beauty – Page 3 – Water :: Earth :: Wind

08.27.201409.20.2022

Collaborative Art Piece Benefits Teen Moms

The winning bidder of Girl Power generously donated the piece back to the Florence Crittenton Home and it is on loan to 1+1=1 Gallery to exhibit for the month of September. 1+1=1 will host an open house and artist talk on Sunday evening, September 7th. The gallery is located at 335 North Last Chance Gulch. I would love to see you all there — come down and enjoy some delicious food, beverages and great company.

Whew! Last week I finished Girl Power just in time for the benefit auction for Florence Crittenton. This year was the fourth annual Support Our Girls event in which businesses in Helena contribute whimsical and sometimes fancy “bras” to be auctioned off.

When Florence Crittenton began this event four years ago, I was still working there as the life-skills counselor for teen mothers. Together with the girls who were there at the time, I designed and made a bra for that first auction. It was absolutely beautiful and all of the girls who worked on it were proud of their ideas and contributions. Below are some photos of that very first art-bra, titled Sassy Girls, Marvelous Moms.

"Sassy Girls Marvelous Moms" 2011 Art Bra by Maureen Shaughnessy

Anyway … this year, the benefit organizers invited four artists (in addition to local businesses) to create pieces for the auction. I was one of the featured artists. I created a piece based on the idea of empowering our daughters to be independent, strong, healthy individuals, thus the title Girl Power. It’s really about more than girl-power (read the artist statement below for explanation)

Girl Power

When Carrie asked me to make a piece for the Support Our Girls benefit auction, I immediately thought that instead of making a “bra,” I would like to make an art piece using a torso of a breastfeeding mother. In my mind I named it “Girl Power,” and although that name is whimsical, it is also serious.

Florence Crittenton holds young teen moms in supporting hands while they make critical life choices …. choices for themselves and for their babies. One of these choices is whether to breastfeed their babies or not. When it works out, it is one of the best gifts a mother can give to her newborn.

Yet, there are many other ways these young mothers rise above their often traumatic beginnings to become capable loving mothers. The Florence Crittenton staff delight in the girls, and hold high standards for them … expecting them to learn, explore, and be successful. Yes, these moms are still girls. They are still children. They are still learning as they raise their own children. It is an awesome miracle and so amazing to watch them as they mature, fall down, pick themselves back up again and hold their babies with love.

As I thought about all of this I wondered about Girl Power and what we, as parents and caring adults, can teach our daughters — teach all girls — to help them embody their own power. So they can live successful, happy, healthy lives and have strong loving relationships. I realized that no matter what we teach our daughters, we also have to teach our sons to be whole, happy human beings. It doesn’t work to lift up one gender and not the other.

So I asked my community of friends to contribute to this piece by telling me what they wanted to teach our children … our daughters and our sons. The response was amazing. I received over a hundred comments, many of them from former clients of Florence Crittenton. Reading through them brought tears to my eyes. I could not include every single thought I received in the piece, but I hand wrote as many as I could even inside the torso where you just have to imagine what I wrote. I hope you also feel the power. Girl Power. Boy Power. The Power of Love. And the Power of Connection.

The images and personal symbols in this piece come from my own experiences growing up in the 50s and 60s … of learning about and connecting with nature, and of finding my way in life. I believe that it is through a deep connection with all life, that human beings become fully human and truly powerful. I was privileged to work for almost five years as the life skills counselor at Flo Crit, and I hope that in my way I was able to teach the girls something of that connection.

~ Maureen Shaughnessy

Here are a few more photos showing details of Girl Power:

Everyone who comes to the open house on the 7th will have a chance to sign the back of the piece, and add your own thoughts to the text if you want to, and if your contribution didn’t make it onto the front of the piece (I tried to include as many as I could, but there were SO many comments from the community I couldn’t write them all on the front.)

See you on the 7th! (email me with questions: [email protected])

06.29.201409.20.2022

Summer Garden Painted Tiles

06.23.201409.20.2022

Art Camp for Two

Documenting our Discovery of Ladyslipper Orchids

Last week, my young friend, Grace and I invented our own “art camp.” She stayed with me for four nights and we had 3 full days of creative fun. I sure hope we get to do this a couple more times this summer. Hanging out with young people fills my cup, especially when they are as enthusiastic about life and learning and creativity as Grace is. It was super cool that we got to do so many projects and have some adventures just the two of us. Actually, it was three of us — Charlie came along too.

I promised Grace I would teach her how to make a blog post, so I am going to leave the DIY tutorials until she comes back for our next art camp. In the meantime, here are some photos of some of the things we did and made:

06.01.201409.20.2022

My New Favorite Season: Spring Near Yellowstone

Hearing robins singing has always been my first sign of Spring.

We’ve tried to arrange for our shamanic study group to meet in Montana, our home-ground, for almost 20 years. Well, they came this spring! Yay! And I kinda think everybody pretty much fell in love with Montana’s beauty and wildness. Yellowstone Park, the Yellowstone River and Paradise Valley to be specific.

It’s been a long time since I have visited Paradise Valley and Yellowstone Park in springtime. Starting when my sons were little, we camped in Yellowstone but usually after school was out for the summer, or in the fall. I’d always heard about the incredible spring surge of baby wild mammals and birds there, but I’d never experienced that awesomeness until this retreat. Fall was always my favorite Montana season. I’ve changed my mind, though.

My new favorite season? Spring-near-Yellowstone. Yes. That is a season. Springtime-near-Yellowstone. Not just plain old Spring.

In early May, Mother Earth is waking up in the Yellowstone ecosystem. Waking up in a big way:

Her trees sure woke up — fast! In just a couple of days, before our eyes, the aspens and cottonwoods dressed their bare branches in mists of green, then fully clothed themselves in designer-leaf-garments.

As spring days grow warmer, Earth’s sacred waters awaken. Snow melts. Soft rains come. Rivers swell and fill their banks. The water covers sand bars, willow thickets and ancient boulders. Listen to the sound of a small stream feeding a big river and notice the beauty filling your heart:

During the night the land sleeps. Mists cover the bottom of Emigrant Peak in the Absaroka range. With sunrise, the clouds lift to reveal a snowy shawl on the mountain’s shoulders and, as the day warms, her shawl unravels into rivulets that feed the swollen river. Earth’s sacred waters take many forms.

Mother Earth is waking up with babies. Every kind of wild-fertile-life-explosion-of-exuberance baby: bison calves, wolf cubs, fox kits, fawns, elk calves, gopher kits. Eaglets, goslings, osprey chicks and kildeer chiclets. A hatch of mayflies and a hatch of trout fry, bunnies, ducklings, loonlets and grebelets.

Birds mate, nest and raise a brood. Or they just pass through, feeding all around us – energy for the journey.

A grebe mother floats by with a brood of grebelets on her back. Two of them are just behind, tucked up against her tail as close as they can be, in the wild, rising waters.
Yellow-headed blackbirds sing their water-in-the-throat-joy
Dusk brings the chortling call of sandhill cranes, their color that of deer, goose and fallow field
Canada geese stand on a snag midstream, high water all around them, calling their distress in not-quite-unison
White pelicans glide downriver — a silent line on invisible rolling air-hills
Mama eagle brings home a snake, then a rabbit, a duck, a fish — she’s a good provider
Nuthatch, woodpecker, chickadee, siskin, finch — the timbre of bird-song in a meadow swells to a symphony of beats, noise and vibrant texture
The cottonwood grove where we met around a fire, is alive with aspen-catkin-fluff dancing in the air to the rhythm of bird-song
Above our heads, baby gracklets (made-up-word-warning) strain their wobbly necks from a hole high in an old snag. Their begging calls must fill the parent birds with urgency — bring more bugs! Bring more bugs!
A red tailed hawk screams hoarsely from across the flooding river — an osprey answers at dusk

Our Earth is sacred. There are some places on Earth I can more easily feel and experience that sacredness. The Yellowstone ecosystem is one of those places for me. It is holy ground.

Just for fun, I found some recordings of some of the birds we saw and heard during our retreat. Listen here:

Sandhill Crane

Pine Siskin

Osprey on Nest

Mountain Bluebird

Yellow-headed Blackbird

NOTES:

Yellowstone Naitonal Park is the centerpiece of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest remaining nearly intact ecosystem in the Earth’s northern temperate zone.
Half of the world’s geothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by the ongoing volcanism of the Yellowstone Caldera, world’s largest supervolcano.
We stayed at River’s Bend Lodge and some cabins at Paradise Gateway, hosted by Carol and Pete Reed with help by their daughter-in-law, Holly. What a great place to stay — right on the river, surrounded by more wildlife than I’ve ever seen in one place. Thank you for opening your slice of Paradise to our group.
Here is a Checklist of Mammals that live in the Yellowstone ecosystem.
The Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness has the largest single expanse of land above 10,000 feet in the United States.

CREDITS:

The River ©Eddie McHugh
Recording of American Robin from Slater Museum
Aspen Catkins photo ©Matt Lavin
River Reflection ©Maureen Shaughnessy (me)
Snow Clouds Cloak Emigrant Peak ©Maureen Shaughnessy
Elk Cow and Calf ©Maureen Shaughnessy
Yellow-Headed Blackbird ©Michelle Lamberson
Bird Calls are from Xeno-Canto.org
Recording of Pole Creek is by Maureen Shaughnessy

05.02.201409.20.2022

Eating Dirt May Be Good For You

For most of human history, people chased things or were chased themselves. They turned dirt over and planted seeds and saplings. They took in Vitamin D from the sun, and learned to tell a crow from a raven (ravens are larger; crows have a more nasal call; so say the birders). And then, in less than a generation’s time, millions of people completely decoupled themselves from nature. — Timothy Egan, NYT

When I was a kid, our typical day after school was finishing our homework, doing a few chores, then running outside to play. When dinner was ready, Mom called us in, we did our after-dinner chores than ran back outside.

We had forts in the woods, and forts in the blackberry brambles. Played kickball, kick-the-can, many variations of tag and hide-and-seek with a whole tribe of neighborhood kids. We captured fireflies in jars, investigated ant hills, caught crawdads with plastic cups, chased dragonflies and hunted snapping turtles in the creek (we didn’t hurt them.) We picked wild strawberries, blackberries and plums.

We raised a wild raccoon, lots of polywogs, a few caterpillars, two snapping turtle babies, some squirrel babies and a baby robin. Dug in the dirt, made mud pies, launched ourselves into the creek on rope swings, climbed very tall trees and adventured in the storm sewers. I loved lying on the big hill hear the cow pasture and just watching clouds. I had a secret place under a spiraea bush where I would lie on a blanket to read. Outside.

What adventure! Totally unstructured. I remember at some point longing to attend a summer camp because some of my friends were going, but I never did. I also didn’t have music or art lessons, extracuricular sports or academic tutoring. We just played (well, we did chores too.)

Life is different for little kids now. It makes me sad to think of how disconnected children are these days, from the natural world.

According to Richard Louv who wrote Last Child in the Woods, “Boys and girls now live a denatured childhood. What little time they (children) spend outside is on designer playgrounds or fenced yards and is structured, safe and isolating. Such antiseptic spaces provide little opportunity for exploration, imagination or peaceful contemplation…

Louv recommends that we re-acquaint our children and ourselves with nature through hiking, fishing, bird-watching and disorganized, creative play. By doing so, he argues, we may lessen the frequency and severity of emotional and mental ailments and come to recognize the importance of preserving nature” — Jeanne Hamming

Another excerpt from the book, “Last Child in the Woods:”

As a boy, I was unaware that my woods were ecologically connected with any other forests. Nobody in the 1950s talked about acid rain or holes in the ozone layer or global warming. But I knew my woods and my fields; I knew every bend in the creek and dip in the beaten dirt paths. I wandered those woods even in my dreams. A kid today can likely tell you about the Amazon rain forest—but not about the last time he or she explored the woods in solitude, or lay in a field listening to the wind and watching the clouds move. — Richard Louv

What can we, as teachers, parents, grandparents, and friends of children do, to make sure kids connect with the natural world and reap the benefits of unstructured outdoor, nature-based playtime? Well, take some action. Any action. Here are 10 things:

Here is an awesome list of resources and ideas, right here. Start with that.
Next, download this guide, “Together In Nature.”
Or … start by just getting outside. Anywhere outside. With your kids. It doesn’t have to be in a wild place. Be random. Be playful. Let your kids lead the way. Explore. Be curious. Be refreshed.
Splash in the rain.
Go out at night with your baby in your arms.
Take a nap with your child on a blanket in the shade.
Grow some of your own food with your kids.
Push for more nature-based education in schools.
Help create green spaces in your urban community.
Explore your city so you know where the natural places are.

And yes, eating a (little) dirt can be good for you — for your immune system and for the playful sprite inside every one of us.

LINKS

04.14.201409.20.2022

Portrait of Life Well Lived

I love my mom so much it makes my heart feel like it’s going to explode. I can feel it in my chest. I feel it in my throat. I feel it in my hands and belly and spine. I know it in my eyes. I know this love in my mind and in my soul.

When I look at her — really look deeply at her — I see her for who she is and not just for who she has been for me.

I love to listen to her stories. I love to support her on my arm as we walk. Wrap my arm around her slender shoulders. Laugh with her. Bring her a cup of tea. Cover her with an extra blanket. Open the car door for her. Share our tears. Share chocolate. Watch her when she doesn’t know I am looking. Wash her hair in the kitchen sink. Cook for her.

I love knowing in the night, that she is snoring gently in a room just a few feet from mine … love knowing she loves me, because when I thanked her for letting me take these portraits of her, and for spending these almost-3-weeks with me, she hugged me and cried. We both cried.

Mom is 82. I feel more deeply connected to her now that I am an adult, than I remember ever feeling as a child. That is not to say I wasn’t close to Mom when I was little — maybe depth of relationship comes with the compression of time, with the way age matters less and less as we grow older. The difference between 80 and 60 is less than between 25 years old and 5.

Today I watched her through my lens. She knew I was looking. She knew my camera would capture every wrinkle and blemish, yet she relaxed and let me pursue something I have wanted for a long time … to capture the elusive portrait of someone who is part of me. Who is so deeply connected to me that when the time comes to let her go it will be the hardest thing I will ever do.

Maybe depth of relationship comes with changes inside me. Changes in that place of rebellion that still burns like a stubborn ember of fire. When I look in the mirror nowadays, I see my facial features softening, melting a little. I look like my mother. I am becoming a beautiful crone. A wise woman. Like her. When I see her through my camera viewfinder, I see myself in 20-some years. And I hope with all my heart, that I am as good and kind and loving a human being as my mom is.

A few more from our photo shoot today:

04.12.201409.20.2022

April Calendar is a Peaceful Montana Sunset

Dear Readers: Here is a gift from me to you.

I really do appreciate you. For reading my words and for commenting. I can’t tell you how much it means to me when someone comments, or emails me to let me know they are reading and appreciating my posts. For telling me that I have touched their heart. Just alot. So thank you, and here is a desktop or wall calendar for April that I hope you will enjoy.

Sorry it’s a wee bit late. These calendars are a gift because I want you to have something to remind you of a different way of seeing the world around us. And … well, just ‘cuz…

I’d love to know if you find these useful.

The calendars are free for you to download. I will try to post the calendars the first day or two of each month. The only thing I ask is that you use them only for your personal use. Please don’t sell them yourself. And please do tell your friends these are available. Thank you!

If I don’t have the size or proportion of your computer monitor, or if you would like one for a cell phone, please tell me in the comments and I will make one for you and post it here. This month I am posting two versions: the calendar below may be downloaded and printed for your wall or fridge. The one at the top of this post is desktop wallpaper for your computer.

How do I do this? Just right-click to save the image. Let me know in comments if you have any trouble. You can download and print either calendar. Happy Springtime to you, wherever you are!

Here’s one for your iPhone:

and here is one that’s 1280 pixels wide, for your desktop:

And, finally, here is a calendar for your (analog/actual) wall (just print it out on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, using the “photo on matte paper” settings.)

03.24.201409.20.2022

Snow Geese, Calligraphy and a Cold Dawn

Yesterday we made a pilgrimage I’ve made a half dozen times before. We drove to Freezeout Lake near Fairfield, Montana, to witness the annual spring fly-out of a hundred thousand snow geese. Our road trip was short and easy compared to the birds’ many thousand-mile journey. All we had to do was get up at 4:30 am — a totally uncivilized time of day for me (*whine*) — and drive a couple of hours. The geese (up to a half million) weren’t even midway along in their migration from central California to Alaska and the Yukon. Before arriving at Freezeout, the massive flocks of geese had made a 15 to 18 hour non-stop flight. Now that’s a journey!

Imagine sitting in your car in dark. Waiting. It’s too cold and windy to wait outside. For now. The engine is running so you can keep your feet warm. You roll the window down and hear a far off murmur.

Just before dawn the sky barely lightens. The murmur resolves like a jazz chord, into low-pitched honks and calls. You sip your hot coffee … turn off the engine. You are quiet. The prairie is quiet.

Suddenly you feel a pounding downbeat as several thousand geese erupt from the water’s surface.

The mass of black dots becomes a cloud of white. Throngs of geese lift in unison, creating a huge black and white spiral. Smooth backs reflect the twilight. Then the flocks head towards you out of the western darkness.

They are directly overhead in just minutes. Jump out of the car and listen! The sound gives you shivers. So many voices!

Look up! Life’s artistry lifts your soul. Snow geese fly in formations that shift and flex — they are writing poetry in calligraphic lines across the sky.

The incredible sound of that many geese flying overhead … going somewhere … makes me feel so connected to life. The sky and the prairie are inside me, those sounds are in my heart and my soul … I am filled with longing. To go … to explore … to belong.