From the category archives:
Floral patterns have been used to decorate just about everything and appear almost everywhere. They have been used so extensively, that we take them for granted even though we pass them by everyday. One area of design we may not notice is on dinnerware. The floral patterns depicted here reflect the art work of great designers and remind us of a history in which flowers played a central part.
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Is it possible to maintain a positive frame of mind once you’ve become educated to the realities of the world and forever shed “ignorance is bliss” illusions? Or does it naturally follow that gaining knowledge and understanding of human suffering and injustice consign a person to a life of despondency, disappointment, cynicism, and passivity? It depends.
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With the appearance of Fall and the approach of Winter come a waning of daylight hours. Metaphorically, poets and writers have often used these seasons to describe middle and late stages, be they of gardens or human lives.
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When Leslie Marmon Silko spoke about her memoir, The Turquoise Ledge, at our local independent bookstore last week, she underlined the value of solitude to her work as a writer. Paradoxically, she has also found it very easy to slip into getting busy with chores (like dishes, laundry, or housecleaning) that steal away quiet time alone.
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After decades of living and painting in or near Paris, Renoir settled permanently in Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1907 at age 67 where he spent the last 11 years of his life. The mild Mediterranean climate, the colorful landscape and the luminous light inspired perhaps his greatest work.
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Standing amid the last carnations, mums, dahlias, cosmoses, marigolds, bells of Ireland, and strawflowers, evidence of Fall in the garden was everywhere, most notably in the bed of ripening pumpkins.
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When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego,
and when we escape like squirrels
turning in the cages of our personality
and get into the forests again,
we shall shiver with cold and fright
but things will happen to us
so that we don’t know ourselves.
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In re-reading The Story of My Life, I was moved by Helen Keller’s profound expression of gratitude for her teacher Anne Sullivan:
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Retrieving my mail after an extended road trip, I was appalled at what I had failed to notice day to day … the barrage of bank ads urging me to write checks on credit (forget if I could repay or not) and sign up for more credit cards. The real shock was that they comprised over 50% of my accumulated mail and constituted a mini-McKinley mountain of garbage. Which made me think: What other things are slowly but surely forcing their way into our mental space?
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The living often muse about what will be said about them when they pass from this world into the next. It is important for most that they be well regarded, that their life work count as meaningful, that they be loved and missed.
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