Contentment

"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks."  J.R.R. Tolkien 

This quote, and the Diva's Monday challenge, inspired this design, which uses crescent moons and auras, to portray a sun spreading its wings.  

Tonight, I had dinner with friends from a camp I attended in the early 1970s.  One of the people who I hadn't seen since 1973 asked me to tell him about my life.  When I told him about my different jobs, kids, husband, etc., he asked me if I'm happy.  Happy is a funny word -- to me it implies a giddiness and euphoria that I don't walk around feeling most of the time.  Sometimes I feel especially happy -- like when we bought ice cream for all the children in the village of Santa Maria de Jesus after finishing our last day of house building, or while I'm doing something special with my daughters or Freddie, or during meditation.  But most of the time, what I feel is deeply content.  

I struggled in the past with unhappiness and discontent.  I have seen unhappiness and grief in others, and strife, struggle, and suffering.   I am grateful to be in a place where I don't wish for anything for myself.  I wish for things for others, and for the world, but I am content.  Not complacent, but content.

Life is like a rainbow.  You need both the sun and the rain to reveal its beauty.  

Here's a video about contentment.  Thanks for visiting! 

UPDATE - because it's hard to resist putting words on my designs, I added these in photoshop:  

 
Also, I practiced pea-nuckle with help from this video from TangledUpinArt and now feel a little better about it! Thanks for the help!!  I look forward to adding color to this soon.



ANOTHER UPDATE:  Here is the tree with color.  I think it makes a nice design for Rosh Hashanah.