Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒღೋ The Angels of April Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒღೋ

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, but must be felt with the heart.” ~Helen Keller

Let me tell YOU of the sweet whisperings of April days where quiet within all of a sudden I hear the faint rush of silken angel wings fly me by, whoosh! They came and come often still and sit on my shoulders, or teeter at the edge of my mind, or sometimes stand amused jolly in my corner of colors. 

I know they are there, here - when I feel laughter coming in- when I hear the church bells chiming - when I smell flowers from nowhere- the unprovoked smile of  a random someone...the dulcet chirp of green birdie balancing on my gate. Even smack right inside this big bulk of vanilla gratitude I carry right now, oh yes, they be here, the April angels. 

They keep watch all moments to catch tears, catch fears, catch hate, catch doubt, catch loneliness and spite-ness and every other drab grub that falls off my mortal shell, shedding like dead skin cells until I am scrubbed to glowing. 

We beings earthbound barter and trade potions for the promise of pretty, youth and longevity - but angelics come to soothe soured soul's withered lines, deepened scars, and calloused hearts with a swipe from The Balm of Gilead whose restoration plummets deep into dermis abyss, and we are whole again - born to new. This is what happens. This is what's true. 

So in my good, in my bad, in my gain and in my pain, in my breath and in -within - the - pockets - of - air that cut between the gaps of my entire somatic being, they flutter - they exist - they be. 

Breathing me faith, the angels of April, resurrect me, again. And life has color.

On Higher Ground

Each of us makes our own weather, 

determines the color of the skies, 

and the emotional universe which we inhabit. 

~ Fulton J. Sheen

Possessing a cottage by the sea, living lulled by wavy foamed lazy waves and taking leisurely walks in warm sugar bleached sand is a romantic notion that buoys my Piscean  fancy. -- The cottage: stony rustic with wistery climbing bounganvilla on its tiled clay roof, or vintage white timbered with a white porch facing the waves, or tropical quaint bamboo(ed) `with latched windows accented with dangling yam purple orchids and mango yellow flowerbells -- 

Or it may not be the dream of a sea but of an idyllic provincial cottage (a happenstance convenient10 minute drive to the city, haha!) complete with trellises of sweet yellow bells and fun hello's of friendly neighbors. 
---- little whimsy dreams because in reality I live neither by the sea.....nor  in some seductive romantic back road inn..fronted by a landscape of bliss. ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ. ℒℴνℯ •ღ. ℒℴνℯ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ

There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot,
 but there are others who with the help of their art, 
their intelligence, transform the yellow spot into sun. 
~ Pablo Picasso  

  Nevertheless, I wear this weather of blue skies in the inner insides of me and have colored my homes ( yes, each one I've lived in to where I am today) with the strokes of my emotional universe --> being that what I described above . And it delights me when friends smile and coo' "what a pretty space you've created" ( I have to articulate this because sometimes I forget and grumble and fret so).

 This is how I want to live forever and ever -- > taking a yellow spot and transforming it into the sun --> taking something mundane and working my miracle to make it come alive. Each day to live this way would be such a pleasure.   
 ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ. ℒℴνℯ •ღ. 
  
A tender reminder this is for me --> to trust that I am guided in my path. In moments of doubt and questioning; when a bite of fear sinks deep in my soul and I let slip how very well I am infused with strength that comes from above, it would be well to acknowledge the oft evoked phrase that goes "...we have not been given a spirit of fear but of love". 

Yesterday I was very much uplifted by what I chanced at a women's devotional website.
 
"My heart has no desire to stay
where doubts arise and fears dismay
Though some may dwell where these abound,
my prayer, my aim, is higher ground.


Lord lift me up and let me stand,
By faith on Heaven's table land
A higher plain than I have found;
Lord plant my feet on higher ground." 

 Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ. ℒℴνℯ •ღ. ℒℴνℯ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥
  
Today's musing leads me to the following insights:
1. We each make our own weather.
2. We determine the color of our skies.
3. We determine the emotional universe which we inhabit.
4. We can transform even a spot into something pretty
5. We are a spirit of LOVE
6.  We can live on higher ground.
 Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ. ℒℴνℯ •ღ. ℒℴνℯ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥

- all photos and paintings by me :D 

the gracefullest last movement

"By My Bedside" ~ Photo By: Roselle Quin

"You are always new. The last of your kisses was even the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest. "~ Oscar Wilde

No such word as "gracefullest" but leave it to Wilde to toss it in anyway! And I like the quote - like really like it! because my week didn't go as planned in my mind with all the smooth breezy peacefully dewdrop days of trickly peace and sunshiney' planting. Lots of sunshine ok, but no planting. And something upsetting forcefully rocked my inner sanctum  resulting to that night of gnashing, I suppose I can call it for letting lose  my quivering insides, haha! It wasn't chichi' and gawd' wish I could take back that pivot of an hour that despoiled my week. tsk! tsk! Nevertheless, there was fun and much basking in artsy energy as the hub and I visited a gallery and immersed our senses in a play of  panoramic landscape photography.

So here I am still with a smile, extracting sunshine from a cloudy day and fully resolved to make things pretty this week. You are always new, Oscar quips!

And the days will be a whippy "coconut delight" for me! Why not eh? Who's to stop me from my own brand of happy? Slopping up other people's gloom won't serve me any and I truly ought not allow bad vibes rant me up. One thing about negativity is it rides people and hops from one carrier to another - like a virus. You meet someone who met someone who was sneezing and soon enough you sneeze a bug too.  What better than to start  my week with an inoculation ritual, haha!

Surrounding myself with white light and a boost of Prism energy -- all colors at play in my day! Oh yes, that's it definitely-- the goal is to be a pendulum of energy, to infuse the minutes with color and vibrance and my own style of living.

Naturally, there could be glitches, and honestly even right now I'm not all that uppity about things. But I believe in something --  we are never alone, our muse and loving guides are here to cuddle and prod and lift us on. I believe this.

And with this in mind, I head off to write the plans that are whispered just for me. No comparing myself to others. No judging myself and saying why am' not like someone I perceive to be better - tis' a lie. And specially no judging of other people's ways and beings, but always a whispering of good thoughts and prayerful blessing sent out. Be me the smile of a flickering flame, dancing, alive and mysterious  making the darkest corners beautiful --  till the last movement of the last second of the last minute of this week closes at its gracefullest.

Source: google.com via Lady on Pinterest

Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ. of gardens i remember•ღ. ℒℴνℯ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥

Hear this....

"In My Neighborhood" 

~ Photo By: Roselle Quin

"Many of us have made our world so familiar that we do not see it anymore. An interesting question to ask yourself at night is, What did I really see today?" 

~ John O' Donahue, Anam Cara, A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Now and again when I walk the path leading out of our leafy lined subdivision, I am  inclined to stare at this house wishing it were mine. I could do so many things with a gate like that: maybe hang a gigantic flowery wreath, maybe paint it cream or white or a kind of patina green, maybe put in an ornate bronze knocker. It looks familiar actually, and it just occurred to me why.

Yes, I remember when as a child I would visit my "Papa Lolo's" house ( my late grandfather's elder brother) and the gate was a beautiful massive woodwork that looked very much like the photo I took.  Tucked beyond the imposing gate was a handsome garden home - in all manner and sense of the word garden! I'm not talking manicured lawns or dainty scented florals or delicate herbs. No. My grandfather's bother, just like him, was a truly ardent and very gifted gardener -- both possessed that perennial green thumb magic and could fashion what could pass for forests! Abundant fruit bearing majesty of trees, nothing less!

During visits, the gate would dramatically be opened and visitors were welcomed to a surprising oasis of a tropical forest garden with the house in all its red shingled bungalow Spanish splendor wrapped covetously around its wild green grounds. Mesmerizing! The lushness was opulent; the house itself so uniquely married to the luxuriant scene with its old fashioned red clay flooring, tall wooden walls, open wood beams and supported by a stone walled foundation resplendent in rustic romance. Everything was an enthralling splash of all possible hues of green, brown, rust, earth and nature --> complete with cats. A lot of cats!

It was an expansive home with no modern conventional door. Instead,  the house ushered you first into a porch, and then inside pine wax scented confines through a slate wooden sliding entrance that stayed open to the sight of Eden, more or less throughout the day. It was quite literally like living smack dab in the woods.  Very enchanting. The drone of a hum-drum world outside was drowned by chirps and rustles and cicadas. The ordinary road with its wonted living ceased to ostensibly exist, and one might in drinking in the impressive change of scenery, be taken to think of fairy elementals commonly (and quite seriously) regarded as a living part of nature in those days. 

And those days are gone. 

And it makes me wonder what became of the forest home of my grandfather's brother. All relatives have migrated to different parts of the cold western hemisphere and last I heard the house had been sold. Nobody lives in the old town anymore. Ah, but anyway, that picture above, it gives back precious memories of charming childhood days and transports me to an era when I could so casually wander and lose myself under the canopy of garden trees. Leaves quite a cheerful gentle feeling really.

And this is what I see...

Taking from what I just wrote, I know how my week will go by -- soothing, gentle, refined and angelically revealing.  I feel assured and guided, full and powerful. I have traveled a distance and arrived.  There will be matters to think of, but answers will manifest and peace will prevail. There will be plenty of sunshine to grow plants and dreams. And in the late late afternoons deliciousness will waft from my kitchen. And in the evenings there will be good food and stories and merriment around my table. And before late into the evening a spot of peace with me and my book. This is my garden of a life. This is my Lady Prism living. 

of miracles

People usually consider walking on water a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either in water or thin air, but to walk on earth. Everyday we are engaged in a miracle we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle. ~ Thick Nhat Hanh

my art

But why so much inner chaos within me the past few weeks?  I trudged with tears the rolling weight of rocks, and with a liquid of loneliness that bore through the soupy marrows of my being, and with a wild child tantrum clawed around the cartilages of my bones.  It was a different woman I had no recognition of that walked the way of my body those days. Life was a spiraling blur.

-- and to Answer: I had left myself open unprotected from the vile of this world! Like a gate unhinged, every prowler seeking entry was free to do so. Vulnerable, I allowed myself to absorb all the fear, the anger, the mindless chatter of a world absorbed in negativity. It is a weakness or a strength that I easily imbibe ( with a heightened sense) the intoxicating energy of a place ( or person), pulp bits of joy and felicity or -- fitful virulent impulses, the latter so lately contagious.

But I am grateful to my angels. They are all around me, these refined creative souls who reassure, ground and center time and again. Their healing potions tucked within the power of their words, splashes of pigments, composition and sound recapture what so genuinely resides within -- miracles, magic and charm, my belief. I am most grateful for their reaching out. I am not alone. Ever.

The Beautiful Life

Find out where joy resides,
and give it a voice far beyond singing. 

For to miss the joy, is to miss all. ~ Robert Louise Stevenson

How to make a beautiful life.

Love yourself. Make peace with who you are and where you are at this moment in time.

Listen to your heart. If you can;t hear what it's saying in this noisy world, make time for yourself.

Enjoy your own company. Let your mind wonder among the stars.

Try. Take chances. Make mistakes.

Life can be messy and confusing at times but it is also full of surprises. 

The next rock in your path might be a stepping stone.

Be happy. When you don't have what you want, want what you have.

Make do. That's a well kept secret of contentment.

There aren't any shortcuts to tomorrow, you have to make your own way.

To know where you're going is only a part of it.

You need to know where you've been, too.
And if you get lost, don't worry.
The people who love you will find you. Count on it.

Life isn't days and years.
It's what you do with your time and with all the goodness and grace that's inside you.
Make a beautiful life.

The kind of life you deserve.

~ From Quotebites.com

STRESS and Finding Grace in Whatsoever Things

My artworkie! :D

STRESS!

is the feeling of being a confused hungry locked guinea pig in a sopping wet cage with no free range time ever! If I could just... juST...JUST literally crumple, rip, and stomp the word itself with as much belching oooomph' of a blow, fug it out to oblivion, oh man, my friend, would I! 

To think that I've been wifey' for 23 years and a mom for 22, wow! Shouldn't I have it all together by now? Calm, collected, wise, comforting, a pole of strength, a river of rushing wisdom, feminine sage, the LIGHT??

Can I please be ALL that, NOW, the purrfect me in my mind? Seriously, I am an overgrown human hissing cat! Right now there is nothing at all remotely "enchanted" about moi' hahaha! Forgive me, but I am and most likely will ALWAYS be a colossal mass of inner hysteria when any one of my boys ( my hubby included :) is sick.

So it is, shucks, whether your child is 1 or 21 it's still the same gut wrenching wearing your heart-out-on your-sleeve ache! You bleeeeed without the ooze of red thick liquid. It is a trauma that leeches out of your every pore, your every follicle, a painful throb out of your every intake and exhale of breathe.You want to butt-head the ill feel, kiss that offending boo-boo away, hover, fuss, take the yolk of suffering unto yourself -- Oh ugh' I am dopey' simpering drama and can't help it. I'm a mommy and I WORRY (yes, even if he is 21 and not 1!).

Thank the gracious God, right now I think he (my son) is getting better; not as much coughing and no fever and he smiled - i know a smile like that. There is still the long tonight to observe -- and tomorrow I'd still insist he take another blood test. It's a bad bout of flu, BUT I want to make sure...like thoroughly clear my aching heart ( and head) sure it's a seasonal flu, period. Hah, and now it is my hubby sniffling and sneezing and all puffed watery eyed...and my eldest asked for a paracetamol...shazam!

So what does one do in a week of gut churning emotions? Clean - maddeningly! Chop down trees ( yes, I did -- they weren't really THAT big). Make a bonfire of the piles of leaves. Battle garden ants. Drink Coke lite ( instead of tea). Make art (somehow) then stop midway, walk here and there with a plastered smile showing spurious tenacity. Plus, do everything else in a half  dazed zombie semblance of one's self  while attending to patient.

I miss my BLISS! I miss smiling and combing my hair! I miss sanity! Thank goodness for fantastic photos like this one (below) I gleamed from Pinterest , It is just amazing! I adooore how colors and books and wine and odd dippity shapes blended together-- this is so my homey' style! The whole story can be found here:

 --> Natalie's Beach Girl Meets Book Nerd Nest

Source: gallery.apartmenttherapy.com via Lady on Pinterest

Of course, all sour days must pass ( a cycle of pain and birth it is)  and life is beautiful the way we make, stir or blend it. Let me meditate on an ancient wisdom I love..." whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." ~ Philippinas 4:8

So yes, I do. Grateful still that there is grace in every whatsoever little thing.

just being quiet with me

http://midsummerprism.tumblr.com/

You must not ever stop being whimsical, and you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life. ~ MaryOliver

 *”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥¸¸. ,•ღ. ℒℴνℯ •ღ. ℒℴνℯ♥¸.•*”Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ♥  

Two points. First, to always be whimsical: I can do whimsy. Second, to never give anyone the responsibility for your life. Hmm...poetic profound and so to the face.

It's a Monday afternoon and I am sick. Not as sick as I was yesterday but definitely out of whack. What a shame to start the week weepy, wallowed and wilting -- oh! my! haha! 

No, I will fight this. I cannot give anyone the responsibility for my life. Must must must pull myself up, mend and not pathetically wait for anyone to make me feel better. Yes, even if this bug makes me perceive everything ( even yesterday and tomorrow ) in such a mass of grey clouded disdain, I musn't  drown in morose thoughts but be present to life's prettiness and whatever small event to be thankful for.

Grateful for:
1. Having finally started doing my art (once again). How brave of me.
2. Pretty inspiring sites and started a Tumblr roll of it. Fun!

I will get my groove back once again for sure. Right now there is a mothering of myself needed, I admit. As much as my home is a space of  contentment and I am deeply devoted to family, I feel that a part of me wishes for more solitude. More just being quiet with me.

And this quote by Fitzgerald brought a smile to my sicky blue' day....

"It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living."
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald 

Having fun with: Midsummerprism Tumblr
and fun too at Lady Prism Pinterest

Source: wingsforlashes.tumblr.com via Lady on Pinterest