Today's Lesson from the Craft Room: Run a rope from the back door to the barn.Today I began reading a book called A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life by Parker J. Palmer. In the prelude he shares a story about a time when farmers on the Great Plains, at the first sign of a blizzard, would run a rope from the back door out to the barn. Everyone at that time knew stories of people who had wandered off and been frozen to death, having lost sight of home in a whiteout while still in their own backyards.
This story touched me today as I thought about the act of creating art as a way to run a rope from the backyard to the barn. Any act of creative expression is a way to find our way in the blizzards that appear in our daily lives - the swirls of responsibilities, unexpected occurrences, and the maelstrom of negative news that tries to attach to us when we turn on the radio or the tv. Through it all, our ability to create art keeps us whole, grounded, and able to find our way home.
Today my wish for you is to run your rope from your back door to the barn and trust that it will always lead you home.
(ps after writing this entry I went to stamp my name stamp on the back of the yellow card and messed up...so I cut the front of the card and just made it into a panel on a blue card and I ended up liking it better :) I love it when an "oops" turns itself into a "wow!")
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