This has been a very challenging day.

First, my Healing Circle actually got me a bit angry rather than taking a step towards healing. She spoke of a way of seeing the World in a way I find very difficult to embrace. And it just doesn’t resonate with me at all. So I won’t be listening to that replay the next two weeks. It may have stirred me up enough to write her about it.

It is hard for me to accept that all the people who have done untruthful and hurtful things to me in very large ways are actually a reflection of myself. Do I really want to beat someone up? Do I really want to steal someone’s retirement funds? Do I really want to botch a surgery to cause a patient more pain than they came with? Do I really want to run into someone’s car and injure them? I can’t see any of those things as a truthful part of me and those and more challenges have all happened to me in this lifetime.

Then as I was getting ready to leave, I read an email that riled me up even more. I have constantly strived at Commonwheel to help the jewelers get back some space that had been taken over by another artist. This would free up the top of their cases so it would look less cluttered and give them space to display more items that people could easily try on, especially earrings. So one of the jewelers wrote an email about how to in my opinion “trash” my display. It was not said in kind words how much she dislikes the display I have had for years and works very well for me. People interact with it, try on masks, go around all sides of it. It shows off each mask as a separate piece of art. She thinks it is cumbersome and out of the 60’s! She thinks having a screen for a background that people could look through would look better. Right! The FantaFaces masks without a solid background would be lost in the viewing of something behind them and not look very individualized, but mixed in with whatever was behind them. And then people lift the on and off hooks. They have trouble enough getting them back on the pins properly. How many masks would get destroyed by being hung by the elastic rather than through both eyes laying flat on a mesh backdrop? Plus it would be very difficult to display my hair pieces, pins and necklaces on a mesh.

I used to have a wall space years ago. And I never rotated my space, as having the pin boards to save nailing into the crumbling walls made it difficult to move those to most of the varying sizes of walls. At one time the wall artists decided they wanted more wall space, so this display that looks like walls was created by the same woodworker who made the jewelry cases, with pin boards behind a very neutral material. They have worked very well for me and no customer has said anything negative about them. Instead, the walk around it and pick up masks to try on and call their friends and family to it to share in the fun. I think that is a winner of a display, not one that needs changing.

Later in the day at another artist’s studio, she was showing me around we passed a mesh mannequin. I loved the mannequin as a piece of art. And she said yes, it is fun, but the jewelry gets lost in the mesh. She said that people don’t see the jewelry. She had some very large beaded necklaces on it and I had to agree what I saw was the mesh mannequin, not the jewelry. Perfect words to explain why a mesh background for masks would not work either.

Getting ready to leave, I thought I had everything I needed. First I went to the Post Office and picked up more Art Festival applications. Then went to make a deposit at my bank, but discovered the check was not in my possession. I will be going somewhere tomorrow, so can deposit it then.

I had to take a coffee pot I had discovered I had from my parents visits years ago to the person who would be hosting the jury for the Art Festival. It happened to be the same person who wrote the negative comments about my display in the jury/display email. I had it all packed to go the night before and really wanted to get that task done. I stopped in a parking lot near her home and called on my cell phone to see if anyone was home. Lucky for me, and probably for her, her husband answered and was at home. So I was able to hand it over to him and not have a confrontation with the jeweler.

Next, I stopped to get $1.00 raspberries at King Soopers and some paper towels at the Dollar Store. I did get the perfect midway parking space for both stores. As I was walking towards the Dollar Store, I realized someone was trying to get my attention. It was a very dear friend. I was so distracted with the display email I realized I wasn’t really in touch with where I was. And I sort of exploded on her with what was going on that morning in explanation of why I hadn’t seen her in front of me. Her husband came walking up, another dear friend and I tried to just turn it around to get some hugs, but kept talking a bit more, unloading about the Spiritual unrest from this morning. I really was not handling my day well for being with friends. But luckily they are really good friends and accepted that I needed to rant a bit. Then we changed the subject to the “Old Spokes” Gallery Show he had participated in and that he needed to pick up his art later that day. And what a fun time the opening had been. So parted company on a better note.

As I was approaching a major intersection, I noticed that there was construction notices and traffic backed up. So I quickly turned onto a road that goes past a pond behind the Fine Arts Center. I noticed a girl with a camera pointing at the pond. Then I saw a majestic Blue Heron standing on something in the pond.

Even though I was going to arrive at my next stop later than I had told her I would be, I immediately pulled over and quietly walked down to the pond, camera in hand.

When I left my house, I was a bit flustered. I felt it was imperative that I take my good camera, but didn’t take an extra battery, since I wasn’t thinking it had been used much recently. When I started taking photos, I saw that there was very little battery power left. Just like yesterday with my secondary camera. I just kept taking pictures as he poised so very beautifully for me.

He turned a few times and stretched his neck out as if about to dive into the water, then retracted it and turned around to a new pose many times over. When the camera finally told me to switch batteries I headed back to the car, but turned back for one more look, but he was gone. I felt very grateful for the time he allowed me to watch and take his picture. This was certainly a special time for me to have made a right turn and was present enough to see him from the road and aware enough to stop and enjoy this bird that is rarely seen in our area.

There was one other bird that made this stop even more special and helped me get back into a better mind set. Two geese came out of the water where I was standing. Not so unusual, as people feed the geese at this park often. What was so heart-wrenching was one of these geese only had one leg and some of his feathers looked a big rough.

He struggled a bit getting out of the water on the rocks. Then took a moment to find his balance and hopped up on to the path where he found his balance and stood very tall.

If he can face the world with this type of challenge, I realized I could face the artist that was a thorn in my side this day and win my argument about not changing my display and remind her that there are more challenges to be resolved at the Gallery that were bigger issues if the Commonwheel was going to survive into its 41st year.

And as I was about to start my car, my phone rang with an artist with a special request relating to the Art Festival applications. It was an issue easily resolved and perfect timing to catch me when I wasn’t driving.

When I walked in my door at home with my first load of groceries the phone rang and it was a member potter with question about the Festival applications for members. Again, an easy thing to resolve. Then she started talking about the Jury/Display email and was rather upset by another part in it and the way it ended. She is a relatively new member and on my Festival committee, so it was hard to hear her disappointment in how people are acting right now. Her, and my wish, is that we could get through this next summer working together, leaving the gallery pretty much how it has always looked, some sprucing up, but nothing too major or expensive and without another Natural Disaster. Amen, to that! She agreed that my display did not need changing, and there were much bigger issues, like how members working in the gallery should treat and greet potential customers when the walk in the door.

We are both very positive people and all this negative energy focused at members who have made the Commonwheel successful for 40 years is a bit wearing. But neither of us are ready to quit. She did mention she wondered sometimes how I had survived this long if times like this had happened before.

My Tony Laidig webinar was interesting, but nothing really new. But he had a message back to me that he might be traveling to this area in the near future. That would be really fun to actually meet him in person. And I still have 4 coaching calls that got detoured when the flooding happened in 2014 and all my web sites were hacked, distracting me from all my internet marketing and books.

After that I called my cottage tenant who wanted to share the cottage with an unrelated girl. First he told me that that was not going to happen. Then he told me he might have a better job opportunity up North and would it be OK for his sister to take over the lease. She has a month to month lease on Cañon Ave. that is directly in the flood zone. So we arranged for her to meet me or me to meet her tomorrow evening. That would certainly be an easier solution for a new tenant than him breaking the lease and my needing to find someone to move into the cottage at this unexpected time.

And my hiking partner called to see what adventure we wanted to take in Nature tomorrow. I really wasn’t up for a long drive to the Hot Springs, so we settled upon hiking an easy trail in the Garden of the Gods.

My knee is feeling much better. The magnets and hot and cold therapy seem to be working. Still need to get more stretching done. There just isn’t enough hours in the day for all I need to do to take proper care of myself.

Then finally the person who coordinates the entertainment called. She hasn’t done anything for talking to KRCC as being a sponsor again this year and wasn’t going to do that until after June 6th. Too late for some of my ad deadlines. So she will try to meet him next week or set it up for me to meet with him.

She did have a line on a new person to do the sound at the Art Festival since the person who has done it for years retired. That was good news.

And once again, I have journaled way into to the night . . .