Welcome Springtime

Springtime summons our wandering selves

Restored by good rest and nurtured by hope and care

 we, like trailing vines or sweetpeas, extend our tendrils outward --

Everreaching towards the light,

Towards something worth entangling --

Towards our soon-to-be-known joys

We wend our way (winsomely)

Towards wonder

Towards beauty

Towards our best and brightest lives

Towards love

Grow Well, Darlings

We see you -- and gather all the beauty you can.

WORDS TO LIVE BY

Solar Eclipse

Welcoming the Wild: A Sister Story

In celebration of Sister's Day this August 6th, here are my thoughts.

To be able to work with my sister Lizanne has been one of the most meaningful journeys of my life, and (as you can imagine) so different than my other work relationships.  She is, after all, out of everyone whom I am fortunate enough to collaborate with, the one who intimately knows me. We are sisters and co-workers. But the b-story (a.k.a., perhaps the better story) is the remembrance of how we played as kids and of our magical moments - and our foibles - as sisters and friends through the years.

As sisters who collaborate, we play well in the sandbox with others.  Evolving through this amazing work that we love to do, we find ourselves constantly interjecting the notion that even though we are not who we once were, we still have that child inside of us.  We remember who we were, but we don’t bind each other to our past.  What an extraordinary gift (as the alternate would be so stifling)!  We are binary stars, made of the same material, brought up in the same house, but each on our own path… able to see each other grow and change, and playing that most important role as sister to each other.My sister knows that I almost impulsively wander to create… and that to do my job well, I need to return again and again to this place that might seem up there, out there, or over there. It may be a place I need to go by myself, but she knows that it is right where I need to be, and she creates space for this.  And in building this Poetic experience together with Lizanne, her binary position in my life continues to prop me up and keep me on course, in a magnetic connection, almost instinctively, as only a sister can do.

There is a poem by Mary Oliver, called “Green, Green is My Sister’s House” that I just love and thought appropriate to share with Lizanne, and you all on this day when we honor our sisters.  The metaphor of the tree being my sister is so potent for me… receiving that beckoning call, that “clap,” and that welcome to the place where my creativity, my curiosity is nurtured.  Heading out on that limb. Where I return to my wild self, my truth, my purpose.

So thank you Sis; thank you for naturally challenging me, leading me, and understanding that side of me that needs to go up the tree, up in the air, so I can return to myself.  I love you very much, and wish all of us who have sisters much love today (and to remind us, that if don’t have one, to look to the trees).

With Spirit and Love,  Patti

“Green, Green is My Sister’s House” by Mary Oliver

Don’t you dare climb that tree
or even try, they said, or you will be
sent way to the hospital of the
very foolish, if not the other one.
And I suppose, considering my age,
it was fair advice.

But the tree is a sister to me, she
lives alone in a green cottage
high in the air and I know what
would happen, she’d clap her green hands,
she’d shake her green hair, she’d
welcome me.  Truly.

I try to be good but sometimes
a person just has to break out and
act like the wild and springy thing
one used to be.  It’s impossible not
to remember wild and not want to go back.  So

if someday you can’t find me you might
look into that tree or—of course
it’s possible—under it.

– Mary Oliver, “Green, Green is My Sister’s House,” from A Thousand Mornings (Penguin Press, 2012) 

DUE COURSE: THE SCENIC ROUTE

Inspiration behind the Honey Love collection, straight from the hive along the Scenic Route

Waxing Poetic believes in taking the Scenic Route, which means:

1) quite literally, we like looking at things and taking our time and not rushing and being careful to notice tiny details and unexpected treasures and sometimes going so far off the beaten path we end up in the middle of the mountains surrounded by flowers and

2) appreciating similar tendencies in others who went before us and learning from/being inspired by their journeys and discoveries and
3) being grateful for those who left milemarkers, signposts, maps, fieldguides, and star charts so that
4) when we get to a place where we feel filled enough with feeling and fervor that we want to make things, we can do so in a way that is filled with
5) Reverence for the world, for nature, for our families, for our friends, for our artisans, for our craftspeople, for the raw materials we source with great care and

6) for the tremendously gifted and giving people who help realize our vision and designs into tangible, wearable, dreamroutes.
View our Honey Love collection, along with other jewelry inspired by the Natural World here:https://www.waxingpoetic.com/collections/themed-jewelry/natural-world/

 

We Are Love

In celebrating each other, those we love,

and the signifiers of our deepest truths,

we see our best selves reflected back.

SHADOWS OF SUMMER

I don't know how long we stay that way, but we watch the sun go down together.

 The giant, burnt-orange sphere sinks towards the horizon,

coloring the rock layers until it's gone

 and the canyon is covered in shadow.

― Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

The Key

The Artist is no other than he who unlearns what he has learned, in order to know himself.

― E.E. Cummings

Somewhere Uncommon

Find secret histories through sidestreets and footnotes
The littler pieces,
Bright and tiny
a minute menagerie instead of chorus>
Finding doesn’t always happen by searching.
Instead, sometimes finding is something else.
But when we are
Willing to look
And keep looking
And keep trying And keep learning And keep hopeful And keep faith
And keep heartfelt;;;
And make things, Make many somethings
Records of our journeys (big and small)
We’ll get somewhere uncommon yet utterly welcoming
(this includes those dear to us – for we can’t do it without them…)