holly jolly saturday cheer

who says you need mistletoe

less is more

i believe...do you?

 next years project...

ornaments made from old books or stories you love

happy saturday!

xoxo ~ mrs m

weekend wisdom

a little weekend wisdom....

enjoy

xoxo~ m

divided

i am a girl divided

i am a girl with a sky high stiletto in one world 

and a frye boot in another 

in one world 

i am stylish and polished

i am made-up and manicured, painted and plucked

i manage, i direct, i delegate and create

i think about security and the norm

what happens next week and next year

i debate newt or romney

benjamin moore vs valspar

....i am successful

in another world

i am casual and uninhibited

i am natural and relaxed, wild and free

 i work with people and the planet with hearts and with souls

i  wander the world, sleep in strange places

i think about freedom and moments 

and raising our babies on boats

....i am different

in one world

my home is surround sound and granite

breakable and fresh

in another

its rough and tumble

and dirty footprints

its open windows and salty breezes

at times i feel i'm cheating on myself

i'm just not positive 

which me i'm actually cheating on

and so i wonder....

 if one world will eventually become more comfortable than the other

or 

if i learn to embrace each of the me's 

... i can truly find a way.... 

to have the best of both worlds

xoxo~ m

monday, monday

happy monday

may all your wakings be this lovely

and here's an angelic remake of a classic....

angus & julia stone
i dare you not to fall in love

~ mrs m

color me happy

this time of year more than any other

.....the world is draped in color

it's all around us

everywhere we look a proliferation of

white lights and colored lights

twinkling lights and blinking lights

red bows and green wrapping, 

gold orbs, silver stars

brown mangers and purple ribbon 

....white snow.

we decorate our yards, our homes

windowsills, mantels, doors, offices, cars, trees

evey available surface
is festooned with all the spectrum's of the rainbow.

and it's awesome
there is something fun and therapeutic and magical about
lights on evergreen branches....
just because

but what about us?
what if
we had another month where we also decorated...
but that month we decorated souls?

what if we took a month to paint the most vivid colors of our mind
to let our creativity flow onto the canvas of our life
to mix colors with abandon
to get a little messy
to see each others inner reds and blues
to splatter and drip
to run our fingers through vibrant yellows and mellow greens
and to admire the imperfect stokes and lines of  your inner artist

can you imagine?
i wonder how we'd feel?
i wonder if at the end of that month
we'd slowly wipe off the red
and brush off the blue
sadly packing away our paints and childlike parts of ourselves
for another year...

or if we'd leave tube of purple on our desk

as a reminder of who we really are....

colorful kisses

~m

the dressing

this thanksgiving

my mom outdid herself 

yet again

chalk board place cards 

on little birch stumps

+

oyster stuffing and sage rubbed turkey

+

 the puuuuurfect table.....

topped off with my aunt carole 

who visited from fl 

+
mr c...of course :)

= 
grateful me

the mystery of it all

i sat down to write

....to attempt

in a fumbling, bumbling human m sort of way

to explain these soul shaking feelings

of ebb and flow

of joy and sorrow

of simplicity and complexity

of connectedness and isolation

of love and anger

of fear and acceptance

of confidence and insecurity

of strength and weakness

of yes and no

of optimism and pessimism

of stay or go

and then i read this and i thought

awwww, someone else feels it too.

i bow to the eloquence.....enjoy

and may we all be thankful for the many

ebbs and flows this thanksgiving

xoxo~ m

 

I once participated in a public debate with another scientist on issues surrounding science and religion. I was an atheist with sympathies for the sacred character of human experience and he was an atheist without such sympathies. At one point in the discussion I tried to convince him that inclinations to "spirituality" or a sense of "sacredness" (with or without an institutional religion) was a response to the essential mystery that came with being human. He paused for long moment and then replied.

"There is no mystery"

It took me a while to pick my jaw off the floor and find an appropriate response.

I had made it pretty clear that, being an atheist, I was not arguing for a "God" of the gaps. Neither was I arguing that limits to knowledge (if they exist) imply we should be worshiping before some choice of deity. Instead I was simply pointing to that fundamental weirdness, that "stranger-in-a-strange land" quality of being human. I was pointing to that mystery because I think its best part of the whole trip.

We just find ourselves here. With our individual birth we just "wake-up" and discover ourselves in the midst of an extraordinary world of beauty and sorrow. All around us we see exquisite and exquisitely subtle orders played out effortlessly. From the lazy descent of fall leaves to the slow unfolding of cloudscapes in empty blue skies, it is all just here and we are just here to see it.

Day after day we wake again to find the world still here, waiting for us as we play out our own small dramas with their small triumphs and terrible heartbreaks. And then, remarkably, astonishingly, just here just ends.

For me that is the mystery. No amount of explanation, be it a "Theory of Everything" or a religious theology, will reduce the power of its experience. The primitive quality of feeling, the presence of life and its luminosity, is the mystery and I am damn thankful for it.

It is the essential and unalterable question mark saturating the verb "to be" that makes science worth pursuing and gives art its potency. It sets our loves and loss into a context that has no context and somehow makes it all bearable.

I will feel that mystery again as my family converges from across the state and across the continent to gather at the Thanksgiving table. I will feel it, knowing how deeply I love them all and how bound I am to lose them all. I will feel the mystery and be thankful to it, to them and to the world entire.

What else, after all, is there to do?

by Adam Frank

images here