First, a dear friend is ungergoing surgery for breast cancer as I write this She sent a “Twas the Night Before Surgery” email last night that included this Mary Oliver poem one of her friends had sent to her. I think it so wonderfully applies to what I wrote in Telling Secrets the other day. Please send your love and healing energy her way.

Mindful by Mary Oliver    

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

 

BIG, Reall Cool ANNOUNCEMENT

I am also very excited to tell you that after years of talking about it, we are ever so happy to announce a first ever, maybe once in a life time opportunity to take a class with the two world leaders in fabric collage – KC Willis and me! Lesley Riley. Check out all the dates and details www.studioretreats.ning.com. Hurry, because I know this one will fill FAST. I will be updating my website with the rest of my 2011 schedule when I return from a week of teaching and lecturing in Houston at Quilt Market & Festival. If you’re going to be there, please stop me to say hello! For the first time ever, I’ll be spending more time out of the classroom than in – and no booth either.