The fog is pink this morning, pink and glowing and sitting on the ridge of the hill. I imagine the hill feels taken for a ride, lifted up. It is like a halo. Ah, now I am reminded of something from Breakfast with Buddha.
The man is speaking about a feeling of peace he had, and the Rinpoche reminds him of an 800 year old painting they viewed together and says, "Remember around the heads of the goddess and the gods was a circle, and in that circle a blue space with nothing inside?"
"That is the blue space, what you felt." They compare it to the halos around Jesus and Mary and the saints in many of the Christian paintings. "In that space there is no anger, no killing, no war, no wanting food or sex all the time. And no fear of dying."
I'm with the "blue space," as I honor the pink glow.
We have been trying to choose a cover for the book. In writing and editing this book, I have a greater appreciation for what I read and now I am opened to a whole other world, the cover of the book.
The publisher liked the idea of Mt. Tam as the Sleeping Maiden. That sounded okay to me as I felt the mountain as a guide, as comfort, as I went through treatment. That idea was conveyed to the cover designer who is not local and so saw a fairy tale maiden asleep under the mountain. When it was pointed out that it is most likely a native American asleep under the mountain she added a feather, which I found not only offensive, but felt didn't fit my knowledge of the Coast Miwok. In addition, one person thought the maiden looked dead. Another suggested she was meditating, and after much discussion and back and forth, the Sleeping Maiden is now out as cover of the book.
The publisher wants me/us, Jane and me, to like the cover of the book, so this weekend we are trying to devise what we like, so we can send it to the cover artist and work more efficiently on this. I do not see myself as a visual person, but I do know what I like when I see it, so I have now viewed fonts and nuance of color until I don't know what appeals and yet I do, which means that I went through yesterday the books I love and sent images of book covers to Jane, along with a photo a friend took. We decided Jane was experienced in this and should take a stab and she did, and she has now created something I really like, and it is awfully close to a book cover I love and so now I am with the ethics of what is exactly new and what isn't. Oh, my, so today is spent sitting with looking at book covers again, even as I know I need to clean out the closet so there will be a place for my niece's things when she comes to visit two weeks from today. I am joyfully counting the days.
Jane and I would like to have agreed on a cover design we like and the publisher likes and be done with our editing by July 28, when she leaves for New Mexico, so I sit today with a pink glowing fog, an open blue space, and the knowing that today the book cover design will fall into place.
In addition, a month or so ago, we chose an image we thought worked really well, but the publisher thought it was dull and wouldn't show up well on Amazon and the places it needs to invite. We felt it represented the book and so it, too, sits, another opening in the mist. I wonder in the end if it will be eeny-meeny-miny mo and then I consider how not correct that rhyme, and in googling, I see the modern version has a tiger caught by the toe, so that seems okay. I'm visualizing tigers dancing in the air waiting to be caught.