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My music keeps finding its way forward!

I’m proud to have my song “Go in Peace” included on the latest album from Abbey of the Arts, The Love of Thousands: Singing with Angels, Saints & Ancestors. It’s humbling to have my music placed among songs from beautiful artists whose music I cherish, including MaMuse, Melanie DeMore, and Karen Drucker. The album accompanies the Christine Valters Paintner’s latest book. I’ve read and loved three of Christine’s books so far, and The Love of Thousands will be the next one I dive into. The book’s message is timely, because so many people I’ve connected with lately are in “all hands on deck” kinds of situations, where the love of angels, saints, and ancestors—those “sacred beings who dwell in spiritual form across the veil,” as Christine puts it—is deeply needed. A YouTube playlist of the album is here.

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Art, spirit, and the old-lady icon

Oak tree in Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve, Oakland, CA

The image on the cover of Shirley du Boulay’s An Extraordinary Life is from an 18th c. painting, and as in all famous images of Teresa of Avila, Teresa is lovely, and maybe 17. So when I read what she looked like when she got to the point in her life where she had real authority, it made me wish there were icons of her looking like this:

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Boot of +10 Depression

Painting of yellow boot, © Katarina Stenstedt

Early this year I had a short episode of almost-but-not-quite depression, and it arrived along with an image of what happens for me during the worst of those times, which hasn’t happened for almost 20 years: A giant boot descends and plants itself on my chest, and I’m unable to move or negotiate. It’s enormous, it’s simply there, and it’s heavy enough to crush even the cheeriest and most optimistic of mortals. For me depression isn’t really about sadness. If sadness is warranted, I can sit with the sadness and even welcome it, but the boot is different. The boot can’t be sat with, snapped out of, or “moved through.” The boot stops life from being lived. In May I painted the boot, and it turned out to be an image of my own ongoing change, learning, and redemption. I’m warding off the boot, and its color is way more […]

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2013 CD release concert

My CD release concert on May 18th was wonderful—it was a rich experience for me on many levels, and I hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did. I performed the ten songs from Go in Peace with Bobby Medcalf on drums and Tess Evans Clark on guitar and vocals. My niece Kristina Dunworth made a special appearance on “Kristina’s Song,” the song I wrote for her a few days before she was born in 1995. (Hey, she’s taller than I am!) College Avenue Presbyterian Church hosted us, and about 50 people were there…15 of them my family members, to be sure. 🙂 I’m so grateful to my husband Gene Anderson for all the work he did making the sound system work absolutely perfectly, carrying equipment hither and thither, and doing countless other needed tasks, and to everyone else who helped and supported me and us in this […]

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Noveliferous

A long story came into my head, and for a year I wrote it down. And then I stopped. My perfectionism had tied me on a short leash, and I finally went around the pole enough times that the slack was gone. What unwound me was a writing instructor whose message is “just keep writing.” You don’t have to write the story in order—just write the quilt square that comes to you today, and assemble the pieces of the quilt later. Write. Write! In other words, to actually complete a first draft of my novel, I will have to…write. I went for a walk to think about one of my storylines, and I found a place away from people so I could dictate a scene into my voicemail. Transcribing it later, I heard birds chirping and wind whooshing past the phone. I also used my phone to take a few photos. What I like […]

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Memory

This hippocampus lives inside building 46 at Google in Mountain View. I walk past her* often, and I always stop. She is a dream trapped in a latex room. Most of the time she has nothing but electrical gadgets, event notices, and a couple of office plants to gaze at. Surprised (every time!) to see her, I stand by her head and let her gaze at me … and I’m reminded that I have forgotten something important, but what? What is it? Has even she forgotten, dry-docked as she is? For photos that do justice to the hippocampus, please visit the artist’s website (http://www.mardistorm.com/). * Is she a her? I don’t know. To me she is.

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She saw in the dark

John 20:1 On Sunday morning while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. 11–12 Mary Magdalene stood crying outside the tomb. She was still weeping when she stooped down and saw two angels inside. 14–15 [Mary] turned around and saw Jesus standing there. But she did not know who he was. Jesus asked her, “Why are you crying? Who are you looking for?” 18 Mary Magdalene then went and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord. She saw. In the darkness of night, in the darkness of a tomb, and in the darkness of confusion and grief, she saw. How does that work? —> I’m beckoned into the darkness —> I’m awakened to a sight —> perhaps, with grace, I’m led to a dim recognition of what it is I’m seeing (epiphany!) —> […]

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The last thing anyone saw

John 20:17 Jesus said, “Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.’” Acts 1:9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. In York Minster, I remember seeing the soles of Jesus’ feet depicted on the ceiling, surrounded by a cloud. The last thing anyone saw of his physical body as he ascended! I can’t find any sign of such a thing on the Internet, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Here’s my version.

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What can come out of the dark?

John 20:11–14 The disciples then went back homebut Mary stood outside the tomb weeping.As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomband saw two angels sitting there…. They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?” “They took my Master,” she said,“and I don’t know where they put him.” After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing therebut she didn’t recognize him. I did a little bit of artwork related to this passage, which you can see by clicking here. A warm thanks to Designs in Light for the photography.

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