Love Notes 26 just ended. Sort of. I have yet to send my response for the final prompt, but since tonight we’re dealing with the madness of my son’s finishing up his science project, I’m dropping in with my partner’s response to the first prompt: “I invite you to…”
Lynda F, who is an artist, gave me a “ticket to happiness” and collaged a beautiful invitation for the year, written by poet and artist, S.C. Lourie:
Make sure you give considerable time to your dreams this year. Believe in yourself, darling. Make a wish and let it take you on an adventure. Like flowers, may your deepest wishes and dreams blossom in your hands, and those who love you will help them blossom too. –S.C. Lourie, butterfliesandpebbles
Thank you for these words, Lynda, and for introducing me to another “Instagram Poet.” I’ve been a little obsessed with the “Writers of Instagram” lately.
This year began with an insane amount of craziness [redundant, I know], but I’m going to be a bit more intentional this month about finding quiet moments to figure out life–a little of it at least.
Stay tuned. I’ll be blogging Love Notes from Lynda Wednesday and Friday too!
One of the most amazing experiences I had last year was traveling to Montgomery, Alabama [with a colleague and several Huntsville area K-12 teachers] and walking the path where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. began his activism. We often discuss King’s leading the fight for Civil Rights in this country with emphasis on his practice of non-violent/passive resistance. But, while he worked to build bridges between blacks and whites during one of the most turbulent eras of United States racial history, King also addressed the need for African Americans to resist the stigmatization of blackness. He urged us to love ourselves in spite of our country’s ingrained propensity to chip away at any inclination we possess toward authentic self-love and acceptance.
King would have been 90 today, and since his birthday falls during Pics and Posts’ “Self-love Week,” I am sharing an excerpt from a speech that encourages self-love.
I come here tonight to plead with you. Believe in yourself and believe that you are somebody. I said to a group last night: Nobody else can do this for us. No document can do this for us. No Lincolnian emancipation proclamation can do this for us. No Johnsonian Civil Rights bill can do this for us.
If the Negro is to be free, he must move down into the inner resources of his own soul and sign with a pen and ink of self-assertive manhood his own emancipation proclamation.
Don’t let anybody take your manhood. Be proud of our heritage…we don’t have anything to be ashamed of.
Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything “black” ugly and evil. Look in your dictionaries and see the synonyms of the word “black.” It’s always something degrading and low and sinister. Look at the word “white,” it’s always something pure, high and clean. Well, I want to get the language right tonight.
I want to get the language so right that everyone here will cry out: ‘Yes, I’m Black, I’m proud of it. I’m Black and I’m beautiful!”
And because MLK’s speeches are best experienced aurally:
King spoke specifically to African Americans in this speech, but there’s something in his speech for everyone. Dig deep and do the work. Love the skin you’re in. Find within you that which is good and strong and beautiful.
Perhaps, if everyone took the time to love themselves the world wouldn’t be such a mess! We wouldn’t have to feast on fear and hatred or make ourselves sick building superficial lives in search of acceptance by others.
People who love themselves love people. People who love themselves are beautiful. People who love themselves use their energy and resources to build up others, not tear down and destroy.
Self-love is work, but one of the best ways we express self-love is through the soul work of loving others.
There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree.
Albert Schweitzer
The trees welcomed me [back] warmly yesterday, the first day of spring semester classes. Although it was a gorgeous day, the chilly breeze forced me indoors, so I didn’t spend much time at our reunion. The few moments I was under their tutelage reinforced the wisdom of the trees–to live firmly rooted. still. calm. unshaken.
When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart.
–Howard Thurman, “Christmas Is Waiting to be Born” in The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations
Our final “12 Days of Christmas” post features a card Michael Lomax, President and Chief Executive Officer of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and former President of Dillard University (DU) in New Orleans (1997-2004), sent to University employees in 2002.
Of course, this card wasn’t just lying around waiting for this moment. I found it a couple of weeks ago during my latest “I’m going to purge for real” session.
The cover, entitled “A Tribute to Peace,” features the work of Damion Hunter, who was then a sophomore at DU. A native of New Orleans and DU alumnus, Damion now resides in Houston, Texas. Like this piece, much of his work reflects New Orleans themes.
“A Tribute to Peace” pairs well with Theologian Howard Thurman’s “Christmas Is Waiting to Be Born,” and both work well to end our 12 Days of Christmas.
Hoping you will join me as we begin the real work of Christmas…
If you’re in the Houston area, you can see more of Damion’s work up close and personal on January 11 downtown at Kulture Restaurant. If Houston’s too far to travel, see below for links to some of my favorites from his Instagram profile.
The spirit of Christmas is the spirit of love and of generosity and of goodness. It illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world’s busy life and become more interested in people than in things. –Thomas S. Monson
I’m back today with another crafted Christmas tree postcard. This one is from Diane W (midteacher on swap-bot), whose 2017 postcard is featured in my Christmas Day post. Diane is my inspiration for mixed media photo creations, and now she’s given me a technique to try with card-making without photos.
Here’s her creation process:
Adhere scrapbook paper to 5×7 Watercolor paper
Spray a piece of brown craft paper with water; wad up into a ball
Carefully unwad and mist with Perfect Pearls Mist spray in Perfect Pearl
Allow to dry; iron flat
Cut to size and glue over scrapbook paper
Emboss the edges of the postcard
Create the tree by cutting a copy of Christmas music.
Adhere ribbon
Glue tree onto postcard
Add a piece of burlap ribbon for the trunk
Add Tim Holtz Christmas phrases
I love this card, especially the crinkled craft paper and the embossed edges. Since there are so few elements, I can make this project with leftovers from other projects. I have a drawer full of scraps that are too beautiful to toss!
I won’t put you through the agony of my imitation of Diane’s tree, like I did yesterday with Martha’s, but I think I’ll attempt this technique to make cards for some birthdays that are coming up in January.
Thanks, Diane for the quote, the card, and the lesson. Thanks, too, for showering me with beauty all year long and for sharing your techniques with me.
As the day draws to a close, sit back and enjoy the peace and tranquility as the sun dramatically sets in Hawaiian skies. –from the postcard back.
I “closed the book” on Fall 2018–a long and stressful semester–but a lengthy to-do list mocks me, reminding me that there’s so much more to be done. No matter. I’ve already planned my mental escape. I’m “on my way” to Maui as I type.
To escape and sit quietly on the beach–that’s my idea of paradise. –Emilia Wickstead
