Comfort and Solace

Posted on February 20, 2023 by Dana Burrell

Since I’ve been ignoring this blog for too long I’ve started clearing out a bunch of half-done and currently irrelevant blog posts. This one was saved because it shows how I work out the stressful times like I had late last summer.

I go basic. Pen and ink and my journal.

I had to refresh my memory by revisiting that journal but it’s clear now. I drew this at the end of a long day in the midst of a long month of long days.

Fortunately, things have gotten better or maybe it’s just that I’ve gotten better at handling the stressful times but I’m going to continue to carve out time for pen and ink drawings. They are my comfort and solace.

Portrait of Megan Semple from Museum by Sktchy…De Atramentis Document Black ink on Strathmore 500 Mixed Media paper.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

— George Bernard Shaw

Courage

Posted on August 10, 2022 by Dana Burrell

Sometimes when you’re looking through a previous sketchbook or journal, a page you had worked on months ago will resonate with you.

And that’s the case here, because some days are tougher than others.

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.”
— Mary Anne Radmacher

To try to be brave is to be brave.
— George MacDonald

Feed Your Soul

Posted on July 30, 2022 by Dana Burrell

The problem is not entirely how to find a room of one’s own, the time alone, difficult and necessary as that is. The problem is more how to still the soul in the. midst of its activities. In fact, the problem is how to feed the soul.

— Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Meditation – 27 September 2021

Posted on September 27, 2021 by Dana Burrell

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues,
but the parent of all the others.

— Cicero

Meditation – 31 August 2021

Posted on August 31, 2021 by Dana Burrell

Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
— James Baldwin

Meditation – 23 July 2021 – I Worried

Posted on July 23, 2021 by Dana Burrell

I Worried
by Mary Oliver

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

Meditation – 21 June 2021

Posted on June 21, 2021 by Dana Burrell

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
wich is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

– e. e. cummings