Stardust & Wonderment

Saturday was my father's 85th birthday. After dinner he made a little speach, beginning with "My life has been a blast!" What an awesome thing to be able to say.......at any age!!! And I, at 57 years old, knew on a deeper level that I had better start to live. Far too much has been put on hold. Well partly because of physical challenges and partly because of other things

I am full of so many things changing inside of me that I cannot put it all into words. It's like I am in a time of quickening............... and everything feels accelerated. My heart has been opened, causing me to remember my magical origins ........... to once again dream of impossible things happening every day..........and to believe in dreams being transported into reality. "I dare to believe, in the presence of both blessing and hardship, that I'm worth living a life Too Good and True. I am comprised of infinite possibilities, stardust, wonderment and hope. "

As always, I am a quote junkie, ...........and a romantic. So a few to ponder on:

You need to claim the events of your life to make yourself yours.
When you truly possess all you have done, which may take some time,
you are fierce with reality ~Florida Maxwell Scott~

...How she submitted ---. Loved.
Loved her interior world,
her interior wilderness,that primal forest inside her,
where among decayed tree trunks
her heart stood, light green... ~Rilke~

The moment I heard my first love story I started looking for you,
not realizing how blind that way.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along . ~Rumi ~

knee surgery

I got a call today to give me a date for a long awaited surgery. On March 2nd I will have my first knee replacement done. I injured this knee in 1964, smashing the patella. I have had 3 surgeries on this knee, one of those being to remove the patella (knee cap), and am now getting a knee replacement. In a few months I will get the left knee replaced. I am looking forward to having these surgeries behind me, and regaining my mobility.

25 Random Things About Me

1. I have the most amazing peeps in my life, and they mean the world to me!

2. When I was a really little girl, my most treasured possession was my teddy bear...... which I slept with until I was close to 30. Then I got a new one to sleep with!

3. I was a hippy wannabe........ maybe part of me still is because I feel most like myself when I'm on Denman!

4. " Who I am is an evolution "......... I am always changing. You can ask me the same question on different days and get different answers!

5. I think I may have ADD because I am so easily bored. Like I need to have several books on the go at once, many different crafts, art mediums, etc. Maybe it's just because I'm a Gemini !!!

6. I hate to "just" watch TV. Unless it's a really good movie I'm watching, I need to be doing something else as well, like kintting or cross stitiching.

7. I can express myself better through writing than talking.

8. I love swimming the best.

9. As a young person, my favorite movie was The Sound of Music, which my best friend Barb and I went to the theater about 12 times to see. ( It played in Vancouver for a very long time!)

10. I used to get up in my sleep and eat chocolate, and wake up with it all over my pillow the next morning!

11. In 1967 I went to Expo '67 in Montreal with my best friend Barb, and we stayed with my grandparents, and we had the time of our life!!! That was the summer I was 16.

12. I want to travel. Have always wanted to go live in Greece for a year, a villa in Tuscany for the next year........ and so on!

13. I once won a trip for our family to Disneyland. It was awesome and I have always wanted to go back.

14. Of Tessera's many accomplishments since we have been together, the one I am most amazed with was when she was part of an all women construction crew that built a house in Courtenay. Our friend Nancy was also part of that crew.

15. My favorite thing for breakfast is Camillia House French Toast ........ got the recipe from a bed and breakfast in Victoria we stayed at when we went down for the Leonard Cohen concert that Ben got us tickets for.

16. I waited 3 hours outside of the building after the concert waiting for L. Cohen to appear, and got his autograph.

17. My mother's family are descendants of Louis Riel.

18. I never did figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, and in the meantime I was an artist all along!

19. Mostly I live vicariously through other people these days!!!

20. There is no such thing as too many bags, or too many scarves.

21. I am part Raven, drawn to shiny, sparkly things.

22. Dragonflies are attracted to land on me. This happens a lot on Denman where there are a lot of dragonflies. I love them.

23. I have a love of reading that started early in life. One of my all time favorites is The Mists of Avalon. I think it may be time for a re-read!

24. I have had my heart broken a million different ways, in a million different places, but I keep on loving and being loved unconditionally, and it has all been worth it. And in the process, I have come to understand the words of Kahlil Gibran:

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break,that its heart may stand in the sun,

so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life,

your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; ......."

25. I am amazed that I finished this all in one sitting!

Noteworthy Quotes

Art will remain the most astonishing activity of mankind born out of struggle between wisdom and madness, between dream and reality in our mind.
(Magdalena Abakanowicz)

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
(Leonard Cohen)

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality".
(-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. )