A Sense of Time--Winter Solstice 2014 and New Year 2015

Mt. Baker floats above The Strait of Juan de Fuca, as seen from the street above mine mid December 2014

 
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An NPR program about time speeding up with an increase in gravity—I can hardly get my mind around that one…time running faster closer to the center of the earth.

Sketchbook, playing that leads to the next thing

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Not wearing my watch on the trip (my Heroine’s Journey II)—mostly because the watch was too gummed up to change time zones, but also because I wanted to remind myself to stay in each moment…at least as much as I could. That continues to be a goal. I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, since they seem to be easily ignored, but I am constantly examining and resolving…It’s pretty noisy inside my head.

Sketchbook

Daylight Savings time and being able to set my own time now that I am retired from my day job…instead I am engaged 24/7 in my true career: All Art, All the Time, even though sometimes it doesn’t look like it, even to me. I do a lot of wandering, but see it as feeding my muse.  

Sketchbook, drawing on old dictionary page

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Time seems to be a convention that requires agreement, and I don’t always agree, especially with the dumb convention of the dumb Bush II era of making daylight savings time run longer, which makes more likely the possibility of running over black-dressed school kids at 7:30am when I used to drive down the hill to work. Now that I don’t have to go to an office 4 or 5 days a week that is not a danger, and I am following what I often said I would do--not force myself to get out of bed until after daylight. Now at the nadir of light it is 8:04am, occasionally I cheat and get up early and turn on the lights. For some reason I can stay up after dark, but getting out of my bed’s cocoon of heat before daylight has always been Rough, and I’ve always lived far north where the contrast between December and June light length is Vivid!

Sketchbook, start with a photo and GO, the animals are stitched into fabric...bought at a junque store

Time can run fast or slowly—my perception of time changes—listening to Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman and thinking about how ideas generate more ideas. Being absorbed in an activity cancels out time—flow. We are So Lucky to be creative beings, to be able to lose ourselves in our own particular chosen work or people, and being with other creative people and gently leading oneself back again and again into the studio generates more ideas…and can make time stand still.

Sketchbook: Playing with Sierra's face for her portrait

Listening to Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer reading poetry, singing songs, building images…”the rain came down like suicide…or typewriters.”  The darkness will be with me, as long as I am me, but I dance with it, knowing that light and dark, as well as expanding and contracting time will always be part of the dance.

My love affair with potato pancakes...festival of olive oil and light, insulation from cold

The sunny bits in the middle of the day, especially in winter, are the best parts for going out…or staying in. Enjoy your time. Have an interesting 2015…how will you spend your time?...Live!

Chocolate filled "Sun Drops" from Country Aire

Solstice lights and Works in Progress