Putting a bird on it

February 6, 2026

Putting a bird on it! 🐦🌱

These little birb-a-doodles are painted with homemade inks made from plants, including invasive species like buckthorn. They’re early experiments in painting on invasives too, thanks to the DSV-wrangling papermaking wizardry of Joanne Rich of Sculpted Light. Always interesting to play at this alchemy – the transmutation of troubles.

Problems keep coming, as they always have and always will. And we keep meeting them – with wisdom, creativity, and collaboration – as we always have and always will.

“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. … There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.”

~Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, excerpted from “Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times”

Have a great weekend folks 💚 ✨