Seeing Yellow

The phrase "seeing red" captures the cartoon version of anger. A character's eyes bug out. Veins bulge. Bursting blood vessels color vision crimson.

I have a much sunnier alternative to that phrase: seeing yellow. Another component of my ecotherapy involves seeing and appreciating sun-catching yellows everywhere.

Sometimes they stand out alone against a green backdrop.

Other times a red barn or other building makes them pop.

They are energy, shimmering flames of a happy blaze.

They spur me on.

But add a little red, and yellow becomes stern: it spells caution.

Dream Time

"Waking from a dream, . . . I determined on enveloping matters of fact in allegory. . . . The frequent recurrence of the word dream . . . in the book is in accordance with the origin of the work, and is intended to remind the reader of the author's intent."
--Cao Xueqin, The Dream of the Red Chamber

Dreams hold such power. Our hopes and anxieties play out on their stage, directed by our unconscious mind. Vivid colors and lively music seeped into my dreams when I was in a particularly creative period in my early 20s. Dream characters in unusual settings have inspired the beginnings of several stories. In the last few years, a recurring dream of mine involves an addition to our house that we somehow keep forgetting we have. The rooms and furniture remain the same in every dream, and yet they don't exist in reality. Scary dreams--these days of my kids in peril--can still wake me up in a cold sweat.

I won the lovely dream journal and cover shown above in a giveaway at Quince and Quire. Written by a poet and artist, this relatively new blog features exquisite musings on home, family, crafting, collections, and creativity. Q & Q chronicles everyday beauty in photos. Her words draw out the invisible connections that spin an even more beautiful web around what she sees. In turn, her fluid calligraphy, done in gouache, makes her words tactile. I run my fingers across the word "dream" on the journal cover, and the letters whisper like magical runes.

The dream journal arrived tucked inside the pocket of a fabric sleeve sewn by Q & Q. Kaffe Fassett's Clouds Pattern fabric recalls the gold-woven silk brocades of Nanjing, China. Produced for more than 1500 years, the Nanjing Yunjin ("Cloud Brocade") fabric has clothed emperors, nobles, and concubines. Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the classic novels of Chinese literature, is set in Nanjing in the time when thousands of looms produced the brocade that the Emperor demanded as tribute.

The spiral-formed clouds were--and still are--a dominant motif in the richly colored brocades. In Fassett's interpretation, each cloud is rimmed in gold in the Charcoal colorway shown here. The other colors add depth to the spiral pattern, drawing the viewer inward. On the journal, Q & Q's rendering of golden clouds outlined in white echo the fabric and issue a sweet injunction to "dream."

I've set the journal beside my bed. It will hold my dreams. Thanks, Q & Q.

Happy Earth Day!

Spring has arrived in earnest, just in time to provide glorious decorations for our Earth Day celebration. Yesterday I hiked in a nearby nature preserve and took these photos of nature’s Earth Day display. I enjoyed seeing the skunk cabbage with its leaves unfurled, a satisfying progress report after seeing the odd plant in its earliest spring phase on my hike with Margie a few weekends ago.

This was my second hike this week, and it’s been a long time since I have carved out big chunks of time to get outside and exercise and enjoy nature. I know how good it makes me feel mentally and physically to hike, bike, and garden. Somewhere in my photo box there is a picture of me digging a hole to plant a tree, and I have a look of pure joy on my face. So why don’t I make time every day to do the activities that I enjoy the most? Winter, illness, work, and child-rearing have been my excuses for not getting outside and glorying in the fresh air and getting some much-needed exercise.

Just recently I chanced upon the concept of “lifestyle redesign,” which has got me thinking about how I spend my days. “Lifestyle redesign” was coined by University of Southern California occupational therapy professor Florence Clark. She defines it as “a therapeutic approach to redesigning one’s days in such a way that one can be happy, maximally productive, and experience emotional well-being.” It involves a balance between work and play and emphasizes healthy eating, exercise, and leisure pursuits ON A DAILY BASIS.

There’s nothing revolutionary about the lifestyle redesign concept. We all know that we should embrace healthier lifestyles. But I think it involves a huge perceptual shift to look at each activity we do every day and ask, Is this how I should be spending my time? Is this activity, on balance, aiding my physical and emotional health? For example, I’ve just spent the last two hours sitting in front of the computer. What if instead I had chosen to chat with my husband, who I haven’t seen all day? Our relationship would be the stronger for it, and that would increase both of our levels of happiness.

I really have no answers at the moment for how I would achieve a lifestyle redesign. But I know that making the time to be outside is a key component of the overhaul.

It soothes my nerves. It allows me to have breathing room. It gives me perspective. I take in not only the big expanse of sky but also the lovely little details that are often overlooked. My brain seems to work better, and I go home and back to my responsibilities with a renewed sense of excitement and purpose. And the “ecotherapy” is cheaper than any prescription antidepressant or talk therapy.

I hope you have a chance to search out some green space to enjoy a little ecotherapy of your own on Earth Day and beyond.

A Little Sulphur for the Soul

Sulphur Springs fountain at Clifton Springs, New York

We enjoyed near-perfect spring weather last week. I may even have overdosed a little on sunlight in my enthusiasm to embrace the spring rays. I think by the end of the week I may also have been suffering from a quiet-time deficit. I had fit in only two hours of writing time and a few crafting moments, and even those felt rushed. I knew I needed a peaceful Sunday adventure to clear my scattered mind so that I could be better prepared for this week of busyness.

My boys and I drove to Clifton Springs, a village in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. The Haudenosaunee (also known as the Iroquois) originally discovered and made use of the medicinal sulphur springs in the area. The whole town eventually came to center around wellness, both physical and spiritual, and was known in its heyday as "The Model Village."

Dr. Henry Foster completed his Water Cure Facility in 1850 to offer patients suffering from arthritis and other ailments the benefit of the "water cure." Dr. Foster ushered in a period of intense growth for the village. Many of the original buildings from this era remain today.

I enjoyed a very peaceful hour or so at the Foster Cottage while my kids played games at the YMCA. Dr. Foster built the cottage for his family, and now it houses a museum run by the Clifton Springs Historical Society. Browsing the exhibits in the beautifully restored home transported me back to the Victorian era, when modern medicine was coming into its own. Some components of the water cure today seem decidedly non-therapeutic. (In fact, the needle spray shower and the electric current bath call to mind Abu Ghraib rather than a hospital.) But Dr. Foster's comprehensive, holistic approach to healing echoes modern medical practice.

Photographs of four decades of nurses graduating from the Clifton Springs nursing school reminded me of the important role women played in the town's development. They were a vital part of the medical care offered in the town's hospitals. By the early 20th century, their roles had extended to the political arena. Clifton Springs is not far from Seneca Falls, where Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first women's rights convention in the United States in 1848. Women from Clifton Springs organized a branch of the Woman Suffrage Association and hosted its conventions with nationally recognized speakers.

For the next several months, the Clifton Springs Chamber of Commerce will be hosting "Super Sundays" to celebrate the town's sesquicentennial. Whatever ails you, it's definitely worth a visit to this quiet town to feel immersed in an earlier era of health and social improvement.

Spring Break

At the end of last week I spent a lovely morning outside. My son and I wandered around our yard admiring the spring flowers in bloom on the warm, sunny day. He spotted a clump of crocuses in full bloom, and the sun just lit up their deep orange centers. So of course I had to run in to get the camera to try to capture that little cup of sunshine and the rest of the proud spring flowers.

The next day we went outside again to finish our gardening chores, and that lovely clump of crocuses was gone. At first I thought, Were they just a beautiful dream--a wish for spring to have arrived in full? But on closer inspection, I noticed the green leaves of the crocuses and one wilted blossom. The leaves had been neatly chewed down to their bases, probably by a hungry deer.

Having the crocuses so beautiful and complete one day and gone the next was a lesson for me that I needed to be reminded of. The world around me changes every day, and I need to be present to experience it--not only aware of and responsive to the natural world, but with my family and friends. I can't take anything for granted.

I'll be taking a blog break to put this little life lesson into practice.

Enjoy the season and the changes it brings!

Skunk Cabbage

Through the changing seasons, the woods yield a new landscape at every visit. This past Saturday, when I visited the woods with Margie of Resurrection Fern, I had the added benefit of experiencing the landscape with someone who has a deep appreciation of nature's rhythms.

It was a blustery, overcast day, and a soft snow was borne on the wind. We had the woods completely to ourselves. Our conversation flowed in comfortable snippets as we soaked up the otherworldly feel of the wetlands at their wettest and heard the quiet creaking of the bare trees.

It was such a joy to have a hiking companion who likes to stop and appreciate the smallest vistas. What a treat to see how a clump of moss became a magical miniature habitat through her lens. How the silhouettes of trees reflected in a small puddle became a rippling aura in an Impressionist-like photograph.

In her quiet way, Margie made me feel adventurous that day. I wrote this poem to capture one part of our hike that felt like a treasure hunt.

Skunk Cabbage

If you are quiet
In the winter swamp
You may hear the secret tunneling downward
Of roots that seem to be reaching for a tropical land.

The thermogenic heart of the skunk cabbage
warms the winter earth.
It melts snow and ice to emerge in early spring
to a land of soggy mounds
and the remains of winter:
puddles lined with brown leaves;
the ghostly shape of a bloated frog floating belly up.

The two pointed tips of its leathery spathe
Pierce the ground like the poison-tipped arrows of a lost Amazonian tribe.
The twin spades arc gracefully as they open their eggplant bellies
Curving into sensuous, sculptural forms:
An advertisement, an enticement
To bees and other winsome pollinators.

Warm heart meets cold air,
Creating a perfect spring breeze
That carries the heady scent of carrion.
A bee rides the luxuriant thermal
into the egg-shaped spadix
and enjoys the sweet meal of petal-less pollen,
a first taste of the coming spring banquet.


**A note about the photo shown here: I took this photos two weeks ago on a family hike. You can see Margie's gorgeous, deeply colored photograph from our hike on her Flickr photostream and in this collection of photos in her amazing post.

What a Heart Needs

And what happened then . . . ?
Well . . . in Who-ville they say
That the Grinch's small heart
Grew three sizes that day!
--Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957)

It took three days for me, but, like the Grinch, my small heart grew three sizes this weekend. I spent time with two amazing women, with a third amazing woman present in spirit. My friend Maya hosted a visit from our mutual blogging friend Margie. I could not imagine a more appropriate setting than N.'s barn (the third woman whose presence encompassed us in a very loving way) to finally meet Margie, whose blog I instantly fell in love with when I first read it last spring. (This was the first post I read of Margie's.) I really am not adept enough with words to express how incredibly special it was to be in the physical presence of such loving, brilliant, and creative women. To see the world through their eyes as they experienced it, to hear the sweet timbre of their voices, to enjoy their quiet laughter--my heart is indeed full with the feeling that our friendship blossomed this weekend.



If you don't mind indulging me, I'll be sharing more of our weekend in future posts. I'm going to need some time to process it all, and I think I learned more about the creative process--and myself--in this one weekend than I have in the entire year of this blog journey that I've been on. Perhaps I could even say that it was the culmination of my creative journey.



What I hope for you, my friends, in April to grow your heart and nurture your creative spirit: hike with a friend or two or three and let the conversation flow (be sure to go off trail to find a hidden treasure); watch a friend frame breath-taking photographs to enlarge your point of view; sit in a book store with a friend and a pile of books and magazines; window shop with a friend; unpack a suitcase of collected and created treasures with a friend or two.