For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.
People, more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself and the other for helping others.
Engagement photo shoot from last night (5-29-12)
By Gracie Dueck
Thanks to Stefan H. and Sarah L.
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” - C.S. Lewis (by Boy_Wonder)
Simryn Gill used books as a raw material, choosing words such as ‘because’, ‘vessel’, ‘always’, ‘jealous’, and ‘lull’, and removing them from the books to investigate if, and how, words lose or take on meaning when taken away from their intended structures and contexts.
Reading is a sultry combination of immersion into imaginary awareness, and the continued effect of unaware reality. As we read, we shift our awareness inward, where we partake in the senses of the imagination. Our being, unable to completely cross over the divide of time and timelessness, is no longer fully aware of the environment. But we continue to be effected by the reality of which we are not fully aware. Our physical senses still respond to the stimuli as they have been conditioned. Our mood is still influenced by our environment. The light by which we read influences our imagination to the same extent as the guiding of the text. How sweet it is when reality compliments our imaginary! Both the mood and the meaning of a firefly reconcile time and timelessness in a transitory moment, a moment that is initially experienced seemingly without end, and yet, once over, condenses into a compact memory. Experienced out of time, remembered within time.
We read by the light of the fireflies
The history of the changes sighs
Pages of hellos, goodbyes
Where the wandering descent of disparity plies
-
A distance happens that won’t divide
But strengthens ties between the wide
Of time, the changer to the wise
A time, unmetered, after skies
Twice I have sought out a voice teacher and attempted to apply myself. I don’t know why I did it. It wasn’t so I could become famous, or even incredibly good. I thought it would improve my voice, but with no goal or degree of excellence in mind. I did it because when I sing, I am portraying my unaffected soul. I am opening up. And I wanted to be able do so with such a confidence in myself that no one would be able to criticize or judge what came out. My voice is my soul, and to sing is an act of conscious vulnerability.
Twice I took voice lessons. And twice I quit, in a struggle of emotion and confusing reason. I think it was humiliating me, deeply, to make my soul a study. Each critique, question, and problem was, to them, about my voice. But to me, it was about my soul. I could not stand for that.
There are those who’s voices are just that. Voices. They use them to play a part, their part. It is a performance; delightful, I’m sure, but just that. A performance. I can’t do that. Not unless you know what my voice really is. It is the untamed, immortal, raw part of me materializing into song. My very sense of wild, unrestrained identity. When I sing, I’m letting you see this. And it terrifies me.
So they learned to fly away
Uniqueness is not the intent of my art. I’m not trying to discover something no one has ever discovered before. Art that is created for the purpose of being unique usually ends up being conspicuously pretentious. No, my aim in creating art is to discover something I myself have never imagined before…whether inspired by the sighting of a masterpiece, or the recognition of a clearly sung note.
Have I ever felt this way before? Have I ever noticed a colour so rich? Heard a song so powerful? Been part of a moment of overpowering awareness? Have I ever had that unquestionable knowing that is His voice? These, these are my personal discoveries. They are the ordinary, insignificant adventures we pass by every day. These details trigger reactions strong enough to create. So I embrace the ordinary and ignore the gaining ideas of uniqueness.
Gift of the Ordinary #4
The change of seasons…I just realized that winter is actually here. Driving to work late at night, I saw snow on the ground. Snow. How did I miss the transformation? When did we get this snow? I don’t even remember. I’ve become so unaware of my surroundings while holing myself up with homework, that I’ve missed the realization of the first snow. Don’t miss this season’s special, go for a short walk and enjoy the satisfying crunch under foot.
Gift of the Ordinary #3
Hot mugs, held by frozen fingers. After running in and out of doors on a 20 degree day, without a coat or mittens, fingers quickly become stiff and tingly. Opening the car door, opening the hood of the car, screwing and unscrewing this and that in the blustery Windsday chill. Yet I can come home, pour soup into a favourite mug, and heat it up till I can see copious amounts of steam. Then I can just sit and hold it. My partially paralyzed fingers wrap around the warmth, I hold it to my chest, I bow my face down to it’s radiating balminess. In the end it will be cold and empty, and my fingers will freeze once more in this Minnesota wasteland. And then I’ll find something beautifully ordinary about that, too.
Gift of the Ordinary #2
The soothing shade of curtains drawn. The light softens, transforms the room into a bluish early morning gray. And my eyes can relax, the stress clenching my mind ease as the tiredness of this world is shut out by the simple draping of a cloth.
Gift of the Ordinary #1:
An ordinary cup of steaming coffee. Also, a microwave to reheat it. Three times. Every time I pour it fresh out of the pot, or take it out of the microwave, I hold it up to the light filtering through the window. I observe with satisfaction the silky steam rising from the thick brown liquid and find my way to the couch. This is one of my favourite ordinary gifts.
Is it just me, or is there no sky light?
Am I just deaf, and numb, and lack sight?
It’s real but surreal, surrounding nebulous
Staring at heaven incredulous
Night walk after night walk
Round and round the same block
Yes, it seems it would appear
Nothing is shining through the atmosphere
