I have gone bolder with colors and experimenting with materials. Revisiting works I had thought completed… daring to bring them back in the studio. I finished this piece today and its new, fresh palette required a renaming and a rethinking.
Enter “Learning To Be Astonished.”
A nod to The Messenger, a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver. And the gist of what other gifts Covid has bestowed. The connection to the beauty of nature. Gratitude for life and presence.
I share The Messenger, may it light your day:
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird--
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.
~Mary Oliver