pomegranate mojito I had. I could drink 10 of these, Shawna Lemayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14934404953396043697noreply@blogger.com2