Making time for Medicine

                                             

                                                                           

"i come away with that thought, how making, known or unknown, makes the antidotes...." ~ grace

I've been spending some time Making lately, Making time to Make stuff.
expanding my vocabulary,
exploring and experimenting, as I do...
a different form of medicine
good for what ails me

Fragments

remaining bits

We had a Gypsy moth attack this year. The caterpillars ate the trees down to bare twigs by mid June.
Preferring the pines and oaks, they got to the maples last, leaving bits of the leaves behind.
My little Japanese maple is making the most of its shreds of finery.  

I seem to be trying to go in forty different directions at once. I never am sure of where to start, everything seems equally important. There are some changes looming ahead and I want to meet them on my terms. I just wish I had a better description of what those terms are. Its hard to trust that this will sort itself out if I can just trust the process of sorting it out.

Easing back in.

early autumn  grape leaf

Depression is a hell of a thing

spider on button bush

I don't know how other people experience it,
I withdraw, I medicate, I lose touch.

fungus and lichen, oak stump

I lose people, sometimes forever...  
and that is sad too.

 eastward long view

It's not relaxed, just anxiety, endless and paralyzing.

last of the lilies

It rises like a wave, and I tread water until it recedes.
Sometimes that can take years.

wild aster in the poison ivy

I learn how to treat it, I medicate it, I get some help (I'm fortunate)

wild aster

Eventually I start to wade out.
Sometimes that can take years too.

Still Thinking

Nest 20

 Nesting has been with me for a long time now, 3 or 4 years at least. Sometimes it has shown up as art but it has also been a large part of my activities. I find myself sorting all the strands of my life, trying to find the shape of it. What do I want it to be?

Nest 21

Looking again at Tribes and Icons

more sorting 

trying to understand their stories, who they are 

Nest sketches

My attention has been elsewhere
I'm still focused inward
still thinking about nests
sketching them out with what I find at hand

Nest 13

Nest 14

Nest 15

Nest 16

Nest 17

Nest 18

Nest 19

This week

Nest #12?

 Some time was spent on nest construction, I'm trying to experiment with materials and learn some construction methods.

Gypsy Moths!

 I spent some time hunting gypsy moth eggs. I know it is a futile battle but I'm hoping to spare "my" trees from destruction next year

Killing Gypsy Moths

I started to play with resisted lines on stones.

I'm not sure what happened to this pic on upload but I kind of like the result.

Charcoal experiment

Explore

Old orchard 

So having just begun a new year  I have chosen a word for myself
Explore
it is a doing word as opposed to a being word and I think I need that right now
to be doing stuff
not judging
just trying
just seeing where that will take me
I like the word, it encompasses possibilties and yet it can be applied to even the most ordanary experience to transform it
this should be good