keeping the dance going

"Only from the heart can you touch the sky."   --Rumi

barn owl

today

I am focusing on what's working for me, and letting what doesn't work fall away. Why should our thoughts dwell on suffering? There is too much beauty in the world to spend our time that way.

"You knock at the door of Reality. You shake your thought wings, loosen your shoulders, and open." --Rumi

Creativity

Yesterday, in our monthly journaling group, I tried to follow my own advice and start by just grabbing photos of whatever caught my eye. Strangely, all three images I found were of colorful, beautiful men. I didn't even notice until they were all attached to the page, and after I had colored them up even more than they were.
It brought to mind the idea of decorating the self, of making the body the canvas. I don't decorate myself much, but I think I am going to try to be a little more flamboyant in my clothes and accessories.

Why should we not celebrate our artistic vision by making our own bodies be a sign of who we are? I think this sends a message that we value individualism and self expression, that we value the Spirit that has breathed the creativity into us.

"In the language of the Tewa Indians, the three syllable term that is translated as "art" or "creativity" actually means "water-wind-breath."  This is a beautiful evocation of the creative process.  It's about catching the current, about breathing in and breathing out.  In-spiration is literally breathing in Spirit; exhalation is releasing it into the world."
--Robert Moss

Just Do It.

"Come, come, whoever you are. / Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving - it doesn't matter, / Ours is not a caravan of despair."  --Rumi

2 0 1 3 !

It's a new year.

It's a new era on the Mayan calender. It's a whole new time in world history. and in honor of all these monumental upswings of the timeline of humankind, I am going to make this blog thing a bit more reactive. actually, I mean interactive. maybe I need to be more active. anywho, print this image:



 It's conveniently sized at 8 1/2 x 11 just for your printer. now doodle on it. collage on it. add something. maybe words, maybe drawings, maybe cutouts from a catalog.

Loosen it up a bit.
Then maybe paste it in your journal, or mail it to a friend or a stranger.
Pin it on your bathroom wall.
Burn it.
Just do something!

Ha e Fu ! (can you guess the two missing letters?)

WeLcOme, 2 0 1 3 !

for the end of 2012

Since the Mayan Armageddon didn't come, why don't you get out some art supplies and enjoy life!

"Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don't claim them. Feel the artistry moving through, and be silent." --Rumi

It's all good.

"Every object and being in the universe is a jar overflowing with wisdom and beauty, a drop of the Tigris that cannot be contained by any skin. Every jarful spills and makes the earth more shining, as though covered in satin."  --Rumi 

where are you going today?

This sentence from an artist's bio got my attention:

Hali Karla is a paint-slinging, word-wrangling, music-loving, earth-walking Artist devoted to communing with Creative Mystery through the intentional exploration of the river where spiritual practice joins creative process.

How can we not be inspired by those words?

In the flow . . . .

Viparita Karani is a yoga pose, where you lay flat on the floor with your butt against the wall and your legs straight up against the wall. It is wonderful for lower back pain. I used to do this pose all the time, and somehow lost it, then I saw the name for it on a yoga chart. As soon as I wrote down the name, the pose came back into the front of my consciousness. So now, I am doing it again. No more back pain. When the timing is right, the inspiration comes. and I'll share a little secret here -- now that I've journaled about this pose, I will never forget it again. That's one example how journaling can truly help you in life.
"There is an art to wandering. If I have a destination, a plan – an objective – I've lost the ability to find serendipity. I am on a quest, not a ramble. I search for the Holy Grail of particularity and miss the chalice freely offered, filled and overflowing." --Cathy Johnson

upcoming:

Yesterday I went downtown to scope out Strange Grounds Coffee on Broadway, where I will have a table at a craft fair. Oh la la. I had the best breakfast ever, sausage and egg with grilled onions, sour cream, and avocado! Low carb, too. and the coffee . . . just magnificent. I now have a new special spot for journaling out in the world, and plan on making this a frequent outing. Working in your journal in a creative atmosphere is really a treat, give yourself an early holiday gift and try it! "Grace emerges in the ebb and flow, not just the flow. The waning reveals a different kind of blessing than the waxing. But whether it's our time to ferment in the valley of shadows or rise up singing in the sun-splashed meadow, fresh power to transform ourselves is always on the way. Our suffering won't last, nor will our triumph. Without fail, life will deliver the creative energy we need to change into the new thing we must become." --Rob Brezsny

And the holidays begin. . .

So it begins. I got the dog a Xmas sweater, and hung lots of blue lights on the house, two things that cheered me up.
I somewhat love the holidays, the cooking and gathering, the shopping and wrapping, the lists of cards to mail.
But it is stressful, the parties or non-parties, the wondering if I need to leave the mailperson a tip, the family members who are too far away to see, and others who show up. So this year I am going to look for the magic. Some wonderful hot chocolate and a good movie on TV. I am working with my thoughts to keep everything positive, and when the negative comes along, I gently remind it that it needs to keep on its way, and not start a loop in my head.

And working in my journal does always help me to remember this.
So as the days get shorter, and colder, and the chores pile up, I will stop and breathe, work a bit in my journal, look out the window at the falling leaves, and connect with the beauty that is always in eyesight if you look for it.

"To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live in the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Stormy weather

Sandy, the hurricane, ripped up my beloved Jersey Shore. A friend of my son's boss said her beach house was gone. Totally disappeared into the sea.
Not even a wooden board left as a memento!
As we come to that infamous date 12/21/12 I think we are all noticing some tumult and chaos in our lives and relationships, and certainly the news has been a bit horrific, and worth not paying as much attention to as we are tempted to do.
I am considering all this in my journal, exploring it, separating myself a bit from the chaos, and trying to let the storm blow over.
You?
 
"Things that matter most must never be
at the mercy of things that matter least." --Goethe

Design work

I have some book design work which is keeping me busy, but my journal is patiently awaiting my attention, and you will be the first to know when I update; stay tuned for some eraser carving, as well!
 "The dark thought, the same, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each guest has been sent as a guide from beyond." --Rumi

What will you choose today?

"No matter what happens in the outer world we do have the opportunity to shift our level of consciousness. Mystics have been able to do this for thousands of years. Do you want to live from a consciousness where you feed the drama or do you want to live from a consciousness that feeds the light, love, and beauty of this world?"  --Sandra Ingerman

ZENdoodling

Today we had our monthly journaling group.
I did a little demo (very little) of zentangles, and then we worked contemplatively for an hour. It actually was quite magical.
Something about all 7 of us working with the same energy and focus seemed to multiply the effect. We all really zoned out and just emptied our brains of everything but these little amazing doodles for the whole hour. When we shared at the end of the sessions, almost everyone said the same thing, "I zoned out and it felt like a meditation, and the hour flew by."
I will show you some of these little doodle details and you'll see what I mean about becoming lost in the dots and swirls and patterns. I probably will add some words on this page.
Maybe.
Perhaps this whole zen/empty thing will allow me to let my pages be a bit more spare, instead of so jumbled. and for sure, a less jumbled brain would be pretty awesome, too. In fact, a less jumbled everything would be a great organizational theme I could use in my life.
Thanks, Journal!

 
“As elephants remember India perfectly, as mind dissolves, as song begins, as the glass fills, wind rising, a roomful of conversation, a sanctuary of prostration, a bird lights on my hand in this day born of friends, an ocean covering everything, all roads opening, a person changing to kindness. . . ” --Rumi

Productivity

Sometimes being unproductive is not being unproductive at all. We need time to digest and try, time to start and stop and wander and experiment. Not all our hours result in beautiful things. But the seeds of the beautiful things are always there, in the time we spent. Allow yourself that freedom, to not make anything important today.

"I'm working on a few different stories at the moment. It's hard to tell which of them, if any, will turn into a book. If I understood about how to write books, I wouldn't have to travel down so many roads to nowhere, and I wouldn't go three or four years between novels." --John Green

Journal Challenge

I am doing a 5 day challenge with a holistic health coach based in Boston, Dillan DiGiovanni called 5 Days of Fearless Living.
If you go to Dillan's website  you can register.
There is also a facebook group for sharing ideas and progress, all for free.
Each day for 5 days, you will get a Fearless Living Challenge sent to you via e-mail.
Today the challenge was to LIST THREE WAYS YOU WILL LOVE YOUR FEARLESS SELF.
Mine are to: eat no sugar, do some yoga, and not worry about how the class I am teaching today turns out.
I decided to do journal pages for each of these daily challenges, so here is my first one.  Why don't you join me?
Also from Dillan's challenge today:
A Cherokee elder was teaching his children about life.
"A fight is going on inside me," he said to them.
"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego."
He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."
The grandchildren thought about it and after a minute one of them asked, "Which wolf will win?"
The elder simply replied, "The one you feed."

Meditation on Mushrooms

Yesterday our monthly journaling group started up again after a Summer break. I brought along some photos of some glorious mushrooms that I bought at the Boulder Farmer's Market last weekend. I bought them to cook up in an omelet, but before they were subject to the fire, I just had to spread them out on the counter to photograph them, they were that beautiful.
To take the time to honor wonderful beauty and wonderful food is something I want to remember to do.
And the time spent in the presence of others, all working silently in our journals together is another way to honor beauty. To say it's worth our time to just collage a bunch of photos of mushrooms, to add some color and doodling and words, not expecting anyone to buy anything, to give me fame or fortune for becoming good at this work, not expecting a book deal, a lecture invitation, or a paycheck.
Yet I still do this work.

Someone at our group who is new to journaling mentioned that she was disappointed in her page in the journal, that it felt contrived.
My answer to that is so did the first 20 journals I did that fill up my shelves. That expecting to find truth in one two hour effort perhaps is expecting too much. So often, we want our effort to be rewarded instantly. Malcolm Gladwell tells us that it takes 10,000 hours to be an expert at anything. I don't think anyone sits down at a piano, and expects to play Paganini after a few hours of learning about playing.

I am always surprised that most people seem to think art is something people just know how to do, and not something that is learned with years and years of practice. I do love this mushroom journal page I did yesterday in our group. but I have also done hundreds, maybe thousands, of pages that did not please me as much. It's a journey. It takes a long time, and lots of dedication.
Over the last ten years, I worked in my journal so many times instead of cleaning the house, or watching TV, or earning money at a job, or socializing. I took a large chunk of my working life and spent it doing art journaling.

Sometimes I think that was crazy, but then one person will tell me learning to do this work helped them. That learning to take images and colors and doodling and words suddenly revealed something they needed to learn, something they needed to manifest, something they wanted to understand. So this is all for those few people who discover something amazing and deep.
So back to the mushrooms, to honor my love for these fungi by creating a beautiful page reminds me there is joy in these small things in life. and that it is worth our lives to celebrate this.


 "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

Fall Colors

"I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later." --Mitch Hedberg