January 6

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany which celebrates the arrival of the three Magi.  It is also Twelfth Night, the end of the twelve days of Christmas.  When the girls were little, we would leave little gifts for them (colorful pencils, shaped erasers, etc.) each morning of the twelve days, then on Twelfth Night we'd have a party with a cake for Baby Jesus.  It extended the Christmas fun for twelve more days and gave us much needed fun in the dark days of January.  (There is some controversy, according to the interweb, of whether Twelfth Night should be celebrated on Jan 5 or 6.  We always had our party on the sixth.)

Most importantly of all, though, this is my dear friend JK's birthday.  (Happy birthday to you!)  We are just 25 days apart in age.  Tomorrow we will meet for our weekly World's Smallest Quilt Guild (WSQG) meeting.  The WSQG has only two members, no rules, no officers, no agendas or committees.  We just get together each week and talk about art and life and stuff.

The paper white narcissus are starting to flower on the kitchen table....  Mary

January 5

Most of my afternoon was spent trying to fit one too many classes in one too few classrooms for this coming fall semester.  Someone may have to move the time of their class if they want a room.  Oh well, there are far bigger problems in this life.  I'll worry about this one "tomorrow at Tara" (cue dramatic hand to brow).

The amaryllis has opened two of its flowers.  It never ceases to amaze me that you can stick what is basically a big onion bulb in some dirt and a little more than a month later, there's a two-and-a-half foot stalk with saucer-sized flaming red flowers on top.  And we really, truly don't know how it happens.  I mean, we can't build one in a lab, now can we?  As my friend JK says, "If iris didn't exist, we couldn't even imagine them"....  Mary

January 4

One of my favorite professors, Avtar, came back from vacation and brought the department staff little boxes of Gail Ambrosius chocolate.  If you don't know Gail's chocolate, you don't know what you're missing.  I am particularly fond of her gold bellied Buddhas.

The flower picture is the image for January on the calendar in my office.  The wall opposite my desk was blank with a large screw in the middle of the wall.  Last year I had a Pema Chodron calendar, and this year I have a calendar of flower radiography by Steven Meyers, complete with large paper clip hanger dangling from the immoveable screw.  The images are ethereal, fragile, and lovely.  When I look up and see the freesia, it reminds me to stop for a moment and just breathe....  Mary

January 3

Back to work today.  Pretty quiet with just a few panicked students who still need a seat in our big course.  Thankfully there are still a few seats left.  At this point you can tell the students who really want the class because they are happy to take the two hour lab at 3:30 on Fridays.

The feather is from a blue bird.  Many years ago my best friend, JK (pron. Jake), and I did a self directed art retreat at Holy Wisdom Monastery on the north side of Lake Mendota across from the Capitol.  We went for a whole week.  We each brought our art and had our own rooms in the Monastery.  We met for meals and watching the sunset on the balcony.  This little downy feather floated down to us one evening as we watched the colors change in the sky.  I've kept it all these years as a good luck charm or a talisman or something.  The little bead box it lives in is only about an inch across....  Mary

January 2

The UW Badgers were at the Rose Bowl again this year.  Alas, they lost, but Rick said it was a really good game.

The Mary statues/images are from my studio.  The tall statue at the back was on my mother-in-law's dresser for decades.  It is really a privilege to have it in my studio.  The other picture is of my collection of little laughing Buddhas.  How can you not love a religious tradition that has images of its founder belly laughing?  I'll bet Jesus had a great sense of humor, but we don't see many laughing images in Christianity.  Perhaps we should all lighten up a bit and just enjoy of good laugh.

January 1

Happy New Year!  After last year's blog, 365+ Block Project, a fresh project is needed for the new year, so my new blog is 365 Practice.  Last year was a long and stressful one with the loss of both of Rick's parents.  The department I work for at the University was completely realigned, doubling in size and needing a new chairperson.  My orthopedic surgeon found problems with my metal-on-metal hip replacement.  All in all, a challenging year.

The one thing I did learn from the Block Project is that showing up every single day, no matter what, is absolutely critical.  This year's project is, at present, a bit more nebulous than a block a day.  My hope for the year is to focus on daily, even hourly mindfulness.  If I do need to have hip surgery again, I will definitely need to focus on mindfulness of the body.  At work, mindfulness is needed to stay focused on the work at hand and not get sidetracked by grumpy faculty, whiny students, and general bureaucratic nonsense.  Of course, in the studio mindfulness is required for any real work.

My favorite mindfulness tool is listening to Pema Chodron's dharma talks and books on my bus ride.  Each morning the first thing I do (after feeding the cat, of course) is to check my email for the Daily Dharma quote from Tricycle.  It's a real treat and a wonderful way to start the day.  I've found a delightful book, How to Train a Wild Elephant, by Jan Chozen Bays, a physician and Zen teacher.  Dr. Bays gives 52 mindfulness exercises.  The first is using your nondominant hand for everyday tasks, a surprisingly challenging exercise.  I haven't tried writing with my left hand yet, but it will undoubtedly be illegible.  Eating left handed is messy enough.

So for my nebulous, unfocused project for 2012, I've started a paper calendar using paper, watercolors, markers, colored pencils, etc.  Each day's square is small but will, hopefully, be fun.  As Anne pointed out, a year's work on paper should fit in a binder.  I will also be using photographs of things and places that help me stay mindful.  Of course, there will be updates on how the beading and quilting of last year's blocks progresses.

So here are photos of today's calendar square and the amaryllis that we planted on December 1 in honor of my mother-in-law's birthday.  It's a new year and a fresh start, so here goes.... Mary