Terri Windling's Blog, page 223

Tilly and I are off now for the long holiday weekend; I...

Tilly and I are off now for the long holiday weekend; I'll be back in the office (and back online) on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to spending time with family and friends, working in the garden, and getting my painting studio up and running again (at long last). Wherever you are and whatever you're doing to celebrate the Easter/Eostre/Passover/Spring holiday, I hope the weekend is a peaceful and magical one.

To the right is my favorite image for this time of year: "Eostre" by my friend and village neighbor Danielle Barlow. (There are prints for sale in her Esty shop...along with many other beautiful, magical paintings.) The painting below is my own version of Eostre, titled "Mother Nature." (Click on the image for a clearer version of the painting.) I hope to have prints of her soon.

Eostre is an Anglo-Saxon mother goddess of the spring, associated with the growing light of the season, holy water in the form of morning dew, hares (her totem, from which we get the Easter Bunny), and new-laid eggs (symbol of fertility). Ceremonies dedicated to Eostre celebrate this season as a time of rebirth, renewal, and sacred transition: from winter to spring, from dark to light, from periods of our lives that have come to an end to those that are just beginning.

"April hath put a spirit of youth in everything."   - William Shakespeare

Photos: Tilly among the wild daffodils in the woods behind the studio.

To be graced by resilience and joy

"I believe in cultivating opposite, but complementary views of life, and I believe in meeting life's challenges with contradictory strategies. I believe in reckoning with the ultimate meaninglessness of our existence, even as we fall in love with the miracle of being alive. I believe in working passionately to make our lives count while never losing sight of our insignificance. I believe in caring deeply and being beyond caring. It is by encompassing these opposites, by being involved and vulnerable, but simultaneously transcendent and detached, that our lives are graced by resilience and joy." - Fritz Williams

It's a paradoxical philosophy and state of mind, but one that encompasses the Tricksterish mystery of life, maintaining balance, hózhǫ́, attention, and grace, no matter what life and art throw at us.

By "attention," I mean shushing the inner clamour of voices from the past, and shushing the chorus of one's fears and desires for the future, in order to fully live in, appreciate, and take honest stock of the present. Every spiritual tradition speaks of this....which is so simple to say, and so darn hard to remember to do. In this springtime of fresh chances and new beginnings, I vow this morning to keep shushing those voices, and to pay more attention as each day unfolds: in my life, in my work, and in my engagement with the rhythms and cycles of the land that I live in.

"This is the first, wildest, and wisest thing I know, that the soul exists, and that it is built entirely out of attention." - Mary Oliver

Photographs above: A wild Dartmoor pony strays into a field. And Howard pays attention to Tilly.

At play

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." 
- George Bernard Shaw

(Back in the mossy woods of Devon, photographs by Howa...

(Back in the mossy woods of Devon, photographs by Howard, April 1, 2012)

(photographs by Howard, April 1, 2012)

(photographs by Howard, April 1, 2012)

Tunes for a Monday Morning

Today, two tunes from Irish singer/songwriter Lisa Hannigan to kick off the new week, the new month, the new season. I love the video above, "I Don't Know," not only for the sweet lyrics of the song but also for the theme of paper-cut art...and the video below, "Knots," for it's sheer wacky exuberance.

If you want more this morning, check out Hannigan's mesmorizing, stripped-down performance of "Be My Husband," with Damien Rice...or their joint performance on Rice's "Volcano."

I'm flying home tonight, and will be back on this blog ...

I'm flying home tonight, and will be back on this blog sometime next week. Home. The word has never sounded so good.

“From now on I hope always to stay alert, to educate my...

“From now on I hope always to stay alert, to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this, in future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out. We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” ― Ray Bradbury

The Shinran Shonin statue at the Buddhist temple on Riverside Drive (between W. 105th and 106th), NYC. This remarkable statue survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, was brought to New York in 1955, and stands as  "a testimonial to the atomic bomb devastation and a symbol of lasting hope for world peace.”

The Great God Pan by George Grey Barnard, at Columbia University (Broadway & W. 116th)

"From now on I hope always to stay alert, to educate my...

"From now on I hope always to stay alert, to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this, in future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out. We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out." ― Ray Bradbury

The Shinran Shonin statue at the Buddhist temple on Riverside Drive (between W. 105th and 106th), NYC. This remarkable statue survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, was brought to New York in 1955, and stands as  "a testimonial to the atomic bomb devastation and a symbol of lasting hope for world peace."

The Great God Pan by George Grey Barnard, at Columbia University (Broadway & W. 116th)

Spring arrives in New York City

Trees in bloom, Riverside Park

Cherry blossoms and daffodils, Riverside Park

Water's edge, early morning, Riverside Park

Tree and sky on Broadway &  W. 97th

The Bear Cat sculpture by Peter Woytuk on Broadway & W. 67th

A canopy of blossoms, Amsterdam & W. 103rd

"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."   - Rainer Maria Rilke

"It's spring fever.  That is what the name of it is.  And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!"  - Mark Twain