14 Lessons Learned in 2014

* Life is lived in the present moment. That is where our power lies.

* My greatest growth takes place outside of my comfort zone.

* Family isn't always blood.

* There is power in the pause. Slowing down my rush allows me to integrate life experiences.

* I NEED my alone time for creative thoughts to thrive.

* If I sit around waiting for the other shoe to drop, it will.

* If I exude love and compassion, it will come back to me. Positive energy attracts positive energy.

* Thinking of one thing that I'm grateful for each day can dispel negative thoughts.

* I can articulate my dreams, but I don't always get to choose how I'll get there.

* Life is rigged in our favor.

* Unconditional happiness means I don't get to put conditions on my happiness.

* Nothing is worth closing my heart over.

* I am stronger than I know.

* Life is not about surviving the storm, but learning to dance in the rain.

At Year's End

"The rhythm of pausing and surrendering to life is the most daring, for here we can learn to just be."   ~ Donna Farhi


I have never been quite as relieved to see a year end. The last few days of reflection leave me dizzy, wanting to escape to happier things to come, but I know that there is so much power in the pause. So I surrender the tired parts of myself and reflect on these questions:

- What did I surrender to this year? How did the surrender serve me?

- What learning stones have I gathered?

- What feels in balance in my life? What feels out of balance?

- Who surrounds me with love and support?

- What is bright on my horizon?

Wishing you all a sweet pause at year's end to reflect on what was and what is to be.
May it guide you on the new year's journey.

xo Mila

In the Moment

Sleepy morning. Snoozing late. Because I needed it. Because I can. Because someday it won't be an option. I exercise all the sweet, small freedoms whenever possible.

May gray is with us now. It reminds me of this time of year in San Diego- gloomy, but warm, the clouds backlit, still causing me to squint when I look up to follow a flock of birds across the sky. Sounds stream in from the garage- a blues record and the steady sanding of a walnut coffee table. Inside, J watches soccer- an important game that warrants too-loud a volume. But Banjo and I sit far enough away in the backyard on our newly adopted red plastic adirondack chairs, just deep enough for me to curl up with pup and journal on my lap.

The air grows warmer and more humid with each song that Lighting Hopkins plays. The sanding strokes grow more rhythmic, more fervent. He has changed the grit.

The grass is slowly dying from several days of heat waves. We worry too much about the water shortage to try to save the lawn. We collect shower water in plastic sand pails, toting the slightly sudsy gray water outside after each shower to appease the thirsty plants that line the yard. Green-yellow oranges the size of grapes fall prematurely from the tree, one nearly plunking down in my coffee mug, startling the sleeping pup on my lap.

A mocking bird sings from the branches of a distant tree in a long series of phrases, first shrill, then raspy, then scolding. The birds are very vocal here, in this urban desert by the river. They speak their minds all day.

And so, I write mine.

Too tired from the stress of the week to process any relevant thoughts, I simply sit and observe and document the sights and sounds that are my world at this moment. I notice that a scattering of bougainvillea petals have blown far across the yard, turning a dry dusty rose away from their stalks. I notice how the breeze plays with the top right corner of the page I am writing on.

All of these noticings are, at once, so unimportant and so so valuable. As my pen moves across the page, recording all the small moments that have come together for me today- the sentences running on with crude use of punctuation- I write myself into a sort of calm, a sort of peaceful knowing. Each of these still, small moments fills the place where I held yesterday's anxieties and tomorrow's uncertainties. While the early fallen oranges may not hep me develop character or impact my future decisions, they are a part of the ripe and tender moments of my now. They are real- unlike the mini dramas I play out in my mind from day to day.

Mindfulness is my bare feet in the scratchy brown grass on this Saturday afternoon in late May. Mindfulness is the remedy to chaos and fear and angst. I am so grateful for this discovery.

acrylic on watercolor paper...in the moment

Mindfulness, Creativity and Cat Naps

My new kitchen comes with a garden window...and a kitty.

After months of having our feathers ruffled, my family of three turned family of six is finally beginning to settle in our new home.

I have been nesting.
And noticing.
I have been reconnecting
and pausing long enough
to see the sweet things again.
To look on the brighter, lighter
right-er side.
A sense of peace,
a calm awareness,
a gentle reminder
makes me smile
because I know that not long after
I step back into mindfulness,
my creativity begins to flow.

All thanks to sunflowers and a snoozing kitty in our sunny kitchen window.
There is nothing stopping you, dear child, from being like the sunflowers.

I Am Still Here

Hope flutters in
On gossamer wings.
My eyes follow it skyward.
Face to the sun, blue in my eyes.

There is nothing I need more than this moment.
This stillness, this space, this peace fills me up,
Almost to the point of forgetting
All the chaos that is now behind us.

Leaves rustle on the orange tree in our new backyard.
Someone hung the old wind chime. It sings of home.
I have come home to myself,
And I find my words, my wishes, my spark
Right where I left them.

I just want You to know, I notice it all.
With gratitude spilling out in salty tears,
And laughter.
The tensions escape my body any way they know how.

I just want You to know, I recognize.
This was all to help me see
That I am stronger than I know,
That the lessons are not forgotten,
That I am still here inside all of the changes.

Hope flutters in. I breathe in the possibilities.
This day begins a new season of my life.

In the Midst of Things

Yesterday I was thinking, "How's a girl supposed to put her nose to the grindstone and get any packing done with such beautiful 70 degree sunshiny weather?!" The morning answered with a cloudy coastal winter.

I am up to my knees in cardboard boxes. My head is spinning with the thought of having to create curriculum for ten different classes. I am waaaaay behind on filling my friends in blog land in on what has really been happening in my life. I promised myself I would document the journey, but I'm really struggling with making time for myself- when I need it the most.

When I take a step back and try to look at it through "the grand scheme of things" lens, I know all this craziness is for the best. There is a bigger story working itself out here.

So I'm taking five minutes to observe, to document, to hear that little bird chirping in the Jacaranda tree that I'm really going to miss. More story coming soon. For now, Happy New Year, friends. Take a moment in your day to witness how magically your story is unfolding.

The Shift from Artwork to Soul Work

I had an epiphany today. You know how I like to have those.

But this one is grand and sacred. It feels way too big to write about right now. It feels too big to take on in the midst of purging and packing and preparing for a new job. But I promised myself I would try, because it is the last day of this epic year. And because I know that every breath I take from now on will be changed by this knowing.

I feel like my 2013 was divided into two even halves.

The artwork and the soul work. That was the realization I had today while doing my end-of-the-year reflection that led to the grand epiphany.

Of course there was spill-over on both sides, but the beginning of the year up until the culmination of my 365 Days of Creative project was marked by the intent to make something specific every day.  The second half of the year, starting almost immediately after my 365 celebration, there was a clear shift.

The need to go and do was replaced by a need for stillness and turning inward. There was less making and more being. But all the while making myself, you see.

Perhaps I was too busy planning and controlling outcomes to heed the call before, but when the work was done, when the one creative commitment was met, I embarked on another: soul work.
Soul work seeped into my efforts to reflect on my process more than it ever had before. 

It was not at all a deliberate. In fact, it went completely against my plans to make crazy amounts of art this past Summer, and totally derailed another massive project I had intended to start in the Fall. In the past, this would have gotten me down, but it's as if my soul knew this was the next phase of my learning. I decided to cooperate with my soul's yearnings. I got better at silencing my inner critic. I just accepted that it needed to happen. It was the ultimate practice in surrender and it unfolded perfectly. 

Soul work and spiritual discovery got my serious, undivided attention for the first time in my adult life.
I let my art tools collect dust so that I could go out into the open air and collect experiences and images that made my heart feel peaceful. I spent more time in nature moving my body, and the poetic reflections spilled out of me, one after another. I showed up on my yoga mat more than at my art desk. My daily blog musings turned into occasional check-ins as my soul spilled out more honestly than it ever had in my personal journal through both writing and visioning. I filled page after page, morning after morning with the whispers of my heart. I wrote notes to myself that seemed to come from someplace sacred and bigger than me. I was observant and noticed the signs that the Universe offered to affirm that I was on the right path. I met random strangers and made new friends who echoed it back to me, and I took the time to talk with them. Books fell into my hands with just the affirming words I needed to read and I allowed myself the time to read them.

I set aside my ambitions and trusted instead my intuition. I knew in my gut that I needed to step back from my going and doing. I didn't make art every day, but I made art of my everyday truths- whatever was important in the moment. I did not judge my creative acts. I let them come when they wanted, how they wanted. I breathed in my blessings and harvested my lessons learned. I committed and connected in an entirely new way.

I was true to myself.
I was patient.
I was a vessel for what needed to spill forth, and spill forth it did.
Creating became about getting to know myself better.

I found so much peace in the knowing that I don't have to have it all figured out, and that I don't have to try to get it all done right now. That I have divine help and I am on the perfect path at the perfect time.
It has been a very sacred time in my life.
A game changer. 

Why was this chapter written into my life? Why did it coincide so perfectly with the end of my 365?
I know now it's because I needed it. I needed it to help me continue on my journey. I love that it happened this way. I love that creativity was the impetus for such a beautiful, natural evolution of my spiritual life. I am so looking forward to continuing the journey in 2014, both the spiritual one and the creative one, and now I know that I can travel both simultaneously- and mindfully.

I will now travel with the knowledge that for myself as an artist, hands at heart center are just as necessary as hand on paint brush. 

And from all of this, as I sit in my bathrobe, today's to-do list a wash, but feeling like I found the day's meaning in another more powerful way, this epiphany comes into focus: 

The source of divine energy that I connect with when I give thanks for my blessings or seek answers to my life's questions is the same source of divine energy that fuels my creative fire. My creative practice and my spiritual practice have become one and the same.

I have a lump in my throat as I write this because I'm quite sure it's one of the most important realizations I have made as an artist, as a growing soul. It feels like remembering something that I knew a long long time ago. Maybe before I was born. It's the truth I came here with and I'm slowly learning to live that truth.

When you look back on your year, was there a distinct shift? A turning point? Can you follow the breadcrumbs of creative evidence to the evolution of your soul?

The Darkest Day of the Year

It is the darkest day of the year,
and also the day the light starts to turn.

We have been to this place, and will soon come out the other side.
But while we're here, why not embrace the darkness?
It's part of who we are, what we are going through. 

"Far too often we fear the dark and adore only the light." 
                                                                                       ~Joyce Rupp

On this Winter Solstice, I sit with my fears, my failures, my shortcomings, my disappointments.
I acknowledge them. I take ownership. I know it is healthier to do the soulwork, even the difficult kind, than to slap a smile on and pretend I'm over it. The truth is, I will be over it soon enough. But in this time of closing one year and opening into a new one, I believe it's important to reflect on what didn't go our way, to process and find closure on our failures so we don't need to bring the heavy feelings into the new year. This way we can transmute the failure into learning.

The learning, the revelations, the successes- they will be the focus in days to come.
But I owe it to myself- my whole self- to explore the dark parts too.

Spread Tired Wings With New Hope

I listened in on a Winter Solstice Ritual through livestream tonight, on the eve of the Winter Solstice. Just in time for my tired soul. This night marked the beginning of a gentle release of 2013 that I will be in the process of over the next few weeks, and helped me shift my focus in a positive way. I've decided that this January, resolution setting will be replaced by time for dreaming. Ah, dreaming up a fresh new year. Doesn't that sound lovely?


As I begin to reflect on the soulwork I will be doing (and on some big changes in store for me), these words shared in the livestream by Shiloh Sophia McCloud are tugging at my heart and lifting me up.

"What is calling from within you to be expressed? Go there. Remember, it won’t feel safe to go there most of the time.  Extend yourself into the distances you cannot see. Move in Love as you spread tired wings with new hope."

"You cannot see it before you leap, it is only visible during flight."

Visit here to love on the full text, which came out of a very special process where Shiloh allows her painting to speak to her. I can totally dream this process into my 2014!

Staying Open

I was doing some organizing in my art space today and came across a piece of art from an activity I presented at a creative play date earlier this Fall. Somehow that one never made it into my blog. Where have the days gone? Is anyone else feeling like Labor Day turned to Christmastime with the swish of a paint brush?

acrylic & sand on canvas board

I'm remembering that afternoon, a bunch of adults playing like children, drizzling Elmer's glue onto canvas boards that were then covered with sand from right under our feet. When the sand was shaken off, the trails of glue were revealed, along with shapes of different sizes. We then set out, with tiny brushes, to fill in the fields with acrylic paint.

It was always my intention to go back and finish my piece, to fill in the rest of the fields with paint to get a stained glass effect. But looking at it today, I realized I quite like the stark white spaces in the composition. It's a nice contrast with the sand trails and other colors.

I especially liked the symbolism behind it that wants so badly to sink in today. We can not always anticipate the twists and turns that our path will take. We can not always plan everything into place. But we must trust that all the pieces of our story will fit together, no matter how disjointed they feel right now. The great unknowns will be revealed to us at the right time. Staying open is not being empty.

This is a truth I'm choosing to trust today. It's a truth I'd like to learn to live with every day. I'm not supposed to have it all figured out. Huh. Imagine that.

This piece has made its way from the bottom of a dusty pile to the front of my easel, where it can remind me of this truth, through all the twists and turns that lie ahead.

The Edge and the Eve

On the edge of a sea cliff,
At the edge of the shore,
On the eve of thirty-four...

I was called here today
by my need to be closer
to that feeling
of standing at the edge of comfort zones
and great unknowns,
working up the nerve
to take that first step
with deep deep faith.

I was called here today
by my need to be closer
to that feeling
of surrender
and willingness to change
the way the shore does
at the tide,
with deep deep trust.

It was just a dress rehearsal
on the edge and the eve.

To Be Like the Shore

I sat on the beach today contemplating the impermanence of all things.
Yes, I realize there are more fun things to do at the beach, but the honest thoughts creep in when the waves drown out other sounds.

This I know:

The sun will slip behind the wet horizon.
The couple will move out of frame.
The warmth will leave the air.
What once brought us joy will shift and turn and change.

And things that are beyond our knowing will soon be illuminated.

It is a bittersweet release, this understanding.
A quickening of the heart, a resistance of the mind.
I wish I could practice graceful acceptance and unwavering faith.
Instead I morn a million losses, having grown so attached to the way things are.
The way we are. The peace and ease.

Oh, to be like the shore.
To welcome the waves and let them shape me.
Surrendering to the natural ebb and flow.
Change washing over.
Existing in a state of flux.
Oh, to be like the shore...

Surrender to the Wilderness

"You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition...What you'll discover there will be wonderful. What you'll discover there will be yourself." ~Alan Alda

I am taking an e-course called Making Space for Surrender by the brilliant Hannah Marcotti. It is perfect Universal timing. I'm needing some support with surrendering to the changes that are coming my way. Yes, sh*t is about to get reeeeeal, and I'm feeling more than a little resistant. I will put it all into context for my readers soon- once I know what the actual changes will look like, but for now I'd just like to share my place on the path.

As part of the soul work for the course, we have been asked to do some visioning (think flipping through a magazine to unearth the images and words that speak to you in the moment) in response to the prompt "What is the feeling behind surrender?"

I've been staring at this magazine image for days, trying to articulate why it spoke to me, and today at the end of my yoga practice, it dawned on me. Though it's not yoga attire, that is clearly the bottom half of shavasana pose...also know as final surrender. In yoga, this pose is intended to rejuvenate body, mind and spirit at the end of a practice. It allows you to integrate your yoga practice into your daily life. I had a super delicious aha moment when I realized that my visioning and journaling around this image are allowing me to take a pose of surrender in my mind! I am done fighting against the inevitable. I am ready to integrate surrender into my life.

That image and that quote are what surrender feels like for me. Release. Letting go. Leaving the city of my comfort and trudging deep into the wilderness of my unexplored intuition. It feels like I've been hiking for too long in not-so-sensible shoes, and I've finally given up the struggle and lay down in the undergrowth. I decide to rest and allow the wild unknown to consume me. I surrender to the flow instead of fighting it.

What I know for sure (cause I'm learning it in a big way through life experience right now) is that we have to leave our comfort zone to surrender. Often, that "comfort zone" is actually a space of resistance that we fall into when presented with challenges. It is a place of familiarity and safety. But it's also completely in conflict with the flow.

Do you find yourself clinging to what feels safe and familiar? Do you catch yourself resisting change? Struggling with it? Turning it into a negative circumstance? I can answer yes to all of these questions, especially lately. Now I'd like to ask myself just one more question:

What amount of change that is out of my control, what mysteries and unanswered questions, what uncertainties must I face before I will trust that my intuition will guide me in a good orderly direction?

That is what I'll be pondering as I take off my shoes and allow myself to lay back into the wilderness,
in complete and total surrender- at least for a few deep breaths at a time.

Into a Vast Unknown

Something about this little scene stopped me in my tracks on my bike ride today.

Two kayaks sitting on the shore, side by side, primed for adventure. Potential resting on the paddles.

It reminded me of us, my love,
preparing to push off from a familiar shore into a vast unknown.

Our toes met comfort on the bay. We found such treasures here. But the tide pulls us in now, tugging softly at our dreams. It's time to find our courage and our strength. It's time to paddle out and explore.

How different life feels when we view it as an adventure rather than a series of challenges and uncertainties.

Primed for adventure, you and I, side by side. Potential resting on our hearts.

The Bougainvillea and the Moon

The pup and I took a long moon walk tonight. A bright full moon and the last eclipse of the year...I needed to bathe in that celestial light, to be in that energy. It became an expedition, an evening nighttime photo walk, an effort to document my date with Mr. Moon.

In astrology, eclipses are said to encourage progress when we are feeling stuck, to create bold changes that we cannot seem to make ourselves. The full moon is a time to take action.

Any other month, I might have missed it, but this month I've been paying special attention. All signs point to changes coming, things that I cannot avoid. I've been slow in accepting it all. Perhaps this is the Universe giving me the nudge I need. Perhaps this eclipse was just for me.

Tonight I breathed in the unseasonably warm night air and contemplated surrender. I thought I had a battle cry left in me, but the howl got stuck in my throat. Instead there was a silent reverence. This is all so much bigger than me, and at the same time it's so much a part of me.

The moon walked me home and gave me these delicate ruby red flowers. We made a date for next month. Wondering where I'll be.

Earthly Fears and Cosmic Perspective

Last night I ate Fritos and ice cream for dinner. Yeah, I sure did.

I'd like to say it was an act of Friday night indulgent self-care, but it felt more like feeding my fear gremlins. Turns out I can't cook when I'm paralyzed by fear (oh and I sometimes turn to emotional eating).

I'll spare you the details for now, but let's just say the winds of change have been blowing through the windows of our little house the past few weeks, and I'm having a very hard time staying in the present and keeping positive thoughts in my head. Projecting my thoughts into the future always brings up unnecessary fears, anxieties and insecurities.

Our perspective on life can get terribly thrown off when we try to include a view of an uncertain future, can't it? 

So after a proper meltdown followed by nine hours of sleep, I woke up to the sun shining and a reassuring conversation with my husband. (Love that guy.) Then I baked pumpkin bread and found this quote:

"Physicists tell us that the solidity of matter is an illusion. Even seemingly solid matter, including your physical body, is nearly 100 percent empty space -- so vast are the distances between the atoms compared to their size. What is more, even inside every atom there is mostly empty space. What is left is more like a vibrational frequency than particles of solid matter, more like a musical note."
~ (Eckhart Tolle, from The Power of Now)

Wow. Let that sink in for a moment. 

Such beautiful truths never fail to amaze me and bring me a greater perspective- a cosmic perspective.  Knowing that we are all part of something so grand and so connected, that we are made of stardust and our energy vibrates like music notes- somehow it makes my current life situation and the trivialities of the human experience seem less...heavy. It helps me find peace and reason in the chaos, to feel gratitude for all the good in my life rather than dwelling on the negatives and what-ifs.

Quiet comfort seeps in today as I eat fresh-baked slices of autumn and ponder the beautiful truths of the universe.

And I vibrate at a higher frequency. 

Goodbye Summer Nights

As night closes in, they climb and swing and reach with flailing feet.
They shed their summer skin without a second thought.
They do not fear the loss of light.

I stand watching pink turn to orange turn to midnight blue,
And wish I had their naive courage.

Did they notice that today the day and night were in perfect balance,
equal amounts of dark and light?
Did they shiver at the bite in the new autumn air?
Did they feel the change right down deep to their bones?

I did, I did.

Evening of the Autumn Equinox, Mission Bay San Diego

These Summer-Turning-Autumn Days

Goodness, how I get swept up,
like a freshly fallen leaf
in a September gust,
spinning madly
round some invisible force.

And after all the spinning,
all the hustle, all the running & doing
I am fallen, just fallen,
silent and tired
and beginning to dry out.

This is how it goes,
these summer-turning-autumn days:
new schedule, new routine,
and my old way of getting
so wrapped up,
so far from where I was
just a week ago
warming my toes on the boardwalk.

Autumn always has a way
of catching me off guard,
and knocking the breath
right out of me.

But this summer was a bounty of learning
and stories yet untold.
Autumn is the time to slow down and reap the lessons
that will get me through the winter chill.

There is still green life left in this.

Pause, Pier, Proceed

Crystal Pier sunset, Pacific Beach

Late summer sunset stalking at the pier brings a moment of peace.

I welcome the pull of the tide at my ankles. It's a nice change from being pulled in so many other directions that aren't nearly as grounding.

Remember, remember...it only takes a moment to capture the beauty in your day, to turn inward, to reconnect with your creative spirit and to make sure that you are ultimately proceeding in your own direction.

Take your moment.

The Thing About Introductions

Pat on the back for me. I finally got around to changing that mile-long personal intro that took up the entire right side of the screen on my blog. I hadn't actually read it in months and when I did tonight, it seemed...um, wordy? And, somehow, not all that telling.

I am admittedly long-winded. Maybe in an effort to be understood in a hey-here's-everything-you-need-to-know-about-me-so-we-can-get-on-with-doing-some-deeper-learning-together kind of way.
I do think we all deserve to be heard and honored for who we are, even if we're not completely understood or agreed with. I think that's where a lot of this sharing of myself stems from.

I'll also admit, I'm a sucker for mini-milestones on this journey of growing into myself, which is why I felt it necessary to create a whole blog post about this, rather than just slyly making the change.
I hope to look back on this revision someday with a smile and think, "Well, look at that. Mila learn."

Yes, I am experiencing some big shifts these days and I'm finding that the more I try to explain myself, the more I talk myself into a tight box. That's the thing about introductions. I'm learning that the "truth" about who I am may continue to be a mystery to me for a while. And that mystery needs room to spread out and do its thing.

But I do know this:

I am a girl on the verge. I am an absolute beginner. Life is my art and my creative process. 
This is the evolution of my soul in pictures and paint and words.