Over the summer, a friend of mine had his birthday and I promised I'd paint him something between then and Christmas. When I asked him what sort of art he's in to he said, "I have no idea."
That sort of thing always makes me a little sad; who doesn't know what sort of art they like? Well, I suppose, lots of people. I'm a bit of a spoiled art junky I suppose. I was lucky enough to grow up a short drive from New York City and spent countless hours wandering hallways and getting lost in the works found in the art museums there. Also, I love art books: history, pictorial and otherwise.
Tangent aside, I poked and picked at my friend until he finally said he liked bright stuff with big bold colors (especially yellows) but had nothing particular in mind subject wise. Which honestly, works great for me - I prefer working by taking a general suggestion or preference, mixing it with what I know about the person and then just letting my intuition lead the way. Not all of the people I've painted for love it and some say they don't "get it", but that's neither here nor there. ;-)
Since Riddle and I have similar tastes in music, I decided that's where I'd start. There's something tremendously moving about painting to music for me, like it pushes me to really let shit out on to the page. Silence has the opposite effect and tends to murder a piece before it's even really begun.
This painting began with Nine Inch Nails, Chevelle and A Perfect Circle for company but progressed in to the Tool discography. The figure transformed and grew on the canvas, he released his energies in the form of lights and colors in paint as I moved with the music. I let it drag myself and the color palette deep for a bit then followed it back to the light, bringing brightness to the space.
Sometimes, for me, painting is sort of like dancing. You have to trust your partner, move in sync with them and sometimes you're going to fuck up and step on someone's toes. But there's a rhythm and an energy to it that's graceful and satisfying when you find your pace. This piece is one of those ones that once I hit on the perfect musical inspiration, came together incredibly smoothly and much more quickly than I had expected.
All in all, it's approximately 12 layers of paint from the deepest background to the brightest highlights and took about 14 hours to complete. If you're in to technical specifications, he's acrylic on 18"x24" on stretched gessoed canvas. I left him untitled so my friend can name it based on hat he sees in it, should he feel moved to.
P.S. I have no idea what Riddle actually thinks of his painting, I gave it to him in a time crunch so I could get it to him before Christmas and what he had to say at the time was, "that's awesome." I'd be curious to know how he feels about it now that the initial reception is over but think it'd be annoying to pop over and ask.
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Edited 8/6/13 to add:
It's been a few months since I posted about this piece. During that time, Riddle told me that he not only liked it.. but LOVED the piece and had hung it in a place where he could look at it every time he walked in to the room. He and his roommates all spent an inordinate amount of time staring at it (his words) and trying to name in, but came up with nothing. So that's awesome news.
On a downer note, our friendship seems to have run it's course so now, like so many paintings that have gone to live with other people, I won't be seeing this one in person again.
While I was at work yesterday, having a less than joyous day, I broke out the trusty Moleskine my best friend got me for Yule and sketched. At first came a woman on the left hand side, with dark eyes and long flowing hair. As I worked on the hair, I felt the urge to add the crown and the key. Once those were in place, I had no doubt who exactly it was that I had been sketching.
As I worked a bit more on Hecate, I felt a gentle tug and the sensation of a chuckling to my left. A whisper that my sketch needed wings! I very nearly stuck some on Hecate's back and then the sides of her head before sticking one on the side of the page. The chuckling continued as did the serious tug at my hands to draw wings. Oh, and some swirly curly bits too!
I let my hand go on the page to the right, sketching a wing, an oval, another wing. Then some glittering eyes and a quick swipe of a smirk. Oh bugger, Hermes! Really? You wanted me to draw yet another image of you? Because the last 35 of them I've done haven't been enough?
There's a bit of a glare and then a wide eyed mischievous grin before he whispers it's a shame to hide such great abs and winks away, leaving me alone. Oh, you cheeky Trickster god!
If there is one thing that I have always enjoyed about Hermes in my 20 years of time with him, it's the way that he can bring cheer to even the most dour of days. He doesn't always appear to me in his youthful form, nor as Trickster, but it is the most frequent.
Some of you will have already seen this post, but it's so dear to me and such an indicator of why painting and art are so important to me that it's worth sharing again. To me, this is a monumental demonstration of how healing art can really be.
Reblogged from my profile on the BIG website. I took the course in the Summer of 2012.
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We've just finished week 3 of BIG, A Fearless Painting Adventure and I've thrown myself so completely into the process and the painting, as well as taking the time to really love, heal and reconnect myself to the things I need that I haven't shared anything about it yet. When time is sparse, you can only do so much, sadly.
But tonight, I find myself with a glass of wine and an empty house (save the husband and animals, who are all curled up on the couch in the other room) since my friends have gone home and I figure it's time to share a bit. I've been sharing my experiences with the other gals who make up the current BIG Tribe, so I'm going to share the same experiences with all of you now. This is going to be long and very emotional, fair warning. Some bits have been copied and pasted from my original postings on the BIG forums, so they may read a little oddly.
For background, the first week of BIG was spent scribbling, doodling and generally getting into the groove of letting our intuitions guide our brushes, to let go of over inflated expectations and to get comfortable with the process. We also became familiar with our fear gremlins, those little voices inside of us that tell us something is ugly, or stupid, to give up or not to share this and that - the voice that stifles as it attempts to protect us. Now, what I'm going to share is my painting and process for week 2. Connie, our fearless leader, asked that we work with Memory in our first real, honest and fearless BIG painting. To just pick a memory, the first one that comes to mind or the one that keeps reappearing and popping in to say hello!
I watched the intro and the first video, popped over to the first discussion and read through it. My paper was out and ready to go and I closde my eyes, let my mind go and waited to see what the first memory that comes across my mind is because that, THAT is the one I'm going to paint...
And my mind goes blank. There are memories there in the depths of my mind, oh are there ever. Big bright shiny ones and deep dark terrifying ones but none jump forth and say 'paint me!' So I wait some more. Then I distract myself with some music, who knows? Maybe in setting up this small ritual I've scared them off, over thought them without even realizing it. Hours go by and nothing. I wait to hear something... yet nothing comes.
There are the obvious ones I could go for, like getting married, buying a house - you know, big life things. But when I think about using them for the project I get this feeling in my gut that says, nah. Not this one. Keep waiting.
When I decided to undertake this adventure, it was partially in order to break down my difficulty in not overthinking things, to learn how to trust and to let go of total control and expectations of the finished product. While I'm not consciously aware of doing any of these things while waiting for my memory to come, I wonder if they aren't hindering me somehow just the same. I continued to wait and sat down at the desk in my studio, opened youtube and this song was in my recommended que (not sure why - I suppose the Universe needed me to hear it.)
My guts churned, I cried. I knew what I needed to paint.
I'll admit, I was (and still am) a bit scared to share my memory painting. Opening myself up wide and laying my innards bare and raw for people I've 'just met' to see isn't something I do, ever. (Hell, sharing this level of myself with people I know well is rare.) So, I'm taking a fearless leap here, one of faith and of trust and I'm going to share the process and the memory here - to let it and myself be seen.
I was caught up in choosing a memory, but it was given to be by the universe in a song and a rush of clenched guts and tears. I know that it was said that we didn't need to dive into a deep, dark, heavy memory as we get our toes wet in the water of fearless painting... but that's what my guts, my soul, the gods above brought forth from the depths for me to work with. And I did.
The memory dredged up wasn't a one time event, but rather a period in time. In my late teens, my small world shattered around me. I was in an abusive relationship, my parents were divorcing and kept putting me in the middle of their spats as referee and bargaining chip, my younger siblings clung to me for love and stability. I fell into an incredibly dark and desperate place, barely clinging to any real will to continue to exist... I began to self hurt. Or cut myself, in more blunt terms. Over the course of those few years, I covered myself with hundreds of marks, always hidden by clothing as they bled and subsequently healed. 8 years after the last time, I still have 22 very visible scars just on my forearms and wrists, which people seem to be drawn to ask about. When they do, I become uncomfortable and nervous, worried they'll judge me for something that is long past. Terrified they'll look at me as 'one of those crazy people'. I decided to follow my gut and paint this time period in order to attempt to lay to rest those feelings and make peace with my past.
I put the song back on as I chose my colors; grey, grey-blue, blue, red. I let the tears fall as I sketched the shape on the paper. Hunched, cross armed, trying to maintain a small shape in the large space.
I just let it roll out of me and then, I added the heart. My fear gremlin went wild - she was livid and terrified all at once. How dare I expose my heart? Isn't that why I existed in that dark place, to shelter myself from further hurt? Isn't that why I hurt myself - to relieve the emotional pain? To remind myself that I was still alive and could feel?
I poured her a glass of wine and we cried together. I held her close and told her it would be OK. To trust me and our gut. She hid behind me as I began to fling blue onto the background. Grabbing red next, I slathered it over the blue. As I painted, I wanted to get physical with the process, so I tossed my brush aside and went at it with my hands and fingers - mushing red into blue, creating bruised purples. (In retrospect, I think my sub-conscious was putting the colors of my hurts onto the paper, as I was always badly bruised around the cuts afterwards.) Barely stopping, I grabbed the gray and began to fill in the body - as I covered the heart, my gremlin sighed in relief. It was safe, hidden - protected. As it should be.
Dipping my fingers in red, I cut at the wrist and the chest, swooped outlines around the figure in vibrant blood tones. Looking at the wrist I felt revulsion and tried to cover it back up with gray, resulting in a pink mess. My gremlin was upset but my gut said to put the red back and taking a deep breath, I listened.
Quieting my mind and the gremlin for a moment, I really dig deep and let my guts talk to me. I cry again, the sort of deep, heaving cathartic cry that comes on when you've been holding something in too long. I let the music in the background wash over me (I had a playlist on, not the same song on repeat just in case anyone was worried I was torturing myself) as I sat on the floor and cried. The gremlin came back over, patted my shoulder, trying to tell me I'd revealed too much - see? It told me I'd get hurt. I understand that it's trying to help me out, to look out for me, but I shoo her away. Not unkindly, but firmly. We need to do this, my guts have never, ever steered me wrong when I've taken the time to really listen to them.
And now, my guts tell me to get up and paint. I've got a lot of work to do. I grab a dark brown and add in hair, straight and stringy, falling forward to obscure some of the face; yet another safety mechanism that I only recognize in retrospect. Taking out the black, I give her big, bold outlines. My gremlin pops up again - 'That's not your style!! That's not how you paint!! She's cartoony, ugly!' I shush her again, after all, this isn't my typical subject matter nor is it a particularly pretty memory. I keep on, this part of me, this woman on the paper - she wants to be seen. She NEEDS to be seen. And big bold lines catapult her into view, where she cannot be ignored or pushed aside.
Stepping back a moment, I don't want to cry - for the first time since starting this. I don't feel lost, miserable, ashamed when I look at her though there is still some melancholy there. A sort of heavy eerie feeling down in my bowels. My gut chimes in, since my goblin has washed her hands of this - I'm not listening to her anyway - informing me to paint white circles in the background. I get to work, filling half the background with them before my gut says 'stop!' Step away and stop. And I do. I clean up my brushes and leave her, knowing somehow that she's not quite done with me yet.
As I look at her, she strikes me as sort of pretty and sort of powerful. Maybe not in a traditional sense, because there's a lot of pain and darkness surrounding her, but she's sort of light upon the page. Like a bright spot. And those circles, they make me feel hopeful when I look at them.
I let her sit on the easel in the studio for a day and a half. Friday, when I was on my lunch break journaling about this painting (she's taken up 10 pages in my composition book so far) I realized I was excited to see her. To get home and ask her what she needed, to work with her. The 4 hours of work were the slowest I can recall in recent history, not work volume wise, but to my rapidly spinning mind and needy heart.
When I bounded into the studio and grabbed my palette, my heart shouted 'Grab the red and the the yellow! And your favorite color blue! Oh, and white too!' And I did. Adding deeper hues of shadow to her, giving her more definition and somehow, despite blue being very melancholy - brightening her up a bit. I scribbled yellows and whites around her side, a sort of aura of hopeful energy - a sign that there was still so much life in her. A will to continue, to live. And then, my gut and heart whispered the most important part conspiratorially to me, quietly, so as not to wake and anger the sleeping gremlin. The finishing touch, the final lesson that she has to hand me:
To live, to let my heart beat fierce and free. That time is over with and not only did I live, I thrived despite all the anguish and pain. I pulled myself out of that darkness and rose like a phoenix into a new life, in which I wanted to let love back in to my heart. And how can you do that, if you lock it away?
This process, this painting, helped me in ways I can't even quite express right now because I am still absorbing it all. I plan to pin her to my wall for a while, to let her lessons sink in further, to have her help in overcoming the last remnants of shame I feel over my past like a great guardian angel birthed from a black seed in myself. My gremlin is pursing her lips at me for sharing all of this, worrying how this will be judged and for right now, I'm ignoring her and feeling so very, very free.
This journey, this adventure, has been bigger for me than I ever expected. I'm not learning new techniques, not fussing over the outcomes. Just letting the the process take me where it will... and it is an exhausting, magical, spiritual, beautiful process.
'm joining Taryn at Wooly Moss Roots and several other lovely bloggers in honoring the things for which we've been grateful for throughout the week.
If you would like to join us, just click the image at the bottom of this post.
This week I am Grateful for:
* Despite the gray skies and dreariness of the beginning of the week, I'm grateful we got the rain we so needed and none of the ice that was forecasted.
* That my budding new art endeavor and blog Heartroot Studio has been warmly received in its first week. It gives me warm fuzzies to know that folks enjoy seeing and reading about something so important to me.
* Goofing around with friends and laughing with the best friend.
* Coffee, that delicious nectar of the Gods. Without which, I'd be a grumpy pants.
* Our beautiful home, even with seemingly small projects snowballing in to big ones. I'm grateful that we opened up the wood around our kitchen window (we thought just the outer part of the trim had rotted) and discovered the use of untreated wood that had rotted straight through to the inside before it began to effect the siding or other wood.
* That Joe is so handy he can fix these things himself, saving us time, money and aggravation!
* The kindness of the Goddess of Discord who took my shift yesterday morning when I was laid out with a migraine. Proof that compassion and being nice does come back in kind.
* The hubs being such a super guy that he ran out first thing to get me comfort foods and aleve for my pounding head. I didn't even ask! Also for keeping the well meaning fur babies out of the bed so I could sleep uninterrupted until it had passed.
* Ending last night on a perfect note, snuggled up on the couch with a cozy fire watching The Muppets.
* Joe getting a new to us truck for an incredibly reasonable price from a friend. Now we can do so many more projects for the home and garden much more easily that we can with my tiny car!
* Sitting down with my art journal and making a grand old mess.
* The warm sun in the middle of January, even if this Northern Girl finds this to be odd winter weather.
* Luna's behavior issues seem to be calming down. Less growling, guarding and general bitchiness. There's hope for peaceful cohabitation yet!
* Talking to my dad on the phone for a bit and having a wonderful conversation.
* Extra shiny stars on an extra clear, dark night.
* Bird songs filling up the backyard.
To join in Gratitude Sunday, click on the image below! Happy Sunday, lovelies.
During my time in school, sitting in art classes and working on projects, it was a very serious affair. Art was always approached with an intended goal in mind before you'd even laid down your first mark on the fresh paper. Sure, you might sketch a few ideas out on newsprint to figure out spacial proportion, composition, maybe even scratch some color in to form a road map from blank page to masterpiece.
But doodling? Nope. No doodling. We drew from our minds as well as from life in front of us, but we always knew "what" we wanted to draw while we worked. If the budding young artist sitting beside me asked 'Hey Danni, what are you drawing?" I'd respond with something like "An apple tree at sunset, with a girl sitting beneath it reading a book" or "That vase filled with brushes, as a study of light and shadow on glass as well as transparencies." All very specific and structured.
And you know what? I was perfectly fine with that. I still do that with some of my work; sitting down with a clear idea of what I'd like to create and why and working on it until I'm happy with it. It's easy for me, laying down sketches and color and getting from point a to point b. That's how I've always worked, it's how my mind and my hands have been taught to communicate.
When I took Big with Dirty Footprints Studio last year, it was an incredible challenge for me to let that go. To approach the blank page and let loose - to scribble and add color and let my mind and my hand wander. To let my intuition guide me rather than my head. My inner critic had a field day with it; she and my intuition have some trust issues.
It was like doodling on a grandiose scale and I didn't doodle. Had never done so and in fact was positive that I couldn't do so because when presented with a sketch book or other small portable pad of drawing paper, it would collect dust. When I had attempted zentangles and mandalas they weren't what I'd call zen or relaxing at all! The desire to make them look awesome, to make them just so and my inability to let go of creative control made them abject failures for me.
But, while I was taking this class I forced myself to step outside of my artistic comfort zone and take a leap of faith. I surrendered myself to the process of painting fearless and wonderful, powerful things started tumbling from my head. All manner of shapes, symbols, colors and people poured on to my paintings, memories I had tucked away to forget about. It was healing. It was cathartic. Most of all though, letting my hand wander without my emotions getting in the way was freeing.
And now I doodle and sketch constantly. On scraps of paper, envelope backs and most recently in the little hardbound Hobbit Moleskine my best friend gifted to me over the holidays. He said it was for, "you know, ideas or maybe sketches. Whatever you want to put in there." And it sat untouched as I pondered how to start it off perfectly.
After a week of it collecting dust, I stuck it in my purse and carried it around with me for a bit. During a break at the day job I pulled it out, having forgotten the book I was reading at home, thumbed through it picked a page at random and started to sketch. Who says you have to start at the beginning anyway? And now that Moleskine and I are inseparable.
And it even has my first mandalas in it. They aren't "perfect" but they're exactly what I needed.
There are countless people that we will encounter in this life and many will have lessons to teach us. Sometimes the lesson will be obvious and straightforward but other times... well, other times you begin to wonder if the lesson doesn't have something to do with finding out how hard you can punch.
At times these lessons are easily won, beautiful nuggets of soul wisdom that inflate your confidence, morale, etc for days or weeks on end. Yet at other times, by the time you've finally figured out what it is you're supposed to learn you're sweaty, pissed off, at your wits end and wondering why the fuck the universe has decided to piss in your cheerios for so damn long. And if there's one thing I've found in this short life of mine it's that the hard won lessons are the ones that stick with us the longest and that even as you're shaking your fist to the sky you've grown in ways you may not realize for weeks, months... maybe even years.
Personally, these latter lessons tend to come to me in the form of Gods and Goddesses of Discord or Misery. Not the deity sort; as far as I know Eris isn't following me around flinging apples. (At least, I sure hope she isn't.) But the sort you find in your day to day happenings, the sort of people that can't help but pick fights, disagree with you loudly or have to rain on your parade because they are just so damn unhappy with their own lot that they can't let you have a good time in peace.
For nearly two years now I've been spending a huge chunk of my time with one such Discord Goddess. I've written about her before when I've spoken about my day job. She's so hung up on how she thinks the world *should* work, her own religious upbringing, her own seeming unhappiness with her life that she has been a fairly consistent thorn in my side. There have been times when just seeing her has set my teeth on edge and made my blood pressure rise as I waited for whatever hideously judgmental thing she had to say that day to pass her lips. But somehow, I've managed to bite my tongue (nearly off sometimes) and keep a relative peace when discussing issues that I feel have no place in a professional setting and on which we will never in this lifetime even remotely agree. (religion, politics, marriage equality, etc.) During this time, I've also managed to keep a good bit about myself cloaked and safe from this woman - she knows nothing about my triggers, my religion, my political leanings, or anything else that I deem (again) to be unprofessional to discuss.
Now, my friends and family who I've spoken to about this have wondered why in the hell I don't turn her in to HR. And I have two reasons: One - I have a temper and I know a lot of my discomfort not only stems from disagreeing with her, but from that rage center of mine and Two (my main reasoning) - I know that every night she goes home, eats dinner and goes to bed alone. Other than that and church, we are the entirety of her social sphere - a group of people who are 20+ years her juniors. Her husband is constantly on the road for work, her sons live far away and while her daughter and granddaughter live with her, they keep their own schedules and she doesn't see them all the time.
I'm not going to lie, about a month ago I wanted to not only pummel her but give her the yelling at of her life and tell her exactly how shallow, close minded and pathetic she is. I was so full of anger and righteous indignation on the behalves of women who have to make a tough choice, the LGBT community, the umbrella category of heathens and non-believers (as she calls them) that I could have set her on fire with my eyes. But then, something shifted.
Like, really shifted.
And while I still am frustrated by my crappy schedule every week (which she makes), I'm no longer glaring daggers and trying to set her on fire with my mind. I still get twinges of hot rage when she says things, but now rather than angrily walking off I shift the conversation to something else. There's no progress to be made in screaming matches and I know she won't listen to what I have to say rationally, so I simply won't discuss it. Nowadays I find myself feeling badly for her; not in a pitiful way, but in a compassionate one. I think about the fact that she's never known any other sort of life and that those beliefs that she has lived with for her entire existence are slowly dying around her. I acknowledge that she is probably very lonely, not really leaving the house aside from work and her family not being around very often. I understand that she has a very low self image and lashes out at others out of hurt. And when I think about these things I don't feel angry and I don't want to take her out back and scream at her anymore.
And while I don't know that I will ever necessarily like her, I have genuine compassion for her.
And this is the lesson that I believe this Goddess of Discord was sent to give me: The gift of genuine compassion.
That and getting my ass in gear to get out of the thankless customer service job, because life is too damn short to spend doing something that makes me miserable - but that's neither here nor there for the moment.
At the beginning of the year (not so very long ago), I mentioned that I was meeting with a small business consultant to hash out what I needed to do to become a legitimate, licensed artist in this area; one who can show at galleries, vend at events and festivals as well as online. That meeting went brilliantly and I'm happy to say that I now have a road map to getting where I want to go as far as my big dream of making a living doing what I love is concerned.
With that roadmap and the new directions my art has been going in since I started this blog and the wee shop a few years ago, I decided after a lot of thinking and mulling it over, that a new name was in order to better reflect where I am right now. And so, Heartroot Studio has been born.
At first, when I decided to change the name of the shop, I had also considered changing the name of this blog to match up. But the more I thought about it and the more I pondered (and well, drove myself crazy over it) the more I thought I wanted a place for Serious Art Business (uh-oh!) and the more I worried that I'd have to streamline this little space that I've grown to love so much as my virtual home to reflect that. No more tea parties, no more random whimsy, no more rambling posts about spiritual journeys... that all somehow seemed not to be in line with making a serious go at being a Professional Artist.
So after taking some quiet time to reflect on all that, I've decided to do something I've said in the past I didn't want to do: I've gone ahead and started a second blog for my Serious Art Business. One where I can post about new pieces, my process and ponderings related only to my art, so people can mosey between the shop and the blog without getting distracted by the plethora of other things that make me so very... well, me. That's not to say I'm only going to post boring things over there (well, that I find boring anyway) or that I'll stop sharing all of my artwork here either. It simply means there will be two places for all of you lovelies to visit with me and I can have my spiritual tea and whimsical cake and eat it too!
P.S. If you read my last post about the lessons Bear has taught me, this is one of those. Being gentle and kind to myself and giving myself exactly what I need, even if others may not understand it. xox
Things are continuing to move forward, outward and expanding all around me and this year continues to feel so much lighter and brighter than the last one. Things are still shifting around in nearly every aspect of my life and the feeling from Yule persists.
I've made some progress already with my freshly begun journey in SouLodge as we hunker down with Bear and her medicine and work with the restorative, introspective magic of Winter. This month, for me, is all about self-loving, self-healing and taking the time to feel restive and restored which may sound a little counterproductive to the things I have planned for this year. But, I'm going to go with it and ride the flow of the season and trust that even with slowing down and going inwards, I will ultimately be moving forward. After all, if I can't heal and love myself, if I can't tend to my own needs then how am I ever going to do so for anyone or anything else? If I can't understand and converse with myself, I can't possibly expect to be any good at doing so with other people (or critters).
So, I've been doing a lot of journaling and a good bit of drawing as I take my time with this journey. When I journal, I don't try to phrase the answers like an essay (something my perpetual student and annoyingly perfectionist note-taking personality aspects aren't too fond of) and just let the thoughts slip from my mind, through my hand and on to the page. I haven't gone back to read anything over again, but I'm sure that when I do in a few weeks, months or years time I'll notice how very far I've come since those initial pages.
I've also tried my hand at following the guided meditations and journeywork in the course with varying levels of success. In the past, I've touched on my difficulties with meditation and how I have a hard time focusing and visualizing things - something people seem to find odd, given my creative nature. But, I assure you that when I do these things, I don't see movies on the back of my eye lids, I'm not transported to another plane of existence or being and I don't smell things. And for as long as I've been attempting these exercises in my spiritual practice I've felt like an abject failure for not having things go that way. My time with bear and my sharing with others in the SouLodge has helped me be kind to myself about that, to understand firmly that it isn't always that way for everyone and that what happens for me is just as valid as if those things DID happen for me.
And it's been a tremendous eye opener for me. To know that the sensations, wisps of thoughts, emotions and flickers of images that I see are valid, that these are simply how my mind and heart process the experience. I'm learning to relax and let my intuition and imagination work together to present the wisdom I seek in the best possible way for me to digest it. I've also given up on jumping from position to grab a book and take exact notes because I feel that sort of shoos everything away. Oh, that note taking habit is so damn hard to break.
And all of this has helped rekindle my other spiritual practices after they took a bit of a nap during the past few months. My eye has been skyward more often, toes in the wet grass, really relishing the sensations of the outdoors and the oncoming spring energy that I can feel buzzing -literally with the bees already being out and about- around me. These times of resting and inward travel have opened up new conversations with myself about the irrational guilt I sometimes feel for taking time to veg and do my own thing rather than caring for the plethora of things that I feel need to be taken care of instead (housework, work-work, arbitrary bullshit on the internet). I'm learning to be kinder and gentler with myself and to allow myself guilt free time for self nourishing, friends, family, fur babes and fun. And while there are still times that I fall into old habits and beat myself up over things, it's getting lighter and better. The road out from the darkness isn't a short straight path, but it does lead outwards and is worth getting up after a stumble, brushing myself off and continuing onwards - bravely.
And if these are the only lessons I take from SouLodge, then the money will have been well worth it. But as there are still 11 1/2 months to go, well, we'll see what other lessons and growth await.
P.S. A few people in my offline circle have complained that I'm 'too much of a hippie sometimes.' To those folks I'd like to say, before we go any further in our relationships, don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you! Life is far too short to waste time on people who want to change you for the wrong reasons. Either you like me or you don't, I'm not going to expend energy trying to sway you either way.
The other day, I posted about my one little word for 2013; Brave. We're only 4 days in to the new year and the change is already tangible between the past year and the current one for me. The house is clean, the stress has dissipated a bit, spirits are high, candles have been refreshed, altars tidied and course work for SouLodge started.
Of course, I've been home sick since the 2nd, so I suppose we'll see how well this continues once I've gone back to work.
Speaking of which, I did something very brave for me today. Some of you will remember a little while back, I contacted our local SCORE chapter asking for help with becoming licensed to sell at festivals, fairs and galleries locally and their reply being 'Buy admission to this expensive seminar that has very little to do with your question!' I'd been feeling very put out for a bit, but have been using my downtime at home to do some more research into the subject. This morning, while sipping my tea, I came across a Small Business Development Center that operates as part of one of the local universities. Taking a deep breath, I shot off an email explaining my situation and my questions.
Within the hour, I received an email back from a business counselor there asking to set up an appointment to meet and discuss my aspirations and concerns face to face. We're going to meet at the local library Monday morning before I go to work. Now, I have to write out all of my questions and prepare myself to take a big step forward, to take the first step to making these dreams and ponderings a reality.
Once I get it sorted out and have a roadmap of where to go and what to do, I'll be re-branding to better suit the direction my art is taking. Don't worry, there will still be plenty of whimsical watercolors and deity art, but I want to incorporate the deep heartfelt and soulful work I've been doing as well. I may just rename the shop, possibly this blog too. We'll see what happens when I get there.
For now though, I'm nervous and excited. Deep Breaths.
Joe put this odd little tarot deck in my stocking this year for me to use in my mixed media work (the minors look like playing cards and I typically don't like a severe lack of symbolism for reading). After posting earlier I decided to journal about my word of the year and figured, what the heck, let's pick a card to go with it. This is who showed up.
Nods from the Universe, little signs that I'm on the right path.
(Me? A fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Nooo...)
The last sunrise of 2012.
2012 was an odd year, throughout which I lost and found myself several times. Bits of my personality were washed away in the monsoon of irrelevant daily bullshit and found again months later poking out of the mud. There were revelations and big leaps towards healing myself and making peace with my past. There was a weeding out of folks and ideas that were bringing me down, a successful attempt to rid myself of some pervasive negativity. There were runs and adventures, new friends, lots of love and the addition of the ever difficult Luna bear to our family. Seriously, she's a mess. But I still love her.
Spiritually, deities shifted and I found myself not only deeply connected to the Green lord and lady but reconnected with the god of my youth, Hermes. The lady of keys and crossroads also found me. There was some weeding out here as well, plucking out practices and ideals that no longer serve me or my path. There was a lot of growth at the start of the year, learning about other traditions and getting in touch with that deep seeded intuition I'd lost contact with years ago. As it went on though, ritual fell by the wayside, again in the flood of the things I 'needed' to do, but I am finding my way back to it - even if only in the simplest of tasks. My path is long and winding and I'm bound to stumble upon the way - what's important is that I keep walking anyway.
I'm carving out space in my day for the things that feed my spirit, my soul - the things that make me 'Me' and not just the things that I have to do like work, clean up and sleep. But I'm not going to lie, it's been hard going on me to do so. Like I'm doing something wrong, something selfish, by demanding an hour or two a day from the Universe for writing, reading, art and spirituality. No one makes me feel this way, Joe and Luna and the Kitty boys all go do their own thing and seem to be happy that I'm doing this because it makes me happy. While I can't exactly pinpoint where this irrational guilt comes from, I have a few suspicions as to why it's lodged in my head. Hopefully, I can figure it out and pluck it very soon.
There are some things in this life we cannot change, but there are others that we can. 2013 is a year in which I am going to boldly embrace making the changes that I can in order to live the life I (and my wee family) deserve to live. One where I'm not a raging, depressed bitch for half a year at a time. And I'm going to do this by embracing my one little word for 2013:
adjective
1. possessing or exhibiting courage or courageous endurance.
2. making a fine appearance.
3. Archaic. excellent; fine; admirable.
noun
4. a brave person.
5. a warrior, especially among North American Indian tribes.
verb
7. to meet or face courageously: to brave misfortunes.
8. to defy; challenge; dare.
9. Obsolete . to make splendid.
I particularly like the obsolete definition of 'to make splendid', because that is exactly what I hope embracing this word will do.
This year, I'm going to fight the knee-jerk reaction to say 'no' to things I've never done, that worry me without good reason or that I'm just being a grump about. I'm going to boldly face down the past, this ridiculous guilt and my depression and give them all the finger. I'm going to suck it up and get my ass back to being healthy. I'm going to give up sleep and hours at work to do the things that make my soul glow. I'm going to knock on doors, call and leave messages and take whatever classes I need to in order to get my wee art studio up and running so I can do my heart's work instead of just trudging to a job every day.
When faced with something challenging, something negative, something ugly and scary - I'm not going to cower and cry. I'm going to step up, look it in the face and attempt to spin it in a positive light. I'm going to embrace myself, be kind to and love myself - really and truly, for the first time since girlhood. I'm going to run - wild and free - wherever my soul pulls me and embrace all the quirks that make me so deliciously me. I'm going to embrace this life, my life, and appreciate all the wonderful, beautiful things that it contains and not let the bad stuff control or poison it anymore.
And I know it can happen because 13 is ,afterall, my lucky number.
P.S. In an attempt to kickstart my goals, to help embrace bravery in the best way I know how, I'll be taking DEEP with Dirty Footprints Studio again starting in February. For personal reasons, Connie had to close up shop early at the beginning of December on our last session but will be hosting the entire things, with new content, to our circle again soon. She's a golden light in a sometimes dark world, a real inspiration to me.
P.P.S. As my first Brave act of 2013, I finally took a deep breath and signed up for SouLodge with Pixie Campbell - something I've been daydreaming about forever. I'm looking so very forward to the lessons and growth in store for myself and the rest of the circle throughout the year.
P.P.P.S. Forgot to mention, not only is this a big year for me because it's a 13th year but I also leave my 20's... I turn 30 in February.
P.P.P.P.S. (I know, this is getting ridiculous) What sort of year-end wrap up would this be without a pictorial review? Some snaps from 2012, enjoy!
Christmas Highlights.
Fearless Painting - making art from my heart, trusting my intuition and doing it all for me.
The Color Run
4th Anniversary! *love*
New friends and old on Hallowe'en.
Luna (the bear) Petunia. This photo threw you for a loop, because it isn't square, didn't it? ;-)
D&D nights with friends.
Relaxing weekends.
Baby birds ALL OVER the backyard.
Getting to see whale sharks. Best birthday gift, ever.
