Great American Eclipse Paintings

adult learning, art, Creativity, Faith, Great American Eclipse, Imagination, inspiration, Love, Ministry, nature, Painting, photography, salvation, Spirituality, vision

After the Great American Eclipse, I’m reminded once again how great and wide is the love of our God. We say, “Our God,” as if we could own or possess the one who holds us, since God is beyond our knowing or possession. We can own a boat, a house, or a work of art. In the bad old days before the Civil War in America, people once owned other human beings. We fought a mighty conflict so our nation could be made up of free people, all of whom have equal rights. Unfortunately, not all have equal opportunity.

In America, we are so privileged, we often look at most everything through red, white, and blue lenses. We don’t take off our “American eyes” to see as God sees. To make this point, the Great American Eclipse actually began over the Pacific Ocean, so perhaps whales and sea birds would have been the first to experience it. When the eclipse reached land in Mexico, those in Mazatlán saw it before anyone in Texas did. I have lived in Texas, so I know they like to be the “first, best, and biggest” in everything, so they’ll ignore the fact this eclipse actually was seen by others first.

We don’t need to be first or best to deserve God’s love and providence. God proves God’s love for us every day the sun rises and sets. God gives us the rain in its season and grass for the herds to feed upon. We don’t have to exclude others to get God’s love, for God’s love is wide enough to include all. A God, who can call an entire universe into being with just a word, has the infinite resources to love all fully and completely. We are the finite ones, having limited resources and understanding, who find the need to limit God’s love to a few.

We tend to think in human terms of competition, in which one person gets a blue ribbon or a trophy and everyone else is a “loser.” That’s the Rickey Bobby of Talladega Nights school of theology. God made the entire universe, even tiny Pluto, which our astronomers demoted from planet status to a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt. Just because we relegated Pluto to a minor status doesn’t mean God diminishes God’s love, care, and concern for God’s creation.

Bill Maxey: Total Eclipse at Hot Springs AR

When we have the opportunity to view an awesome event of creation, such as a total eclipse of the sun, we have to consider ourselves privileged to be alive and part of God’s care. When the moon fully covers the sun and darkness falls upon the face of the earth where you stand, the cool air touches your skin, and your heart burns within. The excitement and rush of energy is so great I had to shout! I’ve heard some people cry. I guess I’m an exuberant sort.

On 20 August 1892, “The Times” published an article by Kipling, “Half-a-Dozen Pictures”: it was one of a series of travel articles called From Tideway to Tideway. The article described a visit to an art gallery and Kipling’s reflections on the failure of most painters to match the beauty and vitality of the world around them. He offered some attractive verbal sketches of his own, though it wasn’t part of his purpose to contrast the approaches to nature of writers and painters. His main concern was to urge artists of all kinds to get out and see the world for themselves: (Letters of Travel 1892-1913 p. 40):

Now, disregarding these things and others – wonders and miracles all – men are content to sit in studios and, by light that is not light, to fake subjects from pots and pans and rags and bricks that are called “pieces of color”. Their collection of rubbish costs in the end quite as much as a ticket, a first-class one, to new worlds where the “props” are given away with the sunshine. (Letters of Travel 1892-1913 p.77).

Eight days later, the same article was published in the New York Sun. This time it closed with the untitled poem ‘When Earth’s Last Picture is Painted…’ which changed the article’s emphasis from an exhortation to artists to become travelers and pioneers, to what sounds very much like a manifesto for realism in art:

“And only Rembrandt shall teach us, and only Van Dyck shall blame:

And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,

But each for the joy of working, and each, in his separate star,

Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They are!”

Four years later, Kipling changed the first line of that stanza to:

“And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame,”

Kipling, the son of an artist, knew the true joy in life comes from one’s dedication to whatever work is in hand, and the task of the Artist is to convey to others the excitement and wonder of an expanding world. By changing the last line from artists’ names to the Master, Kipling heightened the spirituality of his poem. The artist’s task isn’t merely to render a faithful image of the landscape or person before them, but to bring forth all the inner energies and personality they see and feel.

Cornelia DeLee: Memory of the Last Great Eclipse, acrylic on canvas, 12” x 24”

This is why we don’t copy nature, since it’s three dimensional and we have a two-dimensional surface on which we make our marks to represent what we see. Perspective is our visual language to fool the eye into believing our flat surface has depth. Often we paint abstract shapes and colors because these are the best means to convey our emotions about an experience. Photography captures one way of seeing, but painting can render emotions with brush strokes and colors.

Cornelia DeLee: Door to Another Reality in the Eclipse, acrylic on canvas, 18” x 24”

I subscribe to a wonderful poetry series by Steve Garnaas-Holmes, which I receive daily. This poem’s theme of universal love spoke to me as I felt the in-flooding joy of God’s creating power during the Great American Eclipse:

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. —John 10.16

We think we’re being open-minded
when we include “all of us,” Protestant and Catholic,
Orthodox and Coptic, as if we see the whole landscape.
But the pasture and the Shepherd are far greater than that.
Believer, unbeliever and other-believer alike
are all shepherded, each in their own language.
And still there are more, and more other, sheep.
Like, well, sheep.
Do not the deer and otter, whale and fungus
follow the Shepherd faithfully?
Is not the bird migrating its continents shepherded as well?
Christ is not the partisan figurehead of a religion,
Christ is the infinite embodied grace of God,
the Shepherd of all Creation,
who leads rivers to the sea and winter into spring
and each of us into life.
So there are still other, and more “other,” sheep.
For Copernicus isn’t done with us yet:
we admit the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth,
but we still think God does.
No, little one: we are in a small corner.
Yet even the far galaxies,
the trillion trillions of stars and their planets,
and yes, their doubtless forms of life,
are also under the calm eye of the Shepherd,
and follow the Shepherd’s voice.
All of us, Baptist and Sufi, fish, bug and bird,
earthling and alien, village and nebula, all are one flock. One.
And, behold, even on the remotest planet
in the farthest flung galaxy—like ours—
or the most desolate spot in a life like yours,
under the loving gaze of the Shepherd who seeks out the one,
there is no one who is not at the center.

May you each find joy in your working, each in your separate stars, and draw the Thing as you see It, for the God of Things as They are!

Not only can God watch the sparrow, but also all the many suns and planets of creation.

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

When Earth’s last picture is painted – The Kipling Society

When Earth’s last picture is painted

Steve Garnaas-Holmes: Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

Total Eclipse of the Heart

adult learning, arkansas, art, Astrology, cosmology, Creativity, Faith, Great American Eclipse, Imagination, inspiration, Light of the World, Love, mystery, nature, Painting, photography, shadows, Spirituality, Travel, Uncategorized, vision

In the Bonnie Tyler song, “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” her rock and roll soul pines for a young man as she sings:

“Every now and then

I know there’s no one in the universe

As magical and wondrous as you.”

Love struck teen heart ballads tend to elevate the beloved to a high pedestal, while hymns lift the praises of God to the highest heavens. If we look at John Wesley’s Notes on the New Testament, one of the doctrinal standards of the United Methodist Church, his commentary on 2 Corinthians 4:6 (KJV) is instructive:

“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

We might be more familiar with this verse in the NRSV, a more modern translation, which wasn’t available in the middle of the 18^th century:

For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Bailey’s Ring, from an earlier total eclipse over the South Pacific Ocean

Wesley’s commentary in his Notes on this text is succinct:

For God hath shined in our hearts—The hearts of all those whom the God of this world no longer blinds.
God who is himself our light; not only the author of light, but also the fountain of it.
To enlighten us with the knowledge of the glory of God—Of his glorious love, and of his glorious image.
In the face of Jesus Christ—Which reflects his glory in another manner than the face of Moses did.

What do the Total Eclipse of the Heart and Paul’s words to the Corinthian community have to do with art and faith? We’ve just experienced, what was for most of us, was a once in a lifetime experience. The last time a total solar eclipse was visible across the entire continent was in June 1918, when a total solar eclipse was visible from Washington to Florida, according to the US parks service. Nearly 100 years passed until this present Great American Eclipse.

At the 1878 total eclipse, Maria Mitchell led the Vassar College eclipse party, an all-female expedition from that pioneering women’s institution, which came to Denver in an era when science was a male bastion. Even higher education was deemed risky for the “fairer sex.” In 1873, the prominent Boston physician Edward H. Clarke had warned in an incendiary book titled “Sex in Education,” that the recent push for female colleges and coeducation could undermine women’s health by taxing their brains and causing their reproductive organs to atrophy — leading to “a dropping out of maternal instincts, and an appearance of Amazonian coarseness and force.” Nearly 150 years later some men still concern themselves with outmoded and 19th century views on women’s health concerns.

I drove over four hundred miles to Kentucky in 2017 for the prior Great American Eclipse and got to stay home to see this second Great American Eclipse in my own front yard. Some folks couldn’t have been bothered about this current grand event, while others were convinced God was informing America of her impending doom. Moreover, multiple conspiracy theories abounded, none of which came true, of course. For instance, the world didn’t come to an end and our cell phones still work. Even the electric grid held up, even though the sun didn’t shine for all of a few minutes as the shadow traveled at over 1,600 miles per hour as it raced along the path of totality. This wasn’t even Y2K, which we all remember was a nonstarter at least and a dud at best.

In art class Friday Tim and I talked about the experience of this celestial event. We humans often elevate our own importance when we measure ourselves against one another and the works of our hands. When we go out into nature, we’re faced with the grandeur of God’s creation, especially when we visit the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls. In Psalms 19:1, we read:

“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.”

We see the beauty of nature and feel a warmth in our hearts. Our spirits soar. This intimacy with nature is one of the reasons we send our children to our United Methodist Church Camps, not just because they’ll have a great Christian experience, but because they’ll have that faith experience in nature with trusted leaders. I still remember my adventures and experiences in nature at those camps as part of my spiritual journey.

Even in seminary, when I was having difficulty with some of my courses, I could go for a walk on the campus under the tree lined walks and search the skies for hopeful signs. Sometimes I saw the towering cumulus clouds in the Texas sky as a sign God was with me “in the cloud by day.” In those times of difficulty, even the cloistered realm of preparation seemed like a wilderness journey, but I was glad for a guide.

Bill Maxey, from Nebraska, taken at Hot Springs, AR.

When I was actively serving as a pastor, sometimes I just had to get away. I’d drive until I found some nature, a national park, national forest, or some fields outside of town. If it was a hot summer, I looked for some deep woods and cool shade to shelter me. In the cool spring, I drove until I found flowers. Maybe this is why I retired to a lake in a national park. I don’t need a big house, since I’d rather go out into nature instead.

Totality on Lake Hamilton, with sunset in the west, outside the path of totality

It was the heat of summer in 2017, so you’d think I’d remember the temperature drop right before the eclipse was halfway through. This year I was on Lake Hamilton, and the breeze off the lake combined with the cooler air was decidedly noticeable. When we entered totality, the lights on the Highway 70 bridge and at Bubba Brews automatically came on. The distant sky in the southwest, outside the path of totality, looked like a summer sunset. My neighbors and our visitors from afar were cheering.

Bill Maxey: multiple exposure of the Great American Eclipse, 2024

Not everyone can make an artwork that expresses their emotions as well as the shapes of the image. We can learn the rules of perspective and color, but then we have to learn to let our heart rule our head. This is what I call an “artistic leap of faith.” When we were young, we accepted the basic ideas of Christianity. As we got older, life happened, and we might have begun to struggle with our childhood beliefs not being equal to our adult needs. If we keep our childlike faith, we risk losing our faith. If we are able to wrestle with our faith and find a new and more mature faith, we can handle the major challenges of later life. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:11-12—

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

Tim’s Partial Eclipse painting using red, blue and brown to build the sky

Tim experimented with mixing colors to get richer depth. Using the Prang watercolor palette, he mixed the red, blue, and brown to get the black sky of the eclipse event. The red orange of the sun has some brown in it too. He layered the colors with multiple strokes, with a nod to Van Gogh. He worked from a photograph I brought. I pulled many of them off the internet, and many of my friends sent me some too.

I worked on an image I’d taken from my iPhone. I had placed one of my eclipse glasses over the lens and was wearing another pair. It wasn’t that easy to get the sun lined up with all that blocking! My image looked a lot like a fried egg or an eyeball. I used several jar lids to get the circles painted cleanly. My dark sky is red, blue, and violet. The shape of the corona was not distinct, due to the quality of my camera. NASA has a very high-resolution image, which breath taking. Our tax dollars at work are bringing great scientific research and development to benefit us in everyday life, such as solar panels and heart implants.

NASA: High Resolution Image of the Total Eclipse

Thomas Merton, in No Man is an Island, in a chapter called “Being and Doing,” wrote—

“We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm.”

I was a bit exhausted after all the excitement of this big event. I’d met new people from three different states, visited around our patio, and been gifted crystals that had been dug from Mt. Ida and “energized by the eclipse.” I’m not a crystal person, but I understand from those that are these crystals are “special.” I was feeling every bit of my new age as the calendar flipped over for another year.

Bourbon Codex: Aztec priestly document recording astronomical observations: eclipse

But today is another day, I had a night to sleep, and we had fun in art class. As long as we find joy in life, we know we’re alive. Our joys aren’t just collections of peak experiences, but some are the joy of the assurance of God’s enduring presence in our later lives when our youthful vigor has left us. We need to remember just as the moon eclipses the sun, once it passes, it also reveals the sun’s glory. One day this Bible verse from Philippians 3:21 will be true for each one of us, who has a heart full of love for God and neighbor:

“He will transform our humble bodies that they may be conformed to his glorious body, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.”

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse Of The Heart Lyrics | AZLyrics.com

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bonnietyler/totaleclipseoftheheart.html

John Wesley: Explanatory Notes on the New Testament (With Active Table of Contents) [Kindle Edition], first published 1757

John Wesley: Wesley’s Notes on the Bible – Christian Classics Ethereal Library—online free edition of this book

https://ccel.org/ccel/wesley/notes/notes.toc.html

The Solar Eclipse Is the Super Bowl for Conspiracists | WIRED

https://www.wired.com/story/solar-eclipse-conspiracies/

Solar Eclipse 2017: Sun and moon put on celestial performance – CBS News

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2017-eclipse-dazzles-million-watch-celestial-performance-sun-moon/

Thomas Merton—“No Man is an Island” in a chapter called “Being and Doing” [TMHI]: 1955

A Woman in Eclipse: Maria Mitchell and the Great Solar Expedition of 1878

https://undark.org/2017/08/17/wilo-maria-mitchell-astronomer-eclipse/

NASA: Benefits Stemming from Space Exploration

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/benefits-stemming-from-space-exploration-2013-tagged.pdf?emrc=ca90d1#:~:text=Overcoming%20the%20challenges%20of%20working,information%20technology%2C%20and%20industrial%20productivity

Eclipse T-Shirts

adult learning, art, Children, cosmology, Creativity, Faith, Good Friday, Great American Eclipse, Habits, Icons, Imagination, incarnation, inspiration, mystery, nature, Painting, Philosophy, Spirituality, vision

Friday in art class we painted our own unique designs on t-shirts for Monday’s Total Eclipse of the Sun. Anticipation of an event is characteristic of young children, while adults often feel over saturated with the early build up of attention given to an important event. By the time it gets here, we go, “Wow, what a letdown.” Children, who have fewer years of experience and anticipation comparison, can still marvel at the alternate reality of the total eclipse.

In the sixth century BCE, Anaximandros believed “the moon has a false light and is illuminated by the sun, and the sun isn’t smaller than the earth and it is pure fire.” The Greeks in 290 BCE knew the moon was unlike the sun. Anaximenes wrote it “didn’t shine with its own light, but with the reflected light of the sun,” as Eudimos wrote in his book History of Astronomy. The Chinese also studied the skies and stars. They used bones heated in fires to divine messages from their deceased ancestors as early as the 12^th century BCE.

Chinese oracle bone depicting lunar eclipse of 12/27-28/1192 BCS.

The Death of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels has the record of an eclipse occurring during the time of the crucifixion. John’s Gospel, which comes from a different source, doesn’t mention this time of darkness.

Egon Schiele, Crucifixion with Darkened Sun, Oil on Canvas, 1907.

When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. ~~ Mark 15:33

From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. ~~ Matthew 27:45

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. ~~ Luke 23:44-45

When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. ~~ John 19:30

Yet the Gospel of John tells us more about the miracles of Christ and his dual nature (both human and divine), so that we might believe and have everlasting life through him. New Testament scholar Ernst Käsemann is correct when he says of the Fourth Gospel: “Judged by the modern concept of reality, our Gospel is more fantastic than any other writing of the New Testament.”

Bruce Metzger, noted New Testament scholar and lead translator of the NRSV said, “The more often you have copies (of biblical texts) that agree with each other, especially if they emerge from different geographical areas, the more you can cross-check them to figure out what the original document was like. The only way they’d agree would be where they went back genealogically in a family tree that represents the descent of the manuscripts.[104]

Tim’s Eclipse T-shirt: very simple due to his rehab from arm surgery. He uses his arm until it hurts and then he rests. We do what we can, not what we can’t.

We modern folks are used to looking at the world through the eyes of science and education. We look for repeatable patterns and consistent evidence. We have “grown up minds” with calendars, schedules, to do lists, and multiple people who make demands on our time. Often, we are thinking about our next meeting or chore before we even finish the one we’re currently working on at the moment.

We aren’t practicing Brother Lawrence’s admonition to “Practice the present moment.” Our constantly chiming cell phones don’t help us be present, even though we could set our notifications to silent. Indeed, we’re never present or still enough to know the peace of the God whose name means “I AM.”

Lauralei’s Eclipse T-shirt: experimenting with fabric paint

What is “reality?” How can we know the present moment and come closer to God? With the advent of photography people began to think super realism in painting was preferred to some degree of emotional expression. Today, with the introduction of Artificial Intelligence, we can make computer generated photos and paintings that go beyond our wildest dreams! This means our new generations may likely begin using tactile materials and hand-built techniques to create future art works. Instead of fantastic other worlds, they might find their inspiration in the environment or in social justice concerns.

Gail W’s Eclipse T-shirt: first stage in class. She came with a design in mind and brought her sewing chalk also.

Gail W’s Eclipse T-shirt: the finished product.
Some of our inspirations are too grand to be completed in a few hours. We need to have the desire to carry the effort forward to meet our goal.

As with the icon, the artwork is only a reflection of the image which is painted. The icon isn’t holy, but the person depicted is holy. As the writer of Hebrews 1:3-4 says:

“He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”

I didn’t get a photo of Mike’s “Crawford Law Eclipse T-shirt.” Work called and he had cats to herd. He was generous as usual to bring fabric paints for the group to share. We used old newspapers inside our T-shirts to keep the paint from bleeding through to the backside. We had an opportunity to share stories and eat my birthday doughnuts which Tim blessed me with.

Cornelia’s Eclipse T-shirt: I collapsed all the moments of occlusion into three, so I could finish in one sitting.

If we take time to practice our art, we may realize our own works may be only a reflection of the glory of what we saw, but we we can continue to practice our skills in prayer, for God will bring us ever closer to perfection if we commit our work to God’s glory.

Leonardo da Vinci: Study of the technique for observing solar eclipse, Codex Trivulzianus, 1487–1490

Also, Marilyn, who was working with some other ladies of the church on the potato bar posters, had brought the warm-gooecrescent roll-cream cheese-vanilla-cinnamon-sugar dessert. If you ever have a chance to put this into your mouth, you will be transported into an alternate reality. This is the stuff from which dreams and visions arise! If you eat it, and you merely remark, “Good,” my thought is you’re dead to this world or you’ve lost your sense of taste. The child in me screamed for MORE!! The adult in me will see if I can reduce the calories with no depreciation in taste.

Paul Nash: Eclipse of the Sunflower, 1945

I hope we get a break from the clouds on the Great American Eclipse Day. The last one I traveled to in 2017 was very impressive and worth the journey. Watch it on television if you can’t be outside. Only look at the sun with certified eclipse glasses. Some experiences are such that we can only say “Awe!” And we may want to stop time forever, but time will march on, for we can’t move the sun either forward or backwards. No matter how important we are, we aren’t gods, and we aren’t even Time Lords. If we manage to grasp only a portion of the holiness and beauty of God’s creation in this one event, we will better experience the joy of the passing glory of our God:

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, that you have established, what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” ~~ Psalm 8:3,4 (NRSV)

View of the Great American Eclipse 2017 at
Lake Barkley through a pinhole

Joy and peace,

Cornelia

Eclipses and the Ancient Greek Philosophers

By H. Rovithis-Livaniou and P. Rovithis

https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=2007ASPC..370..115R&db_key=AST&page_ind=0&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_VIEW&classic=YES

How Ancient Humans Studied—And Predicted—Solar Eclipses | Scientific American

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-ancient-humans-studied-and-predicted-solar-eclipses/

Historical Reliability of the Gospels, Encyclopedia MDPI

https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/29465

https://handwiki.org/wiki/Religion:Historical_reliability_of_the_Gospels

104. Strobel, Lee. “The Case for Christ”. 1998. Chapter three, when quoting biblical scholar Bruce Metzger

In Memoriam: Bruce M. Metzger (1914-2007) | Bible.org

https://bible.org/article/memoriam-bruce-m-metzger-1914-2007

Bruce Metzger was the master of several ancient and modern languages and ended up teaching at Princeton for 46 years after he received his PhD there. As one of the editors of the standard Greek New Testament used today and the senior editor of the NRSV, his scholarship has proved to be almost impeccable. His specialty was New Testament textual criticism, the field whose primary goal is to ascertain the wording of the original text. Many considered him the finest NT textual critic of the 20th century. His death in 2007 left giant footprints for the next generation to come.

Paul Nash, British Military artist, died in 1946 of complications from asthma. He didn’t see the total eclipse, but knew of it and was very connected to nature.

Read about him in A landscape of mortality | Tate

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/paul-nash-1690/landscape-mortality

Map of the 1945 eclipse: SE1945Jul09T.gif 1,121×1,452 pixels

Rabbit! Rabbit!

art, Astrology, autumnal equinox, brain plasticity, change, cognitive decline, coronavirus, cosmology, Creativity, Family, Great American Eclipse, greek myths, Helios, nature, Painting, pandemic, photography, rabbits, Reflection, The Lord of The Rings, trees, vision

Welcome to August!

In the long summer evenings, after an extended car trip, and way beyond the too many times I’d asked my mother and daddy rabbits, “Are we there yet?” I would get their firm reminders I wasn’t to bother them any more, for they too were hot, tired, and daddy had to pay attention to the road. In the gathering darkness, I’d rest my blonde curls on the door near the open window. We had God air conditioning back then. We rolled down the window glass of our old Pontiac and drove as fast as the road would allow.

I’d watch the darkening shadows as the landscape passed by this opening, noticing how the kudzu vines changed the trees into strange and monstrous shapes in the growing gloom, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of these apparitions. I was certain if I did, they’d begin to make their way toward our family car. I think I was at the age of magical thinking, for I believed I could keep these haints at bay by my will alone.

The soft flup flup of rubber tires half melting on the overheated concrete road, combined with my brother rabbits’ body heat in the seat beside me, and the enforced silence of our parents who’d had a long day with their hyperactive bunny brood finally had an effect on my eyelids. Try as I might, I would fall asleep at my watch, only to be awakened by my daddy’s sing song voice as he tickled my toes:

“This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home.
This little piggy ate roast beef, and this little piggy had none!
And this little piggy cried wee-wee-wee all the way home!”

I’d rub my eyes as he picked me up to carry me into the house and into my bedroom. On the way, I’d always say,

“I see the moon, and the moon sees me,
God bless the moon, and God bless me!”

Perhaps this is a generational gift in my family, for when my own dear bunny child was small, we repeated these same scenes until she was too heavy for me to carry. The moon blessing dates from 1784 and the little piggy rhyme is even older: 1728.

That latter date is when horses and carriages were banned from Boston Common. Since I went to school in Boston, I can attest no horses, carriages, or cows are now on the grounds of the Common, which is now a 50 acre public park. The Common dates from 1634, when William Blaxton sold the remainder of his land to the Puritans, receiving six shillings or more from each shareholder to purchase the land for this public land. This was the site of the Boston Massacre, in which five people died. One good thing about going to school in an historic community, everywhere you went, you weren’t far from history.

When I think of history, I think not only of the stories we pass down to the next generation, but also of the stories we weave for ourselves. How do we remember our childhood or our families of origin? This is a generational gift of privilege, for those who lost their families when they were young may not have memories to weave together. Refugees from wars and violence might not want to recall traumatic experiences. Yet Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, is remembered as “My ancestor was a wandering Arameam” (Deut 26:5).

Some of us choose to write about our better days, for they outnumber our bad days. Everyone has imperfections, but each of us rabbits are still going on to perfection with the help of the good God above. Perhaps when we see the beauty of the full bright moon against a dark, clear night, our heart leaps inside and says,

“I see the moon, and the moon sees me,
God bless the moon, and God bless me!”

For some of us rabbits, nature brings us closer to God than anything else. The majesty of the summer thunderclouds rising in the heated air, and giving way to either refreshing rain or flashing floods, reminds us once again of the powers of God unleashed in God’s creation. The rainbow after the storm is the promise once again of that covenant made so long ago: the earth will never be destroyed by floods again. In the rainbow, in the light of all the colors, we hear God’s promise of love and care for God’s creation and God’s creatures.

I’m looking at a full super moon tonight, July 3, but August will have TWO super moons. Looking ahead to September 29, we’ll have our FOURTH super moon in a row. The moon on the 31st of August will be a blue moon. This is the second full moon in the same month. We won’t have another blue moon until May, 2026. This is why things that don’t happen often are called “once in a blue moon” events.

Once upon a time, we were agrarian people who eked out a subsistence living on the land. The persistence of The Old Farmer’s Almanac and other ancient weather wisdom lore is proof you can take the bunny out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the bunny. Yet as our alphabetical generations accumulate beyond the boomers, like Lucy on the Honeymooners, we often “got some explaining to do” to make ourselves understood.

We can count the “Dog Days of Summer” among the sayings folks don’t understand today. The term has nothing to do with the four legged creatures known as our best friends, but instead, it’s an astronomical term. The name comes from Sirius, the Dog Star, which rises before dawn. We find it on a vertical line below the three stars of Orion’s Belt. Sirius was named from the Greek Seirios, which means ‘glowing’ or ‘scorcher.’ This is an apt description of the warmest days from mid July to mid August.

Aratus, a Greek 3rd BCE poet wrote in his astronomical poem Phaenomena, (p. 328 ff, trans. Mair):

“A star that keenest of all blazes with a searing flame and him men call Seirios (Sirius). When he rises with Helios (the Sun), no longer do the trees deceive him by the feeble freshness of their leaves. For easily with his keen glance he pierces their ranks, and to some he gives strength but of others he blights the bark utterly. Of him too at his setting are we aware.”

These Dog Days of Summer in the ancient Mediterranean were marked not only by heat, but also by drought and pistelence. This year, with an El Niño weather pattern, wild fires, floods, and extreme heat have settled on the area due to a heat dome, which the European meteorologists have named Cerebus, after the three-headed dog guardian to Hades. The ruins on the Acropolis now close from noon to late afternoon to prevent heat illness.

Although the ancient Greeks and Romans believed Sirius was the reason for summer’s intense heat, we know now that star is too far away to affect our weather. What does affect our weather today is the result of human activities. Back in the Eemian period, around 116,000 to 129,000 years ago, the earth’s axis was tilted more towards the sun than now. This caused our northern polar region to be warmer and grow trees, which kept snow from accumulating. As a result, the earth’s temperature was 2 degrees C hotter than preindustrial levels, while today’s temperatures average 1 degree C warmer.

Today, we have evidence of geographic drift caused by climate change in our crops. Areas once known for coffee or wheat are shrinking, moving further north or to higher altitudes. We also see shrinking polar ice sheets, which cause ocean levels to rise. More water, combined with more heat leads to more intense storms. We also have rivers of wind, aka the jet stream, which lock in the heat domes. These can persist for days, while the rest of the earth gets flooding and storms.

Not a Watermelon Chart: Similar to the National Weather Service’s heat index chart, this chart translates combinations of air temperature and relative humidity into critical environmental limits, above which core body temperature rises. The border between the yellow and red areas represents the average critical environmental limit for young men and women at minimal activity.

Extreme heat is the number-one weather-related cause of death in the U.S., and it kills more people most years than hurricanes, floods and tornadoes combined. Despite the fact that extreme heat has been the number one cause of weather-related deaths in the United States over the last three decades, the federal government has repeatedly declined to declare extreme heat a federal disaster. The US government has never issued a federal disaster declaration for an extreme heat event in the three times it’s been requested, even as heat domes and long, uninterrupted stretches of 100-plus degree days have claimed lives in cities and states across the country in recent years.

The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2010 and the month of June alone in the USA has broken over 1,000 high temperature records. The combination of El Niño, a warming ocean current, and climate change is the cause. The excessive heat in the oceans are causing coral diebacks, which have negative implications for future hurricane shore losses, since coral reefs break the incoming waves.

We bunnies can blame the Stafford Act for this. Natural disasters in the USA are handled by FEMA—Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, PL 100-707, was signed into law November 23, 1988 when Congress amended the Disaster Relief Act of 1974, PL 93-288. Named for the Vermont senator who was instrumental in its passage, this is one of the 100 laws a President can use to declare a national emergency or disaster. Former President Trump used it to declare the COVID pandemic an emergency. It’s this Stafford Act that defines “Emergency.”

According to Congressional laws, a disaster emergency is “any occasion or instance for which, in the determination of the President, Federal assistance is needed to supplement state and local efforts and capabilities to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in any part of the United States in a Major Disaster.

The act defines “major disaster” as any natural catastrophe (including any hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, winddriven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, or drought), or, regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion, in any part of the USA, which in the determination of the President, causes damage of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant major disaster assistance under this chapter to supplement the efforts and available resources of states, local governments, and disaster relief organizations in alleviating the damage, loss, hardship, or suffering caused thereby.

Fires of Mordor have nothing on Phoenix Heat

To get heat relief, it will require an Act of Congress. In plain speak, we’ll see snowfall before heat relief legislation becomes law in today’s divided and polarized congressional body. In the last century, we bunnies weren’t thinking about climate change, extreme weather events, or even naming our winter storms. Perhaps next summer we’ll begin naming our extended heat waves and treat them with the same seriousness as we give to hurricanes and blizzards.

In the meantime, this bunny has set her AC to cool and is keeping the ice bin filled and the tea jar full. I’m feeling the siren call of the school supply aisle, so I’ll find a cool morning in mid August to go buy ink pens, notebooks, and some postynotes. A bunny who keeps learning will always stay young. Building new pathways for the neurons is like cleaning out the clutter in our brain box.

Write now, Edit later. The stories are more important than the form.

I always recommend picking up a new skill or renewing an old one, for not only do creative activities give us an opportunity to focus on something other than how hot it is, but also we can enjoy our progress as we continue to work. If you’ve ever wanted to write about your family history, begin now, for the day will come for all of us when we won’t remember the ones we love. This bunny hopes you have bunnies who love you and honor you for who you’ve always been, even if you become the “one who comes to kiss me every afternoon at 4 o’clock.”

I’ll probably go buy my journal supplies on August 24th, and sit in my favorite coffee shop for a bit to drink in memory of Pluto, who was worthy enough to be a planet for my generation,but has been demoted to a dwarf planet because it hasn’t cleared its neighborhood of other objects.

I look forward to cooler breezes, falling leaves, and Pumpkin Spice lattes. See you in September!

Joy, peace, and iced tea,

Cornelia

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Gammer Gurton’s Garland, or, The Nursery Parnassus, by Joseph Ritson.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34601/34601-h/34601-h.htm

Teaching Early Math to Children—This Little Piggy
https://www-tc.pbs.org/parents/earlymath/pdf/LittlePiggy.pdf

Origin of This Little Piggy
https://www.rhymes.org.uk/this_little_piggy.htm

Boston Common Master Plan
https://www.bostoncommonmasterplan.com/history

Super Moons, Blue Moons
https://www.fullmoonphase.com/

What is a blue moon and when will the next one occur? | Royal Observatory Greenwich https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/what-blue-moon-how-often-does-it-occur

SIRIUS (Seirios) – Greek God of Dog-Star https://www.theoi.com/Titan/AsterSeirios.html

THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER: European heat wave takes toll on tourists – Travel Industry Today
https://travelindustrytoday.com/the-dog-days-of-summer-european-heat-wave-takes-toll-on-tourists/

42 U.S. Code § 5122 – Definitions | U.S. Code | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute FEMA STAFFORD ACT
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/5122
https://www.fema.gov/disaster/stafford-act

Extreme Heat Is Deadlier Than Hurricanes, Floods and Tornadoes Combined – Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/extreme-heat-is-deadlier-than-hurricanes-floods-and-tornadoes-combined/

From Japan to Louisiana to Rome, Here Are Ten Heat Records Earth Has Broken Since June | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ten-heat-records-earth-has-broken-since-june-180982562/

Hope and Promise

arkansas, art, Creativity, Great American Eclipse, Healing, Health, Holy Spirit, Love, nature, New Year, Painting, renewal, Spirituality, vision

The new year is always full of hope and promise. If we only look backward, we see what was unfulfilled and unfinished. When I sold insurance, I always had a calendar with my name and phone number printed on it, as a promise to my clients I would be there for them in the coming year. When I taught art, my lesson planner was a guide for the school term. I could plan assignments, each of which would build the skills necessary to complete later and more difficult art projects. Some things you can’t rush. Teaching a child to cut on a fold doesn’t come easy. First they have to handle scissors, then cut on a line, and then be sure to hold the fold in their non cutting hand. It’s not a nursery school achievement, but a five year old should handle it with practice.

Even grownup artists should always be pushing their talents out to the frontiers of the unknown. Of course, when we do this, we’re like golfers who deconstruct their golf swing. It can get ugly for a while, but we have to have faith in the process and the promise of the better outcome on the other side. If we’re chained to the approval of the crowd and need the affirmation of sales or positive critiques, we might take the easy path and continue our “style.”

I could tell I was on the verge of a transformational moment last year, but I was physically run down, suffering from a low grade sinus and bronchial infection. I blame part of it on my inability to accept the image of myself as a sick person, who needs to rest. Also, I don’t want to admit I’m not Wonder Woman, even if I want to maintain this delusion as a fantasy. The golden lasso of truth appeals to me: I should be able to use this on anyone, to know their inner truth. Instead, I depend on the gift of spiritual discernment, which only works efficiently if one stays bound to the God who sends the Spirit into our hearts and minds.

I can tell a real difference in works done when I’m sick and those done when I’m well. I labor over the brush strokes, I paint and repaint, and the results are staid and wooden. The dark evening clouds of my first painting this year belong to this group. This painting is most likely going to become one of the “woven works,” for it’s not satisfying my eye the longer I look at it. If it can’t last a month under my gaze, it’s definitely not ready for prime time.

About ten days later, I painted the rainbow clouds over the lake. The medicine and my willingness to rest finally have had a positive effect. A sense of joy and delight pervades this canvas. If I could give a rainbow sky to everyone, I think we’d all be much happier.

This little square painting is from an arial view of Hot Springs, at the Cornerstone Shopping Center. While it’s not an exact highway and street rendition, it does represent the green spaces near the roads and the mall. Since I do a lot of landscapes, I’m interested in the amount of green spaces our city has. Some people see these empty lots as potential sites for future real estate development, but Hot Springs can keep its health conscious reputation by conserving some of these green areas to keep our air clean.

Hot Springs: Cornerstone Shopping Center

I hope to stay well in the new year and to focus on my art more. If we are to “Love our neighbors as ourselves,” perhaps we need to truly learn to love ourselves more, so we can better love the neighbors and our neighborhoods.

Joy and Peace,

Cornelia

Dinosaurs and X-acto Knives

arkansas, art, Great American Eclipse, purpose, purpose, renewal, Uncategorized, vision

I must be the last dinosaur on the earth who still hand cuts with an X-acto knife and a mat knife. Fair warning—this is an old codger rant of sorts.

I still have the knife I used in art school. It’s the same one that took a slice off my left index finger when I was matting works for a show in the 80’s. That was the year, not my age, although I’m getting closer to that silver achievement by the day.

I was in one of our two art supply stores yesterday to get more paint and brushes. While I was there, I thought I’d just pick up the sharp points as well. I could pay about 50 cents apiece or order on line. I tried to order, but discovered I needed to order a “box” and pay about $270 for a lifetime supply! These 800 blades might be a lifetime supply for my estate also, but I would get “free shipping.”

The other unnamed store didn’t even sell this package on line, and their app was so inadequate, I couldn’t tell if it was available in store. I may be old, but I shop on line like all the cool kids. I decided to look in an unlikely place—Walmart.

Why would I look at Wally World for an art supply? The same reason I went there for my NASA approved Eclipse Viewing Glasses—you need these 4/8/2024 on the total eclipse crossing Arkansas. I got 100 sharp X-acto blades for $21, or half the price of the store. I just have to swing by the store to pick them up. No charge for shipping. This might be a lifetime supply for me.

Change is coming to our world, whether we like it or not. The definition of old is when we’re no longer able to deal with the transformation and changes. It’s also called rotting and dying. Growing and thriving means we bend toward the light, let the wind shape us, and seek out the deeper sources of nourishment where we can.

I’ve not gotten to the place where I’m sharpening my old blades yet. If that happens, we’ve most likely lost the internet and that won’t be good at all.

Our Best Life Possible

art, at risk kids, Children, Creativity, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Great American Eclipse, home, Imagination, Love, nature, Painting, purpose, Retirement, Spirituality, Strength, Travel, Uncategorized

When I was young, I thought I had to be Wonder Woman in order to please my parents. You know, the perfect daughter, the smartest child, the best artist, and the best behaved of all their progeny. After all, I was the first born and the only girl, so I’d had my parents’ undivided attention for those crucial early years. I thought if I worked hard, I could overcome any obstacle, and make any situation better, just by my force of will.

This is magical thinking, however. It works for comic book heroes who live in hard edge black and white moral worlds, but we live in the real world of fuzzy grays and complex moral choices. My family history of long marriages wasn’t going to extend to my generation, for I could no longer live with my alcoholic husband. I felt less like Wonder Woman and more like a failure. I told my mother I thought she and daddy always wanted me to be “perfect to earn their love.”

She looked dumbfounded at me, paused a moment and spoke, “Honey, we only wanted you to do your very best at all times. We knew you had more in you that you hadn’t tapped yet!”

This is the moment I forgave my parents for my Wonder Woman complex and learned to live with her. Not every person has had my parents. Some parents have no dreams for their children, so we must dream for them and encourage them to be superheroes in our classrooms, in our neighborhoods and wherever we meet them.

Other parents lack imagination. They see their children repeating their own lives as good enough. Yet, they too only want the best for their children so if they can only imagine their life repeated for them, we shouldn’t fault these parents for their lack of imagination. They never lived in our age or times, nor in our bodies or minds! We children can become the best we can be, for our world is far grander than theirs ever was! We won’t always live up to the expectations of our parents or the plans they imagined for us, but we will be superheroes anyway.

My daddy once told me I was learning in high school chemistry what he studied in college chemistry classes. This is why your six year old nephew or niece can work your smart phone faster than you can! The world’s knowledge explodes now, doubling every year, but with the internet it will soon double every 12 HOURS!

We won’t need to learn all this information, or keep it stored in our minds, but we will need to know how to access it. Asking the best questions, knowing what is necessary, and the sense of discernment to winnow the good from the chaff will be what separates the best answers from the better, the good, and the ordinary ones.

My latest painting is a self portrait as “Wonder Woman during the Great American Eclipse.” I traveled to Kentucky to see this wonderful event at Land Between the Lakes. We can all be superheroes at every age and in every body shape. Just as the eclipse united all of America in the joy of celebrating a coast to coast mass experience provided by nature, we each have a divine image within us that unifies all of humanity as one, for we’re each made in the image of God. As the Jewish queen in scripture was reminded, “Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” (Esther 4:14)

How we become the best persons is a matter of becoming a superhero or “coming to royal dignity for such a time as this!” We’ll always be fine tuning our spiritual lives, our education, and our professional achievements. Even when we retire, we’ll find engaging opportunities for service to others and self improvement both. Most likely our spiritual lives will deepen and our family and friendships will take on more importance. I hope you all seek your best life possible, beginning today.

Artandicon's Blog

Crossroads of art and faith

Great American Eclipse

Great American Eclipse Paintings

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Eclipse T-Shirts

Rabbit! Rabbit!

Hope and Promise

Dinosaurs and X-acto Knives

I must be the last dinosaur on the earth who still hand cuts with an X-acto knife and a mat knife. Fair warning—this is an old codger rant of sorts.

I still have the knife I used in art school. It’s the same one that took a slice off my left index finger when I was matting works for a show in the 80’s. That was the year, not my age, although I’m getting closer to that silver achievement by the day.

The other unnamed store didn’t even sell this package on line, and their app was so inadequate, I couldn’t tell if it was available in store. I may be old, but I shop on line like all the cool kids. I decided to look in an unlikely place—Walmart.

I’ve not gotten to the place where I’m sharpening my old blades yet. If that happens, we’ve most likely lost the internet and that won’t be good at all.

Our Best Life Possible

She looked dumbfounded at me, paused a moment and spoke, “Honey, we only wanted you to do your very best at all times. We knew you had more in you that you hadn’t tapped yet!”

Join me in being a Superhero! You can be a hero for someone who needs you today.

Joy and Peace, Cornelia

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

I must be the last dinosaur on the earth who still hand cuts with an X-acto knife and a mat knife. Fair warning—this is an old codger rant of sorts.

I still have the knife I used in art school. It’s the same one that took a slice off my left index finger when I was matting works for a show in the 80’s. That was the year, not my age, although I’m getting closer to that silver achievement by the day.

The other unnamed store didn’t even sell this package on line, and their app was so inadequate, I couldn’t tell if it was available in store. I may be old, but I shop on line like all the cool kids. I decided to look in an unlikely place—Walmart.

I’ve not gotten to the place where I’m sharpening my old blades yet. If that happens, we’ve most likely lost the internet and that won’t be good at all.

Share this:

She looked dumbfounded at me, paused a moment and spoke, “Honey, we only wanted you to do your very best at all times. We knew you had more in you that you hadn’t tapped yet!”

Join me in being a Superhero! You can be a hero for someone who needs you today.

Joy and Peace, Cornelia

Share this: