Fear in its Many Faces

Fear – Image courtesy of Pexels

In my younger years, it seemed the 1950’s when people began to build atomic bomb fallout shelters in their backyards, but apparently it was in the early 60’s and Kennedy was one of the people advising people in the U.S. to take precautions against an atomic bomb or equally devastating event. It quickly spread into other countries, and even Switzerland, known to be primarily neutral through everything, began to tell their people to build.

I so remember how people were so paranoid about their own neighbors and the possibility that if THEY did not have a bomb shelter, the neighbors might want to take refuge with their families in any existing ones. About the same time (and again, this is likely my poor memory thru 78 years of living), suddenly there was paranoia about people in the U.S. being Communists. The entertainment industry was under great suspicion, and many famous entertainers were suffering “under the gun.” I don’t believe anything came from any of it except to further harass and control human beings because of total paranoia about a potential belief that there was an existing threat.

I saw a little column today listing everything that has caused massive fear/paranoia over the entire globe each and every year. Isn’t it incredible that so many people live their lives in such fear? Is it our nature as human beings, or have we all been brainwashed over the centuries? Remember the Y2K scare that all the computers were going to fail? Many churches were preparing to take in hundreds, perhaps thousands of new members as the year approached. Some were giving all their money to churches in hopes of perhaps staving off the horrors.

The same thing is happening once again as people are rushing to the stores in utter panic over the so-called Corona Virus to buy supplies like bottled water and toilet paper to the point where they have depleted some stores’ supplies. Have people died? Certainly. People die every year even from common viruses. They die because their health is not great to begin with, or they are particularly susceptible in some other way, and this is true of every single virus (and there has been one almost every single year) that comes along.

As Churchill once said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Who are the true beneficiaries each year from these fear seasons? I venture to say that next year this fear of Corona Virus will be a fear of something else.

As for me, I have lived through every single horror a person can live through, and here I am still standing at 78. Thank you one and all. Make your days and years count. Don’t live in fear. When it is your time to leave this plane, you will, regardless of your age, gender, overall health, etc. Live life productively as we are meant to do. Study, learn, create, serve others. You will see how good life really is and what magnificent creatures we are.

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My Shoe’s Got Soul . . .

By Yours Truly

This is who I am. I love to recycle things that have meant something to me. I found these shoes in a thrift store years ago. I fell in love with them because the shoe brand was something like Sam and Jane and they were about the most comfortable shoes I ever had with a soft sole and leather that seemed to breathe. The original shoes were brown, not gold. But one day as I went to get my shoes to go someplace, the sole of one was literally falling off of it. Of course I was heartbroken, but then I had this idea to make a play on words and to give one of the shoes a whole new life, so I came up with this idea.

The “wings” are on a base which is made from the sole of one shoe, and I found the most wonderful colored organiza with a nice stiffness to it that allowed me to cut out the little leaves. The leaves seemed appropriate to me because shoes wouldn’t tend to go up in the air (except for the kids who throw them over the telephone lines). And I remembered in the compass of my soul how much fun it was as a kid (and ok, I confess, as a grownup too) to jump in a pile of leaves). And I had to make her a happy and bright color full of life, for that is how I remembered those old comfy shoes.

It’s so many years later since I made her, “My Shoe’s Got Soul.” She’s still with me, and I imagine that she will still be when I take my last jump into those leaves. And it’s funny because she led me to write a story called “Tenshoes and the Skittyfoot” about ten orphan shoes who live in a trash dump, and every Saturday, the animals up in the meadow above hear “sootspeak” because the dump is putting out ugly smoke and it is mixed with the angry and sad words from the ten orphans arguing because they were just thrown away like they never mattered after living lives with adventure. They were never appreciated for who and what they were, and the dump is a horrible place to live.

The Skittyfoot is a little boy with red (really red) hair who comes to visit the creatures in the meadow every day, and the little boy can talk to them and they to him. They tell him about the Tenshoes, and that they want him to go and rescue the Tenshoes from the ugly dump and bring them up to the meadow where they can live safely. But before they can come up to the meadow, they have to find things and fix themselves up as best as they can. Just because they are orphans doesn’t mean they cannot have pride in themselves.

So the Skittyfoot goes down to the dump, and ultimately gets the tenshoes to clean and fix themselves up, and help each other, which they do. Ultimately they go to the meadow with the Skittyfoot, and the little creatures in the meadow all make them welcome and they will have a forever home where they are loved and treasured.

No, I never published Tenshoes and the Skittyfoot though I guess I could have. Some things just live on in our hearts and in the compass of our souls. I’ve been a sort of orphan too, and it took me awhile, for I didn’t have a Skittyfoot or other orphans like me to help, but I fixed myself up nice and clean (there is not and never has been anything related to drugs or other similar things but a transformation from being a childhood orphan), and now I can make things like “My Shoe’s Got Soul” to help others to feel good about themselves too.

Isn’t it strange how life brings little things into our consciousness to help us learn to grow and to care for ourselves, even if we were a kind of orphan in our younger lives? And using art to fix up an old shoe that brought happiness to a life can be a symbol of that. We don’t have to find fancy things or to do anything special to make it up to the meadow from the dump. The recognition of value in little things is what brings a true transformation to us in our lives. Your life, no matter how small you may think it is, is a miracle. Live it like the true gift it is.

Spirit Calling Me

Collaged quilt by Anne

All of my quilts come from a spiritual place or from something that tickles my funny bone. They come from things I think about and work out in a symbolic way for my own self.

I was thinking about trees in a spiritual way, and I suddenly experienced an epiphany. I realized that not everything needs to be seen to be understood, or to have faith that it exists somewhere. I cannot see any of the great Gods of the world, except as man himself has presented them, and I have no way in reality if any of those things are actually those Gods or not. I guess that would be a belief that Gods are those representations of Gods that existed in their times and places in the universe. But the reality is that if I am accepting any of them appearing as man presents them, then I am believing and trusting man and not the Gods themselves. But if I feel in my heart and soul that there are Gods, have always been Gods, and that I, and everything that exists in this world is sacred, and that we too are aspects of God, then that is faith.

And so this tree in the piece has places where you cannot see the branches, but it has places where you can see the branches. Is this tree then a belief, or is it perhaps faith?

Art Exhibit – Part I

I would love it if each of you who follows this blog posts something about something you absolutely LOVE to do, be it making a good pot of spaghetti, painting something that means something to you, or whatever brings Edison in all his brightness he created for us into your heart.  I am going to share some of mine here.  I am NOT a professional artist in the sense of having a degree of art, and have had very little professional training of any kind.  But what I DO know is what I like, and what speaks to my heart.  I love fiber art, or art quilts and others too, but I do the art quilts.  I love anything unique, and I love things made from nature or from recycled things.  And I love urban art and also what I call interactive art.  This is art that causes the viewer to need to interact with the art in some manner to perhaps try to figure it out or its message to viewers.  And I love to put it everywhere – not just in the house or an exhibit or publication, but anywhere my mind decides would be fun to have some art.  So if you are expecting some really polished stuff, you probably should go to a different place.  This is stuff that comes from the center of who I am.

Celebrating a Great Teacher

The Learning Tree Classroom Door Decoration by Anne Copeland

In my lifetime, I have come across two teachers who have been the best teachers I have ever known.  The first one I knew as a young teenager, struggling through being a shy person, and one with very little to inspire me at school.

She was a young teacher, very pretty and she drove a red convertible Corvette.  We all loved her.  She would bring photos and newspaper clippings and jazz music to the classroom, and we would all write about it.  She taught us so many things just by all the things she was introducing to us.

After one of our writing assignments was being handed back to us with our grades, when she got to me, she whispered in my ear, “You are going to be a great writer.”  My heart soared and my paper had an A on it.  I went home smiling in my heart, and the first chance I got to have money to pay for it, I got some business cards that said my name and address with “Writer” on it.  How clearly and easily I had made that decision.

Years later, I ran into an old classmate from that class and I told her about how great that teacher was.  And then she told me that the teacher had told all of the young people in the class including my friend the same thing.  What a lasting legacy she left with all of us.  I wish I could ever find her again to thank her.

I have another more recent friend I met in an online correspondence course, The Silent Eye Mystery School, a fantastic class that involves Archaeology (one of my degrees), History, Philosophy, Psychology, Science and Spirituality.  Three wonderful people founded and run the course:  Steve Tanham, Sue Vincent, and Stuart France.  We have been traveling via posts all over England studying all the great ruins, the churches, the castles and the amazing forts.  All three of them have written lots of fantastic books.

In one of the posts online, I met a lovely lady named Jennie, and she is one of the most dedicated preschool teachers I have ever known. https://jenniefitzkee.com/author/jlfatgcs/ is her writing, and her blog is called “A Teacher’s Reflections.”

Jennie writes: “I have been teaching preschool for over thirty years. This is my passion. I believe that children have a voice, and that is the catalyst to enhance or even change the learning experience. Emergent curriculum opens young minds. It’s the little things that happen in the classroom that are most important and exciting. That’s what I write about. I am highlighted in the the new edition of Jim Trelease’s bestselling book, The Read-Aloud Handbook because of my reading to children. My class has designed quilts that hang as permanent displays at both the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia, and the Fisher House at the Boston VA Hospital.”

I would like to give each of these women some sort of certificate of honor if I could.  I have worked in the school districts myself, and I appreciate a truly incredible teacher as these two women have been.  Thank you both for helping to make a positive difference in young lives.