Remember Who You Are

The fall semester was over yet the meetings continued. Tasks were to be completed, both large and small. Folders had to be filed, desk tops needed to be cleared, classrooms were to be put in order and doors locked for the time being.

Christmas! It felt as if I no longer had enough time to get ready. Maybe by following my new rule to simplify, the process would unfold to a satisfactory end. Taking time to share with those I love is supreme. Taking time for me should be equally important.

Where to begin? 

My gift from my husband Gene, of newly raked pine straw for our beds around the house, answered my question. Over the next few days I carried and spread the golden brown straw to create a comforting blanket of natural warmth and fragrance. Comfort and peace came to me through the healing task. 

Then what I call a “holy moment” came to me. A stubborn sprout of wild garlic would not be tamed by the hovering pine straw. I knelt down to push back the straw and to dig around the garlic plant with my bare hands. I dug and gently pulled. The fragrance of sap, soil and green filled my soul. Then I heard a voice.

“Remember who you are.”

No explanation was needed. No turning to question or ponder. I knew. I knew that this soil, this plant, the ground, the earth, nature have all been waiting for me to return and to remember what God has created me to be and to do. The whisper was a gentle reminder. Not a plea, for my soul is ready. Not a reprimand, because it was spoken in love.

“Remember who you are.”

Return to the soil, to creating, to giving myself to my gardens and to my art. Yes, it is time. Maybe some doors should remain locked. 

I stood and looked across the vast bed of straw. My son was arranging a border with old bricks to help me with my new bed design. My husband was gathering and delivering more pine straw.  I was blessed. 

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My understanding of this message has broadened since this experience. “Remember who you are.”

Remember who I am. 

In this remembering, there are times of letting go. It seems to me that we are called to let go of what is false, what limits our lives, what binds us, and what keeps us from remembering what we knew when we were born. We were created by God. We were created by Love.

In the image entitled The Rising – Untangling the Red Or, I have chosen to show a woman fully present with God. She has nothing to hide. There is no shame or guilt before the Love of God. She is offering to God all the false things that have bound her. She is blessed!

Remember who you are! You are blessed!

The Rising – Untangling the Red Orb, Oil on Canvas

As I practice the gift of remembering, I find myself intrigued with discovering my own stories. In so doing, I am discovering the stories of my family. Two years ago I completed what is to be the first book of an extensive series of books entitled The Hinton Family Chronicles. Book One – Humble Beginnings, opens in the late 1700s with the life of Johannah Johnson Lee from Lewis, New York and ends as my father arrives in St. Louis, is sworn into the Navy and boards a train to San Diego.

As this point, I am working on my mother’s story and the strong female figures in both of our stories, as the second book of The Hinton Family Chronicles. My mother, Mary Imogene Lambert, was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1937. In the next two images, you will see my grandmothers in one image and my mother in a cotton field in the other. My mother tells stories of working in these fields and of roaming plowed ground looking for shards of dishes. She valued the beauty of the simple shards.

Hinton Family Chronicles, My Mother’s Story #1, Mixed Media on Watercolor Paper

Hinton Family Chronicles, My Mother’s Story #2, Mixed Media on Watercolor Paper

Having just learned this, I am delighted to see how my story and her story are connected through this simple relationship with shards. While I was in graduate school, I struggled initially with the content of my paintings and drawings. I began to create images using a tea set given to me by my mother. This tea set became symbolic of my life as a woman and the connection I had with my mother. One quiet Saturday afternoon in my studio, as I painted a still life of a piece of the tea set on a shelf, a heart-breaking event happened. Without warning, the shelf fell off the wall and the pieces fell to the counter below. Broken. Fragmented. Shards of what was dear to me. For one brief moment I wanted to cry out in sorrow . . . but only for one moment . . . for I had been in the silence for hours and now in the silence I heard God speak to me. “Out of the broken, fragmented, shards of your life, I will make something beautiful. Paint! Paint these shards and know. Know that I am God.” My heart began to beat rapidly for I was given a clear direction. In the silence, in the stillness, I understood the meaning of the shards of my life.

I am finding that the process of remembering and discovering my stories helps me better serve God. As I understand myself, I am more able to love. It is in this loving that I can be a part of the healing needed, both for myself and for the wounded of the world. And in turn, I am better equipped to see and embrace the glimpses of sacredness that surround me every day. What an amazing journey.

In the next section, Seeking the Sacred on Earth, you will find a nest symbolic of my journey of discovery. The nest was created out of strips of paper. Some strips had notes on them, documenting thoughts or actions wherein I acted out of my ego rather than love. Other strips document moments of love. Included are miscellaneous strips reminiscence of moments and events that have shaped my life this past year. All the notes are now hidden under a layer of paint, paper beads, shells, sea urchin quills, matches, wax and fragments from a chestnut tree. These items represent very personal moments wherein I saw my decision to love or to be unloving. The interior of the nest is filled with my hair on which have been laid two types of eggs. One type of egg has ruptured and is decaying. The other type of egg is beautiful and carries an engraved spiral, my personal symbol for God’s presence. The decaying eggs represent the unloving choices while the blue, spiral engraved eggs represent God’s presence, God’s love, in my life. The nest is held between sticks as an offering to God, similar to the gesture in The Rising. The base is loosely held in place by twine, reminiscent of the threads I am pulling from my face and eyes, the threads that wounded the innocent and the red yarn of The Rising. The meaning is complex.