The Sylvr Pen

I accepted the challenge.

And so it begins: a new journey, new venture—one that the twinges inside me hint may also be a new adventure.

I have committed to publishing a new blog post each day of this bright new February.

I’m dressed in my work clothes, all ready to proceed. Which consist of…

1 flannel night gown

1 denim-ish “popover” with neck that can zip all the way to my chin if I like, “popped over” nightgown (as has been all night, this night, for it’s arctic-ly cold around here right now)

1 large, snuggly fake-fur robe, full-length, flowing to the floor to warm my legs, even my ankles,

although for this arctic season I have also pulled on…

1 pair extra long knee socks

1 pair hand-spun, hand-knit [both by my own hands] thick socks of 100% wool [shorn from our sheep when we had sheep a-grazing on the Funny Farm meadows], also naturally hand-dyed three colors

1 pair packable slippers, stretchy enough to fit over the other two layers. And…

1 pair heavy denim, relaxed-fit black jeans (because those thin leggings and skinny jeans just don’t keep you warm, people!)

Also today, an unusual adornment: 1 soft, light knit cap, fashioned for outdoor wear, but needful right now indoors, over my short-haired head.

Now if I only had a nose mitten, I’d be totally set. But that’s okay. At my right hand sits a mug of steaming coffee, brewed a bit strong—accidentally because my cupboard’s only ground beans were too fine for my French press; there’s probably lots of sediment at the bottom of that mug. (“More to wake you up with, girl”). I lift said mug to my face and the steam warms my cold little nose.

Apart from the extra layers, this is my usual work garb.

The “work”? Writing. (Although when you love what you’re doing, is it work?)

Anyhow, I’m ready to go!

And it’s time!

My time.

Wee small hour. Three AM

Mine.

Mine because it’s still, and no one disturbs my efforts.

Still because night owls have by now tumbled into deep sleep, and early birds are yet to lift their wings and morning voices to the silvering dawn.

Still. Ah, how lovely and still!

So, in place:

Main character – quirky writer. Check!

Usual but agumented costumes. Check!

Setting? Small alcove in a living room. Wobbly antique folding table manufactured for turn-of-the-century seamstresses— (nineteenth century into the twentieth, that is). Antique Hitchcock-type chair pulled up before said table because it happens to be comfortable for long stints of word flow. On table: (quite an achronism!) computer laptop, open and alight in anticipation of writer’s keyboard tickling.

Lighting: All the lights in the room, this morning anyhow. Sometimes I sit here in a little spotlit circle of rays from a single lamp. But this morning I rebelliously turned up the power to tell myself sternly, “It may still be night to other folk, lady, but this is day to you: So wake up, and charge forward into the journey you’ve committed to. No turning back, no matter what weird turns the path ahead may take (and I have a feeling it just might bend into “weird” new territory)!

One correction about the lighting, however: Not quite all the lights are turned on. On this antique table sits another achronism: my Ott light, stationed on duty, ready to illumine whatever I might prop open on my wrought-iron bookstand, fashioned from an antique heat vent grate.

All systems: go? Check!

And at this point I reach my first day’s word limit of six hundred words.

So, tomorrow, I’ll post what my fingers will tattoo out between now and then:: a response to an old, unpublished prompt word… “One.”

*****

For a set of links to all the other posts in this “Meandering Forward” series, go to this page, which will be updated daily as new posts appear in the blog content.

Dipping my toe back into the ocean of blogging this morning by responding to Five Minute Friday‘s new prompt word…

Better:

There’s a better way.

I’ve been jumping jittery from one to-do to another, making one insecure dive after another into things that I (and other people around me?) could think were productive and a good use of time. But all that tack has produced in me has been further jittery jumping into yet another busy-ness.

Then I stopped.

Then I came aside: to turn to God, to quiet my heart, to rest with Him and rest in Him. To ask Him what I should be doing, just what one thing. And even before that to ask Him more generally for guidance, for his viewpoint, His wisdom and thoughts on my life and my day, to show me how He was seeing it. I also took time to thank Him, for blessings in general, for blessings of the past day, for blessings of the morning. To show me where I’d gone wrong in the last twenty-four. Then I asked Him, what one thing did He want me to do in this day. And the answer came in this thought: Rest in Me.

And yes, I know: everything else will flow out of that, far better than from my jittery attempts at productivity.

[Stop.]

This post flowed out that way. So may my future blogging follow His navigation. And we shall see what we shall see…

October’s “Write 31 Days” is over, yet it’s not over. With so many seeds left scattered, it’s hard not to pick one up and plant it. Here’s the one that’s been tugging at my mind–this John Greenleaf Whittier quote from the collection pictured in the last blog post:

The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you.”

It reminds me so much of this collage and hand lettering exercise I did sometime during this past year and don’t think I’ve shared.

Which prompts me to share my surprising great enjoyment of faux calligraphy. 

It’s “faux” because although it looks like actual calligraphy, it’s not. It’s much easier. And less stress! (And cheaper, to boot!)

I took it on as a challenge, I suppose as a means of improving my collages. But what I got was a path to relaxing, to soothing within. I don’t know why it had such a calming effect on me, but it did. I guess it’s a form of “mindfulness” exercise. You have to focus, to pay attention to the right-here and right-now, and you do need to slow down to do it. In a world where we try to do everything fast and faster, this is a gift and a boon to the inner state. I recommend trying it.

This is not the instruction video I watched. (I can’t seem to find that.) But it gives you the simple how-to in a clear way. There are other similar videos on YouTube. You might like to try it this weekend or some evening when you want to do something quiet, slow, and calming. I hope you do, and then  let me know how you like it.

— 

Meanwhile, in another sense, October’s “Write 31 Days” is over but it’s not over. Above, at the top of this post, and every blog page, is a master page linkwith links to all the posts that appeared in October. So if you want to revisit any, it’s even easier than faux calligraphy. Just click on the appropriate link!

Enjoy!

I thought I would run out of bits of “found wisdom” before the month was finished, but quite the opposite is true. As I shuffle through just the remaining “clippings” from the book of quotes that provided much of the fodder for our thought mill, I puzzle over what to do with them all. I’ve been itching to do a collage; so the impulse hits me: “Collage them!”

…These aren’t exactly collages, more like random paste-ups, but here they are (most of them): a couple clusters of more seeds for you to plant and nurture in your mind at your future leisure. If you journal or blog or otherwise write, maybe some will serve as springboards to words you’ll pour out through your pen or keyboard.   Maybe they’ll just be good for pondering on a cold winter’s night by a crackling fire. Whatever, may they become for both you and me real wisdom, which is not just thought and pondered, but lived.

As a footnote I have typed them all out below with their cited sources, in case you can’t read them clearly in the photos and so that you can copy them to your own computer. 

Enjoy! 

[Transcribed:

“The stationary condition is the beginning of the end.” -Henri Frederic Amiel, philosopher

“The reason most people give up so fast is that they look at how far they still have to go, instead of how far they have come.” -Anonymous

“Seek your own answers in life, and not what others dictate to you.” -Jemina Akhtar, author

“If I never got to make a living doing what I loved, I’d still do it–for fun and for free.” -Susan E. Isaacs, author

“No group picture is going to have the power of an individual portrait. -Annie Leibovitz, photographer

“Sometimes you have to work hard for what you want. Sometimes, hard work is what makes it precious.” -Ute Carbone, author

“The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” -Michelangelo, artist

“It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.” -Henry James, author

“The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you.” -John Greenleaf Whittier, poet.

…

“I am not afraid of tomorrow for I have seen yesterday, I have today and I know Him who holds tomorrow so I know tomorrow will be beautiful for me.”  -Jaachynma N. E. Agu. author

“A kite only flies if it’s tethered.” -Victor Robert Lee, author

“Be steady and well-ordered in you life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.”

-Gustave Flaubert, author

“Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.” -Mary Shelley, author

“If you talk about it, it’s a dream, if you envision it, it’s possible, but if you schedule it, it’s real.” -Anthony Robbins, motivational speaker

“I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you… We are in charge of our attitudes.” -Charles R. Swindle, pastor

“It does not take many words to tell the truth.” -Sitting Bull, Lakota chief

“Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything else you do.” (cited as anonymous, but strangely familiar to me. See Proverbs 4:23)

“It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.” -Harper Lee, author

and, just before that, upside-down:

“Someday this upside-down world will be turned right-side up. Nothing in all eternity will turn it back again. If we are wise, we will use our brief lives on earth positioning ourselves for the turn.” -Randy Alcorn, author

*****

Last Sunday I had the chance to attend a worship service in an old, very Germanic looking Lutheran church. It was more of an opportunity than I’d guessed it would be, for I hadn’t realized the day was Reformation Sunday, commemorating Martin Luther’s pounding those 95 theses on that Wittenburg church door 501 years ago and setting in motion a massive change in history and the church itself.

To start off with “A Mighty Fortress is our God,” accompanied by the big pipe organ, full choir, and complete (and accomplished) brass ensemble, and the sanctuary full of people singing: how wonderful that was! Not only because of that, but also the truths expressed in the commentary and sermon, it was a very moving service for me.

So later in the week, as I was sorting through bits of wisdom and wise sayings I’d cut out of books and magazines or jotted down in my journal, I was struck by what one of them quoted Martin Luther as saying. It’s here, first in this trio of quotes:

Do you find his comment as remarkable as I do: that this world changer would see such importance in such a small thing as planting an apple tree, especially if the world was about to go to pieces?

But then the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much his nailing of those theses was a seed- (or seedling-) planting. He never realized when he was doing that what all would grow out of it!

Nor do we with the little seeds we might plant each day: seeds of wisdom, of understanding, of care and concern, of kindness or creativity, of a word fitly spoken at just the needed moment.

So now I see it as very fitting to be winding down our 31 Days with a post about this, for aren’t all these bits and bobs of wisdom and commentary but seeds, scattered now into the air? What will happen because of them will depend partly on what you and I do with them–or, what they will do with us.  Will one of them change your life in some small, or large, way? Will one of them stick in your mind or heart and come forth just when someone else needs an insight or encouragement it expresses?

Who knows? God does, but we can’t even guess. So, as we finish out 2018 with November and December, and prepare to welcome another new year–or era–let’s not forget the importance of planting seeds, right when and where we are.

*****

Only one more post to go! And I will also (finally!) be putting up a page listing links to all 31 posts for this “Found Wisdom” project, and a link to that master page will appear at the top of my home page, for if you should want to reconnect with any of the individual posts in the future.