around the time i closed the curious ATELIER i was already dabbling in papier~mâché although it was limited to building up layers of old papers upon cardboard structures i had made from old discarded boxes. 

​at the beginning of 2021 i set about cataloguing a whole year of making them. each month i would make one Bhakti Box & within the pages of a book record the process, from inspiration, words, excerpts, materials & more, how they came into Being.

​here is just a sprinkling of some i made that year & others since. this may turn into a little series on my Bhakti Boxes so friday i will continue to share more about them & some of the grander ones.

i like the idea of recording them here & sharing them for the first time in all their wonky handmade devotional wonder.

{*Bhakti is Sanskrit for loving devotion}

my old phone of many years died quite suddenly last year & i thought i had lost years worth of photos. i had not paid attention to the warning signs until everything went dark.

i have a new phone now & we do not get along, it seems to think it knows best & continuously changes things up on me when it comes to the camera, settings, warm tone, cold tone, screen brightness etc.

i find myself barking instructions at it every time i go in & reset.
"stay" i say & yet a few hours later it hasn't stayed put. i just do not care for its rebellious ways.
​
​fortunately for me, my Beloved was so weary of hearing my sorrows of lost memories, he found a way to resurrect my old phone.

as long as it is kept plugged into the life support cord i am able to peruse my little photo album of 13 thousand plus images to my hearts content, of which i note, most are of my critters, present & past.

​​it has been over a year since my little doglet upgraded to wings & i still catch a moment each day when she comes into my heart's mind. perhaps when i am leaving the temple & reflect i no longer have to be back by a certain time or i catch a glance of her leash, still by the back door & especially when we spend quality time together up on the land where she rests with Tofu {the guinea pig}.
​two thirds of the critter gang at rest now.

i admit my first waking thought is no longer my doglet & i have the freedom to have a morning practice of meditation/contemplation/prayer starting the moment i rise. i can spend hours in my studio without requirements needed from me & best of all, she has the freedom to sparkle in the night sky free from a little worn out body & brain so i can report, we are both happily doing quite well a year on in our separate but connected existence.

how odd it is, that i started out thinking i would just lightly touch upon my phone & photos & it has turned out i am no longer lightly but quite heavily staying with it & the connection to my constant canine companion of 15 years.  

incase this comes across as a little sad or melancholy that is not my intention. i spend a lot of time contemplating & i now see connections that run/ran so deep, threads intwined so tightly, that on reflection, i cannot help but marvel upon the mystery of it all & the magic. 

********** 

**********

FOOTNOTE:
i wrote the above yesterday & scheduled it to post today. {a gift to my future self}.
upon returning to it this morning for one more look over i wonder if the many layers i feel when writing are not possible to put into words contained within a post & therefore it may not read in a sensical form to another.

i feel a sense of vulnerability each time i write in this space, shining a little flashlight on my sacred creative contemplative existence has me at times feeling a bit like i went out to the grocery store but forgot to put my clothes on sort of thing.

perhaps in time that will soften, perhaps not, all i know is the little light inside of me is being asked to send a beam up & out into the dark sky at this time & it has been impossible to say no to Her request.

so for now my practice here is continuing to be comfortable with the uncomfortable until one fine day down the pilgrim path i will be chanting & dancing {without a care}, naked as the day i was born. oh & maybe having swapped out my little flashlight for one of those huge beaming things that light up the night sky. 

it has been a year since i completed the holy offering inspired by my pilgrimage in late 2023 through Mexico & Guatemala. 

she measures around 8.5 ft tall by 7 ft wide & takes up the one big wall i have in my studio. i used artist newsprint as the canvas to build her upon, a year on from taking this little film it looks like a 100~a~day smoker lives here. that is why i like working with newsprint & its lignin, the golden tones that come through are unpredictable with glues & layering & daylight, all helping to create a real vintage feel to a piece.

of course, perhaps the downside is, it is not archival, it has a limited shelf life, it has an expiry date but i like the idea of it not lasting forever a bit like myself.

in the meantime a year on from making her, i am pondering taking her down but unsure of how to go about doing so if i am intent on keeping her in one piece. this is what happens when you are an artist of the pasting & sticking as you go along group & indeed, stapling directly to the wall for stability if need be.

so far she is still attached to the wall, likely to be so for some time to come & that's okay because every day she continues to stay looking gracefully over me whilst i work at my studio bench is a reminder of where i was this time last year & where i am now, thanks to the miracle of Grace. 

since switching out patching fabrics to patching papers a few years ago, i have found myself down the artist book/zine/altered {altared as in my case} book making hole for quite some time. 

i like the fact that when i am on the road, it is possible to take something this small along for the ride. although i have greatly enjoyed making on a larger scale in recent times, there is something quite delightful to making smaller & perhaps en masse. 

the 100 day project rolls around this time of year, & i have never felt the call to take part but this year happenstance came a calling & as i was immersed in pocket prayerlet making, i threw caution to the wind & joined in. 

but as is always the way with me, i sort of changed things up.

firstly i have not posted 'a picture a day' on social media & as i am heading out of the temple into the world again in April {& despite me saying these booklets are easy to take on the road to make}, i do not think i wish to add weight to my rucksack with art supplies.

that is all to say, the 100 days goes somewhere into May or beyond is my guess & i am going to change it up a little by saying i am making them till i have a 100 or thereabouts. by that i mean, i make as many as time allows each day until i have 100 or i embark on my next pilgrimage.

 if you would like to see how i make them from a single sheet of paper, i have stepped into the unknown, rigged up an overhead camera & made a little-ish film of how to go about it.

considering it is several folds & one snip it is extraordinary how long i took to show how to make it. i like to think it is because i was being mindful of going slow so you could join in at the same time. 

so without further a do...

i have so much to show but not a lot to say, some days are like that, more often than not there are no words. so today i thought i would just start & see what spills forth onto the paper screen.

back in the Fall i signed up for pottery classes on the island, hand~building basics to be precise. it has been over 3 decades since i sat with clay & for a while now i have felt the pull. it was 4 weeks of learning the techniques & 2 weeks of learning {some} glazing. i told myself each week i would make something & then move on, not get caught up in trying to make it perfect, it was more about learning the 'hows & whats' rather than seeking an outcome.

​that being said, i did have in my head & my heart a little wishlist of possibilities.

most of my wishes were around the idea of making it feel & look hand~built {not difficult to achieve with my rusty dusty ways} & also usable. 

it was the glazing side of things which caused me to start praying to the kiln gods and goddesses for i had quite suddenly become attached to my little wonky makes & feared my rather thick & clumsy glaze was going to cover up the delightful mark making patterns.

clearly all that praying paid off because when i saw my little finished pottery pieces i declared it was a one true miracle. i did not get down on my knees to give thanks despite wishing to, deciding folks in the clay center might find it distracting, causing mishaps on the wheel to happen etc. so i imagined it instead which i think counts.

miracle #1: they had all survived not one but two firings. including handles staying on even if the mugs 'ate' their bottoms.
miracle #2: they had not stuck to the kiln shelf causing untold woes to all the other students & clay center folks.
miracle #3: the copper oxide did what i hoped it would do & as anyone watching The Great British Pottery Throw Down will know, oxides are unpredictable. it's actually one of the biggest takeaways i have learnt from just watching others on that show.
miracle #4: i love them so much that despite creating almost a tea set for two, i am having to work up to actually letting anyone use them such is their precious miraculousness & my distrust in anyone caring for them quite as much as i do. 
miracle #5: i am making scones this afternoon {that is a stand alone miracle of its self}
miracle #6: i may or may not christen my tea plate to celebrate the miracle of an edible {still to be announced} scone, lemon no less, & the new moon.

that is quite a remarkable amount of words for someone who declared she had nothing to say.
​another miracle.

Clearing by Martha Postlethwaite

i am working towards an art exhibition and its slow going but that's okay because it won't be seen until i am 90 so i have 34 years left to contemplate and create. of course its impossible to know if i will be granted/gifted another 34 earthly years so am working on a back-up plan which involves detailed instructions to my children of what, where and every eventuality i can think of.

i plan to put these precise requests in a zine entitled
'{The Path to} Holy Cronehood'
{instructions for my children on how to put on an exhibition for their 90 year old mother}. 

so no matter what, it will be when i turn 90, here or not.

it all came about last year, whilst i had descended into the underworld, fighting demons and such like. fortunately two 'Autumns' turned up, first a younger self Autumn, she just came right on into the room and made it quite clear i was dull and no fun to be around, it's a little blurry now but i am sure she resembled Pippi Longstocking.
she announced things might get a little better if i braided my hair, donned some overalls, started singing and got into my studio. i kind of liked her, she had attitude and an air of 'well why wouldn't you?' which overruled my 'why would i?' outlook. 

however the next visitor into the room a week later was my older crone self {Winter Song} and that was all together a different meetup. i have always been reserved in showing anger, i was not taught that anger was an emotion worthy of allowing to the surface, that it might be worth listening to. my older crone came into the space literally fit to burst with anger, she was firing off here, there and everywhere at me, my whole body filled with rage buried from deep within.

the days and weeks that followed i continued to invite her in, to say her piece until it became clear what the anger was about. my future crone self was mad as hell at my now self because if i didn't get my act together she was terrified of not actually getting a moment to shine. i did agree the odds were not stacked in her favor.

it was a message i received gratefully and most certainly played a part in finding my sparkle again {along with a lifeline from Grace}. i often let either the child or the crone advise me now, both are much happier, whether i add pink to my hair or set about planning an exhibit for my future holy crone self, they are content and i believe they are key to me waking up each day and giving thanks for the abundance and the blessings of the next 24 hours.

​**********

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT:
Widening Circles ~ Rainer Maria Rilke 

​**********

the door to our water closet.
a recent addition to the turret temple 

**********

on my 56th birthday a dear friend virtually gifted me this song by Valerie June, up until that moment, i had lived a whole half century and a little bit not realizing you could gift a friend a song in that way.
my whole world changed in that moment.
it is quite possibly one of the most precious gifts i have ever received.
​the first time i played it my whole body recognized it even though i had never listened to it before.
the lines 
'holy water cleansing rain'
and
'blind, but yet you see so clear'
are everything, EVERYTHING.

there is a great possibility i will repeat my words and offerings here on a regular occasion. this being i cannot recall what i ate yesterday, therefore it stands to reason i surely will not recall what i blogged a week ago. i like to think my inability to have finely tuned recall senses is because i am super zen and live only in the moment.

each day is a fresh lifetime of 24 hours and i am going to be fully committed to it, i have no time to dally in the past, nor fret about the future, i am busy immersed in the here and now.

have you noticed, often when asked "how are you?" we respond with "oh very well {usually a fib} and terribly busy too". i would answer "all good here {sometimes a fib}, and terribly busy contemplating". i just love the ridiculousness of saying 'busy contemplating', i think that in its self is cause for course correcting. course correcting is my favorite thing to do of late. in any given moment i can take a breath, course correct, avoid the inevitable wreckage to come and realign with kindness and love. this is perhaps key to being a householder practitioner.
​
**********
THOUGHTS FOR PRAYER: