A Catherine Noon

Sunday Box Talk

I get asked, “Why do you do all that?” The person asking is usually looking at my crafts or my writing when they ask the question, and I answer with some variant of, “This is my passion and I make time for it.”

What I really want to ask is, “Why aren’t you?”

The boxes of life that Richard Nelson Bolles talks about in his book The Three Boxes of Life and How to Get Out of Them are arbitrary. We create them, collectively, and we accept them, individually. But when we take a step back and stop to reconsider where we’re headed, we can get out of them.

Stephen Covey said once that you fight and claw your way up the ladder of success, only to find the ladder is on the wrong wall. I use that anecdote liberally in my essays and when I teach and am continually puzzled that its message doesn’t fill others with the same dread it fills me. Why wouldn’t we care that we are wasting the days given to us? Why wouldn’t we make changes?

Because we feel disempowered and blocked, not to put too fine a point on it. We don’t do all that, because we believe we can’t do all that – we don’t have the time, the talent, or the permission.

This breaks my heart.

So what I’m really saying in these Sunday essays is this: take up your pen, Dear Reader, or the paint brush, tap shoes, clay, or whatever is in your heart to do, and do it.

Beginning has grace and power in it. Goethe was right.

“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Stash Sunday

I am working on the Emerald Keep scarf for the Keepsake Tour, which of course means that I instantly want to play with something from my stash. Doesn’t that always happen?

So here’s what’s on my desk right now, that’s not the Keepsake scarf:

Top left is my character binder for the novels currently in progress, (Sealed by Duty and Sapphire Dream, in case you’re curious). Under that is my Franklin Planner. On its side is some pretty Caron Simply Soft Paints yarn, which I bought when I bought the yarn for the Emerald Keep scarf but am not using in it.

Which begs the question, what shall I make with it? ~rubs hands together~

Next is my keys. This is important. Hard to get into the house without them.

Don’t ask me how I know that. I don’t want to talk about it.

Moving right along, we come to the Caron ball band for the light green yarn in the Emerald Keep scarf. The glue failed and it fell off, so I brought it in here to make sure I have it up on Ravelry before I discard it.

The grey is for a possible pair of Quill’s Socks, which were featured in Emerald Fire and remarked upon by every editor who worked on it as well as several fans. Yes, Teeka finished the socks, yes, Quill liked them, and yes, I’ll feature a pattern for them when the website redesign goes live – and I might even make a pair of them to give away at some point. Though, in all honesty, I probably won’t have time to make them for this Keepsake Tour.

Next is the yarn I bought to make Rachel a pair of fingerless mitts she can use in the hot climate of the Nevada desert. I’ll use some kind of lace pattern on them, probably but right now I’m just sketching with it.

I realized I caught the edge of my little post-it note with Rule #11 from NCIS: “When the job is done, walk away.”

On the right of my desk, I have two needlework kits that I’m looking forward to starting. One is a ladybug which is in honor of the fictiious Ladybug Bed and Breakfast. The other is a lovely peacock I bought while visiting Rachel last month – I adore peacocks.

What’s in your stash?

Work In Progress Wednesday

Attempt the First

It’s Wednesday. I figured I’d share what I’ve been crafting around with.

My first item to share is the Emerald Keep Scarf, which will be a giveaway in the forthcoming Keepsake Tour starting March 8th, to celebrate the release of Book 2 in the Persis Chronicles, Emerald Keep.

It didn’t work.

I mean, yeah, it’s fabric, and it’s knitted. But that’s about it. For one thing, the stitch said WS (wrong side) for both pieces, but either I misread it or it’s a typo because clearly, it’s incorrect – the edge stitches clearly are backward from the main lace stitches.

Attempt the First, Backside

This is a view where you can see the edge stitches are right-side up, while the lace is wrong side.

Grr.

Attempt the Second, Front and Frustration Both Start with F.
So does my favorite swear word.
Jus’ sayin’.

Started over.

And… I don’t like my idea of the border. You can’t really see it well in this shot, but the edges pull in too much and make it look sloppy. The reason I wanted a border to begin with is that this stitch has quite a bit of bias curl; however, the edging I picked (mistake-stitch rib) isn’t working.

I think either I’ll throw an extra yarn over in to create a sort of gutter, or eliminate the edges entirely.

Mancooking.
Why move stuff outta the way when you can stand over it?

I mentioned to a friend that we made candles last weekend and realized I neglected to take photos. I planned to take pics of the cold pots, but we have to cook in our kitchen so they had to come off the stove.

And, apparently, my kid thinks it’s no big deal to stand over them rather than move them out of the way. He’s cooking a very lovely taco salad at the moment, (well, cooking the sausage that will go in the taco salad). Yum.

Soap! Curing!

Our batch of soap that we made a couple weeks ago is curing very well. It’s a lovely creamy ivory color now. We cut it this weekend to allow each of the bars exposure to air, so they can continue the curing process.

In case you’re wondering, curing is letting the chemical reaction between the fat and lye to finish.

This is raw soap and not milled soap, so it’s not made in a mold. You can use it as is, once it’s cured, or mill it again and then pour it into pretty molds for a nice appearance.

Candles, Dipped 2015

I only made a half-dozen this year so far; I may fire up the pots once more before I put everything away. I like the way these came out; they are nice and uniform. They’re also really long, which is my favorite (I have four different heights I can make).

Basket-o-Candles, Bad Lighting.

This isn’t a very good shot, but it’s of my candle stock. I’ll see if I can get a better one for you one of these days – but for now, it’s off to eat dinnah.

Yum.

What are you making?

Walking In This World

Red Rock Canyon, Nevada
©2015 A. Catherine Noon

I love the title of Julia Cameron’s second book in her acclaimed Artist’s Way trilogy, Walking In This World.

When I first did the material in the book, I mis-read the title as Walking In The World, a telling distinction. I don’t easily inhabit my body or this plane, having evolved a very deep intellectual capacity as a way of avoiding abuse when I was a child. I felt that my misunderstanding of the title signaled this separation – that, to me, the world is not concrete and one but ethereal and infinite. While it makes me an effective writer, because I have a well-developed imagination, it’s crap for helping me do stuff like, oh, laundry and balancing my checkbook.

As I take an opportunity to look back on the week and reflect, this week of walking in this world has been filled with a lot of abundance and good things. Rachel and I finished Sealed by Magic and sent it off to our editor for consideration; we finished the first and second rounds of edits on Emerald Keep; we made a deal for the third book of the Chicagoland Shifters which will come out this summer; and we started work on the keepsakes we will feature in the blog book tour for Emerald Keep.

It’s becoming a normal experience for me to have more difficulty the more positive things occur. I’m much better in times of crisis, because they are so familiar to me. I’m told this is a function of PTSD and of abuse survivors, because we become so accustomed to the chaos and unpleasantness that we don’t know what to do when it’s subsided. So my goal is to become so good at enjoying when things are going well that I make that a habit, instead. Sounds much more positive to me, doesn’t it to you?

I will say this to those of you who have suffered abuse at others’ hands: there is hope. Get help, be gentle, and write. Trust your own memories and not those you are told to have. You can find your own voice, and you can heal. It will take time and it will be challenging. But you can do it.

Write on!

Sealed by Fire

Vanya is a sorcerer’s apprentice who finally achieves his goal, initiation as a sorcerer–only to find that he, himself, is the intended sacrifice in their ritual. When the ritual goes wrong, his master flees and he is left with the creature that his master summons.

Stranded on this side of the portal, Nash is a powerful being with only one desire–find the sorcerer who stranded him and wreak his revenge. Vanya agrees to help, and in the process, he and Nash find more than they ever bargained for: love, friendship, and belonging.

Can they protect themselves against the sorcerer’s growing power, or will he destroy all that they hold dear?

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A. Catherine Noon

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Tue Cent Twosday: Bird, a Poem

Image from Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons free license.

Bird.

I see you, bird. Black feathers. Shiny.

Beak. Black beak like jet, hard and grooved along the length.

It’s longer than I expected. Long and sharp.

“Once there was food here.” Tatiana Tolstaya.

The forest. Mass graves, running for miles, between trees.

I like trees. I don’t feel death when I’m in the trees.

Death is probably there, I mean, it has to be.

Death is everywhere. That’s the whole point.

But in trees, the sense of life overwhelms all that.

I think that’s why I liked hiking so much.

Outside the reach of her voice.

Stay where you can hear me.

God, that used to piss me off.

I’d push at it, silently, in my stomach.

The ulcers are a reaction to using magic, I think.

Maybe it’s improper grounding. I wonder.

But birds are hard to find in trees.

My father said he’d piss off the other people in the Sierra Club.

He’d find the birds faster than anyone else.

He was smug about it, too, which I think is part of the problem.

If not all of the problem.

Meat hook on your face, bird. Weapon. Knife.

Are you carnivorous? You’d have to be, with that beak.

We didn’t have crows in that forest.

Stellar jays. Nasty birds, steal other birds’ nests.

But no crows. Maybe ravens, though I don’t remember them.

I saw a crow at the zoo. He was enormous. Pretty, but huge.

Not a wimpy bird.

Birds in England sound different than birds here.

How many different varieties of crows are there?

Lines of Lights – A Poem

Lines of Lights

Moving at speed past the window, reverse parallax.

Facing backward on the train, the lights receded.

Facing backward on the train is a title.

A good title for a memory, even.

Metaphoric.

Like Benjamin Button, living backwards to get forwards.

When everyone is walking in the other direction, sit down and get still

Follow the still, small voice insight and listen.

What does it say?

I don’t know, I’m still listening.

What about now?

Shh. You can hear it too.

Listen.

Rhythm.

Wednesday Walking In This World

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Evening Snow at Kanbara, Edo period (1615–1868), 1834
Ando Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858)
Woodblock print; ink and color on paper; 8 7/8 x 13 3/4 in. (22.5 x 34.9 cm)
The Howard Mansfield Collection, Purchase, Rogers Fund, 1936 (JP2492)

Julia Cameron’s second book in her Artist’s Way trilogy is entitled Walking In This World. For many years, I mis-read this title as Walking In The World, and the difference is notable. “The” world is inspecific, whereas “This” world is particular. By focusing on this reality, this moment, we focus on the now. It is in the now that our power resides, where we access our own inner strength and wisdom.

Cameron uses images in her work of Japanese woodblock prints. These are fascinating pieces of art, because they’re carved into wood in a negative image and then stamped onto paper as a positive image, colored from there. I found the image, above, while doing an internet search, but am most familiar with the collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. They have a large collection of works by Hokusai, who is one of the more commonly known woodblock artists.

Katsushika Hokusai
Japanese, 1760-1849
Dawn at Isawa in Kai Province (Koshu Isawa no akatsuki), from the series “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei)”, c. 1830/33

Not all of their collection is on display, such as this image, but you can page through their website and view an extensive archive of material. Hokusai focused on images found in nature, particularly mountains and especially Mount Fuji. He also has some haunting images of ghosts from Japanese folklore.

What museum near you might you visit this month?

What kind of art calls to your senses?