Last week during  a gentle night-time rain, I laid awake for the longest time just listening to it softly giving my plants a drink of water, and washing away the grime from everyday life. Rain is very soothing, I love to hear it, smell it, and stand in it. It’s even better if we are blessed with thunder and lightning! Go figure…all my kids feel the same way, and now my grand-kids are learning to love it also. Even our animals don’t mind it! The minute we start getting thunder and lightning, my phone starts vibrating with incoming text messages from one of my kids, letting me know how excited they are. My son’s wife tells me, his tail wags when he hears thunder, he loves it so much! We are all such nature buffs!

On this morning as Daisy and I stepped outside for our walk, we both paused for a moment to take in the clean, crisp smell of the air. The sky was fabulous, clear, a few clouds scattered around, and  a rainbow to the west!  Is this Utopia or what? We couldn’t be more lucky than to be living in Southern California on the coast! Daisy was so invigorated by the new smells, this being our first walk together after a rain since she adopted us!!

As we were walking along, I became aware of the seemingly dozens of crows , one might say a murder of crows all around me. It almost felt like we were being stalked!  Maybe we were, because in the past they have gathered in murders outside my studio window encouraging me to paint. As soon as I started working in my studio,  all the crows seemed to be satisfied and flew away, only to return the next morning encouraging me once  again to get to work. I have always felt they were bringing me magic, and creativity just like mythology says!  In my collection of books I have a wonderful and interesting book titled, Animal Speak written by Ted Andrews,  my son Chris, and I have read, and referred to it many times.  This book is so interesting, and tells about the meaning of animals in nature.

As we stopped at a corner, I spotted a large flat thing, and several smaller shaped things on the ground, drenched from the rain, the shapes triggered my interest. As we got closer, I realized the shapes were actually bark from a Mela Luca tree that had probably been drenched with rain, and fallen off the tree. The bark seemed to have the consistency of leather, and once again, “I couldn’t resist!”  The larger piece had to come home and take residence in my studio!  The crows and Mixed Media strike again!  I even thought I heard Daisy say under her breath, “Really Mom, Really! You’re going to bring that thing home with us?”   Thinking she didn’t understand about the whole Mixed Media thing, I decided to let it slide for now!

Before I even finished my art piece, the sky started to darken, and off in the distance I could hear it!  The low rumbling of thunder.   Now this is getting really exciting, and before too long the thunder started to get louder, and closer, and the rain started to really come down. This was my lucky day!  For sure, my phone started vibrating, the texts started  coming in, we were  having  a thunder-storm, and we all had the best day ever!