Cicada Moon Workshop

Spring always fills me with hope, no matter what else life is bringing ~ I can take it, as long as the trees are green and there are herbs in the garden.



Yesterday, as Ella was finishing up a visit with a friend, I went for a walk.  I was in a business centered part of town, walking on the cracked and tired sidewalks of busy streets.  At one point, I had to brush aside the leaves of a happily growing oak.  The leaves were huge, as big as my hand and so very green.  And when I touched them I could feel their fragility, their "newness".  And I was just struck ~ a few weeks ago, these leaves weren't here.  

They are so brand new, whispered into being by sun and rain, by mother nature herself.

That very tree, lay bare ~ just a few short weeks ago.  But did that mean that those leaves didn't exist?  

No, they were there but invisible.  And that is the very core of hope.  It is always there, often invisible to the eye.  Just as the leaf existed in the DNA of the tree, its shape and color and function defined, created and ready to be executed against sky and bark.  So is our hope, always inside of us.  Tattoed into our cellular memory, beating within our hearts and cascading from our gray matter.

Those seeds of hope, invisible to others, begin to shape our reality and then one sunny morning we awake and find that our lives are blooming with our dreams coming true.  Our dreams are our truth, laying dormant, waiting for sun and rain to make their form seen. 

Hope is always ours, regardless of what reality looks like.  If we are brave enough to move towards hope, to let go of the things that hold us back and embrace our dreams, anything (indeed everything) becomes possible.

I am grateful for courageous trees that embrace with grace their dormant period, knowing that on the other side of the grey an explosion of beauty will spill into the world.

I am grateful for courageous people who embrace with grace their dormant period ~ who are willing to let all of the old go, in exchange for the quiet white of the wait.

Be naive, dance in hope, know that you can make the moment beautiful ~ see what is already there, even if it hasn't taken its shape.

And with these thoughts in my mind, I embarked a quick creative project.  The weekend was busy ~ 11 hours on the road and most of the weekend was spent away not leaving much time for my "make something ANYTHING every weekend challenge".  I am so awestruck by the hope and beauty of the outdoors that it is fitting to dedicate this weekend to bringing the beauty and hope of spring into my home.

I love creating little storyscapes in the house, and have one table dedicated to these shifting stories.  It looks different from month to month.  And this month I am honoring the outdoors, bringing into the house some of my favorite elements from the outside.  Bird nests picked up on windy-day walks; butterfly wings found in the garden; eggs and egg shells from all variety of birds; shells from our last ocean adventure; roses fresh from the garden; antler sheds from my dad's stomping grounds in Nebraska; plus my version of mother nature, one of my very favorite "Marys" :)

Here is how the story unfolds:

1.  Let's start with roses from the garden.  These rose bushes and the purple salvia were put in right after we moved to Lawrence, as part of my Mother's Day.  I tucked the delicate blooms into some science beakers:



2.  Now for one of my favorites, my ostrich egg:





3.  Adding in the antler sheds from my dad and some nests I have found on my walks:








4.  In with the super hashed, super rusty little scale.  Tipping with egg shells and a sea shell from last summer's ocean adventure: