Emptying actually.
I'm preparing to let go of so many things. Mostly thingness.
And I'm spending more time reading. Mostly the books that are here that I've not read slowly enough. Not fiction.
I have always thought about cloth as the slow work. But I'm moving into slow paper.
I wonder how interesting this is to others, why I am here saying these things.
just love that you’re moving back&forth: paper, cloth, living where you are….and sharing that
I find something simply and deeply good here, amongst others pondering pace (so much about pace these past 6 years for me), connection (including via daily online singing groups), common interests (creators and dabblers and dancers and singers and beauti-fy-ers, DIY-ers, kind-and-loving people)
Encouragement in many forms, here.
Fondness, exploration…Thank You 💕
Thank you for saying
Whatever you do…it never gets old. I look forward to everything you share….and, you’re so INTERESTING and I love you 💙💙💙
I’m laughing!😂
☺️☺️☺️….true though 🥰🥰🥰
Very!
I think i said it before….you are the only person that i tap into in this big internet world.
I love to see your creativity, listen to your words and everything you share. Paper, cloth, garden, musings…
whatever you share i am deeply thankful for you.
Thank you.
i love where u r going… the link between cloth ‘n paper fascinates me. fiber of any kind. your ability to put the creative process into words is rare. your photography. it takes us into your head. your world. to be so connected with u, with other ragmates, is priceless. so whatever u share ‘n whenever, however, u share it is deeply appreciated. we love u, jude. it’s that simple… x
I’d love to add clay to that, but hey jude, enough on your plate, ha!
I love hearing your thoughts, seeing into your world, peeks of your house, and the nature around you. I’m endlessly interested in seeing the houses of artists and creators, it’s just a THING with me. And I like having long-term relationships with folks from all over the world through our creative practices. So one photograph, a few thoughts, a drawing, endlessly interesting and inspiring to me. And, of course, Soul-o 😺
So very much ditto!
Hi Jude.
Thanks to you being here and sharing..it’s helped support me on my journey every so often to stay inspired to just be.:):) and play with that in different ways.
.,…that’s huge:)
That’s a nice simple perspective, just being…
I like how folks relate to space, make it place. It’s so much a part of making. Life art .
Soul-o is ready to go out I think.
Yes…
I keep an ongoing book of quotes that I feel are worth remembering or ones that express a thought particularly well. Two that I think work in tandem with what you have written are:
“We have to throw out things that get in the way of our going forward. Letting go of things in order to fill up.” Jane Kirkpatrick
“Letting go can, at times, bring about something lovely we would to have not known about had we stayed clinched on tight.” No attribution for that one.
I embraced blogging, something new, online classes before there were any, now, it all seems overdone and old to me. If we live long enough, we have the chance to change again. Learn new ways vs giving up.
Slowing down
If it is not your body
It is wishfull thingking
I start to accept it
Now that is beautiful Yvette.
a poem
complete and true.
She is so good at saying.
Yes. Embracing it
Yvette~ I need to copy this down into my journal book 💕
I think of this blog community as a place to share, be that in creativity, or of daily life and its challenges. Also, I believe what can be done to cloth can be transferred to other medium, paper for sure! I very much have learned so much from you and your followers! I get grumpy when I have no cell service and have to wait days to travel to civilization to check in here. I may not comment often, but any post content you do is connection! I appreciate you!
It has been that. And I suddenly realize that all forms of creativity can be one, like community…a pool of useful experience. My phone works less and less here, I use wireless calling, the internet is fine . And I got a landline, I love that.
I take a great deal of comfort and inspiration from the privilege of looking through the blog window into your life and thoughts – all the way across the world in Australia.
I am a woman of a similar age and your blog creates a sense of beauty, meaning and community. Thank you!
That was very kind to say, thank you.
I am wondering about the blogging for myself…will post about that today or tomorrow. 🙂
Mostly I am interested in creativity and all the ways it shows up. The whys, the thought processes, the inspirations, how we see ourselves as creative and how it changes…that’s what I think we need to hold on to and explore. Paper, cloth or something else…that’s just how it show up. 🙂
Is blogging part of that?
I think it’s one way but more and more, for myself, I think it’s not quite enough. That it needs to be more local too, it needs to be face to face. There is a lot that I can share at work but that’s not it either. I am thinking about this a lot. It’s part of the whole screen time thing and community and the state of the world. I think we can support each other as a blogging community but there is some real work that needs to be done in actual physical communities. Sorry, I think I climbed up on my soap box. 🙂
I agree.
Such good points Deb. If only there were some ragmates in my daily world. I’m forever grateful for the online world I found when I found Our Jude…connected me to so many good and wonderful people…and myself. A true treasure that never gets old.
Jude… basically what everyone else said! I so appreciate the way you live, your musings and the inspiration for accepting similar feelings and changes that I feel happening in myself. It’s not just me! I guess I need to know others feel the same way, can’t find the correct word right now. many many thanks for being here.
Yes, maybe a common “sense”.
Hi, Jude. Love the peeks into your life & your musings especially the images of all your creativity. I see it as a privilege. Love the “paper” works. As someone of a similar age you are echoing a lot of my inner musings. I’m always looking to let go of something to make space for whatever might arrive next. A great believer in life as it is and not life as it was. Simplifiy and refine are good principles I try to work with. Much love to you & Soul-O.
In some way, simplify and refine are almost the same to me.
There are so many distractions from being creative. I struggle to slow the energy in… and it’s becoming more difficult to be satisfied with what it produces… I am tired of the ways of the cruel ones…
I get it.
Good for you!!
Hey ho!!!
Good evening Jude,
Passing on useful things, that I no longer feel they contribute joy to me has been my habit
for close to 20 years. When in my 50’s I started practicing mindfulness and trying to be present. Recognizing that stuff does not bring calmness. Collecting more tools to produce art that clutter my desk and shelves that are over head and out of my reach is ridiculous. I gifted a young artist that does college enough stuff to keep her busy for years. It’s amazing how light and joy filled I became as I watched her car pull away. Reminding myself, it’s stuff that I was not using. That stuff was bringing me no joy.
Something I said to that young artist. When the time comes, and it will ! That things you don’t want or use anymore, pass them along to someone who will use them.
Blessings and joy to you at lightening your life.
stacked over my head
Letting things be useful, yes…
I always appreciate your musings but in particular there is something energizing and interesting about the times when you are shifting.
Well shift has been lurking in a big way this year
It feels that you are wandering deeper into yourself. Your sharing is appreciated and a kind of mirror for us too. oxo
Almost falling in…
Jude~ We are who we are, in any given moment. We come, we say…we drift along. Say as you will, folks will adjust.
Yes, to the stuff. I just took apart a ‘scrapbook’ started in 1997. Will pitch those pages and now I have a useful half-an-empty scrapbook. Plus, there was an Ah-Ha as to why I began and created this thing as I did in that era. That was useful too.
I have a stack of books to read. Many to pass along.
Paper is different than cloth, but now I am adjusting my perspective on that. Scrap paper. How to use it to build new form.
Singing is so sweet! I like to hum, but the one sure sign of being in my happy place is when I find myself spontaneously whistling. It doesn’t happen often. Actually, it might just be a few times a year that that particular state visits. Or I open to it. Maybe I could look at what states of mind and what activities bring about whistling … and do more of that.
“Do I want more of this or less of this?” Katy Corrigan, PBS
Blessings on your sharing, in words and in images. They send strength to the heart.
When I spontaneously burst into song I know I am ok .
I fell and broke my arm in two places a couple of months ago and that Really slowed me down and changed the way I look at things. I’m now spending much more time watching nature, and reading – mostly nonfiction, history etc. It’s actually very healing and calming. A good thing in this whacko world.
Sometimes we get forced into it, ha,!
I always enjoy your reflections, Jude. And I myself often wonder, “Why are any of us saying anything?” It seems like a lot of conversation is not adding much to life. And what else is there? I really enjoy being outside, sharing that with others. Having a laugh. More and more, the words seem a little extraneous. But here I am writing them!!
Yes, confusing. I feel like there is nothing to say, but I’ve been blogging for almost 20 years!!!
I think your art work on paper is lovely. I
t appears magical & immediate.
I find it’s fun to change up mediums & play!
Your blog is another expression of the art you create.
As long as you find something to express why not be here.
I Wonder! I Wonder! I Wonder!
Wondering is a curious thing.
Back hand quilting a quilt top and reading. Set aside cross stitching….for now. Enjoying the feel and look of my stitches in a less structured way…for now.
For now, so important. For now…
Paperwork is very immediate, I’m looking at it differently all of a sudden.
I’ve gotten back to reading fiction in the evenings to lighten my thoughts, and some stitching with no plan.
Glad you’re here 💙✌🏼
I’m not much of a reader, I can’t engage much with fiction for some reason.
Slow is good. More noticing. More empty space.
Room for thoughts.
I see young people today and wonder at the fastness of their lives. How older people can help them slow down.
I especially think this when I’m with my grandson.
Bruno is 2 1/2, never seen a “screen”.
If he’s made it that far, I am sure his parents have been thinking about this. More and more I think that children need to be kept away from screens for as long as possible. Been reading about this and thinking about it a lot.
Yes. They don’t even have a TV or phone screen visible. Ever.
I see very young children in shopping carts with video games, while parents shop. Eek.
Both slowing down and disposing of things are a process of ageing. It acts to simplify life. I remember my father starting to give things away starting in his 70s and that’s when I started downsizing too. Slowing down makes us notice and appreciate life more.
I know what you mean about ridding yourself of thingness, attachment to things. We spend our lives collecting and lining our nests. Reading and creativity are stabilizing, and grounding, and take up space mostly in our heads. Yes!!
A little bit caught up in thinking about the link between creativity and thing.
I have very little left really, except scraps. I’m really thinking more about process than end result, which slows so much about going.
So glad you are here, saying what you do! You put some of my experiences into words and I’m grateful for that.
I’m thinking of the comfort that comes from common experience.
I find myself slowing as well…in thought and deed ( aka doing)
I really like your paper/work and find it fascinating
I have been mostly drawing (& reading!) too
💙
I’m also singing more.
Tra-la! 💙🎶🎶🎶