We watched a couple videos of Turkish Ebru painting, Boy and I. In Ebru painting, the artist drips ink on to the surface of the water, then manipulates the surface to create beautiful designs which cling to the paper the artist rests on the water’s surface.
Afterward, “Can you get down my painting box?”
“I think we’re out of painting paper.”
“That’s okay. I’ll find some cardboard.”
Gratitude List:
1. The wild creative imagination of children. How one thing suddenly becomes another thing, which morphs into a totally different thing. Well, now. Isn’t that sort of like life? Maybe the Divine Source of all Being is a Child playing with colors: “This one looks like a farmer. But if I twist this brush a little bit this way, she turns into a teacher. See?” Capricious, maybe. But magical. Just let this one dry a good while please, Kid, before you go shifting this part of the design again.
2. Ends of tunnels. Beginnings of bridges. Spanning the distances. Breathe, baby, breathe, while you cross that bridge. And don’t, whatever you do, hold your breath in the tunnels! Look for the light–it’s really there.
3. Re-built bridges, diamonds, rust. A couple days ago, I heard Joan Baez singing “Diamonds and Rust” on the radio, and it took me back 25 years in one instant. It took me right back to the happy times before the burning of a bridge, of a friendship. The bridge has been re-built, of course, and this new one is as beautiful as my bridge that arches over the Susquehanna when the sun hits it just so in the mornings. But that long-ago burning still sometimes haunts me with the shame of my pettiness and selfishness, despite the great grace of my co-re-builder, despite the years that have passed. Sometimes I just have to go back and look at the old pilings where the old bridge used to be, to see how there’s moss growing there, and small trees, how the wreck sets off the incredible grace of the new bridge, how the sun shines on it all as Beauty. This is one of the big gratitudes of my life, one of the constants: the Grace of friendship.
4. Oh, that slant of light in the mornings in the hollow makes me almost as giddy and obsessed as my oriole did in springtime. I miss it most mornings these days because I am gone before sunrise. See, we sit down here in the shadows of the bowl, and we know that it is day because the sky has brightened up above, but then the sun slants down and hits the tops of the trees with a golden shimmer that moves down the trunks. There comes a point when the sun just spills down the hillsides like liquid gold.
5. Both. And. I like those words.
6. (Because sometimes you need more than five.) It’s a long way away, but I am planning my self-care moment, anticipating my Time of Silence. The thought of my own retreat fills me with energy.
May we walk in Beauty!
Mockingbird Chronicles 