Oh, Spring!
Why do you paint?
For exactly the same reason I breathe.
That’s not an answer.
There isn’t any answer.
How long hasn’t there been any answer?
As long as I can remember.
And how long have you written?
As long as I can remember.
I mean poetry.
So do I.
(e. e. Cummings)
Oh, today…I had so much to share with you ~ I was thinking those philosophically deep thoughts that can take hold of you even under a sky blue expanse of floating clouds and keep you in it’s pondering grip while you sort things out (although I don’t know why I just said that, for you never quite sort things out being as there really is no such thing as a permanent truth)
And anyway it doesn’t matter, although I seem to remember it had something to do with writing this book on the art of living cheerfully and how, really, it’s important to realize that this does not mean you FEEL cheerful every day but rather you CHOOSE to find the cheery things,loveliness and magic in the everyday because…there is an abundance of loveliness all around. Just thinking beautiful thoughts takes you by the hand and before you know you are feeling them as well.
It’s a perfectly gorgeous, hopeful week and I can feel spring blossoming early in my soul and it feels so wondersome…just like this actually.…I am reading this book filled with thickets of huckleberry bushes (because Debi said so ) and whenever she mentions a book, I realize that the book she is chatting about is the book I have been looking for all along) which will be followed by a round of tree climbing in the Redwood forest and some unabashed singing of tree songs just because.
I am so moved reading this beautiful conversation with Shona Cole and just bursting at the seams with my lineup of artists that I will be sharing with you in this series. Oh! and today I found such truly gorgeous new japanese papers for my poem boxes as I am starting a new round of them for spring so I am hoping to pop by this week and let you have a peek. This week I begin teaching my photography course to grade seven’s and am all ready to go ~ the course culminates in an art walk featuring a gallery of the children’s work which I am hoping to make a little film of to celebrate the evening.
Since I have great plans to be out and about this weekend I am wishing everyone a beautiful Sunday early, and if you love smoothies I made a delicious one this week with lots of fresh ginger, carrot juice and apples. Yum!
update: just blogging about my smoothie sent me down to the kitchen to mix one up ~ this combination is even more delicious…blackberries, plain yogurt, large chunk of fresh ginger, soy milk and a banana
oh andrew….and extremely close
~ photo ‘altar for spring’ art direction by madelyn mulvaney, photo by tess herzog ~
category: conversations ~ interviews with fabulous, creative and igniting artists, i love sunday's, the art of living cheerfully! | | 11 comments »
January 16th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
Happiness is the roadmap, not the destination. it looks like the sun has left us for a while.
January 16th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Have a nice week, Maddie. Hope you are having a nice weekend. A smoothie sounds nice, but it is very warm in Mumbai and I will just make myself a nice buttermilk lassi.
January 17th, 2010 at 3:15 am
These are the thoughts I am carrying with me too. I would think you are souch a person that when meeting you, many inspiering thoughts awakens. That´s what happens in meeting sertain people. And I love that! Actually, I do not have time to sit here because I should be going to my sons kindergarden and clean some floors and toilets. But my house (read apartment) is quiet right now and I like to sit down here just for a while before I am off… Thanks for being my friend Maddie for a little while!
Love!
/Olga
January 17th, 2010 at 9:02 am
I have been toasting happiness every morning and it works so well, I make that choice for happiness even when the sad things are creeping up. This morning I awoke late to a sky full of sunshine, rain in the past of yesterday, and a wonderful treehouse in my email – teehee – thoughts of mapmaking, and this wonderful post full of cheer and the thought of spring. And Roxanne’s reminder that happiness is the roadmap, and of course, that is just another reminder from the Universe that “navigate” was indeed the perfect word for my year ahead. And now onto breakfast and then, well, it’s football time in Texas!
January 17th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Oh what beautiful Sunday offerings! I don’t know where to start.
Did you know that there is an Eadward Muybridge exhibit here http://www.equinoxgallery.com/
they are originals and quite fascinating.
I am learning (perhaps too slowly) that happiness really is cultivated and that i am responsible (by the choices i make) for my own happiness. Thankfully I have people like you in my life to remind me of that.
Andrew Bird is wonderfully quirky and creative, I’ve never heard him before. Thanks as always for the beautiful links.
xoxo
January 17th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
As I type I hear the sounds of a new instrument singing it’s first tentative notes, calling me “make music” it says, sunday, making music, what could be better than that.
xoxo
January 17th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
computer hell, sorry!
January 17th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
i like the sound of that second smoothie. i only wish i had read this *before* i went to the market.
i so get the cheerful thought. i am learning that choosing joy as a word does not mean the thing you think it means when you pick it – because what really brings you joy is not always enjoyable.
January 18th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Yes, you are right, Maddie. We (I) may not be cheerful every day but we (I) can choose the cheery, lovely, magical things in the every day. Sometimes that takes a bit more effort than usual, especially during the overcast, grey days of winter and when the news on the tv is heartbreaking. Thank you for the reminder, my friend. Visiting your blog is a joy.
January 18th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
I almost fell off of my chair reading the e.e. cummings quote.
I actually think like that. Chatting merrily along..yes, no….yes, no…here, there and everywhere.
I am working on the cheery self…….everyday……working
Thanks for making it less work related today
xo K
January 18th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
hello dear ♥
you are making me want to get back into the swing of smoothie drinking. You should write a smoothie cookbook darlin’!
Thank you for your uplifting, spellbinding, soul-stirring post:)
As always, i am enamored.
xoxo