Elizabeth Adams's Blog, page 77

The Pitter-Patter of Little Cat Feet

Don't worry, it's not blood... it was not a happy discovery yesterday when J. came into the studio and found that a bottle of red stamp-pad ink had had some sort of malfunction, tipped over, and been walked in by you-know-who. Before he realized that one of her back paws was completely saturated, there were paw-prints all over our work surfaces, my ironing board, the lining material for my new skirt (thankfully not the skirt itself,) the table we eat on, various papers and photographic prints, and J's pants. You can't get mad: it certainly wasn't her fault! We cleaned things up as best we could, and she happily surrendered her paw to be wiped and blotted; her mouth and tongue weren't red so we don't think she had eaten any of it, cleaning herself off. This picture was taken the day after the fact and isn't nearly as dramatic; you can sort of see the state of the pants  -- I'm not sure anything, even OxyClean, will take that ink out.

Attachments

The locust is the last to leaf out. I sat underneath, a few evenings ago, gazing up at the stiff knarly branches, and the fern-like fronds of new leaves, when a slight breeze rippled across the canopy, ruffling their feathery edges in turn like the shrugging shoulders of a flock of green birds. Beyond the locust, fully-leafed maple branches billowed in the same breeze like sails, while above them the individual leaves on the great poplars shimmered, as tremulous as paillettes on the costume of a belly dancer, each attached by a single thread. And it's all a matter of attachment, I thought, this diversity of movement -- and at the time their varied dances seemed miraculous, the most beautiful thing in the world.

Perhaps I was just becoming feverish. That night I woke coughing, my head completely congested, and have been sick ever since with a miserable summer cold that seems finally to be abating. I've moved from the couch to the bed and back again, with brief forays into the kitchen for chicken broth and tea, while J. has made me meals, and made me laugh. I haven't been sick for a long time, and it reminds me how much I take my normal state of health for granted. Another attachment; another body, stiff or pliant? How does it move when the wind blows?

Still life with lilies of the valley and an animal skull (1), pen on paper, 11" x 8 1/2"

I've been drawing a bit, more explorations of the muguet de bois, and probably will do some more today. These are two versions of the same basic still life, drawn on the same size paper but with pens of very different thickness. The line width makes a big difference in how the drawing feels, and the second one is also more simplified -- your opinions?

 

Still life with lilies of the valley and an animal skull (2), pen on paper, 11" x 8 1/2"

Daily Drawing, May 23

Still life with lilies-of-the-valley, a Wedgewood pot, and a Palestinian purse.
Fountain pen on paper, 6"x8".

My mother died on May 23, seven years ago. Yesterday morning I called my father, and after speaking with him I went to my garden. The
lilies-of-the-valley were in bloom, as they were when she died, and I
picked some to bring back home, but before that I picked up and held the stone I had brought from her garden to mine. Last night I did this drawing, which is about her and me...my mother would be very happy to know I am drawing and
painting again. I'm not sad, thinking about her -- tremendously grateful.

Eric dans son jardin

Eric in his garden (Parc Baldwin community garden, early May.) Pen and watercolor, 9"x 6".  Click image for larger view.

This was the scene in the community garden in early May, a couple of weeks ago. I spent several evenings on this illustration; one to do the drawing and a couple of others working on the color.

The fence on the left separates our garden from a large community swimming pool. It's still too cold in Montreal to swim, but work crews have been cleaning the pool to get it ready to fill, probably in early June. I'll try to do an illustration later on of the many people enjoying the pool - on hot days it gets absolutely packed, and the two side of the fence make an amusing contrast. We've planted a lot of flowering vines and tall plants along the fence, to make this aspect of urban life more pleasant for everyone, bathers and gardeners alike.

Great Teachers

In case some of you haven't already discovered Jonathan's blog (and bookmarked it in your feed readers!), he's just written and illustrated a new post about a great teacher from his past. Since I know many of you are also great teachers, or are eternally grateful to those you had, you might enjoy it.

Shavuot, Beltane, Pentecost and Whitsun: the evolution of traditions and language

Icon of the Pentecost, Russian, 16th century.

 

“The king stablished all his knights, and gave them that were of lands
not rich, he gave them lands, and charged them never to do outrageousity
nor murder, and always to flee treason; also, by no mean to be cruel,
but to give mercy unto him that asketh mercy, upon pain of forfeiture of
their worship and lordship of King Arthur for evermore; and always to
do ladies, damosels, and gentlewomen succor upon pain of death. Also,
that no man take no battles in a wrongful quarrel for no law, ne for no
world’s goods. Unto this were all the knights sworn of the Table Round,
both old and young. And every year were they sworn at the high feast of
Pentecost.” (Le Morte d'Arthur, pp 115-116)

Yesterday was Pentecost, a major feast day in the Anglican Church. It falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter, and commemorates the
descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples after Jesus' death. In Greek, Pentecost means "the fiftieth [day]" and originally refered to an ancient, historical Jewish festival commemorating the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. In modern Judaism this festival is called Shavuot.

 As had happened with the Jewish festival, in early Christian England, the theological observance of Pentecost was conflated with already-existing pagan ritual of Beltane. In the Arthurian legends, not only did the King have his knights swear their most solemn oaths on the day of Pentecost, he also refused to go into the dining hall until he had seen some miracle or wonder; it's one of the ways that Arthur's other-worldliness and spiritual leadership is shown in the legends, in contrast to Lancelot and Guinevere's adultery, as well as some of the other knight's acts.

In later England, though, Pentecost was more often called Whitsun, or Whitsunday. The Wikipedia has a good entry on the possible etymology of the name "Whitsun", or "White Sunday", in the late Middle Ages, and on the possible conflation of "whit" (white) and "wit" (understanding) :

"The name is a contraction of "White Sunday", attested in "The Holy-Ghost, which thou did send on Whit-Sunday" in the old English homilies, and parallel to the mention of hwitmonedei in the early 13th-century Ancrene Riwle. Walter William Skeat noted that the Anglo-Saxon word also appears in Icelandic hvitasunnu-dagr, but that in English the feast was always called Pentecoste until after the Norman Conquest,  when white (hwitte) began to be confused with wit or understanding. According to one interpretation, the name derives from the white garments worn by catechumens, those expecting to be baptised on that Sunday. Moreover, in England, rather than the more usual red, were traditional for the day and its octave.
A different tradition is that of the young women of the parish all
coming to church or chapel in new white dresses on that day. However,
Augustinian canon, John Mirk (c1382 - 1414), of Lilleshall Abbey, Shropshire, had another interpretation:

Good men and wimmen, this day (Dies Penthecostes) is called Wytsonday
by cause the holy ghost bought wytte and wisdom into Crists dyscyples,
and so by prechying after in all Cristendom and fylled him full of holy
Wytte

Thus, he thought the root of the word was "wit" (formerly spelt "wyt"
or "wytte") and Pentecost was so-called to signify the outpouring of
the wisdom of the Holy Ghost on Christ's disciples."

However, today the liturgical color for Pentecost in our tradition is red: red for the "tongues of flame" that supposedly showed the presence of the Holy Spirit. Lots of parishioners, too, wear red on that day. Yesterday we had a liturgical dance by the kids, carrying trailing "flames" of yellow, orange and gold transparent cloth, three baptisms, and we sang a lot of special music - more about that later. I've never been too keen on the idea that the "Spirit" only appeared in the world at that time, and only to these early Christians, so I was happy that our Dean preached about the Spirit being present to all human beings, of all creeds and none, from the beginning of time. He also made a point of calling it "Her."

--

For our part, we had two services filled with music, much of it for eight-part double choir. In the morning we sang a terrific unaccompanied contemporary mass setting, the Missa "Cantate," by Bob Chilcott (unfortunately no recordings or videos of this that I could find.) It ends with an Agnus Dei written with aleotoric sections: that's where the singers are some instructions but then asked to improvise or repeat it individually and freely according to certain restrictions: these may be a set of notes or a specific phrase, and a time period. We then "gather" on a specified note at the director's instruction, and move on to the next section, which may be written out conventionally, or proceed to another set of instructions.

The effects created can be absolutely mesmerizing: murmuring sound clusters, voices emerging out of a cloud of sound, repeated words, created musical "atmospheres" in a less defined progression than usual, that invite a different type of listening experience: sometimes meditative and minimalistic, sometimes surprising, sometimes eerie, often emotional. I had never seen scores like this before joining this choir, and was really intimidated when I first had to perform them but quickly became fascinated. It was, as you can perhaps imagine, perfect for Pentecost.

We also performed another aleotoric piece, this one written by our own director, Patrick Wedd, for a Vancouver choral festival, on the Pentecost text (and one of the oldest hymns of the Christian church), Veni Creator Spiritus. Patrick's piece is almost all aleotoric, with certain voice parts singing the hymn, while others improvise on sets of given notes in the key of B-flat major. But in addition to the voices, the piece also includes a score for handbells: in this case, all the bells in the key of B-flat major. We have a beautiful multiple-octave set of Whitechapel handbells at the cathedral, and use them every week for the psalm chants, but not so often as part of other music. I like playing them (being an old instrumentalist at heart) so I had fun trying to coordinate my bell, the hand-written score, and my improvisational vocal part, while keeping an eye on the director and trying to turn pages and not drop anything -- my expensive bell in particular. Maybe one day we'll have a recording of this piece that I can share with you; I think it came off pretty well.

So helpful

,
I've had this cloth, a summery linen-cotton blend, for ages but never cut it: today I did. This is an above-the-knee simple tailored skirt with a yoke-type waistband.

The sewing project was going really well...




until my helper showed up. How do they know?




All comfortable.

That's OK. I got the skirt cut out and marked and the darts pinned; ready to start sewing next time. (I did take it away from her.)

What's not going particularly well is the drawing. It's the weirdest thing; i was all into it, and then, suddenly, it was like a love affair gone bad. I didn't feel like doing it at all. Practically overnight. So odd! So I'm giving it a rest. At this point in my life there's no point in forcing myself. It will come back; I think I needed to release myself from the pressure of the daily drawings. After all, I've been doing it almost every day since the beginning of April.

A good time to make a skirt instead.


I spent most of the morning at the garden. it's looking pretty nice over there -- lots of things in bloom: late tulips, forget-me-nots, my lilies-of-the-valley are just starting. For the past three years, I've had a bit of a focus on delphinium. Nobody else grows them because they are finicky in this climate, but I always had them in Vermont and decided to try, and so far, they've done well. That is, until this spring, when not one of the Pacific Giants - the tall ones - came up. The small free-flowering ones seem to be OK, and I never grow the mid-size Magic Fountains, because they really aren't reliable here year-to-year. So the other day at the garden center, I bought a bunch of new plants, and today I put them in, after digging out a bunch of anemones that had spread into the area I wanted to use, and then did some other tasks. There's something so satisfying about garden work, even with the inevitable reversals, failures, surprises. I was all grubby and hot and sweaty when I finished, but it felt great.

Drawing #15, Meditation Space

On the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month, I facilitate a meditation/contemplative prayer group at the cathedral. This particular chapel is normally used for weekday eucharists and the 8:00 service on Sunday mornings; the altar is to the left of this picture, and usually there are about two dozen chairs set up in rows facing it. On Tuesdays I go in early to rearrange the room -- we move the heavy iron kneelers with a hand truck, and put down a plain white cotton carpet, set twelve chairs around it and move the others to the sides, and place a large candle - I bought this one from nuns in Mexico -  on a low table in the center. After the daily office of Evening Prayer is finished at 5:45 pm, we turn down the lights and gather in this room; I usually give a brief talk or a reading or a guided meditation, and then we sit in silence for two periods of 20 minutes, with a brief break so that people who want to sit for a shorter period can leave. At the end we leave in silence, with a few people staying to help me put the room back into its normal configuration.

This week I had a little extra time beforehand, so I sat down and made a sketch, and then added some color later. One thing I'm discovering during this month is that I simply don't enjoy detailed, careful architectural sketching. Catching the feeling of a place is one thing, but I don't have the patience, inclination, or interest to do it perfectly. More power to those who do! (I didn't think I did, but now I know it for sure!) In fact, I'd like to try a charcoal or pastel drawing of this same space, to try to get the dusky ambience of it as the sun is setting.

During our meditation this week we had so many interruptions! There are the inevitable sirens and honking horns and loud voices from the street outside;  the verger mistakenly turned the lights up when they should have been turned down; then there was a businessman, with briefcase and cellphone, who came into the church from the side door opposite us, couldn't get through the passageway to the back that leads to the diocesan offices, and proceeded to make a loud phone call expressing his annoyance and frustration to whoever was on the other end. Apparently he didn't see, or didn't look to see, that people were silently meditating across from him. One of us got up and helped him, gently ushering him outside and pointing him where he needed to go. In spite of all that, this week's gathering had a very good feeling: calm and deep, with a sense of the collective peace that sometimes comes from a group meditating together.

Interruptions are, as the Buddhists would say, "grist for the mill." They are the weeds in our practice, and one learns to be grateful for them, and for what they teach us. When I was beginning my own meditation practice, back in Vermont many years ago, it used to drive me crazy to hear the neighbor's lawn mower, or children's voices playing in the street. Now I'm rather glad that we don't meet in a retreat center set far away from "the world," but rather right in the middle of it, on the busy main street of a major city. Meditating in this sort of place teaches us that we too are part of the world, and the world is part of us. As Thomas Merton wrote: "One does not go into the desert to escape others, but to learn how to find them."

 

Checking in with you -- and a visit to the pépinière

Well, we're halfway through the month, and I admit that it's a becoming a challenge to keep up with this drawing-a-day project. But I'm wondering about you readers, too -- how do you feel about art vs. written posts, or the occasional month of all-the-same (haiku, small stones, drawings, etc.)  I never know for sure how these things come across, so please let me know.

Anyway, I'm taking a day off - or at least it looks that way at 3:00 pm this afternoon!

This morning Jonathan and I went out to Jardin Jasmine, the nicest and most extensive nursery/pépinière I know of on Montreal island, with our friend Michel from the community garden.

Michel looking happy among the annuals, with his favorite shocking pink geraniums overhead!

It was really fun - both the ride there and the browsing through their fabulous grounds and greenhouses. It's always hard to restrain the desire to buy everything, because it's like a candy store...but we were both pretty reasonable. None of my Pacific Giant delphinium came up this year - don't know why - so I bought replacement plants, and a yellow clematis, and some coleus for the terrace. Michel bought some wonderful things for the garden he creates and tends each year outside his apartment building, which brightens our entire street. Mostly it was just great to be among all the beautiful plants with dear friends who love this annual display of color and beauty and variety just as much as I do.

Michel and me, photos by J.

 

 

Drawing #13, Hands.

This was the last of three drawings. As you'll see they literally got more relaxed, from a rather clenched beginning! Hands are hard; you just have to draw a lot of them in all different positions. It helps to turn the paper upside down and sideways and look at your work that way too, sometimes you can spot what's wrong more easily, because we're all so used to looking at hands from many different angles.

Second drawing.

First drawing.