In the wild, elephants and egrets are buddies--the egrets get dinner from small prey and insects that get kicked up by the walking elephant, and the insects that bother the elephant. In return, the elephant suffers from fewer bugs. In that spirit, I made cattle egrets to go on the back of my small African elephants. Then I had to make them even smaller. It's fun to play around on the scroll saw until it works.

By the way, I had always wondered how in heck the ancient Egyptians drew a heron or crane hieroglyphic. Now I know--with a lot of practice.  I also didn't have any idea how MANY ancient Egyptian bird hieroglyphs have been identified. 

Yesterday, I stepped away from my day job. I will soon join the ranks of the officially self-employed. I am terrified.

My decision is one that in some ways has nothing to do with me. Instead, it is a result of an interior imperative involved with creation. Essentially, I am giving in to an increasingly loud interior voice that is demanding change--that I switch course and have creation/making as my core organizing principle. This principle, making, is not the principle I would have chosen, mind you. If I could pick, I would be a different kind of person with a different core organizing principle--for example, the kind of person to volunteer in NGOs in Syria or Rwanda. But I'm not that person. And I have to make things and write, or I am miserable (and miserable to be around).

So why do we create? Why do we need to make  and write  and see beauty and read and sing? I keep thinking about a picture of a monastery built into a cliff--for some reason, knowing that those monks are out there meditating and praying and thinking and reflecting makes a different. What difference?  Hmmm. I am looking forward to finding out more about what that difference is.

More immediately, I find myself thinking about specific tasks to accomplish in the near-term--the next six months, say. One of those actions is the act of doing nothing. Life is short (you can call me Captain Obvious), and it's time to pay attention to it, both with intention and without. Staring into space, daydreaming, and letting the mind be free are as important perhaps as action and movement. "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."*

 Another essential action includes daily (or nearly daily)  writing--so here is the new blog. 

Wow.



* Quotation variously attributed to John Lennon, Betrand RusselL, and Marthe Troly-Curtin.  http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/11/time-you-enjoy/