messy pages = happy journal

So while at Spiralheart camp, I had a soggy journal with me. (It rained a lot there.) I didn't have my "real" supplies (we were camping) and the goal was not to make art in my journal, the goal was just to get the words down as I needed to remember and express what I was learning.
So the pages from the week are nothing like my journaling practice at home.
And that's fine.
Your journal can do way more than just one thing.
It can allow you to, yes, make nice collagy pictures that you are proud of.
But it can also be there for you to whine, make a mess, cathartic-ally dump, and take whatever you can dish out to it.
It can be there for you to write and write and write words that you want to then rip out and throw away.
It can be there for you to find your truth through a long-winded, meandering path of what you don't mean, then what you might mean, and then what you really do mean.
I like to let my journal be there for me, whatever un-artistic and uninspired mood I happen to be in.
At camp, making nice art was not the goal, self expression was the goal.
So I am sharing what some of the pages look like here, so you too, can make some messes in your journal.
I did bring along a different book to use for camp, and I think I will bring that same book year after year, and let it fill with the one week's words and ideas and learning that happens at this special event for me.
Letting loose really is the goal, letting go of the worry and tightness and concern that the pages look a certain way.
Letting go of lots of extra baggage in life is a good thing.
Control does not equal happiness.
at least, in my book.
and these pages show that, I think:



"I start a picture and I finish it. I don't think about art while I work. I try to think about life." --Jean Michel Basquiat

Standing stones at Spiralheart

Until I get time to commune with my journal, here is a photo of some of the massively large stones set in a circle at 4quarters retreat center where we had camp:



"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." --Lewis Carroll

the mountains and the valleys

I am coming to realize in a deep way that without the darkness, there can be no light, and without the valleys, there can be no mountains.
It is hard to be in the dark valley place, and when I am, I cry out in blindness and fear. But I am very very slowly and incrementally learning that if I can just have faith and get through the dark times, the light is so much more bright and nourishing.
If we always sit at the banquet table, it ceases to be a banquet!

I have been working on the first issue of Creativity Cafe magazine, and the road isn't so easy for me, but I am chugging along and will let you know when it is ready.

It is August, and the time for ripe fruit - juicy peaches and plump corn and to enjoy the bountiful harvest the Earth rewards us with. Yesterday we celebrated Lammas at our UU congregation with a guided journey under a fruitful tree to the earth where all life starts -- I was yet again reminded of the blessings of soil, and worms, and roots, and minerals which feed the plants which feed the animals who feed us.

Today I am grateful not only for the abundant harvest, but for the hard labor that got us where we are, and I am reassured that my hard work will bear fruit, in the fullness of time.


"Whoever gives reverence receives reverence." --Rumi

back from Spiralheart

I spent last week at Spiralheart reclaiming camp in Southern, PA.
There was some time to work in my journal, but with camping and rain (lots of rain) things were damp and I did not try to make pretty pages.
In fact, some of my work while at camp was to let go of how the pages looked and make really messy, ugly pages.
It helps to wreck the journal (sound familiar?) now and then to get out of that careful editor mode that inhibits loud and authentic freedom in the creative voice.
Eventually I will do pages I can share, as I process all I learned during the amazing week of Path, Affinity group and Ritual.
But in the meantime, a bit of a photo collage from camp:



"What we need is more sense of the wonder of life, and less of the business of making a picture." --Robert Henri

a few more pages

are you spending time with your journal?
are you spending time being creative?
are you saying what you need to say?
go in Truth.

and here is another little bit of Iceland:

and me wondering a bit why it is I do this work:


"I count life just stuff to try the soul's strength on." --Robert Browning

more ICELAND pages

I am still processing my photos and ephemera from our ten days in Iceland during the solstice.
Vikings and their wonderful festival in Rekyavik.
Arches of wood and stone, Cairns along the highway marking the path for a thousand years.
Sun and sun and sun with no moon or stars.
Cameras and driving and ponies and sheep and more sheep and even more sheep.
Waterfalls, rocks, geysers, rainbows, ocean, cliffs.
Hot springs.

I just truly loved this country and hope one day to go back.





"Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers, that the mind can never break off from the journey." --Pat Conroy

finally some more pages to share. . . .

"Get a Mac!" they all said.
"You will love the way it handles graphics."
"You will make movies, and scans, and photoshoppy magical collages, and make magazines, and your life will be perfect and wonderful and full of unicorns and rainbows," they said.
So I did.
I got a MAC.
and my life hasn't settled down yet into a routine and it has been SIX painful months.
I am pretty good with this computer stuff.
and yet, still.
STILL.
My MAC just DOES NOT BEHAVE.
So finally, I just took out the ole camera, snapped the photos of these journal pages, and dumped them here using my OLD TRUSTY Vaio and all my old software.
My Mac just won't talk to the scanner and it really hates my printer.

I will keep at it (I have no choice at this point, the old system is at home with the family, now.)
Last night at our monthly journaling meet-up, I did these three pages, so here, finally are some images I can share of actual journal work. I was so sorry to miss the last two meetings with travel, as it is always wonderful to work on journaling in community.

I do hope YOUR computers are co-operating with YOU, and more importantly, that your journal is there for you, as is mine!





"No pressure, no diamonds." --Thomas Carlyle

"Sacred Practice"

Those two words sort of make my heart beat just a bit faster.
I realize that my journaling is my sacred practice.
The triple strike of: 1. I am setting up a new computer arrangement in the studio, 2. at the same time as meeting some deadlines, and our 3. family reality is in huge flux, so my normal making of pages, scanning and posting them here has gotten quite off kilter.
When I have news, when I get the scanner talking to the computer, and when I am back in the routine of my regular sacred practice, there will be more pages here to share with you.

In the meantime, I am following my own advice (that I seem unable to remember so very often) and BREATHING and doing YOGA and just being in each moment as it comes.

NaMaStE!
(now go work in your journals!)

Rumi

I am having a hard time with a new set up in the studio - can't get printer/scanner going, so in the meantime, here are some words from RUMI that feed the soul:

Enough Words

How does a part of the world leave the world?
How can wetness leave water?
Don't wash a wound with blood.
Do you put out fire with more fire?
No matter how fast you run, your shadow always keeps up.
Only full overhead sun diminishes your shadow.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest.
You must have shadow, and light source, both.
Listen and lay your head under the Tree of Awe.

More journal pages to come as soon as my machines co-operate - Now go do some juicy work in your journal and allow yourself to have an Art-gasm!

UPDATE on Et Studio - more journaling pages to come.

Until I can get journaling pages uploaded, here is an update from the studio:

I had the good fortune to visit some amazing places in June.
First was Breitenbush Hotsprings in central Oregon, where I will have a solo show of my Mushroom Collages at their annual Mycology Festival in October. Mushroom experts from around the world come to share science and ideas about this amazing family in the plant kingdom, so I am honored to be included in this work.
I was then lucky enough to be able to take a Nature Spirits Shamanism course with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies on Mt. Shasta in Northern California.

Finally, with my husband, mom, and youngest daughter, I drove the Ring Road around Iceland for a glorious ten day journey during the Solstice. We were within a few miles of the Arctic Circle, so the sun never set. It was a magical experience I will never forget, with many views of glaciers, rainbows, waterfalls, and countless Icelandic sheep and horses in the very green landscape. Having studied Viking Runes, it was a treat to actually go to a Viking Festival and see some of the old ways reinacted.
Some photos are here if you would like to see more:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=121557&id=616233487&l=4049dec0e9

Other news is that the end of July, I will be selling my work at SpiralHeart Camp in southern Pennsylvania. Look for journaling pages about this wonderful experience in the blog early in August.

The first issue of Creativity Cafe should be out the beginning of September - so thank you for your subscription order if you already subscribed, and if not, I will be sending out another ET Studio update when the magazine goes to print so you won't miss out.

Our lives are in transition now, as we face decisions about our future in this uncertain time, but my art and my Shamanic work continues to keep a solid foundation under me -- I hope and pray you also feel supported in this changing landscape.

bright blessings,
-Emily
http://www.etstudio.net/

ICELAND!

I am back from driving the ring road around Iceland.
What a beautiful country - it is a young place where two tectonic plates are crashing into each other, so there are volcanoes, lava fields, waterfalls, geysers, glaciers, rocks rocks and more rocks, and millions of sheep and beautiful Icelandic ponies.
We were there at the Solstice, so close to the Arctic Circle that the sun never set. In fact, it never got dark the whole ten days there, which was hard on the biological clock but very powerful to experience.

Here are the first journal pages done from the trip:

until I get back:

June 14 is the Birth of the Muses, from Ancient Greece mythology.

On this day the goddess Mnemosyne (whose name means 'memory') gave birth to nine daughters: Calliope (epic songs); Euterpe (lyric songs); Polyhymnia (sacred songs); Thalia (comedy); Melpomene (tragedy); Terpsichore (dance); Erato (poetry); Clio (history); and Urania (astronomy). The Muses brought an appreciation of the arts into the world with their inspiration of creativity, social and scientific studies.

I hope your muses are alive and well, I am feeding mine this month with travel - updates to come!

Hitting the road. . . .

Off to Oregon, Northern California, then Iceland!
Lots of journal pages when I get back.

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” - Jack Kerouac

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain

Have a Great Day!

"Let there be more joy and laughter in your living." --Eileen Caddy

Big changes afoot!

Hello blogging buddies -- I need to be away for a while. I have some travel coming up, several large work deadlines to meet before I head out, and also some big life changes afoot.
So please know that in late June, I will be back with tons of new pages and inspirations from my travels to several western states (Oregon and California) and an arctic country (Iceland!) that I will be visiting. (Yes -- I will actually spend the Solstice inside the Arctic Circle -- so much sunlight will certainly make for some inspiration in my journaling life.)
I am headed into this new adventure with an open heart and expecting good things to come, and my journal will go with me and help me process it all - I can't wait to share that journey with you here.
So please do come back again in a bit. Until then:




"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty." --Maya Angelou

until I can add more pages . . . .

I am on some sad family business, but I read this in the New York Times in an article about Absinthe, and just could not let this get away without sharing it - I have had Absinthe and found it almost impossible to drink it is so strong - but sometimes in life, we need a kick like that -- this is from the article:

"While a little absinthe can be quite pleasant, a lot, as with any other strong spirit, will make you drunk. Perhaps, if you are of an Oscar Wilde bent, too much absinthe will do to you what it did to him: “After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were,” he said in one of his many disquisitions on absinthe. “After the second you see things as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.”

"Personally, I prefer how martinis affected Dorothy Parker:

I like to have a martini,

Two at the very most.

After three I’m under the table,

after four I’m under my host."

jack of all trades, master of none?

I am spending much much time these days on some graphics work honing my skills; a website and magazine layout.
I am doing this because I might be transitioning into needing full time employment and I need to be up to what the marketplace would demand.
"WHAT?" (you might be saying to yourself) -- "all her talk about the Spirit taking care of us and being in the bliss of the moment, and here she is talking about money and a job. . . ."
Well, for me right now it is like this -- I trust the Universe to help me be who and what I am meant to be, but I also will responsibly create an ability to take care of myself, should I need to.
Rather than jump out of the plane with no parachute, I choose to buckle on a parachute, hopefully one that works and is up to date.
There is peace and joy and dancing in this life, and there is also hard work and responsibility.
Without the darkness, there is no light.

So as I spend this month focusing on the hours and hours I need to get the website and layout work done, my reward is some awesome travel next month, which I will be journaling and blogging about in force. You will go along with me and hear all about it.

and today's page is one I did a few weeks ago about the fact that I trained many moons ago to be an architect. . . . and haven't practiced that profession in almost a decade.
seems like another lifetime ago.



"I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of ''work,'' because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do. The machinery is always going. Even when you sleep." -Andy Warhol

all life is energy . . . .

I am learning in a deep way how INTENTION creates our reality.
IF we are clear and focus on the thing at hand, everything goes so much smoother.
I have been doing a website for a client, and if I let the hodgepodge of a million stresses get to me, the whole thing turns to mud and I feel like smashing the computer with a hammer.
But if I set my intention on creating a beautifully designed, pleasing, and clear site, and let that vibration inform my thoughts as I work, I find that I organize the folders better, I tackle each obstacle with patience instead of anger, and the whole process is so much more enjoyable.
Stopping periodically to breath deeply and stretch my body a bit sure helps, too.

If our intention is to do what we do with integrity, and to exude love to all around us, how can we not succeed?
Life is here to support us, so as we set our intention to the higher good, we will feel that support in a thousand ways.
Awesome!



"Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance." --Brian Tracy

Spirit Teachers?

Some of us go to therapists, others have spirit teachers.
In my practice of Shamanism I have found that the wisdom from Spirit Teachers works for me. Therapists -- not so much.
Partly I think we all have our own inner truth, and good therapists are really just asking questions to get their clients to find it out on their own.
For me, the Shamanic path has been the most direct to my own truth.
But there still are questions, and I love that I can ask several shamanic practitioner friends to journey for me and confirm my truth.
I learned that two amazing writers whom I admire very much both feel all their writing has been channeled from an exterior source - from their Spirit Teacher. Both are quite successful authors, and do not shy away from sharing that they feel they are actually just a co-authors of their work.
Really -- when we feel connected to that FLOW that is creativity, it is all part of one whole.
For me, being here in my studio, doing this work feels like my highest calling.
So I am trusting the Universe to support me.
(Hear that, Universe!?)



"Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart." --Jan Phillips

my job . . . .

My job is not to try to become famous or well known.
My job is not to make art that one day the world will be in awe of.
My job is not to sell paintings from a gallery or even to sell numerous copies of a book I write and print and sell from my website.
My job is not to push my own agenda into the world for money or prestige or accolades.
My job is simply this:
TO CREATE A POSITIVE VIBRATION OF LOVE IN EVERYTHING I DO.

It's really that simple.
I love making art, and I love working in my journal, and I love writing about it here.
I love exploring the way creativity works in our lives and sharing the journeys of other beautiful creative beings.

So this is my work.
Money - who cares.
Fame - who cares.
I would like some stability, yes, in life, but I trust the UNIVERSE will help me out with this, as long as I stay true to the idea that creating a vibration of love in all I say and do is my main goal.
Amen, Ole, and So Be It.



"The honorary duty of a human being is to love." --Maya Angelou