I love this line from Mary Oliver's poem, A Settlement. It speaks to how I have been feeling these past few weeks. I am finding myself awed almost every time I step outside by the lightness, the color, the natural world singing in joy through blossom and bird song. Spring arrives this way every year... slowly warming us bit by bit. This year though, my surprised gratitude seems deeper somehow. We have made it through the dark days of winter and awaken here. "Look, it's Spring!" Here we are, again.
I am so grateful to each of you for joining me here for my Art Notes. I hope that you find inspiration and respite in the poetry and art I have posted in the "Spring Studio". I have added a couple of new paintings in my Sales Gallery and extend my Gallery discount through the Spring. I will be adding some new workshops to my schedule this summer and I'll let you know when I get then scheduled in the next Art Notes or send me an email.
In closing, I quote Oliver's poem again, "...last year's loose dust has turned into this soft willingness..." I invite you to find a few moments to take your journal or sketchbook outside and let the dust settle from this past year. Allow in your soft willingness as you touch into the warmth, the gratitude, the promise and the growth of the season. Allow the beauty of Spring to fill you and renew you as you soak in this radiance.
In the love, light and promise of Spring,
Margaret
A Settlement” by Mary Oliver
Look, it’s spring. And last year’s loose dust has turned into this soft willingness. The wind-flowers have come up trembling, slowly the brackens are up-lifting their curvaceous and pale bodies. The thrushes have come home, none less than filled with mystery, sorrow, happiness, music, ambition.
And I am walking out into all of this with nowhere to go and no task undertaken but to turn the pages of this beautiful world over and over, in the world of my mind.
* * *
Therefore, dark past,
I’m about to do it.
I’m about to forgive you
for everything.