Meri's Musings

May all beings have fresh clean water to drink. May all beings have physical and spiritual nourishment. May all beings have a home and sanctuary. May all beings share love with someone. May all beings know their true purpose. May all beings be well and happy. May all beings be free from suffering. Today I will do what I can to  bring this intention to reality. p.s. Please consider making an end-of-year donation to Shelter Box, Southern Poverty Law Center, WorldVision,  Doctors Without Borders, or  another non-profit entity doing great work.

To join or see other participants'contributions, go to Haiku My Heart their arms weighted down enrobed in white splendor trees stand sentinel

Click HERE to listen to Frank Sinatra's version

Twelve Days of Mother Love I think that Mother Mary as an older woman was an activist for justice a crusader for peace didn't take no for an answer when only a yes would do ate spoons full of pomegranate seeds danced in the moonlight wove flowers in her hair and slathered honey into wounds she was a healer midwife a teacher and not altogether tame she was a woman with fire in her belly. A woman for all times. A woman for our time.

Our Lady of Indigenous Peoples --  © 2016 MeriMagic on Polyvore.com When I think of Our Lady, I think of hope. Of compassion. Of miracles manifesting in unlikely places. Her image appears in many guises: on a grilled cheese sandwich, in colors of a plate glass window, in the billow of a cloud. Any place that people are moved  to look with their hearts. When I think of Mary, I think of all the indigenous peoples, converted to Catholicism by missionaries (and not always willingly), who found in the Divine Mother a source of comfort, a connection to the fertile earth, to birth and death, to the connective force that women represent. When I contemplate this image of Our Lady, I imagine her meditating. . . gathering strength to support all those who lean on her because she seems more approachable than God. I suspect that she is creating a blueprint in her mind of a world at peace, where there is enough for...

Twelve Days of Mother Love I thought I'd recycle  a Mary post  from 2012. Hope you don't mind. Oh mistress of shapeshifting you come to us in many guises. . . . as a lady in white  floating above an oak tree in fields in Portugal, with messages to shepherd children. as an image on a highway sign in Sunnyside, Washington not once, but twice. As a statue weeping blood at a Vietnamese Catholic Church in Sacramento, California. People see you in the browning of a grilled cheese sandwich, in the hues of a plate glass window. You told the young Bernadette  to dig and when she had done so,  you filled the void with healing waters. Even now, over a century and a half later, pilgrims flock to Lourdes, seeking miracles of their own. I don't seek your likeness in an oil spot on a garage floor, though you may well choose to do that for the mechanic who needs a reminder of the ineffable nature of faith. Instead, I seek your ...

A bust of Mary, her nose chipped,  sits in Anado's studio waiting for her chance to join in some work of art yet to be created. Twelve Days of Mother Love

Is it because women are generally seen as more responsive approachable accommodating that we've brought representations of  the Divine Feminine into our lives? Or is it that instinctively we search for balance, for inclusion, for female heroes to complement the Father God  of the Jewish tradition and the God-like son of the Christian tradition? To see other offerings  in Twelve Days of Mother Love, click HERE . 

Artists for hundreds, even thousands, of years have attempted to capture the essence of Mary. This portrayal seeks to picture Mary as Queen of the Heavens, with rich brocades and lace and a crown too heavy to be worn by a human being. I suspect that Mary would be embarrassed by images  that show her in extravagant clothing and jewels. She was, after all, an unspoiled girl who answered a call that would change her life in ways she couldn't begin to imagine. She said yes, trusting that her path would be revealed  and her feet would be steady upon it. We should all be so obedient when the call to our destiny comes. For additional meditations on the Divine Feminine and the cult of Mary, click HERE .

attitude of sweet repose her blessings rain down on us sainted mother love 12 Days of Mother Love

Think what an amazing world this would be if we did all things with great love. For more 12 days participants, click HERE .

I'm joining Rebecca's 12 Days of Mother Love, her homage to the energy of the Divine Feminine, personified in the Christian tradition by the Virgin Mary. I'm thinking about mothers a lot today. My mother would have officially turned 90 today. She died on Labor Day, so she didn't quite make it. She had that "Mother Love" energy, though. Here's to you, Mom. Click HERE to see the other participants' offerings.

How, pray tell, did it get to be September? The month when color begins to run riot. The month of my birth. Hello, September! I love you.

Haiku My Heart they burst into bloom  turn their faces to the light annual showoffs

The news came in via Facebook. Hints, then confirmation. Prince is dead. Found dead at his home. For me personally, not the punch to the gut of learning that John Lennon was dead or George Harrison  (though we knew that was coming) because Prince wasn't my thing. But I knew my daughter  would be devastated. As a young teen, she was gaga over him,  then way girls were Paul girls or John girls (until the Beatles broke up). She fantasized that they would marry. In other words, she was really in to him. So I called her to say "I'm sorry." I knew she'd be in mourning. And she was. She said, "Ive been bawling my eyes out since I heard the news." And then, not knowing what else to do, I sat down and composed the tribute collage you see above.  A few years ago, when she lived in Omaha instead of ten minutes from me, I discovered that her idol was doing a concert there, in her adopted city. I don...

It's tulip time in Washington. Perhaps a little past prime time, given that last week's weather was spectacular and unseasonably warm. While I love tulips for their vibrant colors, I live at the edge of the woods. My woods are inhabited by deer. And my deer l-o-v-e to munch on tulips. And azaleas, camellias, and lots of other tasty treats. . . that are on the "deer resistant plant" list. But so far they've left my daffodils alone. So I just placed an order  for another 250 d affodil bulbs. They'll arrive in the fall for planting time and poke up their cheerful heads in March just when I'm needing some color to counter the long gray days of  a Pacific Northwest winter.