Indulgence and Challenge #45

This week's challenge is to use a new tangle pattern by Rick and Maria - Chainging/Punzel - I may work on a tile later that center's on this pattern but for now I have placed it in a large piece I've been working on all week for my son.  I like the tangle - it has so many possibilities.

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So that was the challenge part... now for the indulgence.  I have been working on how to express my thoughts and feeling to my son all week - and I suppose this is a pretty public forum in which to do it.  So if you have other things to do, you can stop reading now.  However, you are welcome to stay - I'd be honored to tell you about my son and how very proud of him I am...

He's my first born. He's an artist, a poet, a musician, and a dreamer. He's an old soul.- perceptive, compassionate, and not afraid to be vulnerable.  A rare thing in someone so young - a pretty rare thing in our typical macho culture.  Recently, my son shared with me that he was longing to do something different with his life. He was looking for a career move - work that would feed his soul as well as his wallet.  He loves where he has been living - the city of his birth.  A move he made a year ago with a lot of hopes and expectations.  Not all of them worked out as he hoped, but I think he's enjoyed his life there.  He found time to play, to create, to relate, and to grow up a bit.  But it seemed life was calling him to leave the safety of "home" - to leave the familiarity of the coffee shop, his family of choice, and the protection of the mountains.  So he applied for a job a few months ago which recently came to fruition.  He starts on Tuesday.  New month - new opportunities.  New challenges, friends... all mixed with a healthy dose of anxiety and anticipation.  

He will moving to Florida to work with kids who have blown their chances in the traditional world - kids who have made poor choices; kids who have been abused, forgotten, neglected - some who have never been able to learn how to deal with life.  He will be living in a wilderness setting with these kids - 24/7 - for 5 days per week... living in a communal setting when off duty and trying to find a little space in his down time to explore his new surroundings and himself. 

There are times when a mom has no words to express the depth and breadth of her feelings for her children.  One such time was a year and a half ago as I stood by my daughter's side as she gave birth to her son - my first grandchild.  Watching her grown into motherhood has been so amazing.  Now, my son is carving his path in this world.  I love them both so much.  I am so very proud.  

The ZIA piece I have created incorporates several blessings by Father John O'Donahue, an Irish Priest who sadly passed away a few years ago.  I just discovered his writings this year and I feel so blessed every time I read his words.  His book, "To Bless the Space Between Us" is a wonderful collection of blessings and musings on life - all aspects of life.  Check it out sometime... I can't recommend it highly enough.  Anyway -

I used the November 2011 calendar page created  by Carole Ohl for my background/canvas. The spiral blessing represents the paths we walk in life - leading us, if we pay attention, into the core of our soul.  The tangles were chosen randomly, attempting balance between curvy and straight, soft and hard edges - I think, life.  

If you've read this far, I thank you for sharing this moment with me.  I am going to miss my son so much but, as I keep reminding myself, he's not going into the depths of the Congo.  He's going to Florida!  And he will have access to the internet on his days off. I've grown accustomed to his being only 2 hours away.  Yet - I am so proud of him.  I am so honored to know him.  I am working on being open and allowing all of the good the universe has for him!  

I leave you with this blessing from Fra. O'Donahue:

For the Artist at the Start of the Day:

May morning be astir with the harvest of night;

Your mind quickening to the eros of a new question,

Your eyes seduced by some unintended glimpse

That cut right through the surface to a source.

May this be a morning of innocent beginning,

When the gift within you slips clear

Of the sticky web of the personal

With its hurt and its hauntings,

And fixed fortress corners.

A morning when you become a pure vessel

for what wants to ascend from silence,

May your imagination know

The grace of perfect danger,

To reach beyond imitation,

And the wheel of repetition,

Deep into the call of all

The unfinished and unsolved

Until the veil of the unknown yields

And something original begins

To stir toward your senses

And grow stronger in your heart

In order to come to the birth

In a clean line of form,

That claims from time

A rhythm not yet heard,

That call space to

A different shape.

May it be its own force field

And dwell uniquely

Between the heart and the light

To surprise the hungry eye

By how deftly it fits

About its secret loss.

From To Bless the Space Between Us, (c) 2008

Happy Tangling!

All Tangled Up Inside (Challenge 44)

I missed last posting last week's challenge. I did it... it just took me a week.  I loved the concept of the sunflower, though, and I love this week's challenge to put a tangle inside a tangle.  For my "string-tangle" I chose Flux.  I seem to put this tangle in nearly every tile I draw so it's fitting, I think, to use it as my string.

The tangles inside the "petals" are: Betweed, Meer, Pepper w/ Mumsy, Florz w/ Squid, and Cadent.  This is the first time I've used Meer and Pepper.  Between the petals are Oof, Keenies, Limpitz, and Printemps topped off with Pendrils and Pokeroot.

Now - off for my weekend with my dear Maggiekat and precious Noah (and of course his mommy and uncle!) Maybe between challenges I'll blog about some of the changes happening in our family but for now -

Happy Tangling!

Hope

This week's challenge is in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness - the theme is hope.

Most of the time the challenge is finding the time to tangle or learning a new pattern.  The challenge for me this week was how to depict something as elusive as the concept of hope.  So many tangible and concrete things represent hope to me: a baby, the first daffodils peeking through snow, a cocoon, a job application, a lottery ticket.  I had a very hard time finding the one thing that inspires me to hope. I started by drawing a double-string of the word "hope." And then it dawned on me - rainbows.  I love color and light.  In lighting, white light is the presence of all color. Rainbows visually represent the entire refracted spectrum.  When  combined, the result is pure white light.  Healing light.  Hopeful light.  So... here are my interpretations.

A full spectrum of hope

The names bordering the ribbon are special people in my life - family and friends - who have been touched by cancer.  Both my mother, Louise, and sister, Judy, survived cancer.  My mother succumbed to Alzheimer's Disease July 2010.

“Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all.”  Emily Dickinson

Without hope dreams are meaningless.  Without hope we wouldn't put one foot in front of the other or dare to believe that a cure for cancer can be found in our lifetime. So, I wish you hope. And light.

Namaste - and happy tangling!

Weekly Challenge #41: DuoTangle v. II "Jonqal/Opus"

Sometimes the weekly challenges come easily, sometimes I get so bogged down in the trying that I never get anything done.  I appreciate the challenges, though.  It seems that I usually remember them at a time when I need to think something through.  Or a time when I am feeling particularly vulnerable (and struggling with accepting the vulnerability wholeheartedly).  This is one of those days - inexplicably out of sorts...feeling like I have done (or not done as the case may be) something wrong...maybe just something thoughtless.  I don't know why except I'm exhausted and I haven't been sleeping.  But lo! and behold... a challenge comes along to at least let me clear my head even if I have nothing figured out.  For once I have no opinion about my tile... I neither love nor dislike it.  I offer it as it is unconditionally.  Maybe in the letting go I'll figure out what is bother me.

Jonqal and Opus

Happy tangling.

#40 Pinwheels for Peace

"I am the Diva's" challenge this week reminds us that September 21, 2011 is the International Day of Peace.  The website for Pinwheels for Peace will give you all the information for this year's project.  I hope you will visit.

The zentangle challenge is to create a pinwheel however we are inspired to do so.  I  thought about it for quite awhile.  I looked at the template on Diva's site as well as the pictures on Pinwheels for Peace.  In a moment of bizarre inspiration (I say bizarre because I was between clients at work and it just came to me) I decided to create a pinwheel out of a tangled tile. I used a peace sign string that overlapped the edges of the tile and then tangled the peace sign with Xyp. Pais (a close approximation to Paix) and Inapod (Peas... as in whirled peas) complete the background. I cut the tile on the corners and folded it to create a mini pinwheel.

Thanks for stopping by,  Happy Tangling!

Shalom. Paz. Paix. Frieden. Pace. Pax. Peace.

Love means...

I truly appreciate Diva's challenge this week.  In tribute to the events of 9/11/01 and to advent healing for the world, Challenge #39 is to create a representation of love.  Before I even remembered it was Monday, I had been working on a tile for 9/11.  Another Sunday Sermon tangle that was born out of the emotion I was feeling.

So sometime on Monday I opened Diva's site and realized that she had posted this week's challenge (I think that's when I realized it was really Monday!)  I really loved her "love" tile. Her quotes and verses to illustrate love were spot on. Laura wrote: "So, this week the challenge is Love.  Whatever it sparks in you, however you want to interpret it.   As long as you do so with the spirit of love, because through love we have the ability to change the world."

The first thing that popped in my head was "mother love."  I can think of nothing more precious than mother-love (unless, of course, it's grandmother love!) so here is how the challenge sparked in me.

In the words of the immortal words of Mahatma Ghandi: "Where there is love, there is life." 

Namaste and happy tangling!

A paradox? A paradox, a most ingenious paradox! 
We've quips and quibbles heard in flocks, 
but none to beat this paradox!  (From Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan)

Sort of works with this week's theme of a Pair of Ducks by Laura (I am the Diva) Harms, don't you think?

Using a monotangle - this time Paradox - create a tile or zentangle inspired art.  I love Paradox... actually, I really like paradoxes (paradoces? paradices?) They make for lively twists and turns in most of my favorite novels, plays, and movies.  

I've been drawing this particular pattern long before I had even heard of Zentangle.  I used to "doodle" this little paradox all over my math papers (and got into mega-trouble for it, too! "Martha, you are not focusing!" -- oh, little did she know.  Anyway, I digress...)  I love how straight lines curve and trick the eye.  Well, admittedly, not all of my lines are that straight, but you get the picture.  Here are my offerings this week:

My first attempt.... I see doves' wings

I added little eyes (a la Leeanne's birds)

This one used the mandala pattern from several challenges ago

I love holly leaves, too, so I combined holly and paradox.  Even the berries got a paradox treatment.

 

Last, but not least, Paradox on Paradox (on Paradox)

See - I told you I really like this pattern.  I hope you do, too.

Now off to dinner and a movie with my hubby - a VERY rare occurrence!  Happy Tangling!