Birds of a Feather.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in her book Women Who Run With The Wolves, says, "She who cannot howl will never find her pack". When we stay true to ourselves and express that, kindred spirits will hear it and come. We need to be among friends that "get" us, and where we can be ourselves without fear and pretense and where we can also extend that gift to others.

Now is all there is.

Now is all there is.

Yesterday is no longer, and tomorrow only exists as a concept in my mind. The only place where I can have any influence is in the present moment. This moment brings forth the next. The quality of this moment determines the quality of the next. I can dream about the future, but there is no short cut. The only access is through the present moment. If I spend most of my time either in the past or in the future, I will miss most of my life.

Creative rhythms.

Sometimes I find myself not having made any art in a while, as in, going through a dry spell. And I'm okay with that. I'm beginning to accept that life has a certain rhythm.

The definition of rhythm is, "the pattern of regular and irregular pulses caused in music by the recurrence of strong and weak melodic and harmonic beats."

Sometimes my creative beats are weak, and other times very strong. One day my artistic pulse is regular, and the next day curiously irregular....and it's all good, because it is what creates the melodic, harmonious rhythm of my life.

Sometimes old things have to break.

Sometimes old things have to break for new things to come. There's just no way around it.

When things fall apart or break we have to remind ourselves of how all sorts of beauty come from broken things, like eggs, cocoons and other outgrown spaces.

All that mattered to her now....

All that mattered to her now was getting the fish back into the water,

Just as the fish needs to be in its own element to "breathe" water, we need to honor our own need
to be where we belong, which is among kindred souls, in an environment that will support and
nourish us, and where we too, can breathe freely and be ourselves

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Remember who you are.

Sometimes we need to stop and take stock of ourselves, and to reconnect with who we are. We need to re-acquaint ourselves with ourselves every once in a while. What do we dream about? What angers us? What are we hungry for? What do we regret? We should read our journals from long ago. What has changed? What stayed the same? Who do we love, what is important? Of what can we let go? What no longer serves us? What do we want to keep? We slowly remember who we are.

Art that surprises us with having a mind of its own.

I almost didn't bring this one to Matter! gallery (where I have had my art on display now for a few years), because I couldn't think of a caption for it. I drew and painted the figure first, but it took me a while to "hear" her. Finally she just said "I'm longing". That was it. She didn't care to elaborate on it. I kept asking what...or who she was longing for, but apparently it was just one of those moments when she was just longing....for something, anything and everything.

Interestingly enough, the one picture that almost didn't make it to public display, was the one my friend liked the best. Goes to show how much I know ha ha....

                                   Click on the picture and you can see the word "longing".

Deep knowing.

I was thinking about how the heart just knows things that can't even be put into words. It's a wordless knowing. A deep, deep knowing. The I came across this article:

"The relationship between the heart and brain has often been studied as a one way conversation, with the heart responding to the brain's commands. Yet the idea of the heart as an intelligent, perceptual organ dates back to ancient times, and some say heart intelligence is more than a metaphor. Based on their studies, researchers at the Institute of HeartMath propose that the heart and brain are in 'a dynamic, two way dialogue, with each organ continuously influencing the other's function.' Amazingly, the heart seems to be physically involved in processing intuitive information and communicating it to the brain.

You can read the rest of the article here:

http://organicauthority.com/health/can-your-heart-think-for-itself.html 

About breathing and the inner wild.

Breathe deeply

Wild Horses

After being distracted by daily life, such as working, chauffeuring kids around, doing dishes and laundry, I finally got into the creative groove again. I found some captions and words from the dictionary, that I had saved a while ago, that now prompted me to create these pictures.






The first one is about the importance of breathing. That may seem obvious, but more often than not, we don't breathe consciously, only by default sort of...The woman in this picture reminds us to, every once in a while, throughout our busy day, stop, close our eyes and take a deep, deep breath, relax and feel the wind in our face, and allow it to bring us back into the present moment.

The second picture, "Wild Horses, by definition can never be tamed", speaks of mustering up the courage to be authentic and to be ourselves. As women we often forget that we are not only someone's mother, or wife but we are also someone in our own right. We bend and twist to be there for everybody but ourselves, Nurturing and caring is in our nature, but it must never be at the expense of nurturing and caring for ourselves. We must never sacrifice our own inner wildness.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in her book Women Who Run With The Wolves, says, "the word wild here is not used in its modern pejorative sense, meaning "out of control", but in its original sense, which means to live a natural life, one in which the criatura , creature,  has innate integrity and healthy boundaries."

She continues, "The memory is of our absolute, undeniable, and irrevocable kinship with the wild feminine, a relationship which may have become ghosty with neglect, buried by over-domestication, outlawed by surrounding culture, or no longer understood anymore. We may have forgotten her names, we may not answer when she calls ours, but in our bones we know her, we yearn toward her; we know she belongs to us and we to her."

Have a wonderful week everyone. Breathe deeply, be true to yourself and find your inner wild.

Seasons, a poem by Ann Vargas

There, there
Ride the throbbing wave
Breathe in rhythm with it
Follow the pulse
Of stretching and contracting
Hold gently
The pain of a breaking bud
Rock it slowly
Until suddenly
Shedding of spaces
That have become too small
Then
Be awed by spring blossoms.

Celebrate abundance
Splurge
Drink in summer and dance wildly
In a circle of plenty
Drunk from too much
Gather the harvest gratefully
Indulge in ripened, sweet fruit
Receive shamelessly
Until your cup runneth over
Then, give it all away
Like there's no tomorrow
And melt
In the heat of the sun.

Allow change
Loosen your attachments
And fall with the leaves
In the autumn wind
Flowers wilt as they go to seed
Honor their death
Attend their burial in silent respect
Surrender control
And fall with the seeds
Into earth's dark womb
Only made richer
By the decay of last season's glory.

Winter, like a pregnant woman
Holds a promise
Anticipate patiently
Descend into the stillness
Under a blanket of snow
Be with the nothing
It is where you will find All
Give life time to incubate
Despite the absence
Of visible signs
Trust the process.

In her element

This picture is about how important it is to return to our own element where we can do what we love and where we can be with kindred souls who "get" us. From time to time we need to seek out such a place that inspires and nurtures us and where we can breathe and be ourselves.

Staying in the now.

Staying in the now.

I tend to spend most of my time either regretting the past, or daydreaming about the future. But I can allow myself to be called back to the present moment by my senses, by for example feeling the gentle summer rain on my skin. How does the rain make me feel? Does it remind me of tears? Does it evoke sadness? Or is the rain invigorating and waking me up to a surge of inexplicable and sudden joy? It is only by being fully present in this moment, that I become available to create the next.

"Homing"

"Homing"

The words in this picture were found in a book about the migration of birds. But they could also be about our own built-in ability to return to our known goal- our true authentic selves.
I may not always know it consciously, but deep down inside, I do. It is my beginning point as well as my destination.
The flight route may be partially unknown, and sometimes I find myself on various detours, but I sense that I have an inner compass, a homing instinct, that forever guides me back to my original Source. I'm learning to trust my internal GPS and I fly home.

"To thine own self be true"

"To thine own self be true"

I often hide. I am afraid that if I were to stand emotionally and intellectually naked in front of other people, I will encounter rejection and disapproval. I feel the need to befriend my inner longings, dreams and ideas and to give them wings, regardless of what people think and say. It's about staying true to myself.

Patience.

Patience.

I can sow the seed, I can water it, I can shield it from the wind and too much sun.....but I can't make it blossom. It will blossom when it's good and ready.

Living in the present for the sake of the future.

Living in the present for the sake of the future.

I always thought there was a little bit of a contradiction between living in the present moment and accepting what is, and the idea of visualizing about the future and wanting to manifest better things/situations etc. But then yesterday I had an "aha moment" about that. 

There is no short cut to the future. The only portal into the "future" is the present moment. If I want, for instance, to launch my greeting card line, no amount of visualizing and wishing is gonna actually get me there. I have to return to the present moment and figure out what it is that I can do RIGHT NOW to bring me closer to my goal. Even a thousand mile journey starts with one small step. 

So I realized that to live in the present does not have to exclude wanting something in the "future", it just means that to get to that "future" we have to stay in the present at all times, because only this precise moment will yield the next. We can't skip ahead.

So now when I find myself dreaming of something I want in the future, I ask myself "what can I do right NOW to bring me closer to that?" Even if that means to simply get up out of the couch and take a shower it is an important first step on that thousand mile journey. Or it could be to call an important person, make an appointment, google some resources, make a to do list, switch my attitude, take a deep breath, imagine different possibilities, eat lunch, write down some new ideas. It just takes one step to create a momentum that then propels me to to take the next step.

Yesterday I was driving and I thought, well, there ain't nothing much I can do right now as I'm driving, to bring me closer to the goal of launching my greeting card line.....but there was! One thing I could do right then in that present moment to get me closer to my goal was for example, breathe. Focus on conscious breathing as a way to relax and de-stress. Because being stressed out can cause a ripple effect and instead of working on my greeting cards when I got home I would probably just be too stressed out and tired and then eat some junk food instead and fall asleep in front of the TV.

Throwing caution to the wind.

Throwing caution to the wind.

Many of my ideas and plans slowly evaporate into nothingness because I spend too much time worrying about the outcome. "Will it succeed? Will I become rich? How will I do this? I don't have the right skills. Not enough money. No education. No experience...." And so on, until I decide that I'm better off not trying at all.

Sometimes it's better to just start moving forward, even when I'm not completely sure of the direction. I can always change it or make a u-turn if I have to. But not moving at all I will not get anywhere. Even one small step can generate a motivation, a vision, a desire.

Holding pain...

Holding pain...

Pain is uncomfortable and I try to avoid or ignore it. But as I run from it, I often get slapped around by it as if caught by the writhing tail of a tornado. This time I move towards the "eye", or center of my emotional tornado where there is always stillness and peace.

The area surrounding the "eye" of a tornado is called the "eye wall" and it's where the winds are most intense. The closer I get to the core of my pain, the more it hurts, and it is then that I must continue through, to that place within me, that regardless of what happens around me, remains calm.

From caterpillar to butterfly.

From caterpillar to butterfly.

Sometimes I go through rough times and I feel as if my life is disolving....I wonder if I'll ever get through to the other side. When I'm right in the middle of it, everything seems dark and hopeless. I don't seem to be able to see beyond it as if restricted in a cocoon like existence. And then, a clarity and a strength I never even knew I had, slowly but steadily comes from a place deep within. The cocoon begins to crack open and I emerge in a new form. I have gone from caterpillar to butterfly. Believe in the inner, magical force of transformation. Trust your inner butterfly.

Permission to make crappy art.

Permission to make crappy art.

This is an old blog post that I decided to post again because it is important and it applies not only to art but to many, if not all, areas of our lives.

Sometimes when I make art, I'm not feeling it. The muse is out to lunch or something. My hands are shaky, and nothing flows. The picture just doesn't have IT. It's frustrating. It sucks. Like this picture above. It just doesn't do it for me. But it's okay.

When my kids were younger they would say, "Mom, I wanna draw a picture". "Okay", I said, "go for it". And they drew a picture. One picture. And it didn't turn out perfect. And they immediately gave up all their artistic aspirations.(Luckily they reclaimed them again later on). "How come you make such cool pictures?" they asked. What they didn't realize is, that I don't always make cool pictures. I make many, many uncool pictures and only some of them turn out okay. Sometimes we have to allow ourselves to make ten, twenty, a hundred crappy pictures before we make one we like.

I think of the analogy of the well. When we first start to pump the water, it comes out all rusty and dirty, but if we just keep pumping, eventually it'll come clear.

So don't give up just because it doesn't come out right the first time around, keep "pumping", keep working and the muse will know that you're serious and committed and she'll come back from lunch and help you.