I’m always rather amused when waking life physical sensations somehow get incorporated into our sleeping dreams. You know what I mean – like when a honking horn or perhaps an alarm going off gets morphed into a ringing phone in your dream. This morning I was dreaming I was undergoing a Vulcan mindmeld – with a tremendous pressure on my head. The dream story was I needed to experience this, because I was about to learn how to do it myself, and this was going to make me aware of how it felt for others. A little empathy and compassion lesson to go with the new skill I would be learning.
Alas before the secrets of the mindmeld were revealed I woke up to find a cat sitting on my head and the incredible stuffed-up pounding sensations of a full-blown my-head-is-going-to-explode cold. Oh how we are humbled – I thought I was going to discover a great technique to understand people better, but I actually discovered my immune system invited in some unfriendly guests AND my cat thought a little cranial acupressure treatment might do me some good.
Every weekday Jamie Ridler shares a brief “behind the scenes” video where she talks about what’s up in her life, what’s she’s working on and thinking about. It’s exactly the kind of glimpse I love into people’s worlds. Today one of things she talks about is what a blessing and delight it is to share what we love. She likens it to blowing on a dandelion puff and spreading all those seeds outward. I love that image. I love Jamie. And you know I love the idea of sharing our delights and inspirations. Clearly I was looking for a new way to do that with my dream mindmelding; but it looks like we’ll have to do it the more mundane way.
So let’s open up the treasure chest that’s been my week and see what’s captured my fancy…
Have you had your eyes to the sky? It’s definitely worth an early rising before dawn to see the lovely La Luna dancing closely with Venus and Mars and being watched over by benevolent Jupiter.
I was also amused to find these glow-in-the-dark calendar pages with constellations to stitch like those delightful vintage lace/stitch cards. How fun! I’ll think I’ll put them on my wish list. Do you suppose it’s extra lucky to wish for stars?
Following the threads of embroidery…
A few weeks ago I was mindmapping a project and is my way I was sitting on my bed surrounded with colored pens, arms flailing trying to catch ideas before they evaporated. Apparently in my creative frenzy I left one of the pens uncapped, because when I was done with my session I found I had three dots permanently etched on the leg of my jeans. When I put the jeans back on the other day, it occurred to me that it might be fun to embroider a few little flowers over the spots. I don’t know if I’ll actually do it, but it amuses me to think about it.
It also had me thinking about the fabulous art of Rosalind Wyatt, who embroiders fabric with people’s stories. Isn’t this fabulous?! I’m totally inspired, and my Muse had demanded I add this to my capturing-good-ideas journal so I can return to it one day. I’m giving myself plenty of space to think about what item I might use and what story I might tell.
But it reminded me a bit of this wonderful bit of vintage embroidery I keep framed. I love the message. Apologies for the shoddy photograph, but hopefully you get the idea. The little checkered patches at the corners make me wonder if the piece was once mounted on something else and those mounting holes needed to be patched.
Another piece of art magic I want to share with you this week are the portraits Ed Fairburn draws on star charts and maps. Doesn’t the idea of a star chart portrait delight you?!
Still keeping our thoughts skyward…
Thursday evenings I have a standing date to gather with a small group of beloved friends to talk about what’s happening in our worlds. I treasure that time and those friendships. Last night only two of us were able to make it, and is often the case when we two get together our chatting covered a lot of ground. Sometimes it feels like to the moon and back. I thought a little bit more today about some of the things we discussed, and laughed to think about how many were weather-related.
Which is fabulously meaningful because it seems like a code word for something that’s up for us. Talking about the weather is often held dismissively as superficial. A sort of convention that allows some polite connection without actually diving deep. My friend was saying how sometimes the things she’s doing/thinking/being feel so BIG and UNKNOWABLE she hardly knows how to talk about them with others, and has to search for more mundane things to chat about. In other words, a “weather” type topic.
I on the other hand, was actually talking about weather. I talked about how I’ve been feeling under the weather this week and how I needed start paying some serious attention to upping my nurturing and self-care practices to promote a quicker recovery. It got me thinking though about where the term “under the weather” originated. Luckily Google sailed to the rescue and informed me that had a nautical origin – when sailors were sick, they were sent down below, under the deck and away from the weather.
I also talked about the amazing wind storm we were having, which followed by some heavy rain, has managed to strip many of our trees of their autumn leaves now. And that somehow reminded me of weathergrams I created one year from handmade paper I created with dried leaf inclusions.
A final topic we riffed on last night was something I’m sure we’ve all had thoughts about. My friend was wondering if she had taken a different path earlier in her life where she’d be now.
And I can’t help but think of the quote by the very wise Pema Chodron:
“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”
There you have it – a peek into the skies over my world. And a blowing of what’s been on my treasure dandelion seedpuff. So tell me, what’s the weather like in your universe? What’s appearing in your skies? What seeds of fabulousity do you have to send this way? Do tell – you know I love to hear.
Hi Deborah .. interesting post – and how lovely a few of you get together as you can – and mull the world around! Mindmelds and weather reports are fun ideas … here it’s gloomy, grey with the advantage of still being ‘warm’ – ie no frost yet. I wrote about a tiny part of the Universe for my last post … but I love the Pema Chodron quote .. brilliant, and so true .. cheers Hilary
Enjoy the warm while it lasts Hilary – and have a fabulous week.
Glad I made time to visit and read this juicy post! The item that sticks out for me in this post is the idea of not knowing how to put words to ‘big and unknowable dreams’ – I have been feeling this way for quite some time now, especially since doing the Mondo Beyondo ecourse to help me reconnect to my dreaming muscles…though I do think it is more about fear of sharing such big dreams with those who are not dreamers..?
I love the idea of reconnecting to your dreaming muscles Monica – what a fabulous image. I think it’s important we all have those we can share our dreams with and who cheer us on and hold our hands when it gets scary. Here’s to dreaming more and reaching for those dreams and dreaming into even bigger wonderfulness!
Hi Dear Deborah,
Follow this link to the most amazing constellation paintings ever. Fred paints with egg tempera on special panels that he gold leafs and scraffitos in designs and patterns. All I can say is that nothing prepares you for seeing them in person with the luminous, reflective qualities of the gold and the beyond amazing layered paintings that are created in such a way that it is the light passing through the multiple layers of transparent pigments and returning to your eye where the colors mix as light instead of seeing a flat color on the surface of the panel.
http://www.fredwessel.com/constellations.html
Magic blowing from my dandelion to yours……… C
Oh my goodness – these are perfectly swoon-worthy! I’m delighted you stopped by and shared this magic.
I can’t think of a better person to mindmeld with than a cat. How lucky you are! Not so lucky in the cold department, though; I hope you feel well again soon.
I love hearing about your Thursday evening friends. That’s the kind of friendship circle I’m developing in my own life, too. 🙂
I am indeed lucky Harmony! And I agree cat mindmeld is a thing of beauty (and napping and sunning oneself and napping, and then post-snack napping…)
Here’s to friendship circles that are supportive, sustaining, and oh-so-fun! May we all have them.
I love how wise your cat is. They do know exactly when to pay attention to us, even its it often a bit odd in the way they do it. This was a lovely post Deborah. Cheerful and reminding us to count our blessings and live in love. Thank you for being you. You’re wonderful.
Thanks for the kind words Kimberly – they are greatly appreciated, as are you!
What a delightful post as usual!
Love the embroidery framed item. I have a square stone hanging in my bedroom with the same saying (except the word Joy is replaced with Happiness) and I LOVE it!
When I look back at my life, I am grateful for all of the turns (even the missed turns) that I have made because I understand it has made me who I am today and I am so proud of who I have become and am continuing to develop into. “I am the sky…” I’ll have to remember that one!
Oh how fun we have basically the same quote in our homes inspiring us! And I couldn’t agree more Elda – everything that brought us to where we are now is something to be grateful for.