Calling All Angels

Calling all angels
Calling all angels
Walk me through this one
Don't leave me alone

Calling all angels
Calling all angels
We're tryin', we're hopin'
But we're not sure how this goes.

I heard this long first on Six Feet Under last year. It's stayed in my head and today refuses to not be heard. As the song was sung by the characters on Six Feet Under it was poingnant and raw. This version is absolutely smooth as silk and no less powerful.

Whoever you are, reading this blog today, maybe you need to hear this song too. It's comforting and uplifting and truly beautiful. The artist, Jane Siberry, has made it available as a free download from her store. Go listen.


Calling all angels, six feet under, Jane Siberry

Inside the room of your soul

I saw this fun thing on another blog somewhere, I don't know what the heck the photo is all about, but it's a fun blogthing anyway. Eerily, relatively true!

What Your Soul Really Looks Like

You are a wanderer. You constantly long for a new adventure, challenge, or eve a completely different life. You are a grounded person, but you also leave room for imagination and dreams. You feet may be on the ground, but you're head is in the clouds. You believe that people see you for how you are, not how you look. But deep down, you know that's not exactly true. Your near future is all about change, but in very small steps. The end of the journey looks far, but it's much closer than you realize. For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.

Inside the Room of Your Soul

Weekly Tarot - 06/24 - 06/30 - King of Cups

King of Cups
Sharman- Casselli Tarot

This weeks influencing card is the King of Cups. This King represents an opportunity to successfully take a risk on something that resonates emotionally or spiritually within you. He represents an awareness of an wise advisor who will serve as your guide if only you ask. He won't volunteer, but he is always there, waiting to be asked.

This King could be a person in your life whom you trust for advice. He's experienced in the world and is your rock. Always showing you the way by example, not lecture, in quiet assuredness. He may be an older male figure, a spiritual leader or an educator. He is deeply concerned with humanity and feels all the sorrows as well as the joys, but he keeps his distance and that allows him to make wiser judgments. He's a romantic, restless, an idealist and often, a dreamer visionary.

Within yourself you also have this king as an inner advisor, waiting patiently for you to call on him. He watches and waits, often giving you a small hint of his presence in unexpected insights or inspirations. Remember one of those genius thoughts you had and then let slip away? Try remembering next time and let this wise King begin to speak. Your inner self has connetions to all the wisdom of the universe and wants nothing more than to help you be enormously successful in your spiritual and emotional lives.

Give yourself permission this week to spend a few moments quietly allowing that wisdom to come to your consciousness. Consult with a trusted ally on the questions in your life. Look to your dreams to give you ideas about how to solve a dilemma or enhance an already positive situtiation. This King can guide or teach you by example, not words, how to become more compassionate, patient, and calm to fully commit emotionally to your goals or ideals. It's time to move forward with something you have been mulling over for a long time. No dream ever became reality without mature commitment and passion, all gifts this King brings.

Tarot

Names

This post is a part of the Absolute Write Blog Chain, Round 2. I am following Peregrinas, which is always an interesting read. In fact, all the blogs in the chain are . I hope you'll spend a lazy afternoon wandering through the chain.

Anyway, from the blog ahead of me I was intrigued with the idea of names. Probably because I have an unusual given name, Wendelynn. Until the past years of the Internet explosion, I had never come across another Wendelynn. Even in the early days of the Net, I was pretty alone. Today if you Google the name, you get 618 entries, many of them are me but there are really lots of Wendelynn's in the universe.

My version of Wendelynn came about because I am a first child and my father is Wendell. The story goes that there was a weather girl that one of my parents especially enjoyed on TV and her name was Lynn. So I am named for an unknown TV weather broadcaster in Lincoln,NE and my dad. That's a funny combination. Oh, by the way, it's pronounced Wen-Duh- Lynn, not Wendy- Lynn and no one in my family ever called me by it. My dad was always called Wendy and I became Wendy Jo, finally an acknowledgement of my mother's contribution to my full name!

One day I came across this great numerology site with thousands of names in their database, but no Wendelynn. I sent them an email and they calculated my name. The opening sentence of the report on my full given name was "This is a name that should never be given to anyone?"

I usually go by Wendy, always feeling that Wendelynn was too intimidating. Just this last year or so, as I turned 50, have I become comfortable with it as a name. Wendy is an interesting one too, most people thinking that J.M.Barrie made it up for Peter Pan. Not so, says another Wendy.

You'd think that having grown up with an unusual name would have led me to naming my own child something unremarkable like Ann, Jane or Cathy. Unfortunately, the unusual name thing must have a magnetic pull on me. My first choice for my daughter's name was Cyan, after the color. My husband lived in fear that I actually was going to insist on that! We actually named our daughter Kira, after an unforgettable heroine in Ayn Rand's We The Living.

She has carried on the naming quirk too, having named one of her furry catkids, Turtle!

How do you feel about your name? Does it suit your personality? Have you ever seriously wanted a different name but still use your given name? Do you know how your own name was chosen?

Next up in the chain is Madderblue. Enjoy!


awchain

Scrapping The Past

I've been working on a themed digital
scrapbook project at the Digital Scrapbook Place. It's a multiweek project utilizing primarily one set of design kits to create an album. The colors are soft pinks and greens, they just screamed wedding to me!

This is my grandparents wedding picture. Their names are Clara Tollman and Archie Anderson, Married in 1932.

I tinted the photo to blend with the overall scheme and recolored a couple of other elements for the look I wanted. Full credits are on the gallery page at DSP if you see something you just have to have for yourself!

The wedding photo is the second page in the series for me, but when I assemble the album it will probably end up to be page 3 or 4.

Here's a page that will come after the wedding one. This is a picture of Clara & Archie's first daughter, my mother at age 2, I think! This one has the state of Nebraska incorporated and the little pearl indicates where they were living in 1936. I wish the focus was closer to her face, but I'm guessing it was a very basic camera and people always stand too far away when they take pictures, even today.

I'm enjoying the challenge of using the same elements repeatedly to create something new each week. If I can find a wedding photo of my mom & dad, I'll do a page for them in this series. My own wedding anniversary is this week, I think I'll do a page for myself too.

Scrapbook

Tag, You're It -AW Blog Chain

So, I've been reading all the blogs in the chain this week, wondering what on earth the topic was going to be like when it got around to me, the last player. My task is to relate this rambling to the previous post by Chaos and also the the very first post by Towerkel. All the prior writers had done a really good job, but I was sweating it a little with the 2 posts in play. At last, I got the Tag, you're it notice.

I should have this much luck in all the other areas in my life! Yippee!! I'm doing the Snoopy happy dance about this combination. You see, I have the soul of a gypsy and there is not much I love more than taking road trips. Get in the car and just go.

Chaos tells us about trips with her father and seeing her first oil rig in Oklahoma. I've been through lots of flat, brown places too with lovely, but deceiving names like the Painted Desert. After a while you'll stop at anything, even a huge meteor crator in the middle of nowhere, just to see something that's not flat. It was still rocks and brown, but it wasn't flat! We found the crater almost by accident as we were leaving Winslow, AZ, which had been the focus of that day's mileage. How could a die hard Eagles fan be in AZ not go to Winslow? By the way, do not blink or you will totally miss it. The rest of that trip for another day.

So how does the oil rig get into this story? Well, I saw my first oil rigs in Oklahoma, just like Chaos. It was on a trip which originated in Odell, NE and ended up in Mineral Wells, TX. There is a whole bunch of nothing between the two places, but you will see some oil rigs as you pass through OK. Everytime I see a tall one, I can't help but think of the Beverly Hillbillies. I am a child of the 60's, after all. They should remind me of my grandfather, whose life was dramatically changed after an oil rig accident in the 1920's or even of the ultimate Texas oil movie, Giant. But Hillbillies it is.

I have a new association with oil rigs now. Since I have lived in TX, they aren't so unusual. I was unaware of the distincitve noise that can be associated with them until one night on my first cemetery after dark ghost hunt. No one told me there was an oil rig pumper jack near by and the noise, coming out of the total darkness, really freaked me out!

I'll bet you're wondering how this is going to end up back at Towerkels blog entry, about Dunkin Donuts and MA? I'm getting there. It really is a small world, and this blog project is so much like a PBS show of the past, Connections.

Here goes.... I was in the noisy haunted cemetery with Blue Texas, who is a AW writer and my daughter. She led me to AW where I have joined the blog chain. The blog chain started with a post about Dunkin Donuts being everywhere, which they are in New England but not in Texas, and about drivers in MA. I grew up in southern CT, lived in NH and commuted to Lowell MA for a number of years. I can testify first hand that MA drivers are the absolute worst in the US. And that Dunkin Donuts will beat Krispy Kreme every time, especially when you get a DD cup of coffee, which by the way, in MA will be with cream unless you specify otherwise. And to get right to the point, cause you've all been bored long enough now, yesterday I was working on my digital scrapbook project, and came across some photos of The Kid sitting in front of the famous seafarers statue in Glouseter... you guessed it, MA.

And that is how this blog entry completes the circle.

awchain

AW Blog Chain

At the Absolute Write forum, we're having a bit of summer fun with a blogging circle. It's the internet version of the telephone game, where one person writes a post, the next one incorporates one element of that blog post into their own, and it continues on.

I'm the last on this round, so not only do I include something from the previous blog, I have to bring it on home by touching on something in the very first blog. That should be interesting!

Here's the players in round 1. Pay a visit and leave a comment. It's a great way to while away the afternoon...day....week.

Towerkel
TemlynWriting
Blue Texas
Forbidden Snowflake
Sury
XThe NavigatorX
Peggy
MadScientistMatt
Jen.nifer
KellyC
Quidscribis
chaostitan
Wendelynn

awchain

Envelope Art

At Scrap Artist last week, the altered art challenge was envelopes. How could I resist? I am a long time altered artist, long before the art form had that name, I was doing it as Mail Art and before that as a kid, I was just totally incapable of mailing a naked envelope.

I did three envelopes and keep having ideas for more, but I'll move to the next challenge along with the group. This week it's tags. I've never done a tag, so we'll see what happens. The Imagination envelope is called DaVinci Meets Einstein, as the quote is Albert's and there is a definite DaVinci inspiration going on here.

The envelope to the above is called Mystery Mail. I've wanted to do something arty with a Ouija board for a while, and this is what came out. I think my favorite part is the letters floating in the background and the first line of the address...Whispers in your heart...makes me feel like there are spirit whisperings that maybe I'll hear one day.

The theme was envelopes and I did an ATC on the theme too. These are all real Civil War images that I "borrowed" from Civil War antiquities sites. Ever since I first heard it on Ken Burn's Civil War for PBS, I carry the Sullivan Ballou letter in my heart and it keeps popping into my art, as it did here, inspiring this piece. Not an altered envelope, but envelopes just the same.

It's been a pretty stressful week for me, lots of difficult family things happening that are out of my control at this point. I'm going to have to deal with the issues soon and it's not going to be easy. I read a book once about Vincent Van Gogh by Irving Wallace. One of the themes, heck maybe it was even spelled out in the book!, is remembered by me as " out of pain, beauty". I always find when something is very difficult in my life, my creative side explodes! I guess that's happening this week too.

Want to see more of my art?


ATC, Scrapping, Altered Art, Digital Art

Weekly Tarot 06/10 - 06/16 : Ten of Wands

Ten of Wands
Hanson Roberts Tarot

Been a rough couple of weeks hasn't it? Feeling like you've been carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders and it's getting heavier all the time? That's the feeling of the Ten of Wands. Too much to do, too many decisions to make, too many things on your "To Do" list and you are the lynch pin holding everything together.

Whoa.... sweetie, you'd better lay down some of those wands and take a step back. See that fairy tale castle in the distance, you are never going to reach it if you continute to let yourself be the only one shouldering the load. Yes, you do have to keep going, and yes, everything is important, but you have to remember to take care of yourself as well as taking care of everyone and everything else.

Have you ever wondered why flight attendants say that if you are travelling with a small child, put the oxygen mask on yourself first and then tend to the child? It's the same thing this card is telling you..... you can't perform at your best for anyone else unless you are at 100%. So whether it's making sure you can breathe so you can help the child or making sure you stay strong and healthy so you can take care of all the other things clamoring for your attention, this card it telling you to evaluate your priorities!

Not staying sane about what you can or can't do, how much of the burden you can reasonably carry alone will lead you to overeating, depression, substance abuse, anxiety and all sorts of other stress realted issues. So, take some time this week just for you. Decide where you really need to put your focus and ask for help to manage the rest. Go watch a movie!

tarot

Help Keep The Internet Free & Open

Please visit this site and contact your Congress people to urge them to oppose current legislation allowing large cable and phone companies to control the Internet and our access to it.

http://www.itsournet.org/

Internet

Emily Dickinson Hope

Emily Dickinson has been my favorite poet since high school. I dreamed this card last night. I think it was a Spirit inspired message to me in answer to something I have been struggling with recently. So, here it is for you to see....maybe it's speaking to you too.

The format is called an ATC or artist trading card. They are all the rage now in the collage/altered art world. Small little playing card pieces of beauty to share. Most do thiers with real paper and glue; I play digitally.

I have only used part of the first stanza. If you don't know this poem, here it is. It's titled "Hope".

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune -- without the words
And never stops at all.

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land.
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

If you'd like to see more of my work, visit this gallery.

ATC,emily dickinson,scrapping,digital art

Princess of Power

This little girl is about to turn 29 this year. She was 9 in this picture and it was the era of She-ra, Princess of Power! She- ra dominated our living room for a long time...she lived in a huge pink castle and had several equally powerful girlfriends that lived with her and they all had tons of stuff! If my own Princess of Power was not playing with the castle, she was running around being She-ra or watching the cartoon on tv.

I think we're all Princess' of Power at 9 years old. It's an exciting time of confidence and vision for a young girl. It's one of the most magical years in childhood; if you look closely at a 9 year old, you can see glimpses of the adult they will become. This princess was already writing poems and little books. Dreaming up complex stories of other lives. Reading everything she could get her hands on. Loving her pets almost more than herself. Helpful, loving and fiercely independent at the same time. Completely outraged by anything she judged unfair. Totally empowered to be herself.

The real trick in life, is to keep that Princess of Power alive. She has.





scrapping, scrapbook

Absolute Write & Freedom of Speech?

I'm a relatively new member at the Absolute Write forums . After searching for a good solid writing resource, I discovered the intelligent, sharing writers at AW. One of the hallmarks of AW is its commitment to helping new writers avoid fraud - an invaluable service, and one that’s working. It's already saved me hundreds of dollars by helping me make wiser choices in workshops and training.

The forums disappeared last night, and I’m assured they will be back soon. In the meantime, check out what Teresa at Making Light has to say about it.

It’s all about how an agent, Barbara Bauer, got upset about being listed #3 on the 20 Worst Agents List at Writer Beware. Barbara Bauer called the hosting company for AW, and scared them, so the hosting company panicked.

Be supportive, bloggers, and check out Dawno’s call.

Until the forums are back up, we’re gathering here: http://www.starchat.net/chat/?chan=absolutewrite

More blogs getting the word out:
http://chatworthy.blogspot.com/
http://shiveredsky.blogspot.com/2006/05/barbara-bauer-literary-agency-inc-scam.html
http://dsnight.livejournal.com/154479.html
http://www.ejknapp.com/OnlyOnSunday/2006/05/24/absolutewrite-writers-forum-shutdown-by-angry-agent/admin/
http://booksellerchick.blogspot.com/2006/05/oh-my-god-im-going-to-be-late-for-work.html
http://www.dtkelly.net/?p=81
http://nicolew.typepad.com/dumbbell/2006/05/dont_mind
http://madscientistmatt.blogspot.com/2006/05/did-literary-agent-on-20-worst-agents.html
http://macallisterstone.blogspot.com/2006/05/aw-down-but-not-out.html




BarbaraBauer

May You Be Blessed Movie

I am not an overtly religious person but I deeply believe in the power of spirit. If you are in need of a short time out from the Internet and would like to focus on spirit for just about 5 minutes, this movie is just what you need!

blessings, spirit

Weekly Tarot 05/20- 05/26: The Moon

The Moon
Universal Waite Tarot

Ah the moon...the inconstant moon...what does she have to tell us? Interestingly, in the Tarot, the Moon is usually an indicator of something not quite nice going on in the shadows. It's a very emotional card and often read as someone keeping secrets or deceiving oursleves.

I see it more as a card of intuition, calling us to look inside and find the answer. Time to allow a situitation to fully play out as it should. You can safely stand in the shadows and be an observer, there is no reason to force action. Things may not be exactly as they first seem and your first reaction may not be the correct one. Trust your instincts when this card is present. You may find your answer in dreams this week. Remeber that every one involved in an event has their own perspective and goals.

If there is life changing event or decision facing you, don't act on it this week if you can avoid it. All the facts aren't in the open yet. In your heart you feel it, but your head may be pushing you to action. Resist that urge. Take some time to do some personal journaling about what is at hand. You'll find your own path in your own time.

tarot

The Coming of Wisdom With Time

The Coming of Wisdom With Time
William Bultler Yeats , 1910

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.

George Goes Big Time

Meet George. At almost 13, he's our second oldest cat kid. He was roaming around a Georgia Pacific paper mill and adopted my husband. George was just a tiny little guy when we got him. He's pretty sick now, hopefully it's just something that we can manage and he'll hang in there for several more years. It's really too soon to tell.

Last week the vet's assistant took this great shot of George and sent me a copy. Of course, I had to play with it! It was alot of fun and now I may just have to make covers of all the other cat kids. There are 7, in all... just like the dwarves... Secret, George, Frannie, Shadow, Gizmo, Luna and Molly. Not a one of them was chosen by us, they all came into our lives and refused to leave. I think our home has always had a glaring neon sign that only cats can see that says...PUSHOVERS .... in bright pink!

Secret and Frannie should have gone to live with daughter when she moved out, Secret was hers and Frannie came with an ex boyfriend. Molly came with the house we live in now. Shadow was about to be sent to the pound by a co-worker, Gizmo limped or crawled out of a garbage can in the middle of the night,scaring my son-in-law; Giz had been very abused, and Luna, who is the baby, followed daughter home from a walk and was only suppose to be in my house for a week or so. She was also in bad heath, and I'm a good cat nurse. Three years later, she's still here!

Once upon a time, my husband and I thought we'd join the ranks of empty nesters and get in an RV and see the world. Empty nesters? Hah!

Weekly Tarot 05/13 - 5/19 : 5 of Pentacles

5 of Pentacles
Spiral Tarot

This is a huge learning week. You may be struggling with your finances, housing situation or health and searching for the easy fix to the problem. Do you really believe the hype about that instant miracle? Really? I didn't think so. This is the week to really examine your heart and mind. Sure, it's easier to abdicate your responsibilities, allow the events to just play out, then you can blame someone else for your suffering. If you continually put off decisions, you will always find yourself wallowing in someone else's mess. Watch out for that pity party you like to throw yourself; it could become a way of life.

I know this sounds harsh. It is. Life can be unforgiving and hard. It's tempting to be seduced by get rich quick schemes and the promise of the easy fix. Sometimes, those solutions appear to be on the horizon, but they seldom materialize.

Why not take this opportunity to finally take some control of your own life? Ask for help from a trusted source and weigh both pros and cons of the situation. Have you been faced with this before? How did you handle it? How did it work out? Do you really want to keep repeating the same mistakes? What can you learn from that lesson to help you choose more wisely this time around? What have you learned from other aspects of your life that you can apply?

Remember that you always have the power within yourself to create change. Always. Make your own choice.


tarot

Weekly Tarot 05/06 - 05/12: 9 of Swords

9 of Swords
Merry Day Tarot

My, doesn't she look unhappy. Well, maybe not totally unhappy, but contemplative for sure. Things haven't turned out exactly as she had planned and now she thinks she know what the outcome will really be. Is she preparing for the real outcome, or is she living in her head too much and superimposing her fears on the situtation?

Whatever the reality may be, there is a definite sense of vulnerability and loss with this card. I also sense responsibility and burden as a part of the message. Notice the tear running down her cheek? Maybe she is remembering situations that could have turned out differently had she only made other choices. Living in the past so she doesn't have to see the present maybe?

The Merry Day tarot, designed by Lousia Poole interprets this card much differently than a traditional style tarot. In this deck, the numerological influence of the number 9 combined with the suite association, swords = air = mental activity, thoughts, communications and truth, is the overwhelming message. The card has even been labeled Clairvoyance.

More traditionally designed tarot decks often show this card with a woman sitting up in bed, holding her head in her hands with the 9 swords pointing at her. Classic thoughts on this card include nightmares, insomnia, migraine headaches and deep depression. Definitely a different focus than the Merry Day one, but today we are working with Merry Day, so here goes!

What does this all mean for this coming week? Evaluate situations that come up this week not only with your logical mind but with your intuitive mind as well. Making decisions based only on one thought pattern may not be in your best interest. It may at times feel like an overwhelming burden to just carry on, but but try not to allow yourself to become too bogged down in that. You are nearing the end of a cycle and will soon see it's resolution and have new choices to make.

tarot

Birds at my feeder

It's been a busy week at the bird feeder. This little guy is a Painted Bunting. I haven't been able to get my own photo, so I've borrowed this one from Cornell. They have a great birding site. The bunting has been at the feeder now several times for the last three days. He's a lone feeder and won't tolerate other birds landing while he's eating.

There's been another dove species that's found us this week too, the White Winged Dove. It's larger than the Mourning Dove and smaller than the Eurasian Ring Neck Dove, which I still can't get a picture of! I am on a mission for the Bunting and the Dove photos. Swallows have also moved in next door, the third year they have nested in the neighbors carport. They are interesting to watch as they swoop through the sky. We also have ScissoredTail Flycatchers who have come back into the area for the summer. I'm hoping to catch one of them too with my camera one of these days, they are so unique.

Bird watching....I must be getting old.