A Contemplative Life

Writing, sewing, um, life. A new day, another chapter in On Being Brave , and the proper photos taken of a brand new quilt! It's a Monday kinda like no other, other than it's simply another Monday afternoon. But joyful bravery adds a new dimension to my life as though I'm the alien, newly arrived on Earth, wondering how cool is this rather gray-skied planet in this little corner of a tremendous world. Washed and decently crinkled; I'll take it! Once again the North Coast is smothered by clouds, but it's good for the Mile Post 18 fire, the inversion layer lessening the oxygen, trapping the smoke, keeping the blaze slightly under wraps. If I was newly landed on this planet, I'd be shocked at how many fires burn, but compared to the enormous fires from years past, California is getting off easy. Canada and the rest of the Pacific Northwest not so much, but as an interloper from outer space, I wouldn't realize that, nor would I actually be aware of how blessed C...

The last heart, almost done! Ten hearts remained after Friday night's stitching. Ten out of over two hundred. Ten hearts that were randomly scattered, a few clumped together. And now all those hearts are hand-quilted, and I'll wash it tomorrow, then mail it off to a lovely person who adores hearts. What could be better? Yet, an English paper-pieced quilt doesn't happen overnight. This particular project began late in 2024, a kit by Jodi Godfrey . I dove into it as, well, as hearts seemed wholly necessary to embrace, as my country fell under an influence absolutely dark and menacing. As I cut fabrics, basted jewel shapes, then stitched them into hearts, my chest muscle was slightly assuaged. And the more I worked on it, amid learning the Kawandi method, the better I felt. Defiant hearts. Strong hearts. Supple hearts. Beating hearts. Wearing my heart on my sleeve hearts. You get the idea. June 2025 Then in June of 2025, I finished the top. What a monumental completion! And a...

The wind stirred as I began snapping pictures. This is the last one, haha.   Butt-ugly was its moniker, lol, until earlier this week. Sticking to the design wall like an unwanted, an unwished for, an undesired....something. That's what this formerly bad idea was until I trimmed the lower edges into something resembling uniformity. Then suddenly I liked it. Suddenly it wasn't egads-awful. It was magical, crazy-quilt magical! It was love that a mother has for a previously unruly child that proffers one heartfelt apology and all the aged hysterics and backslides are forgotten. Ahem. After I trimmed it, I took a picture, then captioned it the Whatnot Quilt. But I think Crazy-Magical Quilt better sums up how I see it. Because I've been staring at it in the photo below for nearly two months every time I do my stretches where the design wall lives, where this bunch of rows that have little in common has been sticking out its tongue with impunity at me. An experiment in sewing rows...

Hearts hand-quilted during this summer, including one from last night. I'm not posting an excerpt, merely wishing to get my head around a piece of writing, all seventeen chapters of it, that kinda emerged outta the blue, or the gray, as today along the North Coast it's seriously MARINE LAYER DAY. Like the marine layer is super-peeved at unceremoniously being shoved aside in recent weeks for plenteous sunshine and is asserting itself in a You Can't Touch Me sort of way. I could giggle at that marine layer, which won't last forever as it's already close to Mid-August, but this isn't a Where has summer gone? post. This is a How many antidotes are necessary? entry, as again I write a chapter littered with spiritual references and emotional upheaval. I have a post waiting, entitled The message of reconciliation . It's based on a line in an aged hymn, Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven , which like many ancient hymns is merely the first line of the lyrics. ...

Peace Round the World quilt yesterday on the work table. Well, I've read over the last five chapters of On Being Brave , so maybe tomorrow I'll write a new one. Once again, I am floored at how when allowing the Spirit to do the heavy lifting, some nice work comes together. Heavy on the character-driven fiction, a little sci-fi thrown in for good measure, pressed down, then overflowing with grace, forgiveness, and love. That's my genre-jam in a nutshell. For backstory, read Home and Far Away: The Enran Chronicles Book Four . Ignore the Book Four. Home and Far Away can be read as a standalone, though if you want all the backstory, read Far Away from Home: The Enran Chronicles Book Three . Feel free to read Book Four first. And have a wonderful Wednesday!   Chapter 16   Gilly and Ross arrived at SFO on Wednesday afternoon. Richard met them, but Gilly drove on the way back to Jumpville. Ross peppered Richard with questions about Hugh’s conversion to Catholicism while Gill...

Mama Doe and fawns behind our kitchen, from 5 August 2026. I'm rereading On Being Brave because the grandsons have gone home and in a day or so, I'll have time to hopefully complete this.... It's a novel, plain and simple, this section set in summer of 1999 concerning the Lund family. Not a short story, not even a novella. But it will be part of a collection of tales linking four arcs of a series . Huh. Didn't expect that. Nor did I plan to share the following excerpt, but in starting at Chapter 12, well, this chapter is why I write what I do. It's an antidote to a smidgen of the negative aspects of this world. It's one antidote, lol, but indicative of the underlying themes of my fiction. That shite happens, but if we are brave, our hearts recover larger than previously. More able to love. More able to forgive, which at times might be more important. And certainly more capable of moving forward. Anyway, here's Chapter 12. Enjoy!   Chapter 12 I don’t car...