Rumi

I am having a hard time with a new set up in the studio - can't get printer/scanner going, so in the meantime, here are some words from RUMI that feed the soul:

Enough Words

How does a part of the world leave the world?
How can wetness leave water?
Don't wash a wound with blood.
Do you put out fire with more fire?
No matter how fast you run, your shadow always keeps up.
Only full overhead sun diminishes your shadow.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest.
You must have shadow, and light source, both.
Listen and lay your head under the Tree of Awe.

More journal pages to come as soon as my machines co-operate - Now go do some juicy work in your journal and allow yourself to have an Art-gasm!

UPDATE on Et Studio - more journaling pages to come.

Until I can get journaling pages uploaded, here is an update from the studio:

I had the good fortune to visit some amazing places in June.
First was Breitenbush Hotsprings in central Oregon, where I will have a solo show of my Mushroom Collages at their annual Mycology Festival in October. Mushroom experts from around the world come to share science and ideas about this amazing family in the plant kingdom, so I am honored to be included in this work.
I was then lucky enough to be able to take a Nature Spirits Shamanism course with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies on Mt. Shasta in Northern California.

Finally, with my husband, mom, and youngest daughter, I drove the Ring Road around Iceland for a glorious ten day journey during the Solstice. We were within a few miles of the Arctic Circle, so the sun never set. It was a magical experience I will never forget, with many views of glaciers, rainbows, waterfalls, and countless Icelandic sheep and horses in the very green landscape. Having studied Viking Runes, it was a treat to actually go to a Viking Festival and see some of the old ways reinacted.
Some photos are here if you would like to see more:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=121557&id=616233487&l=4049dec0e9

Other news is that the end of July, I will be selling my work at SpiralHeart Camp in southern Pennsylvania. Look for journaling pages about this wonderful experience in the blog early in August.

The first issue of Creativity Cafe should be out the beginning of September - so thank you for your subscription order if you already subscribed, and if not, I will be sending out another ET Studio update when the magazine goes to print so you won't miss out.

Our lives are in transition now, as we face decisions about our future in this uncertain time, but my art and my Shamanic work continues to keep a solid foundation under me -- I hope and pray you also feel supported in this changing landscape.

bright blessings,
-Emily
http://www.etstudio.net/

ICELAND!

I am back from driving the ring road around Iceland.
What a beautiful country - it is a young place where two tectonic plates are crashing into each other, so there are volcanoes, lava fields, waterfalls, geysers, glaciers, rocks rocks and more rocks, and millions of sheep and beautiful Icelandic ponies.
We were there at the Solstice, so close to the Arctic Circle that the sun never set. In fact, it never got dark the whole ten days there, which was hard on the biological clock but very powerful to experience.

Here are the first journal pages done from the trip:

until I get back:

June 14 is the Birth of the Muses, from Ancient Greece mythology.

On this day the goddess Mnemosyne (whose name means 'memory') gave birth to nine daughters: Calliope (epic songs); Euterpe (lyric songs); Polyhymnia (sacred songs); Thalia (comedy); Melpomene (tragedy); Terpsichore (dance); Erato (poetry); Clio (history); and Urania (astronomy). The Muses brought an appreciation of the arts into the world with their inspiration of creativity, social and scientific studies.

I hope your muses are alive and well, I am feeding mine this month with travel - updates to come!

Hitting the road. . . .

Off to Oregon, Northern California, then Iceland!
Lots of journal pages when I get back.

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” - Jack Kerouac

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain

Have a Great Day!

"Let there be more joy and laughter in your living." --Eileen Caddy

Big changes afoot!

Hello blogging buddies -- I need to be away for a while. I have some travel coming up, several large work deadlines to meet before I head out, and also some big life changes afoot.
So please know that in late June, I will be back with tons of new pages and inspirations from my travels to several western states (Oregon and California) and an arctic country (Iceland!) that I will be visiting. (Yes -- I will actually spend the Solstice inside the Arctic Circle -- so much sunlight will certainly make for some inspiration in my journaling life.)
I am headed into this new adventure with an open heart and expecting good things to come, and my journal will go with me and help me process it all - I can't wait to share that journey with you here.
So please do come back again in a bit. Until then:




"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty." --Maya Angelou

until I can add more pages . . . .

I am on some sad family business, but I read this in the New York Times in an article about Absinthe, and just could not let this get away without sharing it - I have had Absinthe and found it almost impossible to drink it is so strong - but sometimes in life, we need a kick like that -- this is from the article:

"While a little absinthe can be quite pleasant, a lot, as with any other strong spirit, will make you drunk. Perhaps, if you are of an Oscar Wilde bent, too much absinthe will do to you what it did to him: “After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were,” he said in one of his many disquisitions on absinthe. “After the second you see things as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.”

"Personally, I prefer how martinis affected Dorothy Parker:

I like to have a martini,

Two at the very most.

After three I’m under the table,

after four I’m under my host."

jack of all trades, master of none?

I am spending much much time these days on some graphics work honing my skills; a website and magazine layout.
I am doing this because I might be transitioning into needing full time employment and I need to be up to what the marketplace would demand.
"WHAT?" (you might be saying to yourself) -- "all her talk about the Spirit taking care of us and being in the bliss of the moment, and here she is talking about money and a job. . . ."
Well, for me right now it is like this -- I trust the Universe to help me be who and what I am meant to be, but I also will responsibly create an ability to take care of myself, should I need to.
Rather than jump out of the plane with no parachute, I choose to buckle on a parachute, hopefully one that works and is up to date.
There is peace and joy and dancing in this life, and there is also hard work and responsibility.
Without the darkness, there is no light.

So as I spend this month focusing on the hours and hours I need to get the website and layout work done, my reward is some awesome travel next month, which I will be journaling and blogging about in force. You will go along with me and hear all about it.

and today's page is one I did a few weeks ago about the fact that I trained many moons ago to be an architect. . . . and haven't practiced that profession in almost a decade.
seems like another lifetime ago.



"I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of ''work,'' because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do. The machinery is always going. Even when you sleep." -Andy Warhol

all life is energy . . . .

I am learning in a deep way how INTENTION creates our reality.
IF we are clear and focus on the thing at hand, everything goes so much smoother.
I have been doing a website for a client, and if I let the hodgepodge of a million stresses get to me, the whole thing turns to mud and I feel like smashing the computer with a hammer.
But if I set my intention on creating a beautifully designed, pleasing, and clear site, and let that vibration inform my thoughts as I work, I find that I organize the folders better, I tackle each obstacle with patience instead of anger, and the whole process is so much more enjoyable.
Stopping periodically to breath deeply and stretch my body a bit sure helps, too.

If our intention is to do what we do with integrity, and to exude love to all around us, how can we not succeed?
Life is here to support us, so as we set our intention to the higher good, we will feel that support in a thousand ways.
Awesome!



"Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance." --Brian Tracy

Spirit Teachers?

Some of us go to therapists, others have spirit teachers.
In my practice of Shamanism I have found that the wisdom from Spirit Teachers works for me. Therapists -- not so much.
Partly I think we all have our own inner truth, and good therapists are really just asking questions to get their clients to find it out on their own.
For me, the Shamanic path has been the most direct to my own truth.
But there still are questions, and I love that I can ask several shamanic practitioner friends to journey for me and confirm my truth.
I learned that two amazing writers whom I admire very much both feel all their writing has been channeled from an exterior source - from their Spirit Teacher. Both are quite successful authors, and do not shy away from sharing that they feel they are actually just a co-authors of their work.
Really -- when we feel connected to that FLOW that is creativity, it is all part of one whole.
For me, being here in my studio, doing this work feels like my highest calling.
So I am trusting the Universe to support me.
(Hear that, Universe!?)



"Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart." --Jan Phillips

my job . . . .

My job is not to try to become famous or well known.
My job is not to make art that one day the world will be in awe of.
My job is not to sell paintings from a gallery or even to sell numerous copies of a book I write and print and sell from my website.
My job is not to push my own agenda into the world for money or prestige or accolades.
My job is simply this:
TO CREATE A POSITIVE VIBRATION OF LOVE IN EVERYTHING I DO.

It's really that simple.
I love making art, and I love working in my journal, and I love writing about it here.
I love exploring the way creativity works in our lives and sharing the journeys of other beautiful creative beings.

So this is my work.
Money - who cares.
Fame - who cares.
I would like some stability, yes, in life, but I trust the UNIVERSE will help me out with this, as long as I stay true to the idea that creating a vibration of love in all I say and do is my main goal.
Amen, Ole, and So Be It.



"The honorary duty of a human being is to love." --Maya Angelou

outdoors

Lately I have been spending a bit too much time inside.
I need to get out today, away from traffic and walls and cars and computers, breath in some woods air, take the dog on a long walk, and hear some birds and wind in the branches.
That will be just the ticket!



"Learn to poke around. Take your time. Go slow. Get down on your hands and knees and dig around. Sit in one place for an hour at a time and let the world come to you." --John Bates

in the studio. . . .

I go in the world and gather ideas and images.
then I come to the studio to work with them.
and I am so grateful for this space and time to work here - who knows how long it will last?



"Gather and hoard your inspirations as you live, then recapture them as needed in the studio." --Nita Engle

just being

My anemia has gotten a bit worse, so I have been just being.
(Well, in between all the work I have to do I have been being . . . . )
I will go to the doctor, but in the meantime, I am learning to be in my body without making myself crazy or stressed or pressured to be what I am not.
It feels pretty good.
I am what I am . . . . and life goes on.



"Leisure is a form of silence, not noiselessness. It is the silence of contemplation such as occurs when we let our minds rest on a rosebud, a child at play, a Divine mystery, or a waterfall." --Fulton J. Sheen

why we do this work

Because we find stuff out.
We find out about our inner selves, which in turn, helps us understand what about our inner selves is connected to All.
So my journal helps me find about my own truth, and the truth of the Universe.
Cool, huh?



"Epiphany! Light poured in, my soul took flight, and I had encountered why I was put here, and who to thank for it! Each portrait represents a fresh journey, a voyage of disclosure, as I am privileged to explore the uniqueness of others." --David Goatley

from Journaling Group

Whenever we get together to work in our journals on our monthly Journaling Group, I always do pages I sort of enjoy. I think it is the slowing down and taking 2 hours to work, where in my studio I have ten other things looming that I am eager to get to.
These pages, as I shared with the group, reflect the two sides of my emotions I deal with - dark swirling moodiness and pastel joy.
My journal helps me understand and express these feelings, and for that I am grateful.
One reason this is my consistent practice is for the awareness it always gives me.
Secrets of my unconscious seem to emerge from the playing with color and image, and then the words bring some truth to the feelings.

Now if only life's problems could be so easily solved, but I guess that is the path.
at least Journaling helps me find the way.





"Art must not be intelligent; art is a jouisance, an enjoyment." --Andre Derain

Creativity Cafe

Journaling group is tonight, and while you wait for more journal pages, here is my newest work - Creativity Cafe, a blog and printed journal to encourage and enhance our inter-connected human process of Becoming Conscious of our Universal Creativity . . . .
more here:
http://creativitycafejournal.blogspot.com/



"When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it." --Carl Sagan

last page of my latest journal

When I kept a diary in middle school, then high school, then college, it was just all words.
Lots and lots of words.
I kept a separate sketchbook with drawings, and all my school notebooks were covered in doodles.
It took me about 20 years to finally figure out how to put these things together, now everyone seems to know about visual journaling.
That's how ideas infiltrate through humanity - and it happens so fast now.
One person thinks of something, or ten people do all at the same time, they experiment, share it, it spreads, then everyone seems to know about it.
Visual journaling was unknown ten years ago, now it practically has it's own section in the bookstore.

My latest journal is now full, so I wrote this note on the last page.
In the new journal I am working differently. . . . .
pages to come.

journal page for today

"I am a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down..." --Abraham Lincoln