Fernando Botero

At the end of September, my Rare One and I went on a little weekend road trip with friends. Destination: Calgary. We were keen to take in the Glenbow Museum's major exhibit of the works of Colombian artist Fernando Botero. We were not disappointed -- the exhibit was fabulous and it was a much larger retrospective than we expected.

Botero's style is pretty unique -- all his creations are large, rotund and fleshy. Men, women, children, animals -- in his art, not a single one is skinny, angular or sharp-edged. In a culture that worships thinness (especially in women), his work is very subversive.

Botero is essentially a modern Rubens. And I luuuuvs me a beautiful Rubenesque female form!

Botero's work encompasses both paintings and sculptures. The three paintings in this post are among his most famous. But I love his sculptures even more, because the voluptuous female form is portrayed in gorgeous three dimensional bronze.

Tomorrow's post: my favourite Botero sculpture!

The Parachute Labyrinth

There's another unique labyrinth in Edmonton that's fun to walk. It is a Chartres labyrinth painted in lovely lavender on a parachute, which is of course naturally round, nylon and portable. The parachute is held in place by large plastic milk jugs full of lavender sand (I love colour coordination!) It is the creation of members of Edmonton's Southminster-Steinhauer United Church, a very progressive and lesbigay friendly Christian congregation.

When I first came to the city, I used to go to the parachute labyrinth walks held in the church's sanctuary. As we walked the labyrinth in silence, a recording played of traditional Christian chants by the women's a cappella group Anonymous 4. It was a beautiful and peaceful experience!

Since then, Southminster-Steinhauer has built a permanent outdoor Chartres labyrinth on land adjacent to the church. They did a great job, as shown in this photo taken during the construction process.

I believe that the parachute labyrinth is still being used for indoor walking during the winter months when it's too cold and snowy to walk the outdoor labyrinth.

Happy 101 Award!

Recently, Faerwillow at ~serendipity~ gave me this wonderful Happy 101 Award! Thank you so much, Faerwillow -- I'm very honoured that you thought of me for this! To receive the award, I'm supposed to list 10 things that make me happy -- good thing that's easy to do!

1. My partner, My Rare One

2. My cat, Her Royal Highness

3. Autumn leaves

4. Labyrinths

5. Nutella

6. Baroque music

7. Drumming and singing with my circle

8. Traveling to new and interesting places

9. Collecting Goddess statues

10. Last but not least, blogging

And now I get to pass this award on to 10 other bloggers -- like all such awards, it comes without any obligation to participate but if you choose to do so, I look forward to reading what makes YOU happy!

1. Knitwit at 2 Kids, 2 Dogs, 2 Cars, 2 Tired . . .

2. Mistress Maddie at A Day with The Mistress Borghese

3. Sandy AKA Doris the Great at Aging Disgracefully

4. Suzie8-Track at I Got Stuff on My Mind

5. Little Messy Missy at Little Messy Missy

6. Jo at My Grama's Soul

7. Lyn at Witch Blog

8. RA at Sagittiferously Yours

9. Diandra at That witch is true

10. Dana at The Stone Rabbit

Sunshine Award!

Last month, Edain from English, Pagan and In Canada! blessed me with a Sunshine Award! Edain and her blog are always bright, sunny and entertaining so it's a real honour to receive it from her.

I'm a big believer in the power of positive thinking, optimism and looking on the bright side of things. Of course there's a lot of crap in life -- I know that perfectly well. Sooner or later we all have to walk a dark path into the forbidding abyss. But then, like Persephone returning from the underworld with Spring in tow, we will rise and walk in the sunshine once more.

And walking in the sunshine is what this award celebrates! So now I'm passing this award on to 10 bloggers whose positivity and creativity are inspiring! Some of these bloggers seem to be naturally chock full of sunshine while others work darn hard at it -- but they all make the blogosphere a sunnier, happier place!

(And as always, blogger buddies, don't feel obligated to accept or pass this award on unless you want to!)

1. Shelagh at Alice in Paris Loves Art and Tea

2. Sophie at from sophie's view

3. Judy at JudysPhotos

4. Lynette at Imagination Lane

5. The cats at Pişi & Squeak

6. Laura at Shine the Divine: Creativity as a Spiritual Practice

7. Suzie at Suzie Ridler

8. Snap at Tales from Twisty Lane

9. Heidi at twelve18

10. Johnina at young-eclectic-encounters

Unicursal

Someone

is shedding

STARS

in the labyrinth!

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Which one?

Which one of these women,

silently walking?

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Which one?

© Debra She Who Seeks 2006

Riverdale Labyrinth

trickling fountain

loud in the silent air --

labyrinth room

with moontime flow

I enter the labyrinth

the ancient seven circuits

honouring the Divine Feminine

I round the turns called

the breasts of the Goddess

spiraling

I go to the centre

and back again

I am a 21st century woman

yet this labyrinth stirs

an ancient response

many before me have walked this path

footsteps

theirs and mine

too soon

the labyrinth ends

the world beyond

awaits

© Debra She Who Seeks 2006

[Photos © Sheryl Ackerman. Used by permission. Thanks, Sheryl!]

My Favourite Labyrinth

For ten years, I have been walking a beautiful labyrinth handcrafted by two Edmonton women, Sheryl Ackerman and Jean Ure. On a large broadcloth base of blues and violets, they stitched down long strands of golden beads to form the classic Cretan labyrinth design. This portable labyrinth is set up four times every year in a local Edmonton community centre, Riverdale Hall.

Each quarterly walk occurs during one of the four seasons -- winter, spring, summer and autumn. Riverdale Hall has gloriously large windows through which the seasonal outdoors can be viewed as you walk. And a seasonally appropriate centerpiece is always placed at the labyrinth's centre, usually involving a candle, small altar cloth and flowers. The labyrinth room is silent except for a trickling fountain in the corner. Men, women and children of all ages come to walk on the appointed Saturday morning.

I fell in love with the Riverdale Labyrinth as soon as I first walked it in 2000. I have never seen such a creative or beautiful labyrinth anywhere else. (And coincidentally, Sheryl was one of the women who designed and created the hayfield labyrinth in Manitoba where I had my first labyrinth experience -- small world, isn't it?)

My next two posts will be poems I wrote which were inspired by the Riverdale Labyrinth.

[Photos © Sheryl Ackerman. Used by permission. Thanks, Sheryl!]