~rainbow mondays~ may wei

there is a whooshing sound that always seems to accompany the passage of the month of may.

i spend my weekdays pouring large volumes of water from one vessel into another, and while that is an oversimplification of what i do for my paycheck, it is how i choose to look at it when i am in good spirits about my employment. somewhere between the zen wisdom of “chop wood, carry water” (read: rich, me), and the taoist concept of wu wei or purposeful non-doing, i am most in the flow when i am doing the least amount of overthinking and pouring the largest volumes of water back and forth.

now that it is june, a photo recap seems in order; a pause to reflect on the poetic beauty of a month heralding the coming of summer. so take off your overthinking caps, and put on your heart-shaped lenses.

white: in may i sprinkled lots of flower seeds (and leftover wedding favor seed bombs) all over the yard like an overgrown fairy. dried poppy seed heads are particularly satisfying magic wands for seed dispersal.

 

white: snowballs!

pink: speaking of fairies, my dusty rose fairy gown columbine survived a deer eating all but one of its flower buds this spring (exposed as myth: deer don’t like columbine) and put out new buds and flowered beautifully.

pink: i’m not the only one who thinks so. i’ve caught sightings of hummingbirds enjoying the fairy gown flavor, but this is (so far) the only photo i’ve been able to capture.

pink: right after that image was captured, i discovered that hummingbirds also drink from bleeding hearts! i had no idea, and it was so captivating to watch her reach into each of the hearts and drink in the sweetness.

red: the red native columbines have been feeding sweetness to the hummingbirds lately, too, as well as providing a fun snack for the local deer pests.

 

orange: caledula, its vibrant color a balm for the eyes as much as its medicine heals the body.

 

yellow: western tanager eyeing up our cherry crop from the top of a locust.

yellow: the blooming of yellow roses reminds me that at this time last year i was trying on my wedding dress that was just arriving in the mail…

…and doing selfie photo shoots for the benefit of bffs and mom while my fiance wasn’t home.

yellow: symbolizing friendship, something i’ve been feeling particularly grateful for lately.

green: following up on her fairy gown/bleeding heart feast, my hummingbird friend sipped from the comfrey flowers for a while. the bees are also quite fond of the comfrey, which have grown up a nice weed barrier zone around two of our apple trees.

green: maple suncatcher kaleidoscope.

green: trout lily seed heads bobbing in the bayou.

green: i brought home a stray strand of shepherd’s purse in my bunch of beets last week from farmer’s market. i have a special place in my heart for this little plant with its heart-shaped seed pods. it aligns perfectly that i was buying beets to juice in order to combat anemia, when a tincture from this little stowaway played a key role in stopping my post-partum hemorrhage. i replanted this one in my garden after snapping this photo. such a trusty botanical friend could never be a weed in my book.

green-blue: violet-green swallows have taken up residence once again in our nesting box.

green-blue: i love their masks. “it’s just that they’re terribly comfortable. i think everyone will be wearing them in the future.”

blue: a house finch has been visiting the forget-me-not patches as they go to seed.

blue: i bet 0% of my readers will be surprised that a “magic fountain” delphinium found me just after my previous rainbow post entitled delphinious.

blue: it has found a home in the blue level of the rainbow terrace garden.

blue: these blue pansy seeds i planted last spring have become a thriving patch of vibrant blue flowers.

blue: this knapweed volunteered in a corner of our yard where my husband has been diligently reclaiming space from overgrown shrubs, ivy, and blackberry. last year it produced one flower, and this year it has several blooms so far.

purple: the resident fairy has been known to wave a columbine wand or two around each fall, and i think my efforts are starting to pay off in the purple columbine patch in our front yard. there is a single (not pictured) and a double ruffled variety whose areas have expanded substantially.

purple: my husband got me a new spray nozzle, and when faced with color choices, he knew just what to choose.

purple: comfrey flower spirals, love.

red violet: the honeysuckle dragons have bloomed this past week! they foretell of a whole season’s worth of sweetness to drink in.

~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed

~tuesday tunes~ rainbow love

when rich and i were deciding on songs for our wedding, we had a lot of fun playing back through our favorite love songs and thinking about what music best suited our story and our celebration. we ended up using 3 songs during our ceremony, and the other two i will talk about later did come from those “oldies” that have been with us for years as part of our soundtrack. the song we ended up starting with, for our parents to walk into the ceremony, was newer to us, only discovered this past year, but so perfectly fitting that we knew it had to be a part of our wedding day.

i had googled “rainbow love songs,” because i’m me, and that was how i discovered this gem from roy orbison, on a lesser-known album called still in love with you, which was apparently considered one of his worst. i guess with roy orbison, you still get amazing when he’s giving his worst, because there is no voice like his. both rich and i love it, and i know my own love for roy’s singing goes back to riding in my dad’s pickup truck and singing along together with roy on the truck’s tape deck. i believe rich has said his dad also appreciated roy’s singing, and it only made sense that this would be the song for our parents’ walk-in. (actually my dad had to wait until song number 2, but don’t worry, that song is great, too!)

when i saw the title rainbow love in my google search results, i knew we’d need to obtain this song, but it was when i finally listened to it that i realized it was a little more than just another song to add to a mix. you really just have to listen to it to understand what i mean, but the song makes you feel like you’re in the middle of a spring day frolicking through a meadow, with its fluttering flutes and melodic orchestral arrangement. then to top it off, roy’s angelic voice sings about finding the love at the end of the rainbow. i love living in a world where you can find still more perfect songs all your life, even ones written in the distant past. (the “video” is not action-packed, but is a convenient way to share it so friends can have a listen.)

I looked behind a silver cloud, I found a pretty rainbow there
I walked out to the rainbow’s end and found a rainbow love
The one that I was looking for, the dream that I was dreaming of
There, down at the rainbow’s end I found a rainbow love

I found my pot of gold, my rainbow love
Just you and all your loving, charming rainbow love
I searched, hoped someday I’d find someone to bring me peace of mind
I found what I’ve been dreaming of when I found my rainbow love

I found my pot of gold, my rainbow love
Just you and all your loving, charming rainbow love
I searched, hoped someday I’d find someone to bring me peace of mind
I found what I’ve been dreaming of when I found my rainbow love

i know that during our wedding, not everyone could have been able to focus on listening to the songs, so i wanted to feature each one here as i share wedding memories. there was so much about that day that fit so perfectly with the rainbow metaphor, and all the color we bring to each others’ lives and why we want to spend our lives together. this song summed it up in such a beautifully simple way.

on our honeymoon, we were served in a diner by a woman named fran who, as we were leaving, told me, “this is the one. this is the end of the rainbow one.” i had not said a single word to her about rainbows, but i had shared that we were on our honeymoon. i’d like to think that something about the way rich and i treat each other comes through to other people, and even this complete stranger in the middle of montana could tell that this is something special, shining through the everyday clouds like a rainbow.

quest for sparkles

the day after our 3 month anniversary, i went for a run on the beach and noticed what looked like shimmering glass marbles in the surf zone. upon closer examination i figured out that they were jelly blobs, and more specifically, ctenophores. i have had a love for ctenophores ever since i learned about them in my 20s, and witnessed some of their more magical tricks like bioluminescence. the ones i found seem to be a non-bioluminescent species, i think from the genus pleurobrachia, but they still made rainbow shimmery sparkles as they floated in the vessel in which i whisked them back to my lab in order to peek at them under the microscope and watch them moving their cilia and tentacles to my heart’s content. (since they were gasping their final whatever-is-analagous-to-breath-for-an-invertebrate, i felt ok about scooping a few up out of the sand and plopping them into some water before their inevitable demise.)

i looked back at my 2011 post about bioluminescence, and it made me smile, because so many of the things coming to mind to say about it, i have already said. memory loss is special. at least i remembered that i did write a post. to review:

  1. all cells bioluminesce! including our own, though most do so in a range that is outside of our vision;
  2. dolphins swimming through glowing waves are stunningly pretty, and walking on the stars, on beach sand full of bioluminescent dinoflagellates, was our college pastime;
  3. there’s a long list of unanswered questions in the science of bioluminescence and i am content to leave room for the mystery;
  4. choose your own glowing totem, or as 4 year old quinn would say, spirit guy, and let it inspire you to shine your light.

while trying to identify my gelatinous friends, i learned about the role they play in regulating the food web. as predators of other smaller zooplankton, they can keep copepods from overgrazing the phytoplankton. the marine ecosystem exists in delicate balance. i would bet that their turning up in numbers on a sunny day in october was just part of the ebb and flow of maintaining that balance.

even though my little sea gooseberries aren’t bioluminescent, they did put on a fabulous flickering rainbow show for me under the microscope, their rows of cilia waving like so many prayer flags in a breeze.

in my 2011 post i referred to a trip into a bioluminescent bay in la parguera, puerto rico. here is my journal entry following that sparkly nightswimming magic. and while we’re humming r.e.m. songs, this passage feels half a world away, both in geographic distance, and in the fact that i was half my current age when i wrote it:

3-13-98

“our watch began at 7:00 but was pleasantly interrupted not long after it began by our quest for sparkles with captain pepe. this is one place I have to bring lauren someday, because although these aren’t purple sparkles, they sure are amazing. we drove in the boats for about 20 minutes to get to the spot, all the way singing “on top of old smoky” and “found a peanut” and playing telephone and the animal game (moose) which was a riot. (ribbit ribbit quack quack meow sss!) when we got there, people started jumping in the water, and you could see their hands and feet moving as they tread water. it was a muddy bottom and only about 3 or 4 feet deep. we all had on our masks and we watched our hands move and light up and sparkle as they moved through the water. it was so magical. if you lifted your arms out, they sparkled for a moment. the sparkles clung to hair and bathing suits especially well, and my black swimsuit sparkled as I climbed back on the boat. for the first few minutes of the ride home, we were totally silent, like we had just witnessed something extraordinary. it’s the things like that, which seem unnecessary but add so much, which make me just as sure as ever that this world is not random.”

i read recently that bioluminescent bays around puerto rico (there are only a handful) may have been affected by the recent hurricane. considering all the rest of the hardships they are going through, it would be yet another loss. as so many there are living without light, it would be sad if their glowing bays were to go dark as well.

on the evening of october 24th, the next day after i brought stray ctenophores home from the beach, i walked outside to find my husband standing in the front yard. it is not uncommon for me to encounter him this way, and as soon as i stood beside him and he put his arm around me and we both looked up, a gigantic shooting star streaked across the sky above us. “is that what you wanted me to come outside for?” i asked, and he answered in the affirmative.

rich and i have already lined up a date for july 28, 2061, just after our 44th wedding anniversary, to watch halley’s comet, whose tail is responsible for the orionid meteor shower from which our shooting star originated, return to the inner solar system. he’ll be 91 and i’ll be 83. we won’t talk about how old we each were in 1986 when we both remember seeing it the last time. (awkward!) gazing into the vastness of the universe has a way of rendering minor age differences completely irrelevant anyway. december 2061 will mark the 50th anniversary of the beginning of our quest for sparkles together, which will be a very sparkly-twinkly time indeed. not that we’re in any hurry! we are enjoying the fiery bits of comet tail we get to witness in the meantime.

what’s 8 earth years in the grand scheme of things, really?

now that there are more hours of darkness than light again, and the abrupt shift away from daylight savings makes the available light feel even more scarce, i find myself yearning for light all the more. just when my need for light intensifies, a bright light streaking across the sky, and a little reminder that i carry light in my own cells is just what i need.

i suppose that is where this post came from; it’s my attempt to generate my own light to shine into this darkness and be a rainbow, like my little spirit guy ctenophores, and bend that light into a spectrum of colors.

~rainbow mondays~ a crack in everything

being the rainbow around the dragon house… rotating flowers through the rainbow jars and dying/hiding/finding rainbow eggs in stolen weekday moments before my son left for his dad’s on good friday.

this is bart, being the rainbow kitty healer. he has a special sense to know which body part upon which to drape his 19 pounds and purr in order to perform his best healing magic. he hones in on a uterus with cramps or a knee with a twinge, he drapes himself across one’s neck if one has a sore throat, and across one’s face if one is congested. so this one time (thursday) when i dislocated my left shoulder, he could be found attending to things in his usual manner. p.s. is this shirt candy pink or baby pink, do you think?

red: another fire child celebrated a birthday, and since we’re growing old together, the universe figured we could practice more “in sickness and in health.” i’m pleased to report that rich still knows how to make nachos and washed all the heavy dishes for me over the weekend. he said i don’t need to hurt myself in order to get him to help in the kitchen. not being able to use one arm for a day made me appreciate allllll of the things i do while taking for granted my two capable hands. “sweetie, would you please open my underwear drawer?” i was back to french braiding yesterday, but for friday rich got to practice his ponytail skills.

red: on saturday i was back in action for farm work, i just didn’t throw any 80 pound totes of veggies around, and restricted myself instead to emptying them out into their displays, arranging rhubarb into bright red rainbows, without holding any of it up over my head.

orange: i’ve been reflecting lately on trying to be open to what is next for me in terms of career path. now, when i said open, i didn’t mean i wanted to be broken open. i meant in the sense of brainstorming and thinking outside the box. but, as the late l. cohen sang, “there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” if nothing else, my injury was effective at enforcing that i work on my wedding invitations… i couldn’t exactly haul buckets or push the wheelbarrow around this weekend.

for fun i looked up shoulder injury in louise hay’s you can heal your life, which i’ve found to be startlingly accurate every time i’ve referred to its hippie dippy master list. it did not disappoint this time either: joint injuries represent changing directions in life and the ease with which we make those transitions.

orange: i guess cracking is how we get to the yummy part of the egg, too.

yellow: my legs were still working fine, so i took a few bayou walks with rich. we are in skunk season.

yellow: we are also still enjoying the trout lily patch immensely. in a rare moment of sun, i laid sideways on my good shoulder and took pictures of this spider’s fancy gypsy tent.

yellow: pollen!

and sun!

green: a few bayou walks with this lad were taken as well. trilliums were observed.

owls were impersonated.

trees were hugged.

green: rich and i went to a lady rizo concert last night. she is an expert weaver of metaphor during her performances. she sang the leonard cohen song i quoted above (title: anthem), and had me in tears with her recitation of the statue of liberty poem during the song’s bridge. as a new york city resident, she saw that lady liberty, mother of exiles, went dark the day the second executive order immigration ban went into effect. she wasn’t sure whether the credit was due to some crafty park rangers, or mere coincidence, but the metaphor couldn’t be denied. sometimes imprisoned lightning is more visible when it is suddenly absent. sometimes it’s the silences between the notes that sing the loudest. sometimes we can see the shaft of sunlight better when a trail of smoke goes across it, and like a light bulb to lemon juice, reveals a secret message we’ve been needing to read.

 

green: a wind storm blew a bunch of the flowers off the maple tree onto our driveway, and i find them to be quite captivating filling the green jar on my windowsill. maple is a family favorite (i’m thinking of all my pancakes and also of my great grandfather’s maple syrup/sugar business), and as i am a special fan of green flowers, these first green flowers of the spring are a new favorite.

blue: don’t forget!

purple: the garden will still be there when i get back. in the meantime, the hyacinths are holding down the bottom level of the terraces, and i’ve pulled all the ivy all the way to the cedar tree where cardboard is now laid down. i’ll be inside the house under a cat. contemplating the cracks in everything… they’re how the rainbows get in.

~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed

~rainbow mondays~ the rainbow connection

i’ve been thinking about how we can move towards finding connections, instead of focusing on differences. i see the image above and i think idealistically about how the united states would be so cool if we lived up to our image as a place where all are welcome. (i do not know the source of this artwork, and hope the artist does not mind it being shared!)

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

~emma lazarus (the quote associated with the statue of liberty on ellis island, the entry point to our country for my ancestors, all of whom came from europe.)

some would say, “but it’s not that simple. we have to think about national security.”

others would argue, “yes, it really is that simple” to be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. i thoroughly enjoyed reading about the refugees the pope personally rescued from syria here and here. i also love this rainbow-rific image (unknown source) of pope francis, whom i have come to admire for his practical, no-nonsense way of practicing what he preaches. it’s one thing to claim you have no problem with someone of a different religion; it’s another thing to wash that person’s feet.

speaking of rainbow-rific, this is the current boss of our hummingbird feeders, and i think he likes having his picture taken! and clearly, he has found the rainbow connection.

red: i am finally overcoming the inertia of winter and making some real progress on wedding planning! i feel some flat bride posts coming on… because there is some good comedy in taking your own measurements for a wedding dress, let me tell you!

red: a friday lunch for my ten year old young man!

orange: brightly colored driftwood on my lunch break beach run today.

yellow: the daffodils are coming!

green: a new bayou vista opened up by my trail blazing fiance.

blue: blue hair braided with black hair. they found a rainbow connection. (image from reuters)

so i’m puzzling on this, but i think that trying to find a rainbow connection means not defaulting to the scripted polar divisions and not becoming reactive on topics regardless of whether the topic is pokemon go, colin caepernick, the election, or standing rock. this neural groove of either/or is well lubricated, so it’s going to take strong intentions and follow through to avoid slipping into it. what if i could be with each of those topics, without taking a side? without having to justify an opinion?

instead, what if we used a new language? what if we stepped off the continuum of us/them, right/wrong altogether and asked in what ways do we already agree? in what ways can we move forward towards the common goals we have? can we acknowledge how our fears are clouding our solution-finding?

what if we stop seeing causes as mutually exclusive, stop assuming scarcity, and work to achieve both/and? can we both fund the national endowment for the arts, and maintain our military? can we care both for refugees and our homeless veterans? can we help young women and help unborn babies?

i’m pretty sure we can!

blue: sunnier days ahead! welcome signs of spring are all around.

purple: primrose surprises in the front yard!

as i keep seeking the rainbow connection, i keep looking for the silver lining, looking for the ways in which people are being the rainbow, even in the face of some very dark clouds…

like the judge who assigned teens to read books as the consequence for hate vandalism (refer to the article for the reading list! well worth it!) oh, and a visit to the holocaust museum.

like the subway riders who worked together with hand sanitizer and tissues to clean swastikas off the walls of the subway car.

like the community of american muslims who raised funds and provided assistance in the restoration of 150 headstones in a jewish cemetary damaged by vandalism.

like the bystander to the hate-motivated shooting of south asian men in kansas who put himself in harm’s way to help.

i think they, too, have found the rainbow connection.

“what’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing and what do we think we might see? someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers, and me!”

~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed

~rainbow mondays~ being the rainbow

we’re in high rainbow season, and we’ve been taking our cues  from the skies and being the rainbow every chance we get.

being a fairy dog mother is a way i like to be the rainbow in someone else’s cloud, or in other words, be the community on which my friends can depend. i took this while walking my ruby pup one lunch break.

spending part of inauguration weekend taking care of ruby’s kids so their parents could attend a conscious teaching conference felt like being a rainbow. fixing quesadillas, detangling my favorite curls and snuggling up to read stories, some of my favorite ways to be a rainbow.

not sure whether still having our christmas tree is being the rainbow, but it is being a rainbow itself, so we’ll not mention our procrastination tendencies.

rainbow tree water. water is life.

red: summer in a jar, strawberry jam on a biscuit makes him smile. still life of boy with 99 cent pineapples.

orange: caught him grinning as he added branches to his first bonfire at the dragon house.

yellow: sunset self care visits to the beach are right at the end of my work day this time of year.

yellow: quinn advanced from junior green belt to adult half yellow belt! we are having a great time with our new sifu and learning a lot!

green: lumberjack in his element. rich took down several small overcrowded trees this weekend, and i helped. i got to tie the rope on each time and pull them in the right direction while he wielded the chainsaw. they all landed right where we wanted them, and none of them landed on me at all. success! more light for the apples and future garden area! not to mention the venue of an upcoming get together…

green: another thing that felt like being a rainbow on friday was cleaning up a beach with quinn’s fourth grade class.

blue: juvenile eagle blessing the beach cleanup.

blue: various hubbard-y blue squashes riding the wave.

blue: selfie with dust.

purple: sunset watch.

purple: eating my greens and purples; still life with dirty dishes. dust and dirt, just part of being a rainbow!

~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed

~rainbow mondays~ treasure

i am finally setting up my shell table, the one i mentioned in previous new york posts, which was an ordeal to ship out to oregon, but finally made it out here this year. the week off after christmas always allows for random nebulous projects to progress, and i finally dove in and unpacked some of the treasures that have been boxed up for the past decade, awaiting their chance to be displayed.

you’ll be surprised to know i’ve chosen a rainbow theme for the table, shown here in work-in-progress form, and also selfie form. after the tears it brought, it’s about time it is bringing me smiles again. the table itself is really a great big selfie, full of so much history, the story of my travels and adventures, laying inside a family heirloom (my great uncle was a printer, and it is an actual drawer from his printing business). i opened up the film canisters of sand i had carefully labeled from far-flung geographic locations, and emptied them into the spaces to serve as the backdrop. the purple sand in the bottom right corner is from the far east end of long island, montauk, my favorite color sand of all. yes, film canisters. back when i still used those….

red: i think hummingbirds embody “being the rainbow.” always in the magical present moment.

red: soldier lichens at the base of our redwood tree, adding new layers of texture and color to the already groovy bark.

peachy-orange-salmon: december sunset blur

orange: if you think film canisters date my dusty collection of “treasures,” try the cassette tape cases holding butterfly wings and dragonflies. a wonderful opportunity to downsize and consolidate my nature collection at long last. some, like this one, downsized to a digital image and released for good.

yellow: or silver and gold, as in, “it’s better than silver and gold,” a photo about my sweet fiance. “we got something that’ll never grow old.”

green: i love this smile bringer. rich and i had ventured outside to check on a woodpecker who had run into the window, and quinn came to check on us. the bird survived and flew off, and the boy also fluttered away to do his thing.

green: angels in the trees

blue: i remember collecting this particular dragonfly off the deck of a schooner on which i was working, where it had landed to die. those tape cases really enabled some serious nature collecting, even in conditions that should have been impossible for such ephemeral things to survive.

purple: sea urchin and bird skull. i have been wondering what it is about the delicate ephemera that has always captivated me, and made me want to defy the elements in order to preserve? i think it’s a bit like the paradox of being the rainbow – being in the moment while also documenting and reliving and sharing the moment. i think the lesson in the tiny, breakable, fleeting artifacts is the impermanence of all of this. the butterfly wings and sea urchin shells, the printing industry and cassette tapes, all pass away. i’ll never stop trying to hold onto my favorite moments and treasures, if only to keep teaching myself how to let go of it all. to continue the neil young song, “i used to have a treasure chest, it got so heavy that i had to rest, i let it slip away from me, didn’t need it anyway, so i let it slip away…” the true treasures can’t be held onto, and yet, they can’t be taken away.

~rainbow mondays~

a splash of color on monday

a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed

 

be the rainbow

2017 is a going to be a big year for us, no two ways about it. i don’t feel the same usual timid anticipation of the unknown to come, because there are already some big plans laid out for this year. standing here on the threshold, it’s more like a certainty cutting through the fog of my winter brain, that this is just bound to be a big one.

i was having trouble articulating actual intentions for the year, but then i realized that in 2017 i will watch my son turn 10 (!); turn 39 myself; and get married!!! and then i cut myself some slack, because that is enough for one year! if i can pull off those three feats with some small measure of grace, it will be an accomplishment.

throughout the transition to the new year, i have been contemplating spiral symbolism (wearing spirals, as i always do, sorting through seashells and fossils in spiral formation, etc.) and reaffirming that every day (not just january first) is an opportunity to begin again. and every hour, every minute within each day, can be a new beginning. the choice to start fresh at any time is so freeing, and empowers me to make life what i want it to be.

last year my intentions were minimal, and i checked most of the items off of that modest list (live music, a doctor visit, new glasses, consistent self care practices) and this year i am just going to reaffirm that self care remains high on my agenda, which enables me to care for my guys in the best way i can.

i watched a clip of maya angelou singing and sharing a spiritual about the rainbow, and encouraging people to be a rainbow in somebody’s cloud. i think i’m adopting that as part of my intention for this year. it’s just vague enough to exert low pressure but be highly inspiring, especially since i tend to be a rainbow (my current theme song when driving alone in my car is “she’s a rainbow” by the rolling stones) every chance i get by default anyway.

in an effort to gain some clarity or insight or inspiration on 2017 intentions, i drew some nature cards from my two inspirational decks (i’ve written about these cards before here, here , here and here where you can also find links to the artists.) the cards all made me chuckle and nod, for each of the three of us, as usual. but none so much as the very first one. “just think about the rainbow” it said, encouraging me to recognize the magic in each moment, each day.