Gratitude*Sunday

Each Sunday I stop and count my blessings.

Taking time to honor the things I've been grateful for throughout the week. A quiet, weekly practice of appreciation and positivity. A time to breath and reflect. A small step towards a more simplistic and appreciative outlook. Feel free to join in. <3

This Week I am Grateful For:

* Catching up with our friends who we haven't seen in a little bit, and a trip to the zoo with the three amigos. Who all let us know when it was time to go. ;)
* Friends who come over and spend their entire Saturday helping us out in return for food and conversation. This time it was fixing Joe's truck.
* My good friend Jenn taking me to my favorite local brewery to do a glass etching class as a late birthday gift.
* Spending time with creative friends at Cynthia of Spirit Uncaged's house. I so need and refill at these creative women's circles she started. It's a beautiful energy and time to experiment and work on projects. It's been the best medicine for me.

Image by Tina Huba HalseyMae.com Facebook

* Time with my best friend, Michael. We suck at best friending lately, but we're working on it.
* Repurposing old artwork from high school and my time in BIG with Dirty Footprints Studio in to a gigantic art journal by tearing it up and sewing it together. Hat tip to Hali Karla for the inspiration to take the plunge and breath new life in to old work.
* Spending most of our waking time outside this week. It's been too beautiful to be indoors!
* Meeting another Stay at Home mom and Harry Potter fan at the park and skipping small talk and talking about our sons, husbands, hobbies, and lives. I hope to see her again! Awkward penguin here didn't ask for her number or anything. Whoops.

The Traveling Art Journal Project - 2016

Acorn painting the cover of my traveling journal.

For the past year, I had toyed with the idea of starting an art swapping circle of some sort. I love making art, but I'm running out of places to store it all, and I love other people's art, but lack the funds to buy it. And don't have a lot of space to store it. ;)

So, I opted to try out a traveling journal circle. I invited my friends who work in any form of 2d art - writing, painting, collage, recipes, doodling, you get the idea - to join up and invite a friend. In the end, I gathered 18 participants including myself, which feels like the perfect number to have this work out in a year's time.

We've had a few snags here and there with communication, but for the most part, so far so good. All the journals are still accounted for after their 3rd mailing and that was my biggest fear. I can communicate with poor communicators, I can spot money to have journals sent on if I need to... I cannot replace it if it's lost in the mail. So, fingers crossed we've ironed things out in the talky talky department and that the postal gods see all of our journals safely to all 18 of their destinations over this next year!

If all goes well, maybe I'll organize a 2nd round in 2017. I'm not a born organizer or space holder, so this is a new, sometimes trying, growing experience for me. I'm a little bit of a control freak, so this is a good exercise in letting go to a certain extent, as well.

I'm currently working on my 4th journal (including my own). My journal has the theme "Exploring the Feminine", another journal had the theme "intentions and wishes for 2016", and the last two were artist's choice.

If you're in the project and don't want to see spoilers, avert your eyes! ;)

The cover of my journal after Acorn finger painted it.


The page I did in my journal before sending it on.


Page from the first visiting journal, which was artist's choice. This was the same week David Bowie died and I couldn't get space or the Starman out of my head.


Detail of one of the pages I did in the 2nd visiting journal, with the theme "2016 Intentions and Wishes." This was an extra page I did in the book, I neglected to take a photo of my main spread. I had written down my wishes and intentions, then painted and oil pasteled over them.


This is the 3rd visiting journal, which showed up yesterday and is another artist's choice. This is the 1st layer of paint and some pencil doodles. It's still fresh, so we'll see where it takes me.

This has been an excellent way for me to keep the intuitive painting juices flowing without the time or energy needed to complete large pieces. I haven't felt much like hanging out in my studio, I started an 18 x 24" canvas the week that Bowie and Alan Rickman passed as a way to work through the grief of losing two of my favorite artists. But it's been in a state of somewhat completion for a bit and aside from that, I've been happier working on smaller stuff these days.

While a part of me is pouting over this, for the most part, I'm just accepting that this is how I need to create right now and embracing it.

Release

This painting was a test of my creative courage. It started life in fiery reds and oranges, lots of swoops, swirls, dots... it looked like a dancing woman, and I was so sure that is where it was destined to become.

But, it wasn't working. Every line, every color, felt wrong. The little voice in the back of my head whispered to cover half the canvas in prussian blue, but I resisted. I was afraid and full of judgement towards the piece, so I kept on trying to push it.

As long as I resisted it, nothing worked. Once I surrendered and followed that little voice, once I trusted in the mystery and the process, there were no more snags.

It's like a metaphor for life, isn't it?

Healing and Stealing Minutes

Towards the end of February, I scheduled a yearly wellness visit with my doctor. Before my visit I made a list of all of the things that were concerning me so that when I was there I wouldn't forget to mention any of them.

And for the first time ever, a doctor took every single one of my points seriously. He asked me questions about them, did his due diligence in checking each thing out, took a boatload of my blood and referred me out to a hand full of specialists for the things he felt others would better be able to help me with. We even talked about my visits with the therapist, who it turns out he knows and refers all of his female patients to (because she specializes in women's issues) and he checked my thyroid levels just to be sure there was no underlying physical cause to my issues; aside from being tired, of course. ;)

Needless to say since that visit, I've been very busy visiting a bunch of doctor's offices. It hasn't necessarily been fun, and I've still got about a dozen or so more appointments to go, but I've been getting answers and help and am finally starting to feel better. Just having someone take me seriously when I complained about arthritis pain, as opposed to brushing me off as "too young", would have had me feeling better.

Between physical therapy, the GI doctor, a scope and a procedure to fix my esophagus, the eye doctor (because you know that flared up again!), the ear doctor, the rhuematologist, the therapist, sleeping, eating, cleaning, animal caring, wifing and mothering (especially soothing a child growing 6 teeth at once) there really hasn't been much time left over for things that involve a lot of time or ritual. Even my Beltane was celebrated by speaking thanks to the Universe while I was driving home from an appointment with the windows down and the warm breeze making a million and one knots in my hair.

We do what we can, right?

In the midst of all of this, I quit social media. So if you've been following me elsewhere and noticed I've gone missing, sorry! I'd been mulling it over for a bit and this felt like the time to do it. In the 2 weeks I've been offline, I've noticed a drastic improvement in my moods and I've gotten a lot more little things started or finished. My free time has been spent napping, meditating, reading or working in what I'm calling my stolen minutes art journal.

I met some friends for coffee this past Sunday and one of them had her art journals with her. And they were beautiful and filled with so much energy and devotion. Thumbing through them made me miss my own practice terribly, but I found myself lamenting how long it took me to put together the pages in my book. SO LONG. SO elaborate. I don't have time for that!

Oh, but I wanted the time for it. And so, I'm changing up my practice, tossing the "rules" aside and fitting it in when I have a few minutes. It doesn't need to be elaborate (unless I want it to be), I can jump around from page to page willy nilly. It doesn't have to be deep or beautiful, it simply needs to be a soft place for thoughts, paper, paint and glue to land and be a rock for my need to make things to cling to. And if ah ha moments, beautiful art or secret messages appear there, so be it.

P.S. I'm feeling disconnected and dissatisfied with the name and feel of my beloved space here. It's one of the myriad of reasons I haven't been blogging, because I feel like what I want to write about won't "fit". So I'm pondering a new name, one that better encompasses all that I am, since this is, in fact, a personal blog.

So after a solid 6 years, soon The Whimsical Cottage will be renovated.

Lessons in Paint

The other day, I woke up realizing something inside has changed. A shifting had occurred, slowly, nearly imperceptibly. I would have missed it entirely if it hadn't been for my purposeful invitation of presence and mindfulness in to my life.

I feel better.

Out of the woods may not be accurate yet, but seeing the light at the forest edges definitely is.

And as I'm beginning to come out of the heavy, dark fog, my Muse has been beckoning gently. I set out on my birthday earlier in the month to purchase a fresh giant canvas from the art store, but instead returned home with a new art journal.

Working in it has pushed me further than these small periods of painting usually do. I've been frustrated, ready to unleash Hell upon the unfinished page with black paint or use the magical delete medium that is Gesso. But instead, when I hit that wall, that place of being pissed off, frustrated and lost, I put it aside for the night. I give myself a time out, space to breath, and permission NOT to finish my daily pages in one day.

And as I apply this approach, these lessons in patience, grace, and space to my art practice, so to do I apply it to other aspects of my life.

Take time out. Let go and let things happen. Breathe. Repeat.

Wordless Wednesday: How We Say Goodbye

Elephant Medicine and Painting

Intuitive painting is one of those things that if you don't do it for a little while, it takes a bit to get back in to the flow. Sort of like when you haven't worked out for a long time and you need to stretch and recondition the muscles that you've grown used to not using before you can pick up where you left off.

Over the past two years I've built up what I refer to as muscle memory that triggers my brain to take the back seat so my intuition and I can have a talk. Not always, mind you, because there is still fun and enjoyment to be had when I sit down and say "I want to draw x, y or z thing" but when I want to do some deeper work and exploration. I set up things just so, get out a particular palette, stretch myself out and then ground myself before beginning.

I went through all these motions the other day and started painting what I figured would end up being three women. As the purple paint swooped and looped across the paper, I was fully locked in to this idea of three wise women; I even blocked out the musculature for the central one. But, as I worked I kept getting this internal nudge that sounded and felt very much like "elephant". What? Elephant? This was going to be three wise women, my intuition said so!

The turning point.

Wrong! My brain had decided that's what the painting was going to be, not my intuitive muscles. I stepped back from the painting for a moment and sure enough, I saw the beginnings of a large elephant in the shapes I thought would be women. Following the nudge, I began to work on it and was working much more easily than I had been. In the same time it took me to struggle with 3 shapes and some color, I was able to block out and color this spirit animal as well as begin work on the background before calling it a day.

As I talked about in a previous post, my motivation has been holding steady at empty, which has been frustrating to me, as I'm normally a doer. So I've been bringing myself to the paper for 20-60 minutes a day since Thursday - except the weekend, during which I was busily working on things outside. Some days it's been a struggle to get started, but once I'm actively working the process becomes relatively easy and cathartic. Probably because I'm working on a big blue elephant.

So, why an elephant?

Elephant is what I like to refer to as my lifelong totem. She's been by my side, literally, since the day I was born. Winter storm child that I am, I was born in a blizzard and all the shops aside from a small one near the hospital were closed. My dad, on his way to the hospital having left work, wanted to get me something and the thing this little store had that caught his eye was a ridiculously gigantic elephant toy. This toy is totally the carnival variety; filled with styrofoam beads, covered in not so soft flocking and wearing a party hat and clown ruffle (though the ruffle has gotten lost over the past 31 years). I loved that elephant and still do, it lives with me still and hangs out in my studio with me.

She's been a huge part of my life, as a favorite animal and totem since that day. I've read through the different tales and mythologies surrounding elephants in world cultures, have been active in conservation efforts for them since I was a teenager, have written numerous letters to have them released from carnivals, petting zoos, circuses and small zoos where they aren't properly cared for over the years and I even have one tattooed on my calf that I had done when I had come through a few years of emotional turmoil wiser and stronger than I had been before.

Ganesha, the elephant headed God and I have had a close bond since I found him over a decade ago. I will admit that at first I was drawn to him for his unique appearance but after getting to know him, he is one of the most gentle gods I've ever known. He is said to be another aspect of Hermes, much like Thoth, and seeing as how Hermes has been with me since childhood the connection to other aspects of Him makes sense to me.

But I digress. Elephant comes to me most often when I am feeling empty, drained and washed up. She lifts me up with her mighty trunk and lays me on her wide, strong back to rejuvenate. She fills me with strength as she carries me forward, removing obstacles that stand before me while bestowing on to me the wisdom to be gained from having struggled.

She comes to me when I'm faltering emotionally. When I feel scared or anxious, when I feel lost under a sea of "what ifs". She gently opens the door back to the space outside of those dark emotions for me, allowing love, confidence and commitment to the things I've chosen flow back in to me. She shows me through the actions of elephants out in the world what it is to be part of a family or community, what it is to care, to love and to nurture.

She comes to me now, when I'm at a huge threshold of change - when I am frustrated with myself, nervous and excited about the future, to give me her pearl of wisdom. To show me how to mother, by reminding me of all the mothering I've done for myself and others throughout the years. She comes to support me, to comfort me and to reassure me when I once again need her.

Painting the Feminine - Destruction and Rebirth

The journey we took together through Painting the Feminine, led by the huge hearted, vibrant and honest Connie at Dirty Footprints Studio officially ended this past Monday, February 2. But truly, when she offers it again, I highly recommend you take it, even if you don't think you can draw because art skills and techniques DO NOT matter. They really, truly don't. I have thoughts and feelings on what this whole journey meant to me and look forward to continuing the exploration on my own (with the safe space to continue to share my work and discoveries here on the blog and with my sisters in paint on our community page) but I will share those once I've finished sharing my art journal pages. Which will hopefully resume next week. My scanner has been giving me some trouble and photos of the journal just don't capture the essence of each image as well as I'd like. But I think I've finally gotten it sorted out, so I'll be on a scanning marathon this weekend!

In the meantime, one of the prompts that I haven't shared yet touched me so deeply and so heavily that I worked with it not only in my journal, but on to the canvas.

The prompt was The Fierce Feminine... in particular, the power of Destruction. Harnessing our Kali and Destroyer energies in such a way so they don't burn us out, but are beneficial rather than simply destructive for destruction's sake.

You all may remember this painting I shared a while back:

Some of you will be horrified to know that I mindfully and intentionally destroyed this piece, smothering her with gesso and modeling paste until the canvas was blank and textured; new and reborn. All 80+ hours of work and hands down my masterpiece painting, gone in a few hours time. Let me share why I did so, as recorded in the writing journal that's accompanied this journey through the feminine:

Destruction and closure came to me in a very different way than just in the art journal this week. It came in the form of a bottle of Gesso and the edge of one of those faux credit cards you get in the junk mail (who needs a palette knife?).

The painting is one that took me almost 100 hours to complete. It is filled with sweat, tears and so much raw anger, hurt and frustration. She tore from my gut and my heart like an avenging angel, filled with fire and poison, ready to smite and to kill after one of the most emotionally draining and painful periods this soul has encountered in its 30 years on this Earth; my longest and most difficult battle with depression, lasting over 6 months and nearly costing me every single loved one in my life. She sucked the last vestiges of the lingering feelings from that time out of me, like a great vacuum and left me feeling cleansed, renewed and refreshed when I had finished.

It was a year ago this weekend that she was created and it was this weekend that she has been cleansed, wiped clean. I was so proud of her when I finished her; she was both a technical and emotional masterpiece for me... the single greatest work I've ever achieved. But we both knew that I couldn't fully heal with the energy leaking from her and from me; that the old wounds were merely scabbed over and not yet scars. Looking at her was a painful reminder of that terrible time, not one that uplifted me and said "I made it!" but one that reminded me of all that I had felt. So I sealed that time and those feelings behind layers and layers of Gesso; I sent her off with ritual - with incense and with more tears, this time of the cleansing variety. The surface of the canvas has been cleansed and reborn and is now waiting to reveal something new to me when the time is right.

This was one of the most difficult things I've ever done; to in essence destroy something in to which I'd breathed life. But from destruction, so often comes birth and I know that something beautiful will emerge from her proverbial ashes.

***

And something already has. I've been working on a new painting on this canvas since our circle closed, keeping my painting practice alive in a different form... taking the time and space each day to connect with the Feminine and paint. I've been enjoying this new painting, singing and dancing while I break in new paintbrushes from the husband on it. This is the polar opposite of my time painting The Lady, where most days I dragged myself unwillingly to the canvas almost as an act of penance... painting this new one has been an act of pure joy and light heartedness. Going to the canvas isn't a chore, but rather something to look forward to each day.

Taking that brave step, harnessing the strength of the fierce Feminine to destroy something that I had created (which I have never, ever, ever done before) was an amazingly freeing and healing experience. Without that happening, I may never have fully gotten over that time or the fear of relapse. Now, without her constant gaze reminding me of it from the studio floor (I never hung her up but rather left her in the corner) I feel no fear or shame.

Here's a sneak peek at the rebirth, the Phoenix rising from the destruction:

Painting the Feminine - The Noble Path

This one gets real heavy. Fair warning.

The talk about the Noble Path of women being to hold space in this world and the subsequent painting unlocked something deep for me. The painting and reactionary journaling took me less than 45 minutes, but they were intensely emotional minutes as both the painting and words were more or less torn from me. I'll share what I wrote along with the painting, it's sort of stream of consciousness and very emotional.

The Noble Path - This piece tore out of me with such speed, lucidity and emotion, the idea of holding space within us being the Noble Path struck such a deep chord in me. That the womb isn't JUST to make life & isn't the only thing that this function isn't the only thing that defines us as women... but rather that it sits empty inside of us as a reminder of our calling as sacred space holders - to hold sacred, safe, nourishing space for ourselves and others.

Such a strong message for me, who always felt contention, anger and shame towards my womb. Me, the one with debilitating cramps, cysts and endometriosis - who hardened her heart and turned emotions to stone over the thought of reproducing... who was told numerous times my issues probably wouldn't allow for it to happen. I who made myself poisoned against having a child, who poisoned herself against her traitorous body - useless fucking painful organs! Tired of pain, wishing only to never suffer from the emotional pain of disappointment after so much physical duress.

I felt less than feminine, less than woman. Worthless. Why even try? Why put myself out there? Why set myself up to be the fallguy for further fucking pain? It took so long to trust, to break that wall down stone - by -stone. No one understood really, because I didn't share my shame... burying it under anger and lashing out whenever people querried when I might have a child. Fuck you. Just fuck you. But I did it, and I tried and I was the lucky one... I was SO GODS DAMNED LUCKY. Because, after that pain, that path of ruthless tearing down to claw back to trust, I'm blessed to have something growing inside of that womb of mine.

But that's not the end of this path, not the end of the healing of my feminine & womb energies... but that trust, that willpower to stand back up knowing I could get knocked down... that's a step. This child is a step. A step to being kinder to myself, to my body. To letting go of that shame and anger... that feeling somehow, like the pain - these issues aren't a ludicrous hateful curse.

This painting holds this space for that healing process- for coming to terms with that shame, that pain, the conditions the shock and awe I feel at having a spirit inside of me. The utter terror I sometimes have at that feeling; that I'll wake up and it will all have been a horrible cruel dream. The amazement that there's someone growing in that space I was told would most likely always remain empty... in that sacred, empty space inside each of us.

Painting the Feminine - Let Go

The Feminine constantly asks us to let go... in both little and big ways. It asks us to let go of perceptions, notions, stories, fear, relationships, comfort, jobs... and to simply trust.

For this prompt we "let go" in a smaller way, by painting with our non-dominant hands. For me this is my lefty.

The painting started with big bold shapes and strokes of color, easy to get the feel of with lefty. At first, I was squeezing paints in to the palette, washing brushes and handing them to my left hand with my right hand and all I was focused on was how uncomfortable I was. My shoulder felt jacked up, my wrist was uncomfortable.. my body was at a weird angle. I was fighting letting go by trying to paint with my left hand while everything on the table was still set up for the ease of use of my right hand! Duh, lightbulb! No wonder I was achy!

As I shifted position, I felt my inner comfort level shift and the painting followed suit. Finer lines appeared and shapes made themselves known and were more clearly defined. The finished piece calls to me with a LOT of energy, as if telling me to no longer cut off the parts of me that I view as lesser (my left hand, my achy knees, (as I'll shamefacedly admit) my inner lady bits which I've viewed for so long as a curse) and to recognize that all of my parts are enough. That by cutting off or viewing any of them as lesser, I'm only lessening myself.

Painting the Feminine - The Journey

I was fully integrated in the process of creating this piece, "The Journey". I kept thoughts at bay by focusing my mind on the sensations of the brush held in my fingers, the feel of the paint as it swept along the paper.

The painting surprised me, with its lack of female figure - with its bright green "tombstones" and great gnarly purple tree. This painting was 100% intuitive, I let it guide me from the get go - not pondering or meditating what the prompt "the journey" meant to me, but rather letting things unfold organically; putting things on the paper as they were whispered in to my heart. When I heard "crows!", I added them. When I heard "Lotuses", I added them. I didn't think about it; which takes a lot of effort for me.

To me this painting manages to symbolize how I feel about our journeys here through life:

This whole life, the whole cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth... it's all one big cosmic journey. There is no beginning and no end, it's an endless spiral or an unbroken circle; the walking of which right now is the entire point, not the future and not where we came from. Our purpose is the journey, not the destination.

***

This course is unlocking and unearthing more for me than I ever imagined it would. Not only is it reconnecting me with feminine energies be realigning how I grew up feeling about womanhood and healing age old wounds, but it is taking me deeper in to my spiritual path and understanding. It's incredible, really.

Painting the Feminine - Mary

The other morning, Connie talked to us about paintings that energetically attract us and how sometimes people really want to lay hands on those pieces. This really stuck with me throughout the day. As I got in the shower I was thinking about how often I got in to trouble at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I was stilling living in NJ and visited frequently... because I'm an incredibly tactile person. When something touches me energetically, I HAVE to run my fingers over it. HAVE to. No ifs and or buts about it.

The prompt for our painting that day was to build a relationship with one of our previous works; to see which one energetically touched us in the same way as we spoke about that morning. To spend time with that painting, not fixing it, but working with it to further deepen our connection. And as I flipped through my journal and spent time with each page trying to determine who wanted to have a relationship with me, someone who I used to get in trouble for touching ALL the time kept nudging me... Mary. Whenever I went to the Met, I'd get caught up in the big Medieval galleries (one of my favorite periods) gazing at the tapestries and paintings... but I'd ALWAYS get caught up under the watchful gazes of the carvings of Mary holding her child that surrounded the big room. (Since rearranged, so I've been told) I could spend hours in there looking at each one, I must have a gazillion pictures of them all from different angles and I got in trouble frequently for touching them. I'm surprised they didn't have my photo hanging up outside the gallery saying "This girl's a handsy one! Don't let her near Mary, or she'll touch her."

But it didn't end there, because when they had the beautiful Byzantine art exhibit, I was drawn to her there too. I didn't touch those ones though; too many guards in traveling exhibitions. ;-)

Having had no Christian upbringing, I have always found this connection to Mary to be a bit bizarre, but I've gone with it. She's been appearing to me and I've been drawn to her since I was a little girl. Whenever she shows up in my life, I pay attention and always feel comforted by her presence. I enjoy her in all of her iconography and names; The Virgin Mother, Queen of Heaven, Guadalupe... but the one image of her that I've always been especially drawn to is Mary with the snake. In most icons, she's stepping on the snake which I've always felt a little weird about even knowing what the serpent represents in her mythos.

So, when she kept nudging me the other day, it was she who ended up in the pages of my journal... with one very obvious difference, the snake was carried by her rather than trampled upon. That Queen of Heaven; lady of comfort and nurture and hope working along with the ancient snake; herald of transformation, healing and rebirth.

When I finished I had a real lightbulb moment there in my heart in the story of my relationship with this particular goddess (because that's how I see her); When this Divine Mother Goddess is paired with the Snake it throws back to ancient goddesses, who were often depicted holding or wearing snakes, It brings the entire concept of Divine Feminine energy back home and full circle to me and makes my relationship with Mary seem less bizarre to me, the pagan. And though when I was younger I didn't have a name for my faith (or lack thereof), I felt drawn to and comforted by Mary - the only friendly face or form in many of the churches I visited; with her arms outstretched and her robes beckoning us in to the folds of soft safety and love.

Painting the Feminine - Rest

One of the hardest things for me to do, and I've noticed this for a lot of women, is to take the time for actual resting. Not resting on your butt watching television, not laying in bed working on your to-do list... actual, mindful, peace giving, nothing-doing rest.

It's one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves and one of our biggest challenges. For me, personally, if I'm not doing something that I deem "useful", I feel like I'm wasting time... which leads to guilt. I feel guilty for taking a nap, for soaking in the tub for an hour, for sitting out on the patio just watching the birds fly by. It's been so deeply embedded in to my psyche throughout my life that I can no longer find the root cause of this guilt, but I acknowledge that it creeps up, unwanted, when I'm taking some soulful me time.

I'm trying to be more mindful of my rest habits, or rather lack thereof, and take at least a few minutes to really and truly rest. And when the guilt comes on, don't marinate in it or try to define it, but rather acknowledge it and send it on it's way.

Painting the Feminine - Play

Play was just a plain FUN prompt! No over thinking or meaning necessary.

I put on the Rusted Root station on my Pandora and just let the colors flow and unfold... all of the paint was applied with my fingers, squirted directly on to the page and smeared around with the edge of a playing card (of which I have literally hundreds) or splattered on with laughing abandon. Then there were scribbles of crayon and pastel. It felt SO GOOD to just let loose, not take anything seriously or deeply and just play with the paint and the paper.

No hidden meanings, no messages, no deep work... just painting like a small child and enjoying the process.

Painting the Feminine - Healing

For me, art has always been a sort of therapy, a way to release and the heal. Making time for my practice each day gives me the opportunity to release any junk and the heal my spirit.

I let my intuition guide me on this piece, just letting it flow out of me and on to the paper. It's not detailed or particularly polished, but when I look at it, I have a deep sense of calm and peace. And that's enough for me.

Painting the Feminine - Full Moon

The women I'm blessed to be taking this painting journey alongside and I all painted beneath the Full Wolf Moon the other night, with no prompt or theme, just to go to our journals and let our intuition guide us while the great mother's swollen form filled the sky with her light.

I worked entirely in oil pastels, with unusually, no music playing. First purple, then greens, in swooshes and scribbles and then figures in olive green outlines... women three; joining together beneath the moon near this ethereal purple tree. I was just tickled by this trio of women, with their very unique shapes, expressions and attitudes... it felt like uniting with a trio of wonderful aunties or fairy godmothers.

What I find interesting, is through sharing our works in the painting group, I'm not the only one who drew three cloaked women beneath the full moon. Even more interesting, another woman on this journey put her trio in similarly colored robes and also lives on the East Coast. Part of me wonders if we painted in tandum, being moved by the same call without ever realizing it.

Just another part of the magical and mysterious cycles of the Feminine and the Moon, I suppose.

I rather liked working on something beneath the moon and may incorporate this in to every month's observance and celebration of her, alongside the candles, whispered thanks and prayers and pulling of oracle cards.

Painting the Feminine - Shadow Dancing

Don't mind my fingers there, this one is a photo rather than a scan of my journal page.

As someone who has lived with and conquered depression throughout my life, I'm no stranger to the darkness. I'm not afraid to walk in to the shadows, to seek the dark places to seek out answers or heal. I'm as comfortable there as I am in the light, dancing between both worlds without getting trapped in either one.

To claim and face your shadow is challenging; it takes courage and faith that you will come out of the other side stronger than you were when you went in. It takes wisdom to traverse the dark landscape without becoming lost, to find that which you seek without losing hope. It takes strength and compassion for yourself and sometimes others, to overcome the things lurking there, waiting to pounce on you.

It takes faith in the balance of light and dark to know, deep down in your guts, that the shadow is a part of us all and that it is natural and healthy to travel and sometimes even find comfort within it's inky cloak. Following the cycles of dark to light is a trait of the Divine Feminine, as demonstrated by Mother Moon - who repeats this cycle each month.

Painting the Feminine - Come as You Are

During weekdays, we women who are exploring the feminine work in our art journals... but on the weekends we are called to work larger, on canvases, illustration boards or whatever else suits our fancy. And rather than all working with one central word/mantra/theme/whathaveyou, we allow ourselves to look back over the week's work and feelings and find something that really calls to us, or a common thread running throughout the five days to explore with our brushes.

Since Space & Ease touched such a fragile nerve in me when I worked on it Friday, I decided to continue to explore it on canvas over the weekend. I wasn't feeling too hot Saturday, but I brought myself to the canvas just as I was... with a big comfy sweatshirt, a big glass of water and sort of a shit attitude. The timing wasn't perfect, but had I waited any longer to start I would have ended up skipping a day and it is so important to me to allow me this sacred space for myself and my artwork, even when I feel like the funky stuff the dog rolled in. An important lesson that I sometimes overlook when it comes to this painting practice is "come as you are". Don't worry about the timing, the funk, the ick, your paints, your mood... just show up and make something.

So I took it easy; pulled a comfy chair up to the easel, turned on some fun music, turned on the little paper lanterns that I just hung up on and lit candles... transforming my space and just started with the first color that came in to my mind... the same dark blue you'll notice in a lot of my paintings from the first week. (It made and appearance today, too) And I let the dance begin, easy simple swoops and swirls, just enjoying the process. And before I knew it over an hour had passed and there was a faceless, ethereal beauty on the canvas and I felt the call of Divine Mother; who told me to go get some rest and take care of myself.

The second day went more smoothly; I felt better and got to the business of painting without dragging my bones to the canvas. And as I painted, the figure, with her calm face began to radiate her womb energy. And that's where she left me - Beginning with space and ease and ending with flowing radiance.

Painting the Feminine - Space and Ease

I sat down as I normally do, with a candle lit and a big glass of water and began to paint. Just shapes and colors and squiggles, enjoying the brushstrokes and the colors - letting the process flow and taking it easy. As I went on, I felt the need to put the brush aside and dive in with fingers like I do with so many of my canvas paintings... just smooshing paint around like a five year old, enjoying the feel of the paint between my fingers and the page.

And then something happened... a lump in my throat. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, sitting with the lump, not examining or worrying until it passed, allowing myself some space.

When I opened my eyes, I found shapes in the smudges of color; one hunched, one flowing and one spreading her energy throughout the page. I brought them out of the shadow with oil pastels, slowly and deliberately. As I worked on the final fuzzy figure at the left and the painting told me to stop, the lump was back and tears came. Not heaving sobs, but quiet slowing tears. I tried to pinpoint what the emotion behind it was... happiness? Sadness? Felt a bit like both. This is the first painting in the series so far I've had a physical, visceral reaction to. And despite the colors being vibrant and having enjoyed the feel of each stroke and smudge... looking at it makes me feel off. Not sad exactly, but something like it.

It startled me, as it's not the reaction I was expecting after a relaxing painting session. But there it is. And I'll own it, even as it confuses me.

Painting the Feminine - Radiance

This was the first prompt this week that my head didn't attempt to commandeer right at the get-go. There was no struggle, no sticking... just fun and joy and relaxation as I was painting. When I sat at my desk to paint, with my music playing, my fingers instinctively grabbed yellow and pink and off we went; with big bold strokes and itty bitty little ones.

When hearing the word "Radiance" I immediately responded with "Inner Energies" and "Lightness". And I held those in my heart while I painted; creating a depiction of the inner energetic Feminine we all have inside of us, overflowing in to the outer world to spread our light and our magic. To heal and raise up - naturally and without fear or burden.

This is something I personally struggle with, though I didn't realize it until I really sat down to work with this word and its different meanings to me. There's an age old blockage there that's unconsciously kept me from letting my light shine too brightly and from letting my own energies radiate fearlessly out in to the world. Buried under fears of rejections or being labeled, judged and bullied or being shoved in to that neat tidy box so many people would like others to stay in - to be seen and not heard. To diminish their light and power.

And this woman, dancing and letting her light and energies flow freely, helped me to realize that. And have helped me to continue to chip away at the life-long wall of fear.