This blog is pining away

I decided I had to write something here because it's been almost 3 weeks since I posted anything, and if I let too much time go by I'll get all self conscious about it and not want to write, and so forth and so on.
I think of this blog as the journal where mostly I record stuff I do, with photographs. That's so I don't have to write in the mixed media journal in which I mostly drew, painted and glued and did not like to write in, and in which I suddenly stopped doing anything at all.
The last thing I did in that journal was this double spread.

I had watched in rapture as Teesha Moore demonstrated this technique, then ran out and bought more supplies - surprised that there even were any supplies I might still need - made the freaky creatures above, never did all the doodles and writing I had intended to do on the pages, and that was it. It was the beginning of November and I haven't picked up a paint brush or a pair of scissors since. I worry myself sometimes. After that I completed an online altered photo class (or was it two?), threw myself headlong into books and retreats on Christian mystics and yoga philosophy, and now just scribble illegible summaries of my dreams in a notebook, with an occasional line about an important event or emotional state.

My work table with all my expensive tubes of paints, stencil supplies, jars and jars of gel medium, pens, pencils, oil sticks, rubber stamps, and who knows what, sits in the hallway, with what was left of its work surface now hidden by four tall stacks of books that I intend to read. Every time I walk by they whisper to me, "fickle, fickle squanderer of money, you couldn't live without us and now where are we? collecting dust, that's where...".

I could think about the jewelry-making supplies I have that could last several lifetimes, and that live in the same room with an armoire full of yarn, needles, and knitting books, not far from quite a collection of essential oils and aromatherapy books; and I could think about the dried up jars of ceramic glazes in the basement, that keep a cabinet full of silk dyeing supplies company, but I won't. It would just be too disturbing.

I know I am not alone in this. I know there are others out there like me. From their blogs I have glimpsed their world of passions found and forgotten, of stashes gathered and abandoned. Do you feel guilty too?

Since my intention for this on-line journal is that it be a photographic and written record of the stuff I do, this is what I have been up to since the retreat at the San Damiano Center a month ago. Two weekends ago I participated in a three day webcast conference held at The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, N.M, entitled Following the Mystics Through the Narrow Gate, more or less on the lines of the retreat at San Damiano, and last weekend I attended the Yoga Journal Conference here in San Francisco. A little side note here. I don't actually do yoga. I signed up for the conference a few months ago, when I had every intention of "really getting into yoga", but then not being able to because some kind of stuff is going on with the nerves coming from my cervical vertebrae, and maybe carpal tunnel and whatever. Fortunately 5 of the 6 classes I signed up for were mostly lecture and chanting, so I was still able to move at the end of the weekend! In any case, both events were pretty much mind blowing, but I have no photos of either.
I do, however, have a couple of photos of this mellow, sunny Sunday, when the rain finally let up, the skies were blue and the blossoms pink.