Nourish

When you're Jewish, the holiday season begins in September. Oh yah - we have craziness for four months straight. It all starts with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and doesn't end until the secular New Year.

In between all that, I managed to attend a fun art party at my good friend Julie Molina's house. She has great photos on her flicker page - so go check them out! There are some really goofy pics of me. You can also see some early parts of my latest work - painting the plaster form that was made of my pregnant bust and belly the same week I gave birth. Boy, was I BIG!

This weekend, I am looking forward to teaching my two most popular classes - Visual Journaling and Image Transfers - at Artful Living in Ojai. They have no website for me to link you to, but if you'd like to sign up, please give them a call at 805-640-0800.

Lately, I've been thinking about all this teaching I'm doing, blogging, my card business, other large art projects I have recently taken on, and what it all means to me. Why am I doing all this? Has my life become too busy? Why do I put myself out there so much?

Well, the answer came to me on Yom Kippur last week.

Yom Kippur is a day of repentance. A day of forgiveness. It is a day where I, and most Jews around the world, fast - that means no food, no water, not even brushing your teeth - for 24 hours. (ok, ok, I do brush my teeth) Let me tell yah, by 3:00 in the afternoon, you need God more than ever.

That's when I came out of my stupor to hear the rabbi say: "Don't think about what you will eat tonight when the fast is over, think about who you will nourish tomorrow."

Whoa.

That's exactly what I needed to hear. I am here, because I can only hope that my words, my feelings, my experiences will help nourish you. Others can learn from my experiences - my successes and my failures. Others can benefit from what I'm doing. It makes their life better in some way, even if it's really small.

In return, I get nourishment from all of you. Your comments let me know you're out there. Your blogs let me know what you're doing, what you're learning, and I learn too.

So, I begin this year, seeking to nourish others and myself. I look forward to meeting new friends this weekend in Ojai and putting myself out there a little more.