Last April, a long time friend and former colleague reached out to discuss the possibility of commissioning me to do a piece related to a powerful ongoing connection she has to the CORE Kidney Group at UCLA. Of course, I said YES, and this blog entry is an effort to describe the suite deluxe of sweet magic that has enfolded me ever since. Read on to step into the process and preview the behind-the-scenes that is actually the center stage.

As I'm working on this CORE Kidney Commission, I notice that it requires me to stay longer in the liminal stages between digital planning and implementing the hand-painted stages In fact, I linger for longer than usual, and it has led to some really great developments. Crucial!

For example, I have not begun inscribing the ribbon scroll yet, even though my productive, on-time, diligent, striving, artist self told me to last weekend. But, I'm not listening to her right now. She doesn't allow the magic to happen. The Edy who is in cahoots with Edymade allows the magic. And if I had listened to the person who takes the reins and sticks to deadlines, I would have inscribed a less relevant, even non-sensical Latin on the ribbon!

Digital Rendering from late July with inaccurate ribbon scroll inscription!

Instead, I've been showing up to slow down in this process. And that allowed for me to be paired with a Latin teacher during a work meeting. She gave me many options for expressing the sentiments of this piece, which is "I Believe in Miracles." Siri had told me initially that the words were, "Credo Miraculous." Well, Siri missed the mark.

My very astute Latin teacher friend from Brentwood School said, "So I thought about it, and as I warned, there are usually options when it comes to translation. So all of these essentially mean the same thing, with just small dialect differences. You can pay attention to the small differences, or you can choose whichever you think sounds or looks the best. They'd all work! This is also standard word order, but the meaning is unchanged no matter how you change their order, so feel free to adjust for what looks or sounds good.

1. Miracula Credo - this one can also kind of mean like, "I trust miracles."

2. Miracula Esse Credo - this one means more clearly "I believe that miracles exist" or "I believe that there are miracles"

3. Credo in Miracula - this one is probably more typical for Church Latin, and is very literally "I believe in miracles" in the sense that we use it today."

I'm going with option 3. I believe in slowing down, taking baby steps, allowing magic, and then sitting back to let it all sink in (as the miracle that this life truly is!) I think it's miraculous the way I get to paint this and it unveils itself to me in the most perfect way possible. I have no idea whether the ribbon is going to be green or gold. The painting will tell me when it's ready to be painted. For now, I just get to have fun seeing the possibilities.