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!

The Moment in Between

The moment in between...
Late Autumn and early Winter,
Branch releasing leaf and leaf touching down to earth,

The moment in between inhale and exhale of a conscious breath,
The impulse between thought and word,
The soft spinning sound between needle on record and the sly first note,

The striving for clarity between blur and focus,
The disequilibrium between not knowing and precious understanding,

The eerie calm between acknowledgement and surrender,

The quickening pulse between decision and action,
The quivering footstep between comfort zone and wild unknown,
The unfurling of fingers, of wills, between clenching tight to the familiar
       and releasing what no longer serves us.

This is where life takes place. In the delicate now, in the moments in between.

This is where I find myself, making up the steps as I go along.

Foreign Territory

After the geometry homework is done, my favorite 16 year-old and I break out our art journals. I stare at the blank page. The white space feels good after a busy day. I watch her paint for a long time. She dives in without a plan. She squeezes paint from the tube right onto the page. Plastic knife, bottle cap, foil- whatever is within arms reach becomes her tool. She hums to the song on the radio and spreads paint with her fingers.

I begin to crave the colors. I begin to crave the surrender.

I use her leftovers to stamp paint onto my page in greens and bronze. My fingers find the blue, the space between. Now we are both humming to the radio. When I zoom out, it hits me- my marks resemble some kind of map. The continents, the oceans, the archipelagos all an accident.

What is this foreign territory and why did my fingers paint it?

Soon I find myself tearing paper left over from our investigations of the x and y axis. The orbs consume whole oceans and claim space on the land, much like the thoughts that have been creeping in.

There is no rhyme or reason to any of it, but somehow it makes sense in my day. It doesn't matter...and it matters, all at once. For weeks, I have been exploring foreign territory, navigating strange inner worlds all alone in my quiet moments, in my busy mind. I have been keeping these feelings to myself long enough for them to get very heavy and so very convoluted.

The paint dries. I close my art journal. I marvel at how my inner world wants to spill out through my creative process. I make a mental note to make more art soon. The unintentional kind.

There is something to this soul mapping that is worth exploring.

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.

Inspirations to Affirmations

My inspired action art session from earlier this month turned into a fun (and so perfect in my life right now) idea. I'm a little behind on sharing, as I've just gotten around to part two of this project, but I am very excited at the prospect that this could be a series!

During my mark making play time I recalled a friend telling me about how she wipes excess paint off her brushes into her art journal as she paints, allowing the layers to build up on a page over time. She then uses the spontaneously colored pages in her later work, as whole backgrounds or in pieces.

This was one of those ideas I filed away in the ol' mind tank and totally forgot to put to use in my own creative practice, but my mark making session was the perfect opportunity! I had purposely avoided working on a blank canvas that night and went for some random pieces of left-over card stock. Way less intimidating and it turned out to be just the right choice for what my scissors needed to do next...

view the full original piece (and it's step by step birth) here

I was not terribly attached to this mixed media piece as a whole, despite the fun I had making it. Inspiration struck when I realized I could cut the finished piece into a "deck" of cards for all those affirming phrases I've been gathering in my journal. I've been working with affirmations lately as a way of keeping myself in a positive state of mind and empowering myself through a difficult transition. I'll share more about the process of using affirmations soon. For now, here are my first in the series. Each one written on the back of one of the cards:

~ I am willing to change and grow. 
~ I am free to make a daily effort in support of my creative life.
~ Everything I need to know is revealed to me.
~ Everything I need comes to me in the perfect time and space.
~ There is nothing I cannot be, do or have.
~ All is well in my world.

Do any of those affirming phrases resonate with you? I'm really loving my new Affirmations Deck! It's been very inspiring the past couple days to shuffle through the index card-size mini paintings, each one its own little work of art. And it's been very affirming to turn them each over and read the words that I've written.

On to the second set in the series! :)

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.

Barefoot to the Sea

Where do inspired actions (and poems) come from?
The words spilled out with every step...

Run, girl, run 
Barefoot to the sea.
Ankle deep in Autumn waves,
Stand and let it be.

Feel the tug at your feet.
Feel it on your soul.
Stand and witness nature.
Know that you are whole.

Run, girl, run
Onward towards the caves.
Stand grounded on the solid rocks
Washed smooth by salted waves.

Continue walking north, girl.
Don't question why you came.
With each step you are guided
To the next right rock, the next.

See that stone? The speckled one,
Put it in your palm.
Carry it beyond the Point.
Find solitude and calm.

Choose a rock that fits your frame,
Knees bare beneath the sun,
And sit with all the feelings
'Round the changes soon to come.

Then make your way down to the place 
Where sea and earth collide.
Gather up all fears and doubts
Brewing up inside.

Now cast the stone into the sea.
My how your soul can throw!
Drop from your heart what does not serve.
Release, make space, let go!

This is why you were led here
By instinct pure and true,
Believing that when you arrived 
You'd know just what to do.

This full moon ceremony,
A sacred act of healing,
This is the turning point, dear child,
The path ahead revealing.

The prayers you breathed into the night
I heard them loud and clear.
Your call for help is answered
Surrender all your fears.

Now sitting there with tear-stained cheeks
Drying in the sun,
Give up the fight, release it all-
You have already won

Your right to stand on solid feet
To dance on lifted toes
To rejoice the coming days
For in your heart you know

You will be carried safely back,
Just like that stone, to shore.