Bits of beauty

Bits and pieces from my recent trip, all swimming around in my head.
So much beauty to nourish the soul.

Golden light.

The HUGE yellow full moon.

L.A. stretched out before us.

Those black birds against that dusky sky, something about it makes my artist heart beat faster.

The little feet of my friend's baby in the sand.

A mysterious cave on a cliff side hike.

Jewels in the sunlight.

Haven

Haven

::Your heart is my haven, between mountain and sea::

A sweet new painting inspired by origami paper and thoughts on love. Here are those little birds again, I am really loving them, I think I'd hug them if I could!
They have found a soft landing here, a safe haven.
This print is new in the shop today.
Happy weekending!

Walking in a Strong Wind


"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
~Lewis Carol


I am in a strange, yet familiar, place, a "space in between", with ideas swirling and wondering at everything. This is a mental place that I find myself in when I know that I am on the brink of something...new ideas, breakthroughs, revelations. So it is exciting and a bit fearful all at once.

The mixed media drawings above are from a series called Walking in a Strong Wind. I made them about 7 years ago, when I was in another one of these spaces in between, in Grad. School for painting. Obviously the series is a metaphor for my own struggle with many of the huge ideas that we all either dance with or spend effort running from.
I admit that these drawings are a bit heady, well that's Grad. School for you isn't it! But the ideas that I was working with still resonate with me and I find myself coming back to this series whenever I am again at one of these in between places.

How I'm feeling today


Sometimes you have to look through a whole pile of rocks....

Before you find the one with the perfect circle.


*photos taken last week in Malibu, CA

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.

California

Back home now, feeling in a sort of dream state between here and there. My trip was so deliciously full of long talks, new perspectives, affirming clarity, natural beauty, lots of sketching, and time just simple time to my thoughts and whims...all of these things were cherished.

But really, one huge thing that I am able to take away from it is that I do not feel comfortable being all of those thousands of miles away from my children.

I am so happy to be back to their hugs, to smell the soft tops of their heads and to whisper in their ears..."I love you".
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