faithfulness by night

the grey evening light spills down the garden and through the branches of this one particular magnificent narra tree, as i gather my stuff to bring home for the weekend.  it has rained a bit and the earth is still fresh from the thursday rain, good thrusday.  the crew and i took the bus back to baao and recently, we have made this trip often.  and everytime, we have come home safe again.

 

our first week in the project is done and as i look back at the small steady transformation on the grounds, it is easy to believe in the faithfulness of the force i believe in.  the soil is dark rich and my fave corner is starting to green.

   

there are not so many words to say, and i pray that in some miracle way, he will continue to weave his love and faithfulness into my story.

and so this evening, with a keen awareness of the invisible real and the mysterious movement from grey to green, i know that even as i sleep, he overcomes the power of darkness, even in the stark nakedness of the night, i remember and feel his faithfulness through the shades and shadows of the day's end.

thank you for the gift of shared passions. life is made good and colourful!  ilysm!  ♥ ♥ ♥

 

living the art

i am taking an hour off, right now.  i declare this my hour off.  it is only an hour, i just want to put my thoughts on here.  

i remember i said: "i will make art" before, just when, i cannot remember.  back then, i thought that statement would be all there was to say.  but then art started seeping in from every crack in the wall, from every eye and hand i encountered, from every prayer and tree and common, ordinary meal.

and much like my gratitude posts i do every week or so, my eyes opened to the hidden gifts in the daily minute, that statement i made then, opened my eyes to the art in the living.  it is literally everywhere i look.  sometimes, i share what i see here, and sometimes it is just too much to put into words.

but even in all the things i do and say about my life as my art, there have been some heavy and most difficult days, too.  i would not want to give the impression that art is effortless, while seeing the art has been somewhat easy as of late, creating art has not been.  living the art is one thing, making it has been entirely another.

some days i feel the most blessed girl in the world, the girl who gets to do what she's always wanted to do and didn't even know it, the girl who has everything.  bwahahaha!  well, not literally everything.  but other days?  i think i might collapse from the pressure of it all. i signed up for this, the force knows that, and i know that, too.  but it is a lot of work, and i think i am beginning to feel how heavy and light all these are.  bwahahaha!  maybe it has something to do with numbers creeping in on me?  

sometimes, i catch myself being thankful for the deadlines, too, like aug 6 being the opening of our group exhibit, because deadlines mean i need to work on my art (or shall i say, play in my art?), and work means i am painting and painting is my art.  

still, making art requires discipline, sacrifice and white-knuckled resolve.  and this is any kind of art, not just painting.  i have to believe, with all my might that it is worth it.  i have to keep the big picture in mind.  i have to know i love it, that is my message.  but most importantly, it is where my heart beats.

for you are the one who awoke my spirit, you are the one who gave me colours.  ilysm!  ♥ ♥ ♥
   

love in the morning

the light through the branches draws me out like a lover, an invitation to delight in the beauty of the morning. 

as i walk the meandering paths through the farm, i know and realize i am invited into a love song in the beginning of every ordinary day.  and this love will endure forever.  and i know you know it.

i walk, my pace slow, on the new path we are creating.  the tree alongside just spits out yellow and ochre blossoms.  

this tree stirs up the mystery, reminds me of newness and life, and bathes the path with tiny reminders of this love...truly, i am blessed. 

thank you for this love in the morning, definitely makes my day.  bwahahaha!  ilysm!  ♥ ♥ ♥ 

wealthy living

"a farmer never has a perfect year, but he is always striving for one."  

when i read this line in one of the blogs i frequent, i could not agree more!  how unburdening, actually liberating, it is that someone said the exact words that captured what i have been through, year in and year out.  bwahahaha!

how many times have i been through the feeling of helplessness and surrender?  just yesterday, there was really no choice for me but to surrender!  there was this impending danger of a weather disturbance, and although all the weather agencies were saying the typhoon will not be making a landfall anywhere near my farm, i could not just sit, sleep and relax!

i farm. . . and i work with land and sky and all the elements, world beyond my control!  everyday, well, most days, i walk through paths etched on the ground by my farm gear, cam in hand, always trying to capture the essence of temporariness.  

but there are just things and moments at the farm, stories i do not know the endings to, things i cannot take pics of, nor understand.  some things just are.

sometimes, people interrupt and disrupt my life by saying:  you better love it, because it sure will not make you rich.  i may not always shake my head in disagreement, most of the time, i just smile at them, but deep inside, i am screaming:  i disagree!

years now living the farm life, i know what i am saying, there are two kinds of wealth.  and farming makes me the real rich!  bwahahaha!

your being in my life makes me the wealthiest!  bwahahaha!  thank you!  ilysm!  ♥ ♥ ♥

  

i am an artist

i am convinced i am an artist.  bwahahaha!

sometimes, i am thinking, maybe i should not be making art posts, maybe these are not for me.  yes, i am the creative type, but i am more a farm girl.  bwahahaha!  and well, that may be true.  i know i can be a bold and ridiculous person to clump all types of art together, tho am not the i-paint-for-a-living nor the just-plain-living type.  and that is what i have been doing here.  i think i overlap a lot in many ways.  

 i farm, make art, play, write, teach, play music, teach music, make love not war. . .ooooops, bwahahaha!  but yes, i now sit, tapping on my lappy and thinking, oh my, they just overlap in many ways!  

for example, i do not cook, but i run a huge kitchen and crew, and if am lucky, in a month's time, i feed around five hundred people!  bwahahaha!  and it is not just feeding, people!  am talking about events that i host and i organize.  and most of all, sometimes, it is about feeding a soul, too!  so there is this food business that i am in, and it is the last thing i imagine myself doing, for the love of god almighty!  bwahahaha!  but i notice, i am good at it, and people just love to come to my place and eat!  and i get to think about it, i realize that when i am in the kitchen, and setting the table and the venue, i create.  i am free.  i make art.

there are times, too, when i do not have guests and i dine alone, these times see me thinking and reflecting, and i am not perfect, i notice.  (hello?  bwahahaha!)  i sometimes catch myself barking orders and forget to say please.  i do not always feel loving and hardworking.  

sometimes, i just want to sit and read and listen to my new collection of hand-me-down music and dream.. .but i notice, too, my life is my canvass, and my love and passions are my brushes!  balk at me if you want to, and call me a rainbow or a dreamer, but i make art everyday.

it is not just the paints and it is not just the farm.  life is art.  and i see that everyday.  i never doubt that my life is my art, how i live, everyday, in my world that is packed with miracles.  

and i am a miracle myself with my now aging brown eyes, my gorgeous smile that show some lines and my infectiously loud but lovely laughter.  bwahahaha!  it is not about art school or making a living with a paintbrush.  i mean, it can be that, and it can be that wonderful!  but it is more.  it is so much more.

so today, i am grateful that i see that:   61.  my life is my art and my art is my life!

and that you are in my life, makes it perfectly beautiful!  ilysm!  ♥ ♥ ♥

muddied, loosened, broken

with a masterpiece by my fave ang kiukok @ the yuchengco museum

there was some bad weather news.  i was in manila and afraid of what i might find when i get back to my farm.  when the bus passed by it this morning, it was still dark grey, there was no chance of getting a glimpse of what damage the rains overnight might have done to my herbs, spices and indigenous vegetables, which are ready for harvest!  in fact, a harvest festival is scheduled for friday!  was i anxious, worried and uneasy!

at my herbs & spices & IVs garden @ La Huerta de Rosario

for this weekend, i am grateful for:

59.  the freedom to laugh at myself a bit more than i did yesterday.  what folly it is to lose trust and fret at a bad weather!  as if i could do something about it?  other than lift it up to him?  bwahahaha!

my own field of basil

60.  the rains that muddied my fave gear,

and the winds that loosened my braid and made my long hair fall at my back.(bwahahaha!  a call from ilocos, did this same thing, too.  bwahahaha!)  made me remember how water falls from heaven so broken seeds can give way to green life!

thank you!  you make me appreciate any weather this life brings!  ilysm  and i know you know it!  ♥ ♥ ♥