Candles In The Darkness

2009-06-01T16:41:00.000-07:00

It’s All In How You Look At Life...

This time of year, I can NEVER keep ahead of the dandelions in my lawn!

Every time that I start to look at them as a nuisance, I remember the moment that my oldest child taught me to look at life in a different way...

It has been over a decade now, but when Erin was very small, she was my constant companion on grocery trips, errands etc. but we often had to take them at HER pace, especially if it was close to nap time or any meal.

There was a certain day in may when she was 3 that we had left the car for servicing at the Co-op and walked over to do our groceries together. We finished that task and had our snack, but there were still about 15 minutes to wait until the car was going to be ready. Since it was a lovely day, we left the groceries in the parcel pickup area and headed outside to wait on the grassy lawn beside the building which was awash with hundreds of dandelion blooms.

I sat down on the lawn carefully, trying to avoid staining my jean shorts as Erin began to gather a huge bouquet of the yellow flowers. Stroking one particularly puffy dandelion rather lovingly, she looked over at me.

“God must really LOVE dandelions!” she announced.

I’d been so busy looking at the same dandelions as annoying weeds that her comment caught me by surprise.

“Why do you say that?” I remember asking her.

“Because God made them soft and YELLOW... and yellow is such a HAPPY colour!” she replied reaching for another huge dandelion as if it should be obvious.

Have you ever truly watched a small child touch dandelions or pick a bouquet?

She taught me to think about how I look at life all over that day. Eleven springs later, I think of what she said every time I see a huge patch of dandelions or spend time on my knees digging them out of my lawn one by one.

2009-03-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

Walking the Path of HOPE...

It has been just over 3 years since I let this blog go idle. The last entry was written just before a cross stitch show in Nashville that I attended and shortly thereafter a lot of things happened that caused me to lose a bit of hope in my career in the needlework industry.

In the fall of 2006, I ended up illustrating my first children’s book for a local author and publisher, setting my feet down a different path, though I still kept a hand in needlework as well.

I decided to revive this blog because I am SICK and TIRED of all the negativity out there in the media.

Yes, the economy all over our planet is hurting...

Yes, our planet’s environment seems more fragile than ever before...

Yes, there are a lot of stories of gloom and doom out there for the vultures to feed on...

...but when did we start giving up on the belief that WE had the power to CHANGE THINGS??

When did we stop looking for stories of HOPE and JOY and WONDER to help soothe our souls and calm our fears??

This blog is a tiny bit of defiance in the midst of all the negativity out there.

I am setting my feet on a path of HOPE. I am going to wander and look for things, quotes, people and stories that INSPIRE me to believe that it is NEVER too late

... for each of us

... for each of our countries

... for our entire planet

... for the human race.

I hope you’ll enjoy the journey!

2006-02-08T20:54:00.000-08:00

Setting Forth On Journeys...

This is the first year of doing the Nashville show that I don’t anticipate being up until the wee hours of the morning trying to finish everything off, pack etc. It seems almost strange to be doing the last step- blogging about the journey before I set off tomorrow.

Bethany still minds me leaving. How do I explain that one of the reasons I can be here when she gets off the bus from school is because I also have to go away on trips like these 4 or 5 times a year? Erin, of course, is old enough to understand and be a huge help to Nick... but her perceptions are also deeper. The other night she suddenly looked at me as said in a really quiet voice “Do you ever worry when you head off on a trip that something bad might happen?” What a cool thing to be able to have deep discussions now with my eldest child. One of the designs that I am releasing at this show contains a verse I wrote for the day they each leave home. It can be a great design to stitch up for a Graduation, adding the name, date and school in letters beneath the design, but it is also nice just on its own as a sort of wish/blessing for your child as they leave home to make their own way in the world. The design is called CHILD OF MINE and the verse goes as follows:

Child of mine, the time has come
To venture on your own.
May all you’ve learned go with you
To guide you now you’re grown.

Be brave and bold yet loving,
Be fair in all you do.
Be wise but have compassion.
To all you are... be true!

© Jennifer Aikman-Smith

I am glad that I will have my girls home for almost another decade or so, but already I can see how much they have grown and get glimpses of the astonishing young women they may become. The following quote is one that I want them to know.

It’s not the load that breaks you, it’s how you carry it.
-Leana Horne

We shared the load of building this giant snowman as a family, and it was quite bearable... but none of us could lift the middle section and head alone. Amazing that life lessons can come in the middle of fun and when you least expect them!

2006-02-03T10:56:00.000-08:00

A New Path For My Husband!!!

I wrote about pieces and fragments last time and now it is about a whole new path for my husband. A chance to walk down a new trail and leave his own footprints!! Nick has interviewed for and won the position of Principal at Magnetic Hill school for a five year term starting next fall. He withdrew his applications for the other 2 schools and so is back at work today instead of in another round of interviews for a different position.

I am SO proud of him, so amazed at how much he has grown as an administrator and so excited for him. He worked very hard to get to this point in his career and is absolutely giddy about getting this school so close to home in the next boundary over. He measured the distance and it is just under 8 km from our door which means a much shorter commute and the chance to come home for dinner even if there are evening meetings or events he needs to return for.

There is also a sense of wonder as Nick gets his career path set for this 5 year term. After 4 years of change and upheaval as he switched schools in the middle of his Vice-Principalship, he now has a chance to vision, implement and watch things grow from year to year in the same place. He is SO ready for the challenge of his own school!!

This sense of wonder stems from wondering now where I am meant to be in terms of career. I will never walk away from cross stitching completely, but there is this knowledge that I also need to find my next challenge in a field that is not so prone to theft. Somehow, there became a climate of tolerance among to great a group that scanning and sharing designs was permissible. Technology and the industry have also changed so that I really can’t rely on cross stitch to make up a full third of my income anymore... I still find a deep sense of enjoyment from creating the designs and a sense of astonishment that so many stitchers have taken pleasure in creating their own versions of one of my designs, but I am also enough of a realist to know when I need to concentrate on other ways to help provide for my family.

If I am truly honest with myself, I must also admit that it is time to stop letting the fear of rejection keep me from doing one of the things I have always wanted to do... illustrate children’s books. Right before I got into cross stitch a dozen years ago, I was short-listed for 2 illustration projects and in both cases, the project went to one of the other 2 illustrators chosen to submit some rough designs. When selling and producing cross stitch designs started to take off and meet with success, it was very easy to put facing such rejection on the back burner and go with what was working. Adding children into the mix only meant more justification not to just work “on spec” but rather spend my “work time” on projects or areas that would bring in income within 30 -60 days.

I have wanted to draw pictures for a living for almost 30 years now and have, for the most part, been able to live that dream. But I have also wanted to know that my pictures brought joy to a child’s world as they discovered reading. I was that little kid who used to curl up in the corner of a library or bring home the pile of books that was almost too heavy to carry... so I think it is time to stop being afraid of failing at the one thing I have always wanted most and just start doing it!!

“The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

2006-02-01T10:53:00.000-08:00

SHATTERED PIECES...

I meant to post about this last week... but somehow in all the confusion, I never got my thoughts together again. A bit like Humpty Dumpty. Everyone wrestles with times when it feels as if all you are doing is running around trying to put pieces back together again or trying not to let things break in the first place. We struggle to keep everything together... to keep those outward appearances as smooth and perfect as an egg. How fragile that facade can be!

Bethany found out how fragile an arm bone can be and ended up in a cast for 3 weeks.

Nick found out how quickly things can change. He has 3 interviews for 3 separate Principalships that would begin for the 2006-2007 school year next fall. He has been picking up pieces of his teaching career and putting them together in a new mosaic of Power Point presentations (each school needs a different presentation) to create something new and wonderful... but he certainly feels like he's walking on eggshells!

Erin has been testing the limit of what her shell can bear with a lot of assignments and projects lately. She was also chosen for an enrichment project for her school to write and illustrate a book. She has it written and half drawn, but the deadline will be the end of this shortest month and she is beginning to feel the pressure, despite my telling her that she doesn't need to "do everything"!

I have had my nose to my stitching or the computer as I got a model finished, charts to the printers and other files ready for my trade show next week in Nashville. I haven't had the time I needed to also add to my portfolio for the DragonCon jury on March 1st, so I am feeling very much like the eggshell in the picture... a bunch of little pieces all scattered about. Life just seems to fly by at an alarming rate!

I'd like to share two of the quotes that finally snapped me out of that feeling and made me realize that perhaps there will always be things that I don't accomplish...

“The ambitious climbs up high and perilous stairs, and never cares how to come down; the desire of rising hath swallowed up his fear of a fall.” -Thomas Adams

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what ‘s a heaven for?”
-Robert Browning

2006-01-16T19:51:00.000-08:00

WEATHERING THE EXTREMES...

Saturday night and Sunday morning it was so warm and rainy that most of the snow disappeared and we actually had to shopvac the window well into my office as preventative medicine. Yesterday afternoon the temperature plummeted and everything changed to freezing rain and then snow.

This morning, everything is dusted with about 3 inches of white powder and we are back to winter. I even managed to strap on my cross country skis once the girls got on the bus for a quick workout... or so I thought until I hit the point where a slushy puddle caused the bottom of my skis to ice up and collect lots of snow. I think I shuffled back more than glided, but it was still fun.

Today’s quote is a reminder that little things really can add up to something powerful or beautiful. Just ask any stitcher, knitter or quilter what happens when you put all those tiny stitches or pieces together!

‘Snowflakes are one of Nature’s most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together!’

-Vesta Kelly

2006-01-12T20:02:00.000-08:00

SEASONS OF CHANGE...

To everything - turn, turn, turn There is a season - turn, turn, turn And a time
for every purpose under heaven.

The Birds sung about this Biblical passage in their song Turn!Turn!Turn! and it seamed the most fitting for this entry.

Sometimes change can be invigorating... such as when you face new challenges, new job opportunities or learn new skills.

Sometimes change can be scary... when things are thrust upon you suddenly and you have no choice but to cope. Bethany is learning that now as she faces the next 3 weeks with her “drawing hand” in a cast.

Sometimes change can be sad yet accepting. After only a month with us, we have discovered that our new dwarf hamster, Jellybean, who is finally taming into a lovely second pet, is diabetic. Like our first hamster Nipper, who passed away a year ago this month, she may not live long. We know for sure now that we will not breed her with our 10 month old male hamster, Wuffles. There is no way of controlling this disease in hamsters except to give them the mix of food we have already been feeding her and cut out the few pellets of commercial food she enjoyed completely. Not knowing how long she will be with us adds that bittersweet element to playing with her.

If there is a season for everything and a time for everything, then there is always time to look for the brightest spots in each time, always time to hope for what may yet be and time to savour the moment that is.

2005-12-31T19:39:00.000-08:00

Windows of Opportunity...

Tonight is New Year’s Eve. There is a lull now between supper and the moment when company arrives here to play games until midnight and ring in 2006.

I thought that this image went well with the idea of a new year holding new possibilities and undreamed of opportunities. What will this next 365 days hold? What unexpected wonders will we discover? What chances will each of us have to be lights in other people’s lives? What stars will we reach for? What bonds of friendship, love or community will we weave with those around us?

I close this year of 2005 with the words I hope will reflect the spirit of what I take with me into 2006... that ability to look beyond the everyday.

‘To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.’

-William Blake

2005-12-24T23:26:00.000-08:00

ADVENT FULFILLED...

The girls and I helped decorate our church for Advent this year while Nick was home with his back injury. Tonight, he and I sat and watched the girls sing with their junior choir at church and the promise of the advent season is fulfilled.

When they read the passages from Luke’s gospel, I found myself getting lost in the litany of the familiar words...

“Rejoice with exceeding great joy...”

“Fear Not! For behold I bring you tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people...”

Word of hope... timeless messages that speak through the centuries, steeped in tradition, wonder and glory. This is not everyone’s faith..there are many celebrating light in the darkness in other ways over the next week...

Tonight, those ancient words were new again and ignited my candle in a way that I shall carry with me all year long.

2005-12-14T21:03:00.000-08:00

FRESH BEGINNINGS...

Today was a Storm Day and we woke up to a world of white. The backyard and deck were a perfect blanket of freshly fallen snow. Of course that didn’t last long when we turned the kids out to play with two friends from across the street. Soon there was a snow fort and tons of “footyprints” all over what had been a perfect, unblemished field of snow.

Sometimes life makes us feel like that slightly trampled backyard. Life had rumpled us and we wish that we could just make everything smooth and white and new again. Sometimes, new beginnings are as easy as the dawn of the next day. Sometimes, they require great effort on our part to make changes and forge new beginnings. Sometimes, life sweeps in like a snowstorm and makes a new beginning for us, just like today’s quote:

‘For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.”

- O’Shaugnessy

2005-12-07T19:10:00.000-08:00

LIVING THE JOURNEY...

I woke up sobbing from a dream just minutes before our alarm went off this morning. Tangled wishes and frustrations working themselves out of my psyche I guess, dreaming of other roads not taken. It reminded me of a quote that I went looking for, oddly enough from the movie “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe”. It is a great reminder that we can only live our lives in one direction and that there is no sense looking over our shoulders instead of marching bravely on.

“Live the Journey... for every destination is but a doorway to another.”

May I always be reminded to look towards the next step, the next dawn when my feet feel frozen in one spot!

2005-12-01T19:04:00.000-08:00

PREPARING FOR THE SEASON...

Last weekend was absolute chaos. I don’t think I was home for much more than sleeping up until Sunday afternoon. Saturday night was our local Santa Claus parade and both of my girls were on their school’s float. The theme this year was Christmas Around The World and Queen Elizabeth School tried to incorporate many of our international families who have just moved to the area. Part of the display included a window painted to look like some of the store windows you see this time of year... and guess who got asked to do it?

Considering this was painted in just over an hour on my knees in a freezing cold garage, it turned out quite nice. I love how they put a light behind the window right where the moon had been painted in the sky. It made me think about the quote for this long-overdue entry.

“There are two ways of spreading light;
to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

- Edith Whorton

2005-11-23T21:20:00.000-08:00

BEING TENACIOUS...

Like the little squirrel in this picture, we sometimes have to stick with something to get results. Imagine how many cheek pouch full of nuts and seeds this furry little whirlwind needs to gather for the winter!

Today’s quote was part of the Weight Watcher meeting I led on Tuesday and I really like it. Sometimes, you just have to eat that elephant one bite at a time!

“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal:
my strength lies solely in my tenacity.”

-Louis Pasteur

2005-11-21T22:36:00.000-08:00

THE EFFORT IT TAKES...

I love this picture. It was taken at King’s Landing last summer when our family escaped to Fredericton for the weekend and visited the historical site there. In the back room of one of the old houses, lay this collection of soaps that had been handmade over an open hearth. What work it took to make the things needed for everyday existence. How easy it is for us to toss a bar of soap into the basket at the store and not even think about how something is made!

Things that matter, take time. It takes 9 months for a child to grow enough to be born. It takes hours and hours, stitches and stitches to make a quilt or complete a cross stitch design. When it becomes all about how fast and how easily, how cheaply and how effortlessly we can obtain something, I think we miss out somehow and cease to really value what we end up with. Fast food is not really satisfying on the same level as a meal that you smell cooking for hours. Cheap clothing often unravels or wears out so easily. It would be a shame if we continue down this road of a “disposable society” too far.

‘All growth depends on activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”
-Calvin Coolidge

We should stop being afraid of the effort it will take to accomplish something. Good parenting is hard work. Keeping a marriage vibrant is work. Building a career or making life transitions are work. I am learning to savour the effort as well as the goal... and that is making all the difference!

2005-11-17T08:25:00.000-08:00

THE REFLECTIONS OF OUR ACTIONS...

I love walking around the ponds near our house. The light on the water is never the same two days in a row. It also makes me think about how our actions, our lives, our words reflect to the outside world. Sometimes it feels as if the world only looks at surfaces instead of what may lie beneath. Sometimes we meet people who seem to be one thing, but their reflection is another. Their actions and the way they respond to the world do not match what we see.

I stumbled across this quote and it seemed perfect for my musings. I hope that my surface and its reflection are always true to who I am. That is probably the best way to tell the difference between character and reputation.

“Reputation is what men & women think of us;
Character is what God and angels know of us.’

-Paine

2005-11-14T22:36:00.000-08:00

ENFORCED REST...

Nick has no choice now but to take this week at a slower pace. With his back still in spasm and his mobility limited, he is having to shuffle around the house or from chair to couch. Sometimes it takes something like a setback to make us look as the pace of life we lead. Is it worth it? Are we happier for all the “stuff” that we fill our houses with that we work so hard to earn?? Would time be worth more to us in the long run and better for our health?

Today was suddenly warm and sunny after a grey start to the day, so I raced about to get a load of laundry to put on the line in the oddly summerish breeze. When Bethany got home from school, she and I spent an hour outside clipping back the elderberry bush that had gone mad this summer and filling a whole lawn and leaf bag with leaves, twigs etc. since tonight is garbage night. I found this quote tonight and it seemed to fit perfectly with my thoughts lately.

‘We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. Se how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.’

-Mother Teresa

As I went out to put the last few bags of garbage at the curb... the triumph of cleaning “stuff” out of the shed, but also the task that “broke” my husband, I looked up at the almost full moon glowing in the sky, one planet dancing beside it and another twinkling on the horizon. It is good to feel small and quiet sometimes.

2005-11-11T22:59:00.000-08:00

REMEMBER...

Today is a time to remember many things; freedom, blessings, peace, places in the world that still face strife, choices and those whom we love.

We had planned the day to just be one to spend together... to Remember that we were a family. Our schedules have been SO hectic lately that we wanted just to take some downtime together.

Yet, Nick and I are so task oriented. We just had to do something productive, so we decided to clean out our shed... but Nick must have twinged something in his back because everything seized when he woke up from a nap mid-afternoon.

I found this quote tonight far more appropriate that the one I intended to use. It certainly applies to our lives!

‘Our family is a circle of love & strength.
With every birth and every union the circle grows.
Every Joy shared adds more love.
Every Crisis faced together makes the circle stronger.’

-Anonymous

2005-11-09T19:01:00.000-08:00

DREAMING OF WARMTH AND LIGHT...

The nights are so much darker now. It is a cold, crisp dark that takes your breath away and the wind rattles the leaves that are still bravely clinging to the branches of the trees. The night are also colder and my youngest skips about wondering how soon the first snowfall will come.

As much as I love each season, I still find the transition to cold and dark hardest of all. Once the snow comes, it will blanket things until spring. For now, the wind seems to scour the dying grasses and withered plants, skittering across nothing but semi-frozen packed earth. It swirls in eddies around the new doors we put in, seeking cracks and openings where it could steal into the warmth and light of our house.

The power of being a visual person is that I can close my eyes, despite the sound of the wind on our shutters, and feel the warmth of the summer sun on my face. I can look at pictures such as this one and know, deep down, that warmth and light will return eventually. This darkness will not last forever. Tonight’s quote reminds me of why taking time to dream is so important...

‘Some men see things as they are and ask “why?”.
I dream of things that never were and ask “why not?”’

- George Bernard Shaw

2005-11-07T22:46:00.000-08:00

FINDING YOUR OWN PATH...

This is partly for Erin, my oldest, who was very much in my thoughts tonight as my other blog will reveal. I found this quote for comfort after she had gone to bed and I was finally able to get back to the computer. I will read it to her in the morning, but it was my candle in the darkness tonight.

May you have the grace never to sell yourself short,
grace to risk something big for something good,
grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth,
too small for anything but love.

-source unknown

2005-11-04T23:23:00.000-08:00

THE POWER OF FIRE...

“It Takes The Hottest Fires
To Forge The Purest Blade”

This was a quote I once stumbled across that I had trouble with. We never want to think that fires are necessary to forge ourselves. Couldn’t a nice lukewarm heat be enough? Why go to all the length that a blistering inferno would demand upon us?

Every time I look at a campfire, I am reminded of that most basic element of our lives. Fire has the power to warm us and cook our food... yet it can also go out of control and threaten our very existence. Anyone who has ever fled their home to escape a forest fire can attest to what happens when a basic element like fire gets out of control.

We need to learn not to fear the times of fire in our lives. A fine weapon is forged in the hottest of flames. We too can be tested without being consumed.

Fire can be a light which helps keep the wild animals at bay,,, which helps us have a warm meal and light until dawn. A new fire can be started from the smallest of embers....

May the fires of hope be rekindled in our lives!

2005-11-02T21:25:00.000-08:00

HOPE IS A STAR...

Looking at the calendar, I suddenly realized how close the beginning of Advent is. One of my favourite new hymns, thanks to my sister Laurie introducing me to it, has the following verse:

HOPE IS A STAR
THAT SHINES IN THE NIGHT
LEADING US ON
‘TIL THE MORNING IS BRIGHT.

Stars that guide us come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they are physical beacons of light to follow, sometimes they are help or kind words just when we need them the most. Sometimes, they are tiny wonders like this starfish in my daughter’s hand. Was it aware of being saved as she slipped it back into a tidal pool after finding it washed up on a rocky shore?

When we hit those dark times, we need to hang on and follow our stars and cling to our hope until the dawn comes again and the world breaks forth into the light of a new day.

2005-11-01T22:30:00.000-08:00

THE WEAVER...

When we visited the Historic settlement of Kings Landing this summer, I was captivated by the colours of the hand-dyed wool that the women had recreated using dying techniques from centuries ago. This evening, while tackling the mess that my office has become after 2 weekends of shows, I found this bookmark that I bought while I was a teenager. How well the two go together!

The Weaver

My life is but a weaving
Between my Lord and me
I cannot choose the colours
He worketh steadily.

Ofttimes he weaveth sorrow
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
and I, the underside.

Not until the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Shall God unroll the canvas
And explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful
In the Weaver's skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned.

-Author Unknown

I will think about that with every piece I design. It would look awful if all the colours were bright and sunny with no contrast.... but those silver and gold days/threads are sure to be treasured!!

2005-10-31T11:20:00.000-08:00

A NEED FOR HOPE...

In the chaos of this few months, from the high of being She-Hulk at DragonCon to the sudden shifts in the cross stitch industry and feeling like I had nothing positive to say, I did enough soul-searching to understand that hope is really all about finding candles in the darkness rather than sunbeams on a brilliant day. It is very easy to be filled with hope and wonder when everything is going right. When times are difficult or shadowed, we huddle around any source of light to keep the monsters under our beds at bay.

This blog is going to be all about quotes, thoughts, images and other things that create candles for me in the darkness. My favourite author, Madeleine L'Engle, referred to the Earth as a shadowed planet in her book A Wrinkle In Time. She also pointed out, however, that there were places where points of light had been able to pierce the darkness wherever people had done great things to help better humanity.

We need more candles in our darkness... every time we watch or listen to the news, it seems as if the world is falling to pieces all around us. I blame part of this on Media, who has learned all to well that tragedies keep us riveted and thankful that it happened to someone else, but I also blame ourselves as a society. Why don’t we demand more stories about everyday heroes? Why do we let ourselves become numb to the horrors of the world as long as they don’t affect us directly instead of crying out at injustice with a loud voice?

We need to listen to more words of hope. We need to go on despite terrible odds. We need to keep reaching for the stars, dreaming huge dreams and examining every blade of grass in wonder.

It is fitting to open this blog with a quote from Madeleine L’Engle’s book Walking on Water which also appears on my website biography.

'The artist, if he is not to forget how to listen, must retain the vision which includes angels and dragons and unicorns, and all the lovely creatures which our world would put in a box marked Children Only.'