Laundry Line Divine

Summertime lays warm hands on chilly wrists, calling me out side for a few hours in the middle of the day.

I find it so hard to be inside these days.

All I can think about is Mary Oliver and the moment she steps out on to her stoop every morning.

Morning glory.

This work is by my friend Jaq Belcher.

It is her birthday today.

I have begun a new page on Laundry Line Divine.

It is called “Do One New Thing Every Day”.

I post what I do and invite you to post yours. I will add your “One Things” to the list as we go along.

I dare you to try it. Sit in a different seat. Take a different route home.

Bend down to pick something up. There may be a secret message there for you under that red leaf.

See you around the Line,

S

A certain minor light may still
Leap incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then—

- Sylvia Plath

Considering this light and burning today.
Writing hours set aside.
Steady contemplation of the events 10 years ago today and everyday since then.
How has your life changed since 9.11.01?

Mine? A deeper burn, a celestial ravaging of dross in to gold.
My simple ordinary life turned extraordinary because of gratitude.
The enlivening forces of pleasure, joy and connection.
And the steady stream of grace that comes in loving.

I am loving this day, this breath, the people I am with, this Planet, the air, the green before me tinged with gold.
I am loving the gift of expression that has been mine since birth.

Let today be a consideration of, as Mary Oliver asks, “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”

You make a difference.
Thank you for this gift.
With all my love,
S

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

This week has been one glorious moment after another. Monday, we swam in the river and hummed Carole King songs all day with James Taylor harmonies. Tuesday, I prepared a piece from Laundry Line Divine: A Wild Soul Book for Women to read at Deb Koffman’s ‘words out loud’ evening in her Artspace.

Janet read the peice titled “The Gooseberry Fool” over lunch after blueberry picking. That evening I presented it in a long 5 minute reading. I survived and the audience was kind. Then Wednesday, Karen and I ventured up to North Adams to meet with some great women to discuss flying our “Fe-Mail” event up that way in the fall. We paused in Kidspace at MassMoca to take in the Food Art.

Today is my artwork day and the moment to post our Playdate art. We accepted the challenge to illustrate Rumi’s lines from “The Self We Share”.

“Look fish, you are already in the ocean.
Just swimming there makes you friends with glory.”

The art that was submitted is beyond as my pal Janine likes to say. Here it is. Thank you to Andrea Schroeder, Jaq Belcher, and Karen Arp-Sandel, my playmates! What fun!

Want to play next time?
Love, S

PS I temporarily removed Karen’s pieces from this post. They were loading in an odd way. I will repost them ASAP.