. . . listen . . .

What if for once you just listened to yourself?
What if you trusted whatever urges you were having as valid, true, and worthy?
What if you slept when you were tired, ate when you were hungry, sat by the fire and read a book all day when you needed that retreat?

What if you traveled when you were restless, and stayed put when you needed to nest?

What if you knew that your body told you the truth, and if you listened?

I am going to listen to my innermost longings and urges this year.
2019 is a good year to regroup.

I am going to clean out.
Open up.
Pay attention.
Listen to my own inner longings.

I am going to work in my journal when I need to.
and not feel guilty when I don't.

I am going to plan adventures, and enjoy the planning even if the execution does not happen.

I am going to apply for amazing house sitting jobs around the world, and not feel sad when they don't happen, because I TRUST the Universe to take me where I need to go.

I am going to look for magic, and expect to find it.

I am going to try new things.
and not make myself crazy feeling obligated to do every thing the world wants me to do.

I am going to care for my family, and urge them to learn to care for themselves.

I am going to enjoy walks.
I am going to enjoy food.
I am going to enjoy sleep.
I am going to enjoy space in my life to just sit and look at the fire.

I am going to Mexico to see whales.


Welcome, 2019!

. . . thoughts . . . dreams . . .

Create

Visual journaling gives you a chance to do other than just look at things.

It gives you a chance to make your own things, and that is so important. I can spend hours browsing the internet, maybe being injected with some inspiration, but this time is spent not creating my own work.

I challenge you to limit your looking and maximize your making.

I know I need to challenge my own self!

This last year we have dealt with a near fatal car accident and the resulting TBI of my youngest daughter. I am beyond grateful to report she is healing very well and has started back at college this semester. I can report two major and personal results:

1. An eternal and hopefully ever-lasting knowledge that life is short and precious and precarious. And that I want to live the most authentic life I can. I promised her and myself if she made it we would create the lives of our dreams, and we are working on that.

2. That it is too easy to let your time slip away, after work and taking care of the minutia of life, slipping into mindless tv watching or web surfing seems like a reasonable way to burn through time. But it is not. I will tell you honestly that I have not worked on my journal or on my art during these last ten months. I've been managing hospitals, doctor visits, and a million dollars of medical bills. (insurance payed most, thank God.)  I have been gardening and knitting to relax, which I do recommend. I have been thinking about my art and my life and what I really want to do and say. I also am giving myself plenty of room and time to think and just be.

I highly recommend just being.

and visual journaling can really focus insight on that. So I hope you can just be. and think about all that you are and all that you can do and create.

In fact, I think that just being is a better use of our time than consuming.

"Mistakes are the portal to creativity."  --James Joyce.

Fallow fields

Hey Journaling friends.
I finally, after almost two years, picked up my journal and went to a coffee shop with my bag of pens, watercolors, and supplies.

I met two friends and we played in our journals. The friendly barista kept coming by to see our art and ask if we needed anything. People love to see creativity! Too much of our lives are spent consuming, not enough creating.

That was some dry spell, and I am happy that I am on the other side now and I am ready to work again in my journal.

I honor the cycles of life the ebb and flow of creativity. I have been teaching on line, and this has subsumed my creative energy for some time now. I have just not felt like working in visual journaling. and that's been okay.

But now, I am ready to open a blank page and again see what happens.

Onward!

Refreshing your Spirit

My new journal cover.
I am working now in the Traveler's Journal format, a leather cover which can be filled with a variety of inserts - I have a visual journal, a calendar, and a dream journal. I can replace sections if I travel, and I usually make a new notebook with contact info, addresses and info about hotels or flights or things to do. It is just the right size to bring along, not too big, not too small. The pages take media well, watercolor and pencil don't bleed through too much.

I have had a family-intensive year, so not much fun travel planned. But I know I need an adventure to keep my spirit alive and happy. and even just the planning of the adventure really helps me.

Maybe a spa in Slovenia?
Maybe another week in NYC, just wandering around, looking at windows, trying interesting food?

Maybe just a long day at the Denver Botanical Garden to remind me how much Nature heals.

How do you refresh your spirit?

Family stuff

Hello 2018, I am so very glad to be saying goodbye to 2017.

This blog entry will be about personal, family news, so if you are here to learn about Art Journaling, skip on down to previous entries.

2017 started off with the painful election, ouch. But that February, we had a wonderful trip-of-a-lifetime planned to visit my youngest daughter, Kelsey, who was traveling in Southeast Asia. We met in Bali and had a memorable three week trip, for me, experiencing that continent for the first time. Ecolodge, beach, meditation ashram, coffee and chocolate plantation, we saw so much, Bali was simply marvelous.

But the end of 2017 brought us to the most excruciating occurrence of our lives - Kelsey was in a near fatal car accident. The car she was driving had a mechanical error on a deserted Colorado highway, she was going camping with friends. All three were ejected from the car.

Her injuries were very significant and life threatening.

Our community jumped right in - my Vipkid teachers group on Facebook sent me literally a thousand messages and responses that they were praying for her. Many family members asked their churches to pray. So many of my shamanic friends did serious, continuing work for her. I am beyond grateful to say she is fine. Two weeks in neuro-intensive care, three weeks after that on a regular hospital floor, and another two weeks in rehab, and she is home, walking, talking, and regaining her independence.

Lessons I learned:
*our loved ones are everything, and never lose the chance to hug them and tell them that.
*all the money troubles in the world don't compare to having your family safe.
*prayer works, shamanism works, sending healing energy works. Kelsey's doctors are a little dumbfounded at her complete recovery and her exceptional rate of healing. It is quite stunning, and I will be forever grateful for the human intercession she received, and the spiritual support I received in this, really the most difficult time of my life.
*self care is crucial for marathons of caretaking like this, I was going to the hospital every day for 7 weeks. I learned I need to sleep, eat right, and do some yoga periodically, or I turn into a non-functional human being. (Who knew, right?)
*our dog, Simba, really, really loves Kelsey. He was so terribly depressed when she was gone, and he sleeps with her every night now.
*ICU nurses are heroes. Simply heroes.
*so are the Flight for Life helicopter medics, who saved her life, then kept her alive.
*There is a lot of exceptionally compassionate people in this world - state troopers, insurance agents, my employers at Vipkid in China, all the various people from banks to hospital personnel who always were so understanding to my own extreme emotional state. (Strangers have hugged me quite a few times the last two months.) Someone in a pastry shop charged me half price without me even knowing. Strangers from work sent long messages detailing their own experience with Traumatic Brain Injury and answered my terrified questions. Bank tellers stopped to hear my story and comfort me. (crying spontaneously in public will do that. . . .)

People are good.
Hug the ones you love, life is not permanent.

Welcome 2018, good things in store!