Pinckney Island

While I was at work yesterday helping incoming graduate students with all their many questions - it was fun having all the students trickle back into town - Daniel was enjoying his last vacation day on Pinckney Island. 

Pinckney Island is located on the way to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. As the crow flies, it's not very far from where we live. However, by car it takes about an hour to get there as you have to drive west through Savannah along the Savannah River and then back on the other side of the river toward the Atlantic ocean again.

Daniel kept sending me photos throughout the day and I thought they were too beautiful not to share with you all.

My next post will take us back to Richmond, Virginia. In the meantime, have a wonderful Saturday!

❧ Silke

Art and Nature

Last week, I didn't do a whole lot of painting. Daniel was out of town and I just took it easy. You'd think I'd be in my studio all the time, but I felt more inspired to read, knit, crochet and watch some movies.

I did finish this rather large painting which is going to my sister's when we visit this summer. It was quite a challenge for me and I love, love, love how it turned out! The colors and the feel of it.

The canvas below was moving in a direction I didn't like, so I gave it a layer of gesso for a new start, while keeping some of the previous layers peeking through. It'll add to the texture of the painting once it's finished. I have no clue yet where this is heading.

We've had some days of big rain (Tropical Storm Colin came right through here) and then much sunshine. Flowers are blooming in abundance and I love bringing some of them inside.

The other day, I was lucky enough to find a perfect snake skin in our back yard. Isn't it gorgeous? I am keeping it for nature decoration in our house. We have quite of bit of that - dead bugs, animal skulls we've found, sand dollars, etc. This will fit right in!

We are always on the lookout for interesting bugs and this spider fits the bill. It was tiny, but look at that color! Amazing!

And here is one of the fascinating Golden Silk Orb Weaver spiders. A couple of years back I blogged about a female I watched all through the summer (click here). Here is a new female and she's going to be fun to observe. Right now, she's only about an inch in length (including the legs), but by summer's end she'll be about 6 to 7 inches long, while the males are tiny! Fascinating creature!

And this last was a lucky shot while a swallowtail butterfly was busy drinking from our bougainvillea. Isn't it gorgeous? Actually the colors are inspiring a painting...

I'm linking to the ever wonderful Paint Party Friday and wish you all an amazing week!!

With love and gratitude,

❧ Silke

An Epiphany...of sorts....

Have you ever had an epiphany about something you've really known for a long time? But suddenly you KNOW it? That's what happened to me yesterday. Yesterday's blog post ended up being quite cathartic for me. I think I had to write this down so it could get out.

And many of your comments and e-mails encouraged me to move forward and stop listening to those old tapes. As if it were that simple...

And then it occurred to me: it IS that simple! Not always easy, but just that simple. In order for things to change and for me to live the life I came here to live, I have to move forward. I'm almost 50 years old - why do I keep listening to messages from my past? They are now totally out of context and need to be put to rest.

If I want to live MY life, I need to start giving myself the messages I wish I had received as a child. I need to start loving myself - all of me! Body and mind and spirit! Wow, there's a revelation... also quite simple!

Simple, but HUGE!
Loving myself.
Flaws and all!
Moods and all!
Hormones and all!
Curves and all!
Cellulite and all!
Insecurities and all!
Awesomeness and all!
Kind spirit and all!
Sensitivity and all!
Weirdness and all!
Guilt and all!
Inner Artist and all!
Softness and all!
Loving heart and all!
And all!!
ALL!!!!

I'm willing to do it! I've been on the cusp of living my authentic life for so long, I'm ready! I was born ready, as they say! And even though I got sidetracked for a few years, I'm ready again!

Thank you, friends! For being there. For witnessing. For encouraging. For loving me. For listening. For indulging me as I find my way. But mostly for being there...

With immense love and gratitude,

❧ Silke
P.S. I'll have more happy art to show soon. I'm planning to get my hands "dirty" with paint today.

P.P.S. When I was in school we had to write with a fountain pen. It was the worst when it leaked and I got ink all over my hands. Now it's the best when after painting my hands are all colorful... :)

P.P.P.S. All photos are from my walk with Winslow and his buddy Zachy (we are dog sitting for a friend) this morning. Even though two dogs were pulling on my arms, I managed to snap a few photos for the gorgeous foliage right now! 

Our Resident Spider

A few weeks ago, we suddenly discovered this huge web right outside our kitchen window on our back porch. A huge female golden silk orb-weaver had decided that that was a good spot to make her home. I say "huge" because for a spider she is...at least to me. Stretched out she probably measures a good three inches if not more. But isn't she beautiful?

We first discovered her when she had caught a cicada in her web. It was one of those gross and fascinating things to watch - I couldn't take my eyes off of what was happening...

Since then we've seen her molt and shed her exoskeleton.

I took these photos right after she had slipped out of her "skin" and was literally hanging by a silk thread.

A little later, fluids had filled her legs once again and she was all normal-looking again.

A few days later, miraculously, a tiny male spider appeared on the scene. Can you believe the size difference?

We've seen her eat a few times since then (like here a damsel fly), but never see the male eat anything. He must dine on air or maybe little flies that get tangled in the web. Or maybe he's too lovesick to eat... :)

A couple of days ago, the female once again shed her exoskeleton (that's it to the right of her) and for a day or so, the male got really close to her (he's on her belly in the photo below). It might have been mating time. We aren't exactly sure...

As soon as she'd move her legs, he'd dart to a safe distance. Apparently, these male spiders have figured out how to relax the female enough to make it out alive after mating.  In the photo below, he's above her at a safe distance...

As of this morning, the male is still around and not much is happening. The web is huge and magnificent and seems to have several layers to it. I watched her weave part of it and am awed by the perfection of it.

I studied up a little on the spiritual symbolism of spiders and of course they remind us of weaving our own stories into our lives and watching out for the webs others weave. Just from watching the female, I get the sense of great creative power, endless patience, and quick action when the opportunity presents itself. And from watching the male? Persistence! And a good dose of caution...

We can't wait to see what happens next! Our very own nature channel...

Linking this to:
Camera Critters
I Heart Macro

❧ Silke

Questions and more questions...

Wow! I love your responses to my last post, both here as comments and in e-mails. Of course, the question has been swirling around in my mind. What if the best is still to come?

(Photo credits go to my sister for the animal photos and to me for the flower pictures.)

Now, I want to clarify how this works for me. These questions I pose I don’t really ask of myself. In a small way, of course, my mind gets engaged (it’s very active that way), but more than that, I ask the question of the universe so to speak and then I try to sit back and just feel and notice.

I think what happens when we ask these open-ended questions that are in seeming opposition to a belief we hold, we allow a small opening for the universe to show us how things could be different if we allowed them to be.

My most notable experience of that was about five years ago, when a colleague of Daniel’s asked me if I was an artist, too. My very quick response was: “Oh, no. I’m not an artist. I’m not creative at all.” But somewhere within me, at the same time and for the first time ever, I asked myself: “Are you sure?” It turns out I wasn’t. I was told in school that I wasn’t artistic. I was musical, but not artistic. I was told by my teachers that I couldn’t write. I was told that I was good at math and sciences (which I love to this day). And I took those remarks at face value without questioning them. Until that day five years ago.

Once I made that tiny opening for the possibility that I could maybe be creative, everything happened really fast. A month later, I had started this blog and began making art. Today I feel creative in every part of my life and I am stunned that for more than 40 years I had thought the opposite to be true.

I find that most of the limiting beliefs I have embraced as part of me seem to have grown from small seeds that have been planted throughout my life, like the off-handed comments by my teachers. Many of them are not even in my conscious mind, but they seem to have been developing into a sort of very personal interference pattern that undermines what I want to do and who I want to be.

Since I started painting, in my conscious mind I think I’ve progressed amazingly and I really, truly love my art. Every piece I create. Every portrait I paint feels like a piece of me and I feel connected to them all. I never look at my art and become critical. However, I can sense the interference pattern when I offer my art to the world to see and to possibly buy. That’s when that I still feel somewhere deep inside that I am not an artist and not worthy and I feel great hesitation and want to hide what I make. I am really determined to access these patterns and disburse them or reorganize them into something more useful as I long to express myself fully.

When I sit with last post’s question of “What if the best was still to come?” I am flooded with little seeds again that were planted by family, teachers, and just the environment we grow up in. I remember my mother routinely making statements of how everything was going to change for me (and not for the better) when I would hit 30. I remember going to birthday parties of people turning 40 (when I was much younger) and all the decoration talked about being “over the hill.” Funny, yes, but also not really. As a woman, I started having mammograms and other routine checks after 40, we are told by doctors and the pharmaceutical industry to be on the lookout for all kinds of scary things as we age, and have you seen all the ads for anti-aging beauty products?

Now, I don’t consciously subscribe to any of this, but I am certain that some of these little tiny seeds have taken hold over the years just by us being bombarded by to so many of them.  And now, while I do believe that things can get better and better all the time, there are some niggling doubts that maybe this isn’t true. And that interference I am so ready to let go of.

Ok, as you can notice I don’t have a “real” answer to the question I had posed and I didn’t really expect to get one.

Usually, once I put a question like that into the ethers as it were, I start paying attention to what I get back, little signs I notice. Here’s what happened today: five times I heard or read something (none of it was related) about having to be fearless of what others think if you want to truly become who you are. Wow - did that ever strike a chord? I am so not there. I definitely care what others think. Even your comments!

You know that phrase we all grow up with: “What will people think?” I have internalize that to a crazy degree and I’m ready to let it go. This is a biggie for me. No matter what anyone has ever said to me to try to help me overcome that, I have not been able to change the pattern of it. It’s not anything I can solve intellectually, this is deeply embedded in the belief that others know me better than I know myself. And whatever they say goes. Crazy, right!? I’m so ready to be done with that! Truly!! And from that comes another question, one I am sure is firmly connected to the first one.

What if I could allow other people’s opinions to be just that - other people’s opinions? How would my life be different? How would I be different? How would I approach my days differently? My art? What I write? What if I could just be who I am? Openly? Honestly? Without fear of rejection? Without fear of criticism? (Ok, I know that was more than one question...)

Just asking gives me goosebumps and that tells me that this is important in my life.

Maybe these blog posts are the first step in being more fearless. Maybe...

With love and gratitude,

❧ Silke