On mothering and art

It's been a few months since the last post, and we've been busy. My husband is now an Orthodox priest, praise and glory to God! It has been a blessed few months, challenges along with small triumphs. We have found that that part of our lives needs quite intentional care. Like a plant, it must be watered, repotted, given sunlight, delighted in, so that it can grow strong roots. Along with this push to make this part of our lives intentional and simple, comes more promptings to make other parts of our lives intentional and simple. Once you've seen joy and tasted it, you're able to recognize it, and you want to cultivate it, and so we try!

I have been aching to draw and so here are a couple of drawings I've completed the past few months. And here, as I feel like I have to make an excuse regarding my output: "Oh, I try, but my kids make things difficult", "there's not enough time", "I wish I had more quiet" but I find that that attitude makes me more liable to bad habits cultivated in the name of coping with my un-ideal circumstances; when things aren't perfect, well someone has to do something to make up for it. That usually means more screen time and more angst for me. So I try to be thankful and remind myself that there are seasons in life that pass with or without our willing participation. The less I complain, the more I am able to enter into the whirlpool of demands, challenges, etc, and turn them into real blessings and bubbles of peace.

All that's to say, if anyone's reading this, despair not, but pray lots. Pray always (or at least try). For God turns everything into good.

AMDG

This deer was inspired by a podcast I listened to by Jonathan Pageau and Dr. Martin Shaw, called Christian Wonder Tales. It was incredibly filling, and I'm totally on board with Jonathan Pageau's work with symbols, things art often concerns itself with. I argue the things we create are distillations of time, material, and our anima...a participation in cosmic creation, of which God is sovereign. In this podcast, they talk about St. Gobnait, and remark the founding of abbeys, oratories, etc. often involve the sighting of mystic animals. Love it.