Mother Days:Feathering The Nest

"The business of life is the acquisition of memories." 

I'm quoting Downton Abbey here. Season 4 if I'm not mistaken - where it goes on to say, "In the end that's all there is to it, afterall." 

Sobering. And to the point. And true. 

Very true.

Here ( actually, the pic up there) are my Mother's Day knick knack memories - in posted pictures: 

• a can of mixed nuts ( always crazy for mixed nuts!) 
• 2 newly bought books ( been a while - glad I found a real swell copy of Scarlett Feather. My old copy is torn bad to bits)
• girlie blue flower sneaks ( so sweet and cheap - hard to resist, haha!) 
• my forever, never to wilt flower power ( whatcanisay? I'ma' practical gal, lol!), 
• and a framed photograph of my sons at that adorable age when I was still queen mommy of the wild wide world of the wise, in their eyes! I miss those days. 

Now here's a glimpse of my flower homey - my nest,  the sacred space where all the mother feather(ing) action happens. It has a hue of its own, an obliging energy that takes the mood of the moment (always) to give off converted vibes of comfort - much like trees do' - sucking environment and processing  to exhale oxygen. 

My hearth pulses alive and encompassing in kindness. Old walls absorb our daily frantic rush, our loopy gaggling' guffaws, our ever pedantic sermons, our complications, our prayerful vocations, our whispered adorations and, yes, my feral shrieks when I kinda' go ballistic, hehe! 

As much as I mother the flesh of my own, my home mother's me. It mother's my dreams, my longings, my fears, my creativity, my plans, the dusk of my darkness, the light of my soul - it mother's it all. 

Holly and holy, feathered corners speak of sacred..of the Queen of Heaven and her perpetual help, of the Christ Prince of Peace, the Holy Family, the dedication to the Lord Father for whom dwellings tell, "As for me and my house,we shall serve the Lord," of  Buddhist blessings of  zen mindfulness, and of ancient Hestia's goddess function  for the Okios: home is temple -- the hearth house of socio religious and political stability.

There is a day for the applause of Mother's....but a day is nary enough to capsule the entire cost and profit of a woman's life baptized in motherhood. There is mutiny of emotions, volumes of recollection, the complicated merger of pleasure and pain in the acquisition of memories to stamp a date dedicated to the august of parenthood. 

I remember Mother's Day gone past - when my sons were boys..the flowers and cards and kisses...scribbled notes. But even more in my heart is etched those o-r-d-i-n-a-r-y days when there was nothing to commemorate. How they'd come to me with wild flowers- an offering of their innocence...days when they'd  hand me notes - cute crooky drawings to show love for mommy...

Those..are the days I treasure most. Not a specific Mother's Day - but a string of Mother Days that braid all moments to today. 

Days of feathering the nest, they are a celebration....and each moment we parent the day, inspite of its setbacks and tantrums and misbehaving minutes is a toast to the good times....

Life is memories, a continuous feast of faithful memories if we make it so. Tis' the business of life - and that's all there is to it - in the end - afterall.  

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.

Morning chit - chat!

Glory be, you're luminous! Just look at you glow! :D

Friday morning, waltzing the usual route I spied pansy flower friends waving at me, haha! The pretties were blushing in pinkness inviting yours truly to "come, come, come nearer dearest you and spend a tick - tack - two with us!"

They had much to tell, believe you me' and oh' the secrets they divulged:

: the girl who bruised her knee,
: the bird who clipped a wing - what tragedy,
: the cat who chased a mother - cat,
: the bewildered singing cricket,
: an amorous bat.

And who are you, what's up to do, their fluttery petals demured.

Before I could reply, I kinda' clammed up shy and humbly bid their photos taken.

Aw, yes, yes, yes, a chorus of chattery bloomy excited! By height, they tip - toed high and posed their pistil smiles gregarious. Smitten, pink camera flashed once, twice, thrice - fancy portraiture nature selfies.

What giggly' celebration after!
"Wild wizardy, that was awesome!" said the littlelest astonished pinky'...

Later I'd say, recalling the day,  "ah, yes, the visit was - b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l!"
Charms, chimes and enchantment, flowers talk, um' yup they do!
I hope you witness such magic too!

St. Therese ~ A February Devotion

Dear Little Flower, make all things lead me to heaven and God, Whether I look at the sun, the moon, the stars and the vast expanse in which they float, or whether I look at the flowers of the field, the trees of the forest, the beauties of the earth so full of color and so glorious, may they speak to me of the love and power of God; may they all sing His praises in my ear. Like you may I daily love Him more and more in return for His gifts. Teach me often to deny myself in my dealings with others, that I may offer to Jesus many little sacrifices.

Saint Thérèse, the Little Flower of Jesus, please

pick a rose from the heavenly garden, and send it

to me with a message of love.

I ask you to obtain for me the favors that I seek (here mention your request).

Recommend my request to Mary, Queen of

Heaven, so that she may intercede for me, with you,

before her Son, Jesus Christ.

If this favor is granted, I will love you more

and more, and be better prepared to spend eternal

happiness with you in heaven.

Saint Thérèse of the Little Flower, pray for me.

Grace and Miracle, like two winged sweet sister angels of faith have been walking my side since February ushered in. I took no notice till a moment ago when the thought pulsed my mind like a sudden heartbeat.  

I smiled a secret content when it occurred how in constant subtle ways the heavenly realm has been and is ever present around, above, below and within me: in my bleak minutes, in my breaking pains, in my darkest waking being. It draws even clearer as I sit here sensing this startling tactile reality. All my guiding angels are in attendance. 

Love oozing from little gaps between cracks, they're everywhere. There's a certain shine to my days, a sheen, a glitter, a glint and charm.

Grace and miracles...I am lifted! 

♥Fiat Lux ♥´¯`•.¸¸.• ♥L❀VE ♥´¯`•.¸¸.• ♥ •

Catching Light Chasing Shadows ( Lux Lucis Vita )

1-28 2014 Maybe this resonates with you. Maybe it doesn't. A moment when slices of decorous days turn sour and your light within extinguishes itself without apology.

Suddenly, your inner colorful morphs into a mottled palette overnight, a drab washed out lizard salmon of a life. That tempest within, she wakes, cocking what a diminutive dun you are.

Facing shadows - a melancholy one must battle.The past days have been so for me. What was there to do but embrace it. My adoring gratitude goes to the one who is patient and who believes and makes me laugh, until once again I am suffused with the sensation of bright - a conduit to the honest happiness around me. Tis' over. Now, I claim my emergence.

"One need not be a chamber to be haunted...

one need not be a house.

The brain has corridors

surpassing material space."

- Emily Dickinson

Something is happening to me. For weeks on end I am swept over by a sour suffocating smog of the soul. As if my spirit, once blithe and carefree, all of a sudden felt faint weary, begging for rest - that long deep dreamless rest of the ones who sleep. Scares me. 

I am not unfamiliar with my shadow. We are....acquainted.
Once a year I am besieged with an un - s.u.n.c.t.i.m.o.nious vacuum that knifes through my being. A veritable selfishness, sloth and venom of days wherein I pace my dysmorphic earth with hollowness. As if nothing exists and matters. Ghostly. A self satisfied canting of there is no mend. 

End.

I speak to it - at it - my barren shadow. 

Not with fights. Not with accusations. Not with soothing words nor with acceptance. 

Letting it be, I walk it through capturing beams and prisms as light amiably slants through branches, leaves and twigs, settling in streets, lawns and bends. Lucent.

I catch the light 

and I catch it 

and catch it 

and catch it. 

Until captured, the light becomes me,
and becomes me,
and becomes me,
and finally,

becomes me,
chasing my shadow -
away. 

Lux Lucis Vita

CATCHING LIGHT CHASING SHADOWS
( a photo journal - click on the link to view all pictures.)

My Many Many Joys ~ January's Lady Prism Living

I want the joy of simple colors, street organs, ribbons, flags, not a joy that takes my breath away and throws me into space alone where no one else can breathe with me, not the joy that comes from a lonely drunkenness. There are so many joys, but I have only known the ones that come like a miracle, touching everything with light.~ Anais Nin

A quaint quiet moment at home.

Keep track everyday the date emblazoned in yr morning.~ Jack Kerouac

Let me remember you sweet succulent January, not for the swipe of ordinary that wrenched my heart with earthly worry, but for the exuberance of your soft rising mornings, for the kindest' constant dew that misted our mortal mid-day livings, and for the gratifying minutes, seconds, hours tinted with laughter well to the embrace and luscious comfort of your evenings replete with walks under a suede sky speckled with brazen scattered starlights.

Grace and miracles, light and shadows, January was a gift of a month; a collection of days that unraveled in gentle supplication. Like the dream of sweet incoming mountain fog, the spirit of an obliging Janus wrapped me in anticipation, whispering, yes..yes, in your life it is possible to create magic, to manifest desires, dreams and intentions, and to live daily with a cleansed bright aura, if you so do wish. 

And these few chosen pics are but random manifestations of the fun  that presented themselves. What pleasure it gives for me to see them blogged artfully this way. My many many joys.

Grace And Miracles ( my two words for 2014 )

Consider starting a "Grace and Miracles" journal and write down whenever love, grace and miracles show up on your path. It happens more than you know. ~ Illuminating Souls

1:53 pm, 1, 1- 2014 

 eyes closed, I sit amidst the languid celebrating whooshing' rustle of tree leaves quiet with the preternatural afternoon silence of nature. 

I love silence. I hate babble. Silence is a way of saying : We do not have to entertain each other. We are OK as we are. Me and my trees.

2nd day of 2014 3:19 pm 

My books and such in front of me but I am not ready. In a moment, perhaps. Right now it is the breeze from outside that sways my mind..slow and threshing..it makes me think of the sea.. low winds rippling the sea of wheat...I must start I know..in a moment..meanwhile my cerebral floats free..I mentally chase butterflies. 

~ my Facebook Journal snippet 

3rd day of January 2014 - Early in the morning. "Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

January mornings are orchestral! Everything is cool: Light in its softest penetrates through walls and windows as it steals through trees and leaves across pavement and grass. Life becomes velvet. Soft and comforting. Gossamer. Even the breakfast pancakes feel like cashmere. "Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

And right now what's on my mind...

Let me tell you, it feels I'm taking one step into the world. A new world. Different from yesterday, from an hour ago, from a minute ago. A world where I am in my own true skin: free, brave, notorious in my passion, plucky with wisdom and audacious in endeavours. 

 Last night I was standing in the middle of my kitchen when all of a sudden, a diaphanous joy coursed through me. It wasn't a rampant faith on sparkles, but a thin satin shimmer that felt light on the skin, good, calm, reassuring. In my mind my little pink cells chattered, "this year is your year of authenticity! Go on, be flowery, be brave, dress in your poetry!" 

There is no tentativeness to this thought. 

Maybe I've come of age finally. Like a classic wine corked, hibernated and shelved for its proper year, could it be that I too am' sweet, ripe and pleasurable for the becoming moment of pouring? Could it be that finally I can relax and trust in the aged goodness of my being? It sure feels so.  

Grace and Miracles. 

This Mindful Moment smack' in the Middle of 40's!

Maybe it's the scalding hot peppermint tea, maybe it's the yellow decongestant, but thank God, I can breath again, somewhat. Suffering from allergies that's me right now; my chest feels constricted, my eyes blurred, head a block of  achy' - my back a plyboard stiff solid discomfort , ears clogged partly, and then there's my nose too..the right disobliging nostril. There are days when I literally feel that parts of me are on finicky' strike, refusing to reason with my mind, huffy belligerent as an errant pugnacious adolescent. Hah, which happens to be exactly what I'm done with - adolescents - teenagers, to be exact! 

 My 22.4 year old youngest enrolled in college, for what would be his last semester! Might I say,  this is a yelpy' "hurrah" moment for me, though in turn there's also that mommy horror rub-a- dub' fear of an absurd grim chance he would flunk a subject -  a cuckoo possibility far remote as Timbuktu' because his grades have been historically above par since shifting to Media Studies from Accounting, whew! Plus, my loves know what a classic hissy fit La Diva' Mama is capable of when her sensitivities are trifled with, hehehehe! :D 

So there, with my eldest just graduated and the youngest on his way, I patiently endure my soggy' flared sinuses, smile and  bow in exhaled gratefulness for the lot I have in this mindful, change charged moment smack in the middle of a 40's mid-life! 

Do I worry? Yes! Do I worry? Yes! Do I worry? Yes! I am the granted "Queen of Worrydom" currently, as I grind my mind (yes, I can) trying to divine a perfect future for the boys; a future where no unsound choices are made, no calculating jerks are met. If this mother may, for them I vouchsafe simply exact smooth transitions from one level of professional success to another, leveling up to unmitigated bliss of sound familial glory, until (finally) crowned philanthropic brilliance. Suave.

Survival.  Success. Significance. BUT, without the caustic arduous messy struggling stumbling crusty pain filled parts. Cosmeticized photoshopped existence (?) Quite subhuman, really. How imprudent of me to think it.  

If I could only live their lives for them, side-stepping wrong decisions, plucking ripe worthy aspirations to grant at the end of it all, the fullness of their life's true meaning..then I would. Because, right now when I gaze at them young at the cusp of beginnings, I live my life in sentimental  retrospect pin-pointing exactly my gains, salutes, strengths, victories, as well, as the thudding faults, groping blunders and downright errors I had to grapple with. Like the "Oracle" in the "Matrix" I want them to be the "One". I want to reveal the "path". What a foolhardy' fallacious aspiration, for there isn't any super power for me to give or grant. They have to make for themselves what they are and walk what road they choose to pave. Very much the way it was and is for me. 

Awhile ago, one of them asked what my "goal" in life is.  He followed it by saying his goal is to be able to help the "less fortunate"....  

My goal is what it has always been since I've decided to be a mother. To be as a   significant lighthouse...inviolable...weatherbeaten perhaps, but ever reliant in sunshine, enduring in storms, imperishable in tremor and gracefully standing in calm. I may pursue varied "interests" - but they are not goals. I only have one life on this plane. I am Lady Prism..my life purpose is iconic... I am an encompassing beam and a  forever light ( my children)  that's yours. 

I'll be watching you.