When I came across my watercolor Mockingbird today, it struck me as a good image with which to launch the new year. The colors remind me of New Year's Day. Pale, cool, clean.

Mockingbirds symbolize different things to various groups of people but in general are associated with protection, guidance, skills, intelligence, language, innocence, parenting, and good fortune.  I have at least a couple of these who live by my house and two of them are wonderful singers with impressive repertoires. I always stop what I am doing to listen to them sing. Their cover tunes make me happy.

I am starting the new year with Pema Chödrön's How We Live is How We Die. I highly recommend it. It's a book about death and dying but really, it's about life and living. Reading a good book makes me happy.

Any reminder of how precious life is makes me happy.

May All Beings Enjoy Happiness and the root of all happiness.

That's the first of the four limitless ones, or immeasurables.

Once upon a time, I arrived at the conclusion that the root, or the cause of all happiness is wishing that all beings enjoy happiness. Maybe I read it somewhere but it's stuck with me.

I share with you the four immeasurables to wish you well in 2024!

May all beings enjoy happiness and the cause of happiness.
May they be free of suffering and the cause of suffering.
May they never be disassociated from the supreme happiness which is without suffering.
May they dwell in the great equanimity, free from both attachment to close ones and rejection of others.

That's a prayer and it's worth repeating.

After a cold, bright, shiny day I watched the residue of light fade from the sky through naked trees.

Tomorrow marks the Winter Solstice. I consider this my new year's eve so have laid out the coming year's projects on the calendar. No resolutions but rather what I plan to tackle and more or less, when and how I would prefer to go about my business. By business, I mean my work and personal experience. It feels good to have a plan.

It also feels good to know that bit by bit, the light will be returning. In this relatively bleak phase of human history, I appreciate the dance of our solar system. Although that performance is full of surprises, it does offer a certain reliability especially against the uncertainty of human drama.

It's funny how uncertainty so easily elicits fear depending of course on your personality. Uncertainty feeds anxiety of the unknown even though everything outside of this moment is unknown. And it's so easy to feel more afraid in the dark

So, this is a perfect occasion to remember that if I find myself wigging out about things that have absolutely nothing to do with me (which is most things), to remind myself to be present. It's a practice. And a good one! Generally speaking, unless I start catastrophizing, life at this moment is pretty good. Always. I have so much to appreciate and be grateful for.

Aside from regular meditation practice, the most helpful technique to snap yourself into the present moment is to use your senses.

• Touch something, even your own hands
• Taste something even if it's water
• Smell something good
• Listen, really pay attention to decent music, the birds, the wind, the rain or if you have to, traffic
• Look at something as if it's the last time you'll see it

The best way to really see something you're looking at is to draw it. And no, it does not matter whether or not you have an artistic bone in your body, you can't draw a straight line or stick figure or what the drawing looks like. No erasers! (Oh, my god, when I think of the years I tried to encourage people to do this simple, natural thing! But I digress...)

We get so trapped in thought while surrounded by remarkable beauty and delight.

Oh, and while you're at whatever it is you choose to help pull yourself back to wherever the rest of your body is operating, breathe. So simple, you barely have to think about it.

Well, that's my intention as I go about my business in the coming year; to practice appreciating the little glories of each moment. 

And whatever the drama of the day or amount of daylight, I'm reminding myself to focus on the light within.

Today, my Miss Tallulah turns seventeen. 17 years is a long time to live with another creature and we have been together since she was a dusty, flea bitten kitten.

Tallulah was born under the house next door to my studio on Peachtree Street in Nashville, Tennessee. There were a few stray cats that my next door neighbor, Aubrey fed. One was a kitten who, at a week or two old in April, had been carried to Aubrey's back door by an older cat. By fall, I decided that the strays should at least be fixed and vaccinated for Rabies before winter and Aubrey agreed to split the bill.

The kitten was more interested in food than being shy so was the easiest to trap. As she turned out to be a female, her recovery time from surgery was at least a week. Aubrey's son loaned me his dog's carrier.

The short story is that I released the kitten after her recovery then trapped the extremely feral cat we thought was her mother. That cat, who saved the kitten's life and doted on her, turned out to be male and positive for Feline Leukemia. The veterinarian did not want him released back into the "wild" and as he was not a cat who could be domesticated, insisted that he be euthanized. It was one of the worst things I have ever had to do and he is buried in the yard under his favorite hunting spot.

The kitten had to be isolated and tested for Leukemia at three and again at six months. I had two healthy cats in the house and the original plan was for the studio to be a cat free zone. Well, I thought, okay. Six months. She sat at the front door and watched for her parent cat for weeks.

But here she is still at large, scrawny and nipping at fleas.

As her months in the studio wore on, she learned to entertain and help with art history research.

And then, of course, by the end of her six month quarantine, she was as much a part of my heart as she was of the studio and she's been within feet of me ever since.

A few years later, Tallulah moved into the house and was warmly welcomed by Ginger Ale and Alonso and they lived peacefully and happily together...

Until the day came when it was just the two of us left together which didn't seem to bother Tallulah much. She looked at me as if to say, Now, you are all mine!

A perfect comfort and companion she has been and quite the impressive traveler. She's accompanied me to California and back, to South Carolina, from Asheville to Raleigh to Beaufort to Lake Gaston, NC, Falls Church, Roanoke and Lexington, VA, Pennsylvania, Cape Cod, and rural Connecticut. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Here is a random photo log.

I almost lost her twice. Once to raging hyperthyroid disease alleviated by surgery. Another time to a saddle thrombus from which I managed to nurse her back from paralysis. Neither of those incidents would have been manageable without the generous help of my dear friends and members of her fan club. She and I thank you all very, very much from the bottom of our hearts. We love you.

Tutti has always been a good sleeper but these days she sleeps many, many hours on end and very deeply. She is on medication for high blood pressure, supplements for arthritis, and eats home cooked meals prepared by yours truly.

I used another image by Cory Richards' portfolio of Franz Josef Land for these Arctic Terns.

I'm happy with the way this one turned out.

I can't stand rooting through scraps of paper in search of a subject to draw and watercolor. I have enough pieces of paper all over my studio and office.  They drive me crazy. No matter how many times I straighten up, the pieces of paper pile up and so I have to surrender at least somewhat.

About a year ago, I acquired a large stack of relatively recent National Geographics via Freecycle. These bound pages offer a much more orderly reference than miscellaneous scraps. Plus, I learn things.

For example, the reference photo of this Polar Bear comes from an article about Franz Josef Land. I'd heard of Franz Josef Land but was not sure where, exactly it was or that it is part of Russia.

My reference photo for this entry is by Cory Richards and the caption reads, "Polar bears eat mainly ringed seals and bearded seals, captured on sea ice. On land they scrounge seabirds, eggs, even grass. This animal grazed for days below Rubini Rock—then chewed up the remote camera."

I turned around the other morning and spotted one of these darling Red Efts on my screen. Naturally, I had to go meet the thing and look it over, up close and personal. Yes, I picked it up and held it in my hand.

When I was a child at camp in the Catskills, we would catch these what we called Salamanders in the woods and probably took them back to our tents for pets. Then, I had no idea but just learned that this is not a Salamander at all but a juvenile Eastern Newt who spent its larva stage in the water, lives on land while a bright orange juvie and then returns to the water as an adult. These creatures live for 12 - 15 years! Amazing!

I had to commemorate this only find of my adult life in an illustration. I am so impressed and delighted that once again, so many, many years later, I am living in the vicinity of the Eastern Newt and that one came to visit.