registration is OPEN!!!!

right here!

~ portrait by my beautiful soul friend Darlene Kreutzer, at the Granville Island hotel ~ (gypsy wraps by Julie Bartel)

This weekend I surrounded myself with lovers, my tribe, my soul friends. Lovers of creativity, of the sky, of music, of the written word, the spoken poem and rice balls. Lovers of the echoing laughter of friendship celebrating a surprise birthday party for Suvarna and oh golly! did we ever have such a glorious time together. I have to say I am not very good at keeping surprises though, somehow if someone is going to blurt it out and give it all away, well, that would be me:) But I managed to keep it a secret even as Darlene and Duke were flying in on a plane from Edmonton, even as I wrapped gifts with gently placed feathers to adorn them, even as we drove to the Our Town Cafe where we pretended to go ‘for coffee.’ But there was much more waiting of course than a mere cup of coffee. There were friends, family and live music, wine and cake and the euphoric energy and babble of a joyous gathering eager to celebrate a milestone of a birthday for such a dearhearted woman.

At the end of the weekend it suddenly occured to me that the midnight of my sorrow was over in my life. (please allow me to be just a little dramatic:) Once again, my soul went deeper than I ever realized it was even willing to go and an angel emerged from all that was so quiet, and deafeningly still. The mould shattered and in a shower of phosphorescence I unfurled my delicate and startling new wings. This is Grace. Surrendering to the paradox of miracles sensing that the only way out is thorugh. And all along there was divine guidance. Fire does not burn, it purifies.

I thought about that this morning in the Sunflower cafe as I ordered my soya~chai latte. Miracles are always at play in our lives ~ how many times can we evolve? There is no limit. How fast can our lives change, can we walk a tightrope from the dark of night back into the sunlight? In the blink of an eye, I say. Contrary winds do not shake me from my roots, no pressure will crack my dancing spirit. It is humbling to my heart how vast our own uniqueness truly is and how looked after and protected we truly are by the Universe.

Still. Within me I carry the burnt moth, the sorrow of loss, the fear of never, the deafening silence of alone. And that is alright. My art is born of all things and the euphoria of re~emergence, of a brand new pair of wings is all the more astonishing for this. I dare. I dare to live an extraordinary life. And I will continue to give love because that is who I am. And yes. I love that about myself:)

This weekend I am completely excited to go to the Paul Simon concert in Seattle with my lovely friend ~ I will also be visiting a new friend’s art glass studio and writing my book up in my own studio. (I have a story to tell and it wants to come out:)

this is so beautiful…this man makes me cry….and honored to share any time with dear Vivienne…and one more more more! I’d rather go blind than be misunderstood.

oh…what? Oh! yes! You wanted to hear all about the rice balls!!! Allow me to oblige.

Oh. And also. I am so sorry, completely behind about 300 emails ~ catching up by tomorrow in case you have sent one ~ Gah!!!

Happiest of mornings to you all!

xoxo

Maddie

I just realized there are a lot of links in this post! Right ON!!!

Technology does not like me today. That’s why there is only a tiny little wisp of a clip above for you to see of the draw. Don’t ask me what happened, it was a sort of a ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ kind of day. Looking at this clip I can’t help but think I need to take an ‘art of brushing your hair’ course.

Which is why I am curled up on the couch with an entire pot of nocturne oriental tea that my friend sent me all the way from Paris. Apparently it costs quite a lot of money so I have been sort of saving it for a special occasion. Well, frustration with technology is a special occasion. After this blog post I am going to curl up with this lovely aromatic tea and a good book and listen to Erik Satie. And have some chocolate as well.

Still. I am very happy to announce the WINNERS of the draw! Yes! The winner of Jamie Ridler’s Sparkles e course is…..D e l i a.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand….the winner of ‘the art of living cheerfully‘ ecourse is….Mia! (and Mia also receives the original polaroid you see on the last post)

Please email me girls and I will get you registered and on the way to your new courses. I have to say this really was fun even if my computer did run away with most of the footage. It was quite sweet actually ~ i drew the names out of a vintage hat.

Alright. Giving things away is fun ~ I will certainly do it again:)

Wish all of you could pop over and have some tea with me.

xoxo

~ Maddie ~

‘Three Wishes‘ is now open for registration ~ go see! Easy Peasy!

Isn’t this just the darlingest little video? The other evening we bought some red wine which turned out to be quite lackluster in taste to say the least, bitter almost actually. So we simply cut up a handful of ripe rosy plums and plunked them into a glass jar with the wine and some fresh squeezed lime and popped it into the fridge to chill for an hour or so. Add a spin of beautiful 45′s played on the front porch and the wine became an elixir for the gods ~ and those wine drenched plums were plumlicous to spoon into your mouth afterwards as a little extra treat.

Last night I arrived home after being away and was greeted with sooo much love I practically cried for all my blessing in my life. My daughter and her best friend baked me a platter of angel food cupcakes decorated most magically, my son had cleaned the fish tank and stacked firewood for autumnal evening backyard fires and my dog ran around me in excited circles until I leaned down for her wet cuddly kisses.

Today I am so enthused to tackle a zillion things ~ shopping for fresh vegetables for green smoothies, cleaning out the little red cabinet in the kitchen for a fresh improvisational decorating and even popping over to the local thrift shop to see if I can find that very special ‘something’ I have ‘always wanted’.

My studio is calling to me ~ I am tired of the pictures on it’s wall and all are coming down today ~ going to leave it bare like a blank canvas until some new magic presents itself. Oh and I can feel a tiny tingle of ‘fall’ in the air today in the sparkling sunshine promising cozy strolls along the beach with snuggly sweaters and fingerless mittens (so I can take pictures of course)

My heart is very full ~ filled with pure offerings I am longing to share and my creative nature is feeling utterly improvisational these days. I am thinking I will peruse Emily Carr’s schedule for a creative class in something completely new to delve into this fall ~ perhaps a glass blowing class or silversmithing as I have been sketching ideas for rings I would love to make.

a little beauty to share with you

‘Aphrodite’s’ organic Pie shop on West 4th

The pendulum of spring welcomes azure skies today. A lovely Sunday to spend at Aphrodite’s Pie shop for breakfast on West 4th followed by an hour or so getting lost in my favorite book shop which is just across the street ~ ‘Banyen books‘ (where I buy all my bumper stickers for my car, the most recent being ‘make love not war’ in bold happy graphics) and thennnnnnnn poking about Zulu records where there will be lots of back and forthness trying to decide which records to buy I am sure. (I am also looking for a new turntable so who knows that may be a topic of consideration today as well)

I seriously don’t think I could be any happier ~ it’s Sunday after all, a perfect day for coffee and people watching. My beautifully talented friend Meredith has opened an etsy shop ~ I am so in love with this delightful print ~ go see!

everyone’s in love taken with a vintage sx70 polaroid camera, expired film

ee cummings said a poet is somebody to whom things made matter very little ~ rather a poet is obsessed with the making. It is a ‘soft growing’ day and all the more resplendent for that, where the unhours (priceless ignoring of clocks) of a perfect morning are intimately obsessed with various makings. The making of wandering through the market (cheese and bagels and beautiful raspberrie jam for breakfast) ~ the making of many oooooooh’s! and ahhhhhh’s with colorful costumed market flowers (perfumed noise of thrillingness) And the making of a flute (hushingly, fingers reaching) and radiance (morning coffee adrift laptops in cafe) And pigeons and immense laughter with crinkling eyes (of course) wearing favorite scarves ~ Oh, and the making of a love affair with trains ~ but that I shall save to share with you for another day as I race out into the bidding sunshine (to begin all over once again.)

Darlene took this photo in my studio the other day and i quite love it ~ it makes me smile for the light and twinkles and nifty yellow warmth. Today I cleaned up said studio as it was getting awfully messy with piles of books and records stacked on the table, floor and chairs. Not to mention all the crumpled up papers under my desk and various scattered mugs of coffee and tea consumed at odd hours of the night when smitten with my writing fits. It felt so good to clean my studio since I put on music and brought up a tray of chocolate biscuits and set about returning the room to a pleasing sense of order (all ready to be messed up again sooner rather than later but nevermind)

However I am not in my studio now. I am in my livingroom with a cozy fire and cup of homemade chai listening to the rain pattering outside in my garden. And thinking. Thinking once again of my grade seven’s I am teaching a photography class to. Oh, you will love this. This week we talked about love and beauty. I asked which they wished to discuss fist and they all shouted ‘LOVE!!!” We chatted about how deeply personal love was, so abstract and complex and difficult to define, we talked about romantic love, platonic love and spiritual love and how you will find it everywhere in art, music, dance, photography etc. We discussed deep tenderness and emotional closeness and how love makes you feel so great by the happiness of another. And then. A very sweet boy put up his hand and said ‘And there is self love too.’ “Self love” I responded “Oh yes, and why is this important?” And he said “Because if you don’t love yourself how can you really love anyone else?” And then another boy put up his hand and chimed in….”You know when I do things that make me happy for myself then suddenly I am all filled up with joy and I want to go share that with everyone ~ it makes me feel like I have more love to share and I am just bursting with it.”

And well, I have to tell you it didn’t stop there. Discussing beauty later we chatted about inside beauty and outside beauty, feelings of inferiority through perceptual experience of attractiveness ~ I showed them this film and then asked them if they could give examples of inside beauty. A boy put up his hand and said “Have you seen the film Forest Gump? Well, he really wasn’t that good looking of a man but he was SOOOO kind and soooo gentle and funny and inside he was a very special attractive person. Everyone responded to him even the beautiful girl in the film.”

And then it really hit me ~ children KNOW ~ children are born KNOWING and who am I to believe I am teaching what was seeded in their soul’s from the beginning? I am not here to teach ….just to remind…to keep the faith and and hope alive in our world that it is true and beautiful and worth trusting and illuminating in self expression. Children always have their arms wide open….they remind me how easy it is to connect with one another and how far we are capable of reaching out to each other.

I am so so so SO grateful for every moment I get to share with these kids!

sweetness… and love…