June to the last "yarns"

M.H. Cole. Breaking surf. 16x20in. Acrylic on canvas board. May 2010










Gemini month, dual, chaotic, unpredictable....Might not remember a single end of May and June in my life without the ripples turning into maelstroms and then, all of a sudden, quieting back. Most of my life´s turning points have happened "under the influence" of this astrological sign of blessings and curses. Time for the gentle art of rolling with the punches and the rough sport of growing -amazed to discover I´m still a work in process thru the bloody sand out of the crut of naivete tenaciously clinging on some spots.

The weekly task of editing the book on the art work of Fr. Gonzalo Carrasco: the rich conversation with Michelle, my editor, far and away in Culiacán, in Mexico´s West Coast. A moment of true enjoyment and usually four to five hours non stop of hard work, enough to pause and review my writing and the flow of ideas but also to realize that three yeas ago the person who wrote that book is not the same I´m now. I am getting older and abler to see things from other perspectives. I can laugh more about my own shortcomings. My memory is waning, flashing sharply old stuff and blurring in a haze what has been just done. I do realize that a lot in my life will never be completed, but far from the comfort of complacency, I embrace this certainty with the peace of knowing that if up to there it has been God´s plan for me, all is well. To HIM the frantic strive to become a celebrity is irrelevant. Maybe I´m starting to LIVE.

I count Michelle as a blessing ....Spanish speaker, her enthusiasm, her SEAL-like efficiency and approach to problems: addressing the issues and coming always with more options than we will ever need, her soft glove capacity to meet deadlines with a plus.... Working together has helped us both reconnect with a lot in our past lives regarding the Society of Jesus world we share. And all thru a Skype conversation, exchanging paragraphs and links by chat....a XXIst century editorial work, postmodern and globalized... yet Michelle has been a good old fashioned godsend and I am very grateful.

I have resumed painting: wind, wave, sea and dawn, a memory from the Merici old school yard back in 1968 or 1969. The soft hazy blue mountains and the sand mines amidst the reddish scraggly wild flowers. The eyes of a seven year old girl opened in someone much older capable of setting her vision in a canvas board.



When challenges came pounding hard I painted the rocks on my way...and ended up with the boast-plea of Caleb:

"Now give me this hill country that the LORD promised me that day. You yourself heard then that [...] their cities were large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said." Joshua 14, 12 NIV

M.H.Cole. Cerros pedregosos. 30x36in. Acrylic on gessoed canvas. June 2010

Give me another mountain, Lord. In a foreign land, still unable to find a stable job, hitting all glass ceilings possible, yet with the blessed assurance that, despite all odds, God has a good plan in store for me. Summer courses, making them count, finding some good receptive groups but at the cost of investing myself a 101% into them. When a student meets me and tells me that all his/her college was worth just for having been in my class, even if the subject was not his/her major...I know I´m where God wants me to be.

Doing service: knowing about abject ungratefulness and other-wordly gratitude, going "by the book" and messing it out so good....only to find out that God seemed to have wanted to show me how the Israelites were delivered from the control of a hard hearted Pharaoh. Standing ovation, Lord. Yes, YOU ARE GREAT.

Taking a break in a dream...in some peaceful shore. Naples or Herculanum. Somewhere in the Caribbean...A memory of Mom and Dad, as they are now...A safe haven, painted with hands and fingers, blurred, yet shiny as all dreamscapes must be.



Loving my cats: allowing love to go beyond the point of hurt until it becomes all enfolding. Even if they do not realize it, I feel they live constantly in the presence of God as a mystic does, for what they give back is pure unconditional love. They have made me strong in a way no human could teach me: embracing vulnerability and making me show my best as "their human".

Training Krav Maga with all my heart, body and soul: finding out how a martial art can enhance a life without striking a blow out of the training room. Not the awesome SAC, an adventure and a challenge with the taste of the toughest military, but a home-based hard core civilian equivalent. Meeting new and amazing people, law- abiding and peace-loving but perfectly capable of setting hell in motion if the situation demands it. They prefer to keep things very informal, but the more I train the bigger my respect to the instructors and their teachings. They insist there is more "martial than art" in Krav Maga....I disent: is the lethal art of conciously unleashing a wild life force if circumstances become uncivilized. Comes to me the memory of a frail and over sensitive little girl with thick glasses unable to excel in sports at school, yet in her late forties God decided things were going to change in that arena. A fighter all my life, now I have a technique and a method and an exhausting intensive training and I am surprised how my heart has joined in.

And more praying and painting....believing that God still sits on top of any possible storm or darkness.

"They have forsaken me, the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water". Jer 2, 13

M.H.Cole. The fountain. 6x8in. Acrylic on canvas board. June 2010

Humming in my mind the tune of the old hymn "Come thou Fountain of ev´ry blessing"... No, I would not trust anymore the path of the ego, another name to my own "wisdom". Lord of Provision, Lord of Timing, Lord Almighty AND Abba-Father, title of all titles, because that is how Jesus called him, and invited us to do so... have your way, Lord.

June...in a non eventful life but well lived to the last "yarns".