My Mentor 31 Years Strong, Blockchain Memory Project
I just returned from 3 days in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico visiting my mentor who is also one of the best friends I’ve ever had. From the moment I arrived to the moment I left I just felt so happy to be there and be with her, and the afterglow is still strong. The intense dry 90 degree heat felt so great, the friendly people cheered my spirits and time with my mentor nourished my whole being.
A few weeks back I wrote Meeting My Mentor, the Early Years as a part of @ericvancewalton’s Blockchain Memory Project. This post was about meeting in 1988 and the work we did, if you would like to reference some backstory.
Bev and me now
Beverley Magennis has had a prolific and successful career as a mosaic and ceramic artist and more recently as a fiction author (The Alibi, and Desplazado). She’s always been such an important figure my life throughout the 30 years we’ve known each other from my early years in college to the present day. She is my parent’s age and h er example of walking in this world as a creative human has always spoken directly to my core personally and professionally. Each time I spend time with her I remember myself more fully and it’s incredibly life-giving.
Her most famous project is “the Tile House” in Albuquerque where her daughter Erin Magennis and husband Kyle now live and run their tile mosaic and stained glass studio ABQ Glass.
Erin and I in front of Bev's Tile House
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New Mexico is such a mix of cultures and landscapes that it almost feels like another country. I just love how there’s raw exposed earth everywhere, and the sky wows me all day long with clouds piled high within an expanse of blue. The people are noticeably happy and friendly and I love all of the adobe buildings.
We went for walks, went to museums in Santa Fe, ate delicious food, looked at artworks from some of the plentiful local talent but mostly what we did was to chat and talk and laugh and chat some more.
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It’s been 6 years since I’ve seen her and I am struck at how she is still blazing the trail in a way that speaks so personally to me. I’ve always marveled at her resilience and capacity to embrace life in all its forms as best she could. Pleasing others hasn’t been a priority although caring about them has!
Of course she welcomes all of the “goods” in life as we all do but when suffering comes around she doesn’t avoid it or see it as a problem but rather as something else to experience. Somehow she has embraced all that her life has to offer without entitlement and without being beaten down by it including recovering from 2 cancers - one was stage 3C ovarian cancer - 3 marriages, raised a daughter as an artist and single mother while teaching full-time, making art and working as a cocktail waitress. And each experience has refined her sensitivity and opened her heart more and more rather than making her tough, cynical or flippant.
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During this visit we were remembering that summer when I made mosaics with her and a counseling group that she had joined at the time. It used precepts called “Attitudinal Healing” that had a lot of impact in her life and wound up affecting me at the time as well. Those precepts inspired a continuous thread of conversation between us about what they really meant and what each looked like in the nitty gritty moments of life.
On this trip we were able to remember a few of these precepts, the ones that were the most powerful for us over the years:
- We are all students and teachers to each other
- The essence of our being is love
- Health is inner peace, healing is letting go of fear
- Giving and receiving are the same
- Now is the only time there is and each instant is for giving
- We can become love finders rather than fault-finders
- We can always perceive others as either loving or fearful which is giving a call out for love
These may seem commonplace now in 2018 - which is a positive indicator for our contemporary times - but back in 1988 each one was revolutionary and gave us permission to open our hearts in a way that contradicted the existing pinched and limited norms of the time. I know for me, these ideas really shifted my view of human beings and enabled me to walk through life with fewer walls between myself and other people.
Although I’m busier than any human should be right now, I’m so glad I took the time to take this trip. New Mexico is such an amazing place and immediately and effectively transported me out of the whirring details of my life. I didn’t realize how much I needed this and will try to make it back each year if I can, both to see my friend and to experience this extraordinary place.
Thank you for supporting my blog which is an integral component of my creative life! Now that I'm back to my studio, I'll post in the next few days with an update to the endless Pool House Mosaic project.*
It is impressive how your friendship still remained so intense, when you talk about your mentor it sounds that she is a relative, very close and dear person. It is easy to see this respect and I would even say Love on your photograph. You are lucky you have had such a mentor who guided you and I like the idea "We are all students and teachers to each other" that can come only from open heart person, who is still keen to learn.
The mosaic wall of the house and the ground are amazing, it must be really hard job to plan the pattern and time consuming to recreate it on wall.
Just the moment when I was looking at it, I recalled impressive place in Vienna with the place that was created by Artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, but I assume you must have heard about him.
I bet your mentor is really proud of you and was glad to see. Thank you for sharing such wonderful moment.
Wish you a nice weekend, cheers, @Stef1
what a really great comment @stef1, thank you!
Bev really is family to me, something like an older sister or best friend for sure. And you are SO right that "we are all teachers and students" was an important one and really does take an open person to live by it. I think of back in 1988 when I was 20 and she was 46 and how boring she must have found most of my words/ideas, but she never treated me as if I knew less or was too young, only with respect. This really made all the difference for me as a young woman! Still today this is the case, she is 76 and I am 50 and again she is so wise but I feel completely valued and respected.
Thanks for your insight and I thought I'd share her response to this post, she just wrote me an email 10 minutes ago. She's not on steemit but reads my blog sometimes.
Thank you for sharing such wonderful message from Bev, I can imagine how happy and proud she felt reading your post and the comments of other people. Who have thought few years back that this would be possible to share thoughts, photographs and even express emotions that brought up while creating something that you love, your art, hobby and even the sweet memories.
What I also wanted to mention I think when Bev was your mentor back in your study years, it was not boring but I would have thought it opened a window to another world that been see by a new creative personality and this feeling of discovery of new artist, who have so many ideas that sometimes realistic but sometimes not nevertheless it is enjoyable to imagine how it would be.
Thank you for sharing this moment of your friendship dear @natureofbeing and my warm regards to Bev too.
Cheers, @Stef1
:-) very sweet of you, I appreciate hearing your perspective and you're probably right.
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I was thinking about you @natureofbeing as I logged into Steemit. I was thinking I hadn’t seen one of your posts lately and there you were at the top of my feed. Thank you for the lovely memories, art, friendship, and being a wonderful girl-friend❤️ and student.
:-) thanks so much @reddust, so great to read your note here, thank you for being such a wonderful friend!
Amazing, strong woman! I admire your story about this lady. Women always amaze me how strong they are, how much they have character, perseverance and at the same time kindness and tenderness, optimism and love.
Yes I agree @anna-mi, I too am so moved by women such as Bev who are so strong yet so tender too. Thanks for your support!
She sounds like quite an amazing woman, thank you for introducing her to us, what a warrior. Really glad you have had some time out and also to reconnect. New Mexico does indeed soundly great.
thanks @trucklife-family, it was such a great time and yes Bev is a woman warrior isn't she?!
She is indeed, I love to read about strong women, we need to hear more about the incredible women out there.
I completely agree, and even better to know them :-)
Good to meet your mentor - an inspiring figure- and view Sante Fe, New Mexico through your eyes:
The precepts you share are generous and wise. I hope to meditate on these. Bless you both and may you give/receive much more love & Light. ✨🙏🏼💫
thank you @yahialababidi!
Fantastic photos and journey! Thanks for bringing others along. Though many more hold to the precepts you list here, I think there is still much work to be done (at least for me), so I thank you for the reminder.
I agree @kimberlylane - yes many hold to these precepts but so many don't and I too have much work to do on these still too ;-))
Thanks!
I love seeing how you captured your trip. I especially love the precepts and am in total agreement !
Hello @tracytalley and thanks sweetie!
may ur mentor lives 3100 years more... so that u cud see her more n more:)
amen to that ;-)
Hey, @natureofbeing this post is wonderful.you writing is good.i like you this post.your photo shot is simply amazing.I appreciate your this post.this is so interesting.thanks for share.
thank you @alizafatima!