Getting Back to Normal

Ok.  Enough about the DD.  Moving right along......

I've had the busiest three weeks I've had in years.  There's been construction, destruction, news, communications and socialization and I've barely had time to sleep and eat, let alone make art.  As I've told many of my friends here, I'm an amateur astrologer.  I pay attention to cycles of all kinds.  Lately, Mercury has been retrograde (apparently moving backwards in relationship to the Sun and Earth) exactly opposite my Ascendent -- the sign rising when I was born.  When that happens, my life explodes into a flurry of activity and communication.  It ends tomorrow.  Thank goodness!!!!!!!!  This retrograde has taken its toll on my serenity.

So, as the cycles of life resume their normal, measured pace, I have a moment to reflect on old happenings and new.  It will be a year tomorrow since my friend Jodi supposedly committed suicide.  My friend, Jeremy, will be returning from South Korea where he teaches English for his annual vacation. My son, Jeff, is in the process of moving out, barely nine months since he moved in.  My daughter has decided that she's getting married in a year or so to her boyfriend and we interred her cat last week down in the yard.  As I listened to the guy outside mowing the lawn a little bit ago, I realized that some things change, but it's all part and parcel of how the world works.  My lawn still gets mowed even though it's not the same guy doing it from year to year.  The lilacs and peonies still bloom even though they're not the same blooms.  Some plants die and need to be replaced, some just keep coming back like old friends returning, year after year.  And that's how life works.

There are many, many cycles.  Cycles of birth and death, renewal and change, economic cycles, cultural cycles -- they go on and on.  I attended an economic luncheon yesterday (where our state senator, a pro-life conservative, happened to sit down next to me, who was probably the most radical free thinker in the room, had he known it) that addressed financial cycles.  I was assured that the recession is starting to ease and that assertion was backed up by all sorts of cool graphs and statistics.  It was rather like listening to a baseball fan.  The gent who was speaking was interesting but he didn't know me, nor did he know that I understand cycles.  EVERYTHING passes.  NOTHING stays forever.  The world turns around the sun around the Galactic Center around the center of the universe......  Cycles and orbits.  Is it any wonder that the Bhudda chose the wheel as a metaphor for existence?  It makes complete sense when one thinks about it......

As my serenity and quiet return, I contemplate returning to my art.  The source of energy that I find in the passing of the seasons, the waxing and waning of nature, is becoming more evident now as the hurley burly of human interaction recedes and peace descends on my little corner of Wisconsin.  The birds are beginning to fledge their young; my fat, funny little squirrel was out this morning, happily trying to dig to the center of the earth;  the ants are out on the peonies, assiduously eating the sticky goo that holds the blossoms in;  the thistles need to be cut down again.  It goes on and on.  And I find a lot of comfort in that.  Oh.  And I have time to do laundry!    And I'll let you all know about the wedding as it unfolds.  (Keep your fingers crossed for my daughter..... She just might yet change her mind!)