Circles

In my world right now...

“Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.”

~May Sarton 

We've got some pretty huge garden renovation projects going on around here, more on that this week!

Feeling, Holding, Waiting

Feeling, Holding, Waiting; acrylic on canvas

Yesterday was a very productive studio day for me, and I was able to put the finishing touches on a couple of paintings, including this little one that I worked on through out the summer, but it just did not feel resolved until yesterday. The details finally came together, and this post really is about details.

Thank you so much friends for your response to my interview over at Dana's blog. I see that the question,"How do you get your creative work done when you are responsible for a home and for kids?", deeply resonates with so many of us, and just hearing how we all make it work in our own way is like getting a resounding "Yes" from the universe! Yes, it is possible, look we are doing it and see all of the goodness that is spreading through our making time for the work that we need to make!

In my thinking and journaling about this topic there is something else that I only really touched on in the interview but I think that it needs more attention.
One of my biggest hurdles to getting my work done
 is that it is easier for me to see the interruptions and the care-giving as obstacles, harder for me to remember that these "obstacles" are my life. But sometimes, when my mind and heart have the right focus I see that the interruptions ARE what drives me.
I remember that these things that are happening around me are the art, this is what I am painting about, those bath times, playground times, meal times, story times...they are all adding up to relationships that are so full and rich that they teach me more about love and joy than I could ever learn another way. They are the meat of my life. The heart of everything lies right there, right now.
What if our creative life and our practical life aren't separate?

I am trying not to separate my art and my life, and the integration is hard, and the rewards are boundless.
I just know that I can not put off making my art until everything is perfect, when there are no interruptions, it is too easy to put it off and think that, "I'll get back to this at a better time."
There is no better time.
And so, I do the work to be present in the "now", to notice the details and develop a practice of mindfulness because it is the little things, swirling around me as I work, that hold immense inspiration.

Horizon

Horizon

I have always been drawn to Horizons. That point of intersection between the earth, sky and sea holds so much allure. There are the emotional and mental sort of horizons as well, when you can just feel something coming close...a breakthrough, or breakdown. You can catch glimpses of what's approaching, and gain insights into the bigger picture.
Inspired by Asian landscapes, enchantment and mystery this painting is about the possibility that Horizons hold.

I just added this new original painting to my shop, prints will be available soon.

Grow

Grow

There has been lots of brainstorming going on in our family lately, lots of reaching for the stars and discussing our ideal life. Frank and I have been knee deep in this sort of talk, which is definitely exciting, but not all together relaxing and calming. It feels really appropriate that I finished this new painting, Grow, just before we left for Florida...as I feel like that's what we were able to do a lot of on our trip. GROWING our dreams, bigger and with more clarity (there is my word for the year again) has been our huge topic of focus as a couple for a while now. A great catalyst for this has been taking the Together e-course, over at Creative Thursday that we started in January . The class is now sadly over but our discussions and breakthroughs that were facilitated by the course have just begun for us. More than ever we are focussing on our desire to both create our art for a living, and the changes in our lifestyle that need to happen to make that a reality!
We've got some big plans, but before I share that, I realised in Florida how much I need to slow down. The effects of stress, and it's wear on my body, started to show themselves in the week before our trip. To the point where I can not ignore them any more. So now that we are home there are some big changes....the biggest and most extreme one is that I have given up caffeine.
As a mama who really enjoys her cups of coffee this is a tough one, but already I feel more in control physically, and I can already sense that my body really needed this change. As I sit here sipping my new found drink, decaf Chai with foamed rice milk (yum!), it doesn't feel so bad, but talk to me at 3PM and we'll see how its going. I am still in the transition with that.
I have also started to take time to stretch my body, knowing how much my body longs for the old days when I could do hours of Yoga, and to take brisk walks again. It all feels so good. It comes down to the simple truth that I have been pushing myself too hard and I just can't keep going and going with out focusing on self care.

Happily we had a few little friends to greet us on our return to Brooklyn, all of these sprouting wonders in our backyard! The Crocuses, Daffodils and Hostas are are all starting to peek their way through. With the amazing warm weather that we are having here in NYC is feels like spring will actually arrive. I am ready, oh so ready. Let the growing begin!

Shifting

One of the biggest gifts of my time away was mental space. As I was able to step away from my daily responsibilities I was able to more truly see my life, to have perspective on what's really working and what's not, both as I go about my day to day and also within the larger scope of where I am going. As if I had been looking at my life through a pin hole camera and then pulled back to suddenly see the world around me.

As I had time to sit with this and really focus, I began to feel an energy shift. There under the sun in California. I can put it most simply like this, I feel myself opening up to what really is serving me, and working, within my life. I have also been seeing the things in my life that I had hoped for a long time would serve me, but that in actuality do not. Most importantly I am starting to take a deep look at the areas in which there are things that have really never served me, that I have tried and tried to make work but that I have let stick around for a long time.

One of my huge catalysts for all of this self reflection is that right now I am in the middle of taking a wonderful e-course called Together in which the teachers present ideas about accessing your creative potential. While I was away I lounged in my friend's dreamy backyard (in the photos above) and re-listened to all of the podcasts from the course so far. What I have really been sitting with in this course is this idea that in order to live and work with clarity first we must do some clearing...both mentally and physically. This physical clearing or purging of things that could be holding you back, things with negative energy from your past, things that are not in sinc with who you are becoming, will leave space in your life. That space gives breathing room to think, along with room for something else, something better, to come in. For me that is the space in which I can step away from the pin-hole camera and finally take in the universe all around.

I gave my husband Frank this e-course for Christmas so we have been taking it together, and really it has been the ideal way to start our year. Taking time to sit and think together, looking towards a common horizon...our future goals.

The fresh perspective that I have gained with all of these things is a treasure that will serve me as I approach 2010, where already my word for the year, Clarity, seems to be seeping into every corner.

With everything moving so fast each day, I'm so glad that I was able to slow down and see things as they really are for a moment.

Every Sense

Make the most of every sense; glory in the pleasures and beauty which the world reveals to you….

~Helen Keller

A detail from my painting Hope, that I look at everyday in our living room and still see new things in all the time.

Stretching in the morning.

Wearing this amazing necklace that Frank gave me for Christmas, he got it here. I love love love love love it, and never take it off.

Butterflies at the NYC Museum of Natural History, where last week we discovered that even the banisters have a bit of magic...

goddess school

Trip to Bhutan, originally uploaded by Chris Guillebeau.

I am in Goddess School.

That's right, I am in the middle of the second week of an A M A Z I N G e-course right now over at Goddess Guidebook, called Making Space for Your Goddess to Shine: divine decluttering & magical space clearing.
So far the course has far exceeded my expectations, which I have to admit where a little vague at the start. I have been following Goddess Leonie's blog for a while and have absolutely enjoyed her quirky posts and gentle insights, so I was very intrigued with the idea of the class. I should explain that I wanted to take the course for two reasons:

1. We live in a TINY house, out of which I run 3 businesses...my family and all that it involves, my art (studio and online shop) and my doula practice. As you can imagine it is hard to keep everything organized and decluttered, although I try my best! So this was the practical side of my wanting to take this course, to find out more insights and hints to help me live in my space more effectively.

2. Number two was more of a gray area for me, but I knew that I wanted to take the course in a deep way for the internal space clearing that it promised. Along with the physical decluttering and organizing that the course guides you through there is so much psychological stuff that is tied in with it, and the more layers that can be peeled back regarding our "stuff" the more clearly we can see everything, who we are where we are going, why we have certain patterns, etc.... This makes absolute sense to me!

I will also reveal here that Frank and I have been "stuck" in one very big area for about two years, and that is...whether to stay in New York City or to listen to the little voices in our hearts that keep getting louder telling us that our time here is drawing to close. It has been a wonderful 12 year run! Even though we do feel that we are being called to leave the city, the timing has not been quite right for us to make a decision about moving, and I have started to feel like we are dragging our feet and having the same conversations many times without making decisions or taking action. You know that place of frustrating inaction?

I felt like the timing was right for me to delve more deeply into things that could be holding us back.

Goddess Leonie creates a beautiful safe environment for sharing in the group class forum. I felt so comfortable that on my first visit I was sharing these questions about us leaving NYC, and I realized that I hadn't even shared that here on my blog yet! I saw that immediately this is one area in which I have been holding back, in declaring my intentions. I think that if we didn't declare our intention to leave NYC, then it didn't feel as scary. But, since I have been declaring it for the past couple of weeks, I feel a new lightness. I feel myself opening up to the reality of us leaving New York, and even though that is really scary since we have lived here so long, it is also really filled with the excitement that moving to a new place holds! This course has brought a lightness to my mental state in mysterious ways. You know when you think, talk or dream about someone that you have not seen or thought of for a while and then they manifest in your life in some way shortly afterwards? That has happened to me 10 times in the past week.

I think that I am living in the realm of possibility more fully right now than I have been in a while.

I know that I have a lot to say today, and there will definitely be more to come along these lines as I share our "leaving New York journey" with you here. I am embracing this time of transition for what it is, I have spent a lot of time in my life fighting change!

A wonderful resource that I have discovered through Goddess Leonie is space clearing through sound. Check out Fabiku's free sacred sounds healing downloads, these are recordings of him drumming and playing the bells simultaneously in subtle rhythms that he claims "unstick" stuck energy. I have no idea how this works but I loved it and did feel the effects afterwards!

Cleaning up

I had not realized how dirty our kitchen was until this morning when I was on my hands and knees on the floor cleaning up an accidental spilling of a box of crispy rice (everywhere). Once the mess was cleaned up, I changed the table cloth, putting out this light cotton one from Ikea. I grabbed a favorite Mexican plate for a center piece and these Marimekko fabric covered pillows that had been used to make forts in the living room. They look great as a comfy back for our bench....and there it is....our spiced up kitchen table. Clean and so invitingly summery, just in time for July 4th!

I often feel that a little symmetry goes a long way in making a space feel calm.


And that painting that you can just see the bottom of behind our bench in the first photo? Here it is....

Meditation

It is a large painting of mine from about 2005 that I absolutely LOVE looking at every day. We choose the yellow of our kitchen walls to complement it!

Have a wonderful holiday to all here in the States!

Happy coincidence

The kitchen is where the photographing of my work happens these days. I could use my husband's studio in an old Gowanus warehouse, but the getting over there, setting up, taking the pictures and getting home just takes too long....plus our kitchen has the most lovely light flooded beauty in the afternoons. So, I am getting my new paintings ready for my show coming up next week and was taking pictures of a few of the pieces yesterday afternoon. I put this one new painting down on our kitchen table after I had photographed it and realized the happy coincidence that it harmonized completely with our table cloth, the lovely oil cloth from Anna Maria Horner's good folk's collection. I find moments like this, when the synchronicity of life comes together in a tangible way, so inspiring. I was left wondering, "Does my environment feed my work, or my work feed my environment?", and the lines all blurred. Of course, both of these questions are true. I made the painting and I choose the table cloth. One thing leading from conception to inspiration to create a total vision. I love catching glimpses of this!
The new painting is called Blessing.