September 16--Let Me Go, Please!

The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. 
--Bill Watterson

It is a first-class human tragedy that peoples of the earth who claim to believe in the message of Jesus whom they describe as the Prince of Peace show little of that belief in actual practice.  --Mohandes Gandhi

    Today I must report for jury duty. While I am OK doing the whole "good citizen" thing, I don't want to go. The last time I was called, I sat in the jury pool room for an entire (boring!) day and was dismissed. I really do not want to be picked for a jury, as timing is bad on the home front this week. I plan to take a deck of cards in case I'm stuck with a bunch of bored potential jurors who are game-players. I should borrow my husband's t-shirt that says, "I can't, I have plans with my dog."

    Onward to the civics lesson!

        Leta

September 15--"It's TOO Hard!"

Everything is hard before it is easy.  --Goethe

    You can start right with the process of being born, leaving the dark comfort of the womb and emerging into a world of bright lights and giants. Then you have to go through the whole process of learning to be a human on Earth. That's the big picture. 

    My son told me yesterday about his two-day old newborn opening his eyes to their dog's inquisitive muzzle right in Remy's face. My son and I both pondered how wild that must be for a new human!

    Then there is the typical day... it's hard to get out of bed (stiffness? pain? don't want to go to work?). There's the chaos of everyone getting where they need to be (school? office? appointments?). There may be co-workers or co-volunteers that are not your favorite folks (cranky? bossy? lazy?). Any time we have to or get to learn something new, it seems hard at first. And humans are excellent at procrastinating.

    Let us bless our stubborn perseverance!

        Leta

September 14--The Eye of the Beholder

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.  --Charles Dickens

    Dickens describes a very nurturing and nourishing way to live.

    A few years ago, I literally went overnight from "I can't paint" to "Sure I can, it's not rocket science." I've taken a bunch of painting workshops at City Arts, and I've displayed my efforts here on the blog. I did Zentangle drawings for my most recent book. I painted a bunch of barn quilts during the pandemic, which solidified my love of straight lines. For the longest time, I did not like anything I created. I was too critical. Taking on painting as a hobby has relieved me of that self-critical nature.

    Someone said, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I say, "So is ugly." Below is the second clay pot I have finished painting. I give it a "90% ugly." I give myself credit for stepping "outside my box" and not doing straight lines. I like the glitter paint that is on the yellow spots. It will look just fine with a plant in it. It is more interesting than a plain clay pot. I am completely OK with designating it as ugly. I'm not sure what I was going for, but I think I missed it. Anyway, I bought two more pots and saucers at an estate sale on Thursday, so stay tuned for what I will come up with next. I am undaunted!

    Painting is an adventure, and I like that!

        Leta

September 13--SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS!!!!!!!

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.  --A. A. Milne

    And babies leave the womb when they are darn good and ready!

    I now have a no-doubt precocious grandbaby #2, a boy!!!! Luca is a big brother now. Will he want to keep his new little brother around? Time will tell. 

    The newest little godling in our family is Remy Quinn Hardin, born on September 11, on my mother's birthday. My mother's name was Madeline, and she passed in 1979, so she never got to see her two grandsons delivered by me. She was there last night at the birth though, because my son told me their first nurse's name was Madeline. Mom wanted to help her great-grandson into the world. How cool is that!?!?!?!

    Remy weighed in at 7lb, 11oz. According to his dad, Remy is perfect. Well, of course he is!! I've seen a couple photos so far, and I would wholeheartedly agree. Remy's mom did an excellent job raising him from an embryo and bringing him into the world for us.
    We will go see Remy and family in a couple weeks after things have settled down a bit. 

    Happy Grammie!

        Leta

September 12--The Disease of Fear and Violence

Most of the time, all you have is the moment, and the imperfect love of the people around you.  --Anne Lamott

    Still awaiting the grandbaby!

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    These are the words of Shane Claiborne: 

Violence is contagious. Violence begets violence.… Pick up the sword and die by the sword. You kill us and we’ll kill you. There is a contagion of violence in the world; it’s spreading like a disease.

    It is quite clear to me that a vote for Trump is a vote for spreading the disease of violence. He has demonstrated it in every appearance, ranging from mocking a disabled person to promising to go after anyone who is disloyal to him. His whole message is based in fear and violence. 

    Is this what you want for your future and your children's future?

    It is incomprehensible to me that ANY woman could vote for Trump. His misogynistic behavior is quite evident, and he and his old white male cronies have no interest in women having any rights. 

    Any vote for Trump, "in my book," is an act of treason to the U.S. and the Constitution and everything that has already made America great. This would be either a willful traitor (I'm rich and I want to stay rich; Trump will support that) or an ignorant traitor (somehow convinced to believe his lies, proving the failure of our public education system). Willful or ignorant traitor? I can't come up with a choice of which is worse. 

    Haven't we had enough violence? Let's go for love, no matter how imperfect.

        Leta

Let's make our country for ALL!

September 11--Waiting...

There is not love of life without despair about life.  --Albert Camus

    Well, life begins and life ends. I restate Brian McLaren's definition of grief: grief is love persisting when what we love is passing away. Another way to look at the Camus quote is in this spiritual wisdom: everything has a lifespan. Nothing stays the same, and generally we don't care for that, but oh, well--there is the despair. 

    Right now I am wildly swinging between love and despair. The new grandbaby is due any day now, LOVE OF LIFE. Not knowing what's happening moment-to-moment (they are in Colorado) has me in a concurrent state of anxious despair. We don't know if the baby is a boy or girl, so there's extra excitement over the surprise. September 11 was my mother's birthday, so it would be cool for her great grandbaby to arrive today. 

    Stay tuned!!

        Leta

Barney is really good at waiting...

September 10--Love Evolves

When you love someone you do not love them, all the time, in the exact same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is a lie to pretend to. 
--Anne Morrow Lindbergh

    Let's start out with "you do not love them all the time." Note that I removed a comma. 😉😉 The folks I love the most--yep, I do not love them all the time. Or maybe I always love them but sometimes I don't like them. 

    Let's put the comma back in. (By the way, there is a great book for grammar/punctuation nerds titled "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss. Note that the comma after "Eats" is quite meaningful.) The quote above makes me think of the "5 Love Languages" by Gary Chapman. To summarize, we love by 1) quality time, 2) words of affection, 3) acts of service, 4) physical touch, and 5) gifts. Any good relationship is probably an ongoing, changing combination of those five actions. I can look at my marriage and see that those have changed over time. I would say that now our primary "language" with each other is #3. It works for us.

    When you love someone, being able to adapt to change is a very important skill!

        Leta

At Botanica in Wichita

September 9--Wonders!

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.  --Carl Sagan

    Consider our Universe--apparently infinite in every way, thereby giving us unlimited exploration and learning opportunities. And right where you are, your own body, is the same--an unending learning opportunity. Certainly science has discovered much about our universe and the human body, but there is still much more that we don't know. 

    I realize that Carl Sagan was the really-big-picture-Universe guy. But I have opened up a new world for myself with the simple idea of painting clay pots, combining my love of painting and plants. I googled "painted clay pots" and an incredible array of ideas scrolled before me. I even ordered some holographic glitter paints (which excite me to no end--I LOVE sparkles!!). Stay tuned for pot #2. (Pot #1 photo is on Sept 2 post.)

    There are always new worlds to explore if we remain open.

        Leta

Sparkles!!! 😀😀

September 8--Grieving Our Natural World

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.  --Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation of September 5 is titled "Fall in Love With A Place." The idea is to have somewhere in nature where one becomes intimately aware of all its nuances, gifts, and challenges so that one is willing to work to sustain it. My "place" is Alan Seeger Natural Area in central PA. Another is my backyard garden, and I do put in quite a bit more effort there. 

    Brian McLaren offers these words relative to our grief regarding our abuse of nature:

Through the years, I’ve been involved in a lot of different areas of activism and so often what sustains us and motivates us in our activism work is anger. That’s legitimate because wherever we see injustice, we ought to be angry. But anger … can toxify our motivations if anger is all that’s driving us. That’s why I think it helps often for us to trace our anger back to grief... and then to trace our grief to love. It’s because we love something that we feel grief when it’s threatened. In fact, one of my favorite definitions of grief is that grief is love persisting when what we love is passing away. What you love, you try to save, and that’s why so many of us see the natural world around us with such tenderness, with such grief, sometimes with such anger, because what we love is passing away.

    I love McLaren's definition of grief. I have experienced considerable grief over the past couple of years, and I think that's true for the rest of humanity also. 

        Leta

A mossy decaying tree stump
in Alan Seeger Natural Area, PA

September 7--Bless Our Trees

Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.  --Moliere

    When we moved into our home in 1985, all the trees in the neighborhood were spindly little saplings. I could barely wait to get trees planted in our yard. That happened in 1990. Back then I did not dream that we would be in the same home nearly 40 years later, but here we are and the trees that remain are big. I went from a sunny yard with a thriving vegetable garden to a shady one with ornamental plants only. Disease, age and/or storm damage have forced the removal of several of ours and our neighbors trees, and I'm back to growing some vegetables. Many folks in the neighborhood planted silver maples because they grow fast. Those are the ones that are also failing the soonest. 

    I grew up in central PA surrounded by literally millions of trees. I was a "tree-hugger" before that was even a term. And yes, the slow growers thrive for the longest time.  

    A tree's shade is priceless in our hot Kansas summers. 

        Leta

My "tree heaven"--
Alan Seeger Natural Area in PA

September 6--Is Pain Useful?

Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.  --Ovid

    Being human, I would prefer to avoid pain. Times in life accompanied by great pain generally don't seem useful in the moment. Alas, humans, including me, tend to change only when the pain reaches a certain level. As I ponder this quote, I can see where pain has been extremely useful to me. 

    Back in 1996, I had a bout of horrid back pain. Instead of having surgery, I elected bed-rest for nearly six weeks, and it did heal. That was no small challenge for a working husband and two young children. Patience was the primary "medicine." That pain was very useful--I vowed to get in shape and stay in shape so that it would not happen again. I have kept that promise to myself. 

    Pain on every level led me into 12-Step recovery. The pain of losing loved ones has led me to understanding and compassion relative to grief. The verbal abuse I experienced growing up was the major instigator of my spiritual journey. 

    I'm not ready to say "bring it on!" to pain, but yes, it has been a useful messenger.

        Leta

September 5--Expectations

Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting. 
--Haruki Murakami

    I've worked hard the past few years to give up any sort of expectations, because they have led me frequently in the past into disappointments large and small. It is, however, impossible for me to give up expectations, at least so far. I try to remember to add "this or something better" to my anticipated results. 

    I confess that this topic has reduced me to tears, taking me briefly back down the "rabbit hole" of disappointment and depression I have recently climbed out of. I guess a good soul-rinsing was in order--not what I was expecting this morning, but healing nonetheless. 

    This is a good reminder to keep moving, breathe and go with the flow.

        Leta

September 4--Go Outside!

Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience--or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.  --Jane Austen

    "Hope" sits better in my psyche than "patience." I am hopeful, but thoughts of patience make me realize how impatient I usually am. 

    I had the most wonderful experience on Labor Day morning. I took my yoga mat and MELT roller out on our deck and practiced. It was a lovely, cool, sunny morning with just a light breeze. There was birdsong and insect chatter. Distant traffic noise was picking up. The garden is lovely, especially our wildly exuberant volunteer sunflowers (see below). I even enjoyed my artwork as five of my barn quilts are hanging on our back yard shed. Practicing on the deck is a treat I shall repeat with our lovely fall weather coming on. 

    Consider your options--maybe a change is in good order today!

        Leta

Too full of flowers to stay upright!

September 3--Settling?

It's a funny thing about life. If you refuse to settle for anything less than the best, that's what it will give you.  --W. Somerset Maugham

    It's a funny thing about life--the idea of settling came to me last week as something I might consider. I even did some journaling about it. I think the practice of settling is different for each individual. Here's one example, for a very wealthy person: "I want my own castle, but I'll settle for a mansion." 

    I'm more in the range of "I want diamonds, but I'll settle for cubic zirconia." I also have within me a drive to and for simplicity--less stuff and fewer complications in life. I'm not sure how simplicity and settling get intertwined. There are some circumstances in my life that are not ideal, over which I have little or no control. Therefore I simply have to settle into those, accept (even though I don't care for them), and move on with life. 

    Gratitude seems to be a good antidote for settling. Most of the time I can stay focused on my in-hand blessings rather than my unmet fantasies. 

    There's more to ponder here, I see. 

        Leta

September 2--Stillness Opens Us

We do not need to go out and find love; rather, we need to be still and let love discover us.  --John O'Donohue

    Only in stillness can we connect deeply with the love within us, our natural, organic state. 

    Painting is one of the ways that I can use stillness. I have no expectations of my artwork residing in a gallery someday. I am very content to piddle around with paints and please myself. I love the open spiritual feeling I get when I sit down at my craft table to add paint to a project. My current project is experimenting with painting clay pots, combining my love of painting and plants. Below is my first creation--note my love of straight lines 😉😉 The plant is a Rattlesnake Plant, calathea lancifolia. I noticed that this plant's leaves reach upward toward the stars at nighttime and relax back open in the daylight. 

    Happy Labor Day! This is an excellent day to enjoy stillness.

        Leta

September 1--Patience, NOW!

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.  --Willa Cather

    The theme in "Daily Love" for September is patience.  Are you kidding me?!?!?! I have another grandbaby on the way mid-month. I stayed calm through August but there's no stopping me now--I can hardly wait for the call!! Even the parents don't know if the new little one is a boy or a girl. I love surprises!

    Jittery excitement aside, I enter September with some trepidation. I love autumn and cooler temperatures. Gardening becomes pleasurable again. Simulated patient work is resuming. Yet I've had 95% of my rough spots in life in September, so I'm always a little wary. I am determined, focusing on my intentions, to make this a good month. And how could it be otherwise with a new grandbaby arriving!?!? And I'm starting the month with pool fun and game-playing with friends. 

    With patience, September shall flow with ease and grace.

        Leta

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