Unexpected Fruits

I have never realized until this year how gloriously seasonal my work is: if I've not collected enough seed pods in June, they'll not be more than a certain number of seed pod earrings.

These are my last gentle little slips of seed and I'm feeling strangely satisfied by that. Nostalgic

for the days when you could only eat artichokes in late spring

or get cherries in July.

This week has been a beautiful and bittersweet one, lots of healed tiny cracks

and revelations about boundaries within and without.

I sketched long and light to find the perfect design to illustrate the fine art of 

surprise endings.

unexpected fruits:

you plant a jacaranda

and end up with maidenhair ferns

or a scythe for the harvest...

you set out to find self-reliance and you end up with more discernment

and compassion: once you sign up to grow there is really no way to guarantee

what gifts the earth and the universe have to give you.

You pluck a golden feather

and a flower grows in the empty place.

Magic.

Mystery

for magnificent you.

In letting the years make you pliable and sage

you gain balance and warmth.

Insights.

Wonder.

The point, mostly, is just to keep planting.

Just to keep opening your heart against all odds,

against all sharp and hard things that wish it closed

that profit from your fear and unwillingness.

Always be willing.

Never stop at hate, at 'won't'

but instead walk on by them. Water and shine on what you've set out to discover

and you may just grow a gift that was never on the seed packet

to begin with.

Unexpected Fruit Series of Three Pairs

in the 

Metal Shop

later today.

xoxoxo,

Sunny

Quickly

I blinked and my baby became a boy.

I turned around and when I did another spin he spoke in four word sentences.

There are preferences and joys and concerns and wild chases through the house

with peals of laughter and bumped knees 

and a thousand books

tractors

planes

crayons

pajamas

kittens

snuggles

bathtimes

walks

tantrums

games

market days

tomatoes

crackers

kale chips

cups

bowls

take-offs

hair sniffs

tickles

diapers

questions

loves

and if I've ever had too little rest

and too much fight

I just look at his dimpled hands

and remember

to breathe it all in

because he'll be bigger than me someday

and that day slips close

so

quickly.

xoxo,

A

Autumnal Gem Magic Spells

This week was brimming with power,

with good grounded power

and the wonderful permission to wield it well.

What's a designer to do with such a bounty?

Make Magic Spells for wonderful women, that's what.

What a rich pleasure to fill every element with its own prayerful energy

and then sit back and watch as my nimble hands work the connections

into a whole.

These four pairs of spells honor the season, the going inward

most of the things I've tried to ignore or wish past every other year.

This time it is different here.

There is so much to celebrate, so much to show my son!

Look Orion, this is fall! The leaves are on fire!

The light sits at a different angle!

But down at the heart of it all life is still burning!

Maybe just the smallest ember lives,

but when Mother Nature strikes her baton in March

it quickens and catches

and we have spring.

Until then there will be lots of books,

lots of tea,

lots of blanketed snuggles and the scribble of pencil on sketch paper.

We're getting the last shock of color here before the majority of our leaves let go

trees on fire like little art installations on the city streets.

Orion's grasp of sentence structure grows stronger every day.

It's exciting, it's quick and not very well-documented.

I thought I'd be more adept at that aspect of motherhood

but I am sure every mother has thought they'd be something more

than the moments allow.

He is fed and smiling and golden: that is enough.

I will be posting these delicacies to the Metal Shop

throughout the day as naps allow

If any of them sing "Let us adorn you!"

please send me a convo.

I love these weekly roundups, I love checking in here.

How are you all doing?

Please let me know.

With love,

Sunny

Reset

She arrived Friday afternoon

having driven five hours from Los Angeles

just to be here with us.

The last time we were all here in San Jose together Orion was not yet talking

Janey was our only cat

and The Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan show.

Just kidding about the last part!

Too long is what I mean, that it's been too long.

This cottage was glowing with life:

 three beasts (four if you count Elliot)

one babbling brook of a boy

a husband excited to say hello after a long day working

soft lamplight

 gentle chaos -

the joy of offering my arms open with this bounty is beyond compare.

Here, dear friend, sister friend,

be enveloped by us:

there is so much of us to hold

and we cannot stop smiling.

.

 I didn't love living in Los Angeles geographically

and I much prefer Northern California

but when I spoke of the move that our newly-married hand was forced into nearly five years ago

I still got all choked up,

laughing with surprise as I wiped away my tears over coffee this morning and asking, "Where is this coming from?"

I intrinsically understand why grief still exists about the move, old as it is:

it's the part where the story we demanded be written, the destiny we stomped our feet to see followed

just simply...

became other than what we most wanted.

Schmilly and I found ourselves lonely and foreign in Petaluma, surrounded by beauty and trying to feel a measure of safety, a place to put down roots after sudden relocation.

Our best friends were all suddenly very far away.

We've all been there, right?

It's the lover we decided was our mate that leaves and shocks our narrative

or the job we counted on that vanished in thin corporate air

the plot twist typed by someone else's fingers,

maybe God's.

Who can say with certainty

what shifts that wind and blows our little boat north

when all we packed were bermuda shorts and suntan lotion.

But despite the little tender places that soul-good conversation opens and presses with salve

I'd say our redirection has been nothing short of a miracle.

The only thing missing is the proximity of my people

and when they come up or we go down south to visit

my heart and mind click gently into optimum condition:

a reset.

I feel it tonight

in my spine, in my smile.

I feel the room Terra and I made by thumbing through the stories the phone calls miss,

sharing them with care and oh my God there was so much to laugh about,

so much laughter that was such a gift

for a tired mama.

The kind of silly where you can't ever stop, three minutes later you try and every breath

is funny. You hear the other person inhale and it starts again like a round. Like kids at a sleepover way past bedtime.

.

Before we said goodbye I clicked six or so portraits of these four souls

and they devolved from neat and smiling to fast-motion breakdown,

Orion demanding to be set free

Elliott whining and Anthony trying to hold the pose

the progression quite like a building demolition but with people

the last picture is simply Anthony's forehead and Terra's sweater swirling to the left

but what the camera could not capture are the peals of laughter

ringing off the wood floors like bells

that chime the dawn.

.

With friends like mine I feel ready to face the words written in my future history regardless of who holds the pen. We'll make sense of it all together.

xoxo,

Sunny

To The Moon

It is the nighttime when I get sentimental

when I spin waltzing with gratitude for my son,

for my life.

I've long had it in my mind to make this very necklace  

but things take longer with my son,

with this season of life we are in.

It is night when I get to snuggle with Joseph in the big chair

reading something good

and dozing off early.

It is night when I fall apart with worry about this world

or pull myself together to meet the challenge of another day as a sensing soul living here.

To be brave for Orion

to protect and guide him well.

From the back windows of this cottage we've been afforded a wonderful view of the full moon

and sometimes if the weather is warm enough I like to sit 

on the mudroom stoop

and let it bathe the familiar greenery

in magic

and mystery.

It is night when all the voices with all the reasons subside

to whispering

and the groundless chasm is almost a comfort:

if the world were always light we might all go batshit

without the cool rest

night proffers.

Here's to the dim

and the spinning stars,

here's to the Orion constellation returning triumphant

for his winter tour

To the Moon

and her quiet healing

done nightly

for free.

This Moon Magic Spell necklace will be in the shop this evening

along with two pairs of Hydrangea earrings

one doubled with ruffled and wee as they come

the other slightly larger and just as beautiful.

Have a wonderful weekend, dear friends.

xoxox,

Sunny

Sword and Shield

Do not mistake the power of my femininity for something surface:

I have no interest in being pretty or nice.

I am here to be of service.

I am here to go deeper.

.

A woman's goodness cuts through pain and pierces the 

hardest heart with a love so tender and full that

its mere absence wounds.

I am reminded of my purpose everyday living here in this broken world

with its wealth of beauty and sickness

and wonder.

The only perfection is nature's

and so I arm myself with flowers

and shield myself with feathers

that I might brave all that's wrong

to do right.

Sword and Shield Magic Spells

for your inner everyday warrior.

xoxo,

Sunny

Morsels

Double Hydrangea Necklace in Sterling

Double Brass Fern Earrings with Sterling Star, Carnelian, Feldspar and Jasper

To Mother You Hydrangea Cradles with Sterling Holding Bowl Apex. Vintage corals and Chrysoprase.

Trinity of Blossoms for the Beloved Fool. For those with more than just two piercings.

(the largest of the blossoms, on)

Brass Ball Python Magic Bracelet with Sterling Rivets

Naturally shed snakeskin from Duchess the python.

Fits size 6.5-7 inch wrist.

In the Metal Shop

tonight!

xoxox,

Sunny