Inspiration

It's the color time of year in the garden.

I am working on some patterns for my licensing work, and I couldn't resist going outside to shoot some of the flowers, and choosing colors from the fabulous display Nature creates. After sitting at my desk and feeling so dazed with looking at a screen, it's like a little vacation to just go and be with the flowers.
and necessary for my mental health.

Thank you Mother Earth -- for beauty so simple and so abundant as flowers.


I ask Spirit "what am I to do?"

"Be in love with yourself.
Be in love with the Universe," is the answer.

This

How we "spend" our time.

Isn't it funny that we say "spend time"?
I am trying to focus more on that idea, that time is a precious commodity, and if I squander it, there I go.
It is lost forever . . .
Nothing accomplished.

But I am not thinking of this in the way society often assumes - that work, work, work, achieve, achieve, achieve is the goal; that production and end result are the whole point.
Because they're not.

Learning to BE, learning to just settle into my body, feeling the earth around me, sending out feelings and intentions of love and connection -- THIS is a much better use of my limited time.

I'd so much rather spend my time as investment into the whole of life.
I'd rather spend my time sending out something as invaluable as loving energy - because this investment grows and comes back tenfold.

I do get frantic sometimes with to-do lists, chores, achieving stability in bank account, bills payed, clean house.  But more and more I am letting go of these needs.  I do try to meet the basic requirements to have a responsible life, but after that?
Spending time with my children (grown-ups now), walking with my dog, taking the time to greet a neighbor, asking a clerk how their day is going, and waiting for an extended answer, or just smiling and being.

Last night we were wandering around in Boulder at the Kale Festival (gotta love Boulder) and we stopped to watch the Kayakers on Boulder Creek.  One caught my eye and sent me a big smile.  He was concentrating on the white water, I am sure, but he took the time out to thank me for my audience with his expression.  This very small act made me feel so good, connected to this athlete for a nano-second, he knew I was appreciating his work, I knew he knew.  It was a nice bit of human interaction.
and if I had just walked across the bridge and not taken the time to notice, it wouldn't have happened.

I am working on being in the moment, and feeling the connection of all things.  What better way is there to spend your time?

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver

the gift of creativity

Photoshop is such a great tool for mixed media collage.

I love to just mess around in my journal, mixing papers and sewing and paint (that's what I did in this background), then scan and print it. I then can add other layers of image in lots of different media. This is a block print repeated, and a watercolor. Printing the final image up, and pasting in my journal gets my creative mojo flowing. It kickstarts my brain when the blank page says "what are you doing?!"

Another block to creativity is the sense that it's a waste of time. I constantly fight the cultural message that if I'm not producing (especially making money) I am not doing anything worthwhile.
Adding beauty to the world has to be the most worthwhile way to spend time.
and adding happiness to yourself, and thus spreading the joy in waves through everyone you come into contact with is another very worthwhile way to spend time.
Being creative is a gift to the Universe.
Belief in your own creative work is also a gift to yourself.

I vow this week to remember this as I invest time in my journal.

“What art does is to coax us away from the mechanical and towards the miraculous.”
--Jeanette Winterson