may mandala / gathering resources
a gathering of buttons
May 24
I barely have buttons to gather! Gathering resources symbolized by the thrift of buttons? What was I thinking when I created my May mandala. Like Bernie Sanders fans, I'm feeling the "burn" of an out of whack economy. I'm also feeling the thrift! "Burnthrift" could be the name of a down & out yet resourceful character roaming the west for work during the depression era, or the saga of the last rent-controlled city apartment buildings staving off eviction and gentrification, or a declining 19th Century country estate in a gothic novel. Making Do that's what it's all about.... do the hokey pokey and you turn your self around!
Screenshot 2016-05-28 22.17.21
drawing of a button
button
When did housewives begin saving buttons? One of my few early memories of my great grandmother's home was napping in her sewing room, when I was still young enough to be required to take naps. Her sewing room may have been a converted porch. It was in the back of the house near the rail road tracks, in Crown Point, Indiana. There was a twin bed and a sewing machine in the narrow room, with a door out to the yard, and windows all around. I remember hearing the train pass, and sorting through her large jar of colorful buttons on the chenille covered bed --each one seemingly unique yet all the same in their function.Buttons are like blessings. Each bright button a joy savored for it's orphaned beauty and potential usefulness, even though it's no longer a part of a team. Sometimes there are whole families of 3 or 4, 8 or more, and even pairs of two in the button jar, separated by a universe of strangers, odd balls, solos, and almost matches.My residency at Recology, the San Francisco dump, starts next week on June 1, and I'm gathering my spiritual resources - my buttons - my blessings. Although blessings are all around me, they seem thin when I'm in a state of mind that can't receive them due to transition, worries of success, and the business of keeping the toilet paper dry. Yet it's this very thinness, when resources seem sparse, that the value of each singular button and simple blessing becomes clear.I hope to write about these buttons --brief snapshots of the sparkling and unexpected resources that bring joy, curiosity, awe and rest into my life --that appear during my residency of making do at the dump. You're invited to blog along with me and share links in the comments to the blessings in your button jar, or on Instagram - #ButtonJarBlessings