Box of Beauty

Over the last year, I have been participating in a women’s circle, a “group of women who are emerging”, as part of our mission statement states.  In fact, at our last gathering, we celebrated our one year anniversary.  I have been greatly inspired by our circle and by my circle sisters.   One of our activities was to draw a card from Susan Seddon Boulet’s Goddess deck, a beautiful set of cards made from her paintings.  The card I drew was Psyche (see the painting).  As I read the back of the card, which contained a short retelling of the myth of Psyche, I found myself tearing up.  I’m not a gal that tears up much (which drove one of my therapists to distraction practically). 

You can read much more about the Psyche myth here, but the essence of it is that Psyche was the beloved of Eros, and in order to placate Eros’s jealous mother Aphrodite, was set four seemingly impossible tasks.  Psyche accomplishes the tasks, even though she is in despair about her ability to do so, by allowing others to help her and listening to the wisdom of those coming to her aid.  Her final task is to visit Persephone in Hades and bring back a box of beauty.

Here is where I stopped and felt stunned by the phrase “Box of Beauty”.  It seemed to be an answer of sorts – this year, I have been questioning: what is my vision, what are the next steps I need to take, what ways can I grow?  As I sat reading the card, I thought about Psyche’s first three trials and saw parallels between those and how my own life has unfurled; yes, I could identify three phases of my life that at the time I was not at all certain I would get through.  And now, the task is to bring back a presumably full Box of Beauty.  What does that mean exactly?  What could be in the box? 

As I am questioning now, at my getting-riper age of 55, what I need to do now with my life, especially on a spiritual level, and what I have to offer, this idea of returning a Box of Beauty explodes with meaning. 

In the myth, Psyche gets the beauty from Persephone.  So it must be, I think, even though all of us contain universes of beauty within us, none of us can take credit for it.  It certainly isn’t necessarily related to our physical beings, although some of us could be gorgeous in a beauty queen sort of way.  I see it more as imparting beauty in word or action by choosing what is most forgiving or compassionate or loving. 

I also see that the Box will contain offerings of art and creativity and have been greatly excited this last week by the visions inspired by this myth.  This digital painting/photo is my version of the goddess Psyche.  I borrowed from the traditional association of the butterfly with the soul, which is another definition of the word psyche.  The butterfly in this image is from a photo I took this spring of a California Sister (Adelpha californica) resting by a pool in our Lion Creek.  And so, this image is the first from the Box of Beauty.

For poetry lovers, a verse from John Keats, “Ode to Psyche”, 1819:

O brightest! though too late for antique vows,
Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,
When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
Holy the air, the water, and the fire;
Yet even in these days so far retired
From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.
So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
Upon the midnight hours;
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
From swinged censer teeming;
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
Of pale-mouthed prophet dreaming.

New Book

As some of you may know, I seem to have developed a fondness for observing fungi.  Over the last couple of years, I have made it a mini-mission to photograph as many fungi as possible - at least those that we spy at our beloved Dryad Ranch.  I created a little book of my treasured finds:

Fungi of Dryad Ranch by Megan M Ralph | Make Your Own Book

The Ordinary

One of the books I'm reading at the moment - the one I have here in my office for lunch time* - is a thoughtful work on creativity:  The Widening Stream by David Ulrich. 

I love this quote:  "The world is interesting and becomes far more so as we closely observe things, people (including ourselves), and events, and contemplate their significance.  Once again, heightened awareness becomes a transforming agent for ourselves and our work.  through the action of directing our attention, we revel in the commonplace; the ordinary becomes extraordinary."

Here's another, that I highlighted with a question mark.  "The creative act, regardless of how it takes shape, is one of service and devotion to the world."  What do you think of that idea?  Is that so for you?

* Yes, I know maybe just reading or just eating could be a better choice.  Sometimes I do both.

I'm taking a rest day today - oh maybe I'll go for a walk later on, but after being a veritable whirlwind yesterday, what with scrubbing and cleaning and cooking and working out and walking and some more cooking and a gripy knee, it seems like a good idea to Not Do So Much today.

It seems I have to force myself to slow down.  It seems there's a part of my brain nowadays that says:  go go go, burn calories, don't let yourself get fat again.  Seems I still can't trust that it's the overall trend that matters, not what happens on any given day and that a rest day is needed on a regular basis.

My plan is to re-organize one of my dresser drawers (fun,eh?) and spend a lot of time working on photos:  editing, tagging, filing and backing up.

Metabolic Pathways Graphic

I was lurking on one of my favorite web sites / forums this morning (Calorie Count).  The complexity of the metabolic system was under discussion.  Someone posted a link to an amazing graphic.  I don't understand it really but remain in awe.  Both at our bodies and at the greatness of the artwork, such that it is.  I got it here.

Yipes, How Did I Miss This?

Somehow, this amazing singer had never hit my radar until yesterday (thank you Pandora).  Eva Cassidy doing Autumn Leaves.  Her version of Fields of Gold brings me to my knees, but I couldn't find a live video for that one.

Hot Diggety! A New Personal Best

A few weeks back, convinced I wanted more data about my activity levels,  I ordered this fancy gadget that purportedly measures the total amount of calories burned during the day.  It's a Fit armband from BodyMedia - you wear it all day around your upper arm to provide various measurements to calculate energy output.  Well.  It's interesting and all but to date, I haven't decided whether I've wasted my money.

One of the more amusing aspects of this experience is that the armband assigns personal bests to various of its measurements:  eg. highest number of minutes engaging in vigorous activity, highest number of steps taken during a day and so forth.  It also measures sleep (how many hours of sleep one gets in a night), sleep efficiency (hours of actual sleep vs. lying down time) and then there's lying down time itself.

I rang in the New Year by achieving my best ever performance in both lying down time AND sleep efficiency.  And here I thought Sloth was a sin.

(What do you suppose the lying down efficiency is of the aging witches butter fungus pictured above?)