Mola-Makers

Off the coast of Panama in the San Blas Islands the women make the most creative and beautiful cloth art called molas. Layers of different colored cloth are stitched, slashed to reveal colors and stitched some more in the most intricate patterns.
"Cuna women pursue simple and productive lives governed by tradition and enriched by ritual. Their art is strictly a woman's art which is intertwined with the total fabric of their being. They work compulsively with one or more unfinished designs always at hand, their sea island environment being conducive to an idyllic life-style which leaves plenty of time for creative stitchery. Their complicated appliqué technique is not practised by neighboring Indian tribes or any other culture on earth."
from MOLAS FOLK ART OF THE CUNA NDIANS by Ann Parker and Avon Neal 1977

Rockin in the Free World

It has been some of the best ever agate hunting lately on the beach by my house. I thought this season was going to be a wash until these past 2 weeks. Storms, tides and waves uncovered huge beds of agates on a rock shelf I haven't seen for years. So awesome ! I was sore from leaning over picking up agates. My teenage boys and I spent some quality time in the sun by the sea gleaning these beauties. Plenty of sea glass and jasper too.

 

An Auld Aquaintance Not Forgotten

Terry, we miss you much. R.I.P.

Home, Peter !

A most uneventful Easter at my house this year. I dearly love the Easter Bunny but he barely poked his head in the door. I hope he stops by longer next year... He and his helpers should all be home home and cozied up to the fire by now - it must be exhausting hiding all of
those lovely eggs.

White April

The orchard is a pool, wherein I drown;

It is a very pool of loveliness.
I clutch the edge of a white world and press
To the bottomless white billows down and down:
I clutch, I gasp, and all at once each spring
That I have known comes sharply to my mind,
Passes before me, and each one I find,
Stirs in me a packed, swift remembering.
Oh, pear-trees, ancient by an ancient lane,
A hundred at the delicate white start,
Tall waves that roll and break upon a shore!
I struggle up, I am myself again:
Dripping with April, April to the heart,
I run back to the house, and bolt the door!

WHITE APRIL by Lizette Woodworth Reese circa 1930