Skies and Squalling

Good morning!

I've got to get to work -- I'm late, but wanted to hurry up and post something before I left.

This piece, "Skies", is a 3d multi-media work we put into a shadowbox.

Like what happens to all of us big-and-busy mothers, I hadn't paid any attention to clouds for years until the first time we went to the ocean, I think in 1994. Down at the Gulf they looked close enough to touch, and substantial enough to carry you in their wings.

After coming home and getting back to real life, while still working at RPS (schools), I was a bawling my head off in the car for whatever reason on the way to work one morning.

Always, when a person has to bawl, I have found they also have to flip around the channels on the radio to try to hear a song that will commiserate their horrible life.

While I did this, I happened upon Nichole C. Mullins singing her new song: "I Know That My Redeemer Lives."

Wailing as I was and being a cloud looker now, I looked into the sky, and through my bawley-squally eyes saw the most beautifully formed angel.

She was spread enormously across the sky, flooded from behind by brilliant white light. It was her full body, clothed in a long flowing gown that swept behind her. Her arms were stretched to the front of her as if they held something. The folds in her gown were deeper hues of grey and she was edged in blinding sunlight.

I watched her gliding through the wind all the way up the "you'll get a ticket if you go too fast hill" on 63 coming into Rolla.

It broke my heart and took away my breath so that I couldn't even get out a good boodle-boodle.

Having felt ridiculed by the world for the predicaments I always find myself in (now is that being the center of the universe or what?!?), it came to me how foolish my thinking often is. It's not that I didn't always know in my head how silly I was, I needed to know in my soul. In my head I knew better... this spoke to my soul.... Laughing at us for goodness sake? Revelling in our dismay? Our compassionate God doesn't laugh at our traumas and dramas (though sometimes he must shake his head and say, goodness gracious rachel peaches what a whiner!). He is compassionate. Just like we are with our own children.

Love to all, d.

P.S. Still don't have time to figure out how to do these pictures better, so am posting another shot in the next doo-dad.

Another P.S.

One more thing about "Skies"...

I forgot to mention, but these two shots kind of show it...

You can notice that you can see two sides to this cloud's face. One seems judgemental, the other accepting. Which is your God? Which do you allow yourself to see?

Love more, d.