URUZ -- strength in change

This next month, as I pack and get ready to move across the country, I am going to pull a Rune now and then and journal on it's meaning to me.
Today - I got URUZ, which stands for strength in change.
How perfect is that?
The Runes are so wise.



"Am I going to change the world, or am I going to change me? Or maybe change the world a little bit, just by changing me?" --Sadie Delany

What do you wish for?

Here's what I know: that if I grab some cool paper, cut it up and tear it a bit; then if I grab some cool inks and colors, and a handful of juicy, colorful markers;
then if I make a mess and play with all these things in my journal, letting my mind float into a playful, imaginative place. . . . if I let my consciousness settle on how things could and should be, rather than how they are, the world will be a better place.
and I will be a better person in that world.
The colorful papers and inks and markers and collage frees my mind from the rigid structure of this world, from the rigid structure of thinking that life is limited and narrow and hard.
Let your journal help you get to a better place.
Let your journal be the playground your mind needs to release all the troubles of this life.
Let your journal be that medicine that you need, that vacation that you long for, the transcendent meditation that helps your mind go where you would rather it go.
Let your journal help show you what your wishes and dreams are, what your true voice says, and what your true life looks like.
Don't accept what you don't want - dream what you can and should have in this life.
Color and collage it, write it and draw it, then BE it.



"Reality is when you pay the rent. Get caught in traffic or your car breaks down. Really it's an AM/FM sort of thing. You've got reality and then there's the miraculous and the transcendent. And once you start, time stops." --Carolyn See

Gratitude

Joy. What gives you joy? Do that. That is your gift back to the Universe.



Got no check books, got no banks.
Still I'd like to express my thanks –
I got the sun in the mornin' and the moon at night. --Irving Berlin

the spiral of life

I added a few more photos from my Oregon Mushroom trip to my journal.
I had a time in the woods in the rain alone, and I made a little collage from moss, lichen and a pine cone on a fallen tree.
I hope someone found it and wondered at the beauty in the natural world.
I know I do.




“What is art but life upon the larger scale, the higher. When, graduating up in a spiral line of still expanding and ascending gyres, it pushes toward the intense significance of all things, hungry for the infinite?” --Elizabeth Barrett Browning

down, down, down the rabbit hole.

So what does all this 2012 brouhaha mean? Is the world coming to an end as we know it? Will the banks and economy totally collapse, and will we all have to re-engineer our Mad Max vehicles to work on biofuel and all run around wearing fur and patchwork capes?
One thing I do notice, is many of us are wanting to get ourselves situated in a place we really are called to be -- it is a time of readjusting priorities and making what truly is important the emphasis in our lives.
For me, my Shamanic work and my art are key to my sense of doing work that is meaningful.
Taking care of my family has been my number one priority for 25 years, and that chapter is slowly morphing into a time of more independence and autonomy.
This is hard for me. It feels like loss.
I weep for the time of no more cooking for a family, helping with homework, driving someone to somewhere, or many somewheres each day.
At the same time, it is so amazing to have this time to myself, time to really focus on the art, the healing work, the connection to wonder and growth and Spirit.
I firmly believe that as we heal ourselves, we heal the planet.
and that as we learn to take our own suffering and transmute it into compassion, the whole world benefits.

That's why I work in an art journal and share it here.
This work feels like my calling.

So today I was called to do this wild layout.
We got a little handout in the movie theater advertising this new Tim Burton Movie Alice in Wonderland.
You better believe I am excited about that one.

So I just tore that puppy up, cut and glued, added some ink and words.
and VOILA -- crazy fun pages that make me happy.
Let your journal make you happy today!

and never mind about 2012 - it will be a wild rabbit hole of wonder, and fun, too.



Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
(Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 5)

some photos, some ink, some markers . . . .

This photo on the left page of my journal is one of the most favorite ever I have taken - it is a shadow cast down on Breitenbush River by my husband and I as we stood above on a footbridge.
Sometimes, just being able to print out a photo like this and put it in my journal is enough . . . . but I did add some more - a photo of the hand burned wooden sign into the conference center, and some words.
Then a few squiggly lines.
oh yeah, some stamps of bees, they just seemed like they belonged.
Being in nature, being in beauty, is so essential to my mental health.
I am so thrilled we are moving to a place where we can be outdoors more, with the mountains right there every day, awaiting our boots.
Yesterday we hiked a bit on Green Mountain, and mud, snow, slush, and ice, it didn't matter. The dogs were so happy and so were we.
Being outside = happiness.
And to cap it off with some photographs and journaling about it all = even more happiness.



"What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?" --E. M. Forster

hello from Colorado

My journal is getting a bit lonely, and the Muse is a bit mad at me for my neglect.
I have promised her lots of attention very very soon - because she likes glitter and messy paint and tearing up paper and making outrageous fun collages. . . . luckily she knows walks in the mountains will soon be a part of our daily life here in the Rockies! I heard someone on a great radio show about art say if they don't do their art daily, someone will get hurt. That they just tell their family, "don't knock on this door unless someone is bleeding or the house is on fire." Because we all have interruptions, and there just are no excuses for not making art . . . . so forgive me, Muse, I promise to spend some time this week with my journal.

I am in Colorado for a week of reconnoitering before our move next month, and I will fit in some journal time, and get some images posted at some point this week.
But for right now, I need to get outside and get the foot of snow off the car, so I can go pick up my daughter, who has been at a Unitarian Retreat for 9th graders - we are getting her plugged in here. Why did the snow come just now? I guess this is Colorado. . . . I better get used to it.

Happy Journaling!

"Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." --Helen Keller

I might just read this every morning. . . .

"Once you start to awaken, no one can ever claim you again for the old patterns. Now you realize how precious your time is here. You are no longer willing to squander your essence on undertakings that do not nourish your true self; your patience grows thin with tired talk and dead language. You see through the rosters of expectation which promise you safety and the confirmation of outer identity. Now you are impatient for growth, willing to put yourself in the direction of change. You want your work to become an expression of your gift. You want your relationship to voyage beyond the pallid fontiers to where the danger of transforatmion dwells. You want your God to be wild and to call you to where your destiny awaits.

You have come out of Platos's cave of Images into the sunlight and mystery of color and imagination."

--John O'Donohue