An Evening in Los Angeles

Song - Hallelujah by K.D. Lang

I have so much to share with you.....

Over the weekend, I flew (all my myself) to Los Angeles!  Now for those of you who know me, I am not a confident flyer.  I have to sit myself down and give myself a good talking to, in order to be able to step on a plane. 

So this weekend, I was visiting a good friend and going with her to an evening event at UCLA.

Gwen and myself at Royce Hall

But before we get to that, we had some time to play so we went to the Getty Museum and gardens. It was amazing.  I never even knew that they had a garden!

You walk down a wooden & stone walkway that zig-zags you over a stream and waterfalls. But because of the drought, it wasn't at its full roar!  The stream ends up pouring into this floating azalea maze.

They had metal trees with Bougainvillea growing inside in a variety of colors.

There were a lot of semi-tropical plants which I didn't know the names of because we can't grow them in Northern California. I especially liked this one below.

It was quite warm and the kids were playing in the stone studded stream.

Then we only had a wee bit of time to go inside........but just look what we found!

Van Gogh

Monet

Khnopff

Godward

By the time we got back to Gwen's car, it was just a few blocks to get to our event.

I have never been on the UCLA campus before. 

The event consisted of a Spiritual discussion with Pema Chodron and K.D. Lang.  Leading the discussion was the founder & CEO of Sounds True, Tami Simon.  You can read more about the evening here. 

Tami & Pema

K.D. Lang helping Pema off stage

After a brief intermission, K.D. held a concert.  Her voice is as smooth and lovely as ever.  In fact, one of the songs she sang was the one I included at the top of this post - Hallelujah.  

Spectacular evening!

This quote was displayed in one of the greeting rooms at Royce Hall. 

Hooray for flying and good friends!!!!

Cultivating Courage

Song - Save Me by K.D. Lang
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1jm3tTDrfM&sns=tw via @youtube

Actually I am no longer in Santa Fe but I am many miles up in the air heading home!!! Yipes!

For me, just getting onto an airplane is "cultivating courage"! We just crossed over the Grand Canyon but of course all of the people on the right side of the plane got to see it....guess which side I'm on?

Not the right!





After an incredible week of painting in Santa Fe, I still had not spent much time in the little town. So this morning after packing my car and trying to balance the weight between my two suitcases, I took a drive into the town plaza. I parked next to the mission which is the oldest church structure in the US (1600's) and I walked by the oldest house in the West....below..




.....then onto the Loretto church, which was very impressive. Especially because the bells were going off at a nearby church and it was so exciting.





The staircase there is considered to be a miracle and if you look up the story, a carpenter arrived after hearing the nuns prayers.

http://www.lorettochapel.com/history.html









He arrived with only a saw & his donkey. After 6 months he disappeared without being paid and he left behind a beautiful spiral staircase without any support that carpenters today do not totally understand how he did it.....some believe it was Joseph.







I however happened to feel a pull to Mary, I lit a candle, said a heartfelt prayer and sat in wonderful spiritual silence...at least until the bus tour showed up!





Then I headed to the plaza and the galleries.




It was the balloon festival week beginning today in Albuquerque so I was advised to leave for the airport very early as cars tend to park on the freeways to watch thousands of hot air balloons ascend.

But...


It didn't happen because the winds were too high.

So I had a few hours at The Petroglyphs Park before returning my rental car.











"Santa Fe is the artiest, sculpturest, weaviest and potteryest town on earth?"
-- Journeys
Jan Morris

Location:Santa Fe, New Mexico