Once upon a time, I was a little uncomfortable owning such a great-big pair of eyes. If you’ve been reading this blog for long, you’ve probably at some point seen my tiny Gravatar photo and realized that my eyes aren’t just big — they’re gigantic. And the trouble with that is you can generally spot what I’m […]
Tag: contemplative
The Body Electric: Day Seven
You would think it would be easy by now — that seeing my own magic would feel as natural as breathing. But there are still days when it’s work… Days when I look at the mirror and see myself fading, and believe the lie that this makes me less: Less valuable. Less powerful. Less human. On those days, I turn […]
The Body Electric: Day Six
I’ve always been a woman with nervous hands. The rest of my body is still and graceful by nature — balletic, after all these years. But I wear my tension in my hands, which are always folding and unfolding, pulling and smoothing and clenching and unclenching, as if engaged in an eternal game of […]
The Body Electric: Day Five
Today. I go out walking in the last of the light — before the sun winks out behind the mountains. I feel the cold in my lungs, the night coming on, and I think: It’s true, what they say. The twilight swallows us all. Still … For a moment … My shadow stands tall. […]
The Body Electric: Day Four
The dinner’s been eaten. The laundry’s been folded. The apple crisp is in the oven, filling the house with its fragrance. And suddenly, for the brief span of an hour, there’s nothing to do but just be. So I put the kettle on, and I make sage tea. * If the finest pleasures are the simple […]
The Body Electric: Day Two
Yesterday. I am running errands. Running with my mind cluttered by Christmas and all its trappings. And so, on a whim, I peel off I-581 and take the exit into downtown. Park just under the pedestrian bridge, across the tracks from the art museum. I take a long breath, and cross over. * Inside the […]
The Body Electric: Day One
Yesterday. Early evening. I slip into my running shoes and sit down on the kitchen floor by the back door, in front of the rainsplashed full-length mirror. Slowly, I slide into a stretch, feeling all the little muscles in my legs resisting until, after a minute or so, they loosen all at once. Whatever was […]
Good Words for Thanksgiving …
Today, as so many of us here in the States board planes or toss bags into cars to rush home for the Thanksgiving holiday, I thought I’d share this little snatch of a poem from Mary Oliver. Somehow it just seems right: Happy Thanksgiving, friends … Today I’m wishing you a little space to draw a […]
When I am lying with my face pressed against somebody else’s photograph …
I used to think that a painting was something you saw with your eyes… that a symphony was something you heard with your ears. I believed this because it was something my art teachers and music teachers had taught me to believe, all my life. I don’t feel that way any more. * Late afternoon. […]
Why I’m not afraid of Winter … for once.
The cold comes in slow: white fog that slides over the mountains at night. Hangs in wreaths around the peaks. Usually, I fear the winter. I see it as a long night when my summer radiance sleeps, curled up like a crocus under snow. But this year… This year I’m hopeful. * I often hear the phrase, “Oh, […]
ASHLEY WILSON FELLERS 