Search Results for: just two people

There was a lull in the crowds coming into my art gallery during the Open House.  Carol Law Conklin was at the farm most of the day, she was there when Pamela walked into my Gallery to look at the work.  I introduced her to Pam and immediately saw something happen between them.  It was the horse connection which both women intuitively have.  Carol told Pamela how when she had to give away her horses she felt like now she was alone and had to walk on her own two feet instead of the four feet of her horse that felt most natural to her.

Then Pamela told Carol some horse stories from the Native American Blue Horse to the Ancient Greek Pegasus.   Carol listened, soaking them up, I know I’ll see those stories  appear somehow  in Carol’s Batiks.  I could feel the connection between these two women who had just met for the first time.   A knowing energy pass between them.  An understanding that went beyond words.   Neither of them doubts the importance of horses in our lives.  Carol expresses it in images, Pamela in stories and the way she lives her life.

I’ve seen this type of thing happen with Pamela before.  And I’ve experienced it myself.   When Pamela starts to talk to me about the horses, their hearts and the way they think, when she tells the stories of us and them, I feel myself shift.  It’s similar to what happens to me when I’m making my art.  It’s as if this world that I live in, my day to day existence starts to slip away.  And soon I’m inhabiting a different space.  I slip into another world.  And the stories become more real than the chair I’m sitting on.

I think there are some people who are not of our world.  People like the saints and the mystics.  When I think of Pamela my mind goes to Johnny Appleseed (who was a real person, a lover of the earth and animals who traveled around planting trees and had the first horse rescue farm in what is now Ohio) and St. Francis of Assisi.  Both of them lived a wild sort of life, not fitting into society in any traditional way, if at all.   But with meaningful messages about our connection to the earth and nature that have lasted through time.

The more I get to know Pamela, them more I feel she’s not of our world.  She doesn’t have the same sense of time, money or ownership that most of us have.  Her passion and calling is to protect the horses, to remind us of the important part they play in our lives.   She does this by bringing the horses to us one at a time, and by telling their stories.

I understand Pamela, because I’m a visitor to that other world.  I’m drawn to it.  It feels like a safe place I forgot existed but am very familiar with once I’m there again.     I go there, but I always  have one foot grounded in this world.   The other world,  is boundless and mysterious,  more of the air than the earth.  And when I think of it, my heart swells and I can’t help but cry.  It’s a place where time melts  and there’s hope for what in this world seems impossible.

But I have this practical side to me.  I think it’s always scared me, the idea of staying in that other world.  As much as I’ve felt that I don’t fit in here, I keep trying.  And I’m finding in some ways I do fit in.  But I’ll always go back and forth, because that other world calls to me.  And I think living here on Bedlam Farm with Jon and the animals and being able to do my work, I’ve figured that out for now.     How to be a part of both worlds in a way that works for me.  Surrounded by people who understand.   But I imagine that will change and evolve too.  As nothing in life is fixed.  I think there’s a place for all of us, no matter which worlds we inhabit.  It’s just a matter of trying finding it.  And to never stop searching.

I wasn’t planning on making this tree look like a very confident woman, but that’s just what I saw when I finished it.  Can you see it in her posture? She’s saying,  Here I am and I am beautiful.

Janet wrote to me and said some Native American tribes called trees Standing People.  That’s just how I see trees.  And I think it shows in my Tree Potholders.

Yesterday, Kim finished assembling my Tree Potholders and I have a few for sale.  Sold Out. They are stitched on tea-stained Vintage Hankies and are $23 each + $5 shipping for 1-2 and $7 shipping for 3 or more.( shipping is a bit more outside the US)   If you recognize one of these Standing People and would like to have them in your home, just email me here at [email protected].

Here’s the rest of my Tree Potholders….

You know how sometimes two trees will grow so close to each other they start to grow into each other.  When I see this in the woods, I always think of them as lovers.

In the book, Ancient Trees by Beth Moon, she has may photos of big old oaks with giant trunks and tiny leaves. They’re a bit misshapen by  their life experiences and many of them are hollow.  All the living is in the bark and a thick layer of trunk beneath it.  But, often, the center of the tree creates a cavern big enough for people to walk into.  Looking at them, I know they have something to teach us.

Trees are so alive in so many ways.  From what happens inside of them that we don’t see, to the evidence of life in the leaves and growth that happens every year.  But there’s also all the creatures who live in them and the food and oxygen they give to us.

Those trees that grow so close to each other sometimes, but are not yet connected, often make a kind of music when the wind blows.  When they rub up against each other, I always stop to listen, to see which trees are singing.  And if they’re singing, they’re dancing too, every time the wind blows.

I got some great potholder stories from the potholder contest.  So I thought I share some of them.  This is from Karen Kosky Coker one of the winners:

“Many moons ago(in the early 80’s) I was delivering mail in Staten Island NY.  Some people just took for granted that mail would appear in the box hanging by their front doors.  Others had a keen appreciation for the folks who make that happen.  Two elderly sisters on my route each quilted a potholder for me.  What a wonderful and personal gift.  (And they worked,  nothing worse that burning one’s hand on  a poorly crafted potholder)  Every time I use these potholders (yes, I have them after all these years) I think of these two lovely and thoughtful women.”

(The night sky potholder was a pretty popular.   Since I have more of the fabric I’ve decided to make more.  The one above is in it’s early potholder stage.)

This Thanksgiving, is the first Thanksgiving that I’m actually freely choosing how I want to spend the holiday and doing it.  It’s been a long road to get here, 49 years.  For most of my life I didn’t think about it much, or at all.  I just did what I had always done, never considering what I really wanted to do.  The past couple of years, I broke away from my tradition of having Thanksgiving with the family I grew up in and had it with friends instead.  And this was nice, and I would do it again.  But it was in keeping with the same tradition I grew up with.

This year, when Jon and I talked about how we wanted to spend Thanksgiving, it was different.  I didn’t feel bound to any tradition.  I didn’t feel guilty (well, maybe just for fleeting moments) about not spending it with the family I grew up in.  I just thought about how I, without the baggage of past years and other people’s ideas about the Thanksgiving, would  really like to spend the day.

My first thought was to stay home and just take the day off, be with Jon and have a nice dinner, not necessarily turkey.  But that was just an antidote to the holiday, not something I really wanted to do.  My next thought was to go to our favorite Inn in Vermont.  But I didn’t even get a chance to say it out loud when Jon suggested the same thing.  And when I heard the words, I knew there was nothing else I’d rather do.

A big part of Thanksgiving is family.  It’s the most traveled day of the year in the United States, people driving and flying miles to be with family.  But for me when I think of the holidays and family, I feel a loneliness that I’ve known my whole life.  A loneliness that I thought was normal, until I met Jon.

Even though I was married to my first husband when I was 22, since I never had children, I never saw myself as having a family other than the one I grew up in and the one I married into to.  I never considered the idea that just two people, like a wife and her husband could be a family. So when people said things like, “my family comes first”  or “spending time with family”,  I always thought it was about other people, not me and my husband.

But I’m just realizing, for the first time, that Jon is my family.   And I want us to have our own traditions, the traditions we choose.   So I’m spending this Thanksgiving with my family.  We’re doing something new, something neither of us has done before and something we both choose to do.   Something that makes me smile when I think about it, something that makes me feel grateful that I’m able to do it.  Something me and my family love to do.

Yesterday I emailed Lisa to let her know her pillow was done.  Today she wrote me a long email explaining why it was so right for her at just this time.  She saw things in the pillow I hadn’t thought of.  It was a connection straight from me to her.  I cried.

And I realized that this is what it’s really all about.  Making that connection with someone.  I think so much of life is about belonging, about knowing we are not alone. And I believe that connection is bigger than just two people having a shared experience.  It’s like swallowing the Universe and filtering it through our being then sharing it with the world.

I keep my Heart Open and my center Strong
dare to Live A Full Life
Let your Soul Lead Your Mind
feel my words