For 3 days the water
soaked into the hay,
transforming the dirt into mud.
Dry ditches flowed with runoff.
Happy blades of grass turned green.
Sun rose, birds sang, even if
all was not right with the world.
~ enjoy a one-minute video with the sound on ~
P.S. A week earlier, Shelly had a rare viewing of the water filling the canal for the first time in the season! See it on Instagram.
Have you stopped lately to honor your hands? Behold your hands, human. Palms. Fingers, eight, plus two thumbs.
What can you hold? Tension? Beauty? Love? Truth?
Hold out your hands and close your eyes and you will receive a big surprise.
My peace I give you.
Here, take my hand.
Whose hand do you want to hold?
Supposing I could make an offering of these hands, these bowls of beauty and strength?
My hands, like Walt Whitman’s singing self, can hold multitudes. Yet I have no fingers or thumbs.
My hands may be empty, but I am not empty handed.
Some hands are tired. Needs must rest.
Supposing it’s not what we hold, but what we behold that matters.
Behold not the hands but the flowers the heart beholds!
Here’s to you and your amazing hands, whatever they’re beholding today!
Thanks for reading! Check out our video version as well:
P.S. If you enjoyed this reflection, check out our new card deck, Supposing: Reflections for Accessing Your Wise Inner Artist, available in print and on the Deckible app.
I have a box where I keep ideas, like props I want to play with some day. In that box sits a light bulb twice as big as my palms.
It’s hard to hold onto ideas, sometimes. They’re fleeting. Unclear. Brilliant but bygone as soon as you try to fill them with details and words.
This light bulb wove its way to the top of the box and the top of my mind, after decades encased with a clip between plastic and cardboard. “It’s my time,” it whispered, then rattled some more.
The sun had barely crept over the mesa when the light bulb woke me that day. At first it asked to simply be held and beholded. It was slippery, that idea. My lack of opposable thumbs didn’t help!
I sought a twist-tie in the kitchen, but it was too short. Then I found a rubberband in my junk drawer, where other ideas toss-tumble and jumble, waiting their turn. Now I could hold that idea more firmly, testing its shine as the sun spilled over the peaks, past orchards and pastures, into my window. I leaned into listening to the idea, so quiet at first.
When have you heard an idea beginning to form? Does it whisper? Does grab your attention with a blinding Aha!!! ???
Snowflake, having finished her breakfast, had questions about this idea. But it was too early to clarify with any coherence, so she glared instead.
“Too bright,” she mutter-meowed.
Truth. Beauty. Love. Good words. Good ideas. But where do we go with concepts like that? We must lift up ideas to be seen, examined, experienced…
Let new ideas swirl in the light of day dawning…
Go toward the light. To the window! To the view!
“Staying indoors is not good enough,” said the idea. “Go outside and play,” it insisted. Ask other bulbs how do they grow…
When queried, “How do you do? And by the way, how do you shine?” the grape hyacinths answered, “We simply bloom from our bulbs into blue. We just be as we do.”
“So that’s how you shine?” I and the light bulb replied, our question mark rising an octave.
“I’m beginning to see,” I said to the light bulb, meaning this idea about shining your light.
Aha! I declared as we brimmed full of photons. We are diamonds in the sky, day and night.
We can twinkle in daylight, we can twinkle in dark. We can dream in starlight and sunshine.
What ideas are coming to life because you’re shining your light?
How are you holding the light that YOU are, not just in your mind but your soul?
We love the idea of YOU and your light! Please keep shining brightly!
Took my inner artist to the beach today on this rare dry Seattle Saturday. The sun was already behind clouds, but I didn’t care. I met two most wonderful seashells, rare to find whole, hard to find small, fun to zoom in on in wonder. Enjoy meeting them, too.
[Please enjoy our second video story and photos!]
I walked down to the meadow on Saint Patrick’s Day to visit my friend, Mr. Gnome. The daffodil sisters were shouting with their hyacinth smell for me to come over. They had something to say.
I stood on a log to get closer. The eldest leaned down. I peered into her face, and inhaled as big as I could.
“Oh my gosh, you smell divine!”
“Why, thank you,” she said, on behalf of the whole clump of girls. And they giggled and waved with delight.
“The slugs have been bugging us,” the eldest told me. “Their breath is so bad. Can you help?”
“I’m not at all sure,” I replied. “What can I do? They live here, too.”
“Just look at these holes in our petals!” she cried.
“You may look bedraggled,” I said, “But that’s what comes from a full season of growth. You’re living your life. You’re feeding the slugs. You’re perfuming the air with your heavenly notes. You’re lovely narcissus!”
Then I added, “You’ve made this meadow a sight to behold. I’m beholden to you and your crew.
“And I know for a fact, you’ve blessed and impressed more than me, the slugs and the bees. We’re so lucky you live here. I don’t know what to do, but let’s ask Mr. Gnome.”
I knew with his spidey-sense ears that he’d heard the whole conversation.
Mr. Gnome simply whispered, “I’ll have a talk with the slugs.”
This morning’s glorious blossoms called for a song.
And a serenade.
So we invited Izzy’s spirit to our backyard
and invited him to play for us
and his namesake plum tree.
Apologies for the birds, the bees and the Cessna
for their fly-by’s in hopes of being seen.
Every blossom on the tree cheered when Izzy was done.
It really is a wonderful world!
A curious equine
leans down to sniff
Hey, horsey
Come see me
What’s your name?
A second later, this one bit my hand!
I’m done.
I’m gonna explore
Hi little mushrooms
Can you see spot a four-leaf clover?
Rooster wants to play lookout
He’s comin’ to get me
Tough little bugger
Pretty preener
(Kristie, this one’s for you!)
Out back of the barn there’s this
old worn down lean-to
I have to go see
Magical blossoms
A moth a’lit there a moment ago
Balance beam angles
I love these blue beams
Wobbley balance beam to the barn
Emerald green pastures
sploch splish splooooch
Can I balance around the bend?
No.
Guess it’s time to go home.
Bella Luna was the first Emotikin
born in April 2003.
She came alive on the
banks of the Colorado River.
Now she lives near
the shores of Puget Sound,
original Emoti-queen.
Happy Birthday!
Thanks for a decade of
kindling my creativity!!
Greetings, viewers (said in a whisper). Thanks for tuning in to our show.
Today we’re going to take you on an adventure into the driftwood caves
of West Seattle in search of the elusive sand crab.
I’m in costume so that when we find one, it won’t be startled.
And my producer and I thought it was really just more fun.
Follow me and my camera crew as we enter this old log.
Do you see that mist? Legend has it that the older driftwood caves
exhale a vapor rich in iodine, which these sand-crabs need for breeding.
It’s getting colder as we go deeper. Do you hear the crab’s melodic whistle?
It’s very faint, but those of us with trained hearing know what to listen for.
We have to squeeze sideways through this cave to get into the next room.
We’re getting closer. I can feel it.
Quiet now. We’re almost there.
Dave, are you getting this on camera?
Here, shine your light over here!
We found one!
There you have it, folks! We have to cut to commercial now,
but I’m going to sit and chat with our new friend awhile.
We hope you enjoyed today’s show.
See you next week as we explore the…
It was a rainy Sunday in Seattle, and Emotikin needed to get out of the house!
“Let’s take a walk,” she said to rubber ducky, who had been twiddling his leash
and watching TV all day, bored bored bored, just waiting for the invitation.
California Avenue on a Sunday afternoon was busier than they expected.
Lots of folks with cabin fever were out and about since the showers had turned to drops.
“Whoa!” said the dog (fresh from his grooming appointment next door).
“What the duck?!”
“Can I smell that maple creature?”
“Hey, don’t get too close to my duck, dog! That’s not a toy!”
Lucky duck, escaped the dog!
So the duck and Emotikin continued their walk in West Seattle,
and greeted other Sunday walkers on their way.
“We don’t need no stinkin’ umbrella,” whispered the duck after those folks passed by.
Stopped to talk with a worm who didn’t say much.
Emotikin couldn’t help but start humming that song made
famous by Ernie. “Rubber ducky, you’re the one…”
“…you make Seattle so much fun,
rubber ducky I’m awfully fond of you!
Boo boopy doo!”
A rainy Sunday is so much better after a walk!
Emotikin World 
