The door is open. Outside, a small breeze moves the leaves. The moonlight plays on the pasture and the world is suffused in a soft silver glow.
I hear a quick rustle as the raccoon scuttles away, all soft edges and silvery gray in the moonlight. Deer are near the feeder, wanting its bounty of corn. The night is so quiet that you can hear the sound as they chew.
The moon is a bright crescent, on its path to fullness. The stars are bright in the clarity of the night sky. In the East, Orion is starting the hunt, his right knee poised on the horizon, his shoulders rising high. The Pleiades twinkle in harmony.
The Milky Way is distinct, a bright path of stars from the westerly sky high into the night. the distant hills wink with the soft red flashes of the cell towers that march across the heights around our town.
The soft curves of the road are lit silver threads through the trees and the grass. The inside of the house is filled with the soft gleam of moonlight on mirror and on glass, on stone and on the tile floors, cool beneath my bare feet.
The night is mild, a relief from the punishing heat of this summer. In the softness of a moonlit night, the world is full of depth and hope; blessed, normal.
The world is beautiful; the moonlight is beautiful.
The moonlight is kind.
The moonlight is, above all, kind for what it does not show.
For with the light of day, what is softly lit by the moon is revealed in the bright glare of the sun: the grass is dead, the trees are dying.
The green of summer, faded even in a normal August, is a thing of memory. My eyes see yellowing leaves, falling leaves, dead leaves. Whole cedar breaks turn brown overnight. Cedars, trees most do not love, are dying - and everyone will miss them.
I am filled with sadness and fear.
Drought has a stranglehold on our beloved Hill Country.
The Blackbuck and Axis herds move in small swirls of dust as their hooves strike the ground. The mostly nocturnal whitetail deer are showing their ribs and engaging in a desperate hunt for food and water in the heat of the day.
The birds search for food and each week there are fewer searching. The Hummingbirds fight for the few remaining flowers and engage in aerial combat around the feeders.
The water tank, which must be filled every day now in the blistering heat, is a popular respite.
I am grateful for the night, for in the night I can pretend that all is well. The damage is hidden, unseen even in the moonlight, and I am grateful.
Yet, something is missing, something profound. And then it hits me once again.
It is quiet. Very quiet. I am hearing only silence.
The soft coos of the quail, the hoot of the owl, the quiet sound of a bat's wings whispering in the air - they are all missing. And the night is suddenly loud with the absence of the quintessential music of the summer night - the trilling, raspy, insistent sound of the insects.
The night is loud with silence and the silence is not golden. It is merely silent.
My heart breaks and I close the door. It is too painful to hear the silence.
Maybe it will rain tomorrow.
SarahZoe's Blog
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Musings on Becoming a Pearl
Do you ever wonder how something so beautiful, so sensuous and so enticing as a pearl could be born from irritation?
Imagine the birth of a pearl...a tiny piece of sand or shell enters an oyster and it irritates, just as a mote of dust under your contact lens. You take the lens out; the oyster deposits a thin layer of nacre over the tiny intruder. As time goes by, the layers of nacre deepen and a pearl is formed.
The iridescence of pearls is the allure; light passing through the nacre seems then to return in a coat of soft color, making the pearl seem to glow from within. The pearl may be round and perfect; it may be baroque and freeform; it may be small or large; it may be a pure white or a dusty peacock gray. But, to me, it is always beautiful. It always glows.
A pearl transcends its beginnings. It grows and gains beauty as the tiny intruder is coated with layer upon layer of transparent nacre that, when it enters the light, is transformed into sheen and glow and beauty.
To me, pearls have the serenity that only people who are calm and sure of their true place in the universe possess. I remember seeing Pope John Paul II in the riotous tumult of St. Peter's basilica, teeming with people just after mass. His serenity was a beacon, a tangible presence, a sanctity that surrounded him like an aura. He was a pearl in his own setting.
I would love to be such a pearl, filled with the humble surety of God's grace and able to glow with that certainty.
Would that my irritation, whether to the vagaries of daily life or to the long-held anger at an insult, could flower into something as beautiful as a pearl. But my irritations never end like that. they end up as little stamps in a book, gathering strength as they are saved and hoarded until one day I throw the book at an unsuspecting victim.
But, I am learning. My irritations often now are just a cause for laughter at my own clumsiness or the intransigence of inanimate objects. The stamps in the book are fewer, the books smaller, the victims dealt only a glancing blow.
My hope is to learn and grow so that I too glow from within and share serenity and joy with those I love. I hope to make pearls from irritation and make gifts of them to my family and friends.
As I make jewelry, I create beauty from my imagination and from the gifts of the earth and the sea. I handle stones and pearls and they calm my soul as they ground me in the certainty of a power beyond myself.
I can take a pearl, or many, and create a piece of jewelry.
I cannot create a pearl.
And therein lies the difference.
SarahZoe
http://www.dreamstonesbysarahzoe.artfire.com
Imagine the birth of a pearl...a tiny piece of sand or shell enters an oyster and it irritates, just as a mote of dust under your contact lens. You take the lens out; the oyster deposits a thin layer of nacre over the tiny intruder. As time goes by, the layers of nacre deepen and a pearl is formed.
The iridescence of pearls is the allure; light passing through the nacre seems then to return in a coat of soft color, making the pearl seem to glow from within. The pearl may be round and perfect; it may be baroque and freeform; it may be small or large; it may be a pure white or a dusty peacock gray. But, to me, it is always beautiful. It always glows.
A pearl transcends its beginnings. It grows and gains beauty as the tiny intruder is coated with layer upon layer of transparent nacre that, when it enters the light, is transformed into sheen and glow and beauty.
To me, pearls have the serenity that only people who are calm and sure of their true place in the universe possess. I remember seeing Pope John Paul II in the riotous tumult of St. Peter's basilica, teeming with people just after mass. His serenity was a beacon, a tangible presence, a sanctity that surrounded him like an aura. He was a pearl in his own setting.
I would love to be such a pearl, filled with the humble surety of God's grace and able to glow with that certainty.
Would that my irritation, whether to the vagaries of daily life or to the long-held anger at an insult, could flower into something as beautiful as a pearl. But my irritations never end like that. they end up as little stamps in a book, gathering strength as they are saved and hoarded until one day I throw the book at an unsuspecting victim.
But, I am learning. My irritations often now are just a cause for laughter at my own clumsiness or the intransigence of inanimate objects. The stamps in the book are fewer, the books smaller, the victims dealt only a glancing blow.
My hope is to learn and grow so that I too glow from within and share serenity and joy with those I love. I hope to make pearls from irritation and make gifts of them to my family and friends.
As I make jewelry, I create beauty from my imagination and from the gifts of the earth and the sea. I handle stones and pearls and they calm my soul as they ground me in the certainty of a power beyond myself.
I can take a pearl, or many, and create a piece of jewelry.
I cannot create a pearl.
And therein lies the difference.
SarahZoe
http://www.dreamstonesbysarahzoe.artfire.com
Monday, August 8, 2011
Inspiration: Marvelous Metal Jewelry
Making jewelry has become my passion. I love the feel of the stones, the marriage of different elements, the joy of making something beautiful for someone to wear and enjoy.
There are so many creative avenues open to the jewelry artist from stringing beads to wire wrapping, from weaving to metalsmithing. My goal is to learn the art of metalsmithing and the collection at right - Marvelous Metals - is a showcase of talent that is an inspiration to me every single day.
"Jewelry featuring the creativity and skill of metalworking artists on ArtFire. Their work shows that metal is, indeed, marvelous!"
The pieces in this collection lure and entice me. Look at the sinuous curves and soft sheen of the silver pieces, the warm glow of steel and copper. Look at the forms - from smooth and angular to flowing curves. These pieces are not only beautiful, they demonstrate a wide range of technique and an amazing display of creativity and skill.
For me, they are inspiration. I have started small, but am learning. With these pieces as inspiration, someday one of my pieces may make a collection titled "Marvelous Metal".
But for now, I am happily weaving gold wire on copper, "embroidering" a spider web of wire on natural copper and hammering hardware store washers. Someday............
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)