August 13, 2012

The yard is a cavern of green shadow this late in the morning, the sun nearly overhead, the sky a fair blue without cloud.  There is a faint breeze, just enough to stir the leaves a little, and you out there battling the cane again.  I think it has perhaps just become an exercise in . . . exercise, with not real hope of victory.  I have not seen the blue jays this morning, nor the squirrels; it's rather quiet and empty out, now that the weed eater is silent.  An occasional jet traces sound overhead, and there is news in the background.

Driving home from El Paso, you can see both expected things and unexpected things.  One of the things you often see on the way is a thin line of green along some hidden stream or arroyo.  Here trees take advantage of whatever water collects there, often in the driest places, sheltered by near hills, cottonwoods grow.  They get their name from the white fluffy seeds they let loose to drift like dandelion down on every breeze, often looking like a kind of dry snow.  They are hardy trees, given to living in places other trees find too difficult.  They begin new lives by letting go of old ones, something they can perhaps teach us, to begin a day or a week or a life by giving something away to the wind, by letting go.

Cottonwood Trees

The cottonwoods are
flinging themselves outward,
filling the air with spiraling flurries,
covering lawns in deepening drifts.
You could not call this generosity.
Like any being, they
let loose what they have
in order to survive,
in order that their lives might continue
in a new year's growth.
The more seeds they send out
on their lofted journeys
the greater the chance
for their kind to flourish.
There is no hesitation.
No one asks how much
they will give. Without words
they know so clearly
that everything depends
on what we call giving,
that which the world knows only as creation.

Lynn Ungar

Creation, hmm, this weekend in the Brain Pickings there was a segment about making art, and it has a lot of interesting things to say.  One of the most interesting things was from Sister Corita Kent, one of her "rules" for the art department:  Nothing is a mistake.  There's no win and no fail, there's only make.  For months and months I've had, as a gift from Mikayla, Chinese inks and brushes for painting in that style.  I've bought books on the technique, more than several, and yet after all this time, I have not started to work with them.  I realized why . . . I'm afraid I won't be able to do it, that I will fail.  I tell my students my grandmother's maxim, Anything worth doing well is worth doing badly for a time.  I tell them that but somewhere deep in my heart, I don't trust it, not, at least, for this.  I want to be good when I start out.  I don't want to make stupid drawings, clumsy, inadequate things.  I want to make graceful, elegant drawings that have spirit and heart.   Fear has shut the door, and even gone so far as to lock it tight.   So, I think today I chose the cottonwood poem perhaps because I am coming up on the time when I need to give away my fear, so I can just make, no win, no fail, just make.   Just loft out all those drawing that will not be perfect, just throw seeds around until something takes and I get an idea of how to do it.  Sometimes things come together from different sources to give you a push in the direction of your desire.  I think I've had my push <smile>.