I made this little piece for my dear friend C’s birthday, which is today. I even got to give it to her in person when we were in Baltimore, a rare treat for me.
It is a small but thick piece of foam core board. I covered it in papers that spoke “friendship” to me and rolled on paint in translucent colors I thought C would like.
Then I drew the two girls, added text stickers, a bit of texture, and finished it off with some rub ons and doodling.
Happy birthday, C!
You know that feeling you have when you’ve had a great vacation? That pleasant, relaxed inner calm you get when you’ve gotten some clarity on your life’s big picture goals? You see how far you’ve come thus far (in your marriage, your career, your personal growth) and then you take those benchmarks with you back into your everyday life.
I want you to imagine yourself paddling a canoe on a river, responding to every change in current as it comes, trying to remain focused on your destination but also reacting to each small crisis as it arises. Your day is filled to the max, stressful and eventful.
Now imagine you are in an airplane watching yourself from above as you paddle that canoe. You can see that each ripple is part of a larger pattern of movement, a natural flow. That emergency turn was merely a bend in the river.
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My husband, who I’ve decided to call “Mr. B” on the blog from now on, and I were trying to fill a very real need to reconnect with each other after months of parallel living. He travels almost every week in his work. Add in our parental duties and we don’t see each other nearly enough, let alone check in with each other on matters of substance. We needed a vacation.
And then an opportunity came up. School was out for the summer. Childcare was available (thanks mom and dad!). And so I joined Mr. B for part of a work trip to New Orleans and then we stayed the weekend.
When we left home, we were very much like that canoe on the river, except we were actually in two separate canoes trying to keep together in a rushing current. We went to New Orleans on two separate planes two days apart from each other. At first, Mr. B was still working and it seemed we were having independent vacations.
Of course we had an excellent time together, as we always do when we take ourselves away. We really talked and really listened to each other. Throw in a bit of jazz, some excellent cuisine, and some site seeing and you could say it was the best few days of our year.
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As we were heading back to Houston, I likened our airplane’s ascent to the changes we brought about in our relationship in the few days we were away from home. These are stages that almost every relationship needs and undergoes. Perhaps you’ve traveled through them yourself.
First you are at the river’s level in that canoe. Then for a little while you are in a cloud with no direction, lost, while you do the hard work, but gradually you rise to see that the shadows cast over you were merely clouds.
Then you get a break in the clouds to see they are much smaller than you previously thought and the river itself seems manageable if you could implement a few key tools for the journey.
A little more height and you are soaring above it all, seeing the pleasure in the journey and where you’ve been and where you are going and the sunburst that was hiding in plain sight, just beyond the clouds, all along.
These photos are of Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans’ Garden District.
This family lost a one-day-old baby and two other children to Yellow Fever.
The exterior walls tell their own stories.
There’s a craft store chain, A.C. Moore, that has about 140 stores in the Eastern U.S. only. I went about a year ago and have been looking forward to going back ever since because they had such amazing deals. So on a recent trip to visit family in PA, I got to escape for an hour and play.
I found such great bargains that I started smiling and talking giddily to myself, so I decided that I’d share it with you all here on the blog and I took a few pictures. The photo above is everything I got.
I really love using Simply Simmons brushes and these were on sale for about $2 each!
I didn’t plan very well. When I started getting shaky from hunger, I had to buy whatever snacks they had in the store. I can’t go fainting away in the embellishments aisle now, can I? I swear these were the healthiest options. Notice there is no chocolate? I am in week 3 or 4 of counting calories again. I had a salad for lunch and another for dinner. :)
There were lots of signs like this one. How can you not look to see what you can get for $1?
Hee hee. This picture cracks me up. I had a lot of items and there was only one register open, so the line kept growing behind me while the worker lady was scanning my items. These ladies don’t look too happy to be waiting.
This just makes me happy all over again. Such great deals.
Please tell me if you have the same obsession with art supplies!
“It is never too late to become what you might have become.” ~ George Eliot
We all, in our own ways, sometimes treat our inner selves with something far from kindness and love. We walk around concealing our shame, those past experiences we are not proud of, our bad habits and our insecurities. I have issues that I am more than afraid to tackle… we all do. And yet, one by one, I am doing it. I am shedding the extra layers and lifting up my arms to realize that there have been wings hidden there all along.
Knowing that I hide things from people that I wouldn’t want them to know about me is one thing. Learning about what my beautiful friends consider to be their own secret shame is shocking and revelatory. No matter what it is, I see them from a perspective of love and acceptance that I was not giving myself. I look at them with forgiveness and pure grace, something I find very difficult to do for myself. In gifting each person we meet with forgiveness and lovingkindness, we are gifting the same to ourselves. And wow does it feel good.
I would rather feel the soft peace of understanding and love toward someone than my old standby – judgement. I readily welcome feelings of acceptance and empathy, which just don’t leave room for harshness, sarcasm, or anger.
I have heard it said that you can’t truly give love to another person until you love yourself. And yet I have found that my route to self-compassion and self-love comes by way of seeing the vulnerability in others. We do not need to be perfect to be loved. We all struggle. We all need to be healed. It has been in reaching out to other beautiful souls that I have seen the light.
This post was inspired by the life-altering connections I am making in Julia‘s online SoulClass, Getting Naked. I highly suggest you gift yourself her course. It’s 40 days (just the beginning of a lifetime) of knowing, living unapologetically, and loving yourself.
I’m still on track with my Life Book class, which is no small feat! A new lesson pops into my inbox every Sunday evening for the entire year and each is so different from the last.
“Messages from the Muse” with Shiloh Sophia McCloud
Shiloh says there is a legend that those who are supposed to meet are connected by an invisible red thread. For her lesson, she led us in what is called “visionary reception” — allowing a vision to present itself to us from our muse.
I had trouble with this week, honestly! I am not a fan of guided meditations and this woman is super spiritual about her painting. Because she was a bit much for me, I ended up following her pdf. Her work is gorgeous. Mine isn’t! But I did it. I think overall it’s horrid, so here is all you are allowed to see of it!
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“Artful Shamanism” with Effy Wild
Effy describes ‘artful shamanism’ as a way of going deeply within, “gathering insight and information about what’s happening ‘in there’ and then bringing that back out into the light of day in the form of an art journal spread.” I love her reason for art journaling: “Many of us are attracted to art journaling because it allows us the opportunity to process what’s happening in our lives, meet ourselves on the page, and memory keep in a meaningful and beautiful way.” I love that! That’s pretty much how I feel about writing in a journal.
Before there were therapists, there were shamans. Shamans were those members in our tribes of old who looked after the psychological and spiritual well-being of our ancestors by communing with their natural surroundings. Effy asked us to use our imagination to try to find the source of our inner selves. Or something like that. This one was too out there for me too.
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“Divine Colour” with Dion Dior
I learned all about ancient color systems and how colors relate to the Chakra system, an ancient philosophical model of our internal universe, consisting of seven levels of ever-expanding states of consciousness. The word “Chakra” translates to “Wheel,” a spinning sphere of energy within us.
Dion writes that to honor your own divine colors, you must remember to ALWAYS:
The rainbow within each of us is a complete indivisible system of color and energy, but for this lesson, Dion asked us to choose only one color. “Our choices and preferences of color bring us truly into ourselves.” I selected Indigo.
I learned that Indigo represents wisdom, self-mastery, spiritual realization, good judgement, life purpose, connection to divine. Dion says:
Huh.
The assignment was to use our color (indigo) and to use the color wheel to find complementary colors (orange-red and yellow-green).
Well, here are my watercolor flowers. They ended up looking more violet than indigo. I wonder what that says about my soul????
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ATC Swap Prep
During the last week of May, we worked on creating two ATC cards for a swap. How fun! ATC stands for ‘Artist Trading Card’ and they are basically miniature works of art sized: 2.5 x 3.5 inches intended for sale or swapsies!
Here are mine. I made three because I wanted to be able to keep one. I’ll let you know what I get in return!
Tim Holtz tissue paper, some paint and sprays, washi tape border, strips of words, and doodle pen.
“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” ~ Mary Oliver
I always enjoy being part of Kat’s Photo-Heart Connection and visiting the other participants’ blogs. Haven’t done it before? You can learn more about how to find your Photo-Heart Connection here.
When I use my iPhone macro lens, it’s inevitable that I see something that I never would have noticed with my “naked” eye. Since our Agapanthus only bloom one time a year, I wanted to really savor them, so I dug out the little lens from my purse, put it on my phone (it attaches magnetically) and hit the back yard. What I found was such a wonder-filled reminder to really notice the little things.
Here’s one little Agapanthus bloom from the side, which I think looks like a puppy’s nose and mouth. Anyone else see that?
I looked even closer and saw this little guy. He is so tiny that I would never have noticed him in all his complexity and activity.
After that find, I took a few shots of the grass too, just for fun!
So that’s it! I hope you enjoyed my tour. Click here to view my other Photo-Heart connection posts and here to see a linky list to the other participants’ blogs.
Welcome to this month’s One Little Word bloghop. This month Ali asked us to connect our word with messages. She asked us to listen to voices around us (or our own) and notice when “sometimes it whispers and sometimes it shouts.”
In contrast to last month, when I couldn’t even remember my word, this month I had two huge revelations about stillness and how I incorporate it into my daily living. I diligently wrote down the messages I was noticing repeatedly this month and created my 9 cards, but only really GOT the lesson afterwards.
After playing with my daughter for awhile on our playroom floor, I got up and heard a crack in my knee. A few days of severe pain later, we were in an orthopedist’s office learning that I tore my medial collateral ligament. (I’ll be fine, don’t worry. It’ll heal on its own.) The injury has forced my usual peppy, upbeat dance soundtrack to slow way down to more of a calm ballad. There is no way I could rush around the house multitasking, no way I could even empty the dishwasher.
I struggled and panicked and fought it. And then I surrendered to it. It’s kind of nice to sit in one spot for awhile and have someone else do things for you! I had to accept the state of the house for whatever it was. I had to be in the present moment and take in the view. I fell into a place of calm and peace.
I am so thankful that I got the message that this situation taught me. Who knows what other unfortunate situation may have arisen had I not listened!
My second revelation: when I am “in the zone” creating something, anything, my mind is focused and still. It feels so good!!! Say I’m behind the camera lens focused on capturing a certain slant of light on a flower petal. In that moment, I am not thinking of my to-do list or of a memory or about anything other than that flower. When I am painting, I am so happy and light. I am only focused on colors and creating. My mind is still.
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I am so awed by these two discoveries, friends. It’s as if they were in plain sight but I couldn’t for the life of me tap into them and connect them to my word. I love it when that happens!
Here are my 9 cards, by the way. Thanks so much for stopping by! I love visitors and I love comments. :) I am still enjoying my birthday (please do read yesterday’s post about that) weekend and I’ll be back here on Wednesday with a new Photo-Heart Connection post. Hop along to visit Margareta next.
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You can see other posts about my OLW project here. Enjoy hopping along!
Lee: thelinarstudio.typepad.com
Cheri: cheriandrews.blogspot.com
Naomi: poeticaperture.com <— you are here
Margareta: paperpilekitten.com <— go here next
Missus Wookie: mrswookieswanderings.blogspot.com
Lisa: Backtoallen.com
Michelle: table-for-five.com
Melanie: mellybirddesigns.wordpress.com
Veronica: http://www.veronicanorris.typepad.com/
Kelly: septemberblue.net
(A work in progress. I love this quotation from e.e. cummings: “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”)
“Today is your day of all days… Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” – Dr. Seuss
Today is my birthday. ( I share the day with Walt Whitman, my favorite poet. Just telling you in case you are as excited by this as I am.) As on any big anniversary, I find myself getting reflective.
This year, it’s actually taken other people (mostly my daughter, who is so excited about cake) to remind me that it’s coming up… for some reason, I kept forgetting! To try and keep it top of mind, I started thinking up this list of life lessons that I’ve accrued along the way. In no particular order, they are:
(Created for my mom. See post here.)
(Splatter paint art with my daughter.)
(Giving out pennies at a fountain. See post here.)
(Wordle of this blog)
Next year I hope to tell you that I’ve learned to stop comparing myself to others, to conquer fear of success, and to be gentler with myself.
I still feel (and look) very young and that there is so much ahead of me. I want to enjoy my family, travel extensively (see my life list), explore my newfound art hobby, and soak up all the joy still to come. Thanks for reading!
This is the final post about how much I loved this book. Thanks for hanging in there. If you missed Part 1 and Part 2, I hope you’ll check them out.
The book is Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
“It’s so important to have a hobby. A hobby is something creative that’s just for you. You don’t try to make money or get famous off it, you just do it because it makes you happy. A hobby is something that gives but doesn’t take.
Don’t throw any of yourself away. Don’t worry about a grand scheme or unified vision for your work. Don’t worry about unity – what unifies your work is the fact that you made it. One day, you’ll look back and it will all make sense.” p. 72
In making decisions for redecorating our house, I have been trying to keep things unified. But what if I simply select things that I like and put it all together? Would it all look ok because they are all things that I like? Hmm.
This canvas …
… looks totally different from this canvas, but they are both about discovery and both created by me.
I think hobbies don’t necessarily have to make complete sense. The importance is in the focus and the ability to tap into a different part of ourselves. If your hobby is reading, music, yoga, photography, art, or race car driving, when you are enjoying it, you are immersed in that one activity… focused.
I have been so loving the mixed-media canvases that I’m creating because it really is just for me. I am usually not thinking of anything else. I am not trying to sell them. It’s just as Austin Kleon says… “it gives but doesn’t take.”
And maybe one day I will look back and it’ll all make sense. :)
Please share your response to the quotation above!
