trying different things

Talking to fellow artist - Tracy this morning -

I realized I work best when I work on more than

one thing at a time.  When I get stuck on one thing,

unsure what to do next, I work on something else and

while I do - I figure out how or what to do to the other 

piece I'm working on.  I started this clay piece last week

and I had to take a break cause - not sure what to do 

next.  So I started 

this watercolor

 and this acrylic.  I got so 

many ideas from Colorado.  

Hope I remember everything

and am able to get them all done.

I read this morning from Jesus Calling

"I have chosen you less for your strengths

than for your weaknesses, which amplify your need

for Me.  Depend on Me more and more, and I 

will shower peace on all your paths.

After this weekend, hurting my back,

I feel weak.  I don't like feeling or being 

weak.  I never have.  I always thought I was strong,

mentally and physically but for the past 4 years, not

so much.  I will say it has put me into a position of

trusting God more.  I believe He has let me live much longer

than the Dr's. thought I would

 and allowed me to be able to do more 

than I thought I could with cancer.  

Cancer, never did I think I would get it.

Never.  I am grateful, grateful to be here and able to do

the things I can.  And I'm really grateful for everyone who has

helped me in one way or another.  So if you're one who has helped 

me in any way, I thank you.  It means the world to me. 

I found my pictures...on my phone...

I couldn't figure out where my Garden of the Gods

photos were.  Then I remembered that I didn't

take my camera because I wanted to walk

and sometimes it gets heavy so I thought I'd use

my phone.  Then of course I forgot I used my phone and

only found these this morning.

I love the adobe style house or building

The colors out west are so - me.  

I read this morning from “The War of Art” (by Stephen Pressfield) something I wish I’d read years ago:

Do you have kids?

Then you know that not one of them popped out as tabula rasa, a blank slate.  Each came into this world with a distinct and unique personality, an identity so set that you can fling stardust and great balls of fire at it and not morph it by one micro-dot.  Each kid was who he was.  Even identical twins, constituted from the exact same genetic material, were radically different from Day One and always would be. 

Personally I’m with Wordsworth:

            Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

            The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,

            Hath had elsewhere its setting,

            And cometh from afar:

            Not in entire forgetfulness,

            and not inutter nakedness,

            But trailing clouds of glory do we come,

            Form God who is our home.

In other words, none of us are born as passive generic blobs waiting for the world to stamp its imprint on us.  Instead we show up possessing already a highly refined and individuated soul. 

Another way of thinking of it is this:  We’re not born with unlimited choices. 

We can’t be anything we want to be.

We come into this  world with a specific, personal destiny. 

We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become.  We are who we are from the cradle, and we’re stuck with it. 

Our job in this lifetime is not shpe ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be but to find our who we already are and become it.

If we wer born to paint, it’s our job to become a painter.

Of we were born to raise and nurture children, it’s our job to become a mother, or a teacher, or someone who works with children.

If we were born to overthrow the order of ignorance and injustice of the world, it’s our job to realize it and get down to business. 

This was very interesting to me because of how the world throws  "you can be anything you want to be" at you constantly.  And I could say a lot more about that but I'm tired so...good night.

More Colorado pictures

Actually, these were all taken by Chuck on his camera. 

Ft. Carson - on base

 On the way to a real ghost town St. Elmo

 When we drove a truck I was always looking for buffalo which

I only saw in Florida, believe it or not, passing some sort of

wildlife refuge or park.  I got to see real buffalo in Colorado, cool.

We saw these after lunch which was a bison burger.

Pronghorn, these we saw a lot of when we were in the truck.

abandoned mine

 St. Elmo real ghost town

 If you have the right treat the chipmunks will climb

all over you.  So cute!

Stellars Jay beautiful bird

 This was in the little town we stopped for lunch

This was across the street from where we ate lunch

The cafe was where we ate lunch.  The waitress

said one of the couples at another table drove all

the way from Denver for the bison burger.  It was good

and so were the ginormous fries.  

Sitting in someone's yard in the two street town