For the holidays, I have new plaques listed in my shop here: https://katemcphee.bigcartel.com/. These are a new version of wooden plaques that can hang on the wall or stand up with a little peg that comes with each one and fits in the back. I am listing the plaques as they are made to avoid a backlog of orders prior to the holidays, so the ones shown are ready to ship or pickup locally. More designs available by special order but do so soon if you want holiday delivery. Gift wrap on request. I have some pretty green boxes just the right size to fit these plaques. Get them while they last– signed, sealed, and delivered– all for 40 bucks! https://katemcphee.bigcartel.com/

Perseverance seems like a dowdy old Victorian word and concept, without much flash or appeal.  To be sure, the idea of just keeping on isn’t as glamorous as the idea of “Joy” or some other kind of delight.

But perseverance is the steady helpmate of anyone who has ever achieved anything in life.  Sometimes just carrying on is the best task we can muster.  But the reward is that we do get to point “B” at some time.  The ability to carry on even when we would really rather not but we know if we do we will get where we want to go is a quality well worth developing.          

I grew up in a mountainous region, so climbing a mountain holds the symbolism of effort towards accomplishment for me.  Many people dream of climbing mountains so perhaps the mountain is a universal symbol of rising above something and finding the higher ground in a situation. 

Sometimes perseverance just means to do something even if you don’t know what to do.  It keeps the energy moving and allows change to come.

During this time of social isolation to slow the spread of the coronavirus, it is easy to become weary of the hassle of wearing a mask and refraining from social life, but we must persevere!

We often think that the word “prosperity” means wealth, but actually it means to look forward, or to hope for something in the future. When we look forward we make choices in the present that will benefit us in the future, and we prosper by doing that.  To be a farmer relies on this forward thinking.

In ancient hunter/gatherer societies people lived more in tune with the timing of the hunt, or of nomadic patterns and what one could gather as one moved.  There are times when being willing to act in the moment and pull up stakes immediately is what our situation calls for.  Other times, we need the patience and foresight of agriculture, we need to plan ahead and carefully plot out what we want in order to open a new set of possibilities.

In this image, the land has been carefully tended and plotted; things are planted, are growing, and reaching fruition.  There is great wealth available from so many myriad sources and when we align ourselves with the process of planning what we want, we can be amazed by our great success.

I wrote that about a year ago. Now, in the coronavirus pandemic, we are seeing how important these farming skills are. We are seeing how much more healthy and reliable it is for us to either grow more of our own food or to have local sources that practice sustainable methods. We are being told that unless we go back to the corporate system of supply, even by sacrificing lives to do so, that our economy will be defeated. But, we can also use this time to create another way and cultivate a healthier system that is local and respectful of the earth and all people on it, not just those who are profiting at the expense of others.

I wrote the following paragraphs about “Community” a year or more ago. It is ironic now in the time of social distancing that the coronavirus has caused us to practice that by staying apart we are helping each other to be healthy. We are really getting some good lessons about community by having it turned inside out like this. I personally am so grateful for the healthy and loving energy of the community in which I live. The worst has brought out the best in many, still I desperately miss the simple daily interactions with others that are gone for now. I’m glad to live around so many caring people who are helping each other in so many ways and I hope that we can all work to overcome the huge imbalances in our national and global communities that this pandemic has revealed in such stark detail. Let us use this opportunity to build healthier communities on all levels.

To live in peaceful community with others brings health and joy to all.  When we share with those around us, we partake of so much more than when we live in solitude.  In community we find comfort, pleasure, and stimulation.  So many things such as gardening, raising children, and tending animals are much easier and more efficient done in harmony with others.

In the image there is a cluster of houses around a central tree.  The individual houses signify the respect of individual boundaries while the proximity of them to each other clustered around the tree represents the unity in this place.  All are enriched by their presence with each other.

In seeking to live a good life for ourselves, we inevitably come to the place where our own good is inextricably tied to the good of all others.  No matter how well our own lives are, if there is war and strife on the planet, we are not really living a good life.

Therefore, in our quest for self realization we must work also to envision and create a place of peace for all.  Life needs peace to continue, and the good of all depends upon global peace.  In the same way that our individual thoughts have the power to lead us into certain conditions and draw forth material results, we have the power collectively to create peace by changing our consciousness about it.  We can all put our passion into imagining peace, envisioning peace, and then work together to create it.

I wrote that about a year ago. Now, for earth day, 2020, I am thinking of world peace with renewed urgency and with climate science as well as the pandemic in mind. Strangely, the current situation with the virus has created a kind of pause that is like peace (although very painfully gained) for our planet. Let’s work to establish a new world of peace that lasts well beyond this crisis and forever.

With dignity, one never forgets ones own value.  Remembering that, one remembers also the value of all others.

This little cat taught me a great deal about dignity.  When I found her living on a city street and eating from a dumpster, she still nonetheless spotlessly cleaned herself.  Once she let me bring her inside and we tamed each other, she taught me the fine skill cats have for always finding the greatest comfort in every situation.  To know that one deserves to have the best of everything and then to allow oneself to relax completely into the comfort of this knowledge is to own up to ones own dignity.  Every cat knows how to bask in the sunlight and you can learn this, too.

Today this image of dignity reminds me of us wearing masks in this era of Covid-19. This kitty looks like she’s wearing a mask, and her sense of her own value shows in that she washes her paws often! Let us be the same through this time of germs, and show each other that we see each and every creature as being valuable and worthy of our reverence and protection.

This is a simple image of food.  The bowl is full with colorful, sensuous fruit and vegetables.  Herbs hang above and nuts sit beside the bowl.  The tile and the checkered table are kitchen decor, and hint at the concept of comfort, a hearth to gather at, and a place to cook.    

In dream symbolism kitchens and cooking indicate psychological transformation.  It is by growing food, preparing it, and eating that we are nourished, grow, and thrive.  Our actual bodies consist of what we eat. While this is simple and basic, it is also rife with meaning.  How we relate to our rituals about home and food are wonderful opportunities to heal and nurture ourselves.  Allowing ourselves to have just the right amount of all that is good and pleasing to us is the place where we feel secure in our plenitude, yet not overwhelmed by too much or too little.

In these times of Coronavirus many are experiencing food scarcity. At the same time, people are returning to the simple way of growing more of their own food and working in community with others to produce and share food at a communal level. It is also a time to re-evaluate our relationships to the earth, to animals, and to our place in the eco-system. May we all have plenty to nourish us on every level.

Happy Easter, Passover, or Spring, whatever you celebrate today, or not. Today the idea of “Openness” seems appropriate. We are in lock-down at home because of the Coronavirus but it is still spring and a holiday to many. To be open has a double meaning: it can mean empty as the image above implies, or so full that something pushes open, as an egg or a flower bud. Opening is the life process of turning inside out.

In many ways we are all going through a kind of opening with this pandemic. We are being forced to feel the emptiness of death and despair and this is shattering. Yet, in the shattering and the emptiness, there is a pause that allows us the space for something new. To me that’s what Easter is about, and the ancient wisdom of death and rebirth that is present in just about all human stories of rebirth that predate the Easter one.

This is what I wrote about this image a year ago:

Good can only come to one who is open to it. Most of us clutter up our minds with a lot of worry and stressful thinking that is totally unnecessary and stands in our way of experiencing the good all around us. Even if all we know or feel is something awful or painful, if we can make a little opening in our misery, something new can enter in, and we make room for other stories and with different endings and beginnings.

The image of a bowl such as this is something I have painted over and over.  It is one of my prime symbols.  It is an archetype for the container that is so important to our life: the womb, the nest, the boat, the home, the vessel that contains the self.  The bowl is the shell that allows us to form.  Here it is filled with the light of consciousness.  The light both fills the vessel and allows it to remain empty.