I am reading and listening to the thoughts of Parker J. Palmer. Good stuff. Here, he recently wrote:"Artistry" is not confined to folks who create verbal, visual, or musical forms of beauty. I know people who are artists at parenting, friendship, gardening, manual labor, teaching, leadership, problem-solving, care-giving, peace-making, or just plain living!(Hear, hear!!! It's always nice to read something you have thought so well expressed!)Therefore ALL of us can heed, he said, these wise words from the wonderful Wendell Berry about the value of obstacles in the creative process:
"There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say, 'It is yet more difficult than you thought.' This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings." 
Oscar Wilde apparently said, and I have regularly quoted him saying, One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art. I took this to heart for my daughter's wedding. (Yes, funny how that wedding comes up regularly now. Don't worry, it will be the baby soon enough.) Until a couple of weeks before the wedding I had not really had a chance to think about my dress. As luck would have it, on my travels I came across Aventures des Toiles. Each season, they choose seven pieces of art to inspire seven lines of clothing. They talk about the concept for inspiring young designers here. The dress I wore to the wedding was inspired by a painting called Les Almandiers by Isabelle Merlet. And I love wearing it. Thank you Isabelle. Thank you ADT.Somewhat uncharacteristically, I didn't decide on jewellery until the
night before (I know...what was I thinking) and at the very last minute selected a piece I made over five years ago in my little studio corner overlooking the jungle in Nepal. I was inspired by the magnificent colours of the sunsets in the Terai that I witnessed so many times on the bus home from Birtamod. Intense peaches, 
oranges, pomegranate tones. A dramatic and beautiful sunset gift followed by a magnificent ultramarine night sky. This necklace was an early outing of the beads that subsequently became the sari beads made by the Samunnat ladies. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. But I guess it wasn't all about me.Tomorrow, we start our long drive home. Aaaaaah. Home.It was VERY REMISS of me, especially in light of all the gorgeous comments, not to credit darling Tony Byrt for the great family photo. He gets a proper thank you here! The crappy topper photo was by me!
