Christmas

Stars in your eyes and in your heart.

May this happy time of Christmas bring you the joy of  spending precious moments with those  dear to your heart.

Happiness also for  sharing a  smile with someone you don’t know.

May the light of Christmas shine in your heart long after this  celebration.

Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year to you and yours !

Just enough time to bake a few more cookies… Those I love : with  spices and molasses.

Here is the recipe of these delicious cookies as shared by Cindy, thanks a lot Cin ! Merry Christmas to you and yours !

http://theonlycin.wordpress.com/

¾ cup butter and 1 cup sugar, beaten until fluffy.

Add in and beat well:

2 cups flour, ½ tsp salt, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground cloves, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 large egg, ¼ cup molasses, 1 tsp baking powder.

You’re left with a soft dough, refrigerate for an hour until firm and workable, then form into small balls and coat with sugar.  Set on a baking tray an inch apart and bake at 180C for 10 minutes.  The biscuits will harden on cooling.

The Christmas Tree quilt, decorated with sweets, hangs on a wall near our entrance door. Everyone visiting  is welcome to try and taste a chocolate or  a biscuit as they visit. Some days are more busy than others… and the   tree looks less colourful. No need to worry though since replacement is at hand in case you want to drop in ! Welcome

“In the silent night of a white Winter

The angels will come and sing

In praise of the sleeping child.

In the middle of the night

Light is shining

In the silent night.

Peace on Earth.”

by lesmotsdelle

Going South

More snow fell yesterday, a Siberian North wind blows over the landscape today and although the sun is trying to shine, its rays are still too weak to warm up the atmosphere. So I thought why not going South ? in my memories at least. When I mean South, I mean one of the most Southern parts of the world if you live in Europe. That is Australia. About three years ago I went there for a while, I left Winter behind  and found Summer in Victoria, beautifully warm and green in many places.

Walking in the bush was quite a discovery for me. Eucalypts and  plants unheard of over here. Forests that seemed to have grown in a kind of disorder  but once you walk through them, you notice a natural harmony in those twisted tree trunks and wild plants covering a rather dry soil.  The woods  were either silent or very noisy with the cockatoes’ calls.

An amazing entanglement of trees, bushes, high ferns. Sometimes a beautiful confusion, at other times a forest as imposing as a cathedral.

The beautiful canopy of a eucalypt, its silvery leaves barely moving in the heat of the day.

Here and there the Australian forests reminded me of a poem of Baudelaire :

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles ;
L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.

Nature is a temple where live pillars
Sometimes whisper confused words
Man walks across it through forests of symbols
Which observe him with familiar looks.

Charles Baudelaire
Extract from the poem  “Correspondances”

Here is a site about Australian nature that I love to visit :

http://robertburcul.wordpress.com/

Robert Burcul’s  amazing and artistic pictures of Queensland are well worth seeing.

Persistence

A real cool Sunday morning (-7°C), not much snow but frost adding a touch of magic to the landscape. The last roses in the garden, growing against the South wall of the house,  are still strong and shining in the early sun. Persistence that brings bright sparks of colour under the pale blue Winter sky.

“The Rose is gowned in petaled grace and lovely beyond telling;
She always lifts a friendly face, regardless of her dwelling.
Her golden silence can express to us, no matter where, joy shared;
give solace in distress from those who fondly care. The Rose has ways of saying things we much delight to hear;
without a spoken word, she brings and keeps our loved ones near”
~Laura S. Beck

Wishing you all a pleasant Sunday !

A blade of grass

A poem that came to mind this afternoon as I walked through the fields bordering the forest. Leaves were falling  over my face, swept away by a soft but freezing breeze. They touched the soil gently, without hardly any sound to my human ears but not so to the blade of grass…

“Said a blade of grass to an autumn leaf, “You make such a noise falling! You scatter all my winter dreams.”

Said the leaf indignant, “Low-born and low-dwelling! Songless, peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the sound of singing.”

Then the autumn leaf lay down upon the earth and slept. And when spring came she waked again — and she was a blade of grass.

And when it was autumn and her winter sleep was upon her, and above her through all the air the leaves were falling, she muttered to herself, “O these autumn leaves! They make such a noise! They scatter all my winter dreams.”

K.Gibran

The Madman Chapter 30

with every breath

“With every breath I take today,

I wow to be awake;

And every step I take,

I vow to take with a grateful heart

So I may see with eyes of love

Into the hearts of all I meet,

To ease their burden when I can

And touch them with a smile of peace”.

A poem I like and whose author I do not know. I hope it is inspiring to you as it is to me.

Ronsard’s garden

A French poet from the XVI century, Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585)  whose poem “Mignonne, allons voir si la rose…” inspired me for my first “watercolour” quilt.

It is  the first quilt that I dared sending to an exhibition in France. It is also a quilt I sewed for my only and favourite sister, Françoise. So much fun to sew, first choosing amongst the many flowery fabrics in my boxes. Picking red, white and pink roses and sewing them in the garden of my imagination. Would dear Pierre have liked it ? Maybe. I hope so because his poetry was very much part of my inspiration.

Here is  a detail of the quilt and of some materials I used to bring Ronsard’s garden to life. The greatest part of the work in creating an impressionist quilt is the choice of fabrics (with green background preferably) and the exact cut to give the illusion of a flower garden. The technique itself is relatively easy. Squares of 5x5cm sewed  diagonally. I learnt about this new art of quilting in the very good book by Gai Perry “Impressionist Quilts” (C&T Publishing). Since then I sewed other impressionist quilts, always with the same pleasure.

Some medieval poetry for you now…  “Mignonne, allons voir si la rose…”

The first strophe of Pierre de Ronsard’s famous poem dedicated to the lady of his heart. It is a poem about time that passes. About youth that goes by. And about the present moment that should be lived fully.

A Cassandre

Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
Qui ce matin avait déclose
Sa robe de pourpre au soleil
A point perdu cette vesprée
Les plis de sa robe pourprée
Et son teint au vôtre pareil…

“Sweet and fair Lady, Let us go and see if the rose, Which this morning had blown her purple dress to the sun, Has not lost this evening the pleats of her dress As well as her rosiness…”

poem for the day

As I opened the shutters this morning, I recalled this poem that I read many times…

With Every Breath

With every breath I take today,

I wow to be awake;

And every step I take,

I wow to take with a grateful heart–

So I may see with eyes of love

Into the hearts of all I meet,

To ease their burden when I can

And touch them with a smile of peace.

(author unknown to me)

These are my wishes for you on this cool but sunny Summer day.

Here is a quilt I made with so many various fabrics, all from Africa. As many fabrics as memories of people, friends, places, particular circumstances. One of my favourites because of all it evokes to me.

“Marchés africains” (African markets)

“I Dream a World”

Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America

Photographs and interviews by Brian Lanker, Edited by Barbara Summers,  Foreword by Maya Angelou.

A precious gift I received years ago from an American friend in Central Africa. Seventy-five wonderful women are presented through photographs and interviews. Each person recalling a special event in her life. Each of them in her own language, accent and with a great openness.

Barbara Summers writes :”… A truly beautifying discovery for me was to find so much love in anger. It was a fist-up, death-defying love that challended the unfair conditions of life and muscled in on injustice as it nursed both sides of a nation. Valiant and vulnerable, these women were there”.

A Poem by Mari Evans from “I Am a Black Woman”

“I

am a black woman

tall as a cypress

strong

beyond all definition still

defying place

and time

and circumstance

assailed

impervious

indestructible

Look

on me and be

renewed”

In this time of celebration in the United States, I took this book out of one of my bookshelves and slowly turned its pages with admiration, respect, gratefulness. And  deep emotion.  Looking at the Inauguration Day’s celebration on the Swiss TV, I saw some beautiful women’s faces and expressions in the public listening to their new President.  I saw their shining eyes and huge smiles, I saw and heard their cries of joy and encouragement. I saw different silent forms of happiness, tears, attentiveness to every word and movement. Prayers. Thankfulness.

Unforgettable moments shared miles away.

I would like to share Brian Lanker’s words at the end of his preface of this superb book :

“In fact, all of the women in this book have dreamed of a world not only better for themselves but for generations to come, a world where character and ability matter, not color or gender. As they dreamed that world, they acted on those dreams and they changed America.

This celebration of sisters is not an attempt to elevate or lower any segment of society, it is merely an opportunity to savor the triumphs of the human spirit, a spirit that does not speak only of black history. My greatest lesson was that this is my history, this is American history”.

Thank you Rosa Parks, Eva Jessye, Maxine Waters, Clara McBride Hale, Maya Angelou, Ruby Dee, Marva Collins, Septima Clark, Mattie Morris Losey… and so many others.

Poem

A mandala I coloured for a friend

A poem to meditate on by the late French composer and singer, Jacques Brel

“I wish you never ending dreams and a wild desire to make some of them come true.

I wish you to love what is to be loved and forget all that has to be forgotten.

I wish you silences.

I wish you birds’ songs when you wake, children’s laughter.

I wish you to resist sinking.

I wish you to stand up to indifference and negative virtues of these days.

I wish you especially to stay you.”

Jacques Brel, 1929-1978