focusing on a few small things.

"Nothing can be done well at a speed of forty miles a day. The multitude of mixed, novel impressions rapidly piled on one another make only a dreamy, bewildering, swirling blur, most of which is unrememberable." --John Muir

Monday morning - do you know where your journal is?

"There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after." --J. R. R. Tolkien

finding YOUR mystery

"Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies, and opens a door to the other world.
Soloman cuts open a fish, and there's a gold ring.
Omar storms in to kill the prophet and leaves with blessings.
Chase a deer and end up everywhere!
An oyster opens his mouth to swallow one drop.
Now there's a pearl.
A vagrant wanders empty ruins.
Suddenly he's wealthy.

But don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others.
Unfold your own myth, without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand the passage,
We have opened you."
--Rumi

today's inspiration:

These pages started when I threw some feathers and a deer jawbone on the scanner.
added some stamps from a peice of mail from India.
then just a bit of ink, and Voila:

"Nature is what we know / Yet have not art to say / So impotent our wisdom is / To her simplicity." --Emily Dickinson

struggles = blessings

My 15 year old is right now on a 4 day wilderness backpacking trip with her new high school and is up at 12,000 feet, probably pretty cold and damp.
and that does worry me a bit.
but challenges are what help us to grow, so I know this is a great experience for her.
It is hard not to complain, whine, gripe, to be freaked out and discombobulated by our struggles . . . yesterday I spent the day in my co-op art gallery and it is always a time I love because I meet people from all over the country who have wandered into cute little Georgetown, Colorado on their way to somewhere else.
I get to hear about lots of interesting things in others' lives, and sometimes I hear of great struggles as well.
We all, each of us, have our own pocket-full of difficulties, and our own bowl-ful of blessings.
It's which we choose to focus on that defines how happy we are.

"Forget about the consequences of failure. Failure is only a temporary change in direction to set you straight for your next success." --Denis Waitley

a page for Monday morning

"I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning..." --Joseph Priestley

***

"What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!" --William Shakespeare

if you can't work in your journal today, you can . . .

. . . make some applesauce!
This year, here in Colorado, the tree blossoms did not get frozen last Spring, hence, tons and tons of FRUIT! Just look at this apple tree:


Pick lots of apples and peel and quarter them - use a sharp knife:

add some lemon juice, ginger, cinnamon and lots of sugar and put it all in a pot:

make some art with the peels while you wait for the apples to cook:

Pulvarize with a soup wand, and voila, EAT!


"I do not explain, I explore." --Marshall McLuhan

it's Friday, do you know where your journal is?

"Let there be balance in everything. Work hard, but also learn to play hard, to enjoy life and do the things you really love doing whatever they may be. It matters not if your pleasures are simple or extravagant as long as you find a real joy and pleasure in them. When you are doing something you really enjoy it matters not how strenuous it may be. You will not feel exhausted but will feel exhilarated and uplifted. Work should never be drudgery and it never will be when your attitude towards it is right and you enjoy what you are doing." --Eileen Caddy, Findhorn Community

think globally, make art locally

"Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us: We taste only sacredness." --Rumi

today . . . .

"What is the body? That shadow of a shadow of your love, that somehow contains the entire universe." --Rumi

let your light shine.

"First we receive the light, then we impart it. Thus we repair the world." --Kabbalah

nature patterns

"I can't stop pointing to the beauty. Every moment and place says, 'Put this design in your carpet!' " --Rumi

did you work in your journal today?

"Thinking gives off smoke to prove the existence of fire. A mystic sits inside the burning. There are wonderful shapes in rising smoke that imagination loves to watch. But it's a mistake to leave the fire for that filmy sight. Stay here at the flame's core." --Rumi

a secret

"I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow and called out, 'It tastes sweet, does it not?' 'You've caught me,' grief answered, 'and you've ruined my business. How can I sell sorrow, when you know it's a blessing?' " --Rumi

finding beauty

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in." -John Muir

Go For It.

"You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?" --Rumi

Why I'm Here:

“Place yourself among those who live their lives with passion, and true learning will take place, no matter how humble or exalted the setting. But no matter what path you follow, do not be ashamed of your learning. In some corner of your life, you know more about something than anyone else. The true measure of your education is not what you know, but how you share what you know with others.” --Kent Nerburn

Finding yourself in your journal.

“This is an art form that must be experienced one on one -- your head bent over the pages, you feel the time pass. You see ideas unfold and deepen, you see risks, mistakes, regrets, thoughts, lessons, dreams, all set down on these pages, for an audience of one.”
--Danny Gregory

What path are you on?

"Flexibility is Essential -- learn to move with the times, to change and change quickly when necessary. Flexibility is essential. Always be willing to keep your eyes open to see what is happening and learn to blend in. Because a certain way, a certain path may not be your path, do not stand back and criticize and pull it to pieces, but live and let live. Find your path and follow that and you will find, as you get nearer and nearer to the goal - your at-one-ment with Me - the paths will converge and become one, until all is one and there is no separation." --Eileen Caddy

stone circles in my journal . . . .

"I believe that Nature and the Cosmos exist within Man in the form of subconscious symbols... Geometric shapes, such as the Circle and the Triangle, are themselves archetypal shapes and represent Man's striving for unity and harmony with the Cosmos." --Bela Fidel

What's Your Story?

I have been talking about "living in a story-telling consciousness" now for a few days, and it strikes me, I should share my story.
Do you ask yourself: Why Am I Here?
I seem to ask myself that a lot, and I come up with lots of different answers.
But here is where I am right now in that journey:
It's been a bit of a wild ride the last few years, and this is partially why I depend so much on my visual journal to make sense of it all.
The Reader's Digest version is this:
I started out in the professional world working as an architect, and had two babies while in Grad School, (which didn't seem to create a large favorable impression on my professors.) When the second baby was born, I gleefully started staying home with the kids and developed a series of part time, entrepreneurial-type businesses, teaching art, drawing house remodeling plans, running an arts council, doing and teaching graphic design . . . . (and had a third baby!)
My husband's career involved several cross country moves (Maryland to Indiana to New Jersey) and each time I would just start over again, building contacts and work connections.
I always had my studio and art work as an anchor to these projects, and of course, raising the three kids took lots of my time.
Then, two years ago, we found ourselves in a house mortgaged more than it was worth, so we spent lots of our savings to sell it and get out of that bad housing market.
and very soon after, my husband's very good job went away.
No job.
No house.
ouch.
So it was Go Time.
Time to really see if I trusted in the Universe and believed all that new agey crap I have been thinking I lived for the last 3 decades of my life - following my bliss, believing in the best outcome, trusting the Universe, and all that nice stuff.
and
YES
I am here to say it does work.
My two older kids are doing great on their own in New Jersey.
We got a house sit situation and live now in Denver, where we always wanted to be.
My youngest is starting at a wonderful high school school we couldn't have even imagined, it is so perfect for her.
I show work at a gallery, teach at an art center, and even have some shamanic counseling work coming in.
My husband is on the cusp of a phenomenal new job (you can cross your fingers for that one) and we are going to start considering where we will move, when this house sit ends this year.
In the midst of this, I used miles for free plane tickets to wander a bit in France and the UK, and ask myself lots of questions about what I believed, how far would I go to trust the Universe to take care of us, how much do I REALLY believe that all shall be well when we throw ourselves in the direction our souls long to go.
It hasn't been easy and there have been huge challenges - I have chronic illness and have had no health insurance for 18 months, we had to pack and move a household 3000 miles, and being in a new place is always exhausting and stressful.
I also am still not perfectly sure of my life's work, and hope it feels more clear within a year.
For now, it is this visual journaling work, making art, and shamanism.
The stress of money makes it hard to make these choices since very little income results, but I know I am taken care of, these last two years are evidence.
So that's my story.
I would love to hear yours!
I don't get lots of comments here, maybe because I have my blog set to have to approve them, but please know I would love to hear about your life and how your story is moving you toward fullness, wholeness, authenticity in your own path.
This one short life we have is not always safe or easy or tidy or even fun, but it sure is a wild ride if we trust and go for our own highest possibility - imagine it, do it, make a space and it will be filled with amazing miracles.
But you gotta make that space first.
Faith. . . . and trust.
It will happen for the best outcome, I know that so clearly now.

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” --Joseph Campbell

Art Heals

"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death." --Robert Fulghum

Living in a Story-Telling Consciousness Part 2

What better way to immerse in a story-telling consciousness than to go to a Renaissance Fair?
Here in Colorado there is a huge one which runs weekends in July, so we went. Wenches, kilted lads and lasses, knights, kings and queens, fairies and elves and even a hobbit -- there were so many wonderful outfits and fun costumes. Next year we will dress up.
In the meantime - here are some fun characters who will be showing up in my journal:










"Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken." --Eugene O'Neill