I was thinking about Heaven and Hell today. This lemon plant wove in with my thoughts about Heaven and Hell. Here's what dreamed up. Perhaps we can learn about the Spiritual world by imposing Jesus's words onto what we see in this physical world.

I love this Lemon Plant. I had bought it as an 8" cutting many years ago. At a gas station as we drove from FLorida to NewYork.

I hesitate to share my human thoughts ~ Why read what Alison thinks, when you could be reading what Jesus thinks. So before I continue, I will share with you whatever are the first words of Jesus that I read today. I'm up to Mark Chapter 7. Jesus speaks at verse 6: Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit, in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups, and many other such like things ye do.

This year, my plant has more flowers than ever. It is so beautifully fragrant. Maybe because of it's age? The amount of flowers has grown exponentially every year. Or maybe because I left it ouside in the cold just a little too long? So it responded vigorously to the warmth inside the house?

The flowers smell so sweet. You can smell them throughout the little room. They look so fine, lovely, happy, perfect. I try to sweep away the ones that turn brown and drop to the floor.

Sometimes, there's one that died and is still on the plant. 'Maybe I should clear that away before I take the photo', I thought.

These beautiful flowers. So beautiful, and then dying. While the big plant keeps living. I thought about how excited I'll be when I start to see the lemons growing. I remembered the few that grew last year. The best lemons ever. They had started as little green bumps where the beautiful white flowers had dried out and turned brown and dropped off. Real lemons like I buy in the store. Along with all the other food that I think I need every day.

If the flowers had to live, no matter what, if I found some sort of 'antioxidant' to keep them from aging, I would never get any lemons. And then seeds. And then more plants. A universe full of plants.

We try so hard to hang on to our bodies. What if the flower hung on to being a flower? Then no food would develop.

I'm always concerned that I should recognize Jesus and follow him to Heaven when I leave this body. Perhaps it's time to relax. To trust that Jesus has a plan for us all. That if we leave our bodies, we become something else that's wonderful. If we just go with the flow, we will then see and understand. Going with the flow of our lives every day. And trusting God's plan. I remembered Matthew16:25 For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.

With this in mind, how can we not believe in Resurrection. How can we not believe in Jesus's Rebirth.

A plant can start to wilt and die. It's happened to me before with my houseplants. That a plant would look all dried up and dead. But I would put it in the sunlight, water it regularly, and.....

Voila! The plant is back! In like ways, God could put life into anything. He's put the miracle of life into people, plants, and animals. Need it only be into the baby? Into the new seedling? God can en-Liven whenever He wants. I believe Jesus's story. Of course it all happened. I can believe that his plan leads me to Heaven.

So I have nothing to fear. Jesus was born among us to show me that this life of the flesh is not all there is. That I needn't cling to only my current flowering as though that's all that could make me happy.

We're constantly shocked out of lala land. Did we forget the fear of 9-11? Or being brought down by Hurricane Sandy already?

Last night, I drew at a swanky party on Lexington Avenue. My wild pictures. A hard-working sweating belly-dancer. And then.

Almost all packed up to leave. A man comes up to me, aw gee, he just arrived too late to get a Caricature. And he tells me that he came down from CT. Newtown, CT to be precise. He said that he's in shock because his little 5-year-old neighbor was just buried. She had been in that terrible school incident. He showed me a photo on his phone. Of her with a few of her friends.

We can remember the people who died in this week's terrible incident. And now we can even remember the man who lived nearby. Need we only remember those who die? I like to remember all the people who show up on my path.

Need we save every scrap of paper?

Everything feels too heavy when I carry it for a long time. So I thought I'd take the unimportant stuff out of my pocketbook ~ Why carry it all around?

And typical of me, I find lots of notes, lots of quick sketches. But where to put them all? Where will I look at them again? They were in my pocketbook because they felt inspiring. Good stuff.

How can I throw that out? It reminds me to exaggerate. It reminds me to make real Caricatures.

I even remember the day that I drew those pictures. Each one less than 2" tall. On a scrap of paper. I was in Church. I even remember the lovely girl with the big glasses and the noticeable lips.

I do not choose to throw out this excellent Artwork. Even though I've been fine ever since I threw out a roomful of fantastic Giant Oil Paintings.

It's an Artist's Life. We can't help but have the real stuff around. Because that's what we do. It's a good chance that our scraps are not garbage.

Did you ever wonder about what you look like from behind? This might be just a passing wind, but im now offering Butticatures. They're actually kind of cute.

This is what happened. I went to a Clown Alley meeting last night. We were supposed to have a Special Guest Face-Painter. Butt she didn't show up ~ So there we were ~ a bunch of Entertainers out to entertain ourselves. Those of us who were Face-Painters had some Face-Painting supplies because we also planned on jamming.

I set a chair onto the stage, figuring that the person who was running the meeting would organize us into a show. The show happened, but the organization did not. Instead of sitting in our seats to watch the show, everyone gathered around the stage. It was simple stuff to me, so I gave up on jockeying for position to seeeee. And I sat myself back into the audience (where several other people also sat, unable to see the show).

The audience full of Entertainers started entertaining themselves. There was the Face-Painting on the Stage, some Balloon twisting next to that. A man balancing chairs on his nose. One walking around joking with us....

But I see that all week long. That's what I do at work. So I just sat there watching the Face-Painting show. Well, what I could see of it from my seat.

With some old markers. The backs of some used papers.

After a few drawings, I spoke up. "If anybody wants to see what I've been drawing...."

Whoa. Something New. Something that even these professional Entertainers had never seen. They were attracted to my activity like flies to a camp-porch-light. "Draw me." "Will you draw mine?" I drew a few more. With my old markers ~ they're drying up. But it was getting to be more Fun. It's more fun for the Artist to draw when the models stand still for the drawing. And it was much fun for the people I drew to be standing there keenly aware of their rear-ends.

Seeing how the people responded to modeling for this, I realized that it would be much fun for Parties. I didn't have a camera with me, so I asked some of my models to email me the pictures that I gave them.

Oh ~ Look at how lucky I was. I just checked my email, and I found these there already. Two of the Butticatures that I drew at the meeting last night: