Monica Watson & ECCE Studios: visual arts, writing, design

17/11/2023

This dadda was so involved in his sweet daughter's shoot at Destiny for Women. It was fun!
How sweet are these captures for this young family!

17/05/2023

Yes, we have all felt it.
It's a longing and a call.
The Beauty whose origin is Love.
That which is without is within.
●●●●●●●●
BEAUTY CREATED by Monica Watson

"We have felt it.
The extreme gravity of Beauty.
Swelling in our chests,
Senses so affected that tears cannot help but create wells.

The force is not voiceless;
It speaks.
In the powerful silence, it reveals;
a summons of Love, authority.
Home.
The Beauty calls.

The beauty of the created
Calls to our being
The name of the Creator.

So that our stirred hearts
Find their home
And rest fulfilled."

🕊
_______________________

24/04/2023

📸

07/04/2023

"Veronica Unveiled" by Monica Watson

6th Station Meditation - Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus

"Let us Picture:
This moving Passion through the sun-washed streets
A raw transgression of Blood trails
and clouds of mockery and dust
With weeping wounds and wailing crowds
All clamoring against God and humanity.
The woman, Veronica, is a stillness in the multitude
She beholds - Ecce Homo!
Yet, is this mass of tattered flesh even a Man?
Picture this.
The vehement Truth arrests her;
The Grace of suffering calls to her heart.
O Beautiful Love testifying,
Redeeming, He espouses her an opportunity
Yes, suffering allows and calls forth gifts of compassion.
Veronica, yoked with the Sacred
Abreast of and filled with the Immaculate,
Steps toward the mangled Call.
And right in the heart of the Passion
Her eyes are met with the eyes of Love.
Can you picture this?
Here, in this profound and simple moment, she understands.
She takes the covering from her head
And gently gives her unveiled compassion to the swollen face of God.
His humanity and visage offered some relief
Yet, salvific suffering reveals and redeems her heart.
Her passion, joined with His, is infused with divine unity.
A thorn grabs at the cloth
One more compassionate and grateful, glancing exchange
Behold, His Passion wrote the face of Love upon her veil.
Just picture it."

07/04/2023

Good Friday!
As I head off this morning to join in bringing Jesus to His people this Good Friday morning, I was asked yesterday to offer one of the meditations.
Thanks be to the Holy Spirit, I wanted to offer this mediation to you as well on the 6th Station - Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus. I hope that your heart connects with His and His Passion on this holy day!
❤️
"Veronica Unveiled" by Monica Watson & ECCE Studios: visual arts, writing, design

6th Station Meditation - Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus
by Monica Watson +

"Let us Picture:
This moving Passion through the sun-washed streets
A raw transgression of Blood trails
and clouds of mockery and dust
With weeping wounds and wailing crowds
All clamoring against God and humanity.

The woman, Veronica, is a stillness in the multitude
She beholds - Ecce Homo!
Yet, is this mass of tattered flesh even a Man?
Picture this.

The vehement Truth arrests her;
The Grace of suffering calls to her heart.
O Beautiful Love testifying,
Redeeming, He espouses her an opportunity
Yes, suffering allows and calls forth gifts of compassion.

Veronica, yoked with the Sacred
Abreast of and filled with the Immaculate,
Steps toward the mangled Call.

And right in the heart of the Passion
Her eyes are met with the eyes of Love.
Can you picture this?

Here, in this profound and simple moment, she understands.
She takes the covering from her head
And gently gives her unveiled compassion to the swollen face of God.

His humanity and visage offered some relief
Yet, salvific suffering reveals and redeems her heart.
Her passion, joined with His, is infused with divine unity.

A thorn grabs at the cloth
One more compassionate and grateful, glancing exchange
Behold, His Passion wrote the face of Love upon her veil.
Just picture it.""

05/04/2023

Caught an awesome sky of April lightning this evening...as long as they don't have tragic effects.
Princeville, IL, USA

⛈

Princeville, IL, USA
Monica Watson & ECCE Studios

17/02/2023

Why not a little fruit on a Friday afternoon?

25/10/2022

Ladies & Gentlemen ~ Friends,
It's been a while, right? 🫂

Sometimes life can take your feet right out from under you. And, all the plates you are spinning come raining down clashing like cymbals on the floor. 💔

And, by the grace of God, it didn't kill you. So, you get back up to your knees, brush off, look at the floor, look up (eventually give thanks), and go get the broom. You carry on, first things first. ❤️‍🩹

Well, I'm giving thanks to be able to tell you that I've been working on the new-again ECCE Studios (and other spectacularly useful facets like Equipping Life Coach - coming in 2023) to bring my clients photography, digital design, creative writing, and event planning. ❤️‍🔥

I am ironing out some kinks in getting all. the. things. factored into the new website, as well as my multi-faceted business model tidied up, smooth, and polished, but I am simply tickled to be able to serve you and my future friends with the culmination of all that's beautiful!💎

So, as you start to see the lighting-up of the place happen (on monicawatson.net & the socials), don't hesitate to ask any questions, lend me your thoughts, or get yourselves on my calendar! 😉

It's a tiny resurrection of sorts & I'm glad to be here with you!

ECCE!
Monica +

10/04/2021

📸"The Ancient Path" - Mo Watson
“There is an ancient conversation going on between mosses and rocks, poetry to be sure. About light and shadow and the drift of continents. This is what has been called the "dialect of moss on stone - an interface of immensity and minute ness, of past and present, softness and hardness, stillness and vibrancy, yin and yan.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses

09/04/2021

When I should have been dreaming, I had to art this dreamy piece so I would be able to dream away.
😍😴

08/04/2021

Jesus laughed.
I can imagine he did.
Read the short story @ mowatson.com/blog
|+|

07/04/2021

I love photography (as if you didn't already know).
Nature photography is near the top of the list. Lifestyle stealing the top spot.

02/04/2021

Reminders for this Good Friday.
May we all suffer well.
A resurrection is coming.
🌅

mowatson.com

22/03/2021

It's Windy Here Today
🍃

As my hair blows from its younger shades into these years of knowing something
Like the wind across all the varying landscapes of life
Its always changing up
Pressing on the adaptive natures to catch up
And when they might look up
Believing that they might have caught up
To that quintessential level of balance

It’s windy here today.

It might have been a good day for broadcasting seeds onto fertile ground
If not for those echoes which howl from experienced branches
Not letting all the usefulness pass
Waiting for the gale to pass
Catching just the right moments before they pass
Finding routes that lead to the over pass
To open my arms and embrace the circulation of new landscapes.

It’s windy here today.
🍃
mowatson.com

22/03/2021

It's Windy Here Today
🍃

As my hair blows from its younger shades into these years of knowing something
Like the wind across all the varying landscapes of life
Its always changing up
Pressing on the adaptive natures to catch up
And when they might look up
Believing that they might have caught up
To that quintessential level of balance

It’s windy here today.

It might have been a good day for broadcasting seeds onto fertile ground
If not for those echoes which howl from experienced branches
Not letting all the usefulness pass
Waiting for the gale to pass
Catching just the right moments before they pass
Finding routes that lead to the over pass
To open my arms and embrace the circulation of new landscapes.

It’s windy here today.
🍃
mowatson.com

20/03/2021

As we move that much closer to the sun,
Does life warm to awakening.
Having spent the winter at rest,
Living in stillness with those parts needing put to death,
Has the strength for new life been prepared;
All because of a shift toward the sun.

ECCE,
Mo

18/03/2021

To those women who feel nearly overcome || from my heart,

Every season of life has its difficulties that stretch us to the limits of ourselves. When we feel as if our shoulders might break from the weight, our mind already has, and we’re hanging on by our longest fingernails. Looking back, those seasons, through the grace of God, also have great joys, great refining, and great growth.
🎋
In my most difficult times, when I feel as if I am in a winepress, it gives my heart courage to look back at women who had persevered (whilst having perfectly put-up hair, wearing layers of clothing, and having no washing machines, mind you) through circumstances much more dire than my 21st century, first world problems. I am infused with courage when reminded that I stand in this millennia-long line of strong women: raising up, caring for, and working out the future of the home and humanity one trying and glorious moment at a time.
🎋
Suffering, pain, and struggle are relative, no doubt; trials of today are just as rending as yesteryear. Just the same, today, as in the past, faith, truth, and virtue, construct an impenetrable fortress to stand within. Even when life’s arrows pierce and bring me to my knees, I find myself just in the position that will save me. To understand God was, and is, carrying me when I can no longer muster any strength of my own, is a saving of a double order. Not only do I know He will pick me up, never to be swallowed up entirely, I also know He will shoulder me up from the shadowy gorge until I can see the beauty of the struggle again. I can walk through anything because of His strength, even if He has to carry me.
🎋
It may not have been my strength that I could count on to get me through, but I knew I would get through because of His. I do my able best to remember: take heart, keep my emotions in check, look for blessings, and be hopefully patient. This too shall pass. He has already overcome it all, and I will too.
🎋
ECCE,
Mo

17/03/2021

"Not all who wander are lost."
Isn't it true? Wandering begets wondering, I believe.
ECCE,
Mo

mowatson.com

16/03/2021

Greater Scaups finding our little pit stop refreshing on their way through to their summer breeding ground in the near arctic areas.
ECCE,
Mo

mowatson.com

15/03/2021

ECCE,
Mo
🕊
mowatson.com