When a Cat Comes To Visit

The cat looks at us from his high perch on top of the kitchen cabinet.  Big round eyes glowing with discovery stare at me.  The tail flicks in the air. This is Miso, my daughter's big cat.  He is spending time with us so she can be on vacation.  He entered our quiet life and brought with him the old concerns about his safety that we used to expend upon our children long time ago. My husband, Barry, created for him soft landing spots on our sofa in the living room so he could jump from his high perch unharmed -- but he never looked at it and lands carefully by its side.

Miso the Cat

Miso jumping to his perch

Then Barry created a step on our bookcase leading to the high spot by adding my thickest books to its top but the cat ignores it and just jumps amazingly where he wants to go.  It is a big distance from the shelf top to the perch but he does it as he would take a stroll in the garden.  Daringly and elegantly.

In other words, we have become like new parents while he does of course what he wants; prideful creature that cats are.  He also showed us incredible catlike affection, turning his tummy up for us to pet him, sitting on Barry's lap while he would tell me "Answer the phone, I cannot move!"  I would look at his face in total bliss and laugh watching his hands stroke the cat's fur.

Miso allowing Barry to pet him

The pets in our life pack with them a whole lot of joy and activate new concerns, keep us entertained, bring us the happiness that our unpredictable life sucks out of us at times.  I remember a friend in Florida who photographed pets, told me that they were our kids especially after our children were gone and had started their adult lives.  I had proof of that with so many people around me loving the furry, feathery or fuzzy creatures we have as pets.

I sometimes look at Miso with wonder thinking how another specie has come to be our friend and adopt us as foster parents although our pets run our lives in many delightful ways.  I peek in the mystery of Miso's green eyes and wonder often about his allegiances, his choices, his ancestors past as an older predator and his familiarity with us, his human friends now.  It is itself a great mystery and a marvelous step in our development.  I know the scientists have their theory but I retain the mysterious approach of the cat to my life as a compelling tale of friendship and attachment. 

It is a proven fact that pets are important to our well being and keep us alert, alive, involved.  They are our companions, often our lifeline, as many handicapped people can attest.

We have had many cats.  Mimi was one of our favorites. We went with him through the destruction and the horrors of Hurricane Andrew and traveled with him from Miami to Colorado when we took my small Honda and explored the state.  I remember the big orange tabby that he was, looking out of the little car, waiting every day to eat until we reached a motel at night even though we had provided him with his cat litter and food bowl to no avail.  We would stop at dusk at a motel that would not always welcome pets. We would sneak him in at night and hope for the best only to find him at the window in the morning innocently looking out giving his presence away.

The day he died, he came to my studio already so bony and sad and I petted him till he retired in the adjacent guest room to die silently.  I discovered him later and wrapped him in my best shawl to grieve alone until my husband came home.

In our case now, we cannot keep a cat when show season starts as we are often gone for several weeks at a time.  We tried with Coz, a brown tabby, but once when we returned from a trip, my friend the cat sitter had left me many notes telling me that she never saw the cat who hid under the bed every day when she came to change his cat litter and check on his food and drink.  The cat would miss us horribly and we would miss him as well.  After a while he became almost neurotic and we gave him to a good family with children where he thrived.

But we miss all our furry ones and I envision the day when a cat will delight us again.  Not just for a few weeks as it is now, but every day as I want it to be.  I like cats since they stand for what they want and not what I want; their sense of self and undeniable regal attitude, their great dignity and purr and their quiet affection.  They would climb on me if I was sick and lay on my stomach purring.  They were great healers concentrating at making me well in the silence of the night.

Of course people like all kinds of creatures that add to their life in some manner.  Our pets are our companions that speak in their own way and tell us tales of love and loyalties.  For many that is enough, but for me, their mystery enhances my life and adds a taste of the wild even though they are tame, and make me a constant care giver.

Mystery of Miso

Copyright 2011 Micheline Brierre
Edited by Barry Kaplan

The Self Image

I have made a huge decision.  For me it is huge.  I have decided to let my hair go natural which is most likely... all white.  I have decided this because I have lost a lot of hair and it is a way to avoid all the chemicals of hair color.  It should be simple, but for me, it is a big change.  When I talked to my grandchildren about it, they told me "We cannot imagine you with white hair."  I told them "Neither can I."

Since I was a kid my hair has been dark brown. This is the image of me that countless mirrors in many parts of the world have reflected to me.  Over the years, I started to grow gray hair that came relatively early in my mid thirties.  I guess it was a family thing since I remember my mother and grandmother both with beautiful white hair.  But my grays had an easy fix.  A colorant, and my hair was like it always was before. Dark brown. That went on for a long time.

My "raccoon" self

Over the years, my hair would get thinner until I looked at myself in the mirror one day and thought "I need to put a stop to this."  The result is big white roots and the look of a real life raccoon.  I know, I could have my hair color stripped at the beauty salon but it means more chemicals and that was not acceptable to me.  So I keep it short, cut the dark tips and hope for the best.

Women have been coloring their hair for a long time.  Since Egyptian times there was evidence that they used hair colorant like Henna.  In old Egypt, women spent a great deal of time on elaborate coiffures and wigs;  over the years people wore their hair powdered, gray, propped, curled, long, tied, frizzy or wavy, treated; now we let hair fall mostly unnaturally with the help of many salon experts, products and many colors and additions to choose from.

Here in Colorado many men and women let theirs go gray naturally and the impact is lesser than going  suddenly white like mine.  I can imagine other people looking at me and wondering "What happened?" which brings me to the idea of self image.  I will have to get used to this new woman who will look back at me from the mirror and smile as if I should have known her all my life.  But no, she is new to me and will be new to many others.

How is the image we have of ourselves?  I have had skinny friends who see themselves as fat.  And fat ones who seem to think that they have a slim body.  We create an imaginary self not necessarily anchored in reality who says "hello" to others and walks the streets with us like our own double.

Many women do not like to have their photo taken.  The image they see on paper or on computers does not reflect the idea they have of themselves.  Faced with having to see an image they do not like, they stay far from the lens.

Celebrities like movie stars have a look that is often man-made and the image we see of them in films or on TV is not the one they have once the make up person is gone.  But we like their double and their image stays in our memory.  I have a tendency to imagine friends as they looked to me the last time I saw them, which is pretty far out and wrong.  Many I have not seen for a long time.  I imagine a full grown woman I knew as the lovely child she once was, and never got to rid my self of that image since we only e-mail now.  The same goes for many others that I knew in the past.
"How," I wonder "do they see themselves?"

I once was on the plaza of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico and saw a very old lady with jazzy boots and pink leggings, a belt with a riot of rhinestones and a top covered by a glorious design accented with gold and silver.  Her face was made up outrageously with blond hair cascading in curls over her shoulders.  Like a tragic-comic icon, the image stayed with me and I can see that she never accepted her age; her self image was that of a fantastic youth whose looks then beckoned others.

How do you see yourself?  Young, thin, fat, not so fat, hair unchanged even after years of living?  Good even if it is not how others see you?   Bad even if you look fine to your friends?

Do not worry.  Most people are too busy to care truly.  They see us through lenses of friendship or love (bless them) or through distracted lenses while they are busy thinking of something else.  We live at such a hurried pace, forever ahead of ourselves, or focused on children, TV, the phone or the computer; the next meeting, the next presentation, the visit in front of the boss, or what to shop for and cook for the family; we hardly remember the looks of others no matter the care they put into  their self image.  Yet the world seems to demand and market a great look.  Each company battles the other for our infatuation and loyalty.

After all, we dress and use makeup primarily for us.  Or so it should be.  Our length of hair, our haircut or its color should be of no great importance in a world that supposedly would keep its priorities on hearts and feelings, thoughts, discoveries, wisdom and its results.  But as long as our looks matter as greatly as they do in our world, we will keep on getting implants, operations, Botox injections, body enlargements or reductions, hair coloring and clothes to stay ahead of what is only -- a game; and at that, a game perpetuated by big business.

Now, I better go back and get used to that woman who is calling me in the mirror.  After all, she is the real me now.

Copyright 2011 Micheline Brierre
Edited by Barry Kaplan

Our Choices

When I was very little, I knew I would be an artist.  I spent hours drawing and painting, I took classes with other famous artists, I believed I could do it. I had my first exhibit when I was sixteen. I am still an artist after so many years doing one of the things I know how to do well: art.

So these were my choices and every day I feel entranced with the joy of creating, of harboring new ideas, of dreaming about my art and never failing to visualize or to imagine -- a way to fill my consciousness and a gift I share with so many.

Life, I learned, is about making choices.  Some of our choices are conscious and some are not.  Some are made for us by others and we go along or we rebel.  Some choices are insinuated to us and we are in for the ride. Some choices we feel we have to do, whether by tradition or to please someone dear.  All of our choices have multiple consequences.  Not all are good and not are all bad.

First, it separates us.  Choosing a career, a job, a partner, a friend, or a lover is a great separator.  It dictates a course and no other.  It is like choosing a certain path and ignoring the other road.  A door opens and we walk through it while many possible others close along the way.  If I were an architect I would live my life with others in this field and envision new styles for homes or buildings, talk to contractors, investors or entrepreneurs and in no way would I live the life of a singer or an actor. The separation is obvious then.

Doing my art is great but as a consequence I work every day all by myself in my studio facing my beads, my pen or my colors. I have to travel to show my work, I work hard some times late into the night, but so many do.  No co worker. No one to talk to occasionally but my husband when I take a break.  My good friends are mostly artists, my husband is a photographer.  Walk into my house and the amount of original art, mine and from others, the yellow and purple walls, the red door, says right away that this is the house of an artist. I made a choice. These are some of the consequences.

We are aware of our path in life by the way it shapes our lives; restricts it or enhances it. Choosing and making decisions is the essence of living.

If we go to buy a shirt, so many are offered in multiple stores that choosing one becomes an exercise in decision.  I will take this one and no other.  But sometimes, we cannot choose.  We wander down the store and walk out with our hands empty.  No choice is a choice as well.  We spend all day making decisions about everything. Thankfully, our tastes and habits dictate many of our choices so they are made automatically. Sometimes.

Coffee in the morning or tea.  Eggs or toast.  Shower as we wake up or at night?  Pink lipstick or red one. Lunch out or at home. Afternoon at work or afternoon in front of the computer?  What to cook?  Do I choose to paint or to watch the latest movie?  Do I kiss him or not?  Do I discipline my kids or not?  So many choices.  Every day and all day.  How do we know which choice is the best?

I have taken the habit to listen to my intuition for everything.  It works.  Most of the time.  My husband's training was in engineering.  His mind functions in a radically different way.  He asks me how long do I cook this.  I tell him "Usually I know it is ready by the way it smells around the house."  It leaves him completely frustrated.  But my nose is as good as his timer.
I get a feeling to go shopping and lo and behold the pants I wanted are on sale.  He relies on the sales adds.  We approach life in a different way.  But who is to say that my way is THE way?

We all make choices according to our character and the consequences vary enormously. If I choose to paint my sky yellow on a new canvas, it is fine with me, but to the viewer it could be outrageous.  It gets to be complicated.  Our choices have different effects on others.  They could like them or hate them.  Most of our friends are people who support our choices and are themselves part of our path.
But once in a while, we meet someone so different, someone who walks a whole other way than ours and takes us to investigate their domain.  How fun to discover someone elses different choices and consider how, if we would have chosen them, our life would have unfolded? 
Sometimes we even move to someone elses territory and adopt the choices that they inspired us to make. 

Many people find that they have to make mid-life changes of careers to fit their personality better. They have evolved and need a new choice.  I know a man who used to be a great executive with a large company who now is a father-house- husband while his wife is a new teacher.  Another friend of mine used to be an artist and is now a physician assistant. Another switch and another choice.

If tomorrow you are conscious of all the choices you have to make, you can be more effective in making them, or you can simply smell the room and you will know when the chicken is ready ... that is my way.  Let your intuition guide your choices and have a good meal.  Or set your timer -- for many, it works just as well.

Copyright 2011 Micheline Brierre
Edited by Bary Kaplan

Love, our foundation

The stores have just barely finished selling Christmas stuff and already they are showing things in various shades of pink and mostly heart shapes, to remind us all that Valentine's day is coming.  So whether we recognize it or not, love is in the air and that makes me think of love's many meanings and the ways it insinuates itself in our lives.

Are we talking about the love we fell into not to ever come out again, or the love we fell into happy to emerge later on -- bruised and sore?  Are we talking of this deep connection we feel with others of either sex that bring them close to our hearts and precious to our lives?  Are we talking about the great, sudden infatuation that grabs us and invades our beings and dreams for awhile?  Are we talking about this life-lasting feeling, deep and sound, that bonds us to our mate and lives though hard and better times?  Well, the reasons are infinite, just as much as the feelings of what we all have experienced and stashed in a deep place of our memory.

Is is pink? Is is heart shaped?  These are the colors and forms a material society has placed on something indescribable and so vivid and true that we cannot think of life without the ones we really love.

In my case, my love takes on so many forms and colors, all part of me, like a magical rainbow over my head in the sky of my life.

I love my whole family and so many added family members, friends, things, my house, my art, my life, people I adopt here and there, old pets, and more remotely, the whole planet of people and our life on this earth.

How could I not love what is a part of me and responds to my whims and fuels my thoughts and actions?  What gives me life and inspiration everyday and propels me to grow and become a better me?  Or, so I hope.

Love is a weird feeling.  It invades our thoughts and minds in great secrecy at times and infiltrates itself to many parts of our beings and one day we are taken over, like by terrorists, and we succumb to our fate with a happy heart.  Sometimes it is a very confrontational issue.  It hits us over the head and we fall in its grabs with surprise and glee.

I remember when my grandchild was born ten years ago.  I was in the room as he appeared to this earth and I looked at his red, swollen face and loved him instantly.  I remember in Mexico totally in awe as I looked at my child, loving its very being and wondering how my husband and I could have created such wonder.

It took some days for love to brew as my actual hubby and I walked on the boardwalk in Miami, his first kiss left me breathless.  A love still lasting.  Add to that, countless beings that elicited love in its many shades and I know for sure that life is about loving and nothing could match love's fascination and intricacies.  And we must remember that our love of people in the past does not necessarily die, but goes to a quieter place.

We do not love because of fate or accidents, we love because we are essentially in need of love.  It makes us stronger and nobler -- real samurais of our passions.  Love, real love, is not a weak feeling; it fuels a huge desire for us to be the strong defender of our hearts and many have died because they have loved.

I guess I will look at all the hearts in the store with more empathy.  Gaudy, silly things as they are, they remind me of how empty my life would be without all of the ones I love.  Valentine's day is no more than a reminder; and our feelings of loving are kept safe in the vault of our consciousness, because we would not be here on earth, unless love (hopefully) had something to do with it.

Copyright 2011 Micheline Brierre
Edited by Barry Kaplan

Intentions And Resolutions

This is the time of the year when our minds considers the infinite realms of resolutions and intentions.
It is great to sit down and envision a better self as well as a better world. Will we read more books? Listen to more diverse music? Exercise some more or exercise at all? Eat more wholesome food? Be kinder to our spouse? Lose some weight? so many possibilities.  Endless thoughts enter and exit our minds.  The year that looms ahead is full of promises, but stays like a book, closed to our vision. Inscrutable, a blank book filled with the lusciousness of the unknown and the invite of our best resolutions and intentions.

Some of them we keep alive and struggle to make happen.  But many are abandoned like field flowers on the wayside of our path. So many years become a repetition of the one past and our many resolutions and intentions live only in our minds and we feel remorse and guilt for all the forgotten possibilities we had planned for the future.

Along the years, I have learned not to make drastic changes. Maybe turn my thoughts a little bit one way and my vision a little bit the other way, open my feelings more, consider what I can do in my own mind. Like a fisherman, cast my bait and wait with not too much expectation but just the joy of the moment.  It could mean unexpected changes, but it could simply mean the continuation of a line of thoughts and inner doings that I extend to the next year.

Some things are here to stay.  Bills will come, we will pay our taxes, summer will happen and the earth will spring flowers on our door steps. Children will be born and some of us will die.
The planet will continue its revolutions around the sun and the cycle of the seasons will come again to fit our preferences.

In other words, life will go on as we know it.  So what will change with the new year? Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. An earthquake could happen anytime, a revolution, a war, a huge hike in our insurance, a fallout with our best friend or the pleasure of knowing someone new and discovering a new land. How much is due to our resolutions and intentions? maybe nothing, maybe a lot and maybe it is not due to our resolutions but to the ones of those in power and the simple movements of the earth. And also to the changes in the other people psyche, something that we have no power on.

Personally what do I want? more time to write, more time to create, more pen &and ink drawings, more time with my loved ones, maybe a neat trip to Europe or a trip around the states that I have not visited, more and more people to read this blog, and much more of my own inner life.  Being in touch with my own feelings, my guidance and the world surrounding me would be an added bonus.

I wonder how much of this will materialize...I know that work will intrude and take me away, that life will interfere one way or the other.  But maybe as everyone else, some of my desires will go ahead with the force of a running champion and show me that indeed, my dreams can happen.  It is good to let go and envision a life where my desires are met.

Everyone could be thinking the same things and all our desires merge in the collective unconscious to create a strange global soup that eventually is here to confront us.  It makes me laugh. Everyone has an intention, and many of our intentions collide!

But it is good to let go and imagine as John Lennon did, a better world, a better year when we thrive and blossom, when our intentions and resolutions line up with some fabulous world happening and we can smile knowing that the year ahead is what we all wanted.

Here are some ways to wrap the year nearly past and learn from all its happenings.

Ask yourself these questions, alone or with some trusted friends.

How was this year?  Get an overall view of the year.

What did I not like?

What did I learn?

What did I enjoy the most?

Happy regrouping!

Copyright Dec 2010, Micheline Brierre

The Time To Love

The kitten looked at us with wide innocent eyes wondering what all the fuss was about.  My Dad had brought us the Christmas tree  -- which in Haiti was not easy to find-- and we had set it up in the living room while waiting to bring the box or ornaments and decorate it.  It was an irresistible attraction to our kitten who jumped on it and climbed to the top investigating the side branches.  We were flabbergasted and at the same time laughing, as he cast a look of total surprise to us from the top of his perch.  Getting him down was a challenge in itself but that is another story. That was the beginning of the Christmas season for us and I still smile remembering.

How far it seems compared to my life now in Colorado with our dry weather ( so far) and fairly mild one that seems to some very unseasonal and to me -- wonderful.  I was born in an island of the Caribbean and the lack of snow is normal to me.

I still remember my first Christmas as a young and inexperienced bride in Mexico City having put the turkey in the oven and expecting it to be ready in a few hours. Well, we waited and I cried and checked on the bird in despair and it was not until late in the afternoon when the thing was finally cooked.  I could have looked in cook books but figured on my own that if I could cook a chicken, a turkey was not much different. Mistake!  In Haiti we had a cook who took care of such things but my ignorance paid off.  Now I can cook the bird and enjoy Christmas.

I am on a sort of a semi vacation. My studio calls me but I have many other things to do.  I recently joined a mostly fiber group to satisfy my craving for wool and threads ever since in Columbia I walked in the studio of one of my artist friend and Gallery owner at the time, Marlene Hoffman.  I was so thrilled by the variety of yarn tossed in baskets and waiting to be woven into her tapestries that it has became a life long love of mine.  The Fiber group recently put up a sale and show and more than twenty artist participated with unusual scarves with little windows made out of transparent fabric in the middle of felted material and others in a fantastic textured silk all ruffled, beckoning and so fulfilling to the eyes. Many handmade purses caught my eyes and I bought some little triangles sachets made of fabric, lined in interesting colors like a mini container and big enough to display an earrings to give to someone dear.  Jewelry hang from a copper tree and fantastic work from Karen Pierce and Marc Jenesel filled a corner with their fabulous shapes. Many other intricate towels were woven in complex designs and warm colors.  I loved being there.

This is the time for shows by artists of all kind and the stores are also beckoning us with the Christmas music piped in to set the stage plus all of their displays to grab our attention. I must say I love all the excitement of walking in the aisles of a store smiling at some women while others look rather harried and rushed. I look for a gift for a certain person that is my way of saying to them; I have loved you all year long, this is one of the ways I can show you.  Of course our love is so encompassing it would be a bit meager to equal it with a gift, but our giving is just a form of expression and as such, getting it is a real pleasure.

It was my husband birthday recently and some friends of ours Paul and Julie, had us over for dinner and at the end brought a good chocolate cake and a gift bag for him.  It was filled with so many interesting and wonderful things to please a man and I thought how hard it is for me to pick a gift for the guys.  They seem to love things that seem so foreign to me unlike all the goodies that a woman loves; like perfume, silly clothes, purses, jewelry, frilly scarves, fragrant soaps, creams, in short, what makes us women the prime shoppers all over.

This is to me a magical time of the year.  I just finished putting up the tree with my daughter's help and now it is all decorated and with so many ornaments, some very old that bring many memories.  It stands up in a corner of our living room and glows as I write.

I realize that Christmas time is loaded with sadness for many different reasons.  The loss of a dear one this time of the year, the feeling of being overwhelmed with shopping and and the stress of getting the right presents and the pressure of it.  Others celebrate Hanukkah and not Christmas but also have to buy presents. For many, Christmas is a religious Holiday, a time to remember that it was the birth of Christ. Which is great but this time of the year can indeed be difficult. I myself do enjoy the spirit that brings us together and the celebratory feeling inside myself that propels me daily to go out and bathe in the ambiance as also we say goodbye to the year passed.

So we have no cats to climb our tree but I have a whole guest room full of gifts and paper, scissors. tape, and cards to finish the presents and come to the glorious day with joy.
My cards with many addresses filled the living room table and music remind me that so many artist created symphonies and songs to delight us and to live forever. My husband found for me a bag of precious gifts I bought months ago and could not find anywhere. He tends to be my finder!  So I can wrap them now. I am almost ready to go to the post office and mail to loved ones that live far away the little things that will tell them; I love you much....To me, this is the time to show how we love and be loved back.  The gifts are all a good pretext.

This Christmas as so many others bring so many memories engraved in my heart and so many more to come and the joy is endless. Cheers!

How Things Talk to Us

In my house there are things I love.  A little silver goblet that once belonged to my grandmother and that she took everyday with her to the bathroom to brush her teeth.  A large sterling silver plate hand hammered that reminds me of my life in Peru and my friend Isabelle.  Three orchids, waiting to bloom, these delicate but sturdy spray of flowers that last a few months; and many handmade objects by artists whose work I love.  Many paintings on the wall, and my books, my brushes and beads, cherished objects that delight me everyday and remind me that this is where I love to be -- this is my home.

Objects have the powerful effect of bringing with them all sorts of memories and enable us to go back in time and relive past moments that once meant a lot to us and maybe still do.  My collection of blue glass was mostly built in Lima, Peru when I once went visiting the studio of a woman artist whose work seemed to bring me back to the Caribbean sea with its vivid colors and shades. I put them in my window and enjoy the warmth of the early morning sun shining through all the blues of my youth.

Why do we enjoy things so much?  What appeal do they have on our psyche and our soul?
Some things have an affinity with us, they call to us and have a certain appeal that is irresistible.  It can last a lifetime or just some months.  It facilitates the exchange of money and feeds the pockets of so many who create such objects or make them in their studio or their factories.

I have some paintings by my friends Deb Komitor, Laura Reilley and Tracy Miller who delight me everyday. Some of my old oil paintings are a constant reminder of the passing of time and the beauty of the past as well as the anticipation of what could happen in the future.  What will these artist create next?  What will happen in their life to make them tackle a piece of clay or ceramic?  My husband and I have some dishes and bowls and cups by the local and much loved artists Tina and Ken Riesterer and every time I touch them, I can see both of their faces laughing or talking to me.  I go back to my time at the artist Co-op and there they are, sitting with me in the group.

Then there are old things that bring people back to us like a gift of the past.  I have a little bonnet hand crocheted by my grandmother that is so tiny it could fit over an orange.  Yet it was my hat when I was just a baby and it reminds me of my roots, my beginnings and the huge trajectory of my life with its turns and bumps and its uniqueness.  My parents are alive in little frames in my studio and look at me from the high shelf.  My poet uncle casts his sad eyes on me and I look back at him with gratefulness.

There is nothing like an album of photos to bring old memories back and faces we recall or have almost forgotten, brought to us by the magic of the camera and the old films now obsolete.  Many of my friends are gone but their photos tells me of their presence on the planet and their place in my heart.  The man who brought me a box of live butterflies is captured in black and white and looks at me from my studio.  My ring collection is a testimony of my travels and the presence of my two husbands ex and new who have given them to me and put me everyday with the choice of wearing one or the other.  And there is the large tapestry from Thailand that I have hanging in the back of my bed.  It is full of life and shines with gold and rust and I remember the trip my daughter and I took to Cambodia and Bangkok and my complete awe at the population's sense of exquisite beauty and incredible, unique craftsmanship.

But of course things can also bring us to materialism; the compulsion to buy and buy just to accumulate more things than we can live with.  Our country here is a good example of this as ahead of every season, the stores fill up with so much goods made in China or any other country.  The store's owners are good at merchandising and tempt us with their goods.  Such a variety of things, of clothes, of household items to entice us to spend our money while we accumulate more objects.  How do we resist?

Could we recycle some of our goods? Send them off to others who might need them?  I am in the process of getting rid of some of my books.  I realize that they have no place in my life anymore.  I have piles of them in my house ready to be given away and make room for the new.  Will I get rid of my cherished objects?  I do not know yet.  The connection is there but can fade away.  It will be time to let go.  I have had to let go of many things in my lifetime.  Having lived in many countries, some things could not be kept.  I hope they made some others happy.  With every move, I have given away some great amount of things and acquired some new ones.  Yet some of my cherished objects still are with me, stimulating memories, they linger and bring me some joy.

Like one of my large paintings that I painted when very young; a composite of the old country with its beauty and symbols it stands now in my living room symbolizing my roots; powerful and bold, an image of what I search for in life.

Some objects become a part of us. They make us recall, they make us revere, they make us admire, or they make us smile or be grateful.  No one can tell us to get rid of them; only a signal from inside that says "It is time now."  Yet there are some people who can live with just what they need everyday and want nothing else to take their attention away.  Monks or nuns, ascetics, or simply people that hold all their life within and need not the constant presence of things.  I am not such a person.  The things in my life are chosen because of a calling from my soul and will stay with me until it will be time to pass them away.  We take nothing with us when we die.  Our cherished things go and delight someone else or leave our heirs in complete indifference.  Life keeps unfolding while more things get acquired..

Indeed, we are of two worlds at the same time and the material is a part of us no matter how spiritual we are.

Copyright 2010 Micheline Brierre
Edited by Barry Kaplan