simple words … and yet … these pages were a real challenge … the other pages in this journal … Harmony … Balance and Breathe … have flowed and gone smoothly … I struggled with this spread … for lots of reasons I guess …
I began by writing on the encyclopedia pages with black magic marker … letting feelings and thoughts flow … trying hard to release them to the universe … then I painted over them with purple paint … a healing color … next covering the pages with gesso as the words still showed through the paint … my pages sat for several days …
something happened very very early last Wednesday morning …
I am much more of a stay up late person than a wake up early person these days … sometimes I get a second wind and do not want to waste the creative energy … Wednesday morning I awoke with a start and flew out of bed remembering something I had forgotten to do … very odd for me to forget a commitment …
back to being up at o’dark in the morning … 5am ish … rain was pouring down (by the time it was all said and done we got a little more than four inches) … I adore the sound of rain especially from our back porch where you can stand and take it all in but not get wet …
I decided to water the potted plants on the protected porch … walking back into the house my bare right foot felt something soft … cool and squishy … oh my goodness it all happened so quickly … it felt for all the world like a SNAKE !!!! WHAT you say … I squealed/screamed out into the darkness … grabbed a flashlight to confirm what I thought I felt … sure enough it was an adult black snake making its way off the porch … slithering away …
as if saying BLACK SNAKE is not bad enough the other common name for this snake is Black RAT SNAKE … could it get any more disgusting! YES I STEPPED ON IT with my BARE foot !!!!
I am a nature girl and a nature Lover but NOT in my face or under my feet … it took a long time to lose the feeling under my toes even after washing it … major goosebumps from head to toe just thinking about it … thank goodness I landed lightly with the ridge under my toes on part of the snake body … not the tail …NOT the head oh lordy … giving it comfortable space !!! … it has taken me days to come down from this encounter … I keep looking over my shoulder … looking before I step … oh my … !!!
our young nature boy son says “he’s probably happy to be alive” … the snake that is …
here is what I am holding on to (can’t let go of everything!) … this might be like being hit by lightning … the odds are ……VERY good that it will never happen again … who would have ever thought it might happen at all … I was very lucky that he was good natured !!!!
so back to “letting go” and “moving on” … it is a process and can be complicated … I find …
I keep trying … and trying …
for these journal pages I used … paint … gesso … rub ons … Sharpie Poster Paint pens (water based) … Sharpie marker … rubber stamps … recycled silk sewn into a tag pocket … card made into a tag (thank you Eliza) … pieces of old mailing envelope … pressed flowers in tissue paper (thank you Lynn still Loving making those) … needle and pearl cotton … K&Company bee … fringe from a funky old pillow top
Note: I am submitting this post for Ana’s Friday (2 June 2011) Archive Dive theme of: AWAY
this summer has been a bumper year for watermelon … perhaps the extreme heat is good for something because they have been extra sweet and juicy AND … $3.99 for a seedless melon seems a fair price … in these parts anyway … some markets ask 6.99 for one … 
while a wide array of produce can be had all year round … we do enjoy eating locally grown … 
I got excited setting my tea table … a fork ? … fingers work just right for eating watermelon 
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