let go

"There is no use trying, said Alice; one can't believe impossible things. I dare say 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." --Lewis Carroll

flowers, papers

Sometimes my visual journal is just a place to put together things I like.
Flowers from the garden, some French ephemera, some swirly paper and doodly lines, a Tibetan prayer flag . . . .
I don't always even need to add words, although I guess I usually do.
This act of visual journaling is so pleasing, so cathartic.
Just like the teenage girl's diary where all is spilled, all the secrets and dislikes and crushes of the day; just the act of making images out of this and that feels so satisfying.
It has been said "we don't find meaning, we make meaning," and I think that's the key.
To create meets some inner need to have a voice, and worrying about perfection or making art for the wall are not that means, a journal allows us the freedom to make a mess out of what we see and think, and thus know it better.
Hooray for that!

"We began as mineral. We emerged into plant life, and into the animal state, and then into being human, and always we have forgotten our former states, except in early spring when we slightly recall being green again." --Rumi

Sold!

Thanks to Jennifer at Artsalon I had a sale this week.
Guess I can keep making art!
Thank you, Universe and Jennifer.

"It is like the case of archers: if they start out competing, they'll never achieve good marksmanship. It is only after long practice without thought of winning or losing that they can hit the target. If even a single thought of winning and losing abides in the heart, you will be chained by winning and losing." --Ying-an

in between projects

I just spent lots of studio time this week, fiddling at this and that, not finding a clear direction. . . letting the muse take me and hoping we'd accomplish something.
I did make a little bag out of an old jeans skirt, went ahead and slapped it on ETSY to see if anyone would buy it:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/72751560/super-cute-upcycled-whitelime-green-bag
and I did sell a few cards on ETSY of a scan of Colorado flowers from the garden.
Also worked on an ATC banner that has been hanging around for ages.
But nothing grabbed me big.
oh wait, the Buddha painting.
I guess I forgot because I am not happy with how it turned out.
and that's the creative life for ya'.
Many small days of just trudging forward, not sure about results, not sure if anything with "come" of all this effort, other than the knowledge I am trying to add something interesting and beautiful to this world which seems mostly to revolve around dollars and material gain.
I am needing, I think, to do a media fast, and just ignore the papers, magazines, tv ads, movie culture etc. etc. etc. that I constantly feel so bombarded with.
I would so much rather just have quiet time in the studio to create. Consuming information and food and entertainment feels like such a waste of time.
SO, another week.
Another few journal pages, paintings, mail art, sewing, maybe even a canvas for the gallery.
onward.
a scanner collage plus some words in the journal:

"Do you think I know what I'm doing?
That for one breath or half a breath I belong to myself?
As much as a pen knows what it is writing
It may be the satisfaction I need depends on my going away
So that when I've gone and come back, I'll find it at home."
--Rumi

what happens with creativity?

"With all extreme points of the compass, with love, passion, sensuality, creation, pity, one touches the greater cosmic consciousness, or dissolution."
--Anais Nin

remembering Aix, both 27 years ago and last June

Good olive oil, tea infusions of French Vervain, fresh chives from the garden, and flowers on the table. I learned a lot about living well from my brief time living in Provence.


"Depending upon one's vocabulary, it is facile enough to speak of karma or atavism or even extrasensory memory. For me, there was no need to draw on this well of casual semantics, to recognize Aix from my own invisible map of it. I already knew where I was." --M.F.K. Fisher in "Map of Another Town"

messiness is sometimes very good

"If this were a perfect world, you and I probably would not exist, so let's be grateful it's not a perfect world." --Ze Frank

be a dreamer.

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." --Oscar Wilde

Dreamtime

Aboriginals thought of dreamtime as the play of creation making a sacred landscape.
Many creative people have revelations about their work in their dreams, asking Spirit to show them when they are stuck or confused with their work.
I am learning to trust the information in dreams, and work with it in my art.
It is quite a wonderful adventure!

"You were born with potential
You were born with goodness and trust
You were born with ideals and dreams
You were born with greatness
You were born with wings
You are not meant for crawling, so don't.
You have wings
Learn to use them,and fly."
--Rumi

Do your dreams speak to you? Do you listen?

"Robert Louis Stevenson said the tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde came to him in a dream. He simply wrote it down. He credited "little people" in his dreams with providing material for his other books as well." --Rob Brezsny, Pronoia

trust in the path.

In mystic traditions, problems may sometimes appear to be due to your deepest self. According to one story, Naropa the monk, was seeking his teacher Tilopa. After many hardships, depressed because he was failing in his search, Naropa was about to kill himself. At that moment, Naropa was enlightened when his teacher, Tilopa appeared in a vision. Tilopa said, “I was always there in the midst of all your troubles, in fact I was each troublesome event." --unknown source

keeping at it.

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” --Flaubert

honoring Lakshmi, Goddess of Wisdom

"The power to change one’s life comes from a paragraph, a lone remark … The polished sentences had arrived, it seemed, like so many other things, at just the right time. How can we imagine what our lives should be without the illumination of the lives of others?"
--James Salter

***

"Life is weather. Life is meals....
Dreams and work."
--James Salter

how to inspire

healing yoga, yes.

"Caterpillar sheds his skin to find the butterfly within."

focus

"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus" —Mark Twain