Category Archives: The Creative Journey

The Things I’ve Learned Along The Way

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An exploration with watercolours — two colours only. Quinacridone Gold and Dioxane Purple +White +Black

Life is a journey that teaches us as we go.

Some lessons are worth repeating so that they can continue to enrich our lives every day. Some lessons… well, they’re best not to be repeated.

There are so many lessons that have informed and enriched my life. Here are some of my favourite go to’s.

  1. Walk in Gratitude

Gratitude is the gateway to a peaceful heart. It forms a foundation for joy, peace, contentment.

Be grateful for all things in your life, including the things you’ve encountered that leave you feeling bruised and weary. Their presence is a reminder that life isn’t all about sunrises that take your breath away and sunsets that close in magic. It’s also about dark and stormy nights that force you to stretch and bend and bow like a willow tree in the rain. When we bend and stretch we become more supple and strong.

Be grateful for the storms.

2. Let Forgiveness Soften Your Heart

Sometimes, we tell ourselves that holding onto anger will make us feel better. It’s not true.

Anger corrodes. It hardens our muscles and the heart is a muscle. Let forgiveness wash away the pain so that your body can move freely and your heart beat easily.

And that includes forgiving yourself. Always. We all make mistakes. We all do things we wish we hadn’t. Don’t lock yourself into a cage of anger. Open the gate to forgiveness and let the anger wash away. In its absence your heart will have more room for grace and love to buoy you up.

Forgive yourself for the harsh words you speak about yourself. Forgive yourself for your mistakes. Forgive yourself and let the anger wash away so that beauty can revive and restore you.

3. Seek Beauty

It doesn’t matter how dark the night or stormy the day, there is beauty in all things. Sometimes, we just have to change our perspective or find a safe harbour to weather the storm. In that safe harbour there is beauty. In that new way of looking at what ever you judge as having gone wrong, there is beauty to be found. Seek it.

And don’t forget to say thank you for the every day beauty of your life. Gratitude is a healing balm for your heart and soul. It makes a beautiful walk in the park out of every day and opens us up to seeing the world with fresh new eyes.

4. Be Curious

There is so much that is fascinating in this world around us.

Why is the sky blue?

Where does love go when it dies? Can it die?

Why do zebra’s have stripes and giraffes have spots?

Be curious. About everything. People. Animals. Nature. Things. Life.

5. Explore Your Inner World

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Why did he say that? Where? Who wrote it into his speech? (remember – be curious)

What does that statement mean to you?

Examine it. Ask yourself, am I willing to take the voyage into my heart to discover new territory? To uncover old pains and hurts so that I can live my life freely in the wonder and beauty of today?

You are the person you spend the most time with. How ‘clean’ are your thoughts about you? How lovingly do you speak to yourself?

Give yourself the grace of loving yourself unconditionally and let your true light shine bright.

6. Give Grace

Grace is an ineffable and ephemeral attitude/disposition in life. Its presence creates space for wonder and awe, its light opens up your world to beauty and love.

Grace, as defined by some is ‘unwarranted mercy’.

Give yourself the grace of mercy. It is the ultimate form of self-compassion. Give it freely to yourself and all the world around you.

We are just mere humans. Taking this walk daily. Sometimes, we struggle. Sometimes, we don’t. Always, our inherent nature is todo our best.

In grace, our best is never judged as lacking. It is seen as being a reflection of who we are, where we are and how we are in the moment. And when our best pales in comparison to our judgements of where we need to be in this moment, use grace as your doorway to finding your self-compassion.

When we know better, we do better.

Let grace open you up to your better so that you can shine brightly for all the world to see the path around you is illuminated in Love.

We each need to shine brightly to create a better, brighter, kinder world.

Give grace. Love yourself for all you’re worth.

7. Love Always

There is no space for judgement, discrimination, condemnation, violence to grow when Love is present.

Love always. And in your choice to love always, trust that love always wins, even when the night is dark and long, even when the storm is fierce, even when the path is hidden in shadows, trust in Love and let love lead the way.

Namaste.

_____________________________

I created the watercolour painting above as part of a course I’m taking with Laura Horn (fabulous course!)

I am not a watercolour artist, (she said to herself) when she signed up for the course.

Fear of looking stupid. Of not doing something well. Of being awkward, ‘less than’, almost held me back from signing up.

I am so grateful I signed up. I’m still going through the first week of course material and I am learning so much about composition, colour theory, and staying out of judgement.

If I’d let my fear direct me, I wouldn’t have signed up.

I’m grateful I gave myself the grace of not being perfect and chose instead to love myself enough to experience and learn something new.

What about you? Are you willing to give yourself grace?

Just Like My Mother

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“My Mother’s Hands” – 10th 2-page spread in the My Mother’s Prayers altered book art journal

When I was a child I was mesmerized by my mother’s hands. They floated and fluttered around her face as she spoke like angels wings floating gracefully through the air around her head.

Mesmerized by the beauty she created as she spoke, I practiced fluttering and flitting my hands with every word I spoke just so I too could have angels flying around me. And also, so that I could speak just like my mother.

I never did master the softness of her voice but to this day, my hands are as much a part of my speaking as my voice.

“Just Like You” 9th 2 page spread

Five months ago when I brought my mother’s prayer cards home to my studio, I had no idea what stories they would inspire.

Creating an altered book art journal with her prayer cards is a journey beyond the surface layers of grief and memory deep into soul-restoration.

Every day, when I sit down at my work table and open the journal, I am reminded of the power of creativity to restore and heal. And the power of prayer to create miracles.

My mother and I walked a delicate truce. She wanted peace. I wanted answers. For me to have answers, we had to talk about the things that upset her. I didn’t want to upset her and so I let go of searching for answers in the past and settled instead for peace in the present.

Walking on Eggshells

It worked. I no longer felt like ‘the bad daughter’ every time I spoke to her and prodded her with my endless questions and insistence we walk together with ‘the truth’. Instead, I could be the ‘good enough’ daughter she could tell her friends about because, as she liked to say, “I was doing good things in the world”.

In our delicate truce my mother felt like her prayers had been answered. She could let go of praying to God to help me be a better person and simply pray for good things to come to me in my life.

Between Heaven and Earth

There is truth in everything. Not every thing is true.

My mother’s prayers were a powerful force in our lives. The truth is, my mother prayed for everyone she knew, every night of her life. When I was younger, I used to scoff at her constant reminders that she would pray for me. Sometimes, before I remembered the value of kindness in the world, I’d tell her I didn’t want her prayers. She should keep them for herself.

She’d pray harder for me in those times, beseeching God to soften my heart.

As age began to take a toll on her mobility and strength, she spent more time in bed or sitting quietly in her wheelchair. Her prayers became a constant song in her life, filling the space around her head with whispered incantations for blessings from God to rain down on those she loved.

As the end neared, we prayed with our mother whenever we were with her. And when she fell into the deep sleep that would eventually lead her to her eternal light, we prayed together for her safe journey to the other side.

Sometimes, during the nights of her final week when I sat alone at her bedside, I’d say the Hail Mary over her sleeping body, just as I imagine she whispered it over my sleeping body long ago when I was a child.

One night, as I sat beside her bed reading while she slept, she opened her eyes, lifted one of her hands slowly off the covers and beckoned me to come in close. Crippled with arthritis, her hands no longer fluttered like angels’ wings dancing around her head. They moved slowly like a leaf drifting towards the ground on the final breath of an autumn breeze.

Leaning over the side of her bed, trying not to jostle her frail body, I dipped my head towards her mouth. Her hand fell to the blanket covering her body as she whispered softly into my ear, “I’ll pray for you.”

I smiled and looked into her eyes. I didn’t know if she could see me or simply feel my presence. Gently, I stroked her forehead and whispered back, “Thank you. I’ll pray for you too.”

This is Where I Stand

This book is my prayer for peace for my mother and me. Each page is filled with my handwork and, even though mostly invisible beneath layers of paint, each page contains one of my mother’s prayer cards.

It is created by my hands that float and flutter about my head when I speak, just like my mother’s hands once did.

The Mystical Raven

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“Raven Musings” Mixed Media on 12″ x 12″ birch panel board.

I played yesterday. Seriously played.

No destination. No clear idea of what I was creating. Just paint. Me. Time to play. A few leaves I’d picked before the rain, a stencil I’d drawn and cut out of a raven, and my Gellipad for mono-printing and a leaf stamp I’d carved out of a piece of foam.

Two page spread in “My Mother’s Prayers” altered book art journal

My plan had been to create another two-page spread in the altered book art journal I’m working on with the prayer cards from my mother, “My Mother’s Prayers”.

The raven had other ideas.

When I’d originally worked on the backgrounds on the two birch panels I’ve used for the ravens, I’d intended to create complementary pieces.

My work table – mono-prints and the raven stencil

Ah that raven. He really can be a trickster.

I have always been fascinated by ravens. Years ago I wrote a story called The Shawl. The shawl resembled a raven’s wings. In the story, a woman donned it during pregnancy to protect her and her unborn child from evil spirits. Set in ancient times and the present, the raven became a powerful symbol of feminine energy. In the past, the shawl protected the present-day protagonist’s grandmothers’ grandmothers. In present day, the shawl appeared in dreams as the heroine of the story took on bureaucracy, breaking-through patriarchal and societal barriers to carve a path to a better, kinder world through her connection to nature, myth and the law.

That story was on my mind as I painted yesterday. I no longer have a copy of it but it remains threaded through memory, a potent reminder of the power of myth and life to awaken us to possibility.

Like the heroine in my story, I do not know why the raven is appearing in my artwork.

I do know, I cannot ignore him.

And so, I paint. And write. I stay unattached to the outcome and leave myself open to the wonder and awe of creation. In that space, I allow nature to divine my path as I journey into the mystery of the unknown. Embracing it all, embodied in the present, I allow the mystical appearance of the raven to awaken me to the unseen as it slowly, sinuously, gracefully pulls back the shawl to reveal the beauty that is shimmering in the shadows, waiting to be unveiled.

It promises to be a fascinating journey…

Weaving Our Way Home

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I am home now. After two-weeks away, we drove back over the weekend, stopping along the way in the Okanagon wine-country for some tastings and relaxation.

My heart is full.

The time with my daughter and her family, including newborn Ivy, was pure love.

My heart is heavy.

We are back on this side of the Rockies.

In wine country, C.C. and I rented a delightful Air BnB for three nights. We visited Bench 1775 Winery where we married five years ago, as well as a couple of other favourites and a new one too.

Wine tasting at Nichol Vineyard

It was a beautiful, relaxing respite.

It was also the shortened version of the trip we’d planned for our anniversary in April that was side-lined by Covid.

Covid changes are visible everywhere in wine country. There are limits on the number of people allowed in the tasting rooms at a time. Screens in front of the servers and social distance circles on the floor. Our favourite bistro at Liquidity is closed – though you do get a gift of a wonderful bag of fresh veggies from their garden when you purchase wine.

And yet, despite of and because of the changes, there is a beautiful, relaxed, slowed down pace to it all.

On Sunday, the last winery we visited was a new one for us, Nighthawk Vineyards. Daniel and Christy, the owners, were on hand to pour and share their stories of life as ‘farmers’ as Daniel calls it.

As we sipped and asked questions and Daniel shared his love of wine-making and farming, which he discovered 9 years ago when they purchased the property, we felt the warmth of the late afternoon on our skin and savoured the view of the small lake at the edge of their property tucked between the hills that surround their property.

It was an enthralling and inspiring sojourn.

Their two adult sons also work with them, creating a beautiful story full of the mystique and mystery of viticulture soaked in their love of family and their desire to create wines and experiences that reflect their deep commitment to the earth and environment and exceptional customer service.

The reflecting pool at Liquidity

Sitting in the late afternoon sun, savouring their delicious offerings, breathing deeply of the bouquets of the wine dancing on our taste buds and the gentle late afternoon breeze caressing our faces, I felt my body relax into itself as I said a little prayer of gratitude afor Love and life and people who create with such passion and integrity and share their gifts so graciously.

And when we were done, We drove back down the mountainside towards our little cottage, our hearts full of this time together.

The view from Bench 1775 – where we got married

When C.C. surprised me with his plan for our trip home, I whined. I wanted to get home. To be in-place again. I was tired, and not all that happy about stopping off.

I’m so glad he was patient and persistent and wise enough to know, I was tired enough to not know what I truly needed. The respite in wine country was perfect!

Home again, today I unpack, take a long walk with Beaumont and settle into being in-place.

While in wine country, I spent the mornings at our cottage, sitting on the deck painting and creating in my art journal. As with all the pages in this series, one of my mother’s prayer cards is collaged into the background – a now invisible thread weaving her prayers for everyone.

The text woven into the painting reads:

“We are the memory keepers. The weavers of threads of beauty and mystery and wonder into the warp and weft of life.

We are the story-tellers. The speakers of truth shimmering with grace and love into the tapestry of life unfolding as we journey through time and space.

We are the story-creators. The women gathered at the well throughout the ages. The women dancing around the fire, tending to the vestal flames of life on earth. Bearing life. Gestating. Birthing. Communing. Divining. Weaving.”

Namaste

PS. I am back home but not back regularly to these pages. I am relaxing over the summer, divining my schedule, and giving myself space to create so will be posting irregularly. I hope you visit and leave a comment. It is always such a gift to hear your voices and ‘see’ you here.

Second Time Syndrome

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It is a trait I’ve noticed before. One that trips me up easily, reminding me of how delicate and fragile, as well as rigid and pernicious, my ego’s need to look good.

I call it my “Second Time Syndrome”.

The first time I try something new, I am generally very patient with myself. I allow myself lots of latitude for learning, stretching, messing up and not doing it ‘perfect’. The exploration of the craft becomes a vast playground of possibility where I am both awakened and alive within the expansiveness of the creative process and the joy of stretching and tuning my creative muscles.

First time out, there’s no critter hissing about ‘getting it right’. There’s only grace dancing with me in the playing field of creativity.

Second time. It’s a different story.

Somewhere buried deep within my little reptile brain that sits at the base of my skull, the voice of fear awakens and whispers, “Ain’t no room for mistakes, lady. You get it right or you gonna fall flat on your face.” As if, come the second time, there’s no room for learning and definitely no latitude for mistakes or even playfulness and joy.

Second time. I gotta ‘do it right’. supersedes my soul’s craving for being within the creative process and its beguiling flow. Which, in ego terms means there’s no room for growth. There’s only space for ‘perfection’ – and given how my ego already knows I’m going to fail anyway, hopelessness and fear shadow my every move.

Once fear awakens, looseness, ease, grace fall away as I fall into the “Get It Right” trap. Suddenly, focussing on ‘the outcome’ becomes my point of reference. “Forget about savouring the moment and being in the flow of the creative process” the critter hisses. “You gotta focus on the final product. You gotta make it look good! Or else…”

It’s the ‘or else’ that gets me every time. The critter speaks in innuendo. He never defines, the ‘or else’. He leaves that to my imagination — and when I’m listening to the critter hissing, my imagination can go to some not so pretty places!

Case in point. On the weekend, I decided to work on eight more collage pieces using the techniques of the series I worked on last week. (See – Out of the Box)

Again, I used a limited palette (four colours + white – Ivory. Yellow Oxide. Red Oxide. Payne’s Grey). I painted on pages from old books for the collage pieces and painted watercolour as the substrates for the pieces themselves. I drew and doodled and cutout and tore up the painted book pages. And then, I started to assemble the pieces.

I felt stiff. Awkward. Tense.

My head was busy with thoughts of ‘do it right’ and ‘don’t mess up’.

And then, I remembered. Oh wait! This is my second time. I’m worrying about doing it instead of breathing into the pure delight of being immersed within this creative moment.

I had to remind myself to Pause. Breathe. Get Present.

A lot.

Pause. Breathe. Get Present.

Which also brings me front and centre with my ego’s need to protect me from criticism. “Give ’em the caveat,” the critter hisses vehemently. “Tell ’em you know they’re not that good. You’re just practicing…”

Pause. Breathe. Get Present.

“It’s okay, Louise,” the voice of wisdom deep within my belly whispers gently. “It’s not about judgements or making good art. It’s about expressing yourself fearlessly and stretching your creative muscles with grace.”

In grace, self-compassion gives rise to fearless creative expression and the art is not measured by the final product. It’s found in the joy of being within the creative process, allowing, expanding, growing, learning, creating.

I created eight new collage pieces in my ‘Liminal Spaces’ series.

The critter had a lot to say about the process.

My soul slipped lovingly into silence, breathing deeply of the essence of my creative nature.

And I am reminded once again how art, like life, comes alive in all its living colours when I let go of my expectations of getting it right and breathe instead into my soul’s desire to be fully present and embodied in this moment, right now.

Namaste.

Out Of The Box

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Boxes are useful. They pack things up. Keep them tidy. Make it easy to move. Keep things in place. Make carrying easier. Shipping too.

Boxes are also not so useful. When it comes to habits. Thinking. Doing. Boxes can be constricting.

Yesterday, I stepped out of my creative box of ‘anything goes’ to stretch my, ‘Be Mindful’ practice of art-making.

Be mindful.

Of clutter. Busy. Over-working. Over-layering. Over-doing.

Be mindful.

Of colour. Form. Shape. White space. Relationships.

Be mindful.

And in my practice, I discovered doing something I tell myself I don’t do easily, is not that hard.

I have been enjoying the online classes of Laura Horn, an Australian mixed-media/abstract artist whose style I really like.

One of her online offerings is called, Minimal Magic.

Me and ‘minimal in my art’ are not very familiar with each other.

I like colour. Lots of it. I like layers. Many of them. And I like flinging paint at the canvas until its story emerges.

In Minimal Magic, Laura invites me to explore how “limitations can bring clarity and confidence to our art-making.”

Seriously?

Think before I paint?

Have a plan?

Hmmm… okay. I love a challenge.

And so I dove in. But with a difference.

Where normally, I would paint along with the instructor, or skip through sections at random, seeking the essence of the teaching through experiencing it as I go. This time, I watched the complete series of the course videos before picking up my paint brush.

It was freeing to be so structured. I got both the essence and the substance of what Laura was doing — creating beauty with just a handful of colours and a few tools. Seeing what could happen through using less.

Most of the afternoon was spent creating backgrounds by tearing out pages from a few old books and using them as the foundational blocks for the pieces I wanted to create.

I kept my colour palette neutral. Mixing and combining colours to create different shades and tints and tones.

I even let the pages dry. Completely. Before applying marks and design to some of their surfaces.

Believe me. Letting things dry is not my forte. Usually, I have a hairdryer in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. Both compete valiantly (and perhaps blindly) for air time as I work.

Yesterday, I let the backgrounds dry naturally before I moved onto the composition of the pieces themselves.

It was a lesson in patience.

It was also a lesson in how my mind’s craving for ‘more’ is a habit founded in fearing ‘less’ will leave me feeling empty.

Working in a new style yesterday, I felt excited. Energized. Hopeful. Full. Potent. Mindful.

I found myself at home with less yesterday.

It was a wonderful, joyful, calming experience. It was mindful.

Promises. Promises. Promises.

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Promises. Promises. Promises. Mixed media on canvas. 40 x 40″

When my beloved arrived home from his golfgame and saw the painting I was working on, he asked, “What kind of flowers are those?”

“I think they’re daisies,” I replied.

“Oh,” he said. “To me they look like dandelion puffs about to take flight.

It’s all in our perspective.

The original painting. Getting ready to pry off the letters.

The painting above is painted on top of an old painting that used to hang in our living room. Originally, it was reds and darks and golds. A many-layered thing, a reflection of the word that formed my intention for that year (2014) encompassed in the words I’d affixed to it – “At Onement”.

On Monday, I sliced and peeled off the letters. Sanded down what remained and then painted over the original to create a background of yellows and greens.

Yesterday, I dove in.

The outcome is not at all what I had envisioned. Yet, in the end, it doesn’t matter. The outcome pleases me.

The title, however, surprises me. Promises. Promises. Promises.

Where did that come from?

And memory immediately opens me up to thoughts of the past.

I remember as a child not trusting my father’s promises. He’d say we were going to do something. Go somewhere. And his promises seldom came to be.

I know now, my father never meant to make promises and then break them. He was mostly only repeating behaviours he’d learned when he was a young boy and struggling to make sense of a chaotic world. When he was nine, his parents divorced and shipped him off from London, England to boarding school in the wilds of the Saskatchewan prairies. A long and lonely journey for a 9-year-old boy to take on his own.

I don’t know what messages my father took as his ‘truth’ when all of that transpired. I do know that the disappointments and broken promises of his young life carried through into his adulthood.

He had a temper he often expressed with angry words and he made promises he seldom kept.

I loved him anyway. Because, in spite of, or perhaps because of, his flaws, he was very, very human. And I knew, no matter what, he loved me. He just struggled to express Love through all the layers of pain and regret and anger that clouded his vision of the world.

Which is why the title of this painting makes sense.

Work in progress… I want to quit.

As I worked on it, I had many moments where I thought… ‘this is going nowhere’… ‘Ugh. Quit now while you’re ahead.’ ‘What on earth were you thinking?’ ‘Give it up. You’re not an artist.’

Despite the critter chatter messing with my head, I kept going.

My father taught me that. Do not give up. “I promise you,” he’d say. “There is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Never stop looking. Never stop believing. And even if you never find the pot of gold, look at all the beauty you’ll discover along the way.”

My father may have messed up on keeping his promises, but he never messed up on seeing beauty in this world. And he always believed in our humanity. No matter who you were. Your story. Faith. Colour. Title. He always accepted human beings as just that. Human beings. Beautiful. Magnificent. Flawed and Flawless.

He saw the magnificence of our humanity and he always promised a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I didn’t find a pot of gold as I painted yesterday. I did find joy. Peace. Contentment and the beauty of being immersed in the creative process.

And in that richness, a promise my father made me long ago came true.

“If you do what you love with all your heart, I promise you, you’ll be richer for the experience.”

He was right.

Namaste

The Butterfly Tamer (a story)

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Once there was a man who loved the beauty of butterflies but disliked their disorder. “Why do they have to flit about without a pattern,” he would ask anyone who’d listen. And, because he did not like the unpredictable, he was mostly talking to himself because, his need for order and discipline pushed the one’s who loved him away.

One day, the man who loved butterflies’ beauty but disliked their disorder decided he would teach them how to fly in formation. “Yes!” he cried to the sky. He had to close his eyes to the clouds floating by. They were so very disorganized he wished he could paint the sky and teach the clouds to form orderly patterns too. But first, he had to teach the butterflies how to fly. “I will tame them and teach them not to fly so free!”

He tried everything.

Scents deposited only on certain flowers.

Webbing that held the butterflies within a flight path of his design.

Sticky goop on flowers meant to entice the butterflies to land and at least stay in formation on the flowers.

It was the goop that was his undoing, and the end of many butterflies too.

One morning he came outside and saw all the butterflies lying in random, flightless beauty on the flowers. Furious that they had defied him again, he lost his temper, stormed into his garage, which was very neat and tidy, got on his ride-em’ mower and headed out to the garden. With meticulous care, making sure each pass of the mower was straight and even, he mowed down all the flowers. He mowed and mowed never once stopping to smell the roses until all that was left was a scrub of green where once a beautiful garden full of flitting butterflies had thrived.

And as he mowed, the butterflies struggled to gain release from the sticky goop that held them in place. Most were unsuccessful and fell beneath the man’s destructive passes of the lawn mower.

After several hours, the man stopped mowing. His work was done. Sitting atop his mower, sweat dripping off his brow, he surveyed his handiwork and yelled, even though there was no one around, “Take that you disobedient, chaotic butterflies. Take that!”

And he turned his mower around and headed back to the garage.

Just then, a butterfly went flitting by. He swatted at it but it easily avoided his hand. And then, there was another and another flitting about randomly on the soft, gentle breeze of the morning. He watched, the anger growing inside his heart with every butterfly that flitted past.

“No!” he screamed at the flock of butterflies who danced in the morning light. “Get out! Get out!”

The butterflies, oblivious to his entreaties, kept frolicking in the sun.

The man, consumed with rage at their disorderly conduct, flew into a fury. He jumped off his ride-em’ mower and began to chase the butterflies, darting this way and that, in totally disordered conduct, in a vain attempt to catch them or at least send them away.

But the butterflies flew just beyond his reach as if laughing at his chaotic antics.

Suddenly, realizing he was racing about his garden putting footprints all over the grass without any thought for pattern or symmetry, the man stopped leaping after the butterflies and walked slowly back into his house.

Slamming the door shut behind him, he shut out the beautiful morning and began his normal disciplined pattern through his day.

And that is where he remains today. Safe behind closed doors, living his orderly and disciplined life without any interference from the world outside, especially butterflies who fly free.

_______________________________

I have no idea where this story came from. It just wrote itself in my head as I lay in the space between awake and dreaming.

It is what I appreciate about the muse the most. She doesn’t wait for an invitation. She arrives in glorious, random swoops of inspiration, darting hither and fro like a butterfly, inviting me to let go of orderly thinking and fall with joyful abandon into creative expression.

And sometimes, to keep her flowing, I must capture the ideas and give them words to remember them by.

What to do with them next is all part of the wonderful mystery that is creativity.

Life Is The Art of Finding Joy In Everything

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Being in the kitchen is one of my happy places. I play music. Dance around and fling ingredients into pots and pans, stirring and swirling as I go.

My husband calls it ‘free stylin’. I call it, ‘Love in Action’.

I love to cook. I love to dance. And, I love to create.

It’s the same thing in the studio.

I play music. I dance around. I fling paint. I flirt with the muse.

Because, for me, that is what creativity is all about. It’s not the outcome or output. The outcome is simply the visual expression of the joy I find immersed in the creative process.

Focaccia Garden art

Yesterday, I created in the kitchen. Foccacia and yummy tasting, but not so pretty to look at, lemon poppy seed loaves – with olive oil instead of butter.

The poppy seed loaf was not so pretty to look at as I decided to use these pretty paper cupcake holders I’d bought some time ago — a lovely idea, except, they were wide and not very deep. The batter overflowed the tops and made one big cake! Not what I wanted to take to the birthday party we were going to, but good enough to eat. So, I think I’ll freeze them and use them later for a trifle.

See, that’s the thing about creativity. It lets go fo judgement and moves with ease into possibility. It adapts. Transforms. Evolves. It sees beyond ‘the box’ or in this case, ‘the cupcake’ for ways to create another path when the path you’re on is not unfolding with life’s natural grace and ease.

It is when I am immersed in the creative process that I experience life’s natural grace and ease most. There is no tension. No strife. No feelings of less than, or worry about being good enough. There is only the joy of being in ‘the flow’. Or, as my friend John McMahon calls it, PHLOW (Power. Harmony. Love. Order. Wisdom.)

In the PHLOW, I become all that I am. I stop paying attention to the whisperings of my limiting beliefs and fall with grace into my belief in the wonder and magic of this great big world in which we live. In the PHLOW, I am my creative expression. I am joy. I am Love. I am me.

Yes. There is dire news in this world. Yes. A lethal virus is still running rampant. And, injustices and violence still abound.

And amidst it all, Love still flows freely. Creative moments still arise. And life continues to evolve with its naturally grace-filled ease.

May we all find joy in creating a world of Love, beauty, harmony and grace.

May we all know the joy of living fearlessly immersed in Love.

Falling Deeper And Deeper Into Love

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I spent the afternoon in the studio yesterday creating two small paintings.

I had only one purpose in mind. – To immerse myself in the creative process.

When I began, I didn’t know what I was going to create. I knew I wanted to work on canvas and found 2 8″ x 8″ canvas in my supply room. And that was as much as I knew…

It is perhaps one of the greatest joys of painting for me – tosurrender my thinking to the process of letting appear what is calling to become visible that I cannot see.

To release my ‘thinking mind’ to my body’s knowing that this moment is where beauty, truth, and creativity dance together in balance and harmony.

It is meditative. Soul-enriching. Fulfilling. Peace-inducing.

It is bliss.

To begin, I loosen myself up by dancing. Wild. Slow. Sensual. Fluid. Dance.

Keeping my mind free of ‘thought’, I listen to my body and ask it, “What are you feeling?”

Yesterday, the answer was loud and clear. Connected. Mystical. Whimsical.

Feeling in my body, being present within the moment, hearing the emotions calling for expression, I began to play and paint.

With colour. Texture. Shape. Form. Light. Letting my body be my guide. Letting my emotions flow. Letting my intuition be my muse.

I am so blessed.

Dancing in my studio. Swirling colour onto a canvas. I feel. Everything. And in that everything there is beauty. There is calm. There is LIFE.

I painted in the studio yesterday. In the dance, I found myself falling deeper and deeper into Love with all of Life.

Namaste.