When to stop? At the end of a piece, this is always the question. Recently, I've tended to overthink and go too far. So, the past few nights I've forced myself to stop before I think I'm done. The next day I will go back and see if I really needed that last later. Usually I don't. The end of a piece has to be felt, not thought. It's harder to feel when you are tired and this discovery may actually get me to start working earlier in the day. That would be miraculous! Tomorrow I will revisit this print and see if I made the right choice.
Tonight's poem is a new discovery for me. After I made this print, I was flipping through a book of women's sacred poetry. The last 2 lines fit so perfectly, I couldn't pass up posting it. The garden imagery also touches me.
We were enclosed- from Prayer 20
by Catherine of Siena, trans. Suzanne Noffke, O.P.
We were enclosed,
O eternal Father,
within the garden of your breast.
You drew us out of your holy mind
like a flower
petaled with our soul's three powers,
and into each power
you put the whole plant,
so that they might bear fruit in your garden,
might come back to you
with the fruit you gave them.
And you would come back to the soul,
to fill her with your blessedness.
There the soul dwells --
like the fish in the sea
and the sea in the fish.
xoxo