Me and the Bee

I found this little messenger on my photo walk today.
Me and the bee, we had a moment,
and she told me this...

Sometimes you have to be willing
to pause among those wild-growing flowers of your soul,
and peer a bit further in
to find the little wing-ed thing
inside you.
She will gaze back at you
and you will know
with your whole heart
that she is there working her magic,
and you can have faith
that the honey will come.


We can always choose to pause among all those wild-growing unanswered questions.
To go inside ourselves and rest in the present moment,
Where we can connect with our inner Source,
And gain awareness and trust that everything is working itself out.
Trust that we are always being guided down the path to our sweet golden dreams.

Continue on, peacefully, with this knowing.

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

Flora Sorbet

The pup and I have been exploring our new neighborhood. I've missed my photo walks. 

Today we found a lovely rose garden behind a picket fence. 

I forgot, for a moment, that we are living in a busy city. 

For a moment I was lost in the folds of the petals. Oh sweet noticing...

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?