Ramblings

At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets. ~ Oscar Wilde

Today I went to Home Depot and picked out Martha Stewart's Aegean Blue paint for the inside of the drawers. The wood is so old and dry that it seemed to need a coat of something. I've never painted the inside of a drawer before, but I really like it. It's like the chest has a sweet surprise once you really get acquainted with it ... and it's like I am getting truly eccentric! Oh well, no harm. The drawer bottoms are finished with adhesive backed cork shelf liner. I had some left over from the kitchen cabinets. Those drawer bottoms can use some structural encouragement. I really like working with old things ... the qwerks make them interesting. Yesterday I saw an amusing quote:

"The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down." ~ T.S. Eliot

I don't know how old that chest is, but it's getting pretty close to decrepit. I'm trying to figure out how to nail the top back down without nailing it ... Maybe wood glue and some clamps.

I'm also thinking about something.
Just a quick note here ... Say a person has a gift, a special talent, and they spend their life developing that gift. Hmmmm, like a writer who really just rocks, a poet, a Whitman, a Frost, an Eliot ... but most of what s/he writes is say political commentary ... brilliant, genius, provocative, right on the mark ... uber intellectual insight, but necessarily devoid of something essential. The gift had to cut it's teeth on something, but now all it's molars are in and pearly white. I think people do have special gifts and probably take them so for granted that they don't even really notice them. Or maybe their gift is seen as their right ... something they worked for/at. I'm thinking of talents turned to good profit ... and of talents buried ... . What about talents mis-spent. A gift like that wants something more ... spiritual expression flowing from the soul unconsciously filtered by the intellect ... by practice ... by living well. More then a muse, rather the baring of a soul.

I like music, many different genres ... Some of what I listen to is transcendent, some of it just moves me around. I've sat in the shadows of concert halls listening to gifted musicians practice their art. There is something very different from technical perfection, from intelligent artistic expression. Our souls respond when a gift is lifted up as an offering. Offerings change time. I'll be thinking about that. When you hear or see or feel something which is an offering ... a gift offered as worship ... the soul knows ... and time slows.

A gift ... from God. A gift like that can actually become an offering.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” ~ Albert Einstein

... everybody has a genius gift ... maybe that's true ... .

This year my life has slowed down enough for me to wonder about things like coincidence, circumstance, serendipity. I had time to wonder. It's funny how life can set one down ... I was rushing ahead of myself like a wave coming to shore. I was staying so busy, as I have a tendency to do ... how do people sit soul still. This year I have found that ... time to wonder. Time to be still ... time to remember awe. Slowing down time is a little creepy but also cool. Stillness ... quiet ... came as a gift and made other gifts possible too.

One Christmas I woke up with the measles ... I had just gotten over something then the measles hit. I remember my eyes hurt. Momma kept the curtains drawn, and I just wanted to sleep. My older brother came and sat with me and opened one of my presents for me. It was a vanity set ... hairbrush, comb, mirror ... toilet water ... a beautiful blue velvet box with a silk top. "What's toilet water?" I remember asking him. After opening the little bottle and smelling of it, he concluded that it was some frou-frou to make the toilet smell nice. Hahaha, my mom was pretty surprised when she found out we decided to dump it in the toilet all at once! Lol, anyway ... When I was able to get up and around I wanted to put my pretty things back in that beautiful box. As I opened the lid for the very first time a little ballerina in a tulle skirt popped up and began to twirl ... It was a musical jewelry box ... And there was even a little garnet ring waiting inside. I thought it was a container for the vanity set, but it was a totally different gift ... the most wonderful thing ever.

So ... I'm thinking about gifts. When you're rushing around doing life ... or even when on occassions when life seems to sit you down ... it's easy to miss or mistake the real gift. And it's easy to mistake the true value of a gift. A gift, given back as an offering has the potential to become something truly wonder-filled.

This year has been a time for gifts. Wonderful, wonder-filled gifts. Even the joy of seeing awesome gifts being enjoyed by others ... Fun, like seeing people enjoy their presents.


"It takes a long time to sift through the more superficial voices of your own gift in order to enter into the deep signature and tonality of your Otherness. When you speak from that deep, inner voice, you are really speaking from the unique tabernacle of your own presence. There is a voice within you that no one, not even you, has ever heard. Give yourself the opportunity of silence and begin to develop your listening in order to hear, deep within yourself, the music of your own spirit." O'Donohue

More on that sometime later ... . I have either learned to feel blessed this year or my soul has openned up or grown up to recognise and/or receive. John O'Donohue wrote It takes a long time and I think he is expressing more with the words then quanity. I think this is about quality as well. I don't want to put words in his mouth. It's past my bed time, so ... .