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Because my mind was going a mile a minute when I sat down to meditate this morning, I plopped a vase of mums directly in the line of my meditative gaze. I'm not sure that this helped me step out of the thought stream but they sure were beautiful to look at. Before I stood up to move along with my day, I gathered them between my hands, buried my face in them and inhaled deeply. I love the smell of mums!

It is too, too easy to be sucked into the virtual world of (often) horror and mayhem. Make it a practice to focus on the beautiful objects in your space. After all, you put them there, didn't you? If you haven't filled your space with objects of beauty that the light can find, please, do yourself a favor and do so now.

The objects that the light finds and illuminates will illuminate your mind, whether you love them or not. Practice seeing what the light illuminates. Practice loving that.

Short post. I'm looking away now. Looking for the beautiful in my immediate vicinity.

The garden is coming along.

I can't get the ever-expanding plots all in to one shot so the above photo is a detail of Russian kale that's been keeping me in greens all winter, flowering zucchini, dill, beets, leeks, tomatoes, vinca, lavender, anise hyssop, scabiosa and some native plant in violet bloom that a neighbor gave me last spring. There's more, much more... but you get the idea.

This time last year I started with discarded heirloom tomato seedlings in old recycling bins. I knew little about growing vegetables and still have a lot to learn but I can say that about almost anything. 

Along with the garden, I've been growing new drawing and watercolor studio classes in art history. These have evolved since January in dramatic and exciting ways. Dramatic because of the phenomenal results of student work. Exciting because, well, anytime we create brand new things there's always a learning curve, obstacles, the unexpected (no matter how well we prepare), and uncertainty. 

The entire series of three courses is not quite complete but I've jumped the main hurdles and they'll be ready in an online format by end of summer. I have to say that I have worked my butt off putting these together and yet have loved (not always enjoyed but loved) the process.

All the time I thought I'd have to write blog posts has been diverted to developing these courses. Which is fine! It's just that when I put down one discipline for the sake of another, it does take some time and serious effort to start up the disciplines I had to put aside for a while. 

Writing is the worst, I think. It's always been a challenge for me to chain myself to a seat and to focus on writing. By which I mean...actually writing. Fortunately, I know that I am not alone. The only way to write is to write and so, here I am. Writing. 

After procrastinating (not really, I had so many other important things to do today!), I decided that it was not at all important for this post to be perfect or about anything important. All I had to do was to write something. 

Something.

So here it is. It's a seed for getting me back into my regular blogging. I like the discipline. It's just a matter of doing it.