Friday, November 22, 2013

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 


later today.

xoxoxo,
Sunny

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

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



Friday, November 15, 2013

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

Sunday, November 10, 2013

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



Friday, November 8, 2013

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

Monday, November 4, 2013

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.

for your inner everyday warrior.

xoxo,
Sunny

Friday, November 1, 2013

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