What happened to these people, the Mimbres, who created such dramatic and elegant pottery? 

Emerging from the Mongollon culture, they were a later version of that group which lived around the Mongollan Mountains in Arizona and New Mexico from about AD 200-1450.  If I am correct, the Mimbres peoples lived toward the end of that period (1050-1200 or so). 

Eventually, it appears that they  abandoned their homes and cultural centers for unknown reasons.  Just walked away, probably dispersing into other groups or other areas of the country. 

Who were they and where did they go--and why?  So far, we have no answers to these questions.  They leave us their inspired, graphic, dramatic pottery, from which this tile is drawn.  Here we have the fish, the deer, the turtle, and the caterpillar, all very precious and symbolic to them.  We have the four directions, a stylized sun, some stylized feathers.  While we can say something about what modern generations of Native/Indigenous Peoples would say about these symbols, we can only guess at the full extent of what they mean to people from this era.  It's a definitely a mystery. 

Only their art speaks to us about who they were.

To a Mimbres Woman
by Marty Eberhardt

I see your thousand-year-old thumb print
On the plain brown potsherd.
My own thumb fits perfectly
In the curve you left.
Other more elegant pottery bits
Lie among rocks and junipers
On this hill of dry grasses.
Red-on-white interwoven geometry, 
A tasseled quail,
Designs fine as any
In the art galleries of the town. 
But it is this plain brown piece that draws me.
My thumb seeks the curved place, again.
I see you forming the pot 
From coils of clay,
You look out over fields of corn and beans 
In the valley below.
Then, as now, a red-tailed hawk dips,
A horned lizard scurries under a stone
That forms the village wall.
Beyond the fields
Green cottonwoods mark the river  
Between jagged hills.
The wind shakes their leaves like a gourd rattle.
In the quiet between gusts,
The river rushes below, monsoon-strong.
It is in these wild places,
Where our thumbs
Feel the curve of another’s hand,
Places free from cement, neon, asphalt, smog,
And deadened water,
Across years, 
Across cultures and countries,
Beyond all reason,
We find each other.

My first try at a new tangle called Kivka, from Jo Quincy, CZT (Zenjo).  She just offered her second fundraising class for Ukraine.  As a result, this time she'll be donating around $3000 to UNICEF for Ukranian aid and relief, based on participants' donations.  In her first class she raised somewhere around $2500 I believe.  What a lesson in how one person can make a difference.

"Kivka" is named for Petrykivka, which is both a small village in Ukraine (southeast of Kiev) and also the home of a style of painting called Petrykivka, a folk art of great beauty.  I plan to work more with this tangle and make further donations when I can for relief there.

The new dawn blooms
as we free it.
For there is always Light,
if only we're brave
enough to see it.
If only we're brave
enough to be it.
  --Amanda Gorman

There are so many surprises in life.  This was certainly one of them. 

Zentangle® can be counted on for providing surprises on a regular basis.  You never know where you're going to end up once you begin.

After yesterday's post I thought I would try another mandala but this time I would attempt to place the more complicated Punzel tangle in the round.

Success!  However, I ended up with something that reminds me of Brutalist-style architecture, my least favorite style of all time. 

You could say this got the job done, but although I technically succeeded I'm not in love.

Which leads me to wonder:  what would this look like if I ran it through an iPhone app?  Let's see:

In part of Mary Oliver's Poem, "The Turtle," she says:

...Crawling up the high hill,
luminous under the sand that has packed against her skin,
she doesn’t dream
she knows
she is a part of the pond she lives in,
the tall trees are her children,
the birds that swim above her
are tied to her by an unbreakable string.


For the entire lovely poem, see New and Selected Poems: Volume One (Beacon Press) or go here.

I think I like the iPhone variations better than the original in this case.

The temperature was zero Farenheit when I woke up and this afternoon has reached a blazing 11° F (that would be MINUS 11.6°Centigrade, correct?).  I've been basking in the warmth by drawing a blue and black zendala that captures the winter colors. 

Wind outside is howling, and howled all through last night. 

Daylight is fading.  Snow is on the way. 

Hot cocoa, anyone?

White-Eyes
By Mary Oliver

In winter
    all the singing is in
         the tops of the trees
             where the wind-bird

with its white eyes
    shoves and pushes
         among the branches.
             Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,
    but he's restless--
         he has an idea,
             and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings
    as long as he stays awake.
         But his big, round music, after all,
             is too breathy to last.

So, it's over.
    In the pine-crown
         he makes his nest,
             he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird,
    I only imagine his glittering beak
         tucked in a white wing
             while the clouds--

which he has summoned
    from the north--
         which he has taught
             to be mild, and silent--

thicken, and begin to fall
    into the world below
         like stars, or the feathers
               of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,
    that is asleep now, and silent--
         that has turned itself
             into snow.

I made hard-boiled eggs last week and after they cooled this is what I saw.   I took a photograph because if ever there was an egg begging for kintsugi, this one was it. 

However, I ate the egg in my dinner salad, so no kintsugi took place. 

Not sure what kintsugi is?  It's the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics using gold in the cracks, resulting in a mended object of striking beauty.   Look HERE. 

The beauty is in the brokenness.

The instant I saw that egg I wanted to paint it, though I've no idea why.  Perhaps I've been thinking about kintsugi recently as I observe so much brokenness surrounding us all. 

Compassion can be one way to join our pieces back together, to form a strong bond, and to heal ourselves.

I contemplate this, and then write:
---------
Pick up your broken pieces. 
Lovingly place them together.
Be gentle. 
Add the gold. 
Allow time for healing.
And then, look. 
So much beauty.
---------

And here is one lovely article I saw on the topic.

Just this.

A quote from one of my most beloved poets.

Early Morning, My Birthday
by Mary Oliver
                                                                       4.
The snails on the pink sleds of their bodies are moving among the morning glories.
The spider is asleep among the red thumbs of the raspberries.
What shall I do, what shall I do?
The rain is slow.
The little birds are alive in it.
Even the beetles.
The green leaves lap it up.
What shall I do, what shall I do?
The wasp sits on the porch of her paper castle.
The blue heron floats out of the clouds.
The fish leap, all rainbow and mouth, from the dark water.
This morning the water lilies are no less lovely, I think, than the lilies of Monet.
And I do not want anymore to be useful, to be docile, to lead children out of the fields into the text
of civility to teach them that they are (they are not) better than the grass.