Blog Archives - Cinderella Lucinda

December 21st

12/21/2013

Welcome the light image

Welcome The Light

I’m not sure why today is called “midwinter,” when it is actually the first day of winter. In the Northern Hemisphere, it’s also known as Yule, or The Longest Night, but perhaps best known as the Winter Solstice, or The Shortest Day.

Whichever one you choose to acknowledge or celebrate, it is a time for peace and welcoming in the light.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cover With Kindness

12/20/2013

Snowflake image

Snow-O-Gram

With Christmas only 5 days away, we woke up to it snowing again in our neighborhood this morning, a light sugar dusting on rooftops like confection, which reminds me of this quote,

"Kindness is like snow – it beautifies everything it covers.” – Kahlil Gibran

Kind Heart-O-Gram

Kindness Heart-O-Gram

Rumi-nating

12/19/2013

Airline Baggage Claim Ticket Heart-O-Gram

Airline baggage claim ticket Heart-O-Gram

"Travel brings power and love back into your life."
- Rumi

Corazon Collection

12/18/2013

Corazon Collection Book Cover image

Corazon Collection

Some gifts make your heart sing. I received one of those yesterday. As I’ve been sharing here, the heart symbol has shown up for me during 2013. I’ve interpreted their many incarnations as love letters from the Universe, encouraging me to keep my heart open. Instead of keeping the gift to myself though, I answer the Universe by sharing it.

In this call and response pattern, I discover a heart, take a photo of it, text it to friends, and they in turn find hearts, take pictures and send them to me. This back and forth exchange is inspiring, synergistic and mostly just fun.

Yesterday, a dear friend, photographer and co-conspirator in the Heart-0-Grams, gave me a book she had printed, a collection her heart photographs inspired by our daily game. The dedication and inscription was a gift in itself, and to turn each page, to see these symbols of love in a bound book, well, let’s just say some tears may have welled and my heart sang, even if a little out of tune.

How does that Beatles song go, “What would you do if I sang out of tune…I get by with a little help from my friends.”

Love Drunk

12/17/2013

Bleeding Hearts Heart-O-Gram image

Bleeding Heart-O-Gram

“I read a lot. I love books. If they came in a bottle, I'd be a drunk too.”
― Alyxandra Harvey, Bleeding Hearts

Life Essentials

12/16/2013

Peas Heart-O-Gram image

Peas Heart-O-Gram

“We lived very simply - but with all the essentials of life well understood and provided for - hot baths, cold champagne, new peas and old brandy.”

Winston Churchill

I Heart Books

12/15/2013

I Heart Books image

I Heart Books

Yesterday I introduced the idea of Heart-0-Grams; finding or creating hearts within everyday objects, taking photos, and then texting them to friends.

A few days ago, I also mentioned my love of books and how a “super power” draws interesting reads my way. While Groom and I were riding our bikes recently, we swung by a neighborhood book exchange. There’s always that moment of anticipation before we open the curbside mounted mailbox, peeking inside, hoping to find a treasure.

"Still Life" by Louise Penny

Since so many neighbors leave and take books, the turnaround ensures we never know what we’ll find. It’s a great way to expand our comfort zone and try new authors and titles based on the tastes of people we’ve never met. It’s also fun, wondering if others will be delighted, in turn, by our anonymous donations and meet a new author in which to fall in love.

If you’re in the mood to cozy up with a warm cuppa and read a murder mystery set in a rural village south of Montreal in a tiny hamlet called Three Pines, then award winning Still Life by Louise Penny is the cozy fireplace book for you.

Warning: Be prepared to fall in love with the characters, the setting, and the charming insults between the antique dealers and the crusty poet.

Heart-O-Gram

12/14/2013

coffee Heart image

Coffee Heart at Petunia's

As Christmas approaches and the year draws to a close, my thoughts drift to the major events and themes of 2013. A big one for me was the sudden appearance of hearts on a daily basis. Coffee drips, water spots, mud puddles, leaves, anything and everything started to reflect the familiar symbol of love in my environment. I took notice and documented them with my camera.

I became so charmed and delighted by my daily love notes from the Universe, I started texting the heart pictures to a girlfriend. She and I share a love of photography, so she immediately found a heart in her world and texted me back.

The next day I sent her another and she did the same. Without saying a word, the game became an everyday habit. We finally named them heart-0-grams.

It evolved to include other people. It grew whenever I was with another person and I’d spot a heart. Unable to pass it by, I’d get all excited, grab my camera and snap away, telling them what I was up to and sending a quick text.

Then they wanted in on the deal. It has grown. There is a group of us that send and receive texts everyday with images of hearts. I’ve even started to receive heart cards in the mail from strangers who hear about what I’m doing and want to be a part of it.

People are so surprised, once they tune in, how their environment will reflect back to them and transform the ordinary into a message of love.

Yesterday, for example, a dear friend treated me to an afternoon of pampering. We had a lovely pedicure with a massage and paraffin dip, and afterwards, went to Petunia’s for a decadent (vegan and gluten-free) dessert and coffee.

Fluevog Shoes Heart image

Fluevog Shoe Heart

My friend was expressing such appreciation for what’s going on in her life, the glow of gratitude absolutely radiating from her, when suddenly she looked down at her nearly empty coffee cup and excitedly pointed out that there was a heart at the bottom.

Sure enough, when I peered into her cup, the remaining liquid that had been exposed to her positive words rearranged itself into the heart-shaped ideogram.

From Petunia's, we made our way to the bus stop via the John Fluevog Shoe Store. I’ve been in Portland now for almost two years and had not yet taken public transportation and she was giving me a riding lesson. Hey, don’t laugh. Riding the bus has gone high-tech, what with apps and texts and learning the ropes. Turns out I actually had to pull one for my stop.

While in the store, guess what? We discovered that when we put the shoes together, it forms a heart! Perhaps that was why when Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz clicked her heels, she made it home, to her center.

I guess that’s what 2013 is about, trying to make it home, to center, to the heart.

Friggatriskaidekaphobia

12/13/2013

Lucky Thirteen Necklace

Lucky Thirteen

Never mind how to pronounce it, or even spell it, but can you guess what this 23-letter word means? I started to say that frigga is not slang for friggin’ but considering the overall definition, maybe I shouldn’t dismiss that so quickly.

Frigga, besides a genus of jumping spiders (shiver), is the Norse goddess from whom we derive the word Friday, or day of Frigg.

Three and ten, kind of an awkward way of saying thirteen, but it works, so now it makes a little more sense in the Greek:

tris meaning three;
kai meaning and;
deka meaning ten.

Most of us are familiar with the word phobia from Phobos, the personification of Fear from Greek mythology.

So there you have it: Friday, 13, the fear of... Frigga tris kai deka phobia.

Hopefully nobody reading this suffers from it or hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, the fear of long words.

Happy Hour

12/12/2013

Happy Hour earrings

The "Happy Hour" Collection

Yesterday I wrote about writing, inspiration, and Cindy Anderson’s 2014 Happy Hour Guidebook. I’m interested in how other artists and writers find their inspiration. For me personally, art is a way to process daily life.

When something happens, like only every day, I call upon a variety of creative outlets such as photography, making jewelry, drawing, writing, and movement in order to explore, try and understand, make a memory or let go.

While the extraordinary is a gift, I find everyday objects and whatever is unfolding in the moment to be the greatest source of inspiration. That’s probably why I take pleasure in sketching a pair of scissors, photographing flowers or making earrings out of drinking glasses.

Cindy Anderson suggested that I design some cocktail themed earrings and title the mini-collection, “Happy Hour.” That’s exactly what I’ve done, and it’s also an example of how an evening out is translated into something fun to wear.