Skip to main content

Warm Messages from the Chill

All Occasion Card by Stephanie Bird

This morning I heard we had snow in 48 states. Snow on the ground - 48 states? Amazing. No need to go into it too far. It's cold. The plains states, super cold. What to do? What to do?
Collage on Paper - Stephanie Bird



Snow and cold are daunting. There's shoveling to do and many other practicalities to tend to. It could seem as though many activities are halted. Replaced with dull or exhausting tasks, like clearing paths. I'm not discounting the necessity of clear paths, just suggesting snow may open paths once dormant in several ways.

We have the opportunity to travel to so many different places, through the arts. My way has recently been through renewing my studio activities, picking up my brushes, canvases and paints. I've also picked up my novel manuscript. Day by day I'm breathing new life into it. I knew those CPR lessons would come in handy some day! I've taken flight from what is dismal situation outdoors and headed inward into the realm of imagination.

Music has been a great facilitator.  Before heading off to dreamland, I enjoy listening to nature sounds. Sounds--particularly those at the beach, reminding me of the warmer days to come, thaw my imagination. From there ideas flow. 

I have an assortment of sounds spliced with music for bedtime listening. Now, I'm using this vehicle well while writing. It stays in the background just enough not to get in the way, yet it offers gentle support. There are hundreds if not thousands of such albums. Here's one you might enjoy listening to this morning as you embark on a new day. particularly my compadres who also work from home: Paul Addams - of Peace and Compassion 


Labels:

Comments

  1. Chrys FeyFebruary 25, 2015 at 8:35 AM

    I love listening to music for inspiration, but I don't listen to anything before bed. I should try some soothing sounds like the beach. Maybe that'll help me fall asleep fast.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stephanie BirdFebruary 26, 2015 at 5:53 AM

    Chrys, I was the same way as you. I don't like any electronics in the bedroom at all. My husband thought the music was a good idea. So we play the music and/or nature sounds on my laptop near enough to the bedroom to hear. There is an entire genre of music dedicated to healing and meditation, which includes insomnia. I learned of this through an art therapy type of art class I took called Art for the Soul. Try looking for some renditions of this music on Pandora or YouTube. It's helpful.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Go ahead. Make my day by leaving a comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Gran Bwa

Gran Bwa is a lwa that helps you connect to ancestral roots or the spiritual home of Vodou. A friend of mine, who is an expert on Haitian Vodou, who has spent a lot of time in Haiti with the artists there, told me I had painted Gran Bwa when I made this spontaneous work out of walnut ink and sumi-ink on handmade paper. I had considered this painting a self-portrait. She now holds this piece in her private collection: Quite a few people are afraid of Vodou but it is an awe-inspiring tradition of bringing together plant energy with divinity, spiritual and personal energy. My friend who is very involved with Vodou, especially the art that surrounds it, is from European ancestry. She is light in spirit and bubbly, with a close relationship to nature and her garden.  Vodou affirms the relationships between cycles of life, trees of knowledge and spirit.  The Vodou vision of lwa , understands them as the intelligence of energy present in humans, nature and thoughts.  ...
5 comments
Read more

Tree Whispers

Tree Whispers Shinrin-yoku is a complementary medicine modality, designed to up-lift sub-par health conditions, through lifestyle changes that involve immersion in nature, specifically the wildness, we call a forest, where the senses, including our intuitive sense and ability to heal ourselves through it, is ignited. Forest bathing, as Shinrin-yoku is popularly called, has come to our attention, at a time when the scientific community is abuzz about the ability of trees - be it in stands, groves, or forests, to build community. This, at a time, when we as humans, struggle hard to build and sustain healthy in-person communities, in the face of Online communications. Books like “The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel, How they Communicate Discoveries from a Secret World,” (Wohlleben 2016) by Peter Wohlleben is a Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post bestseller. It makes readers privy to trees’ communication skills and social networks, that is, it helps us entertain...
Post a Comment
Read more

Art of Motherland Herbal

 Motherland Herbal is my latest book, set to be released June 11th by HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins. It is a cross-genre work, primarily an herbal guide, with elements of memoir, and creative nonfiction. It encompasses my passion for folklore and mythology, from the African diaspora. I’m back here to begin a series of posts built around the art within its pages. Today, I share my inspiration for the book cover art. One of my favorite houseplants is our Money Tree. Rich in lore, intimately connected to abundance, prosperity and luck, I adore this plant. It is plentiful, in its growth habit, beautiful in its variety of green leaves and becomes luminous in the morning, when it catches light, hence the yellow-orange negative space around the leaves on the cover.  I enjoy the playful way the art director at Harper, inserted the text, showing the title, subtitle and my name. The cover was a wonderful collaborative effort. It is designed to be inviting, informative and lumin...
Post a Comment
Read more