Summering Upstream with Mary Oliver
Slowly this summer I’ve been reading and savoring Mary Oliver’s book of essays Upstream while sitting on my patio sipping …
Tag Archives: inspiration
Discovering Sinead’s Music – Holy Rage & Sublime Divine
I’m a late arrival to the Sinead O’Conner lovefest. I’d heard of her, of course, seen the photos, snippets of …
Truth & Beauty, My Flower Paintings
If “Beauty is truth, truth, beauty,” as Keats’ poem claims, then what do my paintings of flowers, my attempt to …
In Some Poetic Sense, Flowers Invented Love
Flowers are on my mind, after the super-bloom outing last month, after reading The Language of Flowers for book club, …
Behind All Art is an Element of Desire—Adrienne Rich
Behind all art is an element of desire.Love of life, of existence, love ofanother human being, love ofhuman beings is …
Art More Real than “Me”
When poet Jorie Graham was three-years-old, she swirled her fingers through her mother’s still-wet oil painting. Her horrified mother picked …
So Much Happiness – Poem and Painting
So Much Happiness by Naomi Shihab Nye For Michael It is difficult to know what to do with so much …
What Joy! Poetry in Motion in Art, Dance, & Writing
What is it about this painting by Ernie Barnes that so uplifts and inspires? That ripples with joy? That feels …
Maria Berrio and the Art of Myth-Making
In a novel I’m writing I include an origin myth of how the isthmus of Central America was created. It’s …
Living in the Liminal—Permeable and Transparent
I’ve been reading (again) Jane Hirshfield’s Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, a collection of essays on the art …
