Baptismal Reflection

Yesterday in church, I glanced at the bulletin header to see the following words:

The First Sunday After The Epiphany
The Baptism of Our Lord
Holy Eucharist: Rite II January 10, 2010

Three things popped into my mind after reading those words -

1. Our visit last fall to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome where we viewed the beautiful portrait I'm showing here today of Jesus' baptism.

2. My baptism. Having just discovered my own baptism certificate last November, I hesitated yesterday when I stood in church to celebrate my baptism, naming only the month. Coming home though, I confirmed as I suspected, my actual infant baptism (age 6 weeks) was January 10 so my savoring of this day's importance seemed even more relevant to me.

3. The word savor. As regular readers here at the MindSieve might remember, savor is my selected word for this year.

In remembering our visit to St. Peter's and in rejoicing over a found baptismal certificate, I savored the precious moments and import of those events in my life. It's unlikely at this point in my life that I'll revisit St. Peter's in Rome, but what a memorable occasion it was to be there with my beloved spouse viewing the portrait of such an important event in the history of Christianity.

Also, finding bits and pieces of my infancy, early childhood, and school years seems to be a trend lately.....one that begins to bring into focus how that baptism event of being publicly declared a Child of God was the beginning of a life long relationship that as an infant I had no idea was there for me. Even as a young child, a teen, a young mother - really not until my adult years of church life did the import of baptism register with me. It is only now that I've come to treasure the God/human relationship that was started on my behalf by my very young parents. I doubt they knew what they were "doing" with a tiny baby at God's altar but I am thankful for that event and pray that young parents, like mine, like I did as a parent, will baptize their children realizing it not as just a social rite of passing but a spiritual proclamation of intention for them and for their children.

If you're a Christian, what of your baptism - infant, teen or adult, have you ever spent any time considering how that event changed, did not change, is beginning to change your life? And if you're of another faith with a precious rite meant for initiation or acceptance or connection, have you participated fully in that rite or not, and has it changed your life, your direction, your spirituality? I welcome your sharing.

I want to be remembered

I want to be remembered
As a mother
As a grandmother
As a wife
As a friend

I don't want my great, great ancestors to look at the old fashioned pictures
and wonder, who is that woman
Who was she to me
Why didn't anyone write her name on this picture

I want to be remembered
by my children
by my grandchildren
By my great, and great great grandchildren and beyond

Because you see though not yet born, the DNA holds them
Already I love them
I wish for them all the world has to offer
I wish them strong minds and strong bodies, courageous spirits and brave hearts

I wish them faith in God
And fellowship with other than human life
I wish them to understand the caress of their Father/Mother in heaven
I wish them to know that's whose company I will be keeping when they are born

I'll see their first romances
Their first kisses
Their first labor pains
Their first babies born perfect and innocent as they were

I want to be remembered
As a mother
As a grandmother
As a wife
As a friend

Family Photo: Great Grandparents J.C. and Olive Gilmore and 5 of 6 daughters and 1 son. Sunrise Sister "believes" her Grandmother Anne is second girl from the left....all the others are Great Aunts. We know their names but have not yet been able to connect each name with a face.

Memory Trilogy

Lately, for some reason, my mind has been quite preoccupied with childhood memories. Some of the memories come from my parents and I moving from San Diego, CA, where I was born, back to a small town in Oklahoma. I think my baby brother was born just shortly after we arrived in Oklahoma and preceded our move into a tiny house on the edge of a new development of many other tiny houses.

Do you have any memory of your early childhood years and, if not, have you ever tried to recall a childhood event? Assuming that the memories are not all long gone and forgotten - try it - focus on a house or a room, a yard, a grade in school - see what you come up with. It's ALL there in your brain but it may take a while to pull it up on your current screen. Look what happened when I remembered -

The House on North West Avenue (Bethany, OK)
Visiting the house of my youth
Well, not really visiting it as in going inside
Just driving by

I didn’t remember it being so small
I didn’t know we were poor, were we
I can remember acres across the road before they were filled with tiny, new houses like ours

I remember the year Mother decided the exterior should be painted
A nice soft yellow was planned
On sale at Sears was a yellow, though not so soft

Just driving by
After being away for 40 years
That yellow, just beginning to soften

Visiting the house of my youth
Well, not really visiting it as in going inside
Just driving by


My Shared Bedroom
As kids, my brother and I shared a bunk-bed room
Then my parents built a big family room on the back and that’s where they slept
Didn’t seem strange then

After the family room with a shower and big closet were built
I got my parents' bedroom and their four-poster bed became my own
My brother kept his room and the bunk-beds

My bedroom had built-in drawers under the closet
I kept lots of stuff in there
Paper and crayons and boxes and paper dolls

Silverfish lived in those drawers - they liked the paper stuff
I always knew to rattle a drawer before pulling it out
Silverfish could take a hint and made themselves scarce

Mother said the silverfish moved from CA to OK in the packing crates
Isn’t that strange that they came with us
Mother never really liked them and neither did I



Red Gladiolas
Red gladiolas grew by the very cement front porch
Mother always planted them by the very cement front porch
Nothing else in the bed – only red gladiolas

They looked so lovely in the bulb box photo
Standing straight and tall
One could imagine a whole garden springing up around them for no reason

Mother’s glads so full of hope and anticipation
Yes they grew tall and yes they were red
And yes, they fell over and smashed their Dixie cup faces in the dirt

Orren Mixer - Equine Artist

I suggest that someone reading this post might know a lot more about Orren Mixer than I do. Recalling his name from my childhood in efforts to recollect childhood memories, I have been thinking of him quite regularly for the last couple of years and not until yesterday did it occur to me to look him up on Google. I found there an extraordinary story of this man's professional art career and life, also discovering that he died on April 29, 2008. You're wondering why, if I didn't know him, where I came up with the desire to know more about him and his life as an equine artist - thus the Google search.

After an extraordinarily long absence from anything having to do with a paintbrush or canvas, in the last couple of years I have renewed my own personal painting, as in pieces for one's wall as opposed to house painting. Also, in this time of rediscovering my longing to produce artwork, I've come up against the fact that I know very little about my ancestry. My parents, both deceased, did not speak much of their childhood or even young adulthood - maybe they did - but I don't remember it and now, along with my two siblings and our families, I believe we are poorer for not knowing anything about our ancestors or what has led any one of us into any one direction or another in our lives be it career or interest of any kind.

Now retired and painting when I please, as I alluded to I have also spent time trying to resurrect my memories of childhood. As far as ancestry is concerned, I've gone to a few websites and thought seriously about trying to trace our family's history, but I haven't put anything into the works there so far. I've often wondered why with no creative interests in my childhood home, no art, artwork, art books or literature, no art classes in school - why did I decide as a young stay-at-home mom to venture into learning to draw, learning to paint, devouring art and art history books? I was certain I had never been exposed to any art of any kind. Except one place I can clearly remember -

My parents lived in Bethany and Oklahoma City, OK, in their school days and were in San Diego in '41-'47 (my dad was in the Navy), and then they returned to Bethany. Reviewing Orren's history on the internet, I see that he was in OKC for a while, then to San Diego where he worked in a naval shipyard, then his life took him to other states but back to OKC at about the same time my mother and dad came back. They may have known him in young school life, or in the Navy, I have no idea. But I know they were friends as we visited in the Mixer's home several times and I can clearly remember my Mother being so excited for herself and for me to be able to visit Orren's studio and to view his beautiful work. I can feel myself looking up at a huge canvas (I was about 6 or 7) in a beautifully lit room. It was a painting of horses in a field and I was in awe that someone (Mr. Mixer) had actually painted the scene. My Mother was "whispery" in her instructions to me about not touching, wasn't it beautiful, etc. It was a sacred moment.

It turns out that Orren Mixer was one of the, if not the, most well-known equine painter in the world up until the time of his death. He's catalogued in museum and private collections all over the world. How my parents knew him and his wife is a mystery to me but we visited them more than once. I don't remember if they came to our house - I only remember that awestruck moment of realizing someone could actually paint, as opposed to photograph such a beautiful portrait.

The point of my story here is two-fold - One - Orren appears to have been from his press and demeanor, a totally unassuming man with seemingly no veneer of success to change the person he was in life - that of a man pursuing his passion and bringing joy into others' lives with his work. What a wonderful legacy to give his children, grandchildren, and all his friends and family. Two - I am surprised to think that there was in my Mother that spark of recognition and acquaintance of what a truly wonderful artist and his artwork was. That sacred moment in Orren's studio may have well been the spark in a young girl's mind of what the joy of art could mean to a person. Whether or not that was the reason that I paint today or have such a voracious appetite for things artistic, I don't know. Whether or not I can soften my remembrance of Mother's stern attitude toward anything other than "earning a living being important", .....perhaps I can. She did know that Mr. Mixer's art was something to behold and that she wanted me to see it, and for that special memory in its own right, I am thankful. This memory of Orren Mixer and his talent and his art is one of thanksgiving from me for his life and the effect that he may have had on mine......and perhaps on my young Mother's life also.

OM Portrait Photo from the internet website of HORSE CHANNEL.COM

Who holds the string - Part Two

So, I’m almost alone now flying my kite
Most of the other kids either got bored or ran out of string
Or their Moms shouted them home
Me and my kite – we’re still soaring

Except now my arms are getting a little tired and
I suddenly feel sort of funny - thinking, thinking, thinking
How am I going to get the kite down
It’s so happy and very insistent in its soaring and its way up there

Also, it actually feels as though I might lift off the ground
The kite is pulling, pulling me now, and more thinking
Thinking – am I holding the string or is the string holding me
The string and the kite holding me seems spooky

I begin to sniffle a little and try to rewind the string around the spool
But the kite’s so high now and it’s hard to wind
I sniffle a little more and maybe feel some wetness in my eyes
Where’s my “aide” when I need him

I’m feeling terribly alone and maybe even scared
And oh, thank goodness - here comes my Dad
Wow, how did he know that I needed him now
Dads are kinda like that, anyway mine is

He says that I have to come in now
We’ll have to start winding the kite down
I tell him I’ve tried but it’s too strong for my arms
Dad tries too but he says that it’s too hard for him as well

Dad says that “we’ll have to let the kite, go”
But I don’t understand what he means
He explains again that it’s late and the kite seems too high to retrieve
“We’ll just let it go – we’ll snip the string – and let it go”

Sucking in my breath and fighting back more wetness in my eyes
I understand and nod my head that I do
He takes out his pocket knife and cuts the string
My arms fall tired and limp but still holding the freed spool

My upturned head and teary eyes never leave the sky and the kite
Never leave the sky and the kite until I can’t see it anymore
As my Dad gives me a hug and we head for the house, I know the string and the kite have gone I'll miss my kite and I won't forget it

SS Collage

Poem re childhood memories summoned up by experiential Workshop - "Awakening the Creative Spirit" - May, 2009

Who holds the string - Part One

It’s a clear blue-sky afternoon
Perfect for the kite and me
My brother is here too but he’s a little guy, at least to me
I know well he can’t possibly understand the intricacy of flying

He’ll do as a launch aide though – he just has to stand holding the kite tip
I run ahead fast and lift the string and the kite,
Shouting, “Let go, let go!” Then the breeze of my run lifts the flimsy paper kite
Up, up, up - 'til the feverish summer air takes charge

There are other children around us, but no matter
It’s only me and the kite and the spool and the string
It’s hot and the sun beats scorchingly on everyone
Our mothers don’t know about suncreen yet

The kite moves higher and sways as though dancing
I feel the steps in my fingers and know that I am kind of in charge
The swaying connects me to the sky, it takes me into the blue of it
It smiles and sings - "higher, higher"

I shout to my “aide” – “I need more string, more string!”
I believe my Dad is here now cleverly adding on a new spool to extend my
Flight into the atmosphere
He knows how to do lots of things and string tying is one of them

The other kids have gone now and even my aide has grown weary
In retreat, he grumbles, “It’s my kite too!”
But, of course, he’s wrong
It’s just the kite and me

Childhood Memories prompted at
"Awakening the Creative Spirit" Retreat, May, 2009

Ancestry I

I'D LIKE TO KNOW

I'd like to know why there's so much criticism
Why the harsh focus - do we know no other way

Where and when were we loved as children
Our parents were loved as children weren't they

Did their parents disappoint them
Did their parents know they disappointed them

I'd like to know I didn't disappoint my parents
I'd like to know I didn't disappoint my children

I'd like to know if my parents' parents' parents know I loved them
I'd like to know if they know I love them still

I'd like them to know, my future progeny, they've my prayers to realize their failures
and my prayers to realize their successes

I'D LIKE THEM TO KNOW

Collage by SS - "Geisha"
Poetry begun at "Awakening the Creative Spirit" Workshop May 2009