Days that arrive early are those that wake me when the trees are still shrouded in their black gowns of night. These days have an undefined urgency. I’m reminded of a few lines from Mary Oliver’s poem “Nature”…

Forgive me.

For hours I had tried to sleep

and failed;

restless and wild,

I could settle on nothing

and fell, in envy

of the things of darkness

following their sleepy course ---  

Today is one of those days. With coffee in my Christmas mug, I think about what is the total number of feet of the front gate and fence. He wants to hang Christmas lights. Today we shall go get these beautiful LED lights that use 98% less electricity. I moved the winter bird feeder into the smallish fir tree by the house. I’m hoping this spot will be more to their liking. I need to order the calendars and the canvas prints that will be gifts. Oh, and then there is the secret I’m keeping - for another week and half. May daylight creep across my desk soon, so that I may still be wearing my veil of curiosity.

Warm regards,

Terrill

Over the years, so many of you have commented on how much you have enjoyed my photographs. Finally, some of your favourite images are available for easy purchase in prints, as greeting cards and even a 2010 calendar at http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

Have a browse. Order your own high-quality copy of the images that you have come to love. Here are some quick links:

Live Your Vision Calendar: http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch/calendars/4230213-5-live-your-vision

Calendars are printed on high quality, high density paper that’s easy to write on, and come bound and ready for hanging on your wall. The cover and all pages are printed on 200gsm high quality satin art paper. Redbubble’s tagline is: “With Calendars this good, you’ll make up a social life just so you can ‘check your calendar’ each day”

Greeting Cards, Matted Prints, Laminated Prints (a personal favourite option), Mounted Prints, Canvas Prints, and Framed Prints.

To get started, click on the image quick link below and then click on the “buy/preview” button to the left and you can view your image choice displayed in the various options available (prices will also be displayed).

Sandstone shoreline:

http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch/art/4228354-2-sandstone-shoreline

Georgeson Island by moonlight: http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch/art/4228248-2-georgeson-island-in-the-moonlight

Witness rock in Georgia Straight:

http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch/art/4228341-2-witness-rock-in-georgia-straight

These links will get you started. There are more than ten other images available. Once you have one image open, it is easy to go to the “browse art” option on the top right above the “buy/preview” button and look at others.

New images will become available every few days. A shortcut to your desktop of

http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

is advised.

Redbubble provides a money back guarantee of their printing http://www.redbubble.com/about/guarantee

Important: to arrive before Christmas orders must be made through Redbubble by December 9^th. No pressure – just letting you know so you are not disappointed.

Best of the holiday season to you,

Terrill

© 2009 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

You are welcome to use and share material from this Blog in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link and email link. Please also notify me where the material will appear.

The attribution should read:

"By Terrill Welch. Terrill Welch is a writer, photographer and artist. To learn more, feel free to browse through her http://terrill.gaia.com website."

redbubble: http://www.redbubble.com/people/terrillwelch

blog: http://terrill.gaia.com/blog
twitter: https://twitter.com/terrillwelch

email: tawelch@shaw.ca phone: 1-250-539-5877
 
Appreciation is a condition not a symptom.

Last evening I read a list of “The 100 Best Books of the Decade” compiled by Erica Wagner with a sense of disappointment. There were a few titles I had read where I could remember the story line, but mostly the 100 listings had not even made it to my personal reading list. I was feeling a bit foolish as I am not a literary major (or even a minor). Maybe I have no literary acumen? But I asked a colleague, Tess Dickenson,  what she thought of the list and her reply was: “I can think of dozens of books from the last decade that were better ... i.e. more memorable.” I felt vindicated.

Which leads me to this morning when I was reading the Canadian Globe and Mail weekend edition (hard copy – a rare Sunday morning treat at $4.50 a pop for us islanders), where, on page F15, I discovered a review that excited my novel-quest curiosity more than anything had in a long while (An aside note: the Globe 12th annual 100 best and most influential books of the Canadian year are also listed in this November 28^th, 2009 publishing of  section F, Globe Focus & Books.)  Before I connect you to Brian Boyd’s review of The Original of Laura: A Novel in Fragments by Vladimir Nabokov let me list (in no particular order – grabbed in an armload off of my bookshelf) a few of my favorite novels:

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (2000) *

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915)

Break of Day by Sidonie-Gabrielle Collete (1928)

The Underpainter by Jane Urquhart (1997)

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov (1957)

Memory Board by Jane Rule (1987)

A Severed Head by Iris Murdock (1961)

He, She and It by Marge Piercy (1993)

The Journey by Anne Cameron (1986) *

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (1997)

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (1993)

Three Ply Yarn by Caeia March (1986)

Les Guerilleres by Monique Wittig (translated from French by David Le Vay – 1971)

The Unlit Lamp by Radcliffe Hall (1924)

* I have read and enjoyed almost everything that Margaret Atwood and Anne Cameron have written.

As we can easily see, I have some glaring biases towards mostly women novelist and of those many are lesbian fiction writers. In fact, the odd-listing-out is Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov. So with no apologies and from this acknowledged reference point, I now give you “Nabokov in fragments is still Nabokov” by Brian Boyd.

I beg of you please, give me time to order The Original Of Laura: A Novel in Fragments before you charge ahead and relegate my request to a “we are sorry, we have sold out and have your request on back order.” I’m teasing. My order is in and I should have the book in time to share with my partner over Christmas. He read Pnin aloud to me when we were courting. Now you know how Nabokov found his way in amongst my women novelist.

Warm regards,

Terrill

© 2009 Terrill Welch, All rights reserved.

You are welcome to use and share material from this Blog in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link and email link. Please also notify me where the material will appear.

The attribution should read:

Flying photo on flickr

Once upon a time someone read Jonathan Livingston Seagull to me out loud. Every since then I have had a love affair with these sassy intrusive birds. Ah, but to be able to fly and see the world as they might see it! This is my real attraction.

The 6:34 minutes it takes to watch this video is worth every second…

crept into the pale mist

Without a doubt I would have been the village healer, living just a little apart at the edge of the community in the woods. I would have been intimately connected to the moon cycles and a skilled wild crafter. I would have been called upon for the birth of babies and to sit with those who were dying. From skin rashes to broken limbs my energy and plant healing would have been requested.

Here is what I would have said about my life and work…

I am purity/innocence,

holding a possibility of truth for humanity

in each moment.

I am purity/innocence,

reflecting clarity in the present.

I am purity/innocence,

living in hills and valleys;

feeling the sun on my back

with the changing light nurturing my soul.

I am purity/innocence,

embracing the world and those in it.

For as then, it is today my gift to humanity.

Warm regards,

Terrill