Invictus

Winds of Change, 30 x 40 Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas,
2008, Nancy Christy-Moore

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


~ William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)


http://www.nchristy.com/gallery/hcan.php

I Wish You Enough

I read this on the blog 24 hour Paradigm and I wanted to share this with you because it was so amazing:


"Recently I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at the airport. They had announced the departure. Standing near the security gate, they hugged and the mother said, 'I love you and I wish you enough.' The daughter replied, 'Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom.'


They kissed and the daughter left. The mother walked over to the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy but she welcomed me in by asking, 'Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?'


Yes, I have,' I replied. 'Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?'


'I am old and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is - the next trip back will be for my funeral,' she said 'When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, 'I wish you enough'. May I ask what that means?'


She began to smile. 


'That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone'. She paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail and she smiled even more. 


'When we said , 'I wish you enough,' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them'. Then turning toward me, she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory.


I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting. 
I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger. 
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.


She then began to cry and walked away. 


They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them but then an entire life to forget them."


The art in our lives comes in many forms and for some I think they feel that it must be hanging on a wall, played in a concert hall, performed on a stage.... but art comes from the heart and is made with emotion..... just as this is..... so to all of you 'I wish you enough'

The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

Dune, Oceano, California, 1963, Ansel Adams,  Trustees of the Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust, Use Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The Layers

The Layers
by Stanley Kunitz

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.

When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.

In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:

"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.

I am not done with my changes.