+ Her Barefoot Heart
Jeanne’s personal creative pursuits of stories stitched, written, and spoken
my head is in the clouds today.
this is no metaphor.
but it is
an altar
to
moving more slowly
than usual.
of connecting with
like-minded
women
in the ethers,
hatching
big things
and small,
dreaming
with magic wands
not letting
our brains
get in our way
as we
unapologetically
and
notoriously
step
into our
Knowing.
it may be a ceramic skillet
she keeps out
because she loves cooking
and she loves the way
food tastes when
cooked in this skillet.
it may be flowers she
picks from her yard
and arranges in a container
using the glass frog
she’s had all my life,
setting them on a tablecloth
she embroidered
as a young woman.
it may be four small, colorful glass ducks,
lined up on her desk,
replicas of the ducks at
the peabody in memphis, tennessee.
it may be a poem i wrote her
so many years ago
to dress up some
crazy, inexpensive gift
i bought her,
and a postcard i sent her
from a trip we were on,
written, stamped, and mailed while she was
standing right beside me.
it may be a piece of granite
she decorated
at the quarry in
barre, vermont,
an impromptu side trip
on one of the best
trips we ever took
together,
and it may be
the inexpensive plaque
about family
i gave her
when we moved away
last march.
she calls them
“centerpieces”
or
“arrangements,”
my mother.
i call them
altars.
~~ :: ~~
today i stitched my way
through a block
on a piece i started
a while ago.
it was going well,
at first,
then i didn’t know
where to go next
so i laid it down.
but my hands
are so smart.
they pick up the cloth
and before you can say “thread,”
it is singing to me softly,
telling me
stories
of all it
represents.
stitching
slows me down,
gives me space.
it amazes
and amuses me.
even at the ripe old age of . .
ahem.
even now
i fall prey to
over thinking
every idea
that tickles
my heart.
over analyzing it.
“will they like it?”
i ask,
not even know who
“they” is.
(or is it “are?”)
(and does that
question mark go
inside the ” “
or out?)
i begin to
craft a paper
filled with
my ideas,
shared in words
that show my
intelligence,
with
well-thought-out
defenses
of every
criticism
sure to confront me.
and first thing you know,
i’m paralyzed,
my enthusiasm
grown cold,
if i can even
remember
what i was
so excited about
in the first place.
what i want
more than anything
is to pounce.
pounce,
i tell you
onto something
just because
it turned
the head of
my heart.
i want to
ride that interest
until
another one
comes along
and turns
my heart
in another direction.
i want to pounce
and follow
without
explanation,
without apology,
without defense.
so why don’t i
do this
simple thing?
“would people
pay for this?”
never fails to
knock my
legs out from
under me,
sending me back
to the want ads
where everything is
in black and white.
literally.
and then
before you know it,
another idea
appears
capturing my
attention,
curling its
finger at me
with undeniable
sexiness.
beckoning,
and it
starts all
over again.
it takes
a blog post from a
loving, wise friend,
supportive, understanding,
loving
text message exchanges
from another
trusted friend,
and
a phone call from a good,
patient,
wise
and loving friend
to toss me a
rope,
to pull me back
to solid ground,
hose me off,
and whisper
“pounce.”
“pounce.”
(because saying it once isn’t
nearly enough when i get like this.)
tonight
instead of
putting the lid
back on this box
of old, old junk
and shoving it
to the back of
the closet
again,
i invite it out,
invite it to take a
nice, comfy
spot on my altar
and
i listen.
with openness,
with love.
p.s.
don’t even
get me started
on my response
to the word
“leader.”
spent the day stitching and searching for something to bar the cats’ access to the downstairs guest quarters. something that doesn’t make me angry every time i see it, but makes me smile instead. something that doesn’t block the light, making a dark house darker (and consequently harder on my emotions and attitude). something that looks creative, not contrived.
as we poked around my favorite shop in asheville in search of Just The Right Thing, i felt perched on the verge. felt like if i could get rid of all these dreaded paperwork projects, reports, tax forms, printouts, filing, scanning – that kind of thing – i’d burst through and tickle myself with the fresh perspective and rollicking ideas creativity brings. but rightly or wrongly, all this paperwork feels like an anchor, and it doesn’t dampen my creativity, it drowns it.
so i’m honoring my self by hanging the Be Back Soon sign on my altar, taking a few days off to wrap things up. if all goes according to plan, i’ll be back thursday, 1/19, and when i get back, i’ll have a few new threads to weave into the fabric we call #365 Altars. in the meantime, maybe you want to go visit other folks who are participating in #365 Altars, make some new friends, see the amazing ways women are honoring their deepest sumptuous selves. roam a bit, drop some comments, send out some tweets and notes on facebook. and be sure to add your blog to the list and use the hashtag #365Altars on twitter and tag 365 Altars in your entries so they’ll appear on the 365 Altars facebook page.
i’ll see you thursday.
if not before.
at first glance,
this rock that sits perched
is small,
colorful,
pretty,
of a non-descript shape.
but
upon closer inspection,
well,
just look:
when we take the time
to get close,
when we slow down
and take a good look,
this stone
is more colorful
than we imagined.
its surface
is filled with
bumps
and crevices.
outer crusts
are breaking,
falling away
to reveal
even more
color
and complexity
and beauty
and
there’s even
a bit of sparkle
to boot.
this one-of-a-kind stone sits perched
behind my kitchen sink
where i see it several
times every day.
and each time i gaze upon it,
i think of you,
my beautiful friends,
my brave friends,
my creative friends
i think of you,
my friends
who are strong
enough to be vulnerable,
willing
to reveal
more and more
of your
deepest
sumptuous
selves
every day,
bridging
the chasm
between
your inner self
and
your outer self.
i see all of you,
who are
learning to
speak up
and dig in,
to soar
and rest,
to trust yourself,
and, most important of all,
to cherish yourself,
and i sing.
loudly.
and with gusto.
and hey, lest you
take offense
to being
represented
by a rock,
one word:
bedrock.
tonight i am angry.
deeply
fiercely
hugely
angry.
as close as i’ve ever come
to being
consumed
by anger.
and you know,
it feels
pretty damn
good.
so
i’m laying
it
on my altar
tonight
without avoidance
or
apology.
without giving
a rat’s ass
if it’s
ladylike
or not
to be
angry.
without
wasting one
nanosecond
wondering
if i’ll still
love myself
in the morning.
i assumed the role of family historian at an early age, carting around an old camera with a flip top that I held down around my belly button so i could look, focus, and snap. then came the adorable little brownie camera with the big silver flash compartment, followed by the instamatic with the flash cubes. eventually came the nikon compact digital camera (which by today’s terms, wasn’t actually all that compact), and so on through the ages till i arrived at the iphone 4 and the fabled photography community called instagram where i travel around the world several times a day.
as a young girl, i photographed friends, family, and pets – the black and white photos now curled around the edges and fading into lighter shades of gray. when i became a mother, i snapped photos and videos of the children – enough to keep us in laughter and tears for decades to come.
now i find that i’m more interested in snapping my surroundings, clicking on the run and over my shoulder and on the spot because clouds and trees and water and such don’t wait for me to frame, focus, and shoot. i can’t line them up and stage the shot. i am seeing my world differently, slowing down to appreciate – deeply appreciate, i’m talking about down to the cellular level – the beauty that wraps itself around me constantly.
sometimes i peep through the lens and am surprised by what i see . . .
of late, i am smitten with the macro lens, finding that just like people, so many things are beautiful to look at, but spend a little time and get close enough to see them as individuals, and their uniqueness, their specialness will take your breath away . . .
photography opens doors for me . . .
gives me time and space to reflect, sometimes allowing me to see above and below at the same time . . .
sometimes the reflection bounces off of something else, like – oh – say a windshield . . .
my grandcats are even cuter . . .
and while grocery store roses may not smell, they delight just the same . . .
sometimes i see things differently when they are in relation to something out of the ordinary . . .
the most banal things make me smile . . .
the most familiar things that i see every day become new and unexpectedly delightful . . .
and sometimes nature just takes my words away, leaving me with nothing to do but stop and applaud . . .
How we feel about events, respond to them, transform them and judge them, is a matter of the shape of our spirit, the corrugation of the feathers in our wings. And this, the shape of our spirit, our way of reflecting the world, is something we must work to create and tend, day after day after day.
~~ Kathleen Dean Moore ~~
How did you shape your spirit today?
Reflect the world?
Create and tend?
Regale me.
Right here
right now,
regale me.
“We all have within ourselves a chispa or ember, a spark of divine creativity. and because of this spark, whether we have never even produced a work, we are still in our essence artists. Clarissa Pinkola Estes suggests that even when that ember is not actively tended, it still remains glowing within us, just waiting for the breath to ignite it and bring it to a leaping, dancing blaze.”
~Christine Valters Paintner~
::~::
POP QUIZ:
Did you breathe your spark into a flame today?
Did you treat the world to the warmth from your spark?
What did you create?
What did you want to create but didn’t?
Why didn’t you?
How did it feel to create . . . or not to create?
Tell me about it.
Tell me everything.
This work by Jeanne Hewell-Chambers is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.TheBarefootHeart.com.
© 2026 Jeanne Hewell-Chambers
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