Raven Head and Butterfly Toes

It’s Friday which means it’s time to roll out the Scattered Life Collective peek into my week post.

out the window: It’s unseasonably cold with chilly winds blowing and more rain on the way.

on the menu: Cream of Corn Soup with Red Pepper Sauce  Yes, I’m celebrating the first of the season of soups!

good things:

• The Fringe Fest with its wonderful alternative theatre offerings closed out it’s 50-plays-in-9-days run for another year here in Chicago. We saw a bunch of fabulous things, but two of my favorite from the last days were a radio dramatization of Orson Welles meeting with Superman to recount their adventure on Mars; and Screw You, Nancy Drew which was a murder mystery set in 1959 which was when revisions to Nancy Drew were made, re-creating her as “less sassy and more feminine.” In the one-woman show Nancy Drew shows up and offers a critique of gender roles and the ways media shapes and distorts them. Smart and amusing.
•  When our weather turned cool this week  I actually hauled out a sweater and needed to wear socks for the first time in ages. Aren’t my butterfly socks delightful?  Earlier in the week I saw a Monarch butterfly land in our neighbor’s tree. I thought about their long journey to Mexico and wondered if this butterfly was a straggler or an advance scout. Whatever the story I sent good wishes on the journey.

• New coffee maker – It’s a sad thing around here when the coffee maker sputters its last blast of java. And that happened this week. I used to be drip pot/French press kind of java indulger, but these days I’m strictly a keep-the-pot-on-all-day kind of person and an autodrip coffee maker is my go-to choice. I’m celebrating a new replacement coffee maker with a nice big mug of joe.
• It’s September – that means new on-line classes to play in. I’m doing some biz things and some art things and some spiritual things. I’m indulging in a full-line up!   And I indulged in a visit to the office supply store for a couple of fun binders because everyone knows pretty binders are essential for genius study.
• A fabulous conversation with a friend last night wherein we practically solved all the world’s problems (you’re welcome!) and in the course of our spiraling meandering she suggested a fabulous idea for documenting. Her suggestion exploded in my brain and I now need a journal just to keep track of all the ideas generated from that original seed. I went to sleep last night thinking about it and had some fabulous dreams as well.
• New art that makes me happy. I think I discovered Danielle Daniel through her book Sometimes I Feel Like A Fox, which is a children’s book about 12 totem animals based on 12 of her paintings. It’s a charmer for sure. But I was also very lucky to be able to purchase her piece Raven Girl – Tall in Her Truth. For the moment I have it propped up against my crystal cabinet. Isn’t it wonderful?

• I’m crazy in love with my husband and there’s no doubt in my mind he’s the best partner I could possibly have. The fact that he’s equally crazy about me just makes me want to pinch myself and wonder at it all. Because I know I’m quirky and not always that easy, and sometimes nowhere near as gracious about surprises as one might wish. So this week I’m celebrating the self-compassion I was able to breathe in deeply and how I was able to shift into a far more helpful perspective with only a slight pause for stumble recovery. Yay me! And most of all yay him!!

reading:  The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom

watching:  9  – Tim Burton’s robot dolls in a post-apocalyptic world battling against the “machine.”

listening: Keston Cobbler Club, For Words

favorite word of the week:  Yugen (U-gen) – noun, Japanese: an awareness of the world that triggers feelings too profound and mysterious for words.  Ooh, this one’s a keeper!  I feel like I live in this state a lot and all I can say is more of that please!

out and about:

• Alisa Burke’s family beads
• Future Library – this ambitious creative project has me swooning.     “Future Library is an artwork unfolding over a hundred years. Artist Katie Paterson has planted trees in a forest nearby Oslo, that in a hundred years time will be made into an anthology of books. Moreover for each year over the next century one author will be invited to write a story, that will not be read till 2114. “Year by yeFar the manuscripts will be stored in a specially designed room in the new Oslo library and the only thing you will be able to see is the name of the author and the title of the text and the year the work was written. Nobody will be able to read the work beforehand.”  
• Champagne was the devil’s wine
• pretty maps
• 12 conceptions of the imagination

And that’s a wrap.  Now what about your week?  Something magical happen?  Any surprise encounters with animals?  Drink any champagne?  Let your imagination run wild?  Do tell – you know I love to hear.