Meri's Musings

You cannot govern  the creative impulse;  "Wallflower # 8" © Meri Arnett-Kremian 2010 all you can do is to eliminate obstacles  and smooth the way for it.   -Kimon Nicoliades Are you making room for creative expression or are you letting obstacles stand in your way? If you tell yourself there's not enough time, commit to perform one random act of creativity each day. A poem. A quick sketch. An arrangement of flowers in a vase. Cook with flair. If you already keep a gratitude journal, here's a thought: take one photo per day of something you're grateful for. Add it to your journal. If you keep the journal on your computer, it's easy to integrate photos with text.

There is an old saying about family giving you both roots and wings. Here are photos of some of the roots and branches in my family tree, some distant, some near. I've written stories about most of these people  in my Sepia Saturday posts. We all have to earn our own wings. For more Mosaic Monday posts, click HERE .

Listen to me, The secret is to  shine your own light,  follow your own path. Don't worry about the darkness, for it is in the darkest hours  that the stars shine most brightly.

My Valentine's Day Sepia Saturday post featured a love story about a young woman and her high school sweetie who eloped during college, much to the ire of her parents. Let me introduce her parents: Clara Davidson Biggs and William A. "Willie" Biggs. If you remember, Willie and Clara wanted Leota's marriage annulled. Even tried to get the sheriff to arrest their new son-in-law. Welcome to the family! Willie and Clara were both born in McDonald County, Missouri in the 1880s. Clara was the daughter of Thomas Davidson  and Mary Anne Harrell. Willie was the youngest son of John Biggs and Dicy Reed. John and Dicy were my great-great grandparents on my dad's side and Willie was the brother of my great-grandmother, Mary (Biggs) Arnett. Willie and Clara got married about 1905 when Willie was 22 and Clara was 17. Leota was born in December 1906. Employment prospects in McDonald County were not auspicious and by 1910, this little family was living in Enid, Oklahoma.

I listened to my heart. I've booked a photo workshop in Venice.

I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details  we all hinge our lives on. Rita Dove "Unfurling" © 2010 Meri Arnett-Kremian I love the way our lives unfold, detail by detail until we are fully in flower. - Meri (Rita Dove served as Poet Laureate  of the United States  and Consultant to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995  and as Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2004 to 2006). 

Whatever reality may be, it will to some extent be shaped by the lens through which we see it. -James Hollis ' WATER sKY" C 2009 MERI ARNETT KREMIAN I see stars and bursts of light  in water sky, find clarity where once was haze. I find sprites dancing  in the realm of myth, taste the jumbled fresh of love  in the thick thinness of beginning. I see deep veins of truth    pulsing toward the inexpressible. I see fresh magic  in the tilt and whirl of life. What do you see through the lens of your heart? - meri

As long as it's in the proper place and legal . . .  it can add color and zip to a blank wall space. For more Mosaic Monday posts, click HERE . And for a fascinating article about the creativity of graffiti artists that SPERLYGIRL brought to my attention, click here .

I'm a little slow on the uptake posting this photo because I had something else in mind to post on Friday before I remembered Nina's self-portrait day. And then there's Sepia Saturday, always a fun thing to participate in, so this is the first opportunity to focus on me. I like this photo because: I was feeling sassy that day the sky was blue and the sun was out and I was having fun window shopping I looked fashionable in my blue jeans,  tailored white shirt,  and brown leather jacket ( or at least that's my story and I'm stickin' with it ) it looks like the scarf in the window is hanging over my shoulder and I'm no dummy You can see how long my hair is I could be any woman because  my face doesn't show so it's me but not necessarily me and that fits with my belief that all women are sisters under the skin I think I look taller and skinnier than I really am and that's an illusion I'm willing to live with CELEBRATE YOURSELF!

They met and married in Wenatchee, Washington. Loren Lloyd Arnett painted houses for a business owned by his brother-in-law and learned the automobile upholstery trade. Mafie Marie Rosencrans worked as a nanny for the children of the minister of the local Christian church. They met, I've been told, at a high school basketball game. Lloyd was quite a ladies man, handsome devil that he was. He was only 22 when he married Marie, but he'd been engaged three times before. Was it her sweet beauty that captivated him? Her kindness and compassion? I wish I had asked this kind of question when I had the chance. They married in June 1922. Their first child, my father, was born about three years later. When Lloyd's father died in 1928, he and Marie and my dad and his baby sister moved in to his parents' home to help take care of his mother. After Mary Biggs Arnett died in 1937,  Lloyd and Marie became the owners of the house. Dad took the $18.75 mortgage payments to the ban

'Eveything is made of light,' he said,  'and the space between isn't empty.' Don Miguel Ruiz The Four Agreements

For your St. Patrick's Day pleasure, I can't offer you green beer, but here's a little touch of the Emerald Isle. Doolin - traditional Irish music center near Sligo Newgrange in the Boyne River valley pub in Galway looking back toward the Cliffs of Moher May you learn the secrets of the Shining Ones.

I'm feeling a little stymied right now, waiting for something to happen. I'd like to be able to take a trip while I wait, but the timing isn't right. So if you could travel anywhere right now, by plane, train, or the powers of your mind, where would it be (and why)? I think I'd choose Paris. Why? flea markets perfectly turned-out women and men who can't compete lovers strolling along the Seine patisseries the Eiffel Tower at night people watching hoping the "City of Love" will sprinkle its fairy dust on me.

Remember when the soothsayer warns Julius Caesar in the play, "Beware the Ides of March"? Well, March 15 is the Ides of March. It was a bad day for Caesar, but I hope it'll be a good one for you. Nevertheless, in an abundance of caution, I'm posting a yellow mosaic. (Actually, the images are a little too exuberant to say "Caution," but at least they're yellow.) To see other Mosaic Monday posts, visit Mary at Little Red House . She's the hostess with the most-est.

It's been out a few months, but it recently opened at our local independent non-profit film venue. Given that I'm a history junkie,  it was time for a field trip to see this Academy Award-nominated documentary. This film about Daniel Ellsberg  and the infamous Pentagon Papers is a fascinating look at American political and legal history arising out of one man's change of mind and heart and his crisis of conscience.  What do you find so compelling a principle that you'd risk career and prison? For most people, the answer is nothing.

When I was young,  a hand-colored portrait of this woman hung at the top of the stairs at my paternal grandparents' house. She looked so stern she always scared the peewadden out of me. That might not be a word, but you get the idea. Her name was Mary Jane Bliss, nee Mary Jane Butt. She was the daughter of Leonard Butt and Maria Weedman. She was born in 1845 married Sylvester Lyman Bliss  in Perry County, Indiana on August 14, 1861. Mary Jane managed to bear two children in short succession, my great-grandmother Eliza Jane and her brother John, before Sylvester answered the call of the bugle in September 1864. Sylvester mustered out in June 1865 and died in December 1865, presumably of something war-related. Mary Jane became a very young widow. And unlike most periods during American history in which young widows swiftly remarried, the Civil War snuffed out huge numbers of potential suitors. She got a small widow's pension (and I think the ribbon bow on her bodice  eviden

In the sweet territory of silence we touch the mystery. It's the place of reflection and contemplation, and it's the place where we can connect with the deep knowing, with the deep wisdom way. - Angeles Arrien I suspect that I'm creating random noise and distractions to keep me from exploring the place of silence. We all have deep wisdom and knowing available to us,  but sometimes it's a little scary to consider how powerful we really might be, if only we step up to our potential, if only we stop "dumbing ourselves down." How do you create the sweet territory of silence in your busy, hectic lives? How are you claiming what you know in your deepest wisdom place, that place of love and compassion from which right action springs?

I may not know where I'm going right now and trying to plot a path  by thinking - thinking - thinking doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere but crazy. Wherever I'm heading I know I'll have my camera in hand. That's one thing I can be certain about. The viewfinder helps me focus on things that I might not notice if I weren't looking at possibilities with an artist's eye. The process of capturing the vibrancy  and beauty of this living, breathing Mother we call Earth (and those that call her Home)  an image at a time gives me joy. And I'm certain that joy is a road-marker guiding me along my path. What certainties help anchor you to your life and keep you moving  along your path?

Do you ever feel like you're at a turning point, but you've got no idea which way to turn? That you're in a life place  that calls for thinking with your heart/soul and not with your mind and you're disconcerted because your mind just loves to be occupied with thinking? A life space that calls for patience when you're lusting for clarity RIGHT NOW? Welcome to my world.

I am blessed to live in the Pacific Northwest, a place where glass artists abound. The most famous is Dale Chihuly. I thought you might enjoy a mosaic  that features closeups of a glass installation designed by the master himself. The original pieces are featured on the Bridge of Glass at Tacoma's Museum of Glass. For more Mosaic Monday pieces, visit Mary's  Little Red House . 

It's Sepia Saturday again. Since my dear mother is recovering  from shoulder replacement surgery, I thought I'd feature her image this week. This is little Betty with her dog Spot. She was born in a small town in Oregon, the third of four sisters. The Depression defined her childhood, though I don't know how much she knew or understood. Her high school years were spent in the shadow of World War Two. She went to college at a time when women sought an "MRS." degree. She had a lovely singing voice and often performed  as the vocalist for weddings and funerals. I remember once when I was really little that she was on television in Indianapolis. She worked in the library at Butler University, putting Hubby through school, so to speak. She worked on and off through my childhood, when working mothers were somewhat odd and not at all normative. It wasn't a matter of personal choice as much as necessity, because her husband's ministerial salary couldn'

Since I'm taking care of my mother after she had her shoulder replaced, I haven't had much time to blog. Life's full of trade offs, isn't it? So here, for your amusement, is the latest issue of Platform58, having the theme "Paint." I've got a piece in there somewhere. I think it's the fifth photo I've had published. No compensation - no glory either. Just bragging rights, I guess. Like I said, life's full of tradeoffs.