anonyrrie

Already August

Okay - so it looks like I might just be posting here every few months, but that's okay.  Life is an ebb and flow experience, and I have learned that I need to ebb and flow along with it.   I've really come to understand my need to focus my energy in one direction at a time.  Once I start to divide myself, nothing happens.  

So, what have I been doing?  Mostly SoulCollage® - making cards, holding workshops in my studio, putting together new workshops for the fall.  Below is a sample I made for my October 23 workshop, Beyond Persona: Creating an Intuitive Soul Portrait.  

All the workshop information is here , and if you happen to live in the vicinity of NW CT, please consider taking a workshop in my pretty little studio in the woods.

Other than that, I've been walking my dog, working out, taking some day trips, reading books and making a little art here and there.  I do feel that my tide is turning again though, pulling me towards my paints and wood panels...  so we shall see!

In the meantime, enjoy a morning walk with me and Heidi...

See you around!

Thursday Afternoon Play Date

I had some practical plans for this afternoon; paperwork and the like, but then I looked at my brand new, totally blank journal (a larger one this time - 9" x 12") and here I am... hands covered with paint and nothing practical accomplished.

But so what?  I have been feeling such unrest inside, a need to let things out, loosen up, play more.  This feeling has as much to do with my life as it has to do with my art...  an insistent nudge to get away from precision and just allow things to happen as they will.  Be freer, give myself permission to explore and enjoy.

Can you tell how much I'm pining for Spring?  To see fresh green shoots break through the tired remnants of snow... to hear the sounds of the creatures waking from their winter sleep... to watch the bluster of March clear the sand from the roads... to see the sun rise earlier in the morning and set later in the day... to wash clean to dreary dregs of winter. 

I'm sure I'm not the only one.  Happy Thursday!

(p.s. Have you visited my new etsy shop?)

Listen and Reach

listen - 10" x 10" x 1" - acrylic - mixed media on wood panel

{from the Mantras & Meditations series - available for purchase in my etsy shop}

I have been thinking a lot lately about what's most important to me and where I want to go next on this life-journey. Although I am energized by setting goals and making plans, I've never been one to make New Year's resolutions.  If something seems like a good thing to do, I either go for it or put it on the back burner until the time is right; if it's meant to be, it will happen.  Nonetheless, there's something to be said for rituals that challenge us to step back and reflect on who we are –  our values, our dreams, and our intentions to bring the two together - and so I've been thinking about what kind of ritual would help me move forward in 2009.

It's funny how sometimes that universal magic of synchronicity can weave together so many random threads.  As I've been working on my Mantras & Meditations  series of paintings, I've been focusing on being still and simply listening to my inner voice for words and affirmations that are meaningful and inspiring. The practice of creating art around mantras and meditations has been very grounding for me, and I have been sensing myself opening up to new ideas and possibilities.  In the midst of this focusing on words that shape being and action,  I came across a post that Leah, host of Creative Every Day and Art Every Day Month, wrote about Christine Kane's practice of choosing a defining word for the year.  Instead of creating a long, onerous "To-Do" list of resolutions that inevitably fall by the wayside, Christine suggests that we create a one word theme that will serve as a guide and inspiration throughout the year - an annual mantra! 

I chose two words, because they represent a process that is very important to me.  First, I want to learn to Listen more deeply and fully, both to my inner voice and to the unspoken words of others. I want to turn off the static that surrounds me and tune into the messages that come in silence. Then I want to Reach - reach within, reach out, reach for, reach above, reach below, reach beyond the limits I have intentionally and unintentionally set for myself. Listen ~ Reach... my mantra for 2009.  It makes me feel that anything is possible.

What word would you choose? 

Late for the Sky

journal page - 10/18/08

October is the month of small migrations, when the air moves with restless, nervous energy.  The wind picks up, sending down a tumbling shower of ochre, carnelian, and diarylide yellow that collects on the ground like a richly-woven Persian carpet.  The sky, now broader through the thinning canopy, changes face hourly; misty in the morning, baby blue with streaks of clouds by midday, searing acid blue in the afternoon, pink-tinged charcoal near evening. Even on still days, some leaves (they know it's time) let go and drift earthward on gentle currents.

Grackles in great noisy flocks populate the land beneath the trees, conversing loudly with one another as they pick berries and seeds from among the leaves.  Suddenly spooked by a movement,  they rise in a flapping cacophony of screeches into the trees and wait warily as I pass along the path, silhouetted against the sky like black-cloaked beadles.  Geese move overhead in v-formations and sparrow flocks dance through the air in brown waves before landing in a line along a wire.  Clinging and falling, noise and silence, movement and waiting, formation and breaking rank...  

The ancient maple behind the house creaks in the breeze as if to say... you want to stay, but it's time to go.

I see my own soul in Nature, every day, every season.

How long have I been sleeping

How long have I been drifting alone through the night

How long have I been running for that morning flight

Through the whispered promises and the changing light

Of the bed where we both lie

Late for the sky

- Jackson Browne

The 8" x 10" journal page above - which is part of a special Autumn book I've been working on - was done with oil paint-sticks and acrylics. The background contains some collage elements and the nature printing technique I recently learned in a workshop with my friend Lenna Andrews.

Static

It rained hard this morning, and I awoke with the thought that it would be a good indoor kind of day.  A day to work in my studio... a day to create something that would make me feel joyful from beginning to end.  But some days neither the process nor the product seem to please me, and today was like that.  I think I just have too much static in my head, and as I mixed paints and made shapes on the wood panel, the static kept getting louder and louder and the process became so frustrating, I just had to stop.

This kind of confused energy often surrounds me when I have been away from my art for a while. I return to my studio with so much pent up desire, and I approach the act of creating with so much anticipation and expectation that I lose that sense of ease and flow that's essential to the experience.  I know that I need to step away when I become aware of such negative shifts... try to break that energy and get myself into a different space.  It's hard work though;  almost a battle, because these little pockets of creative time are so rare and precious, and I find myself feeling disappointed, as if I've let myself down.

But I am forever a work in progress, and days like today appear to teach me something, if I am willing to listen.  So I have been listening all day... trying to decipher the messages that come through the static...  let go of expectations...  approach  art with a beginner's mind...  be with the process...  stay the moment...

And while I'm listening to the wise voices of the Universe, here is the poem that inspired the painting that still sits on my easel... waiting for me to finish her.

Questions In The Mind Of A Poet While She Washes Her Floors  

Will obedience leave me unknown to myself, stranded?

Is it enough for me to know where I'm from?

If I do more truth-telling will I be happier with what I say?

If I had three days to live would I still be sensible?

Is the break between my feelings and my memory 

the reason I'm unable to sustain rage?

Am I a peninsula slowly turning into an island?

If I grew up gazing at the ocean would I think

life came in waves?

If I were a nomad would I measure time

by the length of a footstep?

If I can see a cup drop to the floor and shatter

why can't I see it gather itself back together?

If a surgeon cut out my mistakes

would the scar be under my heart?

How much time will I spend protecting myself

from what the people I love call love?

Would my desires feel different if I lived forever?

Will my desires destroy my politics?

Is taboo sex the ultimate aphrodisiac?

If I fall in love with the wrong person

How do I learn to un-in love myself?

Can I make my intuition into a divining rod?

Is music the closest I can get to God?

How many of these questions will remain

when I kneel to wash my floors again?

- Elena Georgiou

O my soul...

unfinished & untitled - 12" x 12" x 1" - acrylic on wood panel

A noiseless patient spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul

- Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

Time to let go...

Detach from...
outcomes,
expectations,
fears,
misunderstandings,
preconceived notions,
stale practices,
negative energy,
the inner critic...

Time to fly.

Lurking Muse

The Road Not Taken

  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
  And sorry I could not travel both
  And be one traveler, long I stood
  And looked down one as far as I could
  To where it bent in the undergrowth.
 
  Then took the other, as just as fair,
  And having perhaps the better claim,
  Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
  Though as for that the passing there
  Had worn them really about the same.
 
  And both that morning equally lay
  In leaves no step had trodden black.
  Oh, I kept the first for another day!
  Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
  I doubted if I should ever come back.
 
  I shall be telling this with a sigh
  Somewhere ages and ages hence:
  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
  I took the one less traveled by,
  And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

Do you ever find your head so full of stuff... so full that you can't see the forest for the trees? Or...  you see the forest and the trees, but there are so many wonderful paths through the woods from which to choose?  You may decide on one path, keeping the other for another day, all the while wondering if you will ever be able to return and try another direction. Yet whatever path you choose, it will make all the difference...

The past couple of months, I have been following a path that has taken me (temporarily) away from art and blogging.  I am like the person who sometimes can't see the forest for the trees - I need to focus on one thing at a time or I feel like I'm wandering around in circles, getting nowhere.  So while I've been putting my energy towards building my coaching business, I just haven't been able to commune with my muse.  My paints and art supplies, neatly stacked on shelves and stowed in bins, have been patiently awaiting my return.

This morning, as I was taking my walk with Heidi, I started to feel the familiar presence of inspiration around me.  In the trees.  In the bird-calls.  In the neon orange mushrooms sprouting from the sodden  earth.  In the cool breeze that comes before the sun's fully up.  In the rustling of the chipmunks and squirrels in the undergrowth.  In my mind's eye, I saw colors and textures, faces and gestures.  My mind moved  through the process of laying out a palette, choosing colors.  I saw layer upon layer of background.  I imagined trying a different approach to creating a figure, something looser and more expressionistic.  My muse, who has been lurking behind the trees, has begun to show herself.

I think it's time to go back to the other path I left behind.

Flower Power

journal page - 4/4/08

Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people. - Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 - 1964)

When I saw the topics for Inspire Me Thursday (the peace sign) and Illustration Friday (save), the first thing that came to mind was an illustration and post about how peace can save the world. And it's true... until we can find peace - within ourselves, our societies, and among nations - we will live in a constant state of strife and destruction. But as I started thinking about what I would write, all that came forth was that peace must originate from the individual. There are innumerable things each person can do to promote peace, starting from within... for a person who has inner peace will not make war with another.

Hug o' War

I will not play at tug o' war.
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.

- Shel Silverstein (1930 - 1999)

This journal page is inspired by peace signs and flower power... and my true desire to wish all of you peace, love, and happiness!

_______________________________________________________________________

P.S. -  Please accept my invitation to stop by Wings 4 You Coaching and participate in my Weekly Wings challenges.  There's a new challenge posted each Sunday.  I'd love to have you along on the journey!

Touches of Green and Gold

journal page - 3/22/08

Spring officially arrived in New England on Friday, and already Nature has begun to wallpaper the land with touches of green and gold. With the sun shining and the birds visiting the feeder outside my kitchen window,   it's hard to think of having any peeves.  All I feel is a wonderful whisper of promise in the air.  I have learned over time how much better my experience of the world is when I let go of the things that annoy me... and concentrate on the things that delight me.  Today, I am delighted to just be... here, in the moment.  Tomorrow I will go back to pondering the unknown fields before me.  Happy Spring, my friends!

First Georgic

When spring begins and the ice-locked streams begin
To flow down from the snowy hills above
And the clods begin to crumble in the breeze,
The time has come for my groaning ox to drag
My heavy plow across the fields, so that
The plow blade shines as the furrow rubs against it.

Not till the earth has been twice plowed, so twice
Exposed to sun and twice to coolness will
It yield what the farmer prays for; then will the barn
Be full to bursting with the gathered grain.

And yet if the field's unknown and new to us,
Before our plow breaks open the soil at all,
It's necessary to study the ways of the winds
And the changing ways of the skies, and also to know
The history of the planting in that ground,
What crops will prosper there and what will not.

In one place grain grows best, in another, vines;
Another's good for the cultivation of trees;
In still another the grain turns green unbidden.

- Virgil, translated by David Ferry

P.S. -  Please accept my invitation to stop by Wings 4 You Coaching and participate in my Weekly Wings challenges.  There's a new challenge posted each Sunday.  I'd love to have you along on the journey!

Space to Choose, Room to Grow

journal page - 2/11/08

Every year about this time, I begin to sense a lightening of spirit as I anticipate Spring. The days are noticeably longer, and although it's bitterly cold in New England, the slant of light mitigates the discomfort of wind chill factors and icy roads. It becomes easy to imagine the return of green, and I feel the urge to clean my inner house, sweeping out stale ideas and behaviors to renew and redefine my goals, as if the Vernal Equinox were my New Year's Day.

Just as it takes energy and the right combination of elements to coax the buds back from their winter's sleep, it takes energy and nurturing to foster personal growth. Yet often we find ourselves up against a variety of obstacles that keep us from steadily moving forward, much like rush hour traffic on a highway with a closed lane. We've all experienced that feeling of trying to get quickly from one place to another, but having to constantly put on the brakes and slow down to a crawl every few yards. We get edgy, we feel irritable; we may even lose our temper. And how does it feel by the time we finally reach our destination? Does it ever seem as if it weren't worth the trouble of the trip? The same idea applies to the tolerations in our lives that function as speed bumps on our own personal highways.

Although we often associate the development of tolerance as a behavior with positive attributes such as patience, acceptance of others' differences, and selflessness, it can also become an insidious drain on our time, energy, and spirit. Think of all the things we "put up with" in the course of a day, things that annoy or anger us, things that divert our attention away from what we want to do, things that cause us to react in ways that are contrary to how we would like to see ourselves. Each of these tolerations in some way prevents us from moving forward, ultimately leaving us feeling depleted.

According to Thomas J.Leonard, a pioneer in the life coaching profession, there are logical reasons why we accept tolerations in our lives. Perhaps we've been raised to practice the virtue of selfless patience so we can get along with others. While that is often a necessary skill for peaceful social interactions, what does it mean when we are doing no more than allowing others to take advantage of our "good nature"? What we've been taught to view as a commendable quality actually puts us in the position of feeling anger and resentment, two emotions that tremendously sap our energy. Perhaps we're afraid of the consequences we imagine will result if we eliminate negative behaviors and relationships, or take a stand to self-advocate and say "no." We feel safer with what we know - even if it's dragging us down - and ultimately we become mired in stagnation.

This year, my "spring cleaning" will be to identify and eliminate those things I tolerate that are really no more than speed bumps on my journey. I'll start small with things I can easily tackle, clearing the decks for the bigger things that require more work. I want to give myself more space to choose, more room to grow. Anyone care to join me? You can start by making a list of ten or more things that consistently bother you, or you might want to start by looking at Thomas Leonard's list of The Top 10 Tolerations that People Put Up With as Normal/Acceptable to see if any of them sound familiar. And feel free to share what you come up with, if you'd like!