My Personal Land of Counterpane

My Personal Counterpane (Stacy Wills, 2014)

watercolor on paper

The flu has been kicking my butt for two weeks.  It's been a long time since I've been this sick and housebound.  Today is the first time I've felt like sitting at my computer for more than a few minutes.  I've been to the doctor twice and have been taking my prescribed medicines.  I am getting better, but my batteries are not fully recharged just yet.  Serendipitously,  during this time of confinement, I have been taking an online class through Abbey of the Arts  called  Coming Home to the Body:  A Women's Journey toward Contemplative Embodiment.   "Aha" moments abound even though my head has been fuzzy from all the meds.   I have been particularly blessed during this retreat  by the artwork of Mary Southard, CSJ that  has been part of our weekly lessons.  Mary's work is beautiful, ethereal and mesmerizing.  I have been completely enthralled.  Her work confirms my belief that art heals.

As a child, when I was sick, my mother would often read to me while I lay in bed.  The poems of Robert Louis Stevenson were among my favorites, particularly The Land of Counterpane.   With apologies to Stevenson, my own personal "land of counterpane" has looked more  like this:

As I've been sick and lain in bed,

With so many pillows 'round my head,

Paints and brushes beside me lay,

To keep me happy all the day... 

I've not had the energy to do much else, but this illness has afforded me the opportunity to spend time rekindling my daily mandala practice, and also time to dabble and doodle to my heart's content in the small leather-bound art journal I bought myself before Christmas.  Its pages are filling up fast.

God Speaks to Each of Us (a poem from Rilke)

Incarnation (Stacy Wills, 2013)

acrylic on canvas + sacred altering

God Speaks to Each of Us

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,

then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,

go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like flame

and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you:  beauty and terror.

Just keep going.  No feeling is final.

Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

-Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

(Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

Getting a Jump on Next Year's Ornaments

Prisms (Stacy Wills, 2013)

alcohol ink on beveled prisms

December has been a full month - far more busy than I thought it would be....but even in the midst of all the busyness, the creative itch must still be scratched!  I salvaged these beveled prisms from an old art deco chandelier and wondered if they might work as suitable substrates for alcohol ink.    I really like the way  the first two turned out, and I've got plans to make more...I'm thinking these would make good Christmas ornaments for next year.   Happy Holidays!

Embody the Radiance

Light Body (Stacy Wills, 2013)

mixed media + sacred altering

Embody the Radiance

This is what happens

When Spirit

Pours through matter

Everything comes alive

Light incarnates

Love incarnates 

Embrace the truth

of who you are...

Embody the radiance

That is You

-Stacy Wills (12/16/13)

Feelin' Merry and Bright

I've spent the better part of the last two days making 

these alcohol ink on porcelain Christmas ornaments.

If you could see my ink-stained fingers, you'd know

it was a labor of love!

I was a teenager the last time I got crafty at Christmas 

and made  ornaments - salt dough ornaments to be exact.  I still have one or

two that have survived the years well enough to  make it onto our tree.

It took awhile to figure out the best way to do these,

but I finally got a pretty good system going.  The

hardest part was waiting for them to dry so I could

really tell if these were going to be "tree-worthy."

Once they were dry, I gave them a protective coat of varnish.

 I love the way my ornaments turned out so much

that  I'm already thinking about what I can do next year!

 I'll be taking these to a holiday market our

neighborhood is having tomorrow afternoon.

Hopefully, some will find their way onto 

someone else's Christmas tree!

I Go Among Trees (a poem by Wendell Berry)

The Tree of Life in Autumn (Stacy Wills, 2013)

alcohol inks on yupo + sacred altering

I Go Among  Trees

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it.  As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

-Wendell Berry (b. 1934)

While searching out this poem, I came across this video of it set to music by Giselle Wyers and performed by the University of Washington Chamber Singers.  Do you need a Beauty Break in the midst of a busy day?  Treat yourself to five and a half minutes of peace...

Prints of  "The Tree of Life in Autumn" are available here:
The Tree of Life in Autumn

For the Unknown Self - a poem by John O'Donohue

"Origins Unknown" (Stacy Wills, 2013)

alcohol ink on yupo + sacred altering

For the Unknown Self

So much of what delights and troubles you

Happens on a surface

You take for ground.

Your mind thinks your life alone,

Your eyes consider air your nearest neighbor,

Yet it seems that a little below your heart

There houses in you an unknown self

Who prefers the patterns of the dark

And is not persuaded by the eye's affection

Or caught by the flash of thought.

It is a self that enjoys contemplative patience

With all your unfolding expression,

Is never drawn to break into light

Though you entangle yourself in unworthiness

And misjudge what you do and who you are.

It presides within like an evening freedom

That will often see you enchanted by twilight

Without ever recognizing the falling night,

It resembles the under-earth of your visible life:

All you do and say and think is fostered

Deep in its opaque and prevenient clay.

It dwells in a strange, yet rhythmic ease

That is not ruffled by disappointment;

It presides in a deeper current of time

Free from the force of cause and sequence

That otherwise shapes your life.

Were it to break forth into day,

Its dark light might quench your mind,

For it knows how your primeval heart

Sisters every cell of your life

To all your known mind would avoid,

Thus it knows to dwell in you gently,

Offering you only discrete glimpses

Of how you construct your life.

At times, it will lead you strangely,

Magnetized by some resonance

That ambushes your vigilance.

It works most resolutely at night

As the poet who draws your dreams,

Creating for you many secret doors,

Decorated with pictures of your hunger;

It has the dignity of the angelic

That knows you to your roots,

Always awaiting your deeper befriending

To take you beyond the threshold of want,

Where all your diverse strainings

Can come to wholesome ease.

                     -John O'Donohue (1956-2008)