One of my absolute favorite poems of Rumi is this one…translated by Coleman Barks:

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Everyday life presents us opportunities to do what we love, in little and big ways, whether it is because we are frightened or because we are joyful! This has never been more true perhaps than now, for us who are living through this pandemic. We have experienced contraction and expansion in a variety of ways and most of all we have all experienced transformation…

For me, these past few months have opened up a well of creative living… whether it is in trying new recipes or foods, or in crafting collages and knitting projects and designing jewelry or in simply playing with time in spontaneous ways…Professionally, I am a high school math teacher so being in the classroom everyday presents its own challenges and rewards, but most of all, it reminds me to take care of myself, model that for my daughter and make time for play!

As I was talking to a friend about my new projects , she suggested starting a creativity journal! I don’t want to use yet another blog space but thought I would experiment using this space for some of my work…it will certainly help me be more regular in blogging!

So hope you enjoy what is to come…. this collage below is inspired by my intentions for my upcoming teacher training program and was done on this snow day today, with my amazing incredibly talented ten year old daughter who made her own collage (not shown here) and will probably start her own blog when she is old enough! 🙂

The woodpecker, according to Ted Andrews, author of Animal Speak, represents new rhythms, and we sighted a couple of woodpeckers in our yard on New Year’s Day! It also represents discrimination, in what we take on in life so that we protect our time and our practice! And I really wanted to find a seat to represent meditation. Finally, the background is from the Nature Conservancy 2020 calendar!

With metta, S