“…failure with clay was more complete and more spectacular than with other forms of art. You are subject to the elements… Any one of the old four – earth, air, fire, water – can betray you and melt, or burst, or shatter – months of work into dust and ashes and spitting steam. You need […]
Throwing, shaping, firing, Creating. Pottery Read More »
The great art of learning is to understand but little at a time. ~John Locke Well, I guess I’m on the path to great learning because there are some topics about which I am learning only a little at a time. With those, I am absolutely thick-headed and I make no apologies for it. I
Silly topics that challenge my understanding Read More »
We all get the exact same 365 days. The only difference is what we do with them. ~Hillary DePiano The post from 12-28-23 addressed figuring out what’s important and weeding out the activities that don’t make the cut. This one is similar but deals with things we’ve always done, at least as far as we
New Year traditions. Keep ’em or kick ’em? Read More »
Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. ~ Anne Lamott Like some of you, dear readers, I find it incredibly simple to solve other people’s time management issues. Feeling stressed because you’ve over-committed? You’d prefer to resign from the executive board of the Blah, Blah, Blah group,
Want a restart? SLOW DOWN. UNPLUG. Read More »
She sat still, I thought, and yet she traveled. And when one stitches, the mind travels, not the way men do, with ax and oxen through the wilderness, but surely our traveling counted too, as motion. And I thought of the patience of the stitches. Writing a book, I thought, which men often do, but
A CENTURIES-Old Skill – is quilting still a thing? Read More »
I’ve got a bad case of the 3:00 am guilts – you know, when you lie in bed awake and replay all those things you didn’t do right? Because, as we all know, nothing solves insomnia like a nice warm glass of regret, depression and self-loathing. ~ D.D. Barant, Dying Bites I would say that the above
Walking the Beam of Regret and Reward Read More »
Every other civilized nation in the world has been compelled to care for its forests, and so must we if waste and destruction are not to go on to the bitter end. ~ John Muir Mr. Muir was actively involved in environmental causes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. All told, he spent
The hair of the dog; a prescription for our forests Read More »
You hear about adrenaline, how it spurs you on and gives you uncanny strength, but there’s a flip side. The feeling is heady, out of control. It heightens your senses to the point of paralysis. You have to harness the power or it’ll choke you down. ~ Harlan Coben, Tell No One I have never been
In a rush? The heart racing kind? Read More »
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. ~ Epicurus How very true. I have heard a number of high-profile personalities state that you should compare yourself only to who you were yesterday, not to anyone
Gratitude, Freely Given, is the Best Gift Read More »
There are very few things in the world I hate more than Daylight Savings Time. It is the grand lie of time, the scourge of science, the blight on biological understanding. ~ Michelle Franklin Ms. Franklin is so angry she added an ‘s’ where it didn’t belong. Most of us do. It’s just one more thing
Does anybody really know what time it is? Read More »
Peasants have believed in dowsing, and scientists used to believe that dowsing was only a belief of peasants. Now there are so many scientists who believe in dowsing that the suspicion comes to me that it may only be a myth after all. ~Charles Fort Dowsing tools have ranged from forked sticks to bent wires
Useful Search Tool? You decide. Read More »
We cannot live in a world where the Monarch Butterfly does not exist. Period. ~ Tarisa Parrish, The Adventures of Johnny Butterflyseed As with many other topics I attempt to address, I knew little about butterflies before I began research for this post. However, I did have one experience with another GSMNP volunteer, Mark Weingartz, when I
The amazing flights of the Monarchs Read More »
A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not. ~ Ernest Hemingway For as long as I can remember, I have loved cats. Their fur is soft as silk and they smell like stuffed animals. That is, they never carry the unpleasant odor
Can you tell what felines really feel? Read More »
I’m sorry, Gemma. But we can’t live in the light all of the time. You have to take whatever light you can hold into the dark with you. ~ Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty In the summer of 2022, I participated in a field trip to learn about fireflies, aka lightning bugs. My fellow students
How do you see it? Read More »
Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale. ~Lauren DeStefano, Wither Shades of perspectives People have all kinds of reasons to love autumn. Some love the cool crisp air and the smell of the fallen
What makes you love the smell of fall? Read More »
People who are saying that they are afraid of heights are usually not actually afraid of heights. They are afraid of falling, which means it’s a synonym for losing control. So they have to get in touch with the definitional belief to find out what’s really going on. ~Bashar Usually I select quotes because they
Fears & Phobias: can you overcome them? Read More »
We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible. ~Vince Lombardi Little known buzz about bees Would it surprise you to hear that honey bees are not native to North America? Well, not unless you count that one bee fossil from 14 million years ago. Anyway, National Geographic’s Education
Bees and their miracle of flight Read More »
One who enjoys finding errors will then start creating errors to find. ~ Criss Jami, Killosophy Words from 17 days ago If you read this on the day it is released, I will be returning from a trip planned, at least theoretically, more than three years ago. One of the locations on our itinerary has a
You may see only what you’re looking for Read More »
The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. ~C. S. Lewis What’s the Inner RIng? The easiest way to answer would be to say it’s the title of an essay* delivered by C.S. Lewis at King’s College in 1944. In this case, the description does not address the meaning.
The gravitational pull of the inner ring Read More »
Nature is never devoid of storms and our life’s nature is quite similar. Many storms gather, occur, and pass away in one lifetime. Sometimes one huge hurricane may tend to destroy everything in our lives, yet we should not fear the tempest. A storm comes to life like a lesson sometimes, when we have no
It’s an ill wind that teaches you the hard way Read More »
To fall down is to face the weakness of my humanity, test the mettle of my character, and push the limits of my strength. Therefore, falling down will tell me who I am far more clearly than most things I might learn when I’m standing up. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough In a recent conversation I
How would I fare in a test of mettle? Read More »
Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it. ~ L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl As long as we can reach into our brains and pull out a memory, we are always holding onto that person, place, or thing. Recall, though, from my post in February that every time you take out a
Remember the post on memory? Here’s more! Read More »
If you cannot clothe yourself in the skin of a lion, put on that of a fox! Don Diego de la Vega aka Zorro If you are a Zorro fan, you may recognize the quote. While Don Diego’s advice may be interpreted in a number of ways, I’m going with this: if you can’t be
Crazy like a fox, but are they really? Read More »
Spiders are busy spinning webs in the grass, in the bushes, wherever there is prey to be caught… made of silken strands only a few millionths of an inch thick but stronger than steel. Structures that are pure beauty when jeweled with morning dewdrops. ~Hal Borland, Seasons, 1973 Before I began spending so much time with
The greatest spinners of all time Read More »